[0:00] I'm going to read the passage for today. We're going to be in Hebrews 2, starting in verse 10. If you want to look in your Bible, it's on page 1002, but it should be on the screen as well.
[0:11] And so I'll read down through verse 18. It says, 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.
[0:28] For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, I will tell of your name to my brothers in the midst of the congregation.
[0:43] I will sing your praise, and again, I will put my trust in you, and again, behold, I and the children God has given me.
[0:54] 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.
[1:13] 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.
[1:32] For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. Amen. This is the word of the Lord. Praise God.
[1:58] Praise God for all the work that he is doing and using us, and us being available for his disposal.
[2:10] And just thinking in my seat, I think we need to acknowledge Les' passion for all of this.
[2:21] Thank you so much on behalf of everyone in this church for being obedient to what God is placing on your hearts, to care well for not only this church community, but also people outside.
[2:36] We couldn't do this without obedient hands, and your hands are obedient. So thank you. Amen. Amen. It is all God.
[2:46] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Looking at the text and thinking about the framework within this text and pulling the themes that it's proposing to us made me think of all sorts of things, as you can imagine, but it made me think of specifically talks about death.
[3:21] Talks about suffering. Talks about pain. And who wants to talk about that, right? Who wants to talk about that? We want to just be jumping to our feet, bring on that gospel swing music, and here we come, Lord.
[3:37] But the best way to ruin any conversation would to bring up those topics, right? So, I mean, that gives me a fortunate, humbling low bar today as we go into God's Word because we're going to talk about that, so consider this sermon completely ruined before it starts and ruining your Sunday morning.
[3:58] But however, as Christians, Jesus Christ has given us every reason to hope amid any moment that God brings about in our lives, any moment we can always have hope.
[4:13] And this is important because for the world, those who are not in Christ, non-Christians, this is not the case.
[4:24] The world is living for the world. This is all that they have. This is all that they expect. And to an unbelieving world, when they close their eyes and breathe their last breath, they just cease to exist.
[4:45] That's it. So, in a world of no hope, it is simpler, easier, it's simple to just avoid the matter.
[4:57] Avoid the topics altogether. The world will find a way of avoiding these things in the talks about death and suffering and pain. The world will go to great lengths to self-medicate themselves with drugs or substances or possibly fill and cloud their lives with sexual desires and fulfilling that need in their lives.
[5:20] They'll even crown their lives with frivolous spending to ease that bitter taste and that sting that death has on them, that pain has on them, and that all the suffering in this world has.
[5:39] This brought to mind Sarah Westchester. She's the husband of William Wirt. And if you're into guns and armory, you'll notice that last name.
[5:51] Yes, it's the Westchester family, the brand of rifles. They owned this rifle company and started it long ago. And upon claiming a huge fortune, $20 million fortune, back in the early 1900s, I mean, that was a significant fortune.
[6:11] You talk about $20 million, you're like, oh, it's not that much. But, I mean, I would like that. That would be cool. I'd just take one of the 20. Thank you. And I'll be good.
[6:23] I'll invest that and make that multiply. But, right? It's like we think about fortunes and everything like that, but we forget that, you know, people worked for basically 50 cents a day back then, right?
[6:35] And so this was quite a fortune. They had everything that they would ever need and dream of until death. And all of a sudden, William Wirtz got influenza in 1918 and passed away.
[6:51] And so Sarah, his wife, because of her grief and her sort of this long interest in spiritism, she sought out a medium at this time to contact her dead husband.
[7:06] And this medium assured her, as long as you keep building your home, you will never face death.
[7:20] Sarah believed the spiritists. She took a portion of their fortune and she invested in this gigantic 17-room mansion.
[7:30] She moved out to California, San Jose, where this mansion is still located to this day. And she worked to expand and work on this home until she breathed her last.
[7:48] And she was woken up to the reality of death. And since her death, this grand Westchester mansion still exists out in California today.
[7:58] It's a popular tourist attraction. It has over, let's see here, I got some statistics here because it's just mind-boggling. It has 150 rooms, 13 bathrooms, 47 fireplaces, 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows.
