Sugar Land Bible Church

Dr. Andy Woods: All righty, everybody, good morning. Let's take our Bibles and open them to the book of Hebrews, chapter 2 and verse 15. And as you're turning there, I’m going to open us up in a word of prayer.

Father, we thank you for this very special Sunday. This is a special Sunday for us and a lot of people that are going to be baptized later on. I pray that this would be a memorable time for them. Thank you for the opportunity to live in a country where we can freely declare our allegiance to you through water baptism.

We thank you, Lord, for your word and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. In preparation for that ministry to us through the teaching of your word, we're just going to take a few moments of silence to do personal business before you if need be, so our hearts can be prepared for what you have for us today.

We're thankful, Lord, for the provision that you've made for us and the comprehensiveness of that provision, which doesn't just bring us from the slave market of sin into a right relationship with you, but it allows also a mechanism by which when we're out of fellowship with you, that fellowship might be restored via 1 John chapter 1, verse 9.

So we praise you for that. We'll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory. We ask these things in Jesus' name, and God's people said, “Amen.” Today in Sunday school, we're just going to continue our teaching through the book of Hebrews.

We're in that section, almost finished with it, where the author is telling the audience—the audience consists of believing Jews, believing Hebrews, Hebrew Christians living in Jerusalem—that are contemplating leaving the full revelation of Christ, slipping back into the temple worship system, which was still functioning.

It would be functioning for a few more years before it would be swept away by the Romans in AD 70. But the author challenging them not to drift backwards into all of that just to avoid persecution because what they have in Christ is higher. It would be like going back to a shadow when what the shadow prefigures has arrived.

One of the key points that the author makes in the first two chapters is that Jesus is higher than the angels. In fact, if you look at verse 16, which we're about to study here, you'll see the word “angels.” Angels is mentioned over and over again in this section.

At first, it's a little odd—why would he say Jesus is higher than the angels? Well, you have to put yourself into the minds of a Jewish person. When you read Hebrew Bible, Old Testament—sometimes called Tanakh—angels were the messengers of God constantly.

If the writer can show that Jesus is higher than the angels, he can show that Jesus is higher than any message that the Old Testament has to offer. The Old Testament is wonderful. It came from God. It was mediated by angels, but a higher understanding is now available to you. Given that logic, it's kind of foolish to reject what you have now and drift backwards.

That section begins with seven Old Testament citations that Jesus is higher than the angels, verses 4 through 14 of chapter 1. Then there's an interruption—this happens five times in the book—where there's a severe warning. “Don't drift back or something bad's going to happen to you.” That's our first warning against drifting.

And then he gets—this happens over and over again in the book—after he finishes that warning, he just jumps right back on the beaten trail and starts to continue on with the argument that he's already started, which in the first two chapters is Jesus is higher than the angels.

One of the things he gets into after the warning in chapter 2, verse 5 through the end of chapter 2, is Jesus became man. His point is, what angel ever did that? In the process, he's describing why God became man. Why did the second member of the Godhead, Jesus Christ, take on human flesh?

This is a critical doctrine in Christianity. It's called the incarnation. The fancy name for it is the hypostatic union where Jesus is the God-man at the point of the virgin conception. He's always been God, but at the point of the virgin conception, humanity miraculously without a sin nature was added to eternally existing deity.

At that point, Jesus became the God-man, 100% God, 100% man. That makes him the monogenēs, which is translated “only begotten.” That word monogenēs means “one of a kind.” An angel didn't do this. A human being didn't do this for you. Only the God-man did this for us.

Dr. John Walvoord calls this, as do many theologians, the emptying of Christ, which is the Greek word for kenosis, translated “emptying” in Philippians 2, verses 5 through 8. It's very much understood, people think Jesus gave up being God—false. People think Jesus gave up his powers as deity—false.

It's really important to get this doctrine down. Walvoord writes, “The act of kenosis or emptying as stated in Philippians 2:5-8, where this enfleshment of God is described, may therefore be properly understood to mean that Christ surrendered no attribute of deity, but that he did voluntarily reject their independent use in keeping with his purpose of living among men and their limitations.”

Don't get the idea that this is an exchange. He took off the God coat and put on the man coat. Don't get the idea that this is some kind of substitution. He got tired of being God, so he became a man. Don't get the idea that this is some kind of subtraction—deity was erased as he became man.

