Hebrews: Comfort in Our Fear

Well, you may be seated.

Well, welcome to Christ the Redeemer.

We're excited you're here with us.

Happy Labor Day.

Whether you're here with us in the sanctuary, you're watching, uh, live online, wherever you're at this morning, we are excited to worship with you and to say what we say every week, and that is, we are more broken than we originally thought, more imperfect and more sinful, actually, than we originally thought.

But we were more loved by God than we could ever dare to dream.

That is such good news.

That's the heartbeat of our church.

That is that is what we rest in and what we grow in.

That is what we worship about.

I have a few announcements before we jump into the sermon.

Um, September 13th, next Sunday, we will welcome back birth through second grade classrooms, and we're also switching from one 10:30 service over to a 9 and an 11 a.m.

service.

So we're gonna have to continue that pre-registration process.

If you're gonna be in the sanctuary, you need to register.

If you're gonna have kids over in the children's ministry for birth through second grade, you're gonna have to pre-register.

But we have registration open online on our website for all of September.

So you can go and you can plot out your entire month there.

And our hope is to get third through fifth grade in classrooms uh here in the fall as we're just moving ahead strategically, step by step, maintaining health and safety along the way.

A few other things uh we know people are worshiping online with us, and perhaps you're gonna have to continue to do this for a while.

And so we will have on the second and the fourth Tuesday of every month, you can come by the church by the front doors, that front patio between noon and one and pick up your communion supplies, uh, your elements to be able to take communion with us while you're at home on Sunday morning.

September 17th, we have a women's gathering outdoors, details on our website.

September 23rd, men's gathering outdoors at someone's home.

And so all that is online for you.

All that we hope you can step into with a measure of safety and health for us to uh know each other and be together and be the church.

Let me pray.

We'll jump into Hebrews chapter 2.

Hebrews 2 · chapter mention

God, thank you for this good word of Hebrews that will challenge us this morning and inevitably comfort us because you are sufficient and you are good, and you know us, and you love us, and you know our fears, and you are compassionate.

In Jesus' name, amen.

So, Hebrews chapter 2, let's just jump right into it.

Hebrews 2 · chapter mention

If you have your Bibles, you can open up to that or it's on the screen.

So, Hebrews 2, 14 and 15, since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things that through death he might destroy, and this is Jesus Christ, he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

So there in verse 15 it's saying it's possible to have such fear of death that your entire life you live afraid.

But our first point is quite relieving, and that is Christ brings you victory over death and is with you in all your fear of death.

And that's good news.

It's good news that the devil doesn't hold the final word over us.

You will die.

I will die.

This is going to be a shared human experience that all of us will go through.

There's no escaping this.

And I bet you're still like me.

Even if you believe in a heaven that's like completed, full joy to the fullest extent beyond measure.

That's what we believe about the afterlife in Christ, and yet, and yet it's still easy to be afraid of dying, right?

It's still easy to be driving down the road and be afraid all of a sudden and be kind of paralyzed that what if that car swerved, or what if I swerved, and what if this happened, and what if that drowning happened, and what if the test results came back?

We're afraid of all sorts of things.

Four months ago, I was afraid of uh my Amazon packages.

Were y'all afraid of your Amazon packages four months ago?

I was I was afraid, right?

I didn't know if COVID was on the cardboard, and I was out on the front porch, I was wiping down every piece of mail and every cardboard package.

Maybe you're still doing that.

I don't know.

Fine, you're cleaning it, that'd be okay.

Christy was laughing at me while I was doing that, but I was doing it.

Yeah, I was I was in that phase and I was cleaning that, right?

Now I'm not afraid of my Amazon packages anymore, but I still have plenty of fear and plenty of issues.

Um I got curious this week about sort of like common fears, and so here's some very common specific fears.

We're gonna do a little quiz.

I'll show you a picture up on the screens, and then you can guess.

Don't shout it out because we're supposed to have the mask and not the shouting thing.

So just think in yourself.

You can keep your own score.

All right, so we won't do the shouting game like we used to do.

So here's uh number, here's here's the first picture.

See if you know what this fear is.

That's not number one, that would be number four, but we'll go with that.

There's number one.

Okay, claustrophobia, right?

I mean, has anybody been caving?

You ever gotten stuck?

There's a horrible feeling.

All right, here's the second one.

These are gonna get harder as we go, by the way.

