Let's turn to the book of Hebrew Hebrews
chapter 1 We'll
read from verse 1 through verse 3 Hebrews
chapter 1, verse 1 God
has spoken in many parts and in many
ways formerly to the fathers and the prophets
At the end of these days He has
spoken to us in the person of the
Son Whom He has established, Heir of all
things By whom also He made the world
He is the glory of God's glory He
is the truth of God's truth With His
all-powerful commandment, He saves all He cleanses
man's sins He sits on the right hand
of God Who being the effulgence of His
glory And the expression of His substance And
upholding all things by the word of His
power Having made by Himself the purification of
sins Set Himself down on the right hand
of the greatness on high Chapter 2, verse
5 Verse 5 through verse 10 For
He has not subjected to angels the habitable
world which is to come But
one has testified somewhere saying What is man
that thou remember'st him Or son of man
that thou visited him Thou
has made him some little inferior to the
angels Thou has crowned him with glory and
honor And has set him over the works
of thy hands Thou
has subjected all things under his feet For
in subjecting all things to him He has
left nothing unsubject to him But now we
see not yet all things subjected to him
But now we see not yet all things
subjected to him But we see Jesus who
was made some little inferior to angels On
account of the suffering of death Crowned with
glory and honor So that by the grace
of God He should taste death for everything
So that by the grace of God He
should taste death for
everything For it became him for whom are
all things And by whom are all things
In bringing many sons to glory To make
perfect the leader of their salvation Through sufferings
And this is all the scriptures we are
reading And this is all the scriptures we
are reading We thank the Lord that this
time That he has given us the opportunity
For all the brothers and sisters to gather
before him This time our theme is But
we see Jesus And
our brother last night Has used Matthew chapter
16, 17 and 18 As the basis for
his fellowship Lord
willing I'll be willing to share with brothers
and sisters Based on the book of Hebrews
We know that the book of Hebrews Is
a message about the turning of time The
changing of time Law is over Grace has
come Our Lord has come to this world
Not only he was on the earth for
33 years But he also had gone on
to the cross He had completed for us
the work of redemption Then he was resurrected
He was risen to the high heaven He
was seated on the right hand side of
the great God On the day of Pentecost
The Holy Spirit was sent on to this
world 120 disciples They were baptized into one
body in one spirit The church started from
then To testify for the Lord on earth
But we know at that time Although
the church was opposed and persecuted by the
Jews But in the eyes of the Roman
Empire The church was only considered as one
sect in the Judaism So the church at
that time was actually protected by the Roman
Empire And they considered the church as legal
But coming to 64 AD The Emperor of
Rome Nero He burned the city of Rome
We do not know why he did it
Maybe he wanted to burn the old city
So that he can build a new greater
one But
unexpectedly the burning of the city Caused a
lot of animosity among the people in the
city In order to pacify the citizens He
found a scapegoat Very
easily he took the Christians to be the
scapegoat He said the Christians burn the city
So that aroused many bad feelings among the
people From that point on the Roman Empire
persecuted Christianity If you confess yourself to be
a Christian Then you are a criminal So
from that point on it
seems that Christianity started to be separated from
Judaism And this was also a predestined will
of God Because Christ could not be forever
bound by Judaism Although the Gospel came out
from the Jews But the Gospel cannot be
restrained or limited among the Jews So
God
used this circumstance to liberate Christianity from Judaism
We know that according to the predestined will
of God In order that we can be
brought into the fullness of Christ We have
to be set free from Judaism In the
sovereignty of God We do not know that
after 70 years the city of Jerusalem was
destroyed The temple was destroyed And
we can also say that this is the
time that Judaism fell From that point on
Christianity and Judaism were completely separated And
this was the good will of God Because
he wanted to bring us into the fullness
of Christ Now we are not being bound
by any religion on earth But when God
was working on this earth Satan the enemy
also accelerated his work Therefore we see when
the persecution came to God's people Many Jews
who had proclaimed Christ Because they did not
have a clear knowledge of the Lord Their
vision was not clear So when they were
somehow frustrated And they were tempted inside And
there was intention to go back to Judaism
Because there was safety if they went back
to Judaism So God wrote this book
of Hebrews through his disciple So
the letter of Hebrews was written to the
Jews who had been converted into Christians And
God wants to use this book to encourage
them On the one hand it is to
encourage them On the other hand it is
to warn them So that they can walk
a straight way on the way of the
Lord That they can enter into the riches
of Christ And this is approximately the background
of the book of Hebrews Brothers and sisters
Today we are also in a turning point
of time We know that this period of
grace is about to be over Since our
Lord came to this earth and completed His
salvation And until our time And during this
2000 years We say that this is the
time of grace We know that this time
of grace is about to be over And
the Kingdom of God is about to come
We also know that our Lord is going
to come So at this point of change
of time The Spirit of God accelerates its
work on earth To be set free from
any bounding So that we can truly enter
into Christ But brothers and sisters And
also at this point Satan the enemy also
accelerates his work He uses various means to
tempt God's children So that God's children will
once again be bound by the religious system
Although today we did not come out from
Judaism But in reality, in principle, we have
to come out from religion And we have
to come out from organization and from the
system And we have to enter into Christ
Then we know Judaism At the beginning it
was from the revelation of God God revealed
Himself to Israelites at the time And then
we know that this revelation of God Turned
into a religion in the world A living
revelation becomes a dead system If you look
at it from a historical standpoint When did
it happen that the revelation of God turned
into Judaism?
