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.