[0:00] Great to have you here today. You're obviously over here for the whole week, and I think maybe a bit longer, but maybe just tell us a little bit about where you come from and a bit about your family, and I'll ask you something else.
[0:15] That could take a while. Well, we'll make it short. Originally, for the first 18 years of my life, I grew up and born and raised in Canada, outside the Toronto area.
[0:28] So, halfway between Toronto and Niagara Falls. And then I went down to the U.S., been there since, did my university seminary training there, and presently I'm teaching in Kentucky.
[0:45] I have a wonderful wife from New York State. People always say she's from New York, and they always confuse that with New York City. And she says, no, no, it's not New York City. New York State, and then we have five children, from three boys, two girls, 26 to 16.
[1:06] And you're obviously teaching theology at this stage, and you have a relationship with the Lord Jesus. Did you grow up in a Christian home, or how did you come to faith?
[1:19] Yeah, I was raised with parents who were Christians, who loved the Lord. And even though you are raised in a Christian home, it doesn't make you a Christian.
[1:29] So, I heard God's word every week, and was taken to our local church, but around 16 years old, the Lord was working in my life, where by the Spirit, He convicted me that I was a sinner.
[1:45] I needed the Lord Jesus. I can't just have my parents' faith. And people would say, are you a Christian? Oh, yes, yes, yes. I'm a Christian. But I wasn't. And by God's grace, I came to know the Lord Jesus, turned from my sin, believed in the Lord Jesus Christ at 16 years old.
[2:04] And that heritage that I had was wonderful, where so much was taught. And then from there, I felt that the Lord wanted me to serve Him in church and teaching and that kind of work.
[2:16] And that's where I've gone from there. So, have you always been involved in teaching theology, or did you do something else? Yeah. In between. I was always, after I was converted at 16, then I'm thinking of what's next in terms of schooling, right?
[2:34] So, getting out of high school. I was greatly influenced in my Christian life by reading a man named Francis Schaeffer years ago, and just trying to think how is I, you know, why is, I'm a Christian, but how do I communicate that to others, and why do I believe what I believe?
[2:54] And I knew that I, I had a sense that I wanted to go into Christian ministry. So, in my university training, I did a science education.
[3:06] Wasn't sure just how it would all work out. So, I never really worked in that area, but I was trained to be a teacher. And then went to seminary, and then, so really my whole life has been either pastoring or teaching after that.
[3:20] Okay. Well, we look forward to you communicating to us the truth of God's word. So, I'm going to pray for Stephen, and then over to you. Father, we thank you so much for your church worldwide, for the people that you have gathered to yourself, and we thank you for the gifts that you have given to people.
[3:41] We thank you for Stephen and his gift to understand your word, to teach, and to communicate. And yet, Father, we need the help of your Holy Spirit so that it is not just information to our minds, but that it is truth to our hearts that change us, and shape our lives to follow you and to walk with you.
[4:05] So, please help us, and please help Stephen, as he speaks your word to us today. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, it is a great delight to be with you this morning, and we're going to be reading from the book of Hebrews.
[4:30] And if you have your Bibles, that will be Hebrews chapter 1. And if you have a Bible that came in when you came in from the church, it is page number 1201.
[4:46] Right? 1201. The book of Hebrews chapter 1. It's a great delight to be here. It's my second time to Ireland.
[4:57] And always two years ago, and now in between then. Two years ago, Ross and Joy housed me. And then Joy's come over to the U.S., and we've seen her in between, and now back again.
[5:13] So, I think that's a great opportunity to be back here with them. And my mother is, on my mother's side, is all Irish in Canada.
[5:23] Right? So, she said, as I come to Ireland, she says, I'll go talk to the homeland. Right? So, that's what she said. So, it's great to be here. We're going to read Hebrews chapter 1.
[5:35] We're going to look at the first three verses. First three verses. And this is the introduction to this wonderful, wonderful letter that we'll get into.
[5:47] But we're going to read these first three verses. And then we'll begin to look at what God has to teach us from this section of Scripture. God's Word says this.
[5:59] In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways.
