Who Is Jesus?

In January 1804, Thomas Jefferson was the President of the United States, the third U.S. President, and he ordered from a Philadelphia bookseller two copies of the King James Bible. Not the new King James, which I have here, but the one that Jesus Christ had, the King James Bible.

And over several weeks, Jefferson sat in his office there in the White House, and he began to go through the Gospels. Jefferson was a rationalist at that time. He was what is called a deist. He believed in God, but he didn't necessarily believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. And he took the Gospel accounts of all the stories and all the material that is there about Jesus, and he began with a razor blade, cutting out the sections that he wanted to preserve.

What Jefferson did over a period of time was basically cut out anything dealing with Jesus' miracles, his healings, and anything else. He cut out anything dealing with references to Jesus being the Son of God and those particular matters, the resurrection, the incarnation, and anything that smacked of mysticism or, as he would put it, the supernatural. He just basically cut out the wise sayings of Jesus because that's all that he looked at Jesus as being was a kind of a wise rabbi that kind of tottered around Galilee in his day, uttering wise sayings. He cut those out and pasted them into his own little folio, a book, and that then he published under the name of the philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth, put together by Thomas Jefferson. It was a truncated Gospel. It was an excised version, very heavily edited, of the Gospels and the story of Jesus Christ. And by doing so, Thomas Jefferson really became America's first Bible critic and Bible scholar in one sense, and certainly a critic by determining what he would cut and paste into another document to create what some have called the American Jesus. After that, many other people have formed their own ideas and teachings and images of Jesus Christ down through the years, particularly in American history in our own time. Every generation, it seems, has reimagined what Jesus was, who he was, and kind of formed their image of Jesus in their own mind, in their own image. The Library of Congress has over 17,000 books published in America since our founding, just on Jesus alone. That's more than twice as many books on Shakespeare that are in the Library of Congress that are on Shakespeare. So he has been a topical figure throughout all of American history, and yet when it all comes down to it, so little is really known about Jesus Christ.

Every generation has formed their own image, and yet so little is known about the message that he gave. There's been focus on the good things that he did. At some periods of time, Jesus has been made into a social worker, kind of a super social worker who went around feeding the poor, taking care of their physical needs, and preaching human responsibility for doing that.

Others have made Jesus into kind of a radical figure, a revolutionary figure. He overturned the religious structures of his day, and so that example has been used by people throughout the generations to justify a revolutionary approach in the name of Jesus Christ. We have even here in Indiana our own Lou Wallace, who was born, I believe, up here and lived up in Crawfordville.

Lou Wallace was a Civil War general, a Hoosier, and he wrote a book after the Civil War called Ben Hur, which later was made into a movie starring, of all people, Charlton Heston, whichever one of us has probably seen before. But the Ben Hur story is really a story of the Christ.

That's the subtitle of the book. It's a story of the Christ. And in that period of the late 19th century in America, the image that was portrayed of Jesus through the book Ben Hur was that of a very muscular, outdoor type of Jesus, a very manly figure, which tells, in one sense, perhaps one part of the story. But again, used by human beings to promote a particular point of view or a social agenda or an ideological idea doesn't tell the entire story. And you can go right down the list, even down into our time, the 1960s, the counterculture movement that began in the 1960s among the youth. And among many, one segment of the youth, there was a movement of among what we called then the hippies of people who were very religious, and they had their image of Jesus, and they were called Jesus freaks. Some of you will remember that term that was referred to in the late 1960s, early 1970s, of a group of young people as part of that movement who had a particular image of Jesus in their own time and way. And back then, we had the big rock musical Jesus Christ Superstar that kind of became a banner and an emblem of that version, another version of Jesus, which was not a very complimentary, nor was it an accurate version of Jesus. The idea is that every generation has had its own version of Jesus and created Jesus in their own image. There was a book we used to refer to that was printed in the 1920s called The Man Nobody Knows. The Man Nobody Knows. How many of you ever heard of that book by the author's name?

It was Bruce Barton. The older members will remember we used to talk about it in the church a number of years ago. Bruce Barton was a businessman in the 1920s, and he wrote a book about Jesus. And in the book, The Man Nobody Knows, he talked about Jesus more from a capitalistic business perspective and emphasizing Jesus in that light.

All of these particular images don't tell the whole story when you really look at what the real Jesus is all about. Because most images, most books, most people's views at any particular time, miss the core of Christ's message and his meaning for the world and wind up making Jesus into their own image because most books miss the key thoughts, the key principles and passages that are given to us in this book, primarily in the four Gospels, but also from the other writings of the epistles, as well as the prophecies of Jesus from the Old Testament to give a complete picture of who the real Jesus really was. And that has been a problem for virtually every generation, and it is a problem that needs always, I think, a fresh examination from us in the church to make sure that we ourselves even know who and have our minds focused on all of the facts, all of the core principles of the Jesus of the Bible and who he really was. We used to have a booklet a number of years ago called The Real Jesus, and a book was even written by the church called The Real Jesus that hit that particular note for a period of time. It's an idea that has been carried forward.

