The Gathering Surf City

I'm excited about today.

I'm excited for the,

just the preparation of the day.

You know,

last year,

the topic of our conversation and consideration
on Sunday morning was

really this idea of faith and
discipline and our faith,

and how our faith results in a discipline
and discipline and disciple

come from the same root,

and how it's out of our faith that we
live a life of God's purpose and

glory. We finished this past year with
the twelve weeks or the last

quarter in Hebrews.

And what I realized was that,

you know what,

everything we discussed this past
year needs to be discussed again.

When I was dealing with Romans,

I was like,

man, we just don't have,

in three months,

you just don't have time
to get in Romans.

I'm not sure we're going to
do ecclesiastes again,

just so you know.

But we are going to do Hebrews.

And this is our artwork,

y'all. Jordan's been working
on this for us.

And this year's the whole topic,

the subject title,

if you want to call it that,

is the object of our faith.

And really concentrating on the message
of the book of Hebrews.

And for however long it goes.

Right now I've got it sort of outlined
out through the end of March,

which is Easter Sunday,

and just barely made
it to chapter five.

And there's 13 chapters.

So we'll probably go all the way through
Thanksgiving or so in the book

of Hebrews.

And I'm kind of excited about it because
now I've been able to kind of

sort of go back to this last quarter and
really intensively get into some

of the things that we address.

I mean,

I didn't half preach them,

but the idea is to understand why this
is important and why it means

something. It's because if Christ
is the object of our faith,

this is the focus and should be
the priority of our being.

Christ should be the focal point
of everything that we are.

And so I kind of like it.

I like sort of.

He kept showing me little
run throughs of this.

He said,

what about this?

And I go,

I don't like that.

And then he'd send something
else back.

I go,

no, can you change that?

He kept working on it,

kept working on it.

So we've got,

obviously, the cross and what
God's done on our behalf.

But over here,

and we're going to touch
on this today,

because in the cloud there,

in that image there that
we see is Jesus,

the object,

the focal point of our faith.

All right,

Hebrews, chapter one,

one to four.

Here we go.

Long ago,

God spoke to our ancestors by the prophets
at different times and in

different ways.

In these last days,

he has spoken to us by his son.

God has appointed him heir of all things
and made the universe through

him.

The sun is the radiance of God's glory
and the exact expression of his

nature, sustaining all things
by his powerful word.

After making purification for sins,

he sat down at the right hand
of the majesty on high,

so he became superior to the angels,

just as the name he inherited is
more excellent than theirs.

All right,

pray with me.

Here we go.

God, thank you for the morning.

Thank you,

God, for the privilege,

God, that we get to come
together to gather,

to worship,

to sing,

and to sing a new song to just
come and praise you.

And God,

we want as we gather,

God, to just exalt you.

It's your glory.

God, we just want to come and glorify
you in all that we sing,

all that we say,

all that we do,

God, even the attitudes and
thoughts of our heart.

God, we want to glorify you.

So, God,

this morning,

as we consider this sort of launching
point for the next few months,

God, we give you thanks.

Give you thanks for Hebrews,

the book of Hebrews.

But, God,

we give you thanks for your word.

Thank you for speaking.

We pray it in Jesus Name.

Amen. Ever say something you
wish you hadn't said?

If you've ever said something that
you wish you could get it back,

raise your hand.

Absolutely. There shouldn't be a hand
in the room that is down on that

one, right?

It's kind of one of those things.

It's like you go,

well, I think that.

And, you know,

the big joke now is,

wait a minute,

did I say that out loud?

Right? And,

yeah, then it's too late.

It's kind of that thing.

It's like you hear those
phrases like,

well, you can't unring a bell,

right?

Or you know those little dandelion things
where you go and they go all

over the place like that,

right. And go try to collect
them back once you do that.

So you can't,

right? So sometimes
we've said things,

and sometimes we've actually communicated
an idea that we wish others

didn't know.

We thought,

right?

We revealed something of ourselves and
of our heart and of our minds that

all of a sudden it's like,

what will they think of me?

Right? Well,

here's the point of today's message.

I titled it the expression of God.

See, God has expressed himself.

Now, I'm going to put this in
several wordings right?

God has revealed himself.

God has shown us himself.

God has given us some things
whereby we can know him.

We can know God.

Jesus prayed in John 17,

this is eternal life,

that they may know you,

the one true God in Jesus Christ,

whom you have sent.

