God’s Final Word: Jesus

Here is the auto transcript from this week’s sermon on the Gospel to the Hebrews, God’s Final Word: Jesus

Okay, you can repent later.

(laughs) Hey, it's good to be with you this morning.

I do have a couple of housekeeping things that I wanna bring to your attention too.

The first of which is tonight our host church, the Timber Creek Fellowship Church here, is having a very important big all church meeting.

And so their regular gentleman who you guys know, Tony, who cleans the facility, isn't gonna be able to be here today.

So we need to be extra special careful about packing out all of our trash, especially since we've had coffee and donuts and all that stuff.

So please, if I forget to remind you of this, I'll try to remember as we're closing the service, but parents with little ones and people who brought in cups of, let's try to make sure that we leave the auditorium just as spotless as absolutely possible for this important meeting in their church life.

Secondly, some stuff about our church life.

Last week, I had mentioned that on, you know, we have Black Friday and then we have, what's the one on Monday, the Sci-Fi Monday, and then you have Giving Tuesday.

And I'm gonna try to come up with something for myself on Wednesday, I don't know.

But anyway, if you receive the email or got it on the church website that somebody in our congregation has generously offered to match up to $10,000 an offering for us.

So we're currently at around $3,000, which means if you would like to designate an offering, whether you go online and do it, or you wanna just do it in a regular, in the offering box, if you just wanna write the word giving or giving Tuesday in the memo line of your check or whatever, if you wanna put a cash in an envelope and put it in there and just identify that as being part of that matching offering, we were just trying to, we wanted to really go into the new year with knowing we have some expenses that will be coming up as we're transferring or transitioning into a new facility.

There's gonna be some equipment and just things that we're gonna need.

And so we're asking for kind of an end of the year, first of the year shot in the arm, and now someone has stepped up to multiply our gift.

So I wanna encourage you to do that.

I told some folks the other night, had I known that giving is practically on every page of the New Testament when I was a younger minister or pastor, I would have preached on giving a lot more than I did.

Most of the time that makes people uncomfortable.

It made me uncomfortable until I learned what righteousness is.

And once I realized that the action of righteousness is always some form of giving, it totally changed my heart.

So giving is not something I avoid talking about.

It's something I wanna talk about because it's a manifestation of the evidence that we have encountered the one who gave us all for God's love of the world, that he gave.

All right?

All right, well, I think Chris mentioned some technical difficulties.

I've given him a hard time or we've bantered back and forth a couple of times about he uses the iPads and I use the old fashioned notebook flip.

And today my technology failed me.

And so for some reason, and I hope it's not providential because I thought it was a really good introduction.

Pages one and two wouldn't print.

So today this is a new territory for me.

I'm preaching from my laptop screen and my notes.

It's a blend of both worlds.

It's a Hanukkah miracle.

So I'm just praying nothing goes wrong because when technology, technology doesn't like me and when it goes bad, I get testy really quick.

So I will try not to do that.

Well, let me just begin before we jump into this introduction by telling you that quite honestly, when Chris and I sat down and we were talking about the direction of the preaching and the teaching direction we wanted to go.

And Chris said, Brent, I really, really want you to preach on Hebrews.

I thought, I really, really think that's a great idea.

And then he said, I want you to start December 9th.

And I'm like, wait, what?

In the middle of Hanukkah?

In the middle of the season when everybody's focused on the birth narrative, we're gonna start a series on Hebrews, really?

You know, the Lord just knows what he's doing.

And sometimes he even tells Chris.

He stormed across the world, conquering his enemies, subduing kings and kingdoms.

And he wasn't just satisfied to conquer their land or depose their kings.

He wanted to change their way of life.

He wanted them to adopt his religion.

He wanted them to adopt his native language and spoken tongue.

He wanted to transfer the language and the culture of Greece around the world.

And as he swept over North Africa, Europe, and Asia Minor, as he went through the world, he planted 70, 70 new cities would come forth because of this one young man who died when he was 33 years old.

The prophet Daniel had seen his coming in the vision from God of the statue that told of the kingdoms that would come before Messiah's reign.

The Greek empire was the third of those kingdoms seen as the belly and thighs of bronze.

