Who is Jesus #3 - Jesus is God and Man
Message Description
Senior Pastor Dr. Kurt Bjorklund continues into the third week of the message series "Who is Jesus?"
Message Transcript
Good morning. It's great to be together. Let's pray.
God, as we've gathered this weekend around Pittsburgh online as Orchard Hill, I thank you for each person who's come and each person who's in this gathering. And, Lord, we ask that you would speak into each of our lives, wherever we're coming from. Whatever this week has had for us, whether it's been some of our highest highs or lowest lows, whether our week has been filled with successes or challenges. I ask that my words would reflect your word in content and in tone and in emphasis. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
Some kids were asked how they perceived God. Here were some of the answers. One little boy said, “God doesn't have a house. He doesn't need one except on Sundays, because that's the day that he likes to rest.” One little girl said, “I wish God would make me famous, and soon.” Another little boy said, “I call God when I need help with things, but not my homework, because my mom says I have to do that all by myself.” And another little boy wrote this. He said, “My father never believed in God, didn't believe he was real, but my mom did, and then she got sick. Now my dad prays, but my mom doesn't.” You know, how you perceive God will impact how you live.
And you may think that theology is something that people write books about in institutions that are far removed from your life, but every person is a theologian because everybody makes deeply theological assumptions about life and makes theological statements. And what I mean by that is anytime that you say I think of God like this, or God does this, or God's at work in this way. Whatever your reference point is, however you're coming to that, that is a theological way of thinking about the world. And so you are making a theological statement.
And while there's certainly some ways of thinking about God that are general when it comes to Jesus Christ, what you think about Jesus, how you perceive Jesus, will ultimately define how you relate to Christianity, how you relate to God in general, and how you even relate to the world. In other words, what you think of Jesus is huge in terms of how you will live your life.
In fact, we started a series a few weeks ago that we've called “Who Is Jesus?” And what we've been doing is looking at some passages that speak to who Jesus is. And we looked at Jesus being the image of God. We looked at Jesus being the sacrifice of atonement. And today we're going to look at something that theologians have called, wait for it, it’s a big word, the hypostatic union. And all that means is that God is both in Jesus, fully God and fully man at the same time. Deeply theological statement that has huge implications for how we live our lives.
And so what I'd like to do is just spend some time showing you from Philippians 2, which you heard read about how Jesus is seen as being fully God, fully man, and then talking about some of the implications that it has for all of us, because I would guess if you're here today, and you've been a longtime person of faith, there's a little piece of you that goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know this, I've heard this, I don't need this. And if you aren't a person of faith, there's probably a little piece of you that says, this seems a little outlandish to talk about Jesus being fully God, fully man. And so today I want to help us think about that and why this is so important in Christianity. And by the way, this is one of the things that distinguishes Christianity from other religions of the world. Other religions have prophets who point to God. Christianity has a God who became incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ. And therefore, if Jesus is really God, it makes Christianity true completely. In other words, this is huge.
So Philippians 2 tells us that Jesus is God. Jesus is fully God. Here's where we see this. It says in verse 5, “Christ Jesus”, so telling us the subject. And then it says:
“Who, being the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage, rather, he made himself nothing by taking the nature of a servant and being made in human likeness.”
So notice here what it says. It says that being the very nature God, some versions say he had the form of God. It's a word that means he was like God or was God. And Jesus picks this up in John, chapter 10, verse 20, and he says, the Father and I are one, or we are the same. In other words, Jesus’ implication, Paul's teaching here, the teaching in the New Testament is Jesus is fully God.
And then it says that he didn't consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. So even though he was God fully, he didn't say, well, therefore I want to live with all the prerogatives of God, but he made himself nothing. Some versions say he emptied himself, which is a whole debate called the kenosis, the theory of emptying, self emptying, if you're interested in that, be somewhere else.
But here's the point, and that is, this is a statement of Jesus being willing to say, I'm putting aside the use of all of my divine attributes, but it means he has divine attributes, so he is fully God. This, by the way, is one of the reasons that at Christmastime Christians talk about the virgin birth. And you might say, well, that seems like a fanciful idea, but one of the reasons this is so significant is because this is why Christians believe that Jesus is God. Because he wasn't born in the same cycle of all of humanity with sin from the line of Adam, but instead he was born of a virgin. Therefore he is divine, he is fully God. Pretty amazing if you think about what it is that Christians actually believe.
And then there's the second part of this. And this is this idea that Jesus is fully God and fully man. Again, verse 7:
“...rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant and being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by by becoming obedient to death—even to death on a cross!”
