A quick reminder, these are notes that assist in the sermon presentation but yet rely heavily on the Spirit of God in execution of the message. Please trust the Spirit to speak to your heart in between the lines!!
In Matthew 16 Jesus is asking his disciples, “Who do the people say that the Son of Man is?” And then he made the question personal— “who do you say that I am?” Peter answers, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!”
Today as we explore “I believe in Jesus” from the Apostles Creed, probably one of the best ways to do so is to see what Jesus said about himself and then to take those truths and explore how we can apply it to our daily walks with Him.
I. Introduction:
· The second part of the creed regarding Jesus evolved over time. The designations of Jesus as Son and as Lord were among the earliest Christian claims as were the references to his birth, suffering, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and anticipated coming again in judgment.
o As was discussed in the introduction to the Apostles Creed, many of these confessional statements were developed to counter heresies that were rising up in the Church.
· So this morning we come to the second part of the creed: “I believe…in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.”
II. I Believe in Jesus Christ
1. Introduction: When we talk about Jesus, we are talking about the good news of the Gospel. We are talking about God, the second person of the Trinity, the Son, who is declared as the Word of God made flesh, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world. He is Living Water, Bread of Life, Shepherd, and King of Kings. But he is also Savior and Friend.
2. The Incarnation
a. The birth stories of Jesus written for us in the gospels of Matthew and Luke emphasize the belief we hold firmly today that “God is with us” (Matt. 1:23), this particular portion of Scripture is from Isaiah 7:14. “The Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel.” In Matthew, he interprets Immanuel and gives the meaning of “God with us.”
b. In the gospel of John, he tells us that the “Word became flesh and lived among us.” (John 1:14) (The Word is God’s self-communication; the Word was God!)
c. The stories of Jesus’ birth tell us that he came into a real world of flesh-and-blood human beings during a particular time in history—but that God came to us through Christ is amazing.
d. Philippians 2:6-11 also shares this vital aspect of our believing about Jesus. “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!”
e. We celebrate this every year at Christmas. The Christmas story is not just a sweet story about the baby Jesus and the wise men, it is the story of a radical invasion of God into the real world where we live all year long. Jesus comes into the world with its political injustices, poverty, hatred, jealousy, and all the unrest that is in the world. Jesus came to shine as a light in the darkness (John 1:5)
f. “Conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit” really means not that the Spirit is the father of Jesus, but that according to his human existence Jesus had no father at all. This phrase is not a biological explanation of Jesus “two natures.” It means that there is no explanation, that the Word became flesh purely by the will and word of God. God spoke, and Mary heard and responded, “Let it be with me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). The proper analogy here is not the physical process of procreation but God’s original creation of all things “out of nothing” when God simply spoke and it was done.” (Guthrie, 236)
g. The Apostles Creed asserts that Jesus was “born of the Virgin Mary” not only to emphasize that he came from God but to insist that he came into the world in the same way every other human being does. The Creed emphasizes Jesus’ real humanity not only by his birth, but by the other marks of human existence: born, suffered, died, and was buried.
3. The humanity of Jesus.
a. The humanity of Jesus is vital to remember in our Christian faith.
i. Jesus was a Jewish male. This just tells us that Jesus, like all other human beings, belong to a particular group of people. But, being a Jew, also reminds us that the God he came to serve is a God who is on the side of people who are left out, rejected, and disenfranchised in society. This also reminds us of the continuity of the Old and New Testaments that the God whom we come to know in Jesus is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
ii. Jesus experienced hardships and human needs with all its limitations.
1. Jesus was completely human in all aspects of his life.
2. Luke 2:52 states that Jesus had to grow in wisdom and stature.
3. Mark 13:32 Jesus says, “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” As a human, Jesus did not know everything!
4. “He was not just God pretending to be a human being. He was a real human being, a man of the first century who knew no more than any other person in his time—a man, for instance, who shared the prescientific worldview of everyone else in his society. According to the Gospels, he could sometimes know things others did not know. But when that happened, it was the result of wisdom given him by the Holy Spirit in order to fulfill the work he came to do, not the result of his being superhuman or of his divine omniscience.” (Guthrie, p239.)
iii. In every aspect of life, physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual, Jesus lived the same life we all live.
