Hebrews Overview

MAP

Mr X: Is our confession (Jesus Christ our LORD) enough?

Jesus: Yes!

Our confession is a confession of his journey

Our confession is an affirmation that his journey helps us

Joel: Know that you have all you need to persevere

PREAMBLE

INTRODUCTION (Relevance Persuasion | Resonate)

WE HAVE ALL MET THEM BEFORE

(A) Fresh grad. Keen. Fall.

(A) mid manager. Life. family.

(A) mid life crisis. achieved lots. question life choices. commits adultery. leave family. leaves church.

We have all me them before.

(A) Another big name moral failure. Philip Yancy. American author: What’s So Amazing About Grace? Where Is God When It Hurts?

8 year adultery. Sobering.

Not the first, Ravi Zacharias, Jonathan Fletcher, Joshua Harris. Some fallen away. Some big moral failure.

Do we have enough to make it to the end?

No progress or change in the Christian life.

(A) wake up. read (or fail to read). pray.

Commute on bike, car swerves into me. Immediately angry thoughts start to bubble up.

At work. Interact with a college. Annoying. Immediately negative thoughts start to surface.

Bible reading in the morning. Any use?

Consider growth in godliness over the year. Some progress. But old habits still there.

Feeling dry, distant, and drifting.

Try to read. boring.

Try to pray. Like talking into the air.

Is there something more?

Do we at the Barge have enough to keep going?

Speaking with Callum. I’m conscious that things are quite uncertain at the Barge.

Uncertainty is the killer of ambition.

change is the erosion of stability

(A) and perhaps you came here today, not knowing what to expect.

Do we have enough to keep going?

CONTEXT (Orientate | Situate)

Raise stakes

Let’s imagine we don’t have the word of God. No bible.

No physical copy. No YouBible app. No bible gateway.

All you have is four words. The confession we all made as Christians.

“Jesus Christ our LORD”

No bible. No NT writing to refer to.

Just four words. Just the acknowledgment.

O.R.

Because this high stakes situation is not too dissimilar to the readers of Hebrews.

Probably in Rome

Heard gospel from some friends.

Man called Jesus. Died. Rose. in fulfilment of Jewish expectations.

Consider and believe.

Eventually confessed “Jesus Christ is my LORD”

But not bible. No scripture. No NT writings.

Just raw, unadulterated, naked confession that “Jesus Christ is our LORD”

Is that enough to keep us going? Is our confession enough?

This is what the book of Hebrews is all about

These Christians were in danger of drifting away. Dull. distant. drift.

How will they keep going to the end? Does their confession “Jesus Christ our LORD” provide enough resources

to fight the drift

to battle temptation

to keep enduring.

Answer by the preacher of Hebrews: “Yes!” “100%”

Those four words of your confession “Jesus Christ our LORD”

Contain far far

more resources

more riches

more treasures

Than we ever begun to imagine.

There is more in these four words “Jesus Christ our LORD”

To keep you going to the end.

To stay the course

To finish the race

(PAUSE)

Is our confession enough? The answer is yes. More than we can imagine.

But is this true? Does merely four words provide enough to keep us going?

The preacher wants to persuade us through the course his sermon, over 13 chapters.

So to experience the full gloriousness of this truth, I want to encourage you to keep coming back.

Today, overview.

Appetiser. Taster. Wet your appetite. To persuade you to come back next week.

V - Put in your calendar. Invite a college.

There reason why.. firstly. is because our confession is a confession of his journey

ARGUMENT (Texture | Unity | Coherence | Development)

OUR CONFESSION IS A CONFESSION OF HIS JOURNEY

(A) Anyone been on a zipline before?

Slovenia. Parents. Europe’s longest zipline.

Tell you abou Mom. Family of Js. Elderly. Mom. Adventurous and not at the same time. Need a lot of persuading. Does it? tell all her friends.

Needed a lot… of persuading. Unsure. Doubting. “Come on mom. It’s not that scary. You can do it”

Finally does it.. “Wooo!!” “Did you take a video?” Shares it with the rest of the family and friends.”

Over dinner with friends.

Zipline - enjoyable.

Clip in. step off. zooming. cliff. “ZZZzzzz sound”

across the gorge. views. stunning. river just below you. zipping across you see the rapids just underneath you.

slow down as you reach the other end. stop.

(L) here’s the thing. When we confess, “Jesus Christ our LORD” we implicitly believe that Jesus has taken a journey, a journey that is something like a zipline.

