Week Of:   January 3, 2010

Title:   Who is Jesus Christ (continued from last week)

Series:   Systematic Theology – Part 14    

Scripture:   1 Peter 2:24-25

1.                  This is a beautiful way to describe what the eternal Logos did for us.  He remained God, but then He took up humanity in all its frailty.  This is where we ended last Sunday… let’s continue.

2.                  But for what purpose?  Why did He take up the frailty and imperfection of a human being? God has always been in the saving business.  He has always been working to redeem Israel, humanity, and really all of His creation.

3.                  Everything was created good and wonderful.  Maybe not perfect but certainly good.  But then Adam and Eve sinned…what God created good somehow became tainted and broken.  What was as it should be, became what it should have never been.  God’s creation was diseased and broken.

4.                  At the center of all the chaos, hurt, disease, and brokenness is mankind—the very crown of God’s creation became creation’s Achilles heel. You might say that which was created to bring the most joy (humankind) was bringing the most pain and heartache to God. 

5.                  God’s creation is diseased. The crown of God’s creation is sick with sin and the patient (humankind) is not getting better.  There is a staph infection and it is not localized to one area of the body, but is spread throughout God’s glorious creation.   So how does God go about fixing it?

6.                  I don’t know anything about medicine but I assume that a topical antibiotic will not do anything to stop a staph infection, especially one that is spread throughout the body. I imagine that you would have to have massive doses of high powered antibiotics to knock out most staph infections.

7.                  You might say that Jesus is the high powered medicine that God injected into creation, especially into humanity, to bring about healing. Remember what 1 Peter 2: 24  says. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.  For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.”  He has healed us and returned us to the Great Overseer of our souls.

8.                  Jesus Christ’s incarnation and consequently his crucifixion was God’s way of healing mankind.  The Great Physician injected himself into mankind in the form of Jesus of Nazareth and the cure has taken hold in our lives. 

9.                  So as we said earlier, “Remaining what he was, He assumed what He was not” in order to heal and save us all.  But there is another little saying I would like to bring to your attention that illustrates why the early church believed that Jesus had to be 100 percent human and 100 percent God.   It is by the same man and goes like this “Whatever is not assumed is not healed.”

10.              Jesus Christ had to be 100 percent human being, because God wants us to be 100 percent healed.  God wants every part of our existence to be healed and therefore redeemed. Salvation and the process of redemption is something that runs throughout our lives.  There is not supposed to be any dark corners of our hearts that doesn’t experience the light of God’s redeeming love.

11.              This might sound strange but to God our salvation is not enough. He wants our complete healing. Everything must be healed.   So for Jesus to completely bring about our healing, he must fully assume what it means to be human.  Because what is not assumed is not healed.

12.              God experienced firsthand what it was to be a human being in the person of Jesus Christ and in doing so He has healed us.

Week Of:  January 11, 2010

Title:  Peace on Earth

Series:       

Scripture:  Luke 2:13-16

1.                  How many of you watch the news faithfully? How many of you are paying attention to the fighting going on in the Gaza strip?
 

2.                  The Gaza strip is a coastal strip of land along the Mediterranean Sea.  It borders Egypt on the south-west and Israel on the north and east. It is about 25 miles long, and about 7.5 miles wide. The area is not recognized internationally as part of any sovereign country but is claimed by the Palestinian National Authority as part of the Palestinian territories.

3.                  Since June 2007, the actual control of the area is in the hands of the Hamas de facto government.

4.                  A six-month truce between Hamas and Israel ended on  December 19, 2008, after Hamas blamed Israel for not lifting the Gaza Strip blockade and for continuing raids in Gaza, and Israel blamed Hamas for the rocket and mortar attacks directed at its southern cities.

5.                  Israel's stated objectives in this conflict are to defend itself from Palestinian rocket fire and prevent the rearming of Hamas. Hamas demands the stopping of Israeli attacks and an end to the Israeli blockade (information above supplied by Wikipedia).

6.                  Who knows when, if ever, this conflict will end?  There are those who believe it will only end in the Battle of Armageddon—which is the site of the final battle between the forces of God and Satan, mentioned in the later part of the Book of Revelation.

