Basic Christianity: Who is Jesus?

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In this episode of Balancing the Christian Life, we ask the question who is Jesus?
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Welcome to Balancing the Christian Life.
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I'm Dr Kenny Embry.
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Join me as we discover how to be better Christians and people in the digital age.
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Have you ever stopped to truly ponder the question who is Jesus?
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It's a question that lies at the very heart of Christianity, a fundamental concept that shapes our beliefs, values and how we live our lives.
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It's not just a question for theologians or scholars.
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It's a question that everyone, regardless of their faith background, needs to wrestle with.
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Why?
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Because the answer to this question has profound implications for our understanding of the world, our purpose in life, our eternal destiny and how we're going to act.
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From the first century to today, the question of who Jesus is has really kind of challenged everyone across cultures and generations.
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It's a question that everyone, regardless of their beliefs, needs to struggle with.
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Even in Jesus' own time, people had a hard time figuring out who he was.
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Many had different answers.
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Some thought he was a prophet.
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Most everybody thought he was a teacher.
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Many wanted him to be a revolutionary or a general of an army.
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Most people who came in contact with Jesus, in my opinion, came to the wrong conclusions.
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They missed who Jesus was, and he was right in front of them.
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Today, the stakes are just as high and you have to answer the same questions.
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Today, the stakes are just as high and you have to answer the same questions.
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Choosing to ignore this question or settling for a blind, unexamined faith is dangerous and stupid.
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Grappling with this question forces us to confront the evidence, examine our own beliefs and make a real decision about who he is and how that changes our lives.
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In this episode, what we're going to be talking about is, again, just a really fundamental belief about Christianity.
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I think this is one of those episodes that I am really kind of excited about.
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We're going to be talking about Jesus.
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We will talk a little bit about the historical evidence for Jesus not much and we'll also talk about some of the most important parts of who he claimed to be and how we may know that he was exactly who he said he was.
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We'll also talk about the miracles for a little bit and why it's okay not to have a perfect understanding of who Jesus is.
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Believe me, that is a question that I still grapple with, but I think everybody does.
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I'm going to be talking to an old friend of mine.
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If you follow the podcast at all, you've probably stumbled on a few episodes where I talk to Scott Beyer.
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Scott is an evangelist up in the Louisville area.
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He's a good friend of mine.
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Now Scott is also the host of his own podcast, love Better, and I could not recommend it enough.
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I call him the Paul Harvey of the ministry.
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He has a way of telling a story and connecting it to spiritual concepts really better than anybody I know.
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Scott, let me ask you a question who is Jesus.
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Who is Jesus is fundamental.
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It is essential to Christianity.
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We call ourselves Christians.
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It's not just belief in him as a historical figure, but who is he in the history of mankind and what does his identity mean?
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The irony is that we're still asking that question now in the section of the Bible that's sometimes referred to as the Great Confession.
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That was what he asked his disciples.
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He asked him who do others say that I am?
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And then he says who do you say that I am?
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There was a variety of answers.
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Some say you're a teacher and some say you're a prophet and some think you're.
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Elijah come back and there was mixed opinions on who Jesus was.
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But then when he says, well, who do you say that I am?
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That's where Peter gives the great confession.
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He says you are the Christ, the son of the living God.
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So let's break that down for a second.
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When Peter says you are the Christ, the Christ means the anointed one or the Messiah.
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You are the savior.
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The claim of Christianity is that Jesus died for all sins.
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Now people die every day, and people die in pretty horrific ways every day.
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The crucifixion is an awful way to die, but I could point to people in the news who've died some pretty horrible deaths as well.
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There's no indication that we have that dying a torturous way somehow saves everybody.
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There has to be more to it than just a bad death, right.
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So that's one aspect of who is Jesus.
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Is he the savior?
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Has he got that capacity?
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Yeah, and let me just interject here and he's not the only innocent person to die either.
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There have undoubtedly been people who were both framed but who were mistakenly put to death.
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So the idea that Jesus is the only person who is guilt-free but convicted of a crime, that's not all that special either.
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Excellent point, yeah, convicted of a crime, that's not all that special either.
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Excellent point yeah.
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So this idea of him being an innocent person who died a horrible, undeserved death is all awful, but does not necessarily make him the savior Right.
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So the second part is you are the son of the living God.
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That, I think, is the answer to the Christ part.
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If he is the second part, the Son of God, then he can be the Christ too, because now it's not just a person dying who was innocent and dying a horrific death, it is God dying, and that is a one-off.
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It is somebody who is fully human but also fully deity.
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So he is 100% like us, but also 100% eternal.
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If that is true, it is a history-shattering truth.
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Everything else pivots and hinges on that fact, and that is exactly why Jesus says that that statement is what the church is supposed to be built on.
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That's his answer to Peter's confession, is the bedrock to what Christianity would be built on.
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If it's true, everything is different.
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If it's not true, now you have to pivot to what Paul says over in 1 Corinthians 15, where he says if Christ didn't die for our sins, if Jesus didn't die and raise from the dead, then we are pitiable creatures.
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We don't have anything that really binds our Christianity as being any better than some off-the-shelf self-help book.
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Who Jesus is is the central idea of Christianity, and I also think that one idea is the thing that oftentimes makes the difference between somebody becoming a Christian or not.
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If you agree to that assertion, you really have to be all in.
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If you don't agree to it or you have doubts about it, then you aren't.
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Everything else flows from that weren't.
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Everything else flows from that.
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Let me back up just a little bit, because you said this very quickly, but I think it's important, because who Jesus is and who he claims to be is something a little bit than almost every other religious leader.
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We're not exactly sure if there was a guy named Buddha.
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There probably was, but we're not sure.
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For many religious leaders.
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We're not exactly sure if there was a real person or if this was just a movement.
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When you start thinking about Jesus, he does claim to be a real person, and he's not the only one who is claiming that there was somebody named Jesus, that he was spending most of his time in northern Israel, that he lived and died and, as you've already pointed out, was resurrected, that this is a guy that you can actually get a history from.
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Yeah, so I am convinced.
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One of the things that makes Christianity stand out from all other religions is the public nature of the revelation of the biblical sacred writings, the scriptures.
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Right, everything said in the New Testament hinges on real historical events that either happened or they didn't.
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Right, and it's rooted in history, not mythology.
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Right, let me put it that way?
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Right, and it's rooted in history, not mythology.
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Right, let me put it that way, right.
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Right, if you go back to the Greek gods, that's mythology.
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Nobody even attempted to find any sort of historicity to it.
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Christianity is all about the historicity.
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Matthew, mark, luke and John, the first four books found in the anthology of the New Testament.
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They are all historical accounts of the New Testament.
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They are all historical accounts of the life of Jesus.
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They all claim these things actually happened.
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Luke, in particular, does an excellent job of rooting it within the history of that time.
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He tells you who was Caesar when Jesus was born.
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He tells you who the governing authorities were at different times in which Jesus lived and walked.
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He mentions historical events that would have been known to the greater world.
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The book of Acts, which characterizes and tells you the history of the church after the resurrection and Jesus' ascension does the same thing.
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This is where the movement started.
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These were the events going on at the time that it started.
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These are the names of the people who started it.
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This is how some of them died.
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All of these things would be verifiable events by people who lived in that era and we have accounts of that history today and find that it matches the archaeological data.
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It matches non-Christian sources.
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Just to name a few, you have Josephus Tacitus, pliny the Younger.
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All of these are ancient historical writers who have ancient historian writings and they mention Jesus in their writings.
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They mention the advent of Christianity, even though Josephus Tacitus and Pliny were not Christians.
