Jesus is Greater | Ps. Keith Pittman

Welcome to the Celebration Church Orlando podcast.

Thank you so much for listening today.

We hope it encourages you and inspires you.

Here's today's message.

All right, all right.

One, two, one, two, check, check.

Can we put our hands together for Jesus today, this morning, church?

Man, we we celebrate the goodness of God, and I'm so thankful for every single one of you who are here, the the online family community that's here with us today.

But but I gotta take a moment and shout out my brothers from Fresh Start for being in the building.

Man, it it fills me so with so much joy every time I see you guys, every time I I come in, and it's like a pleasant surprise because I never know which Sundays you guys are gonna be here, but when you show up, I'm like, man, this is gonna be a great Sunday.

Every Sunday is a great Sunday, but but I know that when you guys are in the building, you it's gonna be an amazing Sunday.

So I'm so grateful for you guys.

I'm so proud of you guys and grateful um that you will be a part of our community.

So man, I'm glad you guys are here.

Um also I want to send a quick shout out to every single person um that has reached out over uh the past week.

I've had so many people in our community that they're they're familiar with the fact that um that I've suffered a very tragic loss, which is the Eagles didn't win a Super Bowl.

Um and so so so many of you um with just a heart of purity, really putting God's word into practice where it says, grieve with those who grieve.

Um and I'm grateful that I'm pastoring a church where people are actually doing what the Bible says, but I am also disappointed at how many people had text me, mocking me as well.

And so I know that we still have work to do.

You're still welcome at this church, but please sit as far in the back as possible so you don't distract the kingdom work um that God is doing here uh amongst us.

As a typical Eagles fan would say, we'll be back next year, it's gonna be okay.

Um, but I I I wore all black this week.

This is the closest I can get to all black today, but I still am grieving.

I'm still getting over it.

Um, I'm still working through it, I'm still bringing it to the altar.

I mean, we altered things at the altar.

I put these things into practice in my life, but it was truly, truly um a great game.

Now, guys, I'm I'm pumped about uh I'm pumped about today's series.

So if you have your Bible, I want to invite you to to join me in Hebrews.

Um, it's in the New Testament.

We're gonna be doing um uh just an unpacking of the book of Hebrews over the next uh several weeks.

In fact, we're gonna do um the next six-week unpacking this profound book.

And and quite honestly, if I could be transparent with you guys, I was so um conflicted.

We have been thinking and praying about doing this series since last year.

Um and and and last year we we ended up going in a direction doing uh Romans, Grace to You, but this was like kind of the contention uh between the two.

And and I'm so glad that we're finally getting into this book as well.

Reason why, um like a lot of things that I share with you guys, it's it's it's deeply personal for me.

I I remember um probably within the first year of my walk with God, a preacher at the church I was attending came in, and he in essence preached the entire book of Hebrews over about a two-day period at a revival that we attended.

And I remember it just it opened my eyes up to the to the fullness of God's word.

You know, a lot of times we we see that when we look into scripture, we see that it's old testament, new testament.

That means old covenant, the way that God engaged people prior to the incarnate of Christ, and then we have the new covenant that's that's since Jesus.

And so when we read the Bible, we see it broken up.

But in the minds of God, it's it's a continuous story that all points to Jesus.

And so when I was engaged with seeing how how Abraham was pointing to Jesus, how how Moses was pointing to Jesus, how the sacrificial system of the Old Testament was all pointing to Jesus, it it unlocked and almost gave me permission to read the entirety of the Bible and still presence Jesus and every bit of it.

So my hope is that as we are going through this series, that that this is a series that we can that we can grow in, that we can be challenged in, we can be inspired in and recognizing that when Jesus said, I come in the volume of the book, he wasn't just talking about the New Testament, he was talking about all of it.

And I believe there's truth in there that can certainly encourage every single one of us.

I want to give us uh a little bit of uh of context about um the book of Hebrews and and the Bible in and of itself in general.

You know, we we we live in a world of of so many options, uh, we live in a world that's filled with comparisons, and so with all of those things, it's so hard to really come to a conclusion on anything because there's always variables that are changing.

That's just the world that we live in, that's just the culture that we're in right now.

In fact, there's a famous quote that I'm sure we've all heard that the only constant in life is change, that change is inevitable, that things are constantly changing.

And so, naturally, whenever we're introduced to some measure of change, it only makes common sense to go back and reevaluate where you are, what you believe, and where things are to ensure that that it still is gonna transcend the change that you have just experienced.

We we know that in every area of our lives, and we certainly see it now, even what it means to be a follower of Christ.

We've seen this isn't anything new, but we've seen because of platforms the the popularity of deconstruction, this idea of of breaking down our beliefs.

And we we did a series on it last year that I want to encourage you to check out, but but really is just evaluating and examining our faith and and deconstructing it, taking it apart a little bit and making sure that that it's still uh stable and that it still sustains us.

And so that's exactly the premise of what's happening here in the book of Hebrews.

That that the people that it was written to, they were going through a season of suffering and and and a season of significant change, and it was causing them to deconstruct some aspects of their faith.

What Hebrews was doing, it was it was speaking to the ever-changing reality that the people group that they were speaking to was facing, but having the ability to stay constant in a God who doesn't change.

Let me let me say that again.

We all are facing realities that change, but we can find peace in the God who never changes.

That that means that my circumstances may change, but God doesn't.

