Hebrews 1: Jesus is Superior

Intro

We are starting a series in the nt book of Hebrews this morning.

The book of Hebrews is intended to encourage Christians in times of uncertainty and trial. The writer of the book acknowledges that God had spoken through many means and ways (prophets) but now speaks through His Son.

The book of Hebrews recognizes Jesus is above everything else. And he goes through great pains and detail to show us that. He does so because everything else will clamor to rise above Jesus.

Jesus Himself, as we will see has the seat of authority, power, and primacy. There is no other name and no other one before HIm. In fact He is in all things and in Him all things hold together.

But that presents a problem. Because JEsus is already in the seat that everything and everyone else wants in your life, including you and me.

Everyone wants to be the largest and looming thing in your life. In fact, your own self wants that seat. And it is a constant battle for whats best. Everything is jockying for the position of best in your life and we would be silly to give just anything that comes our way that place.

We need to consider (as we will see in this series) what it means for Christ to be more than, for HIm to be the One who is superior and worthy of glory. And why that matters for every moment of your life.

Whatever is best in our lives is what we will gravitate toward. It’s what we will give creedance to, glory to, authority to. It is what we will worship. And everything around us wants us to worship.

I think headlines online, whether in papers, journals, articles or so on, are a great picture of the current state of our culture. They give us a little picture of how we think and what we think about. 

Because what we think about is captured in headlines that try to grab our attention every moment.  

They reflect how we think because people who write headlines are trying to take hold of us.

One of the things that headlines love to do is to tell us that they have found the best thing, best secret, best option, best life hack possible.  That they have finally discovered something at it’s peak, it cannot be beaten. 

I like to collect them when I find them because when you really look at it, you see how silly it is.  This one might be my favorite. 

Bobby Flay's 3 Tips for Perfect Scrambled Eggs Are Life-Changing

A Life changing egg. Perfect scrambled eggs.  

Now I like scrambled eggs just like many people. I even like Bobby Flay.  But it may be a bit of an oversell that scrambled eggs are perfect and that they will change my life

What this headline, and most headlines do, is reveal on one level something ridiculous.  But also, something very true about our own searching. 

We all want to know what is the best.  We are looking for the best. 

Because who doesn’t want to know the best? If you’re looking up recipes for scrambled eggs and you see eggs that are life changing, why wouldn’t you believe? Why wouldn’t you stop there?

We look for the best because we ultimately want to rest in it.  We want to stop searching.  we look for the best because we want an end to our searching

If you have the best recipe for scrambled eggs, you stop searching.  You use that recipe every time.  You don’t ask yourself, is there a better option? This is called maximizing.  Where we have to define everything we do by the best version of that thing. 

This is a normal condition for humanity. We have an infinite desire and search infinitely to attain to it

The reason we are still searching for the best is because whatever we have found so far is not sufficient. So it makes sense we create these ultimate things. These ultimate categories of things. 

That is the context that we hear the opening lines of the book of Hebrews. 

We are going to look at the first four verses that state, in a relatively short time, a lot about who JEsus is.  

The Scriptures this morning show that not only is Christ the best but He also delivers on what it means to be the best. Christ in the introduction to this book is shown to entirely indentify as God. Jesus is not just a good teacher, He is God Himself. And to know God is to see JEsus.

There is often a lot of mystery surrounding spiritual things these days. A lot of searching and seeking and hoping. What is it we are hoping for? That we would find some answers about what is out there. That we would find some answers about our own lives, will we be ok? That we will find some answers about what we can trust? Who is trustworthy?

We will find that Jesus is the most in any category and can be trusted to deliver on what He says.

In the first four verses we see Christ as the reflection of God who has always been,

The impression of God who will always be

And the action of God who will always save .

 God Sounds like someone we can recognize: Jesus who has always been

Hebrews 1:1–2 ESV

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.

The way we understand God is through His son, who has spoken to us.  God is not a silent God, He is One who has come close and has revealed Himself according to His means and His ways. 

Through the Son.  

There are always voices we are faced with. Always voices we contend with.  The Scriptures say that God had used many voices, the anscestors and prophets.  But then we were given one Voice, the voice of the Son. He spoke and became the one voice we are to listen to

He had spoken through prophets and through signs.  Now He speaks through the Son. God reveals HImself through the Son. Not our idea or our way. But God revealing and making Himself known through the Son. Jesus is not just realized as someone with good ideas or someone worth listening to. 

We see that the who has always been is communicating through the person of Jesus. Jesus himself is the voice of God.

We need to know this because

It matters where people come from. Because where they come from helps us to understand what to do with what they say.  can the people that tell us to trust them actually be trusted

I had a friend who was in a middle eastern country a few

months ago.

He was with a small group of people and was in the bazaar

in the center of town. Often times shop keepers there will

call you from their entrance and invite you in. They will

lead you to their store so that you can look at what they

have to sell.

Well and individual called to them from the street corner

and invited them to follow him to their store. So they did.

They followed one block. Then turned corner. Another

block. Away from the crowds and people. Another block.

My friend whispered to the other person he was with.

