Transcript

We Believe I - We Believe in Jesus - Audio | Jake Gandara

Thank you, Chaz. Can everyone hear me right here? It's good. Okay, good job. Hey, if you got your Bible tonight, we open up to the Book of Matthew. We're going to look at, or at least we're going to start at Matthew chapter 16. Matthew chapter 16. Like Chaz said, this is our really our second lesson into what we believe. If you're taking this class, our aim and you attending these sessions is to have pillars or memory hooks to know what you believe. Okay, we want you to know what you believe about God, about Jesus, about salvation, and about the Bible. Any objection, any resistance you have towards your own faith, your own doubts, anything of that nature, it falls within one of these four categories. God, Jesus, the Bible, and salvation. Okay, so that's what this class is for. All right, so this is we believe one, part one, and we are going to start with, or we're going to our second session is going to begin with what we believe about Jesus, what we believe about Jesus. Let's start first and, or let's look at the screen and like I said, the most important question you can answer is what you believe about Jesus Christ. If you get this question right, you get to enjoy eternity forever, but if you don't, then you will not enjoy eternity forever in a place called hell, because this the who the Bible describes as Jesus is what you have to come to accept. If you deny what the scripture teaches about the Lord Jesus and his person, and who he is as a God, and also as a man, if you deny that, then you cannot have access to the Father for eternity. That's what we're going to talk about tonight. Now, in Matthew chapter 16 verse 13, let's start there. The Bible, the Bible says, now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he was asking his disciples, who do people say that I am? Who do people say that the Son of Man is? Let's adjust this real quick here. Okay, all right, who do people say that the Son of Man is? People are wandering around first century Palestine, and people are wondering who this person Jesus is. And that's the question that comes up that Jesus poses to his disciples. He says, who's people say that I am? Well, they say, hey, some of the people say it's Elijah, the prophet of old. Some people say it's John the baptizer, right? Some people say it's the prophet Jeremiah, the weeping prophet Jeremiah. Others today, if you were to ask this question, they might say, oh, he was a great teacher of his time. He's a great incredible moral example to follow. Others might say he was actually a revolutionary that claimed to be some type of Messiah-like figure. He got killed for it, and rightfully so. And so the Bible goes on in verse 14. Let's see if I can... Okay, here we go. Verse 15, and he said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" So now makes it personal. Not what do other people say, but Jesus turns it and he flips it on his disciples, and he says, who do you say that I am? And that's the key. That's the thing. This question is personable to every single one of you. Each one of you, this question gets posed to. Who's Jesus says, who do you say that I am? And your answer, your life depends on it. And what does Simon Peter say in verse 16? He answers and says, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Peter got it correctly. Now, we're going to be talking about who do we say that Jesus is? What do we believe about Jesus? We're going to go through these memory hooks tonight. The first one is that Jesus is the eternal Son. He's the eternal Son of God. Second, that Jesus is God and man, that he is both truly God, and he is truly man. Third, Jesus is the risen Savior. He was crucified and he resurrected. He's the risen Savior. And lastly, Jesus is the only way. Now, the first memory hook, Jesus is the eternal Son. Jesus is the eternal Son. Let's look at the first question that gets posed to this. First question we have to ask is, when did Jesus become the Son of God? In the beginning, when was the beginning? Was it when the earth was created? Was it when Moses wrote the first letters of Genesis? What about in Bethlehem? When Jesus was born? Jesus was born? Was he not? In Bethlehem? In the first century. Did Jesus become the Son of God then? Or has he always eternally been the Son of God? The scriptures that we're going to look at for this is, we're going to start in John chapter 5 verse 18. Jesus has just healed someone on the Sabbath and he has made some incredible claims here. First thing that is stated in John 5 18 says, for this reason, therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him because he was not only breaking the Sabbath, but it was also calling God his own Father. Jesus the Son was calling God Father. So there's a relation that the Son has to the Father. How Jesus relates to God is he calls him Father. How the Father relates to Jesus is he calls him Son. We'll pull this out more. But look what it says. It says, but also was calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. So in the first part of that blue section, it says Jesus was calling God his own Father. So there's distinction within the persons of the one being of God here. Jesus is calling something outside of himself, God, the Father. So there's a distinction between persons here. The threeness is being revealed here in Jesus's own words. And then we see the oneness, the being, the one essence that God shares with the Father's Son and Holy Spirit, making himself equal with God. There it is. That's talking about the being of