The Life of Jesus (2)

In our Easter sermon series, It Is Finished, we are looking at what Jesus accomplished in his life, death, burial, and resurrection and why it matters for us today. It Is Finished, we are looking at what Jesus accomplished

Now if you’re a regular church attender, it is easy to think, “Another sermon about Jesus.” If you are not a regular church attender, it is easy to think, “Why are they talking about a guy who supposedly live 2,000 years ago?”

In other words, it is super easy to approach Jesus or any discussion of him with a causual, half paying attention sort of attitude. If that attitude describes yours, and as a result, you are already experiencing the desire to tune out, I want to lovingly challenge you regarding the significance of the person we are talking about by pointing two things out to you.

Jesus deserves a hard, long, and honest consideration because...

A. Every historian agrees that Jesus is one of the most influential people in human history.

Many have him at the top of that list.

The famous English writer and historian, H.G. Wells, who, from what I understand died an atheist, wrote this about Jesus:

Now, it is interesting and significant that a historian, without any theological bias whatever, should find that he cannot portray the progress of humanity honestly without giving a foremost place to a peniless teacher from Nazareth. The old Roman historians ignored Jesus entirely; they left no impress on the historical records of his time. Yet, more than 1900 years later, a historian like myself, who does not even call himself a Christian, finds the picture centering irresistibly around the life and character of this most significant. ¹

Author, Henry G. Bosch, wrote this:

Socrates taught for forty years, Plato for fifty, Aristotle for forty, and Jesus for only three. Yet the influence of Christ’s three-year ministry infinitely transcends the impact left by the combined 130 years of teaching from these men who are among the greatest philosophers of all antiquity. Jesus painted no pictures, yet some of the finest painting of Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci received their inspiration from Him. Jesus wrote no poetry, but Dante, Milton, and scores of the world’s greatest poets were inspired by Him. Jesus composed no music, still, Haydn, Handel, Beethoven, Bach, and Mendelssohn reached their highest perfection of melody in the hymns, symphonies, and oratories they composed in His praise. Every sphere of human greatness has been enriched by this humble carpenter of Nazareth.²

Historian and sociologist of religion, Rodney Stark, stated that:

Without Jesus their would be no western civilization.³

Jesus's impact on human history can also be seen by the fact that:

i. Christianity is the world’s biggest religion including over 2 billion people from all over the world.

And that statement “all over the world” speaks to Jesus’s impact as well. The other main religions of the world are all concentrated where they were founded. Christianity has spread in large concentrations all over the globe.⁴

For these reasons and many more, Jesus’s impact on human history is really unrivaled.

Jesus’s impact on human history is not the only reason you should take Jesus seriously.

You should also take him seriously because of

B. Jesus made astounding claims and promises.

To my knowledge, Jesus claimed and promised more than any other religious figure who has made any sizable impact on the world. What's more, his claims and promises, if true, have serious implications for every person that has ever lived.

For example, Jesus claimed to be God. He claimed to be the true king of the world. For those that received him as King, he promised to satisfy the deepest longings of their heart...longings for significance, satisfaction, and security. For those who trusted in him, He promised resurrection and eternal life on a renewed earth completely free of evil, sin, and death. He promised to eternally quarantine evil and every individual who persists in rebelling against him so that it can no longer cause havoc in his world.

And so...

Due to Jesus's impact on human history and the astounding claims and promises that he made, it is quite foolish not to give Jesus a very hard and honest consideration.

If Jesus only made grandiose claims and promises but didn't radically change the course of human history, I would say treat him casually. And if he only made a significant impact on human history but didn't make the claims and promises that he made, I would also say treat him casually, but because he did both, please only reject him after a good, hard, honest look. I have found that few people who are serious about following the truth wherever it leads end up rejecting Jesus.

Engaging with our new sermon series is one way that you can start to seriously consider Jesus.

If you have already found Jesus to be the way, the truth, and the life, you have even more reason to engage with our sermon series, because you already know the significance of the one we are talking about who deserves your full attention and worship.

