Hebrews 1:4-14 - "Jesus Alone is Worshipped"

Got a Bible? We're just going to be in Hebrews, and you're going to get tired

of hearing me say that for a while, I think.

Last week, we opened Hebrews and talked a lot about how Jesus is a better prophet,

a better king, a better savior.

And if you remember, the whole point of Hebrews, the reason it's written,

even though its author is unknown, is to make a case to these Hebrews, these Jews,

that Jesus is who he says he is, that he's better than anything that you think

that he is and anything that you try and ascribe to him, whether you say,

well, he's just a little better than Moses, or he's a little better than this

morning, the angels, or he's just a little bit better prophet.

He's kind of a better version of all those things, but he's not really worthy

to be worshiped. He's not really God.

The writer of Hebrews is going to say over and over again, no, you're wrong. He is God.

And he's not just a little better than all those things. He is the perfect of everything.

So this morning, we're going to talk about angels.

I remember growing up, one of my favorite movies was Angels in the Outfield.

Any angels in the Outfield people? No? Run home, run home, you know? Yeah. Great flick.

Of course, the problem with that kind movie is, especially when I was a kid,

even though it's not a theologically accurate movie. I didn't know if you knew that.

But if you watch Angels in the Outfield, that's not really what Angels are doing.

However, if you've been a Rangers fan your whole life, when they won the World

Series, you thought, maybe, maybe.

I mean, I'm not saying that they're not doing it.

But I can remember watching that movie and just as a young kid,

you're thinking, okay, I have a better idea of what angels are like,

because this random guy whose name I do not know that was an actor was an angel.

And he came and he helped the angels win the pennant so that this kid could gain a family.

Now, again, I'm not knocking it. The movie is great. My kids watch the movie.

Every time we turn it on, we have a moment of, we pause it and we go,

okay, now just disclaimer, this is not what angels are.

This is a movie. It is fake.

But it's funny how, especially in the cultures we live, the pictures of angels,

like if I say the word angel to you, everybody has some ideas,

some things that they come up with, some things that they might think are true or not true.

But then there's the picture that the Bible paints of angels,

and they're usually at least a little bit different.

I can remember seeing pictures of little chubby angels with wings.

Maybe you've seen, especially like medieval pictures of angels.

They're always kind of very slender.

They're almost always female and they're very majestic.

And then you read the Bible, and anytime an angel shows up, the first thing

they have to say is, fear not, because whatever is going on is terrifying the person that they see.

Or you see this picture of angels like Isaiah or Ezekiel, and it's got six wings

and some eyes, and man, it's a crazy looking thing.

Well, we don't know exactly what this group of Hebrews thought about angels,

but what we do know, because he begins the book like this is,

they had probably elevated angels to a place they weren't supposed to be.

And the draw here, and what he's really going to fight in this chapter is,

you think that Jesus is really just another angel.

Now, this lie hasn't changed. There's plenty of false religions that still think Jesus is another angel.

Maybe they think he's the archangel Michael, right? Or they think he's the head of all the angels.

Certainly there's been, I talked about this last week, multiple false religions,

I would say demonic religions, that say that an angel came to them and that's how it all got started.

They have a new book, a new way of doing things.

That's not what the Hebrews are struggling with. They're just trying to figure

out a way that they can have Jesus, but not get rid of everything else.

And one of the ways they could have done that is to say, well,

he's just a really important angel.

We don't need to worship him as God. We don't need to change our entire lives.

We don't need to do anything too crazy. We just need to put him in the pantheon of angels.

So, the writer of Hebrews is going to, as he will throughout the whole book,

systematically break down this argument and say, you're wrong.

He's not just an angel. That's not who he is.

The author is going to make this case. So, let me just read Hebrews 1.

I'm going to read the whole chapter. Can we handle that this morning?

It's just three extra verses. I think we can do it. And if nothing else,

you can go home knowing that you heard or read a whole chapter of your Bible today.

