A Perfect Prophet

Good morning church family

As you could see when you walked in and as you look around, we are in the thick of the Christmas spirit here at Harvest

If you are a guest, my name is Stefan and I am the pastor fo preaching

Today is an exciting Sunday because it marks the beginning of our Advent sermon series

The word “Advent” means “Arrival” so during advent we celebrate the arrival of Jesus in Bethlehem 2000 years ago

He was prophesied throughout the Old Testament as the coming savior of God’s people

And so when he arrived in the manger, he arrived as that savior

But as every nativity scene makes clear… Jesus did not arrive in glory

He arrived in humility - leaving heaven’s throne, he emptied himself by taking on humanity

And while living as a man…

he lived a perfect life in perfect obedience to God’s commands,

and his death on the cross was a perfect substitutionary death that perfectly paid for all of our sins

and his resurrection perfectly vindicates his sinless life and perfectly displays that his death truly was sufficient for all of our sins

And because of all that he accomplished in his life, death, and resurrection, He reigns in majesty, exalted as Lord

This is what theologians refer to as the “humiliation and exaltation of Christ”

That he humbled himself and is now exalted

Ands so this advent series is called “Manger to Majesty: Celebrating the humiliation and exaltation of Christ”

And for the month of December, we are going to spend each week looking at how Jesus arrived in a manger, humbling himself, and accomplished all that was necessary for our salvation, so that he rightly is exalted in majesty.

We are going to look at how Jesus came and met three needs that every human being has:

1. We need truth.

When we don’t know what to believe, when the world is loud and confusing,

when our own hearts mislead us… we need to know what is true

2. We need to overcome.

We are weighed down by our own brokenness and sin

We try, we fail, we try again, we are powerless to change ourselves.

We need someone to free us from the power of sin

3. We need forgiveness.

We know we are guilty.

We feel shame.

We desperately need to be right with God,

but we cannot cleanse ourselves or undo our sin.

We need someone to make us right with God

These are deep needs that every person has…

Show me what is true.

Help me overcome what I cannot defeat.

Make me right with God.

And Jesus, in his humiliation and exaltation, meets these three needs perfectly in what theologians refer to as the threefold offices of Christ

Prophet, King, and Priest

In these three roles, Jesus meets the deepest needs of every human heart

Joel Beeke puts it this way:

“We by nature are ignorant and blind, but he is a prophet to teach us. We are powerless before our rebellion and sinfulness, but he is a king to overcome whatever is ill within us and to subdue all that opposes us. We are cursed by our sinful condition, but he is a priest to satisfy the wrath of God for us. The threefold offices of Jesus meet the threefold need of mankind. Whatever we need to live unto God and enjoy him forever is found in Christ… Christ is the answer.”

So this advent season, we are going to see how, in coming in the manger, Christ is the answer to our deepest needs

A Prophet who reveals truth,

A King who conquers sin,

A Priest who reconciles us to God.

Because he perfectly met these needs, he is our perfect savior

And now he reigns exalted as Lord.

So we are going to begin this week by looking at Jesus as “A Perfect prophet” in Heb. 1:1-4.

[Hook] As I mentioned before, one of our deepest needs is to know what is true

In a world full of differing opinions and countless voices…

we need to be able to cut through the noise and have confidence of what is true.

And the good news of Advent is that Jesus, in coming as a perfect prophet, is the truth

And if we will listen to what he says, we will know the truth

And the truth will set us free

And Heb. 1:1-4 shows us how Jesus is the truth of God spoken to us

So let’s give these words out full attention.

Hebrews 1:1–4 “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.”

These are God’s words for us as his people - May we have ears to hear them and hearts to obey them.

Big idea: Jesus embodies all that God has said and fulfills all that God requires. [9:00]

Jesus not only speaks the truth, he is the truth of God

So if we are going to be a people who are truly anchored on God’s word, it will be because we have embraced Jesus as the perfect Prophet:

Who came in a manger in fulfillment of God’s word

Who lived in obedience to God’s word

And reigns in majesty according to God’s word.

Because Jesus perfectly embodies everything God has said and fulfills everything God requires.

[Bridge] How does Jesus embody all that God has said and all that God requires?

4 things that Jesus does that meet our deep need for the truth of God…

As the Perfect Prophet…

Jesus reveals God’s word to us (v. 1) [11:00]

The book of Hebrews begins by reminding us that God is a God who speaks.

Hebrews 1:1 “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,”

And when you think about speech, it reveals things about the person speaking.

And that is true of God too: When God speaks, he is revealing himself to us through his words.

