Answers Bible Curriculum: Lesson 10 - The Messiah Arrives

Hope you guys had a good week. we're only, let me see, today's the 20th. So next week is actually the last official day. Of Sunday school for the year.

We take the summer off here at Cornerstone. So, for some of, for some of us, we're like, oh, what a bummer. For others of us, it's like, yay, we get to sleep in a little bit. So the, the music team gets to come in a little bit later and It gives all the Sunday school teachers and stuff the summer off.

So we've got this lesson and then one more lesson. And, and then normally what we do in the summer. is we do some a read through a. A book of the Bible.

So, I'm not quite sure. Normally, the men's ministry picks that book and they put a schedule together, but, so I'm, I'm sure we'll be reading through some book of the Bible this summer. but let's go ahead and pray. we've got some exciting stuff to study and consider this morning for our encouragement.

Lord, we thank you so much for this time for us to study your word together. And to be together on the Lord's Day, we pray not just for ourselves. but we pray, for our children that are studying your word. We ask, Lord, that You would cause us all to grow, by your word.

Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of your mouth. And so we just trust that you will instruct us this morning. We also pray for our missionaries, the McCulla, in Their country, ministering and, as there was a bombing, very near them, actually several bombs this last, week. We pray, Father, that you'd protect them as they fly into the, the city where the bombings occurred and, Lord, that you would use them for your glory.

In Christ's name we pray. Amen. I won't mention the country or the city. because this will likely, this will go up online later, but you guys can look up.

online or you can talk to me afterwards about where that occurred and what the circumstances were. And, so, but do be praying for Steve and Jenny McCullough. All right. So, let's ask a question.

How long have you gone without sinning? How long have you gone without sinning? Pastor Melton was sharing Friday night when we were doing some Q&A here for the college and career. That around 19 years old, not too long after he got saved.

he was just sitting down contemplating. He's like, I think I have this sin thing licked. At 19 and then like, a week or so later, suddenly he realized, no, I am nowhere close. I think if you would have told me when I was a young Christian, like when I was a teenager in high school.

That at around 50 years old, after having been to seminary and having taught the word. for probably 30 years. that I would still be struggling with certain sins on a fairly regular basis, I'd have told you you're crazy. But, sin is something that is endemic to our nature.

I think it was, Luther that said, sin is to man like a beard is to a man. he shaves one day and the next day he has to shave again. It keeps growing and growing and the beard of a man stops growing when he is in the grave and Luther said, you will stop struggling with indwelling sin when your body is in the cold earth. And a It's one of the hard facts of life is that even as Christians, we have this thing called indwelling sin.

And so it begs the question, how are any of us saved? It's been the theory of many different teachers throughout the centuries that ultimately you are saved because Christ gives you and his grace gives you the ability To continue to grow more and more righteous throughout your lifetime. So that by the time you're ready to enter into heaven, it's just one little step because you've become so righteous throughout the course of a lifetime and some would actually claim that they've been able to cease from sinning.

We have doctrines called the, there's a doctrine called like it's the higher life view.

I don't know if you guys have ever heard of the Keswick conferences. Anybody ever heard of the Keswick teaching? Keswick's. The Keswick basic philosophy is that, is that we can each reach a higher plane where we can actually stop sinning.

And it's actually a pretty. It's, you would, you would think that that's like a really, really super small, weird offshoot in evangelicalism. but just go talk to any of your Methodist friends who are, if they're in a somewhat conservative Methodist church and ask them if, if they know their doctrine well, their Wesleyan doctrine well, they'll talk to you about the doctrine of sinless perfectionism, that they can actually achieve perfection. And so it begs the question, what exactly is Christ accomplished on the cross in his life?

What is it that he does in our lives? Some people have accused Luther and accused Lutheranism of not really having a doctrine of sanctification. That he argued that, that we are saved by grace and we're granted this righteousness of Christ. And there's really nothing that we can do to add anything to the plate of salvation.

and then he would make statements that would really befuddle people. Like he would say things like, If you, when you sin, sin boldly. And people would just scratch their heads and be like, what in the world is Luther talking about? Sin boldly.

Doesn't the Bible say that we should live a holy life and the Bible says, the Lord is holy, therefore we should be holy. But Luther in his day, he would, he was one of these guys that he would make a lot of shocking statements to a lot of times to get people to think about the true nature of justification. that we're gonna be delving into this morning. We're gonna start in an interesting place.

We're gonna start with, Christ in his childhood. So look at Luke chapter 2. The basic title of your lesson this week is Jesus obeys. But we're gonna talk about what does that really mean for us that Jesus obeys.

And so we're gonna start with Jesus obeys in his childhood. By the way, as Before we read this passage together, It's been my approach for quite a while now. Do you guys, frequently see any Jehovah Witnesses in your neighborhood? Who, who has the opportunity to witness the Jehovah Witnesses?

OK. When I was younger, I would always go after Jehovah Witnesses on the deity of Christ. They would stop by, start talking, I would say, I believe in the deity of Christ, start going to all the deity of Christ passages, and they're armed and equipped to deal with that issue. And when you try to point them to certain passages, they've already been Trained or I would say brainwashed in a certain way of how to interpret all of those deity of Christ passages.

