Latest / Beyond the Sermon / Savior, Lord, Model: Sermon

Transcript

Savior, Lord, Model: Sermon · Beyond the Sermon

• 0:04
  You're listening to Beyond the Sermon, the podcast the First
• 0:06
  Methodist Church in Collingswood, NJ.
• 0:09
  On this podcast, the goal is not just to share our sermons, but
• 0:12
  to go beyond the sermon and talk about what we're learning and
• 0:15
  what God is doing in us and in our community.
• 0:18
  This fall, we're living in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke,
• 0:21
  and John and learning how to live from our model, Jesus.
• 0:25
  This sermon is part of our series The Gospels.
• 0:28
  You can find. Out more information about our
• 0:29
  church at fumccollingswood.org. Thanks for listening.
• 0:41
  How many of you have been told somewhere along the line that as
• 0:49
  Christians we're to be like Jesus?
• 0:54
  Anybody. Yeah.
• 0:55
  We did a whole sermon series on that back in January, right?
• 0:59
  Be like Jesus. How many of you was that
• 1:04
  followed up at some point in the journey?
• 1:07
  It might not have been in media. It might have been some time
• 1:09
  later. It might have been directly or
• 1:12
  indirectly, but it was followed up with something like.
• 1:15
  But, but you can't really be like Jesus because he was God.
• 1:21
  Anybody. Anybody hear that part?
• 1:23
  Too few of us. Few of us.
• 1:26
  What do we do with that mixed message?
• 1:29
  Because whether you, you raised your hand or not, I think that's
• 1:35
  a message that the church has inadvertently given, right?
• 1:40
  That, that we're supposed to be like Jesus, but but only so far,
• 1:43
  because there comes a certain point where we just bump up
• 1:45
  against his divinity, right? His Godness.
• 1:50
  What do we do with verses like John 1412 in which Jesus said, I
• 1:56
  tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same
• 2:02
  works I have done and even greater works because I'm going
• 2:09
  to the Father. Do we believe that we can do
• 2:14
  even greater works than Jesus did?
• 2:19
  Do we believe the Bible? Do we believe Jesus?
• 2:25
  How do we how do we reconcile these ideas, though that that
• 2:29
  Jesus is 100% God and we will never be and that Jesus is 100%
• 2:38
  human and, and the model of what a human can and should be,
• 2:45
  right? What?
• 2:45
  What's possible in a human life? I think the stories that we've
• 2:49
  read today, the stories of Jesus's baptism and temptation
• 2:53
  are are part of the key to helping us understand how we
• 2:58
  hold these two truths together. Right.
• 3:01
  But, but let me back up for a minute and set some things up
• 3:05
  before we get to Matthew. You see, we can't talk about
• 3:10
  Jesus as our model for living without speaking about the
• 3:15
  incarnation, right? The incarnation, the the mystery
• 3:19
  of God taking on our humanity and becoming one of us.
• 3:25
  And in Philippians 2, Paul was writing about the call to
• 3:29
  humility. And to under score it, he
• 3:31
  inserts into his letter what scholars believe to be an early
• 3:36
  worship song, right? One of the the hymns of the
• 3:38
  church was writing in order to worship Jesus.
• 3:42
  And, and this worship song, it gives an overview of Jesus's
• 3:45
  incarnation, his life, death, resurrection and exaltation, all
• 3:51
  in just a few short verses. And it's through this hymn that
• 3:55
  be that we, it's through this hymn that became a part of
• 4:00
  Scripture that were introduced to the idea of kenosis.
• 4:06
  Have you ever heard of the word kenosis before?
• 4:12
  No, that's OK. Let me tell you.
• 4:14
  Kenosis is, is the Greek word that we translate as he emptied
• 4:19
  himself. All right, Remember that in
• 4:23
  Philippians chapter 2, Tim, can you put the, that scripture up
• 4:25
  there from Philippians 2? This was the, the, the hymn that
• 4:32
  got inserted by Paul into his letter.
• 4:34
  He said though he was God, he did not think of equality with
• 4:38
  God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine
• 4:44
  privileges. He emptied himself gnosis.
• 4:49
  He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human
• 4:52
  being. When he appeared in human form,
• 4:55
  he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal's
• 4:59
  death on a cross. Therefore, God exalted him.
