All that we do as a church, if you've ever wondered, all that we are trying to do is to point to him because we believe that he is the one that holds things, everything together. He's the one that offers salvation, but also we want to look to him for help, for guidance, for forgiveness, for sustenance, for daily grace, for energy. He's the ultimate purpose for why we live, how we act, what we believe, why we believe it, all that we do in our worship service, the music, the prayer, the four minutes of connecting with your neighbor, it's because of Jesus. And so consider Jesus this morning again, if you nothing else, consider Jesus with that. We have been in a sermon series for the whole summer that we are calling Cloud of Witnesses. It's an opportunity for us to look at God's big story, but as told through different characters, different biblical characters. And from week to week, as we've done, we continually see God's story point us back to Jesus. That that is God's story is pointing us to Jesus. And so, not that it's a big spoiler alert, but that's what we're going to be doing again today. We, we get this Cloud of Witnesses sermon series title. If you don't know from the Book of Hebrews, we're not entirely sure who the author was, but the term cloud of witnesses comes from towards the end of the letter in chapter 12, in chapter 11, just previously, the author goes through all of these people who through faith persevered, and he's describing the struggles and the trials and not necessarily even rhetorically asking how did they persevere? And the answer is they were looking to Jesus whether they knew it or not. In our Bibles might be labeled as hall of faith, but from all of those faithful ones, then we jump into chapter 12, which is where we get the cloud of Witnesses. It says this Hebrews 12, starting in verse 1. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. Let us run with perseverance, the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him. He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. So we've got all of these people that have gone before us, all of these faithful ones, how did they persevere? They looked to Jesus how do we persevere? We all. Oh, this is going to be a great morning. Awesome. I love a little bit of feedback, so that's great. Thanks, Jack. Okay, it's Jesus. How do we persevere? We look to Jesus, fixing our eyes on Jesus. That's where we get our sermon series title from. We want to every single character, every single person, every single idea that we look at within this series, we want to say, cool, what? What were you doing? That's going to point us back to Jesus? So with that being our series, I actually wanted to take the opportunity to go all the way back to chapter one of Hebrews. If the author references all, all of these faithful ones, this great cloud of witnesses pointing us to Jesus in chapter 12, how might he have started in chapter one? So that's where we're going to be this morning primarily. So if you have your Bibles, feel free to open up to Hebrews chapter one. And we'll start with verse one. In the past, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets and at many times and in various ways. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things and through whom also he made the universe. 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 purifications for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven. So far, makes sense. God spoken to us in the past, he's used prophets. We've actually looked at a number of these supposed prophets in our sermon series who were literally commanded by God speak these words unto the people. But now the author is saying God is speaking to us not through prophets, but through His Son, Jesus. And we get a little taste of the Trinity. So the radiance of God's glory, the exact representation of his being sustaining all things, providing purification of sins, now sits enthroned in heaven. Okay, so coming out of the gate from verse one, he's like, I want to talk about Jesus. I want to write a letter about Jesus.
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Let'S see how he continues. So he, the Son became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs. Angels. This, this seems maybe a little out of left field if you didn't necessarily know exactly where the author was going to take the rest of the letter and how he's going to frame different arguments and kind of logic. Angels. We are looking at angels today. Today angels will be our witness, so to speak. And now, I don't know about you, but I was taught some things about angels growing up. I'm. I'm guessing this is kind of like standard, like when you think of angels, okay, sitting on a cloud with wings. Maybe you play in a harp, something like that.
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Maybe it was your tradition to have an angel tree topper.
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We had a star, we had a light up star, but we had other people that had angels.
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I don't know if you know this, but there's been a recent resurgence of people trying to reclaim what they would call biblically accurate angels. Have you guys seen these? Cherubim, seraphim. Wild, absolutely wild. The eyes, guys, the eyes. Okay, that last one actually is a T shirt that you can buy straight off of Amazon.
Okay? Okay.
