What's So Special About Jesus
Tom Shrader walks through ten questions about Jesus, drawing from the Gospels and Acts to establish that Jesus was conceived of a virgin, pre-existed eternally as God, performed miracles to authenticate His identity, and claimed authority to forgive sin. He traces Jesus' predicted death and bodily resurrection as the cornerstone of Christian faith, arguing that the resurrection is God's confirmation of everything Jesus claimed on the cross. The message connects back to the previous week's teaching on sin, showing that Jesus alone can solve the problem that no human effort or religion can fix.
“The resurrection is God's Amen to Jesus on the cross saying it is finished — when Jesus said it is finished, they buried Him, but on the third day He rose from the dead.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: The Greatest Gift
Recorded: 2009 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 44 min
Themes: jesus, resurrection, miracles, forgiveness, sin, identity of christ, virgin birth, faith, new believer, seeking answers, questioning faith, spiritually curious, unchurched, young adult, struggling with doubt, first time churchgoer
Scripture: Luke 1:26-35, Luke 1:30, Luke 1:34, Luke 24:50, Matthew 1:18-25, Matthew 1:23, Matthew 9:2-8, Matthew 9:5, Matthew 16:21, John 1:1-3, John 10:24-33, John 10:27, John 11:4-5, John 14:1-6, Acts 1:9, Acts 2:22, Acts 2:29-32, Colossians 1:16, Romans 10:9
Theological Themes: christology, incarnation, bodily resurrection, atonement, deity of christ, preexistence of christ, virgin conception, salvation
Full Transcript
Introduction: Setting Up the Series
Open your Bibles, please. If you don't have a Bible, raise your hand and the guys will bring you one. You may be lost without a Bible today.
Let me tell you a couple of things about the Bible you are about to get. When the publisher put it together, Genesis 1:1 is page 1 — that makes sense. But when he got to the end of the Old Testament, he decided to start renumbering, so when you get to the New Testament, we start at page 1 again. If you're just grabbing a Bible, that can be confusing. You need to go about two-thirds of the way back and start thumbing through, looking at page numbers — when it goes back to page 1, you're in the New Testament.
A great way to make navigation easier is to put tabs in your Bible. I have them in every Bible I own. This is not an acknowledgment that you're stupid — although it is on my part. It's an acknowledgment that I want to be able to get somewhere fast. When somebody says Isaiah, I go right to it. Don't be afraid to go over to the bookstore, get some tabs, and figure out how to use them.
Go ahead and open to Luke chapter 1, verse 26 — that's page 43 in the New Testament.
The Six-Week Series
Let me remind you what we're doing. We are taking six weeks as we head into the new year, and we said we would start with four questions. Last week we looked at: What's the matter with people? Chuck Holmes came by my office and said, "Why don't you do 'What's right with people' and we'll be out of there by 11:20." I told him I had to do what's wrong with people first.
Today the question is: What's so special about Jesus? Next week: What was behind Jesus' death — why did He die, what was going on there? Then on the 13th, we're going to talk about how you can know. This was something revolutionary when I came to understand it — that I could actually know God, not just know about Him in some academic sense, but know Him and have a relationship with Him. Then on December 20th and 27th, we're going to talk about what you do with all of that. So what? You've figured out who you are, you've figured out who Jesus is, you've understood the crucifixion, you now know God — what difference does that make in your life?
Recap: What's the Matter with People
Last week we talked about what's the matter with people, and we said the problem is that people have sinned. When we break one of God's laws, God calls it sin. And if we break a law, we've broken the law. The result of that sin in our life is that we're dead — the wages of sin is death. That means I'm separated from God, and I'm in bondage to that sin, enslaved to it.
That's what Paul writes. He said, here's part of the good news: you're no longer children of wrath and children of disobedience — you've been freed from that. But we left you last week with this final thought: by the end of the day you're realizing, I'm guilty. I've sinned. It's universal. All of us have sinned — no one without exception. And the natural question is: What do I do to fix it?
I was in a meeting recently where someone was simply sharing what was going on in his life, and everybody in the room wanted to fix it. I had to say, he didn't ask us to fix it — he just told us what was going on. But everybody wants to fix things. It's our natural instinct. So when you hear that your sin has separated you from God and that the consequence is death, your instinct is to ask: What can I do about it?