If you didn't do that all week, you can do it today. All right.

It says, long ago at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.

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.

He is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature.

And he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

After making purifications for sins,

he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. And here we go.

Having become as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is

more excellent than theirs.

For to which of the angels did God ever say, you are my son,

today I have begotten you.

Or again, I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son.

And again, you can kind of hear him as you read this chapter,

build this case. He uses this word and a lot.

It's like, let me give you all these reasons that Jesus is better.

Here's one. And again, here's another one. And here's another one. And here's another one.

So he says in verse six, and again, when he brings the firstborn into the world,

let all God's angels worship him.

Verse seven, of the angels, he says, he makes his angels wins and his minister is a flame of fire.

These are all Old Testament references that we'll go over.

But of the Son, or of Jesus, he says, your throne, O God, is forever and ever.

The scepter of a brightness is the scepter of your kingdom.

You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore,

God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.

And, once again, you, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning,

and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain.

They will all wear out like a garment, like a robe.

You will roll them up like a garment. They will be changed, but you are the

same, and your years will have no end.

And, there it is again, to which of the angels has he ever said,

sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.

Verse 14, are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake

of those who are to inherit salvation?

So he begins by making these comparisons, and the first thing he says is,

Jesus has a better title.

He has a better name than the angels have.

Angels have names. Jesus has a name.

Jesus' name is Son of God. Son of God is Jesus' eternal title.

Now, there can be some confusion here. When we say Son of God,

we do not mean that Jesus is inferior to God, that, yeah, He is God,

but he's kind of a little less than God, that that's not really his title.

He's eternal, but not in the same way God is. And he's powerful,

but not in the same way God is. That's not what the title Son of God means.

Son of God is a title of authority. It's not as much a title of rank or file.

It's a title of authority.

It is a title to show that he has authority over everything.

In the same way as we're talking about angels, that angels are servants and Jesus is a son.

Angels do what God wants them to do. And by extension, angels do whatever Jesus wants them to do.

God's son, as we've already read, has authority over all of God's creation.

Sons are greater than servants. And the first case that the writer of Hebrews

makes is, you know, Psalm 2-7, every Hebrew, every Israelite,

every Jew would have known Psalm 2-7.

Psalm 27 is a prophecy about the king that is to come, about the king that is

to save all of them, about the king that is to do everything that they've looked for them to do.

And so what does the writer of Hebrews do right off the bat?

He quotes Psalm 27, you are my son, today I have begotten you.

And again, his point is, to which of the angels did God ever say that?

To which of the angels did he ever call his son? To which of the angels did

he ever give that kind of authority to?

Of course, it's a rhetorical question. Most of the questions he asks in here

are, and the answer is none of them.

That second quotation there is 2 Samuel 7, 14.

I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son.

Jesus, especially in his flesh, is God's son. He was submitted to the Father's plan in the flesh.

Why was Jesus submitted to the Father's plan in the flesh? Because it was his plan.

There is no division in the Godhead. There is no division between God the Son,

God the Spirit, and God the Father.

When they come up with plans, they come up with them together.

The plans are one and the same.

Jesus was submitted to the Father's plan because the Father's plan and his plan

were the exact same plan.

Again, this can get confusing real fast, but the main purpose that the writer

of Hebrews is giving us this this morning is to see that Jesus' name is greater than the angel's name.

His authority is greater than the angel's authority.

In fact, we'll see the angels are the ones that serve him.

Next thing we see is that angels worship Jesus, not the other way around.

And the logic here is, why would you worship something like an angel when the

angels are worshiping something else?

Why would you worship something that's less than what they're worshiping?

We get this picture that most of us have heard in Revelation 5, 11 through 13.

It says, Then I looked and I heard around the throne and the living creatures

and the elders, the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands.

And what are the angels doing? They're saying with a loud voice,

Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and all wealth and wisdom

and might and honor and glory and blessing.

