All right, guys, just remain standing while we pick up our sermon. It's going to be in Hebrews 1. If you want to flip there, feel free. Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, He's spoken to us by His son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 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, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. Father God, we come before you, humbled. Humbled that not only are you God, not only are you the creator and the sustainer of the world, but you are God who's there. You're imminent. You're a God who calls us into your presence, and you're a God who, despite ourselves, showers us, lavishes us with your love, as only seen in the face of your son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

This morning, Lord, would you give me an unction to preach your word? Would it be your words that we hear and would they be transforming words? Father, don't allow any one of us to leave this place unchanged. Help us look just a little bit more like Jesus today, Lord. We love you. Help us love you more and each other better in Christ's name, Amen. Would you have a seat? The first thing to notice, I think, in our passage is the abrupt beginning. Notice the author of Hebrews who I think is Paul, and we can talk about that at a later date. If you disagree with me, you're wrong because David told me that I'm right. But notice here, it's abrupt, the beginning. There's no introduction. There's no greeting. Instead, the author begins by introducing us to perhaps the most important Christiological statement in all of scripture. Just as God broke through the silence 2,000 years ago, the author of Hebrews breaks through with a theological atomic bomb of sorts. This is Jesus. And as we enter Advent, in this season, Pastor David already introduced that we're going to be in Hebrews. Jesus is our theme.

As elders, it's our hope for you that you're going to see Jesus in Hebrews this Christmas season. Christ, the everlasting prophet, priest, and King, Christ is Lord. And often we wait for... Let me start before I dig in. This sermon today is going to be just a little bit different than what I normally do. And I'm happy to answer questions that you might have after if you want to come up and talk with me, I'd love to. But try to track with me as we go. Because I was prepping for this sermon last week or two, I've been thinking about it and thinking about our Christmas celebrations and how we do Christmas as a culture. How I've done Christmas, I mean, gosh, for the first almost 30 years of my life until I met Jesus. Oftentimes, I think the Christmas celebrations, we wait with anticipation, bated breath, only to have the celebrations pass entirely too quickly because we become content to celebrate them on an entirely earthly level. The things we enjoy, like family, reunions, time-off, food, the exchanging of presents and gifts become the entirety of our celebration. And these things, guys, these things are good in and of themselves.

I'm not saying they're bad. The giving of gifts are good. The eating of food, especially in the company of others, is good. And in family reunion and time spent together is good. They're good things. And we rejoice in them because each and every one of them is a symbol and a true gift from God. But if Christmas time is just these things, we miss something incredibly important. In mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis says this, aim at heaven and you'll get Earth thrown in. Aim at Earth and you'll get neither. And he goes on in that same passage to say, We shall never save civilization as long as civilization is our main object. We must learn to want something else even more. And then in another one of his works, The Weight of Glory, Lewis says this, We are half hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is off at us like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud plies in slums because he can't imagine what's meant by the offering of a holiday at the sea, we are far too easily pleased, is what Lewis says.

As we come to the beginning of this advent season, I think it's important for us to gaze, for our gaze to be shifted and lifted from Earth and to heaven, and to accept the offer of infinite joy found in our four short verses of this morning. Actually, in the Greek, these four short verses are just one sentence instead of finding temporal joy in the things of the world. I'd like to find rest, and I'd like you to find rest in the reality that the things in our verse this morning point us to, and that is Christ. One of the ways we do this is we spend time with God in His word, and we turn to the pages of scripture and the historicity of it. And when we do so, we're confronted with the awesome and true claim that the baby in Bethlehem is God incarnate, God made man. And growing up, I don't know where you guys come from a lot of you. I don't know what your houses looked like, but for me, we made it entirely through the Christmas season without ever thinking about these things. God was never mentioned, and Jesus was nothing more than a myth.

