Death, Where is Your Sting

0:00Good morning. Once again, open up your Bibles to the book of Hebrews. We are going to be in verses five to nine this morning of chapter two. We know that Christ is in control of all things. Amen. He laid the foundation of the earth. He upholds all things by the word of his power. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him. These truths are undeniably true. Why though? Because what we see and experience in this world, which is in subjection to him, does not align with that reality. Why does it appear like sin is still winning? Why are evil corruptions and death still winning things? That question and those questions are one of the biggest deterrences to Christianity. A while back I heard a very famous atheist say that the reality that evil and death are present in the world either means that God, if he is here, is not all powerful because it's not, or he is not all good. So the seeming disconnect between what we think and what we see in the world is a stumbling block for me. And we need to move that stumbling block out of the way, or we have to help other people for the introduction into apologetics. There's plenty of resources on that. And I uh I said that when I was originally writing this, I was gonna include some of those resources in the notes, and I did not do that, I'll make sure I do that for you next week. But given that this uh is in our text this morning addresses this uh this concept, uh, we need to have a gospel-centered answer to those questions. Let me further say that I will hardly settle all of these matters this morning. It would be unreasonable to suggest that I could in 30 minutes address such weighty matters that men have devoted uh a lifetime to. I do pray, however, in this short time I can point you again to Christ, to his work. That he really has done everything that we claim to be that he has done. So that's all the introduction uh you're gonna get this morning. Stand with me once more as we read Hebrews chapter 2, verses 5 to 9. For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere. What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels. You have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet. Now, in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not see everything in subjection to him. 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 into death for everyone. This is the word of the Lord. Lord, we thank you again for your word. We pray and ask that you would speak it for Christ's sake. It is in his name that I pray. Can you all hear me? Okay, I don't feel like I'm coming out as loud as usual. But either way, I'll I'll try to uh I'll try to talk a little talk a little louder. Um I'm sure that most of you saw this, but on Wednesday, uh the day after the election was this election that you probably knew about uh was made official, the Dow Jones jumped up by some 1,500 points. And if you looked across the whole of the individual stock market, everything was green. Right? That is positive. And as Brother Stephen rightly pointed out on Wednesday, this occurred without any really change to the economy. Nothing actually happened from Tuesday to Wednesday. So why the move? Well, despite the present realities, there is a clear, clearly a financial optimism that in the future things are going to look better than the present. In this case, people were putting their money where their future hope was. When reflecting on the spiritual state of our world, then it can be very disheartening to not see beyond our immediate present. In much the same way financial optimism works, our spiritual optimism is rooted not so much in the present state of things, but rather who's in control and where the one in control is taking us. So before we go any further, we have to be assured that despite our present situation, there is an age or a world to come. Our present optimism must draw from, or be drawn from, or fueled by, the reality that there is a world to come, where the visible and the invisible will meet, where the promise of subjection to Christ will become reality. And all will truly be in subjection to him visibly. And that hope comes from trusting in his promises, trusting in who we know is in control. And it also comes from reflecting on the majesty of God revealed to us in Scripture. And this is what the author of Hebrews does by referencing first for us another Psalm, that is Psalm 8. And I want you to turn back to Psalm 8 because we're going to read a little more than what was quoted in Hebrews 2. So I do want you to turn back there, if you can, to Psalm 8. I'll start in verse 1. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and infants you have established strength because of your foes to still the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon, and the stars which you have set in place. What is man? That you are mindful of him, and the Son of Man that you care for him. The first step to answering some of these questions is to come to terms with the insignificance of man by beholding the majesty of our God. And God's creation is full of lessons for us if we have eyes to see them. And the heavens declare the majesty and the glory of God. And David in Psalm 8 is looking up into the night sky in awe, and he is beholding the glory and the grandeur of God in creation. And David didn't even have the full extent of the grandeur that modern discovery has afforded us. By all estimations, the sun is one of trillions upon trillions of stars in the universe, each with untold number of planets orbiting them. So just from a purely creational standpoint, we are smaller than a grain of sand in the ocean. Man could live billions of years, and in that time we could not traverse even a fraction of one percent of what God spoke into existence in an instant. His creation is utterly unfathomable. And yet it is this one speck of dust in the ocean that God of all looks upon with his tender mercy and care. What is man that you are mindful of him? And the Son of Man that you care for him. We need this perspective to guide us in answering those questions before us today. We need to reflect on the true