I picked up a book just a few months ago at the bookstore called The Case for the Real Jesus, The Case for the Real Jesus, written by Lee Strobel. So you see that term and that concept is brought out by a number of authors and is still a feature that I think points to a growing need, a crying unmet need among people to really figure out who was Jesus Christ. And with all the attacks that are continually made about Jesus, his divinity, his death and his resurrection, and whether or not he was a fraud, whether he was indeed the Son of God, all of these questions that continue to swirl show the fascination, the interest, but I think most of all the real need for people to understand who Jesus was and what he was and to have that deep relationship with him to meet that need of human life. All the more for you and I to make sure that in our life we understand these most basic things that we might even ourselves take for granted about who was Jesus.

And as I prepared for this sermon today, I have to admit that I've learned a few things that I didn't know about Jesus. So it's not something we can take for granted, whether it's a technical detail about his life that we learn from the Gospels, but most importantly, the relationship matter of how we relate to Jesus and how he relates us to the Father as far as our spiritual life and understanding. Jesus Christ made the statement that he was the Son of God. Turn over, if you will, to John 19. There was never any question in Jesus' mind as to who he was, and he made it very clear that he was the Son of God in John 19. Jesus was before Pilate.

The Jews answered, in verse 7, John 19, verse 7, the Jews answered him, that is Pilate, we have a law. Because Pilate was saying, what has he done? I find no fault in him. Why is this man here? The Jews said, we have a law, and according to our law, he ought to die because he made himself the Son of God. He made himself the Son of God. That's how the Jews looked at Jesus.

He claimed that he was the Son of God. Now, that is a fantastic statement. As one writer, one Bible scholar has written about this particular claim that Jesus made in discussing the reality of who he was. To just take that as a statement of fact, he brings it down to this. Jesus was one of two things. He either was the Son of God, as he said he was, or he was a stark, raving, mad lunatic.

He just wandered in off of the dusty roads of Galilee and kind of made a name for himself.

That's all. It comes down to that. Either what he said as being the Son of Man was true or it wasn't. That's the crux of the whole question right there.

Now, the Bible goes to great length to show that indeed he was the Son of God.

Much has been written to verify the fact that he died, that he was resurrected, and that indeed that was a real event, that he was truly brought back to life. I think this book goes into that part and it's only one of dozens of books that go into that particular fact. Another book I've got here that I've been reading by an Anglican scholar, Surprised by Hope, goes into that very question in terms of the resurrection. Did he really come out of that tomb? Was he really alive after he died? That has been chewed over and worked over by scholars who come down on both sides of the question. And in the end, it is a matter of faith and belief based upon the reality of what we read, the historicity and the truth of those scriptures, but more importantly, based upon the relationship that we have in a spiritual sense with God. But Jesus made that statement, that He was God. He also made another statement that was fantastic and also helps us to understand this man that nobody knows and who the real Jesus was. Back in John chapter 8, Jesus made this statement. And again, this is little understood by people. This is overlooked and gets caught and lost in the debates about divinity and the nature of God and the cases and the subjects of the Trinity. Thomas Jefferson, by the way, did not believe in it. He thought the Trinity was one of the most bogus ideas that he'd ever read when he studied that idea theologically. Of course, he didn't believe Jesus was the Son of God, period. But when he looked just at with a rational mind at the teaching of the Trinity, he thought it was one of the most ridiculous ideas you could ever try to explain. And the way it was explained, he thought was just complete hokum. His statements on the Trinity are some interesting ones to note. But here in John chapter 8, Jesus got into another issue. And he came down here in this discourse with the Jews in verse 58 of John chapter 8. Verse 57, the Jews said to him, You are not yet 50 years old, and have you seen Abraham? He was talking about who he was in this sense. And Jesus said to them in verse 58, most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. Now that was another one of those statements that was either he was or he wasn't. He either was before Abraham, the great I am, or he was a lunatic. Now, which was he? He was saying he was the God of the Old Testament.

That he was the God who talked to Abraham. He was the God who talked to Moses. He was the God who talked to Isaac and to Jacob. That's what he was saying. He was saying that when you go back to Genesis 1 and you read that God hovered over the void and created and separated the light from the dark and created all that we see there in Genesis 1, and that the God who talked to Abraham and told him to go and sacrifice his son Isaac, he said, I am. Now, you have to couple that statement with what you read. Remember the story of Moses before the burning bush in Exodus chapter 3, where he was out tending to his herds there in the desert, and he came upon this bush that was burning, and God talked to him as he drew near, and he said, take off your shoes. And he said, who are you? He said, I am. Tell them when you go back and deliver this message, the Israelites, tell them I am. So when Jesus makes this statement in John 8 and says that before Abraham was, I am, these Jews knew exactly who he was claiming to be. He was claiming to be the God who spoke to Moses out of that burning bush. And to them, that was blasphemy. That was what the charge was.

