God has given us his word that we might have it, that we might read it, that we might learn it, because when we do, it moves us to honor him. And today we're going to look at the book of Hebrews, chapter one, verses one through four. And hopefully, Lord willing, I plan to do a series in the book of Hebrews that will I think it'll change my life and I hope it will help yours. So let's now give attention to the Word of God as I read it, as God wrote it. Verse one, starting in verse one. God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds. who being the brightness of his glory and the expressed image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as he has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. May God add his blessing to the reading and the hearing of his perfect word. When I was in seminary, I had two courses in the book of Hebrews. One was by Simon Kistemacher, I don't know if you've ever heard of him, great man. Had seven children, an old Dutchman, Kistemacher of course, and R.C. Sproul. And I remember when R.C. Sproul came up, he came up to the podium and we were sitting there and he said, he said, you know, people always ask me if I were stranded on a desert island and I could only have one book, What book would I want? And he says, so I say, are you sure I can only have one book? And they say, yeah, you can only have one book. He says, well then I want a book on shipbuilding. But if I'm stranded there forever, if I'm gonna be there my whole life, the book I want is the book of Hebrews. And the book of Hebrews is a letter, or maybe a very full and smart sermon that was sent to a local church like us here at Reformation Bible Church. And those to whom the book of Hebrews was written were, well, they were Hebrews, they were Jews, they were Jews who were Christians. And that congregation was located almost certainly in Jerusalem, and it was absolutely made up of Christian Jews who were enduring many attacks. And I want you to get an idea of the things that they were up against and what they were going through, that maybe you can identify with at least some of them. First of all, they were under hateful persecution from the Romans because they would not bow to Caesar. You know, the Romans occupied Jerusalem and they insisted that once a year that everyone, no matter who you were, that you take a pinch of incense and that you burn it and you say, Kaiser est curia, Caesar is Lord. But the Christians could not do that. The Romans, they said that you can have any gods, you can have all the gods as long as you keep in that panoply of God's Caesar. But the Christians, of course their position was no God but Yahweh. No God but Yahweh. And for their unwillingness to just compromise that one moment once a year in that little way that would disappear and just vanish and burn up into the air and all go away, they were conscience-bound. to have no God but Yahweh, no matter what it cost them, even if it cost them their lives, and it did many times. And they were also, second tag, they were intensely hassled by their Jewish countrymen who were not converted to the Christian faith. these Jewish countrymen would have been members of, they would have saw these members of the Christian church in Jerusalem, if you were there, if you were one of these Jews who'd been Christian, they would call you a turncoat. They would say that you were apostate, that you were a heretic, that you being here, just being here and the things you've already said, that you're an idol worshiper, that you're a blasphemer, and that you're a defector to that new faith and you've left the old faith and they would really be down on you for that. And then there's a third line of attack, and this was not just in Jerusalem, this was everywhere in the Roman world, everywhere in the world, and it's still going on today, the attack on these Jews of the Gnostics. The Gnostics worked hard against objective truth. They taught that you could have special knowledge and that you didn't have to have objective written Revelation from God in fact that would in essence get in your way You could you could have it and use it if you would if you would ask the question, what does this mean to me? But God doesn't care what it means to you. God cares what the Bible means to him. And he wants you to know what it means to him so that then you can take what it means to him and apply it to yourself. He wants you to know his word, but the Gnostics, they wanted you to have this special knowledge, this personal knowledge. And we all know Gnostics. In fact, one of the most Gnostic things I hear all the time is I'm trying to make a decision, and I've been praying about it, and now I have peace. So what? I can take a value and have peace. It doesn't mean that I've got God's will. It doesn't at all mean I've got God's will. Peace is not an indicator of it being God's will. I'm going to tell you, I've done many things that I'm absolutely certain were God's will, that I was in turmoil over it, that I could... Do I really have to do this, Lord? Do I really have... This is going to be hard. This is going to be... People are not going to like me when I do this, when I say this. You know, Lord, I'm going to get to Abraham later in the sermon. You know, do you think Abram was at peace when all of a sudden he hears he's got to kill his son? Wow, you know? So God designed this letter to remind us and to encourage us of his foundational truths. But this book is not just for them. God saw it, saw to it that this book was delivered to us. And it was delivered to us for today. And not because we're in Jerusalem, because we're not. And not because we're under occupation and suppression as they were. Well maybe I'm gonna need to take that back, I don't know. Not because they were being persecuted for being Christians. yet, and not because we're facing physical attacks and maybe even death for living the Christian