That that means that my my bank account may change, but but God doesn't.

That the things that once gave me hope may change, but God doesn't.

And what this book is meant to do is that, yes, we acknowledge the evolution of so many things that are happening in our world, but God is absolutely a constant.

And so we're gonna be unpacking some aspects of that.

And I also want to encourage you uh to check out our After the Message podcast.

We're bringing that back for this season.

Um, and it's gonna be a great um complimentary component that's gonna allow us to go even deeper into um the discussion on Hebrews.

We're gonna be looking at different chapters and examining certain theological concepts, and so we're gonna be going there.

It's gonna be available on our podcast as well as on our YouTube um page as well.

So, uh, again, this is gonna be something that can support and undergirt the things we're talking about.

Now, um, just to give you some context about scripture in general, you know, the Bible it spans many, many centuries.

It has over 40 different authors, it has different literary styles, poetry and narrative, and something called prose discourse.

It's a very intricate book and it has different themes and different approaches, but it still is a single story that's all pointing to Jesus.

And I'm giving you some background so that you can see how we got to where we are.

Even in spite of all those challenges and differences and different writers and Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic, and all the different influences, uh, but but 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17 tells us this that even in spite of all of those things, and these these authors didn't get together, they didn't look at each other's papers, maybe some of the New Testament writers did, but but we're talking about thousands of years, and yet somehow there's there's things that are mentioned from one person that another person reinforces.

So you're seeing that God is working all these things together to point towards Jesus.

And what 2 Timothy says is that all scripture is inspired by God, all scripture, and it says that it is useful to teach us, it helps to make us uh realize what's going wrong in our lives, it corrects us, it corrects us, it corrects us, it corrects us.

Scripture is meant to correct us, it's meant to teach us, it's meant to inspire us, it's meant to give us insight, it's meant to correct us, it's meant to redirect us, it's meant to lead us to repentance.

Is that a bad word nowadays?

To to acknowledge that you did something wrong and to say, I'm sorry, and turn and go, okay, I'm I'm getting ahead of myself.

But the scriptures that God has given us, they have so many powerful purposes that we're able to use.

But we have to understand that when we engage the Bible, we have to engage the Bible on its terms and not ours.

Let's let's hear it, let me say it this way: the Bible is for us, but it wasn't written to us.

Let's let's sit on that for a moment.

It's for us, but it wasn't written to us.

What do I mean by that?

What I mean by that is this that when the when the writers were writing it, they were not thinking about America because it didn't exist.

They were writing to a very specific people group that were walking through very real issues.

And now what we have the ability to do is now look at those scriptures, extract those principles, and apply to our lives for our benefit.

But when we have application without revelation, revelation, we have misappropriation.

And this is how you have people who don't rightly divide the word of truth.

We can have one thing and we try to make it say something else because we're trying to make it fit into a context that didn't even exist when the Bible was written.

So, what God is saying is He wants us to approach the Bible on its own terms.

The book of Hebrews falls in one of those powerful categories called prose discourse where it's talking about letters and it's actually written kind of like a sermon.

And it's written to Jewish Christians.

It's written to Jewish Christians.

Here's why this is so significant is because the writer is going to be using a lot of cultural references and innuendos that Jewish Christians would understand.

And if we don't get into their mindset, we can completely miss the value of the words that the writer is communicating.

It's it's very it's very helpful for us to understand the author's original intent.

And in the first four verses really outlines the direction of the entirety of the book.

And I want to read them to us today.

It says this long ago, God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets, and now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his son.

God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son, he created the universe.

The sun radiates God's own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command.

And when he cleansed us from our sins, he sat down at the place of honor at the right hand of majesty in heaven.

This shows that the Son is far greater than the angels, just as God has given him a name that is greater than their names.

These are such powerful words, but if we don't look at it in its proper context, we can miss the transformational impact that they're really meant to have.

Today, as we kick off this series and we're gonna really just be scratching the surface, um I want to talk about the preeminence of Christ.

Y'all didn't know y'all came here to get some theology today.

I hope we could I hope we can preach the Bible today.

We're gonna have some fun, we're gonna laugh and joke, but we're gonna get into what God's Word said.

We're gonna talk about the preeminence of Christ.

Here's what preeminence means.

And it's in a nutshell, it just means that Jesus is superior to everything, He's above everything, He's before everything.

There's nothing better than Jesus.

The preeminence of Christ is a foundational component of Christianity that simply says that Jesus is all at in a bag of chips.

It gets no better.

So today, I want to talk around this idea, and I've given this a very simple title, Jesus is greater.

Let's pray and let's get into it.

Lord, we honor you.

And we're so thankful for uh for this gathering.

We're thankful that we have an opportunity to come together and to gather in your name, and we're being reminded of your word, where it simply declares that where two or three are gathered, that you are amongst us, and when you're in our presence, that there's an abundance of joy, that anything can happen.

Father, I pray in the name of Jesus that I decrease and that you increase.

Lord, I pray that you give us open eyes and we can see you in ways that we've never seen you before.

Lord, I pray that you give us open ears and we can hear you in ways we never heard you before.

And Lord, I pray that you give us the hearts to have the capacity to receive everything that you deposit to us that can bring transformation and growth and flourishing in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen and amen.

Okay, most of you guys that have been a part of our church for for any period of time know that I have a a couple of hobbies, things that I really enjoy doing.

