Hebrews 1:2-3

We say thank you to our music ministers, a great job they do.

Have your Bibles open with me to Hebrews chapter one.

We started last week with an introduction to

the book of Hebrews.

We took a look at Verse number one.

The 1st point we looked at was the preparation

for Christ from the Old Testament

writers, if you weren't here or didn't hear that message,

it would be good for you to go back online and

watch it or listen to it.

And then the 2nd point we had was the presentation

of Christ, in part of verse number

two, you remember, that

the real, overall, general

theme for this whole epistle

of Hebrews.

Is the person of Jesus Christ in

his absolute, as I said earlier,

supremacy and preeminence over

everybody and everything that exists.

In all of creation, and existence,

an eternity past, an eternity

future, there is no one

like Jesus.

No one.

No one comes close.

Someone wrote the following words.

He became the son of man that we might become the sons of God.

He was born contrary to the laws

of nature, lived in poverty,

was reared in obscurity, and

only once crossed the boundary of that land in

which he was born, and that in his childhood.

He had no wealth, or influence, and

had neither training, nor education in

the world schools.

His relatives were inconspicuous and

uninfluential, in infancy,

he startled a king, in boyhood,

he puzzled the learned doctors.

In manhood, he ruled the course of nature.

He walked upon the billows and hushed

the seas asleep.

He healed the multitudes without medicine, and

made no charge for his services.

He never wrote a book.

Yet all the libraries of the country could

not hold all of the books about him.

He never wrote a song.

Yet he has furnished the theme for more

songs than all of the songwriters together.

He never founded a college.

Get all the schools together, cannot

boast of as many students as he has had.

He never practiced medicine, yet healed

more broken hearts than the doctors have healed broken bodies.

This Jesus Christ is the star of astronomy.

The rock of geology, the lion

and the lamb of zoology, the harmonizer

of all discords and the healer of all diseases.

throughout history.

Great men have come and gone.

Yet he lives on.

Herod could not kill him.

Satan could not seduce him.

Death could not destroy him,

and the grave could not hold him.

This and much more is Jesus.

There are not many things.

that I would be confident in debating, but the

absolute fact, that no

human being, in recorded history,

comes anywhere close to affecting the world, with

their one life, the way that Jesus has is one

of the things I will be willing to debate any man.

He is the preeminent one.

And he is the primary theme, again,

of this epistle of Hebrews.

Now quickly, before we move to verse two.

Just remember, Hebrews is

a letter written from an unknown Christian author to a congregation

of Jews existing somewhere outside of Israel,

one to Christ.

By, don't forget, apostolic missionaries.

And also, even though the emphasis of the epistle

is to genuine Jewish believers in

this community, in this congregation, spread throughout

the book, there are 5 warnings

in different places that we're going to encounter in this

epistle to unbelievers, of

which there are 2 types of unbelievers here.

There are those who know the truth.

And they have what we refer to as intellectual

faith, as like the devils believe, and they tremble,

but they have not yet exercised true Bible

repentance and saving faith.

They profess Christ with their

lips, but have not yet surrendered to

possessing true genuine saving faith.

And then, lastly, the 3rd group.

Are those who have not believed in Christ at all.

And the writer is going to speak very

directly to this group to make his point about

who Christ is.

And so, as I said, in our introductory message, it's

going to be very important to know, because you don't get a heading,

hey, now he's talking to these people.

He just does it.

And so I'll be helping you with that as we go.

But no matter what group the writer is speaking to in any of the passages.

He is constantly announcing the

superiority of Christ.

So I told you last time, the genuine

Jewish believers who are in this congregation were

in danger, and understandably so,

of staying tangled up with the old

covenant, and having like a mixture of the old covenant,

and belief in Jesus kind of forming into that

type of Christianity, and the

writer here of Hebrews wants them to understand.

that they did not need the old covenant

in any aspect, shape matter or form

at all anymore.

That Christ is all sufficient

alone for everything in

being right with God, and in

staying right with God.

Remember verse one, God, after he spoke long

ago to the fathers, in the prophets,

in many portions, and in many ways.

That, as we saw, was the preparation for

Christ, the many portions, or the books of the

Old Testament, the many ways, or all

the ways that God used, and the means that he used

during the time of the Old Testament, to

speak through his prophets.

And there were many dreams, visions, parables, directly,

indirectly, through the minds of men.

