The Fundamentals
Jesus: God is with Me
Isaiah 7:14, Philippians 2:5-11
Today we are going to look at the third of four fundamentals of our faith. We first dealt with the Bible. The Bible is God’s way of speaking to us. Then we moved to God. And the key thought about God upon which we focused was His sovereignty. That means He rules over us.
Today, I want us to zero in on Jesus. And although it is not the central focus of where I want us to be, I want to first talk about Jesus being God.
The God of the Bible is one God. Yet, the Bible also teaches that this one infinitely, perfect, eternal God is also a tri-personal, triune God who exists eternally and simultaneously as three distinct and distinguishable persons dwelling as One. There is God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
Now in this series we are learning that everything the Church believes flows from the Word of God and the God of the Word. Everything must begin with the Bible, because that is God's revelation to us.
On the other hand, the story of the Bible is about the God who has revealed himself to us one of the centerpieces of Scripture is that Jesus was, in fact, God in the flesh. He was a real person who walked the face of this earth, and He is correctly identified as "the God-man."
In fact, He not only was God in the flesh, it is more correct to say He is God in the flesh. Did you ever consider that our sinfulness as humans brought about a fundamental change in the God-head?
Even though Jesus is co-eternal, co-equal and co-existent with God, before He came to earth and became a man, He was not confined to a human body. You will find suggestions in the Old Testament that He temporarily occupied a human body.
Those appearance are called, in theological terms, “Christophanies”. We have an example in Joshua 5 where Joshua is confronted by a man with a drawn sword who is identified as the “Commander or Captain of the Lord’s army”. Other places will reference Him as the Angel of the Lord. I personally believe He may have even been Melchizedek to whom Abraham paid tithes.
But when Jesus came to earth as a tiny baby, He assumed human flesh permanently, and the indication of Scripture is that He will always and forever be in that glorified human body.
That means what we generally refer to as the “incarnation”, God in the flesh, should really be referred to as the “is-carnation”. He was not only “in the flesh” for a while, but He “is” in the flesh for eternity.
Whatever you choose to call it, the core of Christianity is the belief that God came to this earth in human-flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. As such, He had two natures: a divine nature and a human nature. They were united, but they were distinct. He was fully God and fully man.
In other words, he was "the God-man."
Now the prophet Isaiah, 750 years before Christ was born, 2750 years before this message was preached predicted, not only that a baby would be born of a virgin, (that in and of itself is pretty unbelievable), but he goes on to say in
Isaiah 7:14, "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call his name Immanuel."
No other baby in the world's history had ever been given that name, because of what that name means "God with us."
Why is it so important that this man named, Jesus Christ, also be fully God? For this simple reason: if Jesus Christ was not God, we cannot know God personally, we cannot come to God relationally and we cannot live with God eternally.
That means
1. Jesus, as God, Came to Us so that We Might See Him
The single greatest mind-blowing element of the entire Bible is not that Jesus was God, but that in Jesus, God had become a human-being. No other religious tradition or religious faith, besides Christianity, has ever considered becoming "human" essential to its belief and understanding of God.
Now here’s the question of the hour: Why? Why would God do that?
In the New Testament book of Philippians, the Apostle Paul goes in to more detail and explains, if you will, the theology behind the incarnation.
And what we discover is God came as a human being, so human beings could come to God.
Notice Philippians 2:6
The Greek word for "equality" is the word "isos." an isosceles triangle is a triangle with two equal sides. The word literally means "equal in size, quality, character and number."
So Paul is letting us know, right up front, that in every way you can imagine, Jesus Christ was and is equal to God.
Even though he did not cling to his equality with God, He claimed it. Those who heard Him knew that He claimed it.
John 5:18 says, "For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God his own Father, making Himself equal with God."
In fact, contrary to what liberal theologians will try to tell you, Jesus never argued the fact that He was God. Why would He? He knew Who He was!
Notice at the beginning of verse 6, Paul points out that Jesus, "existed in the form of God." The word "form" is a word that referred to a Roman stamp.
In ancient days, an official government document was always sealed with wax while the wax was hot. You would press the ring, bearing the king's insignia, into the document and the impression in the wax would be the exact representation of the insignia on the ring and that is the word that is used here.
What Paul is telling us is that Jesus is the exact representation of God.
But notice what happened in verse 7. He “emptied himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.”
Again we have the word “form” and it means the same thing here as it did previously. He was the exact representation of a bond-servant. But we are confronted with a mystery because Paul says “He emptied Himself”.
But that doesn’t mean that he ceased to be God. If you think about it, that is one of the things God can't do. God cannot cease to be God or he wouldn't be God. He didn't lay aside his deity; he took up humanity.