And in the Old Testament (long ago…), God revealed himself to his people through the words he spoke by the prophets

But notice the way that hebrews describes those words:

“Many times” (ongoing, progressive, not all at once

“Many ways” (diverse, not all the same)

He is giving us a picture of incompleteness…

Every prophet contributed a real piece of God’s revelation, but none of them were the whole picture.

Moses gave some

Amos gave some

Isaiah gave same

But no single prophet ever delivered the complete revelation of God.

They were all pointing ahead to something that would come and pull it all together

And the apostle Paul, in Colossians, describes the Old Testament as “shadows of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.”

The Old Testament prophets who spoke in many ways at many times were all pointing to Jesus who would bring it all together.

A helpful way of thinking about this is to think about a Mosaic

Mosaic art is where you have lots of individual tiles or images that when put together make a new image.

No single tile tells the whole story.

Only when they are arranged together do you see the final picture.

V. 1 is telling us that the prophets in the Old Testament were the individual pieces… But when you put it all together, the whole picture that they are describing is Jesus

And listen: Don’t take it from me… Listen to Jesus own words from Luke 24:44–45:

“‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures”

Jesus himself said that the Old Testament was about him

And by opening their minds to understand the Scriptures, he is showing that you cannot understand the Old Testament apart from him

The only way to know the truth of God’s word is through Jesus.

And listen: because God is a God who speaks, and because God is revealed from his speech, we can only know God by knowing his word.

and since Jesus is the one who all Scripture points to, we can only know God by knowing Jesus.

Listen: It is possible to admire Scripture,

to love the stories,

to know the commands,

and still miss the One they are all pointing to.

The Pharisees did that.

And Jesus rebuked them by saying John 5:39–40 “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.”

You have only truly believed God’s Word when you embrace Jesus as the perfect Prophet who fulfills all that the prophets spoke.

And this is a Christmas reality friends…

God is a God who speaks, all of God’s word points to the coming of Jesus, and when he came in the manger, he was embodying and fulling God’s word by revealing God’s word to us.

So celebrating Christmas, necessarily requires that we embrace the truth of God’s word that Jesus reveals.

Second… As the perfect prophet…

Jesus personifies God’s word for us (v. 2) [17:00]

It is not just that Jesus spoke in such a way to reveal God to us - Jesus embodies God’s word for us in his very person (His words, life, character… everything about him)

So he doesn’t just reveal God’s word, he personifies it for us

Look with me at v. 2

Hebrews 1:2 “but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son…”

The New Testament uses the word “days” to refer to the ages of the world

And in the biblical worldview, history is broken up into two ages:

The age before Christ in which his first coming was foretold and anticipated

And the age after Christ’s ascension that now anticipates his second coming

We live in that second age - We live in the reality of Christ’s resurrection and await his return.

And by calling it “the last days” it means that there is not a third age coming before Christ’s return

So v. 2 is saying, “There is not coming another time in which God will speak again… We are in the age in which God has spoken, fully and finally through Jesus.

This verse should make you very skeptical of anyone claiming to have a new word from God

v. 2 is saying, “God’s revelation of himself to us has reached its final stage in Jesus. There will be no more prophets who bring new words from God.”

Why?

Because Jesus is the personification of God’s word.

When the Perfect Prophet has come, the one who personifies God’s word for us, no further prophets are needed.

In the first age, the Old Testament, under the old covenant,

We read “The word of the Lord came to ______” (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, Ezekiel, Obadiah…)

They received specific, but limited and partial words from God

The prophets had the word of the Lord come to them…

But in Jesus, the Word of the Lord came to us

John calls Jesus “the word who became flesh” in John 1.

He is not merely a Messenger; He is the Message.

Everything that came before him pointed to him

And everything the person of Jesus is perfectly embodies all that God said.

So there is no need for prophets anymore, because the perfect prophet, Jesus Christ, has come

Any would-be prophet after Jesus would be a step backward

Now he makes two important statements about Jesus personifying God’s word for us

Look back at v. 2 - “Whom He appointed heir of all things”

To be an heir is to be the rightful recipient of a thing

And so by saying that Jesus is the heir of all things, he is saying that all that belongs to God, belongs to Jesus

This means that Jesus, as the personified word, has the authority of God

In the Old Testament, prophets spoke with God’s authority.

In Jesus, we meet the One who is God’s authority.

This means that Jesus words and life are not merely human

They are divine, bearing the full weight of God’s authority in his person.

But there is more…

“Through whom He created the world”

In Gen.1, God creates with his speech

He spoke, and it was brought into being.

