Better Than Religion - Part 1

Religion Hebrews and the Supremacy of Grace. I am excited. I hope you are. We're going to start in Hebrews chapter one, of course. And if you've never spent much time in the book of Hebrews, let me tell you, it's brilliant. You might have thought Romans is brilliant and it is. But the book of Hebrews will knock your socks off. It is amazing. The logic, it is like a brilliant trial lawyer who is arguing for the supremacy of Jesus Christ. It is like an amazing attorney who's got you cornered, painted into the back of the room there, trapped in the incredible, undeniable logic of God's grace and forgiveness through the cross and resurrection. So here we go. Hebrews chapter one and verse one, it says God after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and many ways. So he's describing what these Hebrews know. Do you remember Abraham, Isaac, Jacob? Do you remember Isaiah, Jeremiah? God spoke in all kinds of ways. Do you remember your forefathers? He's speaking to Hebrews to the people of Israel. And he's saying, you got what? A preview, a preview of coming attractions. You got a preview of the movie. In the Old Testament through those voices, the mouthpieces, the oracles of God, you got a preview of coming attractions. But guess what? The blockbuster film is here and it's five star rated. It's top of the line. It's the finished work of Jesus. It can't be beat. It's better. It's superior. And so we're going to have to compare the old and the new. So get ready because God used to speak in five ways, 10 ways, 20 ways, using lots of people among those in Israel to get his mission accomplished. But now there is a laser focus. That's what the author of Hebrews is saying. Don't miss this mouthpiece. Don't miss this one. He's greater than any prophet. He's greater than Moses. As we'll see, he's greater than the angels. As we'll see, what he brings is greater than the Old Testament law. And that is the argument that is going to be built in this first chapter. Jesus is greater and therefore his message is greater. God used to speak in all kinds of ways. What creativity, what diversity, using all kinds of prophets and people. And yes, embrace it in the Old Testament. But you better listen to the one because he's the Messiah and he's a table turner. He'll turn furniture over in church on you and he'll in fact turn the entire covenant on its ear and bring you a new one. If you're not careful, you'll miss it and you'll neglect so great a salvation. That's what he's saying. Just as we get started, verse two, in these last days, look how he's spoken. He's spoken to us in his son whom he appointed heir of all

things. Through him also, he made the world. An angel can create nothing. Jesus created the world. We're starting to see a competition between the old and the new and you'll see where angels come in in just a moment. It's pretty amazing actually. But he used to speak in all these ways, Isaiah, Jeremiah, you name it. And then now he is speaking to us in his son. And if you need to know the authority with which Jesus speaks, he's not a servant in the house. He's an heir. He's not a messenger like an angel. He is a child. He is the only begotten. He is the one. And of course, 33 years with us, seated at the right hand of God. What the author of Hebrews is going to say is he's worthy of worship. He's worthy of respect and reverence and all. Whereas an angel is just an angel. Now, I want you to think just as a side note for a minute, how much we make out of Satan. I mean, how pathetic that is, how much the church talks about Satan and trying to beat Satan and win against Satan and fight Satan and Satan is a created being an angel who is now less than world. That fits perfectly with what we see here. Jesus in this corner and the angels in this corner. He's an heir. He's the creator God. That means something. If Jesus is your architect, he knows you. If Jesus is the sustainer of all life, then he knows when you need counsel and you need comfort and you need help and you need truth and he knows how to speak into our lives when we're hurting. Verse three, this is really a big deal. He is the radiance of God's glory. He is the exact representation of his nature and he upholds all things by the word of his power when he had made purifications for sins. He sat down at the right hand on the majesty of the majesty on high. We got some powerful truths here. Oh man, I do love Jesus. He's gentle. Jesus is the gentle, kind servant, but God, who God's mad at me lately. Oh Jesus is the humble servant of all mankind, giving himself up for the church. Oh Jesus, such humility, such gentleness, such kindness. And yet, oh, the Holy Spirit's really been given me trouble lately. The Holy Spirit's really been convicting me like a convict telling you you are doing it wrong. But Jesus, oh, he is gentle and sweet. Do you see what the author of Hebrews is giving us? No, no, no, no. Jesus is the exact representation of God. You want to know God, get to know Jesus. You want to know the Holy Spirit, he's the Spirit of Christ, get to know Christ. You want to see the nature of this God we relate to, he's the one that died for us. He gave himself up, he's not arrogant, he's not proud. We have to let him serve us. What? Yeah, you're going to have to let him serve you. What? Oh, that's sacrilege. No, no, no, no. He's asked if he can wipe your feet and you've been uneasy about it.

