Mark Cowpersmith

THE LIFE OF JESUS – INTRO.

Today we begin a series of sermons which I have been waiting to do for two years. For some time we have been telling you that our goal is to raise up Christians who are apprentices of Jesus. That being like him in character and words and deeds is what the Christian life is about. Yet in all this time we have not turned our gaze to look at him, now we will do this. This morning begins our gaze at the life of Jesus. We will follow his life chronologically throughout the 4 books about him called “the gospels”.

This morning we will begin with the first 18 verses of John’s gospel. This passage is for me one of the greatest passages in the Bible. John is setting out what he thinks is most important to say before he gets into his story. Almost all of what makes us unique in our Christian faith is stated here. This is very rich eating.

John begins with these strange words, “in the Beginning was the word…” “In the beginning” does not sound strange but the word used here means much more than, “in the beginning of our story”, it means not only in the beginning in time but it means in the beginning as “originating from” or as “the first cause”. It means that whatever the “word” is it was before time and was before everything that exists. It means that the word was not a created thing and that it has always existed. This is not so strange but what is this “word” business about? The word used here is the Greek word “Logos” which carries the meaning “something said including the thought”. It means a statement and the thought behind it. What an amazing thing; In the beginning was God and a statement which God wants to make which is an eternal thought of god which has always existed. This is incredible that God has some thought which he has always had which he wishes to say. What thought, what statement, to whom?

What is even more strange is that although this thought was with God it also “was” God and the strangest thing of all is this statement isn’t just a thought it is somehow a person – “HE”. And it is God but it is also somehow distinct from God – enough to be it’s own self – “he”. It, he, has always existed with God and it is God but it is also somehow distinct in itself. It was not created by God because it is God. And it is a message, a statement to someone. What an amazing thing!

JOH 1:3  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  In him was life, and that life was the light of men. Now things get even more interesting; all created things were made through him. It does not say that he did it alone it says that what was done was “through” him. Everything that exists is made through this message of God. This message is creative, it communicates and it does this first through creation.ROM 1:20  For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. The word is God’s statement and it, he, cannot exist without communicating. It’s very first act of making the world is an act with a message, with a meaning to be found.

Two writers start their stories of Jesus’ life by giving his life line, who fathered who way back to the start. This is not unusual in biographies. What is unusual is that these two writers do not tell the same story. Their records are not the same. Matthew’s list starts at Abraham and Luke’s starts at Adam. This is not a problem, the problem enters in after King David. Matthew lists 26 generations between David and Jesus and Luke lists 40. Not only are the numbers different but of course the names are not all the same. What does this do to us who view the Bible as infallible fact. How can Jesus have two histories, isn’t history?

Well yes but what do you mean when you say history? The Jews didn’t look at a person’s history the way we do. They were not trying to be a Dept. of Vital Statistics. Their purpose was not to record all facts but all facts important to their purpose for writing. This is why it is important to understand some ancient Bible culture and how the books of the Bible were written. Also there are language problems. The word “begat” may mean “the immediate father of” or it may just mean “the descendant of” as in a grandson being the descendant of a grandfather. The use of words may confuse the list. Also it is clear from other genealogies in the Bible that Matthew left some generations out apparently intentionally. Even so why the very great difference in Matthew and Luke’s lists?

The answer lies in the purposes of the writers. If the writers were not looking for “just the facts” what were they trying to say?

The answer is probably that Matthew and Luke were focusing on different aspects of Jesus’ lineage. Matthew is very concerned to show the Kingship of Jesus. Matthew is writing to Jews and he is concerned to prove to them that Jesus is the Messiah. This means showing Jesus as a descendant of Abraham and following his royal line and legal entitlement to claim the lineage of King David. This means that Matthew will follow Jesus from his father Joseph backwards, tracing Joseph’s bloodline.

Luke on the other hand seeks to emphasize Jesus’ humanity and connection with mankind. Luke was writing to a Gentile. This is why he traces Jesus back to the first man Adam and why he traces Jesus through his natural mother Mary. Luke is saying that Yes, Jesus is God but he is also a human being and here is the proof all the way back to the first human -no argument. For Luke Mary is very important and it fits with his book that he would trace Jesus through her. Since it was Jewish custom not to mention a woman in the genealogies other than parenthetically Luke lets Joseph stand for Mary as Jesus’ parent.