On your own, you can't do anything. That flinch — that impulse that says I want to do something — here's what that's called: religion. Within the whole scope of spirituality, we have two things: biblical Christianity, and then everything else. Everything else is some version of you trying to do something to fix the situation with God.
One of the songs we'll sing at Christmas is "God and sinners reconciled," which implies a pre-existing hostility. If I am now reconciled, something was between us before. And sin is what's between you and God. How do I get that reconciled? What can I do? There is nothing you can do.
The Need for Bad News Before Good News
Several of you said on the way out last week, "That was not an upper. I get beat up all week long — I don't come in here to get beat up by you." But you should take heart, because here's the deal: we have to get you to a point of spiritual desperation. We have to tell you the bad news before we can ever get to the good news.
Too often we're running around trying to fix things without even understanding what the problem is. The problem is our sin. I got myself into it, and there's nothing I can do to get myself out of it.
Today's Question: What's So Special About Jesus?
So — what's the big deal with Jesus? You talk about Jesus all the time. We're going to do what we did last week: ask ten questions, then go to the Scripture and see how God answers them.
What God Told Mary Before Jesus Was Conceived
In Luke chapter one, verse 26, it says this: "Now in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the descendants of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And coming in, the angel said to her, 'Greetings, favored one, the Lord is with you.' But she was very perplexed at this statement and kept pondering what kind of situation this was. The angel said, 'Do not be afraid, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.'"
Here is what God told Mary about Jesus before He was conceived: that He would be the Son of the Most High, as seen in verse 32; that the Lord God would give Him the throne of His father David; and that He would reign over the house of Jacob forever. He is a King, and His kingdom will have no end.
What Made Jesus' Birth Different
Turn to Matthew chapter one, verse 18. "The birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, 'Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the Child who has been conceived in her is by the Holy Spirit. And she will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.'"
That last phrase is Jesus' mission statement right there in Matthew 1:21 — He will save His people from their sins. The passage continues: "Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 'Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,' which translated means, 'God with us.' And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife, but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus."
The Human Side of the Nativity
There is a lot packed into this passage. If you are new to this and paying close attention, you may notice that verse 19 refers to Joseph as Mary's husband, even though earlier they are described as engaged. In those days, being engaged was as binding as being married, except the couple did not live together and there was no physical contact. What would typically happen is the groom would go away, often for about a year, to prepare a place for them to live — not by shopping for a house, but often by adding a room onto his father's house. There is striking imagery in that, echoing Jesus' own words, "I go and prepare a place for you," and the picture of a bridegroom returning for his bride. To break off that kind of engagement required something close to a formal decree of dissolution, essentially a divorce.
So Joseph and Mary are engaged, and they have not come together physically. Sometimes we look at the nativity and we sterilize it. Walking past the nativity scene in Children's Ministry, it all looks serene and right. But consider the human reality before that peaceful scene. As a father with daughters, you carry a concern — spoken or unspoken — about your daughter facing an unexpected pregnancy. Now think of Mary having to go to her father and say, "I'm pregnant." Her father's first reaction would almost certainly be to blame Joseph. And when Mary says it was the Holy Spirit, that is a very difficult thing to believe. Even for a spiritually minded person, that is a tough sell.
Then there is Joseph, facing the same shock. Poor Mary is caught in the middle of all of it. There was a film called "The Nativity" released a few years ago that does a wonderful job of emphasizing exactly this human dimension. If you have not seen it, find it — it is probably available for next to nothing. It depicts Mary having to tell not just her father, but Joseph as well. And Joseph's first instinct, like any man's, would be to assume someone else was responsible. Even if every member of both families eventually accepts the miraculous explanation, the couple still has to face everyone else. This is something that would follow them. The questions and the doubt from others would be with them throughout their lives, beginning from the very first.
The Antidote to Every Fear
The virgin birth was a tough sell for me. The first person to question it was Mary herself, when she said in Luke 1:34, after the angel tells her, "How can this be? I am a virgin. I have had a biology class. I know how babies are made. I cannot possibly be pregnant." What made Jesus' birth different from any other? He was born of a virgin, and He had a mission statement: to save His people from their sin.
There is a sub-note worth observing here. When the angel appeared to Mary, the angel said to her in Luke 1:30, "Do not be afraid." When the angel appears to Joseph in Matthew 1:20, the angel says, "Do not be afraid." The most frequent prohibition in the New Testament is "Do not be afraid." Why is that? Because God knows we are instinctively afraid.
