Jesus Carries the Cosmos and the Cross

again. Uh it's good to see you this morning. It's good to worship alongside of you this morning. If you got your Bibles, I want you to go ahead and open them up. We're going to be in Hebrews chapter 1, verse three. That's right.

I think we've been in verse three now for uh five or 10 or 17 weeks. I don't know how long it's been, but uh we are we are still in verse three. And so if you were here four weeks ago, yeah, we were in verse three then as well. uh because it is a lot to cover in just this one verse and we want to take our times through it because um we're not in a hurry. We're studying who Jesus is and he's revealing himself to us through passages like this. And if he is our greatest treasure, as our mission statement declares, uh we exist as a church to treasure Jesus and help others follow him.

If he is our greatest treasure, then we want to know who this treasure is and what this treasure is. And these verses um primarily verses 1 through3 are so good, so rich uh so pregnant as some theologians refer to in helping us understand what Jesus is, who Jesus is, and why he is worthy of our worship. Why he is worthy of us leaving everything to follow him. Why he is worthy of us prioritizing his ways above our ways. Because this is exactly how God wants to reveal himself to us. And it's just so good there.

There's so many things for for the last several weeks what the author of Hebrews has been steadily escalating our understanding of who Jesus is. He's told us that Jesus is the heir of all things. The heir of all things. Which means that everything is moving towards him for him to receive. For him to receive. It's all his.

Everything's for him. But then it also says that not only is everything for him, but everything is from him. That through him, everything has been made. Literally, the entire world was created through Jesus. So not only is everything going towards him, but everything ultimately came from him. So everything that is in existence, your blue eyes, your brown eyes, they were made because Jesus declared them to be that way.

Everything that exists about who you are was created from Jesus. The trees as they are changing was created from Jesus. the weather hopefully cools off because Jesus says to cool off like everything is from Jesus. Everything. And then he tells us that Jesus is also the radiance of the glory of God. The radiance of the glory of God.

meaning that he does not just reflect God like what Moses did and even in like how we do at times but that he is the source of God. He is the radiance of God's glory. He's the exact imprint of his nature, which means that he doesn't just resemble God like a child resembles a parent, but that he is the same nature of what God is. In other words, the nature of God that gives divine status to the father is the same nature of God that gives divine status to the son. There's no distinction there between whether or not the father is God and the son is God. They are God.

They are God. In the same nature of God, that's why we are able to say to see Jesus is to see God. Is to see God. And what the author now does is he gives us three more statements about this Jesus in this text. We're going to cover two of them today. And then next week we'll kind of climax and finish out this verse three with him finally coming to sit on the throne of God.

But today specifically, we're going to be looking at Jesus carrying the com cosmos and Jesus also carrying the cross. But I want to read it in context as we've been doing every week. read it in context that the the the primary way in which we preach the word of God is by preaching the point of the word in the passage. And so I want to make sure that every time we pull out just these one or two declarations of who Jesus is, I want to make sure that you keep it within the main context of what is being declared by God. And so here's what he says in verses 1 through three. Long ago, at many times, and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.

The way we kind of covered that as looking through the Old Testament was God revealed himself in puzzle pieces through prophets. Here's a little bit that you need to know. Here's another little bit that you need to know. Here's some other things that you need to know. And it were these little puzzle pieces. And it was a mystery for them.

They were searching um all throughout trying to figure out who is this Christ? Who is this Messiah? What's ultimately going to take place? How is it going to take place? They were trying to put the puzzle pieces together. But in verse two, he says, "In these last days, he has spoken to us by his son."

So the the the full picture of the puzzle is now coming into place where we can then now put all the puzzle pieces together and see, oh, it was all about Jesus. He's the actual full picture of the puzzle. And so now through Jesus, it all makes sense. God is ultimately now speaking to us by way of the son, speaking to us in the sun. So that in who Jesus is, in what Jesus does, and everything Jesus declares and teaches, all of it is God's way of revealing himself and his purposes for all of creation. So, it's the creator stepping into creation saying, "Here's what I don't want you to miss."

And so look to Jesus in order to have clarity about everything that is in creation. Why it exists, why he created in the first place, how even though we broke it and fractured it and and brought sin into the world, what he is ultimately doing to redeem and reconcile and restore and fix everything that we broke. So to know what is going on and to understand what is going on, he simply says, "Look at Jesus." And as you turn your eyes to who this Jesus is, he says, "I want to make sure that you understand him correctly because everyone has an opinion about who Jesus is, right? Everyone has an opinion. Hollywood has an opinion.

