Sermon Tone Analysis

Heb 2:9-13 Who's Your Family?

In the mountains of Tennessee, there was a boy born to an unwed mother.

He had a hard time growing up because every place he went, he was always asked the same question: 'Hey, boy, who's your daddy?' Whether he was at school, in the grocery store, or drug store, people would ask the same question: 'Who's your daddy?'

He would hide at recess and lunchtime from other students.

He would avoid going into stores because that question hurt him so badly.

"When he was about 12 years old, a new preacher came to his church.

He would always go in late and slip out early to avoid hearing the question, 'Who's your daddy?'

But one day, the new preacher said the benediction so fast, that he got caught and had to walk out with the crowd.

Just about the time he got to the back door, the new preacher, not knowing anything about him, put his hand on his shoulder and asked him, 'Son, who's your daddy?'

The whole church got deathly quiet.

He could feel every eye in the church looking at him.

Now everyone would finally know the answer to the question, 'Who's your daddy?'

The new preacher, though, sensed the situation around him and using discernment that only the Holy Spirit could give, said the following to the scared little boy: 'Wait a minute!

I know who you are.

I see the family resemblance now.

You are a child of God.' With that, he patted the boy on his shoulder and said, 'Boy, you've got a great inheritance -- go and claim it.

'With that, the boy smiled for the first time in a long time and walked out the door a changed person.

He was never the same again.

Whenever anybody asked him, 'Who's your daddy?' he'd just tell them, 'I'm a child of God.

As you can see for this boy, his identity or belonging was tied to his family, specifically his daddy or last name.

The scripture text we are going to study today reminds us of our identity telling us who is our father and that we are related to Jesus by blood and by close relationship.

If you don’t remember anything else from today, I hope you will remember that Christ is not ashamed to call us brothers and God is our father.

Last week when we were looking at verses 5-8, we were reminded that Christ is our King and that He is reigning even though we don’t see it.

Today we will start our study in v9, last week we saw the importance for us right now in knowing Him, that even though we don’t see Christ reigning we know Him.

Knowing Him and being known by Him is the most important truth for us.

As we pick back up with the rest of v9 we see the author describing the one we know…namely Jesus.

Even though it is crystal clear that the author is referring to Jesus, the author explicitly states Jesus’ name.

There is no one else who is fully God and fully man, but in order to have no room for any doubt, the author says namely Jesus.

This is what the author is saying here, “this is whom I’m talking about, the personal pronoun him I’m referring to is Jesus.”

He is the one; He is the only one.

The first thing the author tells us about Jesus is that He “who for a little while was made lower than the angels” it is ok for us to pause and ask, what does this mean exactly he was made lower than the angels?

This phrase is a quotation from Psalm 8, considering its context the phrase made lower than angels means He became a man.

Jesus who is God became a man, took the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

This Jesus, who was a man, was crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of His death.

Jesus had not only to humbly himself to be a man, but he took the form of a servant, he associated himself with sinners through His baptism and humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Because of His suffering God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.

Right now, Jesus is seated at the right hand of God highly exalted because of what He accomplished through His suffering.

Thus, clearly reminding us that Jesus is NO LONGER “lower than angels” His time as the suffering servant is done.

This is important to remember as many will try to take this out of context to imply that Jesus is just a man or a good teacher.

Revelation gives us a picture of Christ's exaltation, crowned with glory and honor.

It says in Rev 5

And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”

Then a myriad of angels sang with a loud voice “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”

Then every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea were saying: “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”

In this picture from Rev 5, we have a glimpse of the honor and glory that Christ receives as He is seated at the right hand of God.

The reason Christ receives such great honor and glory is not just because of who He is, that would have been enough for Jesus to receive all honor and glory, but it is even more, “so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone”

When it says “so that” it is indicating the purpose of His suffering, it is answering the question, why did Jesus come, suffer, and die?

So that by the grace of God Jesus might taste death for everyone.

There is a key word here, by the grace of God, it is not by works it is by God’s grace.

According to the Oxford dictionary, grace is the “free and unearned favor of God.” Grace means we receive his favor, salvation is a gift, an undeserving gift from God to us.

Even though we don’t deserve this grace He gave it to us and it is now ours to keep.

