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 Sharing. What will you be sharing in this Christmas? What will you be sharing in tomorrow?

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! We want to share, don't we? We want to meet with loved ones, to gather around, to gather

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! to gather around the turkey or whatever it is that you're eating, to gather around the

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 tree to give gifts. We love to do it, don't we? It's part of what makes us human.

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 To share. Seeing something, experiencing something, doing something is always better when it's

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 shared with someone else. It's why phone companies make a lot of money out of the share function,

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 isn't it, on your phones. The feeling of communion with others, we love that. Sometimes we need

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 it. The old adage is true, a problem shared is a problem halved. Sometimes life is just

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 overwhelming. We feel entrapped by our circumstances, we have nothing left to say to ourselves on

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 our own. We're dried up. We just need someone. Someone to share in it with us. Someone to sit

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 with us and to say, I know. I don't want to face things on my own. I want someone to share

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 in it with me. We're going to finish off this little mini-series we've done on Hebrews chapter

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 one and two this morning. And this is where it's all been heading at the end of chapter

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 two. This word that we hear at Christmas time, the Son of God coming, God speaking in the incarnation.

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 The sound of Christmas is God saying, I am coming to share. Sharing in your human condition,

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 in your struggles and in your sufferings. I'm not just going to give you some instructions

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 or some good theology, although I will give you that. I am coming. Coming into your situation

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 to be with you. To share. This section at the end of chapter two hangs on verses 14 and 15

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 if you look there. Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise

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 partook or shared of the same things that through death he might destroy the one who has the power

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 of death. That is the devil. I come to share with you. So that as we read earlier in the service,

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 he says I can sympathise with you. So that I can deal gently with you. So that when you waver

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 and when you wobble, I can say I know. I really do. I want to look at this sharing in these last

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 few verses of chapter two this morning. And we're going to start sort of looking at it generally

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 and then focus in on what this sharing means. First of all, God in Jesus shares in our everything.

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 In Jesus, God shares in our everything. Just don't look at verse 16 there. For surely it's not angels

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 that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers

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 in every respect. In every respect. You know, there are some things that we'd rather not share,

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 aren't there. There's an old joke. It's quite a bad joke, but I'll tell it anyway, about an elderly couple

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 who went to McDonald's and they order one hamburger, one portion of fries and one drink.

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 The old man unwraps the hamburger and then carefully cuts it in half perfectly. He places one half in front

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 of his wife and he has one half. He then carefully counts all of the fries, divides them into two equal

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 portions, giving one to his wife and he keeps the other one. He takes a sip of the drink and then

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 she takes a sip. And as he begins to eat his burger, the people around them begin to stare and whisper,

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 that poor old couple, all they can afford is one meal between the two of them. So eventually a young man

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 goes over to the table and he politely offers to buy another meal for them. And the old man says,

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 it's okay actually, we're used to sharing everything. This is just what we do. People notice though that

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 the old lady hasn't eaten a bite yet. She sits there watching her husband. Again, the young man comes

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 over and begs them to let him buy them another meal. But this time the old woman says, no, no, thank you.

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 We're used to sharing everything. But still the woman doesn't eat a thing. So the young man again,

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 he comes over and asks the old lady, I'm sorry to be rude, but may I ask you why you're waiting

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 to eat? And the old woman answers, I'm waiting for the teeth. There are some things we would rather not

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 share, aren't there. When the son of God becomes a man in the incarnation, he doesn't squirm at sharing

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 in our everything. Nothing in his sharing is off limits for him. He doesn't say, I won't share in that.

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 He is made like his brothers in every respect. And so God comes and lives a hard life. He lives a hard,

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 hard life. He comes and shares in all the things we share in. The bread of life shares in our hunger.

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 He shares in our tiredness, seeking water at the well. He shares in our grief at the graveside of a friend.

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 He shares in our disappointments with the faithlessness of others. The loyal servant of God shares in

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 knowing what it's like to be betrayed by his closest. The pure and holy God knows what it's like to share

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 in our temptations. The loving Lord is hated. He shares in our overwhelming fear of pain. He gets to

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 the end of his tether. He gets angry. He cracks the whip. He shares in our weeping. God sobs. He shares in

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 our joys. Growing up as a boy, developing, learning, gaining friends, gaining popularity, enjoying work,

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 enjoying life and food and friendship. He shares in our angst, numbed by loss. He shares in our flesh

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 and in our blood. Have you ever thought about this question? If Jesus came to die, if that was his main

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 mission, why couldn't he just do that straight away? Why couldn't he just die as a boy? If that was his

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 only mission, that would work, wouldn't it? The sacrifice would still be infinitely valuable. He could pay for

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 sin as a little boy, couldn't he? But that's not the only reason for the incarnation. The reason for the

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 incarnation was that God could share with us is that God could share with us so that he could say,

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 I know, I really do. So that he could speak about his people in the most intimate of ways so that he

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 might call us brothers and sisters. He comes to share, to share with his family, to share in our everything.

