It's delightful to be back with you here again at Beacon. Sorry to be away from Bullet Lick Baptist Church.
I always notice how envious Greg is when he speaks the name of Bullet Lick Baptist Church. So nice to see you all and see familiar faces and enjoy warm handshakes and the warm welcomes and all the expressions of confident expectation that the Lord would bless us. May he indeed do exceedingly and abundantly above all that we are able to ask and think.
My mind is alive with the scripture that I'm going to attempt to explain this week. And that being the case, I was able to see, perhaps as no one else in this building is able to see, how appropriate were the songs that Greg selected for this morning. The choir special was amazing.
The choirs always just sound so good for such a limited group, so professional, so heartfelt. And the song that they sang, Ferris Lord Jesus, contains the lyric, Son of God and Son of Man. And that is going to figure prominently in our meditations on the Lord Jesus Christ this week that he is the Son of God and he is the Son of Man. There are some things that we will encounter in Hebrews chapter one and chapter two which can only be explained because he is the Son of God. And there are some things that we will encounter that can be explained only because he is the Son of Man. And there are all of these things that can be understood only because he is the God Man, Son of God and Man. A hyphen was never more important than when it appears between that designation of our Lord, the God hyphen Man.
God Man, the most important hyphen in all of the world. And then the song with which we concluded, again, I just, you know, my mind is pulsing with what I hope I'm about to say and to see how that all the glorious names, you can think about wisdom and love and power, everything that you can think that is praiseworthy, commendable, admirable. It all falls short of describing our Savior.
They're all too mean. They're all too insignificant, too weak and too feeble to set our Savior forth. And then the author of this hymn, Isaac Watts, takes the next two stanzas to talk about Jesus in his three offices as our Redeemer. He is our prophet, great prophet of my God. And then it talks about Jesus, my great high priest.
And Jesus is our conquering king. And then the hymn concludes with revisiting the theme that all of these conceptions that we can recognize about Jesus still somehow fall short of being adequate to describe who he really is. I doubt if there is a saint so strong that she or he does not at some times experience some doubts and some falterings of faith, which, of course, doubting is the opposite of faith. Faith is believing what God has said, especially when the only reason you have for believing it is because God has said it. Faith is the persuasion of truth based on testimony, whether it's religious faith or non-religious faith. That's what faith is.
You believe that something is true because someone has said it. And our salvation is by faith from first to last. The just shall live by faith. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Faith is essential to the commencement of our Christian life, and it is essential to the healthy continuation of our Christian life.
It is by faith from first to last, as the Bible says in Romans chapter one and verse 16. As important and as essential as it is, it is not something that we can just set our minds upon and say, now I'm going to grow my faith a little stronger, because faith is something that feeds on knowledge. And so we cannot make our faith grow, but by the blessing of God, paying attention to his word and to the ways that he reveals himself, we can increase our knowledge. And then faith appropriates that knowledge and becomes stronger. And so it is my prayer and my prayerful expectation, for I've asked for this and I'm sure that you will ask something similar, that as a result of considering who Jesus is and what Jesus has done, our faith will grow stronger. We will be reminded of truths, for not everything that you'll hear this week will be new to you. But it can become, it can be clothed with power of newness as the Holy Spirit opens your ears and opens your heart, not just to recognize the truth, but to feel the truth and to feed upon the truth.
So that as a result of our thinking about Jesus, we will have a higher admiration for him, a greater confidence in him and in the salvation that he has provided for us. May the Lord grant it. May the Lord bless us and feed us and strengthen us. And may it be for our good and for his glory.
If you're not already open to Hebrews chapter one, do open your Bibles there. And if you see the little advertisement for the conference this week, you see that there are five distinct ideas that are set forth about Jesus, who he is. When we talk about who someone is, we're talking about his person.
And when we talk about what someone does, we're talking about his works. And so there are five distinct topics that I sent these as suggestions to Greg and to the pastoral team. My point right now is there's considerable overlap between all of these. So this morning is the divine sun and then this evening is the exalted sun. But there's just a lot of bleed over between all of these.