They eventually brought before Pilate. But they could not understand that. They could not grasp that. That he was the same being. And that's why in verse 59, they picked up stones to throw at him.

But Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.

He left, but they were going to stow him. He was the Creator. He was the one who created it all.

When Paul later wrote, as he did in Colossians 1-16, that everything that is seen was made by him, speaking of Christ, the apostles, John, Paul, and the others, they came to understand, and they came to believe that he was indeed the Creator.

This might seem a bit basic and simple for us. We know that. But you know, especially this idea about Jesus being the God of the Old Testament, is an idea that most people don't understand.

It's probably one of our distinctives in the Church to explain and to help people to understand about Jesus, because people just don't understand that. Again, the knowledge and the true understanding gets lost in the idea of the Trinity, as it is attempted to be explained. But to put the Scriptures together for people at times, it's their first realization that the one who was in the cloud, as Paul said, was the rock, that he was that rock. And to wrap our minds around that is very important, as basic as it might seem. It is not basic to a majority of people, as well as a lot of other things. As I said, I learned things going through here, in preparation for this, that I just didn't realize or hadn't focused on, and the things that you put together in the Scriptures. You know, you can know that Jesus was a Jew, that he was of the tribe of Judah. We know that Jesus wasn't born on December 25th. I could kind of test you on that. I think most of you would pass those two points and get those two points. But if I were to ask you, true or false? True or false? James and John, the two apostles, James and John were were cousins of Christ. How many of you would say that that is true? James and John, the sons of thunder, remember, the sons of Zebedee. James and John were the cousins of Christ. How many of you would say that is true? How many of you would say that I get one hand? Two? Do I have three? They're here for me. How many of you would say that that is false? How many of you don't know?

Okay, that's fair, too. I didn't know either. I thought I was reading through it and studying up on it. James and John were the cousins of Jesus Christ. A little bit of trivia in one sense.

When you understand it, it helps to explain why their mother wanted the two chief seats for her two sons and made that request of Jesus because it was kind of family. You know, this is a family business. Why not keep it all in the family?

Sometimes we take for granted what we do know, and we don't go deep enough even on the things that we do know regarding Jesus Christ. The Jews of the first century certainly didn't understand who Jesus was and the reality of what he was. In the first century, the Jews were looking for the Messiah. They were looking for some relief from the Roman oppression, the Roman rule that was over them. They were looking for a restoration of the kingdom of David according to the scriptures.

They had a sense at the time Jesus was born that something was about to happen.

There was this prescient feeling in the air among Jews in the first century. That's why, and of course, certain things were happening. When Jesus was born and this star led the wise men to Bethlehem, they were looking. They came, as we're told in Matthew 2, they came looking in Bethlehem and they said, where is he who has been born king of the Jews? Let's go back over to Matthew 2 and look at that. Matthew 2, 1 and 2. After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, wise men came from the east to Jerusalem saying, where is he who has been born king of the Jews? Where we've seen his star in the east and have come to worship him. Of course, Herod looked for the same thing because later on in this chapter he asked of these same wise men where the Christ was born, where the Messiah was born. When you see the word Christ, Jesus the Christ or Jesus Christ, the Christ name refers to the Messiah and the promise of the Messiah, the one who would come according to all the Old Testament prophecies and restore the kingdom of Israel, restore the throne of David. And of course, Herod looked upon those prophecies as a threat to the power he had. He was ruling Judea through the grace of the Roman Empire. He had a pretty good gig going there in Judea at that time. So he wanted to know where is this man who's supposed to be the king of the Jews because he knew that if indeed he appeared as they all were looking, his time was over and he would pass from the scene. So he wanted to eliminate the threat that would come from the power of someone coming according to those prophecies and being the king.

And that indeed was what Jesus fulfilled in terms of the scriptures of the Messiah.

People didn't completely understand his mission. They were looking for someone to set up a kingdom.

Then that was not why he came. And that led to confusion even in the time of the disciples over in John chapter 6. Here in the first century, John chapter 6.

The beginning of verse 1, Jesus is on the Sea of Galilee, the Sea of Tiberias.

And there are multitudes there and he heals and he also performs a miracle of feeding these 5,000 people. As you go down through these verses, beginning in verse 1, down through verse 13.