And and and one of the things that's just been a recurring theme for me um has been um I I love I love to cook.

Now, now you guys have heard me talk about that, but I want to tell y'all, man, I'm taking it up a notch.

I I I really got involved in it a couple years ago, and and and I got me like a little baby smoker, and and then I I graduated and I got me like a grown man smoker now.

Like I'm I'm about I'm about that life.

Now, now here's the thing.

Here's the thing.

When when I first started doing it, I I would just look at the recipes and I would do exactly what the recipe called for.

I'm I'm I'm like, okay, I'm not gonna deviate for it.

If you said one third cup, I'm gonna give you one third cup.

One third is not one quarter, it's not a half a cup.

I'm gonna give you exactly what it calls for.

Do I have any cookers in the house that just do exactly, exactly what the recipe calls for?

Okay, Nate.

Nate, do I got any freestyle cooks out there?

Do people just like that's put some of that in there?

That's that's how my wife is.

When she first was trying to teach me how to cook, I'm like, well, how much is it?

She said, just put some.

I'm like, some is not a unit of measure that I can identify with.

What is some?

Just put some in there, put a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

Which is why when when okay, I'm just gonna have full disclosure.

Like, whenever we're cooking, um, when she cooks, it it literally makes me nauseous because she'll like pull out every seasoning that we have, and it's everywhere, all over the place.

Like, I walk into the house and I immediately just want to walk back down.

Every seasoning, powder's all over the place.

Like, it just makes me feel super uncomfortable.

When I cook, I know how long I need that season, I'll put it back.

I'll come up and make it be like, hey, babe, do you still need this butter?

She's like, I might.

I'm like, well, it's been out for like two hours.

Like, I just don't know.

I think we should put it back.

I think it says refrigerate after opening.

But that's just our different, that's just our different approaches.

I'm I'm very methodical with it, but I knew that I was getting to a place where I was able to start saying, you know what?

I know that I want to have a little bit more of this flavor without the recipe even telling me.

So over the past, I would say six months, I don't even look at recipes no more, y'all.

I'm I'm at a point now where I'm like, okay, I'm making this chicken, but I want to have a different flavor profile with it.

I want to add a little bit more pepper because the pepper is gonna attach to the smoke in the grill a little bit longer.

I'm gonna cook it a little bit lower and a little bit slower so the smoke can get in there.

And not only that, I'm actually gonna end up using, I'm gonna I'm gonna use my alder chips because I'm cooking seafood and I want the flavor of that, like I'm telling your boy is going all in.

I'm going all in, like I'm partnering things together, and and I learned all this by looking at some of the experts on on YouTube.

And and so as I'm going through all this stuff, I also see that there's another level to it.

There's levels to it.

And and the other level is when you begin to say, hey, not only am I cooking this food, but then these sides are gonna complement the food perfectly, and then these type of drinks are gonna complement it perfectly, and then this sauce is gonna complement it perfectly.

So no longer is it just the food itself, but it's all the other things that work with it to make it sound and just taste so beautifully.

So now I'm just basically a chef.

My family can call me chef now.

That's kind of how I feel about it at this point.

So I remember when I was rolling out this whole approach to my family.

I didn't want them to know what I was doing, but I had this fish I was gonna do, I had the special rice I was gonna use, I had the sauce I was gonna use, I had it all laid out the way that it was gonna work.

All the flavors complemented each other, and then when you got to the end and you took a sip of your drink, it all collided together, and it was just gonna be so divine.

Like taste and see that the Lord is good, but so is my cooking.

That's what this moment was meant to be.

But then my wife ruined it all.

And and and let me let me as she does all things, but but but see, this is what happens.

This is what happens.

Like, I say this a lot.

I got the microphone, I'm gonna tell my truth.

Um when it's your turn, you you tell your version of the truth.

But right now, I'm I'm gonna give y'all Keith's perspective.

So I got everything laid out, and I'm like, okay, this is gonna be a great moment for the family.

And she comes downstairs and and she and I don't see it.

I I go into the room and she got already made a plate, and she got the fish, she got the rice, she didn't get the side, she didn't get the drink, and then she has some random off-beat sauce that she put on top of the fish, and it just messed it all up.

And so I'm looking, I walk downstairs, I'm like, what have you done?

She's like, What?

Oh, this tastes so good.

I'm like, you you you missed it.

The the flavors were supposed to pull together with this, and and and that sauce was not supposed to go with that.

She's like, I can't tell the difference is good, and she just went to the room and ate.

I was so heartbroken.

I was borderline devastated because I had this image of saying, Yeah, that may be good, but it could be so much greater.

You you you you picked and you chose and you put together something that it may be okay, but the vision that I had was something so much greater.

You know, I think we live in a world of so much on demand and and customization and and have it your way, and I'll do a little bit of this and I'll I'll do a little bit of that, I'll sprinkle a little of this on here.

And I wonder if there's times when we look at our lives and and we add a little of this and add a little that, take away a little bit of this, that we end up getting away from the creator's original intent.

And we end up saying to ourselves, man, this is good, but God is saying, but it could be so much greater.

If you only could recognize that if you could just, if you could allow me to work this recipe, and if you could allow me to bring all things together, if you could do it my way, that what you consider good is nothing but a mere entry point to the greatness that I really want to make available for us.

See, the truth of the matter is we live in a world now where we we just like to add things to things.

We we say things like this we have a Jesus and appetite.