God. The God who made the world and everything in it. Being Lord of heaven and earth does not live in temples made by man. Nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him. Yet he is not actually not far from each of us. God doesn't owe us anything, nor does he need anything. God could blot out the entirety of the universe in an instant, and he would be no less God, and he would be no less complete. Humanity is certainly deserving of that end. I heard someone else say that they don't fear AI. This whole AI thing, you know about this. They said they don't fear AI becoming smarter than humans and more capable because they don't think that AI, or they perhaps they do think, that AI won't screw things up as bad as humans have. And maybe that was a joke by this person, but it demonstrates the hypocrisy of man who, on one hand, laments how badly mankind messes up everything, certainly everything it touches, and on the other complains that a perfect and holy God is not more merciful to this man who screws everything up. Further, Paul uses this same passage from Psalm 8 in his letter to Corinth to fix our gaze upon the hope of a resurrection. If in Christ, then, your hope does not extend beyond the breadth of this life, then you are most to be pitied. This is what Paul says. And we have missed it if we don't consider Christ as the firstborn of a new creation. And get out your binoculars if your eyes are too bad to see that far. I know mine often are. Okay. So with those truths and understanding guiding us, we have to consider what the problem really is then. You can turn back to Hebrews chapter 2 if you haven't already, from verse 8 in our text. This is the second little part of verse 8. Now, in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. If everything is in subjection to Christ, but we do not presently see everything in subjection to Christ, how do we reconcile this problem? Aside from the fact that we misconstrue what it looks like for everything to be in subjection to Christ, we come up with all manner of ways to apply solutions to what we perceive to be the problems. Perhaps we assume that the real problem facing us today is inequity. So all we need to do to fix our issues is just level the playing field for everyone. If everyone were just equal, then all would be well, right? It was recently said that the evil patriarchy is the problem, and all our issues really stem from men having too much power, too much power in our society. That's the problem. Maybe the problem is all the wealthy people and all their hordes of money, so if we just redistributed all of the money, things would get better. Or maybe the biggest issue is systemic racism and compassion towards minority groups is the thing that will fix everything. And to be fair, some of those are genuine issues. I'm not minimizing them, but if we think that solving those issues is going to bring everyone in visible subjection to a righteous God of the universe, we're delusional at best. The problem with humanity is the same problem that has always been facing humanity. We're cursed with a sin nature. And as a result, are a sinful people who don't know and don't follow Christ. We don't see everything in subjection to Christ as we might expect because there is still sin. And sinful people who aren't subjecting themselves to him. In the age to come, we will see all things subjected to him because there will be no more sin. But until then, where sin remains, death, corruption remains. What the writer of Hebrews has been laboring to this point to demonstrate, and what I hope I am laboring to demonstrate, is that Christ is superior to everything else. And as a result, Christ is the answer to all the problems that we face. And so often when it comes to these spiritual matters, we ask the wrong questions. The world asks, if God is in control, why do we still see death, pain, and sin? The better question is why do we deny that Christ is the only solution to death? Pain and sin. And things are not visibly in subjection to Christ. They're not. Things are not visibly in subjection to Christ because they are denying that subjection to Christ is the solution. We all want the fix, right? World peace, earthly paradise, perfect harmony among men, but we deny the solution. It is for this reason that the gospel carries with it the power of God. Because it is only through the gospel-renewed heart, or a gospel-renewed heart, that we turn from sin. And we turn to God. It is only through a rebirth into Christ that is offered to us in the gospel that we have any hope to solve our problems. We don't see everything in subjection to Him. But there is something that we do clearly see. As our text says, we see Him. We see Christ. This is the second half of, or the last half of verse 8, verse 9. At present we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him, but we do see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering and death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. We see our Lord, who was for a little while made lower than the angels, who was crowned in glory and honor because of the suffering of death. The death that he suffered, he suffered, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. We all know that there is a problem. Anyone can see it. This is why it's so tragic that so many don't see Christ as the solution. And Christ wasn't just another man who had another philosophy or another policy to fix things. He wasn't a politician or an activist. He was a giant slayer. He was a curse breaker. He was a death defeater. He took upon himself the fullness of the curse. He took and he drank the full cup of God's wrath. He suffered and died. For what? To not fix everything? How dare we look at such a Savior who suffered for us and reply to him, well, could you speed it up a little bit? The one who took upon himself the wrath of God so that he could extend his grace to us and his forgiveness? We've already established our significance, our insignificance didn't merit what he did for us. How could we ever behold such pure mercy and suggest it's not good enough? Or that he's perhaps done something wrong. Who