Hebrews 2:18

We're going to look at just two verses, but it's going to say that Jesus is a high priest.

He's going to be a high priest.

And this is going to be a theme that runs through a good bit of uh for a couple of chapters.

So we're going to keep coming back to this idea.

Let's read some of these verses.

We're going to go all the way back to verse 5 in Hebrews 2.

We're going to go all the way back to Hebrews 2, 5.

We're going to read down to verse 18.

Okay?

It's going to be up here on the screen.

So follow along with what we've got.

For he is not subjected to the angels, the world to come that we're talking about.

But someone somewhere has testified what is man that you remember him, or the son of man that you care for him.

You made him lower than the angels for a short time, you crowned him with glory and honor, and subjected everything under his feet, for in subjecting everything to him, he left nothing that is not subjected to him.

As it is, we do not yet see everything subjected to him, but we do see Jesus, made lower than the angels, for a short time, so that by God's grace he may taste taste death for everyone, crowned with glory and honor, because he suffered death.

For in bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was entirely appropriate that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

For the one who sacrifices and those who are sanctifies, and those who are sanctified, all have one father.

That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, saying, I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, I will sing hymns to you in the congregation.

Again, I will trust in him, and again here I am with the children God gave me.

Now, since the children have flesh and blood in common, Jesus also shared in these, so that through his death he might destroy the one holding the power of death, that is the devil, and free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death.

For it is clear, now listen up, this is the important part.

For it is clear that he does not reach out to help angels, but to help Abraham's offspring.

Therefore he had to be like his brothers and sisters in every way, so that he could become a merciful and a faithful high priest in matters pertaining to God to make atonement for the sins of the people.

Last verse, here it is.

For since he himself has suffered when he was tempted, he's able to help those who are tempted.

Let's pray for a minute.

The reason we pray is because we want to ask God to help us understand what we're reading, okay?

Lord, we want to listen for your voice.

We believe that this is your word, and that it is special and unique, and that your word can impact our lives.

In fact, this thing that we're reading is a living and active word from you that can impact and intersect with our life.

And God, we have school or work or friendships or family things that come up that will come up this week.

And we ask God that you would speak into our lives through your word.

Maybe we need comfort, maybe we need wisdom, maybe we need correction.

God, we want to listen for your voice this morning as we go through the text.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

So what we have seen through this text as we've gone through the first, this is we're gonna finish the first two chapters of this book, the book of Hebrews.

Now, here's the trivia for you.

Okay?

Trivia for you.

What kind of book is this?

Is this a storybook?

No, it's Hebrews is not a storybook.

What is it?

It was written as a it was written to the Hebrews.

Written to the Hebrews.

It is a it's a letter.

Yes.

What were you gonna say?

It is a it is a letter.

It talks about the law.

We're gonna get to the law in chapters 8 and 9, but it's a unique letter because it's a sermon put into a letter.

So it doesn't read like Paul's letters, it reads kind of like a sermon.

And so the section we were just going through is a little bit difficult to just uh for me.

You guys are much smarter than me, but for me, it just is grabbing quotes out of the Old Testament and it just throws them in there, and you kind of got a track with the quotes and then the commentary on the quotes.

The reason it reads like that is because it's a sermon.

Now, in chapter one, what we saw is that Jesus is better than the angels, he's exalted higher than the angels, Jesus is more special than angels.

And if you're Jewish and you're struggling and you're thinking, should I follow Jesus?

Should I not?

He seems like a cool guy.

He supposedly died on the cross, he rose from the dead.

Should I follow him or should I just keep doing the law?

Should I just follow Moses?

Forget Jesus.

The writer here is saying, no, Jesus is better than the one who gave the law.

The angels.

He's better than the angels.

Jesus is better.

He's better in his deity.

Do you know what deity is?

That means his godness, being God.

But then chapter 2 says that Jesus is better than the angels even when he put on flesh and blood.

Can you pinch your skin for a second?

Pinch your skin.

That's your flesh, right?

Underneath your flesh is your blood, right?

Jesus had this, right?

Jesus had the same thing.

He had skin.

When he got cut, he bled.

He had flesh and blood, which is not as good as the angels.

The angels don't have flesh and blood.