And though he died at 33, his vast kingdom was divided when he died, divided among his four generals, exactly the way Daniel had prophesied that it would be.

One of his generals, Antiochus IV, became drunk with power and declared himself Antiochus Epiphanes, God made manifest.

He was a humble fella.

He was the first to begin inscribing that in coins, thus making this megalomaniac ideology of himself, his own self-glorification, not only a part of the religious culture, but a part of the very economy of that culture, and demanding that people worship him as God.

Now, not everybody was dumb enough to believe that, so when no one was listening, they didn't refer to him as Antiochus Epiphanes, they referred to him as Antiochus Epimenes, Antiochus the madman.

He was especially known for his brutality and cruelty to the Jewish people living in Judea and scattered throughout the land of Israel.

He demanded that they accept his requirement of worship and abandon the Sabbath and circumcision as it had been handed down by their fathers.

And then in the first fulfillment of Daniel's vision of the abomination that causes desolation, why do I say first?

Because when Jesus references that prophecy, he referenced it as yet to come.

But we know every prophecy has minor fulfillment and major fulfillment.

So in the first fulfillment of Daniel's vision of the abomination that causes desolation, this madman entered the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, ended the Tamid service, the evening and morning sacrifice, and instead offered a pig on the altar of God, thus committing the abomination that brings about desolation.

But there was a family living in the hills of Judea who simply could not and would not take any more of it.

They called them the Maccabees, and their leader was a man named Judah.

And Maccabee in Arabic, excuse me, Aramaic and Hebrew means the hammer.

Dun, dun, dun.

Judah Maccabee, Judah the hammer.

And he led a rebellion against the Syrian Greeks and conquered them and drove them out of the temple, cleansed and restored the temple and reignited the temple menorah using one flask of oil, which was said to have lasted eight days and eight nights.

The Maccabees, the hammers are remembered for their heroism and the miracle of the menorah oil.

And today we find ourselves in the midst of that eight night, eight day festival or feast of Hanukkah, a word which means dedication or renewal.

Today, this feast festival is observed around the world by Jews living both in Israel and the nations of the world.

And there's something odd that is taking place in our day.

And quite honestly, it's only been taking place maybe for the last 20, 30 years, but it has really amped up in recent days.

And that it is that it is no longer just the Jewish people who are lighting the Hanukkah candles.

Those of us who claim faith in the light of the world, Yeshua, our Messiah, have begun to join in on that celebration, recognizing in the imagery and in the miracle, things that point to the ministry and person of Jesus Christ.

Hanukkah celebrates the renewal of the temple lights and Christians see in Jesus the renewal of the light of the world that comes into this world.

We sang about it today in whom was life and light.

But if you think that it's ironic, if that is ironic, then hear this.

The story of the Hebrew hammers, the Maccabees, is told in two books called the Book of Maccabees.

And neither of those two books are accepted in the Jewish canon of scripture.

Meaning when the ancient sages of Israel got together and decided which books would be considered Bible, Maccabees did not make the cut.

Later, when the Protestant Reformation occurred and it was time for the Protestants to construct their canon to determine which New Testament books and which Old Testament books would be included in the canon, the list of what we believe to be inspired scripture, the Protestants also did not elevate the Book of Maccabees to inspired scripture.

It's about to get all kinds of awkward up here.

There was only one religious group in history that decided to include it in their canon of inspired text.

The Catholics.

How many of you are celebrating Hanukkah this week?

You can thank the Catholics.

Awkward.

In 2018, a well-known Jewish attorney named Seth Grossman wrote an article.

And in that article, the name of the article was "How Christians Saved Hanukkah.

" Awkward.

We are living in a very strange time when you are just as likely to drive down the road and see a house with a manger and a menorah in the same yard.

(congregation laughing) All God's people went, "Huh?

" I love the irony.

Because God always has a way of accomplishing His will even when we don't totally understand it.

And if all of this is feeling a little ironic and awkward, then you kind of can understand why it feels a little odd to be starting a series on the book of Hebrews, Hebrews, in the midst of this month, in the midst of these seasons.

I thought the starting would be weird.