And they just, I've never talked to Jehovah's Witness where they've buckled on the deity of Christ. but what I, what I've tended to do in more recent years is I jump immediately to the full humanity of Christ, that Jesus Christ really was a boy, that he really did grow in wisdom, that Jesus got tired and when he slept, he wasn't just sleeping a pretend sleep, he slept because he was sleepy. And he was human and he needed rest. He ate because he got hungry, right?

When he was a baby, he suckled on his mother's bosom because he was hungry. He was a real baby. And sometimes as Christians, we, we so defend the deity of Christ that sometimes we forget about the full and complete humanity of Christ. And I've noticed that when I share that with my Jehovah Witness friends, they're shocked because they think we all don't believe that Christ grew, that he learned, that he got tired, and those are all the passages they run to to try to defend or try to argue against the deity of Christ.

And so I start with the humanity of Christ and then from there I work towards the idea that his humanity and his deity are only a contradiction in our human minds. that Christ is really a man, but now let's look at all the passages that indicate he's God. And the Bible is very comfortable with this apparent contradiction or what we could call an antinomy. it's just two parallel lines that run throughout the Bible that God has, because God is bigger than us, there's no contradiction.

So, let's start with the childhood of Christ. This is really the only place in the Bible that we see anything about Christ's childhood. there's those apocryphal stories of him being mean to other little kids and killing a bird and raising the bird from the dead and he accidentally pushed some kid down and killed him and then raised him from the dead. These are all just crazy apocryphal stories that come out of the medieval period.

Some of them a little earlier than that, but All right, let's start in verse 39. I'm reading from New King James. So when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, that's Mary and Joseph, they returned to Galilee, to their own city, Nazareth. And the child grew.

And became stronger. Some, translations say stronger in spirit, filled with wisdom and the grace of God was upon him. So what do we notice here? What changes do we see in the child of Christ?

A childhood of Christ in verse 40. Yeah, so he was filled with wisdom. What else? Yes, as he grew, so Jesus Christ, as a man, he was once perhaps the size of my son Samuel, and he's growing, he's getting taller, he's getting stronger.

His muscles are developing, no doubt as a carpenter, his forearms, and, he's just, he's just growing in strength. And since he became strong in spirit, that could be spirit or could just mean just strong in general. Then in verse 41, his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover, and when he was 12 years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast. So good Jewish people, they're going up to the Passover, which, if you guys remember the Passover, really, it, it kicks off with a day of feasting of the Passover, and then it's like 7 days of unleavened bread.

So it's really a week-long feast, a holiday or a holy day. And what's significant about Jesus being 12? Why, why do you think it mentions that he's 12 years old? Yeah, so it's the year before his bar mitzvah.

So he's, he's not yet come into being a man in the Jewish sense. So he's, it's the year before his, his manhood ceremony. Verse 43 when they had finished the days as they returned. The boy Jesus lingered behind in Jerusalem.

And Joseph and his mother did not know it. So this is an interesting. Commentary on just the culture of the time, right? If Katie and I and our family went out to our van and started to drive away, I gotta tell you, we would know if Sam was in the van or not.

There would be no question. I, I can't remember a time where we just all took off and left Sam at church. but there seems to be culturally, we do know that. when people would travel down for.

the, Feast of Unleavened Bread, Passover, things like that, they would normally travel in big groups, a lot of times family groups. the concept of the nuclear family was less, it was less drawn out than it is in our culture today. So, yes, the husband and wife did cleave and leave, so to speak, but a lot of times the leaving was on the same compound. And they tended to go around in clans and so it would not have been uncommon at all for a child to just be off visiting aunts and uncles that are right there in the compound or they travel together, and they may not necessarily, they're, they're obviously not too worried that Jesus is gonna get into mischief and so on and so forth.

They just figure he's with Auntie, auntie Em. or somebody like that. So that tells us a little bit about the culture. verse 44, but supposing him to have been in the company, they went a day's journey and sought him among the relatives and acquaintances.

So we do see there's relatives and acquaintances. they've already traveled a whole day, perhaps Joseph says to Mary, hey, have you seen Jesus? Oh, I thought he was, I saw him with Grandpa so and so. So between the two of them, They each thought that they had seen, seen him, so they're not overly worried, so they travel a day.

verse 45, so when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem seeking him. Now, so it was that after 3 days, they found him in the temple. 3 days here, it could mean that they were looking for him for 3 days. In all likelihood, they left and traveled a day.

It took about a day to travel back and then at least another portion of a day looking around Jerusalem for him. I don't know if you've ever like lost your child for just. Like 5 minutes or 10 minutes. We've done that.

I have to be very careful because there's certain stories I tell that I just think are no big deal, but when I've shared them in the past, my wife is like, you said what? And so, I'll just say that there have been times where we Unbeknownst to us, all of a sudden we're looking and Sam's nowhere to be found. And for a second there, we're just like, bump bump, we read, you read all the stories on the news, we're out in some public place, maybe there's lots of people out, we're like, how are we gonna find this kid?

we just adopted a dog and they require in the city of Moreno Valley that you have a chip in the dog so that You can always identify them.

I'm thinking about maybe we should put a little chip in our kid's ear. And then I know they do have those bracelets though, right? You can put those little bracelets. Do you realize they have GPS bracelets for little kids where you can track them and see where they are.

Don't tell my kids this, but I can actually track them. On my phone with their phones, so that's a cool feature. but anyway, so they didn't have that technology back then, so they're looking around for at least a day. Where do they find Jesus sitting in the midst of the teachers?