Strictly speaking, that happened when Israelites were taken
captive to Babylon And after they were taken
to Babylon They were scribes and Pharisees, they
were raised up They tried to interpret the
revelation of God And one generation after another
And they tried to interpret the interpretation of
their previous people So this is interpretation upon
interpretation And gradually it became the tradition of
man And became the tradition of the fathers
The revelation of God was totally buried They
entered into a dead religious system So many
people were bound Dear brothers and sisters We
know that at that time Why did the
Jewish believers want to go back to Judaism?
Because there they had a sense of security
They could see something and they could touch
something And on earth there was a center
And there were rules And there were rituals
And there were the systems of priests There
was mediatorship And all these things They could
be seen by the eyes and touched by
hands And that spiritual thing It seems it's
far away It seems that's something they cannot
touch by their hands And therefore the vision
was dim And before God they did not
see clearly the heart Therefore
they were easily tempted by flesh Intending to
go back to the religious system of man
Dear brothers and sisters Today in our time
We see the same danger And in this
end time When all things seem to be
very tense Brothers and sisters, it is very
easy for us to be confused If we
do not have a clear vision of Christ
It is very easy for us to be
tempted back to the religious world Because the
Christianity today has become a religious world It
has its rules It
has its priests and the mediatorship And also
it gives people a sense of security Therefore
we see In our way of pursuing the
Lord When we see difficulties When we run
into something we cannot explain It is easy
for us to be frustrated and losing hope
It is easy for us to be willing
to go back to the religious world Because
it seems to be easier to live there
But brothers and sisters Even if we turn
back to the religious world There cannot be
satisfaction inside of us Because only our Lord
Jesus himself can satisfy our hearts Therefore there
is a great burden in us And we
are willing at this point That we do
not look to the other things And we
only see our Lord And may the Lord
open our hearts And our minds so that
we see our Lord If we can truly
see him Then we will have liberty Lord
willing In these four mornings We would like
to see four things First, the person of
Jesus Second, the office of Christ Third, the
position of Christ The place of Christ Fourth,
the calling from Jesus We
want to see the first thing this morning
The person of Jesus When we know that
the first time we see a person The
first thing is to inquire about his identity
When we know that the first time we
see a person We want to see who
he is In the Bible When John the
Baptist came to preach the gospel We know
that the Jews from Jerusalem They sent scribes
and Pharisees and the priests They came to
examine who John is He said, who are
you?
Are you the Christ that is to come?
John said, no I am not Are you
Elijah?
Are you that prophet?
He said, I am not And they were
trying to investigate his identity When our Lord
was honored When he came out to work
And men were looking into his identity When
he was cleansing the temple They asked him,
by what authority are you doing these things?
Who are you?
What is your identification?
Why?
Because the identification gives us the authority And
when we have that identification Then we can
speak, we can work Then what we say
and what we do are valuable So we
know this identification is extremely important When our
Lord started to be rejected by the Jews
When he went back to Caesarea Philippi He
asked his disciples Who do they say I
am?
And what is who I am?
And then he asked his disciples You who
have been with me day and night Who
do you say I am?
We thank God the Son of Peter And
he received his heavenly revelation He said, you
are the Christ Son of the Living God
You are the Anointed One You are sent
by God to accomplish this work of salvation
You are the Son of the Living God
And that is his personal identification So brothers
and sisters We have to come to know
our Lord Jesus We
need to know his identity If we want
to examine this identification of a person It
is not too hard All we have to
do is to investigate who he is and
where he was born And who are his
parents And who are his brothers and sisters
And how much education he received And what
was his background Then it is easy for
us to know his background But it is
not easy for us to investigate the identification
of our Lord When our Lord was on
earth Those who came from Galilee His
father is a carpenter They do
not Wrongly identify his person And
therefore they rejected him How about today?
