Introduction to Hebrews

We are starting a series in the book of Hebrews.

This will probably take us into the middle of next year.

The book of Hebrews is one of my favorite books because it is a book about taking Jewish people who are followers of Jesus and calling them to recognize that Jesus the Messiah is the fulfillment and so much better than traditional Judaism up to the point preceding Jesus.

That Jesus fulfilled it all.

It is a notoriously difficult book to understand if you are not familiar with the Old Testament.

And so we will spend some time as we go through this book going backwards to it.

It seems to be like a letter.

In fact, the book of Hebrews ends like a letter, but it doesn't read like a typical Paul letter.

It doesn't read like Peter's letters.

And what it what scholars believe about Hebrews is that it's probably a sermon that was turned into a letter.

It probably was a homily or a sermon on some specific Old Testament passages that was then put into writing and sent out to serve the Jewish community spread out, maybe around Asia Minor.

As a church, we've um we tend to go through books of the Bible systematically.

That's kind of our MO, right?

It's kind of our default position.

The last series that we did, though, was on promised believers.

We spent six weeks in that.

That's on the church website if you want to go back and look at that.

But before that, we had gone through Revelation 1 through 3, and before that we were in uh 1 Peter for a good almost a full year.

And now we're going to begin going through the book of Hebrews.

Let me read the first four verses to you, and uh and then I'm gonna give you a bit of an introduction to the book.

Long ago, God spoke to our ancestors by the prophets at different times and in different ways.

In these last days, he has spoken to us by his son.

God has appointed him heir of all things and made the universe through him.

The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word.

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

So he became superior to the angels, just as the name he inherited is more excellent than theirs.

Lord, we ask that you would bless us with spiritual eyesight to see what your word and what it has to say and what it means for our own lives.

God, we commit to you this series.

As a church, Lord, we pray that you would give us ears to hear what the book of Hebrews says.

Lord, that every Sunday as we gather and we read the next section, that there would be this intersection between your word and the Holy Spirit and our lives.

And there would just be this collision of all those three elements, and that, God, as we faithfully are here every Sunday morning, that we would receive from you, that your word would be like spiritual food that nourishes us, but it would also light up the path.

Lord, there are many of us that need direction in our lives, and I pray that your word would provide that.

Lord, there are times where we need correction, where our attitudes are wrong, or the way that we are thinking about life is wrong.

And so, Lord, we just pray that as a church, as we go through the book of Hebrews, that you would teach us and instruct us and correct us, that you nourish us, that you'd pour wisdom into our lives.

Lord, all that you have for us as a church, Lord, would you give it to us through the book of Hebrews?

And we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

By way of introduction, let me just kind of go through some simple questions that we will try to answer briefly.

Who wrote the book?

Who was it written for, and what was the occasion for the letter?

If you read any commentary, you'll encounter those questions, and you'll also encounter questions like when was the date for its writing?

Um you'll you'll encounter kind of other introductory questions, and I just want to focus on those three this morning.

The first question is this Who wrote the book of Hebrews?

Who wrote the book of Hebrews?

There are parts, as you're reading through it, you're gonna see a lot of similarities to the way that Paul thinks.

You'll see some stuff that rings true from uh the life of Jesus.

And so early on in the church, in the book of um uh in Clement's writing, and in the writing of um uh who was it?

Clement and Origen.

Origen kind of was another church father follower.

They both were from Alexandria, which was in northern Egypt.

They thought that Paul wrote this material, but they're the only ones.

They're early, they're early church fathers.

They're like, we're talking like late 90s A.D.

was Clement of Alexandria, and then Origin was early 100s.

But um other church fathers right after them really didn't agree with that um perspective.

Tertullian, who lived during the second century, he suggested that it was written by Barnabas because Barnabas, remember kind of Barnabas' name was that he was the son of encouragement.

Remember that was his nickname?

He was renamed son of encouragement, and there are these five warnings or encouragements that we find throughout the book of Hebrews.

Martin Luther, um, in the 16th century, he suggested that Apollos was the writer of the book of Hebrews.

Apollos was uh that one that kind of traveled around, he was a contemporary of Paul, so he would have been familiar with some of Paul's material, but would have put his own spin on it.

And so maybe it was written by Apollos.

At the end of the day, we just don't know.

Here's what the new Bible commentary says about this question.

Similarly, we should be willing to accept that it is, it matters little whom God used to write Hebrews.

