Our Elder Brother

I have your Bibles with you today. Turn with me, if you would, to the second chapter of Hebrews. We are looking at verses 10 through 18. brothers, saying, For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. Let's go to our Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, I pray this morning for our grieving. Please comfort Esther and Gwen Carol and Sarah and Audrey Alligood, Linda Scott. Give them that peace that passes all understanding.

Be with Kim Ute. Help her doctors correctly determine what they need to do to help her. Pray for continued healing for Nicole Lowes, Jeremy Karriker, for Jim Belk and Renda Torrance. Pray that you would strengthen them all.

Pray for Wanda Abercrombie and for Carol Starkey that, Lord, you would be with them as they are suffering right now and need your help. And I pray, Father, that you administer strength to them in these last days. Heavenly Father, today's passage should bring tears to our eyes and joy to our hearts as we see what the Son of God sacrificed to bring us into the family of God. We discover that Jesus has called our elder brother. We call Jesus Lord, call him Son of God, second person of the Trinity and Savior.

But elder brother, wow. I can relate to Jesus as his servant or slave, but this passage teaches that we are family. May we grasp that today and be deeply appreciative. Lord, we love you. Today we give you praise for who you are. We give you thanks for what you've done. For it is in the precious and holy name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.

You may be seated. Anytime anyone sits in judgment of God, he or she is in big trouble. Leo Tolstoy is a prime example of this. Many Christians have assumed that Leo Tolstoy had to be a Christian because he publicized with great admiration the Sermon on the Mount. But Leo Tolstoy said that it is blasphemy to call Jesus God.

He said it is blasphemy to pray to Jesus Christ. So in 1901, the Orthodox Church excommunicated him from the church because you cannot be a Christian and deny the deity of Christ. They executed him, excommunicated him and well should have.

Folks, the Orthodox Jews were doing the same thing that Tolstoy did. They made themselves the judges of what God is supposed to be like. And the idea of a suffering Savior God was just completely inappropriate as far as they were concerned.

Folks, that's why Paul said what he did in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 23 when he said, We preach Christ and Him crucified to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness. This kind of thinking was the catalyst for the terrible persecution that went on in that early church. The Jews were laughing at the idea that the creator of heaven and earth could actually go to a cross and be nailed to that cross and suffer and bleed and die.

They said no, no. They thought that that kind of God, that they were just above that. They thought that this kind of God was a God that they could never truly worship. Their God would never be subjected to that kind of torture. Their God was holy, but He was not sacrificing. Their God was omniscient, but He was not loving.

Their God would send people to hell, but He would never suffer their hell for them. And the early church was being absolutely blasted with criticism. And folks, it was not just criticism.

It went deeper than that. It went to persecution. When I say persecution, I don't mean just being rejected or canceled. They were going through deep persecution. Some of them were being thrown into prison. According to Hebrews chapter 10, some of them had their property violated and stolen and taken away from them.

Some of them had even been martyred. And so the early church was wavering in their faith. They were saying, maybe it's not worth it to worship Jesus. They were saying, if we just recant of our Christian faith, then maybe some of this horrible persecution will be done away with. I'm seeing that same problem with the church in America today. We have so many churches in America that have gone woke.

Why have so many churches changed their minds and their doctrine on homosexuality and transgenderism? Is it really debatable concerning what the Bible has to teach us? We can't just choose the parts of the Bible that don't offend us. It is wrong before God to do that, for the Scripture teaches us that all of the Scripture is true. In Psalm 119, verse 160, the Scripture says, the entirety of God's word is truth.

In 2 Timothy 3.16, the Scripture says, Paul said, all Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction and instruction in righteousness. Romans chapter 1, Paul said this in verses 26 through 28. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature.

And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another. Men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for the error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what they ought to do.

Ought not to be done. Deuteronomy 22 and verse 5 says this. A woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak.

For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord our God. These woke churches did not reject the Scripture because the Scripture was unclear. The Scripture is not unclear.

They rejected the Scripture because they want the acceptance of the culture more than they want the acceptance of God. The writer of Hebrews understands the temptation for these early Christians to quit. He understands that. But he also knows the cost of quitting.

That's why he said this. How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? Folks, we must always remember that the cross was not God's plan B. You see, when Adam and Eve sinned, it did not shock God or take him aback. When Adam and Eve sinned, God did not bite his fingernails and say, oh my goodness, what am I going to do now? They have sinned. How am I going to handle this?

What kind of plan am I going to come up with? No, no. In Revelation chapter 13 verse 8, the Scripture says this, that Jesus was the Lamb slain before the foundation of the earth. Folks, before Adam and Eve sinned, before Adam and Eve were created, before the earth was created, Jesus Christ was stepping up off the throne and he was headed for the cross.

Yes, Jesus was fully man. He got hungry like we do. He got thirsty like we do.