What it was was an addition. He never stopped being God. In fact, all the way through his earthly life in his incarnate state, he kept saying “I'm God” over and over again. But what was added to him was humanity at the point of the virgin conception.

His abilities as God, he did not deprive himself of. He didn't say, “The miracle that I do about walking on water, I can't do that anymore.” It's not like Superman when he went into that capsule and it took his powers away—not that you should get your theology from the movies—but he had his powers all the way through his earthly life.

What was different, though, is he submitted those to the will of God the Father. That's what Walvoord means by he restricted their independent use. In other words, he kept saying over and over again, although he could have shut the whole crucifixion down if he wanted to, he kept saying over and over again—and he didn't want to go through with the crucifixion—that's why he was sweating great drops of blood there in Gethsemane.

He was under tremendous emotional distress and duress, and he could have stopped all of it, but he kept saying “not my will be done, but thy will be done.” He restricted the independent use of his attributes as he lived amongst us with human limitations.

Why did he do it? There's eight reasons. He did it, number one, to restore God's original purpose for man, which is to rule over creation (verses 5 through 8). How do you do that unless you become man yourself? Number two, he came into the world to taste death for every man (verse 9).

The penalty for sin is death. Sin is an eternal offense against God, and the only way it can be recompensed is if eternity dies. How do you kill eternity? How do you kill God unless God becomes man? He became a man to die (verse 9).

Verses 10 through 13, as we have studied, he came to bring many sons to glory. He created a spiritual family, which is us, and he's fast-tracked us onto glory. Glory is a done deal as far as Jesus is concerned, even though we haven't arrived yet in glory.

Then he came to break Satan's rule over humanity. He's the one who's qualified to open the seven-sealed scroll that we find in the book of Revelation, which is the title deed to the earth. As that scroll is unrolled and opened, the title deed to the earth relinquished by the first Adam is now his authority is now coming to planet earth.

The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever. Not anybody can open that scroll. It's got to be someone born from the right tribe, Genesis 49:10, the tribe of Judah. It's got to be someone who was born from the lineage of David, 2 Samuel 7, verses 12 through 16.

You can't just have those things happen to you unless you become a human being. He's portrayed in the book of Revelation as qualified to open the scroll, and John stops weeping because he thought no one could open it and the world remains in the devil's grasp forever.

But once it's very clear that Jesus, because he became man, could be born from the right tribe, born from the right Davidic lineage, once it becomes clear that he's qualified to open the seven-sealed scroll, heaven itself, at the end of Revelation 5, whether you're talking about the 24 elders, the four living creatures, the myriads and myriads of angels, they just explode into praise.

We did a rush job there on number five. He came into the world to remove the fear of death. Let me just highlight that again real quick, and then we'll move into new territory. Notice verse 15 gives you one of the reasons why he became a man.

He became a man to release those who through the fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. What is the number one fear that controls people? There's basically when they do studies on this, there's two fears that people have. The first one is public speaking—did you know that?

Some of our candidates for baptism today are going to do a little public speaking if they want to. That's a big fear that people have. Right up there on the list is death. People spend their whole lives afraid to die. It's kind of a scary thing when you think about death because nobody has seen what happens on the other side.

This is a fear that has gripped humanity from the moment Adam sinned in Eden, and God said, “the day you eat from the tree is the day you shall surely die” and “you came from the dust to the dust you shall return.” If we're not the rapture generation, which I hope we are—can't promise we are—the mortality rate is 100%. All of us are going to die.

We're gripped with this fear of death constantly. It's the number one fear in addition to public speaking that hangs over the human race, and Jesus came into the world to take us out of that fear. When you're afraid of something, you're in bondage to whatever it is you're afraid of. Jesus came into the world to take that bondage away.

You don't have to be afraid of death. You can be afraid of death if you want to as a Christian, but you're living beneath your privileges. The reason we don't have to fear death is we've already been told that verses 10 through 13, that we're on a fast track to glory.

Our glorification is so secure that it's described as if it's already happened, Romans 8, verses 29 through 30. You take a guy like the Apostle Paul who faced death constantly. There were countless people that wanted him dead. One of them is there in Acts—just a normal day at the office for Paul.

