1. "Friends, have you noticed this before? Or is Christianity just so familiar to you, you forget what an absolutely weird message we have?"

2. "It is the nature of sin and of the fall to hide the truth from us by blinding us to it, by making the important seem obscure. The most significant seem small. The way God has decreed seem unlikely. God's very promises seem impossible. It is the nature of sin to make the truth seem absurd."

3. "Being in an age of propaganda and disinformation is nothing new. In fact, it is as old as the creation itself. There is a contest going on of more significance than any earthly war. It is a conflict focused ultimately on God and immediately on us as His image bearers about who we will believe and love and fear and serve."

4. "I think Christianity by explaining the concept we call sin, that is doing what God has told us not to do, something as simple as that, is like the puzzle piece you need to fit in to make the whole puzzle of reality make sense."

5. "This world, friends, your life and mine, are crisscrossed with examples of bad rulers. And abusive authority from marital unfaithfulness to rockets fired into hospitals, to weak people knowingly taken advantage of. Our world is full of the smoking ruins of great possibilities and the right gone wrong in petty tyrannies and terrible tragedies."

6. "So much of what we do when we gather here is to rekindle that heartwarming hope amidst the cold winds of ill fortune in our lives."

7. "What his opponents thought was his flaw and his fault was really his boast. What his opponents thought was his shame was his glory. They only saw the Son coming down. They didn't realize that he came down to rescue us and bring us up."

8. "Every other religion on this planet flatters you. It acts like you're alive and it tells you things you can do to win God's favor. Christianity alone tells you the truth. You are at the bottom of the pit and you do not need a ladder sent down that you can climb up. You need a Savior to come and give you life and rescue you."

9. "I wonder what you see when you look ahead right now in your own life, what the future looks like to you. Is the future you can see as dark as a grave? Or is it as bright as a tomb emptied by the resurrection of the body?"

10. "In becoming a Christian, you are not excused from the sufferings of the fallen world. So do not be confused by the sufferings that you experience in Christ."

Observation Questions

1. According to Hebrews 2:5, to whom did God NOT subject "the world to come," and what does this tell us about the ruling authority in the age to come?

2. In the quotation from Psalm 8 found in Hebrews 2:6-8, what does the author say God did for man, and what position was man given in relation to "everything"?

3. What contrast does the author draw in Hebrews 2:8 between what we should expect based on God's design and what we actually observe "at present"?

4. According to Hebrews 2:9, for how long was Jesus "made lower than the angels," and what is His current status as described in this verse?

5. What reason does Hebrews 2:9 give for why Jesus was made lower than the angels and suffered death?

6. The sermon references Mark 3:21 regarding Jesus' family. What did His family say about Him when He began teaching publicly, and what did they attempt to do?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why does the author of Hebrews quote Psalm 8—a passage originally about humanity in general—in order to make an argument about Jesus Christ specifically? How does understanding humanity's story help us understand Jesus' story?

2. The sermon describes a "V-shaped" pattern of going down and then coming up. How does this pattern apply both to humanity's condition and to Christ's work, and why is this connection theologically significant?

3. Why was it necessary for the Son of God to become "lower than the angels" in order to accomplish salvation? What would have been impossible if He had remained in His exalted position?

4. The phrase "taste death for everyone" (Hebrews 2:9) includes the Greek word "huper" (for/on behalf of). What does this word reveal about the nature of Christ's death, and how does it differ from merely dying as a martyr for a cause?

5. How does the author's argument in Hebrews 2:5-9 actually turn the opponents' objection (that Jesus died, proving His inferiority) into evidence for Christ's superiority and the success of His mission?

Application Questions

1. The sermon states that sin makes "the important seem obscure" and "God's very promises seem impossible." In what specific area of your life right now are you tempted to doubt God's promises because your circumstances make them seem unlikely or absurd?

2. Knowing that the pattern for Christ—and therefore for Christians—is "suffering then glory," how might this truth change the way you interpret a current difficulty or hardship you are facing this week?

3. The preacher urged believers to "fuel the flame of your faith around the fire of this heartwarming fellowship." What is one concrete step you could take this week to share God's promises or hear testimony of His faithfulness from another believer?

