Jesus Paves The Way | Downtown Campus | September 27, 2026

Well, good morning, church.

I'm Bill on the Downtown Campus Pastor.

It is so great to be with you this morning.

We are, of course, in our greater than series, walking through the books of the book of Hebrews.

And two weeks ago, we opened the book and we learned that God has actually spoken through his son.

In other words, Jesus wasn't just another messenger, but he's actually God's Son.

He sustains all things through Jesus and he dealt with our sin, Jesus did directly.

And then last week, Jack actually talked to us about how this book of Hebrews is showing us that Jesus is also greater than the angels.

And Hebrews gives us a warning from last week.

And so so far in the book of Hebrews, the direction, it kind of seems clear that Jesus is greater.

He's greater than messengers, he's greater than the angels.

And now the passage picks up, and today that passage actually picks up that thread.

So it's gonna open essentially by saying that the world to come has not been subjected to angels.

And then it begins to quote a psalm about humanity, Psalm 8, which Jeff read already this morning.

And in this psalm, what happens is David, he's the author, he looks up at the moon and the stars and all of creation, and he says, Why would God, the maker of heaven and earth, so far above us, why would he even notice us?

Why would he even be able to be concerned about humanity?

Why would he notice human beings?

And it's a great question.

Compared to the splendor and the majesty of other beings, humanity is kind of lowly.

We're low on the totem pole.

Um, but here's the thing: God, he does notice us.

Like the God of the universe who created all things, he is mindful of us.

And in Psalm 8, it says that he's crowned human beings with glory and honor and put everything under our feet.

Wow, what a great picture of humanity.

What amazing thing that God has done.

It's a remarkable picture of what God has made us for.

We're made in his image and we're given real responsibility over his creation.

We're given dominion, even though it is also true that we are lowly in a way.

We're a created being.

In fact, our passage today even pushes the point that says that God has left nothing that is not subject to us.

Nothing.

Ooh.

You feel like that in your life?

That nothing isn't is not subject to you?

Like, and then it says this at the end of this.

It says, yet at present, we do not see everything subject to them.

And we're like, yep, that's it.

Right?

Like, it doesn't feel like everything is subject to us.

If you live in the world I live in, it definitely doesn't feel like that.

We don't see the glory or the honor or the dominion in ourselves that is actually described in the passage today.

For instance, I don't know how your week went, but I would definitely not describe it as everything is underneath my feet, right?

Maybe I'd describe it as I'm buried under everything, right?

And so we look around and we see brokenness everywhere we look, whether it's our health, our relationships, our job.

In fact, wherever we look, we see some sort of thing going wrong.

We don't always live either fully as the image bearers that God has made us to be.

And so the reality today is what the passage is pointing out is that there's a gap.

There is a gap.

There's a gap between what God made us to be as humans and what we actually see.

In other words, if Psalm 8 is true, if we have dominion and authority, if we have been placed in this thing of glory and honor, if we bear the image of God, our question really is this: why doesn't our world look like that?

Or what aren't our lives look like that?

And I'm pointing to the gap that is being pointed out because today I believe this passage is going to answer that question.

What about this gap that we see?

And we're gonna see not only how Jesus is greater than everything, but also how Jesus is the answer to everything.

Jesus paves the way, he actually bridges the gap we see.

And so that's what we're gonna see today.

If you have your Bibles, you can open it to Hebrews chapter 2.

Hebrews 2 · chapter mention

We will be in verses 5 through 18.

And actually, while you're turning there, I'm gonna pray for us.

Lord, um, we come to you and we believe your word in faith.

Lord, that um as David said, you are mindful of us, and you've given us a place of glory and honor and dominion, that there's nothing that's beneath us, or there's nothing that's not beneath us, that everything um is subject to us in some way, and yet, Lord, we also recognize that we don't see that in reality.

And so, Lord, we pray that you would this morning help us to see Jesus clearly, the pioneer of our faith.

Lord, would you give us faith and would you give us trust in your son Jesus?

We pray this in Jesus' name, and all God's people said, Amen.

Okay, this is a little bit longer passage, but I want you to get the big picture of it.

I want you to hear the whole thing all at once so you understand kind of the flow of what the author is talking about.

So, starting in uh verse five, chapter two, it says this.

