Sermons
HE LEARNED OBEDIENCE
Series: The Glory of ChristHE LEARNED OBEDIENCE
Pt.4 - “The Glory Of Christ”
Sermon Outline By Terry Siverd
Cortland Church of Christ / February 08, 2015
Last Sunday we examined Luke’s account of the story of Jesus’ visit to Jerusalem at the age of twelve.
After becoming temporarily “lost” to his parents, when they found Him in the temple,
Mary reprimanded Jesus saying (Lk.2:48b),
“Child, why have you treated us this way? Behold your father and I have been anxiously looking for You.”
? Jesus responded with his first recorded spoken words 4 “Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s House!”
Luke closes out his account of this story with two important statements.
' (
1) Lk.2:51 states4 “He went down with them, and came to Nazareth; and He continued in subjection to them.”
2) And them Luke adds (Lk.2:52)4 “Jesus kept i-n-c-r-e-a-s-i-n-g in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.”
All we know about Jesus from the age of 12 until the age of 30 is summed up in this one, singular verse.
Whatever Jesus had come to realize at this point in His life, He would GROW greatly over the next 18 years.
Many Christians have a mistaken notion about Jesus - - that His spiritual life was always firm, full and fixed.
After all, He was the Son of God and fully Divine.
? Yet we must be careful lest we allow the Deity of Christ to rob Him of His full humanity. ?
Heb.2:17 states clearly4 “He had to be made like His brethren in all things…”
Furthermore, If our view is that Jesus’ spiritual life was always firm, full and fixed then what do we do with Heb.5:8?
?
“He learned obedience/submission from the things which he suffered.”
Vs.9 adds4 “And having been made PERFECT, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation…”
?? In His humanity, Jesus’ life was not devoid of growth - - in fact just the opposite was true - - He was ever growing.
' (
¡ We have already cited Luke’s important observation, “Jesus kept INCREASING (growing)…” / Lk.2:52.
¡ And now we read from Heb.5:8 that, “Jesus LEARNED OBEDIENCE…”
How do we explain this conundrum?
Like us human beings, does our almighty & omniscient God actually g-r-o-w? Does God need to grow?
The answer is “No!” - - God doesn’t need to grow.
He is not the great “I WILL BE” - - He is the great “I AM!”
But Jesus was God incarnate. Jesus was Immanuel … God with us … God enfleshed … God in human form.
¡ Heb.5:7 begins by specifying, “in the days of His flesh…”
¡ Paul’s words in Philp.2:6-8 remind us 7
“Although He existed in the form of God, He did not regard equality with God something to be grasped (or clung to),
but He emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men. And being found
in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
Heb.5:7 says4
“in the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying
and tears to the One able to save Him from death. and He was heard because of His piety.”
If the spiritual life of Christ was always firm, full and fixed, then why the crying and tears?
Why the supplication to be saved from death?
The answer is that in “being made his brethren” JESUS BECAME VULNERABLE.
If living a perfect life was no challenge, then Jesus was really not “made like his brethren.”
Jesus was sent by God to do the will of the Father.
From the outset of His incarnation, we can observe that He possessed a willingness to come to earth and to SUBMIT.
Heb.5:8 does not simply state that “Jesus learned obedience”.
It specifies that, “He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.”
This does not and cannot mean that a previously disobedient Jesus finally learned to obey.
It is not that Jesus finally learned to obey the Father, having disobeyed Him many times previously.
It is not that after a time of trial and error that Jesus finally “got it”.
Heb.4:15 states emphatically that “(Jesus) was tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sin.”
So what is Paul’s point here in Hebrews 5:8 4 “He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.”
Bruce Ware in The Man Christ Jesus writes (p.63)
7
“Although Jesus was a Son, and as a Son he deserved only honor, allegiance, respect and adoration
from those with whom He dealt, He encountered from these very people much hatred and opposition.
He was afflicted, scorned, ridiculed, and rejected by many people in many ways.
And within this context of SUFFERING, Jesus knew that His obedience to the Father and the Father’s will
would mean only continued and intensified suffering. Yet, despite the suffering He knew he would receive,
He resisted the temptation to avoid suffering and to turn away from the Father’s will and
instead resolutely obeyed the Father every step of the way, no matter how hard things were.
Now, we need to clarify even a bit more.
Heb.5:8 does not say, “Although He was a son, he obeyed the Father in the midst of what He suffered.”
The text says some additional 4 4 4 He LEARNED obedience…
JESUS GREW.
The steps of obedience He took earlier in life provided “a school of learning”.
This is why we stated previously that Jesus could not have been made “King/Savior” as the age of 12.
The years that followed (from age 12 to 30) were preparatory and vital to His being made perfect/complete.
Likewise for the first three years of His ministry.
All of the hardships and struggles of His life were part of God’s plan to prepare Him for the cross.
The words of Hebrews 5:7 (with loud crying and tears) are likely a reference to His time in the garden before the cross.
Matt.26:36-46 and Mk.14:32-43 tells us that he prayed three times “let this cup pass…”.
Why ask at all? Was the cross not the very reason He came in the first place?
And why ask THREE times?
Lk.22:44 notes that His prayer was so fervent that “being in agony…His sweat became like drops of blood”.
Yet, even here, Jesus was able to declare, “Nevertheless, not My will, but Thy will be done.”
Here in the shadow of the cross, in the loneliness of the garden,
we see the culmination of a Jesus who had learned obedience.
? ? ?
Let’s not be mistaken or misled, the struggles that Jesus faced in His full humanity were very real.
This is not some cleverly-devised melodrama, not some fanciful, fabricated biography.
His obedience was difficult, painful, agonizing, even tortuous at times.
Jesus felt deeply the struggle to trust and obey.
THE CROSS EVENT WAS HIS SEVEREST TEST AND IT BROUGHT FORTH HIS GREATEST ACT OF OBEDIENCE.
Jesus championed this challenge by having learned obedience from that which He suffered previously.
Jesus had been made perfect - - He had been matured for this very occasion.
His character had been formed by a whole host of trials and tribulations all throughout His life.
Now, one more practical observation and we will close in prayer.
If God saw fit to “school” Jesus for 33 years, we should not be discouraged in our own personal Christian growth.
Sometimes we want to know it all in a short time, but that’s not God’s way of maturation or “perfection” (Heb.5:9).
In a very real sense there are no insignificant and minor acts of obedience.
There are “little acts” - - decisions we make day to day but they are significant none the less.
Yet, just as with Jesus,
It’s the culmination of a multitude of little acts of obedience that prepare us for the bigger challenges.
I read once where someone had written that discipleship is, “a long obedience in the same direction”.[ts1] states
One last postscript: We need to re-think how we view suffering, affliction, trials and testing.
These are GIFTS granted to us by God to help us grow in our faith and obedience.
They are paving stones along the progressive pathway of discipleship.
Benediction
7
Dear Heavenly Father,
How very grateful we are for the life of Jesus.
We are so thankful for His willingness to empty Himself
And become a servant in the likeness of men.
May His life of submission & obedience (even unto death) remind us of our calling.
Day by day and with each passing moment, give us strength to meet our trials.
Help us to learn to obey in the midst of every tribulation and to trust Your promises.
Through Christ, who became like us so that we might become like Him, we pray. Amen.