And so they're not watertight categories. But I do think that primarily this morning we're going to have a good reason to admire Jesus for being God. And so we will think about Jesus as the divine son. One of the ways that this passage of scripture describes the exaltation of the sun, which is what we'll get into more thoroughly tonight, is by saying that he sat down. Well, let's read the first few verses and I'll say more about that. Long ago, I'm reading from the English Standard Version. I forgot that you used the New King James Version or I would have brought one. I'm reading from the ESV. I have it memorized in yet a different translation.
So maybe between what you have and what I'm reading and what I have in my head, we'll get a more robust picture of what's saying here, what is being said here. 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, period. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. 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.
So there are just two points around which all of my comments this morning will be centered. The first point is to ask who sat down and then secondly to notice that he did sit down and to ask what is the significance of his sitting down. So you know that there are certain hand gestures that can have enormous impact upon one's life or one's perception of reality. During a football game, if someone raises his hands in the air, then it can result in thousands or tens or hundreds of thousands of people even expressing their exuberance or else their dismay that a touchdown has been scored.
In the days of the gladiators, the governing political official could determine life or death by either thumbs up or thumbs down. And so there are certain gestures that have great significance. It always amazes me that as long as Moses had his hands extended up before the Lord, then Israel prevailed over Amalek and when he put his hands down, Amalek began to prevail.
It just reminds me that we are not just spiritual beings and in our worship of God, we need to remember that what is going on with us physically can affect us spiritually. I try to make it a point at least once a day to get on my knees before the Lord. It's usually before I go to bed, but just a persistent reminder of he is great. He is worthy to be bowed down before. I am his subject. Yes, he's had many nice things that he said to me.
I'm his son. I'm his friend, but he is my Lord and he is my God, and I just need to be reminded of that every day. I am increasingly impressed as I get older of the importance of music and the importance of our singing. You cannot read the Psalms thoughtfully without coming to the conclusion God must like to hear singing. Well, I'm just going to sing then. And so I try to make it a point as part of my morning worship and part of my devotions before I go to bed just to sing a little bit. And I think that there is something grounding about singing. There is something that engages us with the spiritual realm through singing. And I think it happens for good or for bad. You may remember when Saul was troubled with an evil spirit, they said, well, there's a son of Jesse who's a skilled harpist.
Have him come in. And so Saul did. And the Bible says that when the evil spirit from the Lord was tormenting Saul that David would play and the evil spirit would depart. And then there was an occasion when some kings were seeking the will of the Lord and they said, well, is there a prophet of Yahweh here?
And they said, well, yeah, there's one. There's Elisha. He used to pour water on the hands of Elijah. I think that's a wonderful description of a servant who did what he could do to make his master's life better. He poured water on the hands of Elijah and he's still known as that.
Well, bring him here. And so they bring Elisha. Is there some word from the Lord about the outcome of this army, about the outcome of this battle? And he said, have a musician come. And while the musician played, the spirit of Yahweh came upon him and he spoke the truth.
And so what happens to us physically? And the way that we deliberately manage the physical possibilities and the physical resources that have been entrusted to us can have a significant impact upon our spiritual well-being. And so if you take all that into consideration, then maybe it ought not to be so surprising that there is high, high significance attached to the fact that Jesus sat down. Well, when someone raises his hands in the air to signify a touchdown, it doesn't really matter unless it's the guy who's wearing the striped shirt.
He's the one who signifies the touchdown. And so in the case here, who it is who sat down is highly important as we determine what is the significance of his having sat down. And so let's look at all the glorious names and all the glorious descriptions that are here laid out in this passage of Scripture to describe Jesus. And the first thing that we'll see is that he is God's ultimate revelation. Now the word ultimate has a classical meaning and it has a popular meaning, but let's first of all see what it says here.
It says, 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. So that last, the classical meaning of ultimate is that it comes last. The popular meaning of ultimate is that it's the best. Oh, daddy, he's just the ultimate.
A girl might say about someone that she's dating. But the classical meaning is that Jesus is God's final revelation. So under the old covenant, God revealed many wonderful things. The Old Testament has been described as a beautiful well-furnished room with the lights dimmed.
And the New Testament is the same beautiful well-furnished room with the lights turned on. I think of it in terms of the church where I grew up, burned to the ground in the 1950s before I was born, but they began constructing a new building after the old building had burned to the ground. And the first thing that they did was they built a basement. And they determined that they were not going to go into debt for the new building. And so they had enough money to build the basement. They put a temporary roof on top of the basement. And then for several years the church met in the basement until they had enough money to build the sanctuary on top of the basement. And then when they built the sanctuary, then they moved into the sanctuary. And that's where they still meet. And the basement was turned into Sunday school rooms.
