Experience a language barrier, maybe through traveling, you're in another country and you're trying to communicate with someone, but you just can't quite get your point across. Uh Hopefully you're not like me where instinctually I will just speak louder and more slowly as if that's gonna help. Have you ever been in a situation? And like, they don't understand you and say, OK, where is the bathroom? Like is it like, OK, that doesn't help. Like when you don't speak the language of the native country, it's difficult to communicate. You know, I think about when I think about language barriers, I think about uh some courageous people that I've known in my life as a legacy leader. Really? For me, a guy by the name of Don Callan who was at uh where I went to college at Cedarville University. Go yellow jackets and OK. Yeah. And like uh two of us in there and that would be my family. So that's great but small, awesome school in Ohio. And Don Callan is just like a legend there. In fact, the gymnasium is named after him. He's been there like a bazillion years and he actually started the missions program at the university. And so back in the sixties and seventies before they had like great ways of communication, he would literally just fly into countries and then walk the city, praying, listening for English. He would go through, he found himself in some precarious situations. And he said, well, I asked him why, how could you do that? He's like, I just trust to God. And uh and so he would walk through these cities and he would listen for words that he would understand and then he would connect with that person, uh hopefully leave that person to Christ and then he would connect with others and then someone who could then speak both languages and, and partnering together, then they would plant churches and start ministries and then send teams over from the university. So pretty incredible to do that. But it starts with being able to understand one another and to be able to speak the language. Now, if you've never experienced the language barrier, maybe from uh just from one country to the next, uh maybe just experience the language barrier uh between husband and wife, right? Like men and women. So for example, uh when uh guys in the room, we all know this to be true that if the significant other in your life, and you ask, how are you doing? And they say I'm fine, does not mean the same thing as when we think it means fight. And so like there is context underneath, even when we understand the words or for example, if you have teenagers, there are slang terms that you just don't know what they're saying or when you try to incorporate their vernacular into your vernacular, they just cringe a little bit. Right. Um, but it's been true across every generation. I was curious. So I looked it up and actually just a quick snapshot just running through of what was the most popular slang term at any given year. And so just kind of jumping around decades. Um, this is according to the research here, what was the most popular slang term, um, by decade or not just for the decade, but in a, it just any given year. And, uh, and now some of those words are just in regular use, but just so we walked through it. So, um, 1931 the top slang word was snazzy, which is good. Uh, 1941 if you want to be cool. Um, and someone was attractive, we call them a dream boat. Um, 1951. If you were not cool, you were called square or nerd. Uh, in 1961 it was the term bratty came in use. Uh, that someone is being bratty. 1971 people were called deadheads. Ok. Um, in there, in 1981 you were told to take a chill pill to calm down for whatever reason. The, the most used slang term in 1991 was tidy whities. So Teddy Whitey's was in there around 2000, 2001. It was whatsapp and, uh, surprised that one hasn't hung in there. Um, in 2011, uh, you had my boo or my bay, which bay stands for before anyone else in case you want to know where that came from. Um, and then in 21 it's about, you know, something is cap or no cap, right? And then uh you can go in today if someone's got Ris or going through everything. And if you just use these terms, if you wanna see your teenager cringe, just try to use some of these terminologies and they will immediately stop using those terms or through, I can't use it now. Um So here's the thing, there are language barriers from one country to the next. There are language barriers between people, there are language barriers between generation, but I also believe there are spiritual language barriers. What I mean by that is that I think in a world that is craving for people to speak Jesus, I think we end up speaking religion, right? We end up speaking in a way and living in a way that does not showcase the grace and the power of love that should be coming from Jesus. So if you're taking notes, I want you to write this down is that our main idea for today is that, that the life of Jesus serves as the language of God that the life of Jesus is like the language of God. So here in America, we speak English in Germany, they speak German in Brazil, they speak Portuguese just testing you there. Um Or in Christianity, Christians are called to speak Christ. In other words, to live as Jesus lived to speak, as Jesus speak and to love as Jesus love. But where does that come from? Well, we want to take a deep dive into a new series today called Jesus Is Greater. Uh I agree with my friend Nolan. He's pretty sure before he's starting a church on the West Valley, we gave him some of our portable church gear, which is exciting. Uh They're launching here, September 10th. But uh he's starting this, this really awesome church there called the Garden Church. And they say that they want their church and I agree our church to be the same is that a church should be a place for both the skeptics and the saints as well as the skeptical saints. So if you are checking out Christianity, if you're curious