A Bigger View of Christ (March 11th, 2018) - Myles Holmes

Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord.

It's so good to be with you this morning.

I need to tell you, uh, I'm a little bit of an emotional person, and it feels a little bit emotional to be here because you need to know I don't know many of you, but I love your church.

And the reason I love your church is because in the front row my mom sits and she is an attendee here, and I've prayed for a church like this for my mom to be a part of.

And so I'm so thankful for the way that the Lord is working in you.

Uh the way that God saved me is uh you can't untie it from the way that he saved my mom.

He saved my mom, and it was months later that I was saved, and it was through leading her that he led me to the Lord.

And so our stories are very uniquely tied.

And as I got married and life progresses as it usually does, we've kind of been separated, but I'm so happy to know that the same kind of church where I'm growing and my wife is growing, and now my daughter is growing, my mom gets to grow in as well.

And so I'm so thankful for you.

You guys have a special place in my heart.

It's sentimental because I was thinking this morning of a conversation I had with Pastor Mike probably about it was probably about a year and a half ago now, where I just was speaking to him and I said, We've got to figure out a way to get my mom to your church.

And I was praying for this, and then now I come here and I get to preach to her church.

And so it's such a blessing.

I grew up in Aurora, lived in Barrie as well, and so it's such a blessing to be here and share God's word with you.

If you have God's word, would you open it up to Hebrews chapter one?

We're gonna be in verses one to three this morning.

I want to share with you a passage from one of my favorite stories.

Actually, I was thinking about this this morning too.

This was a classic teenager move I did, okay?

So, teenagers, if you're listening, write this one down.

One time my mom gave me this book, All of Chronicles of Narnia.

And so I read it, and then she wanted to read it.

So one Christmas I gave it back to her as a gift.

That's a good move you can only pull off as a teenager boy.

One of the passages in the Chronicles of Narnia, in the um, in one of the stories, there's an encounter between Lucy, who's one of the children who discover Narnia, and Aslan, the lion, the lion that Lewis uses to depict Jesus.

And I want to read that for you because it helpfully portrays what I what I want to get at, what the author of Hebrews is writing for us this morning.

Lewis writes this.

And then, oh joy, for he was there, the huge lion shining white in the moonlight, with his huge black shadow underneath him.

But for the movement of his tail, he might have been a stone lion.

But Lucy never thought of that.

She never stopped to think whether he was a friendly lion or not.

She rushed to him.

She felt her heart would burst if she lost a moment.

And the next thing she knew was that she was kissing him and putting her arms as far around his neck as she could, and burying her face in the beautiful, rich silkiness of his mane.

Aslan, Aslan, dear Aslan, sobbed Lucy.

At last, the great beast rolled over on his side so that Lucy fell, half sitting, half laying between his front paws.

He bent forward and just touched her nose with his tongue.

His warm breath came all around her.

She gazed up into the large wise face.

Welcome, child, he said.

Aslan, said Lucy, you're bigger.

Aslan said, That is because you are older, little one.

Lucy said, Not because you are.

And Aslan replied, These words, I am not, but every year you grow, you will find me bigger.

Church, this is Christian growth.

Finding Christ bigger.

Let me suggest that our greatest problem in our life is that we have too small a view of Jesus Christ.

That because we have such a little view of the superiority of Jesus Christ, this is where sin enters into our life, damages our family, and causes our churches to be ineffective.

There are too many of us, indeed all of us, who fail to walk with Christ because at the root of our walk with Christ, we don't believe Him to be sufficient.

We fail to live for Christ because we have this deep craving for something that we'll search for in the world when only Jesus Christ can satisfy.

This little view of Christ causes us to turn away from him continually to our own destruction.

And so we worship our own idols, believing that Christ is too small to satisfy.

We'll hope in our own world because we believe Christ is too small to uphold.

We'll labor in our own works because we believe Christ is too small to save.

We'll walk in our own strength because we believe Christ is too small to empower us.

We'll direct our own path because we believe Christ is too small to guide us.

We'll rule our own life because we believe Christ is too small to rule us.

What we learn in Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 to 3 today is our real problem.

Hebrews 1:1–3

Not that Christ is insufficient, but that our view of Christ is insufficient.

And so this is what I want to do this morning.

This is what I want to do this morning.

