I Rest In Christ, Part 1: Who Is Jesus?

Today we begin a new series devoted to exploration of our relationship with our King, Jesus Christ which will run through the end of this year.  We’ll talk about important concepts like Who we are in Christ, Redemption, Adoption, Grace, Mercy, Abiding in Christ, and others.  I hope you find blessing these next weeks.

John 1:1-14                 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.  The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Almost everybody who has some spiritual awareness knows Jesus is called the Son of God.  The phrase ‘In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit’ is common and heard even by those who have no saving relationship with Jesus.  But he is much more than that.  It is important to think about these things because if we are going to investigate our identity in Christ, we at least ought to try to understand who Jesus is.  But as I think of Jesus, I am immediately confronted with the reality that no human can really understand Him.  And one can get caught up with impactful concepts like omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence.  There are really only two concepts which matter: One that He is God and we are not, and the other is that our relationship with Him is all that matters.

In Exodus 3:14-15 God spoke to Moses from the burning bush and referred to Himself as ‘I Am’.  As the Hebrew word used is derived from the word meaning ‘to be’, God was announcing to Moses that he was the eternal God existing from eternity past.  In John 8:58 Jesus uses the same word to refer to himself, thus identifying himself as the same God who spoke to Moses.  That God is one person with three expressions is called the Trinity and we will talk about that in some future discussion.  The word ‘Word’ is deliberately chosen by John to refer to Jesus because the Greek word Logos (Word) was seen by the Greek mind as the driving, creating force of the universe.  Thus ‘Word’ to the Greek has similar meaning as ‘I Am’ does to the Hebrew.

God could have created humans in such a way that we automatically loved Him, but in that case we would simply be robots.  He gave us free will so that we could choose to love Him.  Why should we choose to love Him?  God knew we would sin and knew Satan would attempt to gain mastery over our lives through sin.  He also knew a way had to be provided to release humans from the power of sin.  His plan all along was to send His Son to provide that way.  This is who Jesus is.  Being fully God (Philippians 2:6-11), He gave up the fullness of his divinity for a time.  He became incarnate, was born, learned about temptation, grew, and matured like we do, suffered all things as we do, yet never sinned.  The remarkable thing is he did this on purpose.  He didn’t sort of coast through life like many of us do; He had an agenda.  He taught, modeled, and loved on purpose.  He allowed himself to be crucified on purpose.  He died on purpose and rose again on purpose.  All of this was for the purpose of giving us mastery over sin. 

But understanding the facts of Jesus’ life isn’t enough.  It is like the difference between head-knowledge and heart-knowledge.   We need to understand in the depths of our soul what it is that Jesus did.  He came to "seek and to save that which is lost".  He lived His life so that those who saw Him saw the Father. He was the true revealer to humankind of who God is.  Most of all, He paid the price on the cross for our sin so that all who believe in Him are forgiven and receive everlasting life.  It is not like Jesus came to the planet to check off an item on a list.  No!  For God (and Jesus) so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him (John 3:16). 

But knowing about Jesus is different than knowing in Jesus.  We must not ‘check off’ a box either.  Having believed in Jesus we didn’t just check a box.  We made a life-choice.  Actually, we made an eternity- choice.

Galatians 2:20                       I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

The problem with living in a body is that our sin nature is still with us.  The day after we accepted Christ as Savior it raised its ugly head to remind us it was still there.  This is the issue Paul is addressing in Galatians 2:20.  Wonderful things happened when we made that decision; we gained personal relationship with Jesus, we gained mastery over death, and we gained eternity.  But there is more to do here.  Is there a sin that seems to haunt you?  Is there one that you struggle with seemingly on a daily basis?  The problem here is a question of identity.  Do you find your identity in Christ or do you find it in the sin.  Here’s what I mean.

If we attempt to conquer that sin by saying things like, “ Today I’m not going to do that,” or “I’m not going to do that for a week” we are focusing our attention on the sin.  Flesh cannot heal flesh.  Only God through the Holy Spirit can do that.  We have to focus our attention on the Healer not the sin.  In 2 Corinthians 12:6-7 Paul refers to having been given a thorn in his flesh to keep him humble.   Even he, man of God that he was, had his struggles.  When Paul mentions being crucified with Christ, he is referring to the realization that freedom from sin lies in living with Christ, or rather, in allowing Christ to live in us.  This is the heart-knowledge I was referring to earlier.

Paul is saying living by bouncing between rules and failure to meet them never leads to success.  The more we try to live according to the rules, the less we are living for God.  We have to realize God loves us as we are, no matter what.  When we fail, it does not mean we are suddenly out of God’s favor.  It simply means we have to get up, repent, seek God’s forgiveness, ‘hit delete’, and move on.

So just as Paul had his ‘thorn in the flesh’ so do we.  Our thorn has the same purpose as did Paul’s.  The enemy may try to use the thorn as a way to try to separate us from God, but God allows it to exist so that we are driven toward Him.  So I want to leave a thought with you:  Never, never, allow your thorn to get between you and God.  He is the answer to every question, and the salve for every pain.  Maranatha!