These young ladies are all students at Northwestern
College. And I must tell you that the reputation
of the college was at stake yesterday at the
basketball game. The coach, Joe Smith, asked
me if I would come and be an honorary coach for
the day. He needed a little extra help against
these Dutch guys from Dort College. And so he
asked me to sit on the bench with him. I told
the team before the... The the game that it's
one thing to have a trustee sitting on the bench
It's another thing to have an angel in the outfield
and they did not have that advantage and so they
Kindly let me assist them that way, but I had
one mission for the game and that one mission
was Don't get a technical foul called on you
And I must say that I was able to accomplish
at least that part of the mission Today we want
to talk about the mission of the Messiah the
Lord Jesus Christ in the salvation of His people.
He also accomplished His mission. And to do that,
we're going to turn to Psalm 8 in our Bibles.
Psalm 8. When Christ came in His first Advent,
He came to save us from our sin. In order to
be the Savior of sinful humans, He had to become
one of us, humans, Himself. Although from all
eternity He was the Son of God, the Creator of
humanity who knew us, knew our rebellion, nonetheless
it was necessary that He identify with us as
the Son of Man. His union with the fallen race
of Adam had to be real. It had to be genetic.
It had to be historical. Psalm 8 was written
by David, but it is a psalm that expresses something
of this authentication of his identification
with the human race. I invite you to follow along
in your Bible as I read Psalm 8. who has displayed
thy splendor above the heavens. From the mouth
of infants and nursing babes thou hast established
strength, because of thine adversaries, to make
the enemy and the revengeful cease. When I consider
the heavens thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained,
what is man? And David uses a term there that
means, what is weak, insignificant, mortal man?
That thou dost take thought of him, and the son
of man, that thou dost care for him. Yet thou
hast made him a little lower than Elohim. Now,
my translation puts that a little lower than
God. Yours may also. It might also read a little
lower than the angels, because the word Elohim
is translated both ways. And as we'll see in
a moment, it is translated angels in the New
Testament. all sheep and oxen, also the beasts
of the field, the birds of the heavens, the fish
of the sea, and whatever passes through the paths
of the seas. Oh, Yahweh our Lord, how majestic
is thy name in all the earth." Now, I'm particularly
interested in those verses that begin with verse
four, talking about man. Now, I invite you to
turn with me now into the New Testament to the
book of Hebrews, where we have this authenticated
as a messianic prophecy and message. I will begin
reading in verse 5 of Hebrews 2 where it says,
For he that is God did not subject to angels
the world to come concerning which we are speaking.
But one has testified somewhere, and by the way
it was David, saying, What is man that thou remember'st
him? or the son of man that thou art concerned
about him. Thou hast made him for a little while,
or thou hast made him a little lower than the
angels. Thou hast crowned him with glory and
honor, and hast appointed him over the works
of thy hands. Thou hast put all things in subjection
under his feet." Now the writer continues. For
in subjecting all things to him, that is to man,
he left nothing that is not subject to him. But
now we do not yet see all things subjected to
him, that is man, humanity. But we do see him
who has been made for a little while lower than
the angels, namely Jesus. because of the suffering
of death, crowned with glory and honor, that
by the grace of God He might taste death for
everyone. For it was fitting for Him for whom
are all things, and through whom are all things,
in bringing many sons to glory to perfect the
author of their salvation through sufferings.
For both He who sanctifies and those who are
sanctified are all from one Father. For which
reason he is not ashamed to call them brethren
that is Messiah the son is not ashamed to call
them brethren Saying I will proclaim thy name
to my brethren in the midst of the congregation
I will sing thy praise and again I will put my
trust in him and be again behold I and the children
whom God has given me Now since then the children
share in flesh and blood he himself likewise
also partook of the same, that through death
he might render powerless him who had the power
of death, that is the devil, and might deliver
those who through fear of death were subject
to slavery all their lives. Man was created by
God and crowned with glory and majesty by being
made in the image of God and then by being made
the creator's regent over creation. Everything
was put under the rule of mankind, male and female.
But something dreadful happened. God's regents
rebelled against Him, lost their high privilege,
and were judged with death. That is a familiar
story to those of you who know the Bible. But
it is against that backdrop that we consider
the truth of our text. that Christ identified
with sinners in order to save us. Christ identified
with sinners in order to save us. David ponders
the frailty of mankind, his mortality, his weakness,
his insignificance. And yet, the Creator loved
him. And the Creator loves the fallen race of
Adam. He declares the value of the human race
to Himself. And He speaks here of restoration
to a glory and a privilege that was lost long
ago. In order to effect this salvation, this
world to come, Christ the Son had to act. He
had to do something. He had to be our deliverer.
