Passage: Hebrews 1:1-4
Intro: When we don’t understand something, or we fear something, we tend to trivialize it
Il) standing on the tee of a shot over water, onto a small green surrounded by sand traps, you’d be amazed at how we talk to ourselves.
1. we cut things down to a manageable, comfortable size where we can face it.
2. certainly our tendency with an event as overwhelming as the idea that God became a man
3. we don’t have to look far to see how the world has trivialized this great event until it is nothing but symbols bereft of meaning, good feelings in the place of good news.
4. we looked at this powerful verse last week.
PP I John 3:8b
5. Christmas is a nuclear explosion in the cosmic war between God and Satan
6. as we saw last week, one of Satan’s most powerful weapons in this war is his use of lies, misinformation, distortions. His nature to lie.
7. God’s answer? To do what He has done from the beginning, which is to speak, to reveal, to tell us the truth.
8. Listen!! You can’t afford to miss what God is saying at Christmas.
I. Jesus is My Final Revelation
1. v1 of this powerful statement
2. immediately sets up a contrast, though common thread
3. “God spoke”, contrast begins with time.
4. “in the past”=long ago, to “our forefathers”
5. verb tense states completion
6. “many times and various ways”=both # of times and various means.
7. dreams, visions, direct revelation, visible presence in cloud and fire.
Il) we might say to someone, “I called, I wrote snail mail and email, I sent you pictures, telegrams, gifts and even sent messengers”
8. OT prophets, Law, tabernacle, Temple, all ways that God spoke to reveal Himself to people.
9. each communication reveals a little bit more, another piece in the puzzle
il) progressive, like a grandfather clock chiming the hours. You have to wait until done to get the whole picture, but each chime eliminates certain times until revelation complete.
10. and v2 spells out that completion
11. “but in these last days”=perhaps the end of the line. Is it? Lets see
12. “he spoke”=past tense, completed action.
13. and when we see how He spoke, we will realize it must be the final statement
II. Jesus is My Son
1. “by His Son” have NASB, notice “His” in italics, which means not in original text. Added to define
2. in greek, en viw=in Son
3. same as John 1:1
PP John 1:1= not “a god”, but God in very essence.
4. so here, he has spoken to us in one who bears the very essence of God, one who is the Son of God.
5. before God sent emails, pictures, cards, telegrams to speak to us.
6. but now, at the end, God comes Himself, in His Son
7. tremendous identifiers in vv2-3
8. appointed “heir”, word from term for “lot”, the way the division of the inheritance was chosen.
9. God has one heir, one Son.
PP Psalm 2:7-8
10. unlike theology of cults, who teach multiple sons, Jesus called “one and only”
PP John 3:16 monogenous
11. this “Sonship” carries a tremendous amount of weight.
12. “thru whom he made the universe” Jesus was the instrument of creation
13. end of v3, the sustainer of all things, word=”carrying all things forward on their appointed course.”
14. v3, “is”, verb tense=absolute and timeless existence. “I am”
15. also, two words only used here in NT
16. “radiance”=the rays of light that come from a source.
PP) Ayres Mount in Austrailia. We know it’s not a plane or a UFO behind there.
Il) if you’ve driven all night, you start to see this radiance about 4 a.m.
17. other word, “exact representation”=impression or stamp. Metallurgy term
il) we might be more familiar with a copier. Same idea. Duplicate of something we can’t necessarily see
18. in OT we might be able to say, “we want to see God”
19. Jesus has come, we have seen the very character, nature, person of God
-“being”=essence of who He is
il) “veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail the incarnate Diety. Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel.”
Il) if God had DNA, then Jesus would share it!! Their relationship would stand up in court…even in LA!
III. Jesus Has No Equal
1. God has spoken to us with incredible clarity in His Son
2. but God’s purpose wasn’t fulfilled just by Jesus appearing on earth as a baby.
3. His greatest revelation of God took place when He “provided purification for sins.”
4. now once again, the verb tense here is incredibly powerful.
5. it means “He provided purification for sin once for all within himself”
6. more simply, He removed the barrier of sin that existed between us and God not by an outward sacrifice of a sheep or a goat, and not for one short period of time, but by the sacrifice of His own body, once for all time.
7. and that one event, so filled with significance that we’ll never completely understand it this side of heaven, binds together in awesome revelation the infinite love and grace of God and the absolute and perfect righteousness of the sacrifice: Jesus Christ.
8. it’s no wonder, then, that Jesus sat down at God’s right hand, having finished His work.
9. It’s no wonder that God has exalted Him and given Him the name that is above every name, the name “God saves”
10. it’s no wonder that He became superior to any created being, even the angels, and especially to that fallen angel, Satan.
11. Jesus has no equal, being the only one who could perfectly represent the character of God in the middle of a sinful world.
12, the only one who could go to the cross and, in His own body, absorb the wrath of God against sin and not be destroyed by it because He had no sin of His own.
13. and the only one before whom all creatures will one day bow and confess the Jesus Christ is the Lord!
Conc. . and it’s no wonder, then, that Satan desperately seeks to hide the radical truth of Jesus Christ’s powerful revelation beneath the ceaseless noise of “the most wonderful time of the year”.
1. we are now the bearers of the message, this last and best statement of God
2. we talked last week about being the sugar in Satans mortar of lies.
3. this is one way we can do that!
4. keep telling the truth about Jesus, keep living the truth about Jesus
5. keep proclaiming by word and by action the life-changing truth of Jesus Christ.
6. this is our holiday, our remembrance. Don’t expect the government to do it. Use your freedom to proclaim that Jesus is the Son of God without equal, the last and best revelation of God
