“More of Him ~ Less of Me”

Text:  Hebrews 2: 5-15

Thesis:  God, in Christ Jesus, provides a way for man to recapture

his lost destiny.

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I.  “In the beginning” man received his divine assignment

from God.

A.       “He has subjected the world to come…(vs 5)

1.       “He” refers to the “God Almighty”, the Great “I m Am”, the “Alpha and Omega”.

a.       Mankind did not receive his divine assignment from another person but from God himself.

B.       God gave preeminence and dominion over the entire earth.

Ø      Preeminence means supremely high in station, distinguished above all others, outstanding; conspicuous;

Ø      Donminion means sovereign or supreme authority.

1.       God reveals this clearly in Psalms 8: 4-9.

What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?  You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.  You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet:  all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.

C.       “Yet as the present time we do not see everything subject to him (man)”  (vs 8c)

1.       The Apostle Paul states in Romans 8: 19-22 all nature is waiting for the glory that shall be.  At this time all creation is in bondage to decay.

The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.  For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.  We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

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II.  God seeks to recover man’s lost destiny through the

suffering and death of his son.

A.       Man is not what he was meant to be.

B.       Jesus is “the way, the truth and the life.”

But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.  In bringing many sons to glory  (vss 9-10)

III.  Man’s destiny is rediscovered only in Christ Jesus.

A.       In Christ I discover who I am and what God created me for.

B.       The formula is a paradox.  We must die to self and find life in Jesus.