Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 1. This is, I guess, unique. This is the first time I felt what I feel in the sense that I don't, I have no desire to preach, but I want to preach at the same time. I don't know how to explain that, but I think everybody could go home and no one would necessarily need me to say anything. Hebrews chapter 1, beginning in verse 4 with me this morning. It says, Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they, For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. And again, I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. And again, when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him. and of the angels, he saith, who maketh his angels' spirits and his ministers a flame of fire. This morning I want to continue in our discourse from a couple of weeks ago when we began to speak about the superior privilege of Christ. We've looked at His person in verses 1-3, and now we have begun to discuss His privilege. Privilege is a benefit, it's a uniqueness, it's a right that is not common to any other. And it is inherent within the individual who possesses it. The privilege the apostle is speaking of here in this first part of this discourse is that Christ himself is the only begotten son of the Father. That is His privilege. No one else can claim that. You may be a son of God by faith, you may be a daughter of God by faith, but you are not the Son of God. There is just one. And because according to verse 2, He is identified for us as the Son, who himself, as the old Nicene Creed says, is God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made. This superior privilege of being the Son we see throughout chapters 1 and 2 in relation to the existence of angels. Chapter 1 and 2 talks much about angels, their nature, their ministry, their purpose. And the apostle takes great care to set Christ in comparison to angels. But he does so, so that the readers here, but also us today, will see that there really is no comparison between the two at all. Because humanity, all the way since before God destroyed the earth in a flood, has been tempted to worship angels. They've been tempted to peek into the things Jude writes about that we have no knowledge of and we have no business meddling with. Cultures all across the world have worshipped, and still to this day, worship angels. And if you go and you look in any bookstore across the nation, there is an unhealthy fascination with angels. And there's no fascination with Christ. And so the apostle, all the way back here, nearly 2,000 years ago, takes great care to show us why Jesus is so much better than the angels. He begins in chapter 1 through Christ's inheritance according to verse 4. This inheritance he was made, or he appeared in time, so much better or infinitely better than the angels. And we're told that he receives throughout chapter 1 four things according to this inheritance, and two weeks ago we looked at the first one, and that is a name. Today we will look at the second one in verse 6, which is worship. And then next Sunday morning and Sunday night, Lord willing, we'll look at the third and the fourth, a kingdom in verse 8, and dominion in verse 10. His name is referred to in the Old Testament indication of Him. It was revealed in the New Testament incarnation of Him, and it is resounded and will be resounded in the world to come in His identification, and this name is the name of Jesus. The name of Jesus, Yahweh, is salvation. was established for him alone in eternity past under the mandate of God, and it was manifest and given to him at his incarnation. It is reserved for he who alone is the only true Son of God. That's why Peter said, neither is there salvation in any other name. For there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. You can call, there are three angels that are named in the Bible. Michael, Gabriel, and Lucifer. And you can call on them until eternity ends and they won't do a thing for you. They can't help you at all. But whosoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And so this morning we've looked at his name, and so secondly I want to focus this morning on him inheriting worship, which we have been privileged to do here this morning. As the name of a person indicates their nature or their character, and it comes to be associated with the deeds of that individual, a name is a powerful thing. The identifying of an individual, a human, can be a powerful and a long-lasting historical thing. But worship also indicates something about an individual. A name indicates their nature, but worship indicates their worth or their value. If one is to receive worship, then that person must be worthy of the worship they receive. Otherwise, it's just a mockery. Now, the term worship is used as both a noun and a verb. As a noun, it means homage that is paid unto another, normally consisting of reverence, adoration, confession, prayer, and thanksgiving. And as a verb, it is the act of giving such homage to an individual or to a person and doing so in a way that is filled with respect and veneration of that individual. Now, sometimes we have misinterpretations of the concept of worship. And if you look around at much of the church world today, worship has actually become a business. It's become a business that you sell tickets to and that you can go and you can have a worship experience at this particular place. There are multi millions of dollars that are built upon the industry of worship. But worship is not something that is tangible. You cannot see it. It's not something you hold. It's not a physical object. Worship is not you lifting your hand up. It's not you clapping your hands. Worship is not