Fixing Our Eyes on Jesus
The Letter to the Hebrews
Lanse Evangelical Free Church
January 18, 2026 :: Hebrews 1:1-4
“Fixing Our Eyes on Jesus”
That’s the name of this new sermon series that we’re starting today on The Letter to the Hebrews, and it’s also the theme of my pastoral vision for Lanse Free Church in 2026.
Today is our Annual Reports and Vision meeting after we “mangia” on our Italian feast, and we’re going walk through a review of the Lord’s work in us in 2025. A record-setting year in so many ways! And we’re also going to hear about our hopes and dreams and goals for 2026.
And in my annual pastoral report, when I got to the vision part, I just wrote, “I don’t have a grand plan for 2026.” Some years, I have a big idea of what specifically I want us to work on and try to achieve. Last year this time, it seemed like we were really close to getting a pavilion out there to foster relationships with one another and serve our community. And, praise God, we did! And I’m sure we’re going to do more big things in 2026, but I don’t have a grand plan for them.
But what I do know is what I think we should focus on this year. Or more specifically whom we should focus on in 2026, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is our Light and our Salvation. He is the Stronghold of our lives. A life-changing relationship with Him is the one thing that we must pursue this year.
We need to be fixing our eyes on Jesus.
Those words come from chapter 12 of this book of the Bible. The writer says, “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, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (12:1-2).
He pictures our lives as a race, and Jesus is set before us at the finish line which Jeff has so helpfully illustrated for us in the new sermon graphic. And he says, “Fix your eyes on Jesus.”
Don’t take your eyes off of Him. Not for one second. Don’t get distracted. Don’t get discouraged. Don’t stop running towards Jesus. Don’t go backwards! Stay focused on Jesus.
If we do that as a church, we’ll end up where we are supposed to be when we get to 2027 and beyond.
And that’s the central message, I think, of this entire book of the Bible, and it’s the point of the first four verses which we are studying today.
Interestingly, these four verses are actual one long “elegant and eloquent” sentence in the original Greek (Schreiner). It takes like four sentences in English to do what the writer did in just one in Greek! This writer is a incredible thinker and author. He is an amazing theologian.
And we also don’t know who he is! This is a strange letter because it isn’t signed. There is no “from” or even “to” in the header of this “email.”
We know it’s a letter because of the greetings that are included at the very end. But it’s not a letter like most letters. In fact, it’s more like a sermon. At the very end of the letter, the writer calls it, “a word of exhortation” or a “word of encouragement”–the same Greek word as we emphasized in the letters to the Thessalonians last year. It’s a "kick in the pants" kind of encouragement letter.
We could call it a sermonic letter.
And it comes unsigned. Now, the recipients knew who wrote it. They clearly had a close relationship with him. He knew them. He knew what was going on with them. The recipients were apparently primarily Jewish Christians (Hebrews) who were having second thoughts about following Jesus.
We don’t know exactly where. Somewhere in the Roman Empire in the first century, probably before 70 AD when the temple was destroyed. They might have been Hebrew Christians in Jerusalem or perhaps more likely, they were in Rome itself.
Wherever they were, they were getting scared. These Hebrews were being persecuted, not for being Jews (which is hard enough most places in this world), but for being followers of Jesus Christ. And they were seriously considering going backwards. Drifting off the path. Dropping out of their race. Quitting on Jesus.
Know anybody who has done that? Have you been tempted that way yourself?
These folks were. They were feeling the pressure. And their friend knew it. And so he wrote them this letter.
We don’t know his name. Some people think it was Paul, and that’s possible, but he writes very differently than Paul who also signed all of the other books by him in the New Testament. Some have though Silas or Barnabas. A lot of different names have been thrown out there. [Maybe even Priscilla with her husband Aquilla? Possible but unlikely, especially because of the masculine participle in 11:22)] Maybe the most popular these days has been Apollos.
We don’t know...and that’s okay. Because God knows and the original recipients knew and the church has long recognized Who the more important author of this sermonic letter is–the Holy Spirit Himself. And we know when we’re reading it, that this is the very Word of God.
And it’s telling us to fix our eyes on Jesus.
In fact, that’s where the letter starts. Did you notice how abrupt the opening paragraph is when Copper read it to us? This is unlike any letter I’ve ever gotten. There’s no, “Greetings! How’s it going there in Lanse? I hope this letter finds you warm and well-fed. How’s January treating you? Everybody healthy at your house?”