They can do all kinds of super crazy things.

It's the closest we've got to like a Marvel movie is what angels can do, right?

Yeah.

But yet Jesus said, no, I'm going to descend and put on flesh and blood so that I can rescue humans and restore them to their position of authority in the world that's created.

So we saw in chapter two these three things, or these four things.

That Jesus became a human so that he could fulfill the Genesis 1 subdue mandate, right?

The second thing that Jesus did by becoming a human, he became a human so that he could um so that we could have the same dad and he could call us his family, right?

So God the Father is our father because Jesus is our brother.

It's kind of this, it's like we're adopted into the family of God because Jesus, yeah, it is.

I'm not lying.

The third thing, Jesus became a human so that he could destroy, this is what we saw last week.

What does it say?

So that he could destroy the devil and liberate humans.

That's what he did.

When he died on the cross, he destroyed the power of the devil.

Where do we see the devil?

Genesis 3, right?

The devil's been on the scene trying to wreck God's agenda for humans from the very beginning.

And Jesus couldn't accomplish a liberation of humans by being an angel.

He couldn't go and be an angel and rescue us.

He had to take on flesh and blood.

Were you going to ask a question, Joshua?

No.

That's okay.

And number four, this is the one we're seeing today, is that he Jesus became a human so that he could be a merciful and a faithful high priest.

A merciful and faithful high priest.

What's a high priest?

It's that word M-word that mediates, stands in the middle between us and God.

Yes.

Yes, that's gonna be my last line in the sermon.

So don't forget that, okay?

Yeah, he's the expert.

Yeah, well, kind of who knows.

That's the example of the doctor.

The doctor knows your body and how it works, right?

So Jesus, as our high priest, he knows like what we need in order to relate to God.

But it's gonna be explained here a little bit more.

So let's let's keep going.

Before we talk about Jesus and what it looks like for him to be our high priest, can I just explain to you really quickly?

Can I have your permission to explain how the whole book works really quickly?

So that when you study Hebrews on your own, you can see something really cool about how it's written.

Okay, there's five sections, five sections to the book of Hebrews.

And um those sections have a um, they have this structure where when we're going into the new section, they're introduced.

And so these are the five, these are the five sections.

You can see them here.

I'll try to maybe I'll put this up or send it out in an email.

But Jesus, we we we're finishing up.

Jesus is better than the angels.

The next section is gonna be what we're entering now, which is a merciful and high high, merciful and faithful high priest.

The third section is again continuing the theme of the priesthood, but he's a perfected high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

Wait till we study that one, kids.

That's gonna be fun.

And then uh 1036 through 1213 is he uh uh talks about faith and endurance, and then the book closes out with the the clearing your path for the life of faith.

It's like an ethics section where we need to have um move and clear the path so that you can run the race of faith.

But here's how this works.

Well, before we get into a new section, you have verses like we have today, where it's two verses that are talking kind of about the material we just covered, about how Jesus has a body which makes him better than the angels in the work that he accomplished, but then it's also anticipating the next section, right?

So it's a bridge.

There's two verses here that are a bridge.

The same is the case in each at the end of every one of these sections.

So uh chapter 5, 9, and 10 are going to begin to point towards the high Jesus being a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

It's at the end of each section.

Yes, praise.

Yeah, it's like a bunch of books together.

66 books, right?

That's a good question that we should cover in Bible class before church.

We've been doing, if anybody ever wants to come early to church, feel free because at 9 15, we do a 30-minute Bible class where we answer those kind of questions.

Can you don't forget that one?

And we'll cover that one next time we do Bible class.

So those are those five sections, right?

You tracking with me here?

So if you go back and you read it, so what we're have happening here, and I just want you to know, be aware of it as a Bible student, that the writer is introducing us, he's closing out one theme, and he's taking us into a new section about Jesus as our high priest.

So let's look at verse 17.

Verse 17.

It says this therefore he had to be like his brothers and sisters in every way, so that he could become a merciful and a faithful high priest in matters pertaining to God to make atonement for the sins of the people.

Now, we've been here together.

We've been going through this chapter together, and one of the things that we saw is that just a couple of verses earlier, it talked about Jesus as our brother.