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 So let's get a bit more specific. He comes to share in our everything, but he specifically comes to share

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 in our sufferings. He comes to share in our sufferings. And this is where we get a bit more

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 detailed here, isn't it? The pastor of the Hebrews tells us that his sharing was particularly to do with

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 suffering. Just look at verse 10 in chapter 2. For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all

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 things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through

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 suffering. Some sharing is transformative. Some sharing is life-saving. I don't know if you saw earlier

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 this year in the news about the father who died, saving his 11-year-old girl from rough sea earlier this summer.

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 They were on a beach in Italy. His name was Simon Pearson. And she got caught in deep water.

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 She was in trouble. She was perishing. He saw her. And so from the comfort of the warm sand and the sun

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 lounger and his drink, he was overwhelmed with love. And a paternal instinct took over. There was no room,

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 was there, to think of his own luxury at that point. For this was his own daughter. So he plunged himself

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 into the same deep, dark water he shared with her in her suffering. But do you see how that sharing

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 wasn't just for moral support? It wasn't just so that he could put his arm around her and say,

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 it's okay, I know what you're going through. No, it was to put his arm around her for a rescue.

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 The sharing was that he might transform the situation for her. That he might rescue her.

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 Reports say about that incident that as he fought to save her, he did, he urged her saying,

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 hold my hand. And in the same way, Jesus comes, not just to share and say, I know what it's

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 like, but in his sharing, but in his sharing, to transform. His situation had to be made like

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 our situation. So he could get us out of it. And so it was fitting, he says there, he had

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 to be made like his brothers in every respect to be a faithful and merciful high priest. He

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 had to be, there was no other way. So it was appropriate that he suffered. His experience

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 as a rescuer had to correspond with our experience as the rescues, as captives. This is what he

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 means in verse 10 by how he was made perfect as the founder of our salvation. It's a funny

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 phrase that, isn't it? It's not that Jesus was made morally perfect. No, he's always been

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 that. That's never changed. But that he is perfected as our liberator, as our saviour. He is perfected

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 in that role. He is perfected, he is qualified because he has come into the water. Staying on

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 the beach. He would have still been morally perfect, wouldn't he? But useless as a saviour,

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 the son of God. But in his sufferings, he is able now to rescue because he has shared with us. He's able

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 to comprehend the human condition. He's able to appreciate our problems. Yes, he's able to sympathise

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 with them. But more than that, he's able to get us out of them. He shares with us to rescue us.

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 Let's get more specific. What does he come to rescue us from? What are we enslaved to? What is the prison

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 that he's come to rescue us from? Just drop your eye down to verse 14. Again, since therefore the

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 children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death

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 death, he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those

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 who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. That's the rub, isn't it, right there.

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 He comes to rescue us from fear of death and the work of the devil.

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 The fear of death, whether we admit it or not, we sort of ignore it, don't we, a lot of the time.

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 The fear of death hangs around our necks, weighing us down. This is the prison. The novelist Peter

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 Schaeffer wrote, I'm going to die, and the thought of that dark has for years rotted everything for me.

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 It's the thought that haunts me. It's this, death. This is now, but that is then. And this prison,

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 it holds us to ransom, subjects us to lifelong slavery. Even the young and the free, even the

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 healthy and the rich, are running wild in the world, enjoying themselves, whilst all the while

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 running round behind bars. Paul says that the wages of sin is death. It's our missing the moral mark

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 that feeds this death. And the devil, this real being, not a cartoon character, this evil being,

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 uses sin and death as a threat. He brings accusations against us. He waves our

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 sin in front of us. He taunts us with our death. And the one God in Trinity looks at his children

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 and he's overwhelmed, isn't he, with paternal instinct and he dives in. So God the Father

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 sends his Son and God the Son comes. And God the Spirit anoints the Son and gives him the power

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 God the Son and gives him the power of God. And the Lord, he says, God the Son and gives him the power of God.

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 Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Go and be with them in their prison.

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 It is a staggering verse that we heard earlier on in chapter 5 in verse 7.

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 He shares with us in our everything. In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications

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 with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death. And he was heard because of his reverence.

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 What is going on there? These are the loud cries of God in the prison.

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 This is God crying out behind the bars of death, sharing in the death that we've earned.

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 Crying deep tears of anguish here, contemplating this death, saying, not my will but yours be done.

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 Sharing in the rot and in the dark dungeon.

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 And so death was a fierce beast, but Jesus has muzzled death.

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 As a kid, I used to visit a friend who lived on a farm.