Oh, you thought, no, no, no, no. I must serve you, Lord. And if he's candid, he says, actually, you have nothing to give. Apart from me, you have nothing. You got to let me serve you. I serve you through the cross. I serve you through the resurrection. I serve you by giving you freely of my grace. I put you at my right hand. I do all of this for you. Are you willing? Are you humble enough to let him serve you? Of course, there's that place where we serve him, but it comes after we let him serve us. And the way that we serve, the Scripture says it, we serve in the newness of the Spirit, not in the old way of the letter. That is a radical, different kind of service. We serve him by faith. We serve him by trust. We serve him by believing him. It's the obedience of faith. Are you serving him by believing him? Are you believing him by letting him serve you through the gospel? And so we see that the nature of Jesus reveals the niceness of God. And yes, I'm purposely using that word, "nice." People don't like that word, "nice," with God. But I will remind you, God is love. I will remind you that he keeps no record of your wrongs. Look at the fruit of his spirit, gentleness, kindness. You know another word for kindness? Nice. Am I? Can I? God is kind toward you and gentle, delicate with you, not breaking gentle with you. Nice, kind, gentle, good, taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh, I do love God, but I'm scared of the spirit. What will the spirit do in my life? He'll do the same that Jesus does. He's gentle and kind and he's not dragging you to the mission field as you go kicking and screaming against your will like they told you when you were seven and you've been freaked out about the the Spirit of God ever since you wimped out. God and it never happened. At 18, I told him I would go to seminary and I would, and then it never happened. That's because the gospel is not about you and your promises to God. You're trying to serve Him before you let Him serve you through the gospel. Let Him serve you through His blood, through His resurrection. And you'll notice also that it says here He sat down. This is one of those pictures that's going to come up again in Hebrews. It's not just in chapter 1. It's actually going to appear later in a more exploratory fashion. We're going to dive deep into it, but for right now you just got to know Jesus is not up in heaven dying again and again. He's not up in heaven ringing His hands trying to figure out how to make you pure. People say, "Oh, I'm forgiven, but I still need to be cleansed." No, He sat down after making purification. You can call it whatever you want, friend. You can call it forgiveness, cleansing, or purification. I don't care what you call it, it's finished.

So confront the finished work of Christ and either cower in the corner saying, "Oh, yeah, but I'm afraid I'd sin if I were that confident." Or celebrate, come out of the corner to the center of the stage and say, "Thank you, Jesus, for all that you've done for me with boldness and confidence. I have access to the Father through you, wow, and thank you." And that's what faith says. Faith doesn't cower in the corner. Faith says, "Wow, and thank you." And doesn't apologize for the finished work of Jesus. I can't tell you, it baffles me. I can't tell you how many times we get this sort of question, but we got one recently and the lady called in and she basically said, "So I've been listened to you say that we're forgiven and you say it's finished and you say it's once for all and that it's not progressive, that it's little, that it's not little by little, that it's finished forever. Hebrews 10, 14, I've been here." So are you saying sin is okay? And I said, "Yeah, I'm saying sin is okay." And then I just let it sit there for like eight seconds. And then I said, "Of course I'm not saying sin is okay. I've never met a Christian that says sin is okay. I've never met a pastor, leader, teacher, or anyone in 40 years who has ever said to me, sin is okay. But do you see what's happening? We say forgiveness, they say sin is okay. We say grace, they say sin and you're like, "What? Can we not celebrate Christ? Are you forgiven or not? Is that a fair question? Are you forgiven or not? Look, when you thought you weren't forgiven, get this, when you thought you weren't forgiven, you were sinning just fine anyway. You were good at it. Guilt made you good at sin. So what if you decide it really is finished? It really is over. He really did sit down at the right hand of God. And I think, gee, I think I'll have a seat with him. I think I'll sit down right there at the right hand of God with him in my mind. As an act of my will, I will just plant myself right there and say, yep, he did it. Oh, no, you're saying sin is okay. No. Ever since you were four years old in Sunday school, you've known sin is not okay. That's not even the question. The question is, how would you get away from sin? And the answer is knowing you're purified. Isn't that weird? But you got to know you're purified to then think purified and realize that's not purified. And I'm dead to that. And I'm not, I don't, I'm not controlled by that. And that's not who I am. As long as we're trying to get forgiven, we're going to be trying to get victory. As long as we know we have been forgiven, we'll realize we do have victory. Peter says, if you lack godly qualities, you have forgotten your purification.