And so here you get this idea of he being in human likeness, that he was in human form. Again, the idea here is that he is in human form. He has human emotions, he had human needs, and he humbled himself. So the teaching here and throughout the New Testament is, Jesus fully God, fully man.
Now, sometimes this is why people get off and end up in cults or in heresies because they'll deny either the deity of Jesus or the humanity of Jesus in some way, shape or form. One way that this has been explained, and I think this was Blaise Pascal who said this. I think I remember this correctly. But if you Google it and it's not, that's why I make a disclaimer that I think it was. But he, I believe, tried to explain it this way. He said, if you were recognizing that there was an ant colony that was in danger and you wanted to save the ants, how would you go about saving the ants? And he said, well, what you couldn't do is wave your arms and say, hey, ants, listen to me, you should move because something bad's coming. Because the ants would be like, there's a giant over there waving their arms, but they wouldn't understand. And he said, you wouldn't put up a sign that says, attention all ants. Danger. Move. He said, the only way that you could communicate to the ants effectively was if you became an ant and went into the colony and led them to safety. And he said, this is a little bit of what the incarnation is like.
It's God giving up his divine prerogatives, to become human, to lead the human race to its ultimate salvation. And then basically he says, and the same idea is true. If you as a human would give up what it means to be human to become an ant. He said, that's unfathomable. He said, you wouldn't do it just to save a little ant colony. And he said, that is what it means to think about what Jesus has done by taking on the form of humanity and becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.
So Jesus is fully God, fully man. Now, the question is, okay, so what? And as I said, this is huge for how we see the world. And so I want to point you to three implications that I think are in Philippians 2 that speak to this directly, and I think these address us on several levels. And the first one is this. And that is, Jesus is fully God and fully man. Therefore he is the answer to our greatest need.
And I say this because in verse 8, it says:
“And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even to death on a cross.”
So right away, as it's talking about Jesus going to death on the cross, it's pointing to something that is in need. You see, there are a lot of people today who say, well, I believe in God. I might even believe in Jesus. But the version of God that I believe in is the God who rewards those who are good. And then there's people who are bad. And their way of thinking is to say, I'm one of the good people who keeps improving and getting better, and therefore I'm commendable to God.
And there's bad people who are the other people who are different from me. And here the idea is, Jesus, fully God, fully man, went to death on the cross. Why did he go? Because of the need of humanity for salvation that comes from outside of them. Romans says this, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 6:23 says, but the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life. There is this sense in which you cannot save yourself. Therefore, Jesus, being fully God, is positioned like no one else to be able to address our greatest need.
Have you ever noticed how people have a tendency to overrate how good they are at something? This is a thing, by the way. But as adults, you kind of get to a point where you learn how to do it in a way that's socially acceptable, meaning you don't do it a whole lot, except for one place where the veil gets pulled back. Do you know where that is? It's when they talk about their kids. Have you ever noticed when people talk about their kids, it's like, yeah, my son's going to preschool this year. He's in the gifted program. You're like, gifted program? He's five. He's picking his nose. Like, I'm sure your kid's great, but 5 year olds are not necessarily more gifted than the other group of kids.
And then somebody else will be like, oh, my daughter, she's really special. You know, she's already being considered for a scholarship. She's six. You're like, really? Now, my point. I'm sure your kids are wonderful, by the way. But my point isn't that that's not a thing. But it's all of a sudden we think, oh, they're not normal. They're way better than normal. And the way that we think about ourselves morally tends to be the same. I'm better than normal. But what we actually need is the assessment of ourselves that Scripture gives that teaches us that we are sinful and deserve death. And if it isn't for the cross of Jesus Christ, we have no hope.
If you notice in your Bible where Philippians 2 is written, when you get to verse 6, it's indented. Now, the reason it's indented is because this was like a hymn or a poem or something that was recited, used liturgically in the early church. And here's why this matters. This was something that the church sang probably as worship in the early church. So what? In other words, the church saw the fact that Jesus is fully God, fully man, that he went to the cross as being a reason for worship.
One of the reasons that sometimes our worship is cold is because we don't actually believe we have the greatest need. We might give intellectual assent to the idea that we're sinners in need of Savior. But down deep, what we really think is God likes us and our kind because we're pretty good, better than he likes another kind. And if our worship is passionate, it's because we understand and have seen the depth of our need of Jesus Christ as the One who addresses our greatest need.
