SPEAKER_00: My family and I have been living in Burke for eight years now.
SPEAKER_00: We started off in Alexandria, we lived there for a while, we moved around, and then we went to Springfield and we lived there for a little while, and then we moved around, and then eventually we made our way out to Burke.
SPEAKER_00: It's our own little like mini micro manifest destiny, if you will.
SPEAKER_00: Go west, middle-aged man.
SPEAKER_00: And uh we love Burke.
SPEAKER_00: Burke is great.
SPEAKER_00: I'm grateful for it.
SPEAKER_00: There's restaurants, there's stores, there's parks, there's walking trails, there's trees.
SPEAKER_00: Can you believe it?
SPEAKER_00: There's trees.
SPEAKER_00: Burke is fantastic.
SPEAKER_00: Really, I only have one thing that I can complain about Burke, Virginia.
SPEAKER_00: And that is that it is due west from Emmanuel Bible church.
SPEAKER_00: And that means that every morning when I hop in my car and I drive to the church to go to work, I am driving directly into the sun.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I can't avoid it.
SPEAKER_00: I put down the visor, I do the like head ninja behind the mirror kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: I wear my sunglasses, no matter what I do, I get stuck with a face full of photons.
SPEAKER_00: You've been there, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_00: And then every evening, go back the other direction, the exact same thing.
SPEAKER_00: It's delightful.
SPEAKER_00: And really, it's kind of incredible when you think about it, right?
SPEAKER_00: The sun is 94 million miles away, and it still wins every single staring contest.
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you try to look directly at it and you are done.
SPEAKER_00: Even during an eclipse, when it's like mostly entirely covered up, your kids have to turn into like little mini MacGyvers with pinhole cereal box contraptions just to like catch a glimpse of what the sun is doing.
SPEAKER_00: It's incredible.
SPEAKER_00: We can be honest with ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We've all tried to sneak a peek, right?
SPEAKER_00: We've tried to see what's going on, but the sun is just so blindingly bright in its radiance that you just cannot look at it.
SPEAKER_00: I will confess to you, I tried to do it on my way into the church this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I regret it immensely.
SPEAKER_00: So imagine then what it would be like to try and look at the sun's creator.
SPEAKER_00: The God who not only made our sun, but billions of stars across an entire universe, each with its own individual magnitudes and orders of brilliance and shine, the God for whom our sun is just a tiny glimmer of a spark.
SPEAKER_00: And we can be honest with ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We'd all like to sneak a peek.
SPEAKER_00: To look at God in all of his glory?
SPEAKER_00: Who wouldn't want to do that?
SPEAKER_00: You would not be the first person who's wanted to see God in all of his glory.
SPEAKER_00: I think, in fact, we're all kind of hardwired to want that.
SPEAKER_00: I think we're designed to want to see God.
SPEAKER_00: And you wouldn't even be the first person who was bold enough to ask for such a thing.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember Moses up on Mount Sinai receiving the law?
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord says to Moses, Moses, you have found favor in my sight.
SPEAKER_00: And Moses, Lord, show me your glory.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the answer?
SPEAKER_00: Moses.
SPEAKER_00: You may see my goodness.
SPEAKER_00: You may see my graciousness.
SPEAKER_00: You may see my mercy.
SPEAKER_00: But you cannot see my glory.
SPEAKER_00: No man can look on my face and live.
SPEAKER_00: So, Moses, this is what I'm gonna do for you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna tuck you into the cleft of the rock.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna cover you up with my hand.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna pass by, and then as I pass, I'll let you catch a glimpse of my back as I go.
SPEAKER_00: A little pinhole cereal box version of God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the first time you read that passage, you're probably a little bit confused, right?
SPEAKER_00: You're thinking, wait a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Hasn't Moses just spent 40 days and 40 nights up on the mountain meeting with God, receiving the law?
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't it say, just like a couple verses earlier, that God would meet with Moses face to face?
SPEAKER_00: Like, what's happening?
SPEAKER_00: If no one can see God, what's even going on up there?
SPEAKER_00: And it seems like Moses, with all of this proximity to God, has a very intimate and deeply personal interaction with God on the mountain.
SPEAKER_00: It says in that same passage in Exodus that God spoke to him as one speaks to a friend.
SPEAKER_00: What an incredible interaction.
