This morning I would like to explore one of the most important questions we face… Who is Jesus? Our answer to this question has big and eternal consequences.
Many people see Jesus with only one eye.
You’ve probably heard people say “Jesus was a good man”. This is true. But He is so much more.
You’ve probably heard people describe Him as a “wise teacher” or as Moslems describe Him… “a prophet”. Again, this is true. But He is so much more.
You may have even heard people go as far as describing Him as “their saviour”. This is very true. But He is so much more.
There are a million and one different views of Jesus. In many cases they are true. But in many cases they only paint part of the picture.
This morning I would like to outline the bare minimum of who Jesus is. I intentionally say “bare minimum” because I want to recognise that Jesus grabs hold of our lives in different ways.
I have two reasons for doing this.
1. For those of you who do not know Jesus… I want you to meet Jesus. So this morning is going to be like when a friend of yours introduces you to a friend of theirs. Your friend will tell you about this person you are about to meet so you already have a bit of a foundation to start a friendship on. So this is what we are going to do.
2. For those of you who do know Jesus… I want us to gain a fresh and invigorated passion for just how amazing Jesus is. As the video highlighted, sometimes we lose the sense of just how amazing Jesus’ ministry and example was. And sometimes we forget that Jesus is both our saviour AND our God. Other times we forget that Jesus walked the same road we are walking.
So… Who is Jesus?
There are five core descriptors of who Jesus is…
1. Firstly, He was Mary’s son and He grew up to be a man.
2. Secondly, He is the greatest, wisest teacher ever.
3. Thirdly, He is the perfect example of how we should live in harmony with the will of God.
4. Fourthly, He is our saviour – through His redemptive work, saving us from the penalty for our sin and giving us a new hope.
5. And finally, He is God – sovereign and reigning over all creation.
We will have a look at what the Bible says about each of these. Before we do, I should point out that not many people argue about one to three. There is solid historical evidence that Jesus lived. There is also very strong collaborative and logical evidence that the biblical story of Jesus is true.
What people do argue a lot about is four and five which are in affect the implications of the biblical story being true.
So with that context… let’s have a look at…
Jesus the man
Jesus was a man. In John 1:14 the Bible says that “…the Word…”, meaning God, “…became human and made His home among us…”.
One of the really important theological concepts to grasp is that God came into human history as a man for a period of time. Jesus was NOT a man who became God because He was good. It is very clear that because of our sinful nature, humans are not able to be ‘good enough’ to become God.
This is actually a big differentiating issue between what we as Christians say and what all other religions say. And I think, when you really get honest with yourself, that it makes sense.
We get a reasonable sense from the Gospels, particularly Luke 2, of Jesus as a man.
Growing up, Jesus was very much like other young Jewish boys of that time. He was circumcised. He was named. He was presented to the Lord at the Temple. He grew up strong and healthy.
Later we see Jesus taking part in a wedding feast (John 2:1-12), sharing a meal with people (Luke 19:1-8), sleeping (Luke 8:23), being tempted (Matthew 4:1-11)… and eventually dying (Luke 23:46).
Jesus, being fully human, took part in all of the human experience… except sin.
In John 1:14 Jesus is described as “…full…” - not half full or full most of the time – but “… full of unfailing love and faithfulness.”. In other words, though He was tempted, He DID NOT SIN. We see in Matthew 4 Jesus being tempted with power and hunger – representing for all you Maslow-philes both His base needs and His affirmation needs. Yet He DID NOT SIN.
In fact when the Roman centurion oversaw Jesus being crucified, he said “…Surely this man was innocent…” (Luke 23:47).
No one could honestly point to anything with which to accuse Jesus – accept that He claimed to be God – which as it happened, is true!
So… it is really important to understand that Jesus was a man… human like us. We can identify with Him. We can be confident that He knows what it is like to be human.
Jesus our teacher
Jesus was the great teacher. This fact is pretty universally recognised.
Actually just this week Elton John… of all people… said that “…he admired the teachings of Jesus…”. And then with the next breath announced that he wanted to ban all religion because it bred hatred of his homosexual lifestyle.
In His day, even Jesus’ opponents recognised Him as a great teacher. In Matt 22:15-22 the Pharisees try to trap Jesus but instead they came away amazed by what they hear.
The general public recognised Jesus as a great teacher. “The people were amazed at his teaching, for he taught with real authority – quite unlike the teachers of religious law” (Mark 1:22).
