Text:\u00a0 Hebrews 2: 10-18<\/p>\n
It\u2019s kind of a let down.\u00a0 The Christmas Eve crowd has come and gone.\u00a0 Family and friends.\u00a0 If you had a real Christmas tree this year, it\u2019s probably come down or needs to.\u00a0 We need to take this one down this week.<\/p>\n
Yet in this Word we continue to marvel like Jesus\u2019 mother Mary.\u00a0 We continue to celebrate the miracle of the ages.\u00a0 The Son of God who made the ground on which we stand, who hung the stars in the universe, clothed himself in weak human flesh.\u00a0 The eternal Son of God became my brother.<\/p>\n
What a precious truth for us all!\u00a0 Yet the world passes by uncaring, worse yet rejecting the tender mercy of our God.\u00a0 How sad.\u00a0 But how glad.\u00a0 How glad we can be with this here:<\/p>\n
GOD\u2019S HOLY SON BECAME MY BROTHER<\/strong> It was fitting<\/span>, God\u2019s word proclaims.\u00a0 What was fitting?\u00a0 It was fitting that God make our Savior perfect through suffering<\/span>.\u00a0 Does that sound odd to you?\u00a0 Wasn\u2019t Christ already perfect and holy?\u00a0 So what is God telling us here about his Son?<\/p>\n Well it helps to realize that the word for perfect here has the meaning of reaching the goal.\u00a0 Now that makes more sense.\u00a0 It was fitting that God make our Savior reach the goal of saving us through suffering.\u00a0 Ok but that brings another question.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Why was it fitting that this holy Child of Mary suffer?\u00a0 Why would a sword one day pierce her soul as Mary looked upon her dying son?\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 In a few simple words.\u00a0 Because of my sin.<\/p>\n What do you think when you see an important person escape prosecution for a crime he\u2019s obviously guilty of?\u00a0 He should have paid.\u00a0 He should have been punished!<\/p>\n Well my sin deserves punishment.\u00a0 I may excuse it.\u00a0 I may refuse to admit it.\u00a0 I may brush aside my selfishness, my anger, my lust, my lack of love.\u00a0 I may fool myself by thinking, I couldn\u2019t help it. But God\u2019s Word is clear.\u00a0 My sin deserves punishment.<\/p>\n But here\u2019s the amazing thing.\u00a0 That\u2019s not what God wants.\u00a0 If he wanted us in hell, if he wanted to do away with us, he would have done it a long time ago.\u00a0 He wants something else for us all.\u00a0 He wants it so much, he sent his own Son.\u00a0 He sent him to become our human brother so that our brother Jesus could suffer what we deserve and save us from what we deserve.<\/p>\n Here I realize that it speaks of Abraham\u2019s descendants.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t exclude us.\u00a0 That\u2019s just who this letter is written to.\u00a0 We too are Jesus\u2019 brothers.\u00a0 Maybe not his Jewish brothers but flesh and blood brothers.<\/p>\n So think about this.\u00a0 What the Word says here:\u00a0 The One who took all our shame and guilt and hung on that cross in our place is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters. Years ago when Jimmy Carter was president he had a brother named Billy.\u00a0 Billy caused his brother all kinds of grief in the media with his heavy drinking and the foolish things he would say to the press.\u00a0 At times, I have to think that President Carter felt ashamed to call Billy, his brother.<\/p>\n But look at Jesus.\u00a0 You and I made his suffering necessary.\u00a0 My sins and yours brought him shame, misery and despair.\u00a0 But what does it say here?\u00a0 The One who came to be my brother, the one who came to suffer for me is not ashamed to call me his brother.<\/p>\n Just think of that!\u00a0 For what is Jesus doing now? \u00a0It\u2019s hard sometimes to see, but he rules all things.\u00a0 His almighty hands have a firm, steady grip on the controls of the universe.\u00a0 And he calls me his brother.<\/p>\n And that goes for the Last Day as well. On that day when every person will stand before him for judgment, when the books will be opened, he will call me his brother.\u00a0 He will present us to his Father. \u00a0God\u2019s holy Son who became my brother to suffer for me. <\/strong><\/p>\n What\u2019s it like to live in fear?\u00a0 Ask a lady I once visited in the inner city of Milwaukee.\u00a0 She told me about the dry cleaning business her family once had in the store below.\u00a0 The neighborhood changed and robbery became a regular occurrence.\u00a0 Soon they couldn\u2019t afford insurance.\u00a0 They had to install bullet proof glass.\u00a0 One day, things went from bad to worse.\u00a0 Thieves forced their way inside and beat her.\u00a0 It\u2019s awful to live your life in fear.<\/p>\n But what a blessing when a fear is taken away.\u00a0 Well that\u2019s why God\u2019s Holy Son became my bother.\u00a0 To set me free from my worst fear.<\/strong><\/p>\n Man\u2019s worst fear is not hard to figure out.\u00a0 We fear loneliness, the loss of a job, violent crime.\u00a0 We fear being a failure.\u00a0 But above them all, man fears the day of his death.<\/p>\n It says here that the devil holds the power of death.\u00a0 You see, it\u2019s the devil who brought death\u2019s tragedy and hopelessness to our world long ago in a garden called Eden.\u00a0 But the good news of Christmas is this.\u00a0 God came to set us free.<\/p>\n You see, God cannot die.\u00a0 Father, Son and Holy Spirit have no beginning or end.\u00a0 So God the Son became a mortal man.