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They provide corroborative evidence of Christianity's existence and Jesus's specifically, his existence as a real historical figure rooted in time and space.
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He lived in and around Israel, traveled through Galilee, samaria, judea.
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He had followers.
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It was a movement.
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He was crucified.
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These are things that are backed up by data that we find in the historical accounts of the writers and in archaeology.
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Absolutely, but one of the other, and you've already made allusion to this Jesus, especially at the end of his life, made a pretty bold claim about himself.
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Made a pretty bold claim about himself.
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What was that claim, scott?
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So are you referring to at the very end of the book of Matthew, that all authority has been given in heaven on earth?
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Is that what you're talking about?
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Yeah, and are you the king of the Jews, and that he's the king?
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And, by the way, again, idea of of messiah, another translation of that is king and and yes, really one of the things that that jesus preached, or part of his message, was the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and what you will learn at the end of jesus's story is and he's the king, he is the king and and he is bringing in his kingdom.
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So that is quite a claim there.
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You also mentioned the fact that not only is he a king, but he is God in the flesh.
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That's a pretty big claim too, scott.
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Yeah.
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So if you look at the four gospel accounts Matthew, mark, luke and John let's focus on Matthew and Luke and John for a second.
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Not that Mark isn't worth talking about, but for the sake of our discussion, each of Matthew, luke and John have a particular emphasis.
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Luke's we've talked about a little bit already.
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Luke's emphasis seems to be the historicity of Jesus.
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This is the chronological order of events.
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This is how it happened.
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This is when it happened.
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You could go and visit the empty tomb If you wanted to know.
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At that time, you could go and see where he'd been crucified.
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You could have gone to the empty tomb, and likely people did.
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The movement of Christianity began in Jerusalem, at the same place where they killed him and buried him, and yet those people believed him to be raised from the dead.
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Luke focuses on the historicity of it.
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Focuses on the historicity of it.
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Matthew seems to focus on Jesus's shocking fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies.
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If you go to the Old Testament, which was written over a thousand years, really before you start getting to Jesus, these prophecies are starting to be written about what the Christ will be like, and there's a whole myriad of them, some more impressive than others.
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He will be from Galilee, he'll be of a certain lineage.
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It will be an immaculate conception, a whole variety of different details, most of which you couldn't just go and figure out how to fulfill yourself.
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It's not like you could build a resume, right?
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And Matthew focuses look at all of these prophecies.
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Jesus fulfills them all.
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And then John his focus seems to be on the fact that Jesus is not just a man.
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There are things about him and things that he did and ways that he talked that proved that this is not just a man.
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And, to your point, not only is he the son of God, he is king.
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And that idea of him being the Christ, the Messiah the anointed one, would be another way to kind of translate that.
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Messiah the anointed one would be another way to kind of translate that, well, you anointed kings, right?
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So he is the king.
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We like to think of Jesus as the Savior, but realistically, he's talked more about as the king than he is the Savior.
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And that kind of gets at the core of it too, when Jesus, after he had ascended, after he had risen from the dead, and before he ascended excuse me, that was one of the last things he said to his disciples was all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.
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All authority references power.
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If Jesus is who he says he is and I believe that to be the case based upon the evidence then he's king, and that means I have to act differently around him, in the same way that this is a kind of a small example but you act differently around a police officer when you're driving on the road.
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You act differently around the police officers than you do around somebody else who's driving their car next to you, because you, you know they have the authority to do something if you don't behave as you are.
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Jesus has the authority to rule, and so you can't have the conversation about who is Jesus without talking about.
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He's the king and has authority, and at some point every knee will bow, either voluntarily or involuntarily.
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Yeah, you're right.
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One of the things that I would bring you back to, though, is what Jesus claims is, let's face it, just kind of ridiculous, because I know a bunch of people who will make the same claims, and we will cart them off to an insane asylum, where they undoubtedly belong.
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Because those are ridiculous claims, why, when we put them in the mouth of Jesus, did they suddenly become plausible?
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Why aren't we taking him down to the insane asylum as well?
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Well, some people thought exactly that.
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That's right.
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That was the attempt Some people that was exactly how they described it is he's crazy, right, right.
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Some people referred to him as I'll use the old Kingames version way of saying it a wine bibber, which is another way of saying a drunk right, like some people accuse him.
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Well, he's just drinking and spouting weird things.
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So those arguments have been used.
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Cs lewis, I've used this quote so many times and I know many others have too, just because I don't think anybody's ever said it better.
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Jesus is either a liar, a lunatic or Lord.
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There are no other options.
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He could be a liar, in which case, as a charlatan, he was creating a movement getting people to believe in him by being deceptive.
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If Jesus is that, he's a dime, a dozen.
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Throughout the history of mankind, there have always been tricksters and grifters who have attempted to get people to follow them, using religion as a means to gain power and fame, right?
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So if Jesus is a liar, we've seen those before and we'll see him again yeah, the other is a lunatic right, he's crazy.
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Somebody stands up and they say I'm the son of God.
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Um, I've, I've actually been in an environment where somebody did that I was downtown Seattle one time and there was a guy who I'm pretty sure had ingested a lot of things into his body one way or another that he shouldn't have and he was spouting out that he was the son of God and he was on a street corner and everybody was kind of walking around him and police were keeping an eye on him to see if he became violent at some point.
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All of us immediately dismissed him because it sounds like a crazy person.
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And people did that with Jesus.
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In fact, even his own family seems to have done that at one point, where they are afraid that he's kind of lost it a little bit, yeah, and they kind of seem to come to try and collect him.
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But here's the problem If he's a liar, then why did all of the things he say come true?
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The things that he prophesied about and the things that he did happened, and the people of the day couldn't argue with that.
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They couldn't dispute the miracles.
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In fact, that was one of the major problems they had.
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Is that they it's like how do we get rid of this guy and get rid of his influence when we can't dispute that?
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The blind now see and the lame now walk and the demon possessed.
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People have had demons cast out of them.
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So so the the liar argument didn't work in his day and it doesn't work today either.
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The lunatic one doesn't work for a variety of different reasons, but one of those reasons is read what he said, one of the things I tell people to do if they are wondering about the sanity of Jesus.
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Maybe he was just this kind of strange cult-like rabbi.
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Read what he said.
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He does not speak like a lunatic.
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He doesn't speak like a crazy man.
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Nobody accuses Socrates or Plato of being crazy men, and yet what they said and wrote philosophically pales in comparison to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
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And then the last thing and this is truly the one that answers all of the questions is the empty tomb.
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The empty tomb is the true answer to whether or not Jesus is liar, lunatic or Lord.
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If the tomb is empty, he is not a liar, he is not a lunatic.
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You're only left with one choice, which is Lord.
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And that is exactly why the adversaries of Jesus and you read about this in Matthew, mark, luke and John.
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They sealed the tomb.
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They put guards in front of the tomb.
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They knew if people could be convinced that he was raised from the dead, this movement, you're not going to be able to stop it.
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And so they did everything in their power to keep that body in the tomb.
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And yet Christianity had its inception in the very same city where that tomb was, and to me, that is one of the hallmarks of Christian apologetics.
00:21:54.751 --> 00:22:00.691
One of the greatest proofs of all time of Christianity is here's what we know.
00:22:00.691 --> 00:22:06.520
We know that Christians, from the very beginning, claimed that Jesus was raised from the dead.
00:22:06.520 --> 00:22:09.126
The apostles did it, the early disciples did it.
00:22:09.126 --> 00:22:12.982
All of them said he raised from the dead, he's ascended to the right hand of God.
00:22:12.982 --> 00:22:17.973
That was a fundamental pillar of Christianity.