Movies have opinions. Sitcoms have opinions. Other world religions have opinions. And I think that's why sometimes Jesus would ask these rhetorical questions to his disciples. Hey, what's the word on the street? Who do who do the people say that I am?

What's the what's the gossip about who Jesus is? Is he just another good teacher? Is he just another prophet? Is he just another uh a philosophical man who has some good principles on how to change life and how to live in a different way or a different philosophy? What's the word on the street? And he basically says, regardless of what the word on the street is, here's what Jesus is and here's who Jesus is.

He is the radiance of the glory of God. and the exact imprint of his nature. And for our verses today, he upholds the universe by the word of his power. So, so that's that's a little bit more than just someone who lives in the universe some 2,000 years ago for about 33 years. It says, "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."

That statement alone, which again, we'll look at that one next week, but that statement alone is one of the primary reasons why they murdered him. why they murdered him. Because that's a statement that declares this man who was walking among them is God who sits on a throne. That would be blasphemy if he's not God and rightly you should murder him according to their law at the time. But to see Jesus is to see God. And so I hope for us today as we look at these statements again covering specifically the the the first two of them there.

He upholds the universe by the word of his power and he makes purification for sins. I pray that we see more of Jesus than what we did before we came in here this morning. I pray that we treasure I pray that it stirs up our hearts and our affections for more of him in our lives than less. I pray that it draws us closer to the purposes of Jesus and what he is ultimately accomplishing because that's the only place in which we are actually going to find rest. What he what you're actually going to see today hopefully will help you see that you're not as in control of your life as you think you are. And also at the same time, you trying to clean yourself up is not going as well as it should be going either.

And God answers and steps into that place as well. And so the first thing I want you to see here is that Jesus carries the cosmos. Jesus carries the cosmos. It says he upholds the universe by the word of his power. The Greek word for upholds is feron meaning to carry or sustain. To carry or sustain.

And to carry helps us here hear something that we can miss sometimes in just that English word upholds. When I hear uphold, I can imagine Jesus simply keeping the universe from collapsing, which is a part of it. Yes, it's certainly included. But Ferrron carries the idea of carrying something along like I'm not letting it go and I'm going to make sure that what I started with, I'm going to make sure it gets to the end that I'm holding it. I'm upholding it. I'm carrying it.

I'm sustaining it. And it is a continual process. And because this is again present active in the participle of it, the author isn't merely describing something Jesus did in the past, but it is something that Jesus is continuing to do even in this moment. Like right now as I'm speaking, the muscles that it takes for me to utter these words are happening because Jesus is carrying me along. He is sustaining me. Whatever needs to happen in your and I'm not a doctor or scientist in in this regard, but whatever has to happen in order for you to hear these uh these sound waves that are coming into your ears h only happens because Jesus is allowing your ears to continue functioning in the way that they are functioning.

Like every single thing that is in our universe, every cell, every atom continues to be what it is because Jesus is sustaining it and says so. Again, Jesus did not create everything and then step away from it. He created everything and he is presently carrying everything, sustaining everything. Again, that's an important distinction because because biblical Christianity is not something like disism. Deism imagines God almost like a divine clock maker who creates the universe, winds it up, and then steps away while the machine runs according to the laws that he established. And so we tend to think in regards to that type of thinking that he's just up there and he's just sitting back with popcorn seeing what happens.

And that's not the way that the scriptures communicate God's presence in his creation. That's not the God of scripture. The God of scripture is transcendent, which means he is distinct from and exists independently of his creation. So you can picture God outside of his creation, which is also very important because there are other views like pantheism that believe God is creation that everything that he's in the the veins of the leaves and that he's in the atoms and that he's in all these and so therefore everything is God. No, no, no, no, no. That's not what we are talking about.

He is sustaining it and holding it but he is outside of it. He is outside of it but he is also imminent. He remains actively present and involved in the creation that he has made. So he's not sitting back distant looking at it and just kind of watching it like episodes of a series on TV. Look at this age. Man, those middle ages were crazy.

He's not looking at it like that. He is involved, sustaining, carrying along the ages. And it's so important because the universe is not itself self- sustaining. Think about like a newborn baby that needs to be carried along, sustained, and nurtured by its mother. Without the mother, it dies. The God of scripture is very similar in this regard.