[6:12] But in these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe.
[6:25] The Son is the radiance of God's glory, the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful Word.
[6:39] After He had provided purifications for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in Heaven. We'll leave it there.
[6:50] But then verse 4 will become a transition. So He became. And then He goes on to compare Him to angels, right? Well, thinking of what to speak on this morning, I understand that you're going through the book of 1 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians.
[7:06] You're at chapter 14. And I know Johnny will do a great job on that. So I left that to him. He says, do you want to handle that passage? It sometimes gets controversial. In the church.
[7:17] And we said, no, no, you'll do a fine job. So come next week and you'll learn about prophecy in the church and all the spiritual gifts and those challenging issues that we wrestle with as we apply the Scripture to our lives.
[7:34] Instead, I wanted to return to something familiar but never, ever too familiar. And that is the glory of Christ. And there's many places we can turn.
[7:48] I'm so pleased to see that Colossians 1 was read this morning. And that's a wonderful passage. Colossians 1, 15 through 20. There's many, many, many key passages in the New Testament that present to us who Jesus is and all of his glory and splendor and his work.
[8:08] This passage here is one of those passages. And it's in a book that I think maybe we say this of every book of the New Testament or the Bible, but this is one of my most favorite books of the entire Bible.
[8:24] The book of Hebrews is a precious book to me, and it speaks so strongly to myself and I think the church today for a couple of reasons.
[8:38] First is when we think about who this book is written to. We live 2,000 years from these people. Yet, if we know something about the audience of the book of Hebrews, we realize that we have a lot in common with them.
[8:56] They have a lot of similarities, both good and bad, that we have. And then the message that the author gives to these Christians in the midst of their life and the busyness of their life is the glory of Christ.
[9:14] And for those two reasons, the book of Hebrews is such a precious one to me because I can identify with these Christians, and more importantly, I am presented the answer to my problems in terms of Jesus Christ the Lord.
[9:33] Now, in terms of these early Christians, a little bit of speculation on this, but I think we're on good grounds to say these are probably Jewish Christians.
[9:46] Now, why is that? Well, because so much of the book is devoted to the Old Testament, showing that Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Testament.
[9:57] So it's probably those who've come out of a Jewish background who are now believers. They've been believers for probably a generation.
[10:09] It's probably around the mid-60s in the first century before the fall of Jerusalem, which changed everything in the first century because there's no mention here of the fall.
[10:23] There's all discussion of the sacrifices and tabernacle, but there's no mention of the fall of Jerusalem. So we probably think it's written early on. We know from the book that these Christians had walked with the Lord.
[10:38] They had faced trials and persecution. Some of them had lost. You read chapter 10. Some of them had lost their jobs. Some of them had lost their homes.
[10:49] Some of them have been castaways in society. Yet, so far, they had remained firm. Yet, they were also facing probably a more serious problem than just simply pressures from the world.
[11:07] They were, as this author writes to them, it seems as if they're facing spiritual compromise. That's why so much of the book is, if you know the book of Hebrews, so much of it is dealing with the dual themes of encouragement and warning.
[11:27] It's famous for its warning passages. The author of Hebrews comes alongside these believers who have begun well, who have professed faith in Christ, who are facing incredible pressures around them.
[11:41] Pressures to give in and to cave and to compromise. Yet, he then warns them. He encourages them with the truth of who Christ is. But he warns them, don't depart.
[11:52] Don't go backwards. Now, that kind of people, I mean, I can identify with. We can grow up in the church.
[12:03] We know that the society around us is seemingly changing. We feel the sense of how difficult it is sometimes to live as a Christian who wants to honor the Lord in our lives in the world around us.
[12:18] We face pressures from family. We face pressures from the larger society. I can identify with these people who feel persecution and struggles.
[12:31] And so what is encouraging to say, you know, what I'm going through in my own life, they're going through similar things. Now, obviously, there's differences. Yet, there's a similarity. I can see what they're going through.
[12:44] They can remind me of some of the struggles that I'm having. But more than that, not just simply identification with them, what's most important is how the author addresses these struggling Christians.