More often than not, a cussword, a legend at best. And why is that? Well, because I was never confronted with the claims of scripture. I was never challenged by the words of Isaiah, behold your God. It wasn't until I turned to the Bible when my notions of Christmas and God were shifted and changed and ultimately completely shattered. The scriptures don't allow us to dismiss Jesus as some cardboard Christ or holiday gimmick. It won't allow us to find Jesus stripped of his authority and anything less than divine. So as we come to Advent and in Hebrews, I'd like us as a church to focus on Jesus. And in verse one and two, our author here, he does just this for us. Long ago, and at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, He's spoken to us by His son, whom he appointed the heir of all things through whom he created the world. You see, in the past days, this is the BC time before Christ, God spoke to us in dreams and burning bushes and wind and pillars of fire and clouds and prophets and that still small voice.

But notice the butt here in verse 2, the butt that starts verse 2 sets us up for a very important point. Yes, we've received in the past all the benefit from all the ways God has spoken to us, but now God has spoken to us in his son. God's relationship with man has been changed. God hasn't changed because he's unchanging. And the point isn't that the older revelation is somehow lesser either. Instead, the means of the revelation has fundamentally changed and become greater. You see, Saints of God, we find ourselves this morning, as you sit here this morning in these seats, in this gymnasium, in this town, in this city, in this state, in this country, and in this world, you find yourself at a very, very specific time in history. We find ourselves here at the apex of divine revelation. And it comes not merely by the lips of a prophet, but from the lips of God's own son, the truer and greater prophet. It comes not by the forgiveness of sins through a Levitical priest, but the forgiveness of all of your sins forever from a truer and greater priest. Not by the leadership of an earthly king, but by the perfect leadership of a truer and greater king, Jesus.

And it's not the true versus the untrue, but it's about the promise of the past now being made evidence in the fulfillment through the person in the work of Christ. And Christ is called the son of God, who's been appointed as heir of all things through whom he created all things. Now the author is going to focus our attention on a lot of the human nature of Christ, the work Jesus did in the flesh while always setting before us the divine nature and the excellence with which He's done everything that He's done. Jesus has created all things. And for me, when I was going through this, it brought me back to John, right? So it should remind us of how John begins his gospel. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God and all things were made through him. And without Him, there was not anything made that was made. You see, without Jesus, nothing was made and everything is his. Why is this important? Well, I'm an apologetic junkie. You guys know this. So just let me get my apologetic stuff out a little bit.

Simply put, why is this important? This is important because Jesus is the best explanation for the way the world really is. Now Jesus is the uncaused cause, physicists and cosmologists need to explain where everything came from. Saints, that means that that baby in a mansor caused everything to exist. And there in that mansor, humanity found the unifying principle that all the forces of the universe cry out for. Jesus makes sense of everything. I used to dismiss Christians, I'm just being honest with you guys. I used to dismiss Christians as simple minded, stupid even. And now I realize the answers to the questions most plaguing scientists, the ones that I used to like to bring up as evidence or arguments against the existence of God, those questions, those answers aren't found in the ivory towers of elite universities and educational institutions or their state of the art laboratories. No, the answers are found wrapped in rags in a majors. One scientist, Robert Jessrow, in his book, God and the Astronomes, I love this quote, For the scientists who's lived by his faith and the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He's scaled the mountains of ignorance.

He's about to conquer the highest peak, and he pulls himself over the final rock, and he's greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries. You see, at the end of the line, the mystery of the universe finds its beginning here in God, the creator and sustainer of the universe. And when we have these things on our minds, we got to remind ourselves that nothing lies because He's the creator and sustainer of the universe. Nothing lies outside the embrace of the work of God. The creation of the universe, the continuation of the universe, the consummation of the universe are all under the control of God. Jesus upholds the universe by the word of His power. Friends, God created with the incarnation in mind. You see, there's more for us to understand here. God's eternal plan included the incarnation first, then the creation. In other words, the creation serves the incarnation. God uses creation to fulfill the word, become flesh. The stuff, all the stuff that exists, the stuff facilitates the purposes of the God man. See, church, the creation that we've been talking about, that I've been talking about from this pulpit this morning, isn't creation generally considered?

