TITLE: The Christ Factor
TEXT: Hebrews 1:1-3
OPEN: A preacher and a member of his congregation stood by the side of the road.
They were holding up a sign that said,
"The End is Near! Turn around before it's too late!"
A car drove up, the driver saw
the sign, rolled down his window and yelled out:
"I just wish you religious
nuts would leave us alone!"
… and he sped up & drove around the curve out of sight
Shortly, you could hear the sound
of tires screeching on the pavement… and a big splash.
The church member turned to his preacher and said,
“You know, I really think we should put up a sign that just said 'bridge
out’”
APPLY:
It’s obvious that those church people should have been…
… more selective in what they put on their sign.
And,
because they weren’t careful in how they phrased their warning… a driver ignored them.
If something is important enough…
if it’s critical enough…
… we try to be careful what we say & how we say it
There are times when we do not want
to be misunderstood.
In our passage in Hebrews 1, God is telling
us that He was very selective in how He spoke to us
Hebrews 1:1
tells us that
In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways
God Spoke
God had something to say
And what He had to say was so important that He had special
people called “prophets”…
… that He spoke thru
And He repeated His message through those prophets
at “many times and in various ways”
What could that be???
Well, Hebrews tells us plainly – God spoke through those prophets at many time & various ways
BUT NOW… He
has spoken by His Son.
What that’s telling us: His Son was the message.
The coming of Jesus was what God was focusing
on all thru the Old Testament times.
In fact there is the repeated message all thru the Old Testament: “Somebody’s coming”
Sometimes, God could be real subtle
For example, one man I read told of an intriguing message he found in the genealogies.
Genealogies are those boring sections of Scripture that
nobody seems to enjoy reading…
… and yet – in the genealogy
of Noah we find these names
Adam - Seth - Enosh - Kenan - Mahalalel - Jared - Enoch - Methuselah - Lamech - Noah
In the Jewish language each one of those names had a meaning…
Adam, for example – means “Man”
Seth means “appointed”,
Enosh means “mortal…
and so on.
So this man took
the meanings of each of those names came up with the most intriguing message
Man - appointed - mortal - sorrow –
The blessed
God - shall come down - teaching –
His death shall bring - the despairing - rest or comfort! http://fromthemindofdoulos.blogspot.com/
Huh… never knew that was there did you?
And that’s just in the boring part of Scripture – the part
no one wants to read
That’s just when God was being subtle.
But there other times when God wasn’t very subtle at all.
·
For example, you could look in the book of Daniel and you’d find
… that God gave a very specific information about…
§
…when Jesus was to begin His earthly ministry…
§
…and He would begin His church.
·
And if you looked in the book of
Isaiah (especially ch 53) you’d see that God tells us
that
The Messiah would be despised and rejected of men;
That He would be wounded and bruised
He would pour out His
life unto death
That
He’d die with wicked men, and numbered with the transgressors
But – that He would be buried with the rich
And that His life would be a “guilt
offering” - “bearing the sin of many”
… of a man who was reading that very passage and was so convicted that…
- he believed
in Jesus
- confessed
Jesus as His Lord and Savior
- and was buried in the waters of Christian baptism for the forgiveness of his sins.
So… when God spoke thru the prophets
– at many times and in various ways…
… He had a very special message
… a message that He drove home by symbols, hidden messages and outright declarations
(pause…)
And what
was that message??? = Somebody’s
coming… (repeat)’
And when He comes this is what He’ll do/ where He’ll go
There were over 300 direct prophecies …
And perhaps 1000 symbolic and hidden declarations of God’s intention
Each and every one of those messages telling us exactly the same thing:
Someone is coming!
And now
(pause…) that someone has come
And He spoke thru Jesus, because He WAS the message
He was the one everyone had been anticipating nearly 4000 years.
And the writer of Hebrews wants you to understand this
message isn’t about a body of doctrine
He’s not some mere angel
He’s not a nice teacher of pleasant moral precepts
He IS “…the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his
being, sustaining all things by his powerful word…. Hebrews 1:3
Now, there are some
people who have a problem with that.
… a mere mortal who said some decent things…
… but the Son of
God ??? – They don’t want to go there.
Charles Colson says that he “discovered that
one major U.S. daily, as a matter of policy,
will not
print the two words Jesus and Christ together;
because when combined, the editor says, it represents an editorial judgment.”
One Dean from Oxford University said "Jesus was a great teacher, a very ethical, moral,
human being … certainly a phenomenal teacher… and Christianity is a great world religion . . .and while I agree
he is a great light, once we say he is the only light, this is what leads to all kinds of spiritual racism and a division
When it comes
to the divinity of Jesus… there are a lot of people who just don’t want to go there
But the Bible won’t let us go
anywhere else.
- From the prophecy in Isaiah 9 “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the
government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called … Mighty God….”
Isaiah 9:6
- Quoting another prophecy Isaiah - the Gospel of Matthew tells us: "The virgin will be with child and will give
birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" —which means, "God with us."
Matthew 1:23
- Jesus Himself said “I and the Father are one.”
