Full Transcript:
John Piper quoted, “If we are going to worship God in Spirit and truth, we have got to get the truth first.”
I guarantee you that there are many parts of the Word of God that you have never heard before or never heard it preached before or maybe never read it or heard it preached before. So we always have to get the truth and the truth will always apply to us in some way or another.
So this morning I am going to look at the preeminency of the incarnate Son over angels.
I have already said that we have embarked on a journey from which we cannot return. Once you have discovered the supremacy and the preeminency of the Son, Jesus Christ, you cannot turn back. You must go forward, you must grow forward toward an ever deepening understanding and a more intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Why is that? So that we can see Jesus in his exaltation as preeminent over all things.
You may be asking a question this morning: Why is it important for me to know Jesus as being preeminent over the angels? Partly, so you don’t remain ignorant in your understanding and you don’t drift away from who Jesus really is and you get a full picture of his being, his person and of His position.
It is also partly that you do not get deceived by some religious system, some group or some persons that have Jesus all wrong. They twisted His person, His Position, His work into something that is unrecognizable by scripture. Look at chapter two of Hebrews verse one:
1For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.
The Bible’s concern is that you and I continue to grow in our understanding of Jesus Christ and not drift away from any truth that is connected to Him.
So when we worship, we know that we are worshipping the true and living God. We know also that the Jesus we are worshipping is recognized and expounded in the Word of God. The Word of God becomes our measure of who God is and who Christ is because this is who God’s revelation to us.
Now remember, in the introduction to the book of Hebrews, I gave some possible reasons of why the writer of Hebrews was writing to the Hebrews Christians. There was some kind of serious crisis that was threatening the purity of the church.
The first one that I mentioned was that of Roman persecution that martyred them and threatened to martyr them. It hit the Christians of Palestine so hard that they would rather denounce their faith and avoid persecution and death. That was one of the reasons it was written.
You will find that it is written in scripture in Hebrews you will find that the writer commends the readers for patience and endurance in the middle of persecution and in the middle of suffering and to hold on to their eternal salvation that has been given to them by God in Christ Jesus. He then warns the readers that God is a consuming fire and that it is tragic and it brings tragic consequences to renounce the Son and he urges them to renew their commitment to Christ, God’s foremost and final revelation to man.
The reason that he says that is that if you renounce Christ, there is no escape from God’s judgement if Christ is not your Lord and Christ is not your savior and Christ is not your sin bearer and Christ is not the One who is reigning on your behalf to bring you into heaven. If He is not the One, then there is no salvation for you.
There is a second reason why this writer of Hebrews writes to the Jewish Christians and that was the attack of the Judaizers. They wanted to Judaize the Hebrew Christians. In other words, a strange new teaching was going around that certain Judaizers wanted to bring them back into the old system of Judaism and to their former religions and that is why he says in Hebrews 13:9 to them:
9Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings; for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, through which those who were so occupied were not benefited.
He is really telling them, do not waiver and neglect the assembly of togetherness as believers, but to be under the Word of God and trust the Word of God as being sharper than any two-edged sword even to pierce down to the very depth of your heart and the very depth of your soul and let it expose you.
So you know who you are in your sin and you know who Christ is as Savior and Lord and Redeemer and with those two together, you will genuinely know you are forgiven for your sin and that you are forgiven not because you are good or could have been good or would have ever been good, but that Christ has completed such a perfect sacrifice.
Therefore, to say that a sacrifice was not perfect was to deny the whole of the Word of God. That was important for him to bring across and both of those things could be possibilities and it trickles along the book and as we go along we will see it.
There is a third reason why he wrote the book and that was the false teaching of a group called the Asceans. The asceans had this unusual teaching. They taught that God would send two Messiahs. One priestly and one Kingly and that above those two Messiahs would be the archangel Michael who will eventually rule over the both of them.
his view of angels come in that angels have authority or a position above Jesus as the Messiah. That teaching would completely subvert the biblical portrait of Jesus the Messiah.