I made a list of six things, though there could be 6,000 things on it: loneliness, suffering, rejection, lack of money, physical pain, death. We are afraid of all those things. The antidote to every fear we have in our life is Jesus.
The Idol Factory
We were talking about idols the other day, and someone offered an interesting thought. He said, "I always tell people it is anything they think they could not live without." That gives you a sense of it. We are idol worshippers. John Calvin said our heart is an idol factory. We are creating idols all the time.
That job, that identity, that position, winning that game, getting that house, getting that person — they are all going to fail you at some point, in some way, at some level. But Jesus never will.
When it comes to loneliness, people are going to disappoint you. That is just the way it is. There are moments when you feel completely alone. You may be sitting here right now feeling that way, thinking, "Nobody understands me." God says, "I will never leave you or forsake you."
I was with Tyler the other day, and one of the boys — I think it was Brayden — said, "I need a cookie." Tyler said, "You need Jesus. You do not need a cookie. You want a cookie. You need Jesus." His whole point was explaining: no, no, no, you do not need that. You want that. You need Jesus.
Whether you are Brayden and you are four, or you are someone here who is twenty-four or forty-four, you may have all these things you think you need. But there is one thing you actually need. You need Jesus. You may want all the other stuff — I understand that — but what you need is Christ. They sang as the music started today, "He's a friend of mine." That is an amazing concept, that I can call Jesus a friend, not based on anything I have earned, but based on Him allowing me to call Him friend through His own work.
When Did Jesus' Life Begin?
Here is the third question we are asking: when did Jesus' life begin? We are working all the way through the Gospels, and this brings us to the Gospel of John, chapter 1. John uses the word "Word" here to speak of Jesus, and he makes this statement: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being."
Paul writes in Colossians 1:16, "For by Him, Jesus, all things were created, both in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together."
When did Jesus' life begin? His earthly life began in Bethlehem. But Jesus has no beginning. He is God. When I think of eternity, I tend to fast-forward. But as far back as you can go — back, back, back, back — wherever you get, He is already there ahead of you. He created all things and holds all things together. There is a real awesomeness to this.
The Vastness of Creation
Someone asked me the other day whether I think there is life on other planets. I said there is not much life going on where I am right here, so I was not sure. He said, "I think there has to be, because of the massive size of the solar system. It would not make sense that there would be life here and nowhere else." That gave me an opinion I did not previously have.
I said, "Wait a minute. That would be just like God — to demonstrate His power and awesomeness by creating something this vast, so that the creation itself overwhelms us."
I have never been to Europe and have no particular interest — you need a passport, and that is not my thing. But friends who go come back and talk about the cathedrals. One of them mentioned there is a design flaw in them: they are not a very practical use of space. As a point of reference, the room we are sitting in seats 716 people, and some of these massive cathedrals seat fewer than that.
But he also said that when you walk into one of those cathedrals, you feel so small and so insignificant. My point to him was that is the whole design. They were trying to build something that would overwhelm you the moment you walked in — just as when I step out into this world and look around.
What Did Jesus Do to Distinguish Himself?
I am overwhelmed by the universe itself and the Creator of it. I look at those cathedrals and think, how did they get that rock up there? How did they do that? How did they measure that? I remember when the kids wanted a playhouse in the backyard, and I'm not a very handy person, but I thought I'd get a bunch of plywood and some boards and just start pounding them together. I had no idea what I was doing — I just figured something would eventually happen. When I was all done, this thing was shaking and moving and just a mess.
Nobody walked into it. Well, that's not true. They did walk in and say, "Who built this?" The idea of a cathedral is for you to walk in and say, "Wow, that architect was incredible." In the same way, you walk out and look at the stars, the moon, and the solar system so that you and I will say, "That Creator is amazing." That's the whole point. And Jesus created all of that. When did His life begin? He had no beginning.
The Fourth Question: Miracles, Wonders, and Signs
Here is the fourth question: What did Jesus do to distinguish Himself from everyone else? Go to the book of Acts, chapter 2 — that is page 122. Peter is delivering this message to a group he identifies as men of Israel. He has been quoting the Old Testament to them, and then he says this, speaking of Jesus:
> "Men of Israel, listen to these words. Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles, wonders, and signs, which He performed in your midst, just as you yourself know."
