Five Ways Jesus Blazed The Trail To God Series

Five Ways Jesus Blazed the Trail to God  

Hebrews 2:10-18

Introduction

1. In 1804-1806, two explorers, Captain George Clark and Captain Meriwether Lewis, were spent by President Thomas Jefferson to find a way across the old, trackless West from St. Louis to the Pacific Coast. Such an expedition involved tremendous preparation, special provisions and wise decisions. It was accomplished through threat danger and many hardships, as Lewis and Clark's journals make clear. When the explorers returned the whole American West lay open to development. This is the thought behind the word used here of Jesus … he opened up a completely new spiritual country.... (Stedman)

2. Hebrews 1 directed us to listen to the exalted and resurrected Son of God. Hebrews 2 tells us to follow Him - he’s the trailblazer - the pioneer of faith. Here are Five Ways Jesus Blazed the Trail to God!

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1. Jesus Declared a New Path (2:10)

2:10 NLT God, for whom and through whom everything was made, chose to bring many children into glory. And it was only right that he should make Jesus, through his suffering, a perfect leader, fit to bring them into their salvation.

A. It is God’s choice to bring many children into glory. This is a glimpse into the heart of God for humanity. The

sacrifice of Jesus is all about living with His children through eternity.

B. It is God’s plan to send Jesus to open up a new path: to be a pioneer. 2:10 NIV … the pioneer of their salvation…

Barclay: Can mean Founder or Originator. It always means someone who begins something in order that others may enter into it. He begins a family that someday others may be born into it. He founds a city that others may someday dwell there.  He blazes the trail for others to follow.  Jesus is the pioneer who blazed the trail to God for us to follow.

It was God’s plan that Jesus became human and experience what it was like to be a human. Through His suffering he was made the perfect pioneer of salvation. Through his suffering he was identified with men. Through his suffering he sympathizes with man. He feels with them. Through his sufferings and sympathy, he knows how to help us

Guthrie: “No matter how much we suffer, we can never suffer beyond the ability of Jesus to sympathize with our suffering. We can never out-suffer Jesus. He knows and understands the hurts of living and dying in this world from his own personal, painful experience.”

2. Jesus Defined a New Family (2:11)

2:11 So now Jesus and the ones he makes holy have the same Father. That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call them his brothers and sisters.

A. As a result of the life, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus: Jesus makes his followers holy (sanctified) - set apart to belong to God. Jesus makes his followers family (brothers and sisters) - not ashamed! Author quotes Psalm 22 and Isaiah 8 to illustrate his point.

B. Jesus became a human being so that he could pioneer the path to God by making us holy and making us family.

3. He Destroyed Satan’s Power (2:14-15)

(2:14-15 Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying.)

A. He broke the power of the devil: death and the fear of death.

B. Mohler: Christians must take the devil seriously. Scripture testifies that Satan is our enemy. In fact, 1 Peter 5:8 says that the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. He delights in perverting the gospel and preventing it from being preached. He is a liar (John 8:44); he is a deceiver (2 For 2:10-11; 11;14; ph 6.11); he is a destroyer (John 10:10); and he is a tempter (MT 4:1-11; 1 Cor 7:5). In short, the devil is maliciously and comprehensively opposed to God’s being, God’s character, God's purposes, God’s people, and God’s glory.

C. The power and work of the devil is death. He introduced it into the world. He was the lord of death because sin, which produces death, was under his control. “Jesus broke the devil’s grip on His people when in death He became the death of death…” F. F. Bruce

4. He Diminished our Fears (2:15b)

2:15b Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying.

A. The fear of Death. There are so many fears associated with death. Nancy Guthrie reminds us of the answers of God to the fears we have about death in her book Hoping For Something Better.