you crying. It's not you shouting. It's not you getting on your knees or you laying prostrate on your face in the floor. That is not worship. Those can be indications of worship. They can be signs that the person doing those things is worshiping, but they are not worship themselves. In its simplest form and at its very essence, worship is simply an attitude toward the one who the worshiper deems worthy of their worship. It is an attitude toward who you think or who I think is worthy for me to lift my hands to or to bow before or to cry in the presence of. So often we get our ability to worship confused with whether or not we feel like worshiping. And worship has nothing to do with you, but it has everything to do with Christ. To quote a fairly well-known preacher, he said, Worship is not a response to how Jesus makes us feel. Instead, real biblical worship is a response to Jesus' worth regardless of how we feel. That is why it does not matter what is going on in your life, what you have been through, as Brother Jeff so adequately testified this morning, it doesn't matter if you have lost absolutely everything, if your health is wracked, if you have absolutely nothing but the bear shirt on your back and in your body you are utterly miserable. You can still worship. And it has nothing to do with your circumstances and it has nothing to do with how you feel. But it has everything to do with who Jesus Christ is to you. And either your circumstances are greater than Jesus or Jesus is greater than your circumstances. Which one is it as you approach his house or you approach him daily? We see this illustrated in two characters. We can see it in the life of Simeon. You remember Simeon in Luke chapter 2, God had promised this old man that he would not die until he saw the Lord's Christ. And that day when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus wrapped in those clothes into the temple on the eighth day to do for Him, the Bible says, according to the custom of the law, they met this man and this man was driven into the temple by the Spirit in an attitude of perpetual worship because he was perpetually, constantly looking for Jesus. How often? Do you look for Jesus? Do you live in an attitude where you are constantly looking for Jesus? Because if you do, I promise you, you will find Him. And then, weekly, when you come into His house, you'll find Him again. And you're not gonna have to make yourself feel good. You're not gonna have to, well, I gotta sit here for about five songs and try to get into this, and then there won't be any of that in your life. Because if you sought him all week, and you found him all week, you'll find him just like that when you get here. Anna is another person that they met in the temple. And she, we don't know much about Simeon's circumstances, but we know quite a bit about Anna's. The Bible says that she was of a great age. She was very, very old. She was at least a hundred years of age or older. And it said that she had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity. In other words, she had married as a young girl and she had lived with her husband for seven years and then tragically her husband died. And for 84 years, she had lived since her husband's death in the temple, serving God night and day with fastings and prayers. She lost her husband. She had no family. She had no children. She had some, according to the customs of the day, some dire circumstances because there was nobody to care for her. But she went to the one place where she knew she could find help. And for 84 years, she sat and waited with an attitude that it doesn't matter what happened to me, it doesn't matter what I may perceive has been stripped away from me in life. I'm going to serve God night and day in his house with prayer and fastings. That's why David said, I'd rather be a doorkeeper at the house of God. I'd rather have the privilege of being in the house of God than go anywhere in the world, see anything in the world, experience anything in the world, for a day in thy courts, one day in thy courts, he said, is better than a thousand. Think of all the things that you could do if you had unlimited wealth in a thousand days. Think of all that you could experience in a thousand days. And I promise you, none of it would even compare to what God has privileged you to experience this morning in His presence. True worship, true reverence, true homage is reserved and must be reserved only for one who is worthy of such reverence and adoration. The appropriate attitude of worship is and can be cultivated, and it cannot be cultivated by you coming in and deciding, you know, today I'm gonna lift my hand. I'm gonna wave it as hard as I can. I'm gonna clap louder than anybody else. That's not cultivating worship. That's not cultivating an attitude. But there are two ways in which you can cultivate it. The first one is worship develops with an understanding of the object's inerrant worth. And that's the entire point of the apostle in the first four verses of this chapter. He sets the stage by describing to us the Son of God, the infinite and indescribable Son of God in the best way that he could. And then he tells us in verse 4 that he's been given a name that's better than any other name in existence. So he's trying to get you, he's trying to get us to understand the worth of this object, this person that he then is going to command us in our text this morning in verses 6 and 7 to worship. When we understand that Jesus Christ is the infinite Son of God, and we begin to understand more of the value of His infinite character, and we begin to see more through the Scripture, through the lens of the Word of God, the glory and the beauty