Hebrews chapter 1, this evening we'll read once again, verses 1 to 4. It's a kind of overture to the whole book. And once again we want to ask the question, what's Hebrews about? It's about the supremacy of Jesus over anything and anyone.
And so the sufficiency of Jesus for all our spiritual needs, and therefore the necessity of holding on to Jesus. Now let me invite you to consider the Jesus worth holding on to from verses 1, 3, 4. This is God's holy and inspired work. 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, 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 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, having become as much superior to angels, as the name He has inherited is more excellent than theirs. Amen, let's pray. Father, open our eyes to see wonderful things in your word.
Show us Jesus this evening, and so settle our hearts in trust in Him in Jesus' name. When William was real little, just under a year, occasionally he'd get a hold of a pencil at home. And of course no parent wants a kid playing with a pencil. You can poke your eye out.
The easiest way to give up his grip on the pencil was to offer him the iPhone. His eyes would light up. I don't know if it was a little brain. He was thinking as his pulse raced, you know, he cooed.
I could post selfies on Facebook. I could call my friends from the youth group. I could plot my world travels. No, I don't know that was in the head, but the body language would speak.
Drop the pencil, reach for the iPhone. Why do I say that? Well, Thomas Chalmers in the 19th century, a Scottish pastor, wrote a sermon which he entitled, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection. That's the title in which he points out that we never lose our hold on one love until a new love comes along.
And he says the only way to dispossess the heart of an old affection is by the expulsive power of a new affection. And so our hearts can be drawn from one affection to another, but they will never lose their longing to cling to something. We all cling to something. This is like Calvin said, our hearts are like idol factories.
We always are making up something to worship, something to value above all, and we will love something until a new and more beautiful and more believable love comes along. And until that happens, we will cling to idols. And so what we all need is to see that Jesus is the more beautiful and more believable one. And so to a people tempted to turn back, as the early hearers were, to turn from Jesus to idols, or to turn back from Jesus to Judaism, or to abandon Jesus for the sake of the approval of family and friends, or to part with Jesus because of pressure.
He says, Jesus is infinitely better and more beautiful than any false God. Don't go anywhere else. Look at him and other loves will fade. And so we want to look at him and he shows us Jesus here in verses two and three, who he is and what he's done.
We'll take what he's done next week. But today just who he is. And notice he says five things about Jesus. Verse two in these last days, God has spoken to us by his son whom he appointed the heir of all things through whom also he created the world.
He's 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. These five things. Let's just spend a little time meditating then on Jesus.
First of all, we noted this last week, so more briefly, God gave all things to Jesus as the inheritor of everything, who he appointed the heir of all things from him and through him and to him are all things. And we remembered last week that of course, if everything belongs to Jesus, then how can you and I participate in any of God's inheritance? It's in union with Jesus. It's by being bound to Jesus.
So such that Jesus shares with his people his inheritance. And we saw that in Romans chapter eight, 16 and 17, where it says that those who believe in him are co-heirs with Christ. We are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ in union with Jesus. And he delights as our elder brother to share all good things with his younger brothers and sisters.
He delights as the bridegroom to share all good things with his bride, the church. And I was thinking of the letters of the book of Revelation, the seven letters, very famous letters in Revelation 2 and 3. And if you just look over or listen in at the astonishing promises, he makes to his people, just in two of them, in Revelation 3, verse 12, to the church in Philadelphia. Among many other things, he says this, the one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God.
Never shall he go out of it. And I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven. And I will write on him my own new name. So he shares with his people.
And then Revelation 3 to the church at Laodicea, verses 20 to 22. Listen to this, behold, he says, I stand to the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me. The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my father on his throne.
You're a co-air with Christ. You will co-rule and co-write with Christ. Because everything belongs to him and he shares with his people. Our destiny is caught up in his destiny if we trust in him.
That's the first thing. But then notice also why Jesus is beautiful. God created everything through Jesus. Notice that language.