God, about the essence of God. Now a couple verses later look what Jesus has to say about this. He says, "For just as the Father has life in himself, pause." Chaz talked a little bit about this as an attribute under the holy otherness of God. That God, in his being, in his essence, he has something called a ciety or simply known as self-existence. That God self-exists by himself. He doesn't depend on anything. He doesn't need anything. He alone stands perfectly and needs nothing from any of us or outside of himself. So Father has life in himself. That's a sati. That's self-existence. The Father has everything he needs in himself. Even so, he gave to the Son also to have life in himself. Now the question is, when, I think I have it on the next slide here, when we look at this verse, we see that the Father is giving to the Son also to have life in himself. Now this life in himself, that the Father gives to the Son, is also at the very end of the verse, says life in himself. But if Jesus receives like my Father gives me life through birth, he gave me life. But I don't have life within myself because my life relies on my Father. His life relies on his Father and Mother, right? So you start to see there's a difference in how there's a Creator-creature distinction when we talk about the life within God. God has life within himself. He's wholly other. So when we read this verse, we have to keep that in mind. That God's life within himself is, there's a distinction between our life. My life is not in on myself. But the Bible says he gave to the Son also to have life in himself. So we don't understand this as God, the Church throughout history has understood this as not God giving life to Jesus as a new created being, as a new created person. We see this as something the Church has fought heresy over heresy for, called something. This is a deep theological term, but it's called eternal generation. And this is deep. We're already in the first five minutes here. We're wading into the depth of God. If you try to simplify this, you're doing it wrong. You should be putting your heads up in the clouds right now, searching out God. And so God, having life in himself also gives life to Jesus and that life is life in himself as well. That's a contradiction. That doesn't make sense. We start to realize that God is speaking in almost an analogy type way. Jesus is speaking an analogy type way to help us understand this. What we start to realize is that Jesus never became the Son, that he has been eternally generated from the Father, eternally. Eternal generation. He's been eternally granted life within. The Father, throughout the Christian creeds, has talked about the Father is the Unbegotten. The Son, we know this because it's all over Scripture, is the only Begotten. This only Begottenness that you've always wondered what that means. It's this only one-of-a-kind, unique Son. This only one-of-a-kind, unique Son that has life within himself, that no other person has. No other Son has. This is deep, but we need to wrestle with this. This is called eternal generation. Again, you're Begotten, you're not made. This was deeply thought about, Christians deeply thought about this for church history. They believe this is what the Scriptures were teaching and we all say yes and amen to. An illustration of this would be something like an air hockey table. When I was a kid, my after church, me and all my buddies, we would convince our parents to go to pizza in at the time. Why? Because sometimes we'd run back to the back and we'd play air hockey table. Who else played air hockey before? We all know this. Some of these young-ins. They don't even see that anymore. But you know exactly what I'm talking about. So we'd run back in there, we'd shove a quarter in, and what would happen? That hovering of the air and we'd be like, "Yeah, let's go." We'd get after it. But this business owner would do some pretty smart business tactics to these little competitive boys. Sometimes we'd run back there and the table would already be on. And it'd already be going. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, we can just play forever now. It's been on forever as a simple boy." Right? That is this eternal generation. That is how Jesus is only begotten. That is how Jesus has life within himself because the Father has eternally given Jesus' life. That is how they're able to share the same being, share the same essence of that which is God. Relations four, talking about this relationship, this eternal relation between the Father and the Son, the distinction of persons. But when the fullness of time came, God, this is the Father, sit forth His Son, this eternal Son. At the very end you see it says, because of that, we're adopted as sons. We're brought into the eternal life of God and His love and His grace by being adopted as sons in the sonship of Jesus. John 17, 5, and Chas touched on some of these verses, too. Jesus says, "Now Father, glorify me together with yourself with the glory which I had with you before the world was, talking about an eternity past that the Son had with the Father." So we see the distinctions and we see their eternal. Chas touched on this verse about God is love. How is God love? Because the Father has been eternally loving the Son and eternity past through the Spirit, through the fellowship and sweetness of the Spirit. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, be with me where I am so that they may see my glory which you have given me. For you loved me for the foundation of the world, an eternal statement by Jesus, talking about eternity past between the Godhead. A Godhead who needs nothing, who has us say it to you, doesn't need anything. They're perfectly fine within themselves, but out of the nature of the eternal love that God has, what comes out of that is giving. And so He gives creation, right? He brings forth creation as a blessing and gift to us so that we can be redeemed and be brought in to the triune God. So this is Jesus being the eternal Son. I know that's deep, but get ready, we're going deeper. Second memory hook, that Jesus is God and man. He is both truly God and He's truly man. He's not 50% God, not 50% man. He is the twin tower's natures. He's truly God stands and the Bible says He's also truly man and you stand and they don't cross. They don't confuse, they don't mix, they stand there and we accept what the Scripture says. The first verse about Jesus is being truly God, the most important verse is John chapter one verse one. In there, John says in the beginning, which is what? A statement of what? Eternity past, right? Before creation, before God, the triune God became creator, before He became redeemer, in the beginning, an eternity past was the word, which we all know as Jesus, right? That John's prologue tells us that. And the word, so why don't we see this eternality of Christ, right? The only eternal being that the Bible allows for is God, yet Christ, the word, is placed in the beginning, okay? And the word was with God. So now we have two distinctions of persons here. The word was with God. Chaz was with Jake, two distinctions of persons, okay? But now that's the three-ness, that's the distinction of persons. Now the oneness is noted here. And the word was God. The word was God. This is a statement of equality of nature by John here saying that yes, the word, the eternal word was with the eternal Father in the beginning, but also the eternal word is God. Not the Father, but He's God, the one being of God, the Father and the Son and the Spirit share identically in the nature, in the essence of God, okay? In the one of the most keystone texts for Jesus as man, remember Jesus is God and man, man is verse 14 of John chapter 1. And the word became flesh. So that eternal word, who was with God, the Father in the beginning, who also is God, became flesh in time in the first century, right? As we know of, okay? Oh wait, and just notice, in dwelt among us, we saw His glory. Gloria is the only begotten from the Father. Again, this distinction between the Father and the Son is the Son is eternally begotten of the Father. And the Father who gives eternal aseity life to the Son is unbegotten, okay? Those are their eternal relations to each other. Those things right there, Jesus, if you were to ask what separates Jesus from the Father primarily, except that Jesus, the Son, is eternally begotten. The Son is unbegotten. And if you listen to our Trinity series, you see that the Spirit is the one who proceeds from the Father and through the Son, okay? But that's in our Trinity series. We're not talking for that right now, okay? So another statement about Jesus being God. In John chapter 1 verse 3, John chapter 1 verse 2 says, "He was in the beginning." So John doubled downs. He doubles down on that statement on verse 1. And then in verse 3, he says, "All things came into being through him in red." This is a negative claim. "Apart from the eternal word Christ, him, nothing came into being that has come into being." So John is saying, if you think the Father, remember, John chapter 5, we have this statement about the Father giving life to the Son. But if we just read that on its face, we just think, "Oh, well, the Son was born from the Father." John doesn't allow for that. At the beginning of this, read him in context of his whole gospel. He says, "Apart from him, apart from Jesus, nothing came into being that has come into being." So John does something here. He creates two categories, created things and a creator. And who's the creator in John chapter 1? God, but which person of God? Don't be afraid to say it. Which person of God is being referred to as the creator? The Son, Jesus. Now, yes, the reason why you're like, God creates the right? Yes, because God's being always acts inseparably of each other. So just side note, in the trying nature of God, in creation, who creates God does, of course. But the Father's Son and Spirit are all creating because they act inseparably of each other. The Father authors creation. The Word is the agent of creation, what we just read. He's the one who creates by the Word. Father speaks it. The Word produces it. The Spirit, none other verses, show that he animates life. Okay? So that's called the inseparable operations of the Trinity. But we'll go on. So question is, well, Jake, there's this, there's this, Paul talks about Jesus being the first board of creation. You'll see this amongst cults when they deny the eternality of the Son of Christ. Okay? And the of Christ being God. They said, well, wait a minute. First Colossians 15 says, "He is the image of the invisible God." Okay? Which, first of all, again, creator, creature distinction, we are made in the image, okay? Of God, like the image, we're reflections of God's nature, but we're not God's nature. He is the image of the invisible God, right? So there's a, that's a, that's a distinction about Jesus' divine nature there, right? But then he says, "Had this title of Jesus, the firstborn of all creation." You say, "Wait a minute, Jake, the firstborn." My sister, where's she at? She's probably on her phone. My sister is the firstborn, even though we're