life, at least not today. You see, only God knows our future, but God gives us the scriptures in this book, which we're looking at, to prepare us in Him for anything. So God gave this book so that our beliefs will be based on the same things that God has always based our faith on, and that is Him and His truth, His truthfulness. The same God who wrote the Older Testament wrote the Newer Testament. The same God of the Older Testament is the same God of the Newer Testament. The same truth of the Older Testament is the same truth of the Newer Testament. And we are to be prepared through the scriptures for anything that God sends our way. You know, recently we've had this wonderful gift of listening to sermons by Ray on the book of Exodus. And we've learned so much about the laws and the rights and the history and the work of God in the midst of these people. As God established these Jews, Well, the book of Hebrews also reminds us of the one that all of Exodus is really about, the Lord Jesus Christ. The book of Hebrews ties all of the Older Testament and Newer Testament together and actually shows us that the Older Testament, that the Newer Testament is just a continuity. It just continues right into the Newer. So Hebrews is a book that's full of God's love, full of God's power, and God's personal concern, as you'll see as we go through it. And he has already shown his love and his power and his concern symbolically many times. So in Hebrews, God has given us this message from this inspired writer to teach us to know Him, His Son, His Word, and to cause us to be people who live the life that He wants us to live. So, I was looking at, if you look at your Bible, it starts out just before verse one and it says, it says, the epistle to the Hebrews. But you know what, that's not inspired, and neither is this, but I think we could actually, at Reformation Bible Church, we could subtitle it. We could say it is the epistle to the Hebrews and to the Christian congregation of Reformation Bible Church in Savannah, Georgia. The book of Hebrews is as much to us as it was to them. Now, who wrote this book? where usually we know without question who wrote the different books of the Bible. So who is God using to speak to us as this writer to the Hebrews? Well, you're probably ahead of me, but we actually don't know. There are many, many guesses about who wrote this book. The thing we do know is that whoever wrote it was known to be an associate with the apostles. We know that he was known by the church. We know that he was everything that was required to be in order to be a writer. So some people think it was Paul. Some people think it was Luke. Some people think it was Barnabas. Martin Luther thought it was Apollos. Some people think it was Priscilla. Interesting, my professor Simon Kistemacher, my New Testament professor at seminary, he thought it was Priscilla. Some people think it's Phoebe. Some people even think it's Clement of Alexandria. And others have been actually guessed. But when we read the book of Hebrews, and we see the New Testament theology that is there. The New Testament theology that's there actually matches precisely the theological emphases of the Apostle Paul. But then, we read the book and we look at the vocabulary, and we look at the syntax, and we look at the style of this book of Hebrews, and then we're absolutely convinced that the author could not be Paul. It could not be Paul because the style is so different. The author to the Hebrews uses words that Paul never used and he could have. So it's more like Luke's writings of the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. So there's a very interesting theory as to who wrote this book. And a lot of people, especially around the second, third century, they thought that Paul had written the book, but he had written it in Hebrew language. And then he had given it to Luke, and Luke had translated it into the Greek language, high and lofty Greek, and it was given to the church that way, it was given to this particular congregation that way. And I think that that's an amazing possibility, and I actually like it, but I can't prove it, so I won't tell you, it's a fact. But the truth of the matter is that we don't know who the human writer is, but we ultimately do know that God wrote Hebrews. God wrote Hebrews. So, we also know that the author, God knows, and whoever this human author was, we know that he knew his audience. He knew the people he was writing to and he knew them deeply and personally. And all through this letter, all through this letter, he knew things that they were doing. Things like, in chapter 2 we're going to read about them drifting into sin. In chapter five, the author's gonna point out, you people, you're neglecting the Word of God and it's showing in your lives. It's showing in your lives. And in chapter six, they were flailing in their doctrine. And when you're drifting, then you're in danger. When you're neglecting the Word of God, it's shameful. When you're flailing in your doctrine, then it's a dangerous situation and you can be attacked by the devil and those Gnostics that we've already heard about because you're not steady in what you are to believe. These people were also not going to church. Hebrews 10. They were lazy. They would rather roll over and pull the covers than go to church, even though it's the Lord's Day, says Hebrews 10. And they were also failing to encourage one another, which shows a lack of love. There was a lack of love going on in that church. And I really want us to be careful to never lack love in all that that means. So also we know that because all through this letter, he also identifies himself with these people. When he writes this letter, this author, he uses forms in the first person plural. He talks about we. He talks about us. He talks about our. You see, He is there with them. He is in it with them, like I am in it with