He healed them, he taught them, and he fed them. They gathered up 12 baskets full of fragments of bread and fish that were left over. And after these healings, the miracles of healings and the miracle, this fantastic miracle of creating this big potluck meal for all of these people, feeding 5,000 people, they came to the conclusion that this man indeed was the prophet. Verse 14, they said, then those men, when they had seen the sign that Jesus did, they said, this is truly the prophet who has come into the world. This is the one who was promised from as far back as the time of Moses. In the book of Deuteronomy, God told Moses, and it was recorded there, that there would be a day that there would arise a prophet like me.

Moses told this to the Israelites, that there would be a prophet like me.

In a sense, a second giver of the law. And it's one of the prophecies, it's back in Deuteronomy 18, beginning in verse 15, it's a prophecy of Jesus. But that, along with so many of the other prophecies about Jesus, was what they were looking for. And they came to the conclusion here in verse 14, that this spoken of by Moses was the man in front of their eyes based on the miracles that he did.

They identified him as the same prophet, the son of Joseph the Nazareth, and they were ready to crown him. You know, stop and think about it. What better king could you have than someone who gives you all you want to eat, provides for all your needs, and heals your illnesses?

Jesus did a pretty good thing. These miracles on this side at this moment created a groundswell of support to make him king right then and there. That's what they were the same. And that was probably coursing through the crowd as people began to talk, he's the prophet, the prophet, the prophet, the prophet, the prophet! And it moved through the crowd and created, as it only does within a crowd of good size, a mass movement to make him king. And they were probably pressing forward as crowds do when they get caught up in an emotional situation. This was an emotional moment. This was a fantastic miracle. And they were ready to do something. And Jesus was not going to have any part of it. Because when he figured out what they were doing, verse 15 tells us, when Jesus perceived they were about to come and take him by force to make him king.

Take him by force. That means you lift him up on your shoulders and you carry him through the crowd.

And there was also probably thinking on the part of the many that this was a revolutionary moment.

They found their leader and he was now the focus of generations of ambition, hopes, dreams, and desires. What happened on this hillside here in Galilee on this occasion was a major, major event that spread throughout the whole region. Jesus' only recourse was to depart, to get away from it, which he did. Somehow he was able to do it. And he went again to the mountain by himself alone.

He made himself scarce. To become a human king over a mass movement and to restore the power to Israel was not a part of Jesus' mission. Not at that time. So it was misunderstood then among the Jews as they wanted to make him king. He wouldn't have anything to do with it. And that's why he came before Pilate, as we read earlier, and Pilate questioned him on it. If you remember, as you go through that account back in John 18, Jesus said, my kingdom is not of this world.

My servants would fight if it were, that I would not be delivered to the Jews. But now he said, my kingdom is not from here. The mission of Jesus was not to establish the kingdom during that time.

It was misunderstood by the Jews then, and it was misunderstood by subsequent generations.

Because the fact that he didn't do it led to later ideas that the church that he founded now was the kingdom of God on the earth. That must have been then what the scriptures meant.

And so two, three hundred years after Jesus' death, when the church became the recognized legitimate religion of the Roman Empire, and there was this marriage between church and state, the theological underpinnings of that movement led to the teaching that the church was the kingdom of God on the earth, and the leader of the church humanly was the vicar of Christ ruling for him.

And you had a whole new theology to begin to then define itself as Christian. And again, misinterpret the mission of the church, but certainly to misinterpret and misunderstand the mission of Jesus. Jesus and the prophecies regarding the Messiah, when you put them all together, they were very real, and they still are. But they were especially poignant to the Jews in the first century, and they were looking for it to happen, and they wanted it to happen.

But it didn't, and it hasn't to this time. Those prophecies of the Messiah were kind of like looking at the stars. When you go out that night, and you look up and you see all the the canopy of the stars, from our point of view, they look all to be about the same distance.

But you know, and I know if you study science and astronomy, that those stars are not the same distance away. That what might appear to be a very close star is indeed millions and millions, if not billions, of light years away. And that's some that look fainter, maybe even closer than those that look brighter. But from our point of view, they all kind of look like a big canopy spread out above us. That's kind of the way the prophecies of the Old Testament, dealing with the Messiah, are like. The Jews then couldn't tell which of the prophecies were closer. They thought they were all closer, not realizing that they were even further away from their own time than they could even hope or imagine. The prophecies at that time appeared to the Jews, and they expected them to be fulfilled by the single coming of a Messiah. And they didn't know that it was going to be far more than 2,000 years from their time. They couldn't even begin to fathom that. They didn't know that. But they thought it was then. The distance, the time and distance between prophecies is a very important matter as well in understanding the mission of Jesus Christ. They misunderstood Him then, and He's misunderstood today for all these reasons.

There are other matters that we look at in terms of what Jesus did that define who He really was, and again, are misunderstood by people today. You and I know that Jesus kept the Sabbath.

That He kept the Seventh-day Sabbath, this day that we're meeting on today, Saturday as the Sabbath.