But maybe this isn't your speed. Maybe you wouldn't wear it as a T shirt, but maybe you'd put it on top of your Christmas tree.
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These are biblically accurate angel Christmas tree toppers. And the one in the upper right hand corner, that is crocheted. That is homemade, friends.
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I've already asked Ree. She said she would. She'd make all of us one. So thank you, Ree. Okay, so angels, what I want to do with the remainder of our time. This morning, give us a little bit of a snapshot. Give us some background information about what the Bible actually says about angels, who they are, what they are. And this won't be exhaustive. There's. There's far too much to. To get into within one message. But I want to do that so that we eventually can get back to Hebrews. We're going to get back to Hebrews, but we just need some background information. So here we go, jumping in angels. Who they are, what they are. Okay, first, they are created. They are created beings could have chosen a number of different passages, but chose this one out of Nehemiah, chapter 9, verse 6. You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is in it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything in the multitudes of heaven worship you. This is describing a creator God, which by some mathematical property that I forget, means that everything else has to be created. Okay, we've got one creator. Everything else is created, including everything in heaven, which means angels are created. They're not omnipresent, they're not everywhere all the time. They're not all knowing. They're finite. And there's different types. We've Kind of shouted them out already. There's seraphim, there's cherubim, there's regular angels. We'll get into that.
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Okay. So they're created, first thing. Second thing, they're spiritual in nature. I chose this passage out of Isaiah, chapter six. He's having a vision of the heavenly throne room.
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Kind of in the spiritual realm. Says this. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, one of the kinds of angels, each with six wings. With two wings, they covered their faces. With two, they covered their feet. And with two, they were flying and they were calling to one another. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory. At the sound of their voices, the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. So here we have seraphim, created to just be in worship of God in heaven. Got another passage, this time in Ezekiel, chapter 10, starting verse 9. He is also having a vision of the heavenly realms, of the spiritual realm. This is what he said. I looked and I saw beside the cherubim, another kind of angel. Four wheels, one beside each of the cherubim. The wheels sparkled like topaz. As for their appearance, the four of them looked alike. Each was like a wheel intersecting a wheel. As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the cherubim faced. The wheels did not turn about as the cherubim went. The chairman went in whatever direction the head faced without turning as they went, the entire bodies, including their backs, their hands, and their wings, were completely full of eyes. There's the eyes, as were their four wheels. I heard the wheels being called the whirling wheels. Each of the cherubim had four faces. One face was that of a cherub, the second, the face of a human being, third, the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle. So here we have a finite earthly being trying to describe a spiritual heavenly one. Just utter confusion. There's wheels, and sometimes the wheels are the angels, but then they're not. And then there's four faces. And. Okay, all of this is getting at. They are other than us.
Okay.
They exist primarily in the spiritual sense. With that, though, every once in a while, and we get this from Scripture, they will come down out of the heavenly realms and are sent by God to do a job. And there's different jobs as told to us within Scripture. And sometimes they then manifest themselves physically. And it's not always in humanistic form. One of the most prominent examples is at the Exodus where God is leading his people, leading Moses and the rest of the Israelites out of Egypt, okay? And it. And it says, a pillar of cloud and fire are leading the Israelites out of Egypt. But it also actually says, that's an angel. So Exodus 14, 19, 20. Then the angel of God who had been traveling in front of Israel's army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved in front and stood behind them, coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel throughout the night. The cloud brought darkness to one side and lights to the other. So neither went near the other all night long. So when they manifest themselves physically, they are taking on the representation and the physical manifestation of God in that moment. Kind of wild. As we mentioned, they have different jobs. Angels have. Have different jobs to do, different roles. We're going to kind of run through some of these here pretty quickly. One of their primary roles just enact God's will on earth during the final plague. Going back to Exodus and Moses and everything, okay? As told to us In Exodus chapter 12, it says an angel of the Lord would go throughout all of Egypt, and if it sees, saw the blood of the lamb on the doorposts, it would pass over, okay? Not bringing judgment, not bringing destruction on that household. It was an angel of the Lord. Similar in Sodom and Gomorrah. In Genesis 19, it tells us that there's an angel of the Lord that is enacting judgment upon those two towns. One of my favorite, though, is in numbers, chapter 22. Guys, do you know there's a talking donkey in scripture? Yeah. Yeah.