00:22:17.973 --> 00:22:29.816
And they said it within the same time period and the same part of the world in which he had been killed.
00:22:29.816 --> 00:22:46.037
Well, if you want to kill a movement that says the hallmark to our faith is that this man who lived and you killed is alive and the tomb is empty, all you have to do is produce a body right.
00:22:46.037 --> 00:22:46.218
And.
00:22:46.878 --> 00:22:51.669
And christianity was very clearly opposed to judaism in the first century.
00:22:51.669 --> 00:22:53.752
Yeah, judaism did not like it.
00:22:53.752 --> 00:23:13.421
Lots again of historical record backing that idea up that they were not fans of, of christianity, and yet they did not produce a body and and the the people who were most likely to believe that Jesus was risen from the dead were the same people who were a five minute jaunt from the tomb.
00:23:13.421 --> 00:23:24.792
Right, so you could just go take your evening constitutional out to the, to the garden there at Calvary, and you could have found the body or the guards guarding it, and they couldn't.
00:23:24.792 --> 00:23:27.625
Calvary, and you could have found the body or the guards guarding it and they couldn't.
00:23:27.625 --> 00:23:33.904
So it is one of the great proofs that he is not a liar, he is not a lunatic, but he is indeed Lord, because that he was raised from the dead.
00:23:35.428 --> 00:23:41.104
Number one I am impressed that you used the phrase evening constitutional.
00:23:41.104 --> 00:23:44.829
That phrase is not used enough.
00:23:44.829 --> 00:24:02.244
Number two you're kind of alluding to this and the argument one of Jesus's greatest arguments in favor of him not being insane is that he was able to do miracles.
00:24:02.244 --> 00:24:05.407
Why is that a big deal?
00:24:08.951 --> 00:24:20.333
Well, it was a big deal, because miracles, in particular the definition of miracles that we find in the New Testament, okay.
00:24:20.333 --> 00:24:25.306
In fact, the word miracle is really not the New Testament word, it's signs and wonders Right.
00:24:25.306 --> 00:24:29.491
If you read in the New Testament, you probably are not going to find the word miracle too often.
00:24:29.491 --> 00:24:33.280
What you'll see are the words signs and wonders Right.
00:24:33.280 --> 00:24:39.788
If we use a New Testament picture of what a sign and a wonder is, it's a sign meaning.
00:24:39.788 --> 00:24:41.329
It signifies something.
00:24:41.650 --> 00:24:44.673
And it's a wonder, because you go, wow, I wonder.
00:24:44.673 --> 00:24:46.415
I mean, what does this mean?
00:24:46.415 --> 00:24:59.490
What Jesus performed were not the sort of televangelist garbage that you have today, where it's not verifiable.
00:24:59.490 --> 00:25:03.901
There are plants in the audience, somebody claims a miracle, but there were no witnesses.
00:25:03.901 --> 00:25:09.045
Everything that you find in the New Testament were.
00:25:09.045 --> 00:25:12.929
This is a guy who's been leprous for years.
00:25:12.929 --> 00:25:17.372
This is somebody who was born and has never walked a day in his life.
00:25:17.372 --> 00:25:25.260
This person over here has been blind and everybody in the community knows it Right, and Jesus heals him.
00:25:25.260 --> 00:25:28.951
This person died, has been in the tomb.
00:25:28.951 --> 00:25:38.029
Jesus tells them to come out and walk and everybody has to take the bandages off of the guy so that he can properly come out without waddling.
00:25:38.029 --> 00:25:47.035
They were verifiable signs that Jesus had a power that man doesn't have.
00:25:47.560 --> 00:25:54.673
The definition of supernatural is that it's something that goes above the natural world.
00:25:54.673 --> 00:26:00.414
There are people who are healed from cancer all the time in a natural way.
00:26:00.414 --> 00:26:02.928
Right, we use the things of nature.
00:26:02.928 --> 00:26:09.762
Way right, we use the things of nature.
00:26:09.762 --> 00:26:11.830
Modern medicine is still natural in the sense that we haven't pulled something from some other realm.
00:26:11.830 --> 00:26:16.724
We're just using the tools we have to create medicine to help people be cured of cancer.
00:26:16.724 --> 00:26:20.673
Jesus used something that was supernatural.
00:26:20.673 --> 00:26:25.291
He had power that was from deity, from God, we're told in the New Testament.
00:26:25.291 --> 00:26:39.290
It was power from the Holy Spirit to heal people and that was a sign that he had power and the stamp of approval of the supernatural realm of his father in heaven.
00:26:39.290 --> 00:26:44.444
And Jesus, by the way, will emphasize that when he says I and my Father are one.
00:26:44.444 --> 00:26:51.394
If Jesus was a liar, the Father would not have put up with that right.
00:26:53.076 --> 00:27:25.474
Yeah, when it comes to the miracles themselves, basically what they had to be was the suspension of natural law, and what that did was it meant that whatever Jesus was saying— was backed up by a power that was higher than anybody else that was there, and I am of the opinion that God invested the physical Jesus with power, that God, the Father, invested the physical Jesus with power.
00:27:25.474 --> 00:27:39.272
It is my opinion and there's no way for me to prove this one way or the other, that Jesus got rid of the benefits of deity while he was on earth and had to have the relationship with the Father.
00:27:39.272 --> 00:27:55.605
He had to be reinvested with power through God the Father in order to do the miracles, which basically says whatever I'm telling you guys is backed up by a power that is higher than all of us is backed up by a power that is higher than all of us.
00:27:55.605 --> 00:28:02.911
There's a couple of examples that back up this idea that the miracles were from a power that Jesus received, and I think that that is important.
00:28:02.911 --> 00:28:08.377
So one example of that is the healing of the woman who had an issuance of blood.
00:28:08.377 --> 00:28:14.938
Jesus was walking along and he didn't know she was touching him.
00:28:14.938 --> 00:28:18.134
She went up and touched the hem of his garment and then was healed.
00:28:18.134 --> 00:28:21.108
And he says I felt power, leave me.
00:28:21.108 --> 00:28:27.539
But he did not actively zap her with healing.
00:28:27.539 --> 00:28:35.897
It was the Holy Spirit who, at Jesus as a conduit I guess we might think of healed her.
00:28:35.897 --> 00:28:37.787
And Jesus then said who touched me?
00:28:37.787 --> 00:28:46.009
And so he did not always have complete power over when he could perform miracles or when they were performed.
00:28:46.009 --> 00:28:51.568
And then the other one that I think is the most powerful one goes back to the empty tomb.
00:28:52.451 --> 00:28:55.718
Jesus was raised from the dead, not by himself.
00:28:55.718 --> 00:29:01.173
He didn't raise himself from the dead, it was a sign from heaven.
00:29:01.173 --> 00:29:06.048
That was what Jesus' detractors, his critics, asked for.
00:29:06.048 --> 00:29:08.134
They said show us a sign from heaven.
00:29:08.134 --> 00:29:09.465
He'd been performing all these miracles.
00:29:09.465 --> 00:29:10.667
And they asked for a sign from heaven.
00:29:10.667 --> 00:29:19.285
And he says I'll only give you one sign from heaven, and he alludes to the tomb that he's going to be buried and then raised from the dead.
00:29:19.285 --> 00:29:26.597
Well, the sign from heaven my understanding of that is literally a heavenly force.
00:29:26.597 --> 00:29:30.595
The Father raised him from the dead.
00:29:30.595 --> 00:29:37.186
Jesus raised him from the dead.
00:29:37.186 --> 00:29:42.317
So that is a sign that that heavenly force approved of him, approved of his teaching, approved of all he had done with his life.