Jesus and I got Jesus for sure.

I do Jesus on Sundays, but I got Jesus and politics.

And I'll put it all together and I'll mix it all together and then I'll serve it to you.

We we have we have we have Jesus, we have Jesus and money.

I got Jesus, but I gotta I gotta be about that money because my mind is on my money and my money's on my mind.

Right?

Like we got Jesus and my, or we have Jesus and education.

In and of themselves, these things aren't bad, but when we begin to add it to Jesus, it takes away from what he's truly trying to produce in our lives.

Let's say it this way we have Jesus and Buddha.

Jesus and other beliefs.

I like I like what they say about this.

I really like this, and I like that as well.

And maybe if I can incorporate these things, that man, it'll create a flavor that's just for me.

And I wonder if we're getting away from the creator's original intent.

And I can't help but to wonder if there's not moments when God looks at us and he says, Man, you've complicated this recipe way too much.

You've complicated the cross.

When can you get to the place that Jesus is enough?

When can we arrive at that point where we can just simply say that Jesus is enough?

He doesn't need a plus one, he doesn't need to bring anything else with him, that Jesus by himself is enough.

See, if we only understood that when we add to Jesus, we're actually taking away from Jesus.

That when we add things to it, we complicate it and we end up missing the original intent.

You see, the reality of it is this, my friends.

Being a follower of Christ, being an apprentice of Christ, being a disciple of Christ, it can be expensive.

It can be challenging, it's it's not easy.

And and I want you guys to lean in for this.

It's not supposed to be.

God never promised that being a follower of him would be easy.

And and being a follower of him is going to cost us something.

We we will never live in a world where we're able to follow Jesus uninterrupted, unchallenged, unconflicted.

Jesus was a radical revolutionary that went in the opposite direction of culture and tradition and religion.

And yet he said, Come and follow me because this is so much greater.

Let me give you some context at the time when this text was written.

Being a Gentile Christian, it meant that you were no longer going to the pagan temples anymore.

It it meant that you weren't worshiping idols anymore.

It it literally meant establishing a new way of life.

Now, we can probably relate to that because when God interrupted our normal and began to say, come, follow me, do things my way, we probably know that feeling of the things that we had to leave behind, or the things that we're struggling with leaving behind, if we can be quite honest with ourselves.

For them, it it cost them everything because they have established an entire way of life.

They they've established rhythms in the way that they think and the way that they function that has supported them up until this point.

And now Jesus comes in and says, Okay, man, I might have been good for a season, but I got something greater for you.

And it came at a it came at a challenge, it came at tension, and it came at trying to understand how you could fit into this new way of living, this new way of thinking.

Now, now take that and let's quantify that a little bit on what it meant to be a Jewish follower of Christ.

It was challenging to be a Gentile because you had all these pagan ideas that you had to learn how to pull it all together.

In fact, uh 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians was addressing a lot of the paganism that was trying to work its way and into the church.

So they had their dynamics that were beginning to influence the church they had to work through.

But but for the for the Jewish Christians, man, they they had a lot of things they had to work with.

And let me tell you why.

For them, they didn't know where they fit in at.

Because for the ethnic Jews, the people that were Jewish, that that didn't follow Jesus, they felt like they had abandoned Yahweh.

They felt like they had walked away from the true and living God, so they didn't fit in with them anymore.

They were outcasts to the Gentiles, they didn't trust them.

So they didn't know where they could potentially fit in.

The Roman government didn't understand them.

And so if you were a Jewish Christian back then, pressure was being applied everywhere in the church, in culture, at your jobs, everywhere you went, you didn't feel as if you fit in.

Because when you adopted Jesus, you were adopting a new way of life.

And it was hard for you to fit into what you used to do because Jesus is too big for that.

You can't be who you were and transform into who you're called to be at the same time.

It's going to require us at some point to let go of something.

So the writer is writing to this group of people to try to encourage them, man, keep, stay on course.

Because what they were being conflicted with is, okay, man, like this Jesus thing, it really seems like it's working, but it's getting uncomfortable now.

This this Jesus thing is cool, but but I'm not able to hang out with my friends and in the synagogue like I used to.

There were a lot of challenges that they had, so they began to say, well, maybe if we have Jesus and we can fit in a little bit better.

Jesus and some of these other components, if we could bring all of these things together, then maybe we'll be able to coexist and we'll be able to have a life of happiness without recognizing that God was leading them on a completely new path.

I believe that what was true for them then is just as true for us now.

If we're honest with ourselves, that being a follower of Jesus is expensive, it challenges us, it brings us to a place where we have to evaluate who we are and who God's calling us to be and the things we got to let go of so that we can fully embrace what God is calling us to do, looking and recognizing that there's areas of our past that we just may not be able to continue to engage in because it's going to keep us from moving into the future.

And so we recognize that Jesus and just doesn't work because Jesus is enough.

And so this entire book breaks down some really weighty concepts that we're going to be unpacking, but I want to give us an overview of where we're going for the rest of this series.

Here's the first thought I want to share with us Jesus is greater than tradition.

He's greater than all of these traditions.

Let's let's reread Hebrews chapter one.

What it says here it says, Long ago, God spoke folk in many times in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets, and now in these final days, he has spoken to us through the Son, and God has promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, because through him he has created all things.

Now, tradition is a set of beliefs or behaviors that are passed down.