Think about Genesis 1 1-2. God creates the heavens and the earth. And it says the earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. The only other time that that word hovering is used is in Deuteronomy 32:11 where God is compared to an eagle. And it says like an eagle that stirs up its nest that flutters over its young.

So Genesis begins with this remarkable picture. Creation is formless and it's empty. Darkness covers the deep and the spirit of God is hovering over it. The spirit of God is present, active, bringing forth life and order. And then it says God speaks into it. Again, John 1 records what that speaking looks like, what that speaking was.

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. And so that word that God speaks is Jesus. Goes on to say that all things that were made were ultimately made through him. And so that's what Hebrews 1:3 is illuminating for us is that Jesus upholds the universe because the universe was created through him and at the same time continues to uphold that universe by the same word that spoke it into existence by the word of his power. Paul says this in Colossians 1:17. He's before all things and in him all things hold together.

Hold together. And so the reason why I'm able to stand up here and not literally just melt into something else is because Jesus right now is sustaining me by the word of his power. The reason why that chair is continuing to let you sit in it is because Jesus is sustaining it by the word of his power. There is nothing in existence that is outside the sustaining word of his power and he holds everything together. In a way, Hebrews has just summarized what we call the sovereignty of God in one phrase. In one phrase that he is in control of all things, that he is carrying everything along.

That he is sustaining everything. He's keeping it what it is. And it's all because of the word of his power. years ago there was a man um a pastor by the name of Louis Gigglio who made an illustration famous involving something called laminin. Laminin is a protein found in the extracellular matrix around our cells. I'd love to pretend I know what that means but I don't.

But among other things, what this laminin does is it plays an important role in helping cells adhere to their surroundings and in the structural organization of the tissue. In other words, laminin's entire purpose is to hold ourselves together that make up what we are physically. Without laminin, literally, you would have immediate structural failure and your muscles would lose grip on everything. So if there's no lamin in your body, there's no survival. Like you have to have it. And when scientists discovered and diagram the structure of laminan, it had a rather interesting appearance.

Take a look at it. That's what it looks like. So, as Hebrews 1:3 is declaring to us that Jesus Christ is the one who sustains and holds everything together, I feel like this is one of those fingerprints of creation where the one thing that is inside of us that holds us together just happens to be designed and worked out in the shape of a cross. Now, I'm not going to stand up here and tell you there it is. Lammon is why there's the existence of God. It doesn't prove that Christianity is true because God had little crosses inside your cells, but it's an illustration to prove something that scripture does claim that Christ is the one that is sustaining all things.

through him. He is the laminant of the universe. Basically, he is the one who holds all things together by the word of his power. The cells in your body are not outside the sustaining authority of Jesus. And I want you to notice something that Jesus how he sustains all of this. It doesn't come by breaking a sweat.

It just simply comes by the word of his power. The word of his power. I can tell you this right now. There are moments in my household that I try to sustain things by my word and it does not work. It does not work. So when I come to a scripture like this, it baffles me.

How in the world can you just speak and everything listens? That's amazing. He doesn't break a sweat. He just simply speaks. Your heart is beating right now. Your lungs are filling with air.

The Earth is rotating beneath you. The planets remain in their courses. Stars are burning billions of miles away. The physical world continues operating according to the ordered laws God established. in Hebrews pulls the curtain back and lets us in on the secret of the finetuning of the universe simply. It's because Jesus says so.

It's because Jesus says so. It reminds me there's the picture of the scene in Spider-Man where he's got like he he's got the train behind him. He's got the webs and it just looks like he's just trying to hold it back with every bit of his might. Jesus doesn't look like that. Jesus is just simply speaking for everything to remain as it is. There's another dimension to this word Pharaoh that's worth noticing.

It can carry the idea not only of sustaining something of but of carrying it toward a destination. Again, creation isn't merely being prevented from falling apart. History itself is being carried toward the purpose God has ultimately appointed for it. That's why there can be verses like Romans 8:28 that says he is um that all things are being worked out for the good of those who are called according to his purpose. All things are being carried along according to the purpose of God and for the good of those who are in Christ Jesus. We already know where everything is going because verse two told us that Jesus has been appointed the heir of all things.

He created it. He carries it. He inherits it. And so it helps us have hope in our daytoday because we know if it came from Jesus and it is ultimately going to Jesus then if it's going to be inherited by him he's going to make sure that as it is carried along it arrives where it's supposed to be. It arrives where it's supposed to be. That builds my faith.