He had to identify with us in our plight. He
had to become one with us. And that it seems
to me is what David is telling us in this wonderful
song that we have written. That Messiah identified
first with us in our rank. In our rank. That
is in our order of creation. Because he tells
us that man was created a little lower than God.
Or, as the Greek version of the Old Testament
puts it, a little lower than the angels. And
it is that Greek version that the writer of Hebrews
follows by the inspiration of God's Spirit. There
are two dimensions of created reality the Bible
refers to. There's the invisible dimension and
the visible. In the former, God created the angels.
In the latter, he created inanimate matter and
animals. But above the animals and below the
angels, in a rank that bridges both of these
dimensions, the visible and the invisible, he
created man. Man who is both physical and spiritual,
who is both material and immaterial. Man is unique
in God's creation. And what it tells us here
is that the Creator, the Christ, the One who
is above all of creation, Himself entered into
creation at our ranking. He did not come as an
animal. He did not come as an angel. He came
as a man. He did so that He could identify with
us in a way in which He could redeem us and rescue
us. Although He's the Creator of the entire universe,
He identifies with us in a unique way. With no
other level of creation does He identify Himself
as He identifies Himself with us. He identified
with us in our rank. That was His first action.
Secondly, He identified with us in our fallenness.
Man has fallen from his place of majesty and
glory, the regency that God had given to him,
fallen into sin and rebellion against God. It
is into our fallenness that Jesus came, although
He Himself knew no sin. He was born without a
sinful nature that is inherited by all the rest
of Adam's race, male and female. But He Himself
did not have such a nature, and He committed
no sin. He was and is holy, and yet He partook
of our mortal flesh and blood. And the writer
of Hebrews tells us that he experienced sufferings,
sufferings that are associated with fallenness.
And the writer of Hebrews, rather the writer
of Philippians, the apostle Paul, tells us that
his identification with us in our fallenness
was so complete that he ultimately went to the
cross to identify with us in our sin. There He
says He became sin for us. He, the Holy and Pure
Son of God, became sin for us in the eyes of
God so that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him by faith. And so, in order to identify
with us, He identified with us in our rank, He
identified with us in our fallenness, and third,
He identified with us in our death. Being free
of sin, He needed to pay no penalty for it, and
yet He knew our bondage and identified with our
condemnation. As the writer of Hebrews says,
He tasted death for everyone. The word taste
there is an idiom. It's an expression that means
to experience it to the full. It doesn't mean
that he sipped it only. It means that he drank
it in. He absorbed our death fully in himself
so that he now is able to deliver us from slavery
to the fear of death. And from the one who had
the power of death, he says, that is the devil.
We have a wonderful Savior, a Savior who came
into the world and identified with us in our
ranking, in our fallenness, in our death. He
identified with us so that He might lift us above
to His state of glory. He came below that he
might raise us above He identified with us in
our sin that we might be identified with him
in his righteousness No wonder then the writer
of Hebrews says This was by the grace of God
This action that he took was nothing that we
deserved it was nothing that we had done so that
He felt obligated to us, He just loved us. And
because of His great love, He was willing to
identify with us that He might save us from what
we deserved. And one day the redeemed will be
those that will be crowned with glory and honor.
as one with Jesus Christ. One day those who trust
in Him, who place their faith in Him, will be
those who will inherit the new world, the new
order that is coming, the new heaven and the
new earth. It is a marvelous thing what He did
on our behalf. I was reading recently Philip
Yancey's book, The Jesus I Never Knew, in which
he spends a chapter reviewing the birth of Jesus.
And he talks about Christmas from the angel's
viewpoint, and there he reminds us of the familiar
fantasy that J .B. Phillips wrote regarding this
matter of Christmas from the angel's viewpoint.
Phillips talked about a senior angel who is showing
a very young angel around the splendors of the
universe. He takes this young angel to see the
whirling galaxies and the blazing suns. And they
flit across the infinite distances of space until
at last they enter one particular galaxy of 500
billion stars. And there they come to one of
those stars. And around that star is whirling
one little planet. The senior angel pointed to
that small planet, and he said, I want you to
watch that one particularly. Well, it looks very
small and rather dirty to me, said the little
angel. What's so special about that one? The
senior angel explained that although that dirty
planet didn't seem so impressive, it was nonetheless
the visited planet. The young angel said, do
you mean that our great and glorious prince went
down in person to this fifth -rate little ball?