It is interesting that both writers chose to emphasize one of the two sides of the miracle we call Jesus. Was Jesus God? Yes here is the proof of his Kingship and all that was prophesied about the Messiah. Was Jesus fully human? Yes here is his ancestry, right back to the first man Adam. Two truths, two stories.

But the question arises, “Well, if these writers were not looking just for vital statistics and if they left some ancestors out then they must have had some reason for putting in the ones they mentioned.”  Why do they mention some and not others, there must be a message for us here. And there is. Lets look at the ancestors of Jesus and ask the question, “What is God trying to tell us?”

Matthew starts with Abraham. Here is a great ancestor. A man who believes God when God says he will have a son at the age of approx. 100. He receives this miracle child [a prophetic representation of the birth of Jesus] and God later asks him to be willing to kill the child in obedience to God’s plan [a prophetic representation of the willingness of God to let Jesus die for us]. This is the kind of obedience that we would expect to find in Jesus’ bloodline. Good stock. The next character of note is Jacob.

Jacob means “he deceives”. This is a fitting name for someone who lies and tricks his father to get his older brother’s blessing. Jacob was a liar and a cheat. He also got what he gave. His father in law tricked him into marrying the wrong daughter and it cost Jacob 7 years of hard work before he got the girl he loved. Jacob would go to any length to get what he wanted. One night an angel appeared to him and they fought. Jacob would not let him go until the angel blessed him. Jacob clung to God until God blessed him. Not a perfect man but one who persists.

Jacob had a son named Judah who is also named as one of Jesus’ ancestors. He had a son named Er [a wicked man] who married a girl named Tamar [who became Judah's daughter-in-law]. God killed Er because of his wickedness and Tamar went to live with her father-in-law’s family as a widow. After Judah’s wife died Tamar disguised herself as a veiled prostitute and Judah slept with her and she became pregnant with a boy named Perez who is another of Jesus’ ancestors. Perez the child of prostitution, incest, and deceit.

Another ancestor was a man named Boaz. He was a good man. His mother was Rahab the prostitute of Jericho. She was not a Jew she was an enemy of the Jews. So Boaz was the son of a pagan prostitute. He married a non Jewish woman named Ruth. He did this to save her because she was widow of a relative. He was what they called back then a kinsman-redeemer. This is one who buys back the lives and property of someone who has lost everything and has no one to protect them. Ruth had a son for Boaz named Obed who was the father of Jesse who was the father of King David.

Finally, here is someone we would expect to have as Jesus’ ancestor. The greatest King Israel ever knew. A great warrior. The man to found a dynasty which would go on forever. A man worthy to be the ancestor of Jesus. So what was he like? Well he was a shepherd, then he was a servant who was abused by the King [Saul], then he was a criminal [an outlaw], then he hid in caves and ran away alot. Then finally he became King, then he lusted after his best friend’s wife, then he committed adultery with her, then when she got pregnant he became afraid of being found out so he tried to trick his friend into sleeping with her so he would think the child was his, then when that didn’t work he had his friend killed so he could keep his wife. Great King David who was a great worshipper, a great worship song writer was a deceiving, adultering, murderer.

David had a son by this woman he killed for, his name was Solomon. He was a great king. The wisest man who ever lived. After Solomon there were a chain of kings all ancestors of Jesus some very good and some very bad. There was Jehoram who led Israel into the pagan ways of Ahab and Jezebel. There was Ahaz who refused to listen to God’s prophet Isaiah and who sold the nation of Israel into slavery. A man who burned his own son to death as an offering to demonic pagan gods. A man who practised magic. There was Hezekiah Ahaz’ son who cleaned up the country and turned back to God. There was Manasseh another descendant who led Israel back to idolatry. There was Josiah who listened to Jeremiah and returned the country to God. Back and forth the pattern goes, some very good some very bad.

So what can we say about Jesus’ ancestors?  What can we say about Jesus? He is the offspring of adultery, deceit, prostitution, and murder. The people he chose to come through are among the worst types of people the world has ever seen. Not much different than Saddam Hussien -if at all. Others were as Godly and good as any the world has every seen. Not much different than Mother Teressa. So what does this say to us. The same people that Jesus came through are the people he comes to. The gospel writers are saying that the people Jesus came to die for are the same kind of people he chose to come through. Who does Jesus identify with? The powerful, the successful, the wise, the beautiful? Who does he choose to have as his ancestors? The ones Jesus identifies with are people like you only mostly worse.