He got tired like we do. When he went to the cross, they nailed him to the cross and he suffered and he bled and he died because he was fully man. But that in no way diminishes the fact that Jesus is God. It does not diminish the deity of Christ. With that foundation laid, I want us to get into our passage.

This passage is getting personal. It is explaining who Jesus is to us personally. Before we understand who Jesus is to us personally, we need to understand who Jesus is in general. That's what we saw in chapter 1.

You remember that? We saw that Jesus is God. He is the eternal God. He is the second person of the Trinity. He is the creator of heaven and earth. He is above all things. He is greater than the prophets. He is greater than the priest. He is greater than the angels.

He is greater than the law. When I see that, I want to bow before him in reverence. It just brings me to my knees. It reminds me of Isaiah chapter 6 when Isaiah walked into the temple and he saw the Lord high and lifted up on his throne. The scripture says that the Lord's train filled the temple. That there were seraphim, a bright shining angels that were encircling the throne singing holy, holy, holy. And Isaiah fell on his face before the Lord.

And he said, woe is me for I am undone from an unclean man in the midst of an unclean people, a people of unclean lips. What did Isaiah do? Isaiah was absolutely wowed by the majesty and the glory and the power of God. It just wowed him.

And he could do nothing but just absolutely tremble. Folks, we all need to understand that very thing, that this is who Jesus is. There are too many who have no understanding of the greatness and the majesty and the power and the glory of Jesus.

And because of that, the sin upon people is not deeply convicting. And you don't see a need to be deeply dependent upon Christ if you don't understand that. So first of all, we need to understand his greatness and his glory and his power. But in our passage today, we are brought to an understanding that we are family. Point one, he is the founder of our salvation. Look with me at verse 10. For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. The word founder in this verse is the Greek word archegos, and it means pioneer or trailblazer or leader.

It is always used to describe one who involves others in his endeavor. Folks, why do we need Jesus? For many reasons, we need Jesus. But let me share a very, very important reason that we need Jesus. There are only two destinations at death, and those two destinations are either heaven or hell. Jesus said that no one comes to the Father but by him. People in the congregation this size, there may be some right here, right now, today, who absolutely know that if they die, they're headed to an eternal hell. There are others who are sitting here today who have no real assurance that if they die, they're going to heaven or going to hell.

They just don't know. A couple of weeks ago, I stood at Don Carroll's bedside along with Nancy and Scott Starcher and Gwen and Esther Carroll and his neighbor, Walt. And we stood there and we watched Don move from this life to the next, from this life to glory itself. I've been pastoring now for about 45 years. I've been in those situations time and time again. And sometimes I'll be in a situation like that with a person who's dying, and in their last moments, they'll be crying out to God for their salvation. I've been with others who just absolutely shake and tremble as they think about death. I've been with one who absolutely cursed God as he was dying and he entered into eternity.

Not so with Don Carroll. Just moments before his passing, we were all around his bed. He was cognizant as he could be, and he was talking to us about what it was going to be like to see Jesus Christ face to face and what it would be like to bow before him and reach over and kiss his feet and then reach up and take his hand and feel the nail print in his hand, the tangible evidence of what Christ had done for him on the cross. With peace in his heart and joy in his soul, Don Carroll left this earth and he went immediately into glory where he was face to face with a pioneer, the trailblazer, the founder of his salvation. Oh death, where is thy sting?

Oh grave, where is thy victory? For the sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law, but thanks be unto God who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Scripture says in verse 10 here that Jesus, the founder of our salvation, was made perfect through suffering.

The word perfect here means gloriously complete. His suffering did not make him perfectly sinless. He is always through all eternity and through eternity future is sinless and that is perfectly sinless, but his suffering completed his work for our salvation. A moment ago I asked the question, why do we need Jesus? And my answer was because Jesus is our only hope of heaven.

I've got another question now. What is your calling as a Christian? If you're a Christian, what is he called you to do? What's your responsibility here on this earth? And the answer to that, he has called you to be like Jesus.

So how do we do that? Well, when you become a Christian, he has regenerated you. He's given you new life. He's given you a new heart. He's given you new vision. He's given you new goals. He's given you new desires.

He's done all that. In Romans chapter 8 verses 29 through 30, the Scripture says, For whom he foreknew he also did predestinate, to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, then he also called, and whom he called, then he also justified, and whom he justified, then he also glorified. Folks, Jesus, the Lord foreknew us. He predestinated us. He called us. He justified us. And one day he will glorify us.

And for what purpose? Just to get us into heaven? No. To conform us into the image of Jesus. He did that on your behalf so that you might be like Jesus.

Ask yourself a question. Are you like Jesus? Are you becoming like Jesus? Wow.