SPEAKER_00: But despite that, even Moses doesn't get to look on the glory of God the Father unveiled.
SPEAKER_00: The blessed and only sovereign, whom the Apostle Paul says dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see.
SPEAKER_00: Throughout Scripture, God manifests his glory to his people in many different ways, lots of little pinhole glimpses of God.
SPEAKER_00: A burning bush, a pillar of smoke and of fire, a vision of God in the temple or next to the river that is magnificent and resplendent.
SPEAKER_00: And then there's even some divine personal encounters people seem to have, like when the Lord visits Abraham and Sarah and she laughs at him, by the way, or Jacob's all-night wrestling match with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And then you've got that angel of the Lord figure throughout the Old Testament who meets with Samson's parents and Gideon and Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's all of these incredible interactions, these glimpses of God's glory, but one thing never gets seen throughout all of those pages, throughout all of those centuries, one thing never gets to be glimpsed.
SPEAKER_00: The unveiled glory of God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: That is because it is brilliant in its holiness, and we are too sinful to look on it and not be consumed by it.
SPEAKER_00: Even the pinhole versions of God's glory demand humility from those who see it.
SPEAKER_00: Take off your sandals, fall on your face.
SPEAKER_00: Woe is me, for I am ruined, because I have seen the Lord of hosts.
SPEAKER_00: Such is the holiness of God, who by his nature is transcendently, infinitely, and perfectly brilliant, unlike anything else in all of creation.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing else that is like God, brilliantly holy.
SPEAKER_00: He is perfect love and perfect wisdom, perfect power and perfect justice in a way that transcends our human appropriation of those words and those traits.
SPEAKER_00: You and I are made in the image, in the likeness of God.
SPEAKER_00: That is true.
SPEAKER_00: And so we do reflect some of what God is like, but we do so in a pale comparison of the reality.
SPEAKER_00: We're like shadows.
SPEAKER_00: We're like mirrors, reflecting an image.
SPEAKER_00: And just like those two-dimensional objects, shadows and mirrors, cannot hope to capture the fullness of the reality of the three-dimensional object that casts them, so too are we in our human finitude, incapable of comprehending all of the infinitely holy and glorious God.
SPEAKER_00: We just can't do it.
SPEAKER_00: But the incomprehensibly holy God who is love and is mercy and is life.
SPEAKER_00: The God who dwells in unapproachable light that we cannot even gaze upon, that God loves you.
SPEAKER_00: And he wants to make himself known to you.
SPEAKER_00: So my purpose here this morning is very simple.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to see that the infinitely holy God the Father has sent his infinitely holy Son to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus opens our eyes that we may see God and live.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews chapter 1, verse 3, we're gonna read it together.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna start reading in verse 1 and read through verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: The author writes, Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: It's no exaggeration to say that the book of Hebrews is centered on Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The whole letter exists, is focused on explaining who Jesus is and what Jesus has done and why Jesus did it, and so what.
SPEAKER_00: That's the whole point of it.
SPEAKER_00: And truthfully, it's not really a letter.
SPEAKER_00: In structure and in style, Hebrews is more properly understood as a sermon.
SPEAKER_00: It's a sermon about Jesus to a primarily Jewish congregation.
SPEAKER_00: That's what's going on here.
SPEAKER_00: My personal opinion is that Hebrews is a copied down and polished-up version of the kinds of sermons that the Apostle Paul would bring as he went from city to city and synagogue to synagogue, and he would reason with the Jews there from the scriptures about the Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's what Hebrews is.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe it was Luke or Apollos or Barnabas who sat down and finally put pen to parchment.
SPEAKER_00: But I believe the words and the message of Hebrews are Paul's.
SPEAKER_00: And that message is abundantly clear.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is supreme above everything else.
SPEAKER_00: And that message comes bursting out of the gates in the opening verses.
SPEAKER_00: The preacher is making it known that Jesus is something greater than you and greater than me.
SPEAKER_00: He's even greater than the angels, these supernatural beings of God's proclamatory messages, that God's something greater than angels, even.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: Now, because this is a sermon, we can safely assume that the author is choosing his words very carefully and he's arranging them in very intentional ways.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Not only is this inerrant because it is inspired scripture, it's also intentionally arranged.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a quick little note that's jotted down for safekeeping.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, by the way, don't forget Jesus is also God's son.