But now I feel it couldn't be a more appropriate time for us to begin this journey.

(congregation laughing) So here we are in the feast of dedication and renewal, a holiday in which we remember the Hebrew hammers of ages past, rising up to protect that which God had given them, setting the stage for renewal and rededication of the things of God in our lives.

And that is exactly what the overall message of the book of Hebrews is all about.

It is the message of the author of Hebrews that we cling to the truth which God has revealed to us in these last days in Jesus, the light of the world, fighting for the truth of God's word.

But as I stand to renew our passion and understanding of the book of Hebrews, I stand in the midst of a people whose origin story, our congregation, our origin story is that we are a group of people who love Hebraic things, AKA Hebraic family fellowship.

I stand in the midst of a people who love the revelation of the Torah and the importance of God's first words in a congregation filled with people who may not now identify as Hebrew roots people, but a people who did and do love the Hebrew roots of our faith.

And here is the irony, that having that as a part of our origin story, having that as a part of our passion, the Hebraic things that we loved, we sat, I sat and watched a Hebraic roots movement attack the one Bible in the canon of the New Testament scriptures called Hebrews.

(congregation laughing) I'm sorry, do you understand the irony of that?

No other book in the New Testament canon of scripture was attacked by the Hebrew roots movement more than the book of Hebrews.

(mimics gun firing) My down syndrome brother, you say, "Well, that don't make no sense.

" That don't make no sense.

But it happened.

And sadly, there were some who rose, but not as many as there should have been.

Few who rose to fight back against the ignorance and the misrepresentation of its author and its message.

There was not a movement of Maccabees to come to its rescue.

And while its revelation was being assailed by those who did not understand the beauty of its language and the genius of its author, we sat and watched the desolation of people's faith spread in the camp of those who loved the things of the Hebrew faith.

Is it awkward enough for you yet?

A book whose entire message is the same as Hanukkah.

A call to renewal.

A call to cling to that which God has given us.

Maybe this is the absolute best and most providential time for us to open its pages and rediscover its light.

Maybe this is the season when the call to courageous conviction is needed more in our culture and world that is trying to dominate us and destroy our faith.

Maybe this is the perfect season, if you will allow me to say it, to drop the Hebrew's hammer and let the light of God's revelation speak to our hearts, rekindle our flame of passion for his kingdom and his righteousness.

When this season passes, will we look back and say that we participated in celebrating a historical moment in time?

But what if the Lord has a bigger plan?

What if the Lord wants to drop the Hebrew hammer on us?

What if the Lord wants to do something in this Hebraic family fellowship?

This season, in our hearts, in our life, what if we were able to look back someday and say we didn't just celebrate a historic moment of ages past, but this season became a historic moment when God raised up a generation of Hebrew hammers who allowed him to refill their hearts, rekindle their lights, fill them with the ruach ha'kodesh, the spirit of his presence, to take back that which is holy?

How cool would it be to look back and not remember a sermon series, but a historical moment when God lit his fire in us?

That's my introduction.

And now I'm gonna pray, and I'm gonna invite you to pray before we continue.

And here's what I'm going to invite you to pray in your own heart, in your own mind, or out loud.

God, light a fire in me.

Rekindle, renew, restore whatever the enemy is trying to take, whatever darkness is hiding in the depths of the corners of my heart and mind, illuminate that, expose it with your goodness, and send me out of this place to be a light of your love and life to others.

Will you pray with me in this moment?

Abba Father, we come to you, b'shem Yeshua ha-mashiach, in the name of Jesus, the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Christ, the Incarnate One, the Word of God made flesh, who came that we might have life and have it more abundantly.

Father, we live in a dark generation, and I pray that you would use this book of Hebrews to do a great miracle.

And someday, because of your goodness in this place, in our hearts, my prayer is, Father, that someday they will look back and say, a great miracle happened there.

Will you bless us with your presence?

I ask these things humbly in the name of Jesus, the Christ.

Amen.

So, since this is an introduction to the book of Hebrews, I'm going to read as far into the book of Hebrews as we're actually going to go.

So, if you have your Bible on your app or on your lap, get it out.