So, Jesus is fully God and fully man. Therefore he addresses our greatest need. But there's a second implication here, and it's this. And that is Jesus is fully and fully man. Therefore, he is the anticipation of our greatest hope. Here's where we see this. This is Philippians 2, verses 9 through 11. It says:
“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him a name that's above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue acknowledged that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Now, again, worship here. And you might say, well, what does bending the knee and confessing with the tongue have to do with my greatest hope? That doesn't sound very hopeful. Well, the idea. And we'll actually talk about this in the coming weeks. When Jesus came, it wasn't just believe in me and one day there will be something better for you. We're told in Mark 1 that Jesus came announcing the kingdom of God. And the kingdom of God is something that was present right when he began. But the ultimate fulfillment is one day. And it's the day in which every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. In other words, there's coming a day when everything will be as God intends for it to be, when Jesus will be Lord and things will be made.
Right now you may again say, well, okay, how does that help me today with my hope? Sometimes when people in church talk about sin, they only talk about sin as a moral wrong before a holy God. And it is that. But you know what else sin is? It's the brokenness of our world. Because Genesis talks about how sin entered the world and brokenness followed. Which means every time that you say this world isn't the way that it should be, it is the longing of your heart to say it should be different. And because it should be different, your longing, it is your great hope. And Jesus being fully God, fully man, is the way in which that anticipation will one day come to fruition.
So every time that you simply look at something and you say, that's not how it should be, somebody I love shouldn't get sick and shouldn't die. Somebody shouldn't have their kids die before they die, somebody shouldn't treat other people this way and seem to get ahead. Whatever it is that you say, this isn't the way it should be. That is the longing of your heart to say it should be different. And the teaching of the New Testament is, one day it will be. Because every knee will bow and every tongue will confess one day, because Jesus is fully God, fully man.
Last week, I found myself getting interested in an event that was happening in pop culture that I don't normally get interested in. I'm not really a boxing fan, but there was a boxing match that kind of piqued my attention. Yeah, some of you are laughing, so you know what I'm talking about — the Mike Tyson, Jake Paul fight.
So if you're not familiar, if your head's been under a rock somewhere, Mike Tyson has been the heavyweight champion of the world in the past. He's now 58 years old, but was clearly the best boxer in the world for a long period of time. Jake Paul had never boxed, but he was 27. He's been working out, he had a few matches and he's like, let's fight. And it was clearly all about the money. I got sucked in, okay? Because I'm like, who's going to win? Now, I don't know. I mean, as I kind of reflected on this, like, why did I get drawn into this? It wasn't that good of a fight, like what interested me about this, that I spent time watching this fight? It wasn't even that good of a fight, like what interested me? And I think if I'm honest with myself, I'm a little closer to 58 than I am to 27. And I wanted to see if the 58 year old could hold his own against the 27 year old and he couldn't. And here's what that tells you. Fathertime is undefeated.
Do you know how much time and energy we spend as people trying to beat fathertime, trying to prove that we still have it, trying to make everything in this life the thing that will bring us ultimate hope, rather than saying, my hope is built on something better than this life? Do you know how the writer of Ecclesiastes puts it? Do you know how Ecclesiastes starts the Old Testament? Everything is what? Vanity, vanity, vanity. Everything is vanity. Do you know what the Hebrew word there is? It's hevel and it means a mist, a breath. He's saying, do you know what? You can live your life. And Solomon, who we believe wrote that, was somebody who had incredible wealth, had incredible productivity throughout his life, had incredible pleasures at his disposal. And yet he says, do you know what I'm finding? I'm finding all of it is like a puff of air. It's nothing.
In other words, if we put our hope in things of this life, whether it be our physical well being, whether it be the kind of things that we say, you know, this brings me significance. We will one day say that that hope has not brought me satisfaction. The only thing that will bring ultimate satisfaction is saying my hope is built on Jesus Christ. And only because he is fully God, fully man.
So because Jesus is fully God, fully man, he is what addresses our greatest need. He addresses our greatest need. He's the anticipation of our greatest hope. And then I would say there's one other implication here in Philippians 2, and there could be many, but here's the other one that I would say, and that is because he is fully God and fully man, we can see that he is the embodiment of our greatest example.
Here's what this means. It says here verse 3:
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interest of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus...”
And then he goes on to talk about this emptying, about this giving of himself. In other words, Jesus, fully God, fully man, gave himself, took on the nature of a servant in order. And it tells us right in the text that we should have the same mindset to be an example. You see, if Jesus is just our example of goodness and we miss the efficacy of the cross, then we miss a reason to worship. If we don't have a mindset that says there's a hope here, we miss worship. But if we don't see the example, then we're just left simply saying, what is it that God calls me to do?
