WDJD - What DID Jesus Do
Notes
Transcript
Handout
The Time and Place
The Time and Place
He began at a strange time
He began at a strange time
722 BC - Israel falls to Assyria
722 BC - Israel falls to Assyria
586 BC - Judah falls to Babylon
450BC - Ezra & Nehemiah temple restoration
333BC - Alexander the Great / Greece
63BC - Gen. Pompey / Rome
4BC - Jesus born /
- Jesus’s Baptism
- Jesus led into the wilderness
- John arrested
- Jesus begins preaching
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
He came from the wrong place
He came from the wrong place
- Galilee was Assyrian
Even in NT, it was mostly Gentile
Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
The biblical account of Jesus simply destroys our fascination with and longing for celebrity Christian
Jesus: the true Messiah, who did not come in the timing, nor in the manner, nor from the accepted place we wanted, but rather precisely as God had chosen and planned to be the kind of savior that we didn’t ask for, but rather that God knew we needed.
The Message
The Message
The Message
The Message
"You need to CHANGE because the kingdom of Heaven is near”
Faith alone is NOT the absence of repentance; they are inseperable
Art 8:
We believe that repentance and faith are sacred duties and also inseparable graces, wrought in our souls by the regenerating Spirit of God
Repentance is passive faith becoming active trust;
Faith apart from repentance is like Jesus being able to speak to Lazarus when he was dead. Faith and repentance is Jesus saying, “come forth” and Lazarus gets up and walks out of the tomb.
The Method
The Method
In fact, not just change once, but commit to a life of changing:
When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ``Repent'' (), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.
For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
Now if we are born image bearers of God, what more conforming do we need?
Our image = distorted and fallen
Jesus = restored humanity
Jesus: the savior who came preaching the most unpopular message the world has ever heard, because it is the only message that leads to the saving of lost souls!
The Method
The Method
Radical obedience
First the obvious, the common refrain that it is better to be in the woods or on the lake thinking of God than in a church thinking of the lake or woods is clearly shown to be a lie and a false dichotomy here:
he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.
Might we be required to give up on various personal pursuits or even relationships to follow Christ?
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.
This is not that cultish twist demanding the proactive cutting of ties with all others, but rather the fact that obedience to Christ can and has cost believers both friends and family
Preaching
So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
For all the riches that come through regular church attendance and participation, perhaps the most important is to be constantly under the public reading and proclamation of the Word of God that you may be changed by it.
All my efforts to help our singing, or communicate through the order of service are secondary to this.
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
1cor 1:21
Local Church
First the obvious, the common refrain that it is better to be in the woods or on the lake thinking of God than in a church thinking of the lake or woods is clearly shown to be a lie and a false dichotomy here:
The Apostles constituted and represented the first local church, and then spent the rest of their lives ministering to and and planting new local churches to the glory of God.
he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.
English Standard Version Chapter 4
he called them. 22 Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.
Might we be required to give up on various personal pursuits or even relationships to follow Christ?
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.
This is not that cultish twist demanding the proactive cutting of ties with all others, but rather the fact that obedience to Christ can and has cost believers both friends and family
I’m very baffled by all the emotion some pour out over their love for scripture and Jesus but their slight emphasis/embrace of the local church. I understand many churches are woefully weak but there is no plan B. Give your all to one or help plant one. - Jeff Noblit
And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.
This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you—
you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in,
not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
What DID jesus do? He came in the time and manner appointed by God rather than men. What are WE to do? Assemble regularly as a local church for the preaching of God’s Word, and then take the message of repentance to a world who needs it.