It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come about which we are speaking, but there is a place where someone has testified, what is mankind that you were mindful of them, a son of man that you care for him.

You made them a little lower than the angels, you crowned them with glory and honor, and you put everything under their feet.

And putting everything under them, God has left nothing that is not subject to them.

Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them.

That's the gap that I was talking about in the introduction.

But then it says this in verse 9 But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor, because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God from whom and through whom everything exists should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered.

Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy of the are of the same family.

So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.

He says, I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters in the assembly, I will sing your praises, and again I will put my trust in him.

And again, he says, Here I am in the children God has given me.

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity, so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death, that is the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham's descendants.

For this reason he has been for this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people, because he himself suffered when he was tempted.

He was able to help those who were being tempted.

This is God's word, amen.

Okay, so there's a lot here, and what we kind of need to do is kind of follow the movement of this passage.

What this passage in Hebrews is showing us is that Jesus, by becoming one of us, actually makes three things possible for us.

It means that we can actually share in Jesus' glory.

That's number one.

We can share in his family, that's number two, and we can share in his victory over sin.

And so let's begin with this first one.

We can share in his glory.

So I already explained the gap in verses five through eight.

We already talked about that.

Psalm eight makes it clear that we are lower than the angels, but God has given us glory and honor and put everything underneath our feet.

But presently we don't see that.

So let's zoom in on verse 9 then.

It says this But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

Now, right away, do you notice what it's saying about Jesus?

It says that he was made lower than the angels for a little while.

Now, if you are a theologian, a Bible student, you go, What?

Like, um, pause for a second here.

Didn't we just spend the last couple weeks saying that Jesus is greater than the angels and now he's lower?

What's going on here?

How could he be made lower even for a little while?

Also, Jesus is God.

How can he be less than in any way?

And so that's the question I'm asking.

Well, part of this passage is describing the idea that actually Jesus chose to enter our place and our position.

Remember the beginning?

It says that even though God has given us glory, our position as humans is lowly.

In other words, when Jesus becomes human, he takes on our lowly state.

He is now able to suffer and die like a human.

Now, I want to be clear, this doesn't make him any less God.

It doesn't actually change his worth in any way.

It just changes Jesus' position.

And so the idea that you're supposed to get is that the one who is greater than the angels, the one who is above all things, through whom all things exist, he actually takes our place, becoming one of us and even dying.

But also don't miss the rest of it because it says now that he is actually, he's crowned with glory and honor because of that suffering.

Jesus accomplished the mission that God gave him.

Don't forget he is now seated at the right hand of God right now.

And it goes on to say that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone.

Now I have another question.

I have all these questions of the text all the time.

Like, what do you mean it might taste death?

And I was studying this, I kind of got hung up on that this week.

Because the phrase taste death, in our modern mind, we think, he sampled death?

Like he kind of just we just got a taste of it.

And so we think of that because in English, when we say to taste something, we sort of think about it as trying it, like we're trying something.

But when you study this, this is not actually what's being communicated here.

To taste death, what it's saying is that Jesus experienced death firsthand.

That he actually experienced it.

Don't forget that taste is actually one of our senses.

That's how we experience the world.

And so this isn't saying Jesus merely sampled death.

No, Jesus experienced death, and guess what?

He did it on our behalf.

He tasted death.

So Jesus took our lowly position, he experienced death.

And don't forget now that he is clothed in honor and glory.

Verse 10.

It says this, in bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, from whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered.

Now, that's some beautiful language, but honestly, this week, as I was sitting, I was like, I have to read this verse like 87 times to parse what it's saying.

I read this over and over again, just trying to like understand its meaning.

And I think what you have to do with this part of the passage is you have to understand the point before you understand the particulars.

Because I think the point that's being made here is that we're actually not supposed to pit Jesus' death and his suffering against the understanding that he is also the one through whom all things exist, and that he is the one who's made it possible for us to be glorified.

In other words, these things are in harmony with each other.

The fact that Jesus suffered and he died and he conquered death as one of us, blazing a trail for the rest of us, actually fits well with the understanding that he's also the creator and the sustainer of the universe.

And I don't want to like make up this imaginary argument that's not being had here, but I want you to remember the audience.

We talked about this in week one.

