Northside Church - Sydney
Ditto Week 1: How Real is Your Jesus?
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Hey guys, how do you feel when you hear that phrase, anyone who claims to live in here must walk as Jesus walked. I mean, doesn't that sound oppressive and stuffy and a bit religious? It sounds really just and oppressive, and look, often that's our reaction, right? That's how most of the world reacts when we hear these masts of the Bible. That's often our reaction to obedience, it's because we want to do our own thing. I always say it's the kindergarten cop principle. I'm not a policeman, I'm a princess. We just want to do life our own way, we want to do our own thing, and of course we're free to do that, and that's what I love about the God of Christianity. You see, the God of Christianity is not a God who's going to twist your arm behind your back and make you do things that you don't want to do. That's the truth, he gave us free will in that sense, and of course you're free to do whatever you want, just like my uncle in his car. You see, he went and took his car to the mechanic, which happens to be my cousin, and that's how I know this story, takes his car to the mechanic because the car is making all sorts of sickening sounds that's literally starting to bunny hop down the street, and he takes it to my cousin, furious, because he says this is a three-year-old Toyota Camry, and we all know that Toyota Camry's last 30 years, and this thing was already clapped out on him, it was making horrible noises, and so he takes it to him, my cousin gets his head underneath the bonner, and he comes round straight to the glove box, and within about three minutes after he's wiped his hands from being underneath, takes this and says to my uncle, what does this say? It says maintain your car at regular intervals. You see, part of the reason it was making all these clapped out sounds is because he'd never replaced the oil in the three years since he'd bought it, and my cousin said didn't you at least replace the oil, and he said, I didn't know, why not, I never read the manual. How was I supposed to know? And as a result, his car didn't operate to its full potential, and it didn't, in fact, the fact it began to hurt itself, it began to self-destruct, right? Now here's my question for you tonight, could it, look, could it be that some of the hurts and the pains and the self-destruction in your life, a result not just to the bad and unfortunate circumstances of life, but because there's areas of your life that you're not operating in accordance with the owner's manual? If I said to you that there is an owner's manual for your life, where would you sit tonight? I mean, would you be like my uncle and ignore it, and continue to drive yourself into the ground, wait until your engine seizes up on you, or would you be at least willing to take a look at how life could be? And that's the question. You see, what was Jesus doing when he walked on this earth? I mean, many Christians, if you ask them, that would say, well, he came to die on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. He came to die so we could be reconciled with God. And in some respects, yes, that's right, but it's true to some extent, but if the whole aim of the biblical story was just to get Jesus to die, then why not kill him when he was a kid? I know it sounds pretty tough, but in that way, if it was just about Jesus dying, then why would never he stayed out in the desert when he was tempted out there, not for 40 days, but for 40 years? And then eventually came in and ruffled up the feathers of the people in Jerusalem and got himself killed. I mean, why all the stories, Jesus, why all the parables, Jesus, why all the you've heard it said, Jesus, why all the teaching, Jesus, why put up with the disciples, Jesus? The guys, Jesus came not just to reconcile us to God, but to show us how human life was meant to be lived. He was the operating manual. He was the one who's showing us how it was meant to be lived. And so when he says, come to me, all you who were burdened and weary and I'll give you rest, you know, is he saying, I'm going to give you rest because his way is the easy way of life? No, he's saying, to paraphrase, that he's saying, come to me, all you who've had your engines seized up or you toyed a camera is, for I will show you how to operate smoothly, for I will show you how to maintain yourself properly, for I will show you how life is meant to be lived. That's how life's meant to be lived. Paul says it in Romans 829, doesn't he? The message paraphrase says, God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shake the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his son. Walking ditto, guys, walking as Jesus walked, is not only something that you must do, it's what you were designed for, it's the operating manual. For your life, there is an operating manual for your life in that sense. And so, now some of you are asking the note, well, hang on, if that's what we were designed for, I know Christians, I know some Christians, and you know what? They can be as self-absorbed and as obnoxious and as backstabbing as crazy as everyone else. And I look, I've seen that too, and my response is, you know, that's simply because they don't understand the hypostatic union, I don't know, that's what you were thinking as well. And of course, the hypostatic union is the theologian's way, the nosebleed way of thinking, of saying really that the heart of the Christian belief is this massive truth that Jesus was both fully God, he was God, and he was fully man. He was fully human. He was fully God, and he was fully human. That's what it meant. So on one hand, Jesus was fully God, Colossians 2 verse 9 says that in all the fullness of the deity dwelt in him in bodily form, he was God in bodily form, and so Jesus was God. He claimed to be God, he died for claiming to be God. But on the other hand, the