What's the answer? Remember your purification. How do you do that? By sitting down with Jesus and agreeing, it's over, it's finished. You remember I sins no more. [BLANK_AUDIO] much better than the angels as he has inherited a more excellent name than they." Now I told you we would dive into why these angels are coming up. And here's why. It's really interesting. The law was brought in by angels. We'll see that in a moment. We'll prove it through Scripture. I don't know all the details that happened at that little party on the top of the mountain. You know, at the top of that hill known as cyanide, something transpired. There were some details there to which I am not privy. But I will tell you, we have a few Scriptures that shine a little light on what occurred at the top of that mountain. And whatever happened there, it involved angels. So here's the logic. Follow this. Angels brought the law. Jesus brought the new. Angels are lesser. Jesus is greater. Therefore, the law is lesser. The new is greater. You see that? What Jesus brought is superior to what angels brought. The new is better than the old. Now as I said, we would see this from Scripture Galatians chapter 3 verse 19. Look at this. Why the law then? It was added because of transgressions having been ordained through what? Through angels. So say it then. In your mind, file this away. The law was ordained by angels. All right. Then in the next two passages from Acts 7, the angel who was speaking to him, Moses, on Mount Sinai. And then Acts 7, 53, I love this one. You who received the law as ordained by angels and yet did not keep it. Ouch. So in this corner, we have 10 commandments, tablets of stone brought in by angels on a mountain. And in this corner, we have the new covenant brought in by the blood of Jesus once for all. Calvary, two hills, two covenants, two ways. One kills, one gives life. One is inferior, one is superior. One is lesser, one is greater. One brought by messengers or servants known as angels. One brought by God Himself, Jesus Christ, the God-Man. You see the competition? You see who wins? And you see why this brilliant trial lawyer type person, the writer of Hebrews is arguing this because he's about to blast them. He's about to blast them with the truth of the new covenant and that mom and dad's religion

up the street at the temple with animals and blood everywhere is not the way anymore. In fact, nobody was ever made righteous by that. Those are dead works of the temple. And there is a living work, a finished work, and that's where he's headed in this letter. For to which of the angels did he ever say, "You are my son, today I have begotten you." And again, I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me. So again, we got this puny, pathetic comparison that doesn't even deserve much attention. I mean, you got the Creator God who holds everything together and then you got angels. I mean, that's the way that it's being talked about here. You got the son who is part of the trinity. I mean, three in one and one in three. I mean, we're talking Jesus, we're talking the trinity, the Godhead, and then we're talking about something that was spoken into existence among many things. So do you see that there's actually kind of an elephant in the room here? If God, the Creator of all says it's finished, it's finished. If an angel tells you something, I'm not sure sure. Let me test that. Let me work on that. Let me think about it. If God tells you, "Go with God." When you and God disagree, who's right? Go with God. So it's like the janitor scrubbing some sort of staying on the floor and saying it's not clean that you had it's clean, it's finished. Who are you going to? Who are you going to believe? And so we have two messages, the old and the new. One has greater authority and therefore has greater validity because the old is gone, the new has come. Hebrews says it, not my words, the old is absolutely aging, ready to disappear, the new is here and it's better, it's founded on better promises and has a better high priest. That's what Hebrews will tell us. Verse six and when he again brings the first born into the world, he says, and let all the angels of God worship him. Who deserves the worship? An angel? No, Jesus. Who deserves the right hand of God? An angel? No, Jesus. Who deserves the kingdom and the crown? An angel? No, Jesus. And so let all the angels bow down to him. The angels are here and Christ Jesus is here. So, ha ha, have you seen it? Look at this now. Why are you flirting with a covenant that's down here with the angels when you've been given a covenant that's up here with Christ? It's not an equal playing field. Oh, we need balance that. No, it's not an equal playing, but well, we need to make sure law and grace are. No, you've died to the law. You're under grace, not law. Oh, but that's disrespectful to Moses. No, it isn't. Hebrews is.

