[00:00:00] The book of Hebrews is a mysterious book for a lot of Christians.
[00:00:06] Actually, I'm going to do this. I don't normally do a show of hands kind of thing.
[00:00:10] But how many of you have ever read the book of Hebrews? Just in your own time, you've read the book of Hebrews before?
[00:00:14] I won't do a show of hands if you've never read it.
[00:00:18] But you should read it. It's a good book and God's word.
[00:00:21] But I think it's a mystery for a lot of believers for a few different reasons.
[00:00:25] One is, perhaps you've heard this before, we actually don't know with real certainty who the human author of the book of Hebrews is.
[00:00:36] We know that the Lord inspired this very early on.
[00:00:39] The church recognized and received this book to be divinely inspired.
[00:00:43] And what's clear as you read through the book is that the people who received it initially, they knew the author.
[00:00:50] They had a personal relationship with this author.
[00:00:53] But we don't know who the human author was.
[00:00:55] The major guesses are Apollos, Barnabas, Luke and Paul.
[00:01:04] And to be honest with you, as we read through this book, there will probably be moments as we're going through this where you might think to yourself,
[00:01:13] man, this sounds a lot like Paul the apostle.
[00:01:16] And I think that this is Paul.
[00:01:18] Because as you're going through this, you're going to read times where the author is going to write of a very high Christology,
[00:01:26] a view of Jesus talking about his high priestly ministry, the atonement, the things that he provided for us by his blood.
[00:01:33] It sounds very Pauline.
[00:01:34] And as we go through this, you're also going to notice that this is a fairly complex argument.
[00:01:40] In fact, some people don't even think of the book of Hebrews as a letter.
[00:01:43] They think of it as an essay that was laid out, a speech that was laid out in written form with arguments and different moments where exhortations were given.
[00:01:53] And so you might, as we're reading through this, say to yourself, man, this is so complex, only Paul the apostle could think like this.
[00:02:02] You might also notice that it's written to a Jewish audience.
[00:02:08] Now, most of what Paul did on the face of the earth was for the Gentile world.
[00:02:12] He was the apostle to the Gentiles.
[00:02:14] But as you follow his ministry, when you read it in the book of Acts, one thing you notice is he loved his countrymen.
[00:02:20] He loved the people of Israel.
[00:02:22] He loved Hebrew Jewish people.
[00:02:24] And so as we're reading through this, you might even say to yourself, man, it just seems like this guy, he loved them so much that he finally got the opportunity by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to write directly to him.
[00:02:38] And at least for me in times past I've looked at this letter and thought, well, I might not know exactly who wrote this, but the odds certainly seem to be in Paul's favor.
[00:02:48] I mean, the guy was prolific.
[00:02:49] He just cranking out letters all the time that found themselves in the canon of Scripture.
[00:02:56] So, you know, I mean, Peter would write a couple, John would write a few, but Paul, I mean, he had like a dozen or so letters that he wrote to the church.
[00:03:05] So because he's so prolific, you might say to yourself, well, Paul must be the author.
[00:03:10] Here's the reason why scholars though don't think that Paul wrote the book of Hebrews.
[00:03:15] The style of Paul's writing in the original Greek language in which he wrote is so different from the Greek that's found here in the book of Hebrews.
[00:03:26] And the other reason is that in this letter, the author postures himself as a person who did not see Jesus with his own two eyes, but someone else, the original disciples, saw him and told this author about Jesus.
[00:03:45] Now that certainly fits Paul's life for the most part, but that's not how Paul ever wrote about himself.
[00:03:52] In 1 Corinthians 15 and Galatians one and two, he said, I was one born out of due time.
[00:03:57] Those original disciples, they added nothing to me.
[00:04:00] Jesus appeared to me on the road to Damascus.
[00:04:03] So his self-view, his self-image was of an apostle who had a personal encounter with Jesus.
[00:04:11] So the author here treats himself acts of himself like a different kind of man.
[00:04:16] So all I'm saying is it's inconclusive who the author to the book of Hebrews is, but people always want to know like, but pastor, like what do you think?
[00:04:26] You know, who do you think wrote the book?
[00:04:28] If somebody made me guess, like if I'm not a betting person, I'll never bet or gamble or anything.
[00:04:34] But if somebody gave me $1,000 and they said, you have to put your money on somebody, who would I put it?
[00:04:40] I put my money on Paul.
[00:04:42] And I think to me, I would get around the language thing by saying one of two things.
[00:04:47] Either he wrote it in Hebrew, which I think he could have done and then it was translated into Greek and then dispersed throughout the empire.
[00:04:54] Or he was so talented and intelligent and skilled and filled with the spirit that he just decided to write it in a style that he'd never used before.
[00:05:03] And if there was ever an audience that he would have done that for, it would have been for the Hebrew people.
[00:05:08] And that would also I think cover the self-image that he had of himself.
[00:05:14] Maybe he took a different view of himself as he wrote to the Hebrews.