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If you don't know. Kids, if you don't know, you should have your parents read this chapter to you, okay? There's a talking donkey in the Bible. Balaam, who is kind of a prophet, is traveling to do some nefarious things, okay? And as he's riding on his donkey, there's an angel of the Lord in the road. And the donkey sees it. And Balaam doesn't. And the donkey is like, nope, okay. Because it actually says there's a flashing sword that the angel is holding. And the angel says, nope, and turns away. And. And Balaam doesn't treat the donkey very kindly. That happens three times. And finally, the Lord allows the donkey to open up its mouth and speak words. And the donkey functionally says, why do you keep treating me this way? And for some wild reason, Balaam doesn't scream and Terror and says, why is my donkey talking? But actually answers the donkey. And it's at that point that Balaam's eyes are open and sees the angel. It's great. So enacting God's will on earth, angels also act as guardians and warriors. In Genesis 3, this is shortly after Adam and Eve are kicked out of the garden because they slept. It tells us there are angels with flashing swords of fire guarding the way back into the garden.
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They're guarding. In Second Kings, chapter six, there is an enemy force that's surrounding a town, and there's so much dismay and everyone's depressed. What are we going to do? And Elisha, no, you have no idea who's here. And the eyes of a couple of them are open and they. They realize the city is completely surrounded by angels and chariots of fire. That's where we get this phrase is from, from this passage. Chariots of fire, okay? Do not, do not be dismayed. Angels are here to fight, okay? And then In Revelation, chapter 12, at the last battle, okay, it says, Michael the archangel is going to battle with Satan. And super encouraging the battle is not very long, okay? It's just like, all right, they fight. Satan's defeated, okay? But angels, Angels are involved in this spiritual battle, okay? Potentially, though, the most familiar job, the most familiar role that we might think of when we think of angels, though, is one of messenger. And this makes a lot of sense because angel. The word angel in Greek and in Hebrew literally means messenger. And so we can actually almost consider angels actually more of a job title than who they are. So they are messengers. They are sent to deliver news to people. Chose this one out of the Christmas story with an angel meeting Zechariah in the inner chambers of the temple, says Luke 1, verse 11. Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. Jumping down to verse 19, the angel says, I am Gabriel, I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. The good news that his wife, very old age, is gonna give birth.
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Just a few verses later, in Luke, an angel of the Lord appears to Mary, sharing good news with her that, hey, you're also gonna have a kid and he's gonna be the savior of the world. That's good news. An angel was sent to Mary as a messenger. Another one, this time in Acts, Chapter 8. We covered this in our last sermon series. It says verse 26. Now, an angel of the Lord said to Philip, go south to the road, the desert road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.
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This then came kicks off the story where Philip then meets the Ethiopian eunuch. Gets a chance to describe what Isaiah is all about. Because this guy was reading Isaiah and was confused. Who is this about? What is this about? Philip is able to describe it to him. He ends up converting, sees water. It's like, why should I get baptized? And Philip says, yeah, let's baptize you. And then that guy helps establish the entire Ethiopian church. An angel was involved at the start of delivering. It's like, hey, go there. Go do that thing. All right, last one. And this is potentially the. I don't want to say the most important, but certainly the. The one that we want to pay attention to because it can sometimes get lost because we don't live in the first century. It's that when the law was passed down to Moses on Mount Sinai, it was the Jewish understanding, the Jewish tradition. It was an angel. There's a group of angels that actually delivered that law to Moses. Stephen in Acts, chapter seven says it this way. He's talking to some religious leaders, says, was there ever a prophet? Your ancestors did not persecute. They even killed those who predicted the coming of the righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him. You who have received the law that was given through angels, but have not obeyed it. Of all the things that God has communicated to his people up until this point, the law, the Mosaic law, the law that was given to Moses on top of Mount Sinai for. For Jews, for Israelites, it was there. Understand? This is it. How shall we live? The law tells us. How do we be in right standing and right relationship with God? The law reveals that to us. How can we learn more about God and his character? The law. When Israel was under judgment and punishment, it was noticed because they weren't following the law. Okay, all right, so let's review. Who was created to worship and serve God in the heavenly realms. Other answer. Angels.