Whatever the means God used in the Old Testament,

though, don't forget, it was always God who was speaking.

Through the means of men.

And God's message, primary message in the Old

Testament, was to announce to men

the coming of his son.

And that's what we saw secondly last time, the presentation

of his son.

Look at verse 2, in these last days, he

has spoken to us in his son.

So the preparation for Christ was

the Old Testament.

Now here, the presentation of

Christ is not only when he was here, but

also in the New Testament.

Now.

In the New Testament, God speaks.

through his son, and all the writers of the New Testament

are either commentators

on our historians of

his son.

That's what the New Testament is about.

These last days, remember, we've been over this a

couple of times started with the ministry of Jesus, and we're still in them right now.

It's not the last of the last days that we're talking about with

that particular phrase.

And think about it.

We are blessed.

To live in an age in which we hold The

complete canon of scripture in our hands, the

old and the New Testament.

There is nothing more to add

to God speaking in his son, nothing more.

We have it all.

As I tell you all the time, when you hear somebody say, God told

me, turn around and go the other direction, unless

they give you a chapter or a verse.

Everything that God wanted to reveal to us about

his son, for all of the rest of time is

right here in the book alone.

Sola scriptura.

So, The Old Testament

is, remember I taught you last week, Progressive

Revelation, begins

in promise, Preparation,

The New Testament ends in fulfillment.

As God speaks, For all

the rest of human history in his son.

If you want to hear what God has to say, then listen to Jesus and nobody else.

Or people are commenting about Jesus and it's in line with scripture.

There are no other religions that give to us

the word of God, none.

Jesus and all that is said about him, is

God's final word.

Anything outside of scripture claiming to

be from God, is a lie.

Period.

Again, if you want to go back to more detail,

all that I just said, go back and watch last

week's message, because now we got to move forward.

Now we're moving forward to the next part of verse number two.

And this brings us to point number three.

The pre-eminent of Christ.

As I said earlier, the the words

in verse 2 and 3 here are some of the most Important

and loftiest words in the whole Bible.

In these verses, the Holy Spirit, exalts

Christ as the full and

final revealed expression of God.

He is more exalted.

And more excellent.

Superior to every person, angel,

and every aspect of both the seen

and unseen realms.

That covers everything and everybody.

We've all heard many ridiculous efforts.

to define Jesus.

From the secular realm and the cults.

Great religious leader, religious,

revolutionary, spirit brother of Lucifer,

Michael, the archangel.

The list goes on and on with the stupidity, but

today, we are going to hear.

What God says.

about who Jesus is.

As my old buddy David Miller used to say, are you interested?

You want to hear what God says about who Jesus is?

And here God gives his definition in

a sevenfold presentation.

Of Christ in just half of verse

2 and all of verse 3.

The 1st excellency in God's definition of who Jesus is.

It's his airship.

Look again at verse two.

In these last days, has spoken to

us in his son, whom he

appointed heir.

Of all things.

Now stop right there.

There's a lot to this.

So, I'm going to have to roll this out piece by

piece, and you're not going to get the full import of

this right here until I get to the end.

So hang in there with me, okay?

And let's start, how about with this idea of Christ, who

has been appointed Arab all things?

From Colossians 116?

speaking of Jesus.

Just pay close attention to these words.

For buy, buy him,

All things were created.

Well, what are all things?

Well, both in the heavens and on the earth, visible

and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions,

or rulers, or authorities, saw the angels, as we learned

in Ephesians, all

things have been created.

Watch this now.

through him, and that's not all.

And for him, okay?

So with that in your mind, understand.

If Jesus is the Son of God,

with that title, then he is the

heir of all things that

God possesses.

And also understand the magnitude of this.

Everything that exists will

find its true meaning only

when it comes under the full and

final control of Jesus Christ at

the consummation of all things.

That's when everything exists, will recognize

and understand its full true meaning for eternity.

Now, one of the many things that is so incredible about the Bible.

is that way back in the Psalms.

Centuries before Jesus came to this earth, it's predicted

that Jesus would one day be the heir

to all that God possesses.

And I read this whole psalm Friday

night at our men's meeting, but I just want to show you a portion of it here.

It's a messianic Psalm, Psalm 2.

6 to 9.

God is speaking.

But as for me, I have installed my king upon Zion.

My holy mountain.

I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord.

He said to me, You are my son!

You see that?

Today I have begotten you.