Jesus’ U-shape journey

The eternal son of God in heaven. Clips in. Jumps off.

Comes down to heaven as a man.

Dies. Rises.

Finally. Ascends back into heaven.

Big U shaped journey.

How?

Consider the first word of our confession: JESUS

You know the lyrics. Fresh off Christmas.

(A) Mary was that mother mild, Jesus Christ her little Child.

Luke 1:31 “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.”

Do you see? When we call Jesus… “Jesus” we are affirming something historical.

Before the incarnation. He was the the eternal son of God

At the incarnation. The eternal son of God inherited a name. And the name is Jesus

Jesus - the first stage of the journey.

Consider the second word of our confession: CHRIST

Do we understand what is the meaning of the word Christ?

Mistaken for surname.

Instead - title.

Christ (Greek) or Messiah (Hebrew) = promised King.

Prophets of old spoke of the one to come who will be born from the line of David.

The king that is promised.

And ultimately, Jesus was confirmed as the Christ, the king.

at his death on the cross and his subsequent resurrection.

Mark 8:31 “the Christ must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.”

Jesus - the name he inherited at birth.

Christ - ultimately confirmed at his death and resurrection.

^ - implicit in the first two words “Jesus Christ” is a journey

The son of God. Clips in. Zips down. enters this world.

Receives the name Jesus.

At the cross and empty tomb, affirmed to be the Christ.

A geographical movement. A history journey. Heaven down to earth.

(L) but that’s not all. the final word in our confession, “LORD” also implies a journey.

LORD as in eternal Son

What does the word “LORD” mean?

it means Lord - master

also mean LORD - as in YAHWEH. The Divine name of God.

Therefore: “Jesus is LORD” is to say that Jesus is God. He is the bearer of the Divine Name.

The Eternal Son is also the Creator God.

He was there from the beginning.

Hebrews 1:10 “And, “You, Lord, referring to Jesus, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands;”

Jesus is God. He was always God, from the very beginning.

His journey did not begin on earth.

He was there before the heavens and earth were created. Way up there.

He laid the foundation.

The heavens are the work of his hands.

(L) But he not only start from up there. he has also returned back to heaven.

LORD as in ascended Davidic King

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

Describes Jesus as sitting down at God’s right hand. That concept of sitting down at God’s right hand come right out of Ps 110.

Where the ascended king is described to be reigning and ruling in heaven at God’s right hand.

Psalm 110:1 “The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand”

To confess Jesus as LORD. It is to recognise that after the resurrection Jesus has ascended into the heavens to sit down at God’s right hand.

Do you see? To confess Jesus as LORD.. is to recognise

Both his eternal pre-existent state

And his exalted state after his ascension

Summarise: What have we seen?

When we confess “Jesus Christ is LORD”

We are confession that a journey has taken place.

Eternal son, the LORD

Becomes a man in the incarnation, inherits the name Jesus.

Died and third day rose again. Crown as the Christ.

Ascended into the heavens. Sit at God’s right hand. as the LORD.

(A) Our confession is recognise as if Jesus clipped onto a zipline. Jumped off the cliff.

Line, not straight but a big U.

down into earth.

down into the hades.

Up in resurrection life.

Up into the heavens, ascended and exalted at God’s right hand.

This journey is fundamental to the person of Jesus

Also fundamental to the entire book of Hebrews.

This journey forms the structural skeleton to the entire book.

1:1-2:4 - Overview of the Journey of the Son

2:5-4:16 - The incarnation

4:14-7:28 - The resurrection

8:1-10:25 - The ascension

10:26-13:19 - The _________

Chapter 10-13, one more stage. Won’t tell you. Need to come back.

Our time in Hebrews, unpacking what each stage of the journey means.

V - If you call yourself a Christian today. Whether you realise it or not. This is what you confess, and this is what you believe.

No one can say Jesus is LORD except in the Spirit.

And in your confession there are far more treasures, resources, provisions that you can ever imagine.

OUR CONFESSION IS A CONFESSION ABOUT HIS JOURNEY INTO THE HEAVENS

(pause)

(L) But here’s a question.

Sure. Our confession may be an confession about his journey… But what has that God to do with us?

What does his journey have to do with me, when I’m feeling dry, drifting and doubting.

Final word of our confession comes in.

We’ve discussed, Jesus. Christ. Lord.

Final word - “our”

You see, the confession is not

“JESUS CHRIST IS LORD” but

“JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD”

He not just the LORD

But he is OUR LORD.