Now, my first point, I'm gonna give lay it all out for you, okay?

You can fall asleep now, you won't need to hear anything, you'll have heard it all.

In my first point, I want to plead with you to see Jesus Christ through the Word of God.

In the second point, I want to see Jesus Christ with you.

I want to worship Jesus Christ with you.

And I want to discover along with you that our greatest need in our present situation, no matter what we're walking through, no matter what it is, is a bigger view of Jesus Christ.

And so this morning I long to do what the Spirit loves to do.

Isn't that what the Spirit loves to do?

He comes, he loves to come and he loves to shine a bright light on Jesus Christ.

And so you need to know, as a preacher, this is one of the best sermons to preach because you know that the Spirit loves to exalt his son.

And so would you just take a moment?

Can we pray together?

And let's just not like listen to me pray.

Would you pray that God would give you a bigger view of Jesus Christ this morning?

Let's pray.

Father, we bow before you.

And Lord, we give you praise for your son.

God, truly, we have experienced your steadfast love as we have known your son and seen him and heard of him and been taught by him and followed him and ultimately, Lord, been saved by him.

God, we proclaim it now we love your Son.

And we love to know more of his infinite glory.

God, surely, for all of eternity, we will be worshiping him, and never will we ever get the fullness of the picture of the glory that you possess.

And so, God, we come before you now, Lord, begging you, pleading you, Lord, that by with you, that by your Holy Spirit, Lord, would you reveal to us a bigger picture of Jesus Christ, that we might love Him more.

Lord, that our circumstances, that the situation we're in right now, Lord, that we would take our eyes off the things that of the world, off the things that we think can deliver us and place them on the only sufficient Savior, Jesus Christ.

So we come to you now, Lord, with humble hearts, ready for you to do work in us.

We pray this all in the name of your Son.

Amen.

Amen.

Hebrews chapter 1.

Hebrews 1 · chapter mention

The book of Hebrews, we we find a church suffering, the consequence of having a too small view of Jesus Christ.

Now, this small view of Jesus Christ, believing that other things could be better than Jesus Christ and could replace Jesus Christ, is causing them to turn away in the midst of suffering from following Jesus Christ.

And so they start to be put in the pressure cooker that we know of following Christ.

They start to experience trials, they start to experience suffering.

There's hints in Hebrews that some people are being martyred.

And as they are experiencing that, they're wondering, is Jesus Christ really worth it?

And so Hebrews starts there's no introduction, there's no prologue.

Part of the reason for that is that if you run into a burning building to save people, you cut the small talk.

You don't introduce yourself first.

You get right to the heart of the matter.

There's a problem here.

There's a problem here, and the problem with this church is an insufficient view of the of Jesus Christ.

And so let's read it together.

Hebrews chapter 1, verse 1 says this long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.

Hebrews 1:1

But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom he also 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 purifications for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.

The question we're going to answer this morning is how do you get a bigger view of who Jesus Christ is?

How do we enlarge our picture of the Son?

The first point I want you to see in God's word is this: you need to hear the God who loves to speak.

You need to hear the God who loves to speak.

Now, read verse one with me again.

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

Now we said that the writer of Hebrews gets right to the heart of the matter.

He quickly writes to the church, filled with Jewish Christians, to remind them these words.

Now, many of us, if you're like myself, you're like a professional Christian.

And so sometimes you can hear these astounding things, and you've heard it so many times that you're like, oh, wow, that's really cool.

But this should actually invoke in us a sense of worship, awe, and wonder.

The God of this universe loves to speak to lowly people.

He speaks to us.

He doesn't mumble his message.

He doesn't whisper it in a corner.

He doesn't wrap his word up in a bottle and throw it to the bottom of the ocean.

And get, instead, he finds people and he speaks to them.

Praise God that you didn't drive here this morning with your spouse and say, Hey, do you think God's gonna speak this morning?

And your spouse responded, I don't know.

Sometimes he speaks, sometimes he doesn't.

We don't have to worry about that.

Where God's word is opened, where God's word is rightly proclaimed, you can be sure that you are hearing God speak.

You are hearing his word proclaimed.

This is amazing.

The word of God that we sit before, his voice being proclaimed.

We are surely hearing him this morning.

That's astounding.

It should blow our minds.