[12:59] How does he encourage them to press on? How does he warn them of the dangers? Well, what he does, and of course, this is the entire theme of the book, is he presents to them the glory of Christ.
[13:17] He calls them back to remind them of who they have trusted in, who it is that has redeemed them, the Lord and Savior that is the Lord of the universe.
[13:31] And by so doing, he accomplishes the dual task of encouraging them. He encourages them in the truth of who Christ is. He encourages them that their faith has not been misplaced, that their faith is not in vain, that as the pressures of the world come in upon them, that they can have confidence that Christ is who He is.
[13:53] And at the same time, that warns them, given the glory and the wonder and the excellency of Christ, if you depart from Him, danger.
[14:04] So at the same time, and often in Scripture, you have sort of a dual side of the coin. Encouragement warning, warning encouragement, you don't just have one without the other, and in the center of it is the presentation of the glory of Christ.
[14:21] Now the opening verses that we read present this to us immediately. The theme of the book of Hebrews is Christ is better. Christ is greater than anything you can compare Him to.
[14:36] And throughout the book, there's an entire series of contrasts that the author makes with angels. That's where he goes in the first couple of chapters.
[14:47] With Moses, some of the great leader from the Old Testament. with covenants, and kings, and priests, and all of that is comparing, contrasting Christ to the Old Testament.
[15:00] And the author argues, your faith has not been misplaced. Christ is who He is. You can have confidence in your confidence in Him and what He's accomplished.
[15:12] And in light of that, press on. Now these opening verses get immediately to that larger truth that the book of Hebrews is communicating. The glory of Jesus Christ the Lord.
[15:26] This is unlike any other letter. Most letters, when you read them in the New Testament, have the author's name. I, Paul, write to such and such, right? All of that's missing.
[15:37] We're not exactly sure who this author is. He dispenses with any introduction and immediately goes to the main point of the book. And in this, and in fact, in the original, when you have verses 1 to 3, it's one sentence.
[15:52] We've broken it down in terms of our Bibles. But in one sentence, that is centered around the subject and the verb. And the subject of the verb of this one sentence is God spoke.
[16:08] And then around that, the author says, God spoke in the past, God spoke definitively in Christ.
[16:20] And in Christ, he has brought all of his plans and purposes to pass. And even more than that, he has brought about our salvation.
[16:31] And this then opens the book, which he then develops and expands. And everything thereafter in this book gives us then Christ as God's spoken word, final word, only Savior, encourages them in this, at the same time warns them, don't depart from him.
[16:54] Keep pressing on. He who has done a good work will see it to the end. You have placed your faith in the truth of the Son of God who has come and who has died. Your confidence is sure.
[17:06] And that's what then undergirds the confidence and encouragement that he is giving to these people. Well, we want to look at this, in some sense, opening statement of the book that is just simply developed throughout the book.
[17:21] And we'll look at it in three ways that the sentence, or at least these three verses, the one sentence is given to us. We're going to focus first on the fact that the author begins with this statement that God is the God who speaks.
[17:38] That's the opening subject of the verb. God has spoken. And then we will see how he moves from the fact that God has spoken to God has spoken definitively and finally in Christ, in the Son.
[17:56] And then we will move to the fact that he says God has spoken in His Son and provided a Savior for people. So those are the three areas that we want to just look at as we work through this passage.
[18:12] God has spoken. God has spoken in His Son definitively and finally. And God has now given us a Savior for people.
[18:24] Well, first, the idea of God has spoken. And that comes through, as I said, in terms of the main subject and verb. In the past, God spoke. And then he will develop this in verse 2.
[18:38] In these last days, God spoke. Now, there's going to be a difference between the past and what He has now done in Christ. We'll come to that in the second area.
[18:51] But the first area here is that He lays down for these people. And remember who they are, right? The people are facing trials and difficulties. He begins with the statement that God has spoken.
[19:04] He's spoken in the past. He's spoken in the present. He's spoken definitively in Christ. And it's a good reminder here before we move to what He says about Jesus to just think a little bit about this truth that He lays out for us.