of Him as an individual, your worship will naturally begin to develop. You don't have to do anything to it, you just have to keep looking at Jesus. and the Holy Spirit will take care of the rest. But not only does it develop with an understanding of his person, it deepens with an understanding of the worshiper's lack of worth. Not only do you have to realize he is worthy of all of your praise, and he is worthy of an infinite amount of glory and honor, but you have to also begin to realize you're worthy of nothing at all. You and I are worthy of nothing but destruction and death forever. That is our lot. Bible says the lot is cast into the lap. You know what lot you drew when you were born into the world? Death, sin, and misery. That's your lot. That's my lot. That's the lot of every person who comes in to this world. But it goes on to say, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord. And he will give you graciously the chance that by faith in His name to remedy your lot in life. All the physical circumstances and all of the material and the temporal circumstances, they're not gonna change. But your eternal ones will. And at the end of the day, we were talking about this the other night, at the end of the day, when you are done with life, you can have absolutely everything. and die utterly miserable with nothing. But when you have Christ, you will die with grace and you will die with glory every time. Let me take you, turn with me to Romans chapter 5. Everybody in here can quote this, but I want you to understand what I mean about this deepening with an appropriate understanding of our lack of worth. Romans chapter 5 and find verse 7. This is kind of a hard verse to understand really what Paul is saying, so I want to break it down. He says, for scarcely Which means that the event that he is going to cite cannot ever be expected to actually occur because scarcely or hardly could I even find a single instance to cite for you. That's how rare this is. So for scarcely, what is the event? For a righteous man, the righteous man he speaks of is somebody who looks and appears to be morally just. A man who is distinguished for his integrity of conduct. One, however, who has no claim in your life for any kind of personal benevolence or kindness or grace or anything like that. And when we did our study on the book of Romans, I used this as an example to explain this verse and I'll use it again. Imagine if you heard of one of the Supreme Court justices of the United States of America, one of the nine, was in need of a kidney transplant. And you found out that you were an exact match for that person. For scarcely, for a righteous man, they are righteous in terms of the law. They uphold the law and everybody knows that. That's their job. Paul said there can't be found an instance to cite wherein one of you would decide to give up your life so that one of the Supreme Court Justices of the United States could continue living and upholding the law. Nobody in this room would do that. Even though we may agree with their policies and even though we may agree that the work they do is important and good, I'm certainly not going to risk dying on their behalf. That's what Paul has in mind in the first part of this verse. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die. Yet, he goes on to say, peradventure or perhaps, implying that I might actually expect this next thing to happen, for a good man, he says, a man whose character is kind and tender, capable of friendship with us. Think of somebody who has meant a lot to you in life. Think of maybe a parent, a sibling, a best friend, somebody you grew up with, somebody, a daughter, a son, somebody that you know that you love that you would be willing to lay your life down on behalf. And that's his point in the second part. For a good man or someone to whom we love, Some would even dare to die. There are people that everybody in this room would be willing to die for. But those people are people you know, and they are people you love, and they are people who have a deep and meaningful connection to you. They're not just somebody you meet out there on the street that appears to be a good person. But then he goes on to verse eight, and his whole point is that you and I, are neither righteous nor are we good. And therefore nobody in their right mind, Paul is saying, would ever choose to die for you or would ever choose to die for me. Would ever choose to die so that I might somehow be better than I am. Nobody in their right mind here would do that. In other words, if I knew that me dying could save one of you from sin, would I be actually willing to die on your personal behalf? Would you be willing to die on mine? He goes on to say, but God. But God. commends or demonstrates His love toward us, those who are not righteous and most certainly not good, in that while we were yet what? Sinners. While we were wholly unrighteous, wholly wretched, wholly depraved, and completely and desperately lost in sin, it was in that condition that God sent His Son to die for you. And when you begin to understand Romans 5, 7, and 8, and that begins to root itself in your soul, you will begin to deepen. your worship, your attitude of worship in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. You will begin to sing with gladness on your face. You will begin to sing to Him with tears in your eyes because the God of heaven cannot move on your soul and you sit there like nothing is happening to you whatsoever. And let me prove that to you. Let us assume for one split moment that Jesus Christ himself appeared where I'm standing right now in his glory. Do you think for a moment you'd sit there and go, it's Jesus. Absolutely