Scriptures say that Jesus was fully man, and you think about it right if you've read the Scriptures. Think of all the times, you know, that Jesus was tempted, and he offered up prayers and tears, and he wiped, and he demonstrated reverence and submission to God, and he got simply tired and hungry, right? He got frustrated and fed up with these boys that were following him. Do you guys not get it yet? And when we think about Jesus, that way does it feel weird to you? Because you know, we can often in the church think of Jesus as almost, you know, some superhero type figure. You sort of think of him, you know, we overemphasize his deity, his godlikeness at the expense of his humanity. And so we think of him sort of as like some first century Luke Skywalker, you know, the Jedi Knight of Jerusalem, that, you know, whenever he's in trouble, he just activated the force to sort of get himself out of trouble, but he wasn't like that, and the result is, if we see him only in that light, we write off any possibility of actually looking like him, because what's our argument? Oh, yeah, Jesus did that because he was God, yeah, Jesus, he was a saint because he was God. He, you know, he had to be good, right? And yet the gospel shows us that he was fully human, he was just like us, and if he was just like us, then conversely, the logic would say, can't we be just like him? So how we see Jesus affects whether we will be like Jesus? So here's a key question to all right, guys, if Jesus was fully human, then what are the implications? There's four of them that are going to form the backbone of this series for the next five weeks. The first one is that Jesus didn't dip into his divinity in order to live out of his humanity. It's like the little boy in the UK comedy BBC outnumbered, this scene where, and I can relate to it well, the pastor from the wedding that he was going to ends up at the kid's table. And so all the kids are sitting there and this little 11-year-old kid says to the reverend with the collar and everything there, starts asking all these questions about God. And he said, reverend, if Jesus was so powerful and Jesus was God right, then why didn't he just shapeshift and smack all the Romans in the head and punch their lights out? And I thought, they're all right, is it wasn't that the taunts that they threw to Jesus on the cross. Because God, why didn't he come down there and do something about what was happening to him? We can think the same way too. And yet the theologians say that in some sense he veiled his divinity in order to live out of his humanity. Some of the great theologians, Grudom says Jesus refused to rely on his divine nature to make obedience easier for him, where says his deity was unexpressed so that his humanity could be fully expressed. And I love Ryrie's one, he says, "Never less than God, he chose to live his life never more than man." And so he didn't go, "Oh yeah, but what about his miracles?" You did all the miracles, he used to force, right? You know, what about walking on water? Wasn't he playing the God card yet then? Yes, but didn't Peter, who was human, walk on water as well? You know, when it came to the miracles, Jesus was constantly saying, "I'm not doing this, God working through me that's doing this." And so even Jesus is saying, "You know, I didn't do all this sort of stuff, I do nothing on my own rather, it's my father working in me." Acts chapter 2, verse 22 goes on to affirm that it says, "Men of Israel, listen to this, Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you, by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him as you yourselves know." But it's surprising that the disciples duplicated just about every miracle that Jesus did. And so does that mean that they were God? No. But it means that they're always acknowledging Jesus as a source of power in their miracles in the same way that Jesus was always acknowledging God as a source of power in his miracles. And so what's the picture I'm trying to paint here? He didn't dip into his divinity, he didn't play the God card in order to live up his humanity. And if he didn't do that, then it means the second implication for us tonight, that the same resources that were available to Jesus are the same resources that are available to you and I. They're the things we're going to look at for the next five weeks. Things like prayer and dependence on the Holy Spirit and the Word of God and his obedience to God's kingdom agenda and worship and intentional relationships, they were all the things that Jesus had at his disposal. Now, look at Jesus in prayer, 45 times he slipped away to pray. Talk about avoidance issues. It was in 40 days of prayer and fasting that Jesus began his ministry. It was in prayer that Jesus ended his ministry. Father, forgive them, they know not what they do. Jesus didn't necessarily know as a human what his next steps were going to be. And so he always went to prayer. He used prayer. Look at Jesus and the spirit of God, Jesus was conceived by the Spirit. He was anointed by the Spirit, filled by the Spirit, sealed by the Spirit, led by the Spirit, filled with joy through the Spirit, able to perform miracles by the power of the Spirit, raised by the Spirit. You see, the Gospel of Luke in particular shows us this interaction of Jesus with God's spirit and the most intimate and wonderful of ways. Jesus depended on the Holy Spirit. Look at how Jesus used the Word of God. It says over 80 times he quoted his Bible, the Old Testament Scriptures, the Hebrew Scriptures, and 70 different chapters from the Old Testament. He read a book that showed him what his purpose in life was. Did you ever think about that? Remember in Matthew chapter 2 where he gets lost for three days and he's in there tussling with the leaders in the temple? Surely he's going through the Scriptures going, hang on, the Messiah was born in Bethlehem, I was born in Bethlehem. The Messiah