Follow Jesus all the way to glory

Sermon Transcript

This past summer, Andrea and I took our kids to Wildwood Crest New Jersey for the Fourth of July. While we were playing in the water, my children received an apt education in how tides and currents work in the ocean. We would start jumping around in the waves right in front of the lifeguard stand, but after just ten minutes of playing in the water we could look back at the beach and notice that we drifted way down the shore. Again and again, I had to haul them back to where we began. Have you had this experience? Without even knowing it, the pressure of the current causes you to drift way down the shore from where you started. The same sort of thing can happen to us spiritually. Slowly but surely, almost imperceptibly, the various pressures, temptations, and trials of life in this world can tempt us to begin drifting away from Jesus, away from where we started with Him as our first love. How many of us, if we’re being honest, are slowly drifting down the shore away from Jesus? Now, the dirty little secret about drifting away from Jesus is that we never just drift away from Jesus. When we drift away from Him, we always drift toward something else. Something else slowly becomes our first love or gets our most careful attention, or becomes our greatest hope.

Have you ever wondered why we’re so tempted to drift down the shore away from Jesus toward other things, even good things, but lesser things? It’s because other things falsely promise us a better future than Jesus. I have run exactly one marathon in my life. It happened to be a trail marathon in the mountains in New York that I was underprepared for. At the mile 20 aid station, it was tempting to drop out and not finish the race because the path ahead seemed too arduous for my undertrained legs. Dropping out seemed to promise a better future. Whenever we drift from Jesus and give our first love to an education, a relationship, a career, a goal, even a family, it’s because we are believing the lie that they promise a better future than Christ. You and I are tempted to drift away from Jesus, rather than finishing the race, because other things seem to promise a better future. The letter to the Hebrews was written to warn us about the eternal danger of drifting from Jesus and dropping out of the race by showing us that Jesus is superior to anything we might drift toward. And our passage this morning specifically encourages us to follow Jesus to the very end of the race, so that we can enjoy the promised glory of eternal life with Christ, rather than eternal judgment. That brings us to the big idea of our passage: Follow Jesus all the way to glory. Follow Jesus all the way to glory. Don’t drop out. Don’t give into the drift. How do we do that? How do we follow Jesus to glory rather than drifting away or dropping out? Two answers from our passage this morning: 1. See that Jesus already entered glory 2. Trust that He alone is able to take you with Him. To follow Jesus to glory instead of drifting, first…

SEE THAT JESUS ALREADY ENTERED GLORY

To follow Jesus all the way to glory, we have to see that Jesus already entered glory. Let’s work our way to seeing it in our passage. Hebrews 2:5 – For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. Well, if it’s not angels that God is going to subject the glorious eternal world to come to, then who? Who is going to stand over a new heaven and a new earth where everything sad becomes untrue forever? Us! Everyone who follows Jesus all the way to glory will rule the world to come with God in perfect peace and eternal joy. So, don’t drift away and don’t drop out. Follow Jesus all the way to glory. Now, to prove that the world to come will be subjected to Jesus’ people who follow Him all the way to glory, the author of Hebrews quotes Psalm 8: Hebrews 2:6-8a It has been testified somewhere, “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? 7 You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, 8 putting everything in subjection under his feet.” Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. Psalm 8 is a psalm about the wonder of humanity. You are so significant to God. You may look at yourself and wonder, who am I that God is mindful of and cares about me? You were made a little lower than the angels and crowned with the glory and honor of being created in God’s image. Only humanity was created to be like God and to represent God as his image-bearers ruling his creation. The first book of the Bible, Genesis, tells us that our first parents, Adam and Eve, were created to subdue, have dominion over the earth, and have so many kids that God’s image filled the earth. Nothing in all the world was meant to be outside their control. Obviously, something has gone wrong. Hebrews 2:8b may be the greatest understatement in all the Bible: At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. At present, you and I don’t see this world subjected to us. No, we see chaos and tragedy. We see the tragedy of a deadly wildfire in Hawaii, a devastating earthquake in Morocco, and torrential flooding in Libya. Let’s bring it even closer to home. How many of you look at the intimacy of your marriage, the wisdom of your children, the state of your health, the level of your grades, the progress of your career, the state of your finances, the peace of your relationships, the political landscape, the movement of nations-states, the insanity of your schedule and the weather, and think, “the world is subjected to us”? No, God created humanity to put the world in subjection under our feet, but Adam squandered our glory and we are powerless to get it back. Life in this world is vanity; temporary and full of futility.