[8:18] It is just set up in such an odd, like, it's like somebody suddenly died and forgot to finish the project. There's stairways that lead to nowhere.
[8:29] There's doors that open up to drops. It's just a chaotic mess. And she left enough materials to continue that building project because she was placing her hope in this life that she could have built and continued expanding this for another decade.
[8:46] But today, this house stands as more than just a tourist attraction. It is a silent witness to the dread of death that holds millions in this life in bondage.
[9:06] What the author of Hebrews has to offer is hope in the suffering of Christ, hope in the power of Christ, and hope in the atonement of Christ.
[9:18] And so, for us today in this Advent series, we will have our second to last message titled, Hope in the Conquering Son of God.
[9:30] And by the end of our time, I assure you, nothing in this life will have the power to destroy our hope because Christ has conquered it all for us.
[9:42] whether that's the first time that you've ever heard of this good news or if we, at times in this life, need our reminders.
[9:54] It is going to be true and clearly evident by the end of our time. So, with that in mind, as we go into God's Word and we start teasing out what is rest before our eyes today, I want us to pray and take a moment to humble ourselves under God's authoritative Word.
[10:13] So, let's pray. Father, thank you for a time where we can reflect and be reminded and be corrected and possibly if anyone walked in this room in this gathering just unknowing of where to find hope, we pray and we acknowledge they're going to find it today.
[10:35] And so, Father, have your way this morning. Let your Spirit speak clearly and Father, let your Spirit minister to all of our hearts collectively. And we pray this in Jesus' name.
[10:46] Amen. Amen. So, I'm going to break this text up according to how the author has broken it up and so what we have here are three sections and the first section is titled Hope in Christ's Suffering.
[11:07] Hope in Christ's Suffering. And we see that in verse 10 through 13. It says, 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, there it is, the S word, suffering.
[11:30] Now, we can't forget the path of which we've previously traveled. We started with verse 10 here. Who would have thought there's nine verses before that?
[11:43] There is context before that. The author has made some pretty significant and incredible contextual claims about who Jesus is. That Jesus Christ specifically has tasted death for everyone.
[11:56] It's something that, it's a message that is reliable, regardless if it's given to unreliable men to comprehend or apprehend. And not only that, it's something that we cannot do.
[12:10] We cannot save ourselves. And it's something that angels cannot do. Angels could not do what Christ did. And so the focus shifts in verse 10.
[12:20] We receive specific insight into the mission of the one described as the one in whom all things exist.
[12:32] The eternal one. The one who is the founder of salvation. In verse 10. Rick is right.
[12:45] When he crossed the pulpit, he's like, man, this text is good. It is really good. This is a good text. This is an incredible verse.
[12:58] Here lies the gospel message of Jesus Christ. The gospel message and the mission of God in Jesus Christ. The eternal incarnate deity.
[13:13] He came to redeem sinners. To save. To forgive. Why? Where there is glory, there is forgiveness.
[13:28] Notice the movement of the text in the vast landscape of all things. God's plan was to bring, to gather people in glory.
[13:43] glory. Now we could probably know, you could probably do a quick Google search and find antonyms of glory and one that you will find is shame.
[13:55] So if God is gathering people for glory, that means he's gathering them from their shame. Right? Because there is no glory in shame.
[14:09] They are antonyms. They are opposites. And therefore, our predisposition prior to coming to faith in Jesus Christ is shame.
[14:21] It is rebellion and it is sin. But the text has more movement. In verse 11, for he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source.
[14:36] They're gathered in to one single source. And that is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers.
[14:47] If you are in glory and saved from your shame, there is no more shame. And God himself, because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, leaves your shame and brings you, gathers you into glory.
[15:05] This is hope. You see, God is on a mission of gathering children for adoption and gathering them as righteous in glory.
[15:21] Jesus Christ, the sanctifier, the church being the sanctified. And this world serves as a giant orphanage. Within the landscape of God, within all that has been created, it is a giant orphanage.
[15:41] Right? And adoption, to become adopted is by him alone. He's the adopter.
[15:53] Something that we cannot do on our own. But how is this done though? Right? He mentioned suffering. What in the world does that mean?