You keep asking the question, “Can Jesus really love me? Will God really use someone like me?”  The answer to that question is in Jesus’ genealogy. Look who he chose to come through! Do you really think he has changed his mind as to what kind of people he chooses to come through to the world today? God is the father God of the poor, the oppressed, the lonely, the sinner who knows his need to be forgiven. Jesus even came right out and said it, MAR 2:17  On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” So Jesus came for people like us.

But his genealogy tells us something else; there are people who overcame their sin and brokenness, who he changed. People who represent all that humans can be because of having Jesus come through them, live in them. Boaz the kinsman-redeemer who rescues those who are hopeless. Ruth the pagan widow who cares for her destitute mother and becomes one of the mothers of Israel. Sons of evil men who turned to God and turned the whole nation with them. Prostitutes who live new lives. Changed people! And this is the point; God comes to people like us as we are and accepts us but he also offers hope and his promise to change us.

We cannot understand infinity, let alone the one in which infinity dwells. All religions point to God and that is all they do, that is all they can do for God who is infinite and eternal is not knowable by that which is created, stuck in time and space.

But God had something to say to man and it was about himself. God wanted to reveal himself to people in a way that we would fully understand and recognize. Not only recognize but relate to – have relationship with. So the message about himself – the Word – was translated into a new language which all men could understand. The new language was humanity. God becomes a man to show man what God is like in our own language.

Now all of this, this miracle, was for a purpose. NOt just to communicate but to communicate for a purpose: JOH 1:12  Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God — children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. To all who accepted the message, who accepted him as he claimed to be – this is what believing in his name means – it means believing in all that the name implies, saviour, master, Lord, Immanuel [God with us] there is a consequence. These ones are given the right to become the children of God. And the word “right” here does not just mean permission, it means the power, the capacity. It means that before these people could not be God’s children, they did not have the ability to be his children but now because they believed they are transformed, born of God, by his life into his kids.

Jesus was and is God’s message to humanity. He is God revealed to us in our language. We no longer have to wonder what God is like we have seen him with our eyes. Is Jesus really truly God? HEB 1:3  The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, The great religions point to God but only one reveals him and in only one can you know him!  The true wonder of all this is not just that Jesus has perfectly revealed God but the purpose of the message. It never ceases to put me in awe that before anything existed, before time, God knew me and wanted to make me his child. That the purpose of everything was to communicate himself to me so that I could be his child. That creation was made through him to reveal this as well. EPH 1:4  For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will–to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

Jesus is the message of God’s glory. He is the expression of the unearned love which God has given us. He is the love which has been waiting since before time to come to you. JOH 1:16  From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. From Moses came the message of God’s holiness and our sin [the law]. Form Jesus came the message of unearned love and forgiveness. EPH 1:7  In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ,

JOH 1:18  No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known. All this is Jesus!

Now John goes on to say something even more profound; JOH 1:4  In him was life, and that life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. This message of God has life in it and that life is the “light of men”. What is interesting here is that the message is not information it is life. It is not important as something to know about it is important because it brings life. The message is not just an idea, it is life. Life itself, real, something you interact with which is alive and which brings life. And even more significantly, this life is what illuminates human life. The meaning of human life comes from not the information [the raw message] but from the message which has become life. It is the life part which is the light of men. It is only after the word becomes life that it can be the light of men. It must become life to be light. This is the nature of truth: it is not useful to us in the abstract, it only becomes true to us when it is imparted into what is alive – it must  be lived to be truth which we can see and is useful to us humans. Words are only words until they are lived. This truth which is God’s message is alive and because it is alive it shines into human darkness and brings meaning to life in us. All that has human significance has it because of this message which is alive.

John then goes on to say that this light comes into darkness but the darkness has not understood nor has it overcome it. The light has not been received by the darkness but neither has the darkness overcome it. The light is triumphing.

Now comes a big change. John begins to refer to the Word, this message of God, as a person exclusively. JOH 1:10  He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Something amazing has happened. God has taken his message to people and made it into a human life. This life has entered the world and even more amazing than God becoming a man, is the fact that people reject this message and this life. This is the essence of what sin is. Sin is not what you do it is the rejection of God as God. It is the extreme arrogance of ignoring this message from God. Especially when this message is God himself!