And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in

the sea and all that is in them saying, to him who sits on the throne and to

the lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever.

What a scene that that sets for us.

Again, for our purposes this morning and for the writer of Hebrews,

what he's trying to get them to see is Jesus is greater than angels,

so much greater than angels that they worship him.

And if you try and put Jesus on the same tier as the angels,

the only problem you're going to have is that you're going to lie to yourself,

that you're going to find that Jesus is greater than those things.

In fact, so much greater again that they are going to worship him.

Imagine spending your life trying to convince yourself that Jesus is an angel

only to die and find out that the angels are worshiping Jesus.

No one receives worship like Jesus. It even says, every knee will bow to Him.

Again, this is maybe the most important point this morning, because this is

what sets Christianity apart from every single other religion in the world, every single one.

We worship Jesus alone. He's not an angel. He's not a prophet.

He's not a moral teacher.

He's not a good guy. He's not one of the options. We worship Jesus.

It's what sets us apart from every single other religion in the world,

every single other way of living.

And there's so much pressure on us to say, like there's pressure on these Hebrews

to say, listen, is Jesus really worth it though?

Like, wouldn't it be a lot easier if you just said he was an angel and that

he was really important, but that Islam and Muslims and Jews and,

you know, we're all just, we're all going to get to the same place eventually.

And yeah, Jesus is important, but he's just as important as Muhammad,

and he's just as important as Buddha, and he's just as important as Krishna, right?

There's all these different guys, and they're all giving us a way to go to God.

And Jesus is one of the many options for us to get there.

Or like I said, maybe he's just the archangel Michael, and his job is to sure

take on the devil, but that's not something to just lay your head on and go,

man, this is the most important thing in the world. but it is the most important thing in the world.

And it is true that we believe that Jesus is the only way to God.

It is true that we believe that every single other religion is wrong.

That's a true statement.

It is true that we think Jesus is God of very God, that he alone is the one

that deserves worship and that he alone is the one that will receive worship,

whether you want to worship him or not,

that every knee will not bow to angels, that every knee will not bow to Moses,

and that certainly every knee will not bow to Muhammad or Krishna or Buddha

or the archangel Michael, that every knee will bow to Jesus because he is one

and only the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

That's what makes you a Christian. That's what it is.

Not what church you go to, not when and where you got baptized,

not what signature is on whatever certificate you got, not what aisle you walked

or what prayer you prayed.

What makes you a Christian is that you worship Jesus alone.

That is what makes you a Christian. It's why if you met a Christian from 1,000 years ago,

or 1,500 years ago, or from China today, and you shared your experience of being

a Christian, and you say, well, this is what my church does,

they're going to go, what are lights?

Well, we play music through a speaker. A what? A speaker?

Yeah, and if it's cold outside, It's warm inside. What are you talking about?

Right? Oh, yeah. And actually, everywhere we go, people are happy that we know who Jesus is.

And they're going, you tell people that you meet there? You want more people

to know that you're meeting there?

What happens if somebody finds out? Well, we hope that they come and join us.

Well, what do you do when you meet for church? Oh, we hang out and drink coffee.

Then we open the Word and read our Bibles and sing songs.

And the only thing that a lot of people would have in common with us is those

two things. Oh, you sing hymns and songs and spiritual songs? That's great.

Oh, you open the Word, you follow the apostles' teaching? That's great.

Almost nothing else we would have in common with them.

Literally nothing else. But when we get in a room, we can go,

we all believe that Jesus is the King of kings and Lord of Lords,

that He's greater than every single other person, place, or thing in the world.

And we worship Jesus alone.

And every single Christian for the last 2,100 years can say amen to that and

can get in a room together and go, yeah, we believe that too.

We believe that too. We may disagree on how to do things and when to do things

and how to lead things and what church government should look like and what

top-down structures we should use and what children's ministry should look like

or youth ministry look like.