• 5:03
  He elevated him to the highest place of honor, and gave him the
• 5:06
  name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee
• 5:11
  should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and
• 5:15
  every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of
• 5:19
  God the Father. Jesus, it says He emptied
• 5:25
  himself. He gave up his divine
• 5:28
  privileges, right? It's the idea that in order to
• 5:32
  take on our humanity, to truly take on our humanity, right?
• 5:37
  Not just to kind of pretend to, but to really take on our
• 5:40
  humanity, God had to limit himself in some way, right?
• 5:47
  Jesus wasn't omnipresent like God is.
• 5:51
  He wasn't in all places at all times, right?
• 5:53
  To be a human, Jesus existed in time and space and that limited
• 5:59
  him. Or, or consider that that
• 6:02
  age-old philosophical musing, right?
• 6:04
  That asked the question, can God create a rock too heavy for God
• 6:09
  to lift? I don't know the answer to that
• 6:13
  question, but there were a lot of rocks in the world that were
• 6:17
  too heavy for Jesus to lift, right?
• 6:21
  Are you with me? Following with me?
• 6:23
  Have I stepped into heresy yet? I don't think so.
• 6:28
  So the question becomes, what then did Jesus empty himself of
• 6:36
  right if if it wasn't that he stopped being God in some way?
• 6:40
  He didn't empty himself of his deity or his divinity.
• 6:44
  He didn't give up his godness. Instead, God the Son emptied
• 6:51
  himself of the right to cling to that divinity just to hold on to
• 6:57
  that equality with God. He gave up the right to act like
• 7:03
  God or to act from the power he had as God.
• 7:12
  So then, was Jesus just a man that God anointed in a special
• 7:18
  way? No, no, He was still and ever
• 7:23
  will be God in human flesh. And we can't ever really wrap
• 7:31
  our minds around what that reality means.
• 7:34
  We have to hold the tension of that mystery at all times.
• 7:39
  But. But I've heard it explained
• 7:41
  through an analogy which makes all the sense in the world to
• 7:46
  me. It's almost like Jesus in his,
• 7:51
  in his incarnation, He retained his God credit card, right?
• 7:59
  He retained he, He didn't stop being God.
• 8:02
  That credit card, it was right there in his back pocket the
• 8:05
  whole time, but he didn't use it.
• 8:10
  He left it there, right. I'm getting a little ahead of
• 8:14
  myself. Let's go.
• 8:15
  Let's go back to Matthew though, and see what this Gospel has to
• 8:19
  say to us about this, and hopefully I can connect some
• 8:22
  more dots for you and some of the confused looks I'm getting
• 8:27
  will begin to make sense. OK, I know we're going a little
• 8:30
  theological today and that's all right.
• 8:32
  You guys can handle it. All right, Matthew starts off
• 8:36
  his gospel talking about Jesus's genealogy, right?
• 8:41
  All those lists of names of he begat who and all those things
• 8:46
  he Matthew's working hard to locate Jesus's humanity in time
• 8:52
  and space, right? He really was human.
• 8:56
  And these were all of his ancestors that contributed to
• 8:59
  who he was. And, and Matthew's also trying
• 9:02
  to make sure he places Jesus's humanity right smack in the
• 9:06
  middle of what God has done with and through his people, Israel.
• 9:15
  Then Matthew goes on to tell about Jesus's birth primarily
• 9:19
  from Joseph's perspective, which is interesting.
• 9:23
  Or at least he tells about the events around Jesus's
• 9:26
  birthright. He doesn't give a lot of details
• 9:29
  about that actual event. There's more on the front end,
• 9:33
  more on the back end. But the point that Matthew is
• 9:37
  making is that this is not just another normal human birth.
• 9:42
  This one, this one has its origin in God, right?
• 9:50
  So tell us all about those things and those couple of years
• 9:53
  right around Jesus birth. But then without any warning,
• 9:58
  Matthew just fast forwards 28 years of Jesus growing up,
• 10:05
  right? His childhood, his, his being
• 10:07
  apprenticed to Joseph as a Craftsman, all of it.
• 10:11
  He just skips right over all of that.