What was this message, that became a human life in order to bring us light? Why embody the message in a life? Why not just speak? It has been said that all religions lead to God. You hear this a lot these days. There is some truth in this and it is this; all religions point to God. It is the desire of humanity to know God. Religion is the human search for God. But inherent in this search is a problem: if God is eternal and creator then we as creatures cannot know him. We cannot understand timeless eternity.

In the latest Equipping the Saints Doris Wagner, Peter Wagoner’s wife tells about the Argentinean Revival and how God was doing great healing and deliverance through Omar Cabrera and how his church was being blessed but nothing was happening generally until Edgardo Silvoso started preaching a message of unity to the churches and Cabrera was welcomed into the main stream. After unity came the whole church started to experience revival which is still going on.

What I am trying to say is that the church in this country is sick. It is powerless. If you compare it to the first century church it is almost dead. The measure of it’s sickness is that it does not even see itself as sick. It has stopped believing in the signs of health – like evangelism. We may not buy into that sickness but we are a part of it and we are limited by it. My important point is this – WE CAN EXPERIENCE THIS POWERLESSNESS AND BECOME FRUSTRATED BY IT TO WHERE WE GIVE UP PRAYING AND BELIEVING IN GOD’S GOODNESS IN HEALING AND DELIVERANCE AND EVANGELISM IN WHICH CASE WE BECOME A PART OF THE PROBLEM OR WE CAN THANK HIM FOR WHAT WE HAVE ALREADY SEEN WHICH IS MORE THAN I BELIEVED I WOULD EVER SEE TEN YEARS AGO AND PERSEVERE IN UNITY AND PRAYER AND BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION. There really is not a third choice.

The problems we experience are not on God’s part but on the part of his church. Do you want to be apart of the problem or part of the solution? By speaking about the state of the church I am not trying to set us against other churches. This is “the church’s” problem. The solution is not blame but love and unity.

If you are to be a part of the solution then the means regarding prayer and obedience is perseverance:

GAL 6:9  Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

HEB 3:14  We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.

HEB 10:35  So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.

JAM 1:2  Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

I don’t know why some people get well and others don’t. I don’t know why some get well right away and others take a long time. I don’t know why some only get partly healed and others get completely well. I don’t know why some that get healed are real jerks and some that don’t are saints.

I do know that Jesus is; ” the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being…”  Heb.1:3 Jesus says to do it and he always did so that should be good enough to keep me going while I ponder these questions.

If you want to cry out with a question let it be this one, “Oh God what can I do to see your church be the church?”

Well God IS sovereign and he IS all loving so how do these two make sense? They make sense and come together as they are both modified by a third truth which effects both of them. God made us with free will. This means that there are right now several billion wills running around most of which are not doing his will. This means that his will is not getting done on earth as it is in heaven. If sovereignty means that everything that happens is his will then right now he is not sovereign. He has limited his will in order to make room for ours. It means there is a higher value than him getting his way. It is our freedom – the dignity of our individual free souls.

Not only is his will affected by our free wills but his love is as well. He has chosen to give us the dignity of making a difference in his world. He has chosen to love his world not only directly most of the time but through us. When the Bible says we are his body on earth it means that we are his arms and feet and mouths and hands. This means that if we decide not to act like his hands then his hands work will not get done at least by us, in the place where we live. God has truly tied himself to his people. He has tied the coming of his blessings to his people’s actions of obedience.

“Well if this is so how come when I obey and pray nothing happens? I am trying to do his will which is to pray so when it doesn’t happen maybe it isn’t his will to heal or do the good thing I ask.” The answer that I keep coming back to is that God does not just relate to individuals but to his whole body. A single cell is not healthier ultimately than the organ it is a part of and the organ is no healthier than the least healthy organ in the body. We as Christians are not independent. We as individuals share in the overall health of the body of Christ in the area where we live and the country we are in and ultimately in the world. We see this in the story of Jesus in Mat.13;58 and Mk. 6;5. Jesus could do no mighty works because of the lack of faith in the community where he grew up. To them he was just a carpenter’s son, and because of that belief that was all he was for them. Jesus will be for us what we, as a body, believe him to be.