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They were created to serve and to worship God.
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His primary purchase purpose of all created things. Who is positionally closest to God in the heavenly realms? Angels. All right, now we're getting it.
Okay. Okay.
And who delivered the law to Moses? This is awesome. We should do this more often. Okay, so that's angels. That's background. That's angels.
Cool. Okay.
Not exhaustive. Again. There's so much more that we could cover. Angelology. It's a fun word to Say, but we don't have enough time because again, we want to get back to Hebrews. So shifting back, we're going to pick it back up in chapter one and try to follow the author's logic, the. The argument as to why he wants to talk about angels and compare them to the Son. He is going to quote a lot of Old Testament to make his case, and I tried to include those references, and then I'll make some comments along the way. So here we go. Hebrews, chapter 1, verse 5. For to which of the angels did God ever say, you were my son today have become your father? Or again, I will be his father and he will be my son. And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, let all God's angels worship him. So we learned Jesus is positionally now better than the angels. He's the Son, such that angels are actually meant to worship him. But who were angels created to worship God? I love this. Okay, let's keep going. Verse 7. In speaking of the angels, he says, he. He makes his angels spirits and his servants flames of fire. But about the sun, he says, your throne, O God, will last forever and ever. A scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with oil of joy. So here angels are servants of the throne, servants of the kingdom. Continuing on, he also says, verse 10, in the beginning, Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain. They will all wear out like a garment. You will roll them up like a robe, like a garment. They will be changed, but you remain the same.
And.
And your years will never end. The Son is infinite, whereas angels are finite. Verse 13. To which of the angels did God ever say, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool of your feet. The sun takes the royal place of honor in authority. And then verse 14, the end of the chapter. Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to those who will inherit salvation? Again, angels are designated as servants. What the author ends up doing, and I highly commend the whole book of Hebrews, the entire letter is establishing a number of cases, a number of arguments in which he puts forward a character, a concept, okay, and then says, look at Jesus. Compare this thing, whatever it might be, and then look at Jesus. And every single time, Jesus is the better Jesus is, the more Jesus is the ultimate. And in the case of angels, Jesus is the Son. Jesus is God. He's the radiance of God's glory. He's the everlasting King. Angels are the servants of that kingdom. But don't misunderstand. They are joyful servants of that kingdom. They are jubilant and ecstatic about the king. Remember the story of Jesus birth? Angels were very much involved in that whole process. So much so we sing about angels at Christmas. Okay, sometimes they. We just kind of sing the words and maybe we forget, but.
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Little audience participation here.