SPEAKER_00: It's not even a personal letter, really, that kind of meanders this way and that through a train of thought, like a stream going through a forest.
SPEAKER_00: This is a literary work.
SPEAKER_00: It is crafted by a brilliant mind being carried along, as it were, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And when you view the letter that way, you begin to notice literary and rhetorical devices being used intentionally by the author to convey his meaning.
SPEAKER_00: And you start to see things like inclusios and alliteration and rhythm and meter.
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, we just prayed for all the teachers.
SPEAKER_00: We're going back to school.
SPEAKER_00: It's promotion Sunday, guys.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm not going to belabor that point.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a grammar class.
SPEAKER_00: But there is one literary device that you find in the first four verses of chapter one.
SPEAKER_00: It's a particularly Jewish style of poetry, which makes sense for a sermon aimed at a particularly Jewish congregation.
SPEAKER_00: It's a style of poetry that's called a chiasm, comes from the Greek word chi, like an X, right?
SPEAKER_00: Where the author is writing in a way that's intended to focus your attention down right into the middle where the main idea is.
SPEAKER_00: It's where the author takes the first line of his passage and the last line of his passage, and he makes them work together in parallel somehow.
SPEAKER_00: And then he does that with the next line and the next line and the next line and the next line and all the way down until you get to the very center of the passage, and that is the heart of it, the main idea of it.
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what's going on here in verses one through four.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll acknowledge it's a little bit subtle, but it's certainly there.
SPEAKER_00: You see the first line where the author is telling us that God has revealed himself in all kinds of different ways through all kinds of prophets, but now he's speaking to us through his son, the great prophet, who is a better speaker and revealer even than his angels he sent, because he has a better name and a better identity than they do.
SPEAKER_00: So these lines are working together.
SPEAKER_00: And then the next line, in the next line, you begin to see Jesus' unique roles in redemptive history being played out here, where he is appointed in the heir of all the things, that Jesus is the crown prince of all of creation, that he is the great high priest who's making purification for sins, sitting down at the right hand of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: And then it becomes even more clear in the next lines where Jesus' work and creation comes to the forefront, that he's the one who made the universe through things, and that he's the one sustaining all things by his powerful world, by his powerful word.
SPEAKER_00: Every molecule, every atom, every moment of every second of every day is upheld by Jesus, who's making it happen.
SPEAKER_00: And then right there in the middle, right there is the heartbeat of what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus is God.
SPEAKER_00: He is the Son, the radiance of God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: He is the exact imprint of his nature.
SPEAKER_00: That's the main point of those first four verses.
SPEAKER_00: It's the main point of this sermon that Jesus, the divine Son of God, is the revelation of the holiness of God.
SPEAKER_00: And those two parallel lines in verse three will become the first two points of a three-point sermon coming your way very shortly for our outline.
SPEAKER_00: First, we see that Jesus radiates God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 3, he is the radiance of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: This is a sentence so profoundly affirming of the deity of Jesus that the Arians, you remember the Arians, the heretics who were condemned at the Council of Nicaea way back in 325, Constantine, the whole thing, right?
SPEAKER_00: The Arians rejected the canonicity of Hebrews entirely, mostly because of that one sentence.
SPEAKER_00: That's how strongly it is pointing to Jesus as God.
SPEAKER_00: He radiates the fullness of the glory of God in the person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And that word radiance, a pogosma, means exactly what you expect it to mean.
SPEAKER_00: It means the brightness and the light that shines out from a light source.
SPEAKER_00: If I were to ask Jerry to flip off the lights in the worship center right now, it would get dark, and I would ask him to flip them all back on, and it would get bright in here.
SPEAKER_00: And you'd have the light bulbs who would shine forth their radiance.
SPEAKER_00: We get that.
SPEAKER_00: We understand that.
SPEAKER_00: That makes sense.
SPEAKER_00: Now I want to make a note here concerning what this text is actually saying.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 3 does not say that the glory of God radiates through the person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Although that is completely true, that's just not what it's saying.
SPEAKER_00: As if Jesus is some sort of glory funnel from the Father that just shoots out what belongs to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: What it says here is that Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: He isn't saying that Jesus simply reflects the glory of God the Father, like the moon reflecting the sun.
SPEAKER_00: You or I could do that.
SPEAKER_00: Nor is he saying that Jesus' glory is the same kind of glory that the Father has, equal in brilliance and equal in magnificence, as if they're two stars orbiting around each other in the sky.