We we all have things maybe in our family that we would consider to be traditions.

Things that, okay, this is just part of my traditions, and maybe that's uh a way that you and your family engage certain things.

Maybe it's places that you and your family travel, different things that you have, traditions that are just kind of passed down from one generation to the next.

I I know for me and my family, we we don't have a ton of traditions, but we do have some things that are unique to us.

And and one of the things I'll tell you that's unique with my family is I gotta believe that we have the longest happy birthday song known to man.

If you ever come to a Pittman environment and they sing happy birthday, I gotta believe that they get you no longer than this.

Some of y'all are used to like, okay, happy birthday to you, happy birthday.

Okay, cool.

That's just an intro.

Okay, we we we go into another part where it says, May the good Lord bless you, may the good Lord bless you, may the good Lord bless you, may the good Lord bless you.

Still not done.

And then it says, Happy birthday to your happy birthday to you, may you feel Jesus near every day, every year.

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, and the best year you ever had.

Hey! Then we'll do it all over again.

Like it's it's it's a whole thing.

If you actually light the candle, it will melt and waxes all over your cake at this point.

Like it is, it is a it is a very, very long song.

It's like a Maverick City song.

Like you're gonna be here for a while, get comfortable.

Take your shoes off, man.

It's gonna be a while.

Like, that's that's what a happy birthday song for us is, for us in the Pittman household.

And we and we have these things, we all have those nuances that when other people come into it, they're like, yo, this is different.

But like, no, this is this is my tradition.

This is just how we roll in my family, this is how we function, and and this is how we roll.

Well, but here's the thing for for the Jewish Christians, they they had a lot of traditions.

They they had a lot of things that they really esteemed and valued that had been passed down from one generation to the next.

And and something that was really big for them is the way that they acknowledged, honored, and really revered their elders.

So the writer says that long ago, God spoke through the elders, he spoke through the apostles, or he spoke through the prophets, he he spoke to the people of renown.

That was their tradition.

Their tradition was whenever they're going through tough times, they would not look to God.

They they were not necessarily looking at scripture, they didn't engage the word like we do.

They would look back and say, Man, I wonder what Abraham did.

When they were dealing with moments of faith, they were struggling, they would look back at Abraham.

When they were dealing with trying to trust God, they would look back and say, Man, like I want to look back and see how Moses was able to function.

So for them, their traditions was going back and looking at the past in hopes that it would move them adequately into the future.

See, when we look at tradition, it's really not always a bad thing, but some traditions are good and they can kind of serve as a foundation, but some traditions can be something that holds us back, it keeps us from moving forward.

And so what they were wrestling with with this particular group of people is that while Jesus was ever present and God was trying to lead them forward, they kept looking backwards and trying to bring in old concepts and to something new that God was trying to do.

See, so so for some of us, that could be our reality right now.

Maybe there are traditions or things from our past that we just can't let go of.

So the writer says to him, Yeah, there was a time when that was okay.

There was a time when God spoke through that, there was a time when God used that.

In other words, your strategy of the past, it may have worked in the past, but God is doing a new thing.

And so in these days, God is speaking to us through Jesus Christ.

Did you hear that?

There was a time when those other things were okay, but in these days, God is speaking to us through Jesus Christ.

He's saying that you don't have to look anywhere else except to Jesus.

This is why the writer tells us in Hebrews that we look to Jesus, who's the author and finisher of our faith.

We keep our eyes on Jesus.

But but let's let's go a little bit deeper.

Why is looking to Jesus such a big deal for us in order to break free from the past that wants to try to keep us?

Because the Bible says that when God is speaking through Jesus, that scripture supports the idea that Jesus is the word of God, the word incarnate, the manifested word of God.

Now, again, those become very interesting language to our Western perspective in the 21st century.

So let me give you some context.

What the Bible says is that the word of God has been considered the wisdom of God.

God's word is wisdom.

So what they're saying about Jesus, when they say that the word became flesh, they are saying that God's wisdom became accessible in a way that we can comprehend it.

That's Jesus.

So when we look to Jesus, we're seeing the wisdom of God fully expressed in a way that we can retain it.

Now it carries a different weight when it says that we look to Jesus for wisdom.

See, the problem is a lot of times we're looking to other things for wisdom and we're not getting the wisdom that we think that we're getting.

God is saying that when we look to Jesus, we're getting the actual mind and heart and will of God because Jesus is the perfect wisdom of God that is expressed.

So when we look at passages of scripture like Psalm 119, and it says that your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path, it's talking about the wisdom of God will illuminate the directions that we need to go.

So we all are in places where we're trying to figure out which way do I go, what's the direction I need to go.

And if we're so caught up looking at where we used to go in the past, listening to the voices of the past, it will not illuminate us in the future that God is calling us to go into.

But when we look to the wisdom that God has made available to us through Christ Jesus, we can then recognize that Jesus is the one who lights our path, Jesus is the one who orders our steps, Jesus is the one that lets us to go left or right.

We're looking to Jesus and we're not looking to the past or to tradition.

Sadly, we can pursue worldly knowledge and completely ignore godly wisdom.

I will.

You want me to say it again, Nate?

Okay, absolutely.

Nate said say it again, so I'm gonna say it again.

Um he says this.

He says, it says, we pursue worldly knowledge and completely overlook godly wisdom.

What are the traditions?

What are the things that we're looking to to give us insight, to give us information, that give us direction, but it doesn't look anything like Jesus.