not. You'd fall on your face in awe and in reverence and in exclamation and adoration of his character. You see, we have been lied to for years and years and years. saying that the only proper way to worship is to sit with a stiff back, no expression whatsoever, and I must just sit like this the whole time and worship the Lord. That is a lie. It's not in Scripture. You can't find anything to back it up. at all, but instead I can show you instance after instance after instance that says make a loud noise, a joyful noise unto the God of your salvation. Clap your hands! Come before His presence with singing! Come before His presence with thankfulness! Don't you waltz into His presence like He's your mother or He's your brother or He's somebody that is worthy of no kind of show of devotion or adoration whatsoever. He is the King of glory. Treat Him like He's such. We have been lied to. And one of the reasons we've been lied to is because we're scared to death that we will take it too far and we'll go into the realm of utter nonsense. like a lot of the world does. Let me give you some advice this morning. If you know Christ, if you are developing that understanding of His worth, and you are deepening your understanding of your lack thereof, and why He came and died for you when you were nothing and worthless, and all you seek is communion with Him, you will never have to worry about doing something foolish or stupid. You will never be led by the Spirit to embarrass yourself or to embarrass His holy and glorious name. It will never be a problem. Because as you saw this morning, when He really draws near Everybody just gets quiet and you don't have words to say. You're not up screaming and running around and jumping over this and flopping in the floor like a fish someone just drug up and left on the beach. You're quiet. And there's a reverence. And there's a hush. And you feel like if bowing on your face would do any good, you'd bow, but you know that you can't get low enough to honor Him the way He's worthy of. Don't let the world steal your joy from you. Don't let people who had well and good intentions lie to you and say, oh, don't you let anything show on your face. Don't you raise that hand. Don't you clap those hands. Because all they're doing is making you miserable inside the way they are. Raise your hands to Him. He raised them for you when they nailed Him to a tree. Raise them for Him. He cried blood on your behalf. Shed some tears for Him. And go get alone with Him and learn who He is. This is the attitude of worship that is shown to us here in the text. It begins in verse 6. Notice that it is a command that is given. And again, when he, this is God, bringeth in the first begotten into the world, he saith, he saith, he commends it. Now what's interesting about verse six is that the quotation given to us, the scriptural quotation that begins with, and let all the angels of God worship him, you won't find that in your Bible. It's a quotation of Scripture, but you will not find it said that way in your Bible. What's being quoted, and if you want to turn there and look at it, you can, or I've included it on the reference sheet that's in the back for you. But the Apostle is quoting Psalm 97 and verse 7. But the version that he's quoting from is not the version that you have and I have in our manuscripts. He's quoting from the Greek copy or the Greek version of the Old Testament scriptures which we commonly today call the Septuagint. And this is what the version of Psalm 97 and 7 says, Let all that worship graven images be ashamed, who boast of their idols. Worship him, all ye his angels. Now in the time of Christ and in the time of the apostles and in the early church, this was the version of the old Hebrew scriptures that they commonly used. That's why some of the quotations where you find them and Paul uses multiple of them throughout his epistles. Have you ever wondered why they sound slightly different than when you go back and look at them in the Old Testament? That's the reason why. It's because the source that he pulled them from, the source he was familiar with, or all of them are familiar with, was that Greek version of the Old Testament. And I found it interesting that they said that by this particular point in time, the ancient dialect of Hebrew or the ancient language of the Hebrews that the original scriptures had been written in was lost from history and barely anybody could speak it anymore, so nobody could read it. And so there were people who set about to copy those Hebrew scriptures into the common language of the people of the day, which was Greek, so that they could actually have a copy so that they could read it. So the slight variation here... is due to those translations. Our scripture or our Bible in Psalm 97 and 7 says the same thing with slightly different words. It says, Confounded be all they that serve graven images, that boast themselves of idols. Worship Him, all ye gods. It uses the word gods instead of the word angels, but in the context of the scripture, either one, it means the same thing. And the apostle clearly understood that the scripture was referring to the hosts of angels. So we have the command for the angels to worship the Son of God. John Owen once said that the command of God, or any command of God, is the ground and reason of all religious worship. Did you know that you were commanded to worship God? In Revelation chapter 14 and 7, it says, fear God, and ironically enough, it's an angel who's giving this message, fear God and give glory to him. For the hour of his judgment has come. Worship Him that made heaven and earth and the sea and the fountains of waters. You and I are commanded to