about what Christians believe, this is a great Sunday to be here because we wanna share who is Jesus and why do we believe what we believe? And so I wanna give you permission to disagree with me here, but I wanna invite you to consider it to look at the word of God as what does the word of God say, and what does the Holy Spirit say to you through the word of God? And so today we're gonna jump into a study of the book of Hebrews, uh a little bit of background in this book of Hebrews. It's the 19th book in the New Testament out of 27 books there. It was written in the sixties of AD uh probably before 70 AD. And the reason for that is that the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 ad. And there was no mention of that in this letter. And so it was probably written before then. What's interesting about this book is that there really is no known author, someone clearly wrote it, but we don't have the specific author. Some people think it's Paul because he wrote much of The New Testament and there's a lot of similar themes in there. However, there are some differences. It's written in a different form of Greek. It's like a higher level Greek that was written into it. Also, there's not the same components that his other letters have. It has uh normally his letters have a signature involved a direct address to his audience in a, a greeting and salutation. And so there's some components that are in his other letters that aren't necessarily in Hebrew. So that makes some people think that it was somebody maybe connected to the mystery because it says in there that they knew the apostles that they knew Timothy so, maybe it was a guy named Barnabas, maybe it was a guy named Apollos. Maybe it was Paul. We don't know, but the message we do know. And so we don't know which specific context of Christians that it's written to. But we do know that this letter was written primarily to Jewish Christians who had a large history with the Old Testament and the Old Testament, we actually quoted, it was interesting here um by the Septuagint version or the Greek translation of the Hebrew text. And so when you think through this, that he's writing to Jewish Christians who are experiencing some persecution, who might be questioning their belief in Jesus and considering going back to other pagan ways or old religious ways. And so the theme of the book is actually the name of this series, which is simply Jesus is greater. And so I invite you to examine the scripture with me. We're gonna jump into it together and see what does it look like as we study? Now? One more thing before we jump into this study is that in the Old Testament, there are three primary offices that are highlighted repeatedly throughout the Old Testament. The first one was seen as a prophet. So if you think about guys like Elijah people who did miracles and actually wrote some of the letters, so there are major and minor prophets, but really what a prophet did was that it revealed the truth of God So it declared what God was going to do, affirmed what God has already done or gave a warning to people if you don't follow God's word, this is what's gonna happen. And so you had a prophet role and you had to bat 1000 for that. Like in order to be a prophet, you had to predict things accurately 100% of the time. So you can't be like, uh you know, I'm a 5050 prophet, like you had to actually predict things correctly the whole time. And then you had another role called a priest. So priests, Mack then represented on behalf of the people. And so they would offer an animal sacrifice uh as atonement or payment for the sins because the sin separates people from God. And so there need to be a payment for that. And then there are regular sacrifices and then there is one time a year where the high priest will go into the holy of Holies and will go in and give off atonement on behalf of the nation. Now, if that priest wasn't right with God in that moment, God would strike him dead. So they would actually had a habit of tying a rope to the high priest when they would walk in because if someone gets struck down in that moment who's gonna go in after him, right? Cause you can't do. It's a little, it's, it's crazy but they'd have a rope tied in And so if something happened, they could, they could take care of it. It's kind of a crazy thing, but it's what would happen. And so there is a role of a priest that had a very important place on behalf of believers that would continually mediate on behalf of the people that's gonna come into play in just a moment. And then you had another role of king, this is someone who ruled and who reigned. And so you think of King David, you think of King Solomon and others. And so what the writer does through Hebrews and what he's going to do all throughout Hebrews is that he's gonna proclaim and make the argument that Jesus is the fulfillment of all those roles from the Old Testament in the greatest way in the New Testament. This means that Jesus is the prophet or the ultimate reveal of God that he ca he comes and he proclaims the gospel, the good news and that he is the ultimate truth teller. But then secondly, he's also the great high priest because he offers a sacrifice once and for all. And so we're not continually practicing sacrifices now, but rather remembering what Jesus did as sacrifice then. And so he is the ultimate prophet or reveal of God. He is the ultimate priest or redeemer. And then the last thing is is that he is uh the uh Jesus is the ultimate king or the ruler. And so he reveals the truth of God. He's the redeemer, the gospel of God and then he's the ruler over the kingdom of God. And all this portrayed is gonna be seen multi multiplied throughout this message found in Hebrews. But let's go ahead and jump into these first couple of verses here. Hebrews chapter one, verses one in the first part of verse two long ago in a galaxy, far, far away. Ok. You know, you