This evening we are in Hebrews chapter 1, once again reading verses 1 through 4. It's a kind of overture to the book and the intention is actually to spend two more weeks. So we've been very slowly at the beginning and more quickly as we move along. Hebrews chapter 1 verses 1 to 4.
Last week we began our study asking the question, what's Hebrews about? And we saw that, well it's about Jesus and the supremacy of Jesus over anyone and anything and there was no one better than Jesus that would go anywhere else. For what you can only get in Jesus. God's revelation of himself in his son is better than all the revelation of himself he gave through even the prophets of the Old Testament.
We looked at some of that last week, we looked at more of that today. So let me give your attention to Jesus. Let me invite you to give your attention to Jesus from Hebrews chapter 1 verses 1 to 4. Long ago at many times and in many ways God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.
But in these last days he has spoken to us by his son who he appointed the heir of all things through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. And he holds 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.
Having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. Let's pray together. Father we ask that you would open the eyes of our heart enlightening them in the knowledge of Christ. That we would know the hope to which you have called us, the riches of your inheritance in the saints, and your incomparably great power towards us who believe the power that raised Christ from the dead and seated over all things, even for our good.
Bless us then we pray. Be our teacher in Jesus' name we ask him. Amen. Look to Jesus because he's better.
Now as soon as I say something like that some of us might be a bit cynical or perhaps apathetic cynical. Well you know we hear all the time about products that are new and improved. And we probably have enough familiarity with some of the old and unapproved that we sort of doubt what they're telling us about how things are new and improved. We sometimes have difficulty seeing the tangible practical, you experience a ways new and improved is actually anything better.
And so we say prove it, prove it. And so the author here is saying Jesus is better and he's going to continually on every page prove it. But we may just be apathetic. If possible either ourselves or certainly people we know have bought into the view that no religion is better than any other just different.
And so we shrug our shoulders and say you go your way I'll go mine. That's fine for you to think that Jesus is better but we all know that no religious leader is better than any other no religion is better than any other and the New Testament isn't better than the Old Testament or anything like that. Now look that attitude of you go your way I'll go my way all's fine. That attitude might work for your preference for pizza.
You may be a thin crust and chovy topping kind of person. But I'm a deep dish supreme smothered in cheese kind of person and I will argue all day long for why my kind of pizza is better than your kind of pizza. But I admit it is just a preference. And so preferences like that really don't matter that much.
But that attitude doesn't actually work if you need heart surgery. I mean if you've got a valve that needs to be replaced if you're able to go to the Cleveland Clinic Party Act Center and get an experienced surgeon with 20 years of experience who graduated the top of his class did a Mayo fellowship and now is the world renowned heart guy. I mean if you can afford it or insurance will pay for it that's where you go not to the guy who's right out of school and this is going to be his first heart valve replacement right because one is better than the other. All things being equal.
And Hebrews is saying it matters of spiritual life versus death and matters of the soul being eternally happy versus eternally miserable. It matters of God's revelation of himself. Jesus is better. And so that's what the book is about.
We looked at that a bit last week. And last week we said notice that in Hebrews 1 and 2 what the author is doing is then comparing and contrasting the Old Testament revelation of God through the prophets with the New Testament revelation of God in his son. You see that language long ago and at many times and in many ways God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days he has spoken to us by his son.
And so last week one of the things we said and we won't reiterate it at length is that there is continuity Old Testament to New Testament and that is that God reveals himself. That God speaks. God spoke through the prophets. God speaks in his son and that revelation is authoritative.
It's God's voice. It's God's word and so it ought to be believed and that continuity is wonderful. God speaks in the Old Testament as he does also in the New. But now let's press forward a little bit.
Because the author is highlighting the fact that God has revealed himself progressively over time. That there is also a contrast here of when he spoke. A contrast in multiple ways. Long ago at many times and in many ways God spoke to our prophets by the prophets.
There was a lot of variety in what God did. He came to Abraham in visions and dreams. Sometimes he appeared to him as the angel of the Lord and spoke to him face to face. You may remember that God spoke to Moses out of the burning bush and later he invited Moses up on the mountain to meet with God face to face.
That is to see his glory. To Israel you remember God spoke from the mountaintop giving them the ten commandments by his own voice and then later by writing a tables of stone with his own finger. They saw no form but they heard his voice. So there was variety.
Of course that variety even stretches out throughout the Old Testament. It happened many times in a variety of ways. God spoke by bit. I mean to Adam and Eve he promised that the seed of the serpent would crush the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent.
