Core pt2 The Son
Notes
Transcript
There has long been a campaign to make Jesus more “accessible” (which is humorous in and of itself if you take the Bible seriously) So if the fact that it has moved into your orbit in the last decade or so is jarring, don’t let it be. It’s normal. This is often accomplished by attempting to strip Jesus of His divinity (denying miracles, the incarnation, etc) or by remaking Jesus into a more culturally appropriate visage (Jesus was a Middle Eastern Jew- He was not a blonde American, an African, nor was He a Republican or a Marxist, nor was He murdered by an oppressive regime or by religious conservatives, nor was He a burly Navy Seal warrior type or a tie dye wearing, Birkenstock sandaled guru)
Jesus had a singular agenda on earth. He had a mission. And He accomplished that mission by both His life and His death and His resurrection. To attempt to co-opt that stated mission for your own ends is the height of heresy, and, truthfully, an insult to Jesus Himself.
That does not stop people from doing it however, and of doing it cleverly and in a way that really distracts followers of Jesus from their mission, and creates even more barriers for the Gospel to get a hearing in our world- especially in our country. And I mean that- when you go to other nations you see less of this- I blame turning the Gospel into a commodity to buy and sell, but that’s my opinion, and I’m jaded, I grew up in the golden era of the Christian bookstore lol.
So this morning, I want to dig into, who IS Jesus, and why did He come, and what did He accomplish by His coming?
We talked about the Father last week, and I mentioned how the Son- Jesus- came to make Him known. But the Son has His own role to play, and reason for existing that we need to understand.
The first thing that we need to get hold of is that when Jesus says, to have seen Him is to see the Father isn’t an exaggeration. He means it, but when we see Jesus, we are seeing the Father with His glory restrained
Read Philippians 2:5-11
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Colossians 1:15 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” - says the same thing more succinctly.
Jesus is God with skin on, entering the world to engage with us and make God understandable and accessible to us. But He existed LONG before that.
The Jesus before He comes:
Jesus was involved with creation- Colossians 1:16-
He has the full deity of God- Colossians 1:17 “And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Colossians 2:9 “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,”
He claimed to be God- Colossians 1:19 “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,” - John 8:58 “Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”” - this is perhaps the most controversial statement in our day and time. And that makes sense, because if Jesus claims to be God, then what He says has authority and has to be taken seriously, rather than seen as opinion, or one way of interacting with God.
There is not doubt in the Bible that Jesus was as much God as Father God- He simply restrained His glory to live among us and make God known to us
He entered the world with an intentional purpose
To make God known to us- John 1:18, 14:7-11- The Gospels are really clear that the purpose of the advent was to help humanity know, without a doubt, that God desired to have a relationship with us. Jesus wanted to make it explicitly clear that God wasn’t distant or unknowable or cold. He was and is engaged and involved with His creation. And He was not only not abandoning them, He was coming for them!
to give us a pattern for living our lives- 1 John 2:6- Jesus also wanted to show us- what does a life yielded to God look like? How does a person live their life in light of what God said is holiness/righteousness? We needed to see what God’s law lived out looked like- and Jesus showed us that.
to die in our place for our sins- Colossians 1:20-22 “and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,” Hebrews 10:1-10- If Jesus is just here as our example, all He is showing us is the futility of our existence. None of us can be perfect. We have all sinned and fallen short of what God’s holiness called for. So after coming to make God known and to show us how to live, Jesus dies for us. He is our perfect, one time, sacrifice, paying for our sins once and for all.
to overcome Satan, sin, and death- 1 Corinthians 15:54-57-His death and resurrection deals the death blow to the Enemy. And his weapons. We no longer have to be dominated by sin or fear death. Satan’s power is broken and the advance of the Kingdom begins- and we see that in the growth of the Church and the spread of the Gospel. The world is literally being transformed by what Jesus has done! - 1 Corinthians 15:12-19 “Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”
to be our high priest before the Father- Hebrews 4:14-16- So now Jesus intercedes for us before the Father. He is our advocate.
What is He doing now?
Hebrews 9:24-28 “For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.”
When Jesus ascended to heaven He took His place at the right hand of the Father. He is there to be glorified, but also to be our advocate- to speak for us before the Father- our permanent intercessor.
He also presides as priest- defending us and consuming the Father’s wrath spent on sin, so we stand innocent and sinless.- Hebrews 9:19-21 “For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.” And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship.”
Without Him, we are condemned, but with Him we are not only forgiven, but welcomed into the Kingdom.- Hebrews 9:22-23 “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.”