It was turned into a place where there are all kinds of learning opportunities. But the worship of God takes place in the superstructure, takes place in the sanctuary that's built on top of the basement. I think that's a good picture of the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament was laying a foundation for what God would later build. And then Christ and his prophets come and he is the chief cornerstone.
And now we are living stones that are being built into the temple of the living God. And now worship of God is through Jesus Christ. We no longer worship in the basement of the Old Testament. We worship in the sanctuary of the New Testament that has been built by the Lord Jesus Christ. He is God's ultimate revelation.
Nobody ought to be living in the basement anymore. There ought not to be a Jewish religion anymore. The Jewish religion was the foundation for what was supposed to flower into and bear fruit as the Christian church. And now Jesus says, if you do not honor the Son, you do not honor the Father who sent him. Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me. And so the only way to come to God now is through the new and the living way, his ultimate revelation, who is his final revelation. There's not going to be a third covenant.
If you look at all the Old Testament as one covenant, all the New Testament as the second covenant, there's not going to be a third covenant after that. Jesus is God's ultimate revelation. Well, let's don't forget that he is a revelation, that he is something that God has said to us, and he has said it more clearly and more beautifully with a reference to the popular meaning of ultimate.
It is more admirable. It is more praiseworthy than anything that was revealed under the old covenant. But don't lose sight of the fact that it is a revelation. Jesus has come to us, and by his life and by his works and by his words, he is telling us what we need to know from God. There are times when my faith is shaky, and the thought that often recenters it or that anchors it is to tell myself, but I believe what Jesus said.
I believe that Jesus really is who he says he is and that he has done what he said he would do and he will do for me what he says he will do for those who receive him and who trust in him. That's like an anchor to our soul. Your little kayak might drift.
Your little canoe might drift, but if you're connected to the anchor, then you can pull on that rope and it will take you back to where you're supposed to be. That's what this series of sermons has the potential to do for you, to help you to see how securely fastened your anchor is and that when you are assailed by storms of doubt or you begin to drift away, that you can pull on that rope of faith that connects you to the anchor and it will take you back to where you're supposed to be. God has spoken to us through Jesus. He has spoken in many times and in various ways in times past, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his son.
So that's the first thing that we see about who it is who sat down. He is God's ultimate revelation. Notice next that it says he is the one whom he appointed heir of all things. Now you know what the heir is. The heir is the one who gets the inheritance and the inheritance which has been bequeathed to Jesus is all things and we are to use all things and enjoy all things, remembering that it all belongs to Jesus. From warm cups of coffee to cool misty mornings, it all belongs to Jesus.
He's the heir of all things and there is a kind of responsibility, a weight of responsibility that goes along with that. My parents bequeathed to me a cabin in the woods of eastern Kentucky. It sits in the woods. There's about one to three acres of land with the cabin, but I'm surrounded by gracious farmers and landowners who let me hunt on all that property. I must have access to a thousand acres. And occasionally I will say to one of the farmers, I say, is it okay if I do this or do that? And here's their standard response to me.
Jim, you treat that farm like it's your own. And I appreciate the love and trust that is expressed in that, but I take it a little step further than that. I don't say this to them, but this is what I think. I'll treat it even more respectfully than that. I'll treat it like it's yours and you're letting me use it. And the Lord Jesus has so graciously said to us, I give you all of these things that you have to enjoy. Go ahead and treat them like they're your own.
But our response is, I'll go a step further, Lord. I'll treat it like it's yours. There's a weight of responsibility that goes with that.
There's also a lifting of burden that goes with that. It all belongs to him. It's not my responsibility to oversee and manipulate all the events in world history. He's in control of all of it.
Although, I suspect that most of us do not embrace the potential that we apparently have to influence world events. I'm thinking of what it says in 1 Corinthians 5 and 6 after the Lord has said to the people at Corinth, here's what you need to do and you're competent to do it. Don't take your troubles before the civil magistrate asking him to decide your squabbles. It would be better off for you to be wronged than to go through that ordeal and to subject the community of Christ to that kind of derision. But here's what I brought all that up for. Don't you know that you're going to judge angels?
