Please turn with me to Hebrews, chapter 2. If you've ever heard a Christmas sermon out of the book of Hebrews, I'll think I have. This one applies to this story of Christmas several weeks ago, I began with the big story and your story. The big story is that Jesus Christ is the great hero. The promise one, that there was a real historical fall, which explains our sin, our alienation, explains death itself. Jesus Christ is the great hero that was promised all the way back in Genesis 3. Last week we talked about Mary's story and how Mary's story makes us rethink everything, makes us rethink our prejudice, makes us rethink impossibility, makes us rethink our plans. This week we talk about Jesus, the story of a brother, beginning in chapter 2, verse 10. In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. He says, I will declare your name to my brothers and the presence of the congregation, I will sing your praises and again I will put my trust in him and again he says, here am I and the children God has given me. Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is the devil. And free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. For surely it is not angels, he helps, but Abraham's descendants for this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people because he himself suffered when he was tempted. He is able to help those who were being tempted with praying. Lord, this is your word, your truth, so it's not devised by men, this is your gospel. So bring glory to Jesus on this your day, let us see him as our brother, let it melt our hearts in love and adoration and worship for him, let it encourage us today. Fill this room with your spirit, I'm in. I know a lot about being a brother, I have two of them. My older brother is 18 months older than I am. My younger brother, some of you may know him, he goes to church here, I feel sorry for him. Having his older brother as senior pastor is 20, Spencer is 20 months younger than I am. This time of year makes me kind of sentimental about being a brother. It's around this time of year that my parents on Christmas day, all three of us on the same step would put all three of us right there on the very top of the stairs on Christmas day and then they would torture us. They would let us come down one step at a time, they would go in and say, wow there's a lot of stuff in here, you guys are going to love see that you can come down one step. Our hair sticking all over the place and then somewhere about halfway down the staircase, they would snap a photo and when you're 8, 6, and 4, that's cute. But when you're 15, 13, and 11, it's not as cute. See being a brother to me was shoulder to shoulder with these guys, I shared my life with them. They looked like me, they sound like me, they know everything about me, in fact my mother would often dress us up in matching pajamas, again cute but they're not cute. See a brother is someone who wears the same pajamas you wear, a brother is someone who is slapped on Christmas Eve underneath you on the squeaky bunk bed, a brother walks through life with you, a brother is close, have you ever thought of Jesus as your brother? This was so offensive in the first century when this book was written. The think of God coming down as a man and being so close that the writer of Hebrews would call him brother, this was offensive to the Jews and it was ridiculous to the Greeks who thought being spiritual was to transcend this world, not someone who sits on the staircase with you, that's exactly what Christianity is about, that's what Christmas is about, it's about God coming here and being your brother, shocking isn't it? We need to know that he is our brother. He's not just up there giving us advice and telling us to hang in there, he's on the stairs with us. He has tasted death, suffering in this world, he has walked a mile in your shoes, if you look at your outline, Jesus, our brother has beat death, our first point, Jesus, our brother takes away your sin, Jesus, our brother sympathizes with you in your struggle, he can help and the issues of ministry have not changed over 2,000 years, the greatest three things that people struggle with, the fear of death and dying, struggling with your sin and living in a world where you're tempted and tried, and here's my encouragement to you today, your brother is with you, your brother is with you, let's go to the first point, your brother beats death, think about death for a second, what a great Christmas topic, beginning in verse 14, since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in humanity, in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death, here's what the gospel is, here's what this means, that in order to redeem God had to come down to us and become one of us never ceasing to be God, but experience our life, he had to take on flesh and blood, in order to experience and to conquer everything that flesh and blood deals with, what this means, since the wages of sin is death, the wages of sin is death, since we die, guess what, Jesus died. See Jesus shared every part of our humanity except for one thing, sin. Jesus is a brother in every possible way, fully human, I think sometimes we're okay with thinking of Jesus as God and as up there and as wonderful, that's why we like the pictures of Jesus with his blonde, flowing hair, barely touching the earth, but Jesus was earthy and real, he was a first-century Jew, and is. How often do you think about death? Most of us don't think about that too much, but it's a reality, you're going to die, and we live in a world, I'm not talking about the world out there, it's easy to point fingers at the world out there, I'm talking about us, we are the people I'm talking to, we are trying to fight the reality that we're going to die all the time, they've ever heard the phrase whistling past the graveyard, that's why we develop things like anti-aging creams, so people ask me, Richie, I noticed that your hair is kind of getting white, are you going to do something about that? And I tell them no, it is a reminder that I'm going to die and that I'm currently dying, that my body, my head is telling me, Richie, we're out of black, all we have is white, and after that you're on your own,
