blockquote>
1 – In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways,
2 – but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, Whom He appointed Heir of all things, and through Whom He made the universe.
3 – The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.
This is the Word of the Lord….Thanks be to God.
As I’m sure most of you know by now, President Bush has just named his next supreme court nominee. Early this past Monday morning, regular television programming was interrupted and newscasters reported that he had chosen an attorney by the name of Harriet Miers, to fill the position on the nation’s highest court that was vacated by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Most of the newscasters seemed somewhat perplexed as they made their announcement because Ms. Miers is basically an unknown.
Monday night during the news hour I did a quick channel surf through all the network newscasts and every one was asking, “Who is she? Who is this woman? What has she said, done, or written that would indicate her stance on certain issues? What are her convictions? What essential beliefs will influence her judicial decisions? Who is Harriet Miers?”
I’m sure we will hear a great deal more questions like these in coming weeks especially when her confirmation hearings begin.
Now, I don’t know who Harriet Miers is any more than the newscasters apparently do, but I bring up this news story because today we are returning to my sermon series on the convictions-the essential beliefs-that define who we are as a local church. So far, in this series we’ve looked at our belief about the nature of the church itself-what we believe a church family should be like. We’ve also examined our belief about God’s written Word-the Bible.
This morning we’re focusing on our beliefs as a church when it comes to Jesus Christ. My goal is to remind you of our convictions about our Lord. And at the onset I want you to understand that this is indeed an important belief for us to grasp.
One reason I say this-one reason we need an accurate understanding of our Lord-is because no life has influenced our world more than the life of Jesus Christ. Think of it, whenever people click on the lower right hand of their computer screens, Microsoft’s Windows program is set up to give them the date. And in this simple, habitual point and click, no matter what all these billions of computer owners or operators believe about Jesus, they acknowledge His existence because Jesus’ birth has split history into two parts. I mean, everything that has happened on this planet of ours falls into one of two categories. It’s either BEFORE or AFTER Christ.
H. G. Wells once said,
“More than 1900 years later, a historian like myself, who doesn’t even call himself a Christian, finds the [historical] picture centering irresistibly around the life and character of this most significant Man. The historian’s test of an individual’s greatness is ‘What did he leave to grow? Did he start men to thinking along fresh lines with a vigor that persisted after him?’ By this test Jesus stands first…As it has often been said, you can gauge the size of a ship that has passed out of sight by the size of the wake it leaves behind.”
In 1999 an article in Time magazine said this about Jesus,
“It would require much exotic calculation to deny that the single most powerful figure-not merely in these past two millenniums, but in all of human history-has been Jesus of Nazareth.”
All this goes to show that we would have an incomplete world view indeed without an accurate understanding of the life and work of Jesus Christ. But another reason we need to be clear on our belief about the Christ is because Jesus is literally the core of our faith. If ever there was an essential belief for churches like ours, this is it. I mean the man whose name was Buddha is not really essential to the teaching of Buddhism, nor is Mohammad to Islam. But everything about Christianity is determined by the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Paul Little writes,
“Our faith owes its life, substance and character in every detail to Christ. He was the Author of its teachings, the Object of its doctrine, the Origin of its salvation, the Fulfillment of its hopes, the Source of its power, the Founder of its church, and the One Who gave the Holy Spirit as a legacy to those who believe.”
So it would be an understatement to say that this is an important doctrine for us to understand as believers.
Okay then, Who is the man named Jesus Who was and is called the Christ? More to the point-what do we believe about Jesus here at Redland Baptist Church? I want to summarize our convictions with four very basic but very important statements.
(1) First, we believe Jesus was completely MAN.
Specifically, it is our conviction here that in Jesus-and only in Jesus-Almighty God became a human being. He literally became one of us. Jesus was completely-fully-man. As Max Lucado puts it,
“When God chose to reveal Himself, He did learn through a HUMAN body. The tongue that called forth the dead was a HUMAN one. The hand that touched the leper had dirt under its nails. The feet upon which the woman wept were calloused and dusty. And His tears…oh, don’t miss the tears…they came from a heart as broken as yours or mine ever has been.”