That builds my hope in what I experience in a dayto-day basis. that when I do see things that seem to be falling apart around me that I know behind the scenes actually nothing's falling apart. But Jesus is working 10,000 things beneath the se the surface that I cannot see. And so a rhetorical question for you, what are you trying to keep together right now? Like what are you trying to hold together in your life right now in your own strength? I mean there are there we try to keep our families together.

We try to keep our marriages together. We try to keep our finances together. We try to keep our health together. We try to keep our careers together. We try to keep our kids together. Sometimes we're just trying to keep ourselves together.

And that seems almost impossible. I'm 100% convinced the most difficult question to answer in small talk is, "How are you doing?" Because if we were to answer the question honestly, we would say something like, "I'm just trying to keep everything together and it ain't going very well. I'm exhausted. I'm tired. I'm defeated.

I'm just holding on. I'm just hanging in there. Underneath that statement is often the fear that if I loosen my grip for even a second, everything around me might actually just fall apart, right? Like that's how we feel. That's how we feel if we were to answer the question honestly. But Hebrews reminds us, you're not the one holding everything together.

Jesus is. And even more, he's working all things for the good of those who are called according to his purposes. So trust that even the things around you that feel like they're falling apart, he's using and working in order to provide good for you, to mature you, to sanctify you. It might look like, and honestly, sometimes there might need to be things that fall apart around you because God is using it to teach us valuable lessons that we would not learn if it weren't for the thing falling apart around us. Now, that doesn't remove your responsibility or your human agency. It doesn't mean, "All right, well, I'll just take my hands off everything and just let whatever happens happens."

That's not what we're saying either. You still need to parent your children. You still need to go to work. You still need to budget your money. You still need to make wise decisions. You still plan and you prepare and you obey everything God has put in front of you.

You still do those things. But there's a massive difference between faithful responsibility and sovereign control. There there are two differences between those things. God's given you responsibility, but he has never given you sovereignty. He's given you responsibility, but he's never given you sovereignty. And the reason why some of us are so exhausted is because we're trying to act in the sovereign role rather than just simply the responsible role.

We're trying to not only control what we do, but we're also trying to control the outcome. And I think that's where we get very, very exhausted. We're trying to control another person. We're trying to control our future. We're trying to guarantee what happens to our children. We're trying to make sure that everything works according to our plans.

And they never work out the way that we think they should, right? They never do. When have you gone 10 for 10 on the plans that you've put down on paper for your life and it worked out exactly the way that you planned it? Never. Never. Responsibility, not sovereignty.

And honestly, I think they never work out the way we think they should because well, when that happens, there's two things that usually we give ourselves over to when we're hanging on to the sovereignty instead of just the responsibility. Two things happen in our hearts, in our souls. We either give ourselves over to worry and we start weeping or we start gritting our teeth in anger because what we wanted to happen didn't come out the way that we thought it would. When we're exercising the role of sovereign in our lives, God, you just sit back. We got this. We're going to control everything.

We're going to make sure that everything works the way we want it to work. And and honestly, he's gracious enough to let us actually try and let us fail so that he can kind of step back in and say, "Hey, just remember, I'm the one carrying it. I'm the one sustaining it. I'm the one working everything out for you. I just need you to trust me in this." But sometimes, just like when our kids, just like our kids, you know, hey, I want to do this.

No, don't do that. You're going to get hurt. No, I want to do this. No, please don't do that. You're going to get hurt. No, I'm going to do it.

All right. See what happens. like we're gracious enough sometimes to let them fail and then afterwards, I told you so. But what both of those things do is it simply helps us understand that we're not trusting God, we're trusting in ourselves. We're not trusting in God, we're trusting in ourselves. And we fail every single time we fail.

And the Bible categorizes all of that under one thing, sin. It's sin. And God's gracious enough to let us see that. Hey, when you don't trust me, that's sin. That's sin. When you don't trust the author of life, you bring death into your picture.

Because if in the garden, if obedience to God is life forever more, eat and drink your fill you lovers, do whatever you want to do in the garden. If that's life, disobeying that and saying, "No, we want to go after this one tree, this one thing you said not to do. We're going to go after that." If life is obedience to God, then death is come from the disobedience. And so if God says, "Trust me in all things because I'm sustaining all things." And we say, "No, we got this.

I don't need to pray to you to ask about what I need to do with my finances. I don't need to read your word to see how I should steward my finances, what I should pay for and what I shouldn't pay for, how I should invest and what I shouldn't invest in. I don't want to talk to you about how I should spend my time on my days. I want to serve myself. I want to seek myself. I want to do whatever I feel is right in my own eyes.