Both listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. How old is he again? 12.

So this is where we see this tug of war on the pages of the New Testament, that yes, Jesus is a man and he's growing in stature and growing in wisdom. At the same time, he seems to have cognition that goes beyond the average human being. And so, we always have to be careful in our theology of how we think about Christ. Sometimes we can think that he's using all of his prerogatives of deity to, to do all of his works and battles.

When the Bible is very clear that he laid aside his prerogatives of deity and humbled himself as a man. At the same time, there's clear hints that he has this connection. With the father that is very unique, as he goes on to say, So these folks are astonished, verse 48. So when they saw him, they were amazed.

So that's his parents and his mother said to him, Son, why have you done this to us? Look, your father and I have sought you anxiously. And you guys have all been there. What were you thinking?

Why have you done this to us? And a lot of times, I know when I've talked to my kids about various things, the response. I, we're still not really at the place where the first response is, yeah, Dad, I blew it. I'm sorry.

I won't do it again. That's not the default setting. What's the default setting of your children? Yeah, well, what do you mean?

Yeah, or here's what happened. I, I was gonna call you, but my cell phone died. So nobody in the group had a cell phone that was working. well.

there, But notice Jesus's response. He said to them, Why did you seek me? Did you not know that I must be about my father's business? Now, does everybody have in verse 48, do you guys all have, look, your father and I have sought for you anxiously.

What are the various translations there? Does it all say Father or some of them say parents? OK. OK, father, father, parents.

Clearly, the idea is, at, at the very least, the parents, it's, it's, it's hard to, this, this, Greek verb or Greek noun is similar to like the, like say Spanish padres, does that mean dad or does that mean parents, padre or padres. And so this one could be interpreted as, as dad or parents. But there's a, there seems to be a clear contrast between Don't you realize that my, we, your parents have been looking for you? And he says, don't you realize, my heavenly parent, that what he has for me to do, I must be about his business.

Verse 50, but they did not understand the statement which he spoke to them. Although by we see later when Jesus is asking questions of people, he'll, he'll say things like later on in his ministry, did you not, do you not know the scriptures? That's a very frequent question, right? And what's the implication of a question like that when he says, do you not know the scriptures?

You should know, right? I'm asking a question, but this is something that you ought to know. The implication seems to be, he's, he's telling his mother, did you not know? I must be about my father's business.

Implication based upon the revelation of the angels, based upon the way I was born, all the prophecy that has been fulfilled, and who knows what other unstated information that's not mentioned to us in the New Testament, did you not know? This is the trajectory of my life. You, you were told this when I was born. They don't completely understand.

But verse 51, here's what we do see. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject to them. But his mother kept all these things in her heart. So he submitted.

So he asked the question, but then he submits himself to them and leaves and follows them back home. He doesn't say, see you folks, I know I'm only 12 years old, but I've got things to do. No, he submits to them, goes back, verse 52, and Jesus increased in wisdom, and stature, and in favor with God and with men. It's a very famous verse.

A lot of Christian schools pick this up as their theme verse, that Jesus grew in these four areas of his life. He grew in wisdom, so this would imply attainment of knowledge and the application of that knowledge. So that means in his humanity, Christ did not access all of his prerogatives of omniscience. Does that make sense?

in other words, Jesus, for instance, when he was a, a child, he had to learn his alpha, Beta, Gamma Delta, that's the Greek, or Olef, beit, Gimmel, Dale, his Hebrew. So he had to learn those, his ABCs, right? we shouldn't have, imagine, some imagination that when when Jesus sat down to learn his ABC's. That he said, oh, mom, I already know that.

No, he had to learn his alphabet. He had to learn how to write. He had to learn how to spell, how to read. And so he grew in wisdom, he grew in stature.

In favor with God, this means spiritually, he's growing as a man more and more in his understanding of his relationship with the Father, and with men. So socially, he's growing socially, and how to relate as a human. A person And so a question can be asked here. Did Jesus disobey his parents by lingering behind?

Was Jesus in disobedience? Yeah, so God is his father, but why didn't he, why was he more considerate of his human parents? That he would have disobeyed, that would have been sin. OK, so Larry's saying if you would have disobeyed, that have been sin.

And that seems to contradict other passages of scripture, right? Right. So that's where we're gonna turn. So, some people look at this and they say, yeah, Jesus eventually subjected himself, but did, wasn't he somewhat inconsiderate of his parents by lingering behind?

Couldn't he have at least sent him a text and said, hey, by the way, I'm here by the temple. What, what he did was not an act of defiance. That it was actually a Right, so Dan says that it wasn't an act of defiance, but it actually serves as a reminder to his human parents of what the trajectory and purpose of his life was about. Yeah, justice.

Right. It's clearly stated that the reason why he stayed by is honesty. Right. and honest I guess Yeah, just he was being honest in his answer.

Yeah, so Justice says he's just being honest with his purpose for being there. if anything, you could say, maybe, I know culturally, it seems like Joseph and Mary would have, were making some assumptions, but maybe they were a little bit negligent. as they took off with the party. Maybe they were so distrusting of Jesus as well that they just Yeah, what's that, Cynthia?

Right. Yeah, maybe they were just, they just knew that he, he's just a kid that's normally. Doing the right thing, right? So, Yeah, they did have other kids.