Well you say we believe in healing and this church has some faith for it so why aren’t my prayers answered? That may be true for this church but how many churches in the city believe in a supernatural intervening God, and pray in accord with that belief? Maybe 10% probably less. We as a church are just one organ of the body of Christ in this city. Does it really work this way? 1CO 11:27  “Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment”.

What is happening here is that the local church is coming together to eat the Lord’s Supper. They didn’t do it like we do now with a little piece of bread and a little drink, not enough to feed a stuffed toy. This was a real meal that you came to and expected to get full on or at least go away not hungry. What was happening was that some of the people who were rich were coming with lots of food and wine and eating and drinking until they were drunk and stuffed. Unfortunately, others who were poor were coming without food and were sitting and watching while the rich pigs got stuffed and then going home hungry. All this at a supper that is supposed to celebrate our unity in Jesus. Paul says that by doing this they are sinning against the body and blood of our Lord. He means that they were sinning against their brothers by treating them this way and they are sinning against what Jesus did when he died to forgive us and make us one. He says that by failing to recognize the body of the Lord [by failing to love their poor brothers] they are removing themselves from fellowship in the body and exposing themselves and the others in the body to attack by the enemy.

By cutting open the skin of the body they have exposed it to infection and some have gotten sick and some have even died.

The amazing thing is that Paul does not suggest that it is only the wrongdoers who have gotten sick or died. It is the whole body that suffers when some sin. When the unity of the body gets damaged the whole body is hurt. When one organ like the skin gets cut the whole body can be infected. Conversely when the whole body comes together in unity and love the whole church gets blessed.

WHY DOES GOD ALLOW SICKNESS AND INJURY?

Here are three questions which prompted today’s teaching:

1. Why does God allow Believers to get sick, injured, physically maimed? i.e. my sister was hit by a car and rendered a paraplegic while serving with YWAM.

2. How do you explain to someone [especially a child] why, despite prayer for healing, they have not been healed? This makes my daughter feel hurt – that God hasn’t healed, hasn’t answered our prayers. Doesn’t he want to?

3. I have been praying for my mother’s healing for ten years, gone to conferences, etc. for years nothing, nothing. She has crippling rheumatoid arthritis.

These are not academic questions. These are the questions of real life as we try to come to grips with the word of God. These questions torment me. I have interceded for the life of my friends child and seen it die. I have prayed for the life of my spiritual mentor and watched her die. I have prayed for my friend and still she is not better. This is a torment. I want understanding so I can go on or I want to quit, either is fine which ever is what God wants I will do, but what is the truth? Am I wasting my time and or worse am I telling you to waste your time?

The reason these questions about unanswered prayer cause so much tension when we talk about healing or about God doing anything good by way of intervention into the natural order of life is that they bring two concepts which Christians hold dear into conflict.

There are two beliefs which we all hold as true which cannot live in the same world together without one or the other getting violated. These are “God is all powerful – he is sovereign over all” and “God is all loving – he only does Good”.

You can have a God who is in total control of everything or one who is totally loving but you cannot have both without seriously abusing our language and making one of the words “sovereign” or “loving” meaningless. The problem is this, if God is in complete control and everything that happens is his will then there is much that he does or allows [what the law calls "being an accomplice"] that if done by anyone else would result in a jail term or capital punishment[including the accomplice]. Actions like child abuse, murder, racism can not be considered good without making the word “good” meaningless. If we say that God is only good and “good” means “good” then he can not be in total control because much of what is happening is not good.

The evangelical church’s reconciliation of this dilemma is to side with God’s sovereignty and to violate his goodness. We have done this by saying that love must sometimes be something other than good – like discipline. When bad things happen we can say God is trying to teach me something. It is his will to teach me something good so he sends something bad to do it. This is fine when the tool is roughly proportional to the lesson but terminal cancer in order to teach patience seems somewhat extreme particularly in view of the fact that just about the time the lesson is learned and ready to apply to life the person dies. Seems pointless. So does saying that God took the life of my only child in order to teach me trust. You do not learn trust from murderers you learn suspicion from murderers. You learn trust from those who love you and act like it.

The liberal church’s reconciliation of this dilemma is to side with God’s love and violate his sovereignty. God is completely loving and good but he has created the world and set it in motion according to certain laws and he has walked away from it and we have each other when we are in need. He brings comfort without changing anything. Bad things happen but they are not his will but he cannot do anything about it now – wait for heaven.