Here's a tough one. How do we become like Jesus? And the Scripture says it is through suffering. Philippians chapter 1 verse 29 says, For it has been granted to you on the behalf of Christ, not only to believe upon him, but also to suffer for his sake. Philippians chapter 3 verse 10 says, That I might know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his suffering being made conformable unto his death.

Here's a John MacArthur quote. As the great pioneer of redemption, he blazed the trail through death and resurrection. He said, I am the resurrection, the life. He who believes in me shall live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.

God made Christ for a little while lower than the angels so that he could come down to us, be our archigos, our spiritual pioneer and example, and bring us to the Father. All right, point two is our elder brother. Would you look with me at verses 11 through 13. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. This is why it is not a shame to call them brothers, saying, I will tell of your name to my brothers. In the midst of the congregation, I will sing your praise.

And again, I will put my trust in him. And then, behold, I and the children God has given me. Jesus is the elder brother of every Christian.

And that's not an image that might be attractive to some people here today. And I think of, I got to this point when I was studying, I started thinking to myself as an elder brother. And I was not always a good elder brother. I remember when my brother Scott was four years old. I was 13 and he was aggravating me. And he continued to aggravate me when I told him to quit until finally I got aggravated with him. And I picked him up and I carried him into the bathroom and I stuffed him in the clothes hamper and I jumped right up on top of it so he couldn't get out. I did not know Scott had claustrophobia.

I don't think he knew he had it until that day. But he was screaming and yelling at the top of his lungs. Finally, mama came running in. She knocked me off the top of the hamper. And then she got Scott out just screaming and yelling. She gave me one of those lectures, you wait till your daddy gets home, you're going to get it.

And Scott was in her arms and he looked over at me and he stuck his tongue out at me. He knew my future punishment and what it was going to be like. I'm not a good elder brother. Jesus is the perfect elder brother. Jesus would have never taken Jude or James, his half brothers, and stuffed them in a clothes hamper.

It would not have happened. He is the perfect elder brother, always has been and always will be. The idea of elder brother is to reinforce the concept of family. The truth of Jesus being creator, being God, being king, makes me want to just bow down in reverence. But the idea of Jesus being my elder brother, the idea of me being family, it just gets to my heart. And it makes me want to shout with joy.

It makes me hungry for fellowship. It reminds me that Jesus calls me family. I was birthed into his family.

That's how I got in it. By the new birth, Jesus did a work in my heart, such a powerful work that I was birthed into his family by the new birth, by being born again. But then I was adopted into his family by the sovereign call of God on my life. Folks, Jesus is our elder brother.

Point three, Jesus is our Satan conqueror. Look at verse 14 through 15. Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. The word share in this passage in the Greek is koinonia.

It means fellowship, companionship, or partnership. In other words, we as human beings have flesh and blood in common, don't we? We all are flesh and blood. Well, the Scripture says that Jesus had to partake flesh and blood.

Now, the word partake is a Greek word meteko, and this is what it means to take hold of something that is not naturally one's own kind. We by nature are flesh and blood, but Jesus had to become flesh and blood because for all of eternity past, he was different. Flesh and blood came when Mary conceived him in the womb by the Holy Spirit, and then when she gave birth to Jesus, he was flesh and blood. He had to become like us. He had to become a man. He had to become like us.

Why? Well, look what this verse says. So that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. In John chapter 10 verse 10, Jesus said, the thief, that is the devil, comes to kill, steal, and destroy. If you die without Christ, then Satan's deception and Satan's power has done its work. If you die knowing and loving Jesus, then Jesus has done such a work in your life that he has defeated the work of Satan, and he has absolutely set you free. Folks, Jesus' death was a substitutionary atonement for us.

What does that mean? It means he died as our substitute. He took our sin, gave us his righteousness. He took our hell and gave us his heaven. It was a propitiation. That means that his death appeased the wrath of God against us. It was also a reconciliation.

What does that mean? It means that his death reconciled a sinful person like us to a holy God. It was also a redemption. It means that he bought us out of the slave market of sin.

I love how John MacArthur phrased this. He said this, the only way to destroy Satan was to rob him of his weapon, death, physical death, spiritual death, eternal death. Satan knew that God required death for us because of sin.

Death had become the most certain fact of life. Satan knew that men, if they remained as they were, would die and go out of God's presence into hell forever. Satan wants to hold on to men until they die because once they are dead, the opportunity for salvation is gone forever.

Men cannot escape after death, so God had to wrest from Satan the power of death and for just that purpose, Jesus came. The one thing that terrifies people more than anything else is death. Death is a horrible thing to even think about. Death terrorizes us. It's the king of terrors, but knowing Jesus takes the sting out of death. Folks, we are all going to die, every single one of us. Hebrews 9, 27 says, for it is appointed unto men once to die and after that the judgment. Everyone dies. The death rate in every generation has always been the same.

It's a hundred percent. Everyone dies. And you don't know when that day will be.