Remember the audience of the book of Hebrews?

What were they going through?

They were suffering for their faith.

They were tempted to walk away or to drift or to go back to things that they were familiar with.

Some had even stopped meeting together, and they're questioning the supremacy of Jesus and the validity of their faith.

What kind of savior gets arrested?

What kind of savior gets arrested and is killed for crimes he didn't commit?

Like, how can God be human and humble himself?

How do we reconcile these things?

And the author of Hebrews is telling them directly: this whole thing is actually in harmony.

The God from whom and through whom everything exists is the one who is bringing people to glory.

And the way he did it wasn't an accident.

It wasn't a backup plan.

The way he did it was through his own son.

And then it gives us a picture of Jesus, and I love this.

This is something we don't talk about a lot.

Is that Jesus is the pioneer of our salvation.

The pioneer of our salvation.

I want you to think about that for a second.

Think about approaching like this really dense woods.

Now, I have played a lot of disc golf this summer, okay?

And the reason why is because my son is into disc golf, and so automatically I'm into disc golf, right?

And so, but what's really fun is when you throw it deep into the woods and it's very dense, all right?

It's so fun that you stand there and you think, how am I going to get in there?

Because it's so thick, right?

And if you think about a pioneer, if they come to this, they stand on the edge and they look into dense woods, they don't just like shout out directions, right?

That's not what a pioneer would do.

Maybe that's what a scout would do, but a pioneer doesn't do that.

What a pioneer does is they go first.

A pioneer walks into the woods, he cuts a path, he opens the way, and he brings others along with him.

That's the picture that you're supposed to get of Jesus.

He doesn't simply point out the way of salvation.

Instead, through his own suffering and death, he opens a way that none of us could open.

And he brings his people with him.

Now, there's one more thing I want to talk about for this part of the passage.

Because if you're paying close attention, you might have noticed this.

It says this.

Um, it says, God has made Jesus the pioneer of our faith.

And then it says this perfect through what he suffered.

And again, if you're a theologian, if you read the Bible, you go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Jesus was made perfect?

Like that doesn't jive with what I know about Jesus.

How is he being made perfect?

Wasn't Jesus already perfect?

Isn't he sinless?

Yes, Jesus was sinless.

And so this is not saying that suffering kind of cleaned up some sort of moral flaw in Jesus.

That's not what's happening here.

What is being said is that Jesus' saving work was brought to completion.

He really entered our condition.

He really went through suffering, he really died.

In other words, nothing was lacking in his character, but the mission still had to be accomplished.

It still needed to be completed.

And through what he suffered, Jesus completed the work that God had him do.

And he did that so that you and I can share in his glory.

That's the point.

The pioneer, he went ahead of us, and he's bringing many sons and daughters to glory.

So now you might be saying, Great, so why does that matter to me right now?

Well, church, this is the basis of our hope.

Like we don't serve a far-off God who knows nothing of our suffering.

A God we have to try to appease and hope, and just hope that he notices us.

No, the picture we're getting here is that our God, the God through whom all things exist, entered into the lowly state of one of his creations in order that he might suffer and die so that we could be brought to glory with him.

That if we believe in the name of Jesus, we too would be called sons and daughters for all of eternity.

And I want you to think about why that matters for us, what that means to us.

It means this that no matter the brokenness, no matter what the world throws at us, no matter the suffering that we go through, Jesus understands.

He knows.

He experienced suffering just like us, and he did it so that one day when this life is over or he returns, we could be with him forever in glory.

That hope that hopefully you understand from this passage, it's supposed to be fuel for getting you through the things in life that are the toughest.

That Jesus already pioneered through all of this.

He suffered and he died and he made a way for us.

Amen, church?

Now, did you catch the phrase in verse 10?

Many sons and daughters?

Well, Jesus isn't just opening up a path to glory, he's bringing many people with him.

But who are those people to him?

That's what this passage gets at next.

And it brings us to number two that we can share in his family.

Look back into verse 11.

It says this both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family.

So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.

He says, I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters.

In the assembly I will sing your praises, and again I will put my trust in him.

And again, he says, Here I am in the children God has given to me.

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity, so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death, that is the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death, for surely it is not the angels he helps, but Abraham's descendants.