What the writer is telling us is that Jesus is greater than your past, he's greater than your perspective, he's greater than these other influences that you think are moving you forward, but you'll find yourself continuing to go into the same circles over and over again.

What the writer is trying to help them to understand.

I I know you want to go back and look at Abraham, but when Jesus was here, he said this.

He said, Abraham was looking forward to me.

When we look at the words of Jesus, Jesus was dealing directly with the things that were once exalted and said that there is one greater than Abraham that's here, there's one greater than Moses that is here, there is one greater than your ancestors that are here.

We value them, we honor them, but please, you don't got to look any further than Jesus when you're trying to figure out what your next steps are in the season of life that you're in.

The challenge for us that I believe that the writer is presenting to us is making sure that every decision that we make that we're running it through the filter of Jesus and not asking him to support our decision on the back end.

Because let's be honest, how many of us have made a decision to ask God to bless it afterwards?

What the writer is saying is we bring Jesus in on the front and we allow him to order our steps and watch goodness and mercy follow us all the days of our lives.

Here's a second thing that the writer is trying to encourage them with.

He says, Jesus is greater than religion, he's greater than this idea of religion.

I want to look at uh Hebrews 1:3, where it says it said the sun radiates God's glory, and he expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command, and when he cleansed us from our sins, he sat down at the right place of honor, at the right hand of majesty in heaven.

Hebrews 1:3

Such beautiful, powerful, colorful language.

Let me let me break it down in the mindset of the people he was writing to so that we can extract the principles for us.

What he was ultimately saying is that Jesus is the glory of God.

Jesus is the glory of God.

Now, now we hear those words, and I think that we we are like, okay, that's cool.

But but but here's why this was such a fundamental concept that was hard for them to comprehend.

Because they were familiar with Isaiah 42, 8, where God says this, My glory I will not give to anyone else.

So when they hear this writer say that Jesus is the glory of God, they're now wrestling with this religious building that they had where they're saying, wait a minute, you're saying that Jesus is God.

You're saying that Jesus is the character of God, you're you're saying that we don't have to look anywhere other than Jesus.

I'm having a hard time with this because we've built systems and rhythms in a way that we function that allow us to feel like we're drawing closer to God, but now you're telling me that Jesus is the embodiment of God in the flesh, and I don't know what to do with that.

It was hard for them to wrap their minds around this idea that Jesus is literally the glory of God.

The glory of God simply means this it means the weightiness of God, the majesty of God.

When he says that he is radiating the presence of God.

These are very powerful imagery that he's painting for them that they were familiar with of the Old Testament that described the throne room of heaven.

So for the first time ever, this God of the universe, this creator that that sustains all things, is now contained in the person of Jesus, and we have access to him.

For them, they never thought they could enter into the presence of God.

They they felt that they were too flawed, and it was always about the work they had to do and how they continuously fell short.

But the writer is reminding them you don't have to do another thing because Jesus did it all on your behalf.

Jesus is the glory of God, Jesus is the power of God.

When it says that he is sustaining all things by the power of his words, let me tell you the significance of that, man.

I I'm I might get excited for this part.

It says that Jesus is the power of God.

Now, now let me let me break something down for you.

When it says that that Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God, let me let me mess with some of us right now.

He's not literally sitting at the right hand of God.

I I just I want to say something to mess with your theology a little bit.

There's only one throne in heaven.

So, how can Jesus be sitting at the right hand of God?

Y'all ready?

Y'all with me?

So, so watch this.

What he was using was an anthropomorphic term.

I told y'all, man, I went to Bible school.

We're about to go in.

Here's what an anthropomorphic term is that's when you take human attributes and subscribe it to a supernatural being.

God is a spirit.

He doesn't have a right hand or a left hand, he's beyond that.

So when it says that Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God, that was a metaphor of saying that is the position of power, authority, and dominance.

So when he's saying that Jesus is now the authority of God, that means that Jesus has all power, authority, and dominance.

What he's saying is, I am God and I can't be contained, and you cannot even enter into my presence without being destroyed because of my holiness.

But so that you and I can have a relationship, I've emptied myself into the presence of Jesus so that you can understand what wisdom looks like, what power looks like, what authority looks like, that Jesus becomes the image of God made flesh.

But wait, there's more.

The text says that Jesus was sitting there.

That means that Jesus was not stressed.

That means that Jesus is not burdened.

That means that Jesus is not looking at your situation and he's wondering, like, man, I wonder how they're gonna get through this.

This is not an episode of a show that he doesn't know how it's gonna work out.

He says that all things have been put in my hand.

I have all power, all authority, I have all things under my control.

Jesus is not stressed about your situation.

And when he says that he's sustaining all things by the power of his word, that means that when God said, Let there be light, that was the power of Jesus that was emanating from him.

When he said, Bring order out of chaos, that was Jesus that was working through him.

That means that if Jesus is able to sustain the universe, he can certainly sustain your world, he can certainly sustain your marriage, he can certainly sustain your finances, he can certainly sustain you in your addiction.

That what he's saying is that I am the power of God and I can sustain all things with just my word.

This is why when when the man came to Jesus and said, Man, I gotta I got a sick servant, I got a sick servant, and Jesus said, Okay, I'll come to him.

He said, Bro, you don't even gotta come.

You could just send your word and you can heal him.

You don't even gotta show up.

Your word is powerful enough.