We're gonna exegete a little bit, and I'm gonna read the text as far as we're actually gonna go.

All right, you ready?

Hebrews, okay, there you go.

That's our text.

Every good series on Hebrews has to begin with some introductory topics, and that's because there are some unique things about the book of Hebrews that are slightly different than other books of the New Testament.

The first one is, it's Appalachian.

Everybody say Appalachian.

I'm not talking about the mountains.

This is just a big word that starts with A because I needed a word that starts with A that means name.

And the name of the book is what we're really gonna look at today is Hebrews.

How in the world did it get its name, and what can we draw from that?

It gets its name by the context of its content which inspired the early church fathers to attach the name to or for the Hebrews.

That's the name that it was given.

Now, other New Testament books were given names based on who the original document was sent to.

Sometimes it was identified by the city in which the congregation of God was meeting.

Romans to the believers in Rome, Ephesians to those in Ephesus, Thessalonians to those living in Thessalonica.

Sometimes the books were sent into regions and were intended to be circulated.

All the books were intended to be circulated, but sometimes they bear a name of a region, Galatia, the book of Galatians.

There's not a city of Galatia.

Galatia is a region in Asia Minor.

Sometimes the New Testament books were identified to persons that Paul was specifically sending information to teaching them how to be elders and pastors.

Titus, Philemon, Timothy.

In all of these names, the appellation or the name of the book is focused on our second introductory topic, which is the audience.

Who was receiving this letter?

So why assign the book of Hebrews that name and why were the Hebrews its audience?

Primarily because the content of this book is so focused on topics known to the Hebrew or Jewish followers of Jesus.

Topics like the Messiah, the temple, the priesthood, the altar, the patriarchs, the prophets, and the Hebrew heroes of our faith.

No other book in the New Testament canon delved so deeply into those Hebraically rooted topics.

Now don't make the mistake of thinking that the other New Testament books are not equally Hebraic because they are.

Paul spends a lot of time talking about the covenant with Abraham and circumcision and dealing with a whole lot of topics and all of the apostles, all of the books of the New Testament, if you become familiar with the terminology, the vocabulary of the temple, the vocabulary of the feasts, the times of the Lord, you will pick up on phraseology and terminology that will bridge you right back to those things, the temple and the Torah and the times of the Lord.

But the book of Hebrews is much more focused and steeped in that Jewishness.

And by the way, since I'm gonna ramble on some things today, I might as well throw this out there.

I know that within the Hebrew Roots Movement, there was this insatiable need to find out, to try to prove there was a Hebrew, that these books were all written in Hebrew first.

Somehow we thought that if we could prove that there was a Hebrew original before these documents were written in Greek, that would authenticate and be a superior document.

The problem is for every book that you read that says those things exist, the amount of evidence would fit on my palm in terms of actual textual evidence.

It is incredibly minute, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a Hebrew original.

The Hebrew original is the author himself.

When you're reading through the Gospel of Mark, a book written in Greek, not very good Greek, I may have mentioned this before, not very good Greek, because Mark was writing in Greek, but thinking in Hebrew.

Remember how the book of Genesis chapter one, every sentence in Hebrew starts with the Hebrew letter vav, which is the Hebrew letter, which means and.

You can literally translate the entire chapter, first chapter of the Bible with every sentence, and, and, and, and, and, and.

Is that normative English?

Nope.

Would that be normative Greek?

Absolutely not.

Because Greek has a word for and, it's the word chi.

And when you go and you read the Greek of Mark, guess what you discover?

Way too many chi's.

Normative for Hebrew, not normative for Greek.

'Cause he may have been writing in Greek, but he was thinking in Hebrew.

We'll come back to why this is important.

As soon as I find out where I am.

So, this, this book is so unique in its topic, and it's, it, that's how we kind of come to the realization that this must have been written to help the Hebrew believers.

But you have to understand there's another content, context for why it is written to them, because these were people who were also struggling.

And I don't believe this was just meant for the Jewish believers.

I believe it was written, all scripture is God-breathed.

It's valuable for all of us.