00:29:42.317 --> 00:29:46.809
It says this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.
00:29:46.809 --> 00:30:02.518
There are a lot of moments in the New Testament that make it clear the Father and the Holy Spirit agreed with Jesus and they were backing his claims.
00:30:03.244 --> 00:30:08.076
Yeah, and that was the purpose of the miracles, that was the purpose of the signs and wonders.
00:30:08.076 --> 00:30:28.421
Let me ask you this, and I think this is kind of both commentary and question, because I think one of the things that if you are somebody who decides you're going to be a Christian, there's a lot about Jesus that you're just not going to understand.
00:30:28.421 --> 00:30:30.050
Do you agree with that?
00:30:32.285 --> 00:31:01.798
Yeah, I mean my life as a Christian and I don't think I'm unique in this is a pursuit of knowing Jesus through the sacred writings, the scriptures, the text, and then through the application of that text Right, scriptures, the text and then through the application of that text, right, that that when we uh obey him, um, that, that's another way in which we can learn to know him by emulating him.
00:31:01.798 --> 00:31:14.309
But, uh, knowing Jesus, you don't need to know everything to begin following him right In the and so that's, that's a.
00:31:14.309 --> 00:31:31.022
That's one of the things that I I caution people with and I don't know if this is what you were getting at or not, so I may be completely taking off course, but you know I do that pretty regularly and you're a very forgiving fellow but is that you don't need to know everything about Jesus?
00:31:31.022 --> 00:31:34.190
You really just need to know the basics to begin following him.
00:31:34.190 --> 00:31:41.131
Right, if you are convinced he is the Christ, the son of the living God, that's the impetus for everything else.
00:31:41.131 --> 00:31:44.538
Now you can have a deeper relationship with him over time.
00:31:45.626 --> 00:31:56.288
In the same way that there was a lot that I didn't know about my wife when we got married, right, right Now, there was a lot I did know, but there was a lot that I didn't Right.
00:31:56.288 --> 00:32:02.439
And as we have been married 25 years, oh wow, I've been learning.
00:32:02.439 --> 00:32:06.654
You know, there's been, there's been times that I've been learning things about her.
00:32:06.654 --> 00:32:11.211
Yeah, um, and that doesn't negate the vow that I made in the beginning.
00:32:11.211 --> 00:32:14.278
It enriches it, right and adds depth to it.
00:32:14.278 --> 00:32:18.451
So there's a lot we don't know about Jesus.
00:32:18.451 --> 00:32:31.491
There's a lot that I'm, as a Christian, now attempting to learn about Jesus all the time, but that doesn't negate the fact that when I was baptized into Jesus, I knew enough.
00:32:31.491 --> 00:32:35.900
I knew enough, and that was where you start, not where you finish.
00:32:37.145 --> 00:32:37.507
Number one.
00:32:37.507 --> 00:32:38.368
That is exactly right.
00:32:38.368 --> 00:32:43.107
That was not the way I was anticipating the question, but I think that's exactly right.
00:32:43.107 --> 00:32:45.212
I think you know me.
00:32:45.212 --> 00:32:51.192
Almost everything becomes a comparison of a family relationship, and you are exactly right.
00:32:51.192 --> 00:33:02.530
You make a commitment before you really understand the commitment and, just like with your wife, with your children, with any of these things, you do not understand what they are capable of.
00:33:02.530 --> 00:33:03.553
Neither do they.
00:33:03.553 --> 00:33:10.048
I mean, there's a revelation that happens as we go through it experiences.
00:33:10.048 --> 00:33:18.297
But I think the way that I was meaning this question was more like this how is Jesus 100% God and 100% man?
00:33:18.297 --> 00:33:21.480
How did Jesus exactly do the miracles?
00:33:21.480 --> 00:33:27.773
What did Jesus really keep in terms of being deity while he was on earth?
00:33:27.773 --> 00:33:30.480
What were his limitations?
00:33:30.480 --> 00:33:40.035
And I think one of the things you can make yourself crazy with is recognizing there are questions that you will never be able to answer.
00:33:40.035 --> 00:33:44.875
There will always be a part of Jesus that you will never understand.
00:33:44.875 --> 00:33:46.417
Does that make sense?
00:33:47.486 --> 00:33:55.426
Yeah, so this will not be done on video, which is good because I got a face made for radio, but the entire time Kenny was saying that.
00:33:55.426 --> 00:34:00.657
I am nodding my head up and down because, yes, that is absolutely true.
00:34:00.657 --> 00:34:09.688
There are things about Jesus you will never comprehend this side of heaven, and maybe we don't comprehend on the other side of heaven too, I don't know.
00:34:09.688 --> 00:34:10.811
That's another thing.
00:34:10.811 --> 00:34:14.536
I don't know heaven too, I don't know.
00:34:14.536 --> 00:34:16.701
That's another thing I don't know.
00:34:16.701 --> 00:34:24.164
But that doesn't change anything, right?
00:34:24.164 --> 00:34:26.628
Because something to think about is a God that I could completely comprehend is not a God at all.
00:34:26.628 --> 00:34:32.378
If Jesus is, I can put him entirely in this neat little box that makes sense to me.
00:34:32.378 --> 00:34:38.409
Put him entirely in this neat little box that makes sense to me, then he is a God of my own creation.
00:34:38.409 --> 00:34:41.998
And I think there's an element that we find within the scripture that you know.
00:34:41.998 --> 00:34:44.289
Deuteronomy says the secret things belong to God.
00:34:44.289 --> 00:34:50.731
There's a reason that there are some things that are beyond us and an element to faith.
00:34:51.411 --> 00:34:59.396
Now, I don't want any of the listeners to misunderstand me when I say there's an element of faith that requires you to accept things you don't know.
00:34:59.396 --> 00:35:01.429
I'm not saying faith isn't built off of evidence.
00:35:01.429 --> 00:35:03.514
It is built off of evidence.
00:35:03.514 --> 00:35:25.739
I know enough about Jesus to know who he is, and so if there are parts of Jesus I don't understand, that is due to the fact that he is the son of the living God, and I have plenty of evidence that that is the case, including the empty tomb, including his writings and whatnot or the things written about him.
00:35:25.739 --> 00:35:31.632
He doesn't actually have any writings himself, but the quotations of him in Matthew, mark, luke and John.
00:35:31.632 --> 00:35:45.893
But the fact that there are going to be some things that don't make a lot of sense to me as a human being doesn't minimize the fact that that he is who he says he is.
00:35:45.893 --> 00:35:48.096
In fact, it kind of makes sense.
00:35:48.096 --> 00:35:59.530
If he is the son of the living God, there should be some things about him that are hard or maybe even impossible, this side of eternity, for me to get.
00:36:00.873 --> 00:36:10.858
Yes, I completely agree with that, which means if you have questions about Jesus that you're just struggling to answer, join the club.
00:36:10.858 --> 00:36:29.126
There's not going to be anybody who's going to be able to answer all the questions you have to have, that you want to know about Jesus, and that's for some people that's a very uncomfortable place to be, but it is where we are, whether you feel comfortable there or not.
00:36:29.126 --> 00:36:38.467
But there is no other faith, and I call anything that you have to believe about evolution or any of these other things.
00:36:38.467 --> 00:36:47.090
They require faith as well, and there are problematic statements or problematic ideas that come up with those as well.
00:36:47.090 --> 00:37:06.251
I'm not trying to say that faith in Jesus is just like a faith in the Big Bang, but what I am trying to say is, when you start thinking about things that you struggle with in Christianity, you will always struggle with parts of things in Christianity.
00:37:06.251 --> 00:37:07.615
Do you see what I'm saying, byer?