But at the end of all things, what Christians can agree on, whatever Christian

does agree on, is that Jesus alone is who we worship and who we follow.

His commands matter. What He wants us to do matters.

Now, again, that sounds good, but the hard part is we know people that don't think that way.

I know people that don't think that way. I have good friends that don't think

that way. I have family members that don't think that way.

And if I'm being honest, that's the hardest thing to stomach because you're

thinking, man, I truly believe that that's true.

But it breaks my heart that they don't think that way.

And certainly people will look at you and think that you're selfish or rude,

maybe in some extreme circumstances, a bigot or the meanest person they've ever

met because you're just going to push their religion on them.

Listen, I'm not pushing religion on anybody, but I'm not going to lie to somebody

and say, yeah, I mean, if you like Jesus, that's cool, but if you don't, that's cool too.

What I'm really saying to them, if you decipher that is...

Yeah, I mean, I worship Jesus, but I don't really care if you know him or not.

I don't really care if you see heaven or not, because I'm really more concerned

with whether or not I upset you for the next 30 years than what your eternal destination might be.

I'm really more concerned about what you're going to think about me for the

next five to 10 years than what you're going to think about me for eternity.

My life is easier when I don't talk this way.

It's just easier. My life is so much easier when I don't hold myself to the

standard of Jesus alone.

I don't have to have hard conversations. I don't have to tell people this.

I could just live my life and joke about it. When they go, do you go to church?

I go, yeah, I go to church.

I actually pastor a church. Oh, that's cool. What do you think about Jesus,

man? I think he's the most important thing in the world. Oh, well, I don't.

Listen, we cannot be those kind of people.

Just because it's easy for us to be Christians, that doesn't mean it should

be easy for someone not to be one.

And this is what, again, the writer of Hebrews is going to do over and over

again, is he's going to put things in front of these Hebrews to go,

do you realize what you're risking by calling Jesus an angel?

Do you realize what's at stake by you trying to call Jesus an angel or a prophet?

It, what's at stake is your eternal salvation, where you will spend eternity.

Because if you don't worship Jesus, if you try and demean Him to be something

that He is not, then you will fall into some sort of idol worship.

Which of course is the first commandment. So again, Jesus is not an angel.

He is God made flesh and he is worthy of all our worship and all of our praise.

And the angels know this.

They spend their lives worshiping him. All right. The angels worship Jesus.

So he's got a greater name. The angels worship Jesus.

Go ahead and jump down to verse 12.

Why do the angels worship Jesus? Well, we've already covered this last week

and we're going to cover it a lot of times in Hebrews, but the angels worship Jesus because he is God.

This is the death nail to this angel argument for the Hebrew writer.

The writer quotes Psalm 102, 25 through 27.

It says, you Lord laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning and the

heavens are the work of your hands.

He's saying that this Psalm actually applies to Jesus.

He says of Jesus that they will perish, but Jesus will remain.

They will all wear out, but out like a garment, like a robe, Jesus will roll them up.

Like a garment, they will be changed, but Jesus will always be the same.

And Jesus's years will have no end.

So again, he's taking Old Testament scripture, something that every Hebrew that

he's writing to would know, that would read Psalm 102 and say,

that is a Psalm about God.

That describes God. That describes the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.

That describes the God of Moses. That describes the God of Genesis.

That describes the God of Noah.

They ascribe those qualities to him. And the writer of Hebrews says,

you are right to do that, but they all apply to Jesus.

Because Jesus is God. And what he's trying to do is give them a sense of awe

and reverence and love and trust and joy in Jesus Christ.

Because one thing that is very different about what he's asking them to do versus

what I'm asking you to do is that he knows when he's calling them to worship Jesus as God alone,

he's calling them to be a complete societal outcast.

He's calling them to put their families at risk, to put their lives at risk.

Causing them to lose out on a lot of money, a lot of social status.

