WHAT JESUS BRINGS TO MANKIND
1. Jesus brings us the same old God. It is good to know that some things don't change. It is good to know that some people don't change. Most of us have known friends who were always there. People like that bring joy to our lives. Such people are God's gift to us and they are illustrations of what God is like. He isn't going to change and he isn't going to change his mind about wanting to bless us and give us life with himself. Down through the centuries he has taught us, in many different ways, what his intentions are toward us. His creation of Israel as a nation of redeemed people with whom he lived was intended to model for us what he wants with all humans! Their worship, their festivals, their election and blessing were all designed to say to mankind: Do you understand? This is what I want for all of you! Those intentions toward us have not been changed by our sinfulness. There is one God and he is not going to change!
2. Jesus brings us a God who is Christlike. Isn't that good news? Jesus is the mirror of God, says Colossians 1:15 and John 14:7-9. Philip asks Jesus to show them the Father and it is with something like surprise that Jesus wants to know; Have I been so long with you and you still don't know me? When you see me you see the Father! When Philip (in essence) asks what the Father is like, Jesus teaches him: Why, he is like me! Even unbelieving people down through the ages have confessed that Jesus is beyond praise and that he is the embodiment of all that is honourable and brave and lovely.
3. If God were not like Jesus Christ, somebody said, we would dethrone God in our hearts and worship Jesus Christ. The joy of the NT message is that Jesus is God. Made known to us in an incarnation (John 1:1,14; 20:28). E. Stanley Jones tells of a Chinese gentleman who, having heard this good news, jumped up and excitedly said to his wife: "You see? Did I not tell you there had to be a God like that?" Whenever we get to worrying about how God operates or about what he is doing or not doing, we need to remember that he is like Jesus Christ and that will help to calm our hearts.
4. Jesus brings us a God who takes our sin seriously. All sensitive people are hurt by the memory of evils they've done, dishonour they've chosen, things they should have done and simply refused to do. If people try to make light of our wrongs we soon lose faith in them. Those who tell us it doesn't matter if we dishonour ourselves are not the people we choose as our guides. In our better moments we know our cowardice or uncleanness does matter! The poet, Robert Browning, confessed that only Jesus was honest with him. Those around him were telling him he wasnt really a bad man and he couldnt believe them. Then the words of Christ came, bluntly telling him he was a sinner, that he was worse that even he believed himself to be. Browning knew he had finally met someone who was honest! And if Jesus was to be trusted when he told the darker truths, he could be trusted when he promised forgiveness.
5. Who would worship a God who smiles at the rape of women and children? Who could respect a God who finds pleasure in the rape and butchering of a nation? Who would want a God who yawned while hoodlums savagely beat and robbed the elderly? Who would willingly submit to a God who was grinning as drug-barons made huge fortunes out of the misery of countless millions of their fellow-humans? Who would not be sickened by a God who would pat such people on the head and say: "There, there, you didnt mean to be bad!"? We want God to take Sin seriously! We dont expect him to be vindictive but we expect him to be angry at those who exploit the billions of the world! We want him to deal with warmongering people, we want him to deal with those who force children into pornography and prostitution, we want him to bring into judgment those who pollute society and build empires on the blood and tears of the poor!
6. And he does take note of oppressors! And he will right all the wrongs! When we see Jesus filled with anger at those who were exploiting their fellows, we see Gods view of sin and we know justice will be done. Read John 2:13-17. Dont worry about the questions you cant answer, leave it to God to work it all out. The Judge of all the earth can be depended on to do what is right! Genesis 18:25
7. Jesus brings us a God who offers forgiveness. Not long before he died, the philosopher Heine said: "Of course God will forgive me, that is his business." Many people think of forgiveness that way. They dont understand the price of forgiveness. They haven't really heard the message of the cross of Christ. Forgiveness isn't cheap! Find someone who has nobly and tenderly forgiven an endless parade of wrongs against herself or her loved ones and you'll find someone who knows the awful cost of forgiving. Have you ever forgiven like that? Have you known a son or daughter who has shamed himself and his family in years of cruel and vile living? Have you known one to come home and find full forgiveness from the parents whose hearts he has broken? And was that forgiveness cheap? The worry-lines, the gray hairs, the sleepless nights are all part of the price of real forgiveness. It was God who bore mankind's evil in his body on the cross outside Jerusalem. He bore in his body what he had been bearing on his heart from the first betrayal in the garden of Eden. The Scriptures speak of his grief at being rejected.
8. It isn't possible for God not to hurt over our Sin. It isn't possible to be a lover and not hurt over your loved ones misery (even if it is self-inflicted). The parables of Luke 15 make it clear that when we lose, God loses! And as surely as a loving father is delighted at having his lost son home so God rejoices at our turning to him again. Micah 7:18-19 tells us God is delighted to forgive sin! That's the kind of God Jesus Christ brings to us.
9. Jesus brings us a God who believes in us. In some ways that is harder to believe that anything else. In light of God's experience with Man as a treacherous, cruel and selfish creation, it's amazing that he could still trust us! Peter denied Christ three times. In John 21 we find Christ asking him three times to confess his love for him. Peter gets the message and sadly confesses (21:17): "Lord, you know everything..." The great news is that in spite of his knowing how cowardly and self-protecting we can be, he is still willing to trust us with the incredible task of living and speaking for him.
10. On the night in which they betrayed him they were arguing amongst each other who was the greatest (Luke 22:24-30). And when he speaks to them, even knowing of their callous selfishness he says (22:28): "You are the ones who have stood by me in all my trials." God is no fool. He knows our evil but he refuses to regard our evil as the ultimate fact! He believes that with his help we can be noble, selfless and honourable people. He believes in us!
11. Jesus brings us a God who offers us life. Here is something we must understand: Christ came to give us more that forgiveness! He offers abundant life (John 10:10). That involves forgiveness but there's more to it than that. God offers us risk, adventure, a noble cause, chastisement, peace, cleanness of heart and challenge as well as hope for the future. One of God's favourite virtues is gallantry and he calls us to that.
12. Everywhere Jesus went he offered abundant life. New truths for people to enjoy and obey; new risks for them to face and new adventures to engage in. He would urge people to stop wringing their hands in despair and live. He can and will free us from the chains of a dull, whimpering life and enlist us in his own crusade against the World Hater who seeks the destruction of mankind. What God offers us is no chloroform to put us asleep¾no he doesn't want to put us asleep! He helps us to face all that life brings our way. Pain and pleasure, honour and shame, rejection and acceptance, praise and blame, success and failure. There is no aspect of living that we need fear when we live our lives in the company of Jesus Christ.
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