The Glory of Christ

Thank you for reading this sermon from Christ Fellowship. I hope and pray that this sermon will be a blessing of grace and truth to you. With that said, let me encourage you not to use this sermon as a replacement for your local church. Christ Jesus did not establish his Church simply for us to consume content. Instead, He calls us to be part of a real, covenant family. 

We have short gap between our study of Luke and our Road to Emmaus series, so in an effort to connect them this morning, we will be looking at the first three verses of Hebrews 1.

On the day of the Resurrection, Jesus spent hours explaining the Gospel to two disciples, helping them find the Messiah in Moses and the Prophets.

The book of Hebrews is itself a sort of “road to Emmaus” sermon, connecting the dots between the Old and New Testaments. It urges Christians not to return to Old Testament religion, but instead to find its fulfillment in Christ and His work.

I’m going to read Hebrews chapter 1, the first three verses:

¹ Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 

There’s the connection to the Old Testament.

² 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. 

God has now spoken to us through Jesus, who is both King and Creator.

³ 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. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

The person described here is a better Jesus than the Jesus I think most people believe in. This verse tells us HOW Jesus reveals God to us. Part of how Jesus reveals God is by what He accomplished. But just as important, if not more important, is what Jesus is like.

If you ask the average person on the street, “Who is Jesus?” An unbeliever might say, “Jesus was supposedly a guy who died on a cross for people’s sins.” And you would probably get a similar answer from believers: “Jesus died on a cross for my sins.”

Even in the church, the focus is almost always on the work of Christ. What did Jesus do? What were His miracles? Why did he die on the cross?

All of that is extremely important, but we cannot separate the WORK from the PERSON.

In Great Britain, when a royal, a dignitary, or a high ranking official walks into a dinner party or a ball, someone announces their arrival. But they don’t list off the person’s accomplishments. They announce the person’s TITLE.

This is how they would introduce King Charles: “His Majesty, Charles the Third, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories King, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.” All of it WHO he is.

That’s what the writer of Hebrews does here. He tells us WHO Jesus is, not only what Jesus accomplished. He tells us both because they cannot be separated one from the other.

And this morning, my goal for us is a simple one. We will focus our attention on verse 3 and I want nothing more than for each of us to leave here with a bigger view of Jesus. I want him to be more to us than just the man who died on the cross. I want the person who died on that cross (and rose again) to be bigger and better than we thought He was.

First, the writer says Jesus is the “radiance” of the glory of God. In other words, Jesus is the shining and visible light that emanates from God Himself. He is not like the moon, reflecting the sun’s light. Jesus is more like the actual light from the sun. The sun is far away, but it’s light reaches across space to earth.

In the Old Testament, God radiated something that the Hebrews called His “Shekinah Glory”. This is what Hebrews 1:3 calls Jesus. Jesus is God coming to earth, like the light from the sun.

But what is “glory”. That’s one of our churchy words that we never explain. The “glory” of a king or a priest was something displayed in his wardrobe. Important people in ancient times wore lots of heavy, ornamented robes to show that they were important. The heaviness of the garments was a display of “glory”.

Jesus bears in His Person the radiance of God’s glory.

He is also the “exact imprint” of his nature. In other words, Jesus is not a counterfeit but an exact copy. He isn’t made of similar stuff, but the same exact stuff. Jesus is equal in substance to the Father.

This can’t mean anything else except that Jesus is literally God. To see Christ is to see what God is like.

This one verse destroys any heresy that says Jesus is not God, because God would not allow His Word to say these things about anyone else.

Jesus is called God’s Son, but not in the same way that Eli is my son. Eli bears some of my DNA and looks a little bit like me, but he isn’t my clone. Jesus, however, has exactly the same nature as the Father.

He also “upholds” the universe. In Greek mythology, there was a titan named Atlas who held the earth up on his back. But this word “upholds” is different. It means that Jesus has the power to create, preserve, control, and bring to an end everything. He’s not only holding the world in his hand. He can do whatever he wants with it.

Last week, I read about a new theory being proposed by a world-renowned physicist that gravity is proof we are living in a simulation. Gravity is one of the mysteries of the scientific world. No one understands why gravity exists and this new theory basically says it doesn’t. It’s just a construct in a complex simulation.

Or there’s another equally plausible explanation. Jesus is holding everything together by the word of His power. And that’s why we can’t find an explanation for gravity.

This is the Jesus of verse 3. The one who with a single word could change everything we know… The one who became God in the flesh… The one who creates and sustains all things…

This is the man that Hebrews 1:3 says made “purification” for our sins. That is the only word in the verse that highlights the work of Jesus. Everything else focuses on His Person, His worth, His value, His identity.