[00:05:17] So I'm going to try my best as I'm teaching through the book of Hebrews to always say the author said or the author wrote as we're going through this.
[00:05:24] But from time to time you might hear me say Paul said or Paul wrote.
[00:05:28] Okay, so I'm sorry ahead of time when I say that.
[00:05:31] But that's one reason that we might feel it's a little mysterious.
[00:05:34] We don't know who wrote it with certainty.
[00:05:36] Another reason that we might think that it's a mysterious book is because it's sometimes difficult for people to decipher who exactly the author has in their mind's eye as they're writing this book.
[00:05:52] Now, this is a really big deal for the way that you interpret this book.
[00:05:57] Some people wonder is he writing to priests, Jewish priests who became Christians?
[00:06:05] And we're kind of looking back on their life saying man, we used to be kind of a big deal amongst the Jewish people.
[00:06:12] We'd offer sacrifices, all of that.
[00:06:14] Maybe we should go back to that.
[00:06:16] Some people think that he was writing to Jewish Christians who had a small view of Christianity.
[00:06:24] They thought of Christianity as under the umbrella of Judaism rather than as a missionary message that needed to go to the ends of the earth.
[00:06:33] God's new way of communicating to humanity, the hope of the gospel.
[00:06:38] Some people wonder if he's not writing to Jews at all but writing to Gentiles who, think about it, Gentiles in that era before they became Christians,
[00:06:48] they experimented with any religion that was held out to them and then they come to Christ and start reading the Old Testament.
[00:06:56] And maybe they read of sacrifices and incense and altars and a priesthood and maybe in their hearts they thought,
[00:07:03] man Christianity doesn't have any of this stuff.
[00:07:06] Maybe we should go back to the things of the Old Testament to get a little bit of ritualism in our religion.
[00:07:15] The most common view though and the one that I'm going to take is a straightforward view that these were Jewish Christians,
[00:07:23] Jewish people, Hebrew people who had come to Christ.
[00:07:26] They believed that Jesus was the Messiah, that he had died on the cross for the sins of the world.
[00:07:30] They believed in him.
[00:07:32] They might have lived in Jerusalem.
[00:07:33] They might have lived in Rome.
[00:07:34] They might have lived all throughout the empire but they were Jewish Christians who after a season of their Christianity,
[00:07:42] they began to look longingly on the Old Testament regulations.
[00:07:47] I mean think about it, in Christ we don't have a bunch of rituals.
[00:07:53] I mean he gave us communion, he gave us baptism but I don't think you could classify those as rituals that he gave to us.
[00:08:01] We have a non-ritualistic Christianity or religion if you want to use that phrase.
[00:08:09] And perhaps some of these Jewish Christians were looking at all of those rituals, the smell of that incense,
[00:08:15] the view of the smoke that ascended from the altar, the garb of the priesthood,
[00:08:21] the dangling or the jingling of the bells on the high priest's garment and maybe they thought to themselves,
[00:08:27] you know we don't have anything like that, we don't have any rituals like that.
[00:08:31] It'd be so neat to go back to some of that.
[00:08:35] It seems that the author is writing to them to tell them, look what you have in Jesus is sufficient for you.
[00:08:42] Now at this point some of you might be saying to yourself, well okay if that's who the book of Hebrews was written to,
[00:08:47] I might as well just close it up and just take off because that's not my issue.
[00:08:51] You know you probably haven't recently looked at a goat and thought to yourself,
[00:08:55] I would really like to sacrifice that, you know, if I could, you know kind of thing.
[00:09:01] But here's the deal, it has great application to us because every one of us, I'm fairly confident,
[00:09:09] could come to a place in our Christianity where the lack of rituals, the lack of external trappings
[00:09:19] might cause us to be bored with what we do have.
[00:09:23] And what the author wants us to understand is what we have in Jesus is better than all of those things
[00:09:32] combined therefore we must enjoy Him and enjoy God through Him and be satisfied with who and what we have in Jesus Christ.
[00:09:41] It might not be the rituals of the Old Testament but it could be plenty of other things that you or I are drawn to
[00:09:48] and we need to see the sufficiency that is found for us in Christ Jesus.
[00:09:52] Alright, another reason why this letter might be kind of confusing is because as you're reading through it,
[00:09:57] the author will build an argument for a little while and then introduce an exhortation
[00:10:03] and then he'll have a new argument for a while and then bam! Just another exhortation.
[00:10:07] It's kind of hectic as you're going through it, very organized for a while and then an exhortation.
[00:10:14] But it seems that what's happening in this letter is that the author has in his mind that if you understand
[00:10:22] the doctrines that he's going to build and teach us, then you'll be able to adhere to the exhortations
[00:10:29] that he's going to give. And the exhortations are beautiful. Listen to these.
[00:10:33] If we could apply this word we would have a fresh joy about our salvation.
[00:10:39] Chapter 2. We could live a life of Sabbath rest.
[00:10:43] Chapter 3 and 4. We could have mature character.
[00:10:48] Chapter 5 and 6. We could have a genuine enjoyment of God.
[00:10:54] Chapter 10. We could have the ability to embark on adventures of faith with God.
[00:11:01] Chapter 11. We could have perseverance and endurance in life.
[00:11:06] Chapter 12. And we could build a community of love and grace.
[00:11:12] Chapter 13. Those are all magnificent things, but they're built on the doctrines of this book.
[00:11:19] Okay. A key word in this whole letter. You're going to notice it over and over again as we go through this
[00:11:25] in the coming weeks is the word better. The author's going to tell us that Jesus is better than the prophets,
[00:11:31] better than angels, better than Moses, that he is the better sacrifice,
[00:11:36] that he brings us to a better land, that he brings a better hope and has better promises for you and for me.
[00:11:44] Over and over again the word better will occur.
[00:11:48] And here today what we're going to learn in these first four verses, it's kind of a prologue to the whole book,
[00:11:53] we're going to learn that Jesus is the better word or Jesus is the ultimate word or Jesus is the ultimate message.
[00:12:02] Alright, that's what we're going to see in just these first four verses.
[00:12:04] Okay, so you guys ready to actually read and get into the verses itself?
[00:12:08] That you're like thank you for the introduction. Let's move on.
[00:12:11] You guys appreciate the introduction, right? Thank you. You really liked it.
[00:12:14] Yeah, I could tell you enjoyed that. Okay, let's go on.
[00:12:17] Verse one. Let's get into it. The author, not like a letter at all.
[00:12:22] You know this is who it's from, this is who it's to. He just starts out long ago.
[00:12:26] Verse one. At many times and in many ways God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.
[00:12:32] But in these last days he has spoken to us by his son whom he appointed the heir of all things through whom also he created the world.
[00:12:42] The position of the author is very simple. And it's this.
[00:12:47] There is a God and that God spoke. The concept of scripture is that human beings could not understand God unless two things occurred.
[00:12:59] Number one, that he gave them the ability to even think about him, to have logic.
[00:13:06] And number two, that he would reveal himself to humanity.
[00:13:11] The author here says God did that. God spoke to our fathers in times past by the prophets.
[00:13:18] Now when the author says that God spoke by the prophets, he doesn't have in his mind only exclusively the Old Testament prophetic offices.
[00:13:30] You know guys like Elijah or Isaiah or Jeremiah or Ezekiel.
[00:13:36] He has them in mind but he has every Old Testament author in mind.
[00:13:41] This is his way of saying in times past God gave to us, God spoke to us the Old Testament.
[00:13:48] Or I like the way people say it when they say the first Testament because when you say the Old Testament it just sounds so like I don't need that anymore.
[00:13:57] That's the old one rather than the first Testament.
[00:14:00] The one that the original Christians studied and read and learned of Jesus from.
[00:14:07] So he's saying here that in times past God gave to us through his messengers that first Testament,
[00:14:15] that first those 39 books of the Bible of the Old Testament God gave to us his revelation in scripture.
[00:14:23] Now you should know this all throughout the New Testament.
[00:14:27] The New Testament speaks of the Old Testament as inspired of God, as by the Lord, as God's Word.
[00:14:36] Jesus of course is the paramount figure who announced that kind of thing like in John chapter 10 when he said that the word of God came and that scripture will not be broken.
[00:14:49] So he saw the Old Testament as something that is true, something that is valuable.
[00:14:54] In fact many of the controversial passages in the Old Testament are repeated in the New Testament as historical events that actually took place.
[00:15:04] Things like the creation or the fall of humanity or the Noeik flood or the covenant to Abraham or the miracles of the Exodus.
[00:15:15] Even Jonah's fish gets into the New Testament and is recorded in a way that suggests that the New Testament authors believed that those Old Testament events took place.
[00:15:29] In fact, in Genesis chapter 1 through 22, the first 22 chapters of scripture of the Bible, most of those chapters have quotations in the New Testament.
[00:15:42] It seems to be a way for the Lord in the New Testament era to say, I put my stamp of approval on that Old Testament word.
[00:15:51] It is reliable, it is faithful, it is true.
[00:15:56] And of course Jesus' testimony is the strongest of all of those testimonies because he's the one who rose from the dead.
[00:16:03] So if you're in a room with 10 people and you're debating whether the Old Testament is legit or not,
[00:16:08] if one of them died on a cross, was buried and three days later defeated sin and death and rose from the grave and he said,
[00:16:16] yeah, the Old Testament's true. You should believe that guy.
[00:16:21] So God spoke. That's the position of the author.
[00:16:25] But notice he says there in verse 1, he spoke through those prophets at many times and in many ways.
[00:16:33] That's a great description of the Old Testament scriptures, even the New Testament scriptures as well that God spoke at many times and in many ways.
[00:16:41] God spoke when the world was sinless and perfect in the Garden of Eden.