But the Jewish people, while the Gentile people were transitioning out of paganism, the Hebrew people were trying to figure out how can I accept that Jesus is the Messiah and having all this history, while my Jewish, all the men that I revered as Jewish leaders and religious leaders are telling me I've abandoned Judaism, I've abandoned the faith of our fathers.

And so they needed this book, as do we.

There are two other aspects that are very relevant to this name.

One is remembering who you are.

As we go through the book, the writer of Hebrews is not going to call his Hebrew audience to abandon those things of the past, but to more fully appreciate how God used them to prepare them to know and receive the Messiah.

There is no disparaging of those Hebrew roots topics listed above.

Rather, it is the author's intent that his audience would remember that their faith is founded on those things because every one of those things, tabernacle, temple, Torah, times, or it was all about Jesus.

He doesn't want them to forget those things.

He wants them to remember the foundation upon which they stand.

They hadn't converted to a new religion.

Every aspect of their religion was a revelation preparing them to receive that which God had promised through the prophets of old.

A central part of God's plan was to call and to include the nations, but that didn't mean the Jewish people were to despise their origin story, but rather to see within their origin story all the ways that God had prepared them to come to faith in Messiah.

But as the nations did respond to that call, the value of those things were demeaned and diminished rather than being revered and their revelation embraced and understood.

But why call them Hebrews?

By the time we get to chapter 11 of the book where the patriarchs and prophets and Israelite heroes are revered and exalted as faith examples, we are looking at Hebrew heroes who would not relent or turn back.

Within the book of Hebrews, the Hebrew writer is trying to remind them you not only have this rich heritage in the times of the Lord, the temple, and the Torah, but you have a rich heritage, this great cloud of witnesses calling you forward to imitate their faith in the one true God.

You see, long before the Maccabees were on the face of human history, there were already Hebrew hammers.

And if you wanna read about 'em, go read Hebrews chapter 11.

The name Hebrew has a rich heritage and meaning.

Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and God chose the lineage of Shem, a man whose name literally means name, to be the one family in the earth that would sanctify his name among the nations.

I'm gonna go way out on a limb here and say it's almost like someone planned it.

It's almost inspired and intentional.

But why would God need a family to spread across the earth the truth of his name?

Because we profaned his name in Eden when we saw him for less than who he is.

The deception that caused the desolation of Eve's trust in God was that he was not a righteous giving God, but a withholder and a taker, not a giver.

Basically, we tarnished the good shepherd.

We tarnished the good Shem of God, his holy name.

The Hebrew family, more than any other, would learn the truth about the righteousness of God so that they could be a light to the nations of the truth of his character and his holiness.

In Genesis chapter 10, the genealogy of Shem is a bit different than those of his brothers.

And because of this, it causes a little bit of confusion.

Genesis chapter 10, verse 21 says, "Also to Shem, the father of Eber.

" That's how it begins.

Now, what's confusing about that is if you jump down to Genesis chapter 10, verse 22, one more verse, where the actual lineage of Shem begins, the list of birth orders, Eber is not an immediate son of Shem, but he is listed as one of the great grandsons.

The sons of Shem were Elam, Asher, Arpoxad, Lut, and Aram.

We then find out that Eber, who is the one from which we get the name Hebrew, is the son of Shelah, who is the son of Arpoxad, which means Eber is actually a great grandson of Shem.

And here's where we have to ask a question, then why did the Holy Spirit inspire the writing of the Torah in the way in which it did, where immediately saying that he's about to give us the genealogy of Shem, he mentions Eber?

Well, this just keeps with the tradition or a motive in the scriptures where God is always going to highlight a name that's going to become significant.

This means that God is trying to get our attention about this great grandson, so verse 21 could read, also to the name, the father of all the children of Heber the Hebrews.

The name or identification meant enough to God to make special mention, and I would call it special prophetic mention of it.

Why do I say prophetic?

Because in this name, there is a hint, in this name, Hebrew that comes from Eber or Eber, there is a prophetic hint of their future destiny.

Heber or Eber comes from the Hebrew root of ar, which means to cross over or to pass over.

And I know where your minds are going, but slow down, you may be surprised.

Abraham is the first to be called a Hebrew because he is the first to cross over.

