Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Does Jesus Really Get Us? | New Testament | Hebrews 2

Episode Date: March 2, 2023

By now you've probably seen the He Gets Us ads. How have people responded? Are these ads really true? In today's episode, Patrick uses Hebrews 2 to discuss whether Jesus truly understands us. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Hebrews 2

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. If you like sports or you just watched the Super Bowl, there's a good chance that you've seen a heat gets us ad. If you haven't seen one, you can go look one up on YouTube, but let me give you a brief description. The ads are all pretty similar. They show striking black and white images of people going through everyday life in a lot of different situations. Usually there's some calm music or not calm music running behind it. And sometimes there's a little monologue to explain what's happening. But at the end, they conclude with a statement about Jesus and say,

he gets us. One of my favorite ones, it doesn't really have a monologue. It just shows people struggling to make it in life. People who don't have enough money. They're struggling to find a place to live. They can't pay off their bills. And at the end of it, it says, Jesus struggled to make ends meet. He gets us. And of course, it's a true statement. Jesus lived in a time when most people lived on a subsistence basis. In other words, they rarely had enough money or resources to pay for the food they needed to eat every single day. In fact, back in those days, people would go usually about 60 days a year hungry. And Jesus, he wasn't a wealthy man. He was a construction worker. And it's not hard to imagine that he also struggled to make ends meet, not just to pay for

his own food, but for his mother and his siblings. And so maybe there's a real sense in which, yes, if you struggled to make ends meet, Jesus gets it. He is. He is. experienced the exact same thing. But what I want to talk about today is the response to He Gets us. Some people love the ads. Other people are kind of neutral about them. Other people are asking questions about them. Is this a wise way to use money? Should we be spending millions of dollars on advertising or their better uses for those resources? And while I think those are all valid questions and concerns to ask, that's not the main thing I want to talk about. I want to talk about the negative reactions to He Gets Us. In particular, they've actually come from kind of the both

far left and the far right. It's a bit of a horseshoe effect. And they're similar in one way. There are a few ads that say Jesus gets someone who people in their party or their position don't like. So, for example, let's talk about progressives. There's one ad that talks about an influencer who had lots of people following him. And then he said something that lots of people didn't like. And so people tried to shut him down. They tried to shut him up. They tried to kick him out. and ultimately he's crucified. And at the end it says Jesus was canceled. He gets us.

Now, people on the far left don't like this because oftentimes the people getting canceled are those on the right. And they're saying, look, Jesus doesn't get these people being canceled on the right. Another example is the Super Bowl ad, which shows protesters, again, from both sides, but they're protesting their causes. And some of those people are supporters of Trump or causes that people on the far left don't really like. And after that one aired and it said that Jesus loved his enemies, yes,

even those protesters who you hate, well, you had people on the left say, no, Jesus doesn't get fascists, Jesus doesn't get Trump supporters, Jesus doesn't get fill in the blat kind of person. So you had a lot of progressive saying that these he gets us ads are celebrating the wrong kinds of people. Jesus isn't like that. Jesus wouldn't want anything to do with those kinds of people. But on the far right, we've seen a similar reaction, just to different ads. For example, there's one that just shows images of refugees fleeing from Latin American countries. where there's violence. And over it, there's a monologue of someone talking about the need to escape from violence,

the need to leave home, even if you don't want to, so that you can find a new home where you can be safe. And it tells the story of a young boy who had to flee from the state, flee from a ruler who thought that his family was a part of an insurrection, who wanted to kill him and his family, to destroy anyone who stood against him. But in the end, it's not talking about refugees from Latin America. It's clear, it's talking about Jesus. and the way he had to flee Bethlehem from Herod and Herod's maniacal desire to kill him. And he had a lot of people on the right saying, that's not true. Jesus wasn't a refugee.

Now, of course it actually is true. Jesus did have to flee from Herod. But they didn't like the idea that Jesus gets refugees. Another example of this is an ad called The Rebel. And in this one, it just shows pictures of gangsters, whether it's motorcycle gangs or inner city gangs. And it talks about a rebel who no one wanted to be on the streets, who ran around with his friends. But then it goes on to say he didn't spread terror or violence. He spread love.

And it says, if you're a rebel, well, he gets you. And again, people didn't like this. They said, look, Jesus isn't like gangsters. This is a misrepresentation of who he is. And so, again, a lot of people on the right were bothered and offended by these ads. And I think it's all just really interesting. And again, you can be wherever you want to be on these. I'm not trying to defend he gets us or say anything otherwise.

I'm just pointing out that we get really uncomfortable with the idea of Jesus, getting us. We get really uncomfortable with the idea of Jesus getting people who we don't like, of getting people who've committed sins that we think are atrocious, that we find absolutely unforgivable. The idea that Jesus gets people who are tempted by sins that maybe we're never tempted by, that is so offensive to us. And so the question is, are the ads right? Does Jesus really get us? Not just some of us, did Jesus get all of us? No matter what your life's circumstances have been, whether you grew up in an affluent middle-class suburban family, or if you grew up in a urban environment with poverty, or if you grew up in a different country and had a totally different

experience in the average American, does Jesus really get all of us? In Hebrews chapter two, I think we find the answer to that question. Because in this chapter, the author of Hebrews describes how Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, became a human. He became a human just like us. And if there was a great way to summarize, at least part of He's, Hebrews too, it might actually be he gets us. And I think this is a message that everybody needs, especially Christians. Maybe Christians who feel like because of their sin, Jesus doesn't want anything to do with them. Maybe when you watch some of those ads, you saw your own story, your own struggle. And it's hard for you to believe that Jesus really does get you. But the author