[00:16:46] God spoke after human being sinned and fell.
[00:16:50] God spoke during the times of Noah and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
[00:16:55] God spoke during the Exodus.
[00:16:57] God spoke in a fresh way when he called Moses to the mountaintop and wrote with his own finger twice on the tablets of stone, the Ten Commandments.
[00:17:04] Over and over again, God would speak.
[00:17:06] He would speak before they were in the Promised Land and then when they were in the Promised Land and then through the judges and to the kings
[00:17:14] and when they went into rebellion against the Lord.
[00:17:18] He spoke to them when they were in captivity and when they were brought back from captivity.
[00:17:22] So the Lord spoke at many times, but I love that phrase.
[00:17:26] He also spoke in many ways.
[00:17:29] When you read the Old Testament there's lots of different types of literature.
[00:17:32] You've got Psalms and Proverbs, books of poetry.
[00:17:36] You've got prophecies that are given, apocalyptic kind of literature into the world, judgment kind of stuff.
[00:17:44] You've got historical narratives.
[00:17:46] You've got beautiful words of wisdom that are given.
[00:17:51] You have all these different types and ways that God spoke.
[00:17:55] He spoke through a burning bush or visions and dreams, the Urm and the Thummim like we saw during the life of David.
[00:18:02] He wrote on stone.
[00:18:04] There's one moment that's so fascinating to me where God told Ezekiel, a prophet, that he was supposed to shave his head,
[00:18:13] shave his beard, take a third of his hair that had just been cut off and burn it,
[00:18:19] a third of it and cut it with a sword and a third of it and let it go in the wind
[00:18:24] and take some of those scattered hairs that had just gone in the wind and put them in his garment.
[00:18:29] It was a way for him to communicate to the people of Israel that a third would come under destruction through
[00:18:35] foreign power, a third through a plague and a third would be scattered but some would be able to come back.
[00:18:41] What a wild sermon.
[00:18:43] God told Ezekiel to preach.
[00:18:45] Can you imagine if that was my message today?
[00:18:47] Like just watch me right now and shave all this stuff off and then I got it something to say from that.
[00:18:53] God had many times and many ways that he communicated to human being.
[00:19:00] But here's the thing.
[00:19:03] He says in verse two, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his son.
[00:19:11] What this means is that for everything God said and all the different times and all the different ways that God said it,
[00:19:20] Jesus Christ is the final word.
[00:19:25] In other words, we aren't waiting for a new prophet.
[00:19:30] We aren't waiting for more revelation.
[00:19:33] We are waiting for Jesus to come.
[00:19:36] He is the final word.
[00:19:38] That's why it says in these last days God has spoken to us by his son.
[00:19:44] Think about this with me.
[00:19:46] When we go back to the Old Testament what we see is that Jesus is that final word that fulfilled all of that.
[00:19:53] So when I'm reading for instance of the sacrificial system and you're reading of animals being sacrificed
[00:20:00] and smoke rising to God and the worship are coming and trying to have fellowship with God,
[00:20:05] friendship with God, communion with God.
[00:20:08] When you're reading of all of that what you know now in the New Testament era is that Jesus is the fulfillment
[00:20:14] of that whole sacrificial system so he's the better sacrifice.
[00:20:19] He's the one who by his blood enables us to come boldly to God's throne of grace.
[00:20:25] They did not know that back then.
[00:20:27] It was in a shadow but we know it with absolute certainty now.
[00:20:31] In the Old Testament era when God was working so hard to bring his people, Israel out of slavery
[00:20:38] into the promised land we read of it.
[00:20:41] Okay cool they were on this adventure took 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.
[00:20:44] Joshua after Moses' death brought them into the promised land.
[00:20:47] But what we're going to learn here in the New Testament and especially here in the book of Hebrews
[00:20:51] is that the Lord has a different promised land for you and for me.
[00:20:56] They went in and had to defeat giants and enemies that were in the land but there are giants
[00:21:01] and enemies and enclaves of sin that are found within our own bodies, within our own hearts.
[00:21:07] But Jesus wants to come into your heart and progressively purge all of that, cleanse all of that
[00:21:13] when victory is within your heart.
[00:21:16] So he brings us to a better promised land.
[00:21:19] In the Old Testament they had a Sabbath system every seventh day they got to rest for 24 hours
[00:21:24] before the Lord and then they have these different feasts and festivals
[00:21:29] and every seven years a time of Sabbath before the Lord.
[00:21:33] But in the New Testament era what we discovered is that Jesus is,
[00:21:37] and we'll learn this in this book, our ultimate Sabbath rest
[00:21:40] that we can walk around with the Sabbath rest of Christ inside of our bodies,
[00:21:45] inside of our minds, inside of our hearts.
[00:21:48] In the Old Testament they had a covenant.
[00:21:51] They said we will do this and if we do you'll bless us
[00:21:54] and if we don't do it then you will bring your discipline, your curses upon us.