We have no question in our mind, or at least we shouldn't, as to which day of the week was the day of worship commanded in the law of God and which day Jesus kept. He did not do away with this part of the law or any other part of the law. He didn't change the Sabbath day by His teaching. He didn't change it by His resurrection. It is still very much a part of the law of God.

The Bible shows us that Jesus kept the Sabbath. In Luke 4, we find that it was His custom to keep the Sabbath. Luke 4, verse 16, He came to Nazareth where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. A very unique story within the gospel here that took place. But what we are told here in verse 16 of Luke 4 is that it was His custom to keep the Sabbath, which meant that He had been keeping it a year earlier, five years earlier, ten years earlier. He was raised as a child keeping the Sabbath, and He kept it every day, every week on the same cycle throughout His ministry until the last day of His life. Now, we again understand that and realize that, but keeping in mind this is another part of the distortion of the story about Jesus that keeps the reality from shining through in people's minds and understanding who He was, what He did, and what He taught. Some people think that He annulled all of the commandments, nailed them to the cross. Some think that He replaced the Sabbath with Himself, that He is now our rest. Another misinterpretation. Some believe that there's no Sabbath at all that is needed now that you can worship God on any day of the week, that you choose half a day on Thursday morning for an hour Monday night or 30 minutes on Sunday morning, whatever you want to do, because under the New Covenant all time is holy and that type of gobbledygook speak has convinced some that the idea of a specific period of time during the week, sunset to sunset, is the Sabbath, is bogus, and was done away in all or in part by the teaching, resurrection, or example of Jesus Christ. Some say, of course, the traditional teaching is that by His resurrection the Sabbath was transferred to the first day of the week, the day on which He did, He was resurrected, and that then becomes then the proof idea, approach for changing the Sabbath from the seventh day of the week to the first day of the week. When you read through the scriptures on the Sabbath you'll find that Christ was challenged by the religious leaders, the Pharisees, about mostly the things that He did on the Sabbath, the way He observed the Sabbath. The Jews had added many traditions to the Sabbath, to the law, and ultimately those traditions and all that they had added to became burdens upon the people. To where you even see today, you see the remnants of those when you go to Israel today, you go into the Orthodox areas of Jerusalem that are and for that part all of Israel comes under Sabbath strictures set by the rabbis and the religious Jews. If you are there on the Sabbath, which we were last year, you go into a hotel on the Sabbath and there may be a bank of five elevators that you would normally use.

On the Sabbath there's only one and it stops at every floor so that you don't have to push the button to get a spark going and to kindle a fire on the Sabbath. That's the way they work.

They wouldn't let me go on the internet on the Sabbath in the hotel, but there was a young Arab guy working behind the counter and he doesn't keep the Sabbath and I convinced him that I needed to get on the internet and he let me he gave me a free pass to get on the internet when by law you can't even use the internet in a hotel on the Sabbath. So, of course, he was working on a Sabbath as an Arab because he doesn't keep the Sabbath.