4. The sermon challenged listeners not to be "confused" by suffering as though it signals they are going the wrong way. Is there a suffering in your life that has made you question your faith or God's goodness? How does Hebrews 2:9-10 speak to that confusion?

5. If Jesus' humiliation and death—what the world saw as His shame—was actually His "boast" and the means of our salvation, how should this reshape the way you respond when following Christ brings embarrassment, rejection, or misunderstanding from others?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Philippians 2:5-11 — This passage presents the same pattern of Christ's voluntary humiliation followed by exaltation, reinforcing the sermon's teaching on the "V-shaped" journey from lowliness to glory.

2. Psalm 8:1-9 — Reading the full psalm in its original context helps us see the wonder of human dignity and dominion that the author of Hebrews applies to Christ and His people.

3. Genesis 1:26-31 — This creation account establishes humanity's original commission to have dominion, which Hebrews 2 shows has been fulfilled and restored through Christ.

4. 1 Peter 4:12-19 — Peter's teaching on not being surprised by suffering and sharing in Christ's sufferings directly parallels the sermon's application about the Christian pattern of suffering then glory.

5. Romans 8:16-25 — Paul describes believers as heirs with Christ who share in His sufferings in order to share in His glory, expanding on the hope that we will reign with Him.

Sermon Main Topics

Christianity Is a Surprising and Often Offensive Religion

The Structure of the Argument: Man's Position and the Son's Incarnation (Hebrews 2:5-9)

Humanity Is Made Lower Than the Angels But Promised Future Exaltation

The Son of God Became Lower Than the Angels to Die for Us

The Son Was Raised and Crowned, and So Will His Followers Be

Implications: Do Not Be Confused by Suffering, But Be Confident in Glory

Detailed Sermon Outline

It may be hard to tell meeting in a building like this one that's over a century old, and after 2,000 years proclaiming and catechizing and explaining, but Christianity is a surprising religion.

Go back to when it was first presented. Time and again there is confusion, and incomprehension, and even shock.

Go to 1 Peter 4:4. Peter referred to the fact that the Christians pre-conversion friends were surprised, that's the word he uses, surprised. By the way, the Christians would no longer join with them in their sins.

John puts it even more sharply: Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.

Or do you remember that time when Paul was explaining the gospel to a ruler, and the ruler interrupted him, bursting out, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, you are out of your mind. Your great learning is driving you out of your mind, out of your mind. That's what this guy said when he first heard the Christian gospel.

Of course, Jesus had warned His disciples that this is how it would be.

He warned them that they would be maligned and even hated.

Jesus experienced this Himself. He was aware of the Pharisees' malice toward Him because of the good news He brought. When He taught about His own identity, we read in John chapter 10 verse 20, many of them said He has a demon and is insane. Why listen to Him? In fact, many of His own family had said that as soon as He began teaching publicly about Himself, who He was, why He had come.

We read in Mark 321, When his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, 'He is out of his mind.' Friends, have you noticed this before? Or is Christianity just so familiar to you, you forget what an absolutely weird message we have?

Look at the first century. Look at the sources. Look at what happened when people first encountered this message. Again and again they were offended, even shocked. We could multiply references.

We forget sometimes what a surprising religion Christianity is. We shouldn't, but we do. You see, we expect the truth to be obvious. The religion we want is religion that is expected and respected and intuitive. And common.

It's what Martin Luther would call the theology of glory. It's the religion of best sellers, your best life now, and universal praise. Imagine the kind of end of the feel good story of the local news. Now, Pete, that's one thing we should all be able to agree on this holiday season, as the last cuddly puppy finds a home.

That's the kind of religion we want.

But friends, it is the nature of sin and of the fall to hide the truth from us by blinding us to it, by making the important seem obscure. The most significant seem small. The way God has decreed seem unlikely. God's very promises seem impossible. It is the nature of sin to make the truth seem absurd.

We can hear the serpent saying to the woman, Did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden. Oh my friends, being in an age of propaganda and disinformation is nothing new. In fact, it is as old as the creation itself. There is a contest going on of more significance than any earthly war. It is a conflict focused ultimately on God and immediately on us as His image bearers about who we will believe and love and fear and serve.