Jesus taught about a large array of issues. You can divide these into four areas:
1. Repent! Basically this means recognise your sinfulness, turn away from it and place your faith in Him.
2. He explained what the law really meant in the context of the Kingdom of God.
3. He showed people what the Kingdom of God is like and how to start establishing it.
4. He prophesised about what would happen to Him.
If you want to personally discover how much Jesus still teaches us, read a chapter of Matthew each day for a month.
The last point is interesting. Jesus prophesised about His death and resurrection. He was bang on the money.
Jesus was a great teacher and He still teaches us today.
Jesus our example
Jesus is our example. Jesus’ life, as recorded by those around Him, was and still is, a walking, living, breathing example for us to follow.
Let’s quickly run through just some of the characteristics Jesus demonstrated to us…
• (Matt 14:14) Compassion –
• (Luke 19:1-8) Reaching out to the social ‘underbelly’ of society –
• (Luke 20:1-8) Humility –
• (Luke 19:45-48) Social Justice –
• (Luke 20:20-26) Respect for Authorities –
• (Mark 10:13-16) Blessing others –
• (Luke 11:1-13) How to pray –
• (Luke 10:30-37) Caring –
• (Luke 11:37-54) Criticising hypocrisy –
• (Luke 13:31-35) Grief over this world –
• (John 13:1-17) Being a servant –
Probably the characteristic that stands out the most – by virtual of it is the hardest for us to follow – is that of being totally surrendered to the will of God.
In Luke 22:42 Jesus prayed… “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine”.
This prayer was a reflection of Jesus’ life. He was totally surrendered to doing what God wanted Him to be doing.
As we try to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, this I think is the hardest thing to do. Too often our own will overrides what God would have us do.
One of the things to note about these many characteristics that Jesus demonstrated was that they were quite opposite to the way that many of the religious leaders of the day thought. For instance most of the nation thought that the Kingdom of God would be ushered in with a powerful ruler who would blow away anyone, like the Romans, who got in His way.
Yet Jesus was the antithesis of the religious leaders view... which explains why they found it so hard to see who Jesus was.
So Jesus provided us the example of how to live our lives in harmony with God’s will.
Jesus our saviour
Jesus is our saviour. In some ways this is part of His example to us. By being resurrected from the dead, He shows us that we will be too.
But what does it really mean to be “our saviour”? There are a number of aspects to this. Paul sets this out clearly in Ephesians 2:4-7:
4 But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, 5 that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) 6 For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus. 7 So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus.
So what can we pull out from these verses:
1. Our salvation is because of God’s rich mercy… His grace.
2. Our salvation is because God loves us
3. We were dead because of our sin
4. We are raised from the dead… the spiritually dead… into life through Jesus
5. Because we are united by faith with Jesus we will join Him in heaven
6. Why… so God can point to us as examples of His grace and kindness
This is what it means to be saved. Death has no hold on us… just as it had no hold on Jesus. We are freed to live life now. And we will be with Him in heaven.
Now this descriptor of Jesus – Jesus is our saviour - is probably the most argued about. This is because as Christians we believe the role of saviour is exclusive to Jesus. We believe there is NO other way to be saved except through being united with Jesus. This causes great offence to those who believe other things because we are basically saying they are either blind or a fool.
If you don’t have a belief about your eternity, then you are blind. If you believe some other religion, we say you are being fooled.
Now there are a couple of arguments against Jesus being the saviour that I want to look at.
Firstly… “surely there are other ways for ‘good’ people to enter eternity”. There are two countering arguments against this…
1. No one is good enough to enter heaven off their own efforts.
2. Jesus said. In John 14:6 Jesus says “…I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” He doesn’t say “I am a way”… He claims to be exclusive. And just to clarify the point, He then says “…No one can come to the Father except through me”.
The second argument goes… “prove Jesus rose from the grave”. Well you can’t conclusively. What you can say is that:
1. The biblical account points to many people seeing Jesus after He was crucified. In one case over 500 at one time. It is pretty difficult to get 500 people to fake something and not spill the beans.
2. The New Testament authors challenged people who did not believe this claim to go and talk to those who saw Jesus after He was crucified. At the time these texts were written there were plenty of people alive who had seen Jesus – both before and after His crucifixion. There seem to be no fear of people investigating.
3. Roughly a third of the world’s population identifies themselves as followers of Jesus. Why on earth would a third of the world follow a dead man – a liar – a lie? If this is a con then it is a con of biblical scale – excuse the pun.
