Thank you for watching!
Good morning everybody and welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church.
It's great to see everybody here.
If we can find a hymnal, we'll get started
with song number 173.
Song number 173.
Love lifted me.
I was sinking deep in sin.
From the Peaceful Shore song number 173 let's all sing that out together on that
Great singing everybody. Let's open up the service now with a word of prayer.
Lord, we love you so much and we just thank you for those awesome days. Thank you for the
weather. Thank you for just allowing us to gather here and praise you. We just ask that you help
us lift up our voices this morning and sing unto you with all our might. And since Jesus
name we pray, amen. All right, for our next song, let's go to our binders, our special song binders.
Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,
not be all else to me, save that thou art.
Be thou my vision, let's all sing that out together
this morning.
Thank you for coming to St. Vast Baptist Church.
If you didn't already get a bulletin,
you would like one.
Just lift up your hand nice and high.
One of our ushers can come by
and get you guys a bulletin.
We're on Jude 1 verse 21.
So if you can quote that or the entire passage,
you can get a prize.
We're getting close to finishing that.
On the inside is our service times, soul winning times.
Also, just to highlight one of our newer regional soul winning
times, Brother Milstead.
is doing a time on Saturdays at 10 a.m. in the Denton area.
So that's kind of, that's really far North East,
I'm sorry, West of where we are down here,
but I know a lot of people kind of live in that general area.
Or even if you just want to go out to that part,
you can see Brother Milstead about that soul winning time.
Keep up the great work on our soul winning
down below on the right.
We have several ladies,
so you can be in prayer for who are expecting.
Mexico City, we already had some sole winners go out there.
I don't know the exact number.
I think it's about 15 or so that have already been down there
and there's a few people still joining them.
But they already had 21 salvations on their first day
and 36 salvations on their second day.
So things are going really well
and just continue to pray
that our Mexico missions trip will go well.
It's officially supposed to be kind of kicking off Monday through Friday
but they're already getting a start.
getting some salvation. So just pray that their trip goes smoothly, that they're
safe, and they can get a lot of people saved out there. Other upcoming events as
our Tyler, Texas soul winning marathon, September 27th. There's a soul winning
seminar, Brother Marcel's gonna be leading October 4th. The Nassau trip is
October 6th through the 11th.
Look for an email this week if you've already sent in your itinerary or believe you signed up should get an email this week
Confirming your spot and that we have your itinerary and everything like that
Also October 19th Pastor Bruce Mejia from First Works Baptist Church in LA is gonna be coming out or Orange County
He's gonna be coming out and preaching for us and then we have our Texas to the cookoff October 31st
The back is our prayer list inside. There is a missionary update for evangelists in the Philippines evangelists
Urbanic and
He had 861 salvations for the month of August and so and that's not necessarily just him as an individual
That's just him and the ministry. So he's been raising up all their soul winners and other people that have been going out there with him
Also, they've been starting a new church there
We've been doing about once a month or so services prior to this
But now they've gotten their own location and we funded them to have a spot to where they can be meeting
They're meeting in a little bit different location than they had been
Just just due to cost and everything like that
But they're now able to meet regularly and have services regularly and so it kind of has that on the back here
And now a note that their first services, they had 22 in attendance.
They also had services.
They're about 12 hours ahead of us, so they had services this evening for us and what was morning for them.
But if you just continue to pray for their church plant, pray for Miss RG's mother.
who has some health issues, also pray for Ms. R.G.
who's expecting in November, so that's very soon.
But just continue to pray for their ministry
and there's a lot of people that are out there
doing some really hard work
and they're getting a lot of people saved
and it's great to have missionary updates
where we see these kind of results that are coming in,
not just on a yearly basis, on a monthly basis.
And so,
These are really great to read and think about them.
If you ever have a chance, you know,
you can always message Evangelist or Bannock
and just tell them, hey, we've been praying about,
praying about your church plans.
We've been reading your missionary updates
and we're encouraged by the work that you're doing out there.
I'm sure that that would be a blessing to them.
So that's pretty much all I have as far as announcements.
We'll go ahead to our Psalm of the week, Psalm 148.
It's in our special Psalm hymns and binders, Psalm 148.
All right, that was Psalm 148.
Psalm 148, let's all sign that out together.
Now as the offering plates are being passed around, go ahead and open your Bibles to Matthew chapter one.
That's the book of Matthew chapter number one.
Matthew 1 the Bible reads the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David,
the son of Abraham, Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Judas and his
brethren, and Judas begat Phares and Zahra of Tamar, and Phares begat Ezra, and Ezra begat Aram,
and Aram begat Aminadab, and Aminadab begat Naeson, and Naeson begat Salmon.
and Salman Begat, Boaz of Raycab, and Boaz Begat, Obed of Ruth.
and Obad begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David the king,
and David the king begat Solomon of her
that had been the wife of Euryas,
and Solomon begat Reboem, and Reboem begat Abaya,
and Abaya begat Asa, and Asa begat Josephat,
and Josephat begat Joram, and Joram begat Osias,
and Osias begat Jootham, and Jootham begat Acas,
and Acas begat Ezekius.
And Ezekius begat Manassas, and Manassas begat Ammon, and Ammon begat Josias, and Josias
begat Jechinias and his brethren about the time they were carried away to Babylon.
And after they were brought to Babylon, Jechinias begat Silatheal, and Silatheal begat Zerubbabel.
and Zerubbabel begat Abaiyad, and Abaiyad begat Eliakim, and Eliakim begat Azor, and Azor
begat Zadok, and Zadok begat Akim, and Akim begat Eliad, and Eliad begat Eleazar, and
Eleazar begat Mathan, and Mathan begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary,
So all the generations from Abraham to David are 14 generations and from David until the
carrying away into Babylon are 14 generations and from the carrying away into Babylon under
Christ are 14 generations.
Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise when as his mother Mary was espoused
she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.
Then Joseph her husband, being a just man
and not willing to make her a public example,
was minded to put her away privily.
But while he thought on these things, behold,
the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream,
saying, Joseph thou son of David,
fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife
for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name, Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.
Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken of the Lord by the prophets, saying,
Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which, being interpreted, is God with us.
Then Joseph, being raised from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had bid in him, and
took unto him his wife, and knew her not, till she had brought forth her firstborn son,
and he called his name Jesus.
Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.
Father in heaven, I pray that you bless this sermon and give Pastor Shelly the fullness and power of the Holy Spirit as
He preaches to us help us to listen and learn and give us ears to hear the message Lord God
So that we can better serve you in our everyday life. We love you and in Jesus name. I pray amen
Amen. The title of my sermon this morning is synoptic
Gospels
overview synoptic Gospels
overview and the the first word synoptic
is just a word that sometimes people use
to describe Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
Who's ever heard that term a few times, okay?
Really, it's just a fancy word for the word summary.
And you kind of distinguish Matthew, Mark, and Luke
as being a little bit more of a summary.
the life of Jesus Christ and just kind of going through a lot of the details and
just the facts of his life and the gospel whereas John has a little bit
different style as far as how it's written and
I really want to go over all of them, but I have too much content and too much to say,
so I'm going to break it up into two different parts tonight. I'm going to be focusing more on
the Gospel of John, and then just some conclusions that we've made from the studies that we've made
this morning and this evening. But the Synoptic Gospels overview is what I've titled that,
and I want to focus on Matthew, Mark, and Luke this morning, and then we'll finish with John this
What's interesting about the Gospels and of course there's four of them is how they have some differences.
There's a lot of similarities and of course that goes to the reliability of the New Testament
and how the Gospel is true. Yet there's also some nuances, there's some differences between these
and I believe that these differences can also be highlighted in the Bible itself.
Before I get into Matthew 1 and we're going to be coming back here but go if you would do
And there's this interesting creature described in Ezekiel that I think has an interesting parallel to the Gospels themselves.
And you've probably heard this before, but I just kind of want to highlight it again and then we're going to actually dive a little deeper.
But look what it says in Ezekiel chapter 1 verse 10.
As for the likeness of their faces,
and so this is ascribing these strange living creatures,
it says, they fore had the face of a man
and the face of a lion on the right side
and they had the face of an ox on the left side.
They fore also had the face of an eagle.
So it's talking about these interesting creatures
that's being seen in this vision
and it gives four different faces.
One of a man, one here of
an ox or a lion, and then also an eagle.
So you kind of have a couple of creatures,
and then you also have a man here specifically.
And I've heard sermons on this before,
maybe you have as well, how these four faces
seem to be kind of picturing the gospels themselves
and how there's a little bit of nuance
to the gospels themselves, and I have the board up here,
and I'm not necessarily gonna use the board a ton,
but I just kind of wanted to use it a little bit
to kind of just draw some distinctions here.
And we have the four Gospels.
We have Matthew.
I'm not going to write the whole thing.
We have Mark.
We have Luke.
And then we have John.
And a lot of people would agree with this.
I think the Bible testifies it,
and we're gonna dive deeper in this,
is that these four faces kind of seem to have
a parallel with each of the gospels themselves.
And so just for sake of kind of just understanding
the sermon, I'm just kind of spending a few minutes
to talk about this, and then we're gonna dive
into the chapters, but I believe that the lion
is representative of the gospel of Matthew.
And, you know, if you think about a lion, a lion is the king of the jungle, in a sense.
Does the Bible say he's the king of the jungle?
Not necessarily, but the Bible does contrast kings and dogs, and it's kind of like the illusion
regard animal the animal is the best is like the the lion and the dog is kind of the worst and so even from a biblical
perspective it kind of puts lions at the top of the food chain just in nature
We kind of understand them as the king of the jungle in a sense
so really when we think about Matthew it really emphasizes or there's a nuance to the fact that Jesus Christ is the king
he's the king of the Jews his
essentially the divine lineage and
his kingly lineage, his birthright, these types of concepts.