He's the creator, and in verse 2, through whom also he created the world. In other words, the one to whom all things are ultimately given is also the one through whom all things are initially made. He's the co-creator, we might say, with the Father and the Spirit. And he is in the language of Scripture and the idea of Scripture.
He's the agent through whom God made the world. And the writer here is taking us back to Genesis 1. He's having us think of Jesus being there, the eternal Son of God. Being there, we've got spoke and there was light.
1 Corinthians 8 or 6 says, yet for us there is but one God, the Father from whom are all things, and for whom we exist. And one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things. And through whom we exist. He's the agent through whom God made everything.
Now, it may be worth remembering here that some people believe that evolution answers all the questions of how everything got here. And then, of course, it doesn't. I mean, how did the first thing get here? You've got basically three options and only three options.
Option 1, at first there was nothing, nothing at all. And then something popped into existence. Something came from nothing. Everything, in fact, came originally from nothing.
But of course, it's incredibly difficult to believe that billions of galaxies and stars and planets and animals and people came ultimately truly from nothing, that they sort of just pop into existence out of nothing. That everything came from nothing. And for no particular reason, it really takes a massive leap of faith against reason and into the dark to believe that and few do. And so, but then you're really left with one other option, which goes in two directions.
That there has always been something or someone, either a thing in it or a person or someone, a you. If it's an it, then there has always been some always existing, self-existing blob of some kind with all the potential power, the universe stored up inside itself such that the blob exploded at some point and flung muck everywhere. And that's where everything came from. But the blob in this view, the something, isn't it.
It doesn't relate. It's not personal. It doesn't care. It doesn't think.
It doesn't make plans. It doesn't love. It's just an it. This is Carl Sagan's view.
The universe is all there is or ever was or ever will be. But then of course, there's a third view and it's that there's always been someone, a you, a person, not a blob, but God who is eternally existing and self-existing and all powerful. And this person brought into being what now exists. Now you may find it tempting to think that the big band explains it all instead of God.
The blob existed in the blob exploded and flung muck everywhere. But then you have to ask where did the blob come from? Why did it explode? What happened before the bag?
What was there before the big band? Science came into that question. Darwin doesn't answer that question. Evolution doesn't answer that question.
It's interesting. Richard Dawkins, one of our generation's most famous and outspoken atheists and evolutionists, when pressed to explain where this world we now live came from, this world of intelligence and creativity, as well as love came from. He didn't say in an interview that it just exploded into existence from nothing, nor that it exploded into existence at the big band from a primary blob of unintelligent, unloving material. But actually the entry game was that it was possibly the universe was possibly seeded by aliens.
And of course, the thinking there is how do you get intelligence? How do you get love? Well, something outside seeded it into the world. But then of course it raises the question, you make the aliens.
That's the same answer. Molecular biologist, Sir Francis Crick, the famous discoverer of DNA, also gave, possibly seeded by aliens. I understand that Dawkins said, walked back his comments on that. But certainly begs the question, doesn't it?
If it's an it, where did intelligence and where did love come from? And if it's a being, but not a deity, where did those alien beings come from? Are they all powerful creator aliens? And so that is to say that the Bible stands up to rational inquiry.
The Bible's view of the world, the universe and everything in it is not illogical. It actually gives a satisfying answer. Before there was something, there was someone that someone is God and Hebrews says that someone is Jesus, the eternal Son of God. He made the world.
The world here, or universe, doesn't simply mean the physical world only, but the word is ages, not cosmos. He's the creator of all things, including the periods of time and the passing of time. In him we live and move and have our beings as the scripture. He knit us together in our mothers womb and we are fearfully and wonderfully made.
And he even made us and the times in which we live. And so the writer here is reassuring, reassuring these early Jewish believers in Jesus that they haven't left the very first verse of the Bible when they believed in Jesus. Jesus is the one for whom God made the universe. Then thirdly, Jesus is God's glory.