He crossed over or passed over the Jordan River into the promised land because he trusted the blessing and promise of God.

To be a Hebrew is one who crosses over and passes over, but it is because of faith.

That's why Hebrews chapter 11 is so important, because their origin story and our origin story is that we have a great cloud of witnesses who have set the standard and the example of those who are of faith.

Now, you may think, wow, that makes perfect sense because they will become the Passover people, right?

Absolutely.

But the holiday we celebrate as Passover isn't actually based on that word.

Uh-oh, did it just get a little awkward again?

I'm sorry, I just wanna have fun with you, okay?

I don't want this to be so serious so you can't grin a little bit.

'Cause I'm a goober and that's, you know, so you get what you get.

So how did we come to call it Passover when the Hebrew name is actually Pesach?

Which doesn't actually mean Passover.

It means to be spared.

The Hebrews were the people God chose to spare from the death of the firstborn judgment, which was the 10th revelatory judgment God poured out on Egypt.

God had told Pharaoh in Exodus chapter 422 that if he failed to listen to God's word, God would take and kill his firstborn.

My friends, you don't, God doesn't just surprise Pharaoh with the 10th plague.

He tells him from the very beginning in Exodus chapter 4, verse 22, Israel is my firstborn, and if you don't let my firstborn go free, I'm gonna take your firstborn because by the way, the firstborn belongs to me anyway.

So you either let my firstborn go or I'm gonna kill and take back what's already mine anyway.

Pharaoh knew it was coming.

And he had nine manifestations, revelatory judgments, opportunities to choose to believe.

So how did we come to call it Passover?

'Cause whenever you think about a Hebrew, you immediately think about Passover.

The name Passover actually finds its origin story in the Greek language as well.

The second century, about 200 years before Christ, there was a Jewish philosopher, and when he started speaking about it in Greek, he referred to it as diabenu, meaning to cross over.

When the Greek Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament and the Torah was written, they used the word parechomai, meaning passing over.

So now we've got two different Greek words translating Pesach, neither of which are actually defining the Hebrew word.

Now that shouldn't fluster you because it doesn't fluster Israel.

So don't, you know, and I know a lot of those Hebrew roots people just wanted to make stuff like, make hay of stuff like this.

But then Josephus comes along, a guy that's kind of contemporary with Paul, you know, he lives around 70 AD, becomes a Jewish guy who becomes a historian, and he uses a different Greek word, hyperbasea, because he's trying to harmonize this idea of crossing over and passing over with this Hebrew name Pesach, which means sparing.

So let me see if I can shed a little light on this.

Micah chapter seven, verse 18.

The prophet says, "Who is a God like you who pardons iniquities and passes over," this is from the Hebrew of our, "the rebellious act of the remnant of his possession?

He does not retain his anger forever.

He delights in unchanging love.

He will again have compassion on us.

He will tread our iniquities underfoot.

Yes, you will cast all your sin, he will cast all your sins in the depths of the sea.

" Now, let me see if we can go even further back to Numbers chapter 27, verse seven.

Let me give you a little context.

It's time to divvy up the promised land and pass out the inheritance.

Zelosifod is a man who didn't have any sons, and so his daughters went to Moses to ask that they be given a portion or inheritance, basically from their uncle's portion and from their cousins, that they would be counted that way so that they would not lose, that they would have an inheritance so that their father's name would not be forgotten and left out.

And so they rule, Moses rules in their favor, and this is what he says.

"You shall surely give them a hereditary possession.

" What a clumsy translation.

"An inheritance.

" A hereditary possession.

Sometimes we just try too hard.

"An inheritance among their brothers and shall transfer the inheritance of their fathers to them.

" The word for transfer or cause to pass is a word built on the same word root, avar, from which we get Hebrew, and here it is being translated as passing over, but what it means is passing over the inheritance, transferring it to the sons.

Passover is when the Messiah, when Israel was spared the death of the firstborn and were passed over, transferred.

Into the kingdom of God.

So what does it mean to be a Hebrew?

Is it one who crosses over or one who passes over?

And the answer is yes.

The Hebrews, again, were those who sanctify God's Shem, his name among the nations, so that faith would be restored in who God is.