With all of our lives. This age-old conflict was the conflict that seemed to be raging hot around the Jerusalem congregation in the first century A.D. filled with Jewish Christians, some of whom were beginning to succumb to the kind of pressure represented by our pre-conversion friends, by the hating world and shocked Festus and the malicious Pharisees and the embarrassed family of Jesus. It seemed from the first chapter of Hebrews that we looked at last month that some were trying to round the edges and soften the shock of the Christian message about Jesus. They longed for the more respectable religion of the ancient Jewish temple and rituals complete with popular and inoffensive teachings on angels. The writer of this letter, the preacher of this sermon, and laid it out in the first chapter how the Son of God is greater than the angels, showing it from Scripture.

Chapter 2 then began with a warning that the Son's message is true and the Son's message should be heeded, carefully studied and obeyed. Now in chapter 2, beginning at verse 5, the writer anticipates the most obvious objection to the supremacy of the Son of God over the angels. And that's the fact that Jesus became a man. He was incarnate. So Anselm succinctly put the question, why did God become man?

And we see our author here has a good answer. He again turns to the Psalms and from the Psalms teaches us first about human beings and then specifically about why the eternal Son of God became a man, a human. And how, in fact, that did not show that He was inferior to the angels, but was, in fact, on God's ordained path to His exaltation and in His exaltation that He would not be alone. Let's turn now to the passage and listen as I read Hebrews chapter 2 verses 5 to 9. You'll find it on page 1001 in the Bibles provided.

Hebrews chapter 2 verses 5 to 9.

For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere, 'What is man that you are mindful of him? Or the Son of Man that you care for Him. You made Him for a little while lower than the angels. You have crowned Him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under His feet.

Now in putting everything in subjection to Him, He left nothing outside His control. At present we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him. But we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God, He he might taste death for everyone. I pray that as we look through these verses and consider them, Christ will appear even greater to you than He does right now.

Let me just explain the structure of this sermon briefly. What I'm going to do is make a brief introductory comment here on verse 5, and then I will move to the basic argument that this author makes. It's in two parts. He talks about man and then he talks about the Son of God. About man, he basically says man is lower, made lower than the angel, but will be exalted.

And then about the Son of God, he says the Son of God became man, lower than the angels, but he has been exalted and crowned with glory and honor. So you see, that's the argument that he makes. He anticipates the argument for angelic supremacy because Jesus died. That's the sort of killer argument the pro-angel party has. He anticipates it here and he explains here is the position of man.

He goes to Psalm 8 for that. And then he shows how the story of Jesus maps onto the story of man, but how it doesn't show his inferiority except maybe for a little while, but now already Jesus has been crowned with glory and honor. And in Him having tasted death for everyone, He'll bring us along with Him. That's His argument. Let's examine it a little more carefully.

We begin by recalling the argument in chapter 1, the Son is greater than the angels. We could read it again but that's what it says again and again. And then we come to our passage here in chapter 2 verse 5, For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come of which we're speaking. So this is yet another statement underlining the author's main point in these first couple of chapters, that Christ, the Son of God, is greater than the angels. We've seen in the comparison above that the Son is the Son.

Angels were never called Son by God. We've seen that the angels worship the Son, that the angels are changeable servants. While the Son is the everlasting ruler. And then in chapter 2, verses 1 to 4, the author warned these early Christians not to neglect such a great salvation that came through the Son because there was nothing else like it for sinners provided by God. And now here the author picks back up this theme of the superiority of the Son over the angels.

And he's not merely repeating what he said in the first chapter, but he's preparing to take on what I assume was the most substantial objection to what he had been arguing. But Jesus died. He was killed. He begins by restating the comparison, mentioning that no promise exists in the Scriptures that angels would be ruling in the age to come. They are still servants.

This is a glance back to chapter 1 verse 8 which refers to the Son's throne or chapter 1 verse 13 in which the Son's final status is reigning victor over His enemies is contrasted with the angel's status There in chapter 1:14 is ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation. So this world to come, the world of the Son's messianic rule and reign, which He inaugurated, you see up there in chapter 1:6 where He became the firstborn into the world. This is the world in which His messianic reign has begun as He's seated at the Father's right hand in power and great glory. This is the realm. But how will the writer answer this most obvious objection to the superiority of the Son, His death on the cross?