Acts 20, verse 3 says, “there he spent three months when a plot was formed against him by the Jews as he was about to set sail for Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia.” There's another death threat. The Jews wanted him dead, the Gentiles wanted him dead everywhere he went. They just wanted to kill him.

Yet it's this same Apostle Paul that would write this in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 8. He says, “we are of good courage.” Being of good courage is the opposite, isn't it, of fear of death? Paul at the prospect of death didn't live in bondage, he was of good courage. He says, “we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.”

What he's saying here is, I'd rather die if I had my choice. Let's get the show on the road here. We are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord. Everybody likes to go home. That's the place where you feel the most comfortable and the most welcome.

He says being here in this body, I'm in alien territory, I'd rather just go home and be with the Lord. If that's his attitude, what's there to be afraid of? That's how he could push through in his ministry in spite of people threatening him constantly.

He is going to say this to the Philippians in chapter 1, verses 21 through 24: “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” The world thinks I killed him, I stole something from him. Paul says you actually do me a favor. He says, “but if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me and I don't know what to choose. I am hard-pressed in both directions, having the desire to depart”—meaning soul leaving the body, which is what happens at death—“and be with Christ for that is much better.”

If I die, it's a gain and I'm actually in a better place. But God has me here now in fruitful labor for your sake. Verse 24, “yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.” I'd rather just die and be with the Lord, but for you people—he kind of seems resentful a little bit—I've got to stick around here as an apostle and write these books and do these missionary journeys.

But if you killed me, you'd be doing me a big favor. Our society doesn't think that way. We worship youth and beauty. No one likes to think about death. But the Bible has a lot to say about it, and if you belong to Jesus, it's not something you really have to be afraid of. We have to start learning to think differently than the way the world thinks.

This takes us to new territory here, verses 16 and 17. There's a sixth reason why Jesus became a man—to become our merciful high priest. Notice verse 16: “For assuredly he does not give help to angels.” This is part of his argument that Jesus is higher than the angels. “But he gives help to the descendant of Abraham.”

Verse 17: “Therefore, in all things he had to be made like his brethren.” For what reason? “That he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God.” Jesus had to become a man to become our sympathetic and merciful high priest. That raises an interesting question: what is a priest? What does a priest do?

A priest represents man before God and God before man. That's what a priest does. Job—what's the oldest book of the Bible? Job. Job was upset about this issue because he didn't have one, he didn't have a priest. He didn't have an intermediary. Job had a lot of troubles, right?

In the midst of these troubles, this is what Job says, Job 9, verses 32 and 33: “He,” that's God, “is not a man as I am that I may answer him, that we may go to court together. There is no umpire between us who may lay his hand upon us both.”

Job in the midst of all of his problems said, if I could just get into heaven, I could express my case before God. But I can't get into heaven because I'm just a man. Wouldn't it be great if I had an umpire or an intermediary or a priest of some kind or an advocate—sometimes Jesus is called an advocate—that could get into heaven and represent my issues before God. I just wish I had that.

The rest of the Bible, Job being the oldest book of the Bible, is an answer to that prayer request. You do have a mediator. He's the God-man, the second member of the eternally existing Trinity who at the point of the virgin conception took on humanity, becoming the God-man.

Who better to represent as a priest, God before man and man before God, than the God-man? See how it works? Now we have a God-man, you've got someone that's perfectly qualified to be a priest. If Jesus never took on humanity, how could he represent humanity before God? He couldn't function as a priest.

But now he's the ultimate priest, the quintessential priest because he's the God-man. As God-man, you can represent man before God and God before man. It's the same reason Jesus is called a mediator. 1 Timothy chapter 2, verse 5: “For there is one God and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

What is a mediator? A mediator is someone who represents both parties in a conflict, in a dispute. If you go into mediation, you're going into a situation where you've got two adversarial parties, and a mediator is trying to represent both and come up with some kind of solution to the conflict that both parties would agree with.

Who better to handle our conflict with God and God's conflict with us than the God-man? See that? If he's just man, he can only represent one side of the conflict. If he's just God, he can only represent one side of the conflict. But the God-man can represent both. He is our mediator and he is our high priest.