So without further ado, let us consider what Jesus accomplished in his life and why that matters for us today.

Because of Jesus's magnitude, it is impossible in one sermon to cover everything that Jesus accomplished in his life. And so what I offer to you this morning is by no means exhaustive.

However, what I offer to you is critical if we are going to understand the significance of Jesus's life and why it matters for us today.

Here's what we'll cover:

In his life, what did Jesus accomplish?

Jesus fulfilled prophecy.

Jesus fulfilled the law.

Jesus learned obedience.

Jesus perfectly revealed God.

Body

#1 Jesus fulfilled PROPHECY.

Matthew 5:17

“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.

One of the many things that makes the Bible astoundingly unique among all books ever written is that it accurately foretells specific events in detail many years, sometimes centuries, before they occur.

Canadian astrophysicist, Hugh Ross, has stated that:

Approximately 2,500 prophecies appear in the pages of the Bible, 2,000 of which already have been fulfilled to the letter-no errors.

What about the remaining 500? Ross stated:

Those reach into the future and may be unfolding as days go by.⁵

Of those prophecies, 191 of them are in regards to the Messiah...that is...they’re about the special, anointed King that God would send to rescue the world. By the way, 191 is a conservative number.

Some say there are 332 prophecies concerning the Messiah in Scripture.⁶

What are the chances that any one person might fill just 8 of the messianic prophecies?

Peter Stoner, who was chairman of the Departments of Mathematics and Astronomy at Pasadena City College until 1953, did the math and found that any one person had a 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000 chance of fulfilling just 8 of the messianic prophecies.

What are the chances of one person fulfilling 48 of the messianic prophecies? Stoner calculated one in a 10 to the 157th power chance!

And here's the kicker, Jesus didn't just fulfill 8 of the prophecies or even fulfill merely 48 of them but rather all of them!

So why does this matter for us today?

Jesus’s fulfillment of prophecy provides overwhelming evidence that God is real and Jesus is the Savior of the world.

French mathematician Blaise Pascal said that the fulfilled Messianic prophecies played a major role in his coming to faith. Here are the words he wrote over three centuries ago:

If a single man had written a book foretelling the time and manner of Jesus’ coming, and Jesus had come in conformity with these prophecies, this would carry infinite weight . . . But there’s much more here. There’s a succession of men, over a period of four thousand years, coming consistently and invariably, one after the other, to foretell the same coming. There is an entire people proclaiming it, existing for four thousand years, to testify in a body to the certainty that they feel about it, from which they cannot be deflected by whatever threats and persecutions they may suffer. This is quite a different order of importance.⁸

If you are a not a Christian, what do you do with this evidence? How do you account for it? How do you explain it?

If you are a Christian, this evidence should bolster your faith. Your faith is not blind faith. It is based on logic and reason. It is based on tremendous historical facts. You worship a God that keeps his promises! He is faithful, always and forever! You should not doubt for a second that God's remaining 500 prophecies will be fulfilled.

In his life, Jesus accomplished fulfilling every single Messianic prophecy. He fulfilled the prophets.

But he also...

#2 Jesus fulfilled the LAW.

Matthew 5:17

“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.

What is the law that Jesus is referring to in this verse?

God, as the loving creator and just ruler of the world, has designed humans to live according to his life giving rules in order to maximize human flourshing.

As a result, Romans 2 tells us that God has written his law on every human heart.

This means that:

All humans are born with a God given moral compass that enables them to determine right from wrong.

It wasn't until the time of Moses that God explained in greater detail how he expected humans to live.

Through Moses, God gave 613 laws. The first 10 of those laws, known as the Ten Commandments, became the foundation for the 603 laws that followed. The Ten Commandments were clear, definite, absolute standards of right and wrong that outlined how a person was to love God with all the heart, mind, soul, and strength and how a person was to love their neighbor.

God's laws were are gift because they came from a loving God and defined what was best for his people.

That is why the author of Psalm 19 stated:

Psalm 19:7–10

The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, Yea, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.