Philip Yancey put it this way,
“The God Who fills the universe imploded to become a peasant baby Who, like every infant that has ever lived, had to learn to walk and talk and dress Himself.”
And then listen to how St. Augustine described this amazing paradox that in Jesus, GOD did indeed become MAN. Augustine said that on that first Christmas God became one of us:
“Man’s Maker was made man that He, Ruler of the stars might nurse at His mother’s breast; that the Bread of life might hunger, the Fountain of life thirst, the Light of life sleep in the darkness,.The Way be tired on its journey; that Truth might be accused of false witnesses the Teacher be beaten with whips, the Foundation of the Universe be suspended on wood, that Strength might grow weak, that the Healer might be wounded. That life might die.”
Well, these three guys are right. In Jesus God descended to literally become a man. Even though Jesus’ conception was supernatural, His birth was that of a normal child born of a normal human mother. Like you and me Jesus got hungry and thirsty. His feet ached and He got weary from traveling. When struck, He bruised; When He was sad, He wept; When He was happy, He smiled. When Jesus was angry, He revealed it. When He got cold, he chilled; when hot, He perspired. Jesus Christ needed sleep and refreshment. All this is to say that as the man, Jesus, God came down to our level. He went through our human experience.
Now, think of this fact for a moment. This means that there is no experience you go through that God has not gone through while wearing the same sort of “earth suit” that you wear every day.
How many of you have ever been depressed? Jesus was.
How many of you have ever experienced fear? Jesus did too.
How many of you have ever laughed so hard your gut hurt? I believe Jesus did that as well.
How many of you have felt abandoned by a friend, a close friend? Ever felt betrayed? Ever felt intensely weary? Ever suffer fatigue? Ever been hungry? Thirsty? Lonely?
I could go on and on, because there is no human experience that I could mention where Jesus could not say, “been there, done that, got the T-shirt” because He was fully man. Jesus was one of us. As Hebrews 4:15 says, Jesus was, “…tempted in EVERY way, just as we are, yet He was without sin.”
And I don’t know about you, but this means so much to me. You see, I know that when I pray I know I’m not talking to Someone Who is removed from my existence. I’m not talking to someone Who’s never left the glories of Heaven. Since I believe my Lord was fully man, I know that as the rest of Hebrews 4:15 says, “…In Jesus, I do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with my weaknesses.”
Because of this knowledge I know I can indeed, “…draw near with confidence to the throne of grace.” I’m more eager to come to Jesus with my problems because I know He had them as well.
When I was a chaplain in the Army National Guard, as part of my training, I had to attend a sort of “ministerial boot camp” for a week up in New Jersey. I think it was near McGuire AFB. For that week I left my “cushy” room in the Chaplain’s barracks up at Ft. Monmouth, which was more of a motel room than a barracks. I mean, we chaplains had AC and heat, maid service, cable TV, coffee service, private baths with plenty of hot water, carpeted floors. Well we left all that to go out in the field and live like the regular troops for seven days and seven nights. We slept on the hard, cold ground in January, or we tried to. We got up at 4am and did all the obstacle courses and ate MREs. We lugged around all the equipment. We had drill sergeants to chew us out while we marched.
We even went through the tear-gas test chamber where you go in, take your gas mask off and have to say your name, rank, and serial number before being permitted to leave. Once we left the chamber they told us the best way to get the tear gas off our clothing was to run up and down while flapping our arms. They said, this would make it evaporate faster. I’ll never forget the image of 90 chaplains weeping from exposure to tear gas while running up and down a football field flapping their arms like birds trying to take flight.
But the purpose of all this-the reason they put us through that boot camp experience-was to enable us to sympathize with the soldiers we were being sent to minister to. Our leaders knew that if the everyday soldier were to take us seriously we had to be able to say, “I know what you’re going through.”
