"The Final Word" - Doug Rehberg

This week marks the beginning of a new preaching series. We are finished with glimpses of God. We’ve  had enough short, temporal divine exposures. We are moving on to FULL DISCLOSURE!

Last Fall for four months we studied places in the Scripture where God reveals Himself through life-changing encounters. Often those to who He came were at their wits end. Remember Job? Remember Hagar? Remember Zechariah? They were individualized revelations. They were moments in time when God showed up as a whirlwind, a whisper, a commander or an angel. But now we are on to a much greater, permanent revelation. We are on to one of the most majestic windows into the totality of God’s nature and purpose that’s recorded in Scripture.

Someone has said that the Book of Hebrews was written by a Hebrew to other Hebrews telling the Hebrews to stop acting like Hebrews. But it’s so much more than that.

Truly, many early Jewish believers were slipping back into the rites and rituals of Judaism to escape the mounting persecution. But, the Book of Hebrews is more than a chiding piece of prose. The Book of Hebrews is a literary masterpiece most likely penned some time before the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. The warnings offered by the author are as poignant and relevant today as they were in the first century. But what’s often missed is the method by which anyone might hope of heeding the warnings. The method is simple - fixing your eyes on Jesus. As we will see throughout our study, Full Disclosure; Jesus is God fully revealed. If you want to know what God is like – look to Jesus. If you want to avoid slipping away, the only way to do it is to fix your eyes on Him. And that’s exactly what the Book of Hebrews helps us do.

More than a century ago an African-American spiritual was written that captures the sentiment of Hebrews perhaps best of all:

In the morning, when I rise
In the morning, when I rise
In the morning, when I rise
Give me Jesus

When I am alone
When I am alone
Oh, when I am alone
Give me Jesus

When I come to die
When I come to die
Oh, when I come to die
Give me Jesus

Give me Jesus, give me Jesus
You can have all this world
You can have all this world
You can have all this world
Just give me Jesus

And so we will! Throughout our study we will repeatedly point to the absolute primacy and supremacy of Jesus. We will see that He is the Final Word. He is our Brother. He is our Builder. He is our Rest. He is our Counselor. He is our Promise. He is our Covenant. He is our Sacrifice. He is our Foundation. He is our Resurrection. He is our Shaker. He is our Grace. He is our City. And He is our Shepherd. In short, He is our Everything! And that stands to reason, because He is God FULLY DISCLOSED.

In preparation for Sunday’s message from Hebrews 1:1-4 & 2:1-4, entitled “The Final Word” you may wish to consider the following:

1. Where is the greeting in this letter?
2. Is it a letter?
3. What is the implication of verse 1?
4. What is the significance of God’s Final Word being God’s son?
5. What does it mean to say that Jesus Christ is “the radiance of the glory of God”?
6. What does it mean to say that Jesus Christ is the exact imprint of God’s nature? (verse 3)
7. How is “drift away” possible? (2:1)
8. What does it mean to drift away?
9. In what way is 1:1-4 a summary of the rest of the Book of Hebrews?
10. In what way does the truth of these eight verses meet our every need? 

Looking forward to seeing you all this Sunday!