Hebrews is disrespectful to Moses in comparison to Jesus. You see that? Second Corinthians 3 says the same thing. The new covenant has a greater glory in comparison to the old covenant. So it's okay when people are trying to do this, law and grace, law and grace balance. It's okay to say, the new is up here. The old is down here. Jesus fulfilled the old. I'm dead to the old. I'm not under the law. Christ is the end of the law. It's obsolete and aging and ready to disappear. And a greater, better covenant has come. It's founded on better promises and has a better high priest. So let's worship him. That's what he's saying. Verse 7, and of the angels he says, who makes his angels wins and his ministers a flame of fire? Again, what's this about? This is a challenging verse, has lots of flowery language in it. Basically, you need to know. He's talking about angels. And then it says, God made them. So they are made beings. They are created beings. God is greater. He created them. And then it says they're ministers, meaning they're servants. They move about the planet. They serve God. They're under God. They're not equal to God. They're under Christ, not equal to Christ. And if their message came through angels, then it is lesser than the message that came through Jesus. Back to square one. All right. So verse 8, but of the sun, not angels, of the sun, he says, your throne, oh God, the divinity of Christ right there, is forever and ever. And the righteous scepter is the scepter of his kingdom. Who does the scepter belong to Christ, not angels? Who does the kingdom belong to Christ, not angels? Who does the throne belong to Christ, not messengers moving about the planet serving God? It's not equal. And that is a big blessing because we have something greater today. Look at you. Wow, you get to live on this side of the cross. You had a favorite person, didn't you, from the Old Testament? Maybe it was Esther. Maybe it was Moses. He got a little ticked off too often. Maybe, you know, maybe it was a prophet like Isaiah, Jeremiah. Maybe it was David or David. David. But you know what? You have something greater than David. You have something better to experience now than David or Esther or Moses or Isaiah or any of them. Hebrew says that. It actually says that later in this letter, it says we have something better than any of those people because we're not waiting on progressive forgiveness and we're not waiting on credited righteousness. forgiven, cleansed and made right, clean and close. That's better. David used to cry out, you could read it, rewind, you could read it in the Psalms. David used to cry, "Please, God, don't take your Holy Spirit from me." Paul never begs that. Peter never says that. James John and Hebrews never imply that. There's no coming and going sealed until the day of redemption.