[19:19] God has spoken. Right? Why is that important? Right? Well, if I were to ask you a question sort of coming in by the side here, what, you know, we live in an age where there's all kinds of religions and viewpoints and this type of thing.
[19:38] What makes the God of the Bible different than other gods? Right? Well, there's a lot of things that can be said there. First thing that comes to mind immediately is the God of the Bible is a triune God.
[19:54] That's unlike anything else and of course tied to the doctrine of the Trinity is the uniqueness of the Lord Jesus, the Son of God. But another truth that makes God unique than all of the gods out there is that God who is the triune God has spoken.
[20:14] It's important to remember in a couple of ways in our day. Right? When we go to the opening chapters of Genesis, the universe came into existence by God's spoken word.
[20:27] Right? That opening verse of chapter 1 of Genesis. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. God said, boom, there's the universe. God's speech is also found in His telling us who He is.
[20:43] So He not only creates universes by His speech, He also makes Himself known to us. Now, this seems basic, elementary, Christian thought and what the Bible teaches.
[20:55] Why is this important? Why was it important for these Christians to know this? Well, in their own personal lives, they are facing trials and difficulties and persecution.
[21:06] How do you face? some of these Christians eventually were put on light poles and burned to death. How do you encourage people to go to death for their convictions?
[21:23] How do you encourage people to stand firm in the midst of life's difficulties? How do you give confidence to people when they face and all of us face in our just everyday lives life and death circumstances, news of cancer, news of difficulties?
[21:42] How do you encourage people to remain firm? Well, Scripture will come back to the fact that the only way we can encourage people is that we have to give them a true word from God.
[21:55] We can't just give people nice thoughts. We can't just read poetry to them. We can't just say think pleasant thoughts, everything will be good. Well, it doesn't work that way.
[22:07] We need to have a sure word from God. We need to know that God is real, that His promises are sure, that what I have banked my life upon in faith and confidence is really true even in the midst of martyrdom, even in the midst of suffering, even in the midst of trials and difficulty.
[22:29] And that's why I think this author begins with God has spoken. God has spoken. What He has said is sure. Now, He's going to move quite quickly to these Christians to say, God has spoken definitively in Christ and your faith in Him.
[22:46] But He, before He even gets there, He reminds them and He reminds us that our only hope in life and in death and any confidence and certainty we can have of our present and the future is that God has not remained silent, that God has spoken to us a sure word that we can build our lives on it, that we can have confidence in it, that we can trust His word more than anything else.
[23:16] And that's why I think this author begins in the way that he does. One other area where I think this is important as well, as we wrestle with our society around us, our society that can be characterized in a number of ways, but I think a fair way of characterizing it as we live in the Western world, this type of thing, is it's a very pluralistic society in the sense of mentality, mindset.
[23:45] Everywhere around us is the viewpoint that everyone's view is acceptable. We see that in religious viewpoints. Various religions have their own way to talk about God and to know God and Christians are one way and Muslims are another and Buddhists are another and all of this mindset.
[24:04] It's important to realize that the answer to that is not just adopting that mentality but realizing that the only way we can know that we are right versus someone else is that God has spoken to us.
[24:20] That God who exists, the God who knows all things has made Himself known. And that's precisely what Scripture says. Often Christians are presented as bigots or as narrow-minded because they say we believe the truth.
[24:36] We have to always remind people that we didn't make this up. We didn't say I want you to believe this because I think it's true and I don't care what you think.
[24:47] No, we are saying we are saying these things because God who has made all things, who knows all things, who rules over all things has now made His plan known to us.
[25:01] It's on that basis that we can then say this is a sure word. This is a word not only for your life but it's a word of truth.
[25:12] It's a word that we can govern all of our lives in light of. These Christians needed to know that in the first century. We in the 21st century need to know the same thing as well.
[25:23] Now of course the fact that God has spoken also entails that we hear His word. That we don't just carry it around but we're readers of that word.
[25:34] We're obeyers of that word. The author is going to encourage them with that as well. Follow God's word. Know God's word. Study God's word so that is then part of our life.