Should we keep following him? Not wanting to be rude

they followed another block. Another turn. And finally after

about 15 minutes they broke off with the man because

they were in a strange city in an unfamiliar part of town

with a man they didn’t know.

We learned pretty quickly then on every voice can be trusted. We have to continually ask the question can what this person is saying be relied upon?

We are told right from the front with who Jesus is.  Who we are dealing with.  Not just another voice in the crowd.  But the final voice.  The real voice.  The reflected voice of God. 

Jesus is revealed not just as a wise prophet or able person, but in this passage is revealed as God’s Son. Jesus is shown to have a specific identity, as One who belongs to God.  

And as we will find, One who is God, God who has always been. Christ is eternally with God and is God.

God looks like someone we can recognize: Jesus who will always be

Hebrews 1:3 ESV

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,

The son has everything the Father has.  The son does what the Father does. The son reveals what the Father looks like.

Jesus tells His disciples if you’ve seen ,e you’ve seen the Father

John 14:9 ESV

Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

Christ is revealed as God.  If you want to know what God is like, look to the Son. This word Impressed or “expresses” means a stamp that has the engraved character of a king. Like a stamp where you would engrave a coin.  The imprint of the coin is the exact “correspondance” of that stamp.  If you look at the imprint you see the stamp. There is no difference. There is no distinction. 

This is good news for us because there are a lot of people and things in the world trying to attempt identity theft from the Father. Trying to take the role of the Father who can not only handle your concern but manage it as well.

But that is as far as they can get. They can only get to identity theft. They cannot act as the father, or support as the father, or care like the father. Only Jesus can.

Look at John 1:1-4

John 1:1–4 ESV

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men

People are trying to vy for that place in your heart. And it is the place that we are often all to willing to give up to lesser people and lesser things.

Don’t give up the place reserved for God in your life. Once you give it up to someone else or something else, it is amazing how quickly they move in. How quickly they take over, how quickly they rearrange the furniture. How quickly they disregard you.

People make God-sized promises but have the patience of a turnip. We do not have the supernatural attention to care for a soul. We can’t be God ourselves nor can anyone else take that position.

This is the problem of the human condition. We have all the best ideas in the world and best intents but we do not have supernatural attention.

And our souls, the seat of human meaning, needs supernatural attention.

Jesus who has always been and will always be is not going anywhere quickly. He can take care of your soul

but you have to let Him. Remember He has supernatural patience . He is waiting for you to invite Him in and kick out whatever squatter has taken His residence

part of why JEsus warns us in MAtt 23 not to give anyone the role father. We will easily give ourselves over to things, ideas, people.

Right off the bat we are shown who Jesus is. He is the radiance of God’s glory. The exact impression of Him.

Are you looking for God? He is found in JEsus. Looking for how it all ends? Look to Jesus. He has always been and will always be. He is eternal. He has sat down at the right hand of the Father.

Looking for someone who can actually care for and sustain the weight of your soul? No one else

God acts like someone we can respond to: Jesus who will always save

Hebrews 1:3–4 ESV

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.

We are invited in at this point.  We see Christ’s identity in the previous verses.  But here we see that Christ acts on our behalf. 

He does the work that we haven’t been able to do.  

Christ is restored to highest honor.  He sits at the right hand of God in Heaven.  

This passage shows the ultimate identity of Christ Himself.  That He is unsurpassable and unbeatable. And that when HE acts He acts on behalf of humanity. He doesn’t flex, He doesn’t strong arm. He uses His authority and strength to free and to offer.  He acts with power but He acts perfectly within that power. 

Christ has strength, strength to command. Strength to uphold. Strength to reveal.  Strength to save us from our relentless need for better. He alone is better. He proves it by rescuing us from our own brokenness and sin

He takes our lives and forgives and frees us

He is not just holding it up, He is sustaining it, breathing life into it, carrying it forward.  Taking us with Him. Inviting us, as being the greatest, to Build and construct our lives on a better hope

Driving to Oregon.  

Grew up in WI, lived in Ny, the cornfields of OH. 

Started driving west 

we drove long days.  Drove late into the night.  A few days in we were heading near Billings MT and it was dark.  Couldn’t see anything dark.  So we found our hotel and got some sleep. The next morning I woke up and looked out the window to a view kind of like this

MTN picture. 

All of the sudden there were mountains everywhere. They were always there I just couldn’t see them. Seeing those mountains completely altered my understanding of place.  I knew where we were headed, what direction and where to look.  Keep your eyes west. 

The first chapter of Hebrews is setting our eyes to the reality of who Christ is and what He has done. The book intends to want to shape all of our imagination around the work and person of Christ. 

Like waking up and looking out the window and seeing mountains, we are called to see Christ in every image, every window, every situaiton, as the mountains. They were always there, we just need to see HIm. 

And seeing Christ as the largest, and biggest part of the landscape allows us to orient to Him.  

Everything other than Him, whatever our definition of best is, will ultimately have to come crashing against the reality of the superiority of Christ. It will have to compare itself to the mountain offered in Hebrews.  

Our role is to realize that everything else that calls itself best has no place in that role. Only Christ . Our role is to trust Him as the One who is all together superior