worship the exact same way we are commanded to repent. Did you know that nowhere in the entirety of Scripture are you ever commanded to accept Jesus, but you are commanded to repent of your sins. Paul said in Acts chapter 17 and verse 30, but now God commandeth all men everywhere to repent. And so on behalf of the Lord Jesus Christ and his scriptures this morning, I say, repent of your sins. Failure to do so is direct rebellion against this holy God, and it is in direct contradiction to his commandment. And when we choose to disobey God and His commandment, then we will be judged accordingly thereby. I want to show you three things this morning, three simple things in these two verses, verses six and seven, regarding this command that is given to worship the Son of God. Number one, who it was given to. And I'm going to kind of go out of order a bit, but who it was given to, we know it was given to angels according to the second half of verse six. Angels are beings who have great power and great glory. We know they are ranked above humanity. We know they dwell in the eternal place and they themselves always behold the unbridled glory of the Father and the Son. But we've also established that they are those who in ancient times and in modern times today have been wrongly worshipped by men in every single culture that has ever existed. And the Apostle's point is that he's saying, look, God is saying to angels, to this class and race of gloriously beautiful, powerful, strong, eternal beings, you worship the Son. Because by definition, he who is worshiped must be greater than they who are commanded to worship him. Number two, why was it given to them? Why was it given to angels? Why is he treating this subject of angels so thoroughly? Well, by virtue of their status as a created being, Angels are, in verse 7, if you'll look, they're referred to as being made, and they're referred to as ministering or serving. They are created, and they are created to serve. And thus, they were given a responsibility, and that responsibility is obey the command of Him who created That's why in the beginning, Genesis 1 and 1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That means every literal thing outside of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost in existence, he created at that particular point in time, including angels. And that is why in the book of Job, we are told that when God created the worlds, all the morning stars, all the angels, the sons of God, shouted aloud for joy, because they were made, and as they sat in their primacy, and they beheld God and His wonder begin to speak the worlds into existence, they could not contain the glory that they saw, so they worshiped and they sung. to the one who created them and everything that is. So as a created being, their duty, their job has always been to uphold or to obey the commandments of God. And we see this in the command itself. God saith, he says, so that through this command he makes or maketh his angels spirits. Now the word spirits refers to their nature, their incorporeal nature. By nature they have no body the way that we do. They're spirits. And his ministers a flame of fire. If you want to write this down, but I've also included it on your reference sheet. This is a quotation from Psalm 104, verse 4, where it's quoted verbatim the same way that it's given to us in our Bible. Now, one ancient rendering of the verse that I read says this, He maketh his angels swift as spirits, and his ministers strong as a flaming fire. You remember in John chapter 3 when Jesus was trying to get Nicodemus to understand that being born again was not something he could himself could do, it was a work of the Spirit of God, and he says the wind blows where it lists, and you can't tell where it's coming from, you can't tell where it's going, you can just hear the sound. And how quickly can the wind blow through and be gone? How quickly can the wind pass by and be gone? Think of how destructive and how strong fire can be. How it can be so useful, but it can be so detrimental at the same time. And I want to give you an example of this from scripture, which I believe is what the apostle is referring to here. And I'm not going to go into great detail with this, but turn with me to Ezekiel chapter 1. Ezekiel chapter 1. A passage in Scripture that is, at the same time, incredibly informative and glorious to read, but so mysterious that we tend to read it real quick and move into chapter 2. And my goal is to not get into the ins and outs of this. I just want to point out a couple of things in a couple of different verses. Ezekiel, in this vision, is looking at a host of angels. Verse 4 says, And I looked, and behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire, there's the fire, enfolding itself, and brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof, or the midst of the fire as the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire. Now go down and look at verse 13. And as for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance, now he's describing the angels here, their appearance was like burning coals of fire. Remember, he maketh his angel spirits, his ministers a flame of fire. There's the fire. And like the appearance of lamps, that's light, it or the fire went up and down among the living creatures, and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning. And the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning." There's the spirit part. There's the swift as spirits part. Now, let me try to give you a description of what he's looking at. There's fire everywhere. There's wind everywhere. And in this fire, he can see the forms of these beings that we know are