Now, the principle for the Church of Hebrews is this: if you had listened to the voice of God as he spoke to you through the Old Testament, then you would have never turned from Christ to smaller things.

You would never have this problem.

Now, I want you to notice a few elements of God speaking to the nation of Israel, to the Jewish Christians here.

Notice in verse 1 it says this that God spoke at many times.

He spoke at many times.

This was written to remind the readers of the consistency with which God had been a speaking God.

Throughout the history of the church, God had always been a God who loved to reveal himself to his people.

Don't forget this.

God has always loved to speak.

As you read through the history of the people of God, you constantly hear these words, and God said.

At many times, God spoke.

This is the God we serve, the God that loves to speak.

So much so that in John 1 1 it says this that in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.

God loves to speak.

For all eternity, God has prevailed in his speech.

At many times God spoke.

But notice this also about God speaking.

The people to whom he spoke.

The writer of Hebrews says this: God spoke to our fathers.

Now, the writer doesn't just have in mind Abraham, Isaac, Joseph.

He actually has in mind all the people of God.

Now, this is a bit beyond my age, but some of you remember this saying, it's kind of like ingrained into your head, thus saith the Lord.

Any remember that?

Any KJV lovers hear this?

Over and over and over again in the Bible, it says this: Thus saith the Lord.

God is a God who loves to reveal himself.

Over 1900 times in Scripture, God is seen speaking to his people.

Surely, as we pick up God's word, this is mostly what it's about.

God communicating himself to his people.

God is a God that loves to speak to his people and wants to continue to speak to his people this morning.

Notice also about the way that God spoke, the process in which he spoke.

And so the writer of Hebrews says, in many ways to our fathers, by the prophets.

He spoke by the prophets.

Now, throughout redemptive history, this has been one of the most awe-inspiring truths is the way that he spoke to God's people.

See, in God's nation, he had a whole role dedicated to that person making sure that the nation knew what Israel was to do.

So much so that if you read through the Old Testament, you actually start to like shake your head.

You're like, are you serious, Israel?

You had a prophet right there.

I just read this this morning.

You should read this, Jeremiah 42 and 43.

You had a prophet there telling you, don't go to Egypt.

If you go to Egypt, it's gonna go really badly for you.

God said this: do not go to Egypt.

You know what the heading of uh Jeremiah 43 is?

Israel goes to Egypt.

Time and time again, this is how it works.

God's speaking, and God has set up prophets in that nation to plead with the people.

Why would you do that?

God has told you what to do.

The only thing you need to do is do it.

Just listen to him.

This was the role of the prophets, to plead with the people.

To tell them, God said this.

You need to do it.

Now we need to ask a question: why do you write verse one to a group of Christians who clearly know that God spoke to them?

If anyone knew that the God of this universe was a God who loved to speak, it was the Jewish Christians that are the audience of the book of Hebrews.

Now, in many ways, they didn't need this reminder.

They would be a people that prided themselves on being the nation that God spoke to.

They were the Jews.

This is God's people.

This is who God communicated.

And so we need to ask why the reminder?

It was because of this.

Like their fathers, like we joked about with Jeremiah, they too had ceased to listen to God's voice.

And they decided to walk in their own way.

Now the departure was in light of their situation, in light of the persecution that was happening, in light of their brothers and sisters being imprisoned, in light of them facing threats of martyrdom.

They're wondering, was Jesus, this whole Jesus thing, is this really worth it?

Seems to be leading me down a lot of hard paths.

And as they were looking around, they were wondering if there were other saviors that they could follow, if there were other Lords, well, why can't we just go back to the old system?

It seemed to be working out better for us.

But the author of Hebrews wants them to learn this principle.

When you listen to God's voice, it will go well with you.

When you ignore God's voice, it always leads to your own destruction.

Now, church, you need to hear this principle.

This is infinitely true for us today.

When our life seems to spin out of control, when our situation seems like we can't handle it, we can be too quick to turn to our own counsel and stop listening to God's voice?

How many in the church are turning to the wisdom of the world before turning to the wisdom of the word?

How many will place their hope in therapy before placing their hope in God's word?

How many of us will turn to entertainment for relief before we open up God's word to find satisfaction?

How many of us attempt to solve our problems reading self-help books when God is screaming through his word, proclaiming his voice is being heard in his word?

And we so often will turn our own way to our own destruction.