Or God's glory is seen through Jesus. He's the radiance of the glory of God, verse 3. He's the shining out of God, the manifestation of God's weightiness, heaviness and beauty. It's not just that he reflects the glory of God.
It's not that the glory of God bounces off of him as though he's the moon to God's Son. That's not what we're saying. He doesn't just reflect God's glory, but he's the radiance of God's glory. Our sons raise our beams of light and heat and through these rays of light and heat we see and feel the glory of the Son.
And Jesus is so to speak the light and heat of the glory of God. And so that's why you could say in John 14, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me, which is also to say, you do come to the Father if you come through me. And so he goes on, if you had known me, you would have known my Father also.
And from now on, you do know him and have seen him. And Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father and it's enough for us. And Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long and you still don't know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.
The ancient Nicene Creed picks up on this idea when it speaks of Jesus as God's eternal Son and it speaks of him as God of God and light of light. And we actually sing this in our Christmas carols in December. Second stanza of Ocomo, you faithful. We sing God of God, light of light, low, he abhors not the virgins will vary God.
Be not not created. Ocomo, let us adore him. So if you want to know what the Father is like, the writer is saying, look at the Son. He's the radiance of the glory of God.
But he's more than that. God's nature, fourthly, is perfectly manifested in Jesus. Notice verse 3, he's the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. By exact imprint, he uses the word for a stamp used to make impressions.
The stamp is pressed on wax. The design of the stamp is reproduced on the wax. The one is the exact replica of the other. In fact, the word can be used for both the stamp itself and the reproduction produced by the stamp.
And so the word began as the word for stamp, and by implication it began to be used for the impression it created. They're identically corresponded exactly. And so what he's saying is this, that Jesus is the exact imprint of what? Of God's nature, he says.
And the word nature here means the very essence of God. The essence or nature or substance of God. Whatever it is that makes a thing a thing. Or a person, a person, or God, God, whatever that is, that is Jesus.
He not only reveals what God is like, he is himself God, revealing God. And so here we have words concerning the Orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. The Bible teaches that Jesus, the eternal Son, is co-eternal with the Father, co-creator with the Father, and the same in essence, the same in substance, the same in nature. And get distinguishable from the Father in his person.
Jesus is God, the Father is God, and we might also add the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God. And yet Jesus is not the Father and the Father is not the Spirit and the Spirit is not the Son. They are one in essence or nature, yet they are three in persons.
And they don't make your hand explode thinking it through. We can't fully comprehend it. Somebody once said about the doctrine of the Trinity. If you can fully comprehend the Trinity, then if you have it got small enough for you to completely understand God, then you don't have a God big enough worthy of worship.
But these are the things that have been revealed. When you see Jesus, you see God as he is. In him the po-pholus of the deity dwells bodily since Paul and Colossians. In God there is, we might say, as many have others said, no un-Christ like this at all.
And so when you are reading the Gospels, when you see Jesus with a leper pleading at his feet, if you are willing, you can make me clean, then you are seeing Jesus, full of compassion, reach out to him, touch him and say, I am willing, be clean. You are seeing God in his compassion and power. And when you see Jesus at a well meeting a woman, a scandalous reputation, morals, and he offers her living, watered, accwenched her thirst. She sought to satisfy a man.
You are seeing God's kindness and his generosity. And when you see Jesus angry with the Pharisees who burden people with duties they can't bear, you see God in his anger. When you see Jesus weeping over Jerusalem because of her hard heart, because she killed the prophets and was going to kill the Son who wouldn't repent, you see God weeping in grief. And when you see Jesus crowned with thorns, spat on in the face, nailed on a cross, suffering, what he does not deserve for our transgression, you see God's love.
And God's way of salvation because Jesus is God. And then finally the writer points us to this. God's creation is upheld by him. He is the sustainer of all things.
