Hebrews: God Speaks

Pastor Fletcher begins our new sermon series with Hebrews 1:1-3. Discussion points: Jesus is superior in all ways to what we get in the Old Testament, Jesus is the word of God through whom the whole world was made, Jesus is the exact imprint of the nature of the Father.

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  Scripture reader: [Hebrews 1:1-3] Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by His Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom he also created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of His power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

  This is the word of the Lord.

  Preacher: All right, good morning. How are we? Good. This morning we're starting a series in the book of Hebrews. My name is Fletcher, by the way. I'm the lead pastor here at the church. It's a joy to have you. Hope to get to know you, get to see you more, if you're new. today we're starting a new service, a new series through the book of Hebrews, and I'm just gonna dive right in.

  The book of Hebrews is rich and deep. It's, there's a lot to it. We're going to be going through the book of Hebrews through the next 20 weeks. We could easily spend the next year. In fact, I have a friend who said he spent the he spent 2 years going through Hebrews, but you guys get 20 weeks. I feel like that's probably sufficient for my preaching. And being just I'm gonna go, I'm, I'm gonna dig in there, OK? So, Hebrews, let's just, if you have your Bibles, I encourage you to open it. If you have your phones, I encourage you to keep them closed, because, you're gonna get distracted. Let's be honest, OK? I'm not looking at anybody in particular, but if you have your Bibles, you can open it to Hebrews.

  And what you'll find, Hebrews is near the end of the Bible. My Bible is page 1532. So you can look there. Hebrews is the most mysterious book in the New Testament. And that's for a lot of different reasons. Hebrews is what we call an epistle, and epistle is another a fancy word for a letter. And so most of the New Testament is made up of Gospels, which are the four biographies of Jesus, and then you have Acts, which is kind of the story of the early church, and then you have a series of epistles. Most of those epistles are written by Paul. He's kind of the Alexander Hamilton of the Bible time. Where he just keeps it going, and then you might have John Jay, the, the, the Peter of the Bible, where you have a couple of epistles written by Peter, and then you come to Hebrews, and we have no idea who wrote this book.

  The early church thought it was Paul, but almost no modern scholar would say that it was Paul. And that's for a variety of reasons. One of the main reasons is that the language in this book, we have 13 examples of epistles written by Paul, and this one, the language is totally different, totally different style. Most of the epistles, when they start, they start by saying, Hi, how you doing? How's your mom and them? All that type of stuff. This epistle, none of that, it goes straight to the point. So who He hates small talk? Who's on their way out the door during bagel and coffee time? You know, that's the same people. you're gonna love Hebrews though. You're gonna love Hebrews, because there's no small talk. He says, here's what I'm here to talk about. Long ago, no hello, how you doing, Dear church, any of that. It just says long ago and many times and in many ways, he gets right into the story.

  Notice I keep on saying the author, we don't know who the author is. We do know that it was written in the early century AD. It's written in the first century AD, very early, not that long after Jesus died. We know that for one reason, because at the end of the book, he finally does do some greeting people, and at the end of the book, he mentions Timothy, and Timothy is still alive. So we know that this is within the first generation of disciples after Christ. And today we're tackling the 1st 3 verses of this book, but there's, the 1st 4 verses are actually one long magisterial sentence. It's an amazing sentence.

  By the way, I broke my finger playing basketball at the retreat, so that's the tape, OK? it hurts. It's OK though. I'm gonna make it. Um. This, this, I looked up and was like, that looks live long and prosper for you folks. Um. So the 1st 4 verses are one long sentence in the Greek. OK, the structure of this is really amazing. I hope you let me nerd out for a moment. I just did a Star Trek reference, so you should allow me to nerd out for a moment.