What did Jesus do that distinguished Himself from everyone else? He did miracles. Nobody else was doing that. Now, we use that term pretty loosely. We talk about the miracle of television, or "it was a miracle I got home last night," or the Miracle Mets of 1969. But a miracle, by definition, is when we suspend or reverse the laws of nature — an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs.
I always get amused when someone announces they are going to hold a miracle service. I'll watch out of curiosity, and someone will come forward and say, "I was healed tonight." When asked what the problem was, they say, "My back hurt, but it's all gone now." I'll be honest — that's coming back. Or someone says there was a ringing in their ear and it stopped. That's coming back too. Here is what I want to see: a man who lost his leg, and someone prays, and that leg comes back. Now we have a miracle. Or bring in someone who is dead — wrapped up, verified by a coroner, dead four days, death certificate in hand — and someone says, "Get up," and he gets up. That is a miracle.
The Raising of Lazarus
Those are exactly the kinds of things Jesus was doing — miracles, wonders, and signs — to display and demonstrate to us who He was. In John chapter 11, Jesus has three friends He stays with when He is in Bethany: Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. Word comes to Jesus that the one He loves, Lazarus, is sick.
Verse 5 tells us He loved Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. And in verse 4, when Jesus hears the news, He says, "This is not a sickness to death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of Man might be glorified." Then when Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick, He stayed two more days in that place. That is such strange behavior.
A couple of years ago, my brother called on a Saturday night and said, "Dad's had a really bad heart attack. Tom, when they took him, it just doesn't look good." I said to my wife Susan, "Dad had a heart attack," and the first thing we both said was, "You've got to go." I got on the phone with the airlines, and for a couple thousand dollars they would take me one way to the Quad Cities — I don't hold that against them. My brother called back about a half hour later and said, "Tom, he's dead." But my immediate reaction had been to go. That is instinct.
Yet Jesus — when told that the man He loved so much was sick — says, in effect, "Good. I'll get there in a couple of days." That is just strange. But He told you why: for God's glory.
Trusting His Timing
Let me digress for a moment. Some of you have things going on in your life, and you are saying, "Where are You, Jesus? Come on, take care of this." Why wouldn't He take care of it immediately? For your good and His glory. I don't always get it. It doesn't always happen the way I want it to happen. I have things going on in my own life that I don't fully understand. I don't get why God would allow certain things. But I know what His motive is — my good and His glory. And that works out.
He ultimately does get there, and He does a miracle, because by that point Lazarus has been dead and buried in a tomb for four days. He smells. And then Jesus says, "Lazarus, come forth," and out he comes. That is what Jesus did to distinguish Himself from everyone else. He did miracles.
Signs, Wonders, and the Authority to Forgive
They're also called signs and wonders. They were designed to get your attention — to make you stop and say, "This has my attention now." His goal was not for us to focus on the miracle itself, but to say, "I want you to hear what I have to say, and now we have some credibility here. I just raised this guy."
He goes a step further when He addresses what He is able to do. That's Matthew chapter 9 — about page 3 or 4 in the New Testament. Matthew chapter 9, verse 2 contains one of the most significant claims Jesus ever made.
"They brought to him a paralytic, lying in a bed, and seeing their faith, Jesus said, take courage, my son, your sins are forgiven."
The scribes and the Jewish leaders are there, and they ask exactly the right question. Essentially, they're saying, "Who made you God?" They said, "You blaspheme." Jesus knows what they're thinking, and He turns to them in Matthew 9:5 and says, "Which is easier to say? Your sins are forgiven, or get up and walk. But so that you might know the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sin, he said to the paralytic, get up, pick up your bed, and go home." And he got up and went. The crowd saw this, they were awestruck, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.
His claim is clear: He has the ability to forgive sin. When He said, "Your sins are forgiven," the Jewish leaders pushed back immediately — you can't look into the soul of a man and verify that. So Jesus put His credibility on the line by doing what could be verified. It would be harder to say "get up and walk" because that produces visible evidence of fraud if it fails. He said it, the man walked, and the whole point was so that everyone would know He is able to forgive sin.
Who Jesus Said He Was
This leads us directly to who Jesus said He was. Turn to John chapter 10, verse 24 — page 80 in the New Testament. If you've been around a while, this section of your Bible should be well marked, because there is a lot to pull out of it.
