Jesus of Nazareth: Resurrection and Ascension

Happy New Year! I am honored to share with you our first message of 2016. At the beginning of a new year, I often think of the poem God Knows, written in 1908 but only becoming widely known in 1939 after Princess Elizabeth of England handed it to her father, George VI, and he quoted part of it in his 1939 Christmas speech to the British Empire. It was the early days of World War II, a time of great uncertainty and foreboding in the world, not too different from the fear of terrorism that we face now. The poem begins:

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.
And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.

It’s a great encouragement to remember that whatever 2016 holds we can walk toward it confidently, holding the hand of God. The reason we can have that confidence is because of the reality of what we are going to be talking about today: the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. This truth is at the heart of what we believe as Christians, an essential part of what Jesus came to do. Last Sunday, I believe you talked about Jesus’ atoning death on the cross. His death was the sacrifice that paid the price for all our sins, allowing our relationship with God to be restored. That is what the atonement means. However, the story doesn’t stop there. Jesus came back to life, breaking the power of death, proclaiming his eternal victory over Satan and all the forces of evil. Without the resurrection, it would mean that this life is all that there is – and what a hopeless prospect that would be!

Jesus of Nazareth: Atonement

Good morning!  Today, we will have a time of communion where we take the bread and the cup and remember our Lord Jesus.  But, before we do, we are going to continue in our current series, Sound Doctrine.   We have a very fitting subject for today as we continue to talk about Jesus our Savior.  We are going to talk about the Atonement.  It is through the Atonement that we are reconciled to God, so it is a pretty cool thing and a very big deal and one of the main things to reflect on when we take communion.  We don’t have so much time today, so let’s pray and jump right in to the topic.

Lord Jesus, we thank You that you came and lived a sinless life, that You sacrificed Yourself and allowed Yourself to be killed on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins.  Please help us right now to reflect on the amazing work that You accomplished to make things right between us and God.  Teach us we pray.  Amen.

Let’s start at the top.  What is atonement?

Jesus of Nazareth: Incarnation

Jesus said in the book of Revelation, “Behold! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” –Revelation 3:20

Today, we have reached the last Sunday before Christmas.  I feel like in a lot of ways Christmas comes rushing upon me each year.  I know this familiar visitor.  I know it comes but once a year, and I know it comes the same time.  And yet, I don’t think I’m ever quite ready in one way or another. 

So, this last Sunday comes sort of like that verse from Revelation, “Behold!  Christmas stands on the door and knocks.”  Are you ready to open the door and let Christmas in?

Part of the struggle is trying to figure out what is Christmas anyway?  Christmas is supposed to be the celebration of Jesus’ birth.  In our culture, it has become just a teensy weensy bit about some other stuff than Jesus.

Jesus of Nazareth: The Object of Foreshadowing

Welcome! When I was a kid, my Mom would often take me to the library. I would check out as many books as they would let me and read like crazy. Mostly I picked fiction. Most of the books were forgettable, nothing special, although I would also read some of the classics. Once, though, when I was around age 10, I checked out The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, the first of seven books about an alternate world called Narnia where a mysterious but good talking lion named Aslan ruled. I had read many other fantasy works, but with Narnia I was enraptured. I soon checked out and read the rest of the series, all 7 books, and they became my very favorite works of fiction. I would check them out of the library again and again and read them about once a year. I think the only other books I read more than twice were the Lord of the Rings books by Tolkien, which I read maybe three times. I kept rereading Narnia yearly through high school, and even in college, on summer and other breaks, I would read some of them again. During this time my own religious beliefs moved from Judaism (in which I had been raised) to full-blown atheism, but during all this time, my love of Narnia never waned.

Years later, in Graduate School, after reading through most of the Bible I became convinced that the Bible was true, and after an internal struggle, finally put my faith in Christ. Some months after this, something (I don’t remember what) made me think about the Narnia books again. And then it suddenly hit me – these books weren’t really, ultimately about a lion; the lion was written to be a picture of Christ. Upon making this realization, I was amazed. How could I have missed it? It was all so obvious now. I read them again and was shocked to see how they were filled with veiled references to Biblical truth on page after page after page. I was actually embarrassed that I hadn’t made the connection earlier, and I only told a few people about my discovery.

I tell this story because the Old Testament is like Narnia in a lot of ways – it too tells the story of Christ, but you need to know where to look. Unlike Narnia, which is fiction and also symbolic of Christ, the Bible is literal history but also symbolic of Christ. C.S. Lewis and others have said that the Bible is “true myth.” I would say it is true foreshadowing. But where do we look?

Jesus: The Focus of Prophecy

 

Welcome! Today we continue our series on Sound Doctrine, continuing our “mini series” on Jesus. Our drama had the surprise character “Holy,” that is, the Holy Spirit, who helped Riley to begin to live a life of grace and peace and, yes, joy, as she allowed Him to lead her life. Galatians 5:16 tells us to walk by the Spirit, and we will not gratify the desires of the flesh. A little later in Galatians 5 we are told of the fruit, or results, of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. A life yielded to God, a life seeking Him, wanting to know Him and follow Him, will be a life that demonstrates this fruit in increasing measure over time. I think of 2 Peter 1:3-4 –

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness. Through these He has given us His very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. – 2 Peter 1:3-4

Do you believe this? I have heard one of the longest serving pastors in our association of churches, Herschel Martindale, speak on this passage multiple times, so much so that I can no longer read verse 3 without hearing his voice saying the words! He would ask you, do you really believe this? His divine power has given us everything we need (not a few things only but everything) for a godly life (not just an average life, or even a better-than-average life, but a godly life) through what? Knowing Him. He has called you by name. He knows you, and you are precious to Him. He has called you by His own glory (that’s a lot of glory!) and His own goodness. A life truly yielded to God, truly seeking to know God, a life led by “Holy,” is a life that over time you yourself will know is a life displaying the miraculous power of God. This power of complete transformation is available to you, to every believer.

Jesus of Nazareth: God and Man

A couple of weeks ago, Carl was asked during his teaching on man and woman to define Gnosticism. Unfortunately Carl’s teaching on the doctrine of man and woman went longer than expected and with the baptism scheduled directly afterwards he did not have time to give a clear definition.  So for completeness I will state the definition here before I start since it fits rather well with today’s topic of Jesus being fully God and fully man.

Gnosticism was a second century heresy claiming that salvation could be gained through secret knowledge. Gnosticism is derived from the Greek word gnosis, meaning "to know." Gnostics also believed that the material world (matter) was evil and that only the spirit is good. They constructed an evil God and the Old Testament to explain the creation of the world (matter), and they considered Jesus Christ a wholly spiritual God.

Gnostics were divided on Jesus. One view held that Jesus only appeared to have human form but that He was actually spirit only. The other view contended that Jesus’ divine spirit came upon His human body at baptism and departed before the crucifixion. Christianity, on the other hand, holds that Jesus was fully man and fully God and that His human and divine natures were both present and necessary to provide a suitable sacrifice for humanity's sin.