So to get someone to do that, he's making his case as strong as he can.

And he's asking them, listen, is he your God and your Savior and your master

and your friend? Is he your treasure?

Because if he is, he is worth all those things.

A scripture we quote often in here, Matthew 13, 44, the kingdom of heaven is

like a treasure hidden in a field.

When a man finds it in his joy, he sells all that he has to buy that field, and he does it.

Why does he sell all that he has in his joy? Because he has found the king of

the kingdom to be a treasure, to be his greatest joy, to be his greatest peace.

It's about Jesus.

What's the last thing he brings up? This is an incredible verse, an incredible verse.

To this point, as we get to the end of this chapter, here's been his logic, right?

Jesus is sitting as a king, the angels are servants.

There is only one king and there are many servant angels.

What he's going to say here is there are servants of Christians to those who

by faith are inheriting salvation.

That Christ is the king over the church and the angels do his bidding for the church.

Now listen to this verse, verse 14.

Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those

who are to inherit salvation?

What are angels here for? Well,

we already have read Revelation 5 that they're here to worship Christ.

Their knees bow to him. They do as he pleases them to do.

But here the writer of Hebrews almost turns his gaze to the people he's writing

to to say, do you not realize that these things that you're trying to worship,

that you're trying to make Jesus like, that their whole purpose is to worship

him and just to make sure that you make it to the end?

There to minister to you. The question becomes, how does that work?

Is it an angels in the outfield situation where when we need them in our greatest time of need,

or when the right person prays for us, when the right person does the right

set of combination of reading their Bible and praying and going to church,

that all of a sudden angels show up and they help us catch balls in the outfield? Probably not.

But I have no doubt that there's angels around us all the time,

that there's angels even here now, helping us, guiding us along,

helping us to know who God is.

This is what it says, that they are ministering spirits sent out to serve for what?

For the sake of those who are to inherit salvation, for the sake of those who

God calls to himself, for the sake of those that God is to redeem, for his chosen people.

In the same way that God chose Israel and multiple times angels would bail them

out of certain situations, the same way he chooses you and me,

that's what the angels are there for.

Verse 13 says that Christ is seated on the throne, that something is happening

to bring his enemies under his feet like a footstool.

What is happening? What's happening that's going to make Christ's enemies like a footstool?

Well, one of the things that's happening is these angels are bringing people

into the presence of the Lord.

They're ministering to God's people. And as God's people are ministered to, they glorify the Lord.

And as the Lord is glorified, more and more of God's enemies are placed under

Christ's feet because He is their King.

And the more people that call on Jesus as King is the more people that bring

that King glory and don't bring the kingdom of darkness glory.

When we call people out of darkness and into light, one of the things we are

doing is saying, don't you want to know the King of glory?

Aren't you tired of serving under the kingdom that will one day be under the

feet of the one who has called you out of darkness into light?

He's making this argument all throughout Hebrews. He's saying,

you want to worship Jesus like a prophet or like an angel.

And what we're saying is, if you do that, what you will end up worshiping is

someone who will be under Jesus' feet one day.

Listen, there are enemies of

our salvation, enemies that want to bring the work of Christ to nothing.

They want it to fail for you.

You have enemies that want to keep you from inheriting salvation,

whether it's demons or false ideas or sinful impulses or just evil persons,

whatever it is. There's a million enemies.

So God accomplishes two things through his angels. He sends them to serve so

that we preserve in the faith and to inherit our salvation.

And the angels in serving us, the enemies of God are made a footstool for Christ's feet.

Ultimately, angels exist so that God may be glorified and His people may be satisfied.

Angels exist so that God may be glorified and that God's people may be satisfied.

I'm not at all saying that if angels didn't exist, that you wouldn't have salvation, right?

We studied Philippians months ago.

He who began a good work and you will complete it, right? If you're saved, you're saved.