[16:04] How is this done? It comes with that S word of suffering. The plan would be made perfect only through suffering. It's not saying that Jesus Christ was lacking something and then all of a sudden the cross came and then he had everything.
[16:19] No, the plan was incomplete. And then the plan was made perfect at the cross. In other words, the manger, as we can marvel at the incarnate deity lying in a manger and squeeze those chubby little rosy cheeks.
[16:40] Right? And oh, what a baby. Well, guess what? We can't stop there. It's not enough there. His miracles, if you come from a Pentecostal background, the miracles, all the signs and wonders, guess what?
[16:55] They're not enough alone, even in Christ's ministry. No, salvation is made perfect through suffering, through the cross.
[17:07] And so the author then makes some significant connections to illuminate the cross. It's like he's shining this big old flashlight to the cross.
[17:18] And the author is making us look back at something. It's that illumination that illuminates the cross, back to Psalms and back to Isaiah to observe that this is God's plan all along.
[17:32] And so in verse 12, the author first takes us to Psalm 22, verse 22. That's odd. Why would he just jump in the middle of a psalm?
[17:42] Doesn't he care about context? Right? Exegesis over eisegesis. Why is he diving in on this? Well, let's find that out. Because verse 22, if we take context into the matter, verse and chapter, the entire chapter of 22, before you get to verse 22, is a significant lament that turns to thanksgiving.
[18:08] And before 22, it is all David's lament in that. That's where you get the words, God, why have you forsaken me? David is crying out to God who feels alone, distant from God, and completely wrapped around the enemy's finger at this time.
[18:28] But verse 22 comes and things begin to turn around. Such a turning point would occur, similarly, from darkness to light in the mission of Jesus Christ as well.
[18:41] like David who would experience such darkness of sin but only to experience that breakthrough of light, of promise to break through and that light shining through.
[18:53] And not only that, he also takes you to Isaiah to explain this breakthrough of the situation turning. The author takes us to Isaiah 8 and specifically verse 17.
[19:07] Why is it 8 and why is it verse 17? Well, let's find out. Because chapter 8 of Isaiah fits within a larger context of chapters in a section.
[19:21] It starts in Isaiah 7 and goes all the way to Isaiah 9. And it's all about the concerns of the heart of rebellious people trusting in political powers or not trusting God.
[19:35] It was fear of God or fear of man. You had Ram, you had Israel and Judah and the threat of Assyria coming in. And the author connects Isaiah 8 verse 17 to a moment that Isaiah makes a turning point.
[19:53] He poses a question of how people will respond to the imminent threat around. will they fear God or will they fear man?
[20:08] Friends, there is something significant in the road that the author has paved for us today. It's a road that shines a light upon the cross.
[20:22] And when we're talking about death, suffering, and pain, and we see darkness all around, might we be reminded of the shadow of the cross?
[20:40] That it could very well be the shadow that we're under, that we are resting under God's promise, resting under the shadow of the cross. Right?
[20:51] And a light within us exists that darkness can never consume. And all of this brought through the breakthrough of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the mission of the cross, and it's also prevalent and a reminder for us today.
[21:11] The context of our hope, suffering, and pain, and death, all of that is that the salvation of God is in constant gaze of that breakthrough that Christ accomplished upon the cross.
[21:27] It's not over our effort, but His effort that we rest assure. That is the hope that we have in Christ's suffering. But not only that, there is victory in that as well.
[21:43] And section 2 takes us to verse 14. And it says, since therefore the children share in blood, in flesh and blood, He likewise partook of the same things.
[22:03] That through death He might destroy the one who has the power over death, the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of God were subject to lifelong slavery.
[22:22] You see, these similar situations the author is paving for us to illuminate the cross. The same situations going on in Isaiah of fear of man or fear of God are still prevalent in our day today.
[22:37] And it's interesting how the author structures Hebrews. It's almost like with each chapter of the book of Hebrews, it just gets deeper and deeper and deeper until you're flooded with this just fulfillment of Christ and all this Old Testament splitting of calves and goats and birds and what Christ has done to really simplify what it means to follow God in just faith alone by grace alone.