His word brings all into being.

And Jesus is that word by which God created

Paul says Colossians 1:16 “For by [Jesus] all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities - all things were created through him and for him.”

And John writes in John 1:3 “All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.”

Jesus is the Creator in human flesh - The embodiment of the power of God that spoke all things into existence

So, putting these two statements together, he embodies the authority of God and the power of God, all as the personification of the word of God.

What does this mean for us during this advent season?

Christmas is the time when we celebrate the word who became flesh - The baby in the manger is the very authority and power of the word of God, personified in his humanity.

You cannot have Christmas without submission to Jesus as the embodied word.

To put it another way: You cannot reject any of the words of God and simultaneously celebrate true Christmas.

To resist Scripture is to resist the Son who embodies the word..

To obey Scripture is to obey the Son who embodies the word.

We reveal our heart toward Christ by how we feel about his word

How strange it is to set up a manger scene next to a Bible that is collecting dust…

If we are to truly celebrate Christmas this advent season, it will be by reading our Bibles so that we can know more fully the one who personifies God’s word for us.

Third, as the perfect prophet…

Jesus mediates between God and us (v. 3) [24:00]

If verse 2 shows us who Jesus is as he embodies all that God has said,

verse 3 shows us the second part of our big idea, what Jesus does as he fulfills all that God requires.

v. 3 unpacks for us one of the most essential truths of the Christian faith…

And if we miss it, we will not be able to make sense of Jesus as our savior

The truth that we cannot miss is that Jesus is both God and man

As the perfect prophet, he mediates between us and God because he represents us and God

This is what is known as the two natures of Christ - Human nature and divine nature, unified in a single person

For two thousand years, the church has confessed that Jesus Christ is one person with two natures:

Fully God - possessing everything that makes God God

Fully man - possessing everything that makes humanity human

He is not half God and half man.

He is not a divine being who only appeared human.

Nor is He a human who later became divine.

He is one person, two complete natures, united without mixture, without confusion, without division, and without separation.

And before you write this off as being unnecessarily complex or academic… This is not abstract theology…

This is the foundation of your salvation

If Jesus is not both human and divine, you cannot be saved

Only a Jesus who is both can save you.

Here is why

As fully and truly divine, Jesus represents God to us

As fully and truly human, Jesus represents us to God

As God to us, we can be confident that his life satisfied God’s righteous requirements

As us to God, his substitutionary death on the cross really can take our place

So he represents God to us, perfectly fulfilling the word of God as the embodiment of the word

And he represents us to God, perfectly taking our place on the cross

And he had to be both

Because he represents God to us, he can transfer his perfect righteousness to our account

Because he represents us to God, he can take our place on the cross and pay the penalty for our sin.

Because of Jesus two natures, humanity and divinity, he mediates between God and us.

So how do we see the two natures of Christ in v. 3?

First, we see his divinity

Heb. 1:3 “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…”

The radiance of the glory of God means that Jesus Christ is the shining forth of all that is glorious and good about God

Jesus makes that glory visible

And he says he is the exact imprint of God’s nature

meaning that nothing about who God is is lost in the incarnation of Christ

We sometimes have this idea that God the Father is the scary, unhappy God behind the loving and compassionate Jesus…

But that is not how Scripture describes him

He is the exact imprint of the Father and his displays the glory of God to us

To see Jesus is to see God.

To know Jesus is to know God.

Every prophet spoke about God.

Jesus shows us God.

This is why John says John 1:18 “No one has ever seen God, [but Jesus who is at the Father’s side] has made him known.”

Jesus, as the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, is truly, fully God in human flesh.

So he can mediate between God and us

But there is more…

Verse 3 moves immediately from His divine nature to His human work:

Hebrews 1:3 “…After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,”

Here is the hard truth: Sin is real and we all have it

When you and I fall short of God’s perfect standard, in word, deed, or thought

When we do things we shouldn’t and when you don’t do what we should…

We sin

And sin pollutes, and it profanes, and it separates us from a holy God…

And it requires payment… and that payment is death

And the only hope of not experiencing the wrath of God and the death of eternal separation from him is to be purified of your sin… to be cleansed

But a polluted garment cannot clean itself.

You and I cannot clean ourselves up… We need someone else to clean us

And Jesus, as fully human, became like us in every way, yet without sin

He lived perfect obedience to God’s commands, so when he died on the cross in our place, he truly represented us to God

And his death mediated between us and God the penalty we deserved

And we were washed of our sin

Because Jesus was truly human, his death could truly be in your place.