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 And it was a proper farm. A real farm. Like, not what we see in London.

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 But they had a dog. A German shepherd.

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 It was a really, really big dog. Or I was just really small.

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 And it was always waiting when we got there to his farm.

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 The only way you could walk past the dog was not to look at the dog.

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 Otherwise you wouldn't.

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 But to look at the stake that it was tied to.

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 To look at the chain around its neck.

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 The stake was a great comfort.

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 The chain was a great comfort.

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 As soon as he pays for death.

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 Pays for sin in his death.

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 Death itself is tamed, isn't it?

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 Death sinks its teeth into Jesus.

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 And now its bark is worse than its bite.

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 Paul says that the sting of death is sin.

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 But now that Jesus has purified us from our sin.

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 He's dealt with our sin.

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 The devil is bereft of his ability to threaten us.

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 The devil, he fumbles around with the keys to the prison, doesn't he?

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 But the doors have been blown off.

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 It was an inside job.

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 Without sin, purified by this liberator.

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 The high priest who is the sacrifice of sin himself.

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 Death has lost its bite.

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 He comes to share.

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 And he comes to take the lion's share of our suffering, doesn't he?

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 All of it focused on him.

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 In our prison.

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 In our rut.

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 To get us out of it.

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 So he urges us.

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 Hold my hand.

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 The word in verse 16.

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 He helps the offspring of Abraham.

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 It's not strong enough, that word.

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 Helps.

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 It means to take hold of.

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 To seize.

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 To grasp.

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 C.S. Lewis pictures a diver.

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 First reducing down through green and warm water into black and cold water.

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 Down through increasing pressure into the death-like region ooze and slime and old decay.

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 Then up again.

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 Holding in his hand the dripping precious thing that he went down to recover.

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 He shares in our everything.

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 He shares in our everything.

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 That he might share in our suffering and relieve us and release us from it.

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 So that thirdly and lastly, we can share in his glory.

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 So that we can share in his glory.

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 This is the wonder of Christmas, isn't it?

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 That God in Christ comes to share with us with what we are.

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 To share with us what he has.

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 To share in all the Father gives him.

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 He becomes ours and dwells within us.

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 And he is one with us.

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 And he comes to join himself to us.

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 To build a family with us.

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 That we might enjoy royal family benefits with him, the son.

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 Oneness with us in our prison means oneness with him in his royal palace.

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 It's an intriguing verse in verse 11 of chapter 2.

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 For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source.

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 What does that mean?

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 He's talking there about an affiliation between the sanctifier and those sanctified.

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 The union between Jesus and his people, I think.

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 And I think he's saying there that it is because of Jesus sharing with us.

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 That God the Son and his people now have a oneness in source in God the Father.

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 The Son of God brings many other sons to glory.

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 Meaning the Son of God and us, the sons of God, have God as their Father.

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 But in different and complementary ways.

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 We now share in all that the Father gives us.

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 And there is no clearer way of expressing this relationship than Jesus identifying us as part of the family.

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 He calls us brothers.

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 The quotes at the end of chapter 2 are from Psalm 22 and Isaiah 8.

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 And they show, don't they, that the incarnation was preparation for a cosmic family get-together.

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 Where the Son would unite himself with his family.

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 To raise them up, to bring them home.

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 Isaiah 53 says,

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 When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring.

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 And he shall prolong his days.

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 God the Son was being a family man, wasn't he?

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 This was the point of the incarnation.

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 Sharing with new family, with new brothers.

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 Opening up his royal lineage.

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 Sharing in his inheritance with us.

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 As Lewis puts it,

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 The Son of God became man, that men might become sons of God.

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 But I wonder, this morning, do we recognise ourselves as royal?

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 Do you recognise yourself as this person?

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 Do you know this is who you are in Christ?

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 The story goes of a group of tourists who'd spent hours looking for a missing female in Iceland, one of the group.

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 Only to find out she was actually among the search party.

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 The group were travelling through Iceland on a bus.

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 And they stopped near this volcanic canyon on a break.

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 And one of the women got off to change her clothes.

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 And when she got back, her mates didn't recognise her on the bus.

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 Words quickly spread of a missing passenger.

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 And amazingly, the woman did not recognise her own description.

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 And happily joined the search.

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 Nearly 50 people searched the terrain in vehicles and on foot.

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 And the Coast Guard even brought in a helicopter.

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 However, the search was called off at 3am.

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 When it was obvious that the missing woman had in fact been searching for herself.

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 She couldn't recognise herself.

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 And that's often, isn't it, the problem in the Christian life.

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 We can't recognise ourselves.

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 Children of God.

00:23:32.080 --> 00:23:32.559
 Brothers.

00:23:33.759 --> 00:23:37.900
 Sharing with the Son of God in the royal family of God.