When we look at Mark, I believe that's going to be represented by the ox.
And, if you think about the ox itself, the ox is known as an animal of burden.
He does a lot of work.
Really, the ox just works his entire life.
He's just out in the field, constantly eating, constantly gaining weight, and of course the
ox could be used for dairy products and or just for meat in general, but he's known
as an animal of work.
plows, all kinds of different heavy instruments because they're very strong animals and so this is just kind of like
picturing an animal that does a lot of work, works really hard. Luke, I believe, is understood as
the man.
And really in the Gospel of Luke,
I feel like you see a little bit more of the nuance of the humanity of Christ and that he is really a man and just,
you know, when you think about humanity versus divinity,
We think of the humanity as being the limitations, you know.
It's not as strong, as powerful as the divine,
but rather as humans we have limitations
and we're not as strong as God himself.
And then in the Gospel of John,
I believe this is represented with the eagle.
And of course, we could see a lot of different.
things here. Number one, the eagle itself is kind of something that is flying in the air.
And if we think about these first three, these are all land-dwelling animals.
Whereas this one is in the air, it's more of a heavenly creature.
So you have the earthly creatures, then you kind of have the heavenly creature.
And really, the Gospel of John really emphasizes the divinity of Jesus Christ.
If I were to try to prove that Jesus Christ is God, or the divinity of Jesus Christ,
the Gospel of John is going to really emphasize that particular point.
Also,
you know the eagle has its wings and he can travel great distances
and I believe that's to represent the gospel itself and how John really
emphasizes just the gospel and getting saved
and how it's spreading throughout the entire world
and so there's a lot of little nuances here, a lot of the little things that
I believe are very purposeful when we talk about these distinctions.
For the sake of my sermon though. I'm not really going to be emphasizing these points
This is I think these are the things that people have preached before and taught and you can look up
I've even brought them up before I want to go deeper than this
So I want to go to another layer or a couple other layers from this
So I'm just I'm just kind of setting this up before we really get into our particular sermon now
I want to write a couple more words here, and then I want to get to the point that I really want to make but
other ways that we could look at this I think
In Matthew, it's emphasizing the birthright.
And you get that...
Divinic lineage that we just read in Matthew chapter 1.
We're talking about how Jesus Christ is coming from that
kingly, priestly lineage, and he has the birthright.
He is the son of God. He's also the son of David.
He's that rightful king.
He has this birthright of being the firstborn
and all the things that are related to that.
In Mark, when we look at the ox, I think we emphasize the power.
that Jesus Christ has.
And really what you're gonna see in the Gospel of Mark
is the power of Jesus Christ.
It's the Gospel that emphasizes him casting out demons
and having authority over all the spiritual realm,
the most, and we kinda just see the power,
which again is emphasized with the ox.
You know, the lion, the birthright of the king,
the ox, his power, his strength
of the work that he's doing.
When we look at the man, again, I kinda mentioned this,
but again we see, I think, the humanity.
of Jesus Christ. And when we think about humanity and we think about Jesus, you know, there's
a lot of things about humanity, who your parents are.
Just, that's part of your humanity, who your mom is, who your dad is, and we see a lot
of these things being emphasized.
Your relationships, who your brother-in-ar, the physical relationships that you have,
just your upbringing, your wisdom, your height, just everything about you as a person, you
know, where you're from, what part of the country you're from, what your accent is,
what your education is, just all the different things that are about you.
that come to just your personality,
your soul as an individual.
You're also...
While we have strengths and things God gives us,
we also have limitations,
and we're limited by our humanity.
We have struggles, we have temptations,
we have trials, we have difficulties
that we all go through,
and this is part of our humanity,
and we see a lot of this being emphasized
in the Gospel of Luke.
Now, of course, there's crossover to all of these.
We can find all of these points in every single Gospel,
but I just think that some of these Gospels
highlight some of these points a little bit more,
and it's what I wanna go through and talk about.
Here's the other point that I already kind of mentioned,
but I'm writing it down as just the divinity
that we really see emphasized in this particular Gospel.
Now, again, I'm gonna be emphasizing all these points,
but these last four are the ones
that I really wanna highlight the most
as we go through these particular Gospels.
And I'm gonna wait to get to that point.
So I'm just putting this on here just for a moment.
I wanna gotta go through the Gospel of Matthew
and we're just going to talk about it for a second.
But when we talk about a synoptic gospel,
we're talking about the summary.
And I feel like Matthew itself
is one of the greatest summaries of the gospel.
It really kind of compasses the beginning and the end.
It starts with his birth.
It goes all the way to his resurrection
and his great commission that he gives out.
And it kind of goes through, and it really details almost all the major things that happen in Jesus' life.
I mean, Matthew really covers a lot.
I think Matthew has some of the most unique stories in it,
a lot of things that aren't necessarily brought up in other passages.
But just to give us a quick view, what is the gospel of Matthew really do?
Well, it begins with the genealogy and birth of Jesus Christ, right?
We had that long genealogy, and then we kind of start with the birth of Jesus Christ.
It says,
And she shall bring forth a son,
and thou shalt call his name Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins.
Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled,
which is spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
Behold, a virgin shall be with child,
and shall bring forth a son,
and they shall call his name Emmanuel,
which being interpreted, is God with us.
So he learned a lot of things
about Jesus Christ here right in the very beginning.
His name is Jesus.
He was born of a virgin.
He specifically is fulfilling the prophets.
And not only that, he is God with us.
So he just learned so much about Jesus Christ
a few sentences here.
In chapter two, he's then visited
by the wise men of the east.
Then he flees into Egypt.
Chapter three, John the Baptist
baptizes him. Chapter four, he's tempted
of the devil and the wilderness.
Chapter five through seven, we get the sermon
on the mount. And if you look at
chapter six, verse 33,
You kind of get some really iconic and influential verses here.
It says in verse 33,
But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness
and all these things shall be added unto you.
Jesus Christ really challenged people to put God first in their life above their own carnal needs.
Also at the end of this in chapter 7 verse 24.
Therefore, whosoever here at these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him an
wise man which built his house upon a rock."
And so we're supposed to adhere to these sayings of Jesus Christ.
He's come, born of the Virgin Mary, he's fulfilled a lot of the prophecies, going into Egypt,
he gets baptized, he's tempted to the devil, but then he immediately goes into preaching
and he wants us to do his sayings.
Chapters 8 and 9, he does a lot of healings and miracles.
Chapter number 10, he gets power under his disciples
and commissions them to go out.
Chapter 11 through 13, he teaches and preaches a lot of parables.
14 and 15, you have the feeding of the 5,000 and 4,000,
which I always remember it as kind of backwards.
Like you have 14, you got the number 4,
the feeding of the 5,000, and then you get it in chapter 15.
And you got the five, but it's the feeding of the 4,000.
So it's kind of like flip-flop.
But you kind of have the feeding of the 5,000 and 14,
the feeding of the 4,000 and 15.
In chapter 16 verse 18, you get a really influential verse here.
It says, and I say unto thee, that thou art Peter,
and upon this rock, I will build my church,
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
So Jesus is doing lots of different things.
He gets baptized.
He ends up being 10th and of the devil he's getting ready to start his ministry then he goes out preaching
He's healing. He's commissioning other people to do so. He's teaching lots of parables
He's feeding the masses then he's starting to commission his church
Identifying the leadership of that church that is going to be Peter
that the church isn't going anywhere,
that it's going to last forever,
that the church is never going to be defeated or destroyed.
So he's starting an everlasting institution here.
Chapter 17 is the Mount Transfiguration,
giving us a sign of what's to come.
Again, 18 through 20, he gives more parables.
And then we finally get into chapters 21 through 28.
Now, chapters 21 through 28 is what we would call the Passion Week.
What's really interesting about the Gospels themselves is
the latter half or the latter three-fourths of each gospel is dealing in Passion Week,
which is covering just only one week in time. Only one week in time,
so much of Scripture is devoted to it. Now, I kind of calculated it in different ways each gospel,
but if you just think about the number of chapters dedicated to this one specific week,
chapters 21 through 28, that's about 29 percent of the chapters of Matthew.
If you look at it from a page's perspective or just a content perspective, in my Bible,
you know, and it's going to be pretty similar to everybody else, it's about 36% of the pages of
Matthew are dedicated just to that one week in time that we know as the passion week where we have
Palm Sunday, him coming in the few days that he's in the temple, the fig tree cursings,
then we have Wednesdays, the Last Supper.
Thursday we have crucifixion and then Sunday we have the resurrection of Jesus Christ and really just in that one week
Which is really what we're emphasizing is the gospel where the gospel takes place is about a quarter
or even a little bit more in all of the Gospels.
And it almost seems like it keeps escalating
and even being more impactful as we go through.
John really starts early in its Gospel with Passion Week
and spends a lot of time in that particular one week
of history.
And so you really gotta understand just kind of a big
picture what's going on.
Chapter 21 is the Palm Sunday.
23-25 is in preaching, 26 is the last upper garden betrayal,
27 is the crucifixion,
and then 28 is resurrection and commission.
You know, when we think about what is the gospel of Matthew, well, it begins with the
birth of Jesus Christ and it kind of fast forwards pretty quickly up to his ministry
period of time.
You know, starting from chapter number three on, it's really just that few years that
he's doing a lot of the mission, but it covers a lot of just the facts of the gospel.
that Matthew really does, and this is where I'm kind of really emphasizing my sermon is this
list, is that Matthew really deals with the identity of Jesus Christ. It's really, it's really
emphasizing the identity of who Jesus Christ is. And what I think is really important, and I want
than just one angle of viewing.