It's creation specifically in relation to the history of redemption, ultimately redemption of the entire cosmos. This is why we celebrate Christmas from the beginning, a new beginning. Christmas was always the plan. And then this crushes me when I think about this. I have the privilege. We elders here at Solie, we get the privilege to dedicate time to study in God's word to bring to you, hopefully, God's word. And sometimes it crushes us. It does me. The first Christmas gift is the eternal word entering the first creation as the word of all creation to rescue all creation. Saints of God, the birth of Christ is this timeless event that invites us to believe that the cries of a broken world have actually been heard. A savior has actually been born, and the vault of heaven has truly been opened and flowing out of the work of creation comes redemption. You see, on that Christmas morning, long ago, God gave to mankind the agents of rescue to save humanity and set the cosmos right again. Later this morning, we're going to sing these words, Born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth.

Well, why do the sons of earth need raising? Because the record of history shows that despite all of our human desires and all of our human efforts, humanity will never be able to satisfy a fatal flaw at the center of the human story. You see, there's a flaw that presents us, or prevents us rather, from reaching our ultimate destination. There's a flaw that each and every one of us possess that prevents us from reaching our full potential. And we have a longing for something more. Again, Lewis, he's right on when he says, We find ourselves with desires that nothing in this world can satisfy. The most probable explanation is that we've been made for another world. And this longing in our hearts, in our minds, one that, students, you will struggle with your entire life if ever apart from Christ. This longing that we have, it points us, yes, in the right direction. It points us to where we want to go. And this is what Advent is all about, longing, waiting. And the popular Christian songs or Christmas songs, rather, that we sing about bells giggling and Santa kissing and present opening. They lay flat on our dispositions and consciousnesses.

There's a melody in our minds we've never heard in a journey that we've never taken. And this is one of the indications of the flawedness of our lives. There's a longing in our hearts for something we can never reach on our own. Though we might try, which is why we search for significance in earthly treasures at Christmas time. And instead of allowing the simplest of things to satisfy this deep desire, Jesus, friends, is enough. And this is what the author of Hebrews points us to. Jesus 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 and and having become as much superior to the angels as the name he's inherited is more excellent than theirs. See, friends, the only thing that will satisfy our longing, and in any ultimate sense, is to know Jesus. The only way to get to know Jesus is a result of revelation. You see, God chose to place Jesus in our realm of perception. And as He does, He renews our fallen understanding of all things, an understanding that's been clouded as a result of that fatal flaw that I've been talking about, namely sin.

We often think the flawed nature of society has nothing to do with our minds, our intellects. We often think that our flawed nature doesn't affect how we think. We like to think that sins sometimes are always just simply actions. Actions taken on or against other human beings. And with that comes the, I think, misunderstanding understanding that we think that we have free reign in our ability to think and understand properly. It's not true. Sin has affected our ability to reason and to think. And unless God renews our understanding, we can't simply think our way to God. The only way for God to be known is for God to place Himself in the realm of our perception and to renew our ability to think rightly. Friends, this is significant in the incarnation. I mean, this is the significance of the incarnation. God comes and then places Himself in the realm of our perception. He doesn't shout down from on high. Our God, He's not this God that created everything and just watched as it got messed up and just peace out. That's not who He is. He comes down and He meets us. Right here where we're at.