This is the total blasphemous insanity of people running around today saying Jesus is a way. You see how ridiculous that is? Jesus is not a way because he's the only God-man. He's the only one that could possibly be a priest and a mediator for us.

You see these people—and I'm not trying to get too political with you—but you've got all these people today, here's a guy running for Senate in Kansas, calls himself a pastor. It just rolls right off his tongue—Muslims and Hindus unknowingly worship Jesus.

Muslims are really Christians, they just don't know it yet, even though they don't know the name Jesus, their system is a works-based system. On and on we could go—the child of promise they route through Ishmael instead of Isaac, those sorts of things.

S.M. Hadeedian, who's a former Muslim, is very good at pointing out the theological—you can't take the Bible and Islam and just put it into a blender. You see this all the time. All of these people saying Jesus is just one of many ways.

You see how impossible that is. He is not just one of many ways because he's the only God-man. He's the monogenēs, one of a kind, unique. He's the only one that could be our mediator, he's the only one that could be our priest.

Unless you know of another God-man out there—I only know of one—you can't get to God the Father without God the Son. It's impossible. Jesus in John 14, verse 6 said this: “I am the way, the truth, the life.” Three definite articles there. “No one comes to the Father but through me.” Is that ambiguous?

People look at that and they say that's arrogant to say something like that. Well, you can say stuff like that if you're the God-man. If any person that's just a man and not God said it, it would be ridiculous. But the God-man, the mediator, can say that. Our priest can say that. Without the incarnation of Christ, no mediation, no priesthood.

Peter, as his words here recorded in the book of Acts chapter 4, verse 12: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” I have the particle translated “must”, the Greek phrase in brackets there.

When you see how Luke uses that phrase elsewhere—Luke wrote Luke and Acts—when he says “must”, it means an absolute necessity, absolutely essential. For example, Luke is recording Christ's words here: “But he said to them, I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities for I was sent for this purpose.” When he says “must”, it's 100% essential.

In Luke 24:44, he says, “these words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Same Greek expression. “Must” in Luke and Acts is absolutely 100% essential.

When the Apostle Peter in Acts 4, verse 12, as recorded by Luke, says “salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved”, he's not giving a Jesus as an option here, okay? Jesus is not an option.

We would get along great with the world system if we would just concede that point. I'd get invited on the Oprah Winfrey Network and it would be great. I could sell a bunch of books. She thinks God is like a mountain—I don't have her quote here, but it's easy to find online.

God is like a mountain and whatever path you want to take up the mountain is fine. You want to be a humanist, Buddhist, Muslim, Mormon, you want to be an agnostic, an atheist, as long as you're sincere, that's all that matters, we're all going to arrive in the same place.

Early Christianity could have gotten along really well with Rome had they just said Jesus is a way. The Romans could have had their gods and we could have our god and we'd all be one big happy family. The early church wouldn't cooperate with that, that's why many of them were put to death, thrown into the lions' den, burned to death, etc.

We're moving into this one-world religious system of the end times, and the people that are the problem are the people that say their way is the only way. I don't say my way's the only way, I say God's way's the only way. I didn't invent the rules—don't shoot the messenger.

You have verses we've already studied, 1 Timothy 2:5: “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” We have Roman Catholics praying to Mary and to the saints, and I'm thinking, why are you wasting your time with that? Mary, she deserves respect, but she's not part God, is she? She's not the God-man.

I had a student at the Bible College where I was teaching—I really don't know how he got into the school, but he was a Roman Catholic priest and he would come with his Roman Catholic garb on. When the semester was over and he was ready to graduate, he sent out a thank-you letter to all the professors.

He says, “I want to thank all these professors, I want to thank the Lord Jesus Christ who is my priest.” I thought, oh, he's making progress. Then I kept reading and he says, “and I pray to Thomas Aquinas every day.” I said, whoops, back to theology 101. Why would you pray to Thomas Aquinas? He's no God-man.

For that matter, why would you go to a priest at all? You already have one. So many systems are set up you've got to go through some priest to get to God. You already got a priest. Why waste your time in a confessional booth confessing your sins to a priest?

A lot of people, because I'm the pastor of a church, they look at me like I'm a priest. Like I can only talk to the pastor and pastor, I want you to pray for me, which I'm happy to do, of course. Or when we go out to lunch afterwards and there's that awkward moment, “are we going to pray or start in like dogs?”, as my dad used to say.