Brothers and sisters We have the four Gospels
in front of us And we said we
have investigated the person, the background of our
Lord Jesus And we know what has come
out to be this Lord Jesus Especially those
of us who grew up in Christian families
I am one of them When I was
very young I heard about the Bible, I
read the Bible But
brothers and sisters That I
know who he is I totally did not
understand him So we know When
Peter confessed You
are really smart Then you can know who
I am The Lord did not say that
It is
never possible to know the person of the
Lord Just simply through blood and flesh He
says but this is shown to you by
the Heavenly Father Therefore for us to know
the person of our Lord We have to
ask the Lord to give us revelation It
is not sufficient just to know the letters
of the Bible We have to receive the
heavenly revelation from the depth of our heart
So that the words of the Bible become
the living word that the Holy Spirit says
to us To turn Logos into Rhema So
we hope that while we are fellowshipping I
have to confess It is not possible for
me to let you see Christ Only the
Spirit of God can show you Lord Jesus
I also know that simply by yourself you
cannot see Lord Jesus I hope while we
are sharing Our hearts will all look up
to the Lord That the Spirit of the
Lord will enlighten His Word So that we
can see Lord Jesus from the depth of
our hearts At the beginning of the books
of Hebrews The God has spoken Our God
is a God that speaks He
wanted really to show us all the things
in His part If God does not speak
No one can know God But we thank
God Our God is a God that speaks
And from the past And through the prophets
And He spoke to our fathers But that
time when He spoke It was limited by
men In many ways and many times Or
to put it the other way He could
only have said it in pieces It is
not because God was not willing But because
men have limited God But we thank and
praise our God In the last days And
we know that the end of these days
It is an idiom among the Jews The
meaning is the days of Messiah And the
days of Messiah So when our Lord came
to this earth That was the beginning of
the end of days And when our Lord
comes back the second time That will be
at the middle of the end days So
at the end of these days God speaks
to us in His Son And not through
the prophets But He speaks to us in
His Son When His Son speaks That is
the Father speaking to us in Him Because
He is the Word of God Today when
He speaks It is God who speaks But
when He walks on this earth That was
the manifestation of God On this earth So
the revelation of God Was the most perfect
Complete in His Son So brothers and sisters
So the first thing we see Is Jesus
is the Son of God The Father and
the Son are one When men hear Him
They hear Father When men see Him They
see the Father So today God
declared to us in His Son So in
this Son of God What does God have
That He is willing in this Son So
here it tells us That God has established
Him To be the one that inherits all
Our God loves His Son He
is willing to give all things To His
Son To be the inheritance of His Son
Because this is only the Godly Son So
before all things were created God has set
a mind He wants to create all things
And to give to His Son As His
inheritance See how majestic is this Son Not
only that When He created all things He
created through His Son Here it tells us
It says He has made all things Through
Him Made the world The world in the
idiom of the Jews It means the whole
universe It is not only the planet earth
It speaks of the whole universe Brothers and
sisters God has created the whole universe Through
His Son And He has given all things
In this universe to His Son And He
is the only heir That inherits all this
Not only that It says He is the
radiance of His glory The glory of God
Brothers and sisters There is no way for
us to explain The glory of God The
Bible says again and again The glory of
God We can say the whole Bible Explains
to us Shows us the glory of God
For us to explain The glory of God
Because the glory of God Is God Himself
There is no way for us to think
To fathom He is such a glorious God
No one has ever seen His face Moses
was praying Let me see your glory And
what did God say God says nobody can
see My face and live There is no
way for us To see the glory of
God Because He is too glorious But brothers
and sisters We thank and praise our God
Here it tells us that Lord Jesus is
the radiance Of the glory of God We
cannot see the sun The sun that we
see Is nothing but the radiance Of the
sun Even that radiance of the light We
cannot see it with our bare eyes And
now the substance of the sun Is soft
Now men see that God Is too glorious
He dwells in the light That men cannot
approach No one can see Him No one
can get close to Him And He is
unique But brothers and sisters Today the radiance
The effulgence of the glory Is among us
So in the 2nd Corinthians Chapter 4 verse
6 The one that commanded Light out of
darkness And this God has shined into us
So that we know The light of the
glory of God Shines on the face of
Christ And today we see Christ Jesus On
His face shines The glory of God So
brother Austin Sparks Has used one analogy He
says our Lord is like a prism When
the light shines into this prism The light
then is distributed Then we can see We
can enjoy the spectrum of color So the
Bible tells us Word becoming flesh Dwell among
men Full of grace and truth This grace
and truth And radiates the glory of God
God is light Our Lord Jesus Is full
of truth God is love Our Lord Jesus
Is full of grace So it's our Lord
Who emanates The glory of God to us
And then he says again And he is
the substance And maybe he is only the
effulgence It's not the glory of God It
is not the substance Substance of God So
the Holy Spirit Add one more term Here
it says he is the real True substance
of God The substance of God And our
Lord Jesus Is the true image And in
the original language And the artist of the
Greek And when they
carve a sculpture Of a seal or something
Or when they carve out The stamp or
the seal And this is the image The
true image of the thing In another word
Whatever is the true substance of God And
our Lord Jesus Is that And this particular
word In the Greek And in particular In
the book of Hebrew This image is the
character It is the character And all the
characters in God It bodily dwells in him
Because he is God Brothers and sisters You
see this is our Lord Jesus He upholds
all things With the command of his all
power Not only all things Are created by
him And all these things Were established for
him Substance by him And
he is the power That grew all things
together Cohesively And
he uses the word of his power He
cohesively put all things In the universe together
So I want to quote Brother Sparks again
He says when our Lord was crucified The
earth quaked The sand turned dark Why?