Let me put it to you in mathematical terms. When Jesus became a man, there was no subtraction. He remained God completely and totally. There was a time when Jesus was God, but not man. There was never a time and never will be a time when Jesus was man, but not God.
Nor was there any division. Jesus did not give up any of his deity to make room for his humanity. In other words, he was not part human and part divine. He was not part man and part God. He was not a mixture of God and man. His deity was not diluted. He was not two-parts God and two-parts man.
What happened when Jesus became a man was not subtraction or division, but addition. In addition to being God, he took upon himself human nature and became a man. He added humanity to his deity and from the moment he was born, he remained both God and man - two natures in one flesh and bones person.
Now think about this. It is imperative that we understand the relationship between a person and a nature.
A person has a nature. How many times have you said about someone, "That is just his or her nature?" We all possess a nature that makes us what we are.
If you are a human person you have a human nature. You can take two people, they are two human persons, but they share the same human nature, which makes them human.
On the other hand, Jesus is one person who has two natures. One of those natures is identical to our human nature without sin, but the other nature is divine. Jesus was fully human, but also fully divine. He was both God and man. He was the "God-man."
That raises an extremely important question, "Why would God the Son take on the form of human flesh? Why would he add to his divine nature a human nature? Why was it so important that he become one with the people that he had created? Why was it so vital that he become Immanuel - 'God with us?" Was it just so we could see Him?
The answer is found in verse 8
There we find that Jesus came as God so we might see Him, but
2. Jesus, as Man, Died for Us so that We Might Seek Him
Jesus didn't become a man just so he could live. He became a man so he could die. He had to die as a perfect man, so that he could pay for the sins of every other man and woman who are not perfect.
From the time that Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, God as a holy and righteous God has demanded that that sin be paid for. The problem is we cannot pay for our own sins, because we are sinners.
God the Son voluntarily took on the form of a human so that as one of us he could pay for us and redeem us with his sacrifice that would take care of our sin problem. Now that Jesus, being God, has taken care of our sin problem, we can have a relationship with God.
I came across this statement, in my study, and it says it all, "the essence of sin is our desire to become God; The essence of salvation is God becoming man."
In other words, without the incarnation, salvation is impossible. When Jesus died on the cross, he wasn't dying on the cross the way so many other Jews who were crucified died.
He died an "official" death as God's selected substitute. He died a "judicial" death to satisfy the judgment of God. He died a "sacrificial" death to pay for the sins that we had committed. He did all of that so that we can now seek God.
Unfortunately, that is where even a lot of Christians and churches leave Jesus - on the cross. But, that is not the end of the story. Yes, Jesus as God came to us that we might see him. Yes, Jesus as man died for us so that we might seek him, but thirdly
3. Jesus as Lord, Reigns Over Us so that we might Serve Him
verse 9
What is the name which is above every name? Contrary to what you may think it is not the name "Jesus." If you had been living in the days of Jesus there were a lot of little boys running around with that name.
The name that is above every name is the name "Lord". Jesus came as a man so that he could relate to us. He died as a savior so that he could redeem us, but He was raised from the dead, as Lord, that He might rule over us.
Paul says everyone is going to accept his lordship.
Verse 10
That is going to be a sight to behold! Paul says every knee will bow whether by choice or by force.
Every knee above us, in heaven, whether it be angels or people is going to bow. Every knee around us, on earth, whether believer or unbeliever is going to bow. Every knee under us, the devil and all of his demons are going to bow and we are going to accept his lordship.
We are also going to acknowledge his lordship.
Verse 11
Every pagan tongue, every atheist tongue, every buddhist tongue, every muslim tongue, every humanist tongue, every demonic tongue, every angelic tongue is going to confess that Jesus Christ is lord. It all goes back to the God who became a man. It all goes back to the God-man. It all goes back to Jesus who is God with us.
What does that have to do with you right now? If Jesus Christ is indeed God, then there are two things he showed us how to do the way God wants us to do them.
First of all, he showed us how to live and secondly, he showed how to love. We don't have to wonder how God would treat other people - we know. We don't have to wonder how God would handle bitterness, anger, jealously - we know. We don't have to wonder how God would love other people - we know. Because Jesus is God with us, we, through his power, can imitate his life and we can imitate his love.
Many of you are too young to know who I am talking about when I say the name Paul Harvey. But Mr. Harvey was a well-known radio newsman for many years. He was originally from right here in Oklahoma, Stillwater, if I’m not mistaken.
He was best known for his unusual stories and the stories behind the stories, a part of his broadcast known as “The Rest of the Story”.
Every Christmas, as a part of his broadcast, he told the story of a man who was not a believer. . .well I’ll just let him tell you. . .
Video
And that is the story not just of Christmas, but of every day of the life of a Christian. Because of Jesus, God is with us!
Let’s pray