SPEAKER_00: What he is saying is that when the glory, the holiness, the majesty of God the Father radiates out from him, that radiance is the person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: One Scottish theologian writes, the Son is the glory made visible.
SPEAKER_00: Not a different glory from the Father's, but the same glory in another form.
SPEAKER_00: The Father is glory hidden, the Son is glory revealed.
SPEAKER_00: The Son is the Father repeated, but in a different person.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps it would be helpful for us to return back to the illustration of the Son.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the theologian John Owen does when he's trying to tackle this kind of topic.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not merely the reflection of the Father, but is the true eternal and essential radiance, the outshining brightness emanating from the Father's own divine essence.
SPEAKER_00: John Owen says it's like the sun and its own rays.
SPEAKER_00: John Owen writes, As the Son, in comparison of the beam, is of itself and the beam of the Son, so is the Father of himself and the Son of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: And as the Son, without diminution or partition of its substance, without change or alteration of its nature, produces the beam, so is the Son begotten of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, John Owen.
SPEAKER_00: Let's try to modernize that a little bit and simplify that for our 21st century years.
SPEAKER_00: What's he really saying there?
SPEAKER_00: Well, there's a sun.
SPEAKER_00: And the sun has its rays and they shine out from it.
SPEAKER_00: And the rays aren't the sun itself, but neither are they different from the sun.
SPEAKER_00: Neither are they separate from the sun, nor are they created by the sun.
SPEAKER_00: They exist in an inseparable unity with the sun and as such reveal the sun's brilliance.
SPEAKER_00: There is no sun without radiance, there is no radiance without sun.
SPEAKER_00: They are one and the same thing, but distinct.
SPEAKER_00: Now, all created illustrations fall short of trying to explain the transcendently holy God because there is nothing else in creation that is like the transcendently holy God.
SPEAKER_00: But in some kind of analogous way, this is what Jesus is like to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: The brilliant shining rays of his radiance and holiness manifest.
SPEAKER_00: And here's where all creaturely illustrations fall short somehow.
SPEAKER_00: Light bulbs and cosmic fusic reactions alike.
SPEAKER_00: Because we have the ability to distinguish the light source from its radiance, the sun's surface from the photons streaming through the cosmos.
SPEAKER_00: But there is no division between the father and the son.
SPEAKER_00: Now I could ask Jerry to turn off the lights, and he would do that, and you could still have a light bulb with no radiance, but that's not how it works with the Father and the Son.
SPEAKER_00: There is no division between the Father and the Son.
SPEAKER_00: They are one.
SPEAKER_00: Shemai Yisrael, hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.
SPEAKER_00: It's exactly the same thing that Jesus says in John chapter 10.
SPEAKER_00: I and the Father are one.
SPEAKER_00: It's what Jesus says in John 14: if anyone has seen me, he has seen the Father.
SPEAKER_00: That's how inseparable they are.
SPEAKER_00: God the Father has never been without his son.
SPEAKER_00: The sun has never been without its rays.
SPEAKER_00: There is always perfect, inseparable existence for them.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why the Apostle John opens his gospel by describing Jesus as the co-eternal, consubstantial word of the Father, as life and the light of men, as the true light, which gives light to everyone, as the only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth, come to make the invisible, unapproachable, ineffably holy Father known to us.
SPEAKER_00: But the great tragedy is that not everyone loves the light.
SPEAKER_00: Speaking to Nicodemus in chapter three, Jesus says, and this is the judgment.
SPEAKER_00: The light has come into the world.
SPEAKER_00: The people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their works were evil.
SPEAKER_00: For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his work should be exposed.
SPEAKER_00: But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have even been carried out in God.
SPEAKER_00: Because you see, Jesus is the radiance of God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: He is light, but he is holy light, exposing sin in every corner of our hearts, in every corner of the world.
SPEAKER_00: But because Jesus is the radiance of God's glory, he is holy light, shining forth loving approval on all that conforms to God's moral purity.
SPEAKER_00: All the majesty of God's glory, all the fullness of his holiness revealed in the person of Jesus, not in a pinhole, but in a person who is glory.
SPEAKER_00: So let's look back again at Hebrews 1 there.
SPEAKER_00: And the preacher offers a second description of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He is, first of all, the radiance of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, he is the exact imprint of his nature.