So the whole function,

the whole direction,

trajectory, purpose of our
faith is to know God.

And guess what?

God has revealed himself.

So let me ask this question,

and you don't have to answer because
if you answer it incorrectly,

then somebody's going to
throw something at you.

No, just kidding.

Is the Bible the word of God?

You see,

if you're a churchy person,

and since we're sitting in worship,

yes, we'll call ourselves
churchy people.

Is the Bible the word of God?

Everybody talks these days about
how to look at the Bible.

And you'll hear people say,

well, the Bible is just a collection
of writings from semitic people

groups of the early BCE.

What do we call it now?

BCE?

I don't know.

Anyway, I don't call it that.

But you can if you want to,

before current era.

What does the Bible represent?

Can we in 2024 trust that what we have
between the pages of this book,

made up of 66 books by 40 something
writers or copiers or whatever,

and I always tell you that God
is the author of the Bible.

He inspired it.

They put it down in writing for us.

Is the Bible the word of God?

And by and large,

everybody in the room will go,

absolutely, yes,

the Bible is the word of God.

God said it.

So when God says something,

what do we get?

We get words,

right? So I look at the Bible and
my mom had that key ring.

I've told you all,

it was a key ring.

Said God said it.

I believe it.

That settles it.

And then some smart aleck
came along and said,

you know what?

If God said it doesn't matter whether
you believe it or not,

that settles it.

Okay, see,

God has spoken.

Long ago.

God spoke to our ancestors and understand
we dealt with this part of it.

The hebrew writer is writing to this
either hebrew audience that has

trusted Jesus,

Hebrews that haven't
yet trusted Jesus,

or this mixture of gentile hebrew people
that are the New Testament

church in the first century.

And sometimes we know that scholars believe
that the book of Hebrews was

written sometime between 60 and 70 ad
because it's most likely written

before the destruction of the temple
in 70 ad by the Romans.

And so they believe that it's kind
of written in that time frame.

And so he's writing to the New
Testament church and he says,

long ago,

God spoke to our ancestors,

whether that be hebrew ancestors
or just our ancestors.

Here's the bottom line,

y'all. God spoke.

God had something to say.

God had something to reveal.

It says he spoke through the
prophets different times,

different ways.

You see?

So here's what I want
you to understand.

God revealed something.

So then we've got to ask
ourselves the question,

what is it God wants me to see?

I mean,

a revealing.

God wants me to see something.

God wants me to gain an understanding
of something.

God speaks.

All right,

so, for instance,

I just told,

you know,

I didn't think the west coast
of Mexico was all that.

You know what?

I grew up watching a love boat.

How many know,

you got the captain stubing,

right? You remember that guy and
the cruise director girl,

lady, whatever her name was?

I don't know.

Julie something.

Another, right?

And they would go to Cabo San Lucas.

Guess what?

I've been to Cabo San Lucas.

I've been to Mazatlan.

I grew up hearing the names of
those places on that show,

the love boat,

and they made it look just glorious.

Beware of Hollywood,

just so you know.

Anyway, so I've seen
it for myself now.

I'm not impressed.

There was a revealing.

Guess what?

We got to the Cabo place,

and they said,

okay, you got to go down and
get on a boat to get there.

I was like,

I'm on a boat.

Just paddle it over there,

right?

See, I've told you I'm
not impressed.

When God is revealing something,

then our posture,

our approach to God's revelation of
something needs to be one that,

guess what?

God doesn't need to convince
us of anything.

God only needs to speak.

See, God doesn't have to convince
me that he's God.

He just is.

I don't have to look at the
world around me and go,

well, I could choose that God,

or I could choose that God.

I like that last song.

It's the kind of God you are.

Because guess what?

People do look at the world around
us and choose their God.

Did you notice that?

You notice the things people
worship these days?

I think the biggest one,

culturally speaking,

is people are worshipping identity.

Identity. Sorry.

God has revealed himself.

He doesn't need to convince us.

He didn't need to convince them.

He just merely needed to speak.

And this is what he said.

Long ago,

God spoke to our ancestors by the
prophets at different times,

in different ways.

In these last days,

he has spoken to us by his son.

Now, one of the commentaries
I'm reading,

and I can't remember where
it came from or whatever.

I just keep a stack of things that
I read as I'm preparing and just

letting God feed it.

And this one commentary,

he always refers to the Old Testament
and the New testament,

right?