And I think that's why we have at least the four gospels.
Even just your face itself, you kinda can see it
from four angles in a sense, right?
You kinda have the front of the face,
but you have the left side, and you have the right side,
and then you have the back of the head,
and you have the left side, and you have the right side.
And so you kinda have these four angles
that you can look at someone.
And in the same way, I think that the Bible
in the gospels is giving us four angles
the Lord Jesus Christ and really think about Him as a person.
And this does not only apply to Jesus Christ, this applies to all of us.
That all of us, when we think about a person, we can think about them from an identity perspective.
What is an identity perspective? It's just who you are. Who are you? Right?
And when we think about Jesus Christ, Matthew is really just…
trying to uncover to us in the whole world who is Jesus Christ?
What is the identity of this particular person?
Go back if you would to Matthew chapter number one.
And I think when you think about it from this perspective,
you're going to see things just kind of jump off the page in the Gospel of Matthew.
But number one, verse one, the book of the generation of Jesus Christ,
notice this, the son of David.
Now, what's interesting is it's going to give us this whole genealogy, isn't it?
And the genealogy does not start with David, does it?
Abraham begat Isaac.
It doesn't start with that in verse number two.
Nor does it end with David.
David's in the middle.
But what's really important, what is the thing that the Bible and Matthew is really trying to get to our attention?
The identity of Jesus, and what is the identity of Jesus that he is the son of David?
That's a really important identity thing that we're identifying, why?
Because he's the lion of the tribe of Judah, he's the king, he has the birthright,
his identity is that he is the son of David.
because only a son of David could be the Messiah,
only a son of David could be the Christ,
only a son of David could be the one to fulfill all the scriptures
about the Savior, okay, about that true King that's coming to sit on David's
throne
who's been prophesied of, who is going to save his people
from their sins, that King, and that King is Jesus Christ.
Not only is he that, he's the son of Abraham as well.
These are two really important identities.
Of course, it's implied if you're a son of David,
you're a son of Abraham because we understand
from a genealogical perspective,
everyone that's a son of David is a son of Abraham,
but it's just again reminding us of, hey, who is Jesus?
He's a son of David, he's also the son of Abraham.
Now fast forwarding through this genealogy we get more identity in verse 23
It says behold a virgin shall be a child and shall bring for the son and they should call his name Emmanuel
Which being interpreted is God with us. So not only is Jesus Christ the son of David. He's also God
With us and we're identifying who Jesus is. What is his identity? Well, he's a son of David, but he's also God
with us
Look at chapter 2, verse 2, we'll see more of his identity saying,
where is he that is born king of the Jews?
And I guess this is unique to the Gospel of Matthew.
This particular statement or this particular question of the wise men saying,
where is he, right?
Where is this person that is born?
Notice this king of...
the Jews. Who are we looking for? What is the identity of the person that we want to find?
We want to find the king of the Jews. That's who we're looking for. That's the identity of
Christ. That's who they're in search of is the king of the Jews. In verse 6, this is also brought up.
And thou, Bethlehem, and the land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah, for out of thee shall come a
governor that shall rule my people Israel. Not only is Jesus Christ the son of David, God with us, king of the Jews,
but he's also the governor.
In verse 23, we also see another emphasis of who he is.
It says,
And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth
that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets.
He should be called a Nazarene.
So Jesus Christ is a son of David.
He's God with us.
He's the king of the Jews.
He's a governor.
He's also a Nazarene.
Look at chapter 3 verse 17.
And lo, a voice from heaven saying,
this is my beloved son and whom I am well pleased.
God is constantly revealing to us
all the different identities of Jesus Christ.
What are some of his identities we've seen?
He's a son of David.
He's God with us.
He's the king of the Jews.
He's the governor.
He's a Nazarene.
He's also the beloved son of God.
He is the beloved son in whom God is well pleased.
Look at chapter four, verse three.
And when the tempter came to him,
Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made red. What is the devil trying to question?
He's questioning the identity of Jesus Christ, isn't he?
He's questioning his identity if you're the Son of God.
But we know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
And what does false religion do in this world today?
It tries to put a question mark on who Jesus Christ really is.
When you look at the religion of Islam, it's putting a question mark on Jesus Christ being
the Son of God.
which we're not Judeo-Christian, we're just 100% Christians, 0% Judaism.
Judaism is an anti-Christ religion that puts a question mark on who Jesus Christ really is,
and they don't say that He's the Son of God, but the Bible makes it clear that He is the Son of God.
Because the devil wants to put doubt on Jesus Christ being the Son of God.
And we have to understand the identity of Jesus Christ that He is the Son of God,
The devil wanted to confuse Jesus Christ on who he is.
And of course, I'm not trying to preach yet,
but the devil wants to put a question mark on you, on who you are.
on what your identity is, and just like Jesus Christ is the Son of God,
we also are the Sons of God, and the devil constantly wants to put a question mark there for you
and make you doubt who you really are and what your identity really is.
But we need to make sure that we understand who we are and we have to understand who
Jesus Christ was and that Jesus Christ was firm in his identity, wasn't he?
Chapter 7, look at verse 24.
Chapter 7 verse 24.
Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock, and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock, and everyone that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand.
And the rain descended and the floods came, the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.
And it came to pass when Jesus had ended these things, the people were astonished at his doctrine for he taught them as one having authority, not as the scribes.
What is another identity of Jesus Christ as he's one having authority?
That he can give sayings and saying you have to do my sayings to be a wise man
And if you don't do my sayings you are gonna be like the foolish man
He understood his identity as one having authority and he preached as one having authority
Look at chapter 9 verse 6 chapter 9 verse 6
It says but that he may know that the son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins
Then say he did the sick of the policy arise take up by bed and go into thy house
He wanted people to understand his identity what that he had been given power as the son of man to forgive sins
This speaks a lot to his identity that he has the power and authority to forgive sin
Which I would say appeals to his divinity who else can forgive sin, but
the Lord Jesus Christ which is God and so of course God the Son of Man has power to forgive
sins on earth chapter 11 verse 3 chapter 11 verse 3 we're going to see more of the questioning
of Jesus Christ that didn't he says and he said unto him art thou he that should come
or do we look for another now John the Baptist is being persecuted he is in jail he's in prison
for believing in Jesus.
Ultimately, if you think about it,
he believes Jesus is the Messiah,
he believes Jesus is the Christ,
he's commissioned of God
to prepare the people for Jesus Christ,
he's baptizing the wilderness.
I mean, how many people is he really hurting
out in the wilderness eating locusts and wild honey?
I mean, this guy's not really causing a problem carnally,
but he could be causing a problem spiritually
for the Pharisees and the Sadducees
because he's rebuking them for their sin and their iniquity
and he's drawing people into the Lord.
And so as a result,
he's now going to be put in prison
because he's reproaching that spiritual connection.
And look, he's reproaching all the leadership.
He's bucking at all authority.
Even Herod is sinning.
And think about it.
Why is it important for John the Baptist to call out hair and sin?
Well, there's the thing if you don't realize your sin or how you're gonna get saved
You know, we might think like, how dare John the Baptist or a Buke Herod for being a sinner?
But at the end of the day, don't we all have to do that when we go out to the door?
Now we're pretty polite about it.
We typically say like, hey, have you ever told a lie or something?
But couldn't we go something a little more extreme?
Like what if we knocked on the door and say, hey, is that woman your wife or is this just
your girlfriend?
And then we can say, well, it's not lawful for you to have her.
You're committing fornication as a fornicator. You deserve hell and you need to get saved now. I'm not recommending as a soul winning
I'm just saying that couldn't we reproach them with a bigger sin if we wanted to and
John the Baptist is going out and making it clear that people are sinful
Why so that they could get saved because they need a savior
And at the end of the day, John the Baptist for believing in the Lord Jesus Christ is in prison.
That's really at the core why he's in prison.
And so he's kind of wondering like, hey, I'm believing in you and doing what you're telling me to do.
And now I'm in prison.
And this could be what some people give this mindset of, hey.
you know, if I serve Jesus Christ and negative things are happening to me, am I on the right path? Is this real?
And he's kind of questioning Jesus Christ's identity.
He's questioning who Jesus Christ is.
And what does the text say?
Well, verse number three.
Again, art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?
And Jesus answered and said to him,
go and show John again those things which he do here and see.
A blind receipt of their sight.
and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear,
the dead are raised up, and the poor of the gospel preach to them,
notice this, and blessed is he, whose service shall not be offended in me.
So, if you get persecuted,
For going to church, reading a Bible, serving God, preaching the Gospel, will you then be
offended and say, well, how dare Jesus allow me to go through this suffering or this persecution
if I'm believing in Him and doing what He told me to do?
But Jesus says, hey, blessed are those that are not going to be offended when persecution
comes.
When struggles come, when tribulations come, you know, blessed are they that are not offended
Blessed are they that are not offended when someone slams the door at you out soul-winning
or gets mad at you out soul-winning or when your family members lie about you because
you go to a church and they say, oh, you're in a cult.
Look, that's highly offensive.
I mean, being in a cult is so weird and extreme and it makes you seem like you're a brain
dead idiot to join a cult.
and their leaders are strange and the things they're asking people to do
are just stupid on the surface.
The communications that are coming from cult leaders are just obviously dumb and weird.
You know, let's move to Guyana and drink poison Kool-Aid.
You know, only an idiot would do such a thing.
But yet they accuse you of being in a cult and you know what?
