SIMPLY JESUS
Jesus the Final Word
Hebrews 1:1-4
INTRODUCTION
-When I was a kid my family would gather on 4th of July to celebrate America’s independence.
-And everyone knows you can’t do that without fireworks.
-And we had the best fireworks that…$5 could buy.
-We had those little black tablets that turn into snakes
-We have those Whistling Pete’s that made everyone deaf.
-And…for the big finally there was always…sparklers.
-No one did a better sparkler show than my Uncle, he could do loops, or spell stuff in the air. We loved our fireworks shows.
-Well last summer on our road trip we stopped in Vegas…to go to church…and while we were downtown Caesar’s Palace did their 4th of July fireworks show…on July 6th…long story.
-They didn’t have any black snakes, Whistling Pete’s or sparklers but I’m pretty sure they had…every other thing imaginable.
-That was the most incredible fireworks display I’ve ever seen.
-And they just kept coming. Bigger, brighter, higher, louder.
-All colors, all kinds of explosions for more than 30 minutes.
-And just when you thought they couldn’t possibly have any more, they couldn’t possibly outdo what they had done.
-Then they did the finale which was even better. They were able to improve something that was awesome, and make even better.
-And that’s what the book of Hebrews is all about.
-The book of Hebrews uses the word “better” 11 times to describe who Jesus is and what he has done for us.
-Of all the good things that God did for his people in the Old Testament, he has done even better things for those of us in the New Testament era.
-People in this world are asking life’s big questions:
-Who has the power to help me where I need help?
-What is God’s plan for my life?
-Where can I fine true meaning and happiness?
-Will there be an end to my suffering?
-How do I know I can put my trust in God?
-The book of Hebrews was written to a group of persecuted Christian, Jewish Christians.
-They were asking those big questions, because life was very hard.
-And so this letter was written; with a clear message for them, but also for us today:
-The answer to all of our questions is SIMPLY JESUS.
-Because Jesus is better than…fill in the blank.
-Jesus is better than anyone, anything, any idea, any authority, any king, any priest, any prophet, Jesus is simply better.
-And you’ll see that theme developed as we work through this book. Some of you have been attending church a long time.
-You know basic theology. You know how to navigate a potluck.
-You might even be able to pray in the King James.
-But I’m often amazed at little Christian know about Jesus.
-I’m going to challenge you to be hear on Sundays, unless you’re sick or out of town.
-And to learn more about the one that is our Lord and Savior.
1 Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets.
GOD HAS SPOKEN (vs 1-2a)
-We don’t really know who wrote Hebrews, but the author starts with a big picture statement to begin building his case.
-He says long ago God spoke many times.
-When you read that…it immediately raises some questions.
WHO DID GOD SPEAK TO (LONG AGO)? THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL.
-This letter is written by a Jewish man to a Jewish people.
-And so he says, “our ancestors”.
-And any good Jewish man or woman could have immediately pulled up some famous examples.
-God spoke to Abram saying “Go to the land I will show you.”
-God spoke to Jacob and said, “I’m changing your name to Israel.”
-God spoke Moses in a burning bush.
-God spoke to Adam and Eve, Sarah, Hagar (not that Viking guy from the comics), He spoke to all kinds of people.
-And when you read the Bible you might get the idea that God spoke directly to everyone, but that’s not true.
-Most people heard God speak through prophets, priests, & kings
-And that’s what VS 1 tells us. But an important question to ask is
WHY DOES GOD SPEAK TO US? At all?
-Lots of reasons. You could suppose God has things he wants us to know. That’s reasonable.
-At times he spoke to his people to encourage them.
-At other times he spoke words of correction/judgment to them.
-He spoke giving them instructions about how to live.
-It’s essential to realize that God has spoken to people then and to us today because HE WANTS TO KNOW US AND BE KNOWN BY US.
-Our God is a personal God, that wants a personal relationship with us. That’s why he spoken to us…he not a mystery.
-He’s not a concept. He isn’t distant and unavailable.
-That’s why he’s spoken! Imagine if God had remained silent?
-We wouldn’t know who we are.
-We wouldn’t know who God is and what he thinks!
-We would know right from wrong. We wouldn’t have the Scripture, we wouldn’t know how to pray!
-We wouldn’t exist because God spoke the world into existence.
-There wouldn’t be hope for hurting people.
-There wouldn’t be a place to take our doubts and fears.
-There would be no expectation of anything better to come if God had not spoken.
-We’d be empty, alone, afraid, and without faith.
-And there are many who live like that right now.
-They need to know that God has spoken, and hear what he has to say. Now there is a key question I want to ask.
-If God spoke many times and in many ways to the OT people.
-What did he say to the OT people?
-How could we summarize all that was said in the OId Testament?
HE MADE PROMISES.
-Every OT book was pointing to something that was coming.
-Every prophet had something to say about what God was doing.
-Even the OT worship anticipated some new thing that God was preparing…the people in the OT knew…that what they saw wasn’t all that God had in mind.
-The prophet Jeremiah was told of a new Covenant, a new day promised by God.
-and verse 2 tell us what you’ve probably already guessed.
2a And now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son.
-When we hear final Days we start thinking about end times.
-But final days or last days in your Bible simply refers to the time from Christ’s ascension to his return.
-We are in the last days, or final days. We have been in the last days since Christ ascended into heaven.
-The Old Testament people were living in the days of God’s promises…when he was preparing people for something new.
-The writer of Hebrews says the waiting is over. God has spoken again, to us, with something new to say.
-WHAT HAS GOD SPOKEN TO US? THE FINAL WORD.
-The Old Testament is about promises and the New Testament is the fulfillment of those promises.
-In the OT God spoke many times in many ways, in the NT God spoke one message through one messenger….Jesus Christ.