  The first sentence is kind of the introduction sentence to this entire book. And the first sentence is actually really wonderfully written. It says this, long ago, and many times, and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. Now that sounds beautiful in English, but if you were to read that in the real Greek, what you would find is that 6 of the 1st 12 words begin with the letter P. And so he's not just writing an epistle, he's dropping bars right here at the very beginning. He's he's rapping for us right here at the beginning and then it has a, sorry, that was very dad like, and then he has a chasm after that, which is this beautiful thing. so you might be able to, we might give you an English parallel that might say piece by piece and prophet by prophet, God. Painted his promises to his people. It's just that captures more of the poetic punch that we have in Hebrews 1:1, and the whole book is full of stuff like this. It's a really amazing piece of literature.

  After the verse one, what we have in verses 2 and 3 is what we call chiasm. And so in Scripture, you have chiasms all the time. Let me explain to you a chiasm like this. It's kinda like a sandwich, OK? you. You have two pieces of bread, and then you might put some sauce on each piece of bread, and then you would put like some meat in the middle, like roast beef or something. You just squish it in there. What type of sandwich is it? It's a roast beef sandwich, but it's made up of all the different things. It's not a sandwich without the bread or the sauce. You have to put it all together. And so with the chiasm, what we see is that the biblical author will start with the topic, and he'll end with the same topic. Or she would some people think that this book was written by Priscilla even. So the biblical author will start with the topic, and with the topic there'll be a next topic, that topic will come here, and then you have a topic in the middle. So I'll show you kind of what I'm thinking here.

  So verses 2 and 3, it kind of is structured in this way. God has appointed an appointed. Christ as an heir. This is showing his enthronement, how he is God. And then we have this cosmic action of something that Christ has done, that he that through Christ, God created the world. And then finally the meat of the roast beef sandwich chiasm that we have here is that he is the radiance of God's glory. And he bears God's stamp, the very impression of his nature. After that, we see that he starts going down the chiasm again, and we have a cosmic action that he governs the universe, and then finally we get back to enthronement that he sat down at God's right hand. So if you wanna see this as a diagram, I can give you my diagram here. It's like we're climbing up a pyramid, and at the top you have his relation to God. And what you see with the biblical author. Chiasms are everywhere. If you were here like 4 years ago, we preached through the book of Genesis, and I passed out a sheet of paper, cause there was a chiasm from the book of Genesis about the story of Noah. Noah's all chiasm, the stuff that happens at the end, at the beginning, happens in the end. It's huge chiasm.

  There's these are everywhere in the scripture, but what you're trying to see, oftentimes that's being communicated with the chiasm is what's in the middle of it is the most important thing that they're trying to communicate. And so it's just a beautiful thing as we study our scriptures, we read the Bible. You can see this wonderful literature come alive. So let's just walk through it.

  These 3 verses serve as an introduction and summary of the entire rest of the book of Hebrews. And here's what the author of Hebrews really wants us to understand. He wants us to understand this, that Jesus is superior in every way to what we had in the Old Testament. Jesus is superior in every way to what we have in the Old Testament or Jesus over everything. Jesus over everything. Let's let's just dive in here.

  Long ago, many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. If you're anything like me, you've probably thought, man. I wish God would speak to me, the way that he spoke to the. People of the Old Testament. I wish that I could have a direct word from God, as Moses did with the burning bush, or as Adam walking in the cool of the day. Or even I would take one like like Jacob wrestling with God. I wish that I could have a word in that same way. Like, like we see so many examples of this. We see God giving Noah direct instructions on how to build the ark. We see God stopping Abraham from killing his own son. God speaking him bringing into existence his will through his words.

  And we long for these, and we see it throughout the Old Testament. We see God speaking to Moses in the burning bush. We see God descend upon Mount Sinai. With thunder and lightning, and then Moses goes up to meet God on Mount Sinai to receive the 10 Commandments, and when he comes down, what's happening? He's glowing, right? Because he's come close to the glory and the majesty of God, and so he is glo glowing with a radiant glow. I wish I could have that kind of experience. We see God give Isaiah the vision of the throne room. We see God give Daniel the ability to interpret dreams, to hear God's voice. We see God speak to Elijah. Through what the still small voice. We even see God speak through as bizarre means as Balaam's donkey. Which is a favorite scripture for kids, because they like to find uh the A-S-S word that is oftentimes translated as donkey there.