You have no idea. I have held funerals for people from age one day to age 105. I've held funerals for children who died in childbirth. I've held funerals for teenagers who were killed in a car accident.

I've held funerals for 25-year-old people who died of cancer. We don't know what tomorrow holds. So in the light of that, I want to plead with you today. If you don't know Jesus, come to Christ. If you don't know Jesus, turn from your sin, repent and trust in what he did for you on the cross of Calvary. Trust that his blood washed away your sins and that was the only thing that could wash away your sins. And trust that his resurrection broke the power of death over you. In Amos 4 verse 12, Amos said this, prepare to meet your God.

I want to ask you something. Are you prepared to meet your God? If today you died before you got out of this building, do you know that you belong to Christ, that he belongs to you, that if you died, you're going immediately into his presence? Do you know that?

Run to Jesus who has conquered Satan and rendered him powerless through his death and resurrection. All right, fourthly, Jesus is our sympathizer. Look at verse 16 through 18. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham.

Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make perpetuation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. Verse 16 tells us that Jesus didn't need to help the angels. The word for help there has to do with salvation. Now, Jesus did have to help the angels because he created them, but he didn't have to save them like he does us.

Why not? Because all the angels that did not follow Satan in his rebellion are sinless. They didn't need what we need, and what is it that we need? We need to be rescued, rescued from our sin. We need salvation. Verse 17 uses a big theological word, propitiation, and that word means to appease the wrath of God. God hates sin. God is so holy that everything in his being rejects sin, and all sin has to be paid for. So when Jesus hung on the cross, God the Father transferred all of our sin, past, present, and future, into the person of Christ. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21 explains it, He became sin for us, whom ye know sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. For just a moment, I want you to picture Jesus hanging on the cross.

When we do that, we think first of the physical pain. He had a crown of thorns crushed down in his brow. He had huge iron spikes nailed through his hands and through his feet.

He had his back lacerated by a cat o' nine tails whip. The physical pain was unbelievably horrible, but there was a greater pain that Jesus had, and that was the pain that came from a spiritual abandonment from God the Father. The Scripture says that Jesus was hung on the cross at 9 a.m., that he stayed on the cross and died at 3 p.m. Exactly at 12 noon, all of a sudden the world was covered with pure black darkness.

What was going on at that point in time? God the Father transferred all of our sin, and I'm talking about every true believer, from Adam all the way to that last person who comes to know Christ before Jesus comes back. He took all of our sin, transferred them into the person of Jesus Christ as he was hanging there on the cross. And then God the Father, who is too holy to look upon sin, had to turn his back on Jesus for the first time in all of eternity.

It had never happened before. And the pain was so great for Jesus. It was so great that he cried out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Folks, that wasn't just a feeling.

That wasn't just emotion. That was absolute torment. God the Father had to separate himself from Jesus because Jesus had become sin for us. Jesus is on the cross. The pain is so deep that his heart ruptures in his chest cavity. He cries out one more time.

It breathes his last breath, and in his last breath he cries out, It is finished, and he died. The Scripture says that Jesus' death was a propitiation. He died that the wrath of God against our sin might be appeased. Often when I witness to somebody, I'll talk to them about the Lord. I'll share Scripture with them, and they will say, Well, Doug, I think I'm a Christian.

I believe that I'm a Christian because I'm basically a very good person. And I believe that I know I make some mistakes in my life, and I don't realize that, but I think at the end when I'm judged that God will take the good things I've done in life, weigh them against the bad things that I've done in life, there will be more good than bad, and then he will accept me into heaven on the basis of that. When they say that, I want to absolutely cringe, for I realize that they have no idea how God looks at them, that God looks at them. If there's any sin whatsoever, he looks at them, and he looks at them in horror. Romans chapter 3 verse 23 says, For we of all sin that come short of the glory of God. Romans chapter 3 verse 10 says, For there is none righteous, no, not one. Isaiah chapter 64 verse 6 says that all of our righteousness are as filthy rags before God. That means all the good things that we try to do are even so tainted with sin that God is just a stench in God's nostrils. So Jesus' death was a propitiation. His death appeased God's wrath against us. I want to close with verse 18.

Listen to what he said. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. Jesus knows when we hurt, he knows when we are weak, and he knows when we are tempted. He is the God that we can go to, not only for salvation, but also, also for sympathy. All folks, Jesus, what a Savior he is. Once again I ask you, do you know him as your Savior? If you need to talk, I'll be here, Eugene will be here, Will Ferris will be here, all of our elders will be here. We would like nothing more to talk with you if you're not sure about your salvation.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we have been studying today the price that Jesus paid that we might be his family. He suffered hell itself that we could be with him forever. He suffered our hell that we might enjoy his heaven. Lord, help us to be humbled and broken over that kind of love. It is in Jesus' holy and precious name that I pray. Amen.