There’s none of that. It just launches in...
“In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets 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 he made the universe” (vv.1-2).
He gets right at it, doesn’t he? And he gets right to the Son.
He says that there have been and are two phases of God’s revelation to man. God has spoken in two ways. They are both similar (because it’s the same God) and dissimilar. Let’s look at it more closely. Verse 1.
“In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways...” Now stop there for just a second.
The first thing that we must see is that God has spoken.
That’s super-important! Our God is a speaking God. He wants to be known. He wants to tell us things and often has. He is not a mystery in that sense. He is not a silent God. God could be God and not ever speak. He could be all-powerful, all-wise, all-knowing, omnipresent, holy, holy, and holy and never say a word. But our God wants to tell us things and often has.
In the past (what we call the Old Testament) God spoke to our ancestors in the faith through special spokesmen, through messengers, what verse 1 calls, “the prophets” at many times and in various ways. I love the old King James version there. It says “in sundry times and in divers manners.”
God spoke in lots of different ways over the years. Just look through your Old Testament and see all the ways and times that God spoke through the prophets.
And was that bad? No! That was good. That was wonderful that God would speak to His people. Last year we studied God’s words to and through the Prophet Daniel and then later the Tale of Queen Esther. Daunting but delightful!
The Old Testament was (and is) a good thing. But it was also incomplete. It was a like a cliffhanger. Remember the cliffhangers in the Book of Esther? What was going to happen to our hero? Tune in next time! Well, we got all of these promises in many times and various ways, and fits and starts and types and shows, and then....everything went dark and silent for 400 years. Verse 2.
“In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son...”
You see the contrasts? In the past versus these last days. We are living in the last days, and we have been ever since Jesus came the first time. We may or may not be in the last of the last days (when Jesus comes again), but we are in the last days (our Prayer Group just talked about that on Wednesday night).
And in these last days, God has spoken not just to our forefathers but to us. To New Covenant Christians. And He has spoken to us not by prophets but “by His Son.” Literally “in a son.”
He hasn’t spoken to us through a mere prophet. He has spoken to us in a Son. There is a new and better kind of revelation that has come on the scene when Jesus came to us. He is not just a new mediator of the message, but He is the message itself!
God’s Son is God’s Word. And He is the final word. The full and final word. He is the climax and culmination of the revelation of God! “[God] has spoken to us by His Son.”
Wow. What a privilege we have! To have a Word from God that is so wonderful and so personal because the Word is a Person! God didn’t just send another prophet. He sent a Son. The One and Only Son He had. No wonder the writer just jumps right into it! And no wonder the writer wants to fix our eyes on Jesus. Because He Himself is the message from God Himself.
What a privilege we have to hear that message. And what terrible thing it would be to ignore it.
Church, we must:
#1. FIX OUR EARS ON THE SON.
As we head into 2026, we need to fix our eyes on Jesus and fix our ears on Him, as well.
Jesus is the full and final way that God communicates Himself to us. And so we must listen to Him. And we do that by reading the New Testament, too. The New Testament is the record of and explanation of and application of the revelation of the Son. The Old Testament was great, but the New Testament comes along and completes and fulfills and ties it all together by revealing the Son.
The Son. This letter is going to make a big deal out of Jesus being the Son. Just like God did at Jesus’ baptism and at Jesus’ transfiguration:
“This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” (Matthew 17:5).
Fix your ears on the Son.
What Jesus says is true.
What Jesus says is right.
What Jesus says goes.
What Jesus reveals about God is what we need to know.
And we need to listen and not stop listening until Jesus returns.
Are you listening? Do you have your ears fixed on Jesus? Do you know what He says in the New Testament? Do you know what He promised? Do you know what He taught? Do you know what He commands? Are your reading your Bible? Are you listening?
Or do you have something else in your ears?
I like to listen to podcasts when I’m walking, and when I’m driving. But that can be dangerous to put on noise-canceling headphones or earbuds. [By the way, why do we call them “earbuds?” I don’t like the sound of that. Like some flower or something is going to grow out of my ears.]
So a couple of years ago, I got these new kind of headphones. They are bone-conduction technology. It sits on my temple and goes through my thick skull, and I don’t have to have anything budding in my ears. So I can hear the traffic! If Jim Beveridge is roaring down the road I’m on to check his traps, I can tell he’s coming and get out of the way. And that also means when Jim goes by, I can’t hear my podcast. I am rightfully distracted.