And he answers it in two ways. First, by talking about humanity, and then by talking about the Son who became human. First, the author talks about humanity. And he begins by acknowledging that people are lower, that's the word, lower than the angels. They're not as great as the angels.

He quotes Psalm 8 that Mark just read to us. Look there in chapter 2, verse 6. It has been testified somewhere, and that doesn't mean he couldn't remember where it is, but if you look at how the author here cites Scripture, he doesn't give a chapter and verse. He knows it's all true. It's the Word of God.

He cites it knowing that they'll be familiar with it. It has been testified somewhere, what is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him. You made him for a little while lower than the angels. Now, an important note here. In verse 6 when it says, Son of Man, I don't think that's a reference to the Messianic Son of Man, like in Daniel chapter 7.

Usually in the Old Testament it's not. In Daniel chapter 7 it is, and there are a few places after that. But usually it simply means to be a human. So all of those hymns there in verses 6 and 7 and 8, I think, are referring, at least in the first reference, to us as human beings. Now insofar as Christ is incarnate, it will end up referring to him.

But it's fundamentally referring to us as human beings. That's the argument we need to hear him make because that's how he's going to answer the objections by explaining what's going on with people. So by creation and the fall, even our limited human greatness has been damaged. The Bible teaches that man's full and true greatness is currently largely hidden. Having been so injured by the fall of our first parents into sin, rebellion and death.

The psalmist here acknowledges that mortal human beings seem scarcely to be fit objects of divine contemplation. Why would God even care about the likes of you and me? The psalm even explicitly acknowledges that we were made lower than the angels. What does it mean lower than the angels? Well, we can muse on this.

Kids, I think this could be a great lunchtime conversation. Start listing the ways. Get your parents, your siblings to help you figure out what are the ways people are lower than angels. I mean, just start thinking of them. Number one, they can fly, we can't.

Number two, they don't die, we do. Number three, they don't need money or food, we do. Number four, they are in God's immediate presence, they see Him, we don't. And we could keep going, there's four to get you started. But do that over lunch, see what He means by this.

All I know is that again and again in the Bible, when angels appear to people, people get scared and they fall down and sometimes they even try to worship them. Whereas angels never do that to people.

I think it's pretty clear evidence that man was made lower than the angels.

So you made him for a little while lower than the angels. It's an interesting way for him to argue. The author seems to be preparing the ground to accept his opponent's main objection. People are less than angels. Okay, granted.

Isn't that going to make him lose his whole case? Just hang on, keep watching. In some ways, every scientific discovery seems to reinforce ideas of our fragility and smallness. Our lives are dependent on so many elements of our environment being precisely as they are. Human lives often end early and even in tragedy.

And the further out our telescopes look, we seem to become a smaller and smaller part of a more and more obviously vast cosmic reality. Part of our smallness is because we've diminished ourselves by our sin. So if you're here today and you're not a Christian, I'm very glad you're here. Thank you for coming. Maybe you've come to see someone get baptized.

Maybe you've come with a friend you're just out of town visiting. Maybe they told you it's a weird place, the singing is good. I'm not sure why you're here on a Sunday morning, but we're glad to have you. You're always welcome. Just wanted to point out this one thing about Christianity.

I don't think you can understand your life accurately. And I don't mean to be offensive in saying that, but I do think that's true. I used to be an agnostic myself. I think something that puzzles, at least a lot of non-Christians that I know, is what's gone wrong with the world or what's gone wrong with my life? And they don't have a good way to come up with an answer to that unless they just give into general despair.

You could do that. You could become a kind of nihilist. But most of us by our self survival instincts, we don't do that. We assume there's something worth getting up for in the morning. I think Christianity tells you the truth.

I think Christianity by explaining the concept we call sin, that is doing what God has told us not to do, something as simple as that, is like the puzzle piece you need to fit in to make the whole puzzle of reality make sense. So I would just ask you, talk to your non-Christian, to your Christian friend you came with about sin afterwards. Try to, maybe they'll help you examine their life to see sin. You don't have to talk about your own life. They'll help you examine their own life and see where they have sinned and the implications that's had in their lives and how God has led them to repent of those sins and change and even how when they haven't been able to as much as they want, God brings forgiveness.

That's a good news for you today.