• 10:14
  And here 28 years later, Matthew starts talking about John the
• 10:18
  Baptist, right, the one who came to prepare the way for the
• 10:23
  Messiah. We we don't have time to get
• 10:25
  into all of John the Baptist today, aside from the fact that
• 10:29
  when John was baptizing people as a sign of repentance, Jesus
• 10:34
  came to be baptized as well. And if you want to know more
• 10:38
  about John the Baptist, you can go back to our our 2023 Advent
• 10:43
  series. Anyway, Jesus came to John to be
• 10:48
  baptized, which is where our reading today begins right in
• 10:53
  this passage. Jesus has come to be baptized by
• 10:57
  John. And after he's baptized, as he's
• 11:01
  coming up out of the water, heaven is opened up and the
• 11:09
  Spirit, the Holy Spirit begins to descend on Jesus like a dove,
• 11:15
  which would have rung all kinds of Old Testament bells for
• 11:19
  Matthew's primarily Jewish audience, right?
• 11:22
  They they would have heard that and they would have thought
• 11:24
  about the Spirit hovering over the waters of creation.
• 11:30
  They would have thought about Noah's dove being sent out
• 11:33
  looking for dry land after the the the waters of the flood
• 11:38
  receded. They would have thought as
• 11:41
  heaven is opened and, and the Spirit comes down of the Spirit
• 11:45
  descending on Mount Sinai after God had brought his people out
• 11:50
  of Egypt. And then the the spirit coming
• 11:54
  down upon the Tabernacle that was built as a dwelling place
• 11:57
  that could move around with the people.
• 11:59
  And then ultimately on the temple, right on the temple
• 12:03
  where God had chosen to place his presence.
• 12:09
  All these things going on and, and then the voice of God speaks
• 12:14
  from heaven saying, this is my beloved son.
• 12:19
  I'm delighted with him, right? This is my my dear son, who with
• 12:26
  whom I'm well pleased. However, you're familiar
• 12:29
  translation puts it and there are a few things that are going
• 12:34
  on here that that I think we should take notice of.
• 12:38
  I just want to hit them quickly right?
• 12:40
  One, God is using this event of Jesus's baptism as a line in the
• 12:50
  sand kind of moment, and he's using it to to authenticate
• 12:55
  Jesus's identity as the Son of God, right?
• 13:02
  It's it's easy to struggle with issues of identity.
• 13:07
  How much easier would it be if the heavens just opened up and
• 13:11
  God spoke to us? Scott, you're my beloved son.
• 13:17
  You bring me great pleasure. Let's solve all kinds of issues,
• 13:22
  wouldn't it? So God used it to authenticate
• 13:26
  Jesus's identity. But God's also reminding Jesus
• 13:30
  of his love for him and the pleasure he draws from him.
• 13:34
  And interesting to me, this happens before Jesus begins his
• 13:42
  ministry, right before Jesus has done any healings, before he's
• 13:47
  taught anything, before he's delivered anyone from from
• 13:53
  spiritual oppression or anything.
• 13:57
  Jesus was able to live then from this identity, from this
• 14:02
  approval of God, rather than trying to live for it, right?
• 14:09
  He wasn't trying to earn God's approval.
• 14:12
  He already had it, and that's what makes so much of his
• 14:17
  ministry possible. Third thing to notice here, God
• 14:22
  through the descent of the Holy Spirit is doing exactly what
• 14:28
  John said the coming Messiah would do through baptizing
• 14:33
  people with the Holy Spirit. Or if we, if we were to read the
• 14:37
  passage right before we read this morning, it would talk
• 14:40
  about how John was proclaiming that there was 1 coming who
• 14:45
  would baptize with the Spirit and with fire.
• 14:50
  And that's what God's doing. He's baptizing Jesus right here
• 14:53
  in the midst of his water baptism with the Holy Spirit.
• 14:57
  God's empowering Jesus to do God's will by the power of the
• 15:03
  Spirit. So here's my thesis.
• 15:08
  You ready for it? I think I'm firmly with an
• 15:12
  orthodox biblical Christianity here, right?
• 15:15
  This isn't something something way out there.
• 15:18
  But if you disagree, come on in tomorrow.
• 15:21
  We'll have you on the podcast. We can talk all about it.
• 15:23
  OK. All right, here's the thesis.
• 15:28
  While completely retaining His divinity, Jesus only did what
• 15:35
  the Father told him through the power of the Holy Spirit.