00:37:08.686 --> 00:37:11.592
Yeah, so Hebrews gives this definition of faith.
00:37:11.592 --> 00:37:14.358
Faith is the evidence of things not seen.
00:37:14.358 --> 00:37:17.710
It's not a blind faith.
00:37:17.710 --> 00:37:21.277
That's the idea that I can't see anything.
00:37:21.277 --> 00:37:26.898
There is evidence, but there is a certain element of trust.
00:37:27.219 --> 00:37:38.989
Now to go back to other relationships and connect that think about your spouse, who, for many of us, is the person on this planet you trust more than anybody else, right?
00:37:38.989 --> 00:38:01.072
And if you trust them, it's not that you know everything about them I'm always learning new things about my wife Nor is it that you would accurately guess what they will do in every circumstance, right, because they're sometimes going to surprise you.
00:38:01.072 --> 00:38:03.592
But it's that you know enough about them.
00:38:03.592 --> 00:38:12.436
You have enough evidence of them being trustworthy people who have your best interests at heart that you can trust them in the areas you can't see.
00:38:12.436 --> 00:38:15.954
This is exactly the same with Jesus.
00:38:17.485 --> 00:38:26.168
I have enough evidence of who Jesus is and his attitude and disposition towards me, towards all mankind.
00:38:26.168 --> 00:38:30.097
I don't know everything about him, but I know he died for me.
00:38:30.097 --> 00:38:34.652
That is a truth I can't ignore that.
00:38:34.652 --> 00:38:37.177
He died voluntarily for me.
00:38:37.177 --> 00:38:42.815
It wasn't an accident and it wasn't where he was grabbed against his will.
00:38:42.815 --> 00:38:51.778
Everything in the gospel points towards a voluntary sacrifice for my well-being that I might be forgiven.
00:38:51.778 --> 00:38:59.313
Now there are going to be lots of things about Jesus because of who he is that I do not understand yet, or maybe ever.
00:38:59.313 --> 00:39:04.327
But I know enough that I can have faith in him.
00:39:04.327 --> 00:39:10.378
I have enough evidence that in the things that I can't see, I can trust him too.
00:39:12.965 --> 00:39:52.907
The way that we know Jesus and this is something that you've kind of alluded to is we have these books called the Bible, and the first four books of the New Testament Matthew, mark, luke and John all maintain that they're giving the story of Jesus's life and one of the things that you recognize almost immediately and Luke is my favorite gospel I'm just not going to mince words about that but when you look at something like Matthew and when you look at something like Luke, they tell different stories and some of these stories don't feel like.
00:39:52.907 --> 00:40:02.105
I mean, in Matthew it talks about the killing of male babies, but Luke doesn't talk anything about that.
00:40:02.105 --> 00:40:07.338
In Matthew he talks about Jesus' parents having to go down to Egypt.
00:40:07.338 --> 00:40:10.652
Luke doesn't say anything about that.
00:40:10.652 --> 00:40:18.530
And even then, matthew and Luke both give a genealogy and they don't look identical.
00:40:18.530 --> 00:40:27.797
And you would expect the genealogy of one person to look exactly the same, no matter where you find it.
00:40:27.797 --> 00:40:34.338
What do you do with these discrepancies, these things that change about the stories of Jesus?
00:40:36.324 --> 00:41:05.900
So one thing that I would say with the Gospels, which one way to think ofitnesses will inevitably give different accounts, not because they're lying or being manipulative, but due to their perspective on the same event.
00:41:05.900 --> 00:41:09.188
Right, that is actually a sign of authenticity.
00:41:09.188 --> 00:41:18.101
So if you imagine you know you're Matlock or something like that, that's a fairly dated reference, but Matlock or Columbo.
00:41:19.365 --> 00:41:20.992
That's another dated reference, thank you.
00:41:21.405 --> 00:41:31.056
Another dated reference, and you have different people all put in interrogation rooms.
00:41:31.056 --> 00:41:37.690
So you've got four different interrogation rooms and so you're going to go in and ask them all about the same series of events.
00:41:37.690 --> 00:41:52.429
One way that interrogators and detectives know people are lying this is a proof that they use as immediate red flag is when the accounts are exactly the same.
00:41:52.429 --> 00:42:05.266
That is, that is one of the clearest signs of manipulative, lying, deceptive behavior is that the verbiage everything is exactly the same, because that's not how people are People.
00:42:05.266 --> 00:42:12.356
When they see something, they always superimpose a little bit of their own perspective on it, and that's normal.
00:42:12.356 --> 00:42:15.407
So one, four accounts of Jesus's life.
00:42:15.407 --> 00:42:24.255
If they were all exactly the same, you wouldn't have four eyewitness accounts, you'd have one or you would have a red flag of deceit.
00:42:24.255 --> 00:42:26.559
So that's one element.
00:42:26.559 --> 00:42:33.496
Something for us to consider is that differences do not mean that they are deception.
00:42:37.849 --> 00:42:43.771
Another thing to factor in is each of these eyewitness accounts were written for different purposes to different audiences.
00:42:43.771 --> 00:42:50.014
Yeah, so leaving details out does not necessitate a lie.
00:42:50.014 --> 00:42:53.987
It just means that I'm telling the story to somebody else.
00:42:53.987 --> 00:42:59.070
I will do this, and I suspect other people do the same thing.
00:42:59.070 --> 00:43:11.005
I'll be telling a story of some sort of thing that happened, and I will mention people who were there, but I won't necessarily mention everybody was there.
00:43:11.005 --> 00:43:21.161
The people that I mention will be the ones that I will mention, the people that are known by my audience.
00:43:21.161 --> 00:43:28.018
So if I mention oh and Perry was there, it's because the person I'm talking to knows Perry.
00:43:28.018 --> 00:43:29.824
That's what makes the difference.
00:43:30.286 --> 00:43:37.268
So, as you look at it, each of these eyewitness accounts are geared towards a different audience.
00:43:37.268 --> 00:43:45.376
And then the other one and this is a specific one that you mentioned is the lineages of Jesus, and you said well, shouldn't lineages be exactly the same?
00:43:45.376 --> 00:43:49.170
No, they shouldn't, because you have a paternal and a maternal lineage.
00:43:49.170 --> 00:44:06.539
Jesus had two lineages that were traced, and one account gives maternal and the other gives paternal, and both fulfilled the requirements of the prophecy, and that was part of the point.
00:44:06.539 --> 00:44:25.159
So, again, if you're talking about your family lineage, you might show a different one depending on who you're talking to, right, and so all of those details matter, but differences do not mean there's some sort of lying.
00:44:25.159 --> 00:44:28.313
It just has to do with perspective, not deception.
00:44:29.056 --> 00:44:29.315
Right.
00:44:29.315 --> 00:44:35.327
The Bible is making some really outlandish claims.
00:44:35.327 --> 00:44:39.431
Somebody is born of a virgin Holy cow.
00:44:39.431 --> 00:44:40.751
How often does that happen?
00:44:40.751 --> 00:44:41.652
Well, it doesn't.
00:44:41.652 --> 00:44:47.076
It's making a claim about a resurrection.
00:44:47.076 --> 00:44:57.342
I mean, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and extraordinary research.
00:44:57.342 --> 00:45:00.072
So you're going to have to do a little digging on this.
00:45:00.072 --> 00:45:09.159
Conflicting stories can mean just different perspectives, but conflicting stories can also mean a lie.
00:45:09.159 --> 00:45:15.864
So what you need to do is actually do some digging a lie.
00:45:15.864 --> 00:45:17.106
So what you need to do is actually do some digging.
