Last week, we explored an amazing truth: We can know God because of Jesus. Everything God is. Everything the Spirit reveals. Everything the Bible declares. All the mysteries of wisdom, and knowledge, and salvation are wrapped up in Jesus! The Son is the radiance of God's glory, the exact representation of his being. In the face of Jesus we have beheld the glory, the glory of the one and only, who came from the Father full of grace and truth. Yes, we know God because of Jesus! That is the headline!
But do you realize the inverse is just as true? God knows us because of Jesus. It works both ways. We know him in Jesus. He knows us in Jesus. Let me share three amazing truths.
First, in Jesus, God became fully human. Not half-human. Not 10%. Not 20%. God became fully human. Hebrews 2:14 says just as we are flesh and blood, Jesus too shared our flesh and blood humanity. Hebrews 2:17 says he "had" to made like us in every way, fully human, in every way. Philippians 2:7 says Jesus was "born/made in human likeness."
Second, in Jesus, God lived fully human life. Jesus grew in wisdom, stature and in the favor of God and men. He was an infant, a child, a teenager, a young adult, a man. He experienced temptation, loneliness, love, abandonment, isolation, frustration, joy, grief, loss, pressure, threats, suffering, violence, personal agony, death... The high and lows, the extremes... Jesus lived the most fully human life any person ever has, ever could, and ever will live.
Third, Jesus Ascended to Father Fully Human. When Jesus was raised from the grave, on the third day, by the power of the Holy Spirit, he didn't discard his humanity. He didn't leave his body laying in the tomb. He retained his flesh and blood body. He said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe." (John 20:27). Did you know after his resurrection Jesus had breakfast? It wasn't Cracker Barrel, but in John 21:12-13 Jesus says, "Come and have breakfast" and they eat bread and fish together! And then afterward, Jesus ascends bodily into heaven, on a full stomach.
Friends, the Living God became one of us. The Living God lived as one of us. The Living God retains our humanity in heaven. Jesus is FOREVER God and Man.
Acts 1:9-11, "...he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. "Men of Galilee," they said, "why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven."
1 Timothy 2:5 says, "There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ." Jesus is FOREVER, FOR ETERNITY God and Man.
The fact that JESUS is FULLY GOD, STILL FULLY MAN, has profound implications for our lives. There are probably hundreds of implications, but I'll mention three...
1) We Have. . . A God Who Really Understands.
One could argue that God understands us regardless of whether became man. After all he is God. He is omniscient, all-knowing. He sees everything. Nothing is hidden before he eyes. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before Living God. But in Jesus, God has very person, experiential knowledge of our humanity.
Take Hebrews 4:14-16 for example. "Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way just as we are--yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."
Empathy is the ability to understand and share in the feeling of the others. Have you ever noticed that when a person has walked in your shoes, they show you a ton more grace than someone who hasn't? This is why Twelve Step groups are so amazing. When somebody doesn't get you, the first thing they often do is judge you. They pick up that stone to stone you. They rub your nose in your failures. They shame you, and condemn you. But when someone understands you, they give you abundant grace, abundant mercy!
Nobody understands you ("gets you") more deeply than Jesus. He has walked in your shoes. He has felt that temptation, that pressure. When you pray to Jesus, his wounds and scars are his reference point. Do you ever wonder how much understanding, how grace and mercy, God is willing to show you? It is abundantly more than anyone who hasn't walked in your shoes is willing to show. Nobody is more understanding, more merciful, more gracious than God.
Ask the city of Nineveh. Ask the woman at the well, the woman caught in adultery, Zacchaeus. Peter said, "Go away from me Lord I'm a sinful man." Paul said, "I am the worse of all sinners." Ask Moses, who murdered an Egyptian. Ask David who not only committed adultery with Bathsheba, but had her husband murdered.
When people's empathy, understanding, mercy and grace is about to run out, God is just getting warmed up. The Hebrew writer says we should approach the throne of grace... yes GRACE... with confidence so we can receive mercy and grace in our time of need. "Well I think God's angry. I think he's disappointed. He doesn't want to see me again. I've burned my bridge with God. I've worn out my welcome." The Bible says approach the throne of grace confidently and get the mercy (and help).
2) We Have. . . An Example to Really Follow.
Jesus was made like us in every way. He was tempted like us in every way. But, the Bible says he was without sin. While on earth, Jesus lived an uber-competent life. He navigated every treacherous temptation and snare with perfect wisdom and righteousness.
A month back my brother Mike and I went fishing. He bought a brand new fishing reel, a baitcaster. Now most fishing reels are pretty simple to use. You push the button, you flip the bail, and you can cast a mile. But not a baitcaster. They are very temperamental fishing reels. If you don't cast them just right, the fishing line birdnests, and its almost impossible to untangle [PHOTO]. Mike had never used one of these reels before, and was having fits casting it.
He could have easily concluded, "This reel stinks. It's broken. It's piece of junk." But instead I took his same reel and showed him "that" it could cast perfectly. That's Jesus! He takes on our humanity and he shows us to live life to the full. He even invites us, "Be perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect." Jesus didn't pull out his God-card, and cheat his humanity. He showed us our human potential at its fullest.
You know we have this whole cult of celebrity. We idolize the person who sings the best, throws the farthest, looks the prettiest, makes the most money, makes us laugh hardest. Well no one has ever been more fully alive, fully human, more worthy of imitation than Jesus. Jesus' humanity shows us the depth with which we can live and the heights to which we can aspire! We aren't just admirers here, Jesus invites us to "walk as he walked." We have extraordinary potential, and we'll unpack over next weeks.
3) We Have. . . A Savior to Really Trust.
In Hebrews 2:14-18 we're told Jesus shared our flesh/blood humanity "so that by his death, he might break the power of him who holds the power of death--that is the devil--and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death." He died that "he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted."
It's not enough that God show us empathy. It's not enough that God set an example for us, and call us to perfection. We need a Savior we can really trust, and who can really "help" us, who can break the power of sin, the power of fear, power of death, the power of the devil... and actually liberate us to Walk as Jesus Walked. We need a Savior who has power to forgive us, to give us grace and mercy, so that we never stop aspiring to God's very best. We can know God because of Jesus. But God knows you because of Jesus. God gets you. God offers to help you. Are you open-hearted, and open-minded? He promises if we'd approach throne of grace confidently, he help us...