Everybody's kind of looking at the pastor like only the pastor can pray. I'm like, well, anybody can pray. Did you know that we all have access to God through Jesus? Your prayers are just as much heard as my prayers are. I'm happy to consult you with whatever problems you have but why not take advantage of your priest first?

I'm no God-man. Ask my wife, she'll tell you that. I didn't die for anybody's sins. I didn't rise from the dead. But the God-man did. You don't need a human instrument. It's not that God can't use humans in counseling, I'm just saying we overdo it a little bit with clergy.

Paul in the book of Galatians says, “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died needlessly.” What's wrong with saying there's many ways to God? What you're saying is what Jesus did for us is unnecessary because I've got my own route.

Thanks for the crown of thorns, Jesus, pressed into your head. Thanks for the 39 lashes on your back. Thanks that you were beaten beyond recognition to the point of death. Thanks for the spear thrust into your side. Thanks for the nails that were pushed into your hands and feet.

Thank you for that agonizing death that you died for me 2,000 years ago. But you know what? It's a nice gesture, but it's really not necessary. I've got my own path. You see how totally blasphemous that is? Yet this kind of stuff just rolls right off people's tongues.

Running for office, not running for office, on TV, and the new world order wants us to give ground here and you can't do it if you're going to be a faithful Christian. Jesus himself said in Matthew 7, verses 13 through 14: “Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few that find it.”

The way to destruction is the five-lane highway. The way to life is that narrow access road on the side. Something that couldn't happen at all unless God became man. Number seven: God became man to make a complete—and you want to emphasize that word complete—complete purification for our sins.

Notice again Hebrews 2, verse 17: “Therefore, in all things he had to be made like his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make” propitiation. I've got in brackets there the word in noun form and verbal form coming from the same root, propitiation, for the sins of the world.

Lewis Sperry Chafer, when he was doing conference ministries, he would do presentations around salvation words: redemption, propitiation, expiation, and many others because each word brings out a different nuance of our salvation. The keyword here is propitiation.

What does that even mean, propitiation? Here's what it means: the cross has pacified, appeased, and placated God's anger against sin so that his wrath has been diverted from us. Propitiation. Let me give that to you again: the cross has pacified, appeased, and placated God's anger so that his wrath has been diverted from us.

You'll find the word propitiation there in Romans chapter 3 and verse 25: “whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood. This was to demonstrate his righteousness because in the forbearance of God he passed over the sins previously committed.” You'll find the word propitiation in 1 John 2:2: “and he himself is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world.”

So many people, they have a bad relationship with their earthly father who maybe was mad at them all the time and criticized them all the time and never saw any good in them, and they get saved and they transfer that to God. They think God is always mad at them and angry at them. Yet what they don't understand is propitiation.

If you understand the doctrine of propitiation, it will rid your mind of that idea that God is angry at you all the time. Romans 8, verse 1 says, “for there is no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus” because his anger against my sin has been satisfied the moment I trusted in the work of the Savior.

Does God discipline us? Yeah, but that's very different than his wrath. That's corrective. Even when he disciplines us, it's because he loves us. “Whom the Lord loves, the Lord chastens.” So this idea that God is angry at you, God is mad at you, that's just a lack of understanding of a basic salvation word, propitiation.

And this verse is saying that God became man to be that propitiation in our place. Now the Old Testament system that the Hebrew Christians are retreating to couldn't do that. In fact, when God looked at that Old Testament system functioning, which he himself inaugurated and designed, he said something very interesting: he says, “I'm not happy with it.”

You'll find that in Psalm 40, verse 6. As he looked at that Old Testament system functioning, which he himself inaugurated and designed, he says, “I'm not happy with it.” Over in Hebrews 10:6, it quotes Psalm 40, verse 6 where God—this would be a thousand years before the time of Christ—“in whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have taken no pleasure.”

That's kind of a funny thing—if God designed it, why isn't he happy with it? He wasn't happy with it because it could never permanently resolve the sin problem. It could foreshadow the solution, but it couldn't fix the problem. That's why the whole system is repetitive. This is going on for 1,500 years from Mount Sinai to Jesus, a repetitive system.