Ask of me, and I will surely give you the nations,

as your inheritance, in the very ends of the earth,

as your possession, you shall break

them with a rod of iron, you shall shatter

them like earthenware.

So the psalmist.

Way back in Old Testament times is indicating that God would have a son.

Who would become the heir?

To all that God possesses.

And Hebrews one too is clearly telling us that that

heir is Jesus.

In Psalm 89, verse 27.

It says, I shall make him my firstborn.

The highest of the kings of the earth.

Now, that word, firstborn

does not mean that Christ did not exist before he

was born in Bethlehem.

The use of the word firstborn here

is in other places, referring to Christ, not primarily

a chronological term at all.

The sense here is the legal right

to the firstborn of the inheritance.

That's what we're talking about.

That was a big deal back in those days, right?

We know that from other scriptures.

Just like the term God's son.

is a title.

It doesn't mean Jesus is God's son in a human

sense, like a son who has a mom and a dad.

Jesus is not the 1st born son to a

mom and a dad.

It is in Mormonism, but not in reality.

Again, first born is speaking of

the authority and the legal right to an inheritance.

Jesus is the firstborn in the sense that

he is the heir to literally everything.

Look, again, at the end of Colossians 116,

All things have been created through him,

not only that, and what, for him.

When the kingdom is finally and

fully consummated, he, as the

first born, guess what, inherits it all.

Romans 11:36, for from

him, and through him, and what?

To him are all things to

him be the glory forever, amen.

So everything.

that exist for Christ.

If this does not demonstrate, equality

with God for you, I just can't help you.

I don't understand how your brain works when you read sentences.

out of the Bible.

Just consider this

same Jesus that we're talking about, who created all things, and

who is going to inherit all things.

lowered himself to become a fetus in his mother's womb.

Would you just think about that?

And then died a horrible criminal's death

on a Roman cross.

That person, who hung

there naked and bleeding and suffering on

Golgotha's Hill over 2000 years ago,

at the end of time as we know it, is going to inherit all

things, all things.

In the book of Revelation, there's a whole section about Christ

being the only rightful heir to the title

deed of the earth.

Remember, they are looking, who's got it?

The lamb steps forward, right?

My favorite verse there is found in Revelation 11.15.

Look at it with me.

Then the 7th angel sounded.

And there were loud voices in heaven saying,

The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom

of our Lord and his Christ, and he will reign

forever and ever.

There it is.

At the end, It's all finally

and fully and completely inherited

by King Jesus, and then a new

heaven, and a new earth begins.

However you want to get there through scripture and your understanding

of eschatology.

That's where it all winds up.

with, dare I say it.

As he inherits all things with joint heirs.

He has joint heirs with him.

It's all just too much.

For us to fully comprehend, folks.

Consider the contrast in his

incarnation in 2 Corinthians 8, 9.

It says, For you know the grace of our Lord

Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet

for your sake, he became poor so

that you, through his poverty, might become rich.

Oh, do you hold how rich you're going to be saints?

One day.

When he was here the 1st time, he was dirt poor.

He was, if brother Charlie was here, I'd say he's Mississippi

Delta dirt poor.

Nowhere to lay his head.

He was buried in a grave that belonged to somebody else.

But when he comes again.

He will inherit all things, as Hebrews 12

says, again, Romans

8, 17.

Look what's ahead.

for you, Christian, and if children, heirs also.

Heirs of God, and

fellow heirs.

With Christ.

If indeed we suffer with him so that we

may also be glorified.

With him.

That blows my mind.

The second definition of

Christ in this passage is his creatorship.

Look next at how verse 2 ends.

Through whom also he made the world.

The theologians say it this way.

Christ is the agent through whom God created the world.

The means, you understand?

Remember the bomb?

That John drops right out of the gates in John 13

speaking of Jesus in verse 3.

He says, all things came into being.

Through him.

Just in case you didn't get what he just said.

He says, and apart from him, nothing came

into being that has come into being.

That is an astonishing statement.

Jesus created every single thing that has come into being.

How in the world, how in the world could

you come away from just that one verse not

understanding that Jesus is God?

Only God is the creator.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

John says, didn't anything come into being, apart from Jesus.

Except for his holiness, there is probably nothing that

more sets us apart from Jesus than his creatorship.

None of us has the ability to bring

anything into being.

Go ahead.

Let me see.

And John says, all things came into being through Christ.

He created everything material?