  But with each of these, what do you also observe? Throughout the Old Testament. That there would be long periods of silence. And in fact, not only long periods of silence, the people of God, they would forget God's words almost immediately. so Moses goes up Mount Sinai to receive the 10 Commandments, right? And he's up there, and God descends as a cloud on top of Mount Sinai. It's this amazing portrait of God's power. He is present with Moses, and they are just asked to wait a short amount of time. And what did they do? While God is right there on the mountain, talking with Moses, they build a fake God and start worshiping that one. The people of God have always been so forgetful, although God did speak to them long ago many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers, by the prophets, but in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son.

  These last days. In the, in the ancient world. You could divide the in scriptural sense, you can divide the world between the the old days, which is the Old Testament, and the last days, which we're currently living in. So the old days, by the years before, long ago, it was longer ago, it's longer ago for us now than it is for the author of Hebrews, but long ago still, God spoke to the prophets. But in these last days that we still live in, we're at the end of redemptive history. All we await is for Christ to return. In these last days, he's spoken to us through his Son. Jesus Christ, the Messiah. Jesus Christ is the full and final revelation of God. There need be no more revelation, because Christ is both the power and the character of God, perfectly put.

  Now let's start working through our chiasm, OK? I, I'm get excited about all this. This is one of the most beautiful pictures of who Jesus is in the entire scripture. Let's talk about enthronement. Verse 2, it says, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom he created the world. Jesus is the heir of all things. This is God saying that he is. The king. Being an heir was a really big deal in the ancient world. The people of Israel long to inherit the land of Israel. They wanted to have a deep inheritance, and here we have Christ being the heir of all things. And when we trust in Christ, we're united with him, and we also become heirs with him. That he is in promise to us all good things that are deserved by Christ, also deserved by us.

  Let's keep walking through it. Next we see that through whom also he created the world. So this is the cosmic action that Jesus has been with God since the very beginning, and throne most high since the very beginning. In the beginning God created the world. And we see this in Genesis chapter one. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and the darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the faces of the water. And then what did God do? He spoke the world into existence. And through his words, he created the heavens and the earth. He created the world and everything in it.

  And we know from John chapter one that Jesus is the word of the Lord. That in the beginning was the word. You see how it's John chapter one is picking up on the on the vibes of Genesis chapter one laid down here. He's continuing it. In the beginning was the word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him, not anything that was made that was made. Jesus is the word of God. Now let's continue the next verse here, verse 3, and this is talking about the relation of God, which is at the very heart of this chiasm that we have in Hebrews chapter 1.

  And it says that Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God. And the exact imprint of his nature. We know that from the Bible, God will often appear as this radiant light. We see that the people of Israel, they were afraid of Moses's face as it shined radiantly. And as his face shined, They, they wouldn't know how to respond, so he had to wear a veil. And to this day, we have now a new radiance from God, that that radiance of before. Is shown even more perfectly through the person of Jesus. That he is the radiance of God, that he encapsulates all of the power of God. But not only his power does he capture, but also his character. I wanna talk about this phrase, the exact imprint of his nature. So, so the Greek word for exact imprint is the word is kind of character, the best I can say it in Greek. I'm not great at Greek, and. The, we get the English word character from this.

  And with that word, we see that with in in the Greek, it was oftentimes used to refer to the process of making coins. So we have a, like a coin mint, and what do we do with the coin mint, still to this day, we print the faces of our leaders on the coin, on our coins. So if you have a coin in your pocket, if it's a quarter, you got George Washington hanging out in your pocket. How do you know what George Washington looks like? You've seen a portrait of him at some point, and you've probably seen the portrait of him on the coin. And so when you select the portrait to put on the coin, you get the best portrait you can get.