How many times has Israel gone that route? We want to do whatever we want to do. And every single time, all it brings is death and destruction. Pain, suffering over and over and over again. But this is one of the million reasons why God is so good and Jesus is so glorious. Because the one who is carrying the cosmos even when we don't trust it comes to carry a cross to fix it.

And so he goes from the cosmos to the cross to the cross to bear the consequence of our human responsibility and our human agency. The creator entered his creation and he came because there was something wrong with us that we could never fix ourselves. Look at the second part of this. Jesus carries the cross. It says after making purification for sins. After making purification for sins, just consider the movement of this sentence.

One moment we're talking about Jesus sustaining the universe and the next moment we're talking about Jesus suffering for sin. Like just think about that for a moment. Man, we talk about what's fair and what's unfair all the time. And we try to run these human agency, human responsibility things. Why would bad things happen to good people? Or this person that we know is so awesome and amazing and yet something bad happens to them.

Man, there is nothing more unfair in all of Revelation, in all of human literature, in any book you've ever read, any movie you've ever watched. There's there's nothing more scandalous than the one who created everything, the one who sustained everything, the one who from him came everything and everything goes to him and is for him for him to step into it and actually suffer for the sin of everyone who did not trust him, did not believe him, but actually rejected him and said, "We don't need you. We're good. We'll do things our own way. We'll do things for ourselves and not for you. Like when you think about this moment, I mean, like when you truly look at who Jesus is and what he came to endure, why would you ever want to trust yourself again?

Why would you ever look to trust in anything or anyone else other than this perfect perfect holy righteous good God who came and took the penalty that we deserve. He didn't deserve it and yet he moved towards us. We're the only belief system in all of the world that says the creator move towards creation rather than creation moving towards creator. We're the only one. Everyone else are still trying to figure out how they can work themselves up to God. And ours is the only one in which God says, "As you're trying to clean yourselves up and move your way to me, I need you to understand that it ain't never going to work.

You clean yourselves up like your children clean their rooms when you go tell them to clean their rooms. You still got work to do after they're done, right?" And as we are literally trying to clean ourselves up in this life, Jesus comes to us and he says, "No, there's still a lot of work to do." And honestly, you can't even get close. I'm going to come in and I'm going to do all of it. I'm going to do all of it.

You simply receive it. You simply receive it. This language of purification would have immediately meant something to these Jewish Christians or these Jews who are hearing about Christianity. The author is beginning to introduce a category that we're actually going to cover a lot of detail in as we continue moving through Hebrews, but it's a category that they would understand. This idea of purification, this idea of sacrifice, this idea of killing something in order for blood to be shed, in order to then cover sins temporarily. And it's the idea for them of what they refer to as priesthood and sacrifice.

for the Jewish audience. Again, purification brings to mind the entire sacrificial system that the Old Testament has been preaching and proclaim proclaiming to all of them for hundreds of years now. Hundreds of years now. They've got priests, they've got altars, they've got blood, they've got sacrifices, they've got ceremonial cleansing. They're going to understand this language, tabernacle, temple, day of atonement, because they do it annually. They do it over and over and over again.

All of it reinforced one fundamental truth. Sin separates sinful people from a holy God. And purification requires sacrifice in order to bring the relationship back into a right status. Again, it never gauges based on how much good you can do. The the economy of God is not based on how much good you can do and make sure it outweighs the bad. That's other world religions.

That's other belief systems. Work your way up. Be better than you are worse, you know, and and make sure that at the end of it when God looks at the scales, well, yeah, hey, good job. Good outweighed the bad. and so come on in. No, no, no.

One sin, one sin brought death into the world. And that's the economy God uses. It's life and death. That's it. Obedience to God is life. Disobedience to God is death.

And so for them to have relationship with God, there has to be death in order to pay for sins because the wages of sin is death. Romans 6:23. It's very clear. Very clear. And so if you're thinking, well, I'm going to continue growing as a as a Christian or as a believer. I'm I'm going to continue growing and working my way to God.

And so to be holy means that I just give more money. To be holy means that I just serve more. To be holy means that I just read more. to be holy mean. No, no, no. That's not what we're talking about here.