He created everything spiritual.

He created everything, seen.

He created everything unseen.

Now, Here's something

important to understand.

In verse two.

The very common Greek word that's used

in the New Testament for world is

cosmos.

It's the physical earth, but that's not the word used here.

The word here is aonas.

That doesn't mean the material world alone,

it means literally, it means ages, okay?

Ages.

Let me break this down.

I want you to really grasp what this means in totality.

When Jesus created, We're not just talking

here about the physical earth that he did create.

Ages is a broad term.

It means he is also responsible for

creating the very concepts of time,

space, force, action, and matter.

This is broader.

Jesus created the whole universe

and everything that makes it function.

That's what this means.

The writer doesn't just use the word cosmos restricting

it to the earth, he makes Jesus the creator

of every aspect and concept of the

bounds of all existence in the universe.

Sir John Eccles, was

a Nobel laureate in neuro physiology.

And he once said this, that the odds were against,

the right combination of circumstances

occurring to involve intelligent

life on the earth.

He said, the odds are about 400,000,

trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion to one.

He said it was fantastically improbable.

And then incredibly, he said, but he did believe that such did occur.

But could never occur again, he said, on any

planet are any solar system.

Now, there's only one word that I can come up with for a brilliant silent.

scientist like that.

One phrase.

Willfully ignorant.

If you don't have God, creating

all this, then all you really have

is stupidity for whatever else you come up with.

I don't care what it is.

A point.

Of singularity?

Where did it come from?

It exploded, brother Philip.

Where was it when it exploded?

But when it did, over 1000000000s of years, it turned

into massive stars and perfectly

orbiting planets, following these

clear laws that we can observe.

And then here, somehow, out of the slime.

Where did the song come from?

An amoeba somehow.

Forms.

And 1000000s of years go by, and it goes to

being a tadpole to a fish, to growing

legs, some kind of way, and going up on the land,

and slowly through a couple of other animals,

it gets to be a monkey, and then eventually

it gets to be us.

Very brilliant people believe that.

People way smarter than you and all of us put together.

And institutions of the highest learning in

America believe that.

Just for a second.

I just want you to consider the human heart

And how amazing it is and how it works.

Did you know that our heart beats 800

million times in an average lifetime?

And that mechanism, as it does, beat, pumps

over a average lifetime enough blood to

fill a string of tank

cars on a railroad that would stretch

from Boston, Massachusetts to New York City.

And you going to tell me that somehow that

organ just came about?

Don't get me started with the human eye.

Look, we had a professor from LSU come here

for our men's meeting a while back, and he did a whole

thing up on their screen about how the eye works.

We got it on our YouTube channel.

I commend it for you to go watch that.

It is breathtaking.

Just the eye.

If you can really,

Watch how the eye works and come up with

evolution, you just have a hole in your brain.

And I'm here to tell you, folks, there's no way.

There is no way that we can grasp the

vastness of the universe.

You know that the sun that's cooking us right now?

If you could put a hole in the sun.

Let's just pretend for a second you could put a hole in the sun.

Let me tell you about the size of the sun.

If you could bore a hole in the sun.

You could put one.2

million earths inside the

sun, and you would still have room for 430000000

moons just inside our sun.

Okay?

Do you know that the sun is 93000000 miles away from us?

And then the next nearest star

to us is Alpha Centauri.

It is 5 times bigger than our son.

And it is out there, 4.25

light years away, one light

year is estimated at 5.88 trillion miles.

That's the next nearest star.

Andromeda.

Closest full spiral galaxy to us.

So if the next nearest star is 4.25

light years away, the next nearest galaxy, guess what?

It's 2500000 light years away.

Next nearest galaxy.

So, if you could get in a spaceship like the

millennial falcon, Roger Dale, and you could travel.

The speed of light, like Han Solo.

You would be moving at 186,000

miles per second.

Right?

So, if we got in that ship, and

we wanted to go to Andromeda and we were moving the speed

of light, you know how long it would take us to get to Andromeda,

moving that fast, 2500000 years.

You think you'd make the trip?

And guess what?

I checked it on grok.

The latest galaxy count from the scientist.

In the observable universe.

You remember how it was, it keeps going up, because what happens?

The Hubble telescopes, she keeps seeing further

and further.

So it was a 100000000000 galaxies, 200000000000 gallons.

Have you been watching that?

Guess where we're at now.

