Who Is Jesus?

Who is Jesus? (Thanks to Neil Cole for asking the question at a time I was listening a little more attentively than usual.)

Is Jesus Savior, Redeemer, Lord of Lords and Creator?

The world was created perfect by the Creator. He put his mark on the world. He designed it to fulfill all the needs of its inhabitants. We don’t know how long they lived in the garden, in harmony, in beauty and in balance.

But someone made a decision, and evil entered the world. The world was corrupted. Harmony, beauty and balance were destroyed.

The creator had two responses. (1) To punish those who brought evil into the world. (2) To execute a plan to save them and to restore harmony, beauty and balance.

Jesus entered the world and executed God’s plan. Both of God’s responses were perfectly fulfilled.

Now Jesus does not exist in the world any longer physically. But he is immanent with those who choose to follow him. He is in the world, through those followers, continuing to execute God’s plan of rescue, healing and redemption.

If you follow Jesus, you believe that in some way, shape or form, he is the answer for the problems of the world. Some people chart the tendencies of the world and they do not like the slope of the graph. They are afraid of the world, its polluting powers, its ability to bring pain and death, and the realization time after time that people do not have the power to live in integrity. So, they hide inside the fortress of worship meetings, Sunday schools and committees. And the world lays siege to our fortresses, slowly strangling the life from them.

Does this sound like followers of the Lord of All? Does this sound like those of whom Jesus said had power to assail the kingdom of Satan, and bring his gates crashing down?

We are truly in a war. And we are not fighting well. We are not fighting well because we are not using a weapons skillfully. What are these weapons? They are: love, mercy, kindness, prayer, listening and asking questions, giving answers in creative ways and transformed community.

There are some people who believe that worship meetings, mid-week prayer times and small groups are community. I am sorry to say they are not. They are parts of community. Important parts. But the community is more.

There are some people who believe that if we practice our weapons within the community, we will learn them skillfully and we will win the war. We do need to practice our weapons within the community. And some of them are effective from long range. But we will not defeat the enemy unless we all see the whites of their eyes, and all engage them in battle. (And if our chief weapon is love, the battle will be very different from anything we currently imagine.)

If you believe Jesus is the solution to the world’s problems, if you believe he is Lord of All, then you are already in his army, you are already in a war, and you need to engage the enemy with the powerful weapons he has given you.

God's Intention for Man Not Much Different

God initiated the process to ransom us from sin, because he was generous and merciful. Jesus’ death provided everything we needed as we took hold of this provision by faith. We did not earn it by our acts of kindness, charity or religiosity. God created man as his master work. God intended man to live a life of kindness and generosity. He intended man to live this way naturally, as an expression of his created nature. And now he intends mankind to live this way as a result of his faith, his relationship to God and people, and his newly created nature.

Remembering

There is story about the Jews as they left Egypt and were traveling back to Canaan. They reached a place where they had no water. Water is very important thing in a desert; and water is very difficult to get in large quantities in a desert. (There are estimates that Israel numbered around two million people at this time.) And when they did find water, it was tainted. Somehow the fact that the water was bad was Moses’ fault. To say the people whined was a gross understatement.

To put this whining into perspective, Scripture specifically states that this story occurred three days after the Egyptian army had the Jews tapped with their backs to the Red Sea. God rescued them by parting the Red Sea, and Israel walked through the sea on dry ground.

Israel continually witnessed one tremendous act after another, which should have demonstrated God’s intention to claim Israel as his people, to rescue them out of their troubles and to proclaim himself through them. But in three days, they had forgotten what God just did for them.

Isn’t it amazing how short and selective people’s memories are? How short are ours for whom Jesus died?

God's Prioriy

“Hyperpneumonia” is a made-up Greek word meaning “too much Spirit.” Some Christians and churches get caught up in pneumonological phenomena. They seek signs and wonders regularly, consistently and exclusively. The primary criteria of spiritual favor is the presence of extraordinary spiritual events. If they are not happening in your church, then God has removed his hand and his favor.