The Jews — meaning the scribes, the Pharisees, and the Jewish leaders — are gathered and they say, "How long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you're the Christ, the Messiah, tell us." In essence, Jesus says, "You can't handle the truth." He says, "I did tell you, but you don't believe." Then in verse 27: "You're not my sheep, because my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give them eternal life."
A quick word on that, because these are two of the questions I'm asked most often by newer Christians or people in the general population. Number one: "Who is the Antichrist?" I have not got the foggiest idea. Number two: "Can I lose my salvation?" Here's how I'd answer that. If you are one of His sheep, and you hear His voice, and you know Him, and He gives you eternal life — when does eternal life end? It doesn't. Therefore, you cannot lose your salvation.
Look at how strongly He states it: "I give them eternal life, and they'll never perish. No one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and you can't be snatched from His hand." And then He says, "I and the Father are one."
We hear that and may think, "I'm not sure what that means exactly." But the Jews got it immediately. They picked up stones to stone Him. Jesus responded, "I have shown you many good works from the Father — for which of these are you stoning me?" And they said, "Not for the good works that we stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself out to be God."
So when someone says Jesus never claimed to be God, you take them right to John 10:33. That is precisely why they wanted to kill Him. He forgave sin — something only God does. He told them He was the Messiah. He said He and the Father are one. They understood the claim perfectly. Jesus said He was God.
What Jesus Predicted
That brings us to question seven: What did He predict? Turn back to Matthew chapter 16 — back to the left from John, around page 14. Matthew chapter 16, verse 21.
Jesus is with His disciples, and the entire focus of His ministry is about to shift. "From this time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, suffer many things from the elders and the chief priests and the scribes." He tells them what is going to happen: He will be killed, He will die, and He will be raised on the third day.
Jesus predicted His death — and that part is not so remarkable on its own. He also predicted His resurrection — and that is everything. If Jesus had only predicted His death, that would be unremarkable. There's a mortuary back home where most of the people I know go when they die, and I check the website a couple of times a week. I know that's a strange habit, but I was on there recently and saw that a fairly decent acquaintance's brother — someone I know much better — had died. Reading the obituary, it said he died on Thursday and that his death was unexpected. Think that through for a moment. What was unexpected was that he died on a Thursday. That he died at all is not unexpected. There is nobody who
What Happened After Jesus Died?
"Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the Patriarch David that he both died and was buried and is in the tomb with us this day." That is Peter in Acts chapter 2, verse 29, and here is his point: you all know David, you love David, David is part of that whole lineage going back to Abraham. We know him, and he lived — but he died, he was buried, and he is still buried. Verse 32: "But Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses." He said they buried Jesus, but He rose from the dead.
One of the great things God did in my life was when I had been a believer maybe a year or two, and Sky's Till Bible Church put on a seminar. Josh McDowell came to town and put on a seminar called *The Resurrection Factor*. A book came out — I think it is out of print, but it would be worth finding on eBay — and it is also a subset of *Evidence That Demands a Verdict*. In it, Josh goes through systematically what the Bible says, the historic record, the facts, and the precautions that God put in place, until at the end you have, I think, overwhelming evidence that Jesus rose from the dead. If you go home and just Google "resurrection facts," the second, third, or fourth sites that pop up are just fact after fact after fact about the resurrection.
Jesus said He would rise from the dead, and then He did. Now if you do not believe this, you have a problem, and the problem is this: no matter what you say, you are not a Christian. I will meet people who say, "I'm a Christian, but I don't believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ." Well, you have redefined the word Christian. Paul writes in Romans chapter 10, verse 9: "If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believed in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." If you do not believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ, that is one of those essentials.
The resurrection is the cornerstone of our faith. We love to say it this way: the resurrection is God's "Amen" to Jesus on the cross saying, "It is finished." When Jesus said "It is finished," they buried Him, and one could have wondered — but then, on the third day, God raised Him. That is the answer. What happened after He died? He rose from the dead.
The Ascension: The Concluding Event
What was the concluding event in Jesus's time on earth? We turn to the very end of Luke's gospel, Luke chapter 24, verse 50: "Jesus leads them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and He blessed them, and while He was blessing them He parted from them and was carried away into heaven." After that, they were worshiping Him, and they returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple praising Him.
