Hebrews 1:1-3
[0:00] Well, good morning. It's good to have you all here, even though there's a lot of snow outside! and the cold weather, so we're glad that you're all here. If you haven't had the chance to meet me, my name is Daniel. I've been able to serve as the intern here for the past eight months or so, and it's just been a pleasure. And so I'm honored to be able to just bring God's Word to you today as well, as we've just been able to celebrate through Advent the coming of Christ as the prophet, the priest, and today we'll be talking about him as king. And so I just want to actually open this up in a word of prayer. Lord, we thank you so much for sending your Son, Jesus, and even just the opportunity we have every year to be reminded specifically of the incarnation of Christ, who came and lived as a man who died on our behalf on the cross and who rose again and is victorious.
[1:06] And so we praise you, Father, who is Lord of heaven and earth, and we pray that your kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven, that your will would be done, and that we would submit ourselves to your rule and to your reign in all things. I pray that you'd give me wisdom as I speak your Word, that it would be clearly presented, and that we would be able to worship you as your people together. In your name I pray. Amen. So if you'd like to open up with me to begin in Hebrews chapter 1, we're going to read verses 1 through 3 together. And just as a review, we've talked about the prophet that Jesus is fulfilling a four-fold office. First, he is the prophet who brings the Word of God.
[2:01] We have a slide up there. The priest brings the presence of God. The king brings the rule of God. And the shepherd brings the heart of God. These offices that Christ fulfills are not merely abstract concepts, but they are necessary realities. We need Jesus to be the true prophet who brings the Word of God perfectly to us, who reveals God to us. We need him to be the true priest who brings God's presence to us, who mediates for us, who mediates for us between God and man. And then today we're talking about how he is the true king who brings God's rule, who will rule over us. And then next week we'll end our Advent series by talking about how Christ is the true shepherd who will bring the heart of God.
[2:56] Each Sunday we have opened up with Hebrews 1, 1 through 3, which attributes these offices to Christ. And the first point today is that Jesus is the king God appointed. It says in Hebrews 1, 1 through 3, long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
[3:33] He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. And he upholds the universe by the word of his power after making purification for sins. He sat down at the right hand of the majesty, on high. Jesus is the divine king whose word creates and sustains the universe.
[3:55] You can even just see in the first couple of verses that long ago, in many ways, and in many times, God had spoken to his people, to the fathers of the audience of the book of Hebrews, by his prophets.
[4:14] So there's this many, many prophets that God has spoken through to give his word. And in the last days, he has chosen to speak through his Son. His Son does not replace the prophets, but he is the fulfillment of what these prophets were looking forward to. And so we only have one word from God, Jesus, who is now also our king.
[4:43] The king that God has appointed is a unique king. He is unlike any other king because he actually is the word of God. The other kings in the Old Testament were not able to speak God's word, but they actually had to look to the prophets to know what God had to say for them.
[5:01] But now we have a king who also is the word of God. He is the Son of God. Jesus is the fulfillment of what these prophets were looking forward to from the Old Testament.
[5:14] Jesus does not just receive the word of God, but he is the true word sent from God. He's not just the means as well that that we also hear about God, but he is also the means by which the world was created.
[5:31] Just looking at verse 2, he is the heir of all things and through whom God created the world. So in Genesis 1, when it says, God spoke and it was so, Jesus is the word of God that all things were created.
[5:48] He is also the exact imprint of God's nature. So when Jesus rules, it means that he is ruling in relationship to God's character.
[6:02] He is reflecting. He's the radiance of God's glory, so he reflects God's glory when he rules. So when Jesus becomes king, he is actually mediating God's glory and God's presence and God's character perfectly.
[6:17] And then we see in verse 3 that Jesus fulfills the priestly function as well. He makes purification for sins.
[6:28] So last week when we were talking about Jesus as the mediator and Jesus as the one bringing God's presence, he's the one who makes the purification for sin. It adds to the layer of what it means for Jesus to be king.
[6:42] Jesus is not just a ruler, but he is the one we worship and he's the one who makes worship of God possible. When Jesus rules, we can worship because he is bringing the rule of God.
[6:59] He's making that possible. I won't be able to work through everything that Hebrews 1, 1 through 3 is saying, but just thinking for a moment about what it means for Jesus to bring God's glory or to reveal God's glory.
[7:16] I was reminded of what Moses asked God in Exodus. He asked, please show me your glory. And God replied to him saying, I will make my goodness pass before you and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, but he said, you cannot see my face for man shall not see me and live.
[7:37] God would not even show Moses his glory, but instead he shows Moses his goodness. He says that man cannot see the face of God and live.
