The Gospel of God

When was the last time you can confidently say you heard from God? What did He say? Is He still speaking? What is He saying? If you could hear from God, what would you want to know?

God is speaking good news. The gospel. The gospel of God is powerful. It is shaping a kingdom that will overthrow all the kingdoms of this world. Is it shaping you and me? Do you and I understand the gospel? Are we listening, or do we assume we know already, and we’ve stopped listening?

Long ago, but in these last days (the Messianic Age). At many times, but in this time. In many ways, but in one way.

The message came to our fathers through prophets. But to us, by His Son. It got much more personal. (Matthew 21:33-46)

We learn that God is personal. He can be known. He wants to be known. He is not a force, or an idea. He is a person.

The Message is a Person

2b-4 are all about this person, Jesus, the Son of God.

Jesus is not just the last of a line of prophets. He has inaugurated a new age. The message is the same, but the old ways have made way for the new. The Son speaks to us through His very being and nature. He has given a final divine word.

This message is consistent with the message God has been speaking for centuries. Jesus does not contradict anything in the scriptures. But He is also unique and distinct. He isn’t just a prophet, He is God in the flesh. He embodies God.

Eight keys to understanding Jesus

1. The Father appointed Him heir of all things (2). We learn something about God here. He is sovereign. He has total authority over all things…and He has put God the Son in legal possession of it all. Jesus has been put in His rightful place. Jesus shares the sovereignty of God. He has been given all authority in heaven and on earth.

2. God created the world through Him (2). “World” = “the ages”, all temporal things. He made all times and everything in them. That means, when God created the universe through the work of God the Son, He knew this time right now, and that you would be here. He knows you. He knew you before anyone else, and He has a plan for your days.

3. He radiates God’s glory (3). In all His shining brilliance, power, authority, and truth. In all His humility, kindness, faithfulness, and love.

4. He is the exact representation of the being of God (3). “Imprint” = like a stamp on a coin. But this is not just a likeness. It is the stamp, or the imprint, of the substance of God. Everything God is made of, makes up the Son. They share a nature. Jesus shows us what God’s real being is. If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus.

5. He carries all things to their completion (3). “Upholds the universe by the word of His power.” “Upholds” = carries along. “Universe” = all, everything. Is there anything Jesus does not carry along? No, nothing. This is not Jesus standing at a bus stop, holding the world, waiting for something to happen. This is Jesus, like a powerful running back, carrying the ball toward the goal line. It is a dynamic image. Speaking of dynamic, He is doing all this carrying all, everything to it’s completion in God’s plan by His “word”. He only has to speak for things to happen.

6. His atonement for sins is the completion of His work (3). One of the things Jesus carries along is our sins. Sin stains and defiles us, but Jesus’ death on the cross was a cleansing purification for our sins. It carries them away.

7. Jesus has the place of highest honor (3). We worship Jesus because He has been given the right hand seat, a shared throne, authority with God the Father. Jesus is to be worshiped. He is seated because He has completed His work.

8. Jesus is superior to the angels (4). This may not mean much to you and me. We don’t think much about angels, they kind of weird us out. But for a Hebrew reader of this passage, an angel is a being created to dwell in God’s presence and carry out His plans. The name of a heavenly being told you something about its purpose and nature. Jesus’ name, “God Saves”, “God with Us”, “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace”, take your pick, is better than the angels, because His work as the reconciler of man to God is better. He is better than all the prophets. He is better than any priest. He is better than any heavenly messenger sent by God. Whatever you can think of that’s good, right, beautiful, powerful, and true, Jesus is better. As Nacho Libre says, “He’s the best!”

If you want to know God, get to know Jesus. If you want to know yourself, who you were made to be, get to know Jesus.

What have I learned about God here? God is personal. He has a message for us, and it is good news. In our sin, He has provided for our purification. In the messy story of our lives, He has provided an end that will provide some eternal good out of it all. Even though our world is a confusing place, God wants to be known, and He has spoken His message to us.

If God is speaking, how am I listening? The writer of Hebrews will say things like:

English Standard Version Chapter 2

2 Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.

Hebrews 3:15 “As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.””

Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

Hebrews 4:13 “And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

“Don’t have an unbelieving heart.”

Do you come to the Bible to hear God speak directly to you through the prophets and through Jesus, or do you rely on the teachings of others for your direction in life?

Do you believe God can personally teach you all you need to know?

We have been a church steeped in a certain culture for a long time. It’s time to shake things up. God is transforming the world through the gospel, and it’s time for us to join Him.

Our evangelical culture has focused on knowledge of the Bible. And we follow the most gifted Bible teachers who can help us understand what the Bible says. But as Pastor Kayamba reminded us last week, Jesus warned us that if we hear his words and do not do them, we are building on a foundation of sand. It is the one who does His words that builds a lasting life. And we have bought into the deception that measures Christian maturity according to Bible knowledge. The church Jesus founded, and is still building, measures maturity by obedience and devotion. And where are the teachers who will help others understand God’s word through real-life experience, that demonstrate discipleship and teach others to do everything Jesus commanded?

We want to facilitate discipleship of Jesus. We will decrease the amount of content and increase the opportunities to learn by doing. Breakout groups (Bible discussion, keep it simple, guide toward application), triads (follow up with two others), community groups (pray and serve).

Here is God’s message to us. He is sovereign over everything. He has all the authority in all things. He made this world, and He is glorious. He knows each of us, down to every day that you will live on this earth. He knows every good work He has prepared for you. He knows every way you will fail to do His will. He knows every sin that you will commit against Him and against others.

And this is what He has done... He has chosen, from the beginning, to work all things through His Son. There is nothing Jesus needs from you. There is nothing you could do to make Him love you more or less. He has accomplished everything necessary for you to know God and experience His life-giving power.

Jesus is God the Son. He shares the nature of God the Father, His authority, and His power. And in His death on the cross for our sins, has demonstrated in a final and complete way, exactly what our God is like. He is gentle and lowly. He is humble, and has taken the punishment for our sins, the stain and defilement of our sins upon Himself, that our lives may count for something eternal. In Jesus, the Son of God, God has started a whole new age by completing the old one. The old one was the age of sin and death. The new age is one of eternal life. It has begun in Jesus. The whole gospel we learn together in a new way through this book is an exploration of everything God has done for us in Jesus.

Jesus is shaping a culture He calls the kingdom of God. To live in this reality, we start with knowing God. God is sovereign, all-powerful, perfectly holy, and just. God is also personal, imminent, and has a message for us. He has created you to partner with Him in building an eternal kingdom of justice and righteousness that will never be shaken. You and I, along with every human to have ever lived, have failed to live up to that calling. When God chose to reveal Himself in exactly the way He wanted us to understand Him best, He sent the Son, God in the flesh. To see God, look to Jesus. Everything else we discuss will grow out of this ground and root.

Have you given up on God entirely, or do you doubt that He would ever speak to you?

Do you believe that knowing Jesus is the best and only way to know God?

How are you pursuing knowing Jesus?

Hebrews is a book all about Jesus overcoming failure in individuals and nations to do God’s will and making them sold out to God’s eternal purposes. By the time we get to chapter 10, we will read things like:

Hebrews 10:32-34, “you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.”

Hebrews 12:28 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, 29 for our God is a consuming fire.

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