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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?
Intro to Hebrews: Connecting the OT and the New
Series The Book of Hebrews
The book of Hebrews is one of the most important books in the Bible. It provides the connections between the Old Testament promisesand the New Testament record of the fulfillment of them through the Lord Jesus Christ.
| Sermon ID | 78241717505716 |
| Duration | 32:26 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Hebrews 1:1-4 |
| Language | English |
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