Blessed are they that are not offended in Jesus Christ when these reproaches come when these persecutions come when tribulations come
Just like John being thrown in prison, you know blessed that are they they're not offended in him
And when we think about Jesus Christ when we think about his identity
We can see here. Hey, he's the one that should come and we shouldn't be offended in him
Who is he? He's the one that we should believe that is the one to come no matter what happens to us in our lives
Go to chapter number 12. Go to chapter number 12
John the Baptist is in prison for believing in Jesus and look there's gonna be some people cast in prison
for believing in Jesus
It's happened throughout history. It'll happen again. It's probably gonna happen in a major way in the end times
Not only just prison death
Be thou faithful unto death, and I'll give thee a crown of life.
You know, blessed are those that are not offended in the identity of Jesus Christ.
Matthew 12 verse 8, the Bible also says this about Jesus.
For the Son of Man is Lord, even of the Sabbath day.
Who is his identity? His identity is that he is Lord of the Sabbath.
Look at verse 18.
Behold, my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved, and whom my soul is well pleased,
I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall show judgment to the Gentiles."
Not only is Jesus Christ the Lord of the Sabbath, he's also the servant of God.
He is my servant.
Look at verse 41.
It says, The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with his generation, and shall condemn
it, because they are a penitent of the preaching of Jonas, and behold, a greater than Jonas
is here.
What did Jesus Christ understand about himself?
Because this is the red letters.
He understood that he is greater than Jonah.
Not only that, keep reading.
The Queen of the Salsa rise up in the judgment with his generation
and she'll condemn it
for she came from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon.
And behold, a greater than Solomon is here.
Jesus Christ understood in his identity that he is greater than Solomon as well.
Why? Because he's the Son of God.
Because he's God manifesting the flesh.
because he's the servant of God.
He's the Lord of the Sabbath.
He has authority to forgive sins.
He's the beloved son.
He's the governor.
He's the king of the Jews.
You know, in another passage it says Matthew 21,
I don't have this in my notes,
but when he's asking the Pharisees
about what think he of Christ, who's son is he,
he's saying, why then David and spirit
doth call him Lord?
You know, David, which is the father of Solomon, is calling Jesus Christ, Lord, because he was his king, he was his authority, he's over him, he's greater than David.
And of course, David being greater than Solomon in this authority structure, in this chain, why? Because Jesus Christ is the greatest.
Now, of course, we have also mentioned in chapter 13, look at verse 54.
prophecies of Jesus Christ, and when he was coming to his own country,
he taught them in their synagogue in so much that they were astonished and said,
Winshath, this man, this wisdom, and these mighty works
is not this the carpenter's son. What is that question?
What are we questioning? His identity.
Isn't this just the carpenter's son?
How does this guy have all these works?
How is this guy doing these things? Isn't this just the carpenter's son?
Is not his mother called Mary?
What does that matter, right?
It's just, they're just saying, like,
isn't this his mom?
Isn't it just Mary?
To them, she wasn't special.
You know, I know Catholics like to act like Mary,
she's just this super special woman.
But to them, think about the context of what they're saying.
Isn't it just Mary, son?
We know Mary is.
Nothing special about Mary.
And his brethren, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas.
Here's his brothers and his sisters.
Are they not all with us?
You know you have brothers and sisters because your mom and dad are not virgins, all right?
That's how you have brothers and sisters, Catholics.
Wins then at this man all these things.
And they were offended at him.
But Jesus said unto them, a prophet is not without honor,
save in his own country and in his own house.
What did Jesus know about his identity?
Hey, I'm a prophet.
And just because you don't believe in me?
Well, that's expected because you know what?
A prophet is not respected among his own family members
and among his own country and his own people and his own land.
You know, people just have a hard time respecting people that they know.
They have a hard time respecting things that they get familiar with.
They kind of get this complacency. They take things for granted.
And they don't understand what they truly have.
You know, I think that...
When we read the Bible, it's easy for us to see David and think he's really special or Solomon or Abraham or all these people.
But I guarantee you go back into that time and the people that knew him, and it was just, it's just David, it's just Solomon.
It's just my little brother, it's just my big brother, it's just whoever, right?
I mean, David's the runt of the family, Solomon's a younger brother in many cases.
Let me tell you something, it's really hard for people to respect their little brother
when they do something greater than them or have more authority or they're in some kind of position above them.
It's really hard for people to respect even people that are younger than them in general.
I mean, why does the Bible say let no man despise thy youth?
It's almost like people can't respect people just that are younger than them.
How many people are alive at Jesus' time that were older than him?
But it's Jesus, it's John the Baptist, it's David.
I mean, a lot of people had a hard time respecting David.
I mean, think about Saul, he's so much older, he's bigger, he's taller, he's the king, yet
you know, David is actually the greater person, but you know, for Saul, I'm sure that was
really hard for him to respect this particular individual, and here's the thing, the prophet
is in the same way that throughout history, prophets don't really get the respect.
Dignity, they don't get the praise, they don't get the things that they really owed or deserved.
And you know, it's fine. It's not that they need it.
It's just you have to understand that the real prophets of this world are not going to be loved by their contemporaries.
In many cases, they're not going to be respected and treated that well.
And that's what Jesus is saying.
Hey, a prophet is not without honor or save in his own country and his own house.
This should motivate you to do foreign missions.
You go out in a foreign missionary land,
and people respect you a lot more.
Not only that, just soul winning in general.
You go soul winning here, people don't really care.
You go in other countries, you go in other places.
People respect you and have more
dignity towards you
and show more reverence towards you
when you are from somewhere else,
when you're from a foreign country.
It's an interesting experience.
But who is Jesus Christ? He's a prophet.
Chapter 14 verse 2,
and said in his servants, this is John the Baptist.
He is risen from the dead.
Now, this is what I think is interesting here,
is that Herod also is giving an identity to Christ,
but it's wrong.
Because again, in the book of Matthew,
we're identifying who Jesus Christ is,
but we notice that a lot of people
are misidentifying who Jesus Christ is.
They think, oh, this is just John the Baptist.
No, it's not just John the Baptist.
It's the Son of God.
It's the king of the Jews, which really reproaches Herod.
Because to think about it, it's different Herods.
But why did we have Matthew chapter number two?
Well, it's because Herod wanted to kill the king of the Jews
because he was afraid of losing his power and his authority.
and he was terrified of this, so the king of the Jews would be a terrifying thought.
But even just John the Baptist is scary enough for Herod, but he's a misidentifying who he is.
If we skip down to verse 33, he says this, this is his disciples,
then they that were in the ship came and worshiped him saying,
Thou art the Son of God.
He's not done the Baptist of a truth.
He's the Son of God.
That's whose true identity really is,
and that's reestablished in this chapter.
Chapter 16, look at verse 13.
When Jesus came to the coast of Caesarea Philippi,
he asked the disciples saying,
Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?
What are we getting at the heart of?
The identity who is Christ.
Who is the Son of Man?
What is this guy?
And they said, some say that thou art John the Baptist.
Well, that was Herod, right?
Some Elias, and others Jeremiah's, or one of the prophets.
Hey, this is a Muslim here.
Oh, Jesus is a prophet.
No, no, no, he's not just a prophet.
He sayeth unto them, but whom say ye that I am?
But who do Christians believe that Jesus is?
And Simon Peter answered and said,
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Notice, we're identifying who Jesus Christ is because identity is so important to whom
Jesus Christ is that he's the Christ, the Son of the living God.
And Jesus answered and said, and blessed art thou, Simon and Barjona, for flesh and blood
have not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
Notice that the identity of Christ is not revealed through human means.
How do we identify who Jesus Christ is from the Father?
How do we identify that through the Father through the Father's Word, which is the Word of God?
There is no way to understand that Jesus Christ is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, apart from the Bible, from faith in the Scriptures.
We cannot prove that through archaeology, we cannot prove that through some genetic blood testing, we cannot prove that from some human means.
Flesh and blood cannot reveal this unto you, but only the Word of God can reveal unto you who Jesus Christ is, and we believe as identity through faith.
We have faith in Jesus Christ, and that's why we are believers.
We are Christians through our faith in Jesus Christ and we believe that He is the Son of God.
Oh, I want to see it. I want the evidence. I want the proof. Isn't this the Jews?
The Jews are constantly want the proof and the evidence.
They're like, hey, this is his physical brother and sister. How then is he the Son of God?
They can't believe it because they don't have some physical distinction.
They're saying, okay, we'll send back up and then we'll believe you or come down.
Or they want something physical or tangible to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God,
Only through faith can you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
That is how someone comes to this knowledge is through the faith of God's Word, not through
evidence, not through apologetics, not through logic, not through human reasoning, not through
flesh and blood, but rather from the Father's Word, the Word of God through Scripture understanding
who Jesus Christ is and believing Matthew, believing the Gospels, believing the Word
of God.
That's how we understand who Jesus Christ is.
While he yet spake behold a bright cloud overshadowed them and behold a voice out of the cloud which said this is my beloved son
I knew mine. Well pleased here. He him again the father
Identifying for them the son of God, but notice this happens after
They declare this because obviously I believe God wants us to see these things and have more tangible proofs and evidences
But we have to first take our step of faith and then once we take our step of faith
God will reveal himself unto us and
Miraculous ways and new ways, but you have to first take that step of faith for God to then reveal himself
Undo you in these incredible ways
Of course, we are the only ones that will get to see Jesus and God the Father in glory and in heaven and in the light
which no man can approach to right now, but someday we will see the Father's face.
And of course we get that because by faith we believe in Jesus Christ
and because of our faith then we will then have that thing, that our faith come to sight.
We have to understand who the identity of Jesus Christ is.
Chapter 19, look at verse 17, chapter 19 verse 17 is going to get to the heart
of the issue of who Jesus Christ is, his identity again, and he said in them,
That is God.
He's saying, hey, good master.
Right? That's what he says unto him.
And then Jesus is getting at the identity.