God spared them in the death of the firstborn and passed over them, transferring them into his kingdom.

Israel literally lived this definition out, this meaning of Hebrew when God passed over them, when he passed them through the waters of the Red Sea, and when they crossed over the Jordan River into the promised land.

Do you understand why I'm taking time?

Hebrews.

God can say so much with one word.

Yeshua.

But the ultimate Passover was yet to come.

When Messiah Yeshua would come as the first begotten, the first, the real Passover lamb, the firstborn, the first begotten of God who spares us from death, who spares us from death by the redemption of the firstborn, and having spared us, he transfers us, he Passover's us into his kingdom.

Paul wrote in Colossians, for he rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for by him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.

All things have been created through him and for him.

He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

He is also the head of the body, the church.

He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he himself will come to have first place in everything, for it was the father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him, and through him to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross.

Through him, I say, whether things are in heaven or on earth.

He transferred us, he Passover'd us, he spared us, and crossed us over into his kingdom.

Into his kingdom.

Now that can't be the noon whistle.

When God sends a book to the Hebrews, he is sending it to a people who have come out of the darkness of Egypt into the light of his kingdom, and that is exactly what Jesus did for the Hebrews and for the nations.

You know, Hanukkah begins on the 25th day of the month of Kislev.

Now there's different opinions as to where the name Kislev comes from and what it means, but interestingly, some think that it means darkness, which is very interesting.

That's probably not the dominant definition, but it's very interesting that this season of Hanukkah is celebrated in December, which is the season of darkness.

It is the season where there is more night than we are used to.

In the month of darkness, we celebrate the restoration of light because we have been spared and transferred into his glorious kingdom of light, and that is the definition of what it means to be a Hebrew.

Which means, church, you're the audience.

You're the audience.

Come on.

Oh, but I don't have, I'm not ethnically Jewish.

Have you been passed over?

Have you crossed over?

Have you been spared?

You're living the definition of what it means to be Hebrew.

The third introduction topic is about the author himself, and we don't have time to go through all the, well, some said it was Paul, some thought it was Luke, some thought it was blah, blah, blah.

You all have fingers, you can Google it, and you can come up with all of your different answers.

The only thing I can definitively tell you about the author of Hebrews is that he was an Oklahoman.

[audience laughing] Why do you laugh?

I have textual proof.

Hebrews 13, 19 says, "And I urge you all the more "to do this so that I may be restored to you the sooner.

" [audience laughing] And you didn't think you were gonna learn anything this week.

Listen, we don't know who he is, but we know what he is.

He is a Jewish believer steeped in the knowledge of the Torah, the Temple, the times of the Lord, and all things Hebrew.

He is a master, he understands rabbinic methods of teaching, and we'll try to point some of those out as we go through, but this guy is an intellect.

We don't know who he is, but we know what he knows.

He's a genius, again, of both rabbinic methodology and Greek rhetoric.

His Greek is considered high Greek.

This isn't the gospel of Mark.

And I'm not demeaning the gospel of Mark, but Mark's like a guy on the corner of the street telling you a good story in common language.

That ain't this guy.

This guy is, he knows his Greek.

And he not only knows, has a mastery of Greek, the Greek language and the vocabulary, he is a master of understanding Greek methods of instruction.

He is a master of telling the Hebrew story in the beauty of Japheth, which is the Greek language.

And one of the reasons people turned on the book of Hebrews is they did not recognize, they did not understand the methodology.

Just like, you know, when I started getting excited about the Hebraic context of things, one of the things I really loved was, I just think it's hysterical that you can go to the book of Romans in chapter four, when Paul is explaining why Gentiles don't have to become Jews to have right standing with God.

And if you understand a thing called Midrashic formula, it's a type of teaching in writing Greek to help people understand Gentiles don't have to be Jewish.

He uses one of the most rabbinic Jewish forms and styles of teaching you can possibly use.

I love that guy.

I love the genius of scripture.

And so if you don't have a trust in God's ability to choose the right guy, you're not gonna appreciate this book.

We do not know who he is, but we do know what he does.