I looked out the hotel window shortly after sunset on Friday night and I saw we were actually our hotel was right across the street from a very strict Orthodox section of the city and I saw that they had begun to put up barrier they put up barriers to keep cars from going into that neighborhood and there was a trucks park there and the guy got out and walked away from it got up the next morning Saturday morning looked out the window that truck was still there set there all day until Saturday night he happened to get caught in the neighborhood and he couldn't get out he had to leave it because of the the the Jewish laws regarding the Sabbath as they interpret them within Israel you see some interesting things when you go there and see how they attempt to impose that upon the the Sabbath or on that land it and it they become burdens these are the matters Christ dealt with the one occasion that we read in the book of Mark where Jesus and his disciples were going through the fields on the Sabbath in Mark chapter 2 you remember that one and they were hungry and they picked off some barley some corn because they were hungry wanted a snack Mark chapter 2 verse 23 they plucked the heads of the grain and the Pharisees saw it and they said look why do you do what is not lawful on the Sabbath eating and a mild preparation on the Sabbath even was something that they had forbidden and was not lawful and Christ went back to the example of David to explain to them that it was indeed lawful but in verse 27 he uttered a very very simple truth that cut to the heart of the whole issue he said to them the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath the Sabbath is a blessing Sabbath is a gift it should never ever be a burden as we observe God Sabbath in it from a scriptural perspective and our human ideas human traditions that are added on eventually become burdens the Sabbath was made for man as a gift to help us relate to God to stop the focus to observe to keep holy that is a gift that is not a burden and when practiced and understood in the right way when actually used as God intends the Sabbath indeed you begin to understand that it is a gift and Jesus was saying to these disciples as you did in verse 28 therefore the Son of Man is also the Lord of the Sabbath people who think that Jesus did away with the Sabbath in any way by any part of his teaching or his life or his death or subsequent interpretation miss the point and don't understand the real Jesus they don't understand this man and it becomes again a man nobody knows he was the Lord of the Sabbath he said it was made for man he was saying to these Pharisees that he had the authority over the Sabbath and therefore could tell how it was observed that's what he was saying he was looking them straight in the eyes and saying to them that he was the one who gave the law of the Sabbath and he was the one who created the Sabbath by resting on it it was another indirect way of saying that he was the God of the Old Testament but he was the one who can who could say to the jews you don't have a right to tell the people how to keep God's law I'm the one who gave the law I'm the one who made it and put it there in the first place I know why it was commanded and I know how it's intended to be observed that's what he said to these Pharisaical religious leaders at this point here's a picture of a man who was not afraid of people he would not back down in the face of unrighteousness and intimidation he corrected them they didn't change he didn't change but what he did was he set the record straight he set the record straight for us his example and his teaching on the Sabbath is a key to our approach on the day it is indeed a gift from God to man and an opportunity to contemplate and experience the life of the Father and Jesus Christ and why it is so important brethren that we do be mindful of how we keep the Sabbath because it does connect us to the real Jesus it connects us to the man nobody knows which in turn connects us to the Father and that's why a periodic checkup personal checkup by each of us on how we are actually using this time is very very important to this matter of our relationship with Jesus Christ another thing that Jesus very clearly did was to preach the coming of the kingdom of God in Mark chapter one we're right here verse 14 we read that after John was put in prison Jesus came to Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God and saying the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand repent and believe in the gospel he taught that the kingdom was a literal kingdom that was going to come to the earth now most people don't understand the kingdom of God they don't understand Jesus' teaching on it and as a result they don't understand him they don't know that it isn't that his message of the kingdom was about a literal kingdom a government that was both divine and royal ruling over literal people on the earth it was just not going to happen at that time it was not something symbolic or spiritual it was not a sentiment that exists only in people's mind or hearts the scriptures very clearly show far more than that and Jesus merely continued the prophecies about this kingdom that had begun to be revealed in the old testament and Isaiah too into what is probably the most famous one that we we read beginning in verse 3 you will go back to Isaiah chapter 2 and look there we read that over here as we go to the Feast of Tabernacles and we used to have that as a part of our shield and in the church and structure in Isaiah chapter 2 beginning in verse 3 where it says many people shall come and say come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord to the house of the god of Jacob he'll teach us of his ways and we will walk in his paths for out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem he shall judge between the nations and rebuke many people that they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks nation shall not lift up sword against nation sheet neither shall they learn war anymore of course the united nations has made that a model and the personific the actual image and symbol of that in front of the united nations with a man beating a sword into a plowshare the very famous symbol that we've all seen this as well as many many other scriptures from Isaiah Jeremiah from Ezekiel and the other prophets in the Old Testament point to the fact the reality of a kingdom to be on this earth and the essence of it is right here in Isaiah 2 a place a kingdom where god's law will be taught where all nations will go to Jerusalem for judgment where war will cease these are this is the the essence of the prophecies of the Messiah of the millennium of a messianic kingdom the kingdom of peace or as artists like to portray it the peaceable kingdom we've all seen pictures of the peaceable kingdom and various forms of it of the lion laying down with a lamb a little child leading them it's been a subject of artists in many different forms and shapes and it has been the driving ambition of social movements revolutionary movements of political or social nature bound through the generations as one form will come to overthrow a monarchy such as the French did in 1789 when they stormed the Bastille when they they arrested King Louis XIV and eventually in time cut off his head and that of his wife Marie Antoinette and then they turned it cutting off their own heads to where they got to the point in the revolution where only one man a Napoleon had could could come and pull it all back together and end the madness and the carnage and then institute his own