The Better Salvation

It is as always, a privilege to bring the Word of God to this congregation.

We have had a wonderful day of worship thus far. It is always excellent to have the children involved in the worship service. Thank you to those who coordinated that.

We are in series entitled “Better” where we are walking through the first few chapters of the book of Hebrews. We will be coming back to that momentarily, but we should first draw our attention to today. Today is Palm Sunday. This day marks the Sunday Prior to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It may be even marked on your calendars. I’ve seen that some people celebrate Palm Sunday with a feast. We did not prepare a church-wide potluck today, but if any of you are having your own feasts at home following the service today, my wife and I are up for an invitation!

But what exactly is Palm Sunday? It is the celebration of Jesus’ Triumphal entrance into Jerusalem. When I was in youth choir growing up, we had a song that said, “A King is coming to town!” Well, that is what was happening on this Sunday some 2000 years ago. It was the culmination of prophecy. The Jewish people were told there king would come in Zechariah:

Zechariah 9:9 ESV

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

So hundreds of years later, Jesus Christ is finally here. He had spent the last 3 years in ministry. He went around from place to place preaching the gospel of repentance. He casted out demons, healed the sick, He even rose the dead. The Jews in Jerusalem had heard about all the things He had done and now it was time for Him to enter into the city. Let me tell you, they were fired up to see the Messiah come into town. Check out the scene as recorded in the book of Matthew.

Matthew 21:7–11 ESV

They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.”

Jesus comes riding into town on a young donkey, the colt, and to put into modern terms, the crowd goes wild. There is cheering and rejoicing! It was a sign of honor to lay down their cloaks on the road. They were saying this is Jesus the King! A great crowd amasses all around and shouts out Hosanna! Hosanna is praise to God that is saying “Save us” “Please Deliver Us” “I Beg You to Save Us!” These people were crying out for salvation and recognizing that it comes from Jesus. Those who didn’t know about Jesus were stirred up by all of the commotion going on. They say, “Who is this?” And those in the know are like How do you not know! This is Jesus!

Now to tie this is in with what we have been looking at as we walked through the first chapter of Hebrews the last couple of weeks, the message is in some ways very similar. The people laying down the palm branches and their own cloaks for Jesus to ride over on the colt, are professing the Majesty of Jesus. In the first chapter of Hebrews we are told of the great authority and power of Jesus. We are shown that He is the divine heir of creation. The hand of creation. He is better than the angels. It is they that worship Him. Honestly, we should be as stirred up as the city was here in Matthew when we read about the excellencies of Jesus Christ in Hebrews!

But as we find ourselves beginning to look at the second chapter of Hebrews, we are presented with a problem that is in line with an unsaid problem happening during the original Palm Sunday. You see the people crying Hosanna, had knowledge of who Jesus was and what Jesus had done. They even celebrated His existence and His entrance to the city. But the problem was that they praised Jesus, not for who He really was, but who they wanted Him to be. You see this crowd was cheering because they wanted Jesus to bring them political and national salvation. The Jewish people had some freedom at times during the Roman empire, but they still paid taxes to Caesar, their nationalistic identity was under the Roman umbrella. They wanted to be their own nation. They thought that is what would happen when the prophecy of Zechariah was fulfilled. “Our King is here. He will make us a mighty nation!” But you see, the crowds crying out “Hosanna” on Sunday were made of the some of the same people crying out “Crucify Him!” the following Friday. They were interested in political and national salvation. Because of their fleshy desires for temporal, earthly power, they were uninterested in the eternal, spiritual salvation Jesus came to give.

But y’all, we have to understand that the real, true salvation Jesus actually brings is better! It is better than any earthly liberation we could dream up. It is better than political, national, or cultural salvation. This world will pass, but the soul will last forever. The salvation Jesus brings emboldens us to shout

1 Corinthians 15:55–57 ESV

“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Jews on that palm Sunday wanted political victory, but Christ came to bring eternal victory. We take peace in hope in knowing that the Salvation from Jesus Christ truly is better and best beyond all measure.