• 15:43
  Let me say it for you again so you can make sure you catch it.
• 15:45
  While completely retaining His divinity, Jesus only did what
• 15:50
  the Father told him through the power of the Holy Spirit.
• 15:56
  Or to put it another way, even though Jesus was God, Jesus
• 16:04
  didn't act out of his own Godness.
• 16:09
  And I think we see that play out in in the story of Jesus
• 16:13
  temptation in the wilderness as as that story we read continues.
• 16:18
  Right, because after Jesus's baptism, Matthew tells us that
• 16:21
  Jesus was led by what? His intuition?
• 16:25
  No, he he was led by the falafel he ate the night before.
• 16:30
  No, Jesus was led by the Spirit. Jesus was led by the Spirit into
• 16:37
  the wilderness. And it's there in the wilderness
• 16:41
  after 40 days of fasting, that Jesus was tempted by the devil.
• 16:48
  And at every stage, the temptation that the devil
• 16:52
  brought questioned Jesus's identity and enticed him to use
• 16:57
  his divinity, his Godness, to make things easier for himself.
• 17:06
  Listen to what the devil said to him.
• 17:09
  If if you're really the Son of God, satisfy your physical needs
• 17:17
  right. Feed your belly.
• 17:18
  Turn these stones into bread. If you're really the Son of God,
• 17:25
  throw yourself down from this temple.
• 17:28
  God won't let anything happen to you.
• 17:30
  The Angel surely will catch you. And Satan says, see all these
• 17:37
  kingdoms of the world, just bow down and worship me, and they're
• 17:44
  yours. You don't have to suffer.
• 17:48
  You don't have to go through the whole plan.
• 17:51
  Just bow down to me and you can have all the kingdoms of the
• 17:54
  world. And at every turn, Jesus looked
• 17:59
  to Scripture to know what was true, to resist the devil.
• 18:06
  He said bread isn't what sustains us, it's God's word
• 18:12
  that sustains us. And what was that word that
• 18:16
  Jesus was talking about? He said every word that proceeds
• 18:20
  from the mouth of God, which if you'll remember God had just
• 18:24
  said to him, I mean 40 days before, but still pretty
• 18:28
  recently. This is my beloved son, Jesus
• 18:36
  said back to the devil, Don't test the Lord your God.
• 18:42
  Trust him and do what he says. If we do what he says, he'll
• 18:46
  take care of the rest. He says you must worship the
• 18:50
  Lord your God and serve him only.
• 18:54
  But you can't have two masters. You can't take the easy,
• 18:58
  comfortable way. You must.
• 19:02
  We must submit our wills to God's will.
• 19:09
  And even then, through all of these temptations, Jesus never
• 19:13
  appeals to his own divinity. Jesus doesn't feel the need to
• 19:18
  prove himself or his identity to the devil.
• 19:23
  He knows who he did, who he is. He knows who the Father is.
• 19:29
  He doesn't need to to act out of his godness.
• 19:33
  Here. He humbles himself and submits
• 19:35
  himself to the Father, and he accepts the limitations of his
• 19:39
  humanity. And I think This is why we can
• 19:45
  look to Jesus not just as our Savior and our Lord, but as our
• 19:51
  model, as our example. He, he shows us how it's
• 19:57
  possible for a human being to live.
• 20:02
  He's not showing us some unreachable exception to the
• 20:06
  rule because he's he's really God and some point that Trump's
• 20:11
  his humanity, but as a human being.
• 20:14
  Surrendered to the Father and empowered by the Holy Spirit.
• 20:21
  Because as we're, we're going to see throughout our study of the
• 20:24
  Gospels, this is how Jesus continued to live and do
• 20:30
  ministry. He submitted himself to the
• 20:34
  Father and he deepened that relationship with the Father
• 20:39
  through spiritual disciplines like prayer and fasting and
• 20:43
  solitude and silence and scripture and Sabbath, right?
• 20:49
  He, he, he continued to develop that relationship where he could
• 20:52
  hear from God exactly what God wanted him to do.
• 20:59
  It's amazing as we read through the Gospels, how many times the
• 21:03
  disciples are looking for Jesus to, to, to do something and he's
• 21:07
  off on his own praying and he comes back and he's got a fresh
• 21:13
  word from God. He knows what the next thing is.