twins. She was one minute earlier than me, okay? She's been rubbing on my face every day, okay? She was the firstborn. But in the Bible, in Paul's language here, and we'll, we'll look at this, Paul doesn't mean that in that manner, okay? He's talking about rank and supremacy, okay, which, which is in our, in me and Taylor, that's what I have, right? And so, so the question is, does the firstborn mean created? No, firstborn in Paul's language here, and using Old Testament language, remember, Paul's a Jew, he's trained in the sin, he's a, he's a trained, he's trained to be a saint in Yudrin, right? A Pharisee, he knows, he speaks, when he speaks, he speaks in the Old Testament language. So, read Paul on the Old Testament language's terms. Firstborn, what's examples of this, where the firstborn doesn't actually mean firstborn, it rather means a different, it means something in a different sense. What does Exodus chapter 4 verse 22 say? "Then you shall say the favor of thus says the Lord." What does the Lord say? He says Israel, the Israelites. All of you Israelites is my son, my firstborn. Well, that doesn't make sense, right? What about this one? David, talking about King David, I also shall make David my firstborn, but wait a minute, David wasn't the firstborn of his brothers, right? He was the last, out of what, 12, if I remember correctly? So, David isn't the firstborn, okay? But what is he? He's the king of Israel, so he has rank, he has supremacy, right? He's the ruler of everything, okay? So, we now see that Paul is talking about Jesus being firstborn as rank, supremacy. So, you can always fight that objection that way, right? An example of this, Paul goes on to say all things were created, right? All things were created for Jesus and through him and to him, okay? We go on and just a breath later in Colossians chapter 2. Paul says, "For in him in Christ all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form, all the fullness." Not a little bit, not 50% of the divine nature of God in Jesus, no, no. Paul says all the fullness of deity dwells in the words become flesh form, okay? So, we're starting to see this distinction between Jesus' divine nature and his human nature, okay? But we have to understand the first thing that Jesus is truly God, okay? How much? Truly. He's fully God, okay? And he's also at the same time, the Bible describes him as truly man, okay? Truly and fully man. Again, what's the primary key text for Jesus' human nature? It's John 1 and 14, that the word became flesh. He was the only begotten from the Father, okay? We see these other parts, other writers of Hebrews says this in chapter 2. He says, "He himself likewise also partook of the same." He's talking about the sameness of you and I, okay? He's talking about Jesus took, partook the same nature as you and I. Jesus truly is, I was talking to the youth earlier, Jesus is truly man. I know you want to hold his deity, right? Because that's what we always have to fight about, but don't neglect his humanity. Jesus is truly man. Look at the second verse 17, made like in his brethren in all things. This should be comforting to you because when you grieve Jesus is human, according to his human nature, he grieved. When he was sick and he hurt, he was truly sick and he hurt. When he wept, when you wept and he weeps in the Bible, he could truly understand how you as a human feels and why is that important? That's important because he can fully represent us as humans. We need a representative and we'll talk about that at the end. So this idea that the Bible describes that Jesus is one person, there is one person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and that one person though is unique because that one person, unlike you and I, I just have a human nature. I don't have any divinity within myself. Yes, I made in the image of God, but I am not God. Jesus is unique. This is the mystery of the incarnation of the Bible, that Jesus is one person, yet he has two natures, a divine nature and a human nature. It's hard to read about when you read the Bible, you're like, wait a minute, what about this question? What about this question? We're going to look at some of that. Again, one person, two natures and throughout church history, this was thought about and it was called something called the hypostatic union. It was talking about the substance of what each person has and if Jesus shares in that or not. Jesus truly has the divine nature of God, all of it, identical to the Father and the Spirit. He also truly has humanized human nature. He truly was born of a virgin as a baby boy and he grew and he got tired and he got hungry and he whapped just like you and I do. He was tempted by the devil according to his human nature. A way to understand, I'll give you categories to think in. When you read these questions, because you're always going to hear questions, whether it's friends or families or just you yourself, you have questions about certain passages in the Bible, a good framework to think in. When you come across something, you have a question about Jesus, like, wait a minute, I thought Jesus was God. How does he do this? Well, I thought Jesus was truly man. How can he do this? It's to think in his proper category of natures. And a good way to say is, XYZ according to his human nature or according to his divine nature. Let's look at some examples. Luke chapter 2 verse 52. And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature. Wait a minute. Chasse talked about this, how God is holy other. And part of those attributes that make him holy other