4. And finally, there are a truckload of people in this very room who will testify to how Jesus came into their life, turned it upside down and now they live for Him. How can Jesus do this if He is still dead?
Despite the arguments that people have about Jesus, it is important to know that what Jesus claimed, he delivered on. If you have faith in Him then you are united with Him and hence you will pass through death… you will spend eternity with Him. You can be sure of that.
Jesus our God
Jesus is our God. John Chapter One makes this very explicit.
1 In the beginning the Word already existed.
The Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
2 He existed in the beginning with God.
3 God created everything through him,
and nothing was created except through him.
4 The Word gave life to everything that was created,[a]
and his life brought light to everyone.
5 The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness can never extinguish it.[b]
6 God sent a man, John the Baptist,[c] 7 to tell about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony. 8 John himself was not the light; he was simply a witness to tell about the light. 9 The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.
10 He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. 11 He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. 12 But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. 13 They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.
14 So the Word became human[d] and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness.[e] And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.
15 John testified about him when he shouted to the crowds, “This is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘Someone is coming after me who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before me.’”
16 From his abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another.[f] 17 For the law was given through Moses, but God’s unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God,[g] is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us.
“The Word” is Jesus.
In Mark 15:39, as Jesus died, his Roman executioner exclaims “…This man truly was the Son of God”. This is a non-believing Roman with so much blood on his hands. Yet he recognises who Jesus is.
The demons recognised Jesus as God… having the power to cast them into hell.
Jesus repeatedly demonstrated His sovereignty… His control… His authority… over all things. Jesus brought people back to life… multiple times. He healed so many people they lost count. He feed thousands of people with food that was really only enough for one person. He vanished. He calmed a storm. He walked on water.
These are amazing demonstrations. I mean, if you ever have delusions of grandeur… if you ever think you are a really powerful dude… just try crossing the Cook Strait by foot. Let me know how you get on.
Doing all these things didn’t make Him God… but they showed He has power and authority that is only really explainable by Him being God.
Conclusion
So let’s bring this all together.
Who is Jesus?
1. He was a man
2. He is our teacher
3. He is our example
4. He is our saviour
5. He is God
This is what Jesus claimed. This is what the Old Testament prophets predicted. This is what the writers of the New Testament testified to. This is what other historical accounts corroborate.
For many people Jesus is more. However I am not sure the biblical account clearly includes more. Some people suggest that Jesus was a friend to His disciples. Many people describe their relationship with Jesus as “friends”. I guess I wonder whether Peter felt Jesus was his friend when Jesus called him Satan? (Mark 8:31-33)
That said, it seems to me that Jesus does reach into voids in His followers lives and fills them. To the fatherless He becomes their father… and so on. I think this is very much on a relationship basis however.
So why have we been talking about these five descriptors? I want to suggest this morning that we frequently focus on one or two and then proceed to lose perspective on just who Jesus is… just how amazing He is.
I just mentioned an example of where this happened. Mark 8:31-33
Then Jesus began to tell them that the Son of Man[a] must suffer many terrible things and be rejected by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but three days later he would rise from the dead. 32 As he talked about this openly with his disciples, Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. 33 Jesus turned around and looked at his disciples, then reprimanded Peter. “Get away from me, Satan!” he said. “You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.”
Peter forgot that Jesus is his God. Peter forgot that Jesus was his teacher. Peter just saw Jesus as a man. You might get the impression from this text that Jesus was not terribly happy about Peter reprimanding Him.
Many Christians see Jesus just as their saviour… their ticket into heaven. The term “fire insurance” is often used. We sometimes rest on the surety of our salvation and do not surrender our lives to Jesus. Or we “hide” bits of our lives – as if we could really hide from Jesus?
When we do this I think we are denying who Jesus is.
This is a really really important point… so I am going to repeat it…
When we lose perspective on just who Jesus is, we end up denying who Jesus is.
So…
If you don’t know Jesus, I hope this morning you have caught a glimpse of who He is. My prayer is that you might be interested in getting to know Him.
If you already know Jesus, then I have a challenge for you. This week think about who Jesus is to you. Maybe you could ask these questions:
• Do I know that Jesus has walked an even tougher path than me and made it?
• Do I recognise that what Jesus taught is applicable to me?
• Do I long to follow in Jesus’ footsteps?
• Do I know that Jesus died and was raised… and what does this mean to me?
• Is Jesus my God - Lord over all aspects of my life?
My prayer this morning is that each of us individually would know Jesus… the man, the teacher, the example, the saviour… our God.
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