Jesus' Humanity and Divine Mission

Jesus was faced with a great difficulty as he set about to do the job the Father had sent him here to do. His handicap was he was human, like you're human. You find it difficult sometimes to think of doing the work of God because you're human. Jesus faced the very same situation. He started out doing the work the Father had called him to do, but for 30 years he was an ordinary human being with a job in the construction industry, working for a living, taking care of his mother and family as a human would normally do. Then God said to him, now is the time for you to begin the work that I've given you to do. And Jesus started out as a human being to do the work that God had given him, to tell the people around him the message that God had for them, just like you are supposed to do, just like I am supposed to do. We don't know what went on in his mind, but I know as a human being it's very difficult for us to do the work of God because we think of ourselves and how overwhelming it is to do something God wants us to do. And as a human being, Jesus had to face that same difficulty. How can I do this? How is it going to work? Jesus' family saw him as a human being. He had brothers and sisters in his own family, and they saw him just as an ordinary person. When he started his ministry, he was teaching and preaching, and there's a story in the Bible where they came one day to where he was preaching and the crowd surrounded him so much. People said, your mother and brothers and sisters are outside. They've come to get you. And the Scripture says they came to get him because they thought that his mind had gone off the deep end. He was having illusions that he was the Son of God because they knew him as a human. When Jesus went back to his hometown, he picked up the Scriptures and quoted from Isaiah. And he read that passage to the people in church that day, and they looked at each other and they said, who does this guy think he is? We know who he is. He's Mary's son. His brothers and sisters still live here in the town. He's just a human like us. Who does he think he is? And they became so angry with Jesus because they thought he was acting as if he were more important than he really was. So angry that they decided to kill him. Jesus escaped, but it shows us the difficulty he was faced with. He was coming with a divine message from God and he was an ordinary human being. He had to depend on the fact that the Holy Spirit would give his words power and authority just like we have to depend on that. So he began to do the work that the Father had given him to do. He said, I only do what the Father tells me to do and I only say what the Father tells me to say because he was a human being. He depended on the Father to give him the instructions that he needed and the words that he needed and the power that he needed to do what his assignment was. The disciples knew who Jesus was. They knew what he was like. They listened to him. They watched him every day. They ate with him. They walked around with him. They knew when he sweated, all the human things that people do. He knew all that. Jesus didn't ask them to figure out who he was right away. They came and said, you're the Messiah and that's why we want to follow you. When he said to them, come and follow me, they started. But they had such a different idea about who he was. They thought he was a human being like them who has come like David of past and he would take the sword and he would lead them into battle and they would destroy the enemies of Israel as people would do who were soldiers. And he didn't do that. They had trouble figuring out exactly what kind of man this was and it wasn't until way into the ministry of Jesus he ever dared to say to them, who do you think I am? Actually if you count the books, the pages in the book of Matthew, in my Bible I did there are 44 pages in the book of Matthew. It was the 23rd page in this story before Jesus dared to look them in the eye and say, who do you say that I am? He wondered if they could see past his human nature to the message of God and the character of God in his life. He wasn't sure how all this was working so he asked. But that might look like halfway through Jesus turned to them and asked that question but that wasn't really the case. It was really at the end of Jesus' ministry. We know he was doing his work for a little over three years so it couldn't have been much more than two and a half years or two and three-fourths of a year. Until that time before he finally got to the place where he said, who do you think I am? He wasn't sure that they would see who he was over and past the human nature that he had because Jesus was fully and completely human. But he came to do the work of the Father and he came to deliver the message of the Father. And he came to be able to provide the work that the Father had given him to do. Jesus now was preparing his disciples for the fact that his life was soon to be over. He was going to be crucified. He knew that this would even be harder. If they had begun to think of him as God, the messenger of God, the son of God, and now they were to see him captured and placed on trial like an ordinary human being, they might find that disheartening. We thought he was more than this. If they saw him nailed to a cross and they saw him die, they might say to themselves, how could God die? How could the Messiah die? And that's what happened. When he finally died, they didn't know what to do. They gathered together and said, what are we going to do now? We'll go back into our old careers of fishing, resume our lives as if this never happened because it didn't work out the way we really thought and wanted it to do. So he was trying to prepare them here for what was going to happen. I'm going to die like a human being would die. I'm going to be buried in the ground as a human being will be buried in the ground. Jesus knew that he was going to be raised on the third day. He was giving them here instructions so that in the middle of all that despair, they might remember these words that he said he was coming again. How could he come again if he's died? Then he must be raised from the dead. If your next door neighbor came into you and said, I'm going to die, but then the next day I'm going to get up and walk around again, you would say, this person needs some serious mental counseling. But that's what Jesus was trying to tell them. He wanted them to understand that there was something