would come out of Egypt, my mom and dad took me to Egypt for a little bit. What does this mean, Rabbi? You see, often we think that Jesus in pulling the God card had all of this knowledge downloaded him into the back of his head like the Matrix. It didn't work that way. It says after that point Jesus grew in stature and in favor with God and man. Do you think of the times when a lady who was bleeding in the crowd came and touched Jesus and he turned around and said, "Who touched me? I mean, if it was God, shouldn't he know who touched him?" When you've got to learn and grow in favor and stature with God and man, doesn't that tell you that there was a point in Jesus' life where he didn't know everything but he veiled his divinity in order to live out his humanity? What I'm trying to say is Bruce Ware from a professor of New Testament at Trinity Seminary says this. He says, "So many people minimize the obedience of Jesus by saying, 'Of course he obeyed. He was God, and he had God's nature in him, and he had no choice.'" He says, "Scripture doesn't allow us to draw that conclusion. It presents Jesus as a man who faced every temptation and succeeded, not because he relied on his divine nature, but because he relied upon the Word and prayer and the Spirit." You see where I'm getting at? Jesus did what he did not because he relied on his divine nature because he's got the same resources that are available to us, flesh, blood, word, and the Holy Spirit. And if he's got all the same man, had all the same resources that we've got, then it leads us to the next point, the third thing is that he now becomes the model for all of our life. He's a great model for all of our life, and he showed us exactly how to live in perfect obedience with God, but this comes with a big warning sticker, okay? It's almost sort of if Jesus is our model for life, it should be like, you know, if you've got to go into a construction site and you've got to get your green ticket or whatever it's called. You know, Jesus can't be your model until you've gotten your green ticket because I could lead you down a really dangerous part tonight with that phrase. You see, you know, people, when they think, "Oh, Jesus is the model of life," they go, "Yep, that's what I'm talking about." You see, I'm just, I'm trying to be a good person, and I think Jesus is a really good guy, and he's a great teacher, and he's a real prophet, and I'm just trying to be like him, man. So stop trying to push me into this Christianity stuff, but you see, Jesus, as only your model will crush you. I mean, have you looked at his life? Have you seen the way that he loved unconditionally? Have you seen the way that he crossed cultures and ethnicities just to sit with a Samaritan woman? Have you seen the way that he cared for people? And he faced these temptations and yet still in the face of all that, I don't know about your life, but my life doesn't look anything like that. And if Jesus is just your model, it'll crush you, but if Jesus is your master, he'll liberate you. You see, you've got to get the balance right that comes out of John chapter 13 in his final discourse in the upper room just before he dies. You guys might know the scene, he's a boy Peter, he hears that Jesus is about to wash his feet. He says, "You can't do that, Lord." And Jesus says to him, John 13, "Do you not understand what I've done for you?" He asks them, "You call me teacher and Lord, and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you, and I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than their master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent them. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them." He's saying, "Do ditto." But you see, you need Jesus, not only to be your teacher, you need him to be your Lord. You need him not just to be your model in life, you need him to be your master. You know, you're thinking, "How does that liberate me?" But let me put it this way and simply, Jesus is the only master of any of the religions in the world that when he asks you to submit to him, it's because he's already submitted to you. You get that? He's the only master of any religion in the world that when he asks you to submit to him, you realize that he's already submitted to you. That's why, initially, Peter said, "There's no way, Lord, you can't wash my feet. You're the God of the universe." And Jesus was saying, "Pete, Petey, Rocky, this is just a sneak peek, my son, of something far greater than you think washing your feet's a big deal. You wait to see what I'm going to do upon that hill for you." He's saying, "I'm going to give you a model that will fuel you for the rest of your life and turn this world upside down." So, guys, tonight, if you are that person that can see that Jesus would be a good model for your life, he can't be your model unless first he's your master. And he's the only master at the cross that the cross said, "I gave my life for you, so will you give me your life to me?" He's a model for all of life. And finally, we see, we see if he'd dip into his divinity and as a result, the resources he had are our resources and now he becomes our model for life and finally, the craziest part about it all and something that I'm trying to process in my life is that we underestimate what God wants to do through us. I mean, like at the tomb and when the stone is rolled away and people came out and they saw a resurrected Jesus and the grace and the glory and the power of God exploded into his life and exploded into the world and gave rise to a movement that would shoot through the world like a lightning pole. If that could happen in your life, the promise of the Scriptures, Paul says all the time in Ephesians that the very same work that was at work in Jesus when he was raised from the dead isn't working us. And so what he's saying is that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is the same power that