Why should he do something like that? The little
angel's face wrinkled in disgust. Do you mean
to tell me that he stooped so low as to become
one of those creeping, crawling creatures on
that floating ball? I do. Said the senior angel
and I don't think he would like you to call them
creeping crawling creatures in that tone of voice
For strangers that may seem to us He loves them
He went down to visit them to lift them up to
become like him The little angel looked blank
Such a thought was almost beyond his comprehension
Yancey goes on to say, it was almost beyond my
comprehension, too, and yet I accept that this
notion is the key to understanding Christmas
and is, in fact, the touchstone of my faith.
Friend, if you're going to understand Christmas,
you must understand what the angel learned. That
the great and glorious Prince who flung this
universe into existence came here, identified
with us by becoming flesh and blood, became one
with us, that He might taste our death and then
set us free to become like Him and to share with
Him majesty and glory. in the world that is to
come. He identified with us a closing question.
It is this. Do you identify with Him in your
world? He came to your world to identify with
you and was not ashamed. In the world in which
you live, are you willing to be identified with
him. The story is told of a professor at a university
in California a number of years ago now, an atheist,
who taught philosophy and who spent a whole semester
proving to his freshman students in a required
class that God could not exist. And his arguments
went on class session after class session after
class session. And on the last day of the class
it was his little trick to say, now do any of
you still believe in God? to see if any of the
300 students would stand. And if any would dare
stand, he would say, well, if there is a God,
then he will be able to keep this chalk in my
hand from breaking when I drop it on the floor.
He would break it and the chalk would smash.
And any who dared say they believed in God would
simply sit down and he would smirk. A particular
young man was a Christian. knew what was coming.
He prayed all semester. God would give him the
courage to identify with Jesus on that day when
that question would come. The day came and so
did the question. The young man stood up and
the professor was astonished that someone would
dare stand and say he still believed in God after
this semester of ranting and raving against God.
And he said, young man, you're a fool. For if
there were a God, he would be able to keep this
chalk from breaking when I drop it on the floor.
And with that, it slipped out of his hand, rolled
down his sleeve, down his pant leg, across his
shoe, and then across the floor without breaking.
The professor looked at the chalk. He looked
at the student and ran out of the classroom.
The student came forward and shared his faith
with his 300 fellow students. I'm ashamed to
identify with Jesus Christ. And that's why I
think that this question is so profound. Are
we willing to identify with Jesus in our world?
Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, as we come to
this communion table, it is a table of identification.
For here we are reminded of your flesh and blood
body. in which you identified with us that we
might be saved. We thank you for the gift of
salvation offered freely to all who will come
in faith. And today, Lord Jesus, thanking you
for the gift, we also determine in our hearts
to be willing to identify with you in our world.
fortify and encourage our spirits even as we
partake of this bread reminding us of your identification
with us. Amen. This represents His flesh. Love
was when God became a man. And He offered Himself
for our sins. Let us eat it in gratitude. And
for the cup, our Lord Jesus, we offer thanks,
remembering that your body was like ours. and
the blood was the life of it, and it was that
innocent blood that was shed for our redemption.
Thank you. Our sins were so heinous, the result
of them so disruptive to what God desired in
fellowship with man, that the man, Christ Jesus,
bled to death on a cross as a sacrifice, willingly,
because he loves you and me. And he tells us
that this cup reminds us of his blood. He identified
with us. Let's drink of it. We have remembered
our Lord's death. Let us rejoice that He came
below, that He might raise us above, that He
became one of the sons of men. He became the
Son of Man that we might become the children
of God and reign with Him. He entered into our
lost estate that He might raise us to the paradise
above. He came into our fallenness that He might
restore us to the majesty and the glory that
God intended for man to have. And one day we
will enter into that world that is to come. No
wonder the writer of Hebrews says, how shall
we escape if we neglect so great salvation? We
shall not escape. And I hope today that you know
this salvation and this Savior, that you have
trusted Him, that you have placed your faith
in Him alone. for your salvation. And that having
done that, you are gladly willing to identify
with Him in your world. Let's stand together,
please, for closing prayer as we go. One of my
favorite choruses has these words to it. Sing
hallelujah to the Lord. Would you sing it with
me? Sing hallelujah. Sing hallelujah to the Lord.
Sing hallelujah to the Lord.