Jesus Paves the Way | The Follow Up | Hebrews 2:5–18

So, in your failure, in your brokenness, continue to come to him and lay it down as opposed to feeling like somehow you can clean yourself up first.

Welcome back to the follow-up.

We are on week three.

Week three.

Yep.

And I don't probably no one even notices, but we got new chairs.

Yes.

So we apologize ahead of time if we're swiveling.

I'm liking the new chairs.

Very comfortable for us, and um we're excited to talk about what we all preached on this last week, which is Hebrews 2, 5 through 18.

And really this idea that Jesus paves the way.

Now, one of the things that is super interesting and fascinating to me is we all sit down a few weeks ahead of time and we talk about the passage, we come up with an outline together, but then it we're kind of in charge of like, how are you gonna deliver this and like what illustrations you're gonna put in?

How are you gonna open?

We had vastly different opens this week.

And so I would love for you to just like share like maybe the one-minute version of your opener and why you chose that.

Like, what did you see in the passage that made you think, like, this is a great way to open it?

I want to hear nursery rhymes first.

I'm just saying.

Well, you know, the the thought that a good illustration connects spiritual truth to something that people can relate to.

And so, in uh in a nursery rhyme, you start out from the very beginning with stories of things being broken.

So with my sermon, we did Jack and Jill, and we did Rockaby Baby, and we did Humpty Dumpty, and in each one of those, something ends up irrevocably broken, and then it's like that's it.

Good night, kids.

Oh yeah, you know, and so you grow up with this awareness of something being broken.

And so to relate that to the Bible story of the Bible is relating a story of something that was broken.

However, in this story, it is restored, redeemed by the king himself.

Not all the king's horses and all the king's men, the king himself restoring, and so just kind of encapsulating that simplistic idea that we knew from the point that we're little kids to something we relate to today.

Aaron Ross Powell I like that.

Yeah, I think that connects because you're like, as somebody hearing it, you go, oh, like, right.

I never really thought about how nursery rhymes all end poorly.

Like the rock and bite baby, who's putting the kid in the top of the tray?

Well, or yeah, London Bridges is always a favorite one when you know the backstory of that one.

Yeah.

So Black Plague.

Oh.

Well, someone told me Humpty Dumpty was actually a canon.

I said I never knew I never knew that.

Interesting.

Yeah.

He's not just an egg man.

Yep.

Jack, you actually talked about like kind of this idea of like who's gone before you and standing on the shoulder of giants.

So tell us about that.

For me, I in life in general, I love encouraging people to have mentors, have people to look where where are you now and where are you going.

Um you don't get there on your own.

But the danger in that is sometimes you can get stuck in the in the humanity of it.

Like if I just find the right person, they can pave the way.

And I uh tongue in cheek talked about elite blocker, which the Packers could never mind.

Anyway, yeah, we went there.

Um but but the thing is it's not all humanity-based.

Like let's let's take this to a spiritual perspective.

And who paved the way for us?

There's no one on this planet, even the Apostle Paul was like, look, I can write all of this, but only follow me as I'm following Christ.

He's the one who paves the way.

So that's kind of the introductory introduction.

I like that.

Like Jesus is the ultimate lead blocker.

Absolutely.

Yes.

For our sports people out there.

I like that.

You have a lot of sports analogies.

Uh probably too many.

But I like it.

I like it.

Mine was mine was kind of the idea that I just saw in the passage where it kind of felt like the passage begins pointing out a gap.

And the gap is this that God is mindful of us, even though we're lowly, God is mindful of us, and he's destined us to be rulers, to have glory, to all these things, and yet we don't see that.

And so I was pointing out the gap and saying, okay, that's what the gap is.

How does Jesus actually answer this question?

And so that's kind of where I went with mine.

So um, but man, so fun that we all have the same passage, but we're all, you know, thinking about it differently.

That's it's it's really cool.

So one of the other things I want to talk about here on the front end is why do you think the author of Hebrews so many times is running back to the Old Testament, specifically Psalms, and why does he go to Psalm 8 here?

I think we look at Psalm, first of all, remembering his audience, uh Jewish in nature, very easy tie back to the Old Testament and to David.

I mean, you talk about the the most prolific leader that uh a Hebrew would refer to, it's David.