Implicit in the word “our” is the sense that he helps us

He is our LORD and we are his.

Jesus Christ OUR LORD.

2. OUR CONFESSION IS AN AFFIRMATION THAT HIS JOURNEY HELPS US

Hebrews 2:14–16 “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham.”

(A) At a carol service, I spoke on these verses. Did you notice that v14-15 refers to Christmas?

Jesus shares our flesh and blood. He partook of the same stuff. Skin. bones. Haemoglobin. DNA.

But I want to focus on v16.

Not angels that he helps but he helps the offspring of Abraham.

HELP - word is fascinating.

In original. Help literally means - take by the hand. Take hold. grasp.

Same word comes up in C8 describing God’s rescue of Israel.

Hebrews 8:9 “not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.” #

The phrase “took them by the hand” is the same word in the original as the word help in chapter 2.

Picture. God, like a Father, holds Israel’s hand. Leading them out of slavery into the promise land.

In the same way, 2:16, it is not angels that he takes hold of. but us.

He takes us by the hand. To lead us to safety.

Not safety from the slavery of Egypt.

But safety from the slavery of death and the devil.

His journey helps us.

(A)This will take some imagination but bear with me. zipline. slovenia.

imagine. Zipline. I fall off the edge and fall into the water and start shouting for “Help!”

What does my mom think? In that moment she can only think of one thing

Her poor boy is drowing. Caught by the rapids. Drowning. tossed to and fro. All her fear dissipates away.

What does my mom do?

She clips in. Steadies herself. as I watch her get carried by the current.

and then Jump… ZZZzzzz as she swing across the river and just as she passes by..

she stretch out

She grabs me by the hand.

Pull me to safety.

(A) This is how the journey of Jesus helps us

We are all drowning.

Tossed to and fro. Doubting and drifting. Carried away by the current of life.

Worse. Dragged down into the depths by the deceptions of the devil.

What does Jesus do?

In that moment he can only think of one thing. he thinks of us.

he clips in. Jumps down. from heaven entering our mess, sharing in our flesh and blood.

but as he comes down he stretches out

He grabs us by the hand.

Holds us tight.

It is his grip. Not ours.

Even when our hands slip. He holds on to us.

And pulls us out of death, into resurrection life and to bring us to where we belong.

(PAUSE)

OUR CONFESSION IS AN AFFIRMATION THAT HIS JOURNEY HELPS US

MAIN POINT (Summarise | Wordsmith | 5 Syllable | Alliterate)

REINFORCEMENT (Amp | Hearts Burning | STAR)

I hope that this year may be a year a growth. But it may very well be a very challenging year.

You may face really challenging circumstances.

Temptations of careerism

Temptation to compromise your integrity

Temptation of an extra marital affair

Temptation to grow spiritually numb or simply to drift.

And you may wonder at those moments… do you have enough to keep going as a Christian?

In that moment.. remember your confession “Jesus Christ my LORD”

Implicit in that confession are abundant resources

It is a confession of his U-shaped journey. Incarnation. Death. Resurrection. Ascension.

It is a confession that his journey is our journey. as he takes hold of us. Pulls us to safety.

It is a confession that he is our high priest in heaven. helping us today.

Because when we are drowning...

What we do not need is

more demands. to tell us to swim harder or do better

more philosophising. to reflect endlessly, to debate, discuss,

more burdens. to pressing us down and weighing us down dragging us down.

What we need is an outstretch hand. To grab onto us. Hold us tight. pull us to safety.

And if you can say “Jesus Christ is MY LORD”, there are more than enough resources to help you.

(PAUSE)

LAND (Worldview | Us)

Over the course of the term the preacher of Hebrews will be unpacking each stage of the journey of Jesus.

And each stage has a particularly way of helping us.

Again I really want to encourage you to mark out Wednesday lunchtimes in your diary. Make it a priority. Invite a college and come.

NC - Not convinced? fine.

But I will say - looking for help. Guarantee, no better person than Jesus.

But for rest of us. Great encouragement is that you have more than enough to keep going.

Wrong. not more than enough.

Abundant and great resources for your journey.

As we head back. verse to remember. from the end of the book

Hebrews 13:6 “So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?””

This new year may be a year full of challenges

The weather is bleak. The year has started with a groan.

Any positive effects from Christmas has already worn off.

In those times.. remember the treasure in our confession “Jesus Christ our LORD”

And confidently say “The LORD IS MY HELPER.”