If you could turn your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 2 verses 5 through 8. Hebrews chapter 2 verses 5 through 8. I'm going to read that text again. For he did not subject to angels the world to come concerning which we are speaking. But one has testified somewhere saying, "What is man that you remember him, or the son of man that you are concerned about him?

You have made him for a little while lower than the angels. You have crowned him with glory and honor and have appointed him over the works of your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet, for in subjecting all things to him he left nothing that is not subject to him.

But now we do not see all things subjected to him." Let's pray. Gracious and loving Father, we thank you so much for your consistent love and grace that attracts us, where we desire to honor you, to know you, to love you. We pray that this morning that you would remind us and refresh us again with your word.

And I pray that the glory of Christ, Lord God, may be evident in all that we say and do. We pray that from now until the end that it is you that speaks through the Holy Spirit and that it would not return until it has accomplished the purpose that you have ordained.

And so we pray for your blessing this time, in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, as you guys know, we are continuing our series in the book of Hebrews, and the primary subject in the book of Hebrews is obviously Christ. And the warning that he was giving to them is not to drift.

And our temptation in where we are is constantly drifting. There's a reason why Jesus said it is harder for a rich man to enter through into the kingdom than for a camel to enter through the eye of a needle. And the reason why is not because innately the rich are more immoral or they're more sinful than anybody else, it's because the rich man has a tendency to rely on himself.

And so there is no desperate spirit clinging to God. And as a natural result of that, we tend to drift because we don't need God. We don't need God to pay our bills. We don't need God to take care of our children. So it's good to have God, but it is not a necessity.

And as a result of that, we cling to him when we are reminded, when we have fellowship, you might hear good sermons, or go to a conference and then you get jolted for a period, or you go to short-term missions. But on a day-to-day basis, our natural tendency is to just conform to wherever we are.

So if you happen to go to one church, you conform to whatever that church's standard is. You happen to have a group of friends who do this, and you just naturally conform to that. And it's a little bit easier when you're in college because your community is primarily of Christians.

So whether you're at church, or you're at a CCM, or WACF, or whatever you go to, that's your natural flow when you're in college. But as soon as you graduate, you get a job, you have children, you are in the part of a regular society. We're not reminded day-to-day like we were back in college.

On a day-to-day basis, we're constantly reminded that you don't fit in here, that you're not like the rest of the people. You're not like your CEO. You're not like the salespeople who are getting ahead and getting great jobs. We're constantly reminded we don't fit here. So our natural tendency is, "Who wants to be a weirdo?" So we drift, we forget, we learn how to function.

And so we're constantly coming to church just being reminded who we are. Don't forget who we are because it doesn't take long for us to forget that. Christ is our anchor. Without Christ, the church can easily become a social club. Without Christ, everything that you desire from the world, you can pursue it in the church.

I want honor, I want glory, I want recognition. All of that in the context of worshiping God and building a church. So he's pounding over and over again. Christ is superior to the angels, to Moses, to the prophets, to everybody. That's basically, in a nutshell, the argument that the author has been making and will continue to make.

And so the text that we're looking at this morning is a continuation of the argument of why Jesus is superior to the angels. The goal of that is to get us to refocus on his glory and his promise. So he starts in verse 5 saying, "It is not to the angels that the world will come that it's subject under, concerning which we are speaking." In other words, it's not about this world.

The world that we're going to go to, that's going to be permanent. If we're confessing Christians, we all believe that we're just passing through and eventually we're going to end up into the kingdom of God where Christ is going to be the king and he's going to reign forever.

He said in that kingdom, the angels are no longer going to be in charge. And obviously when he's talking about angels here, Paul and other apostles have made it very clear. The God of this age is Satan. The battle that we are engaging in is not politics, it's not about economy, it's not about the world system.

He says our struggle is against flesh and blood, rulers, against the powers, against the world forces in darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in this heavenly place. So we've been reminded all over the New Testament that the angels have taken over the fallen world. But the world that we are headed to is going to be reestablished with what God intended.

The text that we're looking at this morning basically covers redemptive history. One of the questions I asked in the Facebook page about this passage is, "Is this section talking about Jesus or is it talking about man?" And I'm just going to answer it for you. And I'm not going to go through, you know, to make my whole sermon try to convince you that he's talking about man because I think it's going to be fleshed out as we're going through it.