that's why we worship youth, you know we worship the youth culture and young people and beautiful people, that's why we say things like 50 is the new 40, and 30 is the new 20, is 90 the new 80? 20 the new 10, but even if we are living longer, we're not going to live forever, that's what James, James, chapter 4, he says it so bluntly, this is Jesus's real earthly brother, half brother, he says you don't even know what will happen tomorrow, what is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then is gone, and here's the problem that the writer of Hebrews is dealing with, is there not only just this reality of death that we're sharing, that our bodies are aging and that we're dying and the people we love are going away, they're dying, we're burying them, but that we have this fear of death, see that's what this denial of death is, it's just a way of dealing with our fear of that reality, that's why we whistle past the graveyard, that's why we're trying to deny the fact, because we don't want to get old and we don't want to die, and that's because man is held in slavery by the fear of death like a bully, and I've told you about my bully story, how to bully that would, occasionally he would be my friend one day, and then the next day he would hit me with his Jansport backpack and abuse me, but he didn't do that when my brother walked home with me,
he wouldn't touch me when my brother was with me, and here's what I believe, the writer of Hebrews is saying to us in the 21st century, death is a bully and Satan is a bully, and he's hanging death over your head, but Jesus your brother is walking home with you, Jesus is like the one who wears a backpack with you, you're not by yourself, the Jesus Christ is the one that's walking home with you, he's not just up there in heaven calling the shots, he's not an absentee landlord, he's not like one of those parents that maybe give you five dollars and say happy birthday once a year, he's your brother, and brothers defend you against bullies, it's been said that Jesus Christ blew a hole in the back of death, death is like this great enemy that claims every single person on the face of this earth, and Jesus Christ is the only one through his death, he killed death, death was undefeated until Jesus met, do you know a god like that, is that the god you know, or do you have a cold detached god who's uninterested in you, that's not your brother,
that he's not ashamed to wear your shoes, this is what it means for your Christ your brother to beat death, in the words of Dorothy Sayers, listen this, God had the honesty in Jesus Christ, he had the honesty encouraged to take his own medicine, say what you will about God, the god of the Bible, but he's the only one who went through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life, from the cramping restrictions of hard work and the lack of money to the worst horrors, pain, humiliation, defeat, despair, and death, when he was a man he played the man,
he was born in poverty and he died in apparent disgrace, but here's the good news, what appeared to be the greatest loss, Jesus your brother on the cross and in his resurrection, guess what, he says it's safe to walk home now, and when you die because Jesus Christ, when you die and you're going to die, when you die, guess what, it's a sleep and you wake up and heaven, and this isn't some detached person that's done this, this is your brother on the staircase, do you really know Jesus,
he beat your death, but he also takes your sin, look at the second point with me, verses 16 and 17,
surely it's not angels he helps, but Abraham's descendants, but this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest and service to God that he might make a tonement or that he might turn aside God's wrath, that he might make a tonement for the sins of the people, you know what that means, is that in order to play the game, Jesus Christ wore the jersey, the game that you're in, Jesus Christ went into the game to play, and you're struggled with sin, and this, this is different than most of us think about,
Jesus as your brother knows everything about you, you know it was like when one of my scholarly friends talked to me about what it was like to be in a family in the first century around Jesus's day, and around the time that this book was written, he said you know what it was like, it was much different, you couldn't run away to your iPod or your video game or your laptop or your TV, you couldn't be in a family and be alienated from your family, you had one room and a fire, and they knew everything about you, there was no hiding from your brother, so the first thing we need to talk about when we understand Jesus taking away your sin, I want you to imagine that Jesus knows everything about you, he's like a brother that knows everything, he experienced life on this earth, folks, he knows what we struggle with, without exception,
but he's also a high priest, he's a brother that knows everything that you struggle with, but he's also a high priest that actually makes atonement for everything you struggle with, but this is transformational if you listen to him, he knows the whole story, and he takes the whole story about you, and he represents you to God, that's what a faithful and merciful high priest does, you totally known as a brother and he represents you to God that the priest would go into the holy of holies once a year and he would make atonement for the sins of the people, that's what the writer of Hebrews is saying, he would make atonement, he would represent the people to God, and this high priest that makes atonement for your sin, all of it, the whole story is your brother, the one you can't hide from, let me tell you a story about my brother knowing me completely, my older brother Chris caught me one time playing tennis guitar, you know, a tennis racket guitar is, before you can play guitar you played on a tennis racket, to the top gun soundtrack,