[7:52] So, when Jesus speaks now, reflecting the glory of God perfectly, he reveals the special glory of God to us.
[8:09] He reveals the glory and nature of God in a unique way that even Moses wasn't able to experience or see. Moses could not see God's glory, but Jesus is the radiance of God's glory.
[8:22] Therefore, Jesus' speech carries divine authority. Jesus is the greater prophet because he is the eternal and one prophet.
[8:35] Jesus is the greater priest because he brings God's presence perfectly. There were many priests in the Levitical priest line, but Jesus is the one priest who had the one perfect sacrifice.
[8:48] So we don't have to look to a different priest or to many sacrifices over our lifetime, but we get to look to one sacrifice and one priest. And now, he is also the one king.
[9:00] We don't have many rulers or many kings, but we have one king who has established the one rule and one kingdom of God that we all get to be subjects of him together.
[9:13] together. So, already in these first three verses in Hebrews, you can see the special authority that Christ has.
[9:30] He is the son, as you can see in verse two. He is the heir of all things. He is the creator. He reflects the glory of God. He is the imprint of God's nature.
[9:42] He is the upholder of the universe. And he sits at the right hand of the majesty of God on high. And then in verse four, it says that he has been made much more superior than the angels.
[9:56] And the author of Hebrews uses two verses from the Old Testament to argue his point. He uses Psalm 2 and 2 Samuel 7. And both of these are talking about the sonship of Christ.
[10:10] And I just wanted to just take a moment to point out that for the author of Hebrews, the Old Testament is not just a bunch of things that the New Testament reveals or makes more relevant to us today, but he actually looks at the Old Testament as pointing forward to Christ.
[10:32] And the New Testament is the fulfillment of what was already prophesied about in the Old Testament. And so when the Old Testament prophesied prophesies that there will be a son, and the New Testament talks about how Jesus is the son, the Old Testament helps to create this picture of what that son will actually look like.
[10:55] And so we actually get to know Jesus even more as we look through the Old Testament as it kind of depicts this picture of what we need in this prophesied Messiah, this Christ, this Son of God.
[11:08] God. And so I just want to look through Psalm 2 and just reading the first three verses to start.
[11:19] It says, Why do the nations rage and the people plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.
[11:38] these first couple verses reveal the nations raging and rebelling against God. And the rest of the psalm will then talk about how God still reigns.
[11:51] So, though the nations rage, God still reigns. Mankind's response is rebellion. Mankind's response to God's rule is rebellion.
[12:04] rebellion. Even though God has selected and set apart for himself one to rule, the nations will rage against him, they will plot in vain, and they will continue in rebellion.
[12:17] Like, even thinking about our own culture, the idea of authority and kingship is very against our nature.
[12:28] We hate the idea of submitting to someone else. I was just even doing a search on what people would respond to when they think about the words of king or ruler.
[12:42] And often there are people who would think that kingship sounds like someone else telling them what to do or trying to control their lives in a way that they would not like.
[12:56] It sounds like restriction, oppression, or self-deprecation, and the loss of self-determination or self-worth. And it's the loss of freedom.
[13:08] And our culture values freedom, not loyalty to someone else or to some ruler or authority. We love to feel that we have a sense of control over things.
[13:21] And so, that's why the kings in Psalm 2 respond to God's authority by rebelling. They don't want to submit to someone else's rule.
[13:32] Rather, they want to establish their own rule, their own kingdom. But, Psalm 2, 4 through 6 reveals God's response.
[13:43] It says, He who sits in heaven laughs. The Lord holds them in derision. He will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury, saying, As for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.
[13:58] God's response is anointing his own son. He has set his king on the throne. Even just that first phrase, he who sits in heaven, the literal Hebrew is just the anointed one.
[14:17] The anointed one in heaven. And so, just the contrast between the kings of this earth and the anointed one in heaven is striking. It reminds me of the Tower of Babel and the nation, all the people of the world gather together and they decide that they want to build this tower to reach God and actually to overthrow God.
[14:40] But as they're building this tower, God casts them and changes their language and confuses them, just revealing the strike contrast between all of the people of the earth rebelling together, isn't even able to overthrow God in his power and his authority.
[15:01] No one is able to reach the throne of God. God is able to bring all nations and all kings down. The throne of God in heaven is too high for any man to reach.
[15:13] His authority is too great for any man to compare to. God is the only one who sets his king on the throne. God does not directly threaten the kings of the earth, but he does announce that he has established his king.
[15:29] And so we are to look forward to this king who will bring down all rules and all authorities of this earth. Psalm 2, 7-9 says, I will declare, I will tell of the decree the Lord said to me, you are my son, today I have begotten you.