Years ago, Lewis Sperry Schaeffer wrote this about Jesus, the Incarnation. Here's just a part of what he said. He said:
“He was weary; yet he called the weary to Himself for rest. He was hungry; yet he was “the bread of life.” He was thirsty; yet he was “the water of life.” He was in agony; yet he healed all manner of sickness and soothed every pain. He “grew and waxed strong in spirit”; yet he was from all eternity. He was tempted; yet He, as God, he could not be tempted. He was self limited in knowledge; yet he was the wisdom of God. He said, “My Father is greater than I” (with reference to His humiliation, being made for a little season lower than angels); yet he also said, “He that has seen me has seen the Father; I and my Father are one.” He prayed, which is always human; yet He Himself answered prayer. He said, “This is your hour, and the power of darkness”; yet all power is given unto Him in heaven and in earth. He slept on a pillow in a boat; yet He arose and rebuked the storm. He was baptized, which is only a human act; yet at the time God declared him to be His Son. He walked two days’ long journey to Bethany; yet He knew the moment that Lazarus died. He wept at the tomb; yet He called upon the dead to arise. He confessed that He would be put to death; yet He had but a moment before he received Peter's inspired declaration that He was the Christ, the Son of the living God. He said, “Whom do men say that I am the Son of man?”; yet John tells us, “He needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew that he was in man.” He was hungry; yet He could turn stones to bread. This He did not do; for had He done so, He would not have suffered as men suffer. He said, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”; yet it was that very God to whom He cried, who was “in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. He dies; yet He is eternal life. He freely functioned in His earth-life within that which was perfectly human, and He as freely functioned in his earth life within that which was perfectly divine. His earth life, therefore, testifies as much to His humanity as to His Deity, and both of these revelations are equally true.”
Now that's a statement beautifully put, I believe, about his divinity and his humanity. But what I want you to see here isn't just that those two things coexist, as he basically is quoting ideas or phrases of Scripture there, but that there's an emptying that God took all of these divine prerogatives in Jesus and said, and I am going to be fully human. He emptied himself. He basically said, I am going to give of myself.
And here's my question. What if the people who claim to be followers of Jesus, took Jesus’ example and said, I'm going to live without selfish ambition or vain conceit and I'm going to have the attitude of Jesus Christ? Do you think it would make a difference in our world? Do you think it would heal broken marriages? Do you think there would be some reconciliation between siblings who have become estranged? Do you think there would be some healing in an organization or places of work or neighborhoods or extended families when people would say, instead of needing to be right and asserting my rights, I am going to take on the nature of a servant and serve because Jesus is my example? Do you think it would make a difference in the posture that people of faith take on social media if they said, I'm going to serve rather than needing to try to prove a point? Now, I'm not suggesting that there's not a time to prove a point or to say something because Jesus was also the way, the truth, and the life. But what I'm saying is Paul said here that we should have the same mindset as Jesus and empty ourselves.
So today, let me just ask you, what is your greatest need of these three implications? Do you need to see again that Jesus being fully God, fully man, addresses your greatest need? Maybe today that's a way just to say, I come and acknowledge my sin. Or maybe you've acknowledged it, but your heart is cold and you know it. And so today is a day just to say, I'm going to worship you. Because it isn't about what I can do, it's about what Jesus has done.
Or maybe, maybe you need the anticipation of hope. Maybe you're here today and there are some things that are heavy in your heart, in your life, some things that you say, this isn't how it should be. Maybe you just need to be reminded that one day everything will be as it should be, because one day Jesus will restore all things and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess.
Or maybe today, Jesus being fully God, fully man, is a reminder to you that he is the embodiment of our great example of saying, I don't make everything about me, but I make it about serving people around me. You see, it would be easy to theologically say, I believe and affirm that Jesus is fully God and fully man. And to say, check, I have that doctrine down, but the implication changes how we live if we understand it correctly. And so my hope today is just that you won't leave here just saying, well, you know, I guess I believe that. But you would leave saying, because that is true. It's going to change either the way that I live in terms of hope, the way that I worship or trust for my future, or the way that I approach other people in my life, because this is true.
We're going to partake of communion here in just a moment. And we'll invite you to come here to the front, to the outsides, to the back, in the balcony. And when you come, we practice open communion, meaning if you're a follower of Jesus, we invite you, regardless of your church affiliation, to come. And today, as you do this, my encouragement would be to say, God, I thank you that Jesus is fully God, fully man. And through the cross he has met my greatest need. And because of this, there is hope. Maybe you name where you need hope. And because of this, I want to give my life away. Because that's a moment in which you're allowing the work of Jesus Christ to transform how you leave today.
God, thank you for who Jesus is and the clarity with which Scripture speaks to his life and what it means for our lives. And God, I pray that none of us would leave here today unchanged hearing this message, but it would draw us to you and that we would relate to you in a way that moves us closer to you. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
Let's stand and respond with the team.
This transcript was automatically generated. Please excuse errors.