and that was really getting into it folks, probably 10 or 11 years old, and he sees me and he looks like, oh, this is rich, and I feel so stupid, so embarrassed, so humiliated, and I started thinking about this this week, that doesn't even scratch the surface of the stuff that he's caught me doing, that doesn't even, that doesn't even scratch the surface of the stuff that he knows about me, now what if you had a brother that knows everything about you that actually walked a mile in your shoes that was on the staircase with you, but he not only knows everything about you, guess what, he can actually forgive you for all the things he knows about you, that Jesus Christ your brother can take you right into the very holy of holies, not because you're acceptable, but because he is,
not just the 75% maybe of the sins that you can confess to people, but the 25 that you guard with your life, you know the 25% is what people really struggle with,
the thoughts, the things that you've done, those are the ones that keep you up at night, and what I'm saying to you this morning based on the word of God is that Jesus your brother knows the whole story about you, he knows everything, he has seen you at your worst, but he has taken your sin, and he himself has made atonement for it, he himself has made you acceptable to God, not because you'll ever be acceptable, now tell me that doesn't change your life, to be truly known, truly known, and truly forget it, that he takes your sin, are you tired of being you, you ever get tired of being you, I've actually saw some people go yeah, are you tired of those sins that you keep running into over and over again, are you tired, does your life feel like a broken record, that if people knew the real story about you, then everyone would reject you, and you know what, if you think that, guess what, you think God would reject you if he knows the real story about you, I'm here to tell you this morning, he does know the real story about you, and it's finished because of what he has done, Mary Christmas, is that a gift, that the complete you that you're able to because Jesus your brother is the high priest, he's able to say, there with me, I've actually experienced there with me story before, once, it was a really popular restaurant in Nashville, and I knew the manager, I know you're impressed, it was really popular, people were waiting, you know, for hours and they had their little buzzers and waiting for their buzzer to go off, and I knew the manager and he came, oh hey Richie come on in, come on in, and I was like, this feels pretty cool, he says I've got a table for you, people are looking at me like, how dare you, not wait, and he gives me this great table, and I so didn't deserve to have that table, but I knew the owner, and here's the purpose of Christian unity, here's what I'm saying this morning, you don't have any right to be in heaven, but you know the owner, you know who he is, he's your brother,
he's your brother, he knows everything, do you really, do you really know how precious you are to God? that God himself would take on flesh, that he would walk a mile in your shoes, that he would take your own, that he would, as Martin Luther said, he would become the greatest sinner the world has ever known, so that you could walk, that you could have the table, that's the love of God, and I'll tell you something folks, human beings like us, we don't invent love like that, we invent genies, that give us things that we want, that's your brother, your brother beats death, and your brother takes away your sin, but your brother also helps you and sympathizes with you and your struggle, our last point, verse 18, because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he's able to help those who are being tempted, you know who those are, this is what Christmas means, your brother can help you because he's been where you are, how many of you, after you've gone through a difficult time, or you've lost someone that you've loved, people really try to hard to comfort you, they want to say things like, tell me about what you're going through, or I understand, and you know they don't understand, and you hear that you really want someone who's been there to counsel you, don't you? Well guess what, you can't tell God that he hasn't been there anymore, he has been there more than you and I will ever realize, do you realize Jesus Christ was tempted his entire life and he never sinned one time? Yeah, that's what the Bible says. Now we're tempted and we give into temptation, which makes the intensity of the temptation lesson because you give into it, but if you never give into temptation, guess what, temptation gets more intense, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, your brother, experience temptation in a way that you and I will never experience temptation. In other words, he's been there, he's been there. The writer of Hebrews calls him the author of our salvation, he knows what it's like to live in this world and to struggle, he knows what it's like to be in this world and to suffer, and so when you see him, you come to him, you can, he sympathizes with you, here's an illustration, I'm not a big camp person, I know a lot of you are and that's great, but I didn't like being away from home for more than two days. One year my parents thought it'd be a good idea to ship us off to a camp for two and a half weeks, all three of us, where I thought I was in prison and I got sick, really sick, and guess what, the sick kid in the cabin doesn't have any friends, and I was homesick and weak, but there was something wonderful about that camp that I'll never forget, I saw my brothers there, and when you're far away from home and you're sick and you're lonely, when you see a familiar face, you know what it is, it's not going home for a minute, because they're at the same camp and it was great because they were as miserable as I was. Jesus Christ is at the same camp, it's what the incarnation he knows what the food is like, he knows what it sounds like here, he knows what it's like to be heartbroken, he knows what it's like to be betrayed, he knows what it's like to physically hurt,