are you, old man, to answer back to God? The heart of the matter then is this. Our biggest issue with the fact that we don't presently see everything in subjection to Him is that we assume that this 80-ish years that we're all somewhere in the middle or more towards the end of, was or is the point. Don't hear me degrading our present life. I'm not doing that at all. I'm actually doing the opposite, really. I want to elevate this life not as a separate section of time, but rather place it where it really is. The beginning of eternity. Remember John 11. I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die yet, shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? Do you believe that because of the suffering of Christ and his death, you will never die? Do you know that though you will be temporarily separated from your body at some point, there will be no loss of consciousness, no loss of self. You are presently living by the grace of God in the first tiny piece of an eternal existence. Where but for a moment by comparison you will experience joy, perfection unending. What a pity it would be if Christ entered this world only to give us some hope for the next 80-ish years if we're lucky. This can't be. He entered not only for the first 80, but for the next 10,000. And with that perspective, we can still have a full assurance and a full comfort, even though we don't see the full and final picture just yet. Okay, and this text and these truths do a number of things for us. The first of those is pretty obvious because I just said it. This truth compels us to trust in Christ and in future glory despite what we see now. If you're taking notes, trust in Christ and in future glory despite what we see now. Another bit of science for you. Hopefully, this gets your creative juices going. One of Einstein's many crowning achievements was his theory of special relativity. I promise I'm not going to go down this interstellar rabbit hole. But what Einstein discovered is that the passage of and perception of time is relative to the speed at which you are traveling. And suppose you could travel through space fast enough, say at the speed of light, time would no longer pass for you, according to Einstein. Your watch, if you were wearing one, would stop ticking. And the point, I bring that up, is that science has discovered that within the laws God created in his universe, he has revealed to us, right? If God is revealing things to us, however abstract it is, this concept of timelessness. From our perspective, we say, God, why are you taking so long to set things right? We read this in the Psalms as well this morning. Why are things not working out? Why is everything not in subjection to you? But if we were observing these same realities traveling at the speed of the universe, the whole of human history would pass before us in an instant. And all that would remain would be eternity in the glory of Christ. Again, I say that not to minimize our time here or to get you to trust in some mind-melting theory of relativity, but to demonstrate that from God's perspective, he is not acting slowly, nor is he delayed in anything. He has a plan. And everything is fully under control. I'd like to think that Peter had at least some similar thoughts about the timelessness of God relative to us when he wrote, The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. Whatever slowness means to us, we should see as the patience of God. Whatever slowness means to us, we must see as the patience of God. It's compassion that none of his will perish. So no matter what we see now, the word assures us that nothing is outside of his control, and all who trust in Christ will, by that same free gift of faith, be with him in future glory. That we can say amen to. Okay? People are dying every day apart from faith in Christ. And even more are looking to beat death in all the wrong places. We have the answers, though. Because we know the one who defeated death. Take the mission seriously that we have been entrusted to. And that is to steward eternal souls. Preaching the gospel, sharing the gospel, protecting the gospel, stewarding the gospel, and discipling by the gospel is much easier and frankly more exciting when you consider it as your mission to engage in the warfare against death. And that's what we are doing. The church is built by the gospel. And the gates of hell, the very dominion of death, will not hold up against our onslaught. With the power of the gospel, and with Christ as our forerunner, we are coming after death. And it will not win. It has not won. Finally, the text shifts our focus away from the things not presently invisible, subjection to Him, and onto the thing that is. I'll say that again. The text shifts our focus away from the things not presently invisible, subjection to him, and onto the thing that is. If we measure God's success by emphasizing and obsessing over all the things that are seemingly not in subjection to him, we totally lose sight of what is. No, we must measure God's success on what is in subjection to him. One of the most important things that is, really the only thing that matters. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on, or sorry, the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written. Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you as always for your word. Lord, we often pray as the psalmists do. How long, O Lord, will you make us wait until you truly do put all things visibly in subjection to you? Lord, we pray and ask that this word would be a comfort to us, Lord. Not only that you do have all things in subjection to you, Lord, but that we can trust that you have everything under control. That nothing is acting outside of your will. And we thank you for that. We thank you that you have shown us that this morning, that you are truly interceding for us and caring for us, Lord. That you are not slow, but that you are patient. That you are driven by your compassion and love and your mercy. We thank you for your grace. May we rest and trust in you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Let's stand together as we sing our doxology.