Adam sinned, and in him we all did. We've all confirmed that distrust and disobedience to God and His will countless times in our own days. The initial splendor of the sinless couple in Genesis 1 was lost, and we became subject to sin and death. This is the glitch in your program, the fly in your ointment, the moral leaven that causes the whole loaf to rise in rebellion against our good Creator God. God, you and I have become morally predisposed to sin.

Besides everything else should lead us to think how greatly should this humble us and lead us to amazement and thanksgiving that God should even, as the psalmist says here, even spare a thought for us, that He should look on us as anything other than in righteous judgment. But this is where the other part of what we see here about people comes in. So you need to see this first part about the lowness that People are made lower than the angels, and that lowness has been even increased and intensified by our sin. But notice this, people will be greater than angels. Look at that passage in chapter 2, in verse 7, you, have crowned Him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under His feet.

Now in putting everything in subjection to Him, He left nothing outside His control. At present we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. So in that last phrase of Psalm 8:6, you, have put everything, all things under his feet, the psalmist remembers that this creature he's writing of is made specially in God's own image. Furthermore, man was commanded and commissioned in Genesis 1:28, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Friends, that's what it means to have everything in subjection under his feet.

And you know some good news in the last chapter of the Bible. Do you know what it says about the people who are servants of God? Revelation 22, verse 5, They will reign forever and ever. It's Revelation 22:5. Now, the middle sentence here in Hebrews chapter 2 verse 8 simply is amplifying the statement that the psalmist just made.

It's like he's restating it. Now, in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. That's everything, everything being put in subjection to him. He's restating it. So he is saying that man too has a greatness, but there is this catch to it in the last sentence of verse 8.

At present we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. Now what does it mean that we don't see?

Not that it is the case, but we simply don't have eyes to see it. That's how some people could misread this. Oh, it's really the case, but we just don't have the faith to see it. No, that's not what he's saying. He's just saying, It isn't the case.

It is not the case. Everything is not in subjection to you and me right now. It's just not. That's obvious. If you look around the world or look around your own week, man today misrules and is misruled.

This world, friends, your life and mine, are crisscrossed with examples of bad rulers. And abusive authority from marital unfaithfulness to rockets fired into hospitals, to weak people knowingly taken advantage of. Our world is full of the smoking ruins of great possibilities and the right gone wrong in petty tyrannies and terrible tragedies. We've taken the dominion that we were given in Genesis 1:28 and we've misused it to serve lesser gods for baser purposes of self-enrichment or nationalism. And so frustrations fester and hopeful fruitfulness is replaced by pointless destruction.

The day is coming when hard jobs are no more, as we hope to sing together tonight, there'll be no pain up there to bear. But that day is clearly not here yet.

Of course, the statement gives us hope of all that we've always wanted to be. By this, our problems are promised to be temporary. We who are in Christ are promised to outlast all of our problems. We are even now being prepared for our time to reign everlastingly with Christ. So, kids, you could make a second list.

After you make a list of all the ways that angels are higher than us, we're lower than them, you could talk about how eventually we will be greater than the angels. Now, what does that mean? Come up with that list also. Brothers and sisters, so much of what we do when we gather here is to rekindle that heartwarming hope amidst the cold winds of ill fortune in our lives. We gather and speak God's promises to each other.

We give testimony to each other of God's faithfulness, particularly in the sweet testimonies we hear on Sunday night again and again as we hear from folks. We join our voices together in singing openly and passionately to our Heavenly Father, I need Thee, oh, I need Thee, every hour I need Thee. Every moment we spend together in prayer today is a testament of our faith in what is coming tomorrow, who hopes for what he sees. And yet we do hope because of the promises of God. Brothers and sisters, continue to fuel the flame of your faith around the fire of this heartwarming fellowship as we share God's promises in our lives with each other.

So that's what the author does first and mainly in our passage. He prepares to acknowledge at least the temporary inferiority of people like you and me. But he really only does this in order to explain how it is that the superior son's story maps onto our own story and so changes it forever. The author here is setting the trap for his opponents to walk into, thinking that he's conceding the case when in fact he is showing them the very thing they have to concede and understand, and when they do come to understand it, then they see the way out, that the Son has led us into salvation. So let's turn to the second half now to the Son, and our preacher frankly acknowledges that the Son became lesser.