[00:21:58] But in the New Testament we have a new covenant where Jesus comes to live inside of us.
[00:22:03] We say I want to but I can't.
[00:22:06] He says I'll live in you and help you to actually do it.
[00:22:10] This is the new covenant that we are living in so he brings a better covenant.
[00:22:14] So really in a sense this is what I'm saying.
[00:22:18] The Old Testament authors came and spoke and communicated
[00:22:22] and they did their best and it was beautiful and it was wonderful.
[00:22:27] But Jesus came along and God spoke to us by his son
[00:22:31] and I think you could say it like this.
[00:22:33] The Old Testament it's better for us than it's ever been
[00:22:38] for any other human being who has ever lived.
[00:22:41] In other words, it's fulfilled in Jesus so it means more for us today
[00:22:47] than it's ever meant for anyone because we get the true meaning.
[00:22:52] It's not a shadow anymore.
[00:22:54] It's fulfilled in Christ.
[00:22:57] So he's just announcing God spoke.
[00:23:01] Jesus is that final word.
[00:23:04] But he's not a final word in the sense that he's the last.
[00:23:09] He's always been.
[00:23:10] That's why he says they're in verse 2.
[00:23:13] He's God's son.
[00:23:15] You know, the one who's the heir of all things
[00:23:18] and he created the world.
[00:23:21] In other words, he's not a mere prophet.
[00:23:24] Another one in a long list.
[00:23:26] There was Isaiah then Jeremiah then Ezekiel Daniel
[00:23:29] and these different guys and then finally Jesus came along.
[00:23:32] He says, look Jesus, he's been around forever.
[00:23:35] He is the Son of God, God the Son.
[00:23:37] He is deity.
[00:23:38] He's heir of all.
[00:23:39] He created everything.
[00:23:41] It tells us here that it was through Jesus
[00:23:45] that creation occurred.
[00:23:47] John said this same thing in John chapter 1 verse 3.
[00:23:50] He said all things were made through him
[00:23:52] and without him was not anything made
[00:23:55] that was made.
[00:23:58] Now there are debates of course as to how God's creative process
[00:24:02] unfolded and I think that there's room within
[00:24:04] and amongst Christians to talk about a subject like that.
[00:24:08] But the Bible teaches bottom line
[00:24:11] that it was God who created.
[00:24:13] It was not an accident or a chance that occurred
[00:24:16] but God created and here we learn
[00:24:18] that God created through the Son.
[00:24:21] What he's doing here is he's saying,
[00:24:23] look those other messengers came
[00:24:25] but Jesus is in a totally and completely different category
[00:24:29] than all of them.
[00:24:31] There's a debate that's always going on amongst basketball fans
[00:24:34] about who the greatest basketball player
[00:24:37] of all time was or is.
[00:24:40] People have their answers and their feelings
[00:24:43] and all of that.
[00:24:44] When I was growing up, Michael Jordan was a really big deal.
[00:24:47] It seemed like every kid that I grew up with
[00:24:49] had the Michael Jordan Wings poster up in their room
[00:24:51] where he's holding the ball in one hand
[00:24:53] and you see this long six and a half foot wingspan
[00:24:56] or whatever it was.
[00:24:58] And people for a long time would say,
[00:25:00] well who's going to be the next Michael Jordan?
[00:25:03] Is it Kobe or is it LeBron or whatever
[00:25:06] and people would have their debates and all of that.
[00:25:08] And sometimes someone will watch someone play
[00:25:10] and they'll say, yeah he's good
[00:25:12] but you should have seen,
[00:25:14] listen in heaven there's not going to be any like,
[00:25:17] yeah Jesus was great but I was around during Moses.
[00:25:20] You should have seen Moses.
[00:25:22] Jesus was the man, no doubt.
[00:25:25] But Moses, no everybody for all of eternity
[00:25:28] is going to recognize yeah you know these other guys
[00:25:31] they were great, they were people of faith.
[00:25:33] Praise God that they were used by the Lord
[00:25:35] but Jesus, God the Son, the Son of God,
[00:25:38] the eternally righteous one who came to die
[00:25:40] for the sin of the world.
[00:25:41] He is in a category all his own.
[00:25:44] That's what the author is announcing.
[00:25:46] He's the heir of all things.
[00:25:48] He created the world.
[00:25:50] Now that's just kind of the general statement.
[00:25:53] God spoke to human beings through the prophets
[00:25:57] and through his Son but verse three tells us
[00:26:01] the general way that God spoke to us through his Son.
[00:26:06] Let's read it together there again in verse three.
[00:26:09] It says he is the radiance of the glory of God
[00:26:13] and the exact imprint of his nature
[00:26:16] and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
[00:26:22] One way that God spoke to us or speaks to us
[00:26:27] through Jesus is by number one radiating God's glory
[00:26:33] through his Son.
[00:26:36] Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God.
[00:26:40] Now this is not hard for us to understand.
[00:26:43] I'll give you an example that might help you to capture this.