And the reason is this we're horrible listeners.

We're horrible listeners.

We're too often, we're too close, we're close enough to know that God's speaking, but not invested enough to actually hear.

Now, when I say that we're horrible listeners, I saw some wives like nudging their husbands.

This one's for you.

And then when I said that we're close enough to know someone speaking, but not actually hear, you're like, you did that to me on the car this morning.

I have to share with you a story.

It definitely is possible to know that someone is speaking and not actually hear them.

And this happened to me yesterday.

I was sitting on the couch and uh I was there's something obviously very important on my phone, but I can't remember what it was this morning, but I know that it must have been very important because my wife walked in the room and she asked me to do something.

She asked me, I didn't know this at the time, but she asked me to wrap up some food that our daughter had been eating and put it in the fridge.

And I actually responded that these words, okay.

But then as she was walking away, I realized I have no idea what she said.

And now it's one thing to not know what your wife said when she's like talking about her knitting club or something like that.

It's another thing not to know what your wife said when she asked you to do something, and not only that, you said that you would do it.

And so now I need to start playing out my uh like what can I do here?

What cards do I have?

Maybe I'll just do everything I can think of and hope that somewhere in there something she asked me to do is done.

Instead, I had to go back 30 seconds after she talked to me and said, What did you want me to do?

And reveal to her that I was actually not, I knew she was speaking enough to say okay, but I was actually not listening at all.

Some guys are shaking their heads at me, but I just know it's you too, all right?

You struggle with this problem too.

Now, this is the problem.

I wonder how many of us treat God's word like this.

We'll read the Bible, but less to listen to God's voice and more to check a box off.

It's less to listen to his commands and to believe the truth that is in his word about him, and more to be able to say that we are readers of God's word.

How many of us are reading God's word, invested into listening to his voice?

See, we serve a God who is constantly speaking to us.

God speaking to you is as far away from you as an open Bible is.

He loves to speak, he loves to proclaim himself through his word.

And many of us were constantly longing to hear a word from God.

We're constantly saying, God, would you just speak to me?

Just speak to me.

And I wonder if God's up in heaven and he's going, I have.

Just open up the Bible, just long to hear my voice.

It's here.

I love to speak, I love to reveal myself to you.

The problem for us is not that God isn't speaking, the problem is that we are not seeking him.

We serve a God who is easily sought.

We serve a God who would be terrible at hide and seek.

Now I've uh I've discovered there's two types of hide and seek players in my five years doing youth.

There's the type of players that they're like, they come to youth if you're playing hide and seek and they're in like a full ghillie suit.

You find them like the next day and they're buried under a pile of moss and who knows what, and there's bugs crawling all over them, and they're committed to hiding.

You're never gonna find them.

Then there's the other group of youth that come and they love playing, but there are those, like, you know, those when you play hide and seek with a really little kid, and they're like, I'm hiding.

They're like hiding behind something that clearly doesn't hide them, and then you get near them and they're like, they're laughing, and you're like, This is too easy.

See, God is more like the latter one.

God does not hide from us, he is easily sought so much that in Isaiah 55, God says this to the nations come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.

And he who has no money, come, buy, and eat.

See, is the problem that we are not able to find him?

No.

The problem is that when he invites us to come to him, when he invites us to hear his voice, we don't actually come.

In James it says this draw near to him.

And maybe he might draw near to you.

That's not what James says.

James says, if you draw near to him, he will draw near to you.

He will.

That's a promise.

See, when you draw near to God, God draws near to you.

And so God has made himself for us easy to seek.

Now, if God is easily sought, what are we to do?

The answer is this: seek him.

Seek him.

How our lives would be changed if we had this simple attitude shift when we opened up our the word of God.

I am about to hear from the living word of God.

Nothing's as important as that.

No other word is as important as hearing God's word.

Nothing.

And so I'd encourage you to do, pray the simple prayer with the psalmist.

Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.

Start to sit under the word and start to expect that you're gonna hear God's voice and that God's voice is gonna challenge you and convict you and change you.

This is what God's word does.

It changes us.

What about Sunday morning preaching?

Again, we're professional Christians, and this whole Sunday morning thing can become ritual for us.

We get in the car, we drive to work, we sing some songs, we hear the word, we go home.

But do you understand what's happening on a Sunday morning?