Hebrews itself indicates that the human authorship of Scripture is of secondary importance.

So, for example, acknowledging David as the writer of Psalm 95, Hebrews insists that the Holy Spirit was the primary author.

That's in Hebrews 4 7 and 3 7.

Again, the human authorship of Psalm 8 is not mentioned and is not relevant to understanding of it as divinely inspired prophetic scripture.

In other words, when Hebrews was written itself and it quotes from Scripture, it attributes the material that's quoted to the Holy Spirit or does not give a name.

And so we don't open up with an introduction to Hebrews saying, here's who wrote it.

We believe that this is written by the Holy Spirit by an unnamed author.

The second question is this Who was Hebrews written to?

And again, this one is not all that clear, other than that from the earliest manuscripts, it says that it includes this kind of note before the letter begins to the Hebrews.

So what Hebrews was it?

Was it to those that remained in Jerusalem?

It's possible.

There was uh contingency, you remember, early on.

The church started in Jerusalem, but very quickly there was Jewish persecution, and and the church in Jerusalem shrank significantly because people were getting thrown into prison, and the church spread out to Samaria and Galatia and Judea and then all over the modern world at that time.

And so maybe it was written to those that were remaining in Jerusalem.

There are others that say it was written to Jews like Aquila and Priscilla.

You'll remember that there, you we come across their story in Acts 18.

They were Christians, they became Christians in Rome, but then they faced uh persecution, a Jewish persecution in Rome, and that had nothing to do with Christianity, and Paul runs into them in Corinth.

And um they do ministry together, they're friends, and so it could be Jews who were facing that kind of persecution.

There's some there's some elements that may indicate that it was um Jews who had dispersed out of Rome.

Um and then there's others that suggest it's um Jews just spread out through Asia Minor.

And maybe it was like a um there was maybe a city where there was a main gathering of Christians, and then a small group had kind of splintered off, possibly.

They had forsaken the assembling.

That's what kind of it talks about in Hebrews 10.

And um they kind of became their own sect because they were all into um trying to revive uh their Jewish roots.

Whatever the um reason is, it's clearly written to a group of people who had faced a season of persecution, had a Jewish background, and were tempted to stop growing.

They were basically a people that were stuck and not making good progress in their spirituality.

The last question, though, is this What is the occasion for the letter?

What's the occasion for the letter?

Let me um this is more definitive based off the material that we find in the book.

This is a quote again from the New Bible commentary that it says, at least some of the number were in danger of drifting from the gospel and this and salvation, the salvation it offers.

More specifically, they were in danger of hardening their hearts in unbelief, turning away from the living God, missing out on the heavenly rest promised by God.

Symptomatic of the spiritual disease was their unwillingness to progress to a deeper understanding of the Christian message and its implications, together with an unwillingness to share that understanding with others.

Some were withdrawing from the regular gathering of the believers for mutual encouragement.

And we'll stop there.

This group that received this letter, they were in a dangerous place.

And there are going to be some warnings that we come across in Hebrews that are going to make you and I feel uncomfortable.

There's going to be this sense of, like, wow, is it possible for somebody to become a Christian, be converted, but then to lose their standing, to not be a Christian anymore, to go from being a Christian to no longer being a Christian, because some of the warnings almost seem like they suggest that that might be possible.

There's going to be other warnings about not really entering in to all that God has.

He's going to talk about not entering into the rest that Jesus purchased.

And this picture of how Joshua led the children of Israel into the promised land, and he's going to say, Look, you Christians, it's possible that you don't enter in to the rest that God has for you.

This book is full of these encouragements and warnings.

In fact, at the end of the book, the writer says, I've written to you this short word of exhortation.

Just a short word of exhortation that ends up being 13 chapters.

As we go through this book, I would encourage you to allow it to cause in you a sense of discomfort and self-reflection.

The right way to engage the book of Hebrews is to both treat it like James talks about a mirror, right?

When we go into the bathroom in the morning, you should have a mirror there and you should look at it.

That's a good thing to do, right?

And you fix whatever's wrong, hopefully, right?

You fix what's wrong and you put yourself together.

The Word of God is like that.

Hebrews is like that.

It's a mirror where we can look at Israel and their spiritual journey.

We can look at the people who are the original recipients of this letter and see where they're at.

And we need to reflect on our own in our own selves.

Look, do I feel like I'm at peace?

Do I have a sense of rest in my life?

