Hebrews 5 tonight. Let's start in Hebrews 2. You guys are really merciful on him when he doesn't sing every note right. You guys are really good to him. It's good family time. We'll start in Hebrews 2, we'll look at verse 10, and we'll also take a look at some verses in chapter 5. You know, I think you're really going to like this, because it talks to us a little bit about Jesus. Take a look at chapter 2, verse 5. He has not put the world to come where we speak in subjection to angels, but one testified in a certain place, saying, What is man that you're mindful of him? Or the son of man that you take care of him? You have made him a little lower than the angels. You've crowned him with glory and honor. You've set him over the works of your hands. You've put all things in subjection under his feet. All right. Someone take a look at the center section or the center column and tell me what Psalm is the Hebrews writer quoting there. Thank you. Psalm 8. All right. So he's talking about mankind, mankind, you and I. You and I. So he is saying basically that you and I are just made just a teensy bit lower than angelic beings, yet everything in the created order is put under our subjection. Everything. Now that's what the psalmist originally meant, but the Hebrews writer says that the psalmist, once again, according to Luke 24, 44, all things which were written of Christ in Moses and the prophets and the Oh, come on, don't let me down. Psalms, thank you, Lisa. I've only quoted that verse maybe 200 times, so that's good. 200 times, maybe. The Psalms talk about Christ, and Hebrews tells us that even Psalm 8 is about Jesus. So, end of verse 8, "...for in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him, But now we do not yet see all things put under him. All right, but what do we see, the Hebrews writer? What do we see? We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels. So now all of a sudden, we see that Psalm 8 is not just about you and I and mankind in general. Who is it about? I see a lot of passivity out there. Come on, join me. Who's it about? Psalm 8 is about Jesus. Okay, so, if that's true, and it is, what can we be told about Jesus? Well, He was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone. That's a great verse, isn't it? So we're seeing here a connection between where Jesus was set in the created order. When I say created order, I'm talking about the Genesis 1 reality. He was made like man, and man was made just a little lower than the angels. And what was set under man? Everything on the planet that is not an angel. So we're supposed to subdue everything. And there's a lot that can be said about that. A ton of stuff that can be said about that. I'm glad that you will have my notes on that soon in the Revelation commentary. Because in chapter 5 of my Revelation commentary, I talk about how Jesus is the only one who has been able of mankind. Hear what I just said. Jesus is the only one of mankind that has subdued and will subdue the entirety of creation. Adam was supposed to. Adam was fully human. So the idea of, you know, have you sinned? Well, yeah, I'm only human. Oh, no, no, that's not a good answer. Adam was a human way before he was a sinner. Jesus, human, not a sinner. So being a human and being a sinner are not the same thing. So if that's true, then that means you and I will always be humans. There is a brief time when we will not have a body between your death and your resurrection, if you die and you're a Christian. But you are not fully human unless you have a body. And you will always, and I will always, be a human being. Therefore, we must have a body. And when our bodies are glorified and resurrected, we will, for the first time, be fully, fully human. Our minds will be unfettered by the sin nature. And we will have crystal clear thoughts without the taint of the curse of sin. And we will use 100% of our minds and have pre-curse efficiency with our labor. It's beautiful. Well, when your body has changed, like unto his. And Friday morning I'm going to be preaching in a funeral for Terra Bland's father, and I'm going to talk out of Job 14, so if you have the day off, you should come to the funeral. It's at 1 Adventist Church on 127. Tell all my friends that I, the Baptist preacher, am preaching at an Adventist church. just on a Friday morning. I'm going to preach on Job 14, particularly when he says, I will lie in the grave until my change comes. It's going to be awesome. I'm pretty stoked about it. So anyway, here you have this promise that Jesus, for a little while, is made a little lower than the angels, verse 9, so that he could taste death for every man. Alright, so that's pretty awesome. But verse 10 is superb. You have to see it. It was fitting for Jesus, for whom are all things. Alright, so everything was made for him. And by whom are all things. Everything was made by him. In bringing, look at what the goal was here, bringing many sons to glory. Now, how did this happen? So God, I might've said Christ, I meant God made everything and everything's made for him. And so what did he do to bring lots of sons to his glory? What did he do? End of verse 10, it tells us, he made the captain of those many sons and