The book of Hebrews is written to expose and turn upside down this teaching and teach instead the complete preeminence and supremacy of Christ over angels and over all created things visible and invisible things and over all others. So Christ is taken and exalted to the place where He should be where scripture exalts Him.
The author sought to inform his despondent, vacillating readers that Christ, the object of God’s final revelation is vastly superior to any other teacher or patriarch or religious system or spiritual, angelic being. What was the great temptation n the passages we will look at this morning. The great temptation is this: For a Jewish Christian, because the main audience is Jewish Christians, to simply acknowledge that Jesus was a great angel, even an archangel, awesome and great in power, but not God, was a temptation.
That is a temptation today. We have major religious groups that do not believe that Jesus Christ is God and somehow relay Him back to some angel that was great and powerful. This was tempting especially in the context of possible ostracism from family, from synagogues, from jobs. It was something in the context where it was tempting because of suffering and even loss of life.
So the pressure they were under to simply stress Jesus as an archangel and not the Son of God was tempting because it was not an outright denial of Jesus Christ, but simply a change in emphasis.
However, if you change that emphasis, Jesus is no longer the One whom the prophets foretold. He is no longer the One that is spoken about in the Gospels. He is no longer the One that is exalted to King ion revelations. He is not that One anymore, not the first, last, beginning and end. The beginning of all creation. He is just set aside by emphasis of just being with the angels.
People today do the same thing in different ways. They conclude that Jesus was the best of men and He is worthy to be emulated. Jesus was superior in His Ethics and morals and we should model Him. Jesus was one of the greatest examples of a sacrifice.
If we want to look at a sacrifice, look to Jesus and we will see the greatest sacrifice. Some say that Jesus was a perfect man. That He was created by God as a perfect angel for a special assignment among men on earth. I am saying this for this reason: To think like this is to be in danger of compromising one’s faith. In fact, to think of Jesus like this is to demote Him and strip Him of His real identity and inheritance. That is the title of Son of God.
This morning as we look at the scripture before us, from verse four to verse eight. You will find that the writer of Hebrews uses the Old Testament in a way that he is very skilled. In fact, the Old Testament for the writer of Hebrews, is a Christ-centered book that every prophet, every type, picture and message in the Old Testament was pointing to Christ. That is how he uses it in a masterful way. When the writer of Hebrews quotes from the Old Testament he often looks beyond the immediate context to a day when their predictions will be fulfilled in greater realities. Not just the apparent immediate context of the situation. As he brings forth the Old Testament passages, they bring out and point to what the Old Testament prophets and teachers were saying and therefore pointing to Christ one verse after another. Before, we even go there, who are the angels? If we look in scripture, the angels are amazing beings. The character of good angels are found everywhere. Let us look at a few passages. Let us look at 2 Peter 2:11:
11whereas angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord.
The angels were really pictures of meekness. It tells us in Jude that the Archangel, when he disputed with the devil over the body of Moses, did not dare to pronounce against him a railing judgment. Instead he said “The Lord rebuke you”. They are meek creatures. Meekness does not mean weak, it means they have power under control. They are also in scripture shown as wise. In Psalms 103:20 it says:
20 Bless the Lord, you His angels, Mighty in strength, who perform His word, Obeying the voice of His word!
The bible says that angels are holy and set apart for God. In 1 Timothy 5:21 that they are elect. Paul told Timothy:
21 I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of His chosen angels, to maintain these principles without bias, doing nothing in a spirit of partiality.
Then in Job and Hebrews again, we find that the angels are innumerable. In fact, the number it uses in scripture is myriads. Myriads of myriads of angels. Meaning that there is no way to number them, there are so many of them. Just go to the sea shore and pick up the sand. If someone gave you a project to number every grain of sand, could you do it? Every beach of the world? It is an impossible task and can’t be done. We know now that with the stars of heaven, it is the same way. It is not just a locked number, there are so many that are innumerable. So Christ has made angels with such a vast number that we could not even count them. In their character, those are angels. In their work in reference to Jesus Christ we find that angels are everywhere. In Christ’s conception in Luke, an angel comes and announces it. An angel comes and announces His birth of Christ in Luke chapter two and an angel announces the resurrection of Christ in Luke chapter twenty-four. An angel even announces the birth of John the Baptizer, who will be the forerunner of Jesus Christ. It says John the Baptist, who was prophesied about in the Old Testament, will point the way to Jesus Christ. Also, in Luke chapter 22:43, angels ministered to Christ. It says:
43 Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him.