And if I don't, is the absence of rest and peace in my life my fault because I'm not entering into what Jesus purchased for me on the cross?

Am I not spiritually fruitful?

Because there's going to be at the end of chapter 5, one of my favorite pictures in the Bible is like at the end of chapter 5, he's like, look, you all should be teachers by now.

You all should be fruitful by now.

You've been walking with Jesus long enough.

You have enough Bible knowledge that you should be a fruitful people.

And he says, you aren't.

You're like still in kindergarten spiritually.

You're like working on the first principles, the basics.

And there should be a sense as we read through that, Lord, am I just not spiritually fruitful?

And am I still playing in the kiddie pool of Christianity?

Am I just waiting with my little rubber ducky floaties on in Christianity when I ought to be bearing fruit spiritually in my life?

There's going to be this call to lay aside the weights and the burdens that are hindering of running the race.

He says, look, you're not striving against sin to the point of bloodshed.

He holds up Jesus as the example.

He's like, look, Jesus resisted sin in his own life to the point he shed blood.

He was willing to take a stand for holiness in his life and not give in to the tempt in temptation.

Because he, or to the point at which he was willing to shed blood.

And he calls Christians to listen, you need to resist sin and temptation to that degree.

There is a real, look, if you're a person who thinks like Christianity is to be lived just in our heads, like where you read these inspiring stories, you understand kind of the principles, and then it's just kind of on you to make it all work out in your daily life.

Hebrews 11 is going to confront that idea and just say, look, the saints of old were called to live by faith, and you and I can't please God without living by faith.

And all of these people that lived by faith were people that heard God speak to them and direct their life.

And Christianity, the idea of being a follower of Jesus, was never meant to be something where God's word is just kind of plopped into your life and then you figure it out from there.

But instead, we're called to be those that live by faith, that are responding to God through just the presence of the Holy Spirit in our life.

He animates the word of God to us, and we respond on a day-by-day basis, taking steps of faith.

That is how we please God.

Is that safe?

No.

Is there risks involved in living by faith?

Yes.

But that is what we're called to.

Then there's going to be another point where the writer says, listen, you've got to understand that maybe the suffering in your life is the result of God's chastening because God loves you like he loves his children, and the pain you're suffering may be the result because God loves you like a parent loves a child, and he's disciplining you, and he's using that pain in your life to motivate you towards change.

And there's nothing more scary than going through life and suffering something and not learning the lesson you were meant to learn.

In other words, you suffered something needlessly or to no effect.

Jeremiah prophesies and warns Israel that look, God's chastened you, He's let you suffer, He's let you go through these difficult things.

Life sucked for a little while, and you didn't get anything out of it.

I think that's about the most terrifying thing I can imagine.

Because I don't like pain.

I don't want to go through the things that are hard.

Can you imagine God letting you go through something that's hard and you don't get out of it what you're supposed to get?

Yeah, I've been there, but I don't want to be there.

And so the writer of Hebrews says, listen, God allows suffering sometimes in your life to motivate you to be on his path because he loves you.

He doesn't want you to be stuck where you're at.

And so you've got to look in the mirror of God's word and go, like, is this for me?

Is God trying, like, I had this pastor that I worked for once, and he had this question that he would ask people early on in his relationship as he was meeting them, they'd come to his church.

He'd usually, you know, he would kind of go out for lunch or whatever, and he would say, Hey, listen, I just need to know, are you the kind of person that you need a feather or a two by four?

And he's like, you know, because some people like you just kind of hint at what's wrong and they just like wither.

That's how Hayden was, just not to point you out, Hayden, but like when you were little, like when we would just like look at you, you would just start crying.

Yeah, it was just it was so soft and tender.

But then there's other people that you've known.

We've had them but come to church here sometimes where it's just like you can't whack them across the head enough times with a two by four to get it, you know?

It's just like, come on.

So, anyway, I don't know how I got off on that tangent, but here's here's the thing is like when when you come to God's word, God has a beautiful plan for your life, and he allows different degrees of pain, some of us harder than others, in order for us to understand that he has a good plan for us.

But we are willful, right?

We're stubborn, we have good ideas for ourselves too.

We've got a great plan for our life, and sometimes, unfortunately, just like with a parent, there has to be some pain involved in getting us to where we need to be at.

But please, could we just, by the time we're done with Hebrews, could we just at least get that lesson that like when we're suffering to just at least check in with the Lord, Lord, does this suffering have to do with like loving correction?