SPEAKER_00: These two descriptions obviously work together in parallel.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 3, the first is saying that all the fullness of the perfect holiness of God shines forth out of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The second is saying, when you look at Jesus, what you see is all the fullness and glory of God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: That's what's being captured with those words, the exact imprint of his nature.
SPEAKER_00: Translates a Greek word used to describe a tool that an engraver would use to make a dye for reproduction.
SPEAKER_00: You would carve out an image, and then you could press it down into the wax or onto the forge to pour metal into it, and then you could make an exact replica of the original.
SPEAKER_00: You could do that and you would see one and it would be like looking at the other.
SPEAKER_00: They were so perfectly matched up.
SPEAKER_00: And what the preacher here means is that Jesus is the exact, identical, perfect image of God the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Is that not the same exact truth we see taught in Colossians?
SPEAKER_00: In chapter one, where Paul says, Jesus is the image of the invisible God?
SPEAKER_00: Or in chapter two, where he says, For in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is exactly the nature of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: So what does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it means that when you see Jesus, you are seeing all of the majesty and the fullness of the Holy God.
SPEAKER_00: The transcendent, inethable, unapproachable holiness of God comes to us in the person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And even though we cannot comprehend all of the glory of God, we can still observe the holiness of God by looking at Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, think for a minute about all those divine attributes, those divine perfections, the words we use to describe what God is like in words.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the one who reveals to us what an eternal God is like, because Jesus existed in the beginning with the Father, John 1.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus shared in the Father's glory before the world even existed in John 17.
SPEAKER_00: But what's an eternal God look like?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus reveals to us what a compassionate God is like, because though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor so that you, by his poverty, might become rich.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 8.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus reveals to us what an omnipotent God is like, as he commands the wind and the waves to be still with just a word.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus reveals to us what a sovereign God is like, as he exercises the power that enables him to subject all things to himself, Philippians 3, as he fulfills his role as the head of all rule and authority, Colossians 2, as he claims the ends of the earth as his possession and breaks rebellious nations with a rod of iron, Psalm 2.
SPEAKER_00: The Jesus who promises to be there whenever two or three are gathered in my name, he shows us what an omnipresent God is like.
SPEAKER_00: The immutability of God is revealed in Jesus, who laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning and stretched out the expanse of the heavens, yet remains long after they have worn out and perished, because he remains the same and his years will have no end, Hebrews 10.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever, Hebrews 13.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus shows us the omniscience, searching hearts and minds.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus shows us mercy by gently handling bruised reeds and smoldering wicks.
SPEAKER_00: He shows us the holy, infinite, sacrificial love of God.
SPEAKER_00: What does God's love look like?
SPEAKER_00: 1 John chapter 3, by this we know love, that he laid down his life for us.
SPEAKER_00: 1 John chapter 4, in this the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him.
SPEAKER_00: In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to see God, if you want to know what the infinite and unapproachable holiness of God looks like, then you fix your gaze on your great high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 7.
SPEAKER_00: When you want to know what God the Father looks like, you look at Jesus and you see the Father.
SPEAKER_00: And not incidentally, one of the reasons that Jesus comes to reveal to us what God the Father is like is to serve as an example for us.
SPEAKER_00: He reveals the character of God both so that we may look on him adorationally in worship, but also aspirationally in obedience.
SPEAKER_00: Over and over again, the scriptures tell us that we should follow in our Savior's footsteps.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Peter 1, 15, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all of your conduct.
SPEAKER_00: 1 John chapter 2, verse 6, whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same manner in which he walked.
SPEAKER_00: John 13.
SPEAKER_00: As Jesus finishes washing his disciples' feet, and he gets up off the ground, and he gently puts aside the soiled towel and the basin of dirty water.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember what he says to his disciples?
SPEAKER_00: To us.
SPEAKER_00: So how do you put on compassion and kindness when you step into your office tomorrow morning and you are assaulted by egos and frantic emails and cutthroat office politics?
SPEAKER_00: Well, you look at Jesus and you see him stop the crowd to heal the woman with the issue of blood.
SPEAKER_00: You look at Jesus and you see him stop Simon the Pharisee's banquet to celebrate the weeping woman who's been forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: And then you ask God, make me more like your son.