Now you would think that God etching in stone his life giving rules would have helped his people to more fully live them out but it didn’t.

Why not? Were God’s laws faulty after all?

No. They were as good as the Psalmist said that they were.

Romans 8:3 tells us that the problem wasn’t with the law but with people.

With the free will God gave humans, they decided to reject God’s rule over their life and disobeyed his rules.

And so what the law ended up doing was make God’s people even more responsible for breaking the law. Why? Because they didn’t just have an internal moral compass to guide them, they had the rules spelled out in detail. The law went from being a general internal sense in each individual to a spelled out, concrete, specific thing that could be held, read, and memorized. No longer could God’s people excuse their disobedience by saying they didn’t know the rules. They had both a moral compass and God’s law in written form. They were doubly without an excuse. This is one of the main points that the Apostle Paul made in Romans 2.

You parents in the room, when one of your children are disobedient to your rules, how many times have you said to them, “I specifically told you to...” That of course means, “I spelled it out for you and therefore you are even more repsonsible and guilty for not doing what I told you to do.” “You are without an excuse.”

Now what is the consequence for obeying the law of God? Abundant life!

What is the consequence of disobeying the law of God?

Well if obeying God’s law brings life than disobeying it must bring death.

Sin is breaking the law of God and sin, Romans 6:23 tells us, brings forth death.

Every single time we choose to live contrary to the life giving rule of God the stuff of death is the result.

You say, “I don’t know about that…that seems pretty extreme.”

But its not.

For example, let’s take the first commandment:

Exodus 20:3

“You shall have no other gods before Me.

Oh the depression, sadness, worry, anxiety, and emptiness that disobedience to this command has caused people who worship their career, money, success, sex, power, fame or their children. It has destroyed marriages, friendships, and family.

How about the second commandment:

Exodus 20:8–9

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work,

Oh the devestation that workholism and a lack of rest in the Lord has caused people for centuries. It has destroyed individuals, families, marriages, and the quality and effeciency of our work.

And the third commandment:

Exodus 20:14

“You shall not commit adultery.

The number of families and invidulas that adultery has destoryed or maimed to never be the same again are too numerous to count.

And the fourth commandment:

Exodus 20:16

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

Oh the power of our words! We can destroy a person’s reputation with one false sentence, tweet, or Facebook post. One sinful sentence can negatively impact a person for the rest of their life. One lie can demolish trust that can take years to restablish.

Disobeying God brings and spreads death and not life.

And the reality is that....

We have all used our God given free will to disobey God.

People that have never heard of the one true God of the Bible and his laws, are guilty of disobeying what they know to be right as a result of the moral compass God implants in every human being. They are without excuse.

Other people are aware of God and his commands and therefore have disobeyed both their God given moral compass and their more detailed knowledge of God rules.

Either way, we are all guilty.

Romans 3:23

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

We were made to be an accurate reflection of the glory of God, and yet, because of our disobedience, God’s glorious image in us has been marrred and distorted.

Eveyrone of us is repsonsible for the death that is an all too clear reality in our world.

What’s more is that...

Due to our allegiance to death, we deserve to phsyically die and to be raised to eternal death which is to be eternally cut off from God and his good world so that we can no longer destroy it.

We are the problem that needs to be stamped out. And that is our fate because God is a just and loving God, and therefore, he must do away with people that are committed to destroying themselves, others, and his creation.

He wouldn’t be loving and just if he didn’t.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and have earned phsyical and eternal death…except for one person…Jesus!

When Jesus stated:

Matthew 5:17

“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.

He was saying that he came to fulfill not just prophecy but also every jot and tittle of the law.

There a plenty of people when you first meet them that appear to have it all together, but after spending some time with them, you find that they have plenty of chinks in their armor just like everyone else.

Jesus’s disciples, who spent day and night with Jesus for three years, described Jesus as without sin.

1 Peter 1:19

but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

1 Peter 2:21–22

For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps: “Who committed no sin, Nor was deceit found in His mouth”;

John wrote that:

1 John 3:5

And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.