2 trillion galaxies.

In the observable universe by the scientist,

and the closest one is

2.5 million light years away.

Do you know that there is a star, that

is 880 quadrillion miles

from here, that's called Beetlejuice?

And yes, I checked the pronunciation.

It's not spelled that way.

It's B-E-T-E-L-G-U-E-S-E.

Listen to this about Beetlejuice.

Beetlejuice has a diameter.

of 2500000 miles.

Listen to what that is.

That means that the diameter of that

star is greater than the Earth's

orbit around the sun.

That's how big that star is.

Where did all this come from?

It cannot be an accident, right?

Somebody had to make all this.

And this Bible tells me who did it.

Hebrews one, two, through whom

Jesus, also, he made

the world, the ages, the whole entirety

of the universe and the unseen realm.

Thirdly.

We need to consider in God's definition of who

Jesus is, his radiance.

Look at verse 3, and he, Jesus,

is the radiance of his glory.

Some translations say brightness of his glory.

That's God's glory.

The Greek word for radiance means to send forth

light, the radiance of God's

glory represents Jesus as the

manifestation of God to us.

He expresses God to us.

Nobody can see God.

The catechism that we teach to our grandchildren says, God

is a spirit and has not a body like men, right?

So the only radiance of God's glory that

reaches us from God is mediated

to us through Jesus Christ.

It's just like the rays of the sun.

that give us light and give us warmth on the earth, the

rays express the radiance of

the sun, Jesus expresses the radiance

of the glory of God to us, just like the sun can't

be separated from its brightness.

God was never without and cannot be separated

from the glory of Christ ever.

Christ is the brightness.

The radiance of God's glory.

What did Jesus say in John 81 at John 812.

I am the what?

Light.

Of the world.

He who follows me will not walk in darkness,

but will have the light of life.

Jesus being the radiance of God's glory.

Guess what?

sends his light into the lives and

the hearts of all people who believe.

And this is a dark world.

We're living in.

And it's getting darker all the time.

There is all manner of darkness in our world, the darkness

of injustice, and disease, and corruption, and death, the

moral darkness in this nation

alone is greater than we've ever had in our history right now,

as people are naturally blinded by their sin

nature, and doubly blinded.

By the little G god of this world, 2nd Corinthians

44, Little G, God, has blinded

the minds of the unbelieving so

so that they might not see the light.

Of the gospel of the glory

of Christ, who is what?

The image of God, the radiance, the

brilliance, the brightness of God.

Jesus is the brightness.

He's the light.

He's the radiance of God's glory, cutting through

the darkness of this evil world, shining into

the lives of all people who believe in him saving.

Oh, look at 2nd Corinthians 4.6.

You ready for this one?

For God, who said, light shall

shine out of darkness is the one who

has shone into our hearts to

give the light of the knowledge of the glory

of God in the face of Christ.

I can't explain it any better than that right there.

That needs no explanation.

That's what happens when you repent and believe.

On Jesus terms.

God lights you up.

Literally.

And you then begin to see, and you begin to understand

God's glory, and then you begin to have a

desire for something you never had before, to live for God's glory.

Thirdly.

The next definition that God gives

for Jesus is phenomenally precise.

Look next in verse three.

Speaking to Jesus.

And the exact representation

of his nature.

Whose nature?

God's nature.

Can it be any more plain than that?

Not only is Christ the radiance of God's

glory, he is the exact representation

of God's nature of his person.

Not only was Jesus God manifest when

he was here as a person on his own.

He was also God in substance to

use theological language.

The Greek term for exact representation is

used for an impression made by a die,

on a stamp, or a seal in those days,

and the design on the die is reproduced

in the wax.

In that sense, Jesus is the reproduction

of God.

Just like Colossians.

115.

He is the image of

the invisible God.

You know what that word for image means right there?

A precise copy.

An exact reproduction.

Look at Colossians 2.9, for in him, Christ,

all the fullness dwells in bodily

form, and there it is right there.

There it is.

So Jesus was not only God manifests in his incarnation,

he was God, in essence.

We just can't fully understand this.

All I can attempt to do, like a little grub worm

in the dirt is just try to tell you what this book is saying.

is all I can do.

Jesus is God, and yet, 2nd

member of the Trinity, and yet, distinct in

his own person as God manifests.

As the only way I can say it.

Now, next, we have the fifth definition

of Christ given to us by God in verse 3.