He's talking about man's history, where we stand before God, where we were and where we are now, and what Jesus is going to be doing about it. So basically it's redemptive history in a nutshell. And so where does Christ fit in with what's happening in history? So if you want a concise history of God's creation, what happened, and where we stand now, and so why did Jesus come, what did he accomplish, and where he has taken us, it's Hebrews chapter 2.

So starting from verse 5 all the way to the end of the chapter, that's going to be his primary argument. So we're looking at the first part of it, right? Redemptive history. Where do we come from? Where do we stand before God? So he starts by asking the question in verse 6, "But one has testified somewhere," right?

In other words, first let's begin, where do we stand before God? What is man that you remember him, or the son of man that you are concerned about him? That question that he asks, it's a direct quote of David's quote as he is praying before God. What is man?

Who are we that you are so mindful of him? That question is the beginning of salvation. In a nutshell, basically the question that he's asking is, "Why do you care?" That's the question that he's asking. The difference between a Christian who believes in a sovereign God and recognizes who God is and in light of that knows who he is, versus somebody who does not believe who God is, or maybe a Christian who rejects the sovereignty of God and who he is, or the goodness of God, the question sounds similar but is a world apart.

And again, the psalmist is asking the question, "Why do you care?" In Psalm chapter 8, 3-4, "When I consider your heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have ordained, what is man that you take thought of him and the son of man that you care for him?" The fundamental difference between somebody who knows God and recognizes him versus the world who rejects him is, the question that the world asks is, "Why don't you care?" Why don't you care?

When's the last time you talked to a non-Christian, tried to share the gospel with him, and said, "I can't believe God if..." Look at all the mess in the world. Look at 9/11. Why does he allow that to happen? Why does he allow sex trafficking? Why are there so many kids who are orphans?

Why is HIV spreading all over the world? Why is this happening? Why doesn't he care? So until we satisfy that question, they said, "I can't accept your God," because why does he not care if he really is God? But the correct question that every human being should be asking is, "Why should he care?" He says, when he considers the heavens, when he considers the fingerprints of what he has made, the moon, the stars, in other words, the more he begins to understand the world, the natural question that he comes to is not, "Why does the God who created all of this not care about me?" Because that's a foolish question.

I mean, if a famous movie star or a rock star said, "Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?" As he is running out of the stadium, he looks over and sees you, and he said, "Hey, hey, who are you? Come here." You'd be like, "Me? Why are you interested in me?

What did I do? Are you going to give me?" And so even by the fact that he pointed to you and asked you to come down, automatically you feel special. He picked me out of thousands of people to engage me. Now, I have no idea what he's going to do.

He didn't give me anything, but just the fact that he recognized me, he's like, "Oh, me? Yeah, me." But it is a foolish question to ask, considering all that we know about the universe, that the question that the speck, in light of the universe, would ask, "Why don't you care?" It'd be a foolish thing.

Again, if you were to reverse that in the stadium, and let's say LeBron James is running out and said, "You, you, you," and then the guy next to him is like, "What a jerk. Why didn't he call me?" And you have thousands of people leaving the stadium, it's like, "Why didn't he call me?" That would be a foolish question.

Why should he call you? Who are you? He's busy, he's tired, he's running into the locker room to get ready for whatever else, to go home, to relax. Why does he have to call you? That question in itself is an arrogant question that does not understand who he is.

He doesn't understand who he is, he doesn't understand who God is. And that's why that question in itself is an arrogant question. Fundamentally, is a man who does not understand who he is. You kill a bug, you don't think about how that's immoral. You don't think about how, you don't think about that bug's family, children, where he's buried.

You don't think about any of that, right? You just kill it because it's annoying. You don't want it in your house. Who are we to this God of the universe? Have you ever seen how small, how small we are in the light of the galaxy? You ever seen the comparison?

Earth itself, you can't see the earth. You almost need a microscope to see the earth and we are a speck on this earth. And that speck comes to a God who created all of this, sustains all of this. Everything is made by him and for his glory, is asking the question, "Why don't you care?" Already in that question there is rebellion.

Already in that question there is sinfulness. Why would he care? And so when you begin our contact with God as, "Why don't you care?" We become the judge and he becomes the person that we are judging. And so the world is judging him saying like, "Well, if you care, you should be doing this.

