Repeat the Sounding Joy

Hebrews 1:1–4 (Listen)

The Supremacy of God’s Son

1:1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

(ESV)

What is Redeemer Community Church?

Redeemer Community Church is located in the historic Avondale neighborhood of Birmingham, AL. Our church family exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.

For more information on who we are, what we believe, or how to join us, please visit our website at rccbirmingham.org.

Jeffrey Heine: 00:00

In March, we began a sermon series going through the major prophets Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. And altogether, it was a forty week series looking at the prophetic words and promises found in these ancient writings. And Joel wrapped up this sermon series last Sunday as we looked at the closing sections of the prophet Jeremiah. And today, I want us to hold this study in mind, the last, you know, ten months, really. Hold in mind all that we looked at together from these prophets.

Jeffrey Heine: 00:39

And and with that in mind, for us to turn to the opening words of the New Testament letter to the Hebrews. It's printed there in your worship guide. We are gonna be in Hebrews chapter one. And as we look at this passage together, my hope and my prayer is that we will see this essential movement from the prophets to Jesus Christ. A side note plug, in the new year, our men's breakfast and our women's bible study will both be going through the letter to the Hebrews.

Jeffrey Heine: 01:14

So as you are making plans for, the New Year, try to make it a priority to be a part of, of of those studies. And it's all the more reason for us to to finish out this year, this last time here together as we as we open up God's word to look at the letter to the Hebrews beginning in chapter one, beginning in verse one. And let us listen carefully for this is God's word. Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

Jeffrey Heine: 02:07

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is much more excellent than theirs. This is the word of the lord. Thanks be to god. Let's pray together.

Jeffrey Heine: 02:41

Oh god, our maker, our sustainer, and our redeemer, You know us better than we know ourselves, and in your great compassion, you love us nonetheless. And in your love, you have spoken to us, first by your prophets, but now you have spoken through your son. By your Holy Spirit, would you help us to hear, to listen, and to believe all that the son has to speak to us today. Lord, we need your truth to quiet the lies that we are so tempted to believe and to obey you from our hearts. So would you speak, Lord, for your servants are listening?

Jeffrey Heine: 03:23

We pray these things in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Amen. I started playing guitar when I was seven years old. I wanted to play the piano though, just like my sister. But my parents saw how we behaved when there was one item that we both wanted to play with, and so I was given a guitar.

Jeffrey Heine: 03:47

Since then, I've tried to pick up other instruments, but only in casual fun ways, no no training or lessons. However, if I have a chance to play an instrument that I that I do not know how to play, which as I said is essentially every instrument, there's a little trick that I've figured out, and it and and it's a little tricky. I can usually make it sound okay, and I might even be able to pull off making someone think that I'm an actual musician. There's one song that I can play on pretty much any instrument. A cello, a harpsichord, a flute, a Chinese aarhu, and that song is joy to the world.

Jeffrey Heine: 04:24

And I can play the beginning of joy to the world nearly any instrument for one simple reason. If you can find the first note of joy to the world, that's a high c, a c five, every subsequent note is just going down the scale. And then you kind of just walk it right back up. Generally speaking, the whole song is just descending and ascending the c scale. Lowell Mason was the musician that took Isaac Watts' poem and put it to music in the eighteen hundreds.

Jeffrey Heine: 04:56

And he was an incredibly prolific and an influential musician. In fact, Mason is widely known today as the father of American church music. Because of his passion, because of his skill, his knowledge, and his impact on American music in general and church music specifically, I believe that Lowell's simple composition of joy to the world, just that descending and ascending of the scale, I think it's all on purpose. I think it was brilliantly and beautifully intentional because something is happening in those notes that is echoing, repeating, imaging what's happening in the lyrics. The formal term for this intentional relationship between lyric and music is prosody.

Jeffrey Heine: 05:42

And the simplest definition of prosody is when the sounds of the music express the meaning of the lyrics. So let's consider it. Lyrically, what's happening in that first line of joy to the world? We just sang it. It's joy to the world.

Jeffrey Heine: 05:57

The Lord is come. The lyrics proclaim, they declare, and celebrate the arrival of the Lord. And as this joyful proclamation is occurring, what is the music doing? It begins with a bright celebratory high note at the top of the scale, and it starts at the heights. Then it boldly descends the scale.

Jeffrey Heine: 06:23

Joy to the world. The Lord is come. In the lyrics, there's a pronouncement of arrival, and the pronouncement of arrival is conveyed musically in the descent. This grand descent, it occurs at the beginning of each stanza. He rules the world with truth and grace.

Jeffrey Heine: 06:44

Again, we start on high with Christ's kingly rule over the world, and it descends from the heights of heaven down to earth with his truth and grace. The image of arrival, arrival through descent is conveyed with both lyric and music, and it's precisely the good news that's being proclaimed that Jesus, the Messiah, has descended from his heavenly throne so that the sins and the sorrow would no longer grow nor thorns infest the ground. Christ comes. He descends to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews also begins at the heights.

Jeffrey Heine: 07:30

He begins his letter recounting the great revelation of God through the prophets of old. The Hebrew audience of this letter revered and adored the writings prophets because they were the means by which God revealed himself to his covenant people for generations. So the writer to the Hebrews gives this proper weight and honor to the way God faithfully spoke to their forefathers saying in verse one, long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers through the prophets. As we've studied over the past ten months, the prophets boldly and often at great personal cost spoke the word of God to the people. Words of warning and judgment, warns you of suffering and the consequences of sin.

Jeffrey Heine: 08:19

And we also heard their prophetic words of comfort, words of hope, words of divine promise to rescue and redeem the people. The writer to the Hebrews begins his letter acknowledging the treasured and glorious words of God through the prophets, recognizing that God used these prophets to reveal his word to generation after generation. But the writer isn't only looking to just celebrate the greatness of those prophetic writings. He's also setting up a critical and necessary distinction. He's he's marking a change.

Jeffrey Heine: 08:55

He's emphasizing a difference. He says, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets many times, in many ways. That is what God did. But now, now, God has done something different. Now, says the writer, here in these last days, God has spoken to us by his son.

Jeffrey Heine: 09:19

The early church teacher Origen, who was born in Egypt in January, wrote a sermon on the letter to the Hebrews in this passage, and he said this, quote, when the apostle says that God spoke in many ways, he teaches us that all previous revelations were partial. But in the son, the father has spoken fully. For the son is the very image of his substance. The son is not a shadow of the truth, but the truth itself, end quote. The son has descended from his throne in heaven, and in the son, the father has spoken fully.

Jeffrey Heine: 10:05

In other words, there's nothing that the father has to say or reveal or to promise that is not found in the son. This is why we are not waiting for further divine revelation, new revisions, new disclosures, added testaments, and divine writings. Jesus alone is the complete, full, and final word of God. God spoke through the prophets. They were his mouthpieces, but they were not God himself.

Jeffrey Heine: 10:36

The son is not simply a conduit to the father, like a vessel or a channel through which God would address his people. The son is God himself. Jesus proclaims the word of God as he is the word of God. The gospel account represents this, that Jesus did not say or do anything that he had not received from the father. We read this in John chapter five.

Jeffrey Heine: 11:01

So Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, the son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees his father doing. For without whatever the father does, that the son does likewise. There's no daylight between what the father has to say and what the son says. But Jesus is not simply a prophet who is a mouthpiece for God. He is the very son of God.

Jeffrey Heine: 11:28

So let's not make no mistake here. The the reason that the pharisees and the rulers wanted Jesus executed was because he so boldly and clearly made statements about his divine identity. There are often these strange arguments that seem to pop up every now and then in in kind of popular culture that suggest that Jesus didn't really present himself as divine or that he didn't state that he was God, but that is precisely why these Hebrew leaders wanted him killed. But we read this further in John chapter five in verse 18. Jesus was even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God.

Jeffrey Heine: 12:08

The writer to the Hebrews begins his letter by ascending to the heights with the prophets and describing the descent of the sun to come and to speak to the people of God. And in that speaking, the word of God and and in his being, the word made flesh, Jesus is fulfilling what the prophets were always pointing to, what they have been pointing to since long ago, pointing to many times and in many ways. And this is what I want us to spend the rest of our time together considering. How might we take what we have learned in our studying of the prophets Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Jeremiah and fan into flame a resounding joy, especially this Advent and Christmas season? The joy that God has come to us and has spoken to us through His son.

Jeffrey Heine: 13:03

The the fan into flame, this joy of receiving our king. And to give a framework for our time, I want us to consider three truths. The these promise and fulfillment, evident in the opening lines of the letter to the Hebrews. Three truths that describe how and what the son has spoken and accomplished and how they connect to what we have come to learn from the voices of the prophets. So the three truths are this.

Jeffrey Heine: 13:34

Jesus is the son of God who reveals God's glory. He's the son of God who reigns over creation, and he is the son of God who redeems his people. He reveals God's glory. He reigns over creation. He redeems his people.

Jeffrey Heine: 13:51

And we actually find all three of these truths packed together in just one verse, and that's verse three. In verse three, let me read it again for us. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. Second, he upholds the universe by the word of his power. And third, after making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.

Jeffrey Heine: 14:19

So the first truth. Jesus is the son of God who reveals God's glory. We find that in that first clause. He is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature. The fourth century church father Athanasius reflected on this verse writing, as radiance is from light, so the sun is from the father, eternally and without division.

Jeffrey Heine: 14:48

If Christ is eternal and without division from the father, then what Jesus reveals to us is the glory and the nature of God himself. So and this is to be so apparent, so evident to the followers of Jesus. So much so that when one of Jesus' disciples, Philip, asked Jesus to show him the father, this is how Jesus responded to him. Have I been with you so long, and you still don't know me? Before I continue on, having had the privilege to read that verse many times this week and also in front of people today, I cannot help but want to invite you to let those words bear their weight on you.

Jeffrey Heine: 15:40

Have I been with you so long and you still don't know me? I say that because I started to feel the weight of it myself as I kept coming back to it, reading it out loud. And the question came to me is, could Jesus say those same words to me today? Have I been with you so long and you still don't know me? I think he could say them to me, and not in a mean way, not in a condemning way, but in a both sorrowful and compassionate way.

Jeffrey Heine: 16:20

But Jesus goes on. Have I been with you so long that you still don't know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the father. This is what comes to us in the incarnation of Jesus. For those of you who are not Christians or at least you don't consider yourself to be a follower of Jesus, have you ever wondered what's so special about this baby born in Bethlehem?

Jeffrey Heine: 16:47

Have you wondered what is so special, about this season? Have you ever wondered why there's such this absolute focus on Jesus? Because isn't he just a kind, wise teacher, a kind of ancient hippie trying to spread peace and love in a violent world? Perhaps that's even why you are here today. You're curious about what this fuss is about Jesus.

Jeffrey Heine: 17:11

And this is one of those times of year when the fuss about Jesus spills over into the cultural main mainstream. It spills over. Like you can go to Target and you can hear songs that have to do with Jesus. Like, that's a weird time of year. Right?

Jeffrey Heine: 17:32

You might have even seen recently a news footage from London. There was a like a tree lighting celebration and the mayor of London who is a practicing Muslim was you can see him shocked in real time as he looked at the program realizing that the carol sing along was about to have him declaring Christ is born the newborn king, and he was not prepared to make that declaration. But it's just a sing along. Right? That's all it is.

Jeffrey Heine: 17:59

Like, we can we can go into all of this season and just participate in the things, and it doesn't have to have anything to do with our hearts. Well, I don't think the unbelieving world is the only one who's susceptible to that. We can try to declaw the claims of Christmas. You can try to defang or domesticate the declarations of this season, but Jesus was not and is not just a moral teacher. He isn't just another teacher offering pro tips and life hacks on how we can live better.

Jeffrey Heine: 18:33

Nor is he another prophet serving as an earthly spokesperson for the divine, speaking things that he does not have the power nor the authority to back up. The claims of Christmas cannot be domesticated just as the truth of the gospel cannot be sanitized. Jesus reveals the glory of God because he is God. The apostle Paul wrote to the first Christians in Corinth saying this, for God who said, let light shine out of darkness has shown in our hearts to give light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Jesus reveals the glory of God because he is God.

Jeffrey Heine: 19:14

He reveals that which is otherwise unknowable, unseeable, and unapproachable. Remember back to the glory of God dwelling in the tabernacle, and only a select few could enter into that presence of God's glory, and even those few who were permitted in had to approach in an exact and restricted manner, lest they be instantly destroyed. And yet here, in the very face of Jesus, the radiance of the glory of God comes to us. No longer these barriers keeping us from his presence and glory, but the glory comes to us. Almighty God made accessible to us.

Jeffrey Heine: 20:01

The unbearable glory of God became knowable, seeable, and approachable in Jesus, taking on flesh and dwelling among us. Jesus reveals the glory of God, and he is the exact imprint of God's nature. This means that we learn what God is like, his character, his nature, his essence, his being through the revelation of the Son. When Jesus heals the hurting, when he comforts the afflicted, when he commands the storms, when he judges the oppressors, when he sets captives free, forgives his enemies, lays down his life, defeats the grave, empowers and commissions his people, when he reconciles us to the father and promises his definite return, in all of it, he is revealing the very nature and identity of God. When we wish to know what God is like, we look no farther than Jesus himself.

Jeffrey Heine: 21:03

The exact imprint of the father revealing the glory of God to us. The prophet Isaiah promised that this would happen. You might recall from chapter 40 when Isaiah declared the word of the Lord saying, the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. Later in chapter 60, he said, arise and shine for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. It was promised by the prophets.

Jeffrey Heine: 21:32

And in his first advent, Jesus fulfills it. That's the first truth. Jesus reveals God's glory. He is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature. The second truth, Jesus reigns over creation.

Jeffrey Heine: 21:46

We read in verse three, the second clause. He upholds the universe by the word of his power. The descent that is represented in the melody of joy to the world. It's beautifully articulated by the apostle Paul in his letter to the Philippian Christians when he wrote these words. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be held onto, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

Jeffrey Heine: 22:24

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by being obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. The word of Christ's power upholds the entirety of the universe, and yet he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men. Christ entered this world, the world he both created and upholds, and he entered as a child, weak, humble, and poor. The author and monk Thomas Merton once said, into this world, this demented inn in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ comes uninvited.

Jeffrey Heine: 23:20

The masses were not waiting for the birth of Jesus. No throngs awaited with bells ringing out. No global livestream. No countdown. No confetti cannons.

Jeffrey Heine: 23:29

Uninvited. Unnoticed. Unwelcomed. That is how Christ entered our world. And in the gospel of John chapter one, we read, all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

Jeffrey Heine: 23:48

And just as on the night of his birth, when there was no room for the holy family to lodge or to labor, the world has continued to find no room for him, no room for the one through whom all things were made. And yet He upholds us still. Still He gives us life and breath. We live and move and have our being according to the word of His power. Even the breath in our lungs, breath that we use to reject him or deny him or refuse him or dismiss him, he supplies that very breath because his graciousness is as boundless as his glory.

Jeffrey Heine: 24:30

His reign was also foreseen by the prophets of the Lord. Jeremiah spoke of the return of the line of David in chapter 33. David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne. So did Ezekiel as he prophesied of the eternal throne of Christ in chapter 37. David, my servant, shall be king over them forever.

Jeffrey Heine: 24:49

My sanctuary will be in their midst forever. He rules the world with truth and grace. This is our second truth that Jesus is the son of God who reigns over creation. Christ reveals the glory and nature of the father because they are one, and Christ reigns over all. He upholds his creation by the word of his power.

Jeffrey Heine: 25:14

And the third truth for us to consider is He redeems His people. We read in this last section of verse three. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. Here we read of the accomplishment of Christ in fulfilling his mission from the father to purify God's people. And after completing this mission, he demonstrates the victory of his accomplishment by sitting enthroned in victory at the right hand of the majesty on high.

Jeffrey Heine: 25:47

The writer to the Hebrews highlights Jesus' effectual atoning work, his cleansing of a people. This is the image of a great high priest. The language here is priestly on purpose. The writer to the Hebrews is making a holistic, cosmic, eternal declaration about who Jesus is, and the claims are so massive, so consequential that everyone is supposed to be offended. Everyone will take issue with the expanse of these claims because the writer to the Hebrews is making three ultimate claims about who Jesus is, and there isn't room left for us to just accept him as a wise teacher, a pacifist martyr, an inspiring figure of history.

Jeffrey Heine: 26:29

The claims are too bold to leave room for simply liking Jesus. The claim here is that Jesus is greater than the prophets because he is the full and complete word of God. And Jesus is greater than any of the kings because he reigns over not a territory or a land or an earthly kingdom, he rules over all of creation. And thirdly, Jesus is greater than every priest because he does not purify temporarily. He does not atone in part.

Jeffrey Heine: 27:00

He cleanses eternally and irrevocably. Jesus does not just cleanse a sin. He forgives sin. He washes the totality of that sin and its consequences. Jesus is the prophet, the priest, and the king that was always needed and never found and who has finally arrived.

Jeffrey Heine: 27:21

That is the declaration of Christmas. That is the joy to the whole world. He has descended. The long expected messiah has descended from his rightful throne in heaven, not simply to correct us or to shame us or to even set an example for us. He has come to make his blessings flow as far as the curse is found.

Jeffrey Heine: 27:45

And if you're anything like me in these days and weeks and months since we last dragged these decorations out of their green and red Rubbermaid boxes, in this time since last year when we hung up these same lights and decorations, I have only come to see more desperately and more destructively that this curse is found. Even since we gathered last Sunday, even in these last forty eight hours, from Rhode Island at Brown to Sydney and Bondi Beach, we have seen only more the need for restoration, the need for the King to make things right, to deliver us from sin, to cleanse us, and to set right this sorrow that seems to so often reign, not only around us, but in us. And I also know that most of the sorrow of this past year that you have experienced never made the headlines, never had a story written about it, and yet you carry that story in your heart today. And the more we are aware of the desperate need, this need to be set right, to be cleansed, to be washed, the greater the joy we will have when we know that the gift of Christ has come to us.

Jeffrey Heine: 29:18

The perfect offering, the purification for sin, all the sorrow that it brings because there are no more offerings to be made. He sat down. He is seated. He's seated because there's no more atoning, no more offerings, no nothing more that he must accomplish. He sits because according to his own words, it is finished.

Jeffrey Heine: 29:47

We heard the prophets promise this future cleansing many times throughout our study. You probably recall some of the thrilling declarations to a sinful desperate people, like when Ezekiel said, I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. Ezekiel 37, I will save the people from all their backsliding, and I will cleanse them. Ezekiel 45, the prince shall provide the sacrifice for atonement.

Jeffrey Heine: 30:16

You might recall when Isaiah spoke the word of the Lord concerning the Messiah in Isaiah 53 saying, He has borne our griefs, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. And when Jeremiah declared the promise of atonement, when God said, I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sins no more. Christ descends the back stairwell of heaven and enters our world in weakness and poverty. Not to just instruct us on a better way to live or to be an example for us, but as Athanasius wrote in the fourth century, Christ became like us so that we might become like him. He descended to be with us in our sorrow so we, in turn, could ascend with him back to God in joy.

Jeffrey Heine: 31:12

That those who sow weeping will come back with songs of joy where he is seated in the heavenlies on his throne. No more sacrifices to offer. No more righteousness to impart. No more prophets to echo the words of God. The word himself has come.

Jeffrey Heine: 31:32

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to us and spoke to our fathers through the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son. Don't miss this. We have been spoken to. You have been spoken to.

Jeffrey Heine: 31:57

God has spoken to you by his son. And in his speaking, he is revealing the very glory of God. He is reigning over all creation, and he is cleansing his people from all unrighteousness. God has spoken to you by his son. Have you heard him?

Jeffrey Heine: 32:14

And not just heard him, but have you truly listened to him? Have you listened to what he has to say about himself and believed him? Have you listened to what he has to say about you and received him? Have you received what his glorious descending has achieved through his life and his death, his resurrection, his ascension to the right hand of the father? Have you listened to what he has spoken and is speaking to you by his spirit today?

Jeffrey Heine: 32:45

This season of Advent, it's a season of many different things, waiting, hoping, anticipating. It's also a season of listening. Listening because God is still speaking to us by his son. May we not miss this invitation of Advent. Don't let the activities and the busyness of the holiday fanfare distract you from listening to what the word made flesh is declaring to you even now.

Jeffrey Heine: 33:14

Do not miss the opportunity to join in the repeating, the repeating of the sounding joy of what has been said to you. Don't miss the chance to join in the chorus of the redeemed children of God celebrating and delighting in this good news of great joy. For God has spoken to us through his son, and we as his rescued children are invited to repeat the sounding joy for all the world to hear, the glories of his righteousness and the wonders of his love. Let's go to him now in prayer. Oh, God, we need your help to listen for you are already speaking.

Jeffrey Heine: 34:05

So by your spirit, would you help us to listen? By your spirit, would you give us the strength to surrender? And in our listening and our surrendering, may we find a deeper joy that exceeds our circumstances, that meets us in the realities of our living, and that we would repeat, we would echo, we would give voice to all who would hear that Christ has come, the God made flesh, the Word dwelling in us now. Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief.

Jeffrey Heine: 34:55

In the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.