[15:51] Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like potter's vessel. These couple of verses reflect God's speech to his anointed.
[16:05] This is the verse that was quoted in Hebrews 1-5, arguing for the superiority of Christ. The son is begotten of the father.
[16:18] He has a special relationship with the father, with the lord almighty. His authority comes directly from God. The king who rules, who is the heir of all nations and the possessor of all the ends of the earth, he will act as a judge over the nations.
[16:42] He will rule as a son of God. His authority is directly tied to the authority of God. And it is important to note that this psalm does not see the son as some easily manipulated king, but as one who will shatter and break the nations of the earth with his rod of iron.
[17:04] He will judge them. He will judge the earth. So for Christ to be king means that he is judge. I spent most of my time in my study just thinking through the question though, why do we need a king in the first place?
[17:21] What does it mean that Christ is king? Why can't we just call him our savior or our priest or our prophet? Why king?
[17:33] Why doesn't God just be king? Why does it have to be a man? Why does it have to be Jesus who is God? Yes. But why did he have to take on human flesh to become a king?
[17:43] God and the first idea is that this is because of the created order. God when he created man when he created Adam and Eve it says that he blessed them and gave them dominion.
[18:02] Just reading from Genesis 1 26 it says God gave Adam dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
[18:15] Again it says in verses 28 through 28 God blessed them and God said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
[18:33] So even in creation God blessed Adam and Eve and humanity with the ability to have dominion over creation.
[18:45] So built into the created order is God's giving his creatures mankind the ability to have dominion over his creation.
[19:01] Their dominion their ruling on the earth was meant to represent God. It was meant to exercise God's authority and it was meant to rule creation on God's behalf.
[19:16] Not that God was incapable of ruling on his own but he gave Adam the special ability to rule creation for him.
[19:27] sinned. It just shows the special relationship that God had with mankind as well. But when Adam and Eve sinned they acted in autonomy to God.
[19:43] They failed to represent God's authority. They fell short of what it meant to exercise authority on God's behalf behalf and they no longer ruled on God's behalf.
[19:56] They decided that they wanted to be God themselves. When they took the apple and disobeyed God they were demanding to be king themselves over God.
[20:09] Not on behalf of God but over God. And so for creation to be redeemed for Christ to be the true and better Adam that we sang about he also had to be the king that Adam was supposed to be.
[20:28] He's supposed to rule creation the way that Adam was supposed to have dominion over creation. And he's going to establish the kingdom of God the way that Adam was supposed to establish the kingdom of God on creation.
[20:45] And that had to be as a man. Jesus had to do that as a seed as an offspring of Adam and Eve. Second, God established a king because of our fallenness.
[21:01] Our fallenness demands a king. Genesis 49, 9-11 prophesies that the scepter will not depart from the line of Judah.
[21:12] So already in the Old Testament there's this looking forward to and expecting of a king who will come. And so God promises to Jacob that his son Judah and Judah's descendants will have this scepter, this kingship lineage.
[21:30] And later in Deuteronomy there's these laws concerning kings. So there's this idea already in the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, looking forward to a king.
[21:45] Although in the book of Joshua and Judges we don't have a king yet in Israel's history. Instead in the book of Judges God appoints various judges to rule at specific times to provide Israel with relief from their enemies for a time.
[22:06] But if anyone knows anything about the book of Judges it's a downworld spiral. Every time God appoints a new judge Israel gets worse and worse.
[22:16] The problems they face get worse and worse. The judges they receive actually get worse and worse. The narratives get longer and more details and complexities arise.
[22:31] These judges know less and less about God. They know less and less about God's law. They know less and less about God's word. And they don't rule the way that God intended for them to rule over his people.
[22:45] people. And so as soon as the judge dies the problems arise immediately after. The people go right back into idolatry. And so we get to the last couple chapters of Judges and this refrain is repeated twice.
[23:04] It says, in those days there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in their own eyes. The book of Judges reveals the fallenness of humanity.
[23:20] Earlier in the book of Judges it says, like Gideon was talking to the people of Israel and he was actually saying that God was their king. He says, I will not rule over you and my son will not rule over you.
[23:31] The Lord will rule over you. So the idea in the book of Judges is that God was their king. Not as a physical ruler but as their God, their ruler, a spiritual ruler.
[23:45] But that was not enough for Israel. They needed a physical king and a physical kingdom establishing a physical rule of justice and righteousness and peace that comes from God.
[23:59] And so when we open up in the book of 1 Samuel the question arises from the people. Like, where's our king? We need a king. And so they demand from Samuel in 1 Samuel 8 5, now appoint for us a king to judge over us like all the other nations.