Wow, I rarely think of that. But apparently, there is a time coming when the saints are going to be given the responsibility of judging angels. And the teaching of that is, well, since you're going to do that, then aren't you competent to judge in these lighter matters? I mean, just get the least mature person in your congregation to make these decisions. He's better equipped to do it than someone who doesn't know the Lord.
Do you see the kind of potential that apparently we have? Do you ever pray, Lord, prepare me for the responsibilities that I'm going to have in eternity? Help me so to live now and so to look at the world now when it's my turn to judge angels that I will be able to judge competently. And then do you pray about world situations now?
I would say that few of us embrace the kind of potential that is implied in 1 Corinthians 5 and chapter 6, the kind of authority that is entrusted to God's people. But it's a great relief to know that if I ask the wrong thing, Jesus is going to take care of it. There's an old hymn that says, the good unasked in mercy grant. So if I neglect to ask for something good, then in your mercy grant it to us.
The ill, though asked, deny. If I ask for something that is not good for the world, not good for me, not good for your kingdom, then deny that thing that I'm asking for. Can you imagine what a mess your life would be in if God had always given you everything that you asked for? How good it is that the Lord does not just hand to us a blank check and say, fill it out. If the Lord were to come to you today and say, you may plan in detail the next 10 years of your life. Your response and my response ought to be, Lord, I will not do it. You take care of it.
You unfold it as you see fit. Jesus is the one who is the heir of all things and he has the wisdom to orchestrate and to arrange and manipulate all things for his ultimate purpose. And he is willing to use you and me in bringing that about.
But thank God the burden does not rest entirely on us. He's the heir of all things. That's the one who sat down. Now, notice what it says next about Jesus. It says that not only is he the heir of all things, he's also the one through whom he created the world. Through whom he created the world. So Jesus has been appointed the heir of all things and he is the one.
So he's at the end of the universe, but he's also at the beginning of the universe. He's the one who created all things. God says elsewhere that all things were created by him and for him. And that's a good thing to keep in mind as we encounter the various situations and circumstances of life to remember that he created all things. And as the pastor mentioned in his pastoral prayer, the world is not exactly as God created it because sin has entered in and has brought a lot of unpleasant, uncomfortable things. Not all sickness is a direct, immediate result of sin, but sin is a result, I mean, but sickness is a result of sin being in the world. Not all devastating storms can be attributed to one particular sin, but there are devastating, destructive storms in the world as a result of the state of things that has come as a result of human rebellion. But it is his world.
He created it. We sing songs about this. You know, the fairest Lord Jesus intimates that. And then this is my Father's world, and to my listening ears all nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres. The melody to which we sang, join all the glorious names, is a melody that I usually use to sing. I sing the almighty power of God that made the mountains rise, that spread the flowing seas abroad and built the lofty skies. Sing the wisdom that ordained the sun to rule the day. The moon shines full at his command and all the stars obey.
And he's in control of all things. Knowing that he created all things, he created all things, knowing that he created all things gives a special luster to them. After my dad retired from pastoring and before he died, he devoted a lot of his spare time to carving little things. And there were probably close to 100 little carvings that he left behind. And my sisters and I divided them up and gave them to grandchildren, and I have them around in my house. And none of them have any danger of being put in a museum. But they have a special luster because my dad made them. We've got things on our refrigerator that are never going to be in a museum, but they're special to me because my daughters gave them to me for Father's Day, or this little scribbling is something that my granddaughter did. There's a special luster to them because someone that I love made them. Well, I said that none of my dad's carvings, they're not going to end up in the Smithsonian someday.
These little paintings on my refrigerator, they're not going to end up in an art museum somewhere. The things that Jesus has created are so immeasurably greater than anything that is in any museum. And we just need to have our eyes open to see it. The songwriter apparently had his eyes somewhat open when he said, Heaven above is softer blue. Earth around is sweeter green. Something lives in every hue that Christless eyes have never seen.
Birds with glatter songs or flow. Flowers with brighter colors shine. Since I know, as now I know, I am His and He is mine. Sometimes when a husband goes away for a trip, he might leave little notes scattered around the house where his wife will find them. Oh, she'll make coffee and so I'll leave a little note here where she'll find it when she makes coffee in the morning. And tomorrow then she'll take the trash out. And so I'm going to leave a little note here. And then I'm going to leave a little note here by the laundry.
