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What If God Was One of Us?
June 06, 2010
Hebrews 2
by Pastor Stan
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THE SUPREMACY OF CHRIST: A SERMON SERIES IN HEBREWS
“WHAT IF GOD WAS ONE OF US?” (HEBREWS 2:5-9 / P. 846)
JUNE 6, 2010

INTRODUCTION
-- Lead-in song: “Lord, Most High”

-- We’re in the NT book of Hebrews (p. 846).
-- In today’s culture Hebrews would be labeled intolerant. Instead of presenting Christ as one of many ways to God, the book of Hebrews forcefully declares the supremacy of Christ.
-- The first chapter declares Christ’s supremacy in God’s great process of self-revelation, disclosing truth about Himself to us. In that process Christ is superior to the great OT prophets and to the awe-inspiring angels whom God used as intermediaries. In fact, Christ is the climax and conclusion of God’s revelation—the highest and final truth about who God is and how we can know Him is what is given to us in Christ.
-- Then in the first 4 verses of the second chapter the author of Hebrews pauses in his exposition about Christ to exhort us to be sure that we are paying attention to and holding on to the truth that is being presented to us, because our spiritual welfare and eternal destiny depend on it. If we don’t embrace and hold on to these truths and if we neglect the great salvation provided in Christ, we will never escape the wrath of God against our sin.
Where we pick up today in Hebrews 2:5, the author returns to the theme of Christ’s superiority to angels. Obviously, some of the Jews who were professing faith in Christ were not only holding angels in high regard but were putting them on par with Christ and perhaps even above Him.
    The author of Hebrews is going to repeat that Christ is superior to angels and then to add a surprising assertion—that believers also are, or, at least, are going to be. So let’s listen to what God has to say to us in today’s passage.
        Hebrews 2:5-9

I. THE ROLE OF HUMANS (VV. 5-8)
    --Starting in verse 5 the author identifies the role God planned for humans when He created Adam and Eve.

    A. REVEALED BY GOD (VV. 5-8A)

        1. “The World to Come” (v. 5)
            -- In verse 5 the author is looking beyond this present age to “the world to come,” that is, the world as it will be after Christ returns, and to who will have dominion in that new world, who will be in charge. Of course, Christ will reign supremely over all, but He has plans to put someone, some group, in charge of what the NT calls “the new heavens and the new earth” that He will establish at His Second Coming. And who is it that will be in charge? The answer might surprise some of us—not angels but humans, redeemed believers.


        2. Subjected Not to Angels But to Humans (vv. 5-8a)
            -- The passage that the author quotes in verses 6-8 is from Psalm 8.

            a. The Psalm’s Question (v. 6)
                -- The quote starts with a question in verse 6.
                    v. 6
                -- If you look at the entire Psalm, you’ll find that this question is prompted by the Psalmist’s gazing on the vast night sky with all of its countless thousands and thousands of stars and feeling what we all feel when we realize how unimaginably enormous this universe is: that we humans aren’t even big enough to qualify as specks in the universe, that an ant ought to be more noticeable and significant to us than we are to God.

                (Show video of vastness of universe / scene from Contact)

                -- So the Psalmist wonders why that is not the case, why God pays so much attention to someone who is seemingly so inconsequential and insignificant.

       &nb


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