[23:12] And it's like it gets deeper even with every verse and every chapter. It's like walking into the ocean and just finding the depths of the sea. And in verse 14 the author takes us deeper into salvation and the effect of Jesus Christ's redeeming work.
[23:32] And while yeah, I already mentioned that Christmas is a time where we can kind of mistakenly overemphasize the incarnation and miss the emancipation of sin.
[23:48] Yes, the incarnation is vital for the mission but it's not enough. But I don't want us to fall in the trap of underemphasis as well.
[24:00] Because Jesus Christ as this passage says he truly became flesh. Make no mistake, this is important.
[24:14] He was tired and he slept. He grew hungry and he ate. He had aches and pains. Amen? All of it he shared in human experience but without sin.
[24:34] God literally allowed himself to put on the garment of man and he borrowed it for 33 years until he laid it aside.
[24:47] And thinking about this made me think of the strategy. We need to talk about summer, so we're going to talk about summer a little bit. Maybe think about the strategy that we often play on our back porch, fighting mosquitoes.
[25:00] And I know, give me a chance to qualify this before you call me crazy. But you know the strategy, fighting mosquitoes. You know, you can jump around like a madman and make everyone question your sanity and just, you know, clap in the air and just, there goes Brent, it's across the, he's getting that mosquito.
[25:19] It's okay, kids, he's going to be okay, right? But there he goes. Or, you can allow the mosquito to land upon your arm and maybe even let him have a little bit of a taste, all for the sake of getting him right where you want him, to then just swat him.
[25:39] And you got the little bugger, right? Now, Christ didn't merely swat a mosquito though. These are where illustrations fall short. They're almost unhelpful at times.
[25:51] But he prevailed over death and the devil. This is a promise that he would crush the head of the snake back in the Garden of Eden, back in Genesis 3, which is the first prophecy of Jesus Christ to come.
[26:07] And just like we can thank pop culture for giving this weird image of angels of light, we can also thank pop culture as well of kind of mischaracterizing the enemy, the true enemy, the one who Jesus Christ stomped, for the enemy was right where he wanted him so that he could crush the head of the serpent.
[26:37] And so, Christians, just like we can mistakenly trivialize angels of light being these chubby children with the bow and arrow on Hallmark cards.
[26:50] And we can get all these impressions of even Satan, that little red guy with the horns and the cute little tail, right? And with his little pitchfork, oh, that little guy with the pitchfork.
[27:02] Watch out, he'll get you, right? Christians need to take seriously the devil. Because I believe many of us, maybe not in this room, but Christianity at large, I think, has fallen to neglect what Holy Scripture indicates with who the devil really is.
[27:27] 1 Peter 5, 8 says that the devil prowls around like a lion, seeking someone to devour. He often does this, I believe, by perverting the gospel.
[27:42] He does this by preventing the gospel from being preached. And guess what? It's bad news for a much larger church, because the larger the church, the greater that threats.
[27:56] And in ignorance, don't we often think of pastors as those guys who just live it up? I mean, they have the dream jobs. They just sit around. Drink coffee and think.
[28:09] Pray. While you're out getting blisters on your hands and working and toiling all these hours over time, you have a boss, right?
[28:24] Don't undermine the target that is on their heads by the evil one, by Satan, the devil. people. Because if Satan can effectively capture a pastor, he's got the whole church.
[28:43] If Satan can capture the president of a university like YSU, he can have the entire university. Satan is by no dummy.
[28:55] He is very tactful, and he is very good at what he does. He's been doing it for a very long time. So, don't be ignorant of who the devil is.
[29:07] He is a liar. He's a deceiver. He's a destroyer. He's a tempter. And quite frankly, if he's after a pastor, he's after the family. He's after their relationships.
[29:19] He's after church unity. He will try every possible means of destroying what God is doing. You see, he is utterly opposed to God's being, character, all God's purposes, all God's people.
[29:38] He hates you, right? He's opposed to God's glory. And to think about it for a moment, if the shepherds in Luke had a near traumatic experience when an angel of light showed itself, what in the world do you think it is when an angel of darkness shows?
[29:57] to trivialize Satan and what Christ did to Satan is to trivialize the cross. We have to take both severely serious.