This is God's ordained way for the church to meet together, and that when this word, when Pastor Mike opens up this book and he preaches from it, not his own word.

Nobody is up here wanting their word to be the thing that's remembered.

Overwhelmingly, your pastor wants you to remember Jesus Christ.

He wants you to remember what God said.

Now that is astounding.

God wants to speak to us this morning.

If we drive away from here saying, I just want to hear God speak, we've missed it.

We've missed his voice.

We have not listened to him, we have not heard him.

Now, this applies too to those of you who are not Christians.

Let me tell you this: that if you're in here and you're not a Christian, you have just heard the greatest news that you could ever hear.

The God of this universe loves to reveal himself.

The God of this universe is easily discovered.

You walk away from this place having heard God speak because we opened up God's word and said, What does God say?

You've heard God.

And God has proclaimed to you the glory of his Son.

Now there's many who function in the worldview of atheism, and they'll say this often well, if God would just speak to me, then I would believe in him.

If he would speak to me, if right now he would just, his voice would boom and I heard him speak, then I would follow him.

And so if you're an atheist, the thing you have to get around is God's word, a giant book full of God speaking to you.

You need to disprove this.

Everything rests on this book.

This is God's word speaking to you.

And so I would challenge you.

If that's what you say, or if you hear other atheists say this, challenge them on this.

If you say that if God spoke, you would follow him, then why don't you go and read the book that God wrote?

Why don't you pursue that to its end?

Why don't you make sure that God really didn't speak if that's what you really believe?

But listen, there is a God who is speaking to you now.

There is a God who loves you enough to call you right now to turn from your sin, to turn from your selfish ways, and to turn to the Son.

Turn to the one who died for you.

Turn to the one who gave his life to you.

Turn to the one who paid the penalty for you.

See, if you hear the voice of God this morning, if you believe in the Son this morning, you'll be given eternal life.

God loves to speak about the glory of his son, and he loves when we bow our hearts and listen to him and believe in his son.

God's spoken.

And so I'm praying for you right now that the Lord would open up your ears to hear about the glory of his son, that you would cherish him as your only Savior, that you would turn from your ways and find life in Jesus Christ.

Now, why does God's voice change us like this?

What particularly is it about his voice that changes us?

And look at what it says in verse 2 that he has spoken to us by his son.

See, the reason that God's voice changes us is not because he does have a lot of wisdom, but ultimately it's because of the wisdom of the Son, Jesus Christ.

The reason God's voice changes us when we hear it, the reason why God's voice leads to salvation is because it's all about his son.

What this book does for us is paint a picture of the glory of Jesus Christ.

Every word in it points to the glory of the Son.

Every word of it tells the story of Jesus Christ.

Now, this is a problem because so often we read this book and we say, God, what do you want to say to me?

We read it kind of like it's a fortune cookie.

Like, what do you want me to do?

And so we open to a random page and we point to somewhere, and it ends up being like, I'm reading right here, the humiliation of Babylon.

And that's not going to be very encouraging for me.

And then we say, Well, God just doesn't want to speak to me.

But you need to know that's not the way that God's word functions.

God's word is primarily about his son, and what God wants you to hear is of the glory of Jesus Christ.

And so the second thing we want to need to do, if we want a bigger view of Jesus Christ, is we need to see the Son who loves to satisfy.

See the Son who loves to satisfy.

Now I said in the first point, I want to plead with you to hear God, and in the second point, I just want to see his son.

I just want to see him together.

And so having shown that God's voice is the revelation of God's Son, he now points us to see it.

He points us to see it.

Essentially, he's saying this: long ago God spoke, and if he if you had listened to him speaking, this is what you would see.

Here we're called to take in a big picture of Jesus Christ, to enlarge our view of him.

And so we're gonna do that this morning as we continue to dig into his word.

But you need to hear this: that we're not only called to allow scripture to inform us, we're not only called to hear God's voice, we're called to allow God's voice to shape our affections for Christ.

This is the path of Christian living.

We hear God's voice, and he proclaims the glory of his son, and we love his son more in turn.

We see the Son who loves to satisfy.

Now he calls us to this by showing us exactly who Jesus is.

And we get a picture of him that is absolutely staggering.

And so, what I want to do in this moment is we're gonna fly through this, and I promise you that I had to cut out a ton of stuff here.