[25:45] God has spoken. That then means be hearers and doers of it. So that's the first area that He begins as He gives to them this opening letter speaking to these Christians in all of their difficulties and trials.
[26:00] God has spoken. But of course the point of God's speech here is to move quickly to Jesus Christ. He reminds them and this is probably if they're Jewish Christians they know of God's speech from the Old Testament.
[26:17] They may even be tempted to go back to that Old Testament and maybe compromise their commitment to Christ. So the author quickly moves to this second area.
[26:30] God has not only spoken but He's spoken decisively and finally in Jesus the Christ. Now that's the point of verse 1 and 2 a comparison and contrast that's going on and you probably noticed that as we began to read this.
[26:49] In the past and then in verse 2 in the last days. Obviously there's a contrast here. In the past God spoke. In the last days God spoke.
[27:01] But then He goes on to say in the past He spoke to our forefathers through the prophets. In the last days He's spoken by Son.
[27:12] In the past He's spoken in many times and in various ways. But verse 2 implicitly if not explicitly here is in speaking in the Son it's not various and diverse in many ways.
[27:28] There's completion to it. There's these comparison and contrasting that He has here. You can see it first in the sense of whom God has spoken to and through. Right? In the past referring to the Old Testament era He spoke to the prophets.
[27:43] Moses and Isaiah and Jeremiah and all the Old Testament prophets. Those prophets spoke God's word truly. Yet this phrase here many times and in various ways not only speaks of repetition but it speaks of you know the book of Hebrews speaks a lot about repetition and repetition conveys notions of incompleteness.
[28:11] that's the two ideas. It's many times but it's also fragmentary or incomplete. It's not fully given. The Old Testament is true and reliable and authoritative but it's not the complete fullness of God's plan.
[28:28] That's the point that He's getting at here with the contrast with but. God spoke through the prophets many times diverse ways but in these last days what's last days referring to.
[28:43] Well last days is an Old Testament term. Last days is a term that comes from the prophets of the Old Testament that as they looked to the future they looked for God to bring His great salvation plan to pass in the future the last days.
[29:03] Well the author of Hebrews is saying those days that the prophets looked forward to are now here. Those days that the prophets longed for have arrived.
[29:16] How have they arrived? They've arrived in the Son. They've arrived in the Lord Jesus Christ. What is He saying here? Well He's reminding these Christians that God's spoken word has come to completion.
[29:35] Finality. in Christ the prophets look forward. Christ has now come. In Christ all of God's plans and purposes have come to pass. In Christ all of God's redemptive work is now complete.
[29:50] In Christ all of God's revelation from the past which is true and authoritative has now reached its end point. That's the emphasis here. And it's quite a statement right?
[30:02] Now how would this encourage these Christians right? Well they place their faith in Christ. They may be now in light of trials and persecution wondering is this a good place to put my faith?
[30:13] And the author of Hebrews is coming back and saying yes. You will find only God's finality of his revelation and finality of his plan and finality of his truth in one place alone.
[30:27] The prophets deliberately and purposely were looking forward. Christ now is the one who's brought it to pass. And then the author develops this throughout the book, right?
[30:38] In the Old Testament you had priests and sacrifices. They have now all reached their finality in the great priest, the great sacrifice.
[30:50] Moses was a great leader but he has been eclipsed by the coming of Christ who has now fulfilled all that Moses anticipated and so on and so on and so on. And this is how the greatness and glory of Christ is presented.
[31:04] Now if we really understand what he is claiming here, and this is quite a claim, right? All of God's revelation has come in Christ. All of the truth of God is now found in him. All of God's plans and purposes are centered in one individual alone.
[31:18] You have to say to yourself, man, that's a lot for one individual to carry, isn't it? How is that possible? Our world stumbles over this. How can one man be the one who is the truth of God?
[31:32] How can one man be the one who is the savior of the world? How is that possible? Well, the author makes it very clear how it's very possible. He goes on then to give you reasons why God's revelation has come to finality in Christ.