00:23:39.340 --> 00:23:43.920
 If you want to know how the royals spend Christmas, just come to church tomorrow.

00:23:45.759 --> 00:23:48.880
 Now wherever the sun goes, the other children go.

00:23:48.880 --> 00:23:50.980
 Who sanctifier and sanctified.

00:23:51.100 --> 00:23:53.100
 All have one source.

00:23:53.200 --> 00:23:53.920
 One Father.

00:23:56.080 --> 00:23:59.480
 There is a list in this church.

00:23:59.520 --> 00:24:00.380
 I was going to bring it with me.

00:24:00.600 --> 00:24:01.000
 I forgot.

00:24:01.220 --> 00:24:03.480
 There's a list of church members.

00:24:04.540 --> 00:24:06.400
 People who are members of this church.

00:24:06.580 --> 00:24:09.820
 Can I say, if you're a member of this church.

00:24:10.820 --> 00:24:13.080
 Or you're visiting from another church.

00:24:13.079 --> 00:24:14.240
 And you're a member there.

00:24:15.240 --> 00:24:17.679
 There is no greater list.

00:24:18.679 --> 00:24:23.039
 There is no other list that is more important in this world.

00:24:24.079 --> 00:24:26.220
 No other VIP list.

00:24:26.419 --> 00:24:28.879
 No other greater group to be part of.

00:24:29.299 --> 00:24:31.960
 No other group that comes even close.

00:24:32.919 --> 00:24:36.299
 Than the group with the list with the names written on it.

00:24:36.299 --> 00:24:38.139
 In God's royal family.

00:24:38.359 --> 00:24:39.419
 In God's church.

00:24:40.619 --> 00:24:41.799
 This place.

00:24:41.899 --> 00:24:42.519
 This church.

00:24:42.519 --> 00:24:44.180
 Is here by royal appointment.

00:24:45.519 --> 00:24:47.299
 So do you recognise yourself?

00:24:47.299 --> 00:24:52.500
 When we started this little series in Hebrews.

00:24:53.319 --> 00:24:54.500
 Hebrews chapter 1.

00:24:54.579 --> 00:24:55.359
 Five weeks ago.

00:24:55.460 --> 00:24:56.519
 We heard, didn't we?

00:24:56.559 --> 00:24:57.700
 The sound of Christmas.

00:24:59.019 --> 00:25:02.099
 We heard that God speaks in his son.

00:25:03.159 --> 00:25:06.500
 God speaks to his son then.

00:25:06.559 --> 00:25:07.099
 Doesn't he?

00:25:07.220 --> 00:25:09.079
 Comparing him with the angels.

00:25:09.440 --> 00:25:11.539
 Declaring him greater than the angels.

00:25:11.539 --> 00:25:12.420
 But this.

00:25:12.659 --> 00:25:14.319
 Here at the end of chapter 2.

00:25:14.480 --> 00:25:17.559
 Is where the son himself speaks.

00:25:17.639 --> 00:25:18.099
 Isn't it?

00:25:19.420 --> 00:25:23.159
 We hear the voice of Jesus speak for the first time here.

00:25:23.319 --> 00:25:25.079
 Directly speaking to us.

00:25:26.399 --> 00:25:28.399
 And what are the words that we hear?

00:25:29.659 --> 00:25:32.399
 They are the words that we long to hear from him.

00:25:32.680 --> 00:25:33.279
 Saying.

00:25:34.299 --> 00:25:35.019
 Brothers.

00:25:36.240 --> 00:25:37.700
 Here I am.

00:25:38.960 --> 00:25:40.379
 Sharing with you.

00:25:40.380 --> 00:25:42.720
 My family.

00:25:43.900 --> 00:25:45.860
 Sharing with you at Christmas time.

00:25:46.020 --> 00:25:47.600
 And sharing with you forever.

00:25:48.380 --> 00:25:49.320
 At your best.

00:25:49.500 --> 00:25:50.500
 And at your worst.

00:25:51.440 --> 00:25:52.240
 I know.

00:25:52.660 --> 00:25:53.560
 I really do.

00:25:54.920 --> 00:25:57.080
 So come and hold my hand.

00:25:57.900 --> 00:25:59.360
 Come and hold my hand.

00:25:59.440 --> 00:26:01.080
 This transforming.

00:26:01.360 --> 00:26:02.440
 Sharing saviour.

00:26:02.580 --> 00:26:04.520
 And come and share in his glory.

00:26:04.640 --> 00:26:05.740
 The glory to come.

00:26:06.600 --> 00:26:08.780
 Because he has shared.

00:26:09.359 --> 00:26:10.279
 In our everything.

00:26:10.279 --> 00:26:12.039
 Let's pray.