What does God proclaim as the priority, as first importance, in his kingdom? The first and second commands are love. Tongues, prophecy and miracles are all going to cease. Faith, hope and love will continue. And the love is the greatest. Moreover, tongues, prophecy and miracles will only have worth if they are expressed with love. Cooking, cleaning and babysitting motivated by love are more important to God than a miracle motivated by something else.

And let’s face. Many Christians pursue pneumonological phenomena to be part of the latest craze, part of the spiritual in-crowd. It’s not very glitzy to in love pursue diaper changing. It not very ego building to in love choose obscurity and dishes washing. God honors any act done in love more than any act done without love.

To Know His Power

In one of Paul's letters, he described his heart's desire for a young church. He wants them to grow in knowing God and to realize God's action on their behalf. He said that God exerts his power on the young church's beha;f. And the power he exerts is the same power he exerted in raising Christ from the dead.

To those following Jesus, the Resurrection of Christ is the pivotal action of all time and space. It demonstrates Jesus has conquered sin and death. It declares that in Jesus man has complete and unrestricted access to the Creator of All. It crushes sin's penalty in the lives of those in Christ. It disrupts the laws of physics and biology. At it has been placed at the disposal of mere mortals like us.

What does this look like? Miracles on the finger tips of us all? Or the miracle of peace with God, in Christ, ransomed and rescued from sin, that we currently experience? Or something else?

God's Purpose

Before the world was created, God devised a plan to demonstrate his glory. In that plan, he knew the world was going to “go bad” and he intended that part of the Godhead would become human, and give himself as a sacrifice to satisfy God’s justice for the rest of mankind. Those who chose allegiance with God, those who depend on Christ for justification, God chose to consider those people as if they stood in Jesus’ position. That is, he views them as blameless and righteous. Even though in reality, they may continue to sin. They do not depend on their own acts to gain a right relationship with God. They depend on Jesus’ acts.

In Christ

God has given us every spiritual blessing in Christ. Jesus came into the world to create a new covenant with men and God. In this covenant, men promise to give their allegiance to God, to follow him, to represent him to the world and to obey him. God promises to bring men into a special relationship with him. He cancels the rightful penalty for breaking God's law. He promises to walk with each individual person by putting his nature into their hearts -- to speak to them, to guide them, to strengthen them and to walk with them through life. He will form a community around this relationship with others who have come into this covenant with him. He will establish an eternal community and an eternal relationship. And he will create the world anew to conform with its original design.

All this -- man's part of the covenant and God's part of the covenant -- is focused through Jesus Christ. Jesus became the bridge that allows both parties access to each other. The chasm that separated these parties was sin -- the evil in men. When we choose to enter this covenant relationship with God, we move into a new status, a new place. We assume Jesus' place with him. We can visualize this as if we are in him. All of God's blessing flows to us through Christ and our relationship with him. As we have moved into his position, we also assume his role in the world.

Equipping

How does the church guard against heresy? Most pastors looks at Paul’s instruction to shepherd/care for the flock, because there are hungry wolves out there. So, he is there. He is the shepherd. He is trained to watch for wolves and then, drive them away.

The problem is – he can’t be everywhere. There are not enough shepherds to connect with every sheep. They can’t be to every class, home meeting, choir or band rehearsal, date and breakfast. The enemy know this and assaults God’s family from all sides. He is sly and wily. Do we think he will attack when we are looking? He will come where and when we least expect it. I think it is near impossible for the shepherd to protect the sheep.

So, the shepherd will have to equip the sheep. A wolf will think twice about attacking a sheep armed with a machine gun. The shepherd will need to train the sheep to take the Bible seriously as a guide and standard. They can teach them how to study and learn to understand it correctly.

When was the last time a church gave a class on inductive Bible study? And sold it as a vital part of the church?