Sermon Tone Analysis

Who is your Jesus?

odd phrase - your not the - talking about human sexuality debate - ‘It’s like they have a different Jesus’.

God made man in his image - man made God in his.

What do we allow to shape our Jesus?

not talking biblical Blond hair, blue eyes -but biblical calm, serene Jesus, Turning tables Jesus the revolutionary, Buddy Jesus, End times Jesus… If not careful we tend to overemphasise one scriptural image

Many of us come to Jesus we pre-conceived ideas about God, taught through Sunday school.

Values in society - don’t pretend they don’t exist.

Non-judgemental, inclusive, wise teacher Jesus.

How many knew of Jesus before you met him?

Rachel - knew nothing - Jesus walked into the room.

This Christmas season we go back to scripture - Who is Jesus?

Jesus is Eternal

‘In the beginning’, Incarnation a specific act in our time line out of God’s eternal timelessness.

Eternity is a hard concept for us.

Inclined to imagine a timeline - beginning to end - scientists know time is a property of created universe.

Biblical

Its not as immutable and unchangeable as we think.

Twins experiment - space time clocks.

What is time to an eternal God outside of time.

See how Jesus plays with the concept of time in the tenses here...

Jesus didn’t come into being at Christmas.

He was incarnated - became man but always existed.

Pre-incarnate Jesus?

Timeless God who steps into time - experiences it - yet eternally exists outside it.

How do you picture creation?

Christ with his scars who was there at the start?

There’s mystery to marvel at here.

Jesus the Revelation

‘was the word’, Logos - Word - God communicating in a way the world understood.

Logos - a word careful chosen by John - Jews, word is the spoken power and authority of God, Greek stoics - it is the ordering and creative power of Divine.

Philo’s - mind of God

Jesus is a divine act of communication.

Communication has to be in a way we understand.

Nan - toilet in spain.

Communication is hard - requires people to be on a similar level.

Art of teaching - making the complex simple - at someones level.

There needs to be a decent closeness though.

Imagine trying to explain the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet to a slug… Intricacies of your favourite music to a goldfish… How much greater is God than us?

Jesus is the ultimate stooping down, the coming right down to our level

No-ones seen?

Moses on the mount?

Jacob wrestling God? Joshua - face to face as a friend.

He is the fullest making known of the transcendent God.

Jesus is God in trinity

‘Word was with God’ - was’ing, a continual action -interacting in an ongoing way.

John 1:1 (NIV)

1 In the beginning continually and ongoing-ly existing the Word, and the Word was actively giving and receiving from God, and the Word was contiunually God.

Trinity - why, is it hard to understand, aren’t there simpler ways to see it?

If you were going to invent a concept you’d make it simpler.

There is mystery at the heart of Gods nature.

Two things; its required for love and its required for salvation

God is love - Darren is love - make sense?

I can’t be it alone.

Love is interaction - its emotion, requires a way to emote.

Imagine eternal God without interaction -

McGill University Medical Center in Montreal,paid volunteers – mainly college students – to spend days or weeks by themselves in sound-proof cubicles, deprived of meaningful human contact.

Aimed to isolate for a few weeks.

Within hours agitated - hallucination followed - most terminated experiment after a few days - no-one made a week.

Wrong to say of God that he would be like a human in ability to manage this but if after an eternity if God created - would this not be a selfish act?

Requirement for company?

How can such an act be a loving, self-less God like I think scripture says?

Loving giving and receiving nature of God.

Loving as he invites us into what he already has.

Jesus, the God who saves

‘word was God’

It is remarkable that Jews arrived so quickly at the trinity.

Only God can save

Only against God do we sin and therefore only God can deal with sin.

Remember this is why Jesus shocked the establishment when healing.

To understand Jesus incarnation you must look to the cross.

False views of Jesus

Heretics in the room?

We judge but really these were often people wrestling with scripture (and cultural views) to think through who Jesus was.

Adoptionism & Pelagianism - Jesus born man, past the test - elevated to God (Jesus the great teacher/prophet) Mormon.YET all this gives us a moral example, try hard and be like Jesus, you too can become adopted - Death is only an example to us.

Docetism - Jesus only appeared like a man really still fully God- not real suffering, not real man - God cannot come down to our level (Jesus the unknowable mystical spiritual entity) YET (ignoring this scripture) Jesus eats, cries, suffers - fake performance then what hope is there in the cross?

- Death is dramatic sham demonstration of love

Arianism - God is too pure to incarnate.

He created Jesus first and then adopted him to his sonship (Just the son of God).Jehovah’s Witness.

YET If God created Jesus to take my sin then that is an abusive act - to have a child only to punish it for something I did.

My sin is with God - can I transfer it to another?

God must deal with my sin.

If Jesus isn’t fully divine then I have no hope for my sinfulness.

Real Jesus

It is a relationship

Jesus is knowable - you can experience his presence - Talk to him - read about him - meet him.

This Christmas lets focus on that - the real Jesus