CALLED THROUGH HERITAGE
LESSON FOR THE JUNIOR CLASSES
STUDY SCRIPTURE: HEBREWS 1 & MATTHEW 1
KEY VERSE
“ God who at sundry times and in diverse manners spoke in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the world”. Hebrews 1-2
INTRODUCTION
From time to time we look back at our life maybe two or three years before when we are a little bit younger than we are now and we think that those days were better than the present times we are living in. We probably then would play more, watch TV more, and our parents would pay us more attention and give us more of the things that we like. But as we grow older we find that they expect us to do a little bit more work and to pay attention to what they would call “more serious things”.
When that happens we find that we tend to slip away and forget some of the teachings that our parents gave to us. We tend to forget some of them and this of course creates problems for us.
That is exactly what happened to some adults who were Christians and who lived at the time of the writer of the book of Hebrews. He thought that they were getting a little bit dull, casual, careless and lackadaisical in what they believed and he wrote this book to give them a little bit more vigour and strength so they would go back to following some of the things about the Lord Jesus Christ that they had learned.
He reminded them that the Lord Jesus Christ was the Son of the Father in Heaven and that the Father in Heaven had appointed the Lord Jesus Christ to inherit everything that He had. It was Jesus who created the entire universe and the angels and everything that existed and the Father in Heaven spoke about Jesus’ heritage or position stating that all these things belong to Him.
Jesus was the heir and so this meant He had the legal right to an inheritance. This was so because God the Father had promised Abram that he would have many descendents, that he would be given a Land all of his own, and that through one of his descendents all the nations and peoples living on Earth would be blessed.
God had fulfilled His promise to give the nation of Israel, a land all of their own. Then God made the same promise many years later to King David. God promised David that the people of God and the nation of Israel would have a land, and more important one of his children would sit on His throne and would rule the entire earth and the universe forever and ever. The entire universe would be made unbelievably beautiful and be in a blessed state when this special son of David would rule from His eternal throne.
What is beautiful for us is that the Lord Jesus Christ who was the Son of the Father in Heaven came down to Earth to live among people and to heal them and teach them. He cleansed and purified them of all their sins by His work on the Cross.
Jesus taught us those that believed in the Lord Jesus Christ would join Him and be joint-heirs with Him because their belief in Jesus would result in God the Father adopting them into His family. They would come into a great and beautiful inheritance.
The book of Hebrews therefore reminded the Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians that Jesus was more important than anyone else for He was special. He was superior to everything and everyone and was exalted and through Him life would be given to all those that came to Him. This life would continue forever and never stop.
The book of Matthew written by the Apostle Matthew who along with the other Apostles had lived with and followed Jesus had been written before to show the Christians that Jesus was in fact the Son of God the Father. Matthew traced the start of the family of Jesus from Abram right down to King David to show that God’s promises to Abram and God’s promises to David would come together and be fulfilled by Jesus. Jesus was without any doubt the son of David and since He was pure and sinless and lived forever He had a right to sit on the throne of David forever through all time.
This is very important for God had made every man, woman, and child in His likeness so they could be put in His family once they believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour. They would have a great inheritance since they had a heritage from God the Father in Heaven.
So go to the Lord Jesus Christ and become joint-heirs with Him. If you have any doubts about who He is just try to read the long genealogy in Matthew 1. It shows who Jesus descended from and that He was the Son of David and so had the right to sit on the eternal throne established by God the Father.
So you can be sure that you can trust Jesus and that He will look out for you and all the other Christians to whom the book of Hebrews was sent. Just make sure that you do not get dull or weak in your trust in and dependence on Jesus Christ. Sometimes this can happen when troubles or difficulties come to you. Remember that Jesus can handle all the difficulties you can ever meet. He will forgive any mistakes you make and will encourage you and help to get strong. Remember He is loving and kind. He is also understanding and merciful. He knows everything about you even before you were born and He still loves you and will keep. OK.