Hebrews 2:10-13
Hebrews and the Incarnation • Sermon • Submitted
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· 30 viewsWhy is Jesus not ashamed to call us brothers?
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Story:
Story:
-A famous missionary who lived quite a while ago was famous for being a bold Gospel witness
-He was miraculously converted even though before his salvation he hate Christianity
-God graciously intervened, brought him from death to life, and changed his life completely
-This man immediately started sharing the Gospel with everyone he knew and showing them that Christ is the only way to God
-He lived in an area of the world, however, that was very dangerous for Christians to live in
-So he had to flee where he was living because of threats on his life
-He began a pattern in his life of being sent out of a church, and then travelling all over the region and beyond sharing the Gospel and planting churches
-Along the way, he was persecuted often for his faith
-He was beaten numerous times for his faith
-He was shipwrecked more than once
-And even on one occasion, he was stoned and left for dead
-None of this deterred him, however, from his goal of making Christ known
-He famously wrote this in one of his letters:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.
-And through the ages, this has been the battle cry of Christians, missionaries, and martyrs throughout the ages
-Today, we’re going to talk about the concept of not being ashamed, but probably not in a way you’ve ever heard preached before
Intro:
Intro:
We don’t know who authored the book of Hebrews
-The debate has gone on over the millenia, and we will never know for sure
-Whoever it was though was known by the church he was writing to
-This man was a powerful and eloquent expositor of the OT
-It seems he was probably writing to a Jewish audience that was living outside of the Jerusalem area
-This group had come under persecution at some point
-They were persecuted and hated probably by both Gentiles and their fellow Jews
-There seems to be a danger of apostasy
-Let’s go back to Judaism! to the glories of Moses, the Priesthood, the sacrifices, the Old Covenant
-And the writer’s main theme to encourage and warn them not to go back is:
Jesus is better!
Last week we looked at how Jesus is the perfect man
-He completely fulfills everything humanity is supposed to be
-He was made lower than the angels for a short period of time to taste death for everyone
-He was crowned with glory and honor because of His suffering in death
-And all things will be placed under His dominion in the world to come
Which brings us to our text for today
**Read Text**
Now, I’m going to work through this text a little backwards
-I’m going to show you where the author of Hebrews ends up
-Then, we’re going to turn that into a question and look at WHY the author ends up where he does
So we’ve got basically a 2 part sermon: the WHAT part (what the premise of our author is), and the WHY or HOW part (how he got to this conclusion)
-Sound good?
Look at the end of verse 12:
notice the “for which reason”
-This is where he’s gonna end up!
-The point of these verses is: Jesus is not ashamed to call us as Christians his brothers!
-Now, before we go on any further, let’s just recognize what an amazing truth this is!
-Jesus, is not ashamed to call you and I His brothers and sisters
-Have you ever been with someone that you were kinda ashamed to be with
-Have your kids or spouse ever embarrassed you in public
-I remember being in Walmart, and waiting in line . . . (tell story)
-Jesus is not ashamed to call us his brothers and sisters!
Now, like any good expositor, this wonderful preacher of the Word, the author of Hebrews, is going to give proof of what he’s saying with Scripture
-So he’s going to go to the Old Testament to show that what he says is in the Bible
And he goes to 2 separate OT texts
The first text is Psalm 22)
-Now, Psalm 22 is one of the most quoted texts of the OT in the NT
-It is very very Messianic and speaks of the Messiah in His agony and rejection
See if you can see some of why it is such a Messianic Psalm:
My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?
Why are You so far from helping Me,
And from the words of My groaning?
But I am a worm, and no man;
A reproach of men, and despised by the people.
All those who see Me ridicule Me;
They shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,
“He trusted in the Lord, let Him rescue Him;
Let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him!”
I am poured out like water,
And all My bones are out of joint;
My heart is like wax;
It has melted within Me.
For dogs have surrounded Me;
The congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me.
They pierced My hands and My feet;
They divide My garments among them,
And for My clothing they cast lots.
-So we can see here that the Psalm is Messianic, and that it is completely normal and in line for NT writers to attribute this Psalm to Christ
-So, the author goes to Psalm 22:22) to show that Christ claims us as His brothers!
-In the midst of the agony that is going on, He is going to proclaim the name of Yahweh to His brothers, and praise Him
Now, the next passage is a little harder to connect to the point the author of Hebrews is trying to make
He goes to Isaiah 8)
-In Isaiah 8, Isaiah is dealing with the coming threat of Assyria bearing down on them
-On top of that, he’s dealing with the rejection of wicked king Ahaz at the time
-Isaiah has 2 children with his wife, and he names them names that prophecy:
-1 means “speeding to the plunder, hurrying to the spoil”
-the other means “the remnant shall return”
-So the names are given as messages, one of judgment and another of hope
-And it’s in this context that Isaiah pens the verses that are quoted in Hebrews:
And I will wait on the Lord,
Who hides His face from the house of Jacob;
And I will hope in Him.
Here am I and the children whom the Lord has given me!
We are for signs and wonders in Israel
From the Lord of hosts,
Who dwells in Mount Zion.
-Now, as I’m reading through this and meditating on it, I’m wondering: how is it that the author of Hebrews can attribute these words to Jesus
-How does that work?
Here are a couple of thoughts as to why this works:
The author starts out his book with Hebrews 1:1
God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;
So the author sees the prophets and Christ as being in the same line: the line of God speaking to men
-So it is not inappropriate for the author of Hebrews to see Christ speaking here
2. This passage is already thought of as Messianic in other places in the NT. Isaiah 8:14
He will be as a sanctuary,
But a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense
To both the houses of Israel,
As a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
So this passage already has Messianic overtones
3. I believe the author here also sees Isaiah as a type of Christ in some ways:
-In the same way that Isaiah was a prophet ordained by God, rejected by his people, yet still hoping in God and encouraging his fellow remnant
-Christ is the ultimate prophet, rejected by His people, yet still putting His hope in God and leading the remnant of God’s people
It’s not an accident that Jesus goes into the synagogue, reads the words of Isaiah in chapter 61, and says “today, this has been fulfilled in your hearing”
It’s not an accident that John has a lengthy section in John 12 where he connects the rejection of Jesus to what was written about the ministry that Isaiah would endure
So it’s for these reasons that He quotes from Isaiah 8)
Now, he divides the Isaiah quote into 2 separate quotes to make 2 different points of emphasis
-The first quote doesn’t seem to fit with the other two, since it mentions no familial connection between Jesus and us as Christians
-So why does He quote “I will put My trust in Him”?
Well, it’s because of Jesus putting His trust in God in the midst of hardship and rejection that gives us this familial relationship with Christ
-Christ suffered willingly the rejection and cruelty of men, and put His trust in God by going to the cross, knowing God would vindicate Him
The second quote returns to the familial relationship connection, showing Jesus associating Himself with us
-Here, He refers to His people as His children
So where the author arrives at the end of this section is:
Jesus is not ashamed to call us His brothers!
-He’s not ashamed to associate with us sinful, weak human beings!
-Not ashamed! We are His brothers
So the question we’ve now got to answer is:
Why is Jesus not ashamed to call us His brothers?
Part 2: The Why
Part 2: The Why
Let’s go back to verse 10
For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
What does that mean?
How was Christ made perfect through sufferings?
Doesn’t that kind of sound bad?
Let’s break this down:
First of all, notice what the purpose is in perfecting Jesus through suffering:
-it’s to bring many sons to glory
-So often we forget: the plan of salvation is God’s plan!
-He eternally decreed the plan of salvation in keeping with His own gracious, wise, loving, just, holy character
-It was God’s plan to bring sinful human beings into a right relationship with Him
Secondly, notice the “for it was fitting for Him.”
-For who?
-For God
-As one commentator I was reading pointed out: it does no good for you and I to say what we think God ought to do
-Someone may say: “I don’t think God would ever do this”
-or “I don’t think God should punish people who are homosexual, or who just tell small little lies”
God is not conforming to some kind of outward standard here, but is deciding what is fitting based on His holy and just and righteous character
So based on God’s own wisdom, in seeking to bring human beings to salvation, He sees fit “to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering”
-Now what does that mean?
Was Jesus somehow not perfect?
-Obviously Jesus is perfect in His sinlessness (Hebrews 4:15)
For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.
The truth that the writer of Hebrews is trying to get across is this:
-In order to be our perfect High Priest, our perfect representative to God the Father, it was necessary by the decree of God for Christ to experience suffering and death
-Whenever someone runs for president in our country, they must be a natural born citizen of the US
-Why? We want someone representing us who is one of us
-Someone who was born here
-Someone who grew up here
-Someone who knows the challenges and difficulties that are faced in the US
-Someone who understands the problems
Whenever you see these political ads, they a lot of times stress the common American experiences the candidate has had
-He was a born and raised South Carolinian
-He grew up in the country side
-He went to high school at Clover High
-He eats breakfast at Mindy’s Diner
Why?
-Because we want someone who can truly represent us
And due to the Eternal Decree of God, God chose to have Christ suffer to make Him the perfect representative for us
Christ, as the source, the originator, the captain of our Faith
-Christ is the true Servant Leader
-He does not put us through anything that He Himself has not gone through
-He suffered
-He face death
F.F. Bruce sums this passage up well:
“We may be sure that all that God does is worthy of himself, but here our author singles out one of God’s actions and tells us that it was a fitting thing for him to do. And what was that? It was his making Jesus, through his sufferings, perfectly qualified to be the Savior of his people. It is in the passion of our Lord that we see the p 80 very heart of God laid bare; nowhere is God more fully or more worthily revealed as God than when we see him “in Christ reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:19).”
So Jesus is not ashamed to be called our brothers, because He has been perfected through suffering as the Captain of our Faith
Lastly, look at verse 11
“For both He who sanctifies and those are being sanctified are all of one”
This is where we reach the climactic answer to our question: why is Jesus not ashamed to call us his brothers and sisters?
Because, we are all of one
-It’s an interesting phrase that’s rendered here, and it’s left purposely ambiguous
-Several translations interpret this as all have one Father (NASB)
“For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren” (Hebrews 2:11 NASB)
And that’s definitely possible!
Some would take this phrase referring to humanity, both Jesus and we have humanity in common
-And I don’t think there’s a need to choose one over the other, because both are true
-Because of the Incarnation, both you and I share with Jesus something very important: humanness
-And because of the sacrifice of Jesus, you and I share with Jesus something very important: the same Father
For He who sanctifies: the One who sets us apart as wholly belonging to the Lord
And those who are sanctified: us wretched, miserable sinners who need the intervening grace of God in our lives to bring us from death to life
We share a common humanity
And we share a common Father
By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
And so therefore, Jesus is not ashamed in any way to call you and I His brothers and sisters:
-Because He Himself became human like us
-For the purpose of bringing us into the family of God to be children of God
If you know me very well, you know that I think very very highly of the song Hark the Herald Angels Sing (by Charles Wesley)
-I don’t think it’s an exaggeration for me to say that I think this hymn is one of, if not THE greatest hymn ever written in the English Language
-Let me read the last 2 stanzas to you
“Christ by highest Heav'n adored
Christ the everlasting Lord!
Late in time behold Him come
Offspring of a Virgin's womb
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail the incarnate Deity
Pleased as man with man to dwell
Jesus, our Emmanuel
Hail the Heav'n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Ris'n with healing in His wings
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Ultimately, the reason that we suffer for the Gospel and can say with Paul, I’m not ashamed of the Gospel, is because Christ first chose to come in the flesh and is not ashamed of us
Application:
Application:
So, what does this mean for me?
There are many applications for this passage, but I just want to point out just a few to consider:
I hope that this will help you worship better this Christmas season.
-It can be easy to slog through all the Christmas songs you’ve heard your whole life and all the Christmas passages you hear every year
-But I hope you are able to worship better as you understand the Incarnation better this Christmas season
-Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers this Christmas season
2. Thankfulness
-I hope that you are incredibly thankful and grateful for the Incarnation
-I hope it fills your thoughts and emotions with thankfulness to God that He would condescend to us
3. Perseverance in Prayer
-This is something that the writer himself talks about throughout the Epistle when it comes to the implications of the Incarnation
For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
-Let this fuel your prayer life on this Christmas season
4. Witnessing
-Let these truths stir us on to take the Gospel message to others who do not know the Lord
-They do not know that God Himself condescended to them
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.