Yeah, Yeah, yeah, he could have been just so wrapped up in the teaching. That's true. yep, Heather. Then he went down Right.

Right. Totally. That's a good way to say it. He's obedient to his parents, but clearly there's a unique relationship that he has with the father.

Yeah. And the parents were just, a lot of times. OK, this is the Passover Do it and then we need to get on and they're starting to think about the next day and go back to their normal business of taking care of home and all that stuff and hear Jesus. and teaching.

And stuff and yeah, and if they weren't thinking about, OK, we gotta get out of here type of thing, I'm just taking. Yeah, Moving on, they would have looked for Jesus and maybe see what. Think about Right. Yeah, so maybe Christ is seeing really the true import of the Passover.

That's good. Some people will make a draw attention to the fact that Jesus is seated when the other teachers are there. A seated position many times would be actually the position of authority in this culture. I don't know what to make of that, but, but let's go ahead and, and, and look at a couple of other passages.

That further establish the relationship that Christ has with his father. John 5:19, and a lot of this is gonna overlap with the mystery of the Trinity. So, you remember we have Christ has a relationship with the Father from eternity past. There's co-equality between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and yet, and yet there's subjection of the Son to the Father, the Spirit to the Father and the Son.

and then Christ is the one that comes to the earth and takes on the form of a man, humbles himself in the form of a man, does not consider it robbery to not attain or have the prerogatives of deity. We'll talk about that here shortly. But a couple of passages in John and, in Hebrews. So John 5:19, then Jesus answered and said that most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father do.

For whatever he does, the Son also does in like manner. So, Jesus is, is laying out before us his Everything he is doing, he's just looking at the father and then he's just imitating the father. So, we won't really delve into this question of is he talking about just his relationship with the Father on earth, or is he talking about the eternal relationship? I actually think there's a mysterious connection here in the eternal relationship between the Father, that the way Christ relates Himself to the Father is he's always just looking to the Father and just, there's this, some people call it like this dance of the Trinity where he's just following the lead of the Father within the Trinity.

6:38 would be another passage we see this connection, but you do not have his word abiding in you because, whom he sent, oh, wait, no, that's not it. 6:38. Which one is it? Oh, I'm in 5 still.

OK, yeah. So 6:38. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will, but to do the will of Him who sent me. So he's coming with what purpose?

To do the will of the Father who sent him. Look at 7:16. And in 7:16, my doctrine is not mine, but it is his who sent me. And so you see this, there's this consistent tale that Christ keeps telling that I'm just, I'm doing the Father's will, I'm obeying the Father, I'm doing what, what he told me to do.

A lot of times, Jehovah Witness people, they'll point to pastors like this and say, see, Christ can't be God if he's just looking to the Father and doing the Father's will. this is just a complete misunderstanding of the inner workings of the relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit within the book of John. In the book of John, it's just 11 place where you see Christ asserting his deity everywhere and at the same time asserting his submission to the Father everywhere, and that there's no contradiction between his equality with the Father.

Remember he says, I and the Father are what?

One, and then they want to stone him after that. At the same time, he's saying, I do the Father's will, not my own. And so what you see here is the doctrine. Of equality in essence but subjection and role.

by the way, this is under new fresh attack. one of the more, this, there's, these things always go in cycles, but here within the last couple of years, there's been this, actually more, it's been really heated the last six months, this debate within evangelical circles. Of the eternal subjection of the Son is Christ eternally subjected, or is this, is Christ eternally subjected to the Father? And traditionally, it's always been argued that while Christ is equal to the Father in essence, he is eternally subjected himself to the Father and role.

And so when God creates Adam and Eve, that's why Adam and Eve, who are made in God's image can be equal in essence, at the same time, the wife submit to the husband, and that doesn't violate her essence whatsoever. She just takes on her role and imitates Christ as Christ submits to the Father. Well, this whole doctrine is being attacked. Why?

Because of feminism in the church. It's, it's one of the strongest arguments for what we would call the complementarian view of the roles of men and women is if Christ can be equal to the Father and also subject himself to the Father, then it's clear that a wife can be equal to her husband and at the same time subject herself to her husband. Well, that's, that's been attacked by feminist theologians for years. But in evangelicalism, especially the last 6 months, that doctrine has been really, really hammered.

You go online, I think Tim Challis is one of the guys that has like a little summary of the debate that's going back and forth between different people. But it's all motivated by this whole neo-evangelical feminism movement that wants to deny That, that women, that there's some dignity in subjecting oneself to another person. They would, they basically would argue there's no dignity in subjecting oneself to another human being. And so if they can get rid of that deity of, of that doctrine of Christ, then they can make a better argument.

Let's look at Hebrews. With all the subjection of Christ, it, it's, it's just befuddling to me that people wanna argue against the concept of subjection. Hebrews 4:15, we see for, we did not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. So Christ is a high priest, he can sympathize with our weaknesses, because he was tempted like us, and yet he didn't sin.

This raises the whole question of what's the big deal that Christ didn't sin if he's God and he's all powerful, right? You try to tempt, if I, If I try to tempt, some That's a, that's a good analogy. If I'm trying to tempt somebody who hates donuts to eat a donut. Is that gonna be tempting?