Every one of these points could be a whole entire sermon, a whole entire book.

In fact, they are whole entire books and sermons.

And so I've cut out practically every application that I thought of.

There's so much here that I could talk about.

I've cut out all applications.

I just want Jesus Christ to speak for himself here.

I just want you to get a picture of who Jesus Christ is.

And so I have no practical applications in these next few minutes.

Some of your note takers are like, what am I gonna do?

You're gonna see the sun.

I want Jesus to simply speak for himself.

Because this is the reality.

If I were to come up here and I were to say, I want to make Jesus look really great, that would be like me going to the sun and holding up a candle and say, I'm contributing some light.

It just doesn't work.

The sun is so glorious, and so the best thing that can happen here is that we open up God's word together and we together see the glory of his son.

That we together gaze at this picture of beauty in the Son, Jesus Christ.

Now, before we get into this, let me give you this suggestion.

Don't let this picture of the glory of Christ pass by you without bowing your heart in worship.

I've been praying, and as I've been studying, I've been experiencing this, that as we see the sun, our jaw is dropped.

Our heart feels like it's gonna pound out of its chest.

This is because the sun is the greatest object of our affection.

There is nothing in this world that we could love more or be satisfied in more.

The sun is worthy of it all.

And so let your mind be blown as we consider the greatness and the glory of his son.

Let it lead you to shout out his praise.

Use this as a time to worship God, to exalt Christ.

And then let your heart be so full after we've we've exalted Christ in preaching that when we sing this next song closing, we're like, blow the roof off this place.

If the Spirit really works to open our eyes to the glory of Jesus Christ right now, oh man.

Responding will be we'll need to sing.

We'll need to sing.

It'll be the right thing to do.

And so look at what the author of Hebrews tells us about the Son.

See first that the Son is the inheritor.

Jesus is the inheritor.

And so the author said, writes this, whom he appointed the heir of all things.

Jesus possesses all things as an heir, an heir possesses his inheritance.

As inheritor, there is not a power in heaven or a power on earth that Christ does not own.

So much so that the author of Hebrews is going to spend the next section talking about how angels actually bow to him.

He is superior than angels.

We read in scripture that all creation proclaims the glory of God.

The sky above speaks of his handiwork.

Everything is looking to Jesus Christ because he is the inheritor.

He will receive all things.

Even one day, he will receive the praise of all people.

Every knee and heart will bow at the glory of Jesus Christ.

And so you need to hear now that if you don't see Jesus' glory today, if you don't give your heart to him as Lord and Savior today, in that final day when he returns, your knee will bow.

Or as the psalmist says in Psalm 86, all the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name, for you are great and do wondrous things.

You alone are God.

I loved singing that.

What a powerful thing for a church that lives in a world that's persecuted to sing, All your earth, all the earth shall sing your praise.

Church, we live in a place of power because Jesus Christ is the inheritor.

Love what one famous apologist once said there's no square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry mine.

It's all his.

He's been given it all by the Father.

See also that the Son is the creator, and so the writer of Hebrews says, through whom he created the world.

Everything's come into existence by his hand.

Not a thing that has been created has been created apart from his power.

Everything that's created was created on his forge.

It has his stamp of creation.

He's the creator of all things.

And so there's some in here who, uh, unlike me, you're very handy and you can make some amazing things.

You can build extensions on your house, you can make some really beautiful furniture, you can paint really great art.

But what you are doing is recreating things.

And so you cut down a tree and you recreate it into a dresser.

None of us have created the tree.

None of us could create a speck of dust if we spent our whole life trying to do it.

But Jesus Christ, he's the creator.

So that John is able to say, all things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that is made.

Not only is he the creator, he's also the radiator.

And so the author of Hebrews says he's the radiance of the glory of God.

See, to be one who is glorious is to be one who's infinitely worth your worship.

And so God says this of the Son.

When you look to him, you see the highest and the greatest glory.

You see the highest and the greatest goodness.

You see the one that is worthy of your pursuit.

You see the one that is worthy of your life.

This is why it's such a tragedy when the young man comes to Jesus and says, I want to follow you, and he says, Go sell all your riches, and he goes away saddened because he left the greatest riches to pursue things that will disappear.

Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God.

You see, he's the inheritor, he's the creator, he's the radiator.

