Sermon Tone Analysis

Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus.

It continues to be an honor to be given this time to share the Word of God with this congregation.

I have to tell you that I am both fired up and a bit worn down this morning.

I spent a good part of this week with a few of our men at a conference in Louisville.

The conference was great.

I am fired up this morning because I was able to be so saturated by the Word of God and the gospel that it infiltrated every waking moment of the trip.

However, I also come to you today a bit worn down because the sounds of snoring that infiltrated every attempt at a sleeping moment of our trip!

We have some men that can saw some logs!

But in all seriousness, it was such a great privilege to spend time together with men focussed on rightly dividing the Word of God and centering all things on the gospel of Jesus Christ.

If I ever become a broken record in this pulpit may I get stuck in repeat of the gospel.

The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ truly is the most incredible thing to ever happen.

The Savior, Jesus Christ, has been the subject of this sermon series we have been going through in a very explicit way.

Every word we have walked through thus far has shown the supremacy and excellency of Jesus Christ.

Let’s be real this morning though.

We take the gospel for granted.

We live in a place so saturated with access to the living water that we forget to drink!

What do I mean by that?

I mean that at any given point we have digital access to thousands of hours of faithful pastors preaching, we have churches on every other corner.

Just think about the Bible specifically, we have digital bibles on our phone, pocket sized versions on our hips, one for every coffee table and hotel room.

And yet with all of the ways our lives are saturated with access to biblical content we would rather be discipled, taught, conformed by the whims of pop culture.

We have taken the gospel for granted.

Sure we come to church most Sundays.

We hear the sermon.

We say amen.

But when we walk out those doors into the world our eyes are distracted by the glitz and glamour of immediate and shallow gratification.

We have taken the gospel for granted.

We are surrounded by so great a clutter of tweeters, gathering every weight of cultural pressure, and normalize and accept the sin that clings to us so closely, we run this race of life with with heavy breath, not looking to Jesus, but looking towards the whims of cultural zeitgeist.

We have taken the gospel for granted.

Church, we must not take the gospel for granted.

We must not exchange the gospel.

And we must not misunderstand the gospel.

The gospel, the good news, is the only real hope there is in this world.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the only way of deliverance in our world.

One of the speakers at our conference this past week said very poignantly, “The human soul is too heavy to be lifted with the twigs of entertainment.”

The human soul is only truly able to be lifted by the power of God through the act of God as professed in the Word of God.

And that is the gospel that mustn’t be taken for granted.

It is my aim that we would all have a renewed understanding of the grand nature of the gospel and live everyday in reflection of the awesome truth it is.

If you would, open your bibles to Hebrews chapter 2. What we have been walking through thus far in this book should make all us pause and awe at the glory of Jesus Christ.

Last week we celebrated Resurrection Sunday with a heavy focus on the Salvation Jesus brings.

He is the great Savior.

The better Savior than we any we could imagine on our own.

And what He is saving us for, eternity in glory, is better than any kind of salvation we could imagine.

The basic facts of Christ’s saving work are simple enough to understand.

Jesus lived, died, and rose again.

Believe in Him.

Be forgiven.

Many people are aware of this and pay lip service to it.

But while that is a true way to briefly explain the gospel, it is also elementary.

Today I hope you will feast your souls on the glory of Christ as we consider just what exactly He did to be our Savior and the greatness of the salvation He brings.

Read with me verse 10 of Hebrews 2.

Where we left off last week, we had learned that God has a glorious plan for man.

Man was created to have dominion over the earth and in glory that dominion will return.

Man’s place as regent over the world was usurped by Satan when man sinned.

Even still, God promises to restore mankind back to its original place.

We saw in verse 9 that humanity is only restored through what Jesus Christ did.

We are guaranteed that glory is coming, because although we still are experiencing hardness and suffering in our lives, we can see that Christ has Risen from the grave.

The glorious Resurrection celebrated on Easter Sunday is the proof of glory that is to come for all those who believe in Him!

Verse 9 says that by the Grace of God, Christ tasted death.

We talked about why He had to die last week, but that topic is fleshed out more here in verse 10.

Verse 10 begins expanding upon the idea of God’s grace.

We say it often but we are saved by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

The only way we, or anyone for that matter, is able to be saved, is because of the one for whom and by whom all things exist!

It’s fitting that God would initiate salvation through the work of Jesus, because only God can save us!

And He does so by His amazing grace!

Spurgeon put it like this.

“Every part of the great plan of salvation sets forth the splendor of the grace of the Most High God.

What do we see in our election but his grace?

What do we see in our redemption but his grace?

What do we see in our conversion but his grace?

What do we see in our justification, sanctification, adoption, and preservation, but his grace?

By him, in grace as well as in nature, are all things; and for him, in grace as well as in nature, are all things; unto him belong both the power and the glory, the two must ever go together.

He works all our works in us, and unto him be all the praise, world without end!”

This week we had the opportunity to sing hymns with 12,000 other people.

The moment that struck me the most was when the piano dropped out and all of sang out, “Grace, grace God’s grace!”

His grace is amazing and it alone will pardon our sin!

His grace is greater than our sin!

It is by the grace of God that many sons are brought to glory as we read in verse 10.

Many are saved by the grace of God Amen! Thank God that many are saved and brought to glory!

And thank God that such a salvation would be given even though it required such suffering, as we see at the end of the verse.

Take note here that when verse 10 says the founder of their salvation was made perfect through suffering, this is not saying that Jesus was less than perfect in nature prior to His crucifixion.

Rather, it is saying that through suffering, Jesus accomplished all that was foretold in the Old Testament to be the promised Savior.

He would be crushed for the iniquities of man.

Why?

To bring many sons to glory.

Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace.

What peace?

Peace in being reconciled with God!

The Peace of Christ now rules in our hearts!

Christ suffered He was oppressed and afflicted without opening His mouth, He was like a lamb led to the slaughter.

All to be the perfect promised Savior whom by God’s grace would bring many sons to glory.

Glory is to come but there is immediate benefit to salvation as well!

Check out the beginning of verse 11:

Hebrews 2:11 (ESV)

For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source.

Christ, in His atonement for sin, is the great Sanctifier.

All those who believe in Him are being sanctified.

Now, sanctify is not really a word we use in our regular vernaculars.

When something is being sanctified, it is being set apart and regarded as holy.

In the Old Testament, the vessels of the sanctuary could only be deemed holy and sanctified when they were used by priests in the service of God.

When they were working in the Holy temple, they were required to use holy instruments.