SPEAKER_00: How do you put away anxiety and fear and worry when your bills seem too large and your news feeds seem too bleak and your prognosis looks grim?
SPEAKER_00: You listen to Jesus and you hear him teach about the birds of the air and the flowers of the field and the futility of worry.
SPEAKER_00: And you ask God to make me more like your son.
SPEAKER_00: How do you forgive the person who has sinned against you so severely?
SPEAKER_00: You listen to Jesus praying, Father, forgive them even as the nails are being driven into his hand.
SPEAKER_00: And then you remember that he offered that same prayer for you.
SPEAKER_00: Father, forgive him.
SPEAKER_00: And then you ask God, make me more like your son.
SPEAKER_00: The holy comes to us in the person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The God who is invisible and inacceptable, inaccessible, becomes seen and knowable through Jesus who reveals him to us.
SPEAKER_00: The central idea of this passage, the beating heart of Hebrews opening verses, the crux of the chiasm is just this that Jesus is God.
SPEAKER_00: And he reveals God so that you may see God and love him.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is more than just an example to us.
SPEAKER_00: Because we've zoomed in to the two parallel passages, that he's the radiance of God's glory and the exact image and imprint of his nature.
SPEAKER_00: But when we zoom back out and we widen the aperture, we learn something else about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus, because he is God and all the fullness of God, he can do the work which only God can do.
SPEAKER_00: Specifically, we see that Jesus radiates God's glory and represents God's nature, and Jesus accomplishes God's work.
SPEAKER_00: Specifically, he accomplishes the work of the threefold offices of prophet and priest and king that we saw in the chiasm in verses one through four.
SPEAKER_00: These three offices are not arbitrary, abstract titles.
SPEAKER_00: They're central to God's redemptive plan.
SPEAKER_00: They are deeply biblical roles that are anticipated in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: They are fulfilled in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Prophet and priest and king.
SPEAKER_00: John Calvin reflects on the compassion of God's purposes in sending Jesus to be a prophet and a priest and a king, remarking that Christ was anointed by the Spirit to be that prophet, that priest and that king.
SPEAKER_00: These offices are the threefold remedy for our own ignorance and guilt and bondage.
SPEAKER_00: And so we see that Jesus is indeed a prophet.
SPEAKER_00: That's how it begins in verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: Long ago and many times in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days, he's spoken to us by his son.
SPEAKER_00: And here we find the contrast between the partial progressive revelation of the Old Testament and the full climactic revelation in God the Son.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not merely another prophet and a long line of prophets.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the final word.
SPEAKER_00: Our God is a speaking God.
SPEAKER_00: He speaks the universe into creation.
SPEAKER_00: He calls Abraham by name.
SPEAKER_00: He sends out prophet after prophet, Moses and Samuel and Isaiah and Zechariah to deliver his words.
SPEAKER_00: The God who is a speaking God has never left his people without a word.
SPEAKER_00: From Eden to Egypt, from Sinai to the Psalms, from Isaiah to Malachi, he has spoken to us.
SPEAKER_00: He has thundered to us.
SPEAKER_00: He has whispered to us.
SPEAKER_00: He reveals himself.
SPEAKER_00: But now, now he has spoken, not just through another prophet, but through the prophet, his son.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not merely a the latest prophet and a long line of holy men.
SPEAKER_00: He is the final word, the living word, the radiant word.
SPEAKER_00: R.C.
SPEAKER_00: Sproul remarks that if the Old Testament prophets were the moon, Christ is the sun.
SPEAKER_00: They reflect divine light.
SPEAKER_00: He radiates it from his being.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't just teach the word, he is the word.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't just reveal God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: He is God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to know what God is like, listen to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to him.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.
SPEAKER_00: The preacher moves from the heights of divine revelation to the depths of divine redemption because the word didn't just come to speak, it came to save.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, in love and mercy, pours out his life for you.
SPEAKER_00: He pours out his blood to wash you clean.
SPEAKER_00: He makes atonement.
SPEAKER_00: But notice something about verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: That after having made that purification for your sins, it says he sat down.
SPEAKER_00: Here then is another way in which Jesus' work is different from all those who came before him.
SPEAKER_00: The Old Testament Levitical priests, they offered sacrifices, they burned incense, they rotated showbread.
SPEAKER_00: We're right now reading the book of Leviticus and our family devotions at night, which is fantastic.