Let's slow down at verse 11 because it tells us how people like us can share in God's family.

It says, Jesus is the one who makes people holy, and the people he makes holy are of the same family.

Now I want to be clear about who is doing what.

Jesus is the one making people holy.

We are the ones being made holy.

In other words, we don't earn a place beside Jesus by finally getting ourselves cleaned up.

We don't earn a place beside Jesus by finally, you know, like doing the right things all of the time.

No, this passage is clear that it's through his saving work that he sets people apart as God's own.

And then it says something that would be easy to overlook or rush past.

It says, Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.

I want you to zoom out on that concept for a second, like think bigger.

This is the Son, the Son of God who is greater than all the angels, through whom all things exist.

He's now clothed in honor and glory, sitting at the right hand of God.

Not only that, but this is the same Jesus who actually firsthand knows our weaknesses in the sin of the people he is saving.

And yet it says here that he's not ashamed to claim them as family.

Church, you need to hear this.

Jesus is not sitting there reluctant to welcome you into God's family.

That's an idea that we impossible.

On who Jesus is.

We put Jesus in that box in our lives sometimes.

We think, yeah, like I know Jesus did some important work, so he'll probably accept me, but he doesn't really want to.

I mean, people feel that in their heart.

They feel ashamed, and so they think, yeah, maybe God will accept me, but he doesn't like accepting me.

But here we see that Jesus is not ashamed to claim us as his family.

That he loves us, that he welcomes us in, that he sees us as brothers and sisters.

And so then after this, the writer gives us several quotes from Scripture, and maybe you read them and you kind of wonder why why they're here.

It's Psalm 22, it's actually the book of Isaiah.

In Psalm 22, it moves from deep suffering into praise.

And what Hebrews does is it takes the words from that praise and it actually puts them on the lips of Jesus.

He stands among his brothers and sisters.

He declares God's name, he's praising with them.

And then the words from Isaiah speak of trusting God and standing with the children of God he's given.

And you should be asking yourself, like, do I accurately see the picture that God wants me to see?

See, Jesus isn't claiming a family from a distance.

In this picture of Jesus, he is standing with us.

He is with his people.

The children have flesh and blood, and Jesus shared in their humanity.

He didn't just use family language, he is actually become one of us.

Why?

Well, the passage shared says that he shared our humanity so that he could die and through his death break the devil's power and free people who had been in slavery to the fear of death.

That's powerful that Jesus did that.

Stop and think about that for a second.

How does dying break the power of death?

Well, at the cross, right after Jesus died, it kind of looked like death one, right?

To everyone there, it looked like death one.

But remember, we saw in verse 9, Jesus really died, but now he has been crowned.

He went into death and he came through it victoriously.

That doesn't mean the devil has vanished.

It does not mean believers never die, but for those who belong to Jesus, death never gets the final word.

Amen, church?

Our brother, Jesus, has faced it, and he can bring us through it to glory.

And this fear of death isn't always just about our final moments.

You know, this idea of like death and the pain that we experience in this life, it can like, it can feel like losing someone we love or losing control, or what will happen when we're gone, and we have all of these questions.

And Hebrew isn't, Hebrews isn't shaming us for feeling afraid.

It says that Jesus came to free the people who live under that type of fear.

And so I'm not saying as a Christian you can't grieve.

You can absolutely grieve, and we do grieve.

A Christian can be afraid of dying, even.

I mean, it's scary to think that we would die, right?

But because Jesus has gone through death and is now crowned, the idea you're supposed to get is this that fear does not have to be our master.

We don't have to sit there and wonder.

It doesn't have to control us.

Finally, verse 16, it says, For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham's descendants.

Now, this is not saying that this is only for Jewish descendants, right?

The New Testament tells us that all who belong to Christ by faith share in Abraham's promise.

So if you believe in Jesus, you share in this promise.

Jesus came to take hold of the people he would call his own, those who would believe in him.

And so what does this mean for us that we can share in his family?

Well, if you belong to Jesus and you're carrying shame, my suggestion to you is read verse 11 again.

Like read it over and over again.

He's not embarrassed to be associated with you.

With all of your sin and all of your fullness and all of your dark deeds, the ones people know about and the ones people don't know about, Jesus is not ashamed to call you brother or sister.