00:45:17.168 --> 00:45:24.989
The problem that the Pharisees had is they could not deny the miracles, but they still wanted to stop Jesus and they stopped doing the research.
00:45:24.989 --> 00:45:26.853
They stopped looking at the evidence.
00:45:26.853 --> 00:45:28.777
That was their mistake.
00:45:28.777 --> 00:45:30.851
That was their biggest mistake, in my opinion.
00:45:30.851 --> 00:45:34.445
From a character point of view, they were hypocrites.
00:45:34.445 --> 00:45:39.476
Jesus tells them that several times but from dealing with Jesus.
00:45:39.476 --> 00:45:47.838
Well, the thing that was their biggest mistake, in my opinion, is they never examined the evidence.
00:45:47.838 --> 00:45:52.818
That was right in front of them, which is what the miracles were meant to do.
00:45:53.581 --> 00:46:05.393
When you start looking at the story of Jesus, one of the things you have to put in the back of your mind is well, maybe this is all a lie, maybe all of this doesn't work out because it's not true.
00:46:05.393 --> 00:46:08.545
And let me tell you why you have to do that.
00:46:08.545 --> 00:46:20.255
Because when you look at other people's claim to be a Messiah, you're going to be looking at them with the same eye, which is does your evidence stack up or not?
00:46:20.255 --> 00:46:24.036
And that's a fair question on every side.
00:46:24.036 --> 00:46:29.942
The other thing that I would say is you are 100% right.
00:46:36.585 --> 00:47:17.838
When you look at the way Matthew is constructed, it is written primarily for an audience of people who understood Old Testament stories really well, and when you come up with a family that is coming up out of Egypt, when you are talking about a family whose son basically survived the the, the sacrifice of the firstborn, what Jesus starts sounding like is another Moses, and that's the illusion and that's the perspective that that that writer is writing to, because he understands that that audience will recognize that Jesus is special and that there's somebody, is somebody that bears a striking resemblance to him.
00:47:17.838 --> 00:47:26.699
When we get to Luke, he's probably not talking to a bunch of people who know the story of Moses very well.
00:47:27.686 --> 00:47:32.432
No, this is more likely a Gentile audience, right, and so Luke's got a different goal.
00:47:32.432 --> 00:47:37.432
Let me put these things in chronological order so you can make the decision for yourself.
00:47:37.432 --> 00:47:38.996
That's right, so.
00:47:39.036 --> 00:47:44.992
I mean, it's not that Matthew isn't recording every story.
00:47:44.992 --> 00:47:48.400
By the way, none of them are recording every story of Jesus, correct?
00:47:48.400 --> 00:47:50.204
Yeah, is that a problem, in fact?
00:47:50.246 --> 00:47:51.429
John will make that point.
00:47:51.429 --> 00:47:57.985
John will make the point that he says look, if we tried to record everything that Jesus did, we wouldn't have enough ink, right?
00:47:57.985 --> 00:48:06.074
So there is a very clear statement made and John probably makes it clearer than all the rest.
00:48:06.074 --> 00:48:17.675
But all of them are attempting to tell you things so that you would have faith in Jesus Right, so that you would understand why they chose would have faith in Jesus Right, so that you would understand why they chose to have faith in him Right.
00:48:17.945 --> 00:48:37.217
One of the interesting things about these four eyewitness accounts is all of them have a shared goal of trying to convey to their audience a good, logical reason to believe that Jesus is who he says he is, that he is the Christ, the son of the living God.
00:48:38.246 --> 00:48:48.474
And that is another thing that I think is special about Christianity Christianity, when done as the New Testament is designed for it to do.
00:48:48.474 --> 00:48:53.471
I understand that there are many things done in the name of Christianity that don't match the Bible at all.
00:48:53.471 --> 00:49:00.545
I mean, it's a name that has been hijacked and been used for people's ulterior motives.
00:49:00.545 --> 00:49:21.313
But when we just go back to the text, the New Testament paints a picture of Christianity being something built upon the foundation of reasonable evidence, that it is not people who were caught up in the moment and so, based off of a flurry of emotions, made a decision.
00:49:21.313 --> 00:49:40.157
It is instead based off of people who, through rational discourse, people who had been studied with and talked to in the marketplaces and the synagogues, came to the conclusion that the evidence says there is only one right answer.
00:49:40.157 --> 00:49:43.565
He is not lunatic, he is not liar, he is Lord.
00:49:43.565 --> 00:49:48.295
And so they bowed the knee to Jesus, the King Right.
00:49:49.438 --> 00:49:53.766
Yeah, and it is a series of stories.
00:49:53.766 --> 00:49:57.809
There is precious little preaching in there.
00:49:57.809 --> 00:50:17.222
We know about the Sermon on the Mount, which is, in my opinion, a sermon that Jesus would probably preach more than just once and probably more than just by the Sea of Galilee.
00:50:17.222 --> 00:50:27.179
I think one of the things that he did was that was probably the message he took everywhere In modern Church of Christ.
00:50:27.179 --> 00:50:28.327
That was his meeting message.
00:50:28.327 --> 00:50:31.192
He would take that and he would use that a lot.
00:50:31.192 --> 00:50:40.811
But I think that is what encapsulates what Christianity is and I think one of the things that is important for us to remember.
00:50:40.811 --> 00:50:55.353
If you're thinking about who Jesus is, realize that Jesus is going to be frustrating to some people Because he is not giving us a blow-by-blow account of every law that's out there.
00:50:55.353 --> 00:50:58.548
He's not writing Leviticus for us.
00:50:58.548 --> 00:51:00.327
He's not writing Deuteronomy for us.
00:51:00.327 --> 00:51:02.288
He's not writing the Ten Commandments for us.
00:51:02.288 --> 00:51:14.152
What he is instead doing is modeling a life worth living that is in conformity to God, and that's how you figure out how to do Christianity.
00:51:16.900 --> 00:51:24.670
In Jesus's life you have the application of the will of God.
00:51:24.670 --> 00:51:31.202
One way to think of it is to go back to the beginning of the Gospel of John.
00:51:31.202 --> 00:51:35.152
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
00:51:35.152 --> 00:51:45.347
Jesus is described as the Word in the sense that not just a single word, but the ideas or thoughts.
00:51:45.347 --> 00:51:47.407
In the same way, you might say, hey, can I have a word with you?
00:51:47.407 --> 00:51:51.271
You don't mean I want to tell you the word animal and then walk off.
00:51:51.271 --> 00:51:54.387
I want to talk to you about some ideas.
00:51:55.030 --> 00:52:01.271
Jesus is the embodiment of the ideas and thoughts God wanted to convey to mankind.
00:52:01.271 --> 00:52:20.987
And so, instead of just saying those words, jesus lived those words and we, being people who learn through story, who learn through seeing, can look at his life and understand God in a way we couldn't when it was just academic.
00:52:20.987 --> 00:52:24.733
And so Jesus is the embodiment of the word.
00:52:24.733 --> 00:52:42.722
He is the word that walked amongst us so that you can understand all these character traits about God God's attitude towards justice, his attitude towards mercy, his attitudes towards forgiveness, the things that make him mad, the things that engender his pity and compassion.
00:52:42.722 --> 00:52:45.067
You can see that in Jesus.
00:52:45.067 --> 00:52:47.530
And so who is Jesus.
00:52:47.530 --> 00:52:50.983
He's God amongst us, and that is another one of the names for him.
00:52:50.983 --> 00:52:56.222
The Emmanuel, who is God, is with us, right, right.
00:52:57.585 --> 00:53:02.554
We've talked a lot about who Jesus is, and I think that's an important question.
