Sermon Tone Analysis

As always it is a privilege to be given this opportunity to bring the Word of God to this congregation.

Today, we are embarking on a new series entitled “Better”.

There is a drive in all of us to want the “better and best” things in life.

While we all do experience seasons of contentment or even complacency, we all want better.

Parent’s want better for their children than they had it growing up.

We want better health.

We want better living conditions.

We want better tech.

Two years ago I told my wife that I wasn’t going to upgrade my phone until the one I had at the time was in pieces.

Then flash forward to this past September and the newest model of the iPhone came out.

I could see that it was better than the one I had before, but I still wasn’t going to get it.

And then they dropped some new release upgrade deal that was basically giving me the brand new device for almost free.

I thought a deal can’t get much better than that!

So I went on and upgrade.

In our world there is a constant search for better.

The timeline of better technological progress may be increasing exponentially, but humans have always been in the search for better.

The Romans developed a system for indoor heating as early as 350 BC.

It was accomplished by basically containing a wood fire in the crawlspace and letting the hot air flow under the floor and through the walls.

This system lasted a while, but now we have better systems for heating that may be based on similar principles, but are safer and able to managed even from smartphones from miles away.

I bring up all of this to illustrate the idea that humans have always been on the search for better.

We have made some improvements on systems and processes, but even those improvements continue to be evaluated for more growth potential.

The question is, why?

Why do we have such a desire for better?

You might say that’s a silly question.

We want better because better is better and if what we had was better we wouldn’t need it to be better.

But I think that the desire for better is deeper than just recognizing room for improvement.

I think our desire for better is based upon the reality that humans innately know there is beyond this earthly existence.

Ecclesiastes says that eternity is placed on the hearts of all people.

CS Lewis argued that nothing in this world completely satisfies because we were created for another world.

He said, “If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud.

Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.”

We are stuck in the search for better because in the deepest parts of our hearts we know that better exists.

But what if I told you that the better we all search for has been revealed?

What if I told you that you wont find better in technological advances, health improvements, or financial success?

What if I told you that you won’t find better at all, but in reality “Better” found you?

For the next few weeks, we are going to be walking through the beginning of the book of Hebrews to see how Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, the messiah, the Christ, is better beyond all measure from anything we could ever imagine.

If you would, open your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 1.

Today we are going to be looking just at the first three verse, but throughout this series we will be seeing how Jesus is absolutely better than anything else in a variety of ways.

Today, we will see that Jesus is the Better Source.

We’ll explain what that means as we go this morning.

Before we look at our text we need to know a little bit of background on the book of Hebrews.

It was written sometime after the ministry and ascension of Jesus Christ and before the fall of the temple in 70 AD.

This text was written for a Hebrew community and addresses three groups within that community throughout.

It primarily talks to Hebrew believers who were struggling to live out their faith in Jesus Christ while the culture they were situated in opposed Christianity.

But it also address those Hebrews who had an intellectual affirmation of Jesus without a true love of Jesus.

And lastly it addresses those hebrews who were not Christians and were fully opposed to the movement.

The author is interesting in that we really do not know who the author was.

There have a been a myriad of suggestions as to who wrote it, but it is fitting that this author is unknown.

The entire point of the book of Hebrews is to lift up and point to the all sufficiency and worthiness of Jesus Christ.

Since we know that all Scripture is breathed out by God, inspired by the Holy Spirit, I am in agreement with one commenter (MacArthur) who suggests referring the author as simply, the Holy Spirit.

With that in mind, let’s begin walking through what the Spirit is saying to us about the superiority, “betterness” if you would, of Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 1:1–3 (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.

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.

This is important truth for all of us to understand.

There is so much going on in these verse that I hope I can even begin to scratch the surface of the goodness the Spirit is teaching us here.

The first thing I want to draw your attention to is in verse 1:

God Spoke

God spoke.

It is crucial that we understand that the only reason we know anything is because God spoke.

That’s it.

God, in His great love and mercy, spoke to His creation, He spoke to the people He created in His image.

Why is this so important to know?

Because if humans are left to their own devices, they will never see beyond the natural world.

It’s like in Lewis’ analogy, we may sense that there is something better, something divine beyond what we see in the hear and now, but without God’s divine intervention all we could do is create fantasies.

Sin clouds our vision and Satan has blinded the minds of the unbelievers in such a way that they do not see the light and truth of the gospel (2 Cor 4:3-4).

We see how sinful man misses the mark of understanding and worshipping the one true God all throughout Scripture.

Take a walk through Romans 1. Paul shows us how sinful man has exchanged the Creator, GOD, for the created thing, idols.

He says in 1:18 that sinful mas has suppressed the truth of God by their unrighteousness.

And so denying the truth of the authentic God, man builds its own fabrications.

They rely on their own ability to digest the cosmos.

This ultimately gets us nowhere other than stuck in the cycles of false religion.

We convince ourselves that the proper order of rituals will somehow unlock a temporal pleasure.

Religion is man’s failing attempt to discover God.

The truth of the matter is that man is utterly incapable of discovering God, but thanks be to God, the One True God, that He has revealed Himself to us! God spoke!

We see in Hebrews 1:1 that He spoke through the prophets and now in the last days He has spoken to us by His Son.

We come to realize that God is the initiator of true relationship to the divine.

God came to us through Jesus Christ.

Please know this, it absolutely, matter of factly, without a doubt-edly does matter what you believe!

All other “faiths” are people dictating their views of the divine.

Christ is better because the divine has made Himself known to the people.

In the world of religion people can be praised for how pious they are, they retain glory for the magnanimous deeds they accomplish.

Christianity is different and better because we understand that while we could never do enough to be made righteous, that God loved us enough to send us a Savior.

We understand that the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost sinners like us and He is the only one that gets the glory for that.

Faith doesn’t rest in our abilities but in the completed work of Christ.

Throughout all of history, God has been the initiator of salvation and the sole provider of divine revelation.

God spoke.

The rest of verse 1 shows how God spoke to His people throughout History.

In the time of the Old Testament, God spoke through the prophets.

Understand that Spirit has directed this letter to Hebrews.

These are people who have grown up familiar with the Word of God being taught in the synagogues.

The Holy Spirit is showing them, and us today, that the teaching of the Old Testament ABSOLUTELY was breathed out by God.

God did speak to their forefathers at many times and in many ways through the prophets.

The coming of His Son, as shown in Hebrews 1:2, does not invalidate the Old Testament, if anything, it illuminates it!

Jesus is the key that shows all that the Old Testament was pointing to.

Look at verse 1 again

The word for “times” in the greek caries the connotation of “many portions” like books.

There are 39 books of the Old Testament, each of which was time in which God spoke through the author to give His Word to the people.

God accomplished this through many ways.

That is He spoke to them through dreams, visions, parables, symbols, types.