Then in 1 Peter 3:22:
22who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him.
Then we see in scripture in Matthew, angels shall execute the purposes of Christ. Angels shall accompany Christ at his second coming. We know that angels also are curious and delight in the gospel of Christ. It says in 1 Peter “Those into whom angels long to look”. That was the very message of the gospel of Christ. They were curious about it. They were ministers of it in many ways. So from these references, you can conclude that in God’s creation these pure spiritual beings ranked very high on God’s scale and in God’s creation and are quite awesome. I didn’t even mention in Isaiah 6 where the angels minister around the throne of God and cry out “Holy, Holy Holy is the Lord” The author of Hebrews depends heavily on the Old testament because in this section he actually uses seven quotations from the Old Testament to display the deity, authority and sovereignty of Christ in contrast to angels. In our text, in verse 4, we see our first major point as we move to see the preeminency of the Son in contrast to angels. We see that the Son is preeminent over the angels by virtue of His position. Verse four says
4 having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they. 5For to which of the angels did He ever say, “You are My Son, today I have begotten You”?
Let me stop right there. There are several things why Jesus has a position in higher rank than the angels in these passages. The first one is this: that Jesus has inherited a more excellent name in verse four. Don’t miss this because this is not a mere desigantion to distinguish one individual from another or Jesus from the angels, no. The very word’s name in Hebrew or in Greek points to the essential nature of a person as to who they really are. In other words, Jesus is marked by such a superior quality that none can compare or stand beside Him even angels with all there excellence. Jesus is has to be much better than the angels because He has inherited a name superior to theirs and that name is this: Son. Jesus is called the Son. Actually, he is quoting from Psalms 2:7. It says:
7 “I will surely tell of the [e]decree of the Lord: He said to me, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten you.
The reason why he uses Son here too is that the Son is the only One who is qualified to receive the inheritance from the Father. The angels were never in that position to receive anything from what they already had. Once they were created, they had everything that will ever have from God and will be given no more. Especially an inheritance that will only be given to Jesus Christ. In Psalms 2, it was originally sung at the coordination of a king, like David or Solomon. Do not let the phrase from verse 7 trip you up:”I have begotten You” Do not let that throw you off, because it does not refer to the Son’s origin of existence. There never was a time when the Son did not exist. Jesus Christ was always the eternal Son in relationship to God the Father, Jesus was uniquely appointed and declared at a particular time in history that proves that He was who He says He was. When was that? Turn back to Romans 1:4. This is the capstone of Jesus being the Son and gives it some sense on what it means:
4 who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord,
In other words, at the resurrection of the dead, what did it prove about Jesus being the Son that was begotten? Meaning that the sonship of Christ is essential to the property of the divinity of Christ. In other words, in the divine nature. In opposition to what He was in the flesh, the Son of David, Jesus was declared at the resurrection to be the Son of God. Being equal with God, proving that His claims were well-founded. That the God that came in the flesh has risen from the dead and has authority over death, Satan and hell. He showed us that He is God in the flesh. He is none other than God in the flesh. That was never said of angels. That was never a designation of angels. Why is Jesus position higher than the angels? Why is He more preeminent that the angels? Jesus more inherited a more excellent name. Secondly, in verse number five of Hebrew 1, Jesus is David’s greater Son. In Hebrews we will get to the fact that to the writer of Hebrews this is “milk” theology and not “meat” theology. He rebukes them in chapter five for not growing to the point to be able to handle this stuff. To think with their minds to properly worship God and to properly understand who Jesus is. He does not at all fiddle around with all the simplicities of anything. He goes right to the heart of the matter and quotes from 2 Samuel 7:5. First, let’s go back to Hebrews 1:5
5 For to which of the angels did He ever say, “You are My Son, today I have begotten you”? And again, “I will be a Father to Him and He shall be a Son to Me”?