-We’re going to see a bunch of this kind of “then and now” comparisons in the book of Hebrews.
-And what we’ll discover is that everything God promised in the OT was fulfilled in persona and work of Jesus Christ.
-That means that Jesus is…kind of a big deal.
-In these final days, God has given us the final word, and it’s a word about his Son, Jesus.
SEVEN FACTS ABOUT JESUS.
2b God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son he created the universe. 3 The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command. When he had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven.
1. CHRIST INHERITS EVERYTHING.
-This first statement makes a big statement about Jesus.
-God has given him everything as his inheritance.
-People don’t always know what their inheritance will be until someone dies.
-And then they learn that they got a toaster, their sibling gets the sports car, and the cash…well there was no cash. Sorry.
-Jesus made off a bit better than that…he actually gets everything.
-Everything on earth, everything in heaven, he gets it all.
-Jesus doesn’t need a toaster, or a sports car, but technically they are his…because his inheritance is “dominion”. Over everything.
-But that sounds strange to us because everything belongs to God.
-That’s exactly the point that the author is trying to make.
-Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. He’s called God’s Son, that’s for our benefit, but his identify is none other than the Father in flesh!
-If you don’t believe me, look to the next statement.
2. HE CREATED THE UNIVERSE.
-But God created the heaven’s and the earth in Gen 1:1.
-Bing…goo…! That’s exactly what he’s getting at here.
-Remember in Gen 1:26, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us.”
-Why did God use the plural to describe himself?
-Because God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
-Jesus didn’t just suddenly appear one day…he has always been.
-He is part of the mysterious union that we call the Trinity.
-The Jews that received this letter knew that God created the universe. When the author named Jesus as creator they immediately understood the implications. Jesus is God.
-And it keeps going.
3. THE SON RADIATES GOD’S GLORY.
-I got one of those really bright LED flashlights for Christmas.
-And because I’m slightly obnoxious on certain occasions, I opened it up and immediately started shining it at all the kids.
-And you know what they said, “that’s bright!”
-What is bright? Is it the bulb or the beams of light?
-No one asks that question.
-No one says “that bulb is way too bright and it’s sending bright beams into my eyes…because the bulb and the light are technically different but practically one in the same.
-And so it goes with Jesus. God is glorious and the Son radiates the glory of God. Now people get confused about all this stuff.
-How does that work? How can God be Jesus and Jesus be God and the Holy Spirit.
-It is truly one of the mysteries of our faith.
-It is clearly eluded to but never explained for us.
-But if you doubt it, look at the 4th thing he says about Jesus.
4. JESUS EXPRESSES THE VERY CHARACTER OF GOD.
-Think about everything we know of Jesus.
-He never sinned, ever. Not one time.
-He never wavered on what is right and wrong.
-He was loving and peaceful and kind.
-He was passionate about truth and bold when he taught it.
-He was completely fair, beyond temptation, all-knowing, all- powerful and all-wise. Hmm…Who does that remind me of? God.
-If you were to go to one of the US mints in Denver or Philadelphia, you’d see where they manufacture coins.
-They have coin molds that determine how each coin will look.
-The words that are on your coins, the pictures, all of it is determined by the mold.
-When they put the raw material into the mold of a penny, it will come out with a picture of Lincoln on it.
-They’ve never taken a copper penny out of the Lincoln mold and seen Washington’s face.
-Because coins express the exact image of their mold.
-And in a similar way Jesus displays God’s character in every way.
-Once the apostle Philip said to Jesus, show us the father.
John 14:9 “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father!”
5. HE SUSTAINS EVERYTHING. (SEE COL 1:17)
-This echoes the apostle Paul’s thoughts in Colossians 1:17 where it says that Jesus, “holds all creation together.”
-Not only is he the creator, he’s the sustainer.
6. CLEANSED US FROM OUR SINS.
-In the Old Testament there was a High Priest that served in Israel.
-One of his jobs was to offer what they called the sacrifice of Atonement every year. If you’re taking the “Read the Bible in the year challenge you’ll be getting to this soon in Leviticus 16.
-In that chapter it describes the ceremony that high priest went through to cleanse the people of Israel from their sins.
-So when the Jewish recipients of this letter read that Jesus cleansed us from our sins, they noticed something;
-Jesus is being identified as our high priest, more in chp 4-5
7. HE IS SEATED AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD.
-If I were tell you that Collin Capernick will be “under center” at the playoff game today…which starts at noon…none of you would think that the 49ers Center is sitting down on him.
-Under center is a term that we use to describe the QB position.
-When you read in the NT that Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God, it doesn’t mean that God always sitting down, and that Jesus is always sitting down next to him.
-For the ancient readers this was king talk. And when they read this they knew that Jesus was being presented as a King.
-Some of the commentators think that there were Christian Jews reading this letter, but that there were also Jews who were still trying to understand who this Jesus was.
-And the author makes a compelling case for Jesus in this opening.
-In the past God spoke through prophets, but Jesus better than the prophets.
-In the past God spoke through priests, but Jesus is better than the previous priests. He is the highest of the high priests!
-In the past God spoke through kings, but Jesus is better than the all the other kings. He is the King of Kings.
-And just to drive the point home, verse 4 says…
4 This shows that the Son is far greater than the angels, just as the name God gave him is greater than their names.
-We’ll get into this next week…he’s ever better than the angels.
-As we close down, this is what I want you to know this morning.
-This book is the record of what God has spoken.
-God has spoken in the past…and it was all pointing to Jesus.
-God has spoken in these last days…it’s all about Jesus.
-But this is where it gets personal for you and me.
-The message about Jesus isn’t just for somebody. It’s for you.
-And the message God has for you today is this; you need Jesus.
-Simply Jesus.
