The exclusiveness of Christianity is what will be the greatest battle in our day. For people do not want to hear it. And they are prepared to write us off before they would ever hear it from us. Yet, there is not another message that is Christianity. For to depart from the claim that Christ is the only way to know redemption and there is no other is to depart from the very essence of the Christian faith. To remove that claim and try to hold on to Christianity is like refusing marriage altogether in one’s attempt to be a husband. The very thing your ridding yourself of is necessary for that for which you are striving. And yet, this temptation may be more real to us than we anticipate.

This week while Lili and I were away I met a guy from India, and we were supposed to get together one day and play tennis. I was thinking, “This is a prime opportunity to speak the gospel to someone,” but then I thought about his background, his education, what he has heard, and how the fact that I believe that if he does not place his faith in Jesus Christ then he will go to hell. And for a brief second the thought came into my mind that it was not worth the strain of the relationship for a week. I wished I could have told him he was okay. For a moment, the temptation to shrink back should he ask me if he was okay was there. And I had to fight it.

The background to the book of Hebrews is much the same. These were believers who had undergone persecution for being Christians. They had come to the point of professing that Jesus Christ was indeed the fulfillment of everything written in the Old Testament. They believed he was the Messiah. However, now amidst all the struggle in their own lives and in society, they were possibly tempted to say, “I want nothing more to do with this. I could just return to Judaism and lose the stigmatism, the persecution that comes with being associated as a follower of Jesus Christ.” Therefore, the author (whom we don’t know) writes this letter to encourage and exhort these individuals to press on and to hold to the Christian faith, teaching them, encouraging them, and warning them throughout these thirteen chapters.

Therefore, anticipating the temptation we might begin to feel in our own day and maybe the temptation we are facing right now as it is hard to walk away from sin or from the lives we once knew in which we weren’t aware of the divine call to do all things unto God’s glory, in which the battle with sin wasn’t as great (simply because there was no battle; we indulged), and where we thought things were better than now (though our perspective might be as skewed as the Israelites wanting to return to Egypt). Maybe we need this letter today. Therefore, I want to begin this series and specifically look this morning at what the author gives his desperate hearers in these first four verses of chapter one.

Thus, let’s see what we need to hear this morning.

First, it is important to note that the author begins not with an exhortation, warning, or rebuke. He begins simply with a statement (one sentence in Greek) telling what God has done, who Jesus Christ is, and what he has done. So, how does that start tell us anything?

The beginning of the letter reminds us that persevering obedience in the Christian faith will have the truth of solid doctrine as its foundation

The letter doesn’t begin with any kind of exhortation. In fact, the whole first chapter isn’t focused on exhortation. There is nothing they are told to do in this chapter. It is simply filled with writing about how great Jesus is and what God has done in him. Not much else is here. In fact, it doesn’t even speak to how to persevere in the faith when you’re tempted to say, “This is too hard, the cost is too great, I can’t go on.”

So why does he begin here describing who the Son is and what he has done? The answer is what we have heard and might indeed nod our head at, but what really needs to sink in, namely, that all practice is built upon doctrine. Thus, where one’s doctrine is not well understood or understood incorrectly, one’s practice will be lacking as well. And what these hearers needed more than anything else as a foundation is to know that what they had bought into and believed in, was true. They needed to know that Jesus Christ is indeed who his followers were saying he was. Therefore, the author of Hebrews lets them know from the start, this man Jesus, was much greater than anyone you’ve known before, he is himself God’s son, God’s exact radiance and representation, the one who has made purification for your sins, and who sits at the right hand of God.

They needed to know truth. And this makes sense, doesn’t it. When you’re tempted to despair, be discouraged, be anxious, or to sin in any way, is it not because you have first bought into a lie over the truth? Do we not struggle with lust because we believe the lie that there is more fulfillment in lusting than there is in obedience? Do we not struggle with laziness because we believe there is somehow more joy in being irresponsible than in doing what is right? Do we not struggle with anxiety and despondency because we are believing all sorts of lies, thinking even our close friends will dismiss our desire for obedience and condemn us, others will think our intent evil, or that even God himself is bringing punishment upon us, not realizing our striving for obedience? Temptation is always built upon a lack of faith in what God has said is true, and we dismiss God’s truth as we buy into lies. Consequently, as much as exhortation is needed in my life and yours that we might press on in obedience, equally necessary if not more necessary is that day after day we are renewing our mind to the truth of God, so that lies are more easy detected and the spiral of sin avoided. It is simple and yet simply neglected much in the church.

But how do we know that what we believe really is true? I mean, there are all kinds of claims out there, and all kinds of gods men worship. How do we determine truth? That answer too is in these first few verses of Hebrews. We know truth, not because any man has come up with it, but because the God who is, has spoken.

God has spoken so as to reveal himself and truth to mankind, most supremely in Jesus Christ

The Christian faith is not on the same playing fields of other “faiths” that men are coming up with, for we did not make this up. No man made this up. Thus, the truth did not come from man up to God, if you will, but from God down to man. We know truth because God has chosen to speak and reveal truth to us clearly in his word.