daughters. He made the captain of their salvation perfect. I hope you're getting this. If I would say it without a passage of scripture, you might think I'm a heretic. But it says it as plain as this big white nose on my receding hairline face. How's that for an adjective? Modifier. Receding hairline face. It's all the way back to my ears, all the way back here. Some of you are wondering why I started shaving my head. Let me just tell you midway through this little devotional that I was 23 when my wife said, since we don't believe in divorce, I won't be married to a man who has a horseshoe. And I started shaving my head. We voted. And she outvoted me, one to zero. So that's how it all started. I'm glad you asked for that. So he made the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering. So Jesus was, you've got to see it. If I wasn't reading it to you off the pages of the Bible you have in front of you, you might think I'm making it up and you might think I'm a heretic. You've got to see it. God made the captain of those many sons, the captain of their salvation. He made the captain of their salvation perfect, made him perfect through suffering. Now that could be a book, a series of sermons. And so I'm just going to leave that dangle in there and take you to chapter five. Look at chapter five, verse one. Now we're not teaching through Hebrews, we're just talking about prayer tonight. Just kind of a cute little devotional about prayer. You might notice in chapter 4 verse 14 we have this talk of a high priest. Seeing then that we have a great high priest who has passed into the heavens. Look at verse 15, we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses. So we do have a high priest who's in heaven and he is not someone who cannot sympathize with us. Our weaknesses, he can sympathize with our weaknesses. Why? Because he was a partaker of human nature, which right now is fallen. Notice what I did not say. Do not hear what I did not say. He was not a partaker of our sin nature. There is a difference. We've talked about this. There's a difference between our sin nature and human nature. He was a partaker of our fallen human nature. He was not a partaker of our fallen sin nature. It's huge. That means that when he fell, he skinned his knee. When he worked hard, he smelled like body odor. When he wore his sandals all day, his feet itched. Okay? When he wasn't picked for the team, he cried, a partaker of fallen human nature, not a partaker of sin nature. Isn't that beautiful? He can, he's a partaker of our, he can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. And he's being compared now to a human being high priest in chapter five, verse one. Every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to God. And this is what we're hoping for out of a human being high priest in the time of Aaron in the Old Testament. So we're in chapter five, verse two, we're hoping that he can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray, since he himself is also subject to their weakness. Remember, we're not talking about Jesus now, we're talking about the high priest taken from among men in chapter five, verse one. All right. And verse three, of this he is required as for the people, so also for himself to offer sacrifices for sins. Okay, do you see that? The human high priest had to offer sacrifices for the sins of the people he was serving, and for who else? And for himself, okay? So, and then in verse 4, no one takes this honor to himself. No one says, I want to be a high priest. You were picked, just as Aaron was, end of verse 4. Now, comparison, verse 5. So Christ did not glorify himself to become high priest. He didn't ask to be high priest. It was he who said to him, you are my son. So who made him a high priest? The father did. Thank you. Yep. Yep. Made him a high priest. That's right. And he quotes Psalm two there in verse five. And he quotes Psalm 110 in verse six. Now verse seven. Who? All right. So who is the who? Who is who turning and pointing back to? Jesus. Who's made a high priest in verse five. So now we're talking about Jesus in verse seven, Jesus in the days of his flesh, when he'd offered up prayers and supplications with vehement cries and tears to him who is able to save him from death was heard because of his godly fear, though he was a son, yet here it is again, since chapter two, verse 10, here it is again. Yet he learned obedience by the things he suffered. So is that why we suffer? It appears that we are much like our great high priest. We learn a lot through suffering. And since he is considered, in chapter 2, the captain of our salvation, and in chapter 12, the author and finisher of our faith, then yes, much of what he goes through, we are called, in like manner, to go through. So, in case you didn't hear it the first time, Verse 7, Jesus in the days of his flesh, when he offered up prayers and supplications with vehement cries and tears to the Father, who was able to save him from death, and the Son was heard because of his godly fear, though he was a son, yet he learned obedience by the things he suffered. And having been perfected, he became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him. So it's