We've got two of them,

right? Old and new.

And he always refers to the Old Testament
as the first testament,

which put me on edge
because I was like,

first and then second and then what?

Because there is a group of folks out
there that believe in another

testament. Y'all know that group.

I mean,

they'll advertise it.

We'll send you a free copy of
another testament of Jesus.

And I'm going,

first Testament,

second Testament,

Old Testament,

New Testament.

Guess what?

Here's what it is.

God has chosen to speak.

God has chosen to reveal himself,

to show us who he is,

to let us know him.

You see,

it says here that in
these last days,

now, guess what?

From the time of this
writing to today,

these are the last days,

okay? We're still in them.

People love to ask me,

Bobby, do you think we're
in the end times?

Yes, we are in the end times.

You know why?

Because we're still going.

We're closer today than
we were yesterday.

Welcome to the end times.

Okay, so I look at this,

I said,

all right,

so what does it he reveal?

God revealed himself.

God has spoken by his son.

I've been playing with a couple of different
translations of the Bible,

and still in the chairs,

you got the christian
standard Bible.

And people have different
ideas about this.

And so here's what I
want you to know.

Translation. Translation of the word
of God is the effort on our part as

humankind to understand
what God said.

It's given to us in Hebrew,

Greek and Aramaic.

There is no exact translation into English
from those original languages.

I've said to you before,

translation is an art form,

not a science.

Okay? So to read many translations is
a healthy thing and recognize when

a translation messes it up.

Okay? Just giving you that because
here's what we've got.

If we're going to understand
what God said in long ago,

God spoke by the prophets.

If we're going to understand
what God said,

then we've got to pay attention to
the things that God reveals.

And here's what we got.

You ready?

I'm going to give you the
hope of all of it,

because if I've cast a shadow on your
understanding of the English Bible,

I'm sorry,

what we have is the Ruach Hakodesh.

How many y'all remember
me preaching acts?

And man,

I use that.

I spit on y'all every Sunday.

I preach that because if you're
going to pronounce Hebrew,

you got to have guttural sounds.

I took enough Hebrew to know that.

It's actually very clearing of your back
throat area if you want to know

that. But the ruach Hakodesh just simply
means the spirit of the holy

one. Now call it Holy Spirit if you
want him to have a first and last

name.

But it is the spirit of God,

you see,

the spirit of who God is,

father, son,

spirit of God.

And it's the ruach Hakodesh that God
has given and provided for our

understanding of what God has said.

God inspired it by his spirit.

Writers wrote it down by his spirit.

God illuminates it by his spirit.

So when we read it,

it's the spirit of God that God has
entrusted to explain it to us.

So when you read the Bible,

pray, God,

help me understand what you said.

God, help me see what
you've revealed.

God, help me know.

You see,

the central thought
of Hebrews is this.

It's the idea that the
old testament,

the first test,

I don't care what you call it,

it pointed to foreshadowed,

is that literary term of the
days of fulfillment.

It was the Old Testament that pointed
to the fulfillment of God's design,

purpose and plan.

Okay, God was pointing throughout
the first Testament.

Old Testament.

Guess what the Old Testament's about.

Jesus. You go,

well, wait a minute.

Jesus didn't know.

He didn't come until after Malachi,

that italian prophet.

Right.

He didn't come till after that.

No, God spoke of Jesus
in Genesis three.

When the fall took place,

God promised redemption.

So the Old Testament is about Jesus,

but guess what?

The New Testament is about Jesus.

And so God is pointing
to the fulfillment,

and Jesus is the fulfillment.

And the fulfillment began in the Old
Testament and has its completion in

Christ. And then we get the
glorification of it,

that final thing when we get
to be in his presence.

Now this sounds all very something,

but by the time we get
to the end of this,

I'm going to ask you a question,

going back to the first question.

Is the Bible the word of God?

Because if our salvation is dependent
on what we believe,

faith, which is what we talked
about all last year.

Now, I want to encourage
you to something.

Faith is not something that you kind
of hold as an insurance policy.

Well, I'm going to believe in Jesus,

but if I'm wrong,

I've heard that you'll
think I haven't.

Well, yeah,

I accepted Christ because
if there is a heaven,

I want to make sure
I get there right.

No, the object of our faith is that my
life is nothing apart from Jesus.

See, it's not a contingency plan.

Now, do we believe what God
has said about himself?

Do we believe what God
has said about Jesus?