What that man had a revelation of is that I am looking at the creator of the universe that God has made accessible, and all he has to do is speak a single word, and it has the ability to transform my situation.

If you only understood what we had access to in the person of Jesus, he said, Just my word will heal you, just my word will redeem you, just my word will do it.

This is why he said it is finished.

There's nothing else to talk about.

I'm not sure if you've ever been in the middle of a conversation and you said, I got nothing else to say about this.

This conversation is done.

I know that that's how my mind works.

When Jesus was standing when he was on the cross and he said, It is finished, he said, I'm done talking about sin, I'm done talking about brokenness.

We don't gotta talk about this anymore because I said it's finished and you are forgiven and you are redeemed and you were healed.

You just gotta walk in it.

Can we give God some praise in here today?

Jesus was reminding them exactly who he was.

The writer was trying to help them to grab a hold of this idea of who Jesus was.

He's he's the power of God.

But then the third and final thing I want to share with you is that Jesus is greater than culture.

That Jesus is so much greater than culture.

So let's talk about this for a moment.

Because in verse 4, he says that.

He says that the Son is far greater than the angels, and he's given him a name that's greater than theirs.

So when we talk about culture, it's a it's a broad term that is kind of a reflection of language and and and food and arts.

It's it's it's this organic thing that's constantly changing.

And we all are parts of different cultures.

When I first started going on on missions trips, the first thing we would do is they would help us to understand the culture that we were going into.

We we didn't want to go into another country trying to reach people in the methods and in the language and the ways that we want to do things.

So we had to learn about the different cultures and the nuances and the way that we function.

I remember when I went uh to Northern Ireland for uh a missions trip, and and it was it was absolutely fascinating.

And it was there I was introduced that, yeah, there's different things in different cultures.

Here's how I knew.

At the end of my message when I preached, the guy came up to me and he paid me the greatest compliment, but it was laced with profanities.

Pastor, that was the greatest message I've ever heard in my entire life.

Like, I mean, I'm sitting there and he's got a straight face.

I'm like, thank you.

Word?

Like, I'll take it.

Meg was like, how was it?

He said it was the greatest message I like.

I but here but here's what I learned.

Over there, that's how they talk.

That's that's just the culture, that's the language, and that's just the way that they operate and function.

So so things that I was getting tripped up on are not even issues when you go into other cultures.

We all recognize my man can't get past it.

Okay.

He's like, okay, so Pastor Keys said I go in here and cuss.

That's not what I said.

I said over in Northern Ireland.

I didn't say here in America.

We get caught up on things like that.

Okay?

Um don't be taking me out of context and put me on YouTube, okay?

Tell the whole truth.

The whole truth.

If anybody sees any random clips where I said it's okay to cuss, you make sure y'all take up from me.

That's not what I said.

Okay?

But but but but you have to recognize that there's certain cultural nuances, that's just part of what it is.

My my wife, my wife comes from a Jamaican family.

And so I've had to learn, like Jamaican culture, I've learned the way that they function.

I've learned that they are passionate people, they're opinionated people.

They're passionate people.

They're opinionated people.

They're so opinionated.

Okay.

And here's the thing, and and it's all beautiful.

I'm grateful for all the different people groups that God has blessed me to be around.

I uh true story.

Uh, Pastor Vinny had rode past my house probably like six months ago.

It was like 11:45 at night.

Okay, and he rides by, he sends me like a message, and he's like, Pastor Key, like I mean, he was he was wide awake.

I'm riding by your house, he takes a picture of riding past my neighborhood, and I see him the next day.

I'm like, bro, what are you doing?

Like, it's 1145 on a Saturday night.

We got church.

He's like, Oh man, I'm Brazilian.

We just getting started.

Like, I didn't I didn't know.

I didn't know, like in Brazil, they apparently they don't sleep.

I didn't know that was a thing.

But I had to learn, like, man, that's that's the that's the nuances of culture.

So we all have things that are connected to us that are part of the culture and the way that we function.

And so for the for the Jewish people, they had a they had a culture where they really, really had a strong belief in angels.

Angels was a really big thing.

And so for them, it was a big thing because all these movements that they seen, particularly in the Old Testament, angel intervention was something that brought them deliverance.

So when they begin to think about how angels came and they rescued Lot, that that angels came and they led the children of Israel out of Egypt and part of the Red Sea on God's behalf, that that angels came and announced the birth of Jesus, that an angel came and sent Peter out of prison.

So for them, angels were these important components that really helped them to understand the power of God in their culture.

But but the problem became that when they began to consider where Jesus fit into the hierarchy of all those things, their culture said that Jesus wasn't God, that Jesus was just another angel.

What do you do when the culture that you're a part of seeks to reduce Jesus and the influence and who he really is?

We all have cultural nuances, but Jesus is greater than our culture.

Jesus supersedes the things that we may have been raised with.

Angels were meant to be messengers, and what the writer was saying is that Jesus isn't the messenger, he's the message.

That that he he is the he is the beginning and the end, and and and ultimately what he was trying to conclude is that when the angels showed up, that when they were trying to worship them, like, no, no, no, don't worship me.

I'm just a created being just like you.

But Jesus, on the other hand, every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord.

What he was ultimately trying to help them to recognize is that it is inevitable that you're gonna have moments where it's easy when the pressure comes, when it gets uncomfortable for you to rely on certain things, your traditions, maybe your religion, or or maybe even culture.