You have something better because Jesus is better than angels. And the new is better than the old. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore, God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions. A cool quote from the old about Jesus. He's above. He's not equal to. He's greater than. Verse 10, "And you, Lord, in the beginning, look at you. Creator God, you laid the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the works of your hands." It's like a juggler. He's not juggling a bunch of objects found at the carnival. He's juggling atoms and planets and stars and cells and heartbeats and he's holding all things together by the word of his mouth. In him, we live and move and have our being. And he's the one that did this for us. He holds everything together. It's the works of his hands. They will perish. Whose they is talking about heaven and earth, the physical realm, the physical realm will perish. But you, Jesus, you remain and they all will become old like a garment. Did you know the universe? Scientists will tell you it's winding down. The universe will become like a garment that wears out, but Jesus endures forever. New heaven, new earth, not fixing up the old, wearing out the old, bringing in the new. They will perish, but you, Jesus, remain because you're God. And like a mantle, you will roll them up. What's them? Heaven and earth. Like a mantle, you will roll heaven and earth up like a garment. They will also be changed. Isn't that an amazing passage? But you are the same and your years will not come to an end. Will the universe come to an end? Yes. Will it be replaced? Yes. Will it be changed? Yes. But you, Jesus, will never come to an end. But to which of the angels? We conclude with just a few more verses. Follow the logic. It is brilliant. Look at this. But to which of the angels has God ever said, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool and ottoman for your feet. Not one angel has ever received that message, but Jesus has. And that means that Satan is a defeated foe. If you've ever thought about Satan, don't waste your breath. If you've ever given Satan your time, remember he's a piece of furniture for Jesus' feet. Jesus props his feet up on Satan and he says, remember the cross? It's finished. And by the way, you're going down. In fact, you're already defeated. You're just a whiny lawyer trying to accuse and get some business chasing ambulances as they come out of legalistic church. And so do you see it? Jesus is greater. He's made his enemies a footstool. Verse 14, are they not all ministering spirits? That's what they are. I mean, they're just sent out to render service, service for God, service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation. Again, why the comparison? Because the law is inferior. Grace is superior. The law is lesser. The new covenant is greater. Recently, we had, this could get sensitive, but we had

Artemis II, you know, the whole moon. You saw the moon exploration going around the moon and coming home and that was awesome. But you know as well as I do. happened with the landing and everything. Some people were saying, ah, no, that's not. Yeah, that was a Hollywood set, right? That was faked. Hopefully now we got more people on board, right? I would invite anyone who ever doubted. I hope-- I hope actually they were already in attendance as they just sort of watched Artemis 2 go up, right? Oh, maybe there's something to this. And so you have the idea of a movie set, and then you have the reality. And the law was a shadow, a picture, a symbol, a movie set, a preview of coming attractions. And the reality is Christ has been-- not to the moon and back. He's been to the tomb and back. And it's incredible, the finished work of Jesus, the reality of it. Do you act like it's real? Or are you in a conspiracy theory where it's still playing religion? We'll get a-- speaking of previews, we'll get a preview of next week as we close the next two minutes here for this reason. Everything I've ever said in chapter 1-- everything I've ever said for this reason, we have to pay much closer attention to what we've heard so that we do not drift away from it. For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable,

and if every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, then guess what? How will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? Remember what happened when they rejected Moses? It was brought in by angels if they rejected it, punishment. How much more do we deserve punishment if we reject the message brought by Jesus himself? If we rejected the message of angels, how much worse is it to reject the message of Christ? Now, again, elephant in the room. Oh, Hebrews is scary. Hebrews 6 freaks me out. There's warnings in Hebrews 6. You know, there's warnings in Hebrews 10. I worry I could lose my salvation. No, look at who this is for. This is about people who they don't ignore the law. They ignore the new. They can't escape because they neglect salvation. They're never saved. They neglect salvation. That's the warnings. Hebrews 6 and 10, the scary parts of Hebrews are not about Christians falling out of favor. It's about Hebrews who are flirting with two covenants, flirting with two messages, thinking about mom and dad's religion, feeling the peer pressure. And in so doing, they might just reject Christ and neglect a great salvation. Do you see the reality, the truth about Hebrews 6 and 10,

the truth about those scary passages has just been revealed in chapter one. It's about people who neglect salvation. Let's pray together. Father, we have not neglected salvation. We have entered in. We're in you. We're in your rest. We're in Christ. We're on the tree. The vine and branches relationship has begun. We are forgiven. We are clean and close. We're in. But Father, we're reading an old letter, 2,000 years old. It has an audience that many of them reject Christ. It has an audience. Many of them have their foot in two different movements, two different messages. They're still making up their minds. Father, we don't want that to be our resume, our label, our description. Show us. Show us we're in. We have not neglected salvation. We're saved. If we are in you, Father, thank you for the boldness and the confidence and the knowing that we're forgiven and OK and seated and celebrating. We want to honor Jesus always.

We thank you for His finished work. In His name, we say, wow and thank you. Amen. You You