But if you’re like me… you might be asking, “But how can I know his death was enough for my sins”

Look back at v. 3 “after making purification for sins, he sat down…”

In the Old Testament, the sacrifices for sin continued day after day because the sins that demanded payment continued day after day

So the work was never done in the shedding of blood for the forgiveness of sins…

The priests never sat down, having completed the work

They stood in the service of the temple daily… because the blood of bulls and goats was not sufficient to fully and finally take away sin.

But Jesus, perfectly fulfilling all that God requires,

when he offered himself as a sacrifice in our place… sat down.

Because the work was finished.

When he offered up his final breath on the cross, he declared “It is finished:”

the payment for your sin and my sin was complete.

So when you wonder if Jesus’ death is enough for all of your sin…

When you fear that you haven’t done enough to earn God’s favor…

… remember this verse.

Because Jesus sat down,

the work is done.

You aren’t saved because you sinned less than the other person

Or because you did enough good in your life

You are saved because your Mediator is sufficient.

You are forgiven because your Substitute was perfect.

You are accepted because your Savior sat down, completing his mediating work.

Because the baby in the manger is the perfect prophet, the God-man, who mediates between God and us.

He represents us to God as a payment for our sin

He represents God to us, satisfying God’s perfect righteousness

And we are accepted and forgiven.

Fourth… As the perfect prophet

Jesus reigns as God over us (v. 4) [34:00]

If Advent is the beginning of His descent, verse 4 shows us the glory of His ascent.

If coming in human form was his humiliation, leaving heaven’s dwelling…

v. 4 shows us his exaltation, reigning in heaven as God over us.

“Having become as much superior to angels as the name He has inherited is more excellent than theirs.”

When he says, “having become” - That is not a phrase that says that Jesus became something he previously was not

The language is that he demonstrated what we previously did not know

An eternity past Jesus has always been God

Yet, in taking on human flesh , living perfectly in obedience to God, and defeating sin, and death, and evil on the cross, Jesus displayed himself as Lord to all of creation

The point that v. 4 is making is not the Jesus became something he previously was not

It is saying that all creation acknowledged what it previously had not

To make sense out of this… Think about a telescope

There are breathtaking galaxies and stars that are so far away that we do not see them and so we do not appreciate them.

They are there… But we do not acknowledge them because we cannot see them

… because they are so far away that we do not perceive them.

But when you look through a telescope, it brings the reality of those galaxies into view

The telescope adds nothing to the glory of the stars… It makes the glory they already had more visible to us…

That is the point here…

Jesus’ has been God from eternity past… but we did not see it.

Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection made his glory visible and now he reigns with his glory made visible to us

And so at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord

And v. 4 contrasts this glory of Jesus with the angels

Angels are messengers of God

v. 4 is warning us

Don’t lower Jesus to the level of his messengers

Exalt him to the level he truly occupies.

Don’t diminish the glory of Jesus by promoting things to his level

Submit to his reign as God.

This means that Christmas, more than anything else, is a declaration that Jesus Christ reigns over all

And our aim as his people this Christmas should be to submit to his reign, rather than allowing other things to compete with it.

Christmas time often exposes our hearts, especially how we have given our hearts to the wrong things..

When we lose sight of advent of Jesus because we are too focused on the busy-ness or the buying…

Advent should be a glowing reminder of the reign of Jesus

Who came in a manger, but now reigns in majesty

But too often we forget this because we are so distracted by everything else going on during this season.

Because at some level, we have diminished Jesus reign and elevated other things.

But when we remember that Jesus reigns as God over us, we can look at our lives this Christmas and ask:

“How can I live this Christmas in a way that says, ‘Jesus reigns over me?’”

And because Jesus is the perfect prophet, who embodies and fulfills God’s word, the answer to that question will be directly connected to his word.

This Christmas, we should let the word of Christ dwell in our hearts richly:

Hearing His word with eagerness.

Receiving His word with humility.

Obeying His word with sincerity.

Allowing His word to confront our sin, correct our errors, and reshape our priorities.

Letting His word define our identity and our relationships

[Conclusion]

We desperately need to be instructed in the truth

And Jesus came into the world as the perfect prophet who instructs us perfectly in the truth

He reveals God’s word to us

He personifies God’s word for us

He mediates between God and us

And he reigns as God over us

Jesus embodies all that God has said and fulfills all that God requires

And so he is for us the way, the truth, and the life

No one comes to Father except through him

And thanks be to God that he first came to us in that manger 2000 years ago.

Amen.

[40:00]