We're not talking about doing things in order to make yourself right before God. We're talking about looking at Jesus and what he offered in order to make us right before God. Because here's the reality. If you actually want to make yourself right before God in your own strength, like you want to pay your penalty and God actually agrees to it, what that means is you enter hell immediately and you will pay your penalty for an eternity. That's what it is. That's what hell is.

For those who say, "No, God, we we don't want to accept your payment for our sins. We want to pay for our sins. We want to make ourselves right." And God actually will say, "No, no, no. Death is what you owe me. And if you're going to try to cover it yourself, it's going to be an eternity in hell.

Paying for your sin, paying for your penalty, serving your sentence." Well, we don't want that. And so, simply, as best I could put it, stop trying to make it right yourself. Stop trying to make it right for yourself. Stop trying to atone for yourself. And so, what God was doing was he was helping them paint a picture throughout the Old Testament, saying that there has to be a death in order to atone for sins because that's the economy God set up.

It wasn't money. It wasn't acts of kindness. It wasn't doing good things and right things. It was a death must be paid. And so because they weren't going to pay the debt themselves, he said, "Let's put up a sacrificial system. I'm going to have you grab goats and and bulls and lamb, and I'm going to have you sacrifice them.

Their blood's going to cover your sin." But because there was never an animal that was perfect enough in order to pay for their sin once and for all, they had to do it year over year over year over year. Aren't you glad we don't have to do that anymore? Like come every Easter, make sure y'all bring a lamb with you to church. That'd be awful. But he's setting up the scene to help us understand that there was a perfect one to come.

And what we did talk about last week about him being the exact imprint of God's nature means that he's the nature of God. But at the same time, uh, for humans to actually have their sins covered, because animal sacrifices were never going to be enough and they were never going to last, a human has to die for a human in order for it to count. In order for the payment to be made, and so Jesus, the nature of God, takes on the human nature and becomes a man. And we call that the hypothatic union. He's still 100% God, but he is also 100% man. so that a man can go to a cross and make purifications for sins.

And in the language that is used here after making purification for sins, it is not continual language. It is final language. It is accomplished language. It is once and for all language. So once he made the sacrifice, once he made the purification for sins, the work was done. The payment is in full.

The phrase it is finished on the cross is the same phrase that they would use in first century to literally write on a receipt debt paid in full. It's also the same language that they would use in a courtroom when the sentence was paid in full. They would stamp on it is finished to tell us the the the sentence is paid in full. They are free to go. And it was also a military term that when they finished a battle and they won to telly victory is ours. So in the sacrifice of Jesus, you have victory over sin and death and evil and demons and Satan and all the schemes of the world.

You have victory over it. Your sentence is paid in full or served in full. And the penalty, the payment of your sins is the receipt is clean, wiped away. No debt is no longer owed on your behalf. For those who believe in Jesus, this is what he comes to accomplish. And so, we don't need another lamb.

We don't need another goat. We don't need another day of atonement. We don't need another year. Why? Because none of those sacrifices was ever intended to be the final destination. They were shadows pointing towards something or someone greater.

Jesus was the greater sacrifice that they were all pointing to. They were shadows. And a shadow is cast off of the light, off of the source. And Jesus was always going to be the one. The one. That's why when John the Baptist, when Jesus is walking to him to be baptized by him on the road, John looks up and he says, "Behold the lamb of God who comes to take away the sins of the world.

Behold the lamb." So just notice that he doesn't say, "Behold the lion." Which Jesus will be when he returns. He is the lion of Judah. He is the rightful king. But when he first came, his first coming was coming as a lamb, the lamb of God to be slain in order for your sins to be covered and paid in full.

And that's why again, as we'll be seeing to kind of tease it out a little bit, Hebrews 9:12 says this, Jesus entered once for all into the holy places by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. Hebrews 10:14 puts it this way. For by a single offering, this is why Jesus doesn't have to die every single year for us. It was worthy enough to the father as a sacrifice once and for all. For by a single offering, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. He's perfected you by his work, not your work.

And that's so good to understand because when Jesus was preaching um I was having a conversation this week with um a guy at a coffee shop and he came to me and he asked the question. He said, "Hey, uh blessed are the meek." He said, "What does that mean? Blessed are the meek." And I said, "Actually, this is in a context of a sermon that Jesus is delivering." And in chapter five, which is where you see that blessed are the meek, if you go down to the end of chapter 5, verse 48, he says, "Blessed are the or" or he doesn't say blessed.