[00:26:47] When you think of the moon at night,
[00:26:49] sometimes we get these full moons and it's just beautiful.
[00:26:52] You could see really well at night.
[00:26:54] What the moon is doing, it is reflecting the light of the sun.
[00:26:59] It's not projecting its own light.
[00:27:01] It's merely illuminating or reflecting the light of the sun.
[00:27:07] But the sun has its own light.
[00:27:10] When Jesus came to earth, he said,
[00:27:13] I am the light of the world.
[00:27:15] Then he said to his disciples and by extension us,
[00:27:18] you are the light of the world.
[00:27:21] Now the thing is Jesus is the light of the world
[00:27:24] in the sense that he is the actual radiance
[00:27:27] of the glory of God because he is God.
[00:27:30] But we are merely reflecting his light
[00:27:35] as it is broadcast upon us and then through us.
[00:27:39] When Jesus came, he was the actual radiance
[00:27:43] of the glory of God.
[00:27:47] Like I said earlier, I'm really into Christmas right now.
[00:27:51] Maybe I won't be by the time December 25th gets here.
[00:27:55] Maybe I'm going to peak early, who knows?
[00:27:57] But we'll see.
[00:27:58] But I'm going strong right now.
[00:28:00] I'm super into it.
[00:28:02] Our family, we're a family that we believe
[00:28:06] that the day after Thanksgiving is the day to get your Christmas tree.
[00:28:10] That's our strong conviction.
[00:28:11] Don't try to argue with us about that.
[00:28:13] That's what we do.
[00:28:14] Black Friday, do your thing.
[00:28:15] We're going to go get a Christmas tree.
[00:28:16] So we went out early on Friday morning.
[00:28:18] We got a big old Christmas tree strapped into the roof of the mini-man.
[00:28:21] Headed back to the Holdridge house, you know, set it up.
[00:28:24] If you don't know, I have three daughters.
[00:28:26] You know, they're 15, almost 13 and 11 years old.
[00:28:28] So it is sentimental in our house.
[00:28:31] They are into it.
[00:28:32] So we put that tree up.
[00:28:34] We're going to string it with lights.
[00:28:35] And then we wait until the nighttime.
[00:28:37] And then we light a fire and we put the ornaments on the tree and all of that.
[00:28:40] I was talking to them though before we put the ornaments on,
[00:28:42] because I was reading a book about Christmas by a great author.
[00:28:46] And I was thinking about Isaiah chapter nine where it says
[00:28:53] that before the wonderful counselor, mighty God everlasting father passage,
[00:28:58] he says that into a land of darkness, a great light has shown.
[00:29:04] And the people who were in darkness received a marvelous light.
[00:29:10] And that of course is about Jesus.
[00:29:12] Here's the thing though.
[00:29:15] You'd be hard-pressed to find a human being on earth
[00:29:18] who doesn't think that there's great darkness on earth.
[00:29:20] Spiritual darkness, some kind of brokenness in humanity.
[00:29:24] Pretty much everybody feels that way.
[00:29:27] Some kind of darkness that's out there, something that's wrong on earth.
[00:29:31] But most of humanity thinks we can create or generate from within somehow.
[00:29:40] Some religion, some good works, some system.
[00:29:45] We can create the light to fix the darkness that exists.
[00:29:52] But God looked upon a world that was so lost and so broken and so depraved.
[00:29:57] And he said the only way that this can be fixed,
[00:30:00] the only way that that darkness can be dealt with
[00:30:03] is by the sending of the light of my only begotten son.
[00:30:07] He is the one who can save the world from their sins.
[00:30:10] So I was talking to my girls about the lights on the tree and everything
[00:30:13] and just saying look for everybody else you know at the mall or whatever
[00:30:16] it's just lights you know they're warm and fuzzy and glowy.
[00:30:18] But for us, it's all of that.
[00:30:20] Don't get me wrong we're down with that.
[00:30:22] But it also helps us remember Jesus coming in to the darkness of humanity,
[00:30:28] the light of the world.
[00:30:30] So he radiates God's glory.
[00:30:33] But he also noticed it there in verse 3.
[00:30:36] He shows us, God speaks through Jesus by showing us God's nature.
[00:30:40] Did you see that there?
[00:30:41] It says he's the exact imprint of God's nature.
[00:30:47] This word imprint is a word that speaks,
[00:30:50] they use it to describe a coin being pressed
[00:30:54] or an engraving being cut or a stamp being pushed down upon.
[00:30:59] The image is absolutely exact.
[00:31:02] I don't know if you remember this from the life of Jesus
[00:31:04] but there was a time right before he died on the cross,
[00:31:07] the night before after eating the Last Supper with his disciples.
[00:31:11] Where one of his disciples, a man named Philip,
[00:31:14] he said to Jesus, he said,
[00:31:16] Jesus show us the Father and it is sufficient for us.
[00:31:21] It's always kind of cracked me up that he would say it like that.