In fact, one of the greatest distinctions of the true God from other gods is that our God has spoken. He is a God who speaks.

The letter to the Hebrews begins, “God, after he spoke long ago to the father in the prophets in my portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the world” (1-2).

Throughout history our God has been a God who has spoken. He spoke the creation into existence. He spoke to his people through the mouths of prophets. But ultimately, he spoke most clearly by sending his Son Jesus Christ into the world. Jesus was thus called the Word. And he is not just another prophet to speak so that we might know about God. He is the essence about which the prophets were speaking. He is himself God the Son. Thus, Jesus refers to himself not as one who is simply conveying truth – though he does no less than that. Rather, he refers to himself as the way, the truth, and the life, adding that no man comes to the Father except through him.

Therefore, if you want to know what God is like, you may look to Jesus, for he is the Father’s word of revelation. He is “the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature.” But Jesus no longer walks the earth, for he ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God. Consequently, is there no longer any Word for us to behold, any revelation of God that we might know him?

Well, before Jesus ascended, he told his disciples, “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the spirit of truth, comes he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own initiative, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will disclose to you what is to come” (12-14). And Jesus came through on this work, sending the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, who led his followers to know truth so as to write it down in what we have as the holy Scripture of God. Consequently, we rightly call the Bible God’s Word to us or his revelation of himself, of truth. Thus, we hold up this book, which tells us of Christ, and say, “This is how we know truth, God has chosen to speak it through his Son, and this book [the Bible] is God’s revelation of himself, of truth.”

Therefore, that is how we know truth, not because we created it but because we are able to look upon and hear the truth that God himself has spoken, what he has revealed to us.

And I will add here, I think (having heard about evangelism for the past couple of weeks), this is why faith in Christ, salvation, comes by hearing as Romans 10 tells us. For God is a God who has chosen to reveal himself in speaking, through his word. Consequently, we go out as spokesmen for God, ambassadors of Christ in a world that desperately needs to hear the truth of God.

So we know that we need to know truth and to hold to it tightly, we know that we have truth because God has chosen to reveal himself by speaking, ultimately through his Son and in his written word. But what truth specifically does the author of Hebrews give us in these first four verses? For it is this that I want to close with and remind us today.

The author of Hebrews reminds his readers that Jesus is nothing less than the divine Son of God, who came in history to make purification for our sins, and now sits at the right hand of God awaiting the day in which he will return to take his redeemed people to himself

If you are tempted to walk away or give up from following Christ this morning or obeying his truth, you need to realize who Jesus is. He wasn’t simply some crazy man claiming to be God, nor was he simply some good man. He is nothing less than the radiance and exact representation of God, the one through whom God created the world, and the one who upholds all things by the word of his power. He is the heir of all things, so that there is no power greater than that which he holds. He is better even than the angels, for his name is greater. As he said in John 8:58, “Before Abraham was, I am.” He is nothing less than God. He is God, the Son.

And yet he has not simply dwelt in the heavens as we are supposed to believe some make-believe story about what he did. No, in human history, in time, nearly 2000 years ago Jesus came out of heaven, taking on flesh, being born into the world as a human. He was no less God, but he was nothing less than man. He was the God-man.

But why? Why did he do this? For his people had a problem. They had sinned against God. Sin is our greatest problem. Consequently your and my greatest need is to be forgiven of sin, and Christ has taken care of that, as nothing else was sufficient to do.

He came as a man because man was in trouble and as God, for only God could atone for sin, and he made purification for our sins by dying on a cross. Then he was buried, and three days later rose from the dead. Ultimately, he ascended into heaven, returning to his former glory, and sits at God’s right hand. Thus, the author of Hebrews writes, “When he had made purification of sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

Therefore, Christ is often referred to as prophet, priest, and king. He is the Word of God, the one who atoned for our sins, and the exalted king of the universe. This is true. This is the gospel, and it is true.

Therefore, the reason the Hebrews couldn’t turn back from their faith even in the midst of hard times is because what they were holding to and believing in was and is true. This is what the author of Hebrews knew they needed to hear foremost. And the reason why I cannot back off or shrink back from the reality that there is only forgiveness of sins found in the work of Christ, even when it might bring me ridicule, persecution, and loss of relationships is because the gospel is true. It is not some idea we have created. It is true, and we know it because God has spoken and revealed truth. He has revealed who he is and what he has done to redeem his people.

Maybe, this morning, you need to know that this is real, that there is a reality beyond this world and your daily labor because it’s hard. You need something deeper than how to feel better about your job, you need an anchor for your soul because the fight is so difficult and so constant. You want to know it is worth it. Then hear this: God is real, he has spoken, he has accomplished our redemption through Christ, whom he has exalted above all things, and we will be judged on our response to this Word, for it is indeed true.

Hold to this, this morning. And as you come to the table, may it be a proclamation yet again amidst the temptation to shrink back from the truth and to compromise what we know God has revealed. May it be a visible proclamation that we have heard God’s truth, we choose again to receive it, and we will obey until the end – by his grace. Amen.

A FOUNDATION FOR NOT SHRINKING BACK

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