we've got access to tonight. Jesus did what he did not because he was God but he was an obedient example of submission and humility and dependence even to laying dormant in a tomb for three days. I hate to sort of wane on God for an answer in terms of what was going to happen then. I had to wait for God to step into his life to do something miraculous and wonderful and because he was fully human he showed us what a difference we can make in the world when we depend on God. You see, I think we underestimate God's ability because we overestimate our ability. We spend too much time relying on our own strength, trying to do things that are going to bring him glory if I just do this and I just do that. The thing I'm starting to understand is that if God is going to do something truly and wonderfully miraculous in your life and other people's lives, it's going to be so crazy and so out there that when people look back on it they're going to go, there's no way that you had anything to do with it. That's how God gets the glory. It's so incredibly non-human that you had nothing to do with it in the first place. I mean the clearest example for me was a couple of years back when we were doing our group sharing time at the Saturday morning on the young adult retreat. That was a shameless plug for the young adult retreat. One of our young adults here was sharing the way that his church, before he was at North Side, were having a revival month and I had four weekends in which he had to invite a friend to church and so he was up to week three, as most of us are, when we're issued with those sorts of challenges from church and he thought, "This is it, it sits Friday Ava, I've just got to invite someone," and so there was the guy that no one ever spoke to at work. He said, "What are you up to on Sunday night?" And the guy said, "Sleeping?" He said, "Well, seeing as you're not doing much, do you want to come to church?" You sleep there anyway. And so a guy turns up the church and he gets saved, he goes on to get saved, he gets baptized. This is the guy that no one ever wanted to talk to at work, the misfit. That guy became one of this country's greatest evangelists into Asia because of the invitation of one of the guys that you and I do church with. That guy I co-authored a book in our library called Brother Yun, about Brother Yun, "Heavenly Man." This guy that got invited, that no one would talk to at work, goes on, starts smuggling bibles, dodging bullets and that sort of stuff across borders in China. Be under estimate what God wants to do through us. And so often we're like little kids trying to open a jam jar. You know what that was like? It's a little kid. You know, you struggle and you're struggling and you struggle. And if only you just give up early and avoid the rush and say, "Daddy, will you help me?" You know what a parent's like, "Click, come straight off." We need to be taking those spiritual aspects of the life that people were praying for and want us to be seeing, coming to Christ and God moving in an amazing way in this world. We need to hold up the jam jars of our life and ask and it's why Jesus says six times in the upper room, "Ask, ask, ask, ask, ask." He says, "Ask for anything in my name. Ask for what you want and will be given to you. Ask and you will receive and your joy will be made complete. You will not have asked for anything in my name." Are you guys getting the point? You don't ask enough because we underestimate what God wants to do through us. So yes, Lewis says, "Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild the house and at first perhaps you can understand what he's doing. He's getting all the drains right and he's stopping the leaks in the roof and so on. And you knew that those jobs needed doing so you're not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and it doesn't seem to make any sense. What on earth is he up to? The explanation is that he's building quite a different house from the one you thought of. He's thrown in a new wing here, he's putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage. But he's building a palace and he intends to come and live in it himself. We underestimate what he wants to do in and through us guys. So it's a Talladega Knights principle. Whether you picture your Jesus, little six inch, eight pound, still omnipotent. How you see Jesus affects whether or not you'll be like Jesus guys. So how do you see him tonight? How do you get to see him tonight? Look, one practical way you can come and see me on our amazing youth team is doing this. They're going through a 52 week study called Knowing Him. It just goes by week, by week, by week, the chronology, the life of Jesus Christ. Now often we focus on the message of Jesus, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. We think about the methods of Jesus and we never look at the man, Jesus. I've still got some copies of this if you want to spend some of your devotional time in that. But essentially what it's going to say to you is he was fully God and if he was fully God that it means for you tonight, first of all, wouldn't he know what's best for you? He wrote the operating manual, he's your engine seized up tonight, submit your life to him and things can start running smooth again. But if he was fully God, then tonight also if you're sitting on the fringes you need to take what he said seriously. The New Testament is so narrow minded about this. Christianity is not about learning the rules, it's about asking this question that he asked his disciples, "Who do you say I am?" He was fully God, but he was also fully man. And so for us Christians in that sense, no more superman Jedi excuses for not looking like him. It didn't just use the force, he had the same resources, which means he's a model for life. And I pray that you're not underestimating what he can and will do through you this week. Are you saying the real Jesus, fully God, fully man.