Jesus: The Greatest

Introduction: The Greatest

Good morning, everyone. It’s great to be with you this morning as we start a new series in the book of Hebrews. My name’s Chris, for those who don’t know me, and I’m really excited to be kicking off this series. We’re going to be looking at Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 to 4 today, and the title of the sermon is “Jesus - The Greatest.” Let’s pray before we begin. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you speak to us. Help us to hear your voice this morning through your Son, Jesus. Amen.

“I am the greatest.” Who said that? Muhammad Ali, wasn’t it? He used to shout it from the rooftops, didn’t he? “I am the greatest!” And now, I think Usain Bolt’s probably joined the club, hasn’t he? With all those gold medals, running faster than anyone else. But the book of Hebrews, it’s asking a different question. It’s asking, who really is the greatest? Is it Jesus? Or is it someone else? Is it Jesus, or is it Moses, or the high priest, or one of the heroes of Israel’s past? This letter was written, in part, to settle that question in the minds of its readers.

We don’t know much about the author of Hebrews, or exactly who the recipients were, but we do know they were what I’d call “round the block” Christians. These weren’t new believers. They’d believed in Jesus quite a while ago. They’d had some knocks, they’d done some rounds in the ring of life. They’d faced hardships, they’d had their stuff taken, they’d suffered derision. These were seasoned Christians the author’s writing to.

Now, when you come to a book like Hebrews, it’s tempting to think this is for unbelievers, isn’t it? You look at the content, and it’s really easy to preach this as an evangelistic sermon. If you’re here this morning and you’re exploring Christianity, sure, this’ll be helpful for you, and I hope it is. But Hebrews wasn’t written to unbelievers. It was written to believers, and not new believers either—these believers had been round the block a few times. And yet, here’s the surprising thing: they were tempted to jack it all in. Not to ditch religion altogether, but to go back to Judaism. Jesus could still be an important figure, maybe, but it’d be a bit less intense, a bit less persecution, a bit less ridicule. It’s a surprise that so many of them felt that way, but I imagine many of us can sympathize with those feelings—at least from time to time.

So, what message is the author going to give to these seasoned Christians to stop them throwing their faith away? That’s what we’re going to look at this morning, and it’s all summed up in these first four verses of Hebrews chapter 1. Let’s read them together. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.” [Hebrews 1:1-4, ESV]

Let’s dive in. The first point is this: Jesus is God’s final word.

Jesus is God's Final Word

It’s all about Jesus. The author sets up a contrast right at the start. This is what it was like before Jesus, and this is what it’s like now. In the past, God spoke in all sorts of different ways—through angels, through visions, even through donkeys, if you remember Balaam’s story! At various times, we had a patchwork of prophets. Some here, some there. There were chunks of Israel’s history when they had nobody, and other times you couldn’t move for prophets! It’s like a scrapbook of prophecy—a picture here, some text there, some blank pages. Piecemeal revelation. But revelation nonetheless! God has spoken! So much of Hebrews is taken up with showing us how God was speaking.

But now, in these last days—and don’t skip over that phrase, it’s easy to miss—it’s the age of fulfilment. We’ve come to the end of history, in a sense. This is significantly different to the days that came before. God has spoken by His Son. No mere prophet! There’s been a change. No more piecemeal revelation—it’s complete revelation. Jesus is God’s final word. The contrast is there to show us the superiority of our situation now. We don’t have a patchwork of prophets; we have God’s final, ultimate revelation. We have something far, far, far greater! It’s weird that there’s a temptation to think we have something less.

Does God still speak? Absolutely! But He speaks through what He’s already revealed. He still speaks through His Son, through His revelation in the past. The key is hearing what God is saying. Hebrews 3, verse 7, puts it like this: “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, ‘Today, if you hear his voice…’” It’s not entirely clear-cut, is it? The New Testament was written after Jesus’ death and resurrection. The book of Hebrews itself is speaking to us in a new way. But really, it isn’t. It’s God’s ordained testimony to His saving work in Christ. It’s God’s authorized biography of His saving acts in Christ—really, it’s an autobiography, God writing about Himself. God’s Son comes to us clothed in the pages of Scripture.