Today, as we look at chapter 2 of Hebrews, we are given a warning. The Holy Spirit, working through the writer of this letter, is warning us of the necessity of believing in the true message of the gospel. We don’t read and learn about Jesus to twist Him into whatever we Him to be. Jesus is who God’s Word has revealed Him to be. And who Jesus is and the salvation He brings is better than anything we could come up with on our own. Jesus came preaching the message of repentance, to seek and save the lost, and in so reconciles the believer to God the Father, and that repentant believer will enjoy eternity in the presence of the Lord, paradise. We cannot get that message twisted.

A pastor told a story:

A lady came into his office and told him she was a prostitute. She said she was desperate and in need of help. So the pastor walked her through what Christ had done. After presenting her with Christ’s message of repentance and belief, he asked the lady id you would like to confess Jesus as Savior and Lord. She said that she would she said she had enough of the things going on in her life. The pastor was elated and so they prayed together. Then he told her there was one thing he wanted her to do. He asked her if she had a book of all of her contacts she used for her sinful business. She said she did. He said “Let’s take a match and burn that book right now.” She was surprised! She said, “What do you mean?” The pastor responded, “If you really met Jesus Christ as your Lord, if you really accepted His forgiveness and are going to live for Him, let’s burn that book and celebrate your new birth right now and just praise the Lord.” She said, “But it’s worth a lot of money… a lot of money.” The pastor said, “I’m sure it is.” The lady the took the book and put it back in her purse. Looking at the pastor square in the eye she said “I don’t want to burn my book. I guess I really don’t want Jesus, do I?” And she walked out of the room. (MacArthur)

That woman knew everything there was to know about the person and the work of Jesus. But she was unwilling to repent from the sin her life. She wanted deliverance from her circumstances, but did not desire the holiness of God. She did not truly grasp the cost of her sin and in turn the immeasurable grace of Christ’s death on the cross. That pastor never saw her again. He can only hope that a seed was planted that day and that woman would eventually repent.

The reality is that there are many people who have an intellectual knowledge of who Christ is but have there eyes set on a lesser salvation than the one He brings.

Please open your Bibles to Hebrews 2 if you haven’t already.

The purpose of the section we are looking at today is to show the hearer the necessity of not only knowing about Jesus, but truly submitting to Him as the Wonderful Savior He is.

Read with me verse 1.

Hebrews 2:1 ESV

Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.

Let’s just break this down in parts.

THEREFORE

There is an old Bible teaching adage I’m sure some of you have heard before, it goes any time you see a therefore stop and ask what it is there for. The therefore here is connecting chapter 2 to what we have learned in chapter one. Remember, chapter 1 was showing us the majesty and mightiness of Jesus. It shows us the deity of Jesus, His worthiness to be praise. So we can read verse 1 as this, “Because of the mighty power of Jesus, how He is eternal deity, and much greater than even the angels, because He is so great, we must pay closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.”

Because Jesus is so great we must pay closer attention to what we have heard about Him. This means that when we hear about Jesus it shouldn’t just come in one ear and out the other. We should be dwelling on the excellencies of Jesus! When we think about how powerful He is, we see how much He sacrificed on the cross. When we think about how perfectly righteous it is, we see how incredible it is that He would take our sin from us. But when we don’t pay attention to what has been revealed to us about Jesus, instead of being in awe of the revealed Savior, we begin to craft a Jesus in our own image. Pay closer attention to what Scripture says about Jesus. Dwell on those things. When we do not dwell on Jesus, we drift from the truth.

My wife loves going to the ocean. I’m not as big of a fan as she is, but I’ll go nonetheless. When we go, she likes to sit in the sun. I want to be in the water. I love playing in the big waves. I could spend the whole day trying to jump over or go under the waves. But the craziest thing happens when you spend a lot of time in the ocean. Its especially noticeable when I’m in the ocean and my wife is laying out with our belongings. If I stay out there long enough with my attention fixed upon the waves and out towards the see, after a while, when I look back to shore I’ll notice that I’ve drifted away from my wife. If it goes for long enough I may have drifted terribly far away from her. Now, she didn’t move. But when my focus was elsewhere I’ve drifted.