than us is that he is omniscient. He doesn't need to know anything because he knows everything. So how can Jesus, the apostle John described as God, how can he increase in wisdom and stature? Right? Well, how we start to understand these things is that when Luke is writing that, he's writing that in the category according to Jesus's human nature, not his divine nature. His divine nature doesn't need to increase in wisdom. His divine nature doesn't need to increase in statue. But when you read the whole gospel of John, Jesus is always talking about, I'm coming to do the will of my father. I have to submit to the father. I have to obey the father. I have to do what the father wants me to do. And then you read in the favor with God and men, and you start to realize Luke is speaking about Jesus according to what nature is human nature. According to what nature? Human nature, right? What about this one? Mark 4 verse 39. We all know this. They're in the sea. The storms are rushing about. The disciples are freaking out. Okay. And verse 39 says, and he got up and he rebuked the wind. And he said to the sea, hush, be still. What happened? With a word, the wind died down. And it became perfectly calm. Now how does Jesus, who the word became flash, he's flash, he's human. How can he stand up in a boat? When I got other, I got other guys in the boat, they can't seem to stop the wind. But Jesus stands up in the boat and just with a hush, he has dominion and authority over the powers of nature. How does he do that? According, I thought he was a man. Well, he is a man. Yes and amen. But when Jesus does this, he does it according to what nature? His divine nature. According to what nature? His divine nature. Man, I hope that sticks with you guys. It's going to help you out so much when you read through the gospels and you're going to start seeing it everywhere and you need to praise the Lord for it. You need to think about it meditate. Jesus did that according to his divine nature. Jesus did that according to his human nature. You're going to start seeing the mystery of the incarnation. It's going to be a beautiful thing you can develop on for eternity with us. Okay. When we're all in heaven, we're going to be three trillion years from now, we're going to be in heaven. I'm going to be like, man, you remember Jesus stood up according to his divine nature and we're like, man, how did he do that? I don't know. It's going to a class and we'll listen to him talk about it. Right? That's what we're going to be doing about when we talk about Jesus is two natures. Okay. This is important. Why? Because if he is, if he is not truly God, he cannot save us. Why? Because if he's not truly God, he is going to fall to sin all like you and I. Okay. He's got no power over sin if he's not truly God. If he is just man, or if he's just 50% God, then there's going to be, there's going to be a crack in his armor. Right? He's going to fall at some point. Okay. But he's truly God. So therefore, according to his divine nature, he can overcome sin every time. But it also, if he is not truly man, he cannot represent us. Romans chapter five talks about how Adam, our first father, was the federal head. He was the representative of the human race. That's why when Adam sinned, we all sinned in Adam. Okay. And death has rained through that. Okay. We don't like the light. We don't like to think about that as modernists. We're very individualistic and autonomous freedom and whatnot. But the Bible doesn't talk about it that way. No, no, Adam is your head. And what Adam, what choices Adam makes affect you? Dads know that, right? Right? Moms know that over the children. Okay. But in the Bible, in Adam, this is, you want this to happen. You say, oh, that sounds unfair. I want to be accountable for my own. No, no, you actually don't want that. Because if, if Adam is the one who is responsible for us putting, putting us in the sin, then we need one of us, then, to be a representative of our, our race, our human race, it's also why side notes, why aliens won't, if there's such things as aliens, why aliens, they don't have salvation through Christ because they're not at the human race. They're not born in Adam. Total side note, but I shouldn't have said that. I got no, no, no, we're talking about that. But, but if, if Jesus is not truly man, then he can't fully represent us and his one act of a perfect sin this life before the Father and his death and resurrection and his ascension can't, can't fully represent us. Okay. He's something different than us, right? As humans, but no, he truly is human. He truly has a human nature and also a divine nature. Okay. So Jesus is the eternal son and he's also God and man. Are we doing on time here? Good. All right. Jesus is the risen Savior. Okay. Jesus was crucified and he rose again. This is the most important historical event in our faith. And let's talk about it. What does the Apostle Paul say in 1 Corinthians chapter 15? If you have time this week, go read 1 Corinthians chapter 15 every day and you're just going to be like, oh my goodness, how do I even wrap my mind around? This is just incredible, right? How does Paul start it off? He says, "For I deliver to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins." There it is. There's a substitutionary atonement, right? A penile, we call this in the, in our Protestant world, we call this penile substitutionary atonement. That means because of our sin, we deserve death. We deserve to pay our consequences. You hear Pastor Danny said, "For the wages of sin is death." Right? We deserve