So this is uh lightning, fear of lightning and thunder.

I didn't know I had a term.

I've actually felt this fear before, I didn't know how to term astrophobia.

Okay, here's another one.

This has a term to be afraid of someone on stilts or a clown, both of those.

That's chlorophobia.

And then the last one is not fear of Jim Carrey, but fear of beards.

That's a thing.

Maybe if you have a beard, you've seen this.

It's pogonophobia, that's a term, and that's a fear.

So we have lots of fears, right?

And we're not even mentioning like the really, really common fears.

Jerry Seinfeld, my favorite favorite kind of philosopher, he says this about fear.

According to most studies, people's number one fear is public speaking.

That's why I'm just paralyzed every Sunday morning.

People's number one fear is public speaking.

Number two is death.

Death is number two.

Does that sound right?

This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you're better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.

Right?

What a crazy thing.

Like, that's what fear can do.

Fear can move us into crazy positions, but we have fear.

We all have fear, and it's natural to fear death.

That's a lot of the reason why we don't talk about it.

Because we just fear it.

We all have it.

And fear can create anxiety.

And in anxiety, we do all sorts of crazy stuff.

Here's what Chip Dodd, a counselor and author, he says about the way that we employ self-sufficiency for fear and death.

Here's what he says: our solution of self-sufficiency that we use to stop fear actually produces more anxiety.

Because in order to control anxiety, we focus on preventing rejection, humiliation, failure, not being acknowledged for our achievements, not performing to someone else's standard, not being loved, and all the things in our future we cannot touch.

The solution of control over anxiety will inevitably increase anxiety because we cannot acquire enough control.

Anxiety misinforms us.

It says for us to control when we need to let go.

Maybe that resonates.

I think the list of fears there in the middle of that quote resonates a lot more than being afraid of a beard or afraid of a clown.

Here's what happened to me last week.

Christian and I, we were watching this Netflix movie, kind of a Hallmarky movie.

It's called The Lost Husband.

Has anybody seen The Lost Husband?

It was, we had to search for it, somebody recommended it, didn't just like pop up.

And so it's kind of a Hallmark type movie on Netflix.

It's sad and then gets sweet, it's kind of that normal arc.

You kind of know where it's headed and you enjoy it the whole way.

And I won't ruin the movie, but the entire premise is based on a wife, a mom, two kids, and the husband, the dad, has passed away.

I didn't ruin the movie.

That's the premise, and it's them kind of moving on with their lives.

And I'll just be honest, that'll mess me up.

That will mess me up.

Like watching that movie, watching that mom, like like having to deal with that and get over that, and those kids, and you're like, well, man, like what if that happened to me?

And I'm not afraid of dying.

I think that could be quite an adventure to see what's on the other side, but I'm really afraid of not being here.

And that could enslave us.

And yet, the promise that we have in Jesus in these verses is that the God who died and experienced that and rose again to conquer death, he actually understands our fear of death.

He understands all that fear.

And he can empathize with us.

God, the creator of the world, can empathize with us as to deliver us from that fear, so we can experience the fear and not be enslaved to it.

Verses 16 through 18.

For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham.

Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

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

So point number two is this Christ mercifully understands your temptations and relates to you with compassion.

The context here is powerful because it's talking about this high priest position, which had almost become like a political position back at the time.

They made sacrifices in the temple.

They weren't really in touch or really cared all that much with the common person.

And it's easy to think God is like that.

Kind of this religious figure that's off.

He's not really in touch with your day-to-day life, like your actual anxieties, your actual fears.

He operates things, but he doesn't necessarily want to relate with you.

And this passage actually says, no, he was actually made like you, not sinful, but experiencing all the temptation and knowing it, as to be able to be compassionate toward you and walk with you and have empathy toward you.

He knows the weakness of temptation.

He knows the burden.

Even while he was sinless.

Merciful, that word merciful means to help the afflicted, to help one seeking aid, to help the wretched.

This is who God is.

That even though we can't hold it all together, even though we can't hold it all together, our sin moves his heart toward compassion, not anger.

God inside of himself settled all payment for sin and guilt.

This is Jesus on the cross.

And he sides with you against your sin.

That's amazing news.

In this way, Jesus is our advocate.

That's a word that maybe you remember from 1 John.

Last year we studied 1 John.