Every Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement, the priest could go behind the veil, the Holy of Holies, and he could take the blood of the animal sacrifice and apply it to the mercy seat. The priest better not mess anything up because he was killed on the spot.

That's why the priest had the bells on the hem of his garments because the people outside the veil could hear the jingling, saying, okay, everything's all right. Then all of a sudden it stops jingling—uh-oh, something went wrong. You didn't just rush in there to rescue the priest because you'd be killed on the spot.

And then the priest had to offer a sacrifice for his own sins first before he even did this. And this could only happen one day a year, Yom Kippur. And that's why Jewish tradition has a rope around the priest's leg, right? Because if the priest stopped moving because I don't hear the bells jingling, let's pull him out of here because I can't just rush in there into the Holy of Holies and pull him out or I'll be killed.

So if the priest did it right, everything went well, then the sins of the nation were covered, not eliminated. Covered for one year. That's what Kippur means, covering. Day of covering. It's like taking out a big loan from somebody, and you get the money and you're supposed to start making payments within a year.

The first opportunity to make a payment comes around and you can't afford it. You go before the lender and you explain your situation, and he says to you, “all right, let's just postpone payment for a year.” And you go, “whew.” But then the next year rolls around and you still can't pay anything.

So you go before the lender with fear and trepidation thinking this is the year he's going to call in the loan. And he says, “ah, we'll just postpone payment for another year.” And you keep doing that year after year after year, living in fear. That's what this system did. It could never fix the problem.

The only thing it could do, by the design of God, is to postpone the note of indebtedness for another year. That's why Yom Kippur is a time of fear and trepidation for the Jewish people. And then Jesus shows up. And John the Baptist says, “behold the Lamb of God that takes away”—that's different than covering, isn't it?—“takes away the sins of the world.”

So you go before the person under the new system that loaned you the money, and you say “I can't make a payment,” and the guy says, “you know what? Let's just pretend like you never borrowed the money at all. Do you mind if we do that?” and he takes your loan and just tears it up.

“And you know, it's not good that you don't have a Jacuzzi and a color TV and all the amenities everyone else has, so we'll just put two million dollars in your account. Do you mind if I do that for you?” So you see what Jesus just did for us? He didn't just make us equal to what we owed, he put us in the positive column.

That's Christianity. So if you understand that, why would you leave that and go back to this? Doesn't make any sense. Jesus made complete propitiation. That's why his final words on the cross were “it is finished.” Tetelestai. Perfect tense. One-time action, ongoing results.

Tetelestai is an accounting term, it's been found all over the Greco-Roman world. It's a stamp put on a bill: “paid in full.” It's like you never borrowed the money at all. And now you're rich because he just put two million dollars or whatever into your account. What a superior system that we're in.

Colossians 2, verse 13 says, “when you were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions.” Thrown as far as the east is from the west.

Titus 2, verse 14 says, “who gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good deeds.” The religious world says—I got this from Tom Stegall who was one of the summer speakers— “Christ did 90% and then you kick in the remaining 10%. Jesus bought lunch, but you leave the tip.”

Well, what do I got to do? Pay, pray, and obey. How much do I got to pay, pray, and obey? That's undefined. So you go through your whole life wondering if you really did your part and you have no assurance of salvation.

Compare that to what Christianity teaches where God says Jesus did 100% and you got into this by his grace, unmerited favor. So I'm freed from this idea that maybe I haven't done enough. If I'm freed from that idea, I can look death right in the eye and say, “you know what? My salvation doesn't write on my shoulders.”

I have 100% assurance of salvation. What angel did that for you? Is what the author is getting at. And then there's an eighth reason why God became man in the incarnation of Jesus, the enfleshment of Jesus, it's to sympathize with those being tested.

He came to sympathize with those being tested in his priesthood. And that's in verse 18: “For since he himself was tempted in that which he also suffered, he is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.” And then if you back up and remember verse 17, we've already learned that he became a man to become our merciful and faithful high priest.

He's not just qualified to be our priest and mediator as the God-man, but he is qualified to sympathize and identify with us in our moment of need. Why is he qualified to sympathize and identify with us in our moment of need? Because he became one of us. See that?