[30:12] Death is Satan's adoption process as well, right? Millions of people reject the hope in Christ and their promise to enter into a far from trivial end.
[30:27] eternal ends in hell. Make no mistake in this. The hope, therefore, in Jesus Christ's victory, as the author is indicating in this passage, is that, yes, Satan is quite powerful, but Jesus Christ is more powerful.
[30:47] And though Satan prowls around like a lion, he is undoubtedly limping because of the cross. no weapon formed against the church will prosper and Satan is rendered powerless through the victory of the cross.
[31:03] And so, church, we rejoice in that. There is no victory in death anymore. There is no sting, and we'll sing about that in just a couple moments.
[31:16] Verse 16 says something helpful, for surely, it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham.
[31:27] Look at the care of our God, of how he has a designated place of humankind, mankind.
[31:40] Jesus Christ is the one who helps Abraham's offspring, and his work is the work of God that is intimately interwoven within the entire fabric of redemptive history.
[31:53] This is something that we see from the Garden of Eden all throughout the days of the exile, to the days of the law, to the days of the prophets, and the judges, and the kings.
[32:04] It is all interwoven that he has a designation for Abraham's offspring. We must remember the perspective, though.
[32:18] This life is not promised to be easy. That's for certain, right? And we are far from being free of all the ailments of sin.
[32:29] But in Jesus Christ, we are free from the death sentence. We are forgiven and free. By faith, we are adopted out of Satan's arms and brought into the Father's arms.
[32:45] This is the gospel. And you want assurance of that? Let's continue. We see hope in Christ's atonement in the third section.
[32:59] Verse 17 says, therefore, because of all of that, you want assurance? Here it is. 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.
[33:25] For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. Boy, we got some big words there, propitiation.
[33:38] That's just a word that means satisfaction. We'll just set the record straight here. And now let's dive in. We don't understand necessarily the complexity of the Old Testament systems and rituals, and I'm not here to give you a lecture.
[33:54] You could probably find some beneficial resources after that, or we can have a Sunday school regarding that. But it would be beneficial to know a little bit about it, about the Old Testament teaching on priesthood specifically.
[34:09] It's something that the Jewish audience would be very good at knowing about. It's not unknown to them. They're scholars at the Old Testament sacrifice system.
[34:20] In the Old Testament, the people of Israel needed a priest to mediate a sacrifice before God, simply to say. And there was a day, a day of atonement. That was a day that the high priest would make a sacrifice as a representative of the nation of Israel, the day of atonement.
[34:38] And that was a substitutionary sacrifice that the high priest would put forward and atone for sin. And this topic would be expounded.
[34:50] The author of Hebrews is kind of just introducing it to us. It will be expanded on later in chapters, much more in depth. But you see something here. Jesus Christ, then, if all of that is certainly true, and he's talking about a high priest, and he's talking about propitiation of sin.
[35:09] Well, Jesus Christ, then, according to the author of Hebrews, is the sacrifice that satisfied God's judgment of sin. And so, Jesus Christ would need to become a man in order to make that atonement.
[35:27] Propitiation is related to several different concepts. because, number one, you can't have propitiation without dealing with the wrath of God. We have to talk about the wrath of God if we're talking about propitiation.
[35:40] And that because God is holy, His wrath is directed towards sin and must be satisfied to spare man of eternal destruction.
[35:55] And God also provides a remedy. God provides a solution to sin by sending Christ as a substitute, a satisfaction for sin.
[36:08] And Christ's death, it satisfied God's wrath against sin. The gift of Christ satisfied the holiness of God and averted His wrath.
[36:24] Propitiation is Godward, as Moody states. God is propitiated, His holiness is vindicated and satisfied by the death of Christ.
[36:36] What does this satisfaction look like? It looks like the washing away of sin. Bringing many sons to glory.
[36:50] cancelling the debt, known as expiation. Forgiveness of sin. God's wrath was satisfied in the cross of Jesus Christ and atonement was made secure.
[37:06] And guess what? That's not up to your opinion. That's what God declares. And you might not feel forgiven, but according to His standards and what Jesus Christ accomplished, by your faith, you are set free.
[37:23] Complete legal record set free. You want to know the good news and why this is good news specifically? That suffering, pain, and death causes us to forget this.