John 10:30
When Jesus
asks His disciples who they think that He is
“Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’
Jesus replied, ‘Blessed are you,
Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.’” Matthew 16:16-17
And one of the most famous passages in Scripture declares
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten (His one and only)
Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
John 3:16
Again, and
again and again God’s Word declares Jesus was God in the flesh.
But there are those who reject that Biblical reality … because it “doesn’t
make sense to them”
… and if they can’t understand it – it can’t be true.
But that’s only because Jehovah Witnesses reason in
the wrong direction.
They think as mortals… and because they think as mortals – and not like God…
… they
end up trying to bring God down to their level.
But it doesn’t work that way.
ILLUS: A preacher once met a Jehovah Witness who challenged
him on the deity of Christ.
"You say that Jesus Christ is coequal with the eternal Father, but He cannot be, for no son is ever as old as the one
who has begotten him."
The
minister thought for a moment and then replied, "You yourself have just called God the eternal
Father. Have you ever thought that statement through? Don't you realize that God
can only be the eternal Father if He has an eternal Son? If you would rethink your position in the light
of the Scriptures, you would see that eternal Fatherhood demands eternal Sonship!"
Well… because
if Jesus wasn’t the Son of God…
If He wasn’t God in the flesh…
If He wasn’t Immanuel – God with us…
Then, His death
on the cross would mean nothing.
You see – the Bible tells us that
Jesus died on the cross to forgive us of our sins
And it also tells us that our sin is against God.
And that = there is no way we could ever pay for our own sins by our own good works
Now, if I can’t pay for my own sins, then someone else
has to.
But couldn’t another man or woman
pay for my sin by dying for us?
NO… no mortal man has ever been sinless enough to step in for us.
ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Only the sinless Son of God could take our place.
We couldn’t pay the price… so God did it for us.
To deny that is to demean God’s sacrifice to redeem
us from our sins.
The message is this: Jesus – God
in the Flesh/ God With Us – gave His life to save ours
The Apostle John wrote: “Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the
Christ. Such a man is the antichrist— he denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father;
whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.” 1 John 2:22-23
CLOSE: A wealthy man and his son loved to collect rare
works of art.
They had everything in their collection, from Picasso to Raphael.
They would often sit
together and admire the great works of art.
When the Vietnam conflict broke out, the son went to war.
He was
very courageous and died in battle while rescuing another soldier.
The father was notified and
grieved deeply for his only son.
About a month later, just before Christmas, there was a knock at the
door.
A young man stood at the door with a large package in his hands.
He said,
"Sir, you don't know me, but I am the soldier for whom your son gave his life He saved
many lives that day, and he was carrying me to safety when a bullet struck him in the heart and he died instantly. He often
talked about you, and your love for art."
The young man held out this package.
"I know this isn't much. I'm not really a great artist, but I think your son would
have wanted you to have this."
The father opened the package. It was a portrait of his son, painted
by the young man.
He stared at it in awe and his eyes welled up with tears.
He thanked the young man
and offered to pay him for the picture.
"Oh, no sir, I could never repay what your son did for me. It's a gift."
The father hung the portrait
over his mantle.
Every time visitors came to his home he took them to see the portrait of his son…
…
before he showed them any of the other great works he had collected.
The man died a few months later. There was to be a great auction
of his paintings.
Many influential people gathered, excited over seeing the great paintings and having an opportunity to purchase one
for their collection.
On the platform sat the painting of the son. The auctioneer pounded his gavel. "We will start the bidding with this picture of the son. Who will bid for this picture?"
There
was silence.
Then
a voice in the back of the room shouted, "We want to see the famous paintings."
But the auctioneer persisted. "Will someone bid for this painting? Who will start the bidding?
$100, $200?"
Another
voice shouted angrily. "We didn't come to see this painting. We came to see the Van Goghs,
the Rembrandts. Get on with the real bids!"
But still the auctioneer continued. "The son! The
son! Who'll take the "SON?"
Finally, a voice came from
the very back of the room. It was the longtime gardener of the man and his son. "I'll
give $10 for the painting." Being a poor man, it was all he could afford.
"We
have $10, who will bid $20?"
"Give it to him for $10. Let's see the masters."
"$10 is the bid, won't someone bid $20?"
The crowd was becoming angry. They didn't want the picture of the son. They wanted
the more worthy investments for their collections. The auctioneer pounded the gavel.
"Going once, twice, SOLD for $10."
A man sitting on the second row shouted, "Now let's
get on with the collection!"
The auctioneer laid down his gavel. "I'm sorry, the auction is over."
"What about the paintings?"
"When I was called to conduct this auction, I was told of a secret stipulation in the will.
Only
the painting of the son would be auctioned.
Whoever bought that painting would inherit the entire estate,
including the paintings.
The man who took the son gets everything!"
God gave His Son 2,000 years ago to die on a cruel cross. Much like the auctioneer, His message today is: "The
Son, the Son, who'll take the Son?"
Because, you see, whoever takes the Son gets everything.