So God has spoken.

God has revealed.

God has revealed himself.

So Jesus revealed.

Is this Jesus?

Is God revealed?

Okay?

And I have folks who want
to argue with me.

They hold the first century,

I think they refer to it as the aryan
controversy of denying the deity of

Christ. And they say,

well, that was only come up with
in the such and such century.

Or that they only decided to call
it the Trinity and father,

Son, Holy Spirit somewhere
after the fact.

Well, you know why?

Because everybody who met Jesus and
knew Jesus knew he was God,

there was no denial by those,

okay? They knew he was God.

And so God makes some very
simple statements here,

and there's seven of them.

This is what he says.

God has appointed him
heir of all things.

He. God has appointed him heir.

Who's him?

Him is the son.

So you got God,

Father, son,

Holy Spirit.

God has appointed him son,

heir of all things.

It's just a quote.

Ready? Look at it.

It's in verse two.

God has appointed him
heir of all things.

I'm not doing anything but
reading the Bible to you.

Heir. What does that mean?

It means he is the inheritor.

He has it all.

Jesus has it all.

He's the heir of it all.

And then you got people who want
to argue that point and say,

well, then that means what?

The father died.

No, I mean,

in first century,

it was very common for the
heir to take charge.

The king.

The king's son to take charge
when the king got older.

And we're not talking about
God getting old.

What we're talking about is God.

Before there was time in existence,

the Son was the heir.

Son was always the heir.

Guess what?

I go back and take care of mom
and dad's property sometimes,

right?

Is there an airship there?

See what I mean?

Not an airship that you fly.

Okay? See what I mean?

Second thing,

all things he goes on to say,

all right?

So he says,

God has appointed him heir of all things
and made the universe through

him. So there's no way of some sort of
adoptive principle of God making

Jesus the Son,

because everything that exists
was created through the Son.

So the Son was there before
the creation,

because it was through the Son that
all creation exists through him,

by him,

for him,

all things were created and exist.

You see,

so he was here.

It was all made through Christ.

And then he goes on to say this.

Ready? The sun is the radiance
of God's glory.

Radiance.

Now, I looked this up.

You ready?

Radiance. And I'm not going to
tell you the greek word,

but here's what it means.

So if God is represented in scripture
so many times as the light.

And I did listen to a couple of messages
this week that question the fact

that the sun is actually the light
that gives us day and night.

Did you know there was day and
night before the sun existed?

Because God said,

let there be light on the first day.

He created the sun and moon
on the fourth day.

Yeah, go ahead and roll that one
over in your mind a few times.

So if God is represented
in the text by light,

then this radiance,

is that what he's saying
in that simple saying,

the sun is the radiance
of God's glory.

Christ is actually the shining
forth of God's glory,

you see?

So if God,

Father, Son,

Holy Spirit,

is a shining forth of glory,

then the Son is the shining
forth of that glory.

Then he goes on to say,

he is the exact expression
of his nature,

the exact expression of his.

So if you're going to look at this complexity
that we refer to as God and

call it,

we use the word trinity,

some people say,

oh, that's just a theological
term they made up.

Anyway, if we're looking at Father,

Son, and holy spirit,

which is how God has
revealed himself,

you see,

the Son is this exact
expression of God,

right? And Jesus said,

if you've seen me,

you've seen the father.

So tell you a little story.

Everybody knows Eli got married,

right? Everybody knows that
my son got married.

He got off.

Hey, we did a wedding.

Yay. Thank y'all for loving on my
son and everybody that showed up

yesterday. Thank you for
loving on him and Lily,

and they're precious.

And, boy,

things are on.

I don't sit in my recliner and wait
for him to come home anymore.

Right. But I can call him and say,

hey, budy,

why don't you all come over Friday
night and we'll have dinner?

Absolutely, man.

He's ready for some dinner.

I'm going to tell you.

But when he was little,

I don't know if y'all have noticed,

but he and I have a similar
resemblance.

We were in the mall in Asheville,

North Carolina,

and he was an active child.

And when he was walking and would,

we didn't use one of them little
springy leashes on the kid.

We just let him run.

He was a free range child,

and so he would get ahead
of us in the mall,

right?

And we were walking through
the mall one day,

and he was several steps out
there in front of us,

and there was a lady sitting on
one of those benches there.

And as we were catching up
to him a little bit,

she looked at me and she went,

you can't deny that.

Know shape of the head.