Well, God knows what we are going through. Don’t get me wrong. He is omniscient and always has been-I mean, God knows everything-including what we feel like. Even our thoughts are not hidden from Him. But it’s easier for us to understand this because we know-we believe-that in Jesus God actually became one of us. He was completely man.
(2) We also believe Jesus was completely GOD.
As the Nicene Creed puts it, we believe,
“…in one Lord Jesus Christ…God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God being of one substance with the Father, by Whom all things were made…”
We don’t understand how, but nevertheless we do believe that Jesus was not just fully…completely man. We believe that He was at the same time fully, completely God. That, as verse 3 of today’s text puts it, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word.”
Think of it this way. The Bible tells us that in the past there had been many great teachers who had come from God. But in Jesus, God did something different. Jesus was not just another teacher come from God. He was God Himself come to teach.
And, in spite of what many people say, throughout His earthly ministry Jesus claimed to be fully God. For example, in John 10:30 He said, “I and the Father are one.” The truth is, this claim is the reason the Jewish religious leaders of His day arrested Him, tried Him, and sentenced Him to death. I mean Jesus wasn’t scourged and crucified because He went around saying, “Be nice to each other.” No, He was executed for claiming to be God in the flesh.
Bill Hybels writes,
“In the middle of some of Jesus’ most brilliant moral discourses, His sermons on ethics that had everyone saying, ‘Amen! This is the smartest person Who ever lived.’ In the middle of this, Jesus would say, ‘Oh, and by the way, I am God’s Son, the Savior of the world.’ People must have thought, ‘Now, why did You have to include that? We were doing just fine. The Nielsen ratings were going up and now You go and say something like that. Why don’t You stick to Your basic teachings that we all like so well? Philosophize…tell us how we ought to live our lives. Just lay off all this deity stuff.'”
Well, Jesus didn’t lay off the deity stuff. He repeatedly claimed to be God in the flesh-the Messiah-the Savior of the world-worthy of people’s worship and praise.
And please understand: no other major religious leader has ever made a statement quite like this. Jesus is unique in His claim to be God in the flesh. I mean, Buddha did not claim to be God. Moses never said he was Yahweh. Muhammad did not identify himself as Allah and nowhere will you find Zoroaster claiming to be Ahura Mazda.
But Jesus, the humble Carpenter from Nazareth, said in John 14:9,“If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.”
In fact, in John 8:58, Jesus used the same “name” that God used to identify Himself to Moses when He said, “Truly, truly I say to you. Before Abraham was born, I AM.” In Mark 2:5-7-and in several other places in the Gospels-we find records of the fact that Jesus claimed the authority to forgive sins, which the Bible teaches is something that God alone can do.
Jesus also put His words on par with God’s. In Matthew 5:21-22, He said, “You have heard that the ancients were told…but I say to you…” He even taught His followers to pray in His name (John 14:13-14). So Jesus repeatedly claimed to be God.
And His followers agreed with this claim. I mean, they recognized Jesus as God in the flesh. Do you remember Peter’s bold affirmation and that of Thomas and others? In fact, Jesus’ disciples held so firmly to this conviction that they suffered martyr’s deaths rather than recant their belief that Jesus Christ was God. Why? Well, they were convinced of this because Jesus did things that only God could do!
For example during His life they watched from front row seats as He demonstrated power over nature by stilling the stormy waves (Mark 4:39) and by turning water into wine (John 2:7-11). They saw Jesus exert power over physical disease and power over the spirit world of demons. In fact several times Jesus both claimed and proved that He had the authority and power to raise the dead. He never attended a funeral that He did not ruin by raising the corpse back to life. Jesus’ followers were not afraid to die for their belief since over and over again they had witnessed Jesus’ resurrecting power.
So, Jesus was omnipotent-all powerful-but, like God, He was also omniscient, or all-knowing. He knew, as only God could know, what was in men’s minds before they spoke.