get this, teenagers, God in Jesus Christ knows what it's like to go through puberty, and all the awkwardness of that, he knows what it's like to have a family, he knows what it's like to be an ordinary person in a broken world and to be brokenhearted in that world, he knows what that's like, he was a face, you know Jesus Christ was a face in the crowd, that's what those pictures are so terrible, do you know what Judas gave a signal to the Roman guards, I'm going to give Jesus a kiss so that you will know who Jesus is, do you know why he does that? Because Jesus was a common looking
person, in other words, for the Roman guards, you could imagine them saying they all look the same, that is Jesus looked like Peter, he knows what it's like to be an ordinary person in a broken world to be a face in the crowd, he knows what it's like to suffer and he's at the same camp, as they at 53 said he had no beauty that should attract us to him, he knew what it was like to be hungry and tired, where are you right now in your life? Are you being tempted? Are you falling into temptation?
Look you don't have Jesus, he's out there going wow I really hope they'd hurry up and finish this race
Jesus is right there with you, beside you and the good news is he's already finished the race for you, he's already won the race for you, he knows what it's like to walk a mile in your shoes, I've had the opportunity, the honor of being a part of a number of funerals in ministry, now start to think about this idea of funerals and Jesus our brother, you know a brother isn't someone that just stops by the visitation, a brother isn't someone who just sends a card and that's nice too, a brother is a pallbearer because the people that are pallbearers of funerals are most often those people who are closest to the man that is in the casket, the person who carries the casket is a brother and I want you to imagine Jesus Christ not as some person that's observing our struggle and something as heartbroken as a funeral heartbreaking as a funeral, I want you to imagine Jesus Christ, the kind of person that Jesus Christ is, is Jesus Christ as a pallbearer
but the difference between Jesus Christ and other pallbearers and other brothers is that Jesus Christ carrying this casket came to put an end to casket, that Jesus Christ our brother is God, that Jesus Christ our brother says to us, I know this is hard but take heart because I've overcome this world, I have beaten death, I have taken your sins and I can't wait for you to be with me, I can't wait for you to sit on the staircase with me, that's what Christmas is about, he beats our death, he takes our sin and he helps in our struggle, let me close with three applications, do you know what this application is to humility? If Jesus Christ was just a face in the crowd, who do we think we are?
In other words, why are you trying to be so significant? Why do we try to make a name for ourselves? I'm not talking about being excellent, you should try to be excellent in what you do and the gift God's given you but do you see if Jesus Christ came into this world and he was just a face in this crowd, a face in the crowd, it's a message to us, it's a message that great is the servant, great is the lowly, great is a brother, you know another application is, we should really treat our brothers and sisters differently if Jesus treated us this way, we should really think about how we as independent Presbyterian church treat people that Jesus Christ died for, it might make you think before you say that very cruel thing about that person, how would Jesus, his brother or her brother feel about this?
And then finally, Memphis should be Philadelphia, Memphis should be a place of brotherly love. Independent Presbyterian church, as we're moving forward, since Jesus is your brother, do you hear the message that we have to give to a city that is ripped apart with strife and anger? Do you see the message that we have? It's not a message that's hard to understand, it's a message that is near, see Jesus Christ isn't just up here in this robe, he's in the pew with you, we should be marked by our brotherly love, that's what Jesus said before he died and rose again, love each other, love each other, love each other, do you think he was just liking to hear the sound of his own voice? Here's what he's saying, I am your brother and I'm on the stairs with you, I have done this for you, now please, if you do one thing in this world, if you do one thing in this world, do this, love others, and that's what Christmas is about, for God so loved the world that he gave his son, that whoever should believe in him would not perish but have everlasting life. Lord, I can't even begin to imagine how precious these people are to you and how much you are wanting to apply this word to their life, Lord you do your work, you be honored, I believe that you're honored this morning as we talk about you as our brother Jesus, I pray that it would encourage us, that it would spur us on to brotherly love, do this, give us faith in Jesus' name, I'm in.