If you care, you should be doing that." But a man who recognizes who he is, comes before God and the fundamental question is, "Why does he care?" Why does he care that we have fallen? Why does he care that we are in rebellion? Why would he care to send his only begotten son?

Why? What is man that you are mindful of him? He doesn't even talk about, "What is man that you would send his only begotten son to be crucified and take up my sins?" He says, "No, what is man that you are even thinking of him?" That's the Old Testament version of that.

In the New Testament, it goes way beyond that. David is just asking, "Why do you care? Why do you even know my name?" But in the New Covenant, "Oh my God, that's... I mean, why do you even know my name? Not only did he call my name, he called me out, put on the jersey, right?

Said, "Hey, do you need a ride home? Took me home. I was hungry." "The only dollar that he had, he used it for me." I mean, it just goes on and on and on. Why would he care? Until we come to that point, we recognize who he is and recognize who we are, we will never see who he is because we're examining him to judge him.

Psalm 90, verse 12 is a passage that I quoted last week. It says, "So teach us to number our days that we may present to you a heart of wisdom." Why do we need to number our days? One, to recognize that this life is fleeting. The things that matter so much from day to day is fleeting.

Just like if you were to travel and you know that you're going to come home, you're not going to go and see the price of the buildings and how you're going to invest and you're going to purchase stuff that you can't bring home because you know you're not going to be here.

So in other words, one, help us to see how fleeting this life is. So we do not build and invest in things that's going to perish. Invest in things that are eternal. But not only is this talking about the larger life and how fleeting it is, but our insignificance.

Recognizing in light of eternity, we're just a flash that comes and we disappear. Every once in a while somebody would ask, you know, you should write a book or you should say this or you should do that, and you've got to work hard to build a legacy. And that's a thing that I hear more these days.

Legacy. Building a legacy. How are people going to remember you? What a futile attempt to prolong our life. We come, we go. By next generation, no one's going to know who Peter Kim is. I'm not sure if this church is going to be around, to be honest. In another 30 years, who knows?

And I'm not trying to be fatalistic. I'm not like cup is half empty type of guy. I'm not saying that. It's just history. I mean there are churches that men of God stood like Charles Spurgeon, that the church is just an empty shell now. And it's not because they weren't faithful.

It wasn't because God didn't use them powerfully. I mean we read his books, we know all that, but you go to their church, it's empty. So I can only be faithful to what God has given today, but like I'm, what happens tomorrow, that's in God's hands. We're just here today and gone tomorrow.

He says, "Teach us to number our days that we may present to you a heart of wisdom." Until we are humble before God, we are useless. The moment that you begin to think that I have knowledge, I have education, I have experience, you know, and I knew somebody years ago who told me that he thinks that Japan, the reason why they are not receptive to the gospel as a whole is because they didn't send the right people.

You know, meaning that if we had the right training, if we had the right gifted guys and we go there, you know why, years and years and years of people have gone and the arrogance to think that if we just sent the right people, that revival would break out.

Until we recognize our weakness before God, we don't pray. Prayer is the first thing that we do when we recognize that we're weak. Not just to get the task done, but even to decipher my own heart. If I'm not regularly in the Word of God and being judged by my thoughts and my intention, and I think like, "Oh, if we just apply this, and you know, last time I did this and it worked, so let's do that and do this over here." There's nothing wrong with any of that, but if our first encounter with God, if the first thing that God doesn't convict us is how weak we are and how fleeting we are and how dependent we are on Him, everything we build on top of that would be vanity.

That's why the heart of wisdom, the beginning of wisdom is recognizing our need. Who are we? Why do you care? How do you save somebody who doesn't recognize the need to be saved? Simple answer, you can't. John 8, 31-33, and I want to look at this passage. So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, and remember that, believing Jews.

Jesus was preaching about the kingdom of God, Jews were hearing it, and He's talking to a group of people who said that they believed. If you continue my words, then you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. So Jesus continues saying, this is the way to the kingdom, to allow the Son of God, Son of Man to set you free.

They answered Him, we are Abram's descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free? They were offended, because when Jesus said they needed to be set free, they were probably thinking of the indentured servants. They were on the lowest of the totem pole.

These guys, if you went into society, they would have the last seat of wherever they went. And when Jesus says, I've come to set you free, it's like, free? We're children of Abraham, we've never been enslaved, so they were offended. How can you say that? See, as long as Jesus was talking about the kingdom, the leaders loved John the Baptist and Jesus in the beginning.