In John 2:25 it says, “Jesus did not need anyone to testify concerning man for he Himself knew what was in man.” In Mark 2:8 Jesus was facing the criticism of the scribes and Pharisees and it says, “Immediately Jesus knew what they were thinking…”
And as we read in Hebrews, since Jesus was God, He was also perfect, holy, sinless in thought, word, or deed. Every second of every day of His life was without the spot or blemish of sin.
Another thing-like God, Jesus is eternal. He has always existed. Do you remember the words that begin John’s Gospel? “In the beginning was the WORD and the WORD was with God and the WORD was God. He was with God in the beginning….” And then pay close attention to these next words, “Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.” I cite this portion of John’s gospel to remind you that the Bible teaches that since Jesus is God, not only is He eternal, He also created all things.
Think of that! Isn’t it an amazing thought that the baby that Mary held in her arms that first Christmas night was holding the universe in place! The little newborn lips that cooed and cried once formed the dynamic words of creation. Those tiny, clutching fists once flung stars into space and planets into orbit. Because that infant flesh housed Almighty God.
And, not only did Jesus create the universe-in Colossians 1:17 Paul reminds us that, “…the universe as a whole in Him holds together.” Or…as our text puts it, Jesus “…sustains all things by His powerful word.” You know, we speak of the law of gravity that holds the things of this planet in place when it would be more accurate to speak of the law of Christ that holds not just the earth and the things on it in proper position but also holds the entire universe together. Hundreds of years ago scientists thought the sun moved around the earth, so they taught that the universe was geocentric or earth-centered. Then Galileo came along and proved that the earth moves about the sun. So scientists called it a heliocentric or sun-centered universe.
Today we no longer say that because astronomers now tell us that what we once thought was the universe is only our solar system. We are told that there are innumerable solar systems, each with its own sun and billions of stars. One astronomer estimates that there are fourteen quadrillion such solar systems. That is fourteen followed by fifteen zeros-a lot of solar systems! So, no longer can we say that we live in a heliocentric universe. But, if the sun is not the center of the universe, then what or rather Who is?
Well according to texts like Colossians 1:17 Jesus is! Listen to a paraphrase of this verse, “Jesus was before all else began and it is His power that holds everything together.” According to this it would be more accurate to say that we live in a “Christocentric universe”-not a S.U.N.-centered but a S.O.N.-centered universe. So we believe Jesus is God-the Creator and Sustainer of the universe-in human flesh.
But perhaps the most convincing proof that Jesus was indeed God in the flesh is the fact that today-2000 years after His crucifixion-we can still experience Him. You see, as God not only did He raise other dead people to life, Jesus Himself rose on the third day. And because He did people all over the world still claim to know Him.
As the old hymn text says,
“I serve a RISEN Savior. He’s in the world today. He walks with me and talks with me along the narrow way. He lives! He lives! Salvation to impart You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within MY heart.”
Believers like you and me love this hymn because it expresses the fact that we enjoy a personal day-to-day relationship with Jesus that has been literally life-changing.
In the nineteenth century, Charles Bradlaugh, a prominent atheist, challenged a Christian man by the name of Hugh Price Hughes, to a debate on the validity of the claims of Christianity. Hughes, was an active soul-winner working among the poor in the slums of London and he told Bradlaugh he would agree to the debate on one condition. Hughes said,
“I propose to you that we each bring some concrete evidences of the validity of our beliefs in the form of actual men and women who have been redeemed from the lives of sin and shame by the influence of our teaching. I will bring 100 such men and women, and I challenge you to do the same.”
Bradlaugh apparently had difficulty coming up with people whose lives had been changed by his atheistic teachings so Hughes said that if Bradlaugh couldn’t bring 100 then he could bring 50. Later he said if he couldn’t bring 50, then he could bring 20. He finally whittled the number down to one. All Bradlaugh had to do was to find one person whose life was improved by atheism and Hughs-who’d bring 100 people changed by Jesus-would agree to debate him.