That Jesus is not afraid to stand in the midst of the assembly, kind of in heaven, to say, yo, Bryce is my brother, right?

Grace is my sister.

Jesus isn't afraid.

He's not, and and you might go, well, yeah, he doesn't know like what I did this week.

Like, doesn't know like my bad attitude, doesn't know how I cut off somebody in traffic.

But no, Jesus is not afraid or ashamed to identify, identify with you and I, right?

Isn't that amazing?

And so this is the theme.

Hey, we're family, and so he's just said that Jesus, that God the Father doesn't reach out his hand to rescue angels.

Instead, God the Father reaches out to help humans, which is crazy.

And here he says, he had to be like his brothers and sisters, you and I.

If we're a follower of Jesus, we're his brothers and sisters, in every way.

He had to be like us.

Why?

It's so that he could become a merciful and a faithful high priest.

God is in the business of helping humans.

He's waging a war.

We saw this last week.

He is waging a war.

God is at war with who?

Is he at war with you?

No.

He's at war with Satan.

Thank you.

That's right.

He is at war with Satan, who is rebelled against him, right?

And God's put you and I on the earth to carry out his victory.

Like you are a little package of God's victory if you submit your life to God's plan, right?

Adam and Eve, they were the first ones.

Did they submit to God's plan?

Did they take from the they took from the tree, right?

They disobeyed.

So God's been like, hey, that's okay.

I know you messed up.

I'm gonna rescue you again because I'm gonna send Jesus so that you can embody the victory of God over Satan.

So God is in the war, God is in the business of helping humans.

He's waging a war against rebellious angels, Satan and demons, and he's using humans to accomplish his victory in the universe.

Verse 16.

It says that he is not reaching out to help angels, instead, he's helping humans.

So Jesus had to be like a human in order to carry out this plan.

So if somebody asks you, hey, why did God have to come with a body?

Right?

Why did he have to take on a body?

Why couldn't he just decree from up in heaven and just go, like, zap it, you know, like I'm gonna microwave humans or something like that, and we'll get them in line.

Why?

Well, partly he's playing by his own set of rules.

But his rules said, look, he's gotta be as a human, he has to identify with humans, he has to take on flesh and blood in order to uh satisfy God's justice and accomplish God's plan.

Yes, Joshua.

Yes.

That's true.

Joshua said, for those that are listening, Joshua said that you by having a body, having flesh and blood, and looking like us, it makes him more trustworthy.

Right?

Is that what you're saying?

Yeah.

Like an angel.

Dude, you're on fire.

You're getting it today.

Yeah.

Because listen, when when we get to the end, you're making my points for me, okay?

So don't forget.

Don't forget.

You're gonna you're you're preaching.

Shouldn't God be trusted more?

Yeah, Jesus is one of the persons of the Trinity, right?

You have God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Don't ask me right now to explain how that works out.

Because that's not this sermon.

But there's three persons, right?

So Jesus is God, he's fully God, but he takes on a body, and he's fully human.

So here's the second thing.

Jesus had to be human so that he could become a merciful and a faithful high priest.

Why?

It's it is uh the second thing that that comes out of verse 17 is that he specialized in our spiritual condition.

He specialized in our spiritual condition.

So he had to take on flesh and blood so that he could become a merciful and high uh faithful high priest in matters pertaining to God.

So he didn't become a high priest so that he could fix my car.

He didn't become an auto mechanic.

He didn't become and become a physician.

In fact, he was a carpenter, but he didn't even stay a carpenter to fix cabinets, right?

No, he became a high priest in matters pertaining to God.

In other words, he is the intermediator, intermediary, intermediary, yeah, handling spiritual issues.

Because when God looks at us, there's this brokenness between in our relationship with him.

But did God create humans so that we could be far away or close to him?

Close, that's right.

He wants to be friends with us, and so he sends his high priest, Jesus, in things pertaining to God.

He specializes in our spiritual condition.

And how does he do that?

How does he do matters pertaining to God?

He makes atonement for the sins of his people.

Now, if you have a Bible other than the CSB version, this word here in your version may be the word propitiatory or propitiation.

That's a crazy word.

Propitiation.

But here's a cool way to remember what propitiation means.