Why are you calling me good?
Because there's only one that's good.
And that's God.
Are you calling me God?
And then what is the guy?
The guy just drops it.
He doesn't bring it up anymore.
He doesn't get to the identity of Christ.
Because here's the thing, before you can believe in the gospel, you have to first identify who Jesus Christ is.
And when you won't even identify Him as the Son of God, as God, as the perfect, innocent, spotless lamb,
well then you're not ready to even get saved.
You have to first identify who Jesus Christ is, and who's that one who never sinned?
Whereas this guy thinks that he hasn't sinned well
You're not ready to get saved because you have to realize everyone's a sinner
And there's only one that was righteous by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men and justification of life
And that one that was righteous is Jesus Christ because there's none good. No, not one who is that? That's God
That's Jesus Christ his identity as the perfect spotless lamb is important
That's gonna be shed for the the sins of many
Who is he?
He's God.
Chapter 21, look at verse 5.
Tell you the daughter of Zion, behold thy king, comeeth unto the meek, and sitting upon
an ass and a colt, the fold of an ass.
Not only this, Jesus Christ is the king, specifically in this verse, it is thy king.
This is your king. I am thy king. And of course we learned that he's the meek and humble king as well
He's a meek and a humble king, but that is his identity verse 9 and a multitude that went before and that followed
Christ saying
Hosanna to the son of David
Blessings he that come in the name of the Lord Hosanna in the highest who is Jesus Christ
He's the one that's coming in the name of the Lord verse 10 and when he was coming to Jerusalem all the city was moved saying who is this
Who is this? And the multitude said this is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee who is Jesus
He's the prophet of Nazareth
verse 15 and
When the chief priests and scribes all the wonderful things that he did and the children crying in the temple saying
Hosanna to the son of David they were sore displeased and said of them here is thou what these say and
Jesus saith unto them. Yay
Have you never read, out of the mouth of babes and sucklings,
thou hast perfected praise?
Now what's interesting is again, what are they questioning?
Hey, do you realize what they're saying about you?
Do you realize who they're calling you?
Do you realize that the identity that they're giving to you?
And what does Jesus Christ respond with?
Okay, well have you not read the Bible?
How we're gonna have babes and sucklings praising?
Now here's the thing, who's the only one worthy of praise?
God.
Therefore, he understood his identity.
He was secure in his identity, so he was willing to take that praise, that honor, that worship
that should only come to the Son of God, that should only come to God in the flesh.
And he was secure in that identity, what identity that he is, the Son of David.
And again, we're not just talking about any Son of David, we're talking about the Son
Chapter 23, verse 39, chapter 23, verse 29, we see it emphasized again, we said it before,
for I say in you, you shall not see me henceforth till you shall say,
blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.
Who is Jesus Christ? He's the one that comes in the name of the Lord.
Chapter 24, verse 30,
and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man and heaven
And then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
Of course, chapter 24 brings up the Son of Man coming, coming, coming multiple times.
But we notice that he is rebuking the Jews and telling them that he's the Son of Man that's going to come from heaven,
that he is essentially divinity, that he is the Son of God, he is the Son of man.
Chapter 26 verse 24, we see this again.
The son of man goeth, as it is written of him, but woe unto that man by whom the son of man is betrayed,
and have been good for that man, if he had not been born.
Notice that he's not only identifying himself with the Son of Man that's going to come in the name of Lord
that's going to come from heaven, but he also identifies himself as the Son of Man that is going to
perish as it's written of him.
So the Bible is constantly bringing up a Son of Man, a prophet, the person that's coming, and Jesus Christ is identifying himself.
I am that Son of Man that the scriptures was writing about. I am that Son of Man that's going to be
betrayed. Verse 28
for this is my blood of the New Testament,
which is shed for many for their mission of sins.
He's recognizing that his identity,
that his blood is special, that his blood is precious,
that his blood is unique,
that only his blood can wash away the sins of mankind
because he is perfect, he is spotless,
he is that lamb sacrifice,
and that with his blood,
he's gonna usher in the New Testament.
A brand new testament is going to be from his blood, that's his identity.
Chapter 26, look at verse 63.
But Jesus held his peace and the high priest answered and said to him,
I adjure thee by the living God that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.
What is it that the Jews really want to know?
What is the most important question?
What is just the main emphasis?
What is your identity?
Who are you?
Are you really the Christ?
Are you really the Son of God?
Jesus sayeth on him,
Thou hast said,
Nevertheless, I say unto you, hereafter ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven.
Of course, him, by position, is sitting next to God.
The Father on the throne recognizes his position as the Son of Man, as the Son of God.
He's saying, yes, I am the Christ. Yes, you are going to see me sitting next to the Father.
Yes, you are going to see me coming in the clouds of heaven.
And by answering this question, they condemn him to death for blasphemy.
Why was Jesus Christ put to death?
Because of his identity, because of his identity, he identified himself as the Son of God, he identified himself as God manifests in the flesh,
he identified himself as the one that could forgive sins on earth.
He identified himself as the king of the Jews, the governor, the Nazarene, the beloved son, one is having authority,
the one that should come, the Lord of the Sabbath, the servant,
the greater than Jonas, the greater than Solomon, that prophet,
that he's truly the Son of God, he's the Christ, he's the beloved Son,
that he's good, that he's God, that he's the King,
Hosanna, and the prophet of Nazareth, the Son of David, the one to come in the name of the Lord,
the Son of Man, and that his blood would give us
the New Testament, that he is that Christ.
That's who his identity is. So important.
And Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, saying,
Art thou the king of the Jews, and Jesus said unto him, Thou sayest,
Hey, are you the king of the Jews?
Well, you keep telling me, you keep saying I'm the king of the Jews.
That's what everybody's calling me.
What is the whole point here?
Well, Pilate wants to understand his identity.
It's all about identity again.
Are you really the king of the Jews?
Is this who you are?
Verse 17, therefore when they gather together Pilate said unto them whom will ye that I release unto you Barabbas or Jesus
Which is called Christ he can even recognize this guy is called Christ
That's who we're identifying him is well that would be important because if he's really the Christ would you really want to kill him?
We're identifying who he is, he's the Christ, verse 29,
and they stripped him and put, I'm sorry, verse 29,
and when they had plated a crown of thorns,
they put it upon his head and a reed in his right hand,
and they bowed the knee before him and mocked him,
saying, Hail, king of the Jews.
Do the Gentiles believe that he's the king of the Jews?
No, they don't believe his identity, do they?
And they mock him for what?
For his identity.
They're mocking who he is
Who is he he is the king of the Jews and they mock him for being the king of the Jews verse 37
This and and I'm sorry and set up over his head his accusation written
This is Jesus
The king of the Jews
What is his identity?
It's Jesus and that he is the king of the Jews go to chapter 28 and look at verse number 18
And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying,
all power is given unto me in heaven and earth.
Go ye therefore and teach all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,
teaching them to deserve all things,
what serve I have commanded you,
and lo, I am with you always,
even unto the end of the world, amen.
Who is Jesus Christ?
As he clearly alludes to himself here in verse 19,
he is the Son.
We have the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.
He's giving the Great Commission and He's saying,
you need to observe my commandments.
Hey, you need to teach people what I commanded you
and I'm with you and we understand that Jesus Christ
understood his identity from the beginning to the end.
and the identity is emphasized in the Gospel of Matthew.
Now, of course, all the Gospels are containing a lot of the same elements,
and I'm not saying you can't find his identity in the other Gospels,
but I feel like the identity of who he is is kind of emphasized in the Gospel of Matthew,
and I tried to prove that through a lot of these things.
Go over to Mark now.
Probably right there. Let's make another transition then, okay?
So if we think about who Jesus Christ is, he is the son of David,
physically, carnally speaking. He's also the son of God and we understand that,
you know, he was conceived of the Holy Ghost and that's just who he is.
He's the king of the Jews. This is just his birthright, his identity.
When we go to the mark, what is mark emphasizing?
Well, it's emphasizing the ox, his power,
and really this is the word that comes to mind
that I want to emphasize is works.
His works.
Now again, think about this.
If someone new presents themselves to you,
or you're talking to someone new,
or you're trying to find out about somebody.
What is one of the ways that they may identify themselves to you?
They may allude to their identity.
They may say,
I'm Jonathan, I'm the son of Trey.
I'm Trey's son, right?
I'm part of the Shelley family.
That's to my identity.
That's who I am.
I could say other things about my identity, just that my name is Jonathan and just other things about who I am.
I could say I'm the pastor of Steadfast Baptist Church is just an identity.
But then another thing that a lot of people will do is they identify themselves or they talk about themselves from another angle.
Not just who they are is just a person, but what they do.
Right? They say, hey, I'm a pastor. Hey, I'm a plumber. Hey, I'm a carpenter. Hey, I'm a fisherman. Hey, I'm whatever.
And it's just, they're alluding to basically who they are, and they're saying, I am not just the son of Trey, I'm also...
Software developer or whatever, you know, just basically whatever your works are you're a homemaker, right?
I could say other things about me, right? I'm a husband. I'm a father, you know other things like that
That'd be like my identity, but what do I do? You know
Wives are in the home making the home. They're a homemaker, you know, that's their works that they're doing and
Then their identity is a wife or a mother
And the same way with Jesus Christ, he is the Son of God.
He's God manifest in the flesh.
But I believe that Mark is really emphasizing the works
of Jesus Christ and the works that he does.
Now, what's interesting about the Gospel of Mark, again,
think about where we started in Matthew.
We just start with his genealogy and then his birth.
Mark's different.
Mark doesn't really do that.
Look at verse 1.
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
as it is written in the prophets,
Behold, I send my messenger before thy face,
which shall prepare thy way before thee.