angels. They're cherubs. They have four faces. One is the face of a man, one is the face of an ox, one is the face of an eagle, and one is the face of a lion. And these four faces, the Bible says, looks every one of them straight forward at all times. And they're on fire and there's fire everywhere. And as the fire burns and consumes up and down these creatures, lightning strikes and lightning flashes. And Ezekiel can see every one of these individual creatures and every one of these individual faces flash and move forward. They're constantly moving straight forward as fast as a flash of lightning can go and return. And we've all seen lightning flashes light up the sky and it's a fascinating thing to watch. And sometimes if you're really, I don't know if lucky is the right word, fortunate, you can see a lightning flash that seems to just linger for a minute. But most of them, they streak and they're just done and they're gone. But it's like they leave an imprint on your eyes. The brightness of them leaves an imprint, but you can see the quickness and the speed with which they occur and then immediately they disappear. That's what he's trying to describe for you. And he's saying that these angels, these creatures, are every one of them constantly moving forward and coming back with their face always pointing straight forward as fast as lightning can streak, which is faster than I can snap. With every bolt of lightning that goes, they've ran and came. They've ran and come back. And it's a rather confusing description, and the reason why it's a confusing description is because Ezekiel is seeing something that no other human person has ever seen, and he has absolutely no idea how to write it down. He is absolutely, he is overwhelmed by the glory and by the sheer awe of what it is that he's looking at. And I can prove that. Look at verse 18. He goes in and he begins to talk about wheels, within wheels, and eyes all around the rims of these wheels. And look what he says in verse 18. And as for their rings or the rims of these wheels, they were so high, they were dreadful. and their rings or their rims were full of eyes round about them four." In other words, these creatures and these beings and these wheels and these faces and this fire and this lightning stretched, he says, from earth all the way into heaven. It was this monumental, gigantic vision of something that he absolutely could not figure out how to write down in words. And the glory of it was absolutely amazing. These are angels. And I bring you to this passage for this purpose. If you and I saw that, If we were privileged to see such a thing, you want to know what the first thing that you and I would think of is? I gotta worship that. That is beyond anything I have ever, I could ever even begin to imagine. And we would be very prone. to do exactly what John did, the beloved apostle in the book of Revelation. He fell down on at least two occasions at the feet of an angel and worshipped him because he was so overwhelmed by the glory that he saw. But the point of what the apostle is telling us in the book of Hebrews can be found in Ezekiel chapter 1 in verse 26. Above the firmament. Above this fire, above the wheels, and above the eyes, and above the lightning, and above the running, and above the coming, above this, there was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone. And upon the likeness of the throne was the appearance of a man. above upon it. And I saw, he says, the color of amber as the appearance of fire round about within it from the appearance of his loins upward and his loins or his waist downward. I saw as it were the appearance of fire and it had brightness round about it as the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain. So was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the lightness of the glory of the Lord and when I saw it, fell on my face. He didn't fall on his face at the angels, because there was somebody more glorious in the picture. There was someone more glorious in the vision than these dreadful beings, these high rings, the power with which they operated. He who sat on the throne above them That's who commanded Ezekiel's attention. And that's who Ezekiel fell before and bowed in his presence. So why, if you go back to Hebrews with me, why was it given to angels? To prove that even though they may be beings of great glory and great power and great might, there's somebody greater than they. And then lastly, when was it given to them? Go back and look at the beginning of verse six. When he bringeth in the first begotten into the world. Christ, the first begotten, when he comes in or when he came into the world, this command was given to these glorious hosts to worship him who comes into the world. Now, I want you to notice the word first begotten. This word, or a variation thereof, is used nine times in total in the New Testament. Seven, it is translated as the word firstborn. And then two times, both of them in the book of Hebrews, it is rendered first begotten. Now of the nine times used, eight instances refer directly to Jesus Christ and it refers to him in either one or of two conditions in which he found himself in. The first condition was human existence. And we see these two references with relation to his incarnation and his birth. Matthew chapter 1 verse 25, And Joseph knew her, that's Mary, not, till she had brought forth her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus. His being birthed into what we would consider to be actual human existence. Luke writes the same thing in chapter 2 verse 7, And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger. This is when Christ came into the world as man. This worship of him was fulfilled in Luke chapter 2 beginning in verse 10. when the shepherds on the quiet fields of Bethlehem, when the angels stepped out of the sky, and they said, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you, You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, laying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising, there's the worshiping God, and saying, what? Say it with me. Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill toward men. There's the fulfillment of the command that we're given here in Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 6. When Christ, the first begotten, came into the world, the angels were commanded and they worshipped him. But we would be tempted to stop there and think that that's all the apostle refers to in that phrase, when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world. But that's not all that he means. Because as I said, this word first begotten refers to Christ in one of two instances. The first was at his physical birth. The second was in his resurrection. Paul writes in Colossians 1 in verse 18, and he, speaking of Christ, is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead. that in all things he might have the preeminence. John wrote in Revelation 1 and 5 in his vision of Jesus, Jesus Christ who is the faithful witness and the first begotten of the dead. And so not only does it apply to him, and not only was it given to angels at his birth, but it was also given to angels at his resurrection. when He, after breaking the power of death by death, came out of death back into the world of life. And if you go and you study all of the resurrection accounts in the Gospels, you will find at least, and these are the ones that are mentioned, at least six different angels attending on that Sunday morning at the tomb. There's one the women encounter when they get there, sitting outside of the tomb on the stone. And Matthew's gospel tells us that he was an angel that was sent and with great power he rolled the stone away. Let me give you some advice, he did not roll it away so he could help a feeble and a weak Christ out of the tomb. He rolled it away so that those women could go look into the tomb and they could see two more inside that would tell them, who are you looking for? He's not here. He's risen as He said. Go before Him and go tell His disciples and go meet Him in Galilee. You see, the angel did not, when they came to the tomb sitting on that stone, he wasn't sitting with pomp and circumstance and grandeur, and he didn't say, hey ladies, I'm an angel. I'm an angel, look at me. I just rolled this massive stone out of the way of this tomb. Look at my glory. Look at my beauty. Look at my holiness. No, he said, go see the place where He lay. But He's not there anymore. Because they don't have anything to speak of, of themselves. Because they've seen Him. And the more you see Him, the less you'll ever be tempted to speak of yourself. Because you and everything about you and me and everything about me just pales to utter insignificance in the light of Jesus Christ. More angels met Mary when she returned the second time. She stooped down and looked and she saw two other angels, one sitting at the head and one sitting at the feet. And she backs out of the tomb. But the promise that the writer of the book of Hebrews here gives us, let all the angels of God worship Him. If there's more joy in heaven among the angels of God over one sinner that repents, how much glory do you think the heavens rang with when the birth of eternal redemption stepped out of the grave forevermore? I guarantee you there was more than six, they just didn't see the rest. But they were all over the place. And they were worshipping this risen Christ. Christ, we know, has appeared unto us in verse 4 so much better than the angels. Because he's been given a more excellent name than they. He's been given a name that saves you, that can save you. He's been given a name that can save me. He was given a name and I remember so well the day I called on it. And when I got up this morning, I called on it again. When you get up in the morning, you better call on it again. And every day of your life in this world, you better name that name that is above every name. And do Him honor. Bring Him worship. And bow down. Kneel, the Bible says, before the Lord our Maker. Give Him glory and praise. Give Him the glory due unto His name. And you may say, well, I don't know how. Nobody does, but go try. Go try. He's appeared so much better in His name. And now we see Him appearing so much better in His worth and His intrinsic value. I heard a preacher one time say that he was in the middle of preaching a sermon at a college, and a young man in the audience stood up and interrupted his sermon very snidely and asked him a question. He said, that this man dying for our sins somehow is able to save us? What makes this man able to die one time and somehow able to save and cover everybody from their sins? And he said, I thanked the man for the question and promptly told him to sit down. He said, and I answered him by saying this, what makes this one man better than you or anybody else? He said, if you take the entirety of existence, every cricket and every worm, every speck of dust, every drop of water, every human being, every ounce of beauty, every ocean, every star, every galaxy, every constellation, every single thing that God breathed into existence and you placed it all together on a scale and you put Jesus Christ on the other side, the scale would not even begin to tip in favor of this. He said that's what makes him worth more than you. Because he alone is the Son of God. Stand with us this morning.