Well, in the end Bradlaugh withdrew. He couldn’t find anyone-and if such a challenge were offered today, the response would be the same. You see, people’s lives are not improved by atheism, but people are always changed-re-born-when they invite our living Lord into their lives.
In a Sower article a few issues back I told you that as I look back at all my mission trip experiences the thing that moved me most was the people. No matter where I’ve gone on my journeys I’ve met people who obviously have met and know My Jesus. As I talk to these believers I’ve sensed His living presence in their lives. As I’ve listened they’ve told me how their relationship with Him has made all the difference in life, whether they were facing poverty in Mexico or racial war in Rwanda.
And this moves me inside because I know what they are talking about. I mean I have also experienced the wonder-working power of Jesus Christ because the Jesus I worship was and is fully God-all-powerful God-God Who defeated death and lives today. He does “…walk with me and talk with me along life’s narrow way!”
A third thing we believe about Jesus here at Redland is this…
(3) We believe Jesus was the complete revelation of the HEART of GOD.
It is our conviction that the best way to understand what God is really like is by looking at the life of Jesus Christ.
In my RBC101 class when we examine this essential belief I always remind them that over the millennia God humbled Himself various ways in order to reveal Himself to human beings. He revealed His nature in the beauty of this world that He created from nothing. He revealed Himself to us in His actions in History. He revealed Himself to us through the prophets. He revealed Himself to us in the Bible. In fact, the Old Testament could be looked at as one long record of his “condescensions”, various times and ways that God “…descended to speak to us…and reveal Himself to us.” As our text for today puts it,
“In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being.”
In other words this verse is saying that the fullest, most complete revelation of God is found in Jesus Christ. Jesus came to show us what God is really like.
As you know, my son Daniel is in med school. A couple weeks ago as part of their anatomy studies they were divided into teams of four and each team was given a human cadaver. Their teachers do this so these future doctors can get a close up look at the human body. They want them to be able to poke and prod on these old unused earth suits so they can know first hand what the human body is really like. This reminds me of something Philip Yancey said about our Lord. In his book, The Jesus I Never Knew, He writes,
“In Jesus God lay down on the dissection table, as it were, stretched out in cruciform posture for the scrutiny of all skeptics who have ever lived.”
In other words, in Jesus, God became approachable, touchable. His flesh and blood-His Words and actions-give us the most complete picture of the Heart of God almighty.
H. Richard Niebuhr likened the revelation of God in Christ to the Rosetta stone. You may remember from your history studies in school that before it’s discovery Egyptologists could only guess at the meaning of hieroglyphics. Then in 1799 French soldiers who were rebuilding a fort in Egypt near a town in the delta called Rosetta, uncovered a dark stone that rendered the same text in Greek, ordinary Egyptian script, and previously undecipherable hieroglyphics. By comparing the translations side by side, for the first time they were able to master hieroglyphics and could now see clearly into a world they had known only in a fog. This stone gave them the information they needed to translate hieroglyphics and gain a clearer understanding of Egyptian history.
Well, Niebuhr says that in a very real sense Jesus is the Rosetta stone of our faith. If we find God incomprehensible or unknowable, all we need to is study the life and work of Jesus Christ. And as we do we’ll see the holiness of God, the power of God, but most of all the love of God, an eternal love so deep and so personal that God would literally rather die than be without any of us.
This leads me to the fourth statement when it comes to our belief about Jesus.
(4) We believe Jesus was the complete SACRIFICE for our sins.
In other words, we believe that Jesus Christ came to earth to die on the cross for our sins. As 1 Timothy 1:15 says, “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance:Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”
Now, please understand: this sums up the three prior belief statements that I’ve mentioned this morning. I mean, if Jesus were not fully God, He could not be our Savior. But if He were God and yet did nothing on our behalf-that is, did not become a man, and in this descent provide a way for our sins to be forgiven-then He would not be our Savior. Being God qualified Jesus Christ to be our Savior, but the obedience of His atoning death for us MADE Him our Savior.