dictatorship but they were overthrowing a monarchy to establish justice liberty fraternity and equality as they said the front in the model model of the French revolution wanting to do exactly what Adams and Washington and Jefferson and Franklin had done in in America except over here we didn't cut off their heads they did that in France but whatever revolutionary movement you look at whatever social movement that might come up to to try to bring about justice equality and fairness has always failed you can go down through the pages of history and see that i was reading i have a book that i go back to every once in a while that goes through all of the prophets written by a jewish scholar he's actually not a religious leader he's a he's a he's a writer and an author and he wrote a book about the prophets and he came down to his one of his concluding mark remarks was that when you when you do a study of the bible of all of the prophecies of the millennium of the kingdom of god or the messiah however you want to term it he said you're left with one conclusion that human beings will not bring that about that if they are true the only way they will come come to pass he writes is by the appearance of a messiah no human body no government no man no woman no system can bring it to pass that is a lesson of history and his conclusion was if they're true then it will be done by the appearance of the messiah that indeed was jesus's message it was not to happen then but it was going to happen in the future and christ spent a number a good portion of his time making that very clear in luke chapter 19 luke chapter 19 as he was nearing jerusalem verse 11 this was at the time prior to his death they heard these things he spoke another parable because he was near jerusalem and because they thought the kingdom of god would appear immediately the camp followers that had been around jesus on this march to jerusalem and wasn't a kind of it wasn't a military march but it was a his travels from gallantly to jerusalem just as at the time of the passover gathered a lot of people around him he was a very famous personality and as they were ascending the heights of jerusalem he realized that they thought that he that he was going to bring the kingdom now and so he gives us parable of the nobleman who goes off into a far country and i will not take the time to go through all of that here but he gave that to show them that it wasn't going to happen then that he was like that nobleman going off in a far country and he was going to leave things to be done and that he would return and that he would require an accounting and a judgment would be made he just wasn't telling them how long it would be and all that would go go on he framed it in this parable was not understood by them but he made sure that they understood that that it would come but it was not going to come then and of course when they later looked back on it after his death it it just went over their heads they again they didn't understand the real jesus then they didn't know who he was and they didn't understand his message and that has been misunderstood to this very day christ came announcing the kingdom of god but he was he was showing that that what was going to come was something far different in the future now in subsequent years within the christian faith as it developed other ideas came in about the kingdom as i already mentioned the idea that was that the church was the kingdom of god on the earth of course the idea that at death people went to a heaven people went to some type of a paradise began to take hold within the church as well and that idea became embedded again people misunderstood his message they misunderstood what he taught because they didn't know who and what he was this one book i've been reading through the summer months surprised by hope rethinking heaven resurrection and the mission of the church it's been a fascinating read sometimes people get a glimpse of scriptures when they when they do read them and can see and this is an an Anglican scholar his name is nt right he lives in durham england and he's he's had some remarkable insights into certain aspects of the scriptures and and with what some of the things he writes in this book he basically goes against the traditions of christian teaching and he is she shows that there's no heaven that when the dead die they don't go off to heaven and some passages of this book kind of read like something we might write he shows he says there's no hell and there is no heaven and this is a man who lectures in the Anglican church on these things and you wonder how he gets by with it in some cases but he said he said it comes as something of a shock in fact when people are told what is in fact the case that there is very little in the bible about going to heaven when you die and not a lot about a post-mortem hell either he goes on down he says but the language of heaven in the new testament doesn't work god's kingdom and the preaching of jesus refers not to the post-mortem destiny not to our escape from this world into another one but to god's sovereign rule coming on earth as it is in heaven and he goes on and he talks about the very reality of of the kingdom of god coming to this earth is a remarkable insight but what is unfortunate about it in the next page or two pages later he'll then talk about easter and the trinity and he doesn't it's a very classic example of how many who study the bible for what it says can be given glimpses of understanding but because they hold on to a lot of other error in his case easter because he's got he's filled with easter in here and the trinity teaching it blinds him to understanding what it all really does mean i mean he even gets into some passages passages coming off of loop 19 to show that this life is to prepare us for this kingdom to come but he can't put it all together because he doesn't keep the holy days another subject for perhaps a holy day sermon to come back to at another time so i better not go too far there and and use up all my thunder on there he's got a fascinating read and and probably the first two thirds of the book is the most valuable part of it i'm not recommending it for you know to to read as a source of theology but just to understand what the other the other half are saying or the other 99 percent are saying it's good to to have that understanding but it shows again that even when people come to see a certain part of jesus's message they still can't put it all together unless they are walking in all of the truth and most importantly god's spirit reveals that to them and to understand and to understand it brethren what do we do with all of this i i just touch can only touch on a small part of part of this in a certain one sermon regarding who jesus was what his message was what he did what he taught when he was here what do we do with all of this how do we come how do we come to know the jesus of the bible the jesus who is the king of kings the jesus who is our brotherly advocate for us today how do we come to know him better and to make sure that we do and not just the trivial information about where he was born what tribe of juda was he from and did he have cousins those are all part of the story important to get right but there's more to it it is more than just facts it is far more than just knowledge it is far more than just knowing well he was the god of the old testament that's very interesting now let's put that booklet back up and go about our life it's more than that too because knowledge has to be acted upon back to john chapter 17 john 17 some of you think i'm never