How can the author of Hebrews say that the world to come will be subject to us in glory? Because we may see the present creation not subjected to us, but that’s not all we see. Hebrews 2:9 – 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 might taste death for everyone. At present we don’t see everything going our way and that tempts us to drift. But that’s not all that we see. With the eyes of faith, we see the Lord Jesus Christ who, by God’s grace, tasted death for everyone who believes in Him, but rose on the third day is already crowned with glory and honor. And if you believe in Him, then where He is, you will be also. The first way to follow Jesus to glory instead of drifting away is to see that Jesus has already entered into glory.

So, let me ask you, do you see it? One of the primary reasons we tend to drift is because all we see and all we pay attention to is this present creation that isn’t going the way that we want. We drift because all of our attention and energy is spent seeing what is right in front of us. But that’s like living on half-meals. A while back the kids’ pediatrician told us that Sage needs to gain some weight. It was no surprise. She wasn’t getting proper nourishment because she kept eating half-meals. That’s why many of us are drifting. We only see and live of half of reality. We see the dutifully and we drift to whatever we think is going to make our future better. But to follow Jesus to glory we have live on all of reality: See Jesus who has already entered into glory. The present world is not all there is. Stop starving yourself living on half of reality. It will cause you to drift like the Costa Concordia. Instead see Jesus. Behold by faith that he has already entered glory, fix your eyes, and you’ll follow Him there without drifting. But it’s not enough to only see that Jesus already entered glory. See Him! After all, what good is it to see that he entered there unless you, secondly…

TRUST JESUS ALONE TO TAKE YOU WITH HIM

Follow Jesus to glory by trusting that he alone is able to take you with Him. There is one and only one reason why Jesus, the Son of God, alone is able to take you with Him to glory: He became like you. As C.S. Lewis once wrote, “The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.” Let me show you all the ways that the Lord Jesus Christ so graciously became like you so that you can follow Him to glory. First, the Lord Jesus Christ became like us by taking on humanity; truly human and also truly God. Hebrews 2:10 – 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. Now, the author isn’t insinuating that Jesus was ever sinful; he didn’t learn obedience because he was ever disobedient. Rather, the author is saying that we can trust that Jesus alone to take us to glory because Jesus matured through his life of full humanity, which included untold suffering, so that he could, through his death, be the perfect sacrifice for our sins. The Lord Jesus Christ became like us by taking on our humanity. Hebrews 2:11-13 puts a finer point on it: For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, 12 saying, “I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.” 13 And again, “I will put my trust in him.” And again, “Behold, I and the children God has given me.” To take us to glory God the Son became man. Why did he have to become human to take us to glory? New City Catechism. Question 22: Why must the Redeemer be truly human? Answer: That in human nature he might on our behalf perfectly obey the whole law and suffer the punishment for human sin; and also that he might sympathize with our weakness. “The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.”

But to take us to glory, the Lord Jesus Christ did not just become like us in life, but also in death. He took on the worst consequence of sinful humanity: death and judgment for us. Hebrews 2:14-15 – 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. I didn’t grow up in a Christian home, but when I was just a little boy, I thought a lot about death and eternity. If my mother were here, she would tell you that I spent countless hours as a child sobbing in fear of the finality of death and the unending nature of eternity. I was on to something. Because of all of our disobeying and ignoring God, the Devilish prosecutor has an air tight case against us. We deserve eternal death. But the Lord Jesus Christ became like us in death, dying in our place, tasting death for us, so that now the Devil has no case against us. “The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.” Trust Jesus alone to take you to glory because he became like you in life, like you in death, but also because…

He became like you to be your sin substitute. Hebrews 2:17 – 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. This verse harkens back to the great Day of Atonement in the Old Testament. Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the High Priest, the holiest man among God’s people, would enter into the holiest place in the tabernacle where God’s presence dwelt with his people. The High Priest represented God’s people before God. He brought two animals with him into the most holy place. He confessed the people’s sins and killed one ram. Then he set the other away outside the camp. Sins forgiven and forgotten. The Lord Jesus Christ is both the priest and the sacrifice. He became like you in humanity and in death to be your sin substitute so that your sins could be forgiven and the wrath of God removed. Your sins are forgiven and forgotten. “The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.”

He became like you to help you! Hebrews 2:18 – For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. The Lord Jesus Christ knows more about the temptation to drift than we do. C.S. Lewis also wrote, “Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means.” The Lord Jesus Christ knows what you’re going through. He knows the temptations to drop out of the race, but he obeyed God to the point of death, even death on a cross, therefore, God exalted Him to glory at His right hand. Therefore, Jesus sits ready to help you when you’re tempted to drift away and drop out. Turn to him. Ask him to help you. He is a merciful and helpful high priest.

The Lord Jesus Christ became like you in life, death, and as your sin-substitute. He alone can take you with Him to glory.

Jesus is in glory and He has done it all for your sins to be forgiven and forgotten. Don’t drift. Don’t drop out. Follow Him all the way to glory.