were thinking that if you're a Star Wars fan, I know I was and I was talking with the tech team in between services. I wish we could have like done the scrolling tech. You know, they've been great like Hebrews open your Bibles and it's just scrolling up. They have been great and then that and I wanna be a Jedi. Um but they said they couldn't trust me with the Lightsaber. So here we are. And uh no. So it says long ago in many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days, he's spoken to us by his son. Now, this is really interesting because he's acknowledging the old Testament way of doing things and he's not questioning does God speak, but really how God has spoken. And so he's acknowledging two phases here, there's what God has done and then what God did through Jesus and how we live in light of that. And so some examples of how God spoke through various ways. In Genesis chapter one, God spoke creation into existence. Let there be light. In Genesis 28 God spoke to Jacob through a dream. In Exodus chapter three, God spoke to Moses through a burning bush. In Exodus 31 God spoke to Moses through the 10 commandments being etched on stone tablets. Um And then actually Peter in his letter to the church there in second Peter chapter one verse 21 he actually makes reference to the Old Testament prophets that they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, given the divine word of God that was written. And so while there is not, um there are not perfect people and that they're all broken people, there is the perfect inerrant word of God, which ironically, I could never spell the word inerrancy correctly in seminary. I don't think I ever and to this day, I don't know how to spell it. So someone asked me, how do you spell inerrancy? It's like, I don't know, and I feel like that's on purpose. So, um and so while people are broken, God is not, and so God spoke through all these different ways, through dreams, through visions. And then even in numbers one time in numbers 22 God spoke through Balaam's donkey. And so he spoke through all these different ways. But it says in here that in these last days, God spoke to us in so in other words, uh here in America, people speak English in Christianity. Christians speak Christ that Jesus actually is the language of God. Now, Jesus is also referred to in the gospel of John John, 11 it says in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. And so we have this picture of who Jesus is and how God spoke through Jesus. That the life of Jesus really is the language of God. This is what I want you to think about today. That as we are speaking, that everyone's speaking, the question is what are we actually saying with our lives? And so if we take a look at this here, we then move to the idea of, well, then who is Jesus? Who is this character Jesus? And why as Christians do we believe in Him? If Jesus is considered the language of God, if we're supposed to model our lives after God, then would it be worth our time to examine His qualifications? Right. If for those sports nerds who haven't done it yet or about to, we go through the NFL Fantasy draft, which if you're not a part of NFL fantasy drafts, you, we look ridiculous, but if you're a part of it, you love it, right? And you start researching all the stats and qualifications of, well, should I take this person? Should I take this person? What these next couple verses do is that it gives the stats or the resume of Jesus according to scripture here, according to the Bible, as we know it is. Why is Jesus worthy to be worshiped? Why is Jesus worthy to be praised? Um It's one of the strongest passages we have in scripture that the gospel accounts are awesome too. I also recommend Colossians 115 to 20. But through these next couple verses here in three verses, you're gonna see seven qualifications of Jesus that describes who Jesus is, what Jesus has done and why we sing worship and praise to him. So let's go ahead and read this passage together. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the world that he is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. And he upholds the universe by the power of 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 the angels as the name he has inherited is much more excellence than theirs. Now, let's walk back through this passage and describe what are the seven qualifications of Jesus. There's much more than that, but this is a great starting place if you're considering Christianity and you're considering who Jesus is here according to scripture as we believe it. Number one, we believe that Jesus here is the heir of all things. In other words, when you have an inheritance, that's something to receive at the end. And so God is ultimately going to be king and ruling and reigning over that. So the first born of creation, as it says in Colossians, one is not so much of position, but rather of rank that when we get to the end of the line, Jesus finishes first and he's reigning and ruling over them. So it's at the very end. But the next thing is is that, that he says in here that he also created the world. So he's at the very beginning. So he's the alpha and the omega in in Genesis, one in the Hebrew scriptures. It says in there that in Genesis 127 God said, let us make man in our image referring to the pronoun there as plural connecting Jesus in the Trinity there with God. And so God is at the end, God is in the beginning. He's the creator of all things. Next. It says he is the radiance of the glory of God. When something radiates it, it emits out AAA way to picture this is if you think about the sun in our galaxy and it's, it's not even like a, a superstar, it's not an all star, right? It is a middle league minimum star in the payment of of galaxy stars, right? Like in here like it's, it's the veteran's minimum here. If you're talking about sports and Galaxies put together some of you that resonates