Like if, if you brought bananas my way and you laid like 3 dozen bananas in front of me and started peeling them and like, oh, you're trying to tempt me. No temptation whatsoever. I hate bananas. I gag on them, right?

but if you brought some sushi my way or some nice filet or something like that, yeah, that'd be really tempting. and so the question becomes, well, how tempting is it for Christ if he's completely God and has all power? Well, he was tempted in all ways like us. And he can sympathize with our weakness.

Why? Because he himself was weak. Remember, he laid aside the prerogatives of deity and became a man. And so when he was tempted, he really did feel the temptations as a man, he just never gave in.

And Milton has used this analogy many times, how that you or I, we might be tempted to sin, and every one of us in this room, we have our breaking point, right? We're human. and, and God knows what that breaking point is. And if he and his sovereignty were allowed to allow, he could allow us to be tempted beyond our breaking point.

Well, Christ, Continued through the temptations well beyond any one of us could have possibly fathomed and yet never gave in. And so he endured temptations, to a degree that none of us have ever experienced because he never gave in, right? if, if we're doing a weightlifting contest and all of us start falling at certain weights, and then Christ keeps lifting more and more and more, and he just blows us all away and by, by the end of it, he's bench lift, bench pressing. 700 pounds, he's feeling the, a weight that none of us could possibly fathom, right?

and that's, and that's the idea here is, is that Christ, his temptations were real, and yet he never sinned. We won't get into the, I don't know if anybody is familiar with the impeccable or impeccable debate. Anybody ever heard that term, impeccable or impeccable? All right, we won't bother you guys with that.

58, Hebrews 5:8 says, though he was a son, yet he was. Learned obedience by the things he suffered. So in his humanity, he actually learned. So you can learn obedience.

You, the idea here is the implication is not like he was sinning and then got better. It's like he had never had these human experiences, and each new experience as a man taught him by experience how to subject himself to his parents, how to grow in subjecting himself to his father throughout a lifetime as he's being tempted by the devil. And so he learned obedience by experience. Again, this puts the emphasis on his humanity.

It's really difficult for us sometimes, to, to keep these things straight that when we talk about What we, what we call like the dual nature of Christ. we're talking about 100% humanity, 100% deity, and that there are certain ways in which we would say that Christ is omniscient, and other ways that we would say that in his earthly nature, he was, he learned, right? Christ is eternal in his deity, but on the earth, he died. We sing a song here called Eternal King, or is that what it's called?

What's it called Christ the eternal King. Anyway, the whole song goes back and forth with these apparent paradoxes that Christ is eternal, yet he died., Christ is almighty, yet he suffered and was weak. I've got a sermon that I preached years ago called The Weakness of Christ. And it, it focuses on his humanity, but then it contrasts it when, when, when you start thinking of his deity, how that in his deity, he is completely powerful, all powerful, all omniscient.

Look at Hebrews 10:5. 5 to 7, so Therefore, when he had come into the world, he said, sacrifice offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me in burnt offering and sacrifices for sin, you had no pleasure. Then I said, behold, I have come, and the volume of the book, it is written of me to do your will, oh God. So this is a prophecy of a Psalm that's now here being applied to Christ.

Christ came to do the will of the Father. By the way, whenever we see the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit listed. Which person of the Trinity? most frequently receives the title of God when they're listed.

The Father. Yeah, so when you see lists of Father, Son, Holy Spirit, a lot of times it'll say God, and the Son and the Spirit. That doesn't mean that Christ isn't God or the Spirit's not God. It's just when the Trinity is listed.

The father is frequently spoken of as the head of the Trinity, and he is referred many times to as God. when you see Christ listed by Himself, many times he is called God. Like, obviously John one, Hebrews one, Clauses one, and those are the most popular ones. Thomas says, my Lord and my God, he receives praise and, and so on.

Let's look finally at Philippians 2. This is what we've been building up to in this section, Philippians 2:8. This is what we call the great kenosis. Kenosis comes from the Greek word, that's behind humbled.

And being found in the appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. Let's actually go back to verse seven. Actually, what, let's go back all the way to verse 5. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond servant in coming in the likeness of men and being found in the appearance as a man, he humbled himself, became obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.

This is the main passage where we get what we call the kenosis theory, that Christ is completely omniscient, full deity, and he comes to the earth, makes a choice to lay aside the prerogatives and uses of his deity, and chooses to humble himself and come in the likeness of human flesh. So that when he's actually walking on the earth, he's not just play acting, he's actually experiencing humanity. That's why there are times where Christ will actually talk about on the earth things that he does not know.

Right?

Like he says, no man knows the day or the hour of the return. Not even the Son of Man knows, but only the Father. Well, how could Christ possibly be God, if he doesn't even know the day of his return? How do we explain that?

We explain that with the Kenosis theory, the dual nature of Christ, that in his humanity, he did not know. He did not know the day of his return. In his deity, By, by virtue of just what God is, he would know. But he laid aside the prerogative and access to his deity while on the earth.

It's what we call the mystery, right? The mystery of the incarnation. And so there's many places in the New Testament where you get this idea that Christ doesn't know certain things. And, and it, it can feel somewhat befuddling, and, and that's where your Jehovah Witness friends, they like to jump to those passages that demonstrate the full humanity of Christ, but they don't mean anything about his deity.

Is this making sense? It shouldn't because it's a mystery. That's why we call it the mystery of the incarnation, yeah, yeah. Isn't there though the idea with Christ does demonstrate.