A somewhat veiled but now we know clear foretelling of Jesus the seed of the woman crushing the enemy. Abraham promised that he would bless him and make him a blessing that in his seed in his offspring all the nations of the earth would be blessed. 400 years later God spoke to Moses 400 years later God spoke through David 400 years later God spoke through Daniel and all the prophets each received pieces by bit. Abraham was given the family from which the Messiah would come.
The town where he would be born in Bethlehem. To Daniel the time of his birth. To Isaiah the nature of his ministry as the prince of peace. And to Malachi God had given the information that a forerunner would come announcing or heralding the arrival of the king.
But then from Malachi in your Old Testament from Malachi on Revelation ceased. You have 400 years approximately in which there's silence from God and closure was needed and closure came and God sent his son. So that Old Testament revelation was progressively given it was sporadically given and it was fragmentary and incomplete without the New Testament. Each new truth built on established truth but it was not complete.
And so the author says but in these last days God has spoken to us in his son. He has spoken to us in these last days. The last days are not something yet future to the author of the book of Hebrews. He's not thinking about months and years and centuries ahead to the return of Christ as if those are the last days.
Know the writers as the last days have come and in these last days God has spoken in his son so that we understand the last days in scripture is the whole time between the first coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ in his consummation. The whole time between those great events. And so with the arrival of Jesus then it's not that it went from wrong to right. It's not that it went from false to true.
It didn't. But it did go from unfinished to finished. It didn't go from bad to good but it went from good to better and from promise to fulfillment so that as many had put it we could think of the Old Testament as being like a bud of the flower and the New Testament is that flower in full blue or we could think of the Old Testament as like an artist sketch in black and white and outline. The New Testament is that same canvas painted in full color.
The Old Testament is promised. The New Testament is fulfillment. The Old Testament prepared us for Jesus. The gospels present to us Jesus.
The New Testament letters point us to Jesus and the book of Revelation pronounces the final victory of Jesus. And so in the coming of his son and the revelation of his son you need nothing more. Everything God wants to say to you about himself and about salvation is in this book. It's that Jesus is who we need.
That may sound simplistic but as Tim Keller said one of the things that we learn as we grow in the faith is that the gospel is not just the A, B, C of the faith. It's the A to Z of the faith. Jesus is everything and we never get finished with Jesus. We never get finished with the gospel and move on to more profound stuff.
The gospel itself is really profound. So you have this authoritative word, you have this progressively given word and as well the author says you have this supreme and final or climactic word. Verse two, God has spoken in his son and the tense there is that of has spoken carries the idea of completion, not of continuation, not of an ongoing revelation but a once for all completed revelation in his son. And so Jesus is the climactic revelation of God.
It's not simply that the Old Testament leads up to Christ. It's that once we get to Christ God has not held back some greater revelation of himself to us. And so that's why the author will say how can you go back? How can you go back Hebrews, Jewish believers?
How can you abandon the Messiah now that he's come and go back to the old? I mean why would you do that? Why would you look anywhere else after all? Notice that the son is the appointed heir of all things through who got to make the world.
I mean no prophet of the Old Testament was said to be the heir of all things and the creator of the world but the son is. So let me just make a few points of application and then we'll move on to what he says about the son. One would be this, what we're saying and it's a reminder to us that if we have Muslim friends or neighbors as we think about ministry to Muslims and what Muslims believe, maybe you know that they claim to revere and have respect for Jesus as a prophet. And I don't mean to say that they don't.
They include Jesus among the prophets that they respect. However, you may know that they consider Muhammad the greatest of the prophets of God and they have a greater reverence for Muhammad believing he's the final prophet. He's the climactic prophet of God and the author of Hebrews is right here meeting us telling us no God is done with the prophets. Right?
The point of the prophets was to point us to Jesus and that when Jesus came he was better than a mere prophet. He was of course the supreme prophet we might say and the apex of prophecy and when he came he came not as a mere man but as the eternal son of God. And so it runs counter to what Islam believes and also runs counter to what Mormons believe which maybe you know is if not the fastest and the fastest growing religions across America today and basic to its teaching is that God didn't give us a full and final revelation in Jesus but that continues to give new revelation through the Book of Mormon and through Mormon Apostles. Right?