Because this cohesive force Now was put on
the cross If man left Lord Jesus And
this man disintegrated When the universe left our
Lord Then this whole universe Will melt and
disintegrate Because he is the one Who upholds
all things We thank and praise God Not
only that Here it tells us And he
also is the one Who atoned for us
He purified the sins of man And he
was seated On the right hand of the
greatest And he by the person Of the
Son of God Why?
And he purifies our sins You know today
When we preach the gospel And sometimes we
twist it a little bit When we preach
the gospel And we say that God is
a righteous God And we are sinners And
God is to just But our Lord Jesus
Comes to this earth And he bore our
sins for us So in our thoughts God
is a severe God And our Jesus is
A loving, compassionate one And we also thank
Our God to be unfair And how could
he Let his son suffer for us And
he did the same But brothers and sisters
And through the qualification Of the Son of
God He purifies our sins In another word
It is God himself That purifies our sins
It is not that God Uses another man
To be the sacrifice God loves us He
calms a tongue In his Son for us
So how great is the love of God
And for that reason God has highly exalted
him to heaven Now he sits on the
right hand of God Brothers and sisters Our
Lord Jesus Is such a Lord Jesus He
is the Son of God He is God
He inherits all things He is the effulgence
Of the glory of God He is the
substance of God And he is the one
That cohesively Put the whole things together And
he saves all He is our Lord Jesus
Dear brothers and sisters If you truly From
the depth of your heart You see this
glorious Majestic Lord You cannot but prostrate Before
him And you would worship him Our Lord
is worthy of worship Not only he is
worthy of worship He is worthy to be
our head In all things He should have
primacy Let him be the Lord and King
in us We have to learn To be
obedient to his words The writer of the
Hebrews Says we have especially Have to pay
heed To the word that we hear And
what is the word we hear?
That is the word of the first chapter
Our Jesus is the Son of God When
we hear this word We have to take
heed So that we do not be drifted
away What is being drifted away?