Many times. He is God with certain powerful. Action, walking on the water and so on. Even raising And he also knows what's in the heart of men.

Right, there's not, he's not divorced. It all of it But there are certain parts of A Yeah, so Dan's saying, isn't it true that, that Christ is demonstrating his deity through many acts of power and raising the dead and walking on water. And so, while he's not accessing his full deity, there's times where he does give hints of it. Is that about right?

And that's actually somewhat debated. at least while Christ is on the earth, many theologians would argue that everything that Christ does in his manhood, you can find some equivalent of it from one of the prophets. That what Christ is doing is he is operating in the full power of the Holy Spirit. But he's not necessarily with those powerful acts demonstrating his deity.

He is demonstrating that he is speaking through the Holy Spirit and acting through the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is the miracles are verifying that he is the Messiah. But many theologians, I tend to lean this way, would argue that because Christ is so without, there's no sin in him whatsoever. He's always walking in complete unity with the Holy Spirit and with the Father, that his, the, the powerful acts that are coming through him are what you would expect of a prophet that would be sinless and completely full of the Spirit.

Now, he does, he does verbally, continually point to his own deity, so that people aren't confused, completely confused that he's just a man. But like, for instance, like he raised the dead. So did Elisha. Right?

he walked on water, that's pretty unique, but, we've got like ax heads being brought up out of the water by, is that Elijah or Elisha, who does the ax head? in the Old Testament, you've got like times where it almost appears like a prophet just Disappears and shows up somewhere else. some of, some of these prophets seem to have like Superman running skills at times, right? All of a sudden, they're just like, boom, running to a different location.

And we would not say that these guys are some, some demagogues or anything like that. They're just completely full of the spirit. But, there is, it is a question mark in certain pages, certain passages, is this Christ acting? In just his humanity or is this Christ actually given us a little hints of his deity?

Yeah, that's part of why it's a mystery is we don't always know. But what we do know is that it does seem like when Christ, comes to the earth that he comes in weakness, the weakness of human flesh, meaning without sin, but being completely full of the Spirit and always doing the will of the Father. So, I, I, the question could be asked, what would each of our lives be like theoretically, just in theory, if we were walking completely full of the Spirit, always doing the will of the Father and not being hampered by indwelling sin.

Which will not happen, by the way, this side of glory.

But in the kingdom, right? Once we've been glorified, we move into the, the millennial period, there's gonna be a bunch of us running around while there's still people who have not been glorified yet, who are completely full of spirit, always doing the will of the Father, not hampered by indwelling sin anymore. What things will we be doing for God's glory? As glorified human beings.

I don't know. I, I, I got a feeling that some of the things we'll be doing will be somewhat similar to what you saw, saw Christ do and what the, definitely what the prophets were doing., during different epochs in the Old Testament. Anyway. We could come back to that if you want.

but, so if you, you guys, if you want to look this up in some of your theologies at home, you can obviously just look up the incarnation, dual nature of Christ. also look for the kenosis theory, and that's K E N O S I S, kenosis. Theory. Yup, you have to be careful though cause there is a heretical teaching out there called the kenosis.

So make sure you're reading the Orthodox kenosis and not the heretical one. Does that make sense? There is a the heretical teaching basically tries to deny the connection to the deity. That Christ came and he stopped being God completely.

That's not at all what we're seeing. So Have I completely confused you guys? There's just so many wacky False teachings that come out over the years, you have to be able to pick, pick them out, yeah. Yeah, Yeah, That he was saying it.

To Yeah No, that's a, that's a great point. So, yeah, let me, I know it's a little bit of a sideline here, but let's go back to that. So on the, on the raising of Lazarus from the dead. So he, he prays, Father, I thank you that you have heard me and I know that you always hear me because, and because of the people who are standing by, I said this, that they may believe that you sent me.

So he prays and he wants everybody to believe that he's been sent by the Father, and then he raises Lazarus from the dead. And it has a tremendous effect, right? Many people are, even the disciples are like, Who is this guy, he's clearly been sent to the Father. Other people are ready to kill him, right?

So, it, it draws this huge dividing line. And that seems to be the pattern of all of God's spokesmen, but clearly Jesus is above and beyond, right? The, the, there's no parallel to the kinds of miracles, the amount of miracles that he is doing. But it definitely shows that he is doing the will of God, this guy is the guy you should be listening to.

But notice that he, he could theoretically have just gone up and just said, Lazarus, in my name, come up from the dead. But he's always trying to draw attention back to the Father. And then when the Holy Spirit comes, Jesus tells us when the Holy Spirit comes, he's gonna point everybody towards me. the Holy Spirit wants to exalt Christ, and that seems to be part of the.

The dance of the Trinity is that you have this co-equality between Father and Holy Spirit, but Jesus always wants to exalt the Father. The son always wants to exalt, the Spirit wants to always exalt the son. And then the Father, he wants to turn around and exalt the son. He wants to put everything in subjection to the son.

And then in 1 Corinthians 15, it says, when everything is finally subjected to the Son, then Christ will take everything and give it back to the Father that God may be all in all. And so it actually meets this definition of love. What is love? Love is the giving is giving to the other.

And so within the Trinity, you see this eternal giving of the persons to the other. Jesus is always giving to the Father, the Spirit's always giving to the Son, and then when the Father receives from the Son and the Spirit, he always wants to give back to them. That's the whole definition of love. There's a, I've got a sermon that we do that's called the Circle of Triune Love, and it's just this constant giving back and forth of glory to one another.

