Hebrews 1:14

Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?

God loves you. If you are not a Christian, I want you to know that God loves you. If you are a Christian I want to remind you that God loves you.

Theologians speak about common grace and special grace. Common grace identifies all that we have that comes from God. The rain falls on everyone, the just and the unjust. When it rains, we all receive God’s grace. Our bodies are an act of God’s grace. The fact that we can live, talk, eat, smell, hear, see, and hear are all acts of grace. God has been good to us. We enjoy family and friend, whether or not we are Christians. I will tell you this. God has a purpose in this for those who do not know Christ.

“Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realising that God’s kindness leads you towards repentance?” God’s goodness is meant to turn us to Christ. Through faith in Christ, you can be reconciled to God.” Romans 2:4:

For the Christian, we have even more reason to rejoice. God has been so good to us. Our sins are forgiven, we are on our way to heaven. God has given us the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, the blessings of fellowshipping with other believers, the privilege of serving God on this earth during our lifetime. We are richly blessed.

I would like to add one blessing to the list. God’s angels are serving you. This is what this verse tells us. The writer of the book of Hebrews is telling us that the ministry of angels is to serve those who will inherit salvation. Will you inherit salvation? I will.

When we received Christ, our sins were forgiven. We were saved from the wrath of God. The Holy Spirit came into our lives and worked to free us from sin. Since you have become a Christian, God has helped break the hold of sin in your life. He has helped you with your speech, your addictions, your patterns of life. The agent of change was the Holy Spirit working in you. But that is not all. Paul says in Romans 8 we are waiting for the redemption of the body. That is what is left for us. The salvation that began at the cross will be completed for us when we are in glory. God’s promise is so good that we have the assurance of it today, but we look forward to our inheritance that we have in Jesus.

If you are one who will inherit salvation based on your faith in Jesus Christ, the angels are serving you.

I want to ask some questions this morning and then answer them based on scripture.

First, what are angels? Angels are ministering spirits. They are not humans who have died. So often we read poetry or see people talk about a child that died being their guardian angel. But angels are not people.

The scripture that shows this is a quote from Psalm 8.

“But there is a place where someone has testified: “What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? 7 You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honour 8 and put everything under his feet.” In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him. 9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

(Hebrews 2:6-9, NIV).

We find in this passage three groups or people mentioned. Jesus, man, and angels. The angels are not men, but are above men. Jesus was above both men and angels, but became a man, lower than the angels, to die on the cross for us. Sometimes in the Bible an angel took on the form of a man, but that was only temporary. But man never became an angel.

Second, why don’t we hear much about angels? The reason for that is that our text says that they were “sent.” We honor the sender more than we do the servant sent on the sender’s behalf.

For example, sports fans, you fly from Portland to Boston to attend a game. Either Doc Rivers or Bill Bellicheck sends a limousine to pick you up at the airport. Wow! When you get home, do you say to your friends, “John Smith drove a limousine to the airport to pick me up”, or do you say, “Doc Rivers or Bill Bellicheck sent a limo to pick me up?” The servant is appreciated, but receive little attention because of who is behind the sending. So the angels work in the background, sent by God to help you and I.

What a blessing! God loves us so much that he sends angels to serve us and to help us. We do not praise the angels he sends, we praise God from whom all blessings flow!

Another reason why we don’t hear much about angels and this is in the context, is that Jesus is so much better, so superior, so high above the angels. That is the whole point of this passage. We won’t go through the whole text, but look at an introductory verse.

4 So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs. (Hebrews 1:4, NIV).

Take the time to read down through the text. God is telling us that Jesus is far superior to the angels.

I will tell you that we are apt to be more excited about meeting an angel than meeting Jesus. We have heard so much about Jesus and so little about angels that people have come to almost worship angels. We find TV shows, “Touched by an Angel” or books or stories about people who have angels. They make a lot of money off their book sales. The general public loves it.

But you will not hear a lot about angels in the Christian church. We do not worship the servants, but the Savior.

However, and this is a blessing, God, speaking through the writer of the book of Hebrews asks us,

“Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation,”

assuming that our answer will be, “Yes, absolutely.” Christians are served by angels. We may not see or notice. We will have to take this by faith. But if you believe the Bible, you can believe that Christians are served by angels.

So what do they do for us? I now that’s the burning question. My answer is, “I don’t know.” So I am going to give you my guess on this.

Hebrews 13:2 says,

Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.

It is possible that some of the strangers you meet as a believer may be angels in human clothing. This is my guess. The same writer who tells us they minister tells us that some of the strangers who visited in their homes were angels, even though they didn’t know it.

In Abraham’s time, some strangers appear to tell Abraham about impending judgment on Sodom. They go down and rescue Lot and his family from Sodom and Gomorrah.

This is what I will call the protecting work of angels. Satan uses this imagery when he tries to get Jesus to jump off the top of the temple. He tells Jesus that the angels will catch him.

I am just guessing, but I wonder how many times you were in a dangerous situation and unknown to you, a stranger appeared and kept an attacker away. You might never have seen the stranger. You might have met them once and never seen them again. But your attackers saw someone. And that stranger was a deterrent to the attackers, protecting you from harm.

Have you ever had a stranger encourage you? Has someone you only met once given you an encouraging word? You were in need of encouragement and this total stranger came up and said something that gave you joy or peace. I don’t know. Was it an angel sent by God to serve you?

In Daniel an angel comes to Daniel.

10 A hand touched me and set me trembling on my hands and knees. 11 He said, “Daniel, you who are highly esteemed, consider carefully the words I am about to speak to you, and stand up, for I have now been sent to you.” And when he said this to me, I stood up trembling. 12 Then he continued, “Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. 13 But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia. (Daniel 10:10-13, NIV).

It appears from the text that a spiritual battle had been going on. I am guessing, but I wonder if God doesn’t send angels to protect us in the spiritual world from many of the battles we might have to fight if the angels did not fight them for us before they hit us.

We will never know, but angels are serving us in some way.

What are we to do? Praise God. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you may walk out of here today with the knowledge that you have more going for you than you thought when you walked in. The angels serve those who inherit salvation. Thank God for all the riches of his grace to us. Don’t worship the angels, don’t exalt them above Jesus, but just be aware. They are there and they are helping you.

If you are not a believer, I want to give you this warning. If something appears as an angel, don’t take it at face value. Just as angels sent from God are there to protect the saints, so false angels, we call them demons, are there to counterfeit the real and to lead you away from God.

Instead, I encourage you to trust Jesus. He died to forgive your sins so you could be reconciled with God. Jesus is the way, the truth, the life. As you walk through this life, Jesus will make your path straight. There are spiritual forces that are at work to keep you from God. Trust Jesus and he will lead you in the right path. He will send his angels to minister and serve you.

Praise God for his love for us.