Could we could we could we at least let that be something that we ask the Lord?

All right, in closing, I just want to draw your attention to a couple of things just in these first two verses, because next week we'll come back.

We're gonna do the first four verses all together next week.

But but these first two verses, it starts off with this.

Long ago, God spoke to our ancestors by the prophets at different times and in different ways.

In these last days, he has spoken to us by his son.

God has appointed him the heir of all things.

It goes on, but I want to just stop there.

I want you to see, first of all, the contrast.

Because this is how this writer communicates, right?

You're in eighth, ninth grade, wherever you're at, like in school.

As you're writing, you're learning the the art of comparison and contrast, right?

We use comparisons to kind of um help bridge a communication gap.

Like if you know this thing over here, and then we can compare it to this thing over here, then we're helping, um, it's a communication tool to help um bridge an understanding gap.

A contrast, though, plays out differences.

And so the writer here of Hebrews is saying there's a difference in how God once communicated and how he's now communicated more recently.

God spoke to our ancestors by the prophets at different times and in different ways.

Think of Isaiah or think of Samuel.

Think of Abraham, think of Moses, like God has done this work of speaking in the past, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his son.

God has appointed him the heir of all things.

Do you remember John chapter 1?

John 1 · chapter mention

It says, In the beginning was the Word.

In the beginning was the Word.

Jesus is the Logos of God.

The Logos is the Greek term for the full expression.

If Jesus was just like a saying of God, if it was just like a phrase or just a single sentence of God, then that would have been the rhema.

Jesus would have been the rhema of God.

But no, Jesus was the word of God, the full expression of God.

And that is how God has spoken to us in these last days.

And God has appointed him the heir of all things.

The writer, as we go through into chapter, further in chapter 1, in chapter 2, in chapter 3, he is going to hammer home this idea that Jesus is better.

That there was this work of God in the past which was good.

When God does things, he does things well, but nothing as good as Jesus.

They foreshadowed the coming of Jesus.

And so we're going to see, starting in chapter 1, verse 5 through 212, it's going to be all about how Jesus is better than the angels.

And then we're going to see how Jesus is better than Moses.

And Jesus is better than Joshua.

And Jesus is better than the high priests.

And Jesus is better than Melchizedek.

And then Jesus brought about a better covenant, a better covenant than the covenant of Moses.

It's all about how Jesus and his work is better.

Can you say that out loud?

Jesus is better.

Jesus is better.

That's what we are going to see throughout the book of Hebrews.

The word better is actually used 13 times in this book.

The writer shows the superiority of Jesus Christ and his salvation over the Hebrew system of religion.

Ever since we've gone, we went through 1 Peter, I just have been, I've been struck afresh and fascinated and kind of like just yeah, fascinated is really the word for it, at how this message about a Jewish personality spread to the Gentiles, and how people like in Asia Minor, the Galatian region, and then in Rome and all over like Europe, who were not Jewish, but yet became convinced and became followers of this person, Jesus.

And when you go back through the book of Acts, and you look at the story, the missionary journeys and the preaching of Paul, and then what you find is these instances where Paul would come back from his missionary journey, and then he would report to the church in Antioch or to the elders in Jerusalem.

He would say, Here's a summary of my ministry.

And he would talk about how Gentiles were becoming Christians.

And it's just fascinating that these groups of people in these different cities would become compelled to follow a Gentile or a Jewish Messiah.

And the message was never about, like if you look at how Paul presented the gospel, he didn't come and say, you need to be a follower of Jesus so that you can go to heaven.

Paul did not really emphasize the idea that you need to have your sins forgiven.

It wasn't that Jesus was coming to give them like goosebumps or fuzzy feelings or anything like that.

It was this proclamation of Jesus as the Messiah.

That's a Jewish term.

And it's a term that is like this package deal that these Gentiles somehow found compelling.

And they were convinced that, yeah, Jesus, this Jesus, is appointed the heir of all things.

He is the supreme one, and it somehow moved.

Again, it goes back to kind of what we're talking about with the food at the beginning.

It's like this has to be a work of the spirit, but in cooperation with understanding, like in people's brains, like people making a volitional decision, like, yeah, I am going to let this Jewish man who proclaimed his like oneness with God the Father died and rose again.

I'm going to give my whole allegiance to him.

That's amazing.