you. And He says, He uses this phrase, let us, let us, let us, and let, And I want us to live for Christ, but I wanna go through these let us, not let us, let us, I'm a southerner, you might think I said let us, these let us verses. So listen to these, and if you're taking notes, you can write them down. Hebrews 4.1, let us fear coming short of God's test. Do you realize that God is testing us? Are we really in love with Him first, or anything else first? What is going on in our lives? What has our attention? What has our heart? What has our affection? What has our allegiance? Let us fear coming short of God's test. Hebrews 4.11, let us be diligent to enter that rest. You hear what he's saying? He's saying, I've given you grace, And I've promised you rest. But if you believe you've got grace, that grace is, you're saved by grace through faith alone, but that grace and faith do not remain alone. Work hard in your grace. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Don't work for your salvation, but work out your salvation in fear and trembling. So it says Philippians. Hebrews 4.14, let us hold fast our confession. Do you ever get tired of going through the confession of sin and the confession of faith? I hope not. But we need to keep those things in mind. We need to keep those things in heart. We need to practice those things because we're to hold fast to our confession. So says the book of Hebrews. And the author said, he's involved in this with them. Hebrews 4.16, let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace. When we pray, You know, people have come and visited our church, and there have been a few pastors through the years come here, and they'll say, how did your men learn to pray like that? They didn't sound like wimpy little children who have a want list in front of them. They actually pray vertically. There's very little horizontal, but there's a lot of vertical there. They actually act like they're talking to the true and the living God, rather than simply, you know. So let us come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace in time of need. Then we come to Hebrews 6.1. Let us go on to perfection. Does that scare you? Can you imagine Jonathan being perfect, Jonathan being perfect, Joanne being perfect? What does that mean? We're to go on to, and the word perfection is the Greek word teleos, which means go on to completion, go on to fullness. You know, I'll bet you that not one of us, including me, are living the full Christian life. We're not living it as full, because we like our ways. We like our thoughts. We just go about life any way that just, we're casual. But he says, go on to perfection. Go on and fulfill what I have designed you to be and to have and to do, because it's much better and much fuller than anything you can come up with. Hebrews 10, 22, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith. We can sit in our chairs, our pews right here, and we can know that we're as close to God as Jesus makes us, which means we're right there with him. And we can't get further away from him than Jesus will let us get. You see, in a good sense, you're stuck. You can't get away and you can't get closer. You're right there. You have fellowship by faith with God. And it should be one of the most thrilling things that you know about. Let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith. Hebrews 10, 23, let us hold fast our confession of hope without wavering. We talk about our confession, this is our confession of faith, and we are to have that without teeter-tottering, without wavering, without, and when we do question, what do we do? We look to the scriptures to be reminded of what God has promised, and we can set our minds and hearts on what God has promised. Hebrews 10, 24, let us consider, the word consider means understand, let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. Do you care about me? Do I care about you? Do you care about each other? Do you care about the person across the aisle, both ways? Do you care enough to invest yourself in their life so that you can help them grow in the Christian life? Hebrews 12, one. Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us. What are waits? Waits are those habits in our lives that hinder our lives. It can be getting up late, It can be drinking too much. It can be involvement in entertainment too much. It can be a hobby. It could be even golf. It could be a hobby that gets in the way of a weight that holds you back from what God wants you to do and be. Because those things can ensnare you. And one thing about weights in our lives, habits, bad habits in our lives, when people see them, they wonder, does that person really know Christ, love Christ, follow Christ, committed to Christ? We've got to be careful. We've got to live lives of deference. We live, even though we're, even though there are weak people around us and we may be stronger than them in the faith, when we live like we're libertines, like we've got liberty, liberty, liberty, then we can harm the people around us. We can harm the people. And also Hebrews 12, one, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Running takes work, right, Corey? Running takes work, right, Kurt? Takes work, running. Not walking, running, exerting yourself. And you're in a race, and when you're in a race, there are rules. You stay on the track, you stay on the path, you can't take shortcuts. So many of us want shortcuts, but we can't have shortcuts. And why can't we have shortcuts? Because God has a plan and a way and a direction for us to go, and any other way is the wrong way. Hebrews 12, 28, let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. You know, I want, I tell people that I wanna be a servant of Christ. But then, sometimes when people treat me like a servant, I can get offended. You ever thought of that? I want to be a servant, but do I really want to be treated like a