He says, "Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect." Now, if you're a human and you're hearing Jesus teach, you are to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. The first thing that should come into your mind is, uhoh, uh, Jesus, I don't know if you know who you're talking to. But as you kind of hang out with us a little bit, you're going to see it's really hard for us to be perfect. We're dumb. We're stupid.

We're uneducated. We make mistakes all the time. We rage. We argue. We dispute with our spouses over things that are are little. We get angry with our kids and lose our patience.

It's impossible for us to be perfect. And if he says, "I'm not backing down on this. I'm not giving any leeway. You are to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect." What that's going to do is that's actually going to break you down a little bit. I mean, just imagine, put yourself back in your like six-year-old shoes and your parents are disciplining you and telling you, "Can't you just be perfect?

Can't you just listen to me for once in your life? Can't you just do the right thing that I tell you to do? Can you never mess up, never make a mistake? It's going to soul crush you as a child, is it not? And yet Jesus is telling you, the father is telling you to be perfect as he is. That will literally crush your spirit.

And in that moment, you go back to the beginning of Matthew 5, and that's exactly what Jesus wants you to do. It says, "Blessed are those who are poor in spirit. Blessed are those. Congratulations is actually the better translation than blessed. Congratulations that you've actually come to the understanding that you're poor in spirit. That you are actually depressed because that's where it goes next.

Blessed are those who mourn. You're depressed. You're grieving the fact that it's impossible for me to be perfect. I can't be in relationship with God because I can't be perfect. There's nothing that I can do. I come to the end of myself and realize I will never measure up.

And Jesus says, "Yes." That's exactly what I want you to understand because the next thing he says is, "Blessed are the meek." And meek doesn't mean weak. It doesn't mean weak. It's actually a phrase that is used for a bit bridled horse where they take the reinss and they put it in the horse's mouth and the horse itself is broken down just like what blessed are the mourn blessed are those who mourn blessed are those who are poor in spirit you are broken and contrite in your heart and you now give up the reigns of your life for someone else to steer and Jesus is saying that's what happens God takes the reigns of your life because you give up and you say it It's impossible for me to be perfect. Because then he goes on to say, "Blessed are you who are pure in heart.

Blessed are you who hunger and thirst for righteousness." Why? Because you gave up trying to do it yourself and earn your righteousness for yourself. You now long for Jesus who has done it for you. So when you actually read through the biatitudes, it's actually just someone who's becoming a Christian. It's literally watching someone go through salvation and sanctification.

It's watching someone become perfected as it tells us in the scriptures. For by a single offering, he's perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. So notice again just exactly what Hebrews is telling us here. after making purification for sins. Just dwell on that for a moment. It doesn't say Jesus came to explain purification.

It doesn't say he came to give us an example of how to purify ourselves. It doesn't even merely say Jesus made purification possible if we could somehow finish the job ourselves. He made purification for sins. He did the work. You don't have to. So, the verbal construction looks back upon Christ's work as an accomplished act, a finished work, a finished work.

Behold the lamb of God who comes to take away the sins of the world. And that's the beauty of our lives. That's where freedom comes in. That's where rest comes in. That there's nothing left for you to owe. There's nothing left for you to pay.

There's nothing left for you to serve. Jesus did it all for you. And it's important because human beings have all kinds of strategies for dealing with our sins, our mistakes, our mis misfortunes, our failures. Again, we try to improve ourselves. We promise we'll never do it again. We compare ourselves to people who seem worse than us.

We rationalize what we've done. We attempt to balance our bad deeds with enough good deeds. We tell ourselves we're better people now than what we used to be. There's one thing you cannot do. You cannot purify yourself from your own sin. You cannot pay the penalty and acquit yourself of the charges of sinning against a good, holy, righteous God.

Jesus comes and he has done it for you. And so the question then becomes, what do we do with this? What do we do with this? The response Hebrews is calling for is not try harder. It's not try harder. Honestly, like when you get to the end of a message like this, what it should help us do is just take a deep sigh of relief.

just a thank you God that I don't have to do it myself. I don't have to hold my family together. That's your job. I've got human agency. I've got human responsibility. I am to observe all that you've commanded of me.

But I know that the the inputs are my responsibility, but the outputs are yours. And at the same time, when I fail and when I make mistakes, I don't have to pay the penalty for those things. Jesus already has. He's already accomplished it. You cannot control everything around you, but Jesus does. So breathe that in.

Like like that's a sigh of relief. You cannot cleanse yourself from your sin, but Jesus can. And so trust him with it. That's the invitation is just to simply trust that Jesus is sovereign and that he is also your savior. He is sovereign and he is also your savior. And so you entrust yourself to Jesus.