But in the ears of our hearts, we should have noise-canceling going on. We should shut out every distracting voice that isn’t the Son telling us what is true. I don’t mean to not be good listeners to people. I’m talking about our focus.
We must fix our ears on the Son and Him alone.
Why? Well, the writer is just getting started. The second he mentions the Son, he goes off on like seven different things that we need to know about the Son. Many of these things are going to be themes that he will return to again and again in this letter. Let me read the whole thing to you from the middle of verse 2 on:
The Son “whom he [God] appointed heir of all things, and through whom he [God] made the universe. [He] 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. So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.”
Wow! Just wow! What a Person this Son is?! Where do you start?
The writer starts at the end. He says that Son has been appointed by God as the “heir of all things.” That makes sense. If God owns all things then His Son would be His heir. From Father to Son. He would inherit all things. And that’s quite a statement. Because it includes everything, right? That’s what “all things” means. Jesus is due to receive all things. They are all His by right.
Look around you right now. Everything you see belongs to Jesus and one day will. There is coming a day when all things will come to Jesus. God has appointed it.
And then, the writer goes from the future to the past. From the end to the beginning, to creation. Verse 2 again.
“...and through whom [the Son] he [God] made the universe.”
Literally, “made the ages.”
God’s Son was God’s Agent of Creation! The Son was there when God created the heavens and the earth. In fact, He wasn’t just there. He was deeply involved.
The Book of Colossians says, “For by [the Son] all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him” (Colossians. 1:16).
All things! He isn’t just going inherit them. He made them! Why wouldn’t we fix our ears on Him?
Take sex for example. The world has a lot to say about sex. But the world did not invent sex. It’s God’s idea. And a good one, I might add. And Jesus was there when sex was invented. So, we probably ought to listen to Jesus when He says how sex out to be used. How we ought to treat our bodies and the bodies of other people.
And that’s true of everything. That’s true of natural resources, too. The land and the animals and the water. Jesus was used to make all of that, as well, and it’s all going to be His one day again. Are we doing what He wants with the Earth?
The Apostle John wrote, “Through [The Word] all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (John 1:3). Why’s that? It’s because “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God...and the Word was God” (John 1:1). And that’s verse 3!
“The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being...”
Wow! What more wonderful words could we have to describe Jesus?!
“The radiance of God’s glory.” That’s as good as it sounds. Jesus is the shining forth of God’s glory. Like if God was the Sun up in the sky, God the Son is like the beams of light that come out of the Sun so that we can see the Sun. Where does the sun end and the beams begin? There really isn’t a difference, is there? When we feel the beams of the Sun on us, we say we feel the Sun on us. And that’s right. So the Son of God is the beams of God’s glory showing us the bright splendor of God.
“The LORD is my light and my salvation–whom shall I fear?”
The writer of this sermonic letter would have loved the Nicene Creed that we recited all during Advent. He had been dead for 300 years when it was written, but he would have loved what it said about Jesus.
“[We believe] in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only begotten Son of God,
eternally begotten from the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one essence with the Father.
Through Him all things were made.”
They got that from this book, didn’t they?
Verse 3 says the Son is “the exact representation of [God’s] being...”
He is the perfect picture of God. If you want to see the Father, look at the Son!
I have heard that I look a lot like my Dad. People have gotten us mixed up before. And I think that’s a compliment because he’s really handsome guy.
But Jesus is (in His essence) a perfect picture of God.
Because He is God, as well. “True God from true God...”
This is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday when we especially think about the image of God in humans from conception on. We are made in God’s image. Or, better, we are made according to God’s image. And that means that we should treat people with dignity. Unborn people. Born people. Citizens. Immigrants. Refugees. Police. Family. Enemies. People that look like us and people who don’t look like us. People are not trash and should never be treated like trash. Because we are made according to the image of God.
But! The Son is the image of God (see 2 Corinthians 4:4)!
“The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being...”
Church, we must fix our hearts on Him!
#2. FIX OUR HEARTS ON THE SON.
Jesus is worthy of our worship. Other humans are deserving of our respect, but Jesus is worthy of our worship.
He is God! The Son of God is God the Son. And we should fix our hearts on Him.
Are you worshiping Jesus with all of your heart this year? Or has somebody or something else snagged your attention? We call those things that take God’s place in our hearts: “idols.” And they can be things that are really good. Things that God has made but we let them slip into a position in our hearts that should be fixed for God alone: Money, Family, Popularity, Fun, Power All good things, but they become bad things when they become “god-things” for us.