He did take on our lowly status, but the Son did this, why? In order to die for us. If He was never incarnate, He could never have died for us. In order to die for us, He must take on flesh and experience our inferiority to the angels for a little while, the author says. Look again at that last sentence in verse 8.

At present we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him, but we see Him who was for a little while made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone. Notice in these two sentences here there's a side by side contrast between what isn't and what is, what we don't see and what we do see. What isn't is there in that last sentence of verse 8. What we don't see is everything in subjection to him. And that him there is man.

It's mankind. It's humanity still failing to live up to our creation commission as well as our eternal calling in Christ. That's what isn't there yet. But then in verse 9 we see what is. Him, and this him is Jesus, crowned with glory and honor.

Now more on that in just a moment. But first and crucially, the author concedes that even Jesus for a little while was made lower than the angels.

Friends, perhaps the very point that was scandalous to some Christians or some considering following Christ, the author frankly acknowledges here. In becoming a man, the Son joined Himself to the shared lot of fallen human beings in being for a little while made lower than the angels. The critics and the doubters were right to have noticed this. The Christ that we preach is not some Olympian God come to earth to play at the appearance of being made human for a while. No.

Though the Son of God was without sin, He was for a little while made lower than the angels. He became one of these men. And so he too is being described here in this citation of Psalm 8.

But there was a purpose in this taking on flesh, in this exposing of himself to the fickle faith of his fallible and fallen followers. You see it there in that phrase, the suffering of death. Whereas the author's opponents may have expected that he would have been ashamed of the cross, the preacher himself brings it up. In fact, the cross which some were ashamed of as unworthy of such a great being was in fact the reason that the Son of God had become a man, as it is written here, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. No incarnation, no crucifixion.

No crucifixion, no being able to die, as he puts it here, for everyone. There in Germ is the idea of substitution, that huper, that for. His death was undertaken by Christ himself in order to benefit and bless, to help and rescue others, to save those lost in their own sins. Friends, you and I might in the strange providence of God, die for something. We might die for a cause, possibly.

But Jesus died for, in the sense of in order to accomplish a particular end, far more certainly than even the martyr starving himself to make a point about justice. No, Jesus was procuring with his life. He was dying for these people. He was the substitutionary sacrifice dying in their place, taking the penalty and the punishment punishment for all of those who would ever turn and trust in him before his heavenly father. And so having done with it entirely, he has provided the way whereby God not only says, your sins, if you put your faith in him, are forgiven, but you are now welcome to fellowship with him freely.

He not only says you may go because your sins are pardoned, he says come, because now I have this love for you in my son. God. Friends, this is what Jesus has done in His death on the cross. Talk to your non-Christian, talk to your Christian friend rather, about what it would mean for you to follow Jesus Christ. Listen to the testimonies that we're about to hear in just a few minutes from those being baptized.

And imagine what it could be for you to begin following Christ today. Pray that God would help you understand that. Think of how different your life would be this week if you were a follower of Jesus Christ. Friends, Jesus' birth and death were necessary for the Son to die as a representative, for Him to die a substitutionary death. That being even for a little while lower than the angels was essential to the Son's ministry.

It wasn't an embarrassment. It was the point. It was only by the Son's being so humiliated that the Son was able to taste death for us. What his opponents thought was his flaw and his fault was really his boast. What his opponents thought was his shame was his glory.

They only saw the Son coming down. They didn't realize that he came down to rescue us and bring us up. My non-Christian friends, never be deceived by the thought that you can earn God's favor. Every other religion on this planet flatters you. It acts like you're alive and it tells you things you can do to win God's favor.

Christianity alone tells you the truth. You are at the bottom of the pit and you do not need a ladder sent down that you can climb up. You need a Savior to come and give you life and rescue you. That's the truth that we see in God's Word. That's the truth that Jesus Christ taught His disciples, and that's what's reflected throughout the New Testament.

For God to love you and me, we need a substitute, and we need God's grace. We need God to come to us. And in Jesus Christ, He has come. Brothers and sisters, we live in those days when Christ's reign has begun but not yet been completed. We live through through pain and sorrow still, couples struggling with infertility like we were thinking about in one course seminar class this morning.