different that was going on in his life and to be ready for it. Jesus had given them the message of the Father, the clear message of the Father, and he said to them, the Father has sent me to you and he's told me to give you this message and these are the messages he wants you to hear and he wants you to have and you must follow them for there's no way to be obedient to God unless you listen to what he tells me to tell you and you do what he tells you. Jesus, even though he was human, demanded that when the message of God was given to people that they did exactly what the Father told them to do. And so when somebody came to him, he gave them the straight words of God. Jesus had one of followers that came to him and he said to the man, I want you to come and I want you to follow me. And the man said, I'd be glad to do that, but I've got some other things that I need to do first. Now, they weren't bad things. I need to go home where my family is and I need to say to them, I'm going to start following this man, Jesus. I think he has some things to teach me. Jesus looked at him and said, if you don't do exactly what I tell you to do when you do it, you're not even worthy for the kingdom of God. That's demanding, isn't it? You have to do exactly what I tell you because these are the words of the Father to you or you can't even enter the kingdom of God. A rich man came to Jesus one time and he said, I hear what you say. It's a powerful message and I love this. I want to have the life that you talk about. How do I get that? Jesus said, well, you keep the Ten Commandments. The man said, you know what? I've kept those Ten Commandments from the time that I was a little boy until now, but there's still something missing in my life. You see, what he was saying was, I accept the written Ten Commandments that Moses gave us from God and they have full authority over my life. I live by those rules. I live by those instructions. They are the guides of my life. They have authority to me. Jesus looked at him and said, if those words have authority for you and you found them important and I have some more for you, there's one thing you lack. What you need to do is to sell everything you have and give it away to the poor. Now the man said, I take the words of the Ten Commandments as God's word to me. Jesus now says, here are new words of God to you. If you kept those words of God, then you'll keep these words of God if you really want to keep God's words. The man was very rich, the Bible says, and he considered that and he slowly turned and walked away. We don't know what he thought. Maybe you could guess if somebody told you to do that. I don't believe you. I don't think that's necessary. I think as long as a person believes in God and does good things, that's all that's required. I don't see a reason why I should sell everything I have, give it away, and come and walk along with you. That doesn't make sense to me. It's not something I want to do. All those things are part of what one might have thought and said. But underneath all of that, there is a heart and mind that says, I do not accept the idea that I have to do what you tell me is God's message to me. You see, he was willing to keep the written instructions of Moses given years and years and years and years ago, but he was unwilling to accept the instructions of God right now for his life because they were too unacceptable for him, cost him too much, deprive him of something that was valuable to him. And the man turned and walked away sadly. We have no evidence anywhere in the Bible that he ever entered the kingdom of heaven. You see, Jesus was a human being giving to people the words of God. He expected them to follow those words as clearly and as plainly as they would follow the instructions of Moses. Now we're in a different place. We look at the Ten Commandments of Moses and we say, right on, those are good things to do. We read the things that Jesus said because we know what happened. He died and he was raised from the dead and now we know he's God. They didn't know all this. Now we know he's God with great power and we say, boy, those instructions that Jesus gave, those are really good and wonderful and everyone should live in accordance with those. But when it comes to our own lives, we face the very same problems everybody faced with Jesus. When it comes to applying those things to ourselves, we say, well, you know, he said to that man he should sell everything he has and give it away to the poor and he should have done that. But if in the morning you're praying and God says to you, you know somebody that's in trouble, I want you to give them half of everything you own, what would you do? If he said to you, I know you have that person at work that you don't like and they've been really nasty and mean to you and you don't even want to be around them, but I want you to make friends with that person and treat them nice and apologize for anything you've done to them and you say, they don't deserve it. They started it. It's their fault. I'll be embarrassed. Whatever it is, we back off and say, I'll just let them go their way and I'll go mine. The instructions that God has given me today, I do not want to follow. There is not anybody listening who has not had this experience. If you've read the Bible, been to church, been in a Sunday school class, who has not had God say to you, here is something I want you to do, and you said, well, I don't want to. Because all the time the words of God are always demanding for us. You know why? I'll tell you a secret. You are a wretched sinner, living in disobedience to God somewhere in your life. I know that's not news to you, but it's the truth. And so because every one of us has in our life rebellion against God, when you read the Bible or you go to church or you go to Sunday school, sometime, someplace, in some way God will say to you, this part of your life needs to be changed. You have to stop doing this. You have to start doing this. You have to do these things for me. And we're confronted with that. And our human nature does not want to do it. And we're confronted with the very same things that the people in the Bible were confronted with. We want to live by these principles, and we think the stories here are true, but putting them into application of our own lives sometimes is too demanding for us. And so we push them aside. We believe them generally, but in particular circumstances we excuse ourselves from following them. Now Jesus knew that the