The Son of God is God the Son. And we should fix our hearts on Him alone.
Are you letting yourself get distracted? That’s how you can end up falling out of the race.
The Son is the heir of all thing, maker of all things, the radiance of God’s glory, and the perfect picture God’s being. And here’s what He’s doing right now. Last phrase of verse 3.
“...sustaining all things by his powerful word.”
Wow. Jesus is holding everything together. “All things.”
That’s mind-blowing. Look around the room right now. You see all the things? All the people? All the pews? All the wall-hangings back after Christmas. All the speakers. All the walls. All the ceiling. This says that all of that is “sustained” by the powerful word of the Son. And that goes for everything down that hallway. All of our Italian feast. And everything on our campus. The Ark Park, the Pavilion, the Lanse Free Fridge, the basketball court. Every blade of grass. Every cubic inch of pavement in the parking lot. All the way down to the core of the Earth and everything above us to the Sun out to the stars. He’s the reason why science works! The Son of God is “sustaining all things by his powerful word.”
If Jesus says, “Be no more,” it would all be gone.
Colossians 1 says, “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). Do you believe that?
No wonder we are supposed to fix our eyes on Jesus! Because He’s holding everything together.
Which makes the next phrase so shocking.
“After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”
Now, given what we’ve seen so far, the fact that He is seated at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven isn’t so shocking, though it is amazing to learn that Someone is worthy of sitting right there!
No, what’s really shocking to think about is that this One Who is the heir of all things, maker all things, sustainer of all things would also “provide purification for sins.”
He’s acting as a priest. We’re going to learn a lot about priests as we study Hebrews together. This is the place in the Bible where we learn that Jesus acts as a High Priest. Providing purification, cleansing, for sins. And we’re going to learn that He does this priest thing unlike any other priest. Because the blood that this priest offers to cleanse people from sin is His own blood.
The Son of God became the Son of Man and was mocked, flogged, and crucified.
Mocked, flogged, and crucified?!
This Person?
This Son was mocked?
This Son was flogged?
This Son was crucified?
Oh yes, and the letter will take us much deeper into what that means for us today.
It means, in short, that we are saved from our sins!
We have been purified.
He have been cleansed.
We have been washed clean.
All who believe in the Son have been purified. And that makes all of the difference in the world.
Have you come to trust in the Son for your purification? Have you fixed your heart on Him? If you have not yet trusted Jesus as your Savior, I invite you right now and right here to do so. He has provided purification for sins by His own blood, and it was efficacious! Because after He did that, what did He do?
“He sat down!”
It was finished. His work was done. He no longer had stand. He could sit down, and look where He sat (see Psalm 110)!
“At the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”
We’re going to see that again and again in this book, too (8:1, 10:12, 12:2). His work is perfect, and He is exalted on High! He’s been given the name that is above every name. Verse 4.
“So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.”
And now we see one of this writer’s favorite words that gets repeated at least fifteen times in this sermonic letter. And it’s the word “superior.” Or “greater” or “better” or “more excellent.” He’s going to have a long list of things for us that the Son is greater than. There are all things that are good, but Jesus is better.
Like angels, for example. He starts there, and we’ll see that he goes on about it to the end of the chapter. Angels are good. Gabriel, Michael, and all of them are special messengers from God.
But Jesus is better.
Jesus is greater.
Jesus is superior.
And in His exaltation to the right hand of the Majesty in heaven, he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs.
Which I think is..."Son."
Now, of course, He has always been superior to the angels because He’s always been the Son. But He was made lower than the angels, in a way, when He took on humanity in His incarnation. But then He died and rose and was exalted as the God-Man and is above the angels once again. So He is superior in every way.
Church, we must fix our eyes on Him!
#3. FIX OUR EYES ON THE SON.
He is greater than anything else!
Why would we fix our eyes on anything other than Him? He is seated at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven! He is the co-ruler of the Universe. He is the heir of all things, the maker of all things, the sustainer of all things, the ruler of all things. The radiance of God’s glory and the perfect picture of His being. Why would we fix our gaze on anything else? Why would we listen to anything other than the Son?
Lanse Free Church, in 2026, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
***
Bonus Message:
I preached on this passage once before, twenty years ago (when I first started posting them on this blog) on Celebration Sunday the year we first paved the parking lot: God's Son.
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