So it just starts with the gospel.
Right and then it just starts with John the Baptist the voice of one crying in the wilderness prepare you the way the Lord make his
Paths straight John did baptized in the wilderness, so we just we just immediately start with what the baptism Jesus Christ
So what does it just starts with his work?
And again, sometimes when we talk about people,
the first thing we bring up is just their work
or the works that they do.
That's just the first way we talk about them.
And in the same way, that's just kind of how this is being emphasized.
We're just looking at another angle of the person, right?
We can think about Jesus whose identity is,
but then we also think about Jesus from a,
what are the works that he did?
What are the things that he does, right?
Well, he gets baptized.
That's just the first thing that happens.
We have the 40 days where he's 10th in the wilderness.
And for the most part, it just kind of like,
it speeds through these points.
And then it's just going to slow down, it's going to really talk about just the things they really did,
the works they was doing in his particular ministry.
I mean, look at verse 14.
Now, after that, John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God.
So we just kind of fast forward, just like fast-tracking.
Hey, John the Baptist is there, he baptizes Jesus, Jesus goes into the wilderness for 40 days,
he's tempted, and then just immediately it's just like, but what was he doing?
He was going out and preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God.
We just immediately just kind of fast-forward and fast-track to like,
it's like he went to Harvard and he went to here, but then it's like, but then he's an accountant, right?
And here's the little stuff that he does, here's all the works that he does.
Just kind of like this fast track.
Yeah, you got baptized, he went to the wilderness,
but then he was just out there preaching the gospel.
And you have, what is the main work?
What is the main thing that Jesus Christ did?
He was preaching the gospel, the kingdom of God
and saying, the time is fulfilled
and the kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent ye and believe the gospel.
What did Jesus do the most? It was preaching the gospel, preaching the death burial and resurrection of himself and that you had to believe in him to be saved.
You had to repent. What is the repenting? Changing what you believe, changing your mindset from your works, thinking that you can get into heaven based on your goodness or following the law
and putting your faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ that his death, burial and resurrection was the only payment for your sin.
That was the works that he did and he goes and does a lot of miracles.
healing people through their faith, only
carnally speaking, to emphasize that that's how you say spiritually in the same way.
That the same way he healed people carnally is the same way that he heals people spiritually.
Now, in chapter one, again, he gets his disciples, he heals people, he casts out devils, and he preaches.
You'll notice this emphasized chapter two, verse four,
and when they could not come nigh unto him for the press,
they uncovered the roof where he was, and when they had broken it up,
they let down the bed, wearing the sick of the palsy lay.
So, he heals that sick of the palsy in chapter number two.
What are some of the works that Jesus does?
Well, he heals this guy that's sick of the palsy.
Not only that,
in this chapter, it brings up disciples plucking corn, but in chapter 3, look at verse 10.
For he had healed many and so much that they pressed upon him for to touch him as many as had plagues.
So again, it's just emphasized in the works.
Now, what's interesting about the Gospel of Mark is very little of it.
Almost none of it is unique to the Gospel of Mark.
I mean, Mark is really just like a repackaging of Matthew and Luke.
But I think, why do you have it?
Because, again, if I say, as an identity, I'm a pastor,
I'm probably going to also bring up my works in correlation to that, right?
So a lot of times your works are going to kind of be lumped in with your identity
and other elements of who you are, and so we have Mark just emphasizing again
just the works again, and it kind of gives us a little bit more
emphasis or focus on just what was happening.
What is he doing? He's just healing people and he's healing people constantly of demonic spirits,
of unclean spirits specifically.
That's the thing that he's constantly doing.
Verse 11, and unclean spirits, when they saw him fell down before him and cried saying,
So he was not only identified as a son of God, but he was using his identity as a son of God
to then what? Do work to cast out devils and to heal many different people.
So he wasn't just walking around saying I'm the son of God.
He was using his identity to do that work and to heal tons of different people.
Verse 1 of chapter 4 and it began again to teach by the seaside and there was gathered in a great multitude.
so that they entered into a ship and sat in the sea
and the whole multitude was by the sea on the land.
So it says in verse two,
and he taught them many things,
notice this by parables,
and he said to them as doctrine.
So Jesus was preaching the gospel,
he was healing the sick,
he was casting out demons,
he's preaching tons,
he's preaching in all kinds of parables.
Chapter five, verse nine,
you see a famous one about Legion,
and he asked them,
what is thy name?
And he answered and said,
my name is Legion,
of course he cast them out.
Chapter six, verse 12,
and they went out and preached that men should repent,
and they cast out many devils and anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them.
Notice again, it's just emphasizing many, he's just healing many different people.
And he said unto her, for this saying, go thy way, the devil has gone out of thy daughter."
You kind of almost know it's like every chapter, it's just like someone being cured of a demonic spirit,
devil's being cast out just repeatedly over and over.
Chapter 8 verse 9 has the feeding of 5,000 and they that had eaten were about 4,000 and he sent them away.
So you have that feeding of 4,000 here.
So again,
What are the works Jesus is feeding people he's preaching them you know parables and he's preaching the gospel and he's healing people
What is it? He's his life is about works. He's just working and working and working chapter 9 verse 25
And when Jesus saw the people came running together, he rebuke the foul spirit, saying
unto them, unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter
no more.
Enter him."
So again, he's casting out demons.
Chapter 10 verse 1, it says, he taught them again.
And then we get into chapters 11 through 16, which again is that passion week.
So if you really think about it, it's like Mark just seems to really emphasize, again,
just the works of Jesus Christ, the casting out of devils.
We enter in that passion week again.
is Palm Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.
What's interesting is if you look at verse 12,
notice it says an on the morrow
when they were come from Beth and he was hungry.
So we have Palm Sunday, then we have the morrow
which would be Monday.
Then in verse 20, it says and in the morning
as they pass by, so there you get Tuesday.
That's kind of what actually helped me
figure out how to get the timeline
for the whole Passion Week chart
or the Passover chart is you kind of have
Mark here giving you a timeline and then you can compare this with the other gospels and you can kind of fit in the story
Blinds, but you basically have Palm Sunday
You have the Monday you have the Tuesday and then it says in verse. I
Think it's in chapter
I'm forgetting now.
It says in after this, I think when you compare with the other,
maybe it's when you compare with the other gospel,
it says in after that, two days was the Passover.
And so that's how I kind of like combined those to figure out,
hey, we haven't even gotten to the Wednesday yet.
And you kind of know later from the story,
you're not at Wednesday yet.
Chapters 12 to 13 is parables.
Chapter 14, last suburb garden, condemnation.
Chapter 15, crucifixion.
Go to chapter 16, you have the resurrection and commission.
and then you finish on verse 20.
And I think this is interesting how it finishes as well.
It says,
And they went forth and preached everywhere,
the Lord working with them
and confirming the word with signs following, amen.
How did we identify who the disciples were,
who the apostles were by their works, by the signs?
Just like we identified who Jesus was through the works.
We identified Jesus' identity here by the word of God.
And we identify him as the Word of God through his works.
It's confirmed and agreed through his works.
So I want to get the last one,
and I'm not going to spend as much time as I did
on Mark and Luke as I did in Matthew,
but we're going to go through Luke here now.
If you kind of just compare the Passion Week, 37% of the chapters of Mark are dedicated to the Passion,
and 35% of my pages in my Bible, so it's a big, big chunk.
Now if we go to Luke, here's the last one I want to talk about though,
and we're kind of talking about Jesus Christ's emphasis.
He's the man, he's got his humanity being emphasized,
You know, and I kind of I think I wrote these in a different order, but I
Want to I want to read I want to use this one down here
Really, I think his humility was probably a better word for this one because I want to actually use the humanity
For this but we really see that emphasize the humanity
Christ in the Gospel of Luke. So again the humility aspect is related to the
humanity because again for God coming down and being a man is a lot of humility
and being a man we should have some humility when we look to God himself.
And so we think of that very closely related but I want to just emphasize
the humanity of Christ for a moment in the Gospel of Luke. Look at chapter 1.
And this is what's interesting, it says,
for as much as many have taken in hand to set forth
and order a declaration of those things
which are most surely believed among us,
even as they delivered them unto us,
which from the beginning were eyewitnesses
and ministers of the word,
it seemed good to me also,
having had perfect understanding of all things,
from the very first to right unto thee
in order most excellent theophilus.
This is what I think is interesting
is it's like, it's literally written to a man.
And it's like emphasizing physical evidence, because it's almost like this gospel is just kind of, again,
emphasizing humanity.
And you'll notice that Luke is very detail-oriented, always emphasizing just like
specific events that happened in history, and just the timeline, and the evidences,
and just kind of the humanity of Christ, and it really gives us a lot of details about Christ's humanity.
What is Christ's humanity? Well, he has a real mom.
And he has real family members.
One of his family members is John the Baptist.
And it's his cousin.
And we emphasize this story about John the Baptist
and being his cousin and having that relationship
because who we are as a human,
and many times is based on our relationships
and our relationships form who we are.
Being a single child will have an impact on your life.
Having a lot of brothers and sisters
will have an impact on your life.
Who your mom and dad are, who your cousins are,
who your uncles, aunts,
what part of the country you're from,
what you're upbringing is like.
All these things have impact on who you are.
And we understand who Jesus Christ is.
Look at verse 30.
And the angel said in her fear not, Mary,
for thou hast found favor with God,
and behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb
and bring forth a son and shalt call his name Jesus.
Jesus was really conceived in the womb of Mary
and she's really his physical mother.
Now, it says in verse 35 in the angel answered and said the holy ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee.
Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
She's asking like how in the world is this possible physically?