Just a reminder, I love her and I'm thinking about her. And the Lord Jesus who created this world has left little love notes all over the place. I was sitting on the patio at the missionary house this morning thinking about this and and just thinking, what does that tree tell me about Jesus? Now, that tree is not going to tell you how to get forgiven of your sins. That tree is not going to tell you about the gospel. But once you know the gospel, there's a whole lot that that tree can tell you.
C.H. Spurgeon wrote a book in the edition that I have. It's probably about 200 pages and it's Sermons in Candles. It's just 200 pages of illustrations and they're all based on candles. I was sitting there on the patio this morning looking at that massive willow oak that is in the backyard. It's probably five feet in diameter.
I went back there and looked closely at it and it's between four and five feet in diameter. Those willow oaks grow fast so it might only be 75 or 80 years old. But it's big. It's old.
I have an acorn here that came from that willow oak. You can't see it. It's too far away. It's too small. It's about the size of the fingernail on your little finger.
It's really small. And that oak grew out of an acorn this big. And I just thought, what's Jesus telling me through this oak?
Well, life is the essential thing. You could plant a marble out there and it'll never grow into a marble tree. But you plant this little acorn 80 years from now. If nothing happens, you're going to have an oak tree that's five feet in diameter.
That is if it stays connected to the ground. If you're going to grow big, you've got to stay connected to your nutrition source. Jesus says, abide in me and you will bear much fruit. But, you know, not everything that grows big grows big overnight.
You need to determine in your Christian life, are you going to try to grow zucchinis or are you going to try to grow oak trees? You know, if you've ever grown a zucchini, you know how big they get. It's a blossom one day and the next day it's the size of a ball bat. It grows so big, so fast. An oak tree. You know, when I pulled up to the mission house yesterday afternoon, I never looked at that oak tree and said, wow, it's really grown since I saw it two years ago. No, the growth is imperceptible.
But it's bigger, it's stronger, just slowly, bit by bit. This is all a note that Jesus has left in that oak tree and in the screaming of the hawk that I heard this morning or the trilling of that cardinal that I heard this morning or just the green in the grass all around. All nature sings and roundly rings the music of the spheres.
Well, stop looking at your cell phone long enough to look at it. If you just turn off the computer or the radio just long enough to listen to it, this is a world that is bursting out with love notes from the Lord Jesus Christ who created all things. God used Jesus to create the world. I take a walk almost every day and at the conclusion of my walk, there's a honeysuckle bush and, of course, honeysuckle blooms big in the mid spring. But usually about this time of year, there'll be a few little honeysuckle blossoms. I always stop and smell that honeysuckle and I think, Jesus did this. He put that fragrance in here.
Two or three years ago when I had COVID, I couldn't smell it. Thank you, Lord, that I can smell. Thank you, Lord, that I can taste.
Thank you for the beautiful memories of, and there's just so much, that that little fragrance, that little smell, that little honeysuckle blossom brings into my mind the love note from the Lord Jesus Christ who made it. That's the one who sat down. He created the world. Now, look at what it says about Jesus in verse 3. He is the radiance of the glory of God. Now, that's a highly significant biblical phrase. The glory of God is something that's really special, something that's really heavy, something that's really resplendent.
Maybe your mind has gone to Moses in Exodus chapter 33 when he was having a really good day of prayer. God had said, I'm not going to go with you and Moses said, well, if you don't go, I'm not going. God says, okay, I'll go with you. I'll send an angel.
No, you've got to go. God says, okay, I'll go with you. And then I think Moses has kind of got something that he's always been wanting to ask.
So he pulls it out on this good day. And let me just say that there are times when God is near. Call upon the Lord while he may be found.
Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. There are times when God is near to you as an individual. There are times when God is near to your family. There are times when God is near to your church. Take advantage of those times.
Those are special seasons. And Moses was having a good day. And he said, now let me see your glory. The only time the Bible ever says that God laughed is when he's laughing in derision at the wicked. But I wouldn't be surprised if there were not something like laughter of pleasure and delight that welled up in God's great and almighty bosom when he thought, now here's a boy who knows what to ask for.