But what he was trying to help them to recalibrate is says that Jesus is greater than the culture.

He's beyond that.

Don't reduce Jesus to fitting into the cultural context, that he transcends every single bit of it.

As the worship team joins me, I want to close with this thought.

Hebrews 2, verse 1 says this listen carefully to the truth that we have heard, or you may drift away from it.

Hebrews 2:1

Listen closely to the truth, or you're going to drift away from it.

This is just the beginning of the letter.

And I've given you, I've given you an outline of where he's going to go, and we're gonna go in depth with it.

But he shares here in chapter two, verse number one.

Why we're having this discussion.

I need you to listen to this truth because if you don't, you're gonna drift away from it.

Like pressure's gonna come, circumstances are gonna come, and before you know it, you're gonna drift away.

Anybody ever been to the beach?

I remember Megan and I we went to Anna Marie Island a couple years ago, and we're out at the beach, and we go into the water and we're out there for a little bit of time, and then when we come to shore, I was I was confident that our stuff had gotten stolen.

I'm like, they stole from the pastor, God's gonna strike them dead.

That's a terrible theology, but it felt good in the moment to say it.

But but here's what I recognize that while we were out in the water playing and having fun, the time was going, we were just drifting further and further away.

So when we did come to shore, we were like a half mile away from the place that we set up shop.

Just because we were just drifting.

What can happen to the follower of Christ if we don't anchor ourselves in Jesus?

When the pain comes, when the pressure comes, we can find ourselves just slowly drifting away from Jesus.

We begin to insert preferences and we're drifting away.

We we begin to insert uh opinions and we drift away.

We begin to insert traditions and religion and and we're drifting away.

And before long we'll we'll come to shore and we don't see Jesus anywhere.

In other words, Jesus is nowhere near seen in our lives anymore because we've drifted so far away.

The writer is saying, listen to what I'm telling you.

Jesus is greater than your traditions, Jesus is greater than your religious ideologies, Jesus is greater than the culture.

Your anchor is Jesus.

Be anchored in Jesus because Jesus is greater.

Don't drift away from this, friends.

Let him anchor you, let him secure you.

Because as the song says, the winds may come, the storms may happen, but you will be sustained because you've decided to build your life on Jesus and not on anything else.

With every head bowed and every eye closed, I wanna I wanna lead us in a moment of prayer and then we're gonna we're gonna wrap up and be dismissed.

But but maybe you're in here with us today and you know that you are away from Jesus.

Maybe you've drifted away, or or maybe you've just never anchored yourself in him.

Today is the day that we can remedy that.

So with every head bowed and every eye closed in this in this powerful sacred moment, I want to ask this question.

Are you ready to anchor yourself in Jesus?

Are you ready to make Jesus your Lord?

You've done things your way, you've you've gone the route of religion, you've gone the route of tradition, you've allowed culture to influence us, but but maybe this is a moment we can get back to getting back to Jesus.

On the count of three, if you're ready to come to Jesus, could you boldly lift your hand?

One, two, three.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

I am blown away, church.

Can we celebrate?

No, church, can we really celebrate?

Can we really celebrate with our brothers and sisters that are making that decision to follow Jesus?

Here's what I want us to do.

I want us to stand on our feet and and we're we're gonna we're gonna wrap up.

I'm gonna pray a blessing over us.

Worship's gonna continue to play lightly in the background.

So if you need a moment to just kind of be in the presence of God, that's gonna be available for us.

But we're gonna wrap up because we got to get prepared for our our our next service.

But but I want to let you guys know, everyone that lifted their hands up, I am so, so proud of you.

What I want you to do is text the word decide to our number that's on the screen.

Maybe stop outside in the courtyard, let somebody know.

Let's connect, let's stay connected, but let's make sure that in this season and in this series, we recognize that Jesus is greater.

There's a lot of things that the world will offer, but Jesus is greater.

Let me pray for us.

Lord, I thank you so much for our precious community.

I thank you for this series that's gonna jolt us and remind us that Jesus is greater than any other thing that the world can present to us.

Lord, I pray for our precious brothers and sisters that have decided to say yes to you.

God, I pray that you continue to order their steps, allow them to get connected to God-centered community that can lead them closer to you.

Father, I also pray over our family right now in the name of Jesus.

Those of us who are struggling with breaking free of traditions, things that maybe were passed on to us from our family and ancestors, God, I pray that those chains are broken off.

God, we recognize that you're greater.

Lord, I pray if some of us are wrestling with religion and feeling like we're not good enough, not recognizing the power that's found in Christ Jesus, that Lord, we can embrace the authority that Christ has made available to us, the redemption he's made available to us, and we can break free from religion and begin to engage in relationship, God.

I thank you so much for what you're doing.

And Lord, I pray that we recognize that you are beyond the culture.

We don't lean on culture, God.

We're the ones who shape culture.

So I pray in the name of Jesus, Lord, that as we go into the environments you've called us to go in, that we are the culture changers, that we are the tone setters, that we set the atmosphere because of the grace that's on our life, Father.

That is who you've called us to be, God, to be to be in the world, but not of the world, God, for us to transform the world by showing them the love and light of Jesus, God.

So may the Lord bless you and keep you.

May He make his face to shine upon you and give you supernatural peace in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

God bless you guys.

I love you.

We'll see you next week.

Thanks again for listening.

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