And it just gives you a mind explosion.

Here we go.

You ready for your mind to just explode?

Look next in verse three.

And uphold.

All things.

By the word, of his power.

So Jesus not only made all things,

and will someday inherit all things.

He also holds all things together right

now.

The word for upholding means supporting maintaining.

It's a present, tense, continuous action.

This means everything in the universe,

planet, stars, galaxy,

All of them are being held together.

by King Jesus.

Again, Colossians 117.

He is before all things,

and in him all things are held together, literally.

The physical universe.

If, He just

stopped upholding one thing, the

law of gravity, which is his law, everything

would come apart.

And we would all be toast in ways that we can't even imagine.

what that would look like.

Scientists, think, that

they are out there making all these tremendous scientific discoveries

now, and all back through history, when really,

all they're doing is observing and discovering the

sustaining laws that Jesus created and

is now using to uphold all things.

They're just observing those things.

And look at this.

He does it.

without effort.

Verse three.

and upholds all things by the word

of his power.

Without effort.

What do we find as the prime action of God in Genesis

in creation, and God said,

Over and over and over, God said, and it happened.

Right?

I want you to listen to just a few realities of how Jesus is

upholding all things compiled by John MacArthur.

If Earth's rotation slowed down just a

little, we would have instant destruction on this planet.

The sun has a temperature, a surface temperature of

12,000 degrees, if we were any closer to it, we would burn up.

If we were any further away, we would freeze.

This globe exists on a tilted axis of

23 degrees given us the 4 seasons.

If it were not tilted exactly this way,

vapors from the ocean would move north and south and develop

into massive continents of ice.

If the moon did not consistently retain its

exact distance from the earth, ocean tides

would totally inundate all land completely twice a day.

And after that first one, what would matter for us?

absolutely.

Nothing because we'd all be dead.

If the atmosphere that we breathe did

not remain, it is exact present density, but

it thinned out just a little bit, many meteors

that right now burn up when they come into our atmosphere,

would constantly bombard the earth, then we'd all have to

live underground to stay alive.

That's just a few.

Very few of the many examples of how Jesus is

upholding perfectly all things.

How do you think all of this works together and it never comes apart?

How do you think the orbit never goes out of orbit?

He sustains all the movements of all the

planet, stars and galaxies.

And don't get me started with all the complexities of the

ecosystem of the earth.

And all that it takes for all the different animals and plants

in marine life to live.

He's sustaining it all.

He is the pre-eminent power maintaining everything.

And as Dr. Sproll says, I'm sure it rankles almighty

God to ever hear the name of Jesus in

any way compared with Muhammad.

They're Buddha.

They're dead.

Their bones are in the earth.

Christ is king and he is very much alive.

And upholding all things by the word of his power.

And Christian, just as a side note, when you think about his power

to uphold, why don't you think with me about Philippians

116, for I am confident of this very thing,

that he who began a good work and you will

perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ.

When Jesus starts to work in us, he upholds it all

the way to the end to glory, just like he's upholding

all things by the word of his power.

And that's why Jude ends this way.

Look at it with me, Jude 24 and 25.

Now to him.

Who is a?

To keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in

the presence of his glory, blameless with great joy,

to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ,

our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority

before all time and now and forever.

Amen.

Jude's excited here, don't you think?

Me too.

Number six.

A lot of this, I could just make one sermon.

But I wanted to put all this together.

But especially right here.

Look next in verse three.

When he had made purification of sins.

The Bible says the wages of sin is death.

Jesus went to the cross, died the death

that we deserve, and took the penalty for our

sin upon himself, and if we surrender to

him in saving faith, believing in who he is, and that he did that for us,

He frees us from the penalty of sin that we owe.

And he purifies us from the stain of sin.

Now listen to me.

It was an amazing work when he created the world, right?

It is a wondrous reality that right now he

is upholding all things in the universe by the word of his power,

but greater than both of those is his

work of purging the sins of men, especially mine.

Now, I'm not going to spend a lot of time here because guess what?

That subject matter right there.

You're going to be getting

fire hose blast of that all throughout the book of

Hebrews, just like Hebrews 727.

It's Jesus who does not need daily, like

those high priests to offer up sacrifices 1st for

his own sins and then for the sins of the people because this

he did once for all when he offered up himself.