And you go back to all that, you know, the everything involved in the temple and where David would talk about meeting with the Lord in Psalms.

So I think that Psalms in particular is just the Old Testament is an easy win.

It's a it's a no-brainer for his audience.

Yeah.

I agree.

I think that's well stated.

I don't think I have anything more to add to that.

Yeah, I mean I I think the only thing I'd add to that is these it's one of those things where for them, quoting the psalm, quoting the Old Testament, hits different.

Yeah.

It's not just some wisdom text that is out there that they don't they don't revere.

Like this is their proof text for who God is.

And so like pushing back to that all the time is reinforcing this idea that yes, all of that is true, and Jesus, I'm pointing to Jesus is the answer.

He's the fulfillment of all of these things that you know and hold dear as uh as a you know believer in Jesus now who was Jewish or who is Jewish, you know.

It blew me away.

I looked it up, but like how long was it from Psalm 8 to the writing of Hebrews?

It's a thousand years.

Which means even a thousand, I mean, we're proud that we reached 250 years, and you look at our culture sometimes, it's surprising.

But when you look at a thousand years, and yet the writer of Hebrews can go, you know, it was said once, and everyone who's gonna read that goes, oh yeah, that's David.

You know, or oh, that's that's the Psalms.

So it was so ingrained that Jesus is fulfilling something so ingrained in their expectation, their culture, their history, their writings, both historical and prophetic.

So I I yeah, I think the overlap.

Now to Psalm 8 specific, um it's interesting because I I love how in the in Psalm 1 and beginning of Psalm 2, man, it's a deity of Christ.

We just see Jesus higher than the angels.

We see everything that is glorified about Jesus.

And now the writer is like, hey, we go from Jesus up there to Jesus down here.

And like, God, what is man that you're mindful of him?

W why do you care?

Like, what is it about us and how we screw things up and all this, like why give us this attention?

And I think I love the the the link there from this is how much he cares, and this is why he cares, and this is why Jesus had to happen.

Yep.

So I I think I think that's the bridge that Psalm 8 provides us for someone's thinking, going from, oh, he's way out there to no, actually he cares about us right here.

Yeah.

That's really good.

Okay, Adam, I'm gonna ask you in just a second about your deep dive.

So get ready, because we're super, we're super fascinated.

But before we get there, I want to ask one more question.

The passage talked about Jesus as the pioneer of our faith.

And I thought that was really interesting because pioneer is not a word we would normally use to describe Jesus.

Right.

If you came to, you know, a follower of Christ and you said, like, who is Jesus?

You might say, like, Son of God, you might go to the Old Testament, Prince of Peace, you know, all of the things, we would say all these things.

We wouldn't necessarily go to pioneer.

And so what is the significance of that?

Why why should we care that Jesus pioneers our faith?

I love the the word picture.

Uh when I was looking at this, uh pioneer is also champion, leader, victorious one.

Like it all these words that have to do with something who overcame.

So a pioneer, yeah, it's the one who goes in with the machete and clears the path, and he's the one who made a way for us.

The Bible says he's also the firstborn from the dead, which means we're gonna follow.

So he's the first to do, the first to lead, which he leads by being pioneer, but he also leads because he's victorious.

You don't get through death until you defeat death.

And so he's the pioneer and the the victorious warrior in that process.

I like that a lot.

Yeah.

And and how amazing is it that the author of Hebrews is pointing out to us in this passage yes, it is actually the same God through whom all things exist and are held together, who is in glory and honor and seated at the right hand and all of these things.

It is that same God who also has now come and has entered into our lowly position and pioneered our faith that way.

It's uh it's like astounding to think about that.

Well, when you think of somebody that might have experienced a significant financial loss that can dig a right off or start over, you start from scratch, and to think that the God of the universe, when things went awry, instead of just writing it off and saying, you know what, I'm gonna start over, that he had this plan not only to redeem us, but to do it through his son that involved the suffering of Jesus, where it talks about him dying for everyone.

Like he experienced death, death for everyone.

And through that, that that would become the pathway by which we could be reconciled to God, that he loves us that much that he would do that.

I mean, that's it's humbling, it's incredible, it's one of those moments where when we truly understand it, I think kind of that same picture that we have when we look at Psalm 8, what the psalmist is referring to, like what is man, where it's just reminding us of the bigness and the goodness of God.