That is the quote that comes from 2 Samuel, but let us look at the context in 2 Samuel to get what he is saying. Jesus is David’s greater Son. That sounds strange if you did not know the background behind it. Look at 2 Samuel 7. This is the second reason that we see why Jesus’ position is higher than the angels. The second reference that he uses in 2 Samuel 7: 12-16. In verse fourteen of the scripture, he presents the Son as the one who fulfills the covenant made with King David:
14 I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me;
That is the passage in Hebrews. While this text is a primary reference to David’s son Solomon, a greater fulfillment is found in Jesus Christ and this is how the author uses it. What did the covenant of David actually say? In 2 Samuel 7:12
12 When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your [c]descendant after you, who will come forth from [d]you, and I will establish his kingdom.
He is talking about David and his son Solomon. He is talking about Solomon, who will establish the kingdom. A second thing the Davidic covenant says is in verse thirteen. David’s son will build the temple:
13 He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
That was the second part of the Davidic covenant. The third part is in verse 14 – 16. David’s throne, his right to rule, will be established forever and never be removed. Even if his son Solomon sins, to a point, that justifies that God will remove the kingdom from him. Did Solomon sin to that point? Yes he did. He took so many wives of other religions and they moved his heart to worship idols and God was very displeased with that. That should have been Solomon’s death, but it was not. Why? Because God made a promise to his father David that He would establish his kingdom forever and his kingdom will never have an end. Look at verse fourteen of 2 Samuel 7:
14 I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me; when he commits iniquity
We know that Jesus does not commit iniquity, but who does? Solomon.
14ÉI will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men,
Verse fifteen:
15 but my lovingkindness shall not depart from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you.
Verse sixteen
16 Your house and your kingdom shall endure before [e]Me forever; your throne shall be established forever.”’
One of the major things in the Levatich covenant is that God will establish a kingdom forever. We need to have someone that fulfills that. In Matthew it says, the queen of the south came to hear the Wisdom of Solomon. It is recorded in Matthew, where the Queen of the south will rise up with this generation in judgement and condemn it because she came from the ends of the earth and says “Behold, something greater than Solomon is here” Who is greater than Solomon?
Remember, Solomon’s kingdom was not established but actually divided. However, Jesus’ kingdom will be established eternally. It points to David’s greater son and the writer of Hebrews is looking at the passage of scripture. He looks way in the future and sees Jesus Christ fulfill the Messianic promise f redemption and will establish the Millennium kingdom forever and ever. The Father never said that of any angel, He only said that of Jesus.
Jesus is His beloved Son and that His beloved Son would be the greater son of King David, who will sit on the throne of a forever kingdom. We will all be a part of that. He is minimizing the position of angels to a place where Christ is so far exalted that one can never conclude that Jesus was an angel or anything like it. In fact, the conclusion that we will establish here, inescapably, is that the Son is the eternal King. He is the One that sits on the throne and fulfills all the prophecies recorded in the Word of God.
Remember what happens when Jesus comes into the world and begins His ministry? At the baptism of Jesus in Luke chapter 3, the Father says “This is my beloved Son, I am well pleased with Him”. Furthermore at the Mount of transfiguration, again, the Father speaks as the Lord’s image is transformed and the glory of God beams from inside of Him. What does God say then at the Mount of Transfiguration “This is my beloved Son, listen to Him!” The point is that as we consider the Son to be preeminent over the angels by virtue of His position, the second is He is David’s greater Son. Back in Hebrews, the third reason why Jesus is preeminent over the angels is found in verse number six of Hebrews 1:
6 And [f]when He again brings the firstborn into [g]the world, He says, “And let all the angels of God worship Him.”
This is the third reason why Jesus is exalted higher than the angels. Jesus existed with the Father prior to the creation. In this passage, he is quoting from Deuteronomy 32:43 and Psalms 97:7, but he is quoting from the Septuagint. He has a mastery in the Greek and a mastery of the Septuagint. It says from the Septuagint in Deuteronomy 32:43
“Rejoice ye Heavens with Him and let all the angels of God worship Him”
In the Hebrew bible, it uses the words “Gods” instead of angels. There is a whole background that I won’t go into right now. How come it is not in the Hebrew text and it is in the Greek translation of the Old Testament? There is a reason for that, but it is definitely pointing to someone who would fill the description of being an angel in Deuteronomy. What is he saying in Deuteronomy 32? That all the angels of God should worship Him: The One who would come again. The Septuagint in Psalms 97:7, 9 says:
“Let all who worship graven images be ashamed who boast of their idols worship Him All ye his angels”
Why is that? The first thing that? The first thing God says about the angels’ real position in regards to His Son is that angels are to prostrate themselves in worship before the Son and not the other way aroundÑever. In fact, the use of the word “firstborn” in verse six has to do with Jesus’ existence prior to creation and His sovereign power over it. It does not imply that Jesus was created by the Father because He has always been coequal with the Father from eternity to eternity. “Firstborn” covers all the ions of whatever has been created. All creation from its beginning to its end of time. Colossians 1:15 says:
15 [w]He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
In other words, Jesus is a higher rank than the angels because He created them. The angels then, because He created them, are to worship Him. That is what is found in scripture. The angels are worshipping Christ. As a matter of fact, they worship Him in eternity past, they worship Him in the incarnation when He becomes flesh, they worship Him in His ministry on earth and worship Him in eternity present. They even worship Him in the coming eternity. They worship Him all over scripture. To think to say that the angels have any other type of rank over Christ is absurd. He destroys any view of that type of thinking. In fact, in Nehemiah 9:6 gives us the sense of angels worshipping God:
“You alone are the Lord. You have made the heavens, The heaven of heavens with all their host, The earth and all that is on it, The seas and all that is in them. You give life to all of them and the heavenly host bows down before You.
We see these might, excellent, supreme beings designated in scripture as created by Jesus Christ bowing down to Him. In the rest of the scripture, it already identified Him as the creator. The last time we were in Hebrew chapter one in the first three verses. Also in Luke two, we again see the angels worshipping. This is a very familiar passage of scripture. Luke 2:13:
13 And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
And verse 14:
14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men [g]with whom He is pleased.”
Who are they? The heavenly host, the innumerable angels that have been created by Christ, who are now at His coming into this world praising God from the heavens. They are worshipping. In Revelation 5:11:
11 Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.” 13 And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, “To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.”
Now can you make a mistake on who this is who is sitting on the throne? Who the angels of God, in their vast number, are worshipping and getting others to worship? They point to His vast attributes by letting everyone know who this is on the throne. That He is rich in wisdom, might, honor, glory, blessing and He is to be worshipped. The angels are pointing to the One who created them. That He is worthy and we are not worthy to be worshipped. You and I are not worthy to be worshipped. No one in all the world, created, is worthy to be worshipped. Only Jesus Christ is worthy to be worshipped. Remember, Jesus Christ always was and was never created. He was from eternity to eternity. That is why He is the Beginning and the End. He is the the First and the Last, Alpha and the Omega. In Hebrews 1, we will see coming eternity. In verse six, there is an interesting word that caused a lot of problems as far as interpretation. In Hebrews 1:6:
6 And [f]when He again brings the firstborn into [g]the world, He says, “And let all the angels of God worship Him.”
Notice the word “again”. Where does that point to? From the text, it shows that since Christ has already come once, it is pointing to a time when all the angels were worshipping openly showing their subjection to His exalted position and this passage is referring to the second coming of Christ in judgement. The angels again will worship Him and it will be an outright public worship and all will know who Christ is and there will be no mistake about Jesus Christ at all. Is that not what we need to know? We cannot get Jesus wrong. There are many people today worshipping Jesus, but not the Jesus of the bible and not the Jesus of scripture. If we get Jesus wrong and create some other Jesus in our mind to worship then that can be the doom of our salvation and bring on the judgement of God where will be lost for eternity because we did not get Jesus right. We should have such a strong conviction and understanding of who He is that no one can move you from it. In Philippians 2, Paul writes to the Philippian church, a most awesome passage of scripture. He wanted them, in his own way, to get it also when it came to who Christ was and who is to be worshipped. In Philippians 2:9 it says:
9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,
Verse 10:
10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
Verse 11:
11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Do you realize that this is talking about those who have rejected Christ? They will one day bow before Him and call Him what he rightfully is. I pray that everyone will be on the right side and be convinced in this life. Not only theoretically that Jesus is the Son of God and is to be exalted. The unescapable conclusion in this passage of Hebrews is that the Son is fully divine and fully God, but the angels are not divine and are created beings that worship Jesus, the Son of God. We will be totally convinced theoretically and practically. It would bring conviction to our hearts that when we meet together to worship it is to worship Jesus Christ. It is to lift up His name and be ready in our minds, to move aside all distraction and worship Jesus Christ in truth. We worship based on who He really is and what the scripture really say about him corporately. Then, throughout the week, when we face the world, we will learn to worship Him there as well. We will have a proper understanding of Him so we can come together in a very definite way, every day of our lives and no one can move us from that position of who Jesus Christ is. In Hebrews 1:7, 8, it supports the second major point that the Son is preeminent over the angels by virtue of His position and authority. In Hebrews 1:7
7 And of the angels He says, “Who makes His angels winds, and His ministers a flame of fire.”
Verse 8:
8 But of the Son He says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of [h] His kingdom
In other words, in verse number seven, we see that the angels are creatures (created) and servants that minister on Christ’s behalf. Also in verse eight, if Jesus Christ is sitting on the throne and His throne is forever, then the angels are subjects in His kingdom and are stationed before the throne. In other words, they are creatures and Christ is the Creator. They are servants and Christ is the Ruler. They are subjects who minister around the throne and before the throne. Jesus is the King who sits on the established throne. The contrast in the verses are there to show the difference between the angels and Christ. In verse seven where the passage says:
“Who makes His angels windsÉ”
The angels are like winds can mean they are invisible, rapid in movement and capable of creating great effects like the wind can produce. In other words, they are so quick to carry out His will and purposes and move swiftly wherever they go. Secondly, in verse eight where the passage says:
“Éand His ministers a flame of fire.”
They carry out the good deeds of God’s purpose and plans, but also the judgement of God’s purpose and plans. We think of Sodom and Gomorrah. Who poured out fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah? The angels did that. God has these creatures as ministers and they cannot attain any greater heights. They are only the instruments of divine agency and that is it. This was an issue then and can be an issue today if we replace Jesus with any other object of worship, we are guilty of the same thing. What is the conclusion that we have? If the Son is preeminent over the angels because they are subject to His authority, will and sovereignty, what are we to do with the Son? There is only one conclusion: we are to worship. Exclamation mark, period. We are to worship Him. Now ask yourself, do you worship Him? Worshipping Him means to listen to Him, obey Him. You love His word and want to hear what He has to say. Put into practice what He said. All the implications of what it means to worship takes on a very practical understanding in our daily life. Do you worship Jesus? When we meet to worship in the body, we should worship fervently, why? We have a relationship with Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior who died in our place, rose from the grave, declared to be the Son of God, sits and reigns on the throne and makes intercession for His saints. In Hebrews 1:14, the author concludes:
14 Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?
The angels have been created for you and I who know Christ. They are our ministers, however they may minister through our life, and they have been giving to us. We are connected through the Son and inherit something the angels cannot even inherit, eternal salvation. That is awesome. The author is saying in this text “where do we stand with Christ?” If you have not trusted Him, trust Him today. Do not let anything, anyone, any demon, any spirit or any angel hold you back from trusting in Christ. Show that you trust in Christ by living for Him, serving Him and following Him; then we can worship together. Not only here, but someday in heaven. Worshipping with no obstacles, hindrances or anything to distract us and it will be awesome.