[31:49] And there you have a description here that we can just simply run through quickly which describes then this son, this Lord Jesus Christ who has come, the word made flesh.
[32:04] How is he described? Well, just look in verse 2. He is heir of all things. Why is Christ the definitive truth of God? Well, he owns everything.
[32:17] He's the heir of all things. He's not only heir because he's been the eternal son of God, but also by his very coming he has accomplished a work. He has won back.
[32:27] He is redeemed as Colossians 1 speaks about him reconciling all things. I mean, he has done a work which he now owns the universe. He owned it from the beginning and he owns it as a result of his work.
[32:40] He knows all things, owns all things. He's heir. Well, that gives you reasons why he indeed is the truth. And then it goes back even to the creation. We saw this in Colossians 1.
[32:51] We see it here. He's heir of all things through whom he made the universe. The through picks up the relationship to God, the Father.
[33:04] This is triune, but it's the Father through the agency of the Son. The Son who is eternal is the one who's the agent of creation. So he's heir of all things and through him, Father through Son by Spirit, created this universe.
[33:20] John 1 will say the same thing as well. So you say, well, why should we bank our life on him? Why should he, we think that he is the fulfillment of the prophets?
[33:32] Well, he's the creator of the universe, right? He is the heir of all things. And then, of course, in verse 3, if you skip down sort of halfway through the verse, you combine creation with ruling over the universe, right?
[33:47] So he says he sustains all things, by his powerful word. So again, you have here the triune God in and through God the Son. That's who the Lord Jesus is, God the Son.
[34:01] Through him creation is made. Through him he sustains all things by a word. So the word creates the universe and the word sustains you.
[34:12] Now, I spend a lot of time just thinking about the rise of technology of being able to know something about the vastness of this universe. It's huge, right?
[34:24] And then think of the developments, you know, not too long ago of micron, microscopes, and all that we can go down to the smallest of the cell and we now know that it is complex and designed and ordered and all.
[34:37] And you think, this world, this creation is phenomenal. It's amazing. It's designed and ordered and purposed in our bodies. And then you think of the one who is the one who brought that into being, the triune God through the sun.
[34:54] The one who sustains every single element of the universe is through this sun. And then we say, why should we think that in him the truth of God is found completely?
[35:06] Why is he the final revelation? Why is he better than Moses and prophets and priests and kings of the Old Testament? Who he is? Who he is? He's God, the sun.
[35:17] And then verse 3, we skipped the first part of this. This emphasizes the same point. Here's a verse that, I mean, all these references here speak of the deity of the sun.
[35:28] But this one here, he's the radiance of God's glory. So all that the father is, he is. He radiates the very glory of God. And then you have this phrase here, he is the exact representation of God's being.
[35:47] There's no other way, and this is the way the church throughout history has sought to think through these passages. If they ask the question, who is this son? Who is this Lord Jesus Christ?
[36:01] They have to conclude with one voice from this passage and many others, he is God the son. He is God the son who became flesh.
[36:12] John 1, 14, the word became flesh. This isn't just a man. He is a man. He took on our humanity. But he is God.
[36:23] He is God the son from eternity. Creator, sustainer, heir, the one who is the radiance of the father. Jesus can say in John 14, if you've seen the father, you've seen me.
[36:35] Not that they're the same person, but by his very work and you have this powerful statement. Now, again, why is the author beginning with this to these Christians?
[36:49] Well, they're in danger of maybe denying this. Or they're in danger of compromise. And they're in danger of standing still in their Christian lives. And what does the author do?
[37:00] He says, wait a second, I know you're facing difficulties, but realize the one you put your confidence in will see you flagpole.
[37:14] He is the Lord of the universe. There's an eternity before you. He will come again. I mean, all of that is what's encouraging them to live in this life with confidence and trust in him and in him alone.
[37:28] You have all of that grounding, this glory of Christ to give them incentive to press on, give them incentive to live their life even when the world around them is encouraging them to not live that life or it's crashing around them.
[37:44] And then he finishes with one last point here and we'll wrap it here with this last phrase and he develops this through the entire book. This is just the opening statement.