I totally stole it, but I use the illustration this weekend of, you know, if you had the opportunity to go die for ants, there's not many takers in the room, you know?

And yet you've got Christ who's deity becoming in chapter one, he's higher than the angels.

In chapter two, he's lower than the angels to do this for us.

You know, when you read mythology or anything where there's a a host of deities, they don't do stuff for us, like it's our job to do it for them.

Right.

And yet here's what Christ does, the being the pioneer for us.

Yeah.

Well, and even I think a little bit of a side note from last week, Jesus being greater than the angels, and even for us to understand in our understanding of angels, because sometimes people have the mentality of when someone passes, oh, yeah, you know, God just needed another angel, or now they're an angel and referring to portion people becoming angels.

And yet what we see even from Hebrews 2 is that's not the case.

No.

Right?

That it's not the angels that he helps, it's the descendants of Abraham.

That we are the ones that were crowned with glory and honor.

Angels are just servants.

And so for us to keep that clear in our minds too, the incredible privilege position we have as humans, those that have been crowned with glory and honor, that that is going to be restored again once we're with Jesus.

But it's not that uh angels are one and the same with us.

Yep, absolutely.

Okay, Adam, take us on our deep dive.

What do you got for us?

Oh man, well, here's here's the thing that uh I did not get to include a little bit yesterday that I wanted to talk about further.

So, in this, you know, we had been going into Psalm 22.

In Hebrews uh 2.12, it says, He says, I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters.

In the assembly, I will sing your praises.

And so he is quoting there Psalm 22, verse 22.

Psalms 22:22

So I was just looking up Psalm 22 in my preparation for that.

And there you get into the exact quote that he has.

I will declare your name to my people, says in the assembly, I will praise you.

And so the people there, it was referred to like kinsmen, people by blood.

And so that's where in quoting it in Hebrews, he's saying, My brothers and sisters, so it's not that he misquoted, but when you look at the entire context of Psalm 22, this is what Jesus quoted from on the cross, where it goes into verse one, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish?

And what we're seeing throughout Psalm 22 is really the heart of Jesus in making these people his own.

And so oftentimes what we're seeing throughout the New Testament is like this recapitulation of what has already been stated in the old, of the fulfillment being through Christ, where Jesus isn't simply quoting something, it has its true meaning in him.

And that is so rich, I think, for us, because as pastors, each of us have done weddings many times, but after the wedding, it's usually not the rehearsal that the couple looks back on fondly and just talks about the rehearsal, right?

It's always the wedding day.

Yeah.

The rehearsal was just the different times you went through it to get ready for the actual event itself.

Well, through the Old Testament, we're seeing the rehearsals, we're seeing the framework, we're seeing the types all leading up to Jesus.

And so, Psalm 22, I would encourage anybody to go reading through that because in that you see what Jesus did in order to make us his people, his brothers and sisters, and the fact now that Jesus is not just this honorary figure enthroned, but that he's our brother.

I mean, I think that is so significant too.

That kind of relationship that is is real.

There's a warmth to it, there's a belonging.

I mean, that kind of belonging that we have with God through Christ, I think is so significant.

Yeah.

I found it interesting too.

A brother who's not ashamed of us.

Yeah.

Um there's a lot I've done I could probably be ashamed of.

Right.

You know, if if Jesus wanted to look for something to say, oh, I don't I don't know if I want to attach my name to that, probably find a few things on the repertoire of Jack's life.

And yet he's the brother who's the family member who's not ashamed of us.

Right.

And there's no if like after that.

Right.

Like if you did everything you're supposed to, then you're not sure.

Checked all the boxes, yeah.

Right.

If you didn't disappoint him, it's just no, he's not ashamed to call us his brother.

I think I think it's really powerful from what you said, Adam, that that is the the psalm that Jesus is is quoting on the cross.

And interesting to think about, like he had at least partially in mind that he's on the cross in that moment saying those words that I'm bringing with me, again, the pioneer, I'm bringing with me into this death, in this resurrection, my family.

That's that's super powerful.

I love that.

That's awesome.

Okay, so the last thing that I want to talk about, it's been a great conversation.

I want to wrap up with this one idea, which is this passage towards the end talks about Jesus not just understanding us because he's been us, but also that he helps us.