Is your heart worshiping yet?

Because there's more.

He's also the upholder.

He upholds the universe by the word of his power.

Do you know that Jesus sustains all things?

How many breaths have you taken in the span of the sermon that every one that Jesus has upheld?

How many times has your heart beat as we've worshiped God together?

Every beat Jesus has said, go again.

Now I always wonder when I do that illustration, if like my heart's gonna beat the next time, because a really powerful illustration of that truth would be like if I died or something.

You're like, that was a memorable sermon.

That guy died while he was preaching because Jesus stopped upholding his heart.

Jesus is the upholder of all things.

As Paul says in Colossians 1:17, in him all things are held together.

Colossians 1:17

Because of that verse, that means that all things are held together by him.

Everything.

If he ceases to uphold all things, they will cease to exist.

It is him.

See the might and power of Jesus Christ.

He's the upholder.

And so the author of Hebrews says, after making purifications for sin, he sat down.

See, without Jesus, what hopelessness we would have standing before a Father whose anger and wrath will be poured out on sin.

But with Jesus, do you know that you stand before the Father having sinned, having pursued impurity, you stand before him pure because of Jesus.

It's not the kind of purity that I have now because I have a beard where someone's like, oh, there's something in your beard there.

I think it's like a piece of egg or something.

That's not going to happen in the final day.

In the final day, you will stand before God with no stain, no blemish, because Jesus Christ took all of your sin and left none of it behind.

He is the Savior who purifies you in every sense.

He is the one who takes you away from the wrath of God so that now you no longer have to face God's anger against sin because the Son died on the cross for it.

This is Jesus Christ.

Is there anything more important than Him?

He's the inheritor, He's the creator, He's the radiator, He's the representer, He's the upholder, He's the Savior.

And lastly, Jesus is the ruler.

He sat down, the writer of Hebrews says, at the right hand of the Majesty on High.

God has given all authority to the Son.

From his right hand, he rules over the world, waiting for the day when he will return in power to rule and to reign as King.

Church, let me ask you: is your heart exalting in Jesus Christ?

Are you amazed at who he is?

Let me promise you that if you think anything is better than this, if you have a bigger view of anything in the world than this, then you have missed it.

You've missed it.

You've missed the greatest picture of glory that's ever been known.

You've missed the greatest person that's ever been known.

Now let me ask you this: in light of who we've seen Jesus to be, in light of his glory, how could we ever turn to lesser things?

This is the foolishness of idolatry.

This is the foolishness of pursuing sin outside of Jesus Christ.

Is that Jesus is so worthy of our affection, he's the only one who can satisfy our deepest longings?

He's the only one who is actually worthy of worship.

And yet, so often we will return to the muck.

So often we will return to our idols.

When we've seen such glory in Jesus Christ, it makes you scratch your head.

Why do we turn back to the things of the world?

And the answer is this because we don't have a big enough view of Jesus Christ.

And so because we don't have a big enough view of Jesus Christ, every time we've sinned, we've said this.

Though we haven't vocalized it with our lips, we've said it with our heart.

I think that something else can satisfy me more than Jesus.

I think that something else is more worthy of my love.

Someone else is more worthy to be my king.

I think that my kingdom is more worthwhile to live for than the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

And so it is right for us in a moment like this to stop and reflect and ask ourselves what's that thing that we keep turning to, believing that it can satisfy us when only Christ can.

Now often what happens when a question is asked like that is the Spirit, by his grace and love, brings something to mind.

And I've experienced this before where that thing's brought to mind, but then you start to wrestle it down.

Well, no, it can't be that.

It can't be that thing.

That's a good thing.

That's a good thing.

God wants me to have that thing.

And that may be true, but in my own experience, more often than not, it's not true.

And so we need to listen as the Spirit brings this thing to mind, it's his love convicting us of the things that hold too high a place on our heart.

Now, listen to what the author of Hebrews shows us as he shows us verses one to three.

He tells us that you will never come back to Jesus if you don't have a bigger view of him.

You will always turn away from him if your view of Jesus is too small.

And so, what you need to turn away from sin, what you need to pursue Jesus in the midst of suffering is a bigger view of him.

When you love Jesus more than you love your idols, when you love Jesus more than you love yourself, you turn to him.

The Puritans called this the expulsive power of a new affection.