with some of you miss it. That's OK. It's just a normal star but it's so hot. This atomic like nuclear burning thing. Now, that's 93 million miles away, radiates out and focuses all of its energy right here in Arizona in the month of July and August, right. What is that really? Come on? Like, I mean, here we are like on this ball, this earth spinning 1000 kilometers a second that is then also rotating here around the sun. And then uh then yet we're getting attacked with lasers basically from the sun. And we feel the heat now that heat comes directly from the sun and is an extension of it in the same way, Jesus is that extension or the radiation there or the the light beams if you will of God. And so when you see Jesus, you have seen God and you have that picture of who God is and what God has done. And so it's interesting enough too that we question whether or not God is in control. We're like God, are you there? Do you hear me? Do you see what's going on in my life? But we cannot even walk outside without having to lather our bodies in sunscreen, right? But if we were far farther away from the sun, we would freeze. If we were any closer, we would burn. And yet here we are in this place ex experiencing the radiance of the glory of God. Why is the glory of God important? Well, the word glory is the word doxa, which means heavy or heavy weight or heavy opinion. Think about if you throw a giant boulder into a pond, it would have ripple effects because it has weight. Or if you have a scale, if you have, if you ever are on the playground as a kid back when they had seahorses and things and seesaws, right? You always had the bigger kid that would hop on and then it didn't matter what you would do. Um because then the other kids would get on and they can't budget uh Mark who's a big guy like myself, he knows right? And what would we do? We wait till the person's on and then we jump off real quick and they'd like smack to the ground and we'd laugh and feel bad. But that's what it is because we're big. And so here's what happens when you put the weight of God on one side. There's nothing that could even that out on the other side because he has ultimate worth value and weight. So to glorify God is to give weight or to give opinion or to make obvious or famous, the name of God. It says in Romans 323 that for all have sinned and fall short, not of the love of God. It says that we have fall short of the glory of God because His perfection, his holiness that, that has separated us that even on our best day, we're not budging that seesaw. We're not evening things out with the power, the weight of God where Jesus is the radiation or that the light beams, if you will of the glory of God, it's that visible expression of light and warmth felt from God himself. So then we have that picture there. The next thing is, it says that he is not only expression of God's glory, he's the imprint of God's nature. Think about those spy movies where someone needs the eye thing that to scan into the door or, or you have the thumbprint to like unlock something that here Jesus Ha has that shared DNA of God. And so we see the imprint of His nature, but then we go in further and it says that He is the sustainer of all things that God upholds the universe by the power of His word. And so Jesus created all things. He will reign over all things, but he's also sustaining everything now. And so it's the beginning, the middle and the end. And so it's not just one of us, but he is the greatest of all of us that he in fact is the son of God according here to the word of God. And so then it says in there that not only is He sustaining all things, it says the purification of sins. This is the Easter story that Jesus came down, died on the cross as payment for our sins and then rose again on the third day. And so that purification of sins is really payment four to which then he sits at the right hand of God, not because he's tired, but because it's finished. And so that, that position there is one of authority. And so here in just three verses, we see that God is, is creator, he's sustainer, he is the ruler over all things that he is the radiance of his glory, the imprint of his nature that he died for your sins and for mine and now sits at the right hand interceding for you and me, this is why Jesus is worthy to be praised. Now, in this particular letter, in this context, they're referring to the ministry of angels. And so he, he talks in there. So because of all these things, Jesus is greater than the angels. And so what, what are angels? We don't have time to do a deep dive in it. But just a quick summary of it. If you think of Michael and Gabriel and others throughout scripture here in the Bible, you see five roles of angels. They are seen as messengers, they deliver the word of God, they're seen as ministers, they are seen as warriors, they help in battles, they are seen as managers, managing situations and then they're seen as worshippers as that angels are told in heaven that there are 10,000 times 10,000 created there with wings and, and eyes and all the craziness there that equates to, that's 100 million angels in heaven created for the purpose of worshiping holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. And so angels have all these roles, but what he does is through verses five through 14. And we don't have time to go through all of that today. But he shares that Jesus is greater than those angels. And it says in that, um, and he quotes the Old Testament, let me just count it real quick. 