Well, the Holy Ghost is going to come and you're going to conceive, but this is a real
physical conception.
You are going to really have a baby and you're going to really have to grow them in your
womb and you're going to really have to deliver this particular child.
And he's going to be called the Son of God.
Verse 36, and behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she hath also conceived a son at an old age.
And this is the sixth month with her who was called barren.
For with God nothing should be impossible. We have to understand that Christ becoming human is a miracle
There's no way to understand how that's possible, but with God it's possible
somehow God really became a man and was really incarnated and really put on flesh and was really placed in the womb of Mary and was really
developed in her womb and really given birth and had real
blood and flesh relatives like John the Baptist and had cousins and had this aunt Elizabeth and
these people were people in his life that influenced his life that we're gonna have major impact on
his life. John the Baptist is a major impact and influence on Jesus Christ's life and that's part
of our humanity. All of us have a humanity, have upbringing, have different people in our life.
and waxed strong in spirit.
You know, the Bible in these other Gospels isn't really talking about this,
but Jesus was really a baby.
Jesus was really a little child.
Jesus really had to grow.
Jesus went through the human experience.
He really had to grow, and he had to whack strong.
He had to increase in his life.
He had to go through these different circumstances.
In verse 12 of chapter 2, it says,
In this shall be a sign unto you,
ye shall find the babe
wrapped in swatting clothes lying in a manger.
You know, we typically go to Luke for the Christmas story.
When we talk about Jesus, why?
Because it's really emphasizing,
giving us so much more detail about just him as a person.
He was really a baby.
He was really wrapped in swaddling clothes.
He was really in a manger.
And we kind of get to see like Jesus as the person,
as the man, as the baby.
In verse 21, notice this,
and when eight days were accomplished
for the circumcising of the child,
he was really circumcised.
Another aspect of his humanity,
who he was that he was circumcised under the law.
And this is talking about Simeon.
And he came by the Spirit in the temple
and when the parents brought in the child Jesus
to do for him after the custom of the law,
then took him up in his arms and blessed God and said,
he was a little child that this prophet had to pick up.
He grabbed him and he had this little child
and he grabbed this little child and had him in his arms.
He was a little child.
Verse 42.
And when he was 12 years old, they went up to Jerusalem at the Customers' Feast.
Now he's 12 years old.
He was a 12-year-old boy at one point.
Jesus went through the full experience where you get to see his humanity.
He was really 12 years old.
And so you know, you little 12-year-olds out there, Jesus knows what it's like to be 12
years old.
And you know, at 12 years old, you might think that you're smarter than your parents.
Now, Jesus was probably, okay, but even if you were, even if you are better than your parents,
and even if you're smarter than your parents, what does the Bible say about him?
It says that he subjected himself unto his parents, though, didn't he?
And it says in verse 51 and he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject unto them
But his mother kept all these things in his heart and Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God
Amen, you know the Bible is really emphasizing Jesus. He really was a baby. He really had to grow
He was really a child. He had to struggle with that that teenage dynamic almost
Because he's 12, he's on the verge of that teenage dynamic where he thinks he's a little
bit smarter than his parents, he's already wants to be independent.
But you know what?
At 12, you're not ready to live on your own.
You need to just subject yourself under your parents and live with your parents and do
what they say and still grow in what?
Wisdom and in stature.
Okay, you need some more wisdom, you need some more stature,
and notice he was in favor with God and man.
He pleased people around him, he was a good child.
You know, you should be a good child, you should be a better parent,
you should be subject unto them, you should grow and learn.
Chapter 3 verse 1, it gives a lot of human events here,
and I think that, again, speaks to his humanity.
Some of these things are unique to Luke,
and I'm trying to emphasize the things that are unique to the Gospel of Luke,
and we kind of see some of these uniqueness things
are really emphasizing, again, what? His humanity, who he is as a human.
who he was as a man, who he was as a child.
Look at verse 22.
It says,
And the Holy Ghost ascended in a bodily shape,
like a dove upon him, and the voice came from heaven,
which said, Thou art my beloved son, and whom I am well pleased.
And Jesus himself began to be about 30 years of age,
being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph.
So, again, we get a lot more about his humanity.
He was 30 years old.
He's
Supposedly the son of Joseph, so even Jesus knows what it's like to be in a mixed family a little bit, doesn't he?
Whereas his dad is not even his biological father and he had to be raised by someone that wasn't even his biological father and
Of course, we understand that he's really the son of God
That doesn't mean that Joseph wasn't a good father
It just means it was a different kind of dynamic that he really went through. He's really 30 years old
He waited till he was 30 years old to really get plugged in and do a lot of things for
God and of course we see his lineage
Chases all the way back to the first man because he is really a human.
He is coming from Adam, which was the Son of God.
Chapter 4 verse 2, it says,
Being forty days tempted of the devil,
and in those days he did eat nothing,
and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.
Jesus knows it's like he'd be hungry.
He's like, man, when Pastor Shelley goes past noon,
it's like, I started to get hungry.
But Jesus knows what it's like to really hunger.
And this is the only place that I found,
notice what this says though,
being 40 days tempted of the devil.
Other places he'll say he was in the wilderness 40 days
and 40 nights, and then he'll say he's gonna be
tempted of the devil.
But this one is saying he was tempted for 40 days,
being 40 days tempted of the devil.
Now that's extreme.
Jesus knows what it's like to be tempted of the devil.
He knows what it's like to be tried of the devil,
to have to go through that difficulty,
that persecution, that affliction, that worry.
Chapter five verse one says this.
It says that they pressed upon him.
Chapter six verse 12, it says,
and it came to pass in those days that he went out
into a mountain to pray.
Notice this, and continued all night in prayer to God.
Jesus knows what it's like to work an all nighter.
to pull an all-nighter and to do something all night.
You know, as men, sometimes we have those all-nighters.
You women that are having children,
you know what it's like to have an all-nighter.
Jesus knows what it's like to have an all-nighter.
Chapter seven, look at verse 38.
and stood at his feet behind him, weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears.
We see again the human element and this woman that he loves, and she loves him,
and she's literally wiped his feet with tears.
This is a really, like, interesting experience, part of the human experience.
It says that she loved much also later in the chapter in verse 47.
In certain women which he had healed of evil spirits and verminies, Mary called Magdalene out of whom went seven devils and Joanna, the wife of Cusa, Herod, Steward and Susanna and many others which ministered unto him of their substance.
You know, he needed women to minister unto him and to take care of him and to feed him so that he could accomplish his works.
And you know, he loved women and he loved the women that ministered unto him and they were very important to him so that he could accomplish the works that he had to do.
Another unique reference here
But he turned and rebuked him and said you know not what manner of spirit
Year of a of for the son of man has not come to destroy men's lives
But to save them we see the empathy and the compassion Jesus Christ has towards people that are not well liked not well loved
You know in their circle. These are not people that are
Cool to like. Hey, we shouldn't like the Samaritans. This is kind of like easy to not like them
you know, or to look down upon them, or to think that they're inferior.
But Jesus is saying, hey, we shouldn't want these people to be destroyed.
He loves and empathizes with people that are not loved and empathized by his culture or
by his circle of friends.
Verse 1 of chapter 10, and after these things, the Lord appointed other seventy also.
This is the only time it mentions, but he appointed seventy other people.
He includes other people in his ministry.
Then answered one of the lawyers and said a master thus saying thou reproaches this also
And he said whoa, and you also you lawyers
Jesus knows what it's like to feel the pressure
When someone doesn't want you to do the right thing doesn't want you to preach the word of God when you're preaching and people give you
That face and this is what I like about Jesus is it like is this preaching about me and he's like yes, I'm gonna add more now
You know some people get mad like oh the preacher's preaching about me
Well, you know what if Jesus is preaching about you and you bring it up. He'll preach harder at you
You know don't think like that the preacher shouldn't preach about you
And in fact Jesus knows what it's like to preach against people and for them to feel uncomfortable
And you know what it's a difficult thing to do, but sometimes it's necessary, isn't it?
Verse chapter 12 verse 13
And one of the companies that a master speak to my brother that he divide the inheritance with me and he said in them
Man who made me a judge or divider over you, you know again people wanting you to
Rule their personal lives
Boy, he knows what that's like and he's like no
I'm not gonna get involved in that people constantly wants you to do things and and get outside of your realm of authority or your purpose in
Life and that's part of humanity, isn't it people wanting you to make all the decisions always side with them
Sometimes you have to say like hey, it's not for me
He also says in
There to beware of covetousness and he has a rebuke people for being very covetous chapter 13 verse 1
It's interesting, but it says there are people that were present that told them about the
blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
I think this is interesting because Jesus is from Galilee.
And it's like, oh, didn't you hear?
Pilots killing Galileans and mingling their blood
with sacrifices.
I think this was used to intimidate Jesus,
or to try and make him feel like he's number one,
that he could be killed or the threat of danger,
but also like Galileans are the worst or the scummiest
because look at what Pilots doing to these kind of people.
And Jesus is trying to say like, hey,
you think the Galileans are worse than other people?
They're not necessarily worse than other people.
And, again, we see that humanity of being looked down upon of where you're from.
Maybe someone's looked down upon you from where you're from or thought you're inferior.
Or, hey, did you see what ICE did to some of these illegal immigrants or something?
And it's like, what?
You think these illegal immigrants are worse sinners than some Americans?
There's a lot of the citizens that I would be like, let's get rid of them first.
over illegals. I like some illegals, not all, but I like some of them.