servant? Well, I want to want to be treated like a servant. And I want you to want to be treated like a servant. Because we ought to be serving one another, and we ought to, it ought to be, if I were to ask you to do anything for me, and almost anything up to the point of sin, I would almost assume that you would do it, because I think you can assume that I will do anything for you that I possibly can. There's that give and take that we're to have, serving God acceptably and serving one another, except with reverence and godly fear, not in sin. Hebrews 13, 13. "'Let us go forth to him outside the camp, "'bearing his reproach.'" Now this is where we might be in today's world. We're to go forth to him, we're in Christ, we live our lives unto Christ. But then it says to go outside, outside the camp. It literally means go outside the barracks. And then it adds those words, bearing the reproach. Did the first century people kill Jesus because they loved Him? No. They hated Him. And He says if they hated Him, they're going to hate you if you're a true follower. And you can't sit in your house and love Christ. You've got to go out. And you've got to expose yourself to the danger. You've got to get outside the walls, outside the church, outside the house. And you've got to bear the reproach. Many times in the classroom, I have raised my hand knowing that I'm going to say something that is true according to the scripture, and it's going to honor Christ, and these people are going to sneer at me. And I know I'm made different, but I enjoy it. It's okay. It's okay because it's for Him, it's not for me. He must increase, I must decrease. And the last one of these is Hebrews 13, 15. By Him, let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God. That's what we do in worship. We come together and we offer the sacrifice of praise to God. And how do we do it? We do it through Jesus. We do it in Jesus. We do it in faith. We do it according to the scriptures because that is what is required of us. So the writer of this book, was very pastoral, and he was involved with the people of his congregation. Now, there's gonna be a lot more to this book, but God has come to his people, God the Son, God has had his work recorded and preserved so that we and future generations need never be victims of the world around us or the lies around us. We need never be victims of empty imaginations, vain imaginations, even those vain imaginations of ourselves which we're prone to. We only do that, we can only not be victims of vain imaginations when our minds and hearts are full of the truth about Christ and the Father and Holy Spirit. And we only do that when we realize how magnificent He is. And we can only follow Him when we understand how magnificent He is. When we realize that in this life, that He is ready, willing, and able to hold us up, to sustain us like He sustains the universe, which we're going to talk about next week. That when we realize that He is so great, then we can gladly and freely and in faith and in joy and in peace let Him have His way in our lives. Now, He sovereignly has His way in our lives anyway. But He's teaching us sometimes that when we try to hold back, that our holding back is actually not good for us and not honoring to Him. He is the sovereign God who has come into time and into space. He has come into our time, your time. He has come into our space, your space. He is in us, He is with us, and He is for us. And in the book of Hebrews, Abraham, interestingly, is mentioned 10 times. 13 chapters, he's mentioned 10 times. And specifically, he is, I think, an example of how we should live our lives. When Abraham, you know, was facing a very wonderful situation, God had come to Abraham and said, Abraham, or Abram, it was Abram at that point, Abram, I'm gonna give you a child. I'm gonna gift you with a child. We've just had five children born, so we like this. But Abram was 100 years old. Sarah was beyond childbearing. And Romans 4 tells us that when Abram heard the news that he was going to have a child at the age of 100, it says this, he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but being full of faith, was fully persuaded that what God had promised, he was also able to perform. You see, Abraham knew that God could do His holy will and would do His holy will. God will fulfill anything that He says. So later, when Abram heard that his son, his only son whom he loved, Isaac, that child that had been given to him earlier, that he staggered not when he wasn't able to have this child, but God was able to give him a child, when Isaac was now all of a sudden to be put to death, what was Abram's response? Abram staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief. Why? Because he knew God. He understood that he belonged to God to do with whatever God wanted to do. With no limits, with no abridgements, with no holding back. Abram's answer was, yes Lord. Oh, yes, Lord. Oh, yes, Lord. And your answer ought to be, yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. You know, there are many people who live their lives staggering around, off balance, hopeless, even pitiful. You have problems in your lives, don't you? You don't have to shake your head anyway. You all face difficulties. So the real question is, when you face those difficulties that are bigger than you, those life difficulties, those death difficulties, those unthinkable difficulties, will you stagger? Or will you have faith? Will you trust God? His way? Will you trust God partially His way, partially your way? That won't work. Or will you go all your way? The book of Hebrews will help you know to go His way. Always His way. It's a magnificent book that reveals the beauty and the strength of the one to whom the Old Testament referred in all of its prophecies and foreshadows of salvation. Jesus is ours. But don't forget that we are His, and we're gonna learn that in Hebrews, amen?