He knows your need, and through his work, what he's doing is he's making you holy.

It's not that he doesn't care about those things, but his work in your life is to change you, to make you look like him.

He has covered that sin.

And so you can come to him as someone he calls family.

And when the fear of death begins to take hold of you, you don't have to pretend that it's not there.

You have someone to bring it to.

That's what it means that we can share in his family.

But let's keep going because next we're gonna see we can share in his victory over sin.

Look at 17 and 18 again.

It says this.

For this reason, he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and he might make atonement for the sins of the people, because he himself suffered when he was tempted.

He is able to help those who are being tempted.

Verse 17 tells us why Jesus had to become fully human.

To be a merciful and faithful high priest.

Now, if high priest sounds distant to you, maybe it's not your context.

Um think of somebody who just simply represents people before God.

Jesus knows the people that he represents because he became one of us.

He is merciful towards us and he is faithful in his service to God.

And what does he do as our high priest?

Verse 17 makes it really clear.

It says that he makes atonement for the sins of the people.

And so our sin is very real.

We can't just wave it away.

God can't just overlook it.

But Jesus, he has dealt with our sin through his death, and he opened up a way for us to come to God.

This is the victory that we could never win ourselves.

And then in verse 18, it brings this right into our lives because it says that he himself suffered when he was tempted.

He is able to help those who are being tempted.

Notice it doesn't just say that Jesus understands.

It says he helps.

He helps.

Jesus never gave in to sin, but he knows what it is to be tested and to suffer.

And so when temptation comes, when you are tired, when you are afraid, when you are drawn back to the thing that you know is wrong, the answer is that Jesus will help you.

Go to Jesus who knows what this is like.

Ask him for help.

And if you've already fallen, don't run from Jesus, run to Jesus.

Our merciful priest has dealt with our sin and he's able to help us take the next step.

We can share in his victory over sin because he has dealt with its guilt and he helps us when we face its pole.

Church, this is one of the biggest things, I think, that we have to understand is we think that when we sin or when we're struggling with something or we have an argument or we're not our best selves, that I have to hide from God.

We're just like Adam and Eve, right?

They realize they're naked and they hide from God.

And we tend to do that.

That's like our natural reaction to just go and hide from God and like, I haven't been guilty long enough, I haven't felt enough shame, I haven't done all of these things, I haven't made up for the things I've done bad.

You know, I did that one bad thing, but then I did 10 good things.

So now I can come to God.

That's a bad picture of how to approach God when we understand who Jesus is in this passage.

Because he actually went through being a human, suffering and dying on our behalf, and he doesn't just understand, he wants to help you.

So run to Jesus.

Amen, church.

And so we started with Psalm 8, and it gave us a picture of glory and honor, and we felt the gap between that picture and the world we see.

But now what we should see is that Jesus himself is actually the one who fills the gap.

He entered our lowly place, but now he's crowned, he brings with him brothers and sisters.

That's us.

And as our priest, he has dealt with our sin and he helps us when we are tested.

And so when life doesn't look like everything is underneath your feet, when it feels like instead everything is piled on top of you, look to the one who's crowned.

Look to Jesus, trust him with your sin.

Ask him for help today, and hold on to the hope that he will bring his people into the glory God intended.

Jesus paves the way for you and me.

Amen, church?

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for another view of who Jesus is.

We've been learning these last couple weeks that Jesus is greater than everything, that everything exists through him, that he is in majesty right now, that he's so great.

We learn, Lord, that Jesus is greater than all the angels, all the spiritual beings.

And today, Lord, we learn that even though all of that is true, it is also true that you chose to become a human, to experience what it's like to be us.

And you did that to suffer, to die for us, to be resurrected, to have victory over death.

And what we should realize, and we pray you would put in our hearts, Lord, is that you're not far off.

You don't just understand as a concept, but you know our experience.

That you love us, that you're not ashamed of us, that you want us to run to you, even in our sin, even in our fallness.

And that we know when we when we do, Lord, that you call us part of your family, that you call us brothers and sisters, Lord.

I pray you would put that in our hearts.

That today we would run to you, that today we would fall on our knees before Jesus, and we would recognize you, Jesus, for who you are.

We pray this in Jesus' name, and all God's people said, Amen.