1234, seven times. So he's not just, he's not just making it up off of his head, but whether he quotes the Old Testament seven different times in there. And he actually is saying even in the Old Testament in the Psalms, they refer to angels as ministers of God. But that Jesus is actually even greater than those angels. So he quotes things like Psalm 27 2nd Samuel 714. Psalm 97 7. Psalm 1044. Psalm 45 6 and seven. Psalm 102 25 to 27 and Psalm 110. And so why does he do all this? Well, if you picture being adrift in the ocean in stormy choppy waters, what the writer here is trying to say that in the choppy spiritual waters of this world Jesus is the only float worth clinging to that in, in a world where it's, it's man's attempt to get to God. What Christianity says is that God came down to man, created the world sustains the world rules the world. And he used this power not to overshadow, but to serve and to give and to sacrifice. And then he tells us to go and do likewise. I think for far too long churches, churches have really spoke the language of judgment. We spoke the language of that. We're better than that. We think we do a few rules a little bit better than others. And that gives us the right to point the finger, right? Maybe you grew up in a place where a teacher or a parent said, well, when you point your finger, you got three fingers pointed back at you, right to which then I responded, ah, and I would just point people like that and it's like, got you. I was like, no, you look ridiculous. Um But come on, as Christians, we've got to stop doing this, pointing out what's wrong doing all these things. I'm not saying that we stopped declaring truth, but we have to start speaking the language of Jesus. Jesus was all knowing all present, all powerful. And how did Jesus choose to use his power to serve to love? You know what's crazy to me is that Jesus knew that Judas was gonna betray him and yet he washed his feet anyway. Right? We live in a world that teaches you that when in trouble, you need to grab a weapon. But Jesus and his last night on earth grabbed a towel and he washed the feet of the disciples and it took communion together, said love one another. As I have loved you. It's a different language. But here's the thing we've all been created in the image of God, which means that when you speak the language of Jesus, you speak the language of someone's soul. You when you meet a need, when you connect at an emotional level, when you experience that who God is and what God has done, it changes you. That's why we can say the life of Jesus is the language of God. Because when you love others, the way that Jesus loved us, it makes an impact. And I get that people disagree with Christians and other things. But let God be God and let us be those who love, declare His truth, but then live it and love and serve everybody, right? We don't determine who's in God does. Our job is to love and to share and to serve. And so let me ask you two questions in light of Jesus being the language of God. Number one, you have to ask yourself, am I listening to God? Am I listening? Am I attuned to what God is saying to me? Whether through the word of God through the nature around me through the people in my life. Am I listening to what God is saying? Because the question is not, does God speak? The question is, am I listening? Am I paying attention to my responding to what God has said? Because the beautiful thing about scripture is that we don't think salvation is something to be achieved but rather received. And that Jesus, all those qualifications, all those things were done So that when he died on the cross of rose again, he conquered death, he conquered Brokenness. He offers purpose and forgiveness and joy and freedom and peace. And so when you receive that, it changes you. And so one, are you listening to God? Because the world says something different, right? The world's gonna preach pride and materials and stuff, get what you can, what you can love is love, do what you want however you want whenever you want. And God says, no, die to self. That's not about the temporary. It's about the eternal, it's not about pride, it's about humility. It's not about darkness, it's about light because when you're listening to God, then you can then ask a second question and it does my life speak to others. Every life speaks. You're saying something, your calendar, your pocketbook, your attitude, your social posts are saying something. So are you speaking the language of the soul? Are you speaking to the needs of the people around you with what Jesus gave you because then we can be a church, it is light, we can be a church that looks to give, not to get, we could be a church that can sacrifice and serve because Jesus gave us the model. And when you do that, you're speaking life, you're speaking love and you're speaking the language of God. When you be Jesus to the people around you. If we do that church, the world is gonna change and your world is gonna change. If we listen to God and we speak that language of how we live and how we love one another as He did, will you pray with me dear only Father God, we praise you God. No one is seeing God, but we have the ministry of your son Jesus. The most talked about figure in all of history that yes, you've spoken through various ways. But the greatest picture of who you are is given through your son Jesus. And so we put our faith and trust in you. We believe in you. We are listening Jesus and then we wanna go and speak that language to love and to serve others the way that you have loved and served us. Let us be light in a world of darkness. Let us share a different language. They can connect with the needs of our soul. We love you God and your sons and we pray amen. I wanna invite you if, if what I said to you. It sparked some interest or you had questions or you wanna learn more about faith or Christianity in general. I'd love for you to let me know. I wanna get connected with other people that, that believe this. I want to go through this. I want you to let me know and I'll be on the lobby too. Happy to pray with you, talk with you. But let's have a dialogue. Let's have a conversation, right? And let's go and be Jesus to the world that desperately needs him today. All right. Will you stand to sing with me?