  In the ancient world, it was the same kind of way. This was before the printing press. They weren't able to just make a print of portraits to send out everywhere. And so what did the ancient rulers do? They would put their faces on the coins. And so you would pick the best picture to put on the coin, or at least the most flattering picture to put on the coin, because there's no way that everyone's gonna get to see Caesar. Caesar reigns over this huge kingdom, and so they spread his face and his likeness throughout all the land. And this word, that's what it's used is this character word. And so what he's saying is that Jesus is that he's the exact impress impression, not just of God's power, but also of his character. That in Jesus we see the character of God.

  I don't know how many times I've had people tell me they love the Jesus of the New Testament, but they hate the God of the Old Testament. And I just wish I could tell them that Jesus is the exact impression of that God of the Old Testament. That you are picking and choosing the parts that you're reading in the Old Testament, there's certainly difficult aspects of the, of the Old Testament. We work through those here. We preach through Old Testament books that are difficult, and we talk about those things. And I'm more than willing to meet with you, and so is Alexis and any member of our staff, we can talk about the difficult parts of that. But Jesus is the exact impression of the character of God.

  This is the secret sauce behind the TV show The Chosen. Have you guys seen The Chosen? A few people seen The Chosen? Can I, let me. Just some idea of the Chosen. I resisted the Chosen for years, OK? we had a member of our church, this was during COVID, the, the Chosen was new. She was a chosen evangelist and really wanted me to watch The Chosen, and I was really not into it because I'm gonna be honest, Christian art, not always good. it hasn't been for the past couple 100 years, OK? I think that, I think the, the Protestant Reformation ruined that unfortunately. I've seen a lot of cringy TV shows and movies about Jesus, right? Amen. And so I resisted watching it. Also, I had heard that it was good, and this, the chosen evangelist, she was so sad. She like gave me, she's like, just read the screenplay. She like gave me the screen. She was like, please, please, I want you to read the chosen and it's like, I've got the screenplay right here. I, I was not into it and. I, I also know that I try to refuse, I try not to watch stuff like that because I have to think creatively about these stories as my like career, my, my profession, and I knew the second I watched it, I was just gonna be thinking about that rendition of it for the rest of my life, that that I'm just gonna see the way that that director wanted me to see it.

  But I eventually caved because my children wanted to watch it, so. I, I've seen a few episodes now, and I have to say that as I've watched The Chosen, this is what I think they've done really, really well. There's a lot of good stuff in there, but I think that they've captured the character of Jesus so well. Because Jesus And in many of the TV shows and movies that I've seen, Jesus is often aloof, he, he's not. He's not relatable at all. He kinda just seems distant and not really willing to engage, not loving and kind as the Jesus that I know is. But as I watched the Chosen, what do I see is his compassion. His care His slowness and patience. His slowness to get angry at his disciples. I just see the character of the Messiah that I love. And that has melted my heart over and over and over. I see a man who loves, who's known as love.

  This is the Lord Jesus. This is who God is. God is powerful. We should know that God is powerful and Jesus is the image of his radiant glory. But Jesus is also the exact imprint of his nature, meaning that he is kind and compassionate and longs to know you. And in fact Let's just continue. Let's just continue. And he upholds the universe by the word of his power. This is the second cosmic action before all things, in him, all things hold together. And then after making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. I'm gonna talk about purification for sins, but just a moment, he sat down at the right hand of majesty on high. That the same Jesus who walked the earth in the Near East 2000 years ago, has ascended into heaven. He has not been disembodied. He remains embodied at the right hand of God sitting on the throne. And that the same Jesus who was compassionate and kind to the woman at the well, the same Jesus who raised Jairus's daughter from the dead, said little girl, get up. The same Jesus. Who who said Lazarus come out? The same Jesus is calling your name and my name. The same Jesus speaks with power and authority.

  If you want to know what God is like, Look no further than the person of Jesus. God has spoken. We long for him to continue to speak, but he need not reveal himself anymore. How could he do it any better? He came to earth as a man. Embodied, as you and I knew all the temptations that we experience, and yet showed us his character and His power through a person. It's a marvelous revelation of who God is. There's no better way to reveal who God is. So long ago, and in many ways, and many times, God revealed Himself to the prophets, but in these last times he's revealed Himself to us in the most magnificent kind of way through his Son. This is your God. Gentle and lowly. Willing to forgive without condition. Humble and compassionate, drawn to the outsider, drawn to the hurting, drawn to the broken brokenhearted. This is your God. He loves.

