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Welcome back to our first week together in the book of Hebrews, we're in chapter
one. Today we're going to be looking at verse three, just this one verse which
has so much about who Jesus is. Week one, day three, verse three.

Verse three says this, "The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact
representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After
he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the
majesty in heaven. " In some ways this verse, Hebrews 1, 3, may be the single
best verse in all of scripture for giving a complete, a comprehensive picture of
who Jesus is.

You look through this one verse and you find out Jesus is the radiance of God's
glory, Jesus is the exact representation of his being, third, he sustains all by
his powerful word, fourth, he provides purification for sins, and fifth, he has
sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven. That's who Jesus is. Let's
just walk through each of those together.

First, who is Jesus? He is the radiance of God's glory. Jesus is the glory of
God.

That's interesting when you see Jesus as the glory of God. It's not in some
fearful display of power, it's not in something that you can't look at. Jesus
shows himself the glory of God in the person of a suffering servant and humbling
himself to come to this earth and live for us and give his life for us.

The glory of God started, think about this with me, the glory of God on this
earth in Jesus, now Jesus existed before he came to this earth, don't forget
that. But on this earth, the glory of God started in a manger, a humble baby,
Jesus limiting himself to a baby who would grow. That's the glory of God.

And the glory of God ended his life on this earth on a cross, suffering the
unjust, the cruel punishment seemingly of men, but that's not what was going on
there. What he was doing was dying for my sins, dying for your sins. But again,
he's in this position of ultimate humility, allowing people to take his life.

In the beginning, God allowed life to be given into a manger through a woman, in
the end he allowed life to be taken through some enemies on a cross and all of
it Jesus is humbling himself. And in all of it, in all of it, there is this
glory of God. He is the radiance of God's glory.

That word radiance, if you think about the sun, the radiance of the sun is not
the reflection of the sun in a mirror or in a window off of an office building.
The word radiance here means more like the rays of the sun. I'm not saying Jesus
is the sun or sun rays, I'm just saying it is the same thing.

It is what it is. Jesus is God's glory. Glory is the awesome greatness of God.

And when you and I think of the awesome greatness of God, we think of great
displays of power. But we're reminded in the person of Jesus that we most
clearly see it in our lives today in the humility of Jesus who came and gave his
life for us. God can accomplish great displays of power whenever he chooses.

He is the creator. He is the one in the end who will be the judge. But in Jesus,
we see the humble love of God.

He is the radiance of God's glory. Number two, he is the exact representation of
his being. Jesus is God.

He is the exact representation of the being of God. Now the question to our
scientific minds is how could that happen? How can you fit God into a human
being, a human body?

How is that even possible? How can you fit God into that manger that we talked
about? How can you fit God into that boy that grew up?

How can you fit God into Jesus walking around with his disciples? For some of
us, that seems like with our scientific minds trying to fit the Pacific Ocean
into a thimble. But remember, this is not about our scientific minds.

This is about something that's above and beyond even our thinking. How do you
fit God into a human body? The same answer as we had with the radiance of God's
glory is through humility.

The Bible tells us in Philippians chapter two that Jesus humbled himself and so
became a man. So walked this earth, so gave his life on a cross. He's the exact
representation of his being.

We see in Jesus who God is because Jesus is God. Number three, this verse talks
about how Jesus sustains. He sustains all by his powerful word.

Jesus is the creator of everything, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are, but he's
also the sustainer of everything and the ruler over everything and everyone that
exists. Now some people recognize that he's their sustainer, that he's their
ruler, others don't. It doesn't change the fact that he is.

That is who he is. If you're in a place where you can look at the fingerprint on
your thumb, if you can make it out, that fingerprint, he made that. He formed
us, he fashioned us, he fingerprinted us.

But if you think of the blood that's coursing underneath that fingerprint, he is
the one who is sustaining that. He's the one who's keeping you alive. I know
this is hard for us to see sometimes.

We think I'm the one who's keeping me alive. I'm the one who's doing the work.
I'm the one who's buying the food.

God allows us to be involved in the process, no doubt about it. But the truth of
the matter is, God, who he is, he is the one who holds it all together, and
without him it would all fall apart in an instant. The truth is, you and I, we
depend on Jesus for our very existence.