00:53:02.554 --> 00:53:09.202
Let me ask this very personally, because you've heard this that we all have a personal relationship with Jesus.
00:53:09.202 --> 00:53:14.572
What does it mean for you to have a personal relationship with Jesus?
00:53:14.572 --> 00:53:16.121
How does Jesus change you?
00:53:18.445 --> 00:53:23.213
Well, I guess I should start by saying that's not a Bible phrase.
00:53:23.213 --> 00:53:24.534
No, it's not.
00:53:24.534 --> 00:53:27.242
You have to have a personal relationship with Jesus.
00:53:27.242 --> 00:53:30.706
That's a very Western approach to it.
00:53:30.706 --> 00:53:39.637
Now, I'm not saying it's wrong, but I think we should be careful when we bumper sticker Christianity.
00:53:39.820 --> 00:53:41.807
And that's a very bumper sticker way of saying it.
00:53:41.807 --> 00:53:47.012
Now, some of the ideas in there, once you start to unpack it, I think are very biblical.
00:53:47.012 --> 00:53:52.963
Philippians talks about the idea of working out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
00:53:52.963 --> 00:53:55.224
Philippians talks about the idea of working out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
00:53:55.224 --> 00:54:03.829
That doesn't mean I'm trying to save myself, but I need to work out my relationship with the Savior with fear and trembling.
00:54:03.829 --> 00:54:08.273
I need to make sure that I, individually, am connected with Jesus.
00:54:09.474 --> 00:54:14.557
Some of the parables that Jesus told were somewhat shocking to more of an Eastern culture.
00:54:14.557 --> 00:54:21.927
Right, so he was.
00:54:21.927 --> 00:54:26.485
He lived in an era of more of the Eastern culture, which is characterized more by, uh, tribal thinking, like the group is more important than the individual.
00:54:26.485 --> 00:54:29.606
Western culture, the way individual is more important than the group, right?
00:54:29.606 --> 00:54:32.146
So, um, there's, there's two sayings.
00:54:32.146 --> 00:54:35.182
A very American saying is the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
00:54:35.182 --> 00:54:41.003
The Chinese saying, the counterpart to it, is the nail that sticks up gets pounded down.
00:54:41.003 --> 00:54:44.693
There's the difference in culture, right there, there you go.
00:54:44.693 --> 00:54:50.291
In an Eastern culture that was more about the group is the most important thing.
00:54:51.519 --> 00:55:02.233
Jesus tells this parable of the wheat and the tares, and in that parable he says that God's kingdom will be like a field that has wheat in it and tares.
00:55:02.233 --> 00:55:08.753
Now, tares are essentially weeds that look like wheat but they don't ever produce a grain.
00:55:08.753 --> 00:55:21.903
And then he says at the end the workers will go into that field and they will differentiate between the wheat and the false wheat, the tares, and the tares get thrown in the fire and the wheat gets gathered into the barn.
00:55:21.903 --> 00:55:35.713
And his whole point with that is here on earth there will be many people who are associated with the kingdom of God, meaning they, you know, in our kind of language.
00:55:35.713 --> 00:55:40.628
They go to services on Sunday, right, they might even lead a prayer publicly.
00:55:40.628 --> 00:55:47.114
They, they are um, they give all of the trappings of religiosity.
00:55:47.114 --> 00:55:57.730
They are, from our perspective, a part of that same field as all the rest of us, right, but they're tares, right, and God knows Right.
00:55:58.340 --> 00:56:04.213
So the key is when you start talking about having a personal relationship with Jesus.
00:56:04.213 --> 00:56:06.188
I think it gets to the wheat and the tares question.
00:56:06.188 --> 00:56:15.342
Just being in the field with other wheat, sitting in the pew next to other people, is not a personal relationship with Jesus.
00:56:15.342 --> 00:56:28.443
Being a part of a family growing up in a Christian household, growing up in a household where there were Bibles around and people went to services and people talked about Jesus being married to a Christian.
00:56:28.443 --> 00:56:30.867
This does not make you wheat.
00:56:30.867 --> 00:56:37.980
Every stalk gets its own judgment day, in that sense, right.
00:56:38.219 --> 00:56:46.494
And so we need to be aware that, yes, from the Eastern side, you're not meant to be a Christian alone.
00:56:46.494 --> 00:56:48.547
That's something that you run into the culture too.
00:56:48.547 --> 00:56:55.652
It's like, hey, I'll just worship Jesus, but it's my own personal faith and I keep it to to myself and I kind of do my own thing and I don't go to church, but I'm very spiritual.
00:56:55.652 --> 00:56:59.224
That's the most American thing you will ever hear.
00:56:59.224 --> 00:57:01.568
That's wrong.
00:57:01.568 --> 00:57:05.521
You got to be a part of the field, you got to be a part of the kingdom.
00:57:06.483 --> 00:57:17.760
But also the idea of being part of the field, being amongst people of faith, automatically makes you somebody of faith, is also wrong.
00:57:17.760 --> 00:57:45.244
And so a personal relationship with Jesus means that I'm looking at the guy in the mirror and I am comparing who I am to who I want to be and, more importantly, who Jesus wants me to be, and I'm making measured efforts to be a good citizen in his kingdom, to submit to him as king, and I'm not going to do that perfectly, but that's okay.
00:57:45.244 --> 00:57:49.612
He says it's okay, he died so that I could do it imperfectly.
00:57:49.612 --> 00:57:57.630
But I better be doing it and I've got to do that, and I can't look to other people around me and say, well, since they're doing it, it's good enough.
00:58:00.242 --> 00:58:02.447
Yeah, I think that's the sense in which I'm meaning this.
00:58:02.447 --> 00:58:13.043
I do think the trap that we all fall into, especially in the United States, is having a personal Jesus versus having a personal relationship with Jesus.
00:58:13.043 --> 00:58:18.449
A personal Jesus looks a lot like you, and that's the problem with a personal Jesus.
00:58:18.449 --> 00:58:26.871
I remember Oprah Winfrey many years ago saying my God would never, which is another way of saying I would never.
00:58:26.871 --> 00:58:34.934
And the fact is, god doesn't need your approval and does not require your interpretation.
00:58:34.934 --> 00:58:37.806
God doesn't need you at all.
00:58:37.806 --> 00:58:53.614
But you need God and you need Jesus, and you better find ways to relate to him, because if you don't, there's an old saying and I know you've heard this which is God doesn't have grandchildren, he only has children.
00:58:53.614 --> 00:59:02.407
And if you're going to be in his family, you better find ways to relate to him, because that's more important for you.
00:59:02.407 --> 00:59:04.927
I know you agree with that.
00:59:04.927 --> 00:59:06.987
You're welcome to disagree, but I don't think you do.
00:59:08.079 --> 00:59:15.461
No, I agree wholeheartedly, and you're right, wholeheartedly, and you're right.
00:59:15.461 --> 00:59:22.498
The danger of creating a personal Jesus is that you turn him into this malleable figure that thinks like you, approves of what you want him to approve of.
00:59:22.498 --> 00:59:28.311
He disapproves of other people's bad behavior, but he offers you grace when you do the exact same thing.
00:59:28.311 --> 00:59:31.581
Right, and there's definitely a danger.
00:59:31.581 --> 00:59:36.103
And there is a biblical word for making Jesus into your own God.
00:59:36.103 --> 00:59:39.545
It's called idolatry and that's throughout the Bible.
00:59:39.545 --> 00:59:49.871
There is warning after warning after warning of fashioning gods after your own ideals and with your own hands.
00:59:49.871 --> 00:59:52.592
And so, yeah, it is important when we say who is Jesus.