Do you remember when you read the Gospels, in the very beginning part of their ministry, the Pharisees and the leaders came all the way from Jerusalem to check Him out. If He's the Messiah, we need to get close to that guy. They were all coming out until Jesus and John the Baptist called them out and said, who told you to come here?

Bear fruit in accordance to repentance. It wasn't until they were called out for their sins that they started to turn on Him. They refused to recognize who they were before God. Until we recognize who we are, we will never be able to truly understand what He means for us.

Our love for Him goes up and down based upon finances, relationships, circumstance. He's good when things look great, and where is God? How come He doesn't care when things don't work out the way we hope for? But the question that every believer should be asking every single day, why does He even care?

Do you remember the book of Job? Satan comes and asks, you know, only reason why He's a godly man is because you protected Him with a hedge. Take that away and let me at Him and see what kind of man He is. And so that's what happens. He just, God gives Him permission, Satan goes at it.

And then the book of Job is three cycles of three of His friends coming and saying, you know what, God doesn't just punish anybody. You must have done something wrong. And so the book of Job is a cycle of Job defending himself. I didn't do anything wrong. I'm a righteous man.

I have no idea why God is doing this to me. So the whole book of Job is Job standing up for his righteousness and his friends saying, no, there must be something. Well, at the end of his suffering, he loses his family, his children, his wealth, and then his even own health.

I mean, he is suffocating to death. And he finally snaps and he comes to God and he says, God, why are you doing this to me? I was a righteous man. I did everything that you told me to do. Why are you doing this to me? And then finally, when his pride breaks and his friends get to him and his circumstance gets to him and he begins to cry out to God, why don't you care?

Why are you not allowing this to happen to me? God finally shows up. And when God shows up, he doesn't explain. There is no explanation. Well, this happened because Satan asked permission and so this was my goal. He doesn't ask for any of that. God shows up and he tells Job, put on your big boy pants, right?

Or gird up your loins, right? That's the actual words. But basically, that's what he's saying. I'm going to talk to you like a man, right? And I'm going to speak to you and you're just going to listen. All God says is, where were you when I created the universe?

Do you understand the ways of the gazelle? Do you understand the ways of the whale? Do you understand when I created the universe, when I told the ocean to stop right here and they stopped? Do you understand any of this? Do you understand the leopard? Do you understand the way of a child?

And he just goes long list of what he did in creation. Where were you? And you're there judging me? You're asking the question, why do you not care? And you're examining me. I'm going to examine you. And then he goes, upcycle, put on your big boy pants, and I'm going to walk you through who I am, and that's what he does.

At the tail end of that, Job sees his glory and he recognizes what he has done. And this is what he says, Job chapter 42, 36. Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge? He's talking about himself. Therefore, I have declared that which I did not understand. Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.

Hear now and I will speak, I will ask you and you instruct me. I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes sees you, therefore I retract. What is he retracting? The whole book of Job was defending his righteousness. The whole book of Job was trying to figure out, I've done nothing wrong, why did you allow this to happen?

Why are you allowing this to happen? And then at the tail end, God, you are unfair. And so he's retracting all that. I had no idea what I was talking about, and then I repent in dust and ashes. In other words, what is he saying? When I consider the heavens and the stars and the moons, who am I that you would even be mindful of me?

Why do you even care that I suffer? Why do you even care? Why do you even show up and talk to me? And it leads him to repentance. Until we recognize who we are before God, the gospel will not make sense. Until we recognize who it is that we are approaching, worship just becomes superstition.

They just come and put in your time and give you an offering and hopefully if I've done good things that God will bless my life and bless my children, but you will not understand the gospel. The beginning of wisdom is recognizing who he is and who we are and where we stand in his presence.

He says, first of all, he says, "Who are we?" And then the second he says in verse 7 through 9, to realize that in the end, God created us to have glory and honor, verse 7 through 9. You have made him for a little while lower than the angels.

You have crowned him with glory and honor and have appointed him over the works of your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet, for in subjecting all things to him he left nothing that is not subject to him. Everything he says here, verses 7, 8, and 9, is pointing back to the creation.

This is exactly, if you want to like word for word, for the sake of time, I'm not going to read the whole passage, but what he says in verse 7, 8, and 9, that's exactly what he says in creation. In Genesis chapter 2, verse 7, "The Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being." We are not like animals.