When a spaceship, the space shuttle, goes from outer space.

It's already been launched, it's out in outer space, and it has to come back to Earth, it has to travel through what's called the atmosphere.

Do you know what the atmosphere is?

What is it?

That's right.

That's exactly it.

It's air, right?

It's air, it's an air pocket, basically, around the earth.

And so and it's different from outer space, right?

You hit that air pocket, and all of a sudden there's all this friction on the outside of the space shuttle.

So what happens when that space shuttle hits the atmosphere?

Do you know?

Adults, do you know?

It starts heating up.

That's right.

Is it like just a little bit warmed up in the microwave?

No, it's real hot.

Really hot.

And so what do they do to the outside of the space shuttle?

They put onto it tiles.

We call those heat tiles, right?

And those tiles are able to burn up as it goes through the atmosphere, right?

Those tiles are also called a propitiatory shield.

Those, it does the work of propitiation.

Okay, so track with me.

Those heat tiles on the outside of the spaceship are protecting what's inside the ship.

Humans, cargo, monkeys, whatever they put inside of that spaceship, right, are being protected from the intense heat by this propitiatory shield so that it doesn't get burned up.

Jesus, when he died on the cross, he protected us as our propitiatory shield.

What are we in danger of being burned up by?

Yes.

If you're on the spaceship, you are.

But in God's arena, if you're if if we look at who God is and how he should treat us, what's yes.

Fiery place, right?

God's wrath, right?

The fire of God.

God's justice against our sin is fire, right?

That we're in trouble.

We face the judgment of God if we continue to reject his plan, right?

It's eternal death.

And we need a perpetatory shield to protect us from the judgment of God.

And so Jesus, now you may say, well, that doesn't sound very nice.

Does that sound mean that God would judge us?

Or does that sound fair?

Fair, yes.

Do we get in trouble for doing what's wrong?

Yeah, we do.

Yeah.

So God, who is perfect and gave us instructions about how to live, when we do what's wrong, it is it would be i unfair if he didn't um carry out justice.

Right?

And so we're in trouble as humans because how who's perfect here?

Anybody perfect?

Nobody's perfect.

And so all we have, and we're like that space shuttle in life.

We're about to hit the atmosphere, ready to get burned up by God's wrath.

There's nothing we can do to propitiate for ourselves, to protect ourselves from the wrath of God.

We need atonement.

We need propitiation.

We need some kind of protection from the wrath of God.

And the cool thing is, God wants that too.

He's not looking to just flame you.

He knows how bad we are.

He's disappointed and sad with our sin.

But he's like, no, I want to provide the rescue.

So he's both the judge and he is the one who sanctifies, as it said earlier in the text.

He's the one that is merciful towards us.

He's the one that pays for our sin, right?

Okay, so he provides propitiation.

And it says in verse 18 that he provides for us sympathy in the face of temptation.

He helps us in the face of temptation.

For since he himself has suffered, when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted.

Do you remember who is reading this letter?

Who are the people getting this letter?

That's right, the Hebrews.

And what were they facing?

Was their life hunky-dory, sipping pina coladas on an island?

No.

These people decided to follow Jesus, the Messiah, and they were all of a sudden they had more pain in their life because they were following Jesus.

And they were deciding, well, maybe we should just go back to like doing the Jewish roots thing, following Moses, because life was painful.

And here the writer is saying, This Jesus, whom you're following, he himself, he suffered because he was tempted or he was tested, and he is able to help those who are tempted.

Do you remember the story of Jesus?

What happens in the story of Jesus after he is baptized?

What happens next?

Maybe an adult.

He goes into the desert.

The Spirit of God leads Jesus into the desert, and what happens in the desert?

Who does he meet with?

The devil.

The devil comes and tempts Jesus.

Why does this happen in the life of Jesus?

Do you know somebody else who was in the wilderness for 40 years?

Moses.

Moses.

Did you hear that?

Moses with the children of Israel are in the wilderness and they are being tempted for 40 years.

Did they pass the test of God?

They did not.

No, they didn't.

We needed a new Hebrew to come, to go into the wilderness for 40 days, face the temptation of the devil, and come out victorious.

Did Jesus give in to temptation?