SPEAKER_00: You should definitely do that.
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you want to have a good family devotion time, let your daughters look at you and say, Dad, what's the difference between like a Thanksgiving offering and a wave offering?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Help me, Sinclair Ferguson.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: It's incredible.
SPEAKER_00: And so we've been reading through Exodus and through Leviticus all these very detailed and meticulous instructions about how God is to be worshipped, right?
SPEAKER_00: And the specific cubit by cubit measurements for tables and for altars and for incense and for arcs and for covenants.
SPEAKER_00: And we're learning about the porpoise skins and the and the sockets that the things go into.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, that's just delightful and fun and the long lobe of the liver and what you have to do with that.
SPEAKER_00: And your kids are like, okay.
SPEAKER_00: You know what you never find any instructions for?
SPEAKER_00: A chair.
SPEAKER_00: Because those priests could never sit down.
SPEAKER_00: Their work was never done.
SPEAKER_00: They were always having to make sacrifices, they were always having to go back in and offer another one.
SPEAKER_00: But this high priest sits.
SPEAKER_00: He sits in victory.
SPEAKER_00: He sits in fulfillment.
SPEAKER_00: He sits in accomplishment.
SPEAKER_00: He sits, having said, it is finished.
SPEAKER_00: Because he doesn't simply bring a lamb, he is the lamb.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't just sprinkle blood, he sheds blood.
SPEAKER_00: He's a priest unlike any other, holy, blameless, unstained, exalted, and divine.
SPEAKER_00: And notice where he sits down in verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.
SPEAKER_00: He sits down in a throne at the right hand of the Father, because he is not just a priest, he is a king.
SPEAKER_00: He's a sovereign king.
SPEAKER_00: Remember in verse 2?
SPEAKER_00: He's the crown prince, he's the heir of all things.
SPEAKER_00: Remember verse 3?
SPEAKER_00: He's the possessor of the universe by the power of his own word.
SPEAKER_00: He is sovereign.
SPEAKER_00: Do you hear the echoes of Psalm 110 there?
SPEAKER_00: The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.
SPEAKER_00: And this is why his name is greater than angels' names in verse 4, greater than any other earthly monarch's names, greater than all.
SPEAKER_00: This is why it's the name which is above every name, why it is the name that will cause every knee to bow and every tongue to confess, because it is the name of the King of Kings, the Holy One of Israel, the radiant Son of the Father, the name of Jesus, whose kingdom is now and will be and will never end.
SPEAKER_00: He is prophet, priest, and king.
SPEAKER_00: He speaks with divine clarity, he saves with divine mercy, and he reigns with divine authority.
SPEAKER_00: And he is the only one who does.
SPEAKER_00: Sinclair Ferguson writes, We're not looking for another word or another priest or another ruler.
SPEAKER_00: We're looking only to Christ, God's final word, God's perfect priest, God's forever king.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, the divine son, all the fullness of glory.
SPEAKER_00: The one who brings the holiness of God to us.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus opens our eyes to see God and live.
SPEAKER_00: And we all want to see God.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a promise, a promise that comes from Jesus' very own lips.
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew chapter 5, verse 8, in the Beatitudes, Jesus says, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
SPEAKER_00: We call it the beatific vision.
SPEAKER_00: That promise that what you now see by faith, that you will one day see face to face.
SPEAKER_00: That Moses' prayer will finally be answered for each and every one of us who by faith have come to Jesus as our prophet and as our priest and as our king, by faith have trusted in his sacrifice and looked to him in obedience.
SPEAKER_00: That one day you're gonna close your eyes on this earth.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna open them in eternity, and you will see your God face to face.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Almighty God, you are gracious and loving and kind to us in so many more ways than we even know.
SPEAKER_00: But chief among them all, you have been kind to us in sending your Son Jesus Christ, our Savior, our Lord, our King.
SPEAKER_00: God, give us eyes to see.
SPEAKER_00: Give us eyes to see in faith.
SPEAKER_00: God, we love you and we thank you for your love for us, seen in the blood of your Son shed for us.
SPEAKER_00: And it's in his name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: And now, for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_01: If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, ibc.church.
SPEAKER_01: If you want more information about the Master Seminary or our location here in Washington, DC, please go to TMS.edu.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_01: area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_01: I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.
SPEAKER_01: But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.
SPEAKER_01: Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.