In other words, Jesus was able to make purification for our sins because of WHO HE IS. Only God in the flesh could accomplish that.

We understand the idea here. There are certain things that only a president can do. There are certain things that only a rich person can do. There are certain things that only a king can do.

The only person who can forgive sins is God, because He is the one sinned against. The only person who can pay the penalty for sins had to be a man, because man committed the first sin. Jesus had to be both.

Hebrews goes on to spend a lot of time talking about the priesthood. That’s probably because God is about to let the Romans destroy the temple in Jerusalem. The sacrifices will end. The Old Covenant will be eliminated completely. And the writer of Hebrews is preparing Jewish Christians for this.

They don’t need the sacrifices if they have Jesus. The priests and the sacrifices were always about Jesus.

Priests in the temple never sat down. When they were at work, they remained standing until they left the temple. But notice what Hebrews says about Jesus.

“After making purification for sins, he sat down…”

What that means is that Jesus finished the work. His sacrifice as a priest for His people was a one-time thing and it was enough. He did something the other priests could never do. He finished the work. He sat down.

We see this in sports. Near the end of a big game, if a team has a big lead, they will usually send their star player to the bench. The player will sit down to loud cheering and the coach will send in a player that usually doesn’t get a chance to play. The star did their job. There’s really nothing left to do. The coach is just letting the bench guy experience the moment of playing in a game.

As a side note, that’s our role. Jesus sat down. The work is finished. We are not adding anything. We aren’t stealing his spotlight. We aren’t robbing him of any glory. But He loves us enough to let us play even though the game is already won.

Finally, the writer says that Jesus sat down at the “right hand” of God.  This is the position of favor, honor and authority. What that means is this: Jesus not only finished His work, but it was perfect. Even though He humbled himself and died on the cross, in the end He lost nothing. But He gained everything.

He resumed His rightful place of honor having purchased the souls of millions with His own blood.

So, who is Jesus?

Jesus is the Prophet through whom God has spoken His final word.

Jesus is the Priest who has accomplished a perfect work of cleansing for His people’s sins.

Jesus is the King who sits in the place of highest honor, ruling over all things.

Why is all of this so important? Some of you may be thinking, can’t I just believe that Jesus died for my sins and let that be enough? Why do I need a bigger and better idea of Jesus than that?

And that’s a great question. We live in a time in history when we don’t really need to “know” anything. We an entire world of information on our smart phones. If I want to know something about God, I can just look it up.

But this is not just useless trivia. The Bible is an invitation to know and to follow and to be loved by the God who created you.

Most of us have loves and obsessions that we will spend hours and days learning everything we can about that topic. What is it driving that desire for knowledge?

It holds some value for us, right? It makes us feel happy or important or fulfilled. It’s at least an escape from boredom or at best an opportunity to feel better about ourselves.

What that means, if we are brutally honest with ourselves, is that we don’t care to learn more about God because he’s not that valuable to us. I don’t love Him as much as I love my hobbies. I don’t even love Him as much as I love random videos posted by strangers on the internet. At least, that’s what my time says about me.

Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”

All of us are guilty of rejecting the God who created us. All of us are guilty of loving the wrong things.

We underestimate the effects of sin in our life. We easily become lazy and disinterested in the things of God, even as Christians, because we live with an enemy inside of us that hates God.

But when the Gospel becomes our treasure, God begins to break all that down. He gives us a desire to hate sin and run from it. He gives us a desire to know and love Him more.

He gets us off the bench and in the game. Not to win it, because it is already won.

But who is watching us right now? Who is our audience? It’s Jesus!

Jesus is watching us: the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, upholding the universe by the word of his power.

And if you belong to Him, then He watches with a smile. He sees you. He sees every step, every fall, every moment. He shines His light into your life. He reveals God to you. He is upholding you by the word of his power. He delights in us.

He also finished the game, but He still invites us onto the field—to play from a place of victory, not striving. The question is: do we realize we’re on His team?

Most of you know I grew up Jehovah’s Witness. As I think back on my religious experience, I remember how I felt as a child.

My posture towards God as a child and as a teenager was riddled with pride and fear. Sometimes I felt good about myself and that God was happy with me. Other times I felt anxious and afraid, that God was unhappy with me and that I was in danger.

The best way I can think of to describe that feeling is when you see a police car in the rear-view mirror. You feel like he’s following you and waiting for you to make a mistake. That’s certainly not the way the God of the Bible wants His children to think of Him.

Who is Jesus? He is the radiance of the glory of God. He is the exact imprint of His nature. He upholds the universe. He has made purification for your sins. And now, He is seated—because the work is done.

May the Lord give us a desire to know God better than we do right now. May Jesus grow bigger in our hearts and everything else grow smaller.