The writer of Hebrews is here to say to us no no you don't need to look anywhere else for anything else God's word to us has culminated in the revelation of Jesus. And then we might say this very personally that it may be for some of us what we think we really want and what would really help us is if like an Abraham or a Moses or a David we could get God to speak to us audibly. We imagine that if we could have just this moment that it would bring greater assurance to us or better guidance for us in life and I wanted to spell that notion among us. Think about the life of Abraham from his calling to go to the country God was going to send him to his death in burial was about a hundred years and over the span of a hundred years how many times did God speak to Abraham seven seven distinct times that's it it was not an everyday occurrence he didn't say meet me by the tree every morning at eight a.m.
No there were in fact complete decades without anything new where he was required like any Jew of the Old Testament like any Christian to live by faith and not by sight to trust what he had been told not to just sit on the edge of his seat hoping to get to be told something new and in fact I mean Abraham is an outlier I mean 99.9% of all Israelite never heard the Lord speak to them personally like he did with Abraham his friend they had to live as we said by faith and not by sight they had to live in light of the truth that had been given them and then wait in hope for that glorious day when we will be face to face with our Lord but but but do understand that we on this side of the coming of Jesus have so much more than Abraham ever did Abraham certainly looked to the day of Christ and he looked beyond it to the consummation of of Christ and the promised land and his eternal inheritance but we have that spelled out in a way Abraham never did we have far more revelation from God than Moses or David or Isaiah we have everything God wants us to have in this life and we need nothing else in order to be saved through Jesus and have the hope of glory so these words are supremely authoritative being from God himself they are final as they culminate in the coming of Jesus and they are sufficient for all we need and now here the writer turns from the revelation of God to why it is that Jesus is that better revelation and why therefore we should look to him and he's going to say five or six things about Jesus and I want to just take the first one as he puts it so again verse one long ago at many times and in many ways God spoke to our fathers by the prophets but in these last days he has spoken to us by his son whom he appointed the heir of all things and I think about that with me everything that exists exists for him Romans 11 says for from him and through him and to him are all things to be the glory forever now that does raise a question right if Jesus made everything as the next race says through him God made them universe then of course it already belongs to him as the rightful creator of all things why then speak of him as inheriting all things and of course it's because the writer is thinking of the second person of the Trinity and flashed the God man the eternal son of God become man to be the only perfect man there has yet been and the mediator between God and man and so to receive all that God has promised to men and women to receive it all on behalf of his ride and then so to share as the bridegroom with his ride all that he is inherited and you and I don't have to know a lot about inheritance law to understand that if Jesus is the heir of all things and we ask the question how can I participate then in his inheritance the answer is only if you're related to him only if he shares it with you and share he is willing to do you remember Paul second secretary is eight verse nine for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus that though he was rich yet he became for our sakes he became poor that we through his poverty might be made rich the author of course has in mind the richness of every spiritual blessing we have in Jesus forgiveness of sins adoption into the family of God the the the the down payment of the Holy Spirit guaranteeing our eternal never lasting happiness all the spiritual blessings we have in Jesus that are ours now but the author is thinking of of the inheritance of Jesus he inherits the universe and he shares that with us as well and so Romans chapter eight verses 16 and 17 says that those who believe in Jesus are co-heirs with Christ we are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ of all things and we are co-heirs simply because we're united to Christ through faith in Christ and because we belong to him because he delights to do so he shares with us as our elder brother all the soils of his victory and he shares with us as members of his bride the church all that the Father has been pleased to give to him the former attorney general of South Carolina Henry McMaster gave a speech at Washington and the university and told the following story as a young young college student interested in politics McMaster interned one year with former state senator uh strong Thurmond from South Carolina so one day in the senate offices in in Washington DC senator Thurmond told McMaster his intern and another young intern to join him on a trip to the White House to meet President Nixon and the senator had a meeting with the president he wanted these two young interns to come along so so he pulls up in his car at the gate of the White House and the guard stops the senator's car and he asks about who's going to be entering to see the president and senator Thurmond was given clearance of course he was expected but not the young interns they would have to wait outside they were told in the car they would not be allowed to go inside to see the president and senator Thurmond answered the guard by simply saying no sir you don't understand they're with me in the guard protesting but Thurmond stood fast sir they are with me and they go where I go and they win and that in some ways is a picture of our union with Christ we go wherever he goes we receive whatever he receives because he delights to give us the kingdom is your destiny caught up in his candy by trusting him maybe so let's pray father thank you that all things are yours Christ is yours that all things are Christ and so all things are ours in Christ help us to know what you have promised us help us to have that great hope of being the recipient of an everlasting inheritance as a co-air with Christ in Jesus name and prayer amen let's stand together and say