death. There has to be a consequence because God is holy like Chas talked about. He's a holy judge and he's a righteous judge. He's not going to let things slide. There has to be a payment for it. Right? That's why Jesus becomes flesh, represents us and his truly human nature, right? And lives a sinless life and dies on the cross for us and Christ died for our sins. He died for our sins and he can represent us because he's both truly God. He was able to live a sinless because that allowed him to live a sin less life and he was truly man so he could actually represent us on the cross. Right? So Christ died for our sins. There was a substitutionary atonement. Chas will talk a little bit about that when he talks, gives his lecture on salvation. And it says according to the scriptures, another side note, you don't believe the Bible just because of what your parents say. You don't believe or you don't have a Christian faith because what your parents say. You don't even believe the Bible, I'm not going to go there. You believe your faith because what's Paul's say? According to the scriptures, that is why we as Christians, as Protestants, and as particularly Southern Baptist, that's why we will always hold a high view of Scripture. That Scripture is inerrant, it's infallible, it's inspired because our faith rests not on what we heard about in the first century but what was written down according to the scriptures that God breathed out for us. It's linked, it's forever linked, eternally linked to God's word. And that he was buried, Jesus was buried and that he was raised on the third day. According to what? The scriptures, Paul's writing this about 20 years later, okay? Right after Christ has died. And what happens if this event isn't true? What happens if Jesus isn't the risen Savior? What does Paul say? I think he puts it pretty blunt and I agree with him. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless. All right, we can close out, we can leave. My dad has to look for a new job, right? No, but Christ rose again on the third day and he resurrected from the dead, he conquered death and evil. And now we're sitting here 2,000 years later as his Spirit saves people and we preach Christ from the pulpit and we exalt God in worship because Jesus was raised from the dead and talk about our inseparable operations of the Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Spirit raised him from the dead. Maybe we'll talk about that some other time. But it says, if Jesus didn't die, then you're still in your sins. Notice how sin doesn't go away with it, but you'd still be in it. You'd be trying to figure out what to do with it. You'd be like a hammer, or a weight pressing down on you. That conviction, that pressure, that suppression, you would have anyone to turn to. But because of the resurrection, our faith is not worthless. The resurrection is a true historical and a bodily. It's not a spiritual symbol, right? It's not a folk tale, it's not a folklore. It is a true historical bodily resurrection event. Three pieces of evidence to keep in your mind when you defend the resurrection. We'll call it the three-legged stool. I thought about bringing one up here tonight, but we'll just pretend we have one here. Three-legged stool, if you take one pillar out and the stool doesn't work very well. And the resurrection, I think, has three pillars that, when they're placed together and they're held perfectly, it is uncomfortable to defend. It will defeat any objection. Let's look at these. The first one, stool number one, is the empty tomb. The empty tomb. Now on the first day in John 20 verses 1 through 2. Now on the first day, the week of Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb, so Mary Magdalene shows up to the tomb, right? While it was still dark, she saw the stone already taken away from the tomb. So she's like, "Oh my goodness, the stone has rolled away. Jesus is gray. The stone has rolled away from the tomb." Verse 2. So she ran and she came to Simon Peter into the other disciples, whom Jesus loved, the disciple who Jesus loved, who's John. And she said to them, "Notice what she says here." She says, "They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him." So notice how she doesn't see it immediately, as like Jesus is resurrected. All those things He told you disciples about three days later, He's going to rise up from the grave, and His temple will rise, and He's going to come back and rise from the dead. Those things that He told you, it came true. No, she doesn't even think about that. She's like, they've taken Him. They've taken Jesus, right? They've taken Him and they got Him, right? Where have they laid Him? And so, we'll go back one. So think about this. Her first understanding of this is not that it's a, that Jesus resurrected, but it's just the tomb is empty. And so that one proves that the way the narrative goes, it's like, "Oh, there's no one in there." And what does she first think? "Oh, the tomb's empty." Okay? And this would have been pretty easily to do, right? The Jewish authorities or Roman authorities, because the tomb is empty, and if there truly was a, if they truly had taken Jesus' body, and then His disciples and apostles started saying, "Hey, He's resurrected from the dead." They could just produce the body of Jesus that was taken from the tomb at that time. But that's not what happened, was it? But notice Mary's first inclination is like, "Oh, they've taken His body." Okay? So it shows us, it indicates that the tomb was empty, right? There was no one in the tomb, okay? Second stool. There's a