By God’s grace, He took the death, the punishment that we deserve.

Does it mean that Jesus alone tasted death?

The answer is yes and no.

All of us will die unless Christ returns first.

But there is also a manner that Christ alone tasted death, in the sense that He alone received the punishment, the wrath of God for our sin.

Even though we die, our death is not the same as Jesus’ because Christ was the substitutionary atonement for us, he died in our place, he took our sin and received the punishment that we deserve.

Thus, the author has told us in v9 that despite the fact, that Jesus is exalted in glory as God it was necessary that He became a man so that we could be saved.

These are the essential grounds for our salvation.

The author of Hebrews goes on in v10 and 11 to describe some of the benefits of our salvation; mainly answering the question who’s your daddy?

Or what’s our identity?

For it was fitting that he.

The personal pronoun he is referring to is God the Father.

What does it mean it was fitting or appropriate that God should make Christ taste death in our place?

Both Greeks and Jews found Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross foolish and offensive.

This is stated by Paul in 1 Cor 1:22-23 “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” To Jews the cross was offensive, to say that God would humble himself to become a man was already offensive, it was just unthinkable to Jews that God, the Son, would suffer death in the place of sinners, that was just too outrageous to Jews.

To gentiles, a savior dying in our place was considered plain foolishness.

Even today many think that Jesus dying, and suffering is foolishness because they can’t see how serious sin is and they can’t see what Jesus’ death accomplished.

Considering how people responded to the cross It did not seem fitting or appropriate, that God the Father would make Christ suffer in this way.

However, the cross was the only way, the only necessary way to save mankind.

Therefore, it was fitting that God should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.

Here it refers to Christ as the founder.

The word founder often in Scripture is a reference to leaders of families and clans.

In extra-biblical Greek, this word refers to founders of cities and champions who fought on behalf of a country.

Thus, Christ the founder is a reference to Him as our champion, our savior, our kinsman-redeemer, someone who is related to us (a man like us) and who is the only one able to redeem us, to rescue us, to pay the price for our redemption.

He is the founder of a new nation, a new people, a new kingdom.

It says that Jesus was made perfect through suffering.

How can he be made perfect since He was already perfect by being 100% God? Jesus never sinned, and as God, he could not have been made more holy.

Therefore, this made perfect is not a reference to being holy but is the same language used in the OT referring to the consecration and ordination to the priestly office.

Jesus became our high priest, not through the washing and anointing and any external ritual, but it was through his complete obedience to the Father amid trial and suffering and even death.

He was made the perfect high priest, the perfect intermediate through suffering.

When we go through any suffering in this life, we have a perfect high priest, who is not only 100% God, but someone who went through suffering in this life as 100% man.

Jesus not just experienced death, but suffered from being born into a poor family, he experienced the pains of growing up, and many of the sufferings that we go through in this life.

Jesus did not experience everything that we could experience in this life, but his suffering along with His suffering to death was perfect for Him to know exactly how we feel when we go through suffering in this life.

What a comfort knowing not only that Jesus cares for us and that He is going to go with us through any suffering, but he knows what it feels like.

I remember hearing this story, I just don’t remember where exactly.

A Christian woman was quietly driving home.

Unexpectedly, she was pulled over by the police, and the next thing she knows she is cuffed and taken to the police department.

She was placed in a waiting cell between two tough and crude men.

Over the next several hours the police realized they had mistakenly arrested the wrong woman in a crazy case of mistaken identity for a wanted woman with the same name in another state.

As she sat there recognizing that she might go to jail for years in someone’s place and sitting very uncomfortably between these two horrible men that were jeering at her.

She was praying distraughtly then in anger for being unjustly accused and placed next to these criminals.

As she was praying she was saying, Lord, I’m innocent I don’t deserve to be here.

Why are you doing this to me? you don’t know what it feels like to be right here between these evil men.

That’s when the Lord responded to her, I know exactly what it means to be put between two criminals!

I was not just unjustly accused; I willingly took the full payment for your sin.

Her response was just to weep.

Christ not only cares for you, and willing to be with you.

But also knowns and sympathize fully with our sufferings, whether just as He suffered or in true empathy.

How have we “told” God he doesn’t understand our suffering?