Some single people still struggling with powerfully with loneliness. Those who have been granted families even, thereby not spared from all pain, remember how Jesus' family interacted with him, ashamed of him. They publicly denounced him as crazy. They tried to have him shut up and carried off. The appointed sufferings of the Messiah are being filled up now in his body, the church.

What enduring hopes live in this dying world? We live longing to see these hopes that we hear when we come to church. In passages like these we're encouraged by reading that how things are now is not how they are always going to be. And so our prayers, confessing our sins, continue. And making known our needs continue.

And for God's increasing work in our lives and in each other and around the world continue. And they continue in hope because, as we read here, the Son of God was raised up above the angels. Do you notice that in verse 9? Jesus' inferiority was only for a little while. And we see too that He has already been crowned with glory and honor in His resurrection and ascension and His sitting down at the right hand of the Majesty on high as He put it up in chapter 1.

Brothers and sisters, just as the sun has been crowned, so too will those following Him be crowned. I wonder what you see when you look ahead right now in your own life, what the future looks like to you. Is the future you can see as dark as a grave? Or is it as bright as a tomb emptied by the resurrection of the body?

We don't want to leave Christ to follow anyone else. We trust Christ in the way He is leading us. You remember the old saying, Born once, die twice. Born twice, die once.

We Christians are those who are born again as we believe the truth about Jesus Christ tasting death for sinners like us. So as Jesus is, we will be. First we die and then we're raised, suffering then glory. What that first man failed to do in the Garden of Eden, the second Adam, Jesus Christ, did in the Garden of Gethsemane. He trusted His Heavenly Father.

He obeyed Him in entirely self-giving love and trust. So, my non-Christian friend, that very point which some have taken to be Christianity's shame, Christ crucified, I urge you to understand as our boast. We have been so loved by God. In fact, this is how God has loved everyone who will turn from their sins and trust in Christ. Will you believe?

Perhaps like some before you, like many of us here, you've thought, Unless I see, I'll never believe. Well, when one said that to Jesus in the Gospels, Jesus said, Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. I wonder what you've seen that would make you believe. I wonder what you could see that would make you believe. I wonder what else would make you believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God who tasted death for all who would believe.

I pray that the mutual love that you've seen and perhaps even enjoyed here among this congregation provokes you to further thought and hope and even to embrace Jesus Christ as your own Savior. The Son was made lower than the angels, was incarnated, in order that He might become one of us, and so represent us, and so be a substitutionary sacrifice for us in our sins, and so might be raised for our justification. He was crowned with glory and honor so that we too may be, so that we may reign with Him forever. So far is Psalm 8 from being a strike against Christ, it's another prophecy fulfilled in Him. The Son of God is superior to the angels, just like we were thinking about a few weeks ago from Philippians 2.

When He was crucified, He went down depth even to the death, death on the cross, and yet then He was exalted. Friends, this is the way we see again. I think Bobby called it a V, the going down and then the coming up, the going down and then the coming up. That's what we've seen here. We've seen two V's, we've seen the man lower than the angels, but there is this glory to come.

And so Jesus has mapped onto that. Jesus came down, that's right, the critics were right, he was lower than the angels, he did die, that's true, but he did that in order to be raised up. Friends, suffering than glory. Suffering than glory is the normal pattern for the Christian. Turn over to 1 Peter.

Let me just very close. 1 Peter 4.

Look there in verse 12. This is how Peter put it. Beloved, do not be surprised. He only writes that because they're going to be surprised. So he tells them, Don't be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes to you to test you.

As though something strange were happening to you, but rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

Look there a few verses later in chapter 5 verse 1, I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed. Oh, elders especially, take that verse and meditate it on it this afternoon. Consider what he's saying there. Look down at verse 6. Here's a good moral, ethical summary.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God. So that at the proper time He may exalt you. Friends, it's not just Peter that writes like this. This is the pattern of the Christian. Paul writes like this all the time in Philippians 2 or in 2 Corinthians 13:4.

You don't need to turn there, I'll just read it to you. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13:4, For he, referring to Jesus, was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God, for we also are weak in him. But in dealing with you, we will live with him by the power of God. Friends, this is all rooted in what Jesus himself taught. If you were to think in the earthly ministry of Jesus, where was his most glorious time before the resurrection?