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The shepherds feared and trembled when low above the earth rang out an angel chorus that hailed the Savior's birth. That is what the angels were doing. Angels we have heard on high. Come on, sing it sweetly Singing o' er the plain and the mountains in reply Echoing their joyous strains Angels are out of their mind, excited about the birth of Jesus. It is an eruption of praise from angels when Jesus Christ shows up on Christmas morning. But it's not from human lips. It's literally angelic. Here's where we start to land the plane. The author of Hebrews is starting with angels, not so that we dispute, dismiss them, but so that we can have a better understanding of their correct position and their role in this whole redemption story that God is telling us. God uses them for many things, not least of which is to. To send messages, to be messengers and deliver messages to God's people. But this time, they're not there to deliver the law. They are there triumphantly proclaiming, the King is here at the delivery of a baby boy in a horse trough. And we can take our cue from them because that's the new message. Look at the Son. He's worthy. Look at the King. He's the one worth singing about. This angelic chorus. And what's really fun is as we dive into these things and start making connections between Old Testament and New Testament, the same song that was referenced in Isaiah, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, is then referenced again in Revelation, chapter 4. Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings day and night. They never stopped saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come. But this time it's revealed. It's known. They're singing about Jesus. They're singing about the King and the Lamb who was slain. Now, we had some categories for what we looked at as far as who angels are, what they are. And I just wanted to create a little bit of kind of comparison chart. Angels are created beings. We now can look at the Son who is more and better. Because in this case, the Son is the Creator and he's sustaining all things, all of creation. Angels are spiritual beings. Jesus as the second person of our triune God, humbled himself and became man. So now we have the Son who is both God and man. Angels enact God's will on earth. The Son is the culmination of God's will and his redemptive plan. Jesus is not the contingency plan. Jesus was plan A. He, he is the culmination of God's will. Angels are guardians and warriors. The Son is the ultimate warrior because he defeated sin and death, our greatest enemies, the enemies that we could have never defeated by ourselves. And Jesus defeats those by his own sacrifice. And now guards, safeguards all those who love him, intercedes for us in heaven, promises an inheritance that won't tarnish or wither or fade. He's the better messenger because he Himself is the message. And then right at the end, verse 14, we'll just look at that one more time. Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to those who will inherit salvation? Friends, Jesus is the ultimate minister because he is the one that is offering salvation. What's beautiful about the rest of Hebrews and kind of mention this, the author doesn't stop at angels. We learn that Jesus is the better messenger. The better Moses, the better rest, the better Melchizedek. Thank you, Jared. Last week.
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The better promise, the better high priest, the better temple, the better sacrifice, the better faithful one, the better way, because he is the way, the truth and the life. And so once again, that's the encouragement, that's the challenge for us this morning. Consider Jesus. I'll invite the worship team up as we transition and consider all that the angels sing about. And a few questions for us. Just simply have you considered Jesus and the love he has for you? The sacrifice of himself on a cross to take the punishment of sin and death. That's an offer. That's an offer of redemption and new life. Will you take it? We learn that Jesus is on the throne. But sometimes we like to have our own throne. So what else gets put on the throne of your life if it's not Jesus? And then for us collectively as a community, whose kingdom are we helping to build and promote? Yes.
Amen.
Okay, we want to respond. We want to take this opportunity to respond. And we do that in different ways. The first is communion. Communion is out in the halls where the juice represents Jesus blood that was shed for us. The cracker represents his body that was broken for us. And every time that we take communion, we are taking the opportunity to remember his sacrifice. We proclaim his death, but also his resurrection because he didn't stay dead. There's an empty tomb that we celebrate. We would ask that community be reserved for those that believe. We'd ask that you be a believer in Jesus. We're going to sing a few songs. We're going to take the opportunity to pray. And we've got people in the back with yellow lanyards. They would love the opportunity to pray for you, pray for your family, and then can also give giving as a response to what God has done on our behalf. To be able to say, none of what I've been given, none of what I've earned is actually mine anyways. I can give it back for God's purposes. Can give online. There's a black box over on that table out in the hall as well. So let's continue on. I'm going to pray and then we'll get into some songs. Jesus, we praise your name and we take our cue from the angels to say, holy, holy, holy. But then remember, the Holy One came down, humbled himself as a man.
To.
Take on humanity, to become the perfect sacrifice. And yet you never sinned, you never fell into that temptation. And we are, we're humbled and grateful for your sacrifice. May we now be changed. May our hearts be changed, our minds be transformed by the good news of Jesus. And for all of these great clouds of witnesses that have come before us, to not lose heart, to not grow weary, and to look to you, Jesus, to look to the Son and consider you and all that you've done for us, we pray this in your mighty name, Amen.