HAS
GOD SPOKEN TO US? PART III: THE SON
Introduction: The famous
American author, Samuel Clemens, who is famously known as Mark Twain, attended
a Sunday service. He met the preacher at the door afterward to shake his hand.
And he told him that he had a book at home with every Word he had preached that
morning.
The
minister assured him that his sermon that morning was an original. But Twain
was adamant. The preacher asked to see the book. So, Twain sent it over the
next day. When the preacher opened the package, he found a dictionary. And
inside the cover, Twain had written, "Words, just words. "Some
sermons and some lives are like that, just empty words.
For
the past two weeks, we have been focusing on a subject from Hebrews, "Has
God spoken to Us? One Word from God is weightier and more convicting than all
the human words put together. When God speaks once, we must pay attention to
what he is saying, but when he speaks many times, and in many different ways,
we must pay even more attention to His words.
Hebrews
1:1-2, " Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors
through the prophets. And in these final days, he has spoken to us through his
"Son." We
learned that God speaks to us through his creation and prophets in many
different ways. At times his voice is loud and clear and other times, maybe a
gentle whisper or a deep sense in our hearts.
This
morning we will unpack another way God speaks to us in these last days, which
is through His Son. Who is God's Son? Without any ambiguity, I want you to know
I am talking about Jesus Christ God's own Son. I am not ashamed to say that I
love Jesus, and I worship Him. During
this live-stream, I want to lift Jesus' name higher than any other earthly
name. Jesus Christ is the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. There will come a day that every knee will
bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Chris is Lord. Let us dig deeper
to hear, listen, and understand and live by the life-giving words of Jesus: The
Son.
Here
is what Max Lucado said of Jesus, "Defining Jesus," said Max Lucado, "would
be a challenge to the best of writers, but John handles the task with a simple
analogy. The Messiah, in a word, was 'the Word.' Be He a fiery verb or a tender
adjective, He was, quite simply, a word." And I might add that He was "just
the right Word!"
People
pay attention to the last words of famous people. The very last words of Buddha
to his disciples were "Strive without ceasing." How different these
are to the last words of Jesus, who said, "It is finished" (John
19:30)[1] All our striving to make
sense of life must end in Jesus.
Words
matter and the right words truly matter, especially when they come from the Son,
who himself was called the Word! Let me explain this concept of Jesus being the
Word, and then we will look into some of the essential words and teachings that
Jesus spoke during his lifetime.
I JESUS: THE WORD
(John 1:1-5)
"In
the beginning, the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word
was God.2 He existed in the beginning with God. 3 God created everything
through him, and nothing was created except through him. 4 The Word gave life
to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. 5 The
light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it."
John's Gospel highlights that Jesus has always existed with God, and He was
God. Jesus was the one who created
this beautiful world, and He is the light of the world. No matter how hard the
darkness (the evil one) tries to extinguish this light, it can never succeed.
Let's see how Jesus was involved in creating the world. Genesis 1:3-10, we read
words such as, "God said, let there be, and let," ten times. Each
time Jesus the Word went forth in creating everything we see in our world. So,
it is apt to say Jesus has made our world, sustaining and governing it by his
powerful and life-giving Word.
The
Apostle Paul writing to the Colossian believers highlights the supremacy of
Jesus, the Son over everything and everyone. Col 1:15-17, "Christ is the
visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and
is supreme over all creation, 16 for through him God created everything in the
heavenly realms and on earth.
He
made the things we can see and the things we can't see—such as thrones, kingdoms,
rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him
and for him. 17 He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation
together." If Christ has made everything, both the things that we see and
the things we can't see, that begs the question that perhaps is on so many
people's minds these days, did God create COVID-19?
I
am neither a scientist nor an expert to explain how COVID-19 came into
existence. However, based on my understanding and reading of the Genesis'
creation narrative when God created the vegetation, seed-bearing plants, and
every living thing (including the viruses the tiny organisms) that scurries and
swarms in the water, and every sort of bird, they were all good.