He didn't read about human suffering in an encyclopedia. He experienced it. He experienced limitations. So when you go to God with your issues and problems, which are very real, he says, “I know exactly what you're going through because I went through that kind of stuff myself, but way worse.”

So you're not dealing with someone that just says “deal with it, toughen up.” It's someone that can in his role identify with you because he became one of us and walked this earth like we did. He was tested in all ways, yet without sin.

And that's what a priest is—a priest represents God before man and man before God. But how can he really represent my interest before God? Because he knows what it's like to be you and he knows how to make your case to the Father.

Hebrews 4, which we haven't gotten to yet, verses 15 and 16: “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses.” Why not? Because he became man. “We have one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore”—there's an application here— “let us draw near with confidence.”

You don't have to go into the throne room via prayer with “oh Lord, I don't know if you're going to hear me, it's just little me down here.” We get into this kind of worm theology. “I don't want to bother you.” That's not what the Bible teaches. It says you go into the throne room of God with confidence, to the throne of—what's the next word?—grace. It's not a throne of judgment.

Aren't you glad? Throne of grace. “So that we may receive”—what?—“mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” So I go in there with confidence knowing I'm going to find grace and mercy and help during time of need because I have a priest representing me who knows what it's like to stand in my shoes. See that?

If he just stayed in heaven and there was no incarnation, the only knowledge he would have of suffering would be intellectual, but not experiential. In Christianity, you have a suffering Savior experientially. How do you bleed and how do you die and how do you grieve unless you're a human being? See that?

Therefore, use your throne room wisely and numerously because you have a priest there that can't wait to hear from you because he's been in your shoes but he's gone through things far worse. So does Jesus in his humanity, does he know human limitations? He knows what it's like to work because he was a carpenter.

Mark 6, verse 3: “Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James?” So he knows what it's like to eke out a living. He knows what it's like to sweat for a living, which God said we had to do in our cursed world. “You're going to earn your living by the sweat of your brow.” Jesus knows what it's like to get up and go to work to survive.

Does he know what distress is like? Yes, he does. It's in Luke 22:44: “And being in agony, he was praying very fervently, and his sweat became like drops of blood falling upon the ground.” Does Jesus know what it's like to be troubled? Yes, he does.

John 12, verse 27: “Now my soul has become troubled. And what shall I say, Father, save me from this hour? But for this reason I came to this hour.” Does Jesus know what it's like to be thirsty? Physical thirst. Yeah, he does. John 19, verse 28: “After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished to fulfill scripture, he said ‘I am thirsty’.”

Thirst of an agonizing level when we study the ordeal of the cross. How about hungry? Does Jesus know what it's like to go without food? Famine, deprivation. Yes, he does. Matthew chapter 4 and verse 2: “After he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he then became hungry.”

That to me is kind of a Captain Obvious statement—of course he's hungry. He's going without for 40 days and 40 nights. How about fatigue? In the day you're so tired, the only thing you really can do is just try to sleep. Did Jesus know that? John 4, verse 6: “And Jacob's well was there, so Jesus, being wearied from his journey, was sitting thus by the well, it was about the sixth hour.”

How about sadness? Grief. Did Jesus understand that? Yes, he did. John 11, verse 35, the shortest verse in the Bible: “Jesus wept” at the death of his friend Lazarus. How about not understanding everything?

You ever go through your life sort of tormented that “I don't know why God allowed that to happen” and “if God had done this, things would be different” and we have all of these sort of unanswered questions where we really this side of eternity can't make sense of things. Did Jesus in his humanity have that? Yes, he did.

In Matthew 24, verse 36, quoting Christ's words: “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the son of man, but the Father alone.” He didn't even know when he was coming back in his humanity. Now in his deity, he's the God-man, that's different.

He knew things. “Hey, Nathaniel, I saw you under the fig tree.” But in his humanity—and you have to when you're studying the life of Christ, you have to figure out what statements is he making in his deity and what statements is he making in his humanity. In his humanity, he didn't have every answer to every question.

I don't have this on the screen, but he knew what it was like to be stabbed in the back by a friend. Has that ever happened to you? Someone you trust just plunges the knife into your back. That's what Jesus experienced with Judas, who he kept calling “friend” to the very end.