of Hebrews wants you to see that he became like you. And he does understand you. He even understands your temptations. Hebrews chapter 2, verse 14. Since the children, he, he, he, he, He's talking about humanity here, have flesh and blood. He too, this is Jesus, shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death, that is the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. For surely, it's not the angels he helps, but Abraham's descendants. For this reason, he had to be made like them, fully human, in every way, in order that he might be became. a merciful and faithful, high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the

sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he's able to help those who are being tempted. This is really amazing news. The idea that Jesus' humanity doesn't just mean that he has flesh and blood like us, but that he experienced all the same temptations we do. He experiences the temptations to be outraged and angry, to want to hurt those who hurt us. He experienced the temptations of lust. He experienced a temptation to gossip. He experienced the temptation to slander. He experienced the temptation to be greedy and selfish with what he had.

Jesus experienced all the same temptations that we experience. And the author of Hebrews is saying, this is important because if he is going to be a high priest, someone who represented the people to God and someone who represented God to the people, well, he'd need to understand the people. and the way that God came to fully understand us was by taking on flesh and blood and becoming like us. I don't know what the sins are in your life that you think make Jesus want nothing to do with you. Maybe it's some of the things that I just mentioned a moment ago. But sometimes it's not sin.

Sometimes it's the kinds of things that He gets us at highlights. Our lives just haven't gone the way that we thought. Maybe we don't think He gets us because of where we live or because of what our family background is like. And yet the author of Hebrews tells us, he does get you. He understands where you're coming from. In fact, he highlights the fact that he had to become like Abraham's descendants. If you went through the Torah with us last year, you'll know that Abraham was the father of the entire nation of Israel. And it's important that he's highlighting this because Israel wasn't faithful.

In Exodus 32, Israel worships an idol instead of worshipping Yahweh. And this is right after he rescues them from slavery. When they get into the land of Israel, they become like the Canaanites around them. They worship foreign gods. They sacrifice their children. They do injustice. In fact, it gets so bad that God eventually sends the Babylonians to take them into exile as a punishment for their sin. But here's why that matters.

Israel was not perfect. Israel gave in to temptations time and time again. They broke all ten of the Ten Commandments. So when the author of Hebrews says that Jesus became like the descendants of Israel, he's saying, he became like people who are like you and me who have all kinds of temptations who make all kinds of mistakes and because of that catch the end because he himself suffered when he was tempted he is able to help those who are being tempted he understands you so he can help you and he wants to help you you see this is where chapter two of hebrews goes one step further than the he gets us ad campaign

it says he doesn't merely get us he takes hold of us and he changes us it says he doesn't merely understand you, he wants to transform you. It says he doesn't merely get where you're at right now. He has somewhere that he wants you to go. So yes, he gets your temptation. Yes, he gets your hardship and your life and your anxiety and everything that's gone wrong and everything that you've done wrong. He gets it, but he doesn't want to leave you there. Earlier in Hebrews chapter two, this becomes crystal clear. In verse 9, the author says, but we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while. He's saying, look, this guy was God and he was a above the angels, but for a little while he was made into a human below the angels. And he goes on. He says,

now he is crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone. The ultimate way that Jesus got you was by dying for your sins. The ultimate way he gets your temptations and the hardships in your life was by experiencing them ultimately on the cross. And by experiencing them in your place, he opened up a pathway for you to enter into a reality where death does not rule anymore. He experienced them so that even if you die in this life, you will rise again in a renewed creation. He experienced them so that death wouldn't be the last word on your story, so that sin and the devil and all of his power wouldn't be the last word on your story, but instead life would be the final word. Grace would be the final word. Resurrection and love

would be the final word. You see, Jesus not only wants to understand your sins, he wants to deal with them and it goes one step further he wants to help you fight against them he wants to sanctify you and transform you check out verse 10 and bringing many sons and daughters to glory it was fitting that god for whom and through whom everything exists should make the pioneer of their salvation he's talking about jesus perfect through what he suffered both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family so jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters I know that might be a little bit confusing, so let me try to unpack it. What he's saying is that because we have all died with Christ on the cross,

we can be made holy and perfect in Christ. Of course, it doesn't come until the resurrection fully, but in the present, he says that Jesus is making people holy. He wants to transform you. He wants to help you resist and fight against those sins that you think he doesn't get. He wants to give you the power of his spirit to resist their temptation. It's often a two-step forward, one-step-back process in our lives. We don't do it perfectly.

But here's the final section, and I love what it says. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. You see, that's one thing I do love about the He Gets Us ads. It tells people who might think that Jesus is ashamed of me. He's ashamed of my life. He's ashamed of my poverty. He's ashamed of my anxiety. He's ashamed of whatever it is in your life that you think he's ashamed of.

And this passage says, no, he gets you, he died for you. He sanctifies you, and he is not ashamed of you. He calls you brothers and sisters, and he delights to do so. So what's this mean for you? Well, I think it means the next time you battle with temptation, whether you resist or you give in, you have to go to Jesus and say, Jesus, I know you understand me. Thank you for dying for me. Thank you for forgiving my sins.

Would you as my brother? would you as my Savior not be ashamed of me? I know you're not ashamed of me. Would you please transform me and sanctify me? Yes, Jesus gets us, but he doesn't leave us there. Before you forget, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talks newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes, and you'll get an email every Wednesday that's going to help you beat that midweek slump and go deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.