Here
is an expert's take on viruses in general from the Institution of Creation
Research, "Perhaps God made viruses during the creation week as integral
parts of plants and animals. If so, He certainly did not form them to cause
disease. At the end of that week, He declared His works "very good." But
like many other created features, their original purpose was warped because of
"the bondage of corruption" brought about by humanity's sin.
At
some point after the Fall, the once-balanced cell-virus interactions would have
begun to falter and fail."[2] Let's stop playing the
blame game about the origins of the Corona Virus, and whoever is the reason for
the current pandemic, the truth is that Jesus, the Son, has created all things,
and He rules and reigns supremely and runs the affairs of the world by His
Word.
II GOD SPOKE
THROUGH HIS SON
In our three-part series of Has God Spoken to
Us, we come to the third way that God is communicating to us in these last
days. Hebrews 1:2, "And now in these final days, he has spoken to us
through his Son." When did, "these last days" begin? They began
over two thousand years ago when Jesus God's Son entered our world as an
innocent baby.
He
grew up to be a man, and at age thirty, he began to preach God's Word to
people. His first message was, "Repent of your sins and turn to God, for
the Kingdom of heaven is near"(Matthew 4:14), and his final words at the
cross were "it is finished" (John 19:30).
Either
few words or many unlike the Rabbis and religious teachers of that time, Jesus
spoke with power, authority, and conviction. He spoke nothing but the truth,
and above all, he claimed to be the truth. His words awoke all kinds of
responses among his listeners. At times people were amazed by His gracious
words until he said something that drove them to the edge, and they wanted to
throw him down the hill. (John 4:22-30).
Two
of the first disciples to follow Jesus were Simon Peter and his brother Andrew.
All Jesus said to them was, "Come, follow me, and I will show you how to
fish for people." Those words were so compelling, and they did not look
for any salary or compensation package, left their nets at once and followed
him. That was the power of Jesus' spoken words.
During
a crisis time, when many other disciples were turning away from Jesus, those
who tasted the power of Jesus' life-giving words stood with Him. Jesus wanted
to test their loyalty, so he asked them, "are you also going to
leave"? Listen to Simon peters
astounding statement, "Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that
give eternal life. We believe, and we know you are the Holy One of God."
John 6:68-69. The scripture tells us
that taste and see that the Lod is good.
Once you taste God's words, you want to come back for more and more.
Here is a snapshot of what Jesus' powerful
words have accomplished. His words calmed the raging seas, cast out demons,
healed the sick, and raised the dead. His words caused a revolution and put the
skeptics in place. His words confounded the wise but comforted the
broken-hearted. His words gave the assurance of salvation to all those who
repented.
One
of Jesus' core teachings was about the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom is mentioned over fifty times in
the Gospels. As a matter of fact, Jesus said He was sent to preach the coming
of the Kingdom (Luke 4:43). After he rose from the dead before He was taken up
to heaven, He spoke for forty days with his disciples about the Kingdom.
There
is much more to be talked about Jesus' words and his powerful teachings. In
closing, I want to summarize his teachings. In his very words, Jesus said,
" 'You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and
all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally
important: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' The entire law and all the demands
of the prophets are based on these two commandments."
All
his teachings could be summarized in what also called "The Golden
Rule." We are to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. You cannot
love yourselves and others without loving God first. Who do you love the most
during these shelter-in-place days?
How
are you nurturing your soul these days? How would loving our neighbors look
like in a time where we are afraid of our neighbors? In these last days, God is
still speaking to us through His Son. But are we listening to Him? Today we
looked at the words of The Son. Come back for more next week, where we will
look at the divinity and humanity of The Son. Amen!
[1] SOURCE:
David Owen in "The Word." on www.sermoncentral.com.
http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermon.asp?SermonID=55520
[2] https://www.icr.org/article/were-viruses-created-or-evolved/