Nobody was more despondent and grieving over Judas than Jesus Christ. And he knew about temptation. That's in Hebrews chapter 4, verse 15, which we just read: “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.”

It is not sin to be tempted. If it's sin to be tempted, then Jesus was the biggest sinner that ever lived. What is sinful is yielding to the temptation, which Jesus never did. And you have to understand that in his humanity, Jesus was pushed to the highest degree a human being has ever been pushed in the area of temptation.

1 John 2, verses 15 through 17 says there's only three avenues through which temptation comes: lust of the flesh (use the body to rebel against God), lust of the eye (covetousness), and the pride of life (living as if God didn't exist, you're good on your own). And you have to understand, I have the scriptures there at the bottom, Luke 4, verses 1 through 13, he's pushed the furthest degree a human being has ever been pushed in those three areas.

“Command these stones to become bread”—that's the flesh. The devil showed him—it's visual—all the kingdoms of this earth, “you can have them, just worship me.” And then, “throw yourself from the temple, the angels will catch you”—that's the pride of life.

The first one lust of the flesh, the second one lust of the eyes, the third one the pride of life—you'll have an immediate messianic following once everybody sees you suspended in midair through an angelic rescue operation. Satan twisting Psalm 91 to try to get that to stick. You can see how quick any of us would have folded under that. Just like that.

Jesus quotes the scripture, Deuteronomy—most Christians haven't even read Deuteronomy—and here he's warding off these temptations with the sword of the Spirit with Deuteronomy, and he's saying no, no, no, at a point where he was in deprivation and he probably would have given anything to have something to eat. 40 days and 40 nights fasting, yet he said no.

It's the same temptations that Eve went through and she folded. That's in Genesis 3:6, which says when the woman saw that the tree was good for food (lust of the flesh) and that it was a delight to the eyes (lust of the eyes) and that the tree was desirable to make one wise (lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life)—she folded.

What about Adam? He folded too—Adam didn't even have to be tempted and he folded. Jesus went through those exact three temptations and didn't fold. In fact, Luke will rearrange the second and third temptations. I think Matthew gives you the right order in which they come. Luke inverts, if I remember right, two and three to harmonize with Genesis 3:6—lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life.

So when you go to the Lord and say, “Lord, you just don't know what it's like to live like me and be tempted like me,” he's saying, “you want a bet? I know all about it and I know exactly how to minister to you and where you're at because I've gone through it myself.” So impressive about Christianity. I don't think Buddha, Allah, any other religion has anything like this to offer.

With all these other religions, you're praying to some neutral, detached deity somewhere that has no idea what it's like to live as a person, yet without sin. And that's who Jesus is. Now, could he do these things unless humanity was added to deity? No. And that's why his enfleshment is such a big deal.

What angel ever did that for you? I played basketball all the way from seventh grade to my senior year in college and I had two kinds of coaches always. I had coaches that had played and coaches that hadn't, usually short guys. And when they're screaming at you and they're yelling at you “work harder, push yourself,” the one that has your respect is the one that played, right?

Because they know the pain you're in. What would the guy that's never played know about anything? Who is Jesus? He's the coach that's played the game. This, of course, wouldn't be possible without his incarnation. So why did God become man?

Those are the eight reasons: restore God's original purpose for man, to taste death for every man, to bring many sons to glory, to break Satan's rule over humanity, to remove the fear of death, to become our merciful high priest, to make a complete purification through propitiation for our sins, and to sympathize with those being tested.

What angel has done that for you? None. So obviously the message of Christ is higher than that of the angels. So when you're tempted to retrogress, go talk to your high priest about it and he'll encourage you. That's the rest that's going to be described later on in chapter 4.

At this point, the Jewish mind is saying, “okay, you made your case, Jesus is higher than the angels, but he's not higher than Moses.” Judaism revered Moses as the lawgiver and the author of Hebrews, beginning in chapter 3 and chapter 4, says, “you want a bet? Jesus is not only higher than the angels, he's higher than Moses.”

And so we'll pick that up there in chapter 3 next time. Father, we're grateful for your word, grateful for your truth, grateful for your priesthood to us. Help us to draw near this week as we walk these things out. We'll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory. We ask these things in Jesus' name. God's people said, “Amen.” Happy intermission to you.

Guest (Audience): Amen.