Now, there’s a danger of discontentment with God’s final word, and it comes from misunderstanding the nature of the Word and the work of the Spirit. The nature of the Word? The Word is there to bring us Christ. The work of the Spirit? The Spirit doesn’t just work in the speaking of truth in the Word; the Spirit works in the hearing of the truth in the believer. Here’s an illustration: He doesn’t send us a message in Morse code and leave us to decipher it. He sits with us and helps us work it out—often through our hard work, too! But sometimes there’s a lack of excitement. “There must be more than this…” I know what you mean. But our ultimate spiritual experience is that God speaks, and we listen. We meet with God as He reveals Himself to us through His Word.

Think about Moses. He asks to see God’s glory, and this was God’s response. Exodus 34, verses 6 to 8: “The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.’ And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.” John Piper, in his book When I Don’t Desire God, page 64, talks about this moment—it’s God revealing Himself, and that’s enough. The answer isn’t to look elsewhere; the answer lies in our hard hearts.

Are you bored with meeting Jesus in the pages of Scripture? Then bear in mind it could be a heart problem—certainly in our own personal reading, unless you’re reading it in Finnish or the original Wycliffe translation! It could also be a preaching problem in sermons. We’ve all had the experience of those who can make living truth seem like dead words on a page, who blunt the sword of the Spirit to the extent that it doesn’t reach into our hearts at all. But Hebrews 4 tells us, “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.” God has spoken—that in itself should be exciting beyond belief. Imagine if aliens landed and spoke to us; we’d be thrilled! God has spoken by His Son—that should blow our minds! He’s not just sent a message; He sent Himself. He’s not just revealed information; He’s revealed Himself. And we meet Him in His Word. Jesus is God’s final word.

The author’s going to return to this theme of messages at the start of chapter 2, but before he does, he wants us to see afresh who this Jesus is. He’s no mere messenger boy. That brings us to our second point: Jesus is God’s greatest Son.

Jesus is God's Greatest Son

What does it mean that Jesus is God’s Son? I’ve said “greatest” because Jesus stands in a line of sons of God—Adam, Israel, the Davidic kings. He’s the fulfilment of those things: the second Adam, the true Israelite, the new David. But more than that, He is the Son. It’s not just a title in the Greek; it’s clear from what follows that there’s more in mind. This is God the Son, the second person of the Trinity. In other words, He is God Himself.

The author gives us seven things about God’s Son to make this clear. First, He’s the King to come, the heir of all things. There’s a reference to Psalm 2 here—the King installed in Zion is the one who inherits everything. Illustration: “One day, Son, all this will be yours.” In this case, it’s the universe! He’s the ultimate VIP, the ultimate person to know. He’s the king that was promised long ago. It’s not Leonardo DiCaprio who’s “King of the World”—Titanic reference—it’s Jesus! He’s heir of everything.

Not only King of the world, He’s the Maker of the world. He was there at the beginning, creating all things, Creator of the ages. Not just a “create and go”—He’s moulded and shaped the ages of the world and set them in motion. He is Creator. He is God. No mere prophet or teacher.

Third, He’s the radiance of God’s glory, like beams from the sun, like heat from a radiator. God’s glory glows through Him. You can no more have the sun without heat than God without Jesus.

Fourth, He’s the exact imprint of God, like the seal from a signet ring, like the impression in a mould. His nature is God’s nature, His character is God’s character—not just a little bit, exact! He is God.

Fifth, He’s the upholder of God’s world, by His word. Not only did He create the world, He sustains it! If Jesus willed for a second that the world not exist, it would stop. The world only continues to exist because Jesus upholds it—how? By His word. Like Father, like Son—they both work through their word. Do not ignore the word of Jesus; we’ll see more of this in chapter 2.

Sixth, He’s the Maker of purification. It’s easy to skim over this, but only after this does He sit down. This was His big work—He made the world, and He made purification. Creator and Redeemer. He washed away our sin, then He sat down. This is a huge theme we’ll discover more about as we study this letter.