He is the Hebrew hammer, and he drops that hammer on all those who would turn away from the one who spared them, chose them, passed over them, and transferred them out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.

And he drops the hammer saying, don't give up.

Remember the faith of your fathers.

Remember what you learned from the temple.

Remember what you learned about the light of the world.

Remember what was revealed to you in the priesthood.

Whomever he is, he is not to be maligned.

He is to be magnified as the one who drops the Hebrew's hammer.

Listen to the opening words of chapter one as he echoes the words of Paul.

God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many ways in these last days has spoken to us in his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things through whom he also made the world.

And he is the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature and upholds all things by the word of his power.

When he made purification of sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty of heaven.

You will never read a more beautiful and eloquent Greek description of our Hebrew Messiah, the lion of the tribe of Judah.

He is the Hebrew's hammer.

(clears throat) And he's calling us to not fall away.

In a season of darkness, listen to his words.

For this reason, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard.

So that we will not drift away from it.

For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

After it was at first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, God also testifying with them by signs and wonders, by various miracles, by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his word and his will.

This book is gonna drop the hammer on our hearts.

It's going to challenge us to see how we are shining in the darkness, if we're shining in the darkness.

It's going to expose those areas where there is doubt.

It's going to clarify understandings of those great topics of the priesthood and the temple and all of these things.

But it will be worthless if there's no Maccabees to hear it.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

If there's no heart that has had enough with the infringement of the darkness, if there's no passion to protect, if there's too much of a willingness to forget that we were spared, that we were transferred, that we were chosen, that we were passed over out of darkness, if there is too much comfort with the darkness, the hammer will hurt, but it will not change.

'Tis the season for the Maccabees of the kingdom of light to rise again, not just to defend one book in the New Testament canon.

Our series will do that, but our primary purpose is not just to defend whether or not the book of Hebrews should be in the New Testament canon.

It is more about whether the light of Christ is in us.

It's time to drop the hammer on the darkness and the desolation of faith, and there's only one way to do it.

Renew the light of Christ.

Worship team, you can come back.

Renew the light of Christ in our hearts and our minds.

In this temple, in which he has placed his Holy Spirit, the oil of his presence.

Someday, we can look back and we can say, yeah, we took time to remember that historic moment when those Maccabees stormed the temple, drove out the Syrians, pushed back the light, or pushed back the darkness, and that's great.

But I'm kind of tired of reading about what somebody else did.

Come on.

I didn't live back then.

I live now.

I live in the here and now where darkness is infringing and creeping in our culture, and if there is such a thing as a desolation, it is desolating the faith of people.

I just saw a thing about a book a guy wrote back in 2018, a mega church pastor who walked away from Jesus and wrote a book about it.

It's time to drop the hammer on the darkness.

It's time to drop the hammer on those who would undermine who Yeshua is and not listen to that nonsense anymore.

Come on, church, talk to me.

It's not time just to remember a season of heroes past.

It is time to rise up to be a season of heroes now.

It's time to be the Hebrew hammer.

This month, this holiday when we spin the dreidel and we see those four Hebrew letters and we remember the acronym that they represent, a great miracle happened here.

You're driving through your neighborhoods and you see a nativity.

Some lit up, some in shadow figure.

How should you react?

A great miracle happened here.

In him was life and that life was the light of men.

When you drive past and you see that manger, let your heart be reminded a great miracle happened there.

The Hebrew Roots Movement wanted me to despise the cross.

It wanted me to reject its imagery, its message, its lesson.

But every time I look at that cross, this is what I hear in my soul.

A great miracle happened there.

I was spared and I didn't deserve it.

I was crossed over.

I was taken out of the darkness.

I was passed over into Messiah who is the firstborn and the heir of all things.

And when I am in Messiah, I become the heir of all things because I have all things in him.

A great miracle happened there.

Don't despise it, embrace it, remember it, celebrate it and let him fill your heart with his light.

We're gonna drop the Hebrew's hammer.

I don't know how long it's gonna take.

But my prayer is not that this is just a sermon series, but it's a Maccabean revolt.

As we rise up to say enough is enough and become the people we have been called to be.

Let's worship as we stand.