7.                  I personally believe there are only two ways in which peace comes, and only one of these is truly permanent: 

8.                  One is a peace that is imposed from outside influences and, at best, is temporary. 

9.                  By that I mean War World II came to an end when Allied Forces by brute force forced the surrender of Japan and Germany.  In other words, one side overcomes the other, and forces the surrender or the annihilation of the other.  It is generally the way the world sees that there is going to be peace.  We’ll fight, one side will win and the winner will take all.  And as long as people believe that there is something to be won, there will be wars and people will die.

10.              Some see the Battle of Armageddon as being this kind of war…but this war is different. To me it is a Holy War...a spiritual war that really will somehow wipe evil from the face of the earth, and will lead to the Great White Judgment. Violence breeds violence, war generally breeds more violence and more evil. 

11.              It is like a surgeon operating on a tumor, and then having it spread.  They think they got it all, but depending on the type of cancer it is the surgery often spreads it. 

12.              But the Battle of Armageddon is to be such a Holy and Spiritual war that all evil is overcome. 

Evil is totally eradicated from the face of the earth, judgment comes, and then Heaven will be on earth.

13.              But sometimes peace comes because people just lose interest in fighting, or come to the realization that war is not really a sane alternative to living in peace (something like nuclear war).

14.              I just think too many don’t care or don’t know how horrible war can be, until they are exposed to its horrors.  Wars are generally fought by politicians and young people, one doesn’t seem to care and the other doesn’t seem to know. 

15.              In our scripture today you would generally think that peace had arrived upon earth.  After all, a heavenly host of angelic choirs surround a group of shepherds in a field at night and break out in song saying:  “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”

16.              Two things strike me about this song.  One, how can God be pleased with human kind?

What have we done to please him?  Nothing!!!!  This is just an example of the grace of God—the unmerited favor of God that He decided to send His Son into our world.

17.              The other is if heaven is proclaiming peace on earth, then where is the peace?  Why would peace be announced by the heavenly angels if God knew that after the birth, life, and death of Jesus there would be so much war? 

18.              Because the peace that the angelic hosts proclaimed wasn’t peace between men, but between men and God.

19.              Jesus came to make peace between men and His heavenly Father.   But not on our peace terms but on God’s peace terms.  Not by God becoming unholy and like men, but by allowing men to become holy like God.  Jesus came to make peace between men and God by transforming the human heart into the image of His likeness.  Jesus came to make all men righteous!!!  Not self-righteous which people believe about themselves, even in the most terrible of wars and most ugly of conflicts, but true righteous that is really of God, and not of the world.  It is a righteous by God’s standards, not by our own self-imposed standards of what is right and good.

20.              Righteousness must come before true and lasting peace!  When mankind grows up (if we ever do) and truly learns and appreciates what God wants them to be, then there will be a true and lasting peace.

21.              Peace comes from the righteousness that God teaches each of us to live by.  World peace will come when enough men and women have the righteousness of heart and the peace of mind that Jesus Christ gives.  War then will become unthinkable.

22.              World peace starts in every Christian’s heart and spreads to every other heart….

 Special Christmas programs (postponed due to weather).  No sermon notes.

Week Of:  January 24, 2010

Title:   Two Natures & Sinless

Series:   Systematic Theology - Part 14    

Scripture:   Hebrews 4:14-17

Doctrine of Trinity and Incarnation Study Sheet

Responsive reading:  Holy Trinity

(Pastor)   The Father is God

(Congregation)   The Son is God

(Pastor)   The Holy Spirit is God

(Congregation)   The Father is not the Son

(Pastor)   The Son is not the Holy Spirit

(Congregation)   The Holy Spirit is not the Father

(Pastor and Congregation)   There is one God and only one God.

Doctrine of Incarnation is best summarized by these sayings:

"Remaining what He was, He assumed what He was not."

"What is not assumed is not healed."

"Therefore 100 percent God, 100 percent human."

"Perfect man, perfect God."

"One person, two natures."

"Two wills because of two natures."

