When God became human

Sermon: When God became Human. Text: Luke 1: 26 - 35 Introduction - Open with Prayer… Good morning Church, Often when chatting with non-Christians as well as many Christians, they will often want to ask questions relating to the trinity. That can be a tough one to explain, because human definitions fail to define almighty God. But there is one doctrine that astounds me even more than the trinity and that is the doctrine of the Incarnation — that Jesus Christ is God and man, yet one person, forever. J.I. Packer said, “Here are two mysteries for the price of one — the plurality of persons within the unity of God, and the union of Godhead and manhood in the person of Jesus…. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as is this truth of the Incarnation.” So today, when I preach about God becoming human, I’m taking a text that might be traditionally read at Christmas time, but I wasn’t here then so you can get it from me today as we start in Luke’s Gospel. Hopefully many of us have heard the Isaiah 7 Prophecy about the virgin with The God/child “Immanuel” God with us. Today I want to look at a text where this finds its fulfillment and then discuss what that means to us in our everyday lives. Luke 1: 26 – 35 26In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. 28The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The LORD is with you." 29Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favour with God. 31You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The LORD God will give him the throne of his father David, 33and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever; his kingdom will never end." 34"How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" 35The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. 1. The virgin birth is stated simply as fact with no arguments or embellishments This is actually one of the strongest arguments for the divine revelation of these verses. If people wanted to concoct a story of God becoming a man through a virgin conception, it would end up being a long, well-padded, even defensive account of how it happened. But that’s not what we have in this text. There’s no long account; no arguments; no embellishments. Just a simple statement of the bare facts. You see, Luke and Matthew’s gospels begin their accounts of Jesus’ life with a genealogy demonstrating his humanity. And then use short passages to reveal his Divinity. It was the Holy Spirit who placed the divine seed into the body of Mary. This is the a place where theology overshadows biology. That’s what makes this a miracle. The virgin conception can’t be explained by natural means. The Holy Spirit is named as the supernatural means. She is pregnant… while still a virgin. Why is this so important? If Jesus had been the offspring of a human father, He could not have been our Saviour. He would not have been divine. He could not have lived a sinless life or died a substitutionary death. He would merely be a child of the first Adam, and like the rest of us, dead in trespasses and sins. He, like us, would need a Saviour. Furthermore, it would also mean Jesus was a liar about His eternality, who had also lied about His oneness with the Father and His sinless nature. We would have no Saviour and we would still be lost in our sins with no hope for heaven after death. But the Bible proves it matters a great deal who Jesus really is and how He came into this world. So, to be clear, It actually happened as Scripture records. Jesus was born of a virgin. Luke tells us a little more about Jesus life than Matthew, but he actually summarises three decades of the most important human life in the history of the world in very simple terms. From the angelic announcement to lowly shepherds (Luke 2:8–21) and the young family’s first visit to the temple (Luke 2:22–38) Prophet and prophetess Simeon and Anna. Luke then summarises Jesus’s first twelve years of life in astonishing modesty: About his life in Nazareth, The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favour of God was upon him. (Luke 2:40) Do you remember how the 12-year-old Jesus impressed the adult Pharisees at the temple (Luke 2:41–51), Mary, you had one Job! Look after the son of God. After this, Luke summarises two decades — well more than half the God-man’s dwelling among us — in this simple sentence: 52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favour with God and man. (Luke 2:52) I’m sure that many of us have often wished that we could know what life was like for Jesus as a boy? But the Bible just doesn’t go there and in fact, anything else on our part would be mere conjecture and unsupportable. If it did, we would know that it wouldn’t even be a genuine 1st century document. You see, Greek Historiographies were relatively uninterested in the early years of life other than where they were born and how they were introduced to Public Life. We shouldn’t think it strange that the Gospel writers were using the same style of the day when they wrote the Gospels under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So with today’s message, I’ve just given you good scripture teaching, Now I want to give you some good theology and that will produce faith and empowerment in your life. 1. Christ emptied himself of his God attributes whilst on Earth Kenosis! Philippians 2 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,[a] 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant] being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Theologians explain Jesus’ humble emptying himself of the divine equality, the divine lifestyle, with the phrase he laid aside the exercise of his incommunicable divine attributes. How does that work? Some theologians would say that Jesus retained all of his divine attributes while on the earth but did not use them, but instead chose to limit himself to what humans can do. Other theologians would say that Jesus did not retain all of his divine attributes while on the earth but rather humbly set them aside during his incarnation. Either way, what this means is that Jesus did not use the attributes unique to his deity such as his omniscience, or omnipresence, or immortality while on the earth. • So Jesus in his humble state does not know the date of the second coming, • He is not present when Lazarus dies, • Jesus actually dies. God cannot die. • All the miraculous supernatural works that Jesus did, like knowing that Lazarus was dead, raising the dead, healing the blind and the deaf and casting out demons, Jesus did these miracles by the power of the Holy Spirit. • This matters to us too because, the same Holy Spirit who worked all the miracles in the Bible, lives in us as believers and empowers us to work his works. Quote John 14:12 A very poor analogy of this emptying would be a general manager of a resort who brings his family for a vacation week. He puts his general manager access key with all its power, rights and privilege in his pocket and uses a guest access key. For the duration of the week, he is fully the general manager, but lives authentically as a guest. 2. Christ does not have a sinful nature, and neither did he ever commit sin — even though he was tempted in all ways (Hebrews 4:15). Thus, Jesus is fully and perfectly man and has also experienced the full range of human experience. We have a Saviour who can truly identify with us because he is man and who can also truly help us in temptation because he has never sinned. • Perfect man – sinless, Spotless Sacrifice • Substitution for us, He died in our place 1 Tim 1:15 Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the worst. • Christ Died for me…It was my fault that he had to die. But It was yours also. 3. Christ is eternally God, but Christ also remains forever Human. For most people it is obvious that Jesus is God forever. But for some reason it escapes a lot of us that Jesus will also be man forever. He is still man right now as you read this and will be forever. The Bible is clear that Jesus rose physically from the dead in the same body that had died (Luke 24:39) and then ascended into heaven as a man in his physical body (Acts 1:9; Luke 24:50–51). It would make no sense for him to have done this if he was simply going to ditch his body and stop being man when he arrived in heaven. I mentioned this before, but have you ever wondered how Jesus could say that he did not know the day or hour of his return (Matthew 24:36) even though he is omniscient (John 21:17)? If Jesus is God, why didn’t he know the day of his return? Do you even dare to ask such questions? Are you scared that doing so makes you lacking in Faith? Let me say this to you. Feel free to ask questions because when you ask questions, you find answers! When we read the bible, we need to read it as inquisitive enquirers! How does God becoming human help me? He bought My Pardon Forever in Heaven, God can relate to our weaknesses. We have an advocate, (a defence lawyer) in heaven who can fully relate to us. He never sinned, yet he knows our weaknesses. He even payed our substitutionary price. As a perfect human, he became the sinless spotless sacrifice for our sins. Hallelujah! That is worth getting excited about, don’t you think. Call for response to Salvation. Today, you might be attending church and you didn’t even know why you came today. You might be feeling very disconnected to God and in fact, many of the words that I’ve said might have gone over your head, but they have gotten through to your heart. Today, with every head bowed and every eye closed. I want to ask, do you want to ask Jesus to forgive your sin and bring you into a relationship with God. That is why he died on the cross. I am asking you to simply raise your hand and we will pray. Lets pray