Sermon Tone Analysis
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Intro:
-The book of Hebrews is one of the most fascinating books in all of the NT
-Part of what makes it so fascinating is the fact that there is so much we don’t know about it
-If you want to start a debate in any NT seminary class, just ask the question who wrote the book of Hebrews, and that will surely get people going
-We do not know the author of this beautiful piece of Scripture, because this person never identifies himself
-Apparently though, the recipients of the books knew who he was
-There are many people who have been put out as guesses over the years: Paul, Timothy, Luke, Barnabas, Apollos, Priscilla, Silas, etc.
-And we will never know for sure, because the Holy Spirit did not inspire the author to tell us
-But this person seems to be a powerful and eloquent preacher of the Word of God, and someone deeply and intimately acquainted with the OT Scriptures
-For what he does is that he goes through and exposits, preaches on, several key OT passages of Scriptures.
And he does this for good reason:
-The audience he is writing to seems to be Jews, since he uses the OT so much and speaks much of the priesthood and sacrificial system and the Tabernacle, etc.
-These also are Jews who probably lived outside Jerusalem, so somewhere in the Roman empire, maybe even in Roman itself
-And the reason that the author is writing, is that these Jews are suffering persecution
-They haven’t been killed yet or probably had any of their church martyred (Hebrews 12:4)
-But they had been persecuted and had some of their possessions taken (Hebrews 10:34)
-Times were hard, and these Jews were tempted to fall away from the faith and deny Jesus
-These people were probably hated by the pagan Gentiles around them, as well as hated by the Jews that they lived in community with, and even their own family members
-Why?
-Because of Jesus
-Jesus, the Nazarene was becoming more and more hated in the Gentile world
-And the Jews who held to the OT Law despised Him
-And if you accepted Jesus, you would be seen as an apostate by your fellow Jewish friends and loved ones
-Someone who abandoned the faith handed down by God from Moses and the prophets
-And so the temptation these Jews faced was to abandon Jesus!
- “Let’s go back to our old way of living!
do you remember how glorious the Mosaic covenant was?
I mean, God wrote part of it with His own finger!
The Law of God was given by angels!
The tabernacle, was given by instruction by God Himself!
The Aaronic priesthood was instituted by God!
The sacrificial was instituted by God!
How glorious all these things were!! and if I move away from Jesus and go back to that, then I can also stop facing the ridicule and persecution from Gentiles, and even my own Jewish community and family
And the writer of Hebrews is writing to warn them not to fall away!
And his message is simple!
JESUS IS BETTER
-He’s better than angels!
-He’s better than Moses
-He’s better than the sacrificial system
-He’s better!
And He’s worth all the persecution that can be endured.
The first chapter, he establishes that Jesus is better than angels
-Then in chapter 2:1-4, he gives a warning about not falling away, and that brings us to our text today.
I was going to preach on all of 2:5-18, but then I got so caught up in the wonders and the joy of 2:5-9, that I knew I couldn’t preach on all of it or else it would be probably an hour long sermon or more
**Read text**
So, as I’m reading this passage and meditating on it and praying, I’m trying to figure out what the point of this passage is: what is the author trying to establish
And as I’m reading it, I come to understand that he’s showing that Jesus is the perfect man
So the question that I want you to be asking of this text is this:
How is Jesus the perfect man?
Vs. 5
-Now, in order to answer this question, the author has to establish the question: who is man?
-What would the qualifications be for being the perfect man?
-So for that, this expositor goes to Psalm 8.
-Psalm 8 is a Davidic Psalm
-This can almost be taken as David’s meditation on Genesis 1-2)
-He’s contemplating the place God has given man in Creation
-David is contemplating the greatness and grandeur of God and His Creation
-Where the Psalmist goes next is surprising
-Instead of coming to the conclusion that man is insignificant, he marvels at the fact that man is so significant!
And here is where the preacher comes to his text, vs. 4-6
So, there are three truths about man that we see here:
-Lower than the angels for a short period of time
-Crowned by God with glory and honor
-Set him (man) over the works of His hands and put everything in subjection to him (man)
So with that, the author of Hebrews is going to show how Jesus meets these three qualifications, and therefore is the perfect man
1. Jesus became lower than the angels for a short period of time
The One who created the angels, that One became momentarily lower than the angels.
-Now, this could sound blasphemous
-God is inherently above all and worthy of glory.
Did Jesus stop being God?
-Absolutely not!
Jesus always has been and always will be God, with all of the glory and honor and worth that comes with being God
-The writer here is speaking about the humanity of Jesus
-According to Psalm 8, mankind is for the time lower in rank than the angels
-And by taking on human flesh, Jesus Himself in that sense, became lower than the angels for a brief period of time
-Read that again:
“But we do see Jesus — made lower than the angels for a short time”
-Do you see that??
-Oh the humility of our Lord!
Jesus the Creator:
Jesus, the self-existent and eternal One:
Jesus, the image of God
Jesus, the One who perfectly represents the Father
Jesus, the one whom angels point to:
That Jesus!
In His humanity, He briefly joined a race that was lower than the angels
-Oh what humility of our Lord!
-To take on human flesh!
And why did Jesus become lower than the angels?
-That He might taste death for everyone!!
-What does that mean?
-The prophet Ezekiel preached to a generation of people in Exile who thought they were not responsible for what was happening to them
-They thought God was unjust and they were being punished for someone else’s sin
-The just and right punishment for sin is death
-Every soul who sins must die
-In our house, we were not allowed to talk back to our parents
-We couldn’t argue with them or be disrespectful
-The soul who talked back to mom and dad would die”
-And so, anytime that happened, which I was a pretty bad kid, I would be disciplined
-I was guilty of that transgression and deserving of my punishment
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