1 John chapter 2, verses 1 and 2.

1 John 2:1

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

About 20 years ago, I was a juror on a court case out in Gwinnett County, and I was a juror on a court case.

I thought that was in college or just out of college.

It was a weeklong case, all week, sat in that booth and listened to everything.

And it was a lady who had been injured while working, and so she was suing her employer and thus her employer's insurance company because she was saying her injury was based on neglect from the employer.

And so the whole thing was actually her lying, and that came out in the court case.

But she sat there all week.

She sat there, she barely talked.

But she had a lawyer next to her, and the lawyer talked a lot.

The lawyer handled all the procedures, the lawyer was working for her.

And even while she was she was lying, the whole court case was based on some fabrications, the lawyer sat next to her as her advocate.

That's what an advocate does.

So point number three is this God is the ultimate helper for your soul.

That word advocate in 1 John 2, 1 is the word paraclete, means to represent in a legal matter.

So it means whatever they achieve, you achieve.

Maybe you remember this quote.

This is what we read back last year when we studied this word, theologian Charles Hodge.

The relationship of Christ to his people is that of a legal advocate to a client.

The former personates the latter.

The lawyer stands in the client's place.

It is, while it lasts, the most intimate of relationships.

You may not even have to appear in court.

You are not heard, you are not regarded, you are lost in your advocate, who for the time being is your representative.

The advocate, not you, is seen.

The advocate, not you, is heard.

The advocate, not you, is regarded.

And then John follows that thought about Jesus being our advocate, so we can be imperfect, and yet because of Christ's death and his blood for us, and that we are forgiven and righteous, we're in perfect relationship with God.

That God has settled this problem within himself.

And the word that we get that is that is being done for us here is propitiation.

That's the word in 1 John.

It's also the word in Hebrews chapter 2 that we read, propitiation.

Hebrews 2 · chapter mention

And it's a sacrifice given to appease an angry God.

Now, a lot of us could get stuck on the fact that God could be angry, but what this word means is that God has settled within himself not to be angry at us, but to be gentle and to be compassionate.

So there's three gospel implications, I think, three gospel implications perhaps for our lives.

Number one is this because of Christ's compassion toward you, you don't have to hide your fear from him.

Is it that good news?

That you don't have to pretend like you don't have any fear of death.

You don't have to pretend like that's a lack of faith.

That you can be honest about that.

There's no amount of mess, there's no amount of weakness of faith or lack of faith that Christ is not compelled to even greater compassion toward you.

And this is what allows an honest relationship with God.

That our relationship with Him has been based on what He is giving to us in His grace, not what we bring into the relationship.

Number two is this without guilt or legalism, without guilt or legalism, you get to create a contemplative practice of communing with Christ.

Isn't that good news?

Even the preface is important.

It's not guilt motivated, it's not being legalistic enough to be in the relationship, but we get to create this practice.

My wife's all about early morning, I'm about mid-morning.

I don't like to sit still, I'd rather go for a walk.

I would imagine for you it's gonna have something to do with prayer, something stillness, something with scripture reading.

It's gonna have something to do with those elements, getting yourself in positions where your heart's opening up before the Lord to remember who you are, and allowing the Holy Spirit that's inside of you to minister to you.

And we won't be perfect with it.

But that doesn't mean you're less loved or less of a Christian, it just means that the next day you need to do it again.

Number three, without fear, you can be at home in Christ's advocacy for you.

He's not waiting to strike you because of your temptation, or because of your fear of death, or because you have uh less faith than you feel like you had yesterday.

He's not waiting to strike you.

Your erratic emotions or your crazy thoughts, they're not too much for him.

Amen?

He's not growing tired of you.

You're not too little for him.

You don't have to become better for him.

Without fear, without any fear of being too much or too little, without any fear, we can be at home in Christ's advocacy for us.

Church, we get to rest in Jesus, who is truly enough for us.

He truly is enough.

He's that good.

Let's pray together.

God, we thank you that you have provided for us the way into relationship with you, your grace to us in Jesus.

We are so grateful to be a receiving people.

God help us even more to be more enamored by your gospel to us.

May our lives be in response and reflection to it.

May we live in greater freedom of the fear of death, not because we don't have it, but because we don't have to be enslaved trying to overcome it.

May we fall back on you who have experienced the same temptation.

You know our fear.

You know our feebleness.

Thank you that you hold compassion to us.

And may this be our very freedom.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.