saying that he wasn't perfect to start with. Was it perfected? Well, in the verse before, it said he was made perfect. So what's the difference between being made perfect and being perfected? Well, what I'm doing is buying time by playing with semantics. Perfect doesn't always mean sinless. Allow me to quote a verse out of James. I might have to start at the beginning. It's been a while. James, a servant of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who to twelve tribes scattered, brought greeting. My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations. Knowing this is the shrine of your faith, work with patience. It's got to be coming up. Let patience, here we are, verse four. Let patience have her perfect work. that you might be perfect and entire, lacking nothing. So, at least in James 1, perfect doesn't mean sinless. It means not as mature. Let patience have her perfect work. Well, was patience ever sinful? It must mean then that perfect doesn't always mean sinless. It means underdeveloped. Now, I think No, too much. In the Gospel of Luke, twice in 11 verses, it says that Jesus grew in wisdom and stature with God and man. He grew in grace, it says. Does that mean there was ever a time when he wasn't God? No, but it does say he grew in grace. Jesus grew in grace. That would drive me mad if I thought about it too much. So here, Christology notwithstanding, what we see about Jesus coming and passing by us, let's talk for just a minute about this prayer that he prayed to the Father. Alright? Alright. And then we'll learn something from this and break up and go to prayer. Alright, so, let's read it. It's only two verses. Let me read the first verse and a half, starting in verse 7. Jesus, in the days of His flesh, offered up prayers and supplications with vehement cries and tears to the Father, the only one, basically, who was able to save Him from death and was heard. Well, what do you see as problematic with that statement? The son asked the father to save him from death and he was heard. What do you see as problematic there? He still died. So we now know that being saved from something doesn't necessarily mean being kept from it. It could mean being snatched out of it. He knew that he was going to die. He kept saying that my time was short and stuff like that. Right. And he also promised the disciples time after time, Odell, in the Gospel of Mark that we just covered, that he would rise again the third day. So what is this? He's asking to be raised from the dead, basically. Yeah, he's asking to be saved from death. What do we see here but this continual conflict of that two-sphere existence we talked about a couple Sunday nights ago. We're over here in his divine nature, totally faith-filled, no doubts in his mind, no human struggle. I will die and I will rise again the third day. And over here in that fallen human nature, not fallen sin nature, he's not sinful, but underdeveloped human nature because it's fallen. He, in the garden, was apparently so stressed, so stressed, that what happened? And it's only in the Gospel of Luke. You might notice I keep quoting Luke. Very strange how that goes with Hebrews. So if that's true, if that's true, he suffers with vehement crying and tears, bleeding out of his pores, bleeding out of his pores. And it says, God heard him. God, in other words, heard and answered him and promised him salvation from death right there in the Garden of Gethsemane. So Jesus was assured by the father at his prayer time in the garden that he would be yanked out of death. So what does that teach us as Christians in our prayer life? We are typically one track. We have it in our minds that God is going to save us and we take it to mean keep us from all suffering. Maybe even keep us from martyrdom, keep us from joblessness, keep us from homelessness, keep us from friendlessness. When this passage instructs us that God has not forsaken you just because your life is being sucked out of you. That being saved from something might mean what then? Saved through it, yanked out of it. Another Psalm, Psalm 16, Jesus is quoted as saying, you will not leave my soul in hell or suffer your Holy One to seek corruption. Therefore my heart is glad and my flesh shall rest in hope. So he's talking about when my body is buried, it's like planting a seed in the garden. He knows he's going to get up again. Yes, sir? So he goes, even though he knows that he's going to go through all this, yeah, he prays in the garden for God to spare him from it, to show us the lesson of what we may end up going through because of I'm saying that Jesus was heard and that He was saved from death. On early, early Sunday morning before sunrise, he was saved from death. The point I'm trying to make is that we are often myopic. We see it one way. If God is going to save me from this calamity, it will be before I experience it, rather than after I experience it. So it's the ultimate answer to the question, why won't God answer my prayers? Yeah, it is because because Jesus. Was even told no. He was told yes, well. He was, yes, he was still allowed to suffer, though, although he he didn't want to. I mean, none of us want to suffer. Alright, so we all ask not to suffer even Jesus. Don't you think that sometimes but we're saying we're saying to to life? Like that's what he was saved to. Certainly, and my only point is that if he was heard in his prayer, then he was heard in his prayer and he suffered death. We even have it in our end times teaching that in order for God to save us from something, we have to be absent from it. And we have to make sure that our theology is at least as good as God's. We have to make sure that we see trouble as He sees it, as the Son sees it. The Son says, I want to be saved from death. The Father says, granted, I will save you from death. No, no, no, but I think probably he's making reference to the cup that he was hoping would pass from him in the garden. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he certainly meant death. And so I think that we would agree that if you're dead long enough, you'll corrode, you'll corrupt, which is the whole point of Jesus showing up four days after Lazarus is dead. And they said, uh, now's a bad time, Jesus. I don't know what you got up your sleeve, but Oh boy stinks. I think that the hardest thing for Jesus was having all our sins upon him. You know what I'm saying? Him being holy and then having all our sins placed upon him. I think that's correct. Let's, let's, let's remember that, uh, he had never died before. That seems so obvious. and except it's not. We expect that because he made heaven and earth, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God, that he experienced really nothing for the first time. Well, the reality is he did experience it for the first time. You know, some of you are going to set your alarm for the morning, okay? Some of you are going to set your alarm. You are fully persuaded that your phone will ring, your watch will vibrate, whatever mode you have. The coffee pot will turn on and draw you to the kitchen, whatever it is, you have an alarm. And depending on how urgent it is, how critical it is that you respond to it, knowing it will happen does not mitigate the emotional response you have when it occurs. Let's just say you have to be up at 4.30 tomorrow for whatever reason. You know you're setting the clock for 4.30. You have total control over that. You are 99% sure that you have sovereign control over your alarm. And yet, for some reason, knowing it will happen, doesn't appear to change the way we wake up. And all I'm trying to get you to see is that God being all-powerful, omniscient, does not reduce the human experience that he had. If you go with the the theology that Jesus was all God and all man. And this brings out to me that all man part even stronger. It makes me feel better what sane man would want to go through what he is going through. We all, humans, would not want to have to go through that. I see Jesus' human side here more than in any other time, you know, stubbing his toe and all that's great. But here he is doing the same thing that humans would do facing that situation. You know, he prayed for not have the cup and that's just human. That's right. You know, but I mean, he qualified it. And like I say, God heard him and he still went through it. But he was, he was us as well as God. That's right. This shows it to me more than any other time. Amen. And if you'd like to peek into this, go ahead, Sue. I keep thinking that yes, he suffered and I don't want to pass over that because I saw passion in Christ too. And you know, I visualize that and I didn't, I don't want to say that very many times because it hurt me bad. Yeah. But he didn't have to hang on the cross for days and days and days. Like some people do. He was taken relatively in a short time. Right, which brings us back to Jeannie's point, right? That there was something else going on there. And I think John gives us that window to look into. At some point, it says Jesus, knowing in himself that all things are accomplished, said, it is finished. Some transaction. took place between two parties in the realm way above me, way outside of me, something was paid for and completed right then and there. And I think you know it was our sin. And I think you know that a dark three-hour period of death, spiritual death, If you can imagine what Adam experienced in the garden when he ate of the fruit, and for the first time in his existence, did not feel in fellowship with the Creator, felt an urge to cover his nakedness and hide. Now take Adam, take the guilt that he felt, that spiritual death, Paul says, every person experiences that. Romans 7.9, I was alive without the commandment once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. Every one of us has that Adam moment in the garden when we die. And so take every one of those billions of experiences and pile them on one man's shoulders in a matter of a couple of hours, three hours. That's the marvel. Amen. Amen. Yep. If we would wonder if he suffered anything, right? And then what's the wonder? Okay, so I mean, he hung on a cross, didn't hurt him. You look at some of the Renaissance art and you're like, how does the guy look so serene? He's got this, I don't know what it is with these copper plates up behind people's heads during this Renaissance art, these halos. But it was awful. Yeah, we do.