And I'm not just talking about your creation existence that happened, I don't
know, 15, 25, 35, 85 years ago, that moment when you came into this world. You
depend on Jesus, yes, for your birth, but you also depend on Jesus for your
moment by moment existence. God who is life is the one who sustains life, and
without him there would be no life.

He sustains it all by his powerful word, the word of who he is. And then this
incredible verse goes on to say, "After he had provided purification for sins. "
That's what happened at the cross.

He provided purification. And those who were reading the book of Hebrews were,
remember, Jewish believers, Jewish followers. They understood this phrase.

They understood what it meant to provide purification because they knew all
about the offerings at the temple. They knew all about the sacrifices that were
made and the blood that was spilled so that purification could be provided for
the people's sin. And they knew that unless purification was provided that the
sins would stay on the people of God.

Jesus provided purification through a sacrifice, a sacrifice on a cross. He is
our Savior. And he reminds us here that we depend on Jesus not just for our very
existence, we also depend on him for our forgiveness.

We depend on him for our eternity. We depend on him for our relationship with
God. He not only has brought us life, he has brought us new birth through what
he did in purifying.

You may not be sure that your sins have been purified, that they've been
forgiven. Right now, you can ask for them to be. We'll talk about this several
times in the book of Hebrews.

You can say, "Jesus Christ, thank you for dying on the cross to provide
purification for my sins. " Right now, I ask you to forgive me. I want to follow
you.

I want to be the kind of person, I want to live the kind of life that you've
made me to live. Jesus, who is he? He's the radiance of God's glory.

He's the exact representation of his being. He sustains all by his powerful
word. He provided purification for sins.

And then number five, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven.
Now in the way that this sentence is written in the Greek language, this phrase,
this last phrase is actually the focus. You could read it this way, "Being the
radiance of glory, he sat down at the right hand.

" Being the representation of his being, he sat down at the right hand. Having
provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand. This is the place
that this whole verse is headed.

He's at the right hand of the throne of God. And this phrase is going to come up
again and again throughout the book of Hebrews, in chapter 8, chapter 10,
chapter 12. So here at the beginning, what does it mean?

What does it mean? Well, the right hand of God is the place of honor and
authority and power. George Guthrie talks about the right hand of God being the
place of five specific things.

It's the place of the promised Messiah. It's the place of the victor over sin.
It's the place of the judge of all.

It's the place of the Lord of all, and it's the place of our intercessor for our
sins. Now that's just a taste of that, a beginning of the look of that. We're
going to come back to this again and again through the book of Hebrews.

What does it mean that Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God for you? What
does it mean? It means that whatever he promised to do, he has the power to do.

He will make good on those promises. Jesus has promised to forgive. He sits at
the right hand of God.

He has the power to forgive. What does that mean for you and I this day? It
means that because of where Jesus sits, you can be set free from your doubts.

Whatever doubts you have, whatever doubts I have, and we all have them, he's at
the right hand of the throne of God. He's already taken his place in power. You
can depend on that.

So when you think, "I wonder if I really am forgiven," you look at the throne
and you realize Jesus sits there not just as our judge, but also as our
intercessor. Intercessor means the one who goes between us and God, our
mediator, our intercessor. He's praying for us, and in praying for us, he's
recognizing the forgiveness that he's given us as we've trusted him for that.

When you think, "I wonder if I'm really forgiven," you look at the throne. When
you think, when you have doubts, "I wonder if Jesus really is who he says he
is," you look at the throne. He's sitting at the right hand of the throne of
God.

When you think, "I wonder if it will really all work out in the end," you look
at the throne. He is the sustainer, and he has a plan. Jesus is Lord.

Let's pray together. Lord, I choose, we choose together this day to look at the
throne. We could look at our doubts.

We could look at our circumstances. We could look at our failings, or we could
look at our accomplishments, and we could look at our praises. But Lord, getting
too caught up in either of those, any of those, that leads us to looking at
ourselves and not looking at you, and that's when the doubts come, from the
drifting comes.

And so right now, we choose this day to look at the throne, to look at who you
are, the power that you have, and to trust in you. We trust in you in your name,
Jesus. Amen.

Tomorrow, we're going to look at how we can be sure that Jesus is higher than
even the angels.