[00:31:23] Like there they are, it's as big as you could tell.
[00:31:25] It's ominous.
[00:31:26] Jesus said like one of you is going to betray me tonight.
[00:31:28] He gave the bread to Judas.
[00:31:30] It's a kind of a dark moment.
[00:31:33] And Philip just comes up with like,
[00:31:35] hey, but like all that we really need is for you to show us God.
[00:31:41] That'd be cool.
[00:31:42] That'd be enough.
[00:31:43] That's the way he said it.
[00:31:45] And Jesus said, Philip, have I not been with you so long
[00:31:48] and you haven't known me?
[00:31:49] If you've seen me, you've seen the Father.
[00:31:54] None of us can say that.
[00:31:56] None of us can say that.
[00:31:57] Only God the Son, the Son of God can say
[00:31:59] if you've seen me, you've seen the Father.
[00:32:02] If you want to know what God is like,
[00:32:06] if you want to know his nature,
[00:32:08] if you want to know how he feels about the world,
[00:32:12] how he feels about sin, how he feels about you,
[00:32:16] you've got to learn about Jesus
[00:32:19] because Jesus radiates the nature of God.
[00:32:25] Now some people when you hear them talk,
[00:32:27] it's like they make it sound as if the God,
[00:32:30] you know the God of the Old Testament,
[00:32:32] he was just super grumpy and upset
[00:32:36] and all the time and you know, wrath and everything.
[00:32:38] And then you hear them talk about
[00:32:40] usually those same people when they talk about Jesus.
[00:32:42] They make him sound like this guy who drove an old VW bus
[00:32:45] and you know, just like, hey man, I love you.
[00:32:49] You know kind of thing.
[00:32:50] Just down with everybody, whatever you know kind of thing.
[00:32:54] And cease to or fail to realize that in the Old Testament era
[00:32:59] God gave grace to a lot of people,
[00:33:01] extended mercy to a lot of people in a lot of different ways.
[00:33:05] And that in the New Testament era as Jesus talked,
[00:33:07] he talked about judgment, he talked about eternal damnation.
[00:33:11] He was the full balance.
[00:33:14] He expresses who God is.
[00:33:17] Namely as you look to him on the cross,
[00:33:20] you see on the cross the perfect mixture of how God feels about sin
[00:33:27] but also how God feels about a lost and sinful humanity.
[00:33:32] He hates sin but he loves the sinful people.
[00:33:38] He wants so badly for us to be his own.
[00:33:41] You see this perfectly in Jesus.
[00:33:43] Who is God?
[00:33:44] You find him in Christ.
[00:33:47] And then God spoke to us through his son by,
[00:33:51] notice it says there in verse three that Jesus upholds the universe
[00:33:55] by the word of his power.
[00:33:57] Now this does not mean you know that Jesus is somehow
[00:34:01] doing some kind of static thing like the images of Atlas,
[00:34:04] you know holding the globe or something like that.
[00:34:07] What this means, the carrying or the upholding the universe,
[00:34:11] it means that he is carrying the universe forward.
[00:34:15] He's maintaining it but also moving it to the conclusion
[00:34:19] that he desires.
[00:34:21] Listen to this from Ephesians chapter one verse 10.
[00:34:24] It says God has a plan for the fullness of time
[00:34:28] to unite all things in himself, things in heaven and things on earth.
[00:34:34] So God's plan what he's doing throughout human history
[00:34:37] is he's bringing things forward to a point where all things
[00:34:41] in heaven and on earth are united, reunited if you will,
[00:34:45] to himself.
[00:34:47] And it is Jesus' sovereign word that is bringing that event to pass.
[00:34:54] He upholds the universe by the word of his power.
[00:34:58] So man we got to learn of Jesus so that the,
[00:35:02] look because when you come to Christ,
[00:35:04] you have a lot of darkness in you about the way that you think about God.
[00:35:09] You know everybody I believe is a theologian.
[00:35:13] Everybody has conclusions and thoughts and beliefs about God.
[00:35:18] Everybody whether they've read an ounce of scripture or not
[00:35:21] has constructed in their mind their view of God.
[00:35:25] So when we come to Christ, praise the Lord,
[00:35:28] we're new, we're born again but there's still a lot of funky stuff in there
[00:35:33] that we think, that we believe.
[00:35:35] So we have to interact with Christ and his word
[00:35:38] so that we can learn the light, learn who God is.
[00:35:44] Alright now briefly let's look at the last part of verse three
[00:35:48] and all of verse four.
[00:35:50] And think about the pinnacle way that God spoke by Jesus.
[00:35:54] You know we mentioned some general ways,
[00:35:56] you know that Jesus is the imprint of God's nature,
[00:35:59] that he's the radiance of the glory of God,
[00:36:01] that he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
[00:36:04] But I alluded to this, it says after making purification for sins
[00:36:09] he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.
[00:36:13] Having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited
[00:36:17] is more excellent than theirs.
