October 6, 2018
This week we begin a four study series called: “Focus on Jesus” based on the book of Hebrews.
Why focus on Jesus? Is it important? What do you think? Discuss in your group the ‘for/against’
What happens when Christians don’t keep their focus on Jesus?
What do the following passages tell us about Jesus?
What conclusion do you come regarding the value of “Focusing on Jesus”?
Discuss the following double roles of Jesus which George shared on Sunday:
In terms of Biblical theology & revelation nothing & no one, has more significance than Jesus. In terms of salvation everything depends on Jesus. In His person & work, Jesus is everything that God offers to you; but – Jesus is, in His person & work, everything that you can offer to God.
What happens when Christians don’t keep their focus on Jesus?
Discuss George’s words and what our responsibility as Christians to a lost and blind world is.
To forsake Jesus is to choose spiritual ruin, eternal condemnation & utter alienation from God. Today, it has never been more necessary & important to bring Jesus into focus, because we live in a world where Jesus is largely sidelined as irrelevant or dismissed as a person of fiction. At best, Jesus is accepted as a noble character, an inspired teacher & great moral example. However, these understandings of Jesus, although true in themselves, fall abysmally short of what Jesus professed about Himself.
A biblical focus on Jesus is not just to acknowledge Jesus for who He is & what He has done, it is to accept Jesus for who He is & what He has done. A biblical focus on Jesus is not just to recognize Jesus it is to receive Him. To accept & receive Jesus is to embrace Him in the fullness of who He is & what He has done.
The focus on Jesus that receives Him is to be understood as receiving Jesus on His terms. When we do receive Jesus on His terms, there is a wonderful outcome – John1:12
The next 3 weeks we will be covering the above regarding Jesus Christ, His person and His work mainly from the book of Hebrews as the following titles describe:
The Book of Hebrews. (Further points from George’s message)
It is said of Hebrews, “No biblical document outside of the four Gospels is focussed so totally & forcefully on the person & redemptive achievements of Jesus”. The title “To the Hebrews,” was the traditional Greek title, however, there is no identification of the recipients as either Hebrews, or Gentiles. However, the concentration of Hebrew history & religion suggests a Hebrew audience & focus. Hebrews contains 29 direct quotations from the OT & 53 allusions to the OT. The Epistle to the Hebrews brings together Old & NT themes to show that you can never understand the OT without the New, or the NT without the Old.
Heb 1:1 says, “God spoke at various times in various places & in various ways” – but the same message was woven throughout. This message brought Jesus into focus such that on the Road to Emmaus, Jesus could, “begin at Moses & all the Prophets, expound in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself (Luke 24:27)”
OT times spanned some 1,600 years, where God spoke through some 40 human intermediaries. This revelation came in human language as God spoke to the fathers (plural), by the prophets (plural). What this tells us is that God’s revelation about Himself & His purposes was too important to be entrusted to any single human intermediary. This is so, until a climactic moment when God’s revelation about Himself & His purposes comes uniquely & exclusively from His Son.
What God spoke through prophets came bit by bit in visions, dreams, events, & direct communication. In contrast, what the Son speaks is complete, authoritative & authentic; it is final & forever. For this reason, the message of Hebrews, exhorts Christians to maintain confidence in Jesus with an unwavering trust in Him – Heb 10:35-36