  Not only that, but he made purification for sins before he went went back into heaven. Jesus, though he be the exact representation of the glory of God, Though he encapsulate the character of God. Bore the sins of the entire world. radical forgiveness. On the cross, he died on our behalf and was risen from the dead on the 3rd day. This is the gospel. God has spoken.

  And for many of us here today, we long for a word from the Lord. A word from the Lord. Can and will give your life meaning and purpose. It's the only thing that truly can. You know, our world today says you do you, you find your own way. But a word from the Lord gives your life meaning and purpose. And we long for those words from the Lord. And what this passage is telling us is that we need to look to the person of Jesus, when we want to hear his voice. Most of us here, we don't hear the voice of God audibly. I cannot claim that I've ever heard the Lord speak anything audibly to me. But I do know Jesus. And through my prayer life with Jesus, I have felt that still quiet voice that Elijah experienced. I have been impressed upon to move in certain directions, and I have received his love for me. That he has said, I am still reigning and ruling, and I long to be near to you.

  And so if you are looking for a word from God. Call out to him. Ask him to speak to you, whether that be for the first time or the 1,000th time. And I'm actually going to lead us through a time of prayer here at the end. As we meditate on the person of Jesus, as we seek to know him personally, to receive his grace again. I don't know where you're going, what you're going through, but I want to lead you in a prayer. I'm gonna invite Jared to come up, and he's gonna play behind me just a little bit as we pray, as we seek a word from God this morning.

  Maybe you can just prepare yourself. Because I actually believe that the Lord wants to speak to you. And that many times the reason why we don't hear from God, for those of us who follow God. It's because we've distracted ourselves so much. We haven't allowed ourselves to have a moment of quiet with him. Even this morning while I was preparing the sermon, I had a, I, you know, it's daylight savings time. Praise God. Amen. And I got done a little early. And there was a moment of quiet on my back porch. And I opened up a chess game. And I just almost heard the word of God audibly, just basically say, why don't you pray? Why don't you take this moment of quiet and seek my face? You, you just studied the scripture and studied this, and why don't you pray? I want to speak to you.

  Friends, he wants to speak to you today. Would you bow your head and pray with me? I'm just gonna give you a minute. To plead to God. To say Here I am, God Would you speak to me? Jesus, would you bring to mind an aspect of your character that I'm missing. Would you connect my struggle with your radiance. Whether it be your kindness, your compassion, your power. Your never-giving-up love, your faithfulness. Speak now, Jesus. Holy Spirit, would you fill us?

  Friends, you can confess to him. Confessing your sin frees you to hear the voice of Jesus more clearly. And I'm confident that we all need to confess. Where have we been distracted? Where have we been wayward? Come back to him. It's an amazing reality that Christ made the purification for sins. And is still seated at the right hand of God. That if you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive you your sins. What does God want to impress upon you today? Where's your soul hurting? How can God bring healing? Go to him, Church.

  As we come to Christ, I'm gonna lead us an opportunity to receive a sacred meal. That Jesus, on the night that he was betrayed, he initiated a sacred meal. And as we take this meal, it's a way to be reminded that he doesn't leave us. That he's still present with us even in this time. And so we have this tangible reminder of what he has done. On the night that he was betrayed, he took a loaf of bread and he tore it. He said, This is my body broken for you. And he took a cup and he said, this is my blood shed for you. And when we take communion, we're being reminded that Christ's blood was broken, body was broken for us, and his blood was shed for us. And so if you're a believer here today, I encourage you over this next song, come receive this meal as a way of God. Impressing upon you. That he is with you. Let's pray.

  God, as we, as we come to this communion table, would you help us to continue to hear from you. To be filled with your word, to be filled with your Son, to be filled with your Holy Spirit. God, we thank you for Jesus. We ask this in Christ's name, Amen.