If you're not yet a follower of Jesus, or you don't know whether or not you want to, I would just encourage you, listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit to be at work in your life.

He promises that in John 16, he says, Look, I am going to work on people's hearts.

The Holy Spirit's going to go into the world.

He's going to convict people of their sinfulness, the righteousness, and the judgment to come.

And so, look, if you're not a follower of Jesus yet, you're ambiguous on that question.

The way that God's going to be at work in your life is He's going to be giving you a sense of his work in the world, convicting of sin, of the fact that there is this righteous standard that exists, that He desires for you to be in right standing with Him, and that there is a day of judgment that we will all face.

Jesus is the one who is the heir of all things, the writer says.

An heir is somebody who inherits something or is entitled to a future inheritance.

And the writer says that Jesus is the heir of all things.

Jesus doesn't fit the traditional leadership categories.

At this time, you had the secular government, and then you had religious authorities and you had philosophers.

Those were kind of the influencers of the day.

And yet Jesus as Messiah doesn't fit that category.

He's not a political leader, and he's not just a spiritual leader.

He's both king and he is priest.

He has the authority of an earthly ruler, but an interest in the spiritual well-being of people.

He cares about justice and yet was a merciful, he uh was the merciful sacrifice to rescue humanity from their guilt.

Jesus is the one who is better.

Spurgeon says this.

Although that doesn't look like Spurgeon to me.

The word better.

Yeah, I don't know how that slide got in.

That's an amazing slide.

They got into the wrong slide.

Let's read Spurgeon here for a second.

For after all, this is the subject which men most of all need.

This is just related to Jesus, right?

After all, this is Jesus is the subject with most of all they all need.

They may have cravings after other things, but nothing can satisfy the deep real want of their nature, but Jesus Christ and salvation by his precious blood.

He is the bread of life which came down from heaven.

He's the water of life, whereof if a man drink, he shall never thirst again.

Hence it becomes uh it becomes us to be often dwelling upon this theme, for it is most necessary to the sons of men.

Jesus is better.

One of the things, those of you that are young, listen for just a second.

One of the things that is a part of the way God's designed you is to, he's made you a person that is designed to experience life and have a sense of fulfillment from doing life.

When you go and you have a pizza, let's say pizza is your favorite food, that pizza, you go from being hungry and starving and your mouth is watering because you can imagine how good that pizza is gonna taste, to having the pizza and having the sense of deep satisfaction.

As you get older, you more of your hormones are churning, and you have other desires of like, man, you know, this girl, this guy, I want to have a relationship.

Maybe they will meet this need.

As you get a little bit older, you have this idea of like, man, if I could get this job, then I'll be recognized with this kind of cred within society.

Maybe I could make this much money and I could have, you know, this kind of recognition, and this will build into my identity and my self-worth.

Listen, you're created, you're designed to have this desire for hope, a desire for fulfillment.

Just like, you know, at a base sense, I want that pizza, you're designed to be hungry.

But one of the things that happens as you're going through your childhood and your teen years and your early life is you're gonna find that nothing is going to fully satisfy.

The pizza may taste good, but you're gonna get hungry again.

The relationship that you're in, it may be wonderful, it may put butterflies in your stomach, it may be this amazing experience, but it is not going to fully satisfy you.

And in the quiet space of your bedroom or in your car or at work, you're going to have that gnawing, aching sense that I was made for something even more.

And that was the Jewish experience.

See, God came to the Jews and he began to put them on the path to say, I am your God, I want to be the one that rescues you, I want to give you a promised land.

And look, when God says to Israel, I want to give you a promised land, here's the cool thing.

He doesn't say, you have to imagine the promised land in my frame of reference.

Like it's like a bitter pill.

Some people think of God as like, well, yeah, God says he has good stuff for me, but you've got to kind of tie your head in knots in order to appreciate what God has.

But when God came to Israel, he's like, look, no, this is gonna be an awesome place with good food, and it's gonna taste good.

What's there?

It's really good.

Like when you think of like the things that you desire, a lot of those desires are not bad desires, they just need to be seated and frame, just like you seat a diamond in its fitting.

The desires you have have to be seated within the grand plan that God has for your life.

And so as you journey, as you go through life, especially at those younger years, and you keep feeling like you're hitting against a brick wall, or you feel unsatisfied, and you feel like, man, this is good, but not good enough.

You just need to know that the writer of Hebrews comes along and he says to you, Jesus is better.