God created the animals and he says he created them in their kind, over and over again. He created them in their kind. He created the cattle in their kind. He created the beast in their kind. But when he comes to man in verse 6, 26, God said, "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." He said he distinguished us from the rest of creation.

He put his own image upon us, so that when the rest of the creation saw us, mankind, that they would see God's glory off of us. And because they saw God's glory off of us, they would be in submission. That's how he created the universe. Verse 27, "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him.

Male and female he created them." You know what's going on right now, this gender neutrality thing? At the core of it is satanic rebellion against God. I know some of you may, I don't know what your background is, but I make that very clear. Male and female he created it.

To erase the gender between male and female is an ultimate rebellion against God's creation. God had declared us male and female to interact, to be fruitful and multiply. It is part of his creation. It is part of his design. And yet Satan is attacking that. And he says, you know, we say, we live in a country where we, you know, I believe it's a great country, United States, you know, we're all born with inalienable rights, right?

But where does this right come from? Just because you declared it? Just because you said I have it? I can't walk into a department store and I have a right over these products, right? You can't say that. Who gave you that right? It's what authority. You can't just come out of nowhere and say, I have these rights.

The reason why mankind has certain glory is because God created us to reflect his image. We're not like animals. We're not dogs. That's why when the Bible describes a man who's in rebellion against God and he returns back to his sin, he describes what? A dog returning to its vomit.

When a dog returns from its vomit, we don't say, oh, what kind of a disgusting dog is that? Well, that's a dog. Dogs do that when they get hungry. He said, but a man who does that is outside of his nature. He's in rebellion against God and his sin.

The reason why there is dignity in man, in all mankind, why there's value even in an unborn child is because God declared his glory upon every human being. It is not innately. He didn't declare it for himself. He didn't all of a sudden randomly have dignity. If God does not exist, if God didn't place his image upon us, we are no different than animals, just because we're smarter than the animals?

He said, no. Our dignity and our glory comes from the very reason why we were created, to reflect his glory. But he says in verse 8, "But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him." That's what God intended, and that's why man is of value, because we were created in his image, but as of now, that's not what we experience.

You know, years ago, when we would go out to Santa Ana and feed the homeless, and there was this one particular girl, even to this day, she stands out, because she must have been about 5'7", 5'8", blonde hair, blue eyes, she looked like a cheerleader, and she's just so out of place.

We would be there every Tuesday feeding the homeless, and that area that we were feeding the homeless is not a place that a young girl should be walking around. Well, she was out there, and I was kind of curious, because we would always see her about a block away.

She would never come to where we are, and obviously it caught our attention, "What's that girl doing here? What's that girl doing here?" And then eventually, we got to ask one of the guys who would come, and they would feed, and he said, "Well, that girl's hooked on crack." It was a period of time when crack cocaine was just spreading rampantly, and she got hooked on crack.

So I don't know what her family background was, I don't know what was happening in her life, but she just didn't fit. And we didn't see her every single week, but every once in a while, we would see her out there on the street and found out that she, you know, when young pretty girls come out there for their own safety, they have to get attached to an older or stronger guy for protection.

We found out that she was selling her body to get crack, and then she got attached to this one of the bigger guys for protection, and you could see her deterioration. And after about a year period, we would see her every once in a while, and you would have never known that that girl that we saw a year later was that same girl that we saw a year ago, because of what the drug did to her.

It's her hair, it's her appearance. The Bible describes mankind as created in glory, in honor, to reflect God. Everything that we love about God, God created us in creation to reflect that glory. And in that glory, we were to represent Him to the rest of creation, to rule over it, to subdue it.

Think about creation, I mean, it'd be awesome, you know, when we think about heaven, you know, everybody has their own imagination, but much of it is not biblical. You think about, "Oh, when I get there, I'm going to have mansions." Mansion itself is a creation of a fallen world, right?

Why do we have walls? Because we don't want weirdos coming into our house for protection. The fact that we have homes, we have clothes, we have walls, we have doors, we have gates, these are all byproducts of a fallen world. If you go to heaven, when there is no sin, there's no perpetrators, there is no shame, there's no need for a home.

The weather's going to be perfect all the time, that's my, I don't know, I just made that up, I'm just thinking, maybe, right? But there is no need for protection. There's no need for walls. There's no need for locks. There's no need for alarms. You said in the creation, they walked around without shame, and the animals would come, and they were naming these animals, and they were happy.