Even Jesus’s enemies couldn’t find fault with him.

Mark 14:55

Now the chief priests and all the council sought testimony against Jesus to put Him to death, but found none.

The Roman Governor Pilate, who eventually succumbed to the pressure of the crowds and ordered Jesus’s death, found him innocent as well.

Luke 23:22

Then he said to them the third time, “Why, what evil has He done? I have found no reason for death in Him. I will therefore chastise Him and let Him go.”

Jesus was even obeident to God all the way through his extruciating death.

Philippians 2:8

And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

Jesus perfectly obeyed God and therefore perfectly fulfilled the law and therefore earned not eternal death but eternal life.

Now why does this fact matter for us today?

Did Jesus come into the world to simply show off what he could do that no one else could?

No.

He came and perfectly obeyed God’s law so that his perfect obedience could be ours.

Romans 5:19

For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.

How can we receive Christ’s perfect obedience or you could say his perfect righteousness?

Romans 3:21–22a

But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the Law and the Prophets. The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction.

Christ’s perfect obedience, his perfect performance record, his perfect resume, his perfect righteousness comes to us as a gift that we receive by faith!

What is faith?

Faith is trust and reliance on God.

In terms of what we are talking about today...

Faith is trusting and relying on Christ’s perfect performance record to make you right with God because you realize that your own performance record can’t do it.

Even if you were sinless the rest of your life that doesn’t make up for the fact that you have already broken God’s law in countless ways.

A murderer can’t do a bunch of good deeds to make up for the fact that they killed someone. They are guilty and no amount of good works can change the fact that they broke the law and justice requires that they are punished.

2 Corinthians 5:10 tells us that:

2 Corinthians 5:10

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

If we appear before God with our performance record in hand, we will receive what our performance record earned and that’s eternal death. But if we appear before God with Christ’s performance record in hand through faith, we will get what Christ’s perfect performance record earned and that’s eternal life.

How does obtaining Christ’s perfect performance record through faith impact me now?

I have peace with God. I no longer have to fear his judgment. I no longer have to try and save myself through obedience to law, which we discovered was futile anyways. My relationship and eternity is secure. I can rest assured that I will be a part of God’s promised future.

That is precisely why Jesus said:

Matthew 11:28–30

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Have you been laboring to save yourself through good deeds and are weighed down as a result? Jesus is calling out to you! Repsond by trusting and relying upon him and his good works to save you and you will find rest for your soul!

#3 Jesus learned OBEDIENCE.

This statement sounds heretical, doesn’t it? “If Jesus is fully God and God is all knowing, what do you mean that he learned something? And how can you say he learned obedience, when you just got done saying that he was sinless? If he had to learn obedience, it sounds like your saying at one point Jesus was disobedient and had to learn to be obedient.”

But the fact that Jesus learned obedience is right there in Scripture.

Hebrews 5:7–8

who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.

These verses have longed racked my brain. However, I believe John Piper’s insight on these verses is extremely helpful.

He states:

“ learned obedience” means that Jesus moved from untested obedience into suffering, and then through suffering into tested and proven obedience. If you think about it, if you are good enough, you can learn a new task without failing. And the new task that Jesus had to learn every hour, especially at the end of his life was: Can I endure this suffering that I have never experienced before, this new obedience that I have never performed before in the history of the universe? Can I learn and do this perfectly without failing, without falling into unbelief and murmuring? And the answer of Hebrews is yes. He could and he did. He learned obedience in what he suffered, and he never, never, never failed once in the process of perfect learning, proven, tested obedience.⁹

Did you catch that?

Through his suffering, Jesus moved from untested obedience to tested and proven obedience.

Now why does this matter for us today? We just learned that Jesus’s tested and proven obedience becomes ours through faith so that we can experience eternal salvation.

Hebrews 5:9 echoes this point.

Hebrews 5:9

And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him,

But why else does it matter that Jesus moved from untested obedience to tested and proven obedience?