[37:38] That when we suffer, we might actually slip up in some sins in our lives and maybe revisit some old ones that we put at bay, but all of a sudden suffering comes and we forget.
[37:51] We are forgetful people. That's certainly true. And suffering, pain, and death will cause us to forget. And I don't know who might need a reminder from Romans 3, but let us be reminded as Paul reminds the Roman church in verse 21, but now, apart from the law, God's righteousness has been revealed, attested by the law and the prophets.
[38:23] The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
[38:38] They are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. God presented Him as an atoning sacrifice through faith in His blood to demonstrate His righteousness because in His restraint, God passed over the sins previously committed.
[39:02] God presented Him to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time so that He would be righteous and declare righteous, the one who has faith in Jesus.
[39:17] Boy, if you are not a Christian today, it's pretty clear. Believe. It's here.
[39:28] The Word is open. God has spoken. And what has been spoken can't be unspoken. This is transcendent. God is both just and justifier.
[39:43] You see, don't you see what the author is forcing us to do in this passage? He's telling us to look back, especially when we can't see around.
[40:01] And if we can rightly look back upon Jesus Christ's work, then we will be able to rightly gaze forward upon the journey ahead. And this is huge, too, because the Christian faith is continuously directional gaze.
[40:19] It's directing our attention and gazing upon the right things in this life. And unfortunately, when things are a living hell in our lives, we are often caught fixating upon the wrong things.
[40:34] We forget all the more prevalently. When the challenges of life come, when suffering, pain, and death come, and even emotional things like doubt and fear and anxiety.
[40:48] Anyone have anxiety in here? Amen. Right? When these things come, we often look back, and the things that we're looking back upon only cause us more anxiety, because we see the mess of sin.
[41:04] We see the missed opportunities in this life. We see the shouldas, the wouldas, and the couldas. But this passage ought to reprogram our forgetful minds to know everything's going to be okay.
[41:23] How? There is pardon for sin. And if there's pardon for sin, there is light, regardless of the darkness around us, because the light within us is greater than the darkness around us.
[41:38] You see, in looking back, we don't fixate upon our sin, our missed opportunities, our bad choices, but we see what Christ did with our sin.
[41:49] And also looking forward, we don't fixate upon the suffering to come, but we look and gaze upon the suffering that was accomplished in the life of Jesus Christ.
[42:00] how can we be assured of the hope of Jesus Christ's suffering, power, and death, and atonement? We're assured in hope, because Jesus Christ, the God of creation, is no stranger of difficulty.
[42:25] In that, we're not alone in our suffering. And so I'll close with a couple thoughts here. I want us to really press this, because if you are not a Christian, if you are not a believer in this room, maybe you thought you were, you did the Hail Marys at the Catholic Church and everything like that, but I can't encourage you, you're far.
[42:54] It's idolatry, it's not faith of the Bible. What Jesus Christ did alone in his sacrifice is something that the Bible is calling you to believe in, to have faith in.
[43:10] You can't rest upon being saved by your works and helping the old lady across the street. It's just going to help her get to her destination, not you. take this time this morning to pray for your rescue from sin.
[43:34] Pray to the one who has himself endured suffering and temptation. Jesus Christ is strong and he is mighty to save.
[43:47] And entering into faith, you can join the church, the sons and daughters that are brought into glory, the adopted orphans, a great wonderful pack of orphans we have here that were once orphans, now children of God.
[44:03] Come and join us who are able to step into suffering and death confidently. We have nothing to fear in this life, and we can take suffering head on.
[44:16] Why? Because he became like us in every respect. However, he stepped in to suffering and death on our behalf, the ultimate suffering and death that we don't need to fear.
[44:30] Why? Why did he do that? For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.
[44:44] Why? Because it was fitting that the eternal God, according to Hebrews, creator of all things, would suffer. Why?
[44:55] Because he is a loving and just God. Friends, it would be my failure to be a pastor today to provide you with any sense of false hope in anything else than Christ alone through the cross alone.
[45:12] God has affirmed it today through his word. In Christ alone, our hope is found. Amen? Let's pray. Let's pray.