It takes us, this verse takes us from the cosmos where Jesus carries all things by the word of his power. And then it takes us to the cross where Jesus made purification for sins. The one who holds the universe is the one who gave himself for you. He gave himself for you. And that's where I want to bring us to the table. When we come to communion, we are not bringing God another sacrifice.

So, we're not coming to the table saying, "Hey, God, look this week how I broke my body for you and how I shed my blood for you. Look what look how I sweat for you." That's not what we're doing. We're not coming to this table saying, "Hey, God, have you provided anything else for me based on all the good that I've done for you this week?" No. We're coming to the table to remember the sacrifice that Jesus made to to make purifications for sins once and for all time and how that is what sustains us every single moment of our lives.

Every single moment of our lives. We're remembering the sacrifice that ended all sacrifices. That's what we're remembering. And so we take the bread and we remember the body of Jesus. Not another lamb, not another goat, not another temporary offering. We take the bread, remembering the eternal son of God took on a real human body and he gave us, he gave that body for us.

And then we take the cup and remember his blood. Not blood that temporarily covered sin until another sacrifice could be offered, but the blood through which Jesus made purification of sins. And the father looked down and said, "It's good enough. It's good enough. It's done." His wrath towards our sin satisfied.

Satisfied. Tatelist paid in full. Paid in full. Will you stand with me? The table simply is an invitation for us to remember what Jesus has done. To remember what Jesus has done.

Which means it's for believers. It's for Christians. Because if you're not a Christian, then you don't have any remembrance of what Jesus has done because you're not in relationship. But I always want to make it a point that the invitation is always open. That if you've never surrendered your life to Jesus, if you've never, hey, I I'm still trying to work things out in my own way. I'm still trying to do things my own way.

I'm still trying to navigate through life, sustaining things, holding things together, and trying to make my life good. and you finally come to the end of yourself because what you've been trying to do is never going to reach perfection that God requires. And you say, "Finally, I'm going to give up then. I'm going to give up. I'm done." And he says, "That's a good place to be."

Congratulations. Blessed are those who are poor in spirit. Blessed are those who are mourned. For theirs is the kingdom of God. You can receive the kingdom of God. You can receive Jesus on your behalf.

He lived the perfect life that you cannot live that you're trying to live. He lived it perfectly already. And we call that righteousness. Right living. He did it. You can't.

And because you can't, Romans 3:23 declares, "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. No one's perfect. No one's righteous. No one's looking for God. No one seeks God. No one goes after him."

That's why it's so important for him to come into creation and to come to us and to let us know that we're wrong and that we need to repent and that we need to turn to him and trust him and trust what he has accomplished for us. And so the righteous one who comes to live the perfect life that we could not live because we are imperfect. We deserve death. He says, "I'm going to take care of that as well. I'm going to go to the cross." The one carrying the cosmos goes to the cross and he says, "I'm going to sacrifice my life for you.

I'm going to pay for your sins once and for all. And all you simply have to do is believe by faith that what he did on that cross covers your sins and you are now welcome to come into the presence of God and be a son and daughter adopted by him. You get to go home with him. You get to go home with him. And if you've never entrusted your life to him, you never believe that Jesus is the son of God, you just simply do that. You just respond.

You say, "All right, God. I understand now that I no longer want to live for myself. I want to live for you. I want to follow you. I believe that Jesus Christ lived the perfect life I could not. I believe he died the death that I deserve.

And I believe three days later because his death was good enough. It deserves to be resurrected because the payment is in full. Death is done." and he gets resurrected three days later helping you go from being an old creation to a new creation because you now believe in him and because he's resurrected to a glorified body you get to have the same type of resurrection as well. You get to now walk in the newness of life that he provides for you. You just believe.

You believe that message to the world. It's foolish and it's crazy and it sounds wild. But for those who see the son of God for who he truly is, it is salvation for us. It is wisdom. It is the truth of God. And it's what the whole book is about.

It's what it's all about. And so if you've never believed, you just simply pray, "God, I believe in you. I believe in your son Jesus and I want to follow you all the days of my life. And so if you're a believing in Jesus that he broke his body and shed his blood for you for the forgiveness of your sins, then I invite you to come down, grab the elements, bring them back to your seat, and at the end of the song, we will partake together worshiping Jesus and thanking him for the sacrifice that he accomplished for us. Commander.