Sermon Tone Analysis

BOOK OF HEBREWS: HEBREWS 1:1-14

THREE REASONS WHY JESUS IS WORTHY OF MY WORSHIP

This morning marks the beginning of our look at the book of Hebrews.

The book of Hebrews is an absolutely amazing book, and it is one of my most-favorite books in the entire Bible.

I wish I could tell you who wrote this great book; but unfortunately, no one knows for sure.

Many throughout the centuries have assumed that it was the Apostle Paul, but for whatever reason, the author left the book anonymous.

The intended audience of the book was a group of Jews that had accepted Christ as their Savior.

Even though Christianity developed out of Judaism, the radical transformation from accepting Jesus as the Messiah left many of these new Christians with some very strange ideas about who Jesus was.

And while some of their ideas were crazy, I can imagine that it would have been very difficult for them to understand exactly who Jesus was.

I mean, they knew that the Messiah was going to be born in Bethlehem, and they knew that He was going to do lots of miracles, but they didn’t realize that God Himself was coming down to save them!

From a very young age, there was one central doctrine that was hammered into every young Jew’s mind.

And no doubt, if you asked a Jew today, they would say the same thing was their central belief.

And that is taken from Deuteronomy chapter six, verse four, which says, “Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God is one.”

So a Jew that became a Christian would sometimes get very confused about who Jesus was.

The normal Christian would say, “Jesus is God in the flesh.”

And a Jewish believer might say, “Well, not exactly.

I mean, Jesus is great, and He is even the Messiah, but the Bible clearly says that God is one, not two or three.”

This is the kind of belief that the writer of Hebrews is addressing in Hebrews chapter one.

Since the Jewish believers couldn’t figure out who Jesus was, some of them had come to the conclusion that Jesus was an angel, and the writer of Hebrews has some very definitive words for them in chapter one.

So if you are not there already, I invite you to turn in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter one, and we’ll be reading all fourteen verses.

“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, and hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds; Who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; being made so much better than the angels, as He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.

For unto which of the angels said He at any time, ‘Thou art My Son, today have I begotten Thee?’

And again, ‘I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to Me a Son?’

And again, when He bringeth in the first begotten into the world, He saith, ‘And let all the angels of God worship Him.’

And of the angels He saith, ‘Who maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire.’

But unto the Son He saith, ‘Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever: a scepter of righteousness is the specter of Thy kingdom.

Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.’

And, ‘Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail.’

But to which of the angels said He at any time, ‘Sit on My right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool?’

Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?”

Let’s pray before we dive into God’s word.

The title of this morning’s sermon is “Three Reasons Why Jesus is Worthy of My Worship.”

As always, I encourage you to take notes from sermons, not because I say things in a way that will blow your mind, but because you just might learn something from the word of God that you did not know before.

Let’s begin by looking at the first reason this chapter gives us.

Reason #1: Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s revelation

Verse one is a verse that many of you are very familiar with, I’m sure.

Look again at what verse one says.

“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets.”

The writer of Hebrews jumps right into his argument for Christ in this verse.

The writer says that God has spoken to mankind through a variety of means throughout history through a variety of people known as prophets.

This one little verse sets us apart from the majority of liberal Christians.

There are many so-called “Christians” out there who would say that God is out there, but we really can’t know anything about God because He does not speak to us.

This verse says otherwise.

This verse says that our God is a God who has spoken to His servants.

But you know, our God did not have to speak to us.

God would have been just as much God if He had kept to Himself up in Heaven and never said a word to His creation.

He could have created us and just watched us go like we were some sort of movie.

But instead, God spoke.

He spoke through Adam and Eve when He told them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

He spoke when He told Noah to build an ark so that he and his family could be saved from the impending flood.

He spoke when He told Abraham to get up out of his country and go settle in a new land.

He spoke when He told Moses to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt.

And no doubt when the writer of Hebrews told these Jewish believers that God had spoken in many ways, they would have thought, “Amen!”

They knew all of these stories like the backs of their hands.

Many of them would have had entire books of the Old Testament memorized.

But look what the writer of Hebrews says in verse two.

“And hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds.”

In these last days He has spoken to us by His Son.

The author reminds the Jews that just as God spoke through many people, He has spoken through Jesus Christ.

But then He goes on further to say that Jesus is the heir of all things; and in fact, He was the One through Whom God created the world.

So I think we can say with very little doubt that Jesus is not only a revelation from God the Father, but that He is the revelation from God the Father.

God has spoken to mankind in many, many ways; but all of these ways pale in comparison to how Jesus carried God’s message to humanity.

Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God.

And that raises the question, “What is God’s message through Jesus Christ?”

If you know John 3:16 by heart, why don’t you say it aloud with me.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”

Amen!

There are so many people out there who would say that God is like a clock maker who creates a clock, winds it up, and then simply watches it without doing anything else.

But to that we would say, “No way, Joses!” God has spoken His grace through Jesus Christ!

So as we think this morning about the attributes of Christ that make Him worthy of our worship, we can praise Him because He is the One that brought God’s message of love and mercy to us.

But He was not only some message bearer, He was the message itself.

He did not merely come down and talk about how much God loved the world.

No, He told how God loved the world, and then showed us God’s love by dying for our sins.

Jesus Christ is the ultimate fulfillment of God’s revelation to us.

Let’s move on to reason number two.

Reason #2: Jesus is the fingerprint of God

This reason is seen clearly in verse three of this chapter.

Look again at what this verse tells us.

“Who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

Wow!

They need to make this verse into a song or something.

This verse tells us five powerful things about Christ, all of which give us more reasons to worship Him.

The first thing this verse tells us is that Jesus is the brightness of God’s glory.

What does that mean?

Well, it basically means that Jesus has all of the glory of God dwelling within Him.

In the Old Testament, God would sometimes come down into the tabernacle or into the temple, and it was said that the Shekinah glory of God had rested on the place.

This would often be associated with a thick cloud that would rest there.

It is as if the very essence of God was there in their midst.

Guess what.

The Bible says that is what it was like when Jesus came to earth!

The very Shekinah glory of God came down and lived among us!

The second phrase in this amazing verse says “and the express image of His person.”

Very often people would tell me growing up that I looked just like my dad.

They would even laugh because they would see him and me up in the choir singing, and it would seem as if we would move our mouths the same way, or cross our arms at the same time.

While I do not specifically remember someone saying this, someone could have accurately said that I was the spitting image of my dad.

But, if my dad and I were to go to a scientist and tell the scientist that we were exactly alike, the scientist would probably bust out in laughter!

He would say, you guys are clearly related, but you have hundreds of little differences!

But church, that is not what we have here in verse three of this chapter.

The Bible says that Jesus is the exact image of God.

Every last little detail of the character of Jesus Christ would scream God.