followers he had right here he was talking to had made this promise. I will receive the words you give us, Jesus, and live by them. He knew that. He wanted them to understand that when he returned he was going to be different than the man they saw standing in front of them. The man Jesus who was standing in front of him was an ordinary human being as they could see. But Jesus was telling them when the end of time comes and I return everything is going to be different. I'll appear without you even knowing I'm going to do it. I will come whenever you don't expect it. I will be there and you won't even be prepared. Many people won't be prepared. I am telling you get ready and be prepared. And one of the most important ways you are to prepare is to do what I've told you to do because when I return things are going to be different. Matthew 25 verse 31. When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate the people from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. In this story Jesus says two different times he uses in two different times the word glory. The Son of Man comes in his glory and he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. Now I want to ask you to think about this word glory. When you have a word that you don't know you look it up in the dictionary. And when you go to the dictionary in almost any word that you find it has a number of different meanings. It will have one and tell you the meaning most prominent and two the next most prominent and three the next most prominent until all the meanings all the uses of this word are spelled out. Now this word translated in our English Bible was really written in the Greek language. And the Greek word for glory was used here. But like every word that we have it's used in different settings in Greek just like our English words are used in different settings. And when you look at when I looked up the word and how it's used in different places sometimes it simply is the word that we've translated here glory is used for the word translated dignity. When you have someone who is dignified and they're a very nice person and you think of them as a good person a dignified person this word is used sometimes translated dignified or dignity. When I come from heaven again I will have dignity. Not an ordinary human being but a step above everything you see. When I come again it's also translated honor. You will see me come in great honor not like I am now when I am dragged before the courts they will not honor me. They will not respect me. They will not see me with dignity. But when I come then everyone in the world will honor me. For they will know without being told that this is God now coming to visit. It's also used in the Bible for the word praise. When I come again everyone will look at me and they will say this person is great. No one else in the world can come down on a cloud. No one else in the world will be surrounded by armies of angels as this man is. He is great. It's also translated in our Bible with the word worship. Worship means to give God a place of significance and importance in your life. We use it that way. We use the word worship that way. Men often say about their wives, every man says about his wife, I worship the ground my wife walks on. Isn't that common to everybody to say that to their wife? Come on guys if you don't say that you should. It means that you put that person in such a place of great respect in your life that even where their foot touches the ground is special to you. It's kind of an exaggeration. But here it's used, this word for glory, of someone who is of special extraordinary significance. And then it's used for the word glory that we have translated here. All those meanings sort of fold in behind it. But the word glory comes from a word in the Greek language that means to have something heavy or weighty. We use that too. When you want to talk about someone who is a great, most powerful fighter, you might say he's a heavyweight. And we even use that in business or in social settings. We talk about somebody who's really important and we might say, well that guy's a heavyweight in our community. We don't mean he's fat, we just mean he has influence and power. Maybe financial, maybe political, maybe social, but he has influence and significance. That's the word behind this word glory. When I come again, I won't be an ordinary human being like all the rest of you, like I've been right here. For when I come from the heavens on a cloud, surrounded by the angels, everyone will look at me and they will see someone of dignity, of honor, of power and authority. And when I say to people, those of you who are my followers get on the right side, they will do it. And when I say to some others, you have never accepted my authority before and it's too late now, get on my left hand side, they will do it. Jesus could say to a man, you need to sell everything you have and give it away and come and follow Jesus. And he could say, hmm, I don't think about that. Nope, I don't want to do it. But in that day, when Jesus says to him, you didn't listen to me then and you're not one of my children, get on this side, he can't complain, he can't resist, he has to do it. Why? Because Jesus now comes in glory, honor, power and authority. I'm telling you now as I live before you, when I come again, I'll not be the same person you see here. For I will come not as Jesus, the man, but as Christ, the Lord. And what Jesus is telling us is that no one enters the kingdom of heaven unless they say to Jesus Christ, you are the Lord and ruler of my life. Everyone in this world who grows accustomed to reading the words of scripture and saying, Lord, I'll do whatever you ask me to do, and whenever you ask us to do difficult things, we say, I don't want to do this, Lord, I don't feel qualified to do it, but I feel like you've asked me, we do it. It doesn't matter if you want to or not. It doesn't matter if you enjoy it or not. It doesn't matter if it's convenient or not. For the voice and the word of Jesus Christ should have power in your life that nothing else in this world has. Even your own wish, even your own will, and even your own pleasure does not overrule it. For what we are doing in this world is practicing, practicing living in complete, utter submission to God so that when we live in the next world, we're now ready to live that life He wants us to live. If you don't learn to live in obedience to God and enjoy doing it here, then there will be no place for