Anybody that believes in Jesus Christ and is saved, I love those ones for sure,
are the ones that want to get saved. I think we should bring in the stranger
that wants to believe in Jesus. Stranger that wants to practice Hinduism can go
back to hell, alright? Lots of parables he teaches in chapter 14 and 16. I'm not
Lazarus and the rich man also talking to his humanity I think because think
about it he wants someone to come back from the dead to preach and get his
brethren saved but Jesus is saying hey even though one rose from the dead
someone's not gonna persuade them
Meaning what? That we need to use humans, just normal parts of our humanity to preach the Gospel.
We don't need something special. It's the humanity that goes out and preach the Gospel.
Those are the chosen vessels that go out. And again, humanity I think is being really emphasized in the Gospel of Luke.
You have the 10 lepers in chapter 17, story not mentioned, and you see that Jesus doesn't get the thank yous that he deserves.
He heals 10 lepers. Where are the nine?
Chapter 18 verse 1, he gives this particular parable, why?
That men ought always to pray.
Another part of humanity is that we put our faith in Jesus
and we realize our humility.
Hey, we need to just pray and ask God to help us
because we can't accomplish the things that we need on our own.
We need someone else to help us and we ought to always pray.
I think there's a lot of aspects here.
Chapter 19 has one of the greatest verses
and it's only in Luke and it's only in the King James Bible.
This is an epic verse, but look at verse number 10,
for the Son of Man has come to seek
and to save that which is lost.
We see the humanity of Jesus that he's here to seek
and to save that which is lost.
Look at verse 41, I think this is a great verse too.
And when he was come near, he beheld the city,
and notice this, and he wept over it.
We see the emotions of Jesus Christ
that he was really sad about Jerusalem being destroyed.
And he was really sad that he was gonna find that temple zero is finally going down. I'm just kidding. It was a joke
All right chapters 20 through 24 give us the passion week, and I'm not gonna belabor that point
But I'm just gonna give you a quick over you go to Hebrews 2 and we'll finish in Hebrews
But in chapter 20 verse 19 spies come to spy on him, and that's the only time you see the word spies
Spying, you know Jesus knows what it's like to be spied on
to be secretly recorded and uploaded, you know?
The Bible says about Jesus, the people came to hear him early in the morning in the temple.
Jesus knows what it's like to get up early in the morning and to go do things.
He knows pulling all-nighters and to be spied on and to have people not say thank you
and to people who constantly pressure you to do things that you're not supposed to do
and to constantly get mad at you for doing the things you are supposed to do.
He knows what it's like to be hungry.
He knows what it's like to have crowds pressing on him and thronging on him.
He knows what it's like to be the baby and to be the child
and have to submit to his parents and all the human experience.
He knows what it's like.
in the Gospel of Luke that if you didn't have a sword, buy one because he knows what it's like
to have somebody trying to kill you and not being able to defend yourself.
And so he's telling us in our humanity, hey, sometimes you have to defend yourself.
Sometimes you have to get gruesome. Sometimes you have to have the sword.
Sometimes you have to do something you don't want to have to do because it's necessary and humanity
because of our weaknesses, because of our limitations, because of our frailty,
because of the fact that we are more told that we can die. Sometimes we have to have that sword.
The Bible emphasized that he was a Galilean.
That's why he was sent to Herod.
And that's the only time we haven't mentioned that he was sent to Herod.
And because of being a Galilean, he has to go into Herod, who puts a robe on him and
mocks him, and then Herod and Pilate are made friends over mocking and ridiculing Jesus
Christ.
And we get to see the shame and the embarrassment of who Jesus Christ is.
He has to go to Herod.
We also have the great and famous verse where he says, Father, forgive them, for they know
not what they do.
Only mentioned in the Gospel of Luke, we see the humanity, the empathy, the compassion, the love that Jesus Christ has even going to the cross.
The people that are crucifying Him and slaying Him, not knowing what they're doing, He forgives them.
And the walk to Emmaus, where we actually see Him taking a journey, taking a little walk, taking a little stroll with people,
preaching the Gospel, He calls them fools, are not believing.
And what was interesting is at the end of that, he's resurrected state.
He asks for fish and he gets fish, but he also gets honeycomb and it's the only time
in the Gospels that he eats honey.
But it's very interesting that he eats in his resurrected state.
And we see the humanity of Jesus Christ is not even necessarily limited to his incarnation to his resurrection,
but beyond his resurrection that he's still eating, that he is still eating fish, that he was still eating honeycomb.
That gives me hope for steak. I don't know if that's possible or not, but...
What is Luke really emphasizing, his humanity? And you know what, we are human too.
And, you know, we have to understand, all right, we're the sons of God, and we have
works that we need to do, and we have to realize our limitations in our humanity, our upbringing
and who we are, and our trials and our temptations and the fact that we're going to struggle
and the fact that sometimes we're going to fail.
And Jesus went through these things for us, look at verse 6, but one in a certain place
He made us him a little lower than the angels that crowned us him with glory and honor and
that has set him over the works of thy hands.
Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet, for in that he hath put all in subjection
under him.
He left nothing that is not put under him, but now we see, not yet all things are put
under him, but we see Jesus, who is made a little lower than the angels for the suffering
of death, crowned with glory and honor that he by the grace of God should taste death
For whom are all things, and by whom are all things, and bringing many sons unto glory,
to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
For both he that sanctified, and they who are sanctified, are all of one, for which cause
he is not ashamed to call them brethren.
saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the church while I sing praise unto thee.
And again, I will put my trust in him, and again, behold, I and the children which God hath given me.
For as much then as the children of our takers of flesh and blood,
he also himself likewise took part of the same that through death he might destroy him
that of the power of death that is the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death
were all their lifetimes subject to bondage, for verily he took not on him the nature of
angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham, wherefore in all things that behooved him
to me, like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest and
things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people, for in that he
himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted."
Notice that Jesus became human and went through the human experience so that he can help us through our human experience and
understand the death that awaits us and
The the death that is there that can put us in fear and in bondage and its objection
That's why it then emphasizes in chapter 4
Verse 14, seeing then that we have a great eye priest that has passed into the heavens,
Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession, for we have not an high priest
which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted
like as we are, yet without sin.
Let us therefore come boldly under the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in time of need.
What's the point of what I'm saying?
And again, I'm over time.
Jesus Christ, we understand His identity that He is the Son of God, He did these works but He was also limited.
He was limited in His humanity.
You know, for Christ, for God, like He can be in multiple places at one time.
He has infinite knowledge, infinite power.
But we see Jesus Christ in His humanity He had to grow up.
He had to grow in wisdom, He had to grow in stature.
He couldn't be in multiple places at the same time.
So He had certain limitations.
And you know what?
He was still able to accomplish a great work through those limitations, and you know what? We in our humanity also have limitations
Christ was able to go through that and never send but we do send
But he doesn't
He doesn't necessarily look down upon us in the sense that oh, you sinned, I can't use you anymore.
He realizes that we sinned, he empathizes with our sinned, he empathizes with our struggles,
and he realizes that we all, at times, are going to need things.
The feeling of our infirmities, what is our infirmity?
It's our weakness, it's our limitation, it's our humanity.
And through that, he wants us to seek him. Why? We need to come boldly on him. Why?
That we may obtain mercy. What is mercy? Something we don't deserve.
We don't deserve mercy, but we can obtain mercy. And notice this fine grace to help in time of need.
You know, I love preaching hard.
I love preaching against sin because it's right, it's biblical, it helps people get better.
But at the end of the day, we have to realize that even if you're being preached against,
even if you are a sinner, even if you are backslidden, even if you get away from the things of God,
God still cares about you, and he can still empathize with you, and he realizes your
imperfections, he realizes your infirmities, he realizes your humanity, and what he wants you to do is he wants you to obtain mercy and find grace to help
in time of need, when you go through that difficulty, when you go through that struggle, and we're going to go through those difficulties, we're going to go through those struggles,
and we need to realize that God wants us to keep going, so what? So we can continue doing the works because of who we are.
We're the sons of God and we need to go out and preach the gospel and he realizes we have limitations
He realizes we have a past. He realizes we have family members. He realizes we have to go out and pay bills
He realizes we're gonna get hungry. He realizes we get to get tired. He realizes when we pull it all night or it's not fun
He realizes people are gonna hate on us and dislike us and attack us and spies are gonna come and he realizes
Sometimes we're gonna need grace and we're gonna need mercy and a time of help
We're going to have a time of need, we're going to need help in a time of need.
And let us go to Jesus who really did go through those experiences and really can empathize
with us because not everybody can understand what you're going through.
But Jesus can.
You know, the great hymn, tell it to Jesus.
And sometimes we just have to realize who Jesus is and the works he did and how he went
Because we also are the sons of God who have works, and we're going to struggle with our humanity.
I mean, the Apostle Paul said, who shall deliver me from this body of death?
Right? And we understand that we have limitations, but let us not allow our limitations to stop us from serving God,
but allow us to seek His grace and His mercy.
Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for giving us your Son. Thank you for
these great Gospels and all these little distinctions and nuances we can see in the Word of God.
I pray that we would get a greater appreciation for the identity of who Christ really is,
and we would love the works that He did, and we would see that even He limited Himself and He
And I pray that we would see that through his experiences he can truly empathize with us when we fall short, when we struggle.
I pray that anybody struggling or feeling like they fall short or they're discouraged
because of their humanity, they're discouraged because of their limitations, they're discouraged
because of the disappointments, they're discouraged by their failures, that they would seek you,
they would seek grace, they would seek mercy, that you would help encourage them, that you'd
help strengthen them, that you would remind them that, hey, we are just human.
But that you still want to use us, and that you still love us, and that we're still in
our identity, the sons of God, and we still have important works to do.
I pray that you would help encourage us through those, that we can be steadfast unto the end,
in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
Song number one seven seven
When love shines in
Song number one hundred and seventy seven
Great singing, everybody. You were all dismissed.