Then Luke, writing volume two — the book of Acts — records this in Acts 1:9: "After Jesus had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight." I love the pictures you see when a space shuttle launches and the cameras are on the people who are watching. Every time it is the same — every head tilting upward, every face swept away. No one is checking the time. I cannot even fathom what that moment had to be like. They are talking to Jesus, He is giving them some final instructions, and all of a sudden He ascends.
I know it was an awesome moment because what follows tells us they began to worship Him. Why? It was clear at that point: He had died, He had risen again, and now He ascends into heaven. This is God. This is Jesus. He came to save His people from their sins. This is our hope. So we do not need to be afraid — we are completely fearless, continuously joyful, and constantly in trouble if we are living this life. That is just how it is.
What Jesus Said He Would Do in the Future
Here is the tenth thing: what did Jesus say He would do in the future? Turn to John's gospel, chapter 14. This is His last night with His disciples, and He says to them: "Do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again, and I will receive you to Myself, and where I am, there you will go also."
The very last two verses of the Bible echo this same promise. John tells us what Jesus said: "Yes, I am coming quickly." He is coming again. Christmas is always a hard message for me to give, but I think the message this year is going to be this: here is this little, meek Jesus who comes into the world, and I think we tend to leave Him that way. The reality is, when He comes back, He is coming back as a conquering King.
Jesus Is Who He Said He Was
Right after this, Jesus says, "I go to prepare a place for you." Thomas is there and says, "We don't have a clue what you're talking about. We don't know the way." And Jesus replies, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me."
What did we learn over these two weeks? We learned that you and I have a problem, and the problem is sin. Sin has so incapacitated us that there is nothing we can do about it on our own. We are hopeless and helpless left to ourselves.
But God moves. Jesus comes to the earth, conceived of a virgin — God come in the flesh, pre-existing, eternally God. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: the triune God. If you are sitting there thinking, "I don't have a clue what that means," there are men in the front of the chapel and in the front of the conference room who are here to meet with you and talk through these things.
What Jesus Did and What It Means
Jesus declared that He is God, and then He backed it up. He did miracles. He raised Lazarus from the dead, and that should grab your attention. When I understand that, I want to know everything He says — what He says about me, what He says about Himself, what He says about the whole world.
And then He said, "Here is what is going to happen. I am going to die." No big deal. "I am going to rise from the dead." Big deal. And then He did it. And then He ascended into heaven. Ladies and gentlemen, He is who He said He was.
You Are Who He Says You Are
And you are who He says you are. You are a sinner, lost, and trying almost instinctively to do something about it. You want to fix it. You know there is something wrong. You look around and something is wrong in the world. Something is wrong with you. You know it. You do not even need to be told — you instinctively know something is not right, and you want to fix it. That might even be why you are here today.
Maybe you are thinking, "I'll go to church. I'll start doing these things and stop doing those things." But He is not looking for you to start doing this and stop doing that. I was in a group recently with some men who said they were Christians, and when we started talking about the distinctives of the Christian life, everything they described was about an ethic, about a behavior. But the Christian life at its core is about what we believe, and then what that belief does in our lives.
Consider this: when we begin working up in the Broadway corridor, you are going to see pagan humanists in there working harder than you and doing better things than you. But they are not going to heaven. That is not a judgment I am making — God made that judgment. They say they do not know Christ. They say God does not exist. They are not confessing Him as Lord. They are not believing. Doing good works is not impressing God. He is not blown away by your good works. It is about what we believe, which then eventually changes how we behave.
What We've Covered
Week one: what is the matter with people? Sin. Week two: what is so special about Jesus? He said He was God, and then He backed it up. He did the miracles. He gave us this book.
Looking at the sweep of the story — this point represents Jesus' birth as a human being, and this point represents His ascension into heaven. There is one little event right in the middle: He dies on the cross. What is the big deal there? Why did He die on the cross? What is so important about that? That is what we will look at next week.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for this amazing truth. I know there are people who have been through this many times, and I have been through it a few times myself. Every time I do, I am struck by two things: what a sinful person I am, and what a great Savior You are. God, just drill that deep into our minds. Let Your Spirit invade our hearts.
For those who are maybe a little uncomfortable right now, I pray You would make them not merely uncomfortable but miserable — miserable until they come to You in repentance and faith. I pray You would give them the courage to talk to the men in the front of the room, even right now, or to speak with the people who brought them here today. God, we love You. We worship You. In Christ's name, amen.