Seventh, He’s the priest to come. Jesus sits down at the right hand of God, an image of the forever priest in Psalm 110. It’s He who sits down at the right hand of God. Random link? No—Melchizedek and this psalm are a massive theme in Hebrews! He’s the priest that was to come, the messianic priest, who sits at God’s right hand, the position of favour and authority—His right-hand man! He sat down because He finished His work of making purification.

All these things make Him superior to a prophet and superior to the angels—we’ll pick up on that next week. But when you look at these seven together, you see something else: past, present, and future. Past: Creator of the universe. Present: Sustainer of the universe. Future: Heir of the universe. He’s why it’s there, how it’s there, and what it’s there for. He’s why we’re here, how we’re here, and who we’re for—more on that tonight!

He’s the fulfiller of all that was promised. Prophet, but greater—full revelation of God. Priest, but greater—sat at the right hand of God. King, but greater—God’s king whom God has installed. This all makes Him the greatest!

The structure hammers it home. Right at the centre of these seven is Jesus as the exact imprint of God. In other words, He is God—He literally is the greatest there can be. There is none, no one, nada, greater than God, and Jesus is God.

Jesus is not just another teacher in a line of teachers, or a prophet in a line of prophets. For those tempted to fall back into a Christianity-lite, can you see how this is relevant? If Jesus is just another character in the Bible, if Jesus is just a moral teacher or a revered saint, then what you have isn’t Christianity—it’s nothing. A Jesus who is less than God is no Jesus at all. What we have in Christianity is the greatest figure in history—God Himself. Why would you want to turn your back on Him? There is literally no one greater you can follow! He is God’s greatest Son, God Himself, and worthy of all our praise. So, our final point: put Jesus in His rightful place.

So Put Jesus in His Rightful Place

 There’s no direct application in this short section, and that’s part of our problem as human beings. We say, “Give me something to do!” But first of all, stop and fix your eyes on Jesus. All our action and effort, all our striving and struggling, will be pointless unless we have our eyes firmly fixed on Him. That’s why this isn’t an evangelistic message. Jesus isn’t someone we glance to for salvation and then look elsewhere to live. He is our life, and we must keep our eyes firmly fixed on Him. Hebrews is going to help us do that—that’s why, as my first sermon as pastor, I’ve started us here.

Is there anything we can take away other than that? Two things. First, thinking about our first point: how do we relate to this awesome Jesus? If He’s God’s final word, we must listen to Him. What does God say when Jesus is shown in all His glory to His disciples? “This is my Son, worship Him”? “This is my Son, praise Him”? “This is my Son, adore Him”? All good things, but no. “This is my Son, listen to Him.” That’s our relationship to God—God speaks, we listen. Are we listening to Christ in His Word? Are we soaking ourselves in Scripture as much as we can? Are we going to listen to God speak as we look through the book of Hebrews? If we don’t, we’re really saying Jesus is not worth listening to. A Jesus not worth listening to is not a real Jesus. He’s the most compelling person who ever lived!

Second, thinking about our second point: the application is in the realignment of our minds—Jesus is the greatest. We need to be reminded of that again and again. Why? Because life makes us forget. Because hardship makes us forgetful. We forget His worth and instead focus on ourselves. He is worth not dropping. He is worth keeping going for. He is worth our everything. We cannot drift back to a sub-Christianity. We cannot drift away into a less-than-Christianity. If we have Jesus at the center, if we have Jesus at the top! So let’s keep Jesus at the top. It’s not Muhammad Ali or Usain Bolt—it’s Jesus.

So, as we go round the block—maybe for the first time, maybe for the umpteenth time—we need to keep Jesus at the centre. Living for Him, listening to Him, because He really is the greatest One we could give our lives to. Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for Jesus, your Son, your final word, your greatest Son. Help us to fix our eyes on Him, to listen to Him, to live for Him. Forgive us when we’re tempted to drift away, when we forget His worth. Renew our hearts by your Spirit, that we might see Jesus as the greatest and give our lives to Him. In His name, Amen.