And so, what does that really practically mean for us, like on a week-to-week basis?

I think what's so important to realize is that it's not just Jesus was a good model, a good example, but we're on our own.

It's just that, hey, remember what Jesus went through.

It's in the moment, present help.

So it's not just your own strength.

It's not going to be your own strength that gets you through.

It's not going to be your own ability.

It's faith in him, depending upon him, that in the moment when we're being tempted, that we can cry out to him, knowing he's present and he desires to help, and he has the ability to help us overcome that.

That in any temptation, he provides the way of escape.

And that's so much more important than just kind of remember the Alamo kind of thing.

Remember the lessons of the past.

Know there's someone present that has the ability to help you.

Yeah.

I I really leaned into the words faithful and merciful high priest.

Because it's not just a high priest could be a title, you know, we slap on our door or name tag, but those two traits, faithful, and that he did it.

You can go through the Old Testament, you can see the priests who weren't faithful and who were crooked, and yet Jesus fulfills it faithfully.

And not just faithful to the letter of the law, which he was, but also faith merciful in how he does it from the right heart.

And when you go through what Jesus went through, you know, loss of family, John the Baptist, a family and a best friend.

Um raised by a single mom, basically, Joseph, we know, is out of his life early on.

Uh, think of the betrayals, think about how he was talked about, think of the abuse he went through, think of, I mean, you can walk through life, and I joke, did he have to deal with the loss of Wi-Fi?

No.

You know, the the the the tra the struggles.

But man, when you look at the true heart issues that America that humans face, you know, mere mortals, going back to the beginning of the chapter or beginning of the passage, um, he experienced it.

So when he goes to the Father on our behalf, he's not just like going through a prayer checklist in three minutes.

He mercifully understands what we're going through.

And I know we get later in pr in Hebrews, we're gonna get more to our great high priest.

But boy, this this for me, that's really on a personal level, that just hit home.

Like that he's not just up there doing this, he's doing this with a heart and a passion for us.

You know, he gets it.

Yeah.

And that kept going through my mind, going through that passage, uh, 1 John 1 9, with that, you know, that Jesus is the faithful and merciful high priest.

And yet, when we confess our sin, according to 1 John 1 9, that he's faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

And so for anyone that's out there thinking, I I just blew it again.

Yeah.

This thing that I told myself I would never do, I even promised God I would never do it again.

I did it again, now I feel like I can't go to him because I messed up.

I I broke my promise.

It's like, go back to him.

He's faithful, he's merciful, he's faithful and just to forgive.

And so, as the perfect high priest, again, you'd rather have him representing you before God than yourself.

Right.

If you're only representing yourself, then man, your your track record, you can't do it.

So, in your failure, in your brokenness, continue to come to him and lay it down as opposed to feeling like somehow you can clean yourself up first.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah, and I I kind of I had this sense of what Jesus accomplished is not just in the past.

Right?

It's not just he did this work for us and now it applies forward, but he's actually right now our help.

Yeah.

He if we are in temptation today, in the next five minutes, in the next hour, we can actually run to Jesus because of what he pioneered for us, because of who he is.

And I think that's I think sometimes we remove Jesus' like real presence from us and we just think about what he he accomplished in that and we kind of put it in that box when it's like Jesus is right here for us.

Yeah, I think that's so true.

Sometimes where it kind of sounds like theory as opposed to reality.

Like something, yeah, I believe that, but do I really believe that?

Yeah.

Does that really soak in?

Do you really run to Jesus?

Right.

Yeah.

I like that.

And you'll find out when it hits the fan.

Yeah.

You know, it it all sounds good to preach and teach and, you know, come up with storylines about, but man, let life happen.

Yeah.

You know?

Well, great conversation, guys.

Um, thank you so much for joining the follow-up this week.

Uh, we would love for you to like, comment, subscribe, all of that.

A big note for next week.

We will not be releasing the follow-up until Tuesday, and we'll be doing it online.

We actually have a conference that we have to go to.

Have to, we get to go to.

Looking forward to it.

And so we're gonna connect with some other pastors from around the Forest Lakes district for the UFCA.

We're excited for that, but it'll be released Tuesday afternoon.

So tune in next week, Tuesday afternoon.

Have a great week.