The Mercy of God in the Flesh
Chasing Jesus • Sermon • Submitted
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· 2 viewsSince the very beginning, God has been in pursuit of the heart of man. The Scriptures cry out of God’s relentless pursuit of His creation. In Jesus, we see the culmination of this pursuit as God takes on human flesh and bridges the gap between man and God. All of this is done in light of a foundational truth of who God is, God is a God of justice. A just God must enact judgment of wrongs. The Lord has delayed His judgment but soon will come a day where His delay will come to an end. On this day, all will stand before the Lord. Christ has come, not to dismiss the judgment of God for those who place their faith in Him, but rather He stands have paid the price for our judgment.
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The Pursuit of God
The Pursuit of God
So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
John
Since the very beginning, God has been pursuing Hs creation. At the foundation of creation, God builds an intimate relationship with His creation. On the seventh day, God rests from His work. His work was completed, but not complete. As we read forward in the story, God continually is at work with His creation. He walks in the garden with Adam and Eve. He convicts Abel of his sin and protects him as he continues through life. He carries on a unique bloodline that would show the power of His providence and the fulfillment of His promises.
In this pursuit, God gave to man the means to pursue the same relationship that God had intimately began with them. He gave to Moses the law, the means by which the people of Israel would be able to pursue their relationship with God. One of these was a call to recognize who God is and His faithfulness to be all that they need. The Sabbath was designed as a day where the people of God opened themselves to witnessing the faithfulness of God to be their provider, their pursuer, their God.
In the wilderness, the manna lasted when it would not any other day. On the Sabbath, the people of God who were so dependent upon work each day to make life happen needed not to do any work to still have all that was needed met. This extended beyond the Sabbath day to the Sabbath year and the Year of Jubilee.
God had designed an opportunity for the people of God to tangibly recognize that God was the provider, all that they needed.
The Pursuit of the Son
The Pursuit of the Son
John 5:19-
Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.
In the same manner, Jesus aligns Himself with the pursuit of God for His people. Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s pursuit, the final awakening if you will. Jesus came to make very real and tangible the work of God in the lives of man. As He heals the sick, God had been healing the sick since the beginning. As He feeds the hungry, God had been feeling the hungry since the beginning. Jesus came to show in a physical and singular point the pursuit of God for His children.
Jesus came to open our eyes to the brokenness of our relationship. We are dead. All that we can hope for is death. But there is hope because God since the very beginning has been pursuing us with the hope of salvation. He has made complete and available this salvation, this restoration of relationship in Christ. He has given to the Son the power and authority to remove what separates us from God, our debt to sin.
We see though that Jesus’ acclaim is not through the starting of something new, but rather through the fulfillment of what God has already promised. Just as the Father raises the dead, Jesus gives life to those whom He pleases. Just as the Father judges, Jesus will judge in the final day so that all will glorify the Son just as they glorify the Father. Jesus gives testimony to God and the Father gives glory to the Son that we might believe in the One the Lord has sent to set us free. This is the pursuit of God that we would know the One that He has sent.
Our Response to God’s Pursuit
Our Response to God’s Pursuit
John 5:24-
“Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.
“Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned. By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.
Jesus offers us the opportunity to respond to this relationship that God offers. In this relationship, we are moved from death to life. We will not be judged. There is no condemnation. The Father now sees us through the lens of Christ. It is as if we had never sinned. We are made perfect and holy in His sight so that there would be no obstacle that would stand in the way of our relationship with Him. We have heard that the gospel is a free gift that we must just accept. The reality is that the gospel is not free. At the center of the gospel is a relationship. A relationship takes time, investment and continual work. The gift of God is that the relationship is now removed of obstacles. God has come near and made Himself available to us.
This has been the promise of the ages fulfilled in Jesus. The dead will rise because the author of life has called them forth. Death now has been defeated and our King has risen victorious.
Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead. The living are alive in Christ and they will stand before the seat of the Lord and give testimony of the moments that God shined in and through them for the sake of His glory. Those who are alive will not give an account for their sins for our sins have already been paid. We will stand and proclaim how God was glorified through the surrendering of our sins, our time, our talents and our treasures for His sake.
There are those who are dead through who will give an account for their sins. Every obstacle that they placed between them and God, every sin, every denial, they will stand and give an account for. The very same pursuit of God that led to our salvation lead to their condemnation. There is no excuse because God has removed every excuse in Christ.
So the question becomes how will we respond? Will we embrace the relationship that Christ offers? WIll we surrender our sins, time, talents and treasures to our King? Will we hold back and place an obstacle between ourselves and God even though He has removed every obstacle?