And he says, son, I know what you're asking for. And I can't show it to you. It would kill you. But I'm going to show you as much as I can without killing you. Now, there's a rock over here. You get in the cleft of that rock and I'll cover you with my hand. I'll cause all my goodness to pass in front of you and I'll proclaim my name to you. And I'll remove my hand and you'll see as much as you can see without it killing you. But you can't see my face and live. That is the glory of God. His essential person, his nature. And we can't see it unfiltered.
You can't stare at that eclipse without your special glasses on. And you cannot see the glory of God unless you are hidden in the cleft of the rock of ages and see it through him who is the radiance of God's glory. Now, that's a striking way of putting it. He's not just the glory of God. He is the radiance of God's glory. He's not just the engine.
He's the chrome on the engine. He is that bright glistering sun spark that's glistening off of the chrome that you can't even look at without it hurting your eyes. He is the radiance of God's glory. You want to know who God is? You want to see the essence of his character? You'll see it in the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ because he is the radiance of God's glory. And then notice what it says next about him. I put these two together, the exact imprint of his nature, the exact representation of his nature.
He will tell you more clearly than anyone else what God is like. I am in the final few hours of listening to the life of Samuel Johnson. Samuel Johnson was an important literary figure in the 1700s. He was so influential that the years surrounding his life are called the Age of Johnson. So a very important literary figure. And probably the most detailed biography of all time was written about Samuel Johnson by a man named James Boswell who followed Samuel Johnson around for 20 years, writing down almost everything he said.
And it has been said that we know Samuel Johnson more thoroughly than we know any other person in history. It takes 52 hours to listen to the life of Samuel Johnson. It's more detailed than the average listener would like. If you have any interest in listening, you probably would do well to read or listen to an abridged version. But it is an education in itself to think about it that here is a carefully revealed picture of someone that I am very interested in, the life of Samuel Johnson.
Well, Jesus Christ has given us a very thorough, detailed description of what God is like. And it doesn't take 50 hours to read it. Most years I get myself on a schedule where I read through the Bible in one year. But one year, probably two or three years ago, I thought I'm going to read the Gospels through every month. And I'm going to read aloud for 30 minutes a day.
And so that's what I did. If I ever missed any days, then I would finish with the Gospel of John, the fourth Gospel, on the 20th day of the month. And I thought, this is a remarkable thing. God Almighty sends His Son and everything that we need to know about what He said and did, you can read it in 20 hours.
It's just mind-boggling. And through thinking about what Jesus said and what Jesus did, the Gospels are no more important than the rest of the New Testament. But the point that I'm making is it doesn't take all that much time to see what Jesus says about God. And what He says and what He does is an exact representation of who God is.
This is the one who sat down. And then when it says next, He upholds the universe by the word of His power. And we've seen that Jesus made it all.
We've seen that Jesus is going to inherit it all. And now we see, oh, Jesus is making it all work right now. Jesus is the one who makes big oak trees grow out of little acorns. Jesus is the one who leaves this little love note of an egg turns into a caterpillar. Caterpillar turns into a chrysalis.
And then that chrysalis turns into a butterfly. How does that work? Jesus makes it work. You can predict with clockwork precision what time the sun is going to arise 50 days from now. How does that work? Why don't we just take a bucket full of ball bearings, different size.
Let's go to gymnasium. Just take that five-gallon bucket full of ball bearings and, whoom, just throw them out on the floor and see what they do. Now, if you just wait long enough, then you'll be amazed. Pretty soon the big ones will attract the little ones and the little ones will start spinning around. And the whole bunch of them will. And they'll just start spinning around each other. You just got to wait for it to happen.
That's absurd. Why? Why do I know? Why can they tell when Halley's Comet is going to show up the next time? How can they tell when the next eclipse is going to occur? How do they know that?
How is it all predictable? Because Jesus is upholding it all by the word of his power. He's the one who's making it all work.
We are living in a Christ-saturated world. This is the one who sat down. He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. So we've seen who sat down.
Now let's answer the question much more briefly. What's the significance of his sitting down? Well, the first thing is there in that participle, after making purification for sins.