[00:36:20] This really is the main point that the author of this book
[00:36:29] is going to try to make,
[00:36:31] that Jesus came and he made a way for human beings
[00:36:36] to be purified of their sins
[00:36:39] and after he did it what the author says is
[00:36:42] he went and sat down at the right hand of majesty
[00:36:45] and was given a name that's better than anybody else's name.
[00:36:48] What he means by that for the people that are reading this originally
[00:36:52] is he's saying it totally worked,
[00:36:56] he did purify sin and we know that it worked
[00:37:00] because he sat down, it speaks of a completion of the task.
[00:37:05] He is finished with the job.
[00:37:09] And they needed to know that because they were running back
[00:37:12] sacrifices and rituals, thinking it's not done.
[00:37:17] And I've got to go back to these things because it's not done,
[00:37:20] it's not finished but he wants them to know it is finished.
[00:37:23] Jesus by his blood made a way for us to be purified
[00:37:28] for and through our sins.
[00:37:33] He made a way to purify his people.
[00:37:37] So Jesus not only offers a way for us to be forgiven
[00:37:40] but for us to find a way to be purified in him.
[00:37:43] This is the chief and pinnacle way that God spoke to human beings
[00:37:46] is through the cross of Christ.
[00:37:49] Now look, whether a person knows it or not
[00:37:51] we are all chasing purification of sins.
[00:37:56] We're all chasing it.
[00:37:57] We chase it in a lot of different ways.
[00:38:00] You might chase it through religion
[00:38:02] that we're going to deal with that in this book.
[00:38:05] You might chase it through some form of legalism
[00:38:08] and I think legalism takes a million different shapes.
[00:38:11] You might have somebody who on one extreme of legalism
[00:38:14] says, I would never touch alcohol.
[00:38:18] I would never come to a place of drunkenness in my life.
[00:38:22] And I think for a person to say that they'd never be drunk
[00:38:24] that's good.
[00:38:25] You should say that.
[00:38:26] That's a way to honor the Lord with your body
[00:38:29] but it can turn into a legalism where a person is saying
[00:38:32] I am approved by God because I behave in this way.
[00:38:35] But on the other end of the spectrum
[00:38:37] you can have a person that says
[00:38:39] when I go grocery shopping
[00:38:40] I will never get a plastic bag
[00:38:43] and that is my way to be purified.
[00:38:46] Human beings are just creating ways to be purified before God
[00:38:51] to feel worthy.
[00:38:53] And look, I believe in both those things.
[00:38:55] I don't want to get drunk
[00:38:57] and I don't like the plastic bags
[00:38:59] but they do not make me
[00:39:01] they do not make me purified in the sight of God.
[00:39:05] I must have the blood of Jesus
[00:39:07] to do that in my life.
[00:39:10] And so here this book is going to teach us
[00:39:13] in a beautiful way
[00:39:15] that Jesus Christ has made a way
[00:39:17] for that to occur in our lives
[00:39:20] and that his work is complete and finished.
[00:39:24] My father was a man who
[00:39:26] when he was a boy he grew up
[00:39:28] inside the Roman Catholic Church
[00:39:30] and they would go to Mass every now and then
[00:39:33] and especially at holidays
[00:39:36] and he thought of Christianity
[00:39:39] as something that was very religious
[00:39:42] filled with rituals.
[00:39:44] He did not know that he could know God.
[00:39:47] He didn't know that he could have a personal relationship
[00:39:50] with the Lord.
[00:39:51] He thought that his relationship with God
[00:39:54] was reserved to certain spaces
[00:39:57] like church buildings
[00:39:59] or certain times like church services.
[00:40:02] But when the Gospel of Jesus Christ
[00:40:04] came into his life and came into his heart
[00:40:06] he began to realize
[00:40:08] I can actually know God
[00:40:11] and what Jesus Christ has done for me
[00:40:13] is complete and total
[00:40:15] and satisfactory
[00:40:17] to make me righteous in his sight.
[00:40:20] And you might be here this morning
[00:40:22] and I don't know why you came
[00:40:24] I don't know what you're here for
[00:40:26] but there might be one of you, two of you
[00:40:28] three of you here today and you're saying to yourself
[00:40:30] man I came here to get something special from God
[00:40:34] and it's a joy to be able to tell you
[00:40:36] that you can have God completely
[00:40:39] because God gave his son
[00:40:41] completely to you.
[00:40:44] I want to pray for you
[00:40:46] and ask that the Lord would bless us
[00:40:48] as we move through this book together.
[00:40:51] Thanks for listening to the Calvary Monterey podcast.
[00:40:54] Please visit Calvary.com
[00:40:56] to learn more about Calvary Monterey
[00:40:58] and visit NateHoldridge.com
[00:41:00] for additional Bible teaching
[00:41:02] from our senior pastor, Nate Holdridge.
[00:41:04] Thanks again for tuning in.
[00:41:06] See you next week.