Where would you go? I think you'd go to the Transfiguration. Matthew, chapter 17, Even here at His most obviously glorious point, what is He teaching? Matthew, chapter 17, verse 9, and as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, Tell no one the vision until the Son of Man is raised from the dead. And the disciples asked Him, Why then do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?

He answered, Elijah does come, and he will restore all things. But I tell you, Elijah has come already, and they did not recognize him, but did to man whatever they pleased. So also the Son of Man will certainly suffer at their hands. So you see, he's teaching that he's suffering at their hands, but then he said up there in verse 9, he will be raised from the dead. It's Jesus who taught us this pattern of suffering then followed by glory.

That was the pattern of Christ, and that will be the pattern we follow here. Just two implications for this briefly. Number one, therefore don't be confused. If you're seeing all kinds of suffering in your life and you're wondering, are these signposts, I'm going the wrong way? All these very popular preachers on television tell me that if I'm seeing this suffering, it's saying something bad about my religion, about my faith, that I don't have much faith, that I'm clearly going the wrong way.

Is that the truth? Friends, that's not the truth. According to the Bible, when you're going the right way in a fallen world, you'll be going upstream. You'll find some things that are hard and even very hard. In becoming a Christian, you are not excused from the sufferings of the fallen world.

So do not be confused by the sufferings that you experience in Christ. And then a second implication, be confident, be confident. If you're saying, Mark, I became a Christian three years ago, I've been trying, it's just this is not really that good. Friends, maybe you didn't read the not even the small print, but the medium-sized print. I mean, just read your Bible.

Nobody said it's gonna be really good in this life. Yes, there's the fruit of the Spirit, there's warm fellowship, you'll have all the fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and lands. I mean, you know, yes, there's promises in this life. But with them you'll have sufferings and persecution and Jesus put it as take up your cross, which at the time was not a piece of jewelry. Very serious call.

So friends, you can be confident that what we're called to in Christ is a good call, but it's never promised that it's going to balance out in the positive on this side of death. In fact, if we spend ourselves as we should, that positive balance will be seen particularly after death. So be confident as you move ahead in following Christ. The way looks dark on the way down, but then trust me, the glory is coming.

The author of this letter to the Hebrews has done in our passage A very careful job here in just a few verses of recounting the Son's evident humiliation and the reason for it and His subsequent exaltation. And He's explained how it is that in fact we too can be included in the Son's exaltation. Will you repent of your sins and believe in Him? Trust this Jesus Christ. Even though he is so despised in this world.

Andrea earlier read us in John 19. You know, that had to be some of the greatest publicity Jesus ever got. He's in front of the rulers. He's in front of the powerful people of the day. And what's happening?

He's being disowned. He's being publicly mocked. He's being, people are calling for his death.

I've shared with you before the way one Richmond pastor put it, meditating on Christ's trial before Pilate, but my guess is you've not all memorized it yet, so I'm not done sharing it with you. I want to continue to help you to see the spiritual reality that's going on, even at those times when it seems like the Son is humiliated. What's really going on? I think this captures exactly the spirit that the author of Hebrews is making in his argument. When Christ uttered in the judgment hall of Pilate the remarkable words, I am a king, He pronounced a sentiment fraught with unspeakable dignity and power.

His enemies might deride His pretensions and express their mockery of His claim by presenting Him with a crown of thorns, a reed, a purple robe, and nailing Him to a cross. But in the eyes of unfallen intelligences, he was a king. A higher power presided over that derisive ceremony and converted it into a real coronation. That crown of thorns was indeed the diadem of empire. That royal robe was the badge of royalty.

That fragile reed was the symbol of unbounded power, and that cross, the throne of dominion, which shall never end. That's what the writer to the Hebrews is teaching us here. The Son of Man was lower for a little while, but that little while ended, and He was raised up, and so will we be. If we are found in Him. Let's pray together.

Lord God, we are staggered at yout love for us, that yout would send youn only begotten Son to love us as yous have, that yout would literally give Him to us in our neediness. Minister to us in our ignorance. Supply us gifts of repentance and faith. Give us insight and understanding. Help us to follow Christ today.

We pray in His name. Amen.