[37:55] God has spoken definitively in his Son. Why? Because of who he is. Heir, creator, sustainer, radiance of God's glory, exact representation of being.
[38:06] But then he moves in verse 3 to then shift which of course assumes that this Son who is creator and sustainer has now come to this world.
[38:18] He has become flesh. He has become man. Why does he assume that? Because he was able to provide purifications for sins. That happened in history.
[38:29] He was able to come to this world. He was able to live. He was able to die. And in his death he brought all of the Old Testament types and shadows to their fulfillment.
[38:43] He brought everything to pass. This is a priestly picture here. He provided purifications for sins. All of that set in the context of the Old Testament where a priest would have to offer something on behalf of the people.
[38:58] God who is holy and we as sinners we have sinned against God ultimately in the Bible God is going to have to provide someone to stand for us in order to meet his demand.
[39:12] In the Old Testament it was pictured in terms of animals but you read the Old Testament that's never going to be enough. Ultimately all of that has to come in the final sacrifice the giving of his son who is not just a man who does this for us the son who becomes man in order to stand in our behalf to meet our need to stand in our place to pay for our sin and notice what he says here and again this is in contrast to the Old Testament he sat down right Old Testament priests never sat down they were constantly working but this one sat down and he sat down at the right hand picture of power it's a picture of authority it's a picture of completion it's a picture of a redeemer think of this in terms of the Lord Jesus as we pull this together here where the
[40:13] Lord Jesus as the son in this son we have the finality of God's truth no other word can be trusted fully other than what he himself gives and all that he has made known of himself but we also have not just truth found in him we have a redeemer found in him you and I need to know truth from God but we also need to have salvation from our sin before God and in Christ this one who has come God's own son we have both the truth of God and we have the redemption of God we have the forgiveness of sins and we have everything that we can count on him his word is true he is greater than any prophet he is greater than any priest and ultimately he's presented here as the king it's been a common way of looking at who
[41:17] Jesus is our great prophet priest and king well that's right here isn't it and everything centers in him so that what would these Christians what should have they have heard from this author speaking to them encouragement right you've started well keep looking to him keep running the race also warning if I take my eyes off of him and wander away from him there's a warning in chapter two that picks up this if I wander away then of course there's no hope for us because there's no salvation outside this redeemer why would that be the case well look who he is nobody can is like this person no one can save us no one can meet our need no human being can do this other than him so that if I wander from him there's no salvation outside of him but in him the encouragement then is everything's found in him if you want to know what's really true go to him if you want to know that your sins are forgiven you stand right before
[42:27] God now and forever more go to him he meets our every need and he's presenting to these Christians as he's presenting to us right same message that they have we have the Lord Jesus Christ is the most important person in all the universe he's central to he must be central he's central to God's plans and purposes he must now be central to our lives right it's not enough to simply say I believe in Jesus right mentioned even in my Christian testimony right I mean I used to be that way on my own being raised in a Christian setting a Christian background Christian home oh yeah I believe in Jesus not enough to just sort of have that generalized faith no we must personally commit ourselves to him we must know him we must walk with him we must take his word and put into practice he is this glorious redeemer and glorious king and he demands rightly and nothing less than our very lives so this week as we go into our workplaces as we rub shoulders with people right we are to go with our faith firmly placed in him that we are to go to say
[43:45] I want to please him in all things I want to no matter whether people laugh at me or I'm persecuted or they think I'm nuts I'm living for him he is the truth of God he's the salvation of God and we then from now and forevermore seek to please him and glorify him and indeed if we sometimes somebody may be here that does not know him right hopefully we have to emphasize and you see that there can be no truth and salvation apart from him given who he is this savior cannot be treated lightly he has to be treated with utter seriousness and we then have to say I want to know him and place my faith and confidence in him that's what the author of Hebrews is calling these first Christians to and he calls us to the same calling the same message the same command believe in the Lord Jesus trust in him in him is everything and we now can have confidence now and forever more well let's pray and commit that to our lives heavenly father we thank you for this passage of scripture we thank you that it reminds us of our great and glorious