I asked you the question this morning, have you met God? Have you met Him? Because it'll change your life. It has mine, immeasurably and continually. Calvin explains this in terms of the three-fold offices of Christ. We're introduced to him as a prophet, revealing God. We're introduced to him as a priest, reconciling us to God. And we're introduced to him as a King who reigns as God. And then friends, this is nothing new. I very rarely do I... I would venture to say never do I have anything novel for you. New. It's not my job to give you new things. My job is hopefully to just present Christ to you and offer clarity. My goal is to constantly point you to Christ. So let me take just the rest of our time this morning to do that, just point you to Christ. In these offices, first, Jesus is prophet. You see, Christ is himself God's full and final word. He makes God fully known to us. And as we've already discussed, God has spoken many times and in many ways, mainly God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. The speaking that was begun in the prophets, what was incomplete is now been brought to completion in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the Lagos. Jesus is the very word of God. God has spoken, and He's spoken finally, fully, and savingly. God hasn't spoken to give us a concept to wrestle with either. He hasn't spoken to give us a philosophy to adopt, but He's spoken to give us a person to trust and to obey. And we need a prophet to reveal God because we're ignorant in the dark, on the inside. You see, Paul says that before Christ, we were darkened in our understanding and alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that was in us due to the hardness of our hearts. He'll go on in Ephesians 5:8 to say, For at one time you were in darkness, but now you're in the light of the Lord. When Jesus comes and brings the kingdom of God through his miracles and preaching, one of the responses he gets almost immediately is, surely a great prophet has come, but all the expectations of what a great prophet should look like failed to sustain the abnormity of who Jesus is and what he's really come to do. And this is why the three-fold offices of prophet, priest, and king, they can't be viewed separated from each other.

They have to be viewed in light of each other. The prophets came to inform and Jesus came to transform. And it started when the second person of the Trinity, he took on flesh that Christmas morning, or nine months before, I should say. And then the prophecy continues today as he's preaching from behind pulpets just like this one in churches on today, on Sunday mornings, all over the world, we're still hearing Jesus's voice. The Lagos is still speaking today through His servants, through the elders of every Biblical church, which is why we have to add solely in and in churches in our community and around the world, which is why we have to dedicate to preach Christ courageously and consistently with conviction and compassion, because ultimately Christ is the preacher. Our goal as preachers on Sunday mornings is not for you to pat us on the back and say, Well done. Our goal on Sunday mornings is for Christ to gather us and hear the words of our Father, Well done, good and faithfulful servants. We're servants of Christ, the true prophet. Christ is the preacher. Christ is the one that leads us in song every Sunday morning.

And Christ is the one who welcomes us to his table. It's always about him, not just during Christmas. So Jesus is the prophet revealing these things. Next, Jesus is the priest reconciling. Verse three says, After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right-hand of the Majesty on high. Oh, my gosh, I wish I had so much more time. Guys, you have... This is incredible. What happens here. This is incredible what happens here? And do you guys know the history of the temple and how the priests, the Levitical priests, they would offer sacrifices, and they would go in once a year. It was a terrifying experience. And they would tie a rope around their waist and then wear a bell. And they'd say to their buddy waiting outside, If this bell stops ringing, yank as hard as you can because I don't want to die in there. Because God is so magnificent and so awesome and so horrifying beautiful that any exposure to Him results in instant death, this sight of glory. And now you fast forward and you fast forward and Jesus, the truer and greater priest, he enters the temple. No need for a rope, no need for a bell because he doesn't need to veil his face from God.

And he goes and he sits down right there next to the most high. It's unbelievable. If we look forward to Hebrews 10:19, we read this, Therefore brothers, since we've confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, you see, Jesus has entered the holy place now, so we can enter without fear by the new and living way that He opened for us through the curtain, that is through His flesh. And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from any evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. I mean, do you guys understand? I cried enough last time I preached. I'm trying not to. I know. But it's just like... Do you know what has to happen in order for Jesus, the priest, to bear our sins? In order for something to get cleaned, something has to get dirty. Christ dirtied himself with our sin in order that we might be cleansed by the power of his blood. This, you see, friends, is the mystery of the incarnation. If the damage to our flawedness is going to be repaired, someone has to pay.