That is the basic meaning of the drifting we see here in verse 1. The truth of Jesus hasn’t changed. The greatness of His revealed salvation has not changed. But the person who has not paid attention, has not remained steady in the revealed truth of Jesus, drifts away.

This has a two-fold application.

For the believer, when our battle with the sinful flesh leads us to take our eyes of Jesus, we begin justifying sin. We damage our witness. We begin looking more worldly than holy. We justify forsaking the church gathering. It becomes a habit. The believer who drifts in focus may not be in danger of losing their salvation, but they are off task from their first calling. And when we understand that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy His presence it should bring tears to our eyes to see that our gaze has drifted from our heavenly Savior.

For the unbeliever, this verse is warning to truly consider the greatness of Jesus and not let such a message pass you by. Jesus IS the Savior. He IS the WAY. The Truth. The Life. The message often falls upon deaf ears. In our culture there are many who have heard the truth of Jesus, even tipped their hat to it in some degree, but have never truly called Him Lord, they’ve never truly submitted to Him. They will accept a cultural version of Christianity in practice while their souls drift right past any real repentance and fixation upon the Savior.

May we all keep our gaze upon the Savior today. He is worthy of our full attention. It is a matter of great urgency to submit to Him as Savior and Lord. (PARTIAL VERSE 3 BELOW)

Hebrews 2:2–3 (ESV)

For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?

Why is it important to dwell upon the truth of Jesus and submit to Him? Because Judgment is most certainly coming.

What the Holy Spirit is saying to us and the original audience here is that the message of the Old Testament is reliable. Scripture testifies to angels being with God as He delivered the Law to Moses at Mt Sinai. This can be seen in Deuteronomy 33, Psalm 68, Acts 7, and Galatians 3. So God used the angels in part to bring give the Law to His people. And the law, given by God, declared by the angels, is reliable. It is true to its purpose. The Law shows us that every transgression or disobedience receives justice! That means that sin truly is punished. The Law shows us that we as humans are fallen creatures. We sin. It shows us just how unattainable the standards of righteousness are in our sinful condition. Under the Law we would all stand condemned.

Verse 2 says every transgression or disobedience. Transgressions are times in which we knowing violate the law. Its being told not to touch the shiny vase and sneaking a poke when you think no one is looking. Disobedience in this context refers to imperfect hearing. Disobedience is deliberately shutting the ears to not hear a command. It’s a sin of neglect. Doing nothing when you should be doing something. Listing both transgression and disobedience should expose us that we have all sinned in many ways. Either by actively doing wrong or allowing it to happen by neglect and Either way we stand condemned In our sin.

So then, how are we to escape condemnation, just retribution for the sin in our lives, if we neglect the great salvation that comes by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone?

This is a rhetorical question because the answer is that we wont! If we salvation in Jesus Christ is neglected, there will be no escape.

And this is where we tie everything back to Palm Sunday as we discussed in the beginning. What the Spirit is saying here in Hebrews is that the salvation that comes by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone is the GREATEST salvation. He even calls it there in verse 3 the “GREAT SALVATION.”

The Salvation brought by Jesus Christ truly is the greatest of all types. I have been saved many ways in my life. I have had someone give me a car when I no way for transportation. I have had a college offer scholarship when I had no way of paying for the education. I was once in a car accident that sent my friend and I spinning in circles three times in the middle of Thanksgiving weekend traffic on I75. And I understand that many Of you have been brought through much harder circumstances than I have. Brother Ronnie shared his testimony of being delivered from the war. I wear this bracelet made by a woman named Lany. It’s called an Anthem Freedom Cuff and they’re made by survivors of the human trafficking. On the inside of the cuff is also stamped in a date. Lany was saved from such a life on November 16th just a few years ago. I wear this bracelet as a reminder that there are more Lany’s out there, but also as a way to rejoice in the blessing Lany has received.