As a boat When it tries to get
to the harbor But there was high tide
So if you are not careful If you
let it drift It will miss the course
It will not be able to enter Into
the harbor So this word in the original
language Has the meaning of drift Or has
the meaning of being Of leaking away But
today if we do not Hold fast to
the Lord Then we may drift away But
we also can leak away And we are
not being able To arrive in the harbor
But today many people Have drifted away Today
many people Have leaked away There is no
reason Because they Are not clear About the
vision of Christ They have seen many things
But they have not seen The Lord Jesus
Dear brothers But only we see Jesus Only
Lord Jesus Besides that we see nothing We
have to close our eyes We have to
close our ears With one heart and one
mind We pursue our Lord Our Lord is
not only The Son of God Chapter 2
He also It shows us that He is
also man Word Becoming flesh Brothers and sisters
When God made man He made man according
To his own likeness He also has given
All the authority on earth To man All
the birds of the sky And the creeping
things On the earth And the fish under
the water God says you shall rule over
them And I give you the authority Because
God created man There was a glorious purpose
God wants man to be United with him
He wants man to reign with him God
wants man to be used by God To
accomplish the purpose of him But regrettably Man
rebelled against God So the end is the
man fell Man lost the image of God
Man also have lost the authority The power
that God would give him But brothers and
sisters God did not give up His original
purpose to our man So after 3000 years
We see that David said In Psalm 8
Because David was also a prophet God used
him to tell us That what is man
That you are mindful of him But who
are the sons of man But you visited
him To make him to be slightly inferior
to angels Because in creation The man was
lower than the angel But you gave him
the crown Of glory and majesty And this
was the original Mind of God concerning man
3000 years after the fall of man God
did not change His purpose to our man
Another 1000 years We know In the fullness
of time Our Lord Jesus was born of
woman Under the law And he was to
redeem us From under the law So that
we can obtain sonship So the original purpose
Of God concerning man Has not changed at
all Brothers and sisters Do we like to
be man And sometimes man says I want
to be an angel But God did not
save angels He saved the descendants of Abraham
And sometimes you say I don't want to
be a man I want to be a
bird When I was young I thought this
way And I saw a bird Flying back
and forth Very free And how I wanted
to be a bird But thank God God
wanted me to be a man God has
his glorious purpose concerning man Although Adam failed
The descendants of Adam also failed But God
sent his son to be a man Dear
brothers and sisters This is not a small
thing God himself Came to be a man
Even he came to become a man The
creator Became a created man And
this God who is everywhere Now was even
constrained In this man of limited built And
this God who is almighty Now came to
the earth To be a baby And growing
up gradually And this God who is omnipotent
And he became a child And growing up
and learning Brothers and sisters No wonder Paul
said In the second chapter of Philippians And
he was equal with God But he did
not consider that To be something to grasp
He emptied himself Of our God Son of
God He emptied all the glory Majesty and
riches Of course he could not Envy his
deity Because he is God He is forever
God When he comes to the earth To
become a man he is still God But
all these things Having to do with God
Glory, majesty, worship He has given up that
all He put on the form of a
slave God is the authority Of the whole
universe If we ask who has authority God
has authority Do you have authority But compare
with God Only he has power Whoever he
has He has compassion Whoever he wants to
give grace to He does Can you argue
to God And say why do you do
this You have no right to do that
No matter how you say it And God
says I want to do it And that
is done This is our God But when
our Lord Jesus Came to the ground He
took up the likeness Of a bond slave
What is a bond slave He has no
position He has no power He became such
a man So before God He destined to
be obedient Until death Even the death of
the cross Dear brothers and sisters Our Lord
In such a way He came to be
a man Why did he do this Because
he loves us He knew what kind of
people we are But because he loves us
He is willing to come to the earth
as a man Not only as a man
The Bible tells us He is the son
of man Often times he said Son of
man, son of man What does it mean
by son of man Not only he is
a man What meaning of son of man
He is the beginning of a new man
Not only he comes to the earth as
a man He has concluded the race of
Adam He started a new man He is
that son of man So dear brothers and
sisters In Adam we are all dead But
in Christ we are all alive And by
faith And he has saved us Not only
he has saved us And he is to
bring us into glory Dear brothers and sisters
When you think of our Lord Jesus To
be the son of man And he is
lovable That we can approach him When we
think about our Lord Jesus To be the
son of man How he died for us
How he was resurrected for us And for
us who have died And sinned and transgressed
No hope And he brought us back to
life And to sit with him on heavens
And how great is this salvation Dear brothers
and sisters Every time we think of our
Lord Jesus As son of man It gives
us an attraction inside Now we want to
get close to him And it leads us
to rely upon him Because not only he
has forgiven our sins He is going to
bring us into glory And he is going
to restore us To the original purpose of
God concerning us And this is all because
he was the son of man And this
is our Lord Jesus And this is his
person Brothers and sisters We hope that in
the depth of our heart Our spirit we
can see him We consider our Lord too
small We have considered our Lord to be
too low May the Lord open our mind
So that we can see the Jesus that
is in the heart of God He is
the beloved son of God He has come
to the earth He is the son of
man Brothers and sisters If you so see
this Jesus This one that you believe in
What can tempt your heart To draw us
away from him What is more precious than
he That we can pursue him No wonder
Paul said I have considered all things as
dumb To consider excellent precious No wonder the
psalmist said Outside of you Who I have
in heaven And who can I love on
earth Our Lord He is the one that
is lovable He is the one worthy of
our worship Let's pray Our
Lord how majesty you are You are son
of God You are only begotten son of
God You are so lovable You are man,
son of man Our God May you by
your spirit Open the eyes of our heart
That we can see your son Lord let
ourselves A whole being be filled by your
son Do not let anything Man, things To
occupy our hearts Only you are all in
all for us Because only you are worthy
We worship you We praise you We adore
you In the name of our Lord Jesus
Amen