Someone always has to pay. Either you pay, which will take forever, or Jesus pays for your debts. Either you pay or Jesus pays. Our Jesus, your Jesus pays for our debts by providing purification for our sins. Come thou long-expecting Jesus, born to set thy people free from our fears and sins, release us. Let us find our rest in thee. Did we just sing that song? Do we understand the immensity of the finished work of Christ and as having provided once for all a purification for sins, saints of God. This means that we have right standing before a holy and a just God, not because of our righteousness or our good works, but because of the righteousness of Christ and the work of this cross. Christ has taken on himself all of our flawed, ugliness and given to us gratuitously the wonder of His righteousness. This is what Christmas is all about. This is what Christmas is all about. So Jesus is a prophet revealing, he's a priest reconciling. And finally, Jesus is a King reigning. See, Jesus, he sat down at the right-hand of the Majesty on high. And once Jesus completed his work of revelation and then reconciliation, God raised him up to sit on his throne.

And this is why we come to the Christmas event and then and look on the cradle. We have to, in order to do that, we have to first look back at the words that point us forward to that cradle, through the cradle, to that cross. And then from the cross forward still to these words here in Hebrews 1, where Christ is crowned as ascending King now. God has stepped down from outside of time down into time and born into shame and obscurity. We find him in a cradle. And when we find this complex humanity, we find him on a cross ultimately at the culmination of the story. And friends, I am so messed up. Do you guys ever get confronted with how messed up you are? There's only like two of you shaking your head and one of you is, you are messed up. You're messed up. And I think I'm probably more messed up than all of you. If you guys knew me, in my mind. And the only way, the only way for me not to be messed up, for me to get unmessed up, is for him to get messed up on my account.

But the story doesn't end there, thank God. This Christ is now enthroned in glory, and in notice, he upholds everything by the word of his power. This gets back to what I was saying just a little bit earlier. If Christ, friends, were to take his hand off everything would collapse. I don't know if you guys see what I'm saying. If we're going to take this stuff seriously, we can't just dismiss Jesus. We're confronted with the fact that not only is Jesus a prophet who spoke so to deal with our ignorance, he's not just a priest so to deal with our sin, but he's a King who reigns so that our destiny will be dealt with. So we can come to Jesus as our source, our sustainer, and our goal of all created reality. He upholds everything by the power of His word because He's Lord of all. And those words mean something. There's nothing outside the realm of Jesus' interest and concern, either. And this should bring comfort. Born thy people to deliver, born a child and yet a king, born to reign in us forever, now thy gracious kingdom bring. By thine own eternal Spirit, rule in all our hearts alone, by thine all-sufficient merit, raise us to thy glorious throne are the words that we sing.

Because of these things, because of who Jesus is, He's totally reliable. We can trust Him with our successes, and we can trust Him with our failures, and we can trust Him daily, relying on His promises because He doesn't ever break His promises. That's why promises like, My grace is sufficient for you are so important. We can lay it all at the feet of Jesus and rest in the one who's triumphed over even death. You see, as I try to land this plane, that the story begins with God taking the initiative and coming to us in Christ. The story is not about you, and it's not about me. It's not about trees and lights and gifts and family and friends and food. The story is about God coming to us, seeking the lost so that they might be found. If the things we've been talking about are true, isn't the only rational response now simply to come to God through Him, through Christ? This is a compelling message, and let me encourage you, as I did last week after leading liturgy, this is the message the world is dying to hear. Allow us to share it.

So with this, these are the things that I'm thinking of this Christmas season. Christ, the everlasting prophet, priest, and King, Christ is Lord, Lord of all. And He's here. He's here at this table. He's here in the cup and in the bread. And as we gather, we get to celebrate that. God has not left us to our own devices. He's rescued us in what God rescues. He rescues completely. So let me be the first to tell some of you guys, I hope. Happy Christmas. And I can't wait to celebrate this season with you guys. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the time that you've given us. Thank you for your word. But most of all, thank you for the best gift we could ever imagine. Thank you for Christ. We love you. God. In his name, we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen.