Word of Salvation – Vol. 43 No. 38 – October 1998

 

Jesus, the Word of God

 

A Sermon by Rev. W. Wiersma on Hebrews 1:1-2

 

Congregation.

Did you know that millions upon millions of dollars are being spent on trying to find aliens in outer space?  People want to believe that there are other creatures out there somewhere.  Someone with a flair for statistics and probabilities has even worked out that, according to him, there ought to be at least 10,000 other civilisations in the universe.  So it is that organisations like NASA, which heads the American space programme, are actively building sophisticated radio telescopes to listen for signs of intelligent life in outer space.

And do you know why they are doing that?  One astronaut put it this way: "If we get contact from other civilisations in outer space, we will get a true understanding of ourselves."  And a science fiction writer says, "We will know whether we are closer to apes or angels."

People are looking for understanding.  We human beings want to know who and what we are.  But I tell you, we won't learn these things from aliens – from extra-terrestrial civilisations.  And we don't have to, for we have the answers in the Word of God.

Proverbs 1:7 sums up the issue very neatly:

"...the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,
but fools despise wisdom and discipline.”

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge!  Without the fear of the Lord, there is no true knowledge.  You can learn as much as you want, but you will not have a proper understanding of things without the fear of the Lord.

Proverbs 9:10 puts it this way:

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”

So the big question for us humans, young people, is not: Are there aliens, other civilisations, out there?  The big question is this: Is it possible to know God?  That's the big question.  Is there any way of knowing anything about God?

To that mother of all questions, the Bible, and the Christian faith based on the Bible, gives a resounding YES!  It is possible to know God.

That's the main thrust of our text today.  God has spoken!  God has spoken in such a way that we human beings can hear what He has to say.  And we can understand what He says, and know Him.  In fact, the Bible tells us that God himself has come to this world.  God has entered into his creation.

That is the stupendous marvel of the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ – that the eternal God has entered into His creation.  And God has done that precisely to establish contact with us human beings.  A contact that will have tremendous benefits for the human race.

Now the Bible talks about God's effort to establish contact with us, as a renewing of the contact.  You see, there was a time when the human race had close contact with God.  There was a time that the human race lived in fellowship with God.  But that contact with God was lost because mankind betrayed God's friendship.  God's friendship was betrayed.  We humans thought that we could manage better without God.  And that's been our basic human problem ever since.  Our mental separation from God.  That's the big problem.

I call it mental separation because it is a separation caused by man's refusal to think about, and to acknowledge, God as He has revealed Himself in His Word.  It is a mental separation, for God is still there.  He is not far from anyone of us.  God is spirit and God is everywhere.  We talk about the omnipresence of God.  God is here.  God is not just out there, millions and millions of light years away.

God is HERE.  In God we live and move and have our being.  God is all around us.  So the distance between us and God is not one of space, of so many feet, or so many kilometres, or so many light years - but the distance is one of the inability to see and refusal to know.

This earth is still God's earth; the whole universe is God's universe.  God made it all.  God keeps it in existence, he keeps it functioning upholding it by the Word of His power.  That hasn't changed.  What has changed is how we human beings see things and how that changed understanding of things effects the rest of our thinking, and effects even the way we live and the way we work.

Mankind's problem is that it tries to live as if God doesn't exist.  Jesus came into this world to show us the utter foolishness of such an attitude, and to convince us once more of the goodwill which God still has towards mankind.  God still has goodwill towards mankind.  I emphasise this because one of the big problems we humans have is that since we rejected the partnership with God, and since we went our own way, pretending that God does not exist, or worse, justifying our rebellion by saying all kinds of nasty things about God, we find it difficult to believe that God could still be interested in us.

You know, many, many times I hear people say, "But can God be interested in me?  I've blown it.  I am too bad for God."  That's the big problem, whether people admit they have it or not.  A lot of people put on a brave face.  And they act as if they can be the most godless and most careless people in the world.

I'll tell you something.  Years ago I worked in a place where there were a lot of seasonal workers, rough characters.  One day, one of the toughest guys there spoke to me, and he burst out in tears and said, "I've blown it, Bill.  There is no hope for me.  God can't do anything for me anymore.  I am too bad for him."  I tried to tell him a little about the grace of God in Jesus and I hoped that the following day we would be able to continue the conversation.  But it was not to be.  He was again the tough guy who could exist on his own.  But I am sure that the question and the fear was still there.

I say that one of the biggest problems, if not the biggest problem that human beings have, is the question, "Can God still love me?  Is God still interested in me?  Can God still do something for me?"

And so long as we aren't sure in our own mind about the answer to that question, so long as we are not sure that God loves us, we will be at odds with God.  And being at odds with God, we will be at odds with ourselves.  And being at odds with ourselves we will be at odds with everybody around us.  That's the way it is.

So the big question is: How can we find God?  How can we find God?  How can we get to know God in such a way that we can live with Him, again?  The answer to that vital question is that you can get to know God in such a way that you can live with Him, by giving Him your attention, by listening to what God has said and by paying attention to what God is effectively still saying.  God has not abandoned mankind.  God has not abandoned us.

Would any of us have such patience?  Would any of us have such loyalty, such mercy, such faithfulness as God has?  That He should still be concerned for us?  God has not abandoned us.  Our text says there were many times and many different ways in which God has spoken to mankind.  In particular to the people of Israel.  Let me just mention a few instances of God's Word being heard.

God spoke to Cain, the son of Adam and Eve.  God warned Cain about his unacceptable life and worship.  But instead of repenting and listening to God's word, Cain refused to listen to God, and the direct consequence of that refusal to listen to God was that Cain murdered his brother Abel in cold blood.  Can you imagine a crime worse than that?  How could Cain possibly murder his own brother?  Because he was at odds with God.  That's what we human beings are capable of when we are not right with God.  And all human beings, including you and I, are capable of that kind of hatred.

God spoke to Noah, and Noah passed on the word of God to the people of his day.  But they refused to heed; refused to repent and acknowledge God.  They laughed Noah to scorn.  And only Noah and his family survived the terrible flood to represent the human race in order that the Christ might be born, and that the human race might still have existence and that God might still have a relationship of love with mankind.

God spoke to Abraham, promising him a descendant, through whom all the families of the earth would be blessed.

God spoke to Moses.  God gave him detailed instructions about the elaborate temple worship and sacrificial system.  What was that actually all about?  Not only that God is utterly holy and that God is to be treated with utmost respect and care, but above all it indicated that God wanted to live among His people.  That was the whole idea of the temple with its 'holy of holies', and the Ark of the Covenant with its Mercy Seat.  God wanted to be among His people.  And the message of the yearly Day of Atonement was forgiveness, reconciliation, peace.

God spoke to and through the prophets whose message was basically a protest against the unbelief and idolatry of the people, and a call for them to turn to the living God who desires the best for His people.  "Turn, turn to me, why will you die O house of Israel?" asks Ezekiel.  "Do I delight in the death of the wicked?  Would I not much rather see the wicked repent and live?”

How can God convince us that he has good intentions towards us and that we should turn to Him?

Now that's precisely the reason why Jesus was born.  In Jesus, God Himself came to this world to prove His love for us.  In Jesus, His Son, God came to convince us of His love and to accomplish our liberation from our blindness and from our tendency to reject God.

Let me break that down a bit for better understanding of what I just said.  Let's start with the statement that in these last days God has spoken to us in His Son.  Jesus is the Son of God, through whom God speaks to us.  So, if we want to know what God is saying, we have to listen to Jesus.  If we want to know what the Holy Spirit is saying to us, we have to listen to Jesus.  Jesus is God's final and complete message to us.

Now when we say that Jesus is God's word to us, we mean that Jesus tells us, Jesus informs us, about God and about God's will towards us.  Jesus, in other words, teaches us the truth about God, which is absolutely necessary in a world where there are so many different and conflicting ideas about God that without Jesus we don't know what to believe.

Jesus is the Truth on whom we can depend.  Jesus himself said that he spoke only the things which the Father had told him to say.  Jesus is utterly reliable.

But Jesus is more than just a messenger.  He is the Son of God – the Word of God who was with God and who was God.  The Word through whom all things were made.  Two things can be said here:

1.  Jesus is God in the flesh.  He and the Father are one.  In the words of Hebrews 1 verse 3, "The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by his powerful word..."  Or in the words of Colossians 2:15, "He is the image of the invisible God.”

So, when we hear and see Jesus, we are actually hearing and seeing God.  "He who has seen me has seen the Father," said Jesus.  If you want to know what God is like, have a close look at Jesus.

That's one thing.

2.  The other thing is this: "Jesus is the Word of God," can be understood to mean that Jesus is the means or instrument through which God carries out and accomplishes his saving plan.  Our text speaks about God making the universe through Jesus – that is, through His Son, the Word.  All things were created through Him.  Verse 3 says that God sustains all things through Jesus who is His powerful word.

This means that at this very moment God is actively and powerfully carrying out his saving plan through Jesus.  God is doing something through Jesus.  God is making something happen through Jesus.  The name 'Jesus' says it all:

God saves.
God speaks, and things happen.
God spoke, and there was.
God said, let there be light, and there was light.
God speaks, and the blinkers are removed.
God speaks, and sin is atoned for,
            guilt is removed
                        peace is restored.

I say, Jesus is God's powerful word by whom God carries out His will.  We are not called to do anything but listen, watch and believe.  The Gospel tells us about what God has done and is doing in Jesus.  It calls you and me to repent of our foolishness, and unbelief.

The Gospel of Jesus, the Son of God, calls us to have faith in God.  For in the light of God's being and love we shall see light.  In the knowledge of God, we shall have the beginning of all true knowledge.  In accepting God's Word, we shall have the beginnings of real understanding.

In Jesus, we have the Word of Life.

Amen.