1. He was tempted to sin. (Hebrews 4:14-15, “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, 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 sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.”
2. Jesus shared deep emotions like we often do as seen in the death of Lazarus in John 11. In verse 35 we read, “Jesus wept.”
iv. Jesus was tempted as we are yet was without sin.
1. In Matthew 4 we read of the intense temptation of Jesus—yet He stood on God’s Word and did not yield to Satan’s taunting.
2. Jesus was completely obedient to God in every aspect of his life. In his obedience to God, he fulfilled the task God had given him to do—not to minister to well people who do not need a doctor but to sick people who do; not to call the righteous but sinners (Matthew 9:12-13).
3. Romans 8:3-4 says, “For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so, he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.”
a. Jesus came to overcome the broken relationship between God and humanity and between human beings themselves.
4. “Jesus was sinless because, in perfect obedience to God and perfect love for his fellow human beings, he was willing to risk his good name and moral integrity to be with and for undeserving, unworthy, sinful people.” (Guthrie, 242)
4. Immanuel—God With Us
a. “In this real flesh-and-blood man, Jesus of Nazareth, God was uniquely present in the world. This man was not just a great teacher of profound truths about God and the secret of a happy, successful life. He was not just a revolutionary political leader with a vision of a more human and just society. He was not just a great moral hero for us to imitate as best we can. He was not just a very godlike personality, the model of a truly spiritual life. Nor was he just the founder of a religious club later called the church, where religious people with a common interest in him come together to admire him and admire themselves for admiring him. To know this man is not just to know a very great, very good, very wise, very spiritual human being. It is to know God. His very name is “Jesus,” which in Hebrew means “God helps” or “God saves” (Matthew 1:21). He is the “Christ,”, the “Messiah,” the “Anointed One” of God. He is the “Son of God” (Mark 1:1). His miraculous birth is a sign of the fact that where he comes from, who he is, and what he does cannot be explained in terms of the ordinary process of human life and history. This man comes from God. What he says and does is God’s word and action. He is “Emmanuel,” God-with-us (Matthew 1:23).” (Guthrie, 243)
b. Jesus brought to us in his humanity the understanding that God desires relationship with us. Though God, yet He took on human flesh so that we might know the power of God to keep us—no matter the temptation, no matter the struggle. We can know that Jesus has gone before us to show the power and majesty of God. We can be assured in our hearts that Jesus came to care for us and to lead us back to God. Though we struggle, we can know that in Jesus there is an example that in our humanness we can find the strength of God to endure whatever comes our way.
c. We can we assured that as we confess our faith that we belong to God—a courage rises up within us that we are not alone in this life…for God is with us—and His name is Jesus.
When Jesus was confronted by the Sanhedrin asking if he was the Messiah his response was “You say that I am.” Jesus declared that the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God.
It’s a powerful question, who do you say that I am? Throughout the life and ministry of Jesus that is a question that so many had to answer for themselves. It is also a question that comes to us over and over again in our lives. The Scriptures reveal so much about Jesus and who He is and who He is in our personal lives.
I want to end today with one name of Jesus that we do not often associate with him—that is Advocate. In I John 2:1-2 it says this—My Little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ the righteous one. He himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for t hose of the whole world.
The same Greek word used here for advocate is translated 4 times as comforter in the gospel of John, and it mainly in reference of the Holy Spirit. The difference is that this name may very well explain the differences in the mission of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit pleads with us in our hearts and the end result produces peace and comfort within us. The Spirit of God intercedes for us that we not sin.
On the other hand, Jesus pleads for us in Heaven, and so advocates before the throne of God our cause. Hebrews 7:25 says this, “therefore, he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, since he always lives to intercede for them.” Jesus is pleading against the one who is known as the “accuser of the brethren”. If we do sin, Jesus is pleading in heaven for the efficacy of His precious blood shed on our behalf.
As a result, we have two advocates—One within us and the other One above in Heaven.
Jesus is for us!
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