• 21:15
  No, it's time to leave this place and go somewhere else.
• 21:21
  He submitted himself to the Father, and he was empowered by
• 21:28
  the Holy Spirit to use the spiritual gifts that God had
• 21:33
  given him as a person, right? Gifts like healing and teaching,
• 21:37
  words of knowledge and faith, right?
• 21:40
  This is how the Spirit was working through him.
• 21:44
  This is how he was tapping into the power of God as a human
• 21:49
  being. So as we continue to read the
• 21:54
  gospels together to be formed by these stories of how Jesus lived
• 22:00
  and, and what he did and, and what he didn't do, I want to
• 22:05
  encourage you to watch Jesus through this lens.
• 22:11
  Submission to the Father through the practice of disciplines and
• 22:16
  empowerment by the Spirit through the use of spiritual
• 22:21
  gifts, because it was in these spiritual practices that Jesus
• 22:25
  learned what the Father's will was.
• 22:28
  And it was through the gifts and the power of the Holy Spirit
• 22:31
  that he did what he did. And friends, we can do that too,
• 22:38
  right? We can develop this kind of
• 22:40
  intimacy with God. You're spending time and in
• 22:44
  prayer and solitude in his word and, and in worship in in the
• 22:49
  Sabbath, all these things. And God can empower us through
• 22:55
  his spirit to minister to the world around us.
• 23:03
  But I also want to invite you this morning to lay down your
• 23:10
  preconceptions of who Jesus is and how he lived and worked.
• 23:17
  I want to encourage you to ask God to reveal Jesus to you by
• 23:23
  his Spirit to open you up to, to what might be a new paradigm for
• 23:30
  you. Because I believe that when
• 23:34
  Jesus said, come follow me, he really meant it.
• 23:41
  And I believe that when Jesus told the disciples they would do
• 23:45
  greater works than he did by the power of the Spirit, he meant
• 23:52
  it. And I believe what Paul wrote in
• 23:56
  Romans chapter 8 verse 11 when when he said the Spirit of God
• 24:02
  who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you.
• 24:08
  And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will
• 24:12
  give life to your mortal bodies by his same Spirit living within
• 24:18
  you. I believe he meant it.
• 24:26
  I don't think Jesus had an aim at the stars.
• 24:29
  And if you fail, at least you'll hit the moon kind of attitude.
• 24:36
  He doesn't say follow me and close enough is good enough.
• 24:41
  His offer is an abundant life of abiding intimacy that produces
• 24:48
  fruit for the Kingdom of God. That's what he wants for us.
• 24:54
  That's what he wants for you. So this morning, would you ask
• 25:01
  Jesus to give you faith to believe what could be possible
• 25:08
  in your life, in the life of our church, if we would only believe
• 25:16
  Him? Not just believe in him, but
• 25:22
  believe him to take him at His word and to trust his power to
• 25:31
  do what we cannot. Would you pray with me, Jesus?
• 25:46
  We love to look at the stories of how you lived and worked and
• 25:51
  acted throughout the Gospels. We start telling these stories
• 25:59
  even to our kids in in Sunday school and children's church
• 26:03
  about the miracles you've done, the way you you were able to
• 26:08
  touch people and teach people. But Jesus, I think in our heart
• 26:16
  of hearts, we tend to believe that you could never do that
• 26:23
  kind of thing through someone like us.
• 26:31
  But I believe that's exactly what you want to do and exactly
• 26:38
  what we should believe if we believe what's written in these
• 26:44
  words of Scripture. Jesus, we want to offer
• 26:50
  ourselves this morning and ask you, would you help us to break
• 26:56
  down the preconceptions that we have about who you are, how
• 27:01
  you're able to work? Would you help us to to let go
• 27:06
  of what we think we know, not because it's untrue, but maybe
• 27:13
  because it's not true enough. It doesn't go far enough.
• 27:20
  Jesus, we thank you for your offer of abundant life and
• 27:26
  intimacy with you. Would you help us to learn what
• 27:31
  it means to abide in You so your Spirit can flow through us to
• 27:39
  the world? So we give you ourselves this
• 27:45
  morning as we prepare to come to Your table to meet with you
• 27:50
  again, to receive a new the grace that you offer to us.
• 28:00
  Jesus, we give you ourselves this morning.
• 28:05
  Pray this your name.