going to get out of john 17 and look at this prayer of jesus verse three we'll just look at verse three john 17 and verse three jesus prays to the father this he says this is eternal life that they may know you the only true god and jesus christ whom you have sent this is dot dot dot eternal life what is eternal life this is the definition that they may know you the only true god and jesus christ whom you have sent now the word the greek word here for eternal really doesn't just refer to duration of time which as i said in a previous sermon it's kind of hard to wrap your mind around it really refers to a quality of life look at it as a explanation or as a word that teaches us about equality of life as much about living for ever and ever and ever and ever whatever that means look at it and what it teaches us about the quality of life that we are to have now eternal life other scriptures show us is only something god and christ have they only dwell in immortality they only have eternal life but if this is eternal life that we may know you the only true god and christ whom you have sent then there is something for us to understand if we're going to enter into life we're going to have eternal life to possess it and to experience it now is to do nothing more than to experience god's the way god lives and what he is now if we are to have a taste of that then we've got to understand that now knowledge or knowing god involves a level of knowledge i've gone through just some of the key points of that in this sermon that we that's important to have it's important to know that who the father is and jesus christ that jesus was the divine son of god god in the flesh who died and rose again the third day for our sins that's important knowledge you got to have that you got to understand that it was indeed the way the scriptures bring it out that he died on a wendy and that he rose just as the sun was going down three days and nights later as the sun turned to the set and the first day of the week came on the day we call sunday it's important to know that knowledge and to have that straight as well in the story it's important to know that he was the god of the old testament and why and all that he was before abraham that's knowledge and that's important to have that's what the bible is all about proverbs talks about knowledge wisdom and understanding all put together in a package to help us really fear god amis says in one of his prophecies and amis five in verse four you don't have to turn there but he says he says in quoting god god says seek me and live seek me and live as we know god as we seek knowledge of god as we apply it in our life as that knowledge makes difference we begin to take on a foretaste of that life that christ and the father live and that's what christ prayer is all about that we may know the father the only true god you know whether it's an ancient pagan religion or some modern form of paganism that worships the sun the moon the stars the rocks the trees the hills the rivers the streams there's a you know a native american mythology and religion that worships the brother moon and the wolf you get it all of that stuff and you know if you ever delve into it and read about it and any type of call it pagan mythical religion that that sees a god in every rock a god of the mountain a god of the river a god in the sun begins to look at that system looks at nature in a fearful way that those gods have to be appeased the god of thunder the god of fire have to be appeased sacrifices have to be given to them and then sometimes in the past even and even human sacrifice to appease that god when people come to know that there is only one true god as jesus prayed here in verse three it does away with all that fear that there there are gods waiting to punish but there are gods waiting to trip up people and when you come to know that that there is just one true god and jesus christ his son according to this prayer it begins to remove fear and uncertainty and opens up light and understanding to life and that is a beginning part of knowledge we can never know god until we see the real jesus in the full role that he came to do in a relationship that is based on knowledge that grows to the point of intimacy grows to the point of friendship it grows on the terms of love that's what we have to do because that's what christ came to do in john chapter one in verse 14 john chapter one in verse 14 john opens up as we all know in this section and he talks about the beginning was the word the word was god logos and various things here but what's most important is in verse 14 in the sense of knowing god and what he did that the word became flesh and dwelt among us this word this logos this entity god became flesh wrapped himself around sinew and muscle and bone and tissue and became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory we saw what life was really like we saw his glory the glory as of the only begotten of the father full of grace and truth just take verse 14 of john 1 couple that with john 17 and verse 3 in terms of what jesus prayed that we might know the the one true god and jesus christ and son that we might have eternal life but this is eternal life and john is is saying and telling us from the beginning of the book all the way through that we saw what life was really like through jesus christ through god becoming flesh we we beheld that glory and that is how we are to live with compassion empathy with understanding with patience with kindness just as jesus had and that's one image of jesus too we also have an image of jesus who was determined forceful who didn't tolerate hypocrisy who was direct and honest a jesus who could take up a little child in his arms and blessed him lay his hands upon someone who was sick and healed him stretch out his hand and perform a miracle of food being multiplied to take care of people's immediate needs give them spiritual food that would could had they listened to it guide their life and at the same time turn over the tables of greed in the very house of god as he did on two occasions would we behold those images those stories those scenes of jesus's life then we behold his glory and we are in the process of becoming sons of god god is bringing many sons to glory hebrews chapter 2 tells us our step to take with all of this knowledge and what we have about jesus and god is to wrap ourselves in divine actions just as jesus wrapped himself in human flesh to show us what god is like and what life is like we are to wrap ourselves in divinity by god's spirit and that is how we grow in character and knowledge to have the purpose and the conviction the dedication and the zeal the compassion on the week the understanding for the people all with their needs the zeal and the determination to act as christ would have acted as christ lives his life within us that's what we are to do that's how we come to know the god of the christ of the gospels the man nobody knows and that's how we are to live and if we if we do christ says he holds eternity in his hands that we believe him in him and live that way on final scripture john chapter six and verse 40 then we can have eternal life john six and verse 40 this is the will of him who sent me that everyone who sees the sun and believes in him may have everlasting life and i will raise him up at the last day this jesus holds our eternal life in his hands and he'll give it to us our salvation depends on our belief in and obedience to jesus that's a critical factor in our hope for eternal life come to know the real jesus come to know and to understand the man nobody knows