\u00a0 He became flesh and blood like us so that he could die for us.<\/p>\n And his death set us free.\u00a0 It smashed Satan\u2019s death grip on us all.\u00a0 Of course, Satan still troubles our heart.\u00a0 He still points his accusing finger your way and wants you to bele3ive.\u00a0 God must hate you.\u00a0 Death will send you to hell.<\/p>\n But we don\u2019t have to listen.\u00a0 Like a dog howling at the moon, Satan can annoy us but he can\u2019t hurt us.\u00a0 Instead we can point to a cross and say, There my God and brother paid for my sins. I am free.\u00a0 I am free not to fear death.<\/p>\n But wait a second.\u00a0 We still die, don\u2019t we?\u00a0 We still have to go out to the cemetery Yes, we do.\u00a0 But we do not have to be afraid. \u00a0You might even think about it like this.\u00a0 A father and his young son were driving somewhere.\u00a0 A honey bee came in the window and began to buzz around. The little boy got all panicky.\u00a0 The father had to act fast.\u00a0 Can you guess what he did?\u00a0 \u00a0He reached out his hand, caught the bee and let it sting him.\u00a0 Then he held out his hand and said. Don\u2019t be afraid.\u00a0 That bee\u2019s stinger is right here in my hand.<\/p>\n When Jesus died on that cross, he took death\u2019s sting.\u00a0 He let death sting him so we could be free.\u00a0 Oh sure death comes our way. It buzzes around in our lives.\u00a0 But we don\u2019t have to be afraid any more.\u00a0 For Jesus has taken death\u2019s sting and made death into something else.\u00a0 We fall asleep in Jesus and wake up in his blessed presence. So we celebrate Christmas.\u00a0 For my Lord and brother came and set me free from my worst fear.<\/p>\n What would you fin if you went up to the temple in Jerusalem in Jesus\u2019 day?\u00a0 You\u2019d find devout believers like Mary and Joseph or Simeon and Anna.\u00a0 But you would also find a temple establishment that was corrupt, power and money hungry.\u00a0 Worship had become big business for the Jewish priesthood.\u00a0 So it\u2019s not surprising that Jesus cleared the temple courts and called it a den of robbers.\u00a0 Many of the priests were no longer serving God or the people.\u00a0 They were serving themselves.<\/p>\n But what do we find in Jesus?\u00a0 We find God\u2019s holy Son who became our brother.\u00a0 And here we learn something we are not that familiar with, He became our brother so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God<\/span>.\u00a0 And that\u2019s exactly what he is even though we are not Jews.\u00a0 He became my great high priest.<\/p>\n In the Old Testament, God established a priesthood.\u00a0 The priests were to serve as a go between the Lord and his people.\u00a0 The priest was to offer the sacrifice a person was to offer for his guilt.\u00a0 Then on one special day, the Day of Atonement, the high priest would enter the holy of holies to sprinkle the blood of a goat sacrificed forv the sins of the people on the cover of the ark.\u00a0 He would also place his hands on another goat and send it outside the camp.\u00a0 That goat was to bear the sins of the people.<\/p>\n It all sounds very foreign to us but it served a purpose.\u00a0 For the Bible tells us that none of those things really took away people\u2019s guilt. The priest and the many sacrifices were merely shadows.\u00a0 They were meant to picture another Priest who would bring a much better sacrifice.\u00a0 That great High priest is Jesus born for us long ago.\u00a0 For he offered himself.\u00a0 God\u2019s holy Son, your great High Priest offered himself to pay the awful price for your sins once and for all.<\/p>\n And he can help you.\u00a0 He can help us when we are tempted.\u00a0 He can help us when we are tempted to stop trusting, to stop hoping, to give up on God and despair.\u00a0 Think about it. When you\u2019re having a tough time, doesn\u2019t it help to have someone come to your side who knows, who understands what you\u2019re going through.<\/p>\n Well think about Jesus.\u00a0 Remember how he anguished in prayer in that Garden called Gethsemane.\u00a0 Remember how he sweat like great drops of blood during his torment there.\u00a0 Remember how he hurt for others.\u00a0 He is the ONE who hears your prayers.\u00a0 He is the one who has taken hold of your hand and walks with you every step of the way.\u00a0 He is able to help those who are being tempted<\/span>.\u00a0 Your God, your brother, your great high Priest.<\/p>\n And so the Christmas trees are coming down.\u00a0 Vacations are all but over.\u00a0 There\u2019s kind of a let down, isn\u2019t there?\u00a0 But we can still be happy.\u00a0 For God\u2019s holy Son became our brother<\/strong>.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Text:\u00a0 Hebrews 2: 10-18 It\u2019s kind of a let down.\u00a0 The Christmas Eve crowd has come and gone.\u00a0 Family and friends.\u00a0 If you had a real Christmas tree this year, it\u2019s probably come down or needs to.\u00a0 We need to take this one down this week. Yet in this Word we continue to marvel like Jesus\u2019 mother Mary.\u00a0 We continue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermon"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":584,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions\/584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nI.\u00a0 To suffer for me
\nII.\u00a0 To set me free from my worst fear
\nIII.\u00a0 To be my great High Priest.<\/p>\n