00:59:52.753 --> 00:59:54.333
That is an objective question.
00:59:54.333 --> 00:59:56.295
It's not who is Jesus.
00:59:56.295 --> 01:00:04.963
To me it is who is Jesus, and learning who he is is something that all of us should be pursuing.
01:00:04.963 --> 01:00:10.552
But it's not who we want him to be that we pursue.
01:00:10.552 --> 01:00:20.708
It's who he actually is, in the same way that me getting to know my wife is not me getting to know who I want my wife to be.
01:00:20.708 --> 01:00:22.572
It's who she actually is.
01:00:22.572 --> 01:00:24.235
Right, right, right.
01:00:24.235 --> 01:00:33.333
And if you're going to have a healthy relationship with any person, you have to understand who they actually are and not somehow try and make the relationship all about you.
01:00:33.333 --> 01:00:35.527
We're pretty good at narcissism.
01:00:37.820 --> 01:00:41.612
Maybe you are, but, wow, love you too.
01:00:41.612 --> 01:01:04.152
I think the other, the other struggle that we have when we, when we have that, that, that idea of, of and and you've kind of referenced this, but kind of obliquely which is coming to terms with the idea that you will never understand exactly who he is.
01:01:04.152 --> 01:01:09.206
I mean, again, it's, it's the problem of perfection in anything.
01:01:09.206 --> 01:01:11.391
Will you be the perfect parent?
01:01:11.391 --> 01:01:12.911
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
01:01:12.911 --> 01:01:14.706
And if you can't come to terms with the idea that you'll you be the perfect parent, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
01:01:14.675 --> 01:01:21.585
And if you can't come to terms with the idea that you'll never be the perfect parent and you just think, well, if I can't do this perfectly, I just need to stop.
01:01:21.585 --> 01:01:24.012
Well, that's an idiot, that's a bull's errand.
01:01:24.012 --> 01:01:45.324
Realize that you are always going to know less than you want to know, that you're never going to be nearly as good as you want to be, and it's not that you're ever going to be perfect, but you're going to try, and that's good enough that you're going to have to, and that's again.
01:01:45.324 --> 01:01:48.552
We have talked about this before, but I think it bears repeating.
01:01:48.552 --> 01:01:59.231
Grace is not the spiritual whiteout for the mistakes you make Grace is the relationship that God gives you because he knows that you're less than perfect.
01:02:00.681 --> 01:02:05.992
And part of getting to know Jesus is understanding what grace means.
01:02:05.992 --> 01:02:09.023
Yeah, because he's the one offering it.
01:02:09.023 --> 01:02:09.865
That's the other thing.
01:02:09.865 --> 01:02:12.373
Grace is something that has to be offered.
01:02:12.373 --> 01:02:13.380
That's the other thing.
01:02:13.380 --> 01:02:16.949
Grace is something that has to be offered, that's right, and he offers it to who he wishes to offer it to.
01:02:16.949 --> 01:02:22.306
This is another problem that we do is we dole out Jesus's grace to who we want?
01:02:22.306 --> 01:02:23.690
That's not how it works, right.
01:02:23.769 --> 01:02:27.242
It's like no, he doles it out to who he wants.
01:02:27.242 --> 01:02:30.891
And then we ask ourselves the question am I in that category?
01:02:30.891 --> 01:02:36.844
I need to be in the category of those that Jesus would offer his grace to.
01:02:36.844 --> 01:02:38.927
That's what matters.
01:02:39.650 --> 01:02:48.873
Yeah, and I think one of the things that can get us in trouble is we want to speak for God without letting him speak for himself.
01:02:48.873 --> 01:03:03.289
Again, that's just another way that we make God in our image and not allow him to be in his image, and that's when you are a child.
01:03:03.289 --> 01:03:06.581
I think that is probably, and all of us have been children.
01:03:06.581 --> 01:03:09.730
I think that's the best understanding.
01:03:09.750 --> 01:03:10.472
Some of us never stopped.
01:03:13.440 --> 01:03:38.155
That's probably the perfect understanding of what it means to be in a relationship with God, because we understand as children that we are not powerful, that we have limits, that there are things that we cannot do and we're okay with that, and we learn a healthy reliance on somebody who can reach the top shelf, on somebody who can provide for you.
01:03:38.155 --> 01:03:45.090
It is when we get to the point where we want to rebel against that that we start getting in trouble.
01:03:45.090 --> 01:03:51.110
All right, I end all of my podcasts with be good and do good.
01:03:51.110 --> 01:03:53.829
What's good about knowing Jesus?
01:03:55.521 --> 01:04:10.074
Well, that's a whole podcast in and of itself, but let me put it this way there's a saying that we tell our kids, especially when they're young, but continue to do as they get older.
01:04:10.074 --> 01:04:15.922
We tell them you are safe and you are loved, but you're not in charge.
01:04:15.922 --> 01:04:30.355
And I think that's what's good about knowing Jesus is that I know I'm safe, I know I am loved, but the cost of that is I'm not in charge.
01:04:30.355 --> 01:04:35.693
Now, as you know Jesus more, it doesn't feel like a cost to not be in charge.
01:04:35.693 --> 01:04:36.722
It feels great.
01:04:36.722 --> 01:04:38.811
I love not being in charge.
01:04:38.811 --> 01:04:42.001
In the beginning it kind of feels like I'm giving something up.
01:04:42.001 --> 01:04:47.740
In the end it ends up feeling wonderful when you realize, man, that's not my responsibility.
01:04:47.740 --> 01:04:49.644
So what's good about knowing Jesus?
01:04:49.644 --> 01:04:54.153
I know I'm safe, I know I'm loved and I know I'm not in charge.
01:04:56.322 --> 01:04:58.181
I like that, byer.
01:04:58.181 --> 01:04:59.204
Thanks for doing this man.
01:05:00.489 --> 01:05:00.849
Thank you.
01:05:00.849 --> 01:05:09.108
I always love talking with you and this is a good fundamental topic, and so thank you for taking the time to put these out.
01:05:09.108 --> 01:05:09.771
Thank you, I appreciate it, man.
01:05:09.771 --> 01:05:13.541
And the time to put these out, thank you, I appreciate it, man.
01:05:16.003 --> 01:05:18.505
I've enjoyed talking about these fundamental concepts.
01:05:18.505 --> 01:05:27.472
I've got about 30 of these ideas that I put together, really with Josh Creel, somebody who's helped me think through some of the basic ideas of Christianity.
01:05:27.472 --> 01:05:31.336
By the way, I hope to get Scott in on some of these episodes as well.
01:05:31.336 --> 01:05:38.012
I think there's some things that we don't often re-examine and just kind of take for granted after a while.
01:05:38.012 --> 01:05:40.788
The existence of Jesus is one of those things.
01:05:40.788 --> 01:05:49.005
I think it's easy for us to simply build on that idea without re-examining that idea with any frequency at all.
01:05:49.005 --> 01:05:50.766
We kind of take it for granted.
01:05:50.766 --> 01:05:57.646
So I'm glad that we're having these fundamental discussions about basic ideas of Christianity.
01:05:58.268 --> 01:06:08.726
I also want to remind you that if you have not signed up for the Balancing the Christian Life conference we're about two weeks away You've got some time and I would love for you to be there.
01:06:08.726 --> 01:06:17.735
There are a lot of people who are going to be speaking for us, including Scott, but we've also got a lot of people who are going to be speaking for us, including Scott, but we've also got a lot of people that are excellent speakers that I know.
01:06:17.735 --> 01:06:20.163
It will be good for all of you.
01:06:20.163 --> 01:06:24.092
So until next time, let's be good and do good.