Notice this language. He upholds the universe by the word of his power. So he reveals God and he is God and he not only made all things and inherits all things, but he holds all things together. And he bears them along, which is the meaning behind the word.
He carries them along, sustaining them along towards their appointed goal and end. So it's not to be thought that Jesus is kind of like Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders, just bearing the weight of it, but that Jesus is actually carrying everything along to its appointed end. And so it's here for us is a reason to marvel and to find great joy in Jesus, but also perhaps to fear. There's fear covered here when you're dealing with Jesus, how?
Well, classic story, and we've looked at it in Matthew, Mark tells the story to remember that Jesus was in a boat with his disciples. And these are commercial fishermen who know the wind and the waves and the dangers of being on the sea. And it's evening and they're crossing the lake and a great wind storm arises and the waves are breaking onto the boats and the boat is filling and Jesus is in the stern, sleeping at the back of the boat. And they wake him and say, teacher, don't you care that we're perishing?
And he awakes and rebukes the land of the sea saying peace be still in the wind ceased. And there was a great column and he said to them, why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith? Now, how can you tell it to stop if it wasn't blowing at his command in the first place?
How does he have power to make it quit if he isn't actually in charge of the whole of it? But of course he is and the disciples begin to realize this. And they asked, well, if they were filled with great fear and said to one another, who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him? It's kind of funny in one respect.
The fear they had when the waves were about to capsize the boat was nothing compared to the greater fear they had when they realized that was sitting in the boat. Did you see them with their eyes wide open? Making connections in their minds? I mean, he just says peace and the wind stops.
Be still and the waves go calm. The point we're getting at is this. This is our Jesus. The molecules in our body hold together because he tells them to.
Your heart continues to beat. Because he tells it to, until the day he tells your heart to stop. And your life is in his hand. Every breath that you take, he sustains you in the taking of that breath.
And his intimate sustaining of all things brings him then uncomfortably close to everything we do. Even the very hands and eyes we use in our own personal transgressions, iniquities and rebellions, he sustains with life as we use them. Not because he approves of the behavior, but in his purposes he is sustaining us. He is, as others have put it, God is handling sinners sinlessly.
And so of course, what arrogant foolishness on our part, that even in the very moments of our rebellious Jesus is right there with us. But then of course, what grace and patience this points us to, that he has sustained us all these many years because he is good and saving purposes in mind, which he is accomplishing and bringing to the appointed end for all who trust in him. So Jesus then is either with you and for you, or he is with you and against you. In the first case you are unspeakably safe and in the other you're like a rat trapped with no hope.
But if you put your hope in him, you will find that your creator was crucified for you, that he who began to get working you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ. Nothing can afford his promise. And so for us, is it fear that weakens our faith? He's got the whole world in his hands.
He's got the itty bitty baby in his hands. He's got the mamas and the papas in his hands. There's no hope for us if he doesn't. He has us in his hands.
But if we ignore him and marginalize him and shove him away and run for idols and fully and finally say no to him. Well, we still cannot escape him. We might try to our own destruction. But of course the writer is saying, but I have better things for you.
He has better things for you in the gospel. He offers you pardon with God, peace with God, in inheritance in the paradise of God. Won't you receive those things from him? See how superior is?
What other gods can compare? What profit of God was so exalted and are you wondering if it's worth it to follow Jesus even if you might suffer from him? Well, it is. Are you getting distracted from him by some earthly pleasure or earthly attraction?
We have to take closer attention to him. The writer is saying he's God. He's the radiance of God. He's your creator, your sustainer and the provider of your inheritance.
So trust him, worship him. It's right to do so. And let the adoration of him wet your appetite for heaven when you will see him face to face. Let's pray.
Father, thank you for the gift of your son. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you loved us and came and walked among us and gave yourself for us. And we ask that you would help us by the spirit to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. In his name we pray.
Amen. Amen. Let's stand together and sing.