Paul talks about it like this: you put off sin and you don't stop there.

Your mind is renewed and you put on Christ.

See, if we don't see Christ, we'll just replace our idol with another one.

We're called to love him more.

We're called to long for him more until all the things of this world seem dim and the beauty of his name shines forth, the power of his name grips us, and we can say this to God.

Everything else is meaningless to me.

All I want is you, God.

Just give me Jesus.

He is enough.

He is enough.

That's all I want.

Now, as we close, I want to share just a few ministry insights with you.

And I said we weren't gonna get practical, but we but we are at this point.

Well, I don't know many of you.

I trust that if you're human, many of you are walking in here with a great weight on your shoulders.

Perhaps you feel that in many areas of your life you're performing insufficiently.

You think about your parenting, and you wonder how your kids are ever going to turn out not to be criminals.

You wonder how you glorify God at work.

You are asking questions about how to serve the church faithfully without burning out.

And we walk in with these great weights of our shoulders, and we could talk a lot about very practical things, but the best thing that I could give you is this get a bigger picture of Jesus Christ.

Now let me explain how that works because that kind of seems like you're not really helping me, man.

I need something practical here.

Some of us we want a task list.

Give me something to do, give me something to do.

But can I just tell you that if you seek Jesus Christ, all these things will work out.

If you know the glory of Jesus Christ, if you love Him more and more, and each day you're getting a bigger and bigger and bigger picture of him, you will figure out the what of Christian living.

And so I've seen this time and time again.

I've been in youth ministry for over five years, and let me tell you this: there are families I have seen that from the world standard, they seem like they have it all together.

They've got money, their kids are well behaved, they're organized, they get to church like 10 minutes early, and you're like, How do you do this?

This isn't my life.

They seem from the outside like they have it all together, but they've put all of these things above pursuing the glory of Jesus Christ and getting a bigger picture of him.

And so I've seen so many kids, and this is why I'm in youth ministry, because I'm so burdened for these kids that leave high school and their family, they've never said it explicitly, but they've taught them that there's things more important than Jesus Christ, like good grades and getting a good job.

And I've seen other families where like they almost have nothing together.

They're always unorganized, and the girls are always coming in, and their hair is like sticking everywhere, and and you look at them, and from the outside, it seems like nothing is together.

But the one thing you do know is that in this home, Christ is exalted.

And those kids leave knowing that I just need Christ.

Now, the best thing is the best of both these worlds.

Living an organized life where you love Jesus too, that's a good thing.

But I just want you to know that the most important thing that you can do in your home for your family is exalt Jesus Christ above all things.

Have your kids leave your home and say, uh, the only thing that I need for success in this life to be excellent is Jesus Christ and a burning passion for him.

It's these families that display to the world the glory of Jesus.

It's these families that display the excellence of Jesus through their lives.

They say, Nothing's more important.

You need to get this.

Get Jesus, get a bigger view of him, see him.

He's so worth your life.

Church, if you give your life to pursuing a bigger vision, bigger view of Jesus Christ, your life will be changed forever.

This is Christian growth.

And so let me ask you, will you do it?

God's made himself known.

The Son is a sufficient savior, and so the only thing remaining is for us to get a bigger view of him, to uh for us to spend every day waking up saying, How am I going to see the glory of Jesus Christ this morning?

And how am I going to let it lead me?

And let me tell you this that when that final day comes, or when we pass away from this earth and we exist in heaven, do you know what will happen?

We'll be there for one day and we will see an amazing picture of the glory of Jesus Christ.

You know what's going to happen the next day?

We're going to see an even greater view of Jesus Christ.

You know why?

Because Jesus is infinitely glorious.

That means there's no point where you're like, okay, I've figured it all out.

The next day, you're going to figure out more about Jesus Christ.

You're going to have an enlarged picture of him.

Do you know how long that's going to go on for?

Not seven days, not seven years.

It's going to go on for eternity.

Imagine this.

We can't even fathom how great God's glory is because for all eternity we'll worship Jesus and our hearts will be bursting out of our chest.

Our lungs will be exploding as we sing his praise because we're realizing that he's infinitely more glorious than we thought yesterday.

This is the glory of the sun.

It's infinite.

You'll never reach the ceiling of how great he is.

This is Jesus Christ, and we are called to get a bigger view of him in this life.