There was no misunderstanding between husband and wife. I said this, and they're like, "Well, I didn't mean that, but you did say it." Right? None of that in creation. There's no misunderstanding between friends. Animals would come and say, "Lion." You know, it's kind of a side thing, but I was thinking about if the Chinese culture named everything.

This is completely off the wall. It's completely off the wall. It has nothing to do with what I'm talking about, but I just had a thought. You know one thing I really like about the Chinese culture? They're very simple in the way that they name everything. Right? So you know exactly what dish you're getting when you order in a Chinese restaurant.

It's cabbage over nuts. Like that's what comes out. Right? Or you order a stir-fry, you know, whatever, and that's exactly what comes out. So I'm thinking like if a Chinese person was naming the animals, it'd be like, you know, big cat, small cat, black cat, furry cat. You know what I mean?

So you know exactly what. Anyway, that has nothing to do with anything, but I was just thinking about it. Right? Now I've got to get back to my sermon. I mean, that was the creation. When you look at Genesis chapter 1 and 2, before the fall, it was paradise.

He said, "But now that's not what we see." And the reason why is because in Isaiah chapter 14, 12 through 15, it describes Satan's fall, Lucifer's fall, and this is what it says. How you have fallen from heaven, O star of morning, Lucifer, literally, son of the dawn. You have been cut down to the earth, you who have weakened the nations.

You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven and I will raise my throne above the stars of God and I will sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will make myself like the most high.

Nevertheless, you will be thrust down to the recesses of the pit. The power of Satan's rebellion is he saw the glory of God and said, "I want that." And he tempted Adam and Eve, "You can be like God too." And then when mankind began to multiply, they used all their resources and built the Tower of Babel to do what?

To be like God. All of human history is challenging and wanting to usurp where God is. And the reason why is because that's at the center of Satan's rebellion. And he's trying to recruit people to do the same. There's a reason why Jesus, at the very end of his life, before he goes to the cross, the last thing that he teaches his disciples, he humbles himself and he washes their feet.

And then he says, "He who is the greatest on the earth is the least in the kingdom. He who is the least will be the greatest in the kingdom of God." He wasn't just simply teaching them life lesson on how to be good citizens. Like if you just kind of humble yourself and take care of yourself, you would have a great church that you can enjoy.

That's true, but he was telling something much more profound and deeper than that. Because at the heart of Satan's rebellion and mankind's rebellion is he wants to recapture that glory outside of Christ. There's a reason why Paul calls everything he lost "dung." Because in light of who Jesus is, you know, the whole world is playing a game like the king of the hill, right?

You guys all play king of the hill? King of the hill is basically the guy, toughest guy, is up on the top and everybody's trying to throw him off. And then at the end of the game, whoever's at the top wins. That's king of the hill. In a nutshell, that's what the world is like.

We're all playing king of the hill. We invite the guy who's on top. And we're not necessarily swinging and hitting people, but we're working hard to get education and make the right decision, raise up our children, all so that we can be the king of the hill. But the problem is even if you win the game, you became the king of a dung hill.

Until we recognize who he is and who we are, you will never understand why he came. We will continue to fight to be a little bit higher on this dung hill. And that's why Paul says in light of Christ, everything became dung in light of who he is. And that's why he's bringing us back to Christ and his glory.

Until we see the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ, until we see the glory that we fell from, that we reflected, then what he has done will only be a good story. I'm not going to go into that today, but I'm just going to give you a preview.

And obviously we know how it goes. He says, "But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him, but we do see him," referring to Jesus, "who was made for a little while lower than the angels, because that's where we were." So basically he came to get us.

Jesus, because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory, honored so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. Let me conclude by reading this one passage where it tells us where we are headed. In Romans 8, 15 to 17, "For you have not received the spirit of slavery, leading to fear again, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry, 'Abba, Father.'" The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.

And if children, heirs also, heirs of God, fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. I pray that the promises of God and the vision of Christ, even a glimpse that we've seen, would cause us to see this world as God sees it.

And that every single day we would be asking the question, "Why do you care? Who am I that you know my name? Who am I that you give me this promise?" And I pray that that would lead to a heart of worship before God. Let's take some time to pray as we ask our worship team to come.