It's just crazy, well, let's, let's go ahead. We've got a few more minutes here. Really wanted to spend some time on the just. I think, I think we'll be able to do it.

We'll do it quickly, but we'll do it. Let's turn to 2 Corinthians. 5. So, everything we've looked at up to this point is meant to establish this fact.

That Christ obeyed the Father completely on the earth. Even in his childhood, the one report that we have of him as a child, he's subjected to his father because of all the other passages, we know that he obeyed, he never sinned. And then, but what does that mean? What does that mean for us that Christ never sinned?

So in 2 Corinthians 5, Starting in verse 17, we see this. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, sees a new creation, old things have passed away, behold, all things have become new. Now, all things are of God who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ has given us a ministry of reconciliation that That is that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them. And has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

And then we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were pleading through us. And we implore you on Christ's behalf to be reconciled to God. For now, notice this, he Made him, who's the first he? The father made him, who's the second, who's the him?

For the Father made the Son, who knew no sin. So there's just one place where we know that Christ never sinned, to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God or from God in Him. Who's the last him? Christ And so I, I love how the New Testament gives us all these personal pronouns that we always have to find the antecedents for and stuff like that and do our grammatical work.

I think that's part of the Holy Spirit saying, hey, you guys need to work at this a little bit and think, and just reason through the passage. So the idea here is like what you guys have in your lesson is you have 3 imputations. We know that over from Romans chapter 5, we've got this imputation of Adam's sin. Adam sinned, he gets death, his sin is imputed to us, and we also commit our own sins.

So, we are counted guilty because of Adam's sin. We say, oh, that's not fair. And the Bible says, well, by the way, you've committed your own sins too, and you're judged based on both. So that's the first imputation.

We are counted guilty as a race because of the sin of Adam. But then, Christ comes along, how many sins does he commit? Zip. The wages of sin is what?

Death. We deserve to die, but Christ gets our death, right? So our sins are imputed to Christ. That's the second imputation.

All the wicked things I've thought and done throughout my lifetime, the Father takes those, and not just mine, but this whole pool of muck, and he puts it on Christ. That's the second imputation. My sins are imputed to Christ. Christ dies, not because of his own sin, but because of my sin.

Then it doesn't stop there. The third imputation is just as important as all of Christ's righteousness, like it says in verse 21, he made him and knew no sin. that we might become the righteousness of God, wrapped up in Christ. Our, our righteousness is because we're wrapped up in Christ, we're accepted in the beloved, right?

What did, what did the Father say to the Son at his baptism? This is my son in whom I am what? well pleased. And throughout his lifetime, the Father was completely pleased with the son because the Son fulfilled the full law.

Then we get wrapped up in the Son. And then in Ephesians 5, it says, we're called beloved. Children accepted, right? We're accepted inside of Christ.

And so there's those three imputations, we get this alien righteousness from Christ. And now God, if, if we've believed, and we've truly been transferred from the kingdom of darkness and the king of light, that's something that only God can do. Then the question of whether God is pleased with us has been settled once and for all, for all of eternity. He looks at us and he says, this is my beloved son, this is my beloved daughter in whom I am well pleased.

Why? Because we are wrapped up completely in not, not our righteousness, but in the righteousness of Christ. That's why Martin Luther comes along. He's not saying anything new.

He's just saying something that had been lost by the medieval church in a lot of ways. He comes along and says, you are righteous, completely righteous in Christ. But by the way, because you have not gone to actually live with him yet, you are also a sinner. You still sin in this life and there's evidence for that all over the Bible, including in the book of Revelation when the apostle John bows down and worships an angel.

Think about that. Here's the 90 year old apostle John, who's at the very end of his life. If anybody should have achieved some like higher life or, perfect standard of perfection, it would be the apostle John, and he bows down before an angel and the angel say, get up, what are you doing? And so there's still this indwelling sin in the 90 year old apostle John.

And so that's why, Luther can say we're simultaneously righteous and sinners. And so what do we do with that like, we have our own little dual life that's going on on this side of glory. What do we do with that? And, and, and Luther's response is very simple.

We are always sinning. We are always repenting. We are always forgiven. That's his answer And we have to keep all three of those in mind throughout our lifetime.

We're always sinning. If we forget that we're always sinning, then we can be very tempted to start judging our brothers and sisters who sin against us, like, I thought you were a Christian. if, if you forget that we're, we're always sinning, you're gonna have some really interesting issues to negotiate in your marriages. you get home from work one day, your wife's a little out of sorts, you're a little out of sorts, you guys have a little bit of a, a spat.

If you have no category for indwelling sin, guess what? It's like, are you saved? Are you? You guys are just gonna be sitting there questioning each other's salvation throughout the course of your marriage.

Because marriage is gonna continue to remind you, right? Of your sin nature, but you don't stop there. You go, OK, I'm always sinning, so what's the solution? Well, the solution is, is we've been made new creatures in Christ and we have the power to change our mind about our sin every day and say, Lord, you can humble ourselves, Lord, I have sinned.

Feel the weight of, help me feel the weight of my sin. Help me confess my sin. Honey, I am really sorry for being a knucklehead tonight. She looks at me and she says, what?