In other words, as Christians we believe that not only could Jesus save us, He did save us.
Let me put it another way. It is our conviction that the Bible teaches Jesus, the Creator of the world, was also the Redeemer of the world. This was God’s plan from the very beginning.
Now think of that for a moment. Even in the misty, pre-creation past, Jesus was thinking of you and me and planning our redemption. God has loved you and me that long! Even before the dawn of creation it had already been decided that the One who created the world would be the One who re-created that same world. Ephesians 1 puts it this way,
“He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.”
Jesus was born to die in our place. He came to earth for the express purpose of giving His life as a payment for our sins. He did this because it was the only way to pay our sin debt and at the same time satisfy God’s righteous judgment.
In his last book Bill Bright tells a story from the era of Russian tribal history, in which a certain Russian leader had two laws. The first was that all people must love their parents, and the second was a prohibition against stealing. This man’s leadership and these two basic laws made his tribe superior in all of Russia.
One day someone broke the law against stealing, although the thief was not caught. This angered the leader so he brought together all his people. He demanded, “Let the thief come forward and receive ten lashes for his crime.” No one responded, so he increased the punishment to twenty lashes, then thirty, then forty. He stopped there because he knew that only a strong person could survive 40 lashes.
The crowd dispersed, and the leader sent out his men to find the thief. A week later, they brought in the guilty person. The leader gasped because it turned out that the thief was his own mother! The guards wagered among themselves. What would their leader do? Would he carry out his punishment for the second law of stealing and whip his mother? Or would he obey the first law of love and let his mother go free? If the crime went unpunished, every thief could argue that he or she should go free too.
Well, the leader gathered the tribe together. They guards brought his mother forward and the sentence was announced. They bared her frail back. “Aha!” the people thought, “He’s going to whip her.” But just before the whip master brought the lash across her back, the leader strode over. Taking off his own shirt, he took the forty lashes himself.
Well, that is a picture of what happened in God’s courtroom of supreme justice. We each deserve death for our sin. We deserve to be separated from our Holy God forever. But God loved us, so He sent His Son. Jesus came and stepped forward to accept the punishment we deserved. On the cross He died in our place. He could do that because He had never sinned. He had no sin debt of His own to pay.
Go back to our text from Hebrews chapter one and notice what it says in the last part of verse three. “After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” Hebrews 10 expands on this when it says, “Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.” And then referring to Jesus it says, “But when This Priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God because by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”
So, we believe that Jesus Christ was both completely MAN and completely-fully-God. We believe Jesus is the complete revelation of the heart of God, and we believe He is the complete-once and for all-sacrifice for our sins.
Love’s redeeming work was done-finished on the cross.
You know, newscasters tell us that Henrietta Miers is sure to be confirmed. She’ll soon be a justice on the Supreme Court. In this position I’m sure she’ll rule on some important cases. Her decisions over the years are sure to affect all of our lives.
But please understand, no decision she makes will affect your life as much as your decision-your judgment-when it comes to what you believe about Jesus Christ. And I must point out that your belief about Jesus is not enough. You’ve got to go a step further. You’ve got to act on what you believe in order to enjoy life-changing benefits.
You’ve got to pray and say to Jesus, “I believe You are the Son of God and I need Your forgiveness. I want You in my life. Forgive me and help me follow You as Lord.”
In that simple prayer you will move from belief to experience…from knowing about Jesus-to knowing Jesus.
As someone who prayed this prayer over 40 years ago, I will bear witness to the fact, that when you pray this prayer, Jesus answers it. He becomes your personal, constant companion. And, not only does He give you the gift of eternal life, He helps you to live this life as it was meant to be lived-abundantly!
I would also point out that you can’t really avoid this decision. You can’t be neutral when it comes to Jesus. You have to decide-will I accept Him or will I reject Him?