So he did something that had not been done before. He made purification for sins. Now to help you feel the weight of this, keep your finger there, but turn forward to Hebrews chapter 10. And I want to show you what it says here about Jesus sitting down. We're going to look at verses 11 through 14. So Hebrews chapter 10 beginning with verse 11. And verses 11 and 12 are in sharp contrast.
And I will emphasize and point out to you how they are. So first of all, in verse 11, it says, and every priest stands. So we're going to have Jesus sitting.
So notice that every priest stands daily. So this is something that's repeated day after day. We're going to have Jesus doing something only once. Offering repeatedly. That's the same idea as daily.
It goes over and over. Jesus is going to do something only once. The same sacrifices which can never take away sins. That is yet another point of contrast. So the priest stands.
He does it daily. He's offering repeatedly sacrifices which can never take away sins. But look what it says in verse 12. But when Christ had offered for all time.
Okay, so not every day, for all time, not repeated sacrifices, but a single sacrifice for sins. In contrast to the priest who never sat down, he sat down at the right hand of God. He sat down because he had done, he had done what had never been done before.
He had made a purification for sins. He said it is finished and then in ceremonial display of that finished task, he sat down. And then notice what else it says about why he sat down in verse 13. Waiting from that time until his enemy should be made a footstool for his feet. So that's another reason why he's sitting.
He's waiting. And then verse 14 emphasizes what we already saw in verse 12. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. And I think that 14th verse gives us insight into the effects of his sacrifice on behalf of his people.
And the effect that it has on the world. So verse 14 tells us, for by a single offering he has perfected. So past tense, there are some things that are accomplished. And then for those who are being sanctified, you see that's something that is going on. But it's based on something that was perfected and now there are ongoing results of this thing that was done once for all. And I think that also gives us insight into the way that Jesus is now ruling the world. There are still vast pockets of rebellion in the world. But the domino that is going to make them all fall down has been tripped. And the process is being accomplished. Just as he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified, he has now sat down at the right hand of God waiting until his enemies are going to be made a footstool for his feet.
There are still enemies, but they are doomed because the initial act that is going to ensure his defeat of all of his enemies has already been done. God is satisfied with it and Jesus sat down. There is a psalm that apparently was sung antiphonally. So an antiphon is a musical piece that is sung by complementary choirs. And so one choir will sing one thing and the choir, someone else. We had a little bit of that in Pharisee Lord Jesus. So the main choir would sing something and then the altos came in with something else that was a little antiphonal.
So not exactly two choirs, but there is a psalm that is apparently antiphonal. And it says, one choir sings, be ye lifted up ye gates, be ye lifted up ye everlasting doors, that the king of glory may come in. Who is this king of glory?
Maybe the other choir takes that up. Who is this king of glory? And then one of the choirs answers, the Lord strong and mighty. He is the king of glory.
And the Holy Spirit liked that so much that he had them do it again. Be ye lifted up ye gates, be ye lifted up ye everlasting doors, that the king of glory may come in. Who is this king of glory? The Lord strong and mighty in battle. He is the king of glory. There's an Old Testament scripture that talks about Jesus returning from judgment, describes him as being clothed in a robe that is spattered with blood.
Where have you come from? I have tread the winepress of the wrath of God by myself. I don't know if you've ever seen the movie The Patriot, but early in the film the character played by Mel Gibson is reluctant to join the American Revolution. He's seen battle. He doesn't want to be involved in battle. But then the British troops come and they shoot one of his sons and they take another one of his sons captive and he says to his two living sons, get the rifles boys and follow me. So they set up an ambush and they ambushed the bad guys and the scene includes Mel Gibson with a hatchet killing the enemies of his family. And then it shows him coming up and he's just covered with blood, just blood all over it.
And his boys, the camera pans to his boys and they look at him and they just, you can tell by the expression on their face. Who is this? Who is this?
I didn't know he was capable of this. Who is this? But they know that they're loved and they know that they're protected. And I imagine that after the Lord Jesus Christ came back from his work on earth, the marks of his awful conflict still in his hands, on his side and in his feet, the choirs of heaven break out into that. Who is the king of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, he is the king of glory. I can imagine all the hosts of heaven just staring, breathless, ecstatic, stupefied admiration as the Lord Jesus Christ walks up to the throne of God the Father, presents the merits of his blood. And then he sat down. Amen.