Here is what it means:

Hebrews 4:15

For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

We have a sympathetic Savior!

He knows what it is like to experience temptation.

He knows what it is like to suffer.

He knows what it is like not to have a home.

He knows what it is like to be abused.

He knows what it is like to have his family turn on him.

He knows what it is like to be verbally attacked.

He knows what it is like to experience injustice.

He knows what it is like to be falsely accused.

He knows what it is like to not have God answer his prayers they way he would like.

He knows what it is like to have his best friends abandon him.

He knows what it is like to be extremely popular and then to be canceled by the culture.

He knows what it is like to die.

He can relate to us. He can comfort us. He has gone what we have gone through.

This gives us a power to move through our suffering.

A couple of weeks ago I was talking with a high school principal.

He shared that a parent was extremely upset that he only got four tickets to his child’s athletic event just like every other parent.

He came to the school and let this principal have it and even made the comment, “How did you get this job anyways?’

The principal shared with me that a friend had told him that if Jesus was criticized even though he was doing everything right, we shouldn’t be surprised as leaders when criticism comes our way. I added Jesus wasn’t just criticized, he was crucified even though he did everything right! We smiled that when we are criticized for doing the right thing we are in good company.

Knowing that Jesus has been through what he we have been through emboldens us to keep fighting the good fight.

Any time I think of the fact that we have a high priest that can sympathize with us because he learned obedience through suffering, mind goes to woman I heard speak at a conference a few years back who had been through the genoicide in Africa and had lost most of her family. In her book that recounts her experience, she wrote, I’ve shared this with you before but it is worth repeating:

Together, we pondered problems that had confounded our people since 1994: Where was God during the genocide? Why does he permit such cruelty? How can God use sorrow? Each question led us to the cross, where Jesus stretched out his arms to the whole human race. In the West, I’ve met people who cannot grasp why Jesus had to die: “Couldn’t God have pardoned humankind without that torture?” But in Rwanda, where we saw evil unmasked, it makes all the difference to know that God’s own son has been there too.¹⁰

Do you hear what she is saying?

Her and her friends struggled to make sense of the immense suffering that they experienced. There were a lot of unanswered questions. There was a ton of mystery. But what sustained them was knowing that the God they served actually experienced what they did. And so the suffering they experienced couldn’t possibly mean that God didn’t love them or that he didn’t care.

What’s more, they could go to God with their sorrow knowing that he could relate, understand, and comfort them, and in him, they did find comfort. What is also implied is that if God was the sort of God that remained on his high perch distant from the immense suffering in the world, there faith probably wouldn’t have remained intact through the genocide.

What’s more is that...

Jesus is not only a high priest that can sympathize with us because he has experienced what we experience, he can also empower us to overcome whatever we are going through because he was tempted as we were and yet was without sin!

Therefore, we are to:

Hebrews 4:16

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

#4 Jesus perfectly REVEALED God.

Jesus is:

Hebrews 1:1–3

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

Jesus is the brightness of God’s glory which is full of grace and truth.

God is so full of truth and righteousness that he won’t let the guilty go unpunished and yet so full of grace that he sent his Son to take on your punishment so that he could punish your sin without punishing you.

Will you transfer your trust and reliance from yourself to Jesus?

Sources:

¹https://xtoinf.wordpress.com/2015/07/30/greatest-in-history-according-to-h-g-wells/

²Reflections on the Existence of God by Richard Simmons p. 212.

³https://youtu.be/3h2OnGUU1Uk.

⁴http://d3tt741pwxqwm0.cloudfront.net/WGBH/sj14/sj14-int-religmap/index.html

⁵https://reasons.org/explore/publications/tnrtb/read/tnrtb/2003/08/22/fulfilled-prophecy-evidence-for-the-reliability-of-the-bible

⁶Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World by Josh McDowell p. 646.

⁷Ibid p. 652.

⁸Reflections on the Existence of God by Richard Simmons p. 222.

⁹https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/how-did-jesus-learn-obedience-and-become-perfect.