you there. What Jesus was telling His followers, be prepared. You can, Peter, come and say to me, Jesus, you're not doing this right, but the day will come when I'll come in my glory, when anything and everything I tell you, I expect you to say, yes, Lord. So Peter, He told him, the devil's in control of your life. Quit following the devil and start following me. And he expected Peter to do that then because that's what's going to happen there. Now you and I are left in this world to read the words of Jesus, to read the stories of the Scriptures, and you've got to decide what place Jesus has in your life. You know this because when you read the words of Scripture or whenever you're praying to God or whenever you're listening to a sermon or whether you're in Sunday school class and the Scripture's presented and you have in your mind something says to you, this is what I should do. What do you do with that? Do you say, do I want to? Do you say, is it convenient? Do you say, I'd like to? Or do you say, Lord, whatever you ask of me, I will do. Don't be deceived by thinking you're going to get into heaven by being a good person. Don't be deceived by thinking you're going to get into heaven by joining a church or being baptized or taking the Lord's Supper or being a good guy. Boy, I meet so many people at funerals who talk about going to heaven based on being a good person. I know they're in heaven. They're a good old fellow. Give you the shirt off his back. Do anything for you. Doesn't mean a thing to God unless God has told you to do the things that you're doing and you do them in obedience to Him. One thing alone is whether or not you have said, God, I give you glory and honor and praise and worship in my life and every single thing that I know you want, I'm going to try my best to do. That's what faith is. I trust you so much. Whatever you tell me to do, however hard or impossible it might seem, I trust you enough to believe I should do it. If He asks you to witness to a friend you have around you, if He asks you to make a disciple that ought to be a key ingredient for your life, if He asks you to change some things in your life so you're more holy like Jesus wants you to live, then that should be a passion for you. There's something in the church that God wants you to do from preaching, giving your testimony, to doing extended care, to working in Bible school. You have to say to yourself, what do you want me to do? And whatever God says, you do. For then you will be prepared for this day when God will come and He will say, now is the day of judgment. Would you bow your heads, please? I want to ask you, can you point to a time in your life when you've said to God, I want to give you the place of glory, honor, and respect in my life. I want to pledge to you that I believe you are the ruler of the universe and that my proper response to you is to say, I will do with my life whatever you want. Can you point to a time in your life you've done that? Can you say to God, I made you that promise and I can say to you honestly, I'm trying now to keep it. If as you think about that, you realize you've never made that promise, today you need to do it. If you realize you've made it and you strayed away from it, my friend, that's a dangerous thing to do. God calls you back to Himself and says, please renew your devotion to me. Get back on track. Today He offers you that opportunity. When He comes on the cloud, it's too late, but today you have that opportunity. If you believe the words of Jesus, that He was God, and you believe there is a God, then you will do what He tells you. So Father, what is it in my life that you want changed? I know there are a couple of things that you're asking me to do, and I'm trying to change those. I ask for the strength that you can give me to address both of those issues you just brought to my mind. Now I ask, Father, for each person here that they would ask that question. And I know you'll not be shy. You'll tell them exactly what they need to do right now. Don't let any of us give excuses for disobedience. As we sing this song, Father, if you've asked anything of us, give us the freedom to say, I don't care what anybody thinks, today I do what Jesus tells me to do, that we might know the joy of no barrier between you and us. In the name of Jesus, we ask it. Amen. Would you stand, please, while we sing this invitation song? I'll be here. Debbie will be here. If you want to come and share with us a promise that you want to make to God, this is the time you can do it. Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing pow'r? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? Are you fully trusting in His grace this hour? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? Are you washed in the blood, in the soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb? Are your garments spotless of a white hair's snow? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? Are you walking daily by the Savior's side? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? Do you rest each moment in the crucified? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? Are you washed in the blood, in the soul-cleansing blood of the Lamb? Are your garments spotless of a white hair's snow? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? If the Lord has spoken to you today, and you've said something to Him, and you want to know how to be able to put that in practice, your Sunday school teacher, a friend who goes here, or myself, any of us will be willing to help you know how to put that in practice. I trust that God's Word will become a great power and authority in every one of our lives. Father, I hope that I've said your words today. I tried to do my best. I hope that these words intended for each of our years were your words. I trust that they have the power and authority of the very words of God to each of us. And I ask, Father, that you would help each of us submit completely to you as the Lord of our lives. Dismiss us as faithful servants of yours, living in obedience to what we know you've asked of us, that our lives might testify to who you are and the power you have to change people into godly followers of yours. Amen. In Christ alone, who took on flesh, fullness of God and helpless babe, this gift of love and righteousness, scorned by the ones He came to save. Still on that cross, as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied, for every sin on Him was laid. Here in the death of Christ I live.