But here is the thing, All of those experiences I just listed are good salvations. They can be celebrated and shared. But there is only one GREAT salvation. The great salvation is better than good salvations because the great salvation is eternal. It’s a deep salvation that pierces to the core of the soul. The great salvation will not preclude anyone from ever facing trials. Peter explains as much in his epistle. He says trials will come they will test you, but then he writes this:

1 Peter 1:7–9 ESV

so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

The great salvation, the salvation of the soul, may not be physically seen in this life, but the outcome of faith in Jesus Christ, is the eternal salvation of the soul! And all the things of this earth will one day fade away but the soul will go on. Every transgression and disobedience will receive righteous retribution, if the soul stands condemned it will experience the wrath of God. But if your faith is in Jesus Christ, the wrath owed for you has already been poured out on Him on the cross! You experience the SALVATION of your soul.

So then! How else are we to be saved if negate such a great salvation! Any other salvation that that of Jesus is less than! Christ didn’t come to bring social, political, or even interpersonal salvation. Those can be good things, but they are of a smaller scale! Jesus came to bring eternal salvation! Listen to what Jesus said:

John 18:36 ESV

Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”

His Kingdom is not of this world, nor is His salvation!

Y’all we must not neglect what we have heard nor the greatest of the true salvation of Jesus Christ. We must not make it something less than what it is. Many of the Jews on Palm Sunday wanted political salvation. Jesus came to bring eternal salvation. Our hope is not in saving the school systems, the morals of the culture, or even the United States of America. Our hope is in the eternal for which Christ has shed His blood to bring us into! We cannot not neglect salvation and it make it less than what it is. There is no other true salvation.

And from the end of verse 3 through verse 4 we see the proofs of such a salvation. Though we may not immediately see the pearly gates, we can take it to the bank that the salvation is real Here is why:

Hebrews 2:3–4 ESV

how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

We can trust that the true, eternal salvation brought by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone is real because of the overwhelming testimony of God proving the message. We are given three proofs:

It was first declared by the Lord: Jesus said He is the Way the Truth and the Life. He said He came to seek and save the Lost. His life fulfilled the necessary prophecies of the Old Testament. As we saw earlier, He came into town riding on the colt. He was then placed on the cross and as the wrath of God owed for sins was poured out upon Him, He cried out It is Finished! The sacrifice for the cost of sin had been made. He died there on the cross and was placed in a tomb. On the third day from that, UP FROM THE GRAVE HE AROSE! Inso He assures those who believe in Him of their own resurrection. How do we know He arose?

It was attested to us by those who heard: Jesus’ disciples had heard all of Jesus’ teaching, but it didn’t really begin to sink in until after the resurrection. When Jesus died on the cross, the disciples were in shambles. They were scared and afraid. But then they saw the glorious resurrected Jesus and they were no longer afraid. They would go and preach the gospel even in the face of immense persecution. They heard the teaching of Jesus and the professed the teaching of Jesus. They shared it with others. They took the great commission to go into all the world preaching the gospel and making disciples seriously and so the great salvation only Jesus could bring was attested by those who heard. And if that wasn’t enough we are given a third proof of Jesus’ great salvation.

God bore witness through signs, wonders, miracles, and giftings from the Holy Spirit! We look through the book of acts and see the Lord doing great things through the apostles and the early church. We see the gift of healing, we see them speaking in other languages that seemingly would have been unknown to them prior. Those signs, wonders, miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit were proof that although Jesus had ascended into Heaven, the gospel message could be trusted. The early church was formed. And God used all of this to get this message to us today!

Praise be to God whose Word is true. Jesus is the great Savior. Salvation from the cost of sin is the great salvation.

Jesus was a real man who was really God-incarnate. In His real death He paid the real price for our real sins. Through real faith we are really saved for eternity. This truth has really been proven. And this real eternal salvation is better than anything we could imagine.

So I ask again, how else shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? We wont. Jesus is the only way. Repent of your sin and believe that Jesus is Lord. Stop looking for temporal salvation when the eternal is so much better.

Let’s pray.