I don't mean,

but this is what he's me.

Eli is an expression,

a representation of his
father and mother,

but not exact.

You see,

what God has revealed here is that the
Son is the exact expression of his

nature, this representation
of God's,

the essence of God,

who God is.

So if you want to get to know God,

hang out with Jesus.

If you want to know God better,

spend more time with Jesus.

And then he goes on to explain more of
the function of what it means for

Christ to be eternal,

co equal,

the Father,

Son, Holy Spirit.

This ruach Hakodesh,

the Son,

the Father,

all as God.

He says he sustains all things
by his powerful word,

all things sustaining.

I told y'all before when we touched on
this that I'm one of those people

that believe if God went,

fine, I'm done.

Then the very atoms and molecules that
hold the world together would fly

to pieces.

I believe God is the one
holding it together,

not magnetic,

whatever, not.

Not some sort of poles.

You know,

I ran a race one time,

five k,

and. And there was supposed
to be three of us running,

and one of them dropped out.

And so as we were finishing,

I sort of hid so that the guy I wanted
to beat couldn't see me.

And so right before the finish line,

I went and passed him and I went.

So the next morning in church,

he's one of the other
pastors at church.

He starts explaining how I cheated and
how I hid behind people to pass

him right at the finish line,

and how that wasn't fair.

And I just stood there and I said,

look, if you have to tell a story
that tells the story.

See, people want to deny the existence
of God and then try to explain

things that can't be explained
apart from God.

See, the world is sustained by God,

and then it says Christ's work.

You ready?

He says,

after making purification for sins,

because in the incarnation,

in the birth in Jesus,

and we had the manger scene over there
and Christmas tree over there,

and we celebrate the season,

and we celebrate the
birth of Christ,

and God had a purpose and plan all the
way from the beginning that Jesus,

the son,

the heir of all things,

would be the lamb who
would take away sin,

who would do away sin,

do away with sin,

you see?

And he defeated and removed sin
because he is the lamb of God.

And once he had done that job,

he sat down because the
work was finished.

You know how satisfying that is?

You don't have to work
to get to heaven.

You just have to live
out your faith,

what you believe.

And if you believe these
things about Jesus,

about what God has said,

about who God is,

and I mean believe it with
all that you are,

see, then we are the
children of God.

See, I know people.

We live in a world where at the very
least we can say it's confused.

But if God has spoken,

then we don't need to be confused.

We don't need to be convinced.

It doesn't need to be proven to us.

We simply need to say,

yes, lord,

yes, Christ is seated at the right
hand of the Father Christ,

messiah. Christ is seated
right next to,

in the Old Testament,

right there he is.

This. It's hard for me to say,

but when we say yahweh yeshua,

God is salvation.

See, do we believe it?

See, God said it.

God said it.

That settles it.

That's it.

And so folks show up in worship,

like here,

and I'm glad you're here,

but if you didn't know before today,

then what God wants you to
know is that you know.

Okay, is that a bit redundant?

I used to have a professor
from South Africa.

He'd say,

brothers, you need to know that
you know that you know.

See, God's revealed himself.

God has spoken.

Are we paying attention?

Are we listening?

Are we living it?

Okay, if you don't know
Jesus this morning,

that's obviously good.

We're going to spend a lot of time
on knowing Jesus this year.

We want you to know Jesus.

I'll be down here at the front to pray
with you if you want to pray,

love to introduce you to Jesus.

Maybe you know him,

but it's kind of that thing.

Well, the world's got all this
stuff going on and man,

just take a step and say,

I want to know you,

Jesus, and then get to know him.

Maybe you want to be a part
of the gathering.

You can come be a part
of the gathering.

God's doing some cool things.

We got folks that once I start
talking about membership,

people go,

okay, I want to be a member.

Yeah, come on,

we'll tell you how to do that.

But more than anything else,

as we sing this last song,

do what God's telling you to do.

All right.

Pray with me.

Father, thank you for today.

Thank you,

God, that you've done some really,

really cool things.

And God,

that you let us be a part of it.

I thank you that you've shown
us yourself that it's not,

that you spent a whole chapter trying
to prove or convince us of

anything. You simply stated
the truth to us.

That it's through Jesus that you've
spoken and that Jesus,

the author,

the perfector,

as we'll look at it later,

of our faith,

God, help us to draw near.

Help us to pay attention.

Help us to live it.

We pray it in Jesus name.

Amen.