You didn't do anything to earn your salvation. You can't do anything to lose

it, right? Every cliche you can bring up, we can talk about.

What I am saying is angels do exist, but their purpose is not to be worshiped.

Their purpose is not to be served.

And they're certainly not to be put on the same level as Jesus.

But the angels, we can take heart, are sent to do the will of the Son.

And what is the will of the Son?

To save the people that the Father has given over to Him. That's what he says in John.

All those who the Father delivers to me, every single one of them will be saved.

Every single person that God brings to Christ will be saved.

And one of the ways that Christ is going to bring you to your salvation is to

send angels in times and places where you don't even see them or notice them

so that you will make it to the end.

When you've sinned beyond the point that you think you can be forgiven,

there may be angels to comfort you.

When you've experienced more sorrow and grief than you think you can handle,

there may be angels to comfort you.

When you're facing decisions in your life or you don't know what to do and you

don't know where to go and you're not sure how it's going to work and you spend

all your days in fear and confusion, maybe God will spend an angel to you to,

again, give you some peace and comfort.

I don't know how God's going to use angels in your life, and I'm certainly not

going to stand up here and try to give you a class on this is how angels work,

and this is what they do, and this is what they can do, this is what they can't do.

All I can tell you is angels exist, and their purpose is to worship God and

to bring you into salvation.

And it's one of the many tools that God uses to do that, right?

Angels exist, again, to make much of Christ and to make sure that His people

will inherit the salvation that God has gifted to them.

So in conclusion, right? Jesus is the son of God in a way that no angel ever

was or is. That's who Jesus is.

Jesus is not an angel. He's worshiped by angels.

They bow their knee to him.

Jesus is not an angel. He is God, right?

Remember, he applies Psalms that only apply to God, to Jesus,

because Jesus is God in the flesh. Jesus is not an angel.

He is the eternal creator of all things.

Is not an angel. He is seated on the throne as a king, and the angels are dispatched

to do the king's bidding.

And the good news for you and me is the king's bidding is to save his people

from sin and death and deliver them to God forever, to live with him in paradise.

Don't worship angels. Don't give angels more credit than they're due, right?

Angels are incredible, but they are doing the bidding of the king.

It would be as if a king sent somebody to your house to give you a whole bunch of money.

And they show up at the door and they say, man, the king, whoever that king

is, use your imagination, wants to give you all this money.

And you brought that person who brought the money in the house and you put them

up and you said, man, I'm so glad you brought me this money.

I'm going to worship you. And I'm going to tell everyone that you are the one

that gave me all this money.

You're the one that delivered it to me. You're the one that gave it to me.

And you're the one that I'm going to give all the praise and all the glory and

all the honor for giving me this money.

All the while, it was the king that gave you the money.

It was the king that brought you the gift.

And this is the danger the Hebrews are falling into is saying,

we're going to worship the one that just was doing what the king told them to do.

Why would you worship the messenger when you can worship the king? Let's pray.

Father, again, thank you for this morning. Thank you for your word.

Thank you for the book of Hebrews.

Thank you that you make it so clear that Jesus is not just an angel and he's

not just a prophet and he's not just a good man or a moral teacher.

Because if you didn't make it so clear, it would be so much harder to make statements

like we've made this morning.

That you are greater than every other person that has ever lived.

That you are the King of kings. You are eternally God.

That you are the creator of all things. That you are sovereign over all the workings of mankind.

And that your will will be done. That what you've decided to happen will happen.

And that angels are simply a tool in your toolbox to get those things done.

God, we know that even when angels rebelled, you kicked them out of heaven.

God, they don't have any control over you. They're not able to tell you what to do or to set an agenda.

So God, we are thankful for angels in the same way that we're thankful for servants and messengers.

We can give them their rightful due, we can give them the rightful honor,

but may they never take the place of the King who has given to us every single

good and perfect gift that we have ever received.

We thank you for that. You know, I pray. Amen.