1.                  Sin is defined in many ways in the Bible.  The most common term is hamartano- usually translated missing the mark.  It is the idea that a person misses the mark because they choose to aim at the wrong target, and misses the right path in life because they deliberately choose the wrong path.

2.                  The Bible tells us that everyone has, at one time or another, chosen the wrong path or at least made the wrong choice at various times in our life.  We have repeatedly missed being the person that God wanted us to be.

3.                  But how about Jesus, did He sin?  There are some people who would say that Jesus couldn’t have really been human because being human means that we sin, and do wrong and evil things.  Therefore, if He was truly a human being, He would have sinned.

4.                  That is assuming that God created human beings to sin.  If you read the book of Genesis, it clearly states that everything God created was good.  And that humanity, at least in its original state, was good and sinless.  Jesus’ humanity is perfect and sinless.

5.                  Our scripture this morning states that while Jesus was “tempted in every respect, as we are, (He) was without sin.”  He was tempted but in every instance and in every way Jesus resisted temptation.  As far as Jesus’ humanity, He was just like Adam and Eve except He resisted the temptation to sin.  Jesus (in His humanity) was one hundred percent on target as far as how God wanted Him to be.  John 8:29 has Jesus saying: “I am always doing what is pleasing to Him.”

6.                  Now, let me ask you a question.  Could Jesus have sinned even if He wanted to?  I think so!!  Hebrews 4 says “He was tempted” and if a temptation is to be real there must be a real possibility of giving in to that temptation.  So yes, I believe Jesus could have sinned but did not.

7.                  And if the perfect Adam, the incarnate son of God, could be tempted to sin, then as the writer of Hebrews says, “we have a high priest” that understands what it is to be human and to intercede on our part before God.

8.                  The idea here is that we have someone who understands us, because He has gone through what we are going through. Therefore, He will work hard to present our case before God.

9.                  In other words, the second part of the Trinity is like a divine defense attorney who is pleading our case before God, because He understands how difficult it is to live a just and sinless life before God.  This life that we live is not easy, and it is good to know that Jesus sympathizes with us and understands our weaknesses.

10.              But how can God be tempted to give into sin?  How can God be tempted to betray himself, and His will for mankind?

11.              Ok, let’s go back to the very important doctrine of incarnation.  The incarnation says that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among men” (John 1:14).  It says that the Second part of the Trinity (Christ) became a human being while remaining God at the same time.  The church worked it out that Jesus was 100 percent God, and yet 100 percent a human being, not half and half.  The church said that the Word (the Second member of the God-head) “Remaining what He was, he assumed what He was not.” He remained 100 percent God and became 100 percent human being, except for the sin.

12.              God became man, yet somehow remained God, and behold became one person—Jesus Christ.  Now this is doctrine… it is what you say that you believe about Jesus Christ.

13.              But what kind of being is Jesus Christ?  Is Jesus a mule? You know what a mule is, don’t you? A cross between a horse and a donkey.  Did God and man come together to produce a new kind of being?  No, the church didn’t want to say that…but they did want to say that Jesus was one person, the Second part of the God-head and He had changed and become 100 percent man, and 100 percent God.

14.              Is there one nature or two natures in Jesus?  You might be thinking, preacher that is a silly question.  But haven’t you ever wondered why Jesus being God prayed to God? 

15.              If you have, then is there one nature or two natures in Jesus Christ?  Again, to believe that Jesus Christ is 100 percent human and 100 percent God you have to have two distinct natures.  The full nature of God and the full nature of a human being.

16.              Do you know of an instance in the scriptures that illustrates that?

Matthew 26:39 “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as Thou will.”  The perfect human nature asking his perfect God nature to let the Holy Trinity’s will be done. 

17.              When Jesus prayed, and He did very often, it was His perfect human nature seeking direction from His divine nature.  One person, two natures, one yet separate and distinct in the person we call Jesus Christ.

18.              What does this have to do with sin?  By our definition of divinity, God is Holy and sinless.   However, Jesus’ human nature was perfect too.  We, therefore, have someone who is our high priest to intercede on our part, but also we have the perfect man to mold our lives after.