[24:20] So the request wasn't bad. Requesting for a king was not bad. But the intent behind it was wrong. They wanted a king who will rule like the nations. And God told Samuel in response, Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.
[24:41] So instead of them asking for a king, a king from God, they wanted a king like the nations. And so by doing so they actually rejected God as their king.
[24:54] And so the first king they receive is Saul. And all we know about Saul is he was handsome, he was tall, and he ended up ruling like the nations ruled.
[25:06] You know, he had some military success, but he was not God's king. He was the king that the people wanted. Saul could not bring God's rule.
[25:18] But after Saul came David, the king, the kind of king that God would appoint. David reflects the kind of king that we're looking for, the kind of king that came in Christ.
[25:35] He was a man after God's own heart. He was a man who sought the Lord, who meditated on God's word day and night.
[25:46] And he established justice and righteousness and peace on God's behalf. Although, we know that David also fell short.
[25:58] He was incapable of being the promised king that we needed. And so, in 2 Samuel 7, the second passage that the author of Hebrews quotes talking about the sonship of Jesus, God promises to establish a son through the line of David.
[26:22] God will establish his kingdom through a son. And he promises that this son will build God a house. He will bring God's presence to God's people.
[26:34] He will reign in justice and righteousness, and he will bring the peace of God to this earth. He will be a military ruler who will wipe out all of his enemies before him, and he will act in wisdom like King Solomon.
[26:48] God's kingdom. So, just thinking through that, we need a king because of our fallenness. Our fallenness demands a king.
[27:00] Without a king, there is no worship, there is no justice of God, there is no peace from our enemies. We need a king who will establish God's kingdom and God's rule.
[27:13] We need a king because we cannot rule ourselves. We need a king because without the rule of Christ, humanity always collapses into rebellion. Jesus is not just a king, he is the king we were created for, the king we lost in Adam, and the king God promised through David.
[27:37] God's kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. That's our final point. And just to go through this quickly, the book of Daniel helps to depict what it means for his kingdom to be an everlasting kingdom.
[27:54] At the beginning, Nebuchadnezzar has this dream of the statue with different layers, and at the end of this dream, he sees a stone cut without human hands that crushes and shatters the statue, symbolizing that God's kingdom will shatter the kingdoms of the earth.
[28:12] And then in chapter 7, it says that the son of man is that kingdom. Daniel says, I saw in the night visions, and behold, the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the ancient of days and was presented before him.
[28:31] And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.
[28:46] The kingdoms of this earth will pass away, but the kingdom of our God will never end. It is an everlasting kingdom. Christ's kingdom is eternal and unshakable.
[29:01] At the end of Hebrews, the author says, therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus, let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.
[29:16] The author of Hebrews declares that the kingdom is an eternal and unshakable kingdom. We can have assurance because his kingdom will never end. It will never be thwarted by any other power or authority.
[29:29] authority. And so, when Paul writes in Colossians that we have been transferred from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of his beloved son, we don't have to worry because we know that our citizenship is in heaven.
[29:44] We don't have to worry about our king failing morally. We don't have to be concerned about his rule coming to an end or any other power coming over him or against him because he's going to subject all of his enemies under his feet.
[29:59] Rather, he will perfectly rule and represent the rule of God on earth. He will be the ruler that Adam should have been.
[30:12] And he will rule creation on God's behalf. So, in response, what can we do except for worship him as our king? Revelation 4 through chapter 5 just talks about these different reasons why we should worship God, why God is worthy.
[30:29] And so, in Revelation 4 11, it says, worthy are you, O Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power. For all things were created through you and by your will, they existed and were created.
[30:46] Jesus is worthy because he's our creator. And then Revelation 5, 9 through 10 says, worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals. For you were slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God and they shall reign on earth.
[31:07] And so, he is worthy as our redeemer. And then finally, it says, worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.
[31:19] To him who sits on the throne, to the lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever. He is worthy because he is our king. Since he is the representative ruler of God and as the true and better Adam, he rules in justice and righteousness and peace.
[31:40] And so, we're going to have the chance today just to hear the testimonies of two members or soon to be members here at Maranatha of just their stories of hearing what God has done in their lives and examples of those who have submitted themselves to the kingship of Christ and how God has transformed their lives.
[32:03] And so, I'm just going to close us in prayer. Lord, we thank you so much for the kingdom that your son has established on our behalf and we look forward to the coming again of Christ.
[32:17] Christ, I just ask that you'd help us to worship you because you are worthy. You are our creator, our redeemer, and our king. And it is only through you that we can have true peace.
[32:30] And so, I ask that you'd help us to submit to your rule and your reign. In your name I pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Bluetooth Bluetooth