Hebrews: Jesus - God is Worshipped, Part 1

Welcome to Delight in Grace. The answer to this question has eternal significance, and it shapes three things about you. The answer to the question, Who do you say I am? asked by Jesus Christ shapes three things about you. Number one, it shapes your world view. Number two, it shapes your thinking. And number three, it shapes your behavior.

And there is a logical progression there. It shapes your world view in terms of your understanding of reality. What is true? What is real and therefore what matters. And the outflow of that is that it shapes your thinking, your habits of thought, what values and priorities you have.

And the logical outflow of that is that it shapes your behavior. The scriptures have much to teach us this morning about this one who asked that question. So in honor of the Lord and His word, would you please stand with me as we seek to understand and know His word this morning. The word is with great humility and expectancy that we bow before You in honor of You, recognizing that You have indeed communicated to us. You have made Yourself known to us so that we can know You and walk with You and serve You with delight. So teach us, Father, from Your word as You open our hearts and our minds, manifest to us afresh Your Son, the Lord Jesus. It's in His name we pray. Amen.

Please be seated. A presenter of the British Broadcasting Corporation, Jeremy Bowen, said this, and this was in reference to the massive worldwide religion of Christianity numbering more than two billion people following the memory of Christ. He said this is remarkable two thousand years after. But preempting that, he said this, and I quote, the important thing is not what he was or what he wasn't. The important thing is what people believe him to have been.

He couldn't be more wrong. It is not my belief that establishes truth. My belief is a response to truth, a surrender to truth. Much of, and this is by Andrew Greeley, he says, much of history of Christianity has been devoted to domesticating Jesus, to reducing that elusive, enigmatic, paradoxical person to dimensions we can comprehend, understand and convert to our own purposes.

So far it hasn't worked. There are popular perceptions of Jesus in the world today, and particularly in the West, because we have been so good at making Jesus and making God in our own image. You see the conventions of intelligentsia in academia today, the conventions of those arenas are that faith is something that man has made up. God is a fabrication of man's mind.

They couldn't be more wrong. But we might be guilty of that when we make God in our own image, when this one who asked the question, who do you say that I am? Maybe, maybe, just maybe we have inaccurate perceptions of who he is.

In fact, let me recommend a few of them that are, I think, particularly prevalent in the West today and in much of the church. There's the therapist, Jesus, who helps us cope with life's problems. There's the touchdown, Jesus.

You know what he does, right? He helps athletes run faster and jump higher than non-Christians and determines the outcomes of ball games, particularly Super Bowls. There's the spiritual guru, Jesus, a wise inspirational teacher who believes in you and helps you find your center to become a better you.

Here's one I think that's very prevalent particularly on Christian radio and in Christian bookstores. The boyfriend, Jesus, who wraps his arms around us as we sing about his intoxicating love. Is any one of those the Jesus you worship? Who do you say that I am? Jesus asked in history. It is a human propensity to reduce God to a human image, that we have made God in our image. We cannot do that.

We ought not do that and this is what the writer of Hebrews is arguing. This is what he is presenting in logical fashion and because we recognize that this is a problem, he presents this in introduction to this. Now I want you to turn to the back of your bulletin and there's a quote there that I want you to read with me.

Follow along with me as I read this. This is from C.S. Lewis in his book, Mere Christianity, because we cannot formulate, we cannot perceive Jesus in our own image.

C.S. Lewis says this, I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him, quote, I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher but I don't accept his claim to be God, end quote. This is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on the level of with the man who says he is a poached egg or else he would be the devil of hell.

You must make your choice. Either this man was and is the son of God or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.

He did not intend to. Who do you say that I am? The answer to that question has eternal significance and shapes your world view, your thinking and your behavior. This is why the writer of Hebrews said in verse four that he has become so much better than the angels as he has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. Well, what is it about the angels and what is this excellent name? An excellent name, excellence means the perfection there, an excellent name, an exalted name.

The name represents everything that is true about the person, his works, his accomplishments, his character, his purpose, all of that is wrapped up in his name. And why is he more excellent than the angels? Because to the Jews, the angels were their heroes. They were the heroes of the Judaic faith. Angels were venerated, oftentimes the Jews were guilty of even worshiping angels. Angels would not accept or allow worship in the scriptures.

Many have tried and they would not accept it. But the Jews would venerate the angels because they mediated the law as we find from Exodus and from Galatians. The law came to them by the angels. Angels are the ones who appeared as messengers from God. Angels were in the very presence of God.

They were, in the Jews mind, they were next to God and therefore because God was so other than they would venerate the angels. And the angels were the heroes of their faith, which is why the writer of Hebrews says that Christ has become so much better than them. What he is saying here is that Jesus isn't just another messenger from God.

He is not just another messenger from God. And so to help us do this, the writer of Hebrews says, I want you to understand this, I want you to grasp this. In the place that we're going to turn, now remember he's talking to Jews, to Hebrews. To help you grasp this, let's take a stroll through the Jewish songbook. What's the Jewish songbook? Psalms. We're going to take a stroll through this and from this Jewish songbook, we're going to redact a hymn. We're going to make it a five verse hymn about this one Jesus Christ.

And it's not me saying, it's the word of God saying it, the inspired words of God, recognized canonical words of God. And we're going to put together a five verse hymn that exalts this one Jesus Christ. What is the Jewish songbook all about?

Two things. Number one, it's about God's redemptive plan. Secondly, it's about who Christ is from three perspectives of time.

The three perspectives of time are the past, the present and the future. The Psalms are chock full of messianic messages, messianic prophecies. And the Psalms, the Hebrew songbook tells us about God's redemptive plan.

It tells us about who Christ is from the past, from the present and from the future. We're so glad you've joined us for Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, Pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. You can hear this message and others anytime by visiting our website, www.delightingrace.com. You can also check out Pastor Rich's book, Seven Words That Can Change Your Life, where he unpacks from God's word the very purpose for which you were designed. Seven Words That Can Change Your Life is available wherever books are sold. As always, tune in to Delight in Grace, weekdays at 10 a.m.