I've sinned too, but I can see this future Mike that's coming. Guess what? There's this glorified Mike that I'm, that we're putting our eyes on, and that's the Mike I'm choosing to see, I say, that's the Katie I'm choosing to see is that glorified one. Right now, there's clouds that are clouding up the mountains, but I see that person that is, that Christ is making you to be.

And so let's forgive one another. Guess what? If Katie and I are married for 50 years, who knows? And we sin against each other once a day, just one time.

That means we will sin against each other 18,250 times in our lifetime. That means we get to forgive each other 18,250 times in the course of a lifetime if we just sin once a day. That's a lot of opportunities to forgive and exchange love throughout a lifetime, to repent towards one another and to continue to grow in our appreciation for for God's grace, right? So, always sinning, always repenting, but the last one super important is you have to remember that we're not doing this in order to achieve forgiveness every day, like we get forgiven, now we're out of God's graces, now we're getting forgiven.

Now he hates us. No, always forgiven. Always sinning, always repenting, and we're repenting because we are always forgiven. That's been settled.

We've received the alien righteousness of Christ, and we're, and we know that we're already forgiven. Does that make sense, Justice, you had something. for me, I, I really wanna keep this, I try to keep this in mind. When I repent.

Romans 7:18 Nothing And then he goes on to say like For I do not do the kids that I want. The I do know what is what. I, I just try to keep that in mind. Use that as like leverage task.

That's good. Right, right, so Justice just talking about how that in Romans 7 it talks about the things I wanna do, I don't do, and that there's this inclination, but he's using that to leverage his weakness towards God, to, to call out to God for help and that he's the one that gives us the power to repent, right, change our minds about our sin. Yeah, that's awesome. We're just talking about this.

I don't think we're gonna have time for the video, but We, we're talking about this at the college career Q&A on Friday that, There's just this, Realization, I think. That, that is, is, is quite a, a blessing if we understand it properly. And that is If I understand that I do have indwelling sin, that should lead me to a place of proper self-doubt. Does that make sense?

It's not like I'm beating myself up all the time. It's just, it's like Proverbs 28 says, he who trusts in his own heart is a fool. So if I realize that my heart still has a sinful disposition, even as a Christian, that means I can deceive myself and I can also not properly perceive situations. And so I should never assume that I've got it totally licked.

I, I saw the situation, I have this relationship, maybe there's some sin between me and a brother or sister, and I was there and hey, I know what happened. I know what I said. I know what's in your heart, and I can assess the situation perfectly. Now, if we understand a dwelling sin, he trusts his own heart is a fool.

And the reality is, is I can be bewitched by my own anger. It's a known fact, even just scientifically, that people, when they get angry, their ability to perceive situations goes way down. When you start surveying, people from the outside will observe situations of somebody who gets angry and they'll ask them afterwards. So what, what words did you say?

And they'll, they'll say something that's completely different from what's actually on the videotape. And then they'll say, well, how angry do you think you were? Oh, I was a little upset. On the videotape, they're like, and so, just the, our, our, our, what can happen to us with our own perceptions because of sin.

should drive us to a healthy sense of self-doubt, where we want to hear from other people, and then just realize that guess what, what? The Lord, he knows that we are dust, and he's ever willing to forgive. So we just cry out and say, Lord, help me change, that's what repentance means. Help me change my mind about my sin.

Think about my sin the way you think about it. Help me repent of it, knowing that I am already forgiven in Christ. To me, that is a very freeing doctrine to understand that Christ knows my disease and he's always waiting to give me the antidote. All I need to do is humble myself.

And by the way, God's even willing to grant you humility. Isn't that amazing? There's so many times where I wasn't humble. I wasn't even looking for humility.

I was going the total opposite direction. All of a sudden, the Lord will just out of nowhere grant me humility and suddenly help me see, I have been a complete knucklehead, Lord. And then he, he'll just give me a sense of shame and where I can go and And truly repent of my sin before my wife or kids, what have you. Where does that come from?

That's just a gift, right? If I'm walking in pride, what makes me suddenly just boom, hit my knees, and with shame and humility? That's just a gift of the Holy Spirit, that he's granting me repentance, right? Heather had something, and we'll pray.

there's Oh yeah. Oh. Bridge to your heart, your heart, you're in the wrong place. And basically Yeah it's That's awesome.

That Sainct is real. What's it? It's called Dear Heart. So Heather's talking about a song Dear Heart by Saint Is Real.

It has some really neat lyrics on how the Lord works in our heart and humbles us. I'll have to look that up. That's really cool. Anyway, we're over time.

I was gonna show you guys a video, but It's the way it goes. Maybe I'll show it next week. let's go ahead and pray. Lord, we thank you so much for just the reminder of Christ's obedience throughout his life, and that that's not just something to observe, but it's something that we can drink in because His obedience has been imputed to us.

We have now been clothed in His righteousness. help us to realize that, it's OK for us to acknowledge our sin. In fact, that is part of the solution for us to humble ourselves, to see our sin, confess to you, feel the weight of it. And confessed to others.

And then just to, just to be thankful that as we draw near to you and humility, you want to draw near to us. We thank you that you're so faithful to grant us repentance and humility when so many times our hearts are hard. But help us, Lord, to be careful and wary that our hearts can grow hard even on any given day. So help us not to neglect fellowship and to be speaking to one another in love so that we can all, our consciences can stay sensitive.

And we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.