Just like Hebrews 9.12 and not through the

blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood,

he entered the holy place once for all, having obtained

eternal redemption, just like the middle of Hebrews

9.26, but now once at the consummation of the

ages, he has been manifested to put away sin

by the sacrifice of himself.

That's where we're heading.

That's where you're going to learn about this.

Jesus dealt with our sin problem perfectly.

We couldn't in any way communicate with God, or enter into

fellowship with God.

Unless our sin was dealt with first.

Now, as I said, much more is going to be said about

this, but I got to get to the last point.

Number seven.

But side note, just remember, uh, The

cross was a stumbling block to these Jews in

this little community here.

And that's why the 6th point that I just gave you is

made so clear, all throughout the book of Hebrews, they

needed to understand this.

Simply put, we're all sinners, and either we are going to pay for our

own sin, or through saving faith alone, Jesus pays

for our sins, and there's no middle ground.

It's one or the other.

So again, much more to say, but I got to move on.

Last point.

Think about what we've just seen in verses 2 and 3 so far.

So far, I've given you 6 pronouncements by

God concerning the preeminence

of Jesus, his airship, his creatorship,

his radiance, his being, his administration, and his

sacrifice, and now lastly.

His exaltation.

And again, mind explosion for us.

Next and last in verse 3.

When he had made purification of sin, he

sat down.

At the right hand.

Of the majesty on high.

The majesty on high is God.

The right hand is the power side.

And of course, this is...

This is not a literal expression in the way we understand

somebody sitting in a chair over here, right next to my literal right hand.

Oh my, please, come on.

It's much more than that.

Jesus took his place.

At the right hand of God, the place of power,

and this perfect high priest for us, sat down.

And what that means is a complete contradiction

of every single thing that the Old Testament

priesthood stood for.

Because let me explain this to you.

Listen to me and understand, there were no seats in the temple.

In the holy of holies.

There were no seats in the tabernacle, in the holy of holies.

Why?

Because in the old covenant, the priest work was never finished.

So he never sat down.

God didn't design anywhere to sit in there.

Because there was never any time to sit because there were

continual, daily, monthly, yearly over and over

and over and over, sacrifices being made.

But our Jesus.

He went in.

and offered one.

Perfect.

Sacrifice.

And he said, is finished.

And then he went to the father.

And he said to him.

What could not be accomplished fully and completely all

those Old Testament sacrifice.

was accomplished once, by Jesus.

for all time.

What he sat down simply means as he was

exalted to the right hand of power on high.

His rightful place.

Now, let me give you, as

we close and I promise, we are closing.

Okay, this is going to be rapid fire, I promise, real quick.

I'm not gonna give you any detail here.

Okay?

This is just gonna be self explanatory, all right?

Number one, he sat down as

a sign of honor that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ

is Lord to the glory of God, the Father, number two,

he sat down as a sign of rule and authority.

Look at 1st Peter 3:22, who is at the right hand of

God, having gone into heaven after angels and authorities

and powers have been subjected to him.

Number 3 he sat down to rest.

His work was done.

Hebrews 10, 12 through 13, but he having

offered one sacrifice for sins, for all time,

sat down at the right hand of God, waiting

from that time onward until his enemies be made a

footstool for his feet.

number four, he sat down to intercede for us.

Romans 8.34.

Who is the one who condemns Christ Jesus is he who died?

Yes, brother, who was raised, who is at the right

hand of God, and also intercedes for us.

And there we have God's definition.

of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Pre-eminent.

In all of his offices.

We have seen him as prophet, the final spokesman for God.

We have seen him as priest, perfecting,

atoning, interceding.

We have seen him as king, ruling, controlling,

sustaining all things in the universe, and seeding

at the right hand of power on his throne, and any body.

Who says, that he is less,

than any of that, is a fool,

and is calling God a liar.

when they do.

God says in his word that his son is preeminent.

In all things.

What you do with Jesus is everything.

This is the most important reality in every single

human life.

To reject him is to be condemned to an eternity spent in

the outer darkness of the judgment of hell itself.

But to come to saving faith.

is to enter into all that he is,

And all that he has, which is all

things, as a joint heir.

Choose this day.

And we will, sir.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for words

that are just really

not possible to be conveyed.

With the power and magnitude, of what they are.

That's why we have to have unction when we preach.

That's why we have to have ears to hear.

And I pray these ears have heard this day.

The depth, and the profundity, of

the preeminence, of King Jesus,

and that in it all, you have received glory.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.