No, he didn't.

Jesus didn't give in to the devil with the temptation, with the test that he faced.

And so why did Jesus go through that?

It's just evidence of this point here that he was tempted.

He came out, he made it through the wilderness so that he could be the one who helps us when we're tempted.

Here's the wrapping it up.

Okay.

He is able to show us sympathy.

Let me just kind of give you this quote from the New Bible commentary.

The sympathy of Christ as a heavenly high priest enables him to be merciful towards the sins of his people and to provide them with help to endure in faithfulness.

His sympathy for their situation was acquired during his earthly period of suffering and testing.

He is sympathetic.

Like Joshua said, he's trustworthy because he took on flesh and blood.

He was tempted.

He suffered in the wilderness and he made it out alive.

He didn't give in to temptation, and so he is a good high priest.

Jesus became human so that he could be a merciful high priest.

As a merciful and a faithful high priest, he atoned for our sins, and he is the helper of those who are tempted.

Andrew Murray says this everything would depend upon his winning our confidence.

Do you remember that, Joshua?

What you said?

That he became trustworthy?

Everything depended upon winning our confidence, getting possession of our heart and love, and as a living leader, guide us into the path of God.

Jesus took on flesh and blood as our high priest and gained our confidence, winning, getting possession of our heart and our love as a living leader guiding us into the path of God.

You probably didn't go into this week thinking, man, I need a high priest, but it's actually exactly what we need.

When we are frustrated with work, what we need is a sympathetic expert in spiritual things who has gone through his own junk but come out victorious.

He's already faced those turbulent waters, and he is able to sympathize and to help us in our time of testing.

When we're hurt in a relationship, we need that sympathetic expert.

When we are afraid, we need that sympathetic expert.

Do you ever have those moments where you're feeling just your insufficiency?

Like, man, I am very human.

I don't know the future.

I don't know how to solve this problem.

This lies outside of my control.

And you pray and you ask God for help, and we think in terms of God giving us wisdom or giving us love for difficult people or healing us or giving us deliverance from our enemies.

But here's the thing the Bible doesn't say that God just gives us wisdom or power or love.

It says that he gives us a person, Jesus Christ, as our high priest and brings this help near.

So here's, if you're young, here's all I want you to think of.

When you think of a high priest, that Jesus is your high priest, it's the help of God has come near you.

When I needed to go get my brake light fixed, YouTube wasn't good enough.

It's good for a lot.

I use YouTube to fix a lot of things.

But man, I needed somebody that I could go to.

I pulled that car into his drive in his parking lot there.

He came with his flesh and blood.

He came in his clothes, out to my car.

And he looked at that light, right?

And he's seeing, he's saying, Josh, pump the brakes and we'll see.

Does it go on and off?

He says, Here, let me pump it so you can see.

Your light is not going on and off.

Let's diagnose the problem together.

When Jesus became our high priest, he came near us this week.

As you go into school, you guys that are young, you're gonna do, well, Gloria is not doing school this week.

But everybody else is doing school this week.

Until you get to your holiday break.

Just know in that place, as you're facing difficulty, Jesus is your high priest.

He's come near to help you in the face of what is difficult.

Jesus is human so that he can be our merciful and our faithful high priest.

He's not a condescending, he's not a critical, he's not a judgmental high priest.

Instead, he's merciful.

He knows you mess up.

He knows that we're made from the dust, but he is a merciful and faithful.

What does it mean to be faithful?

Consistent.

Nice, yeah.

That's a good word for it.

He's very nice.

Amen.

Let's pray together.

Lord, we thank you for coming near.

Thank you for being our merciful and faithful high priest.

Lord, these are a bit abstract.

These concepts are abstract, but the implications are very real.

And you feed us with these ideas, these abstract ideas, because you want us to trust you more this week.

Lord, I just ask that you would help us connect with what this writer of Hebrews is saying.

Lord, I pray that you would reveal yourself to us in a powerful way.

Um, that you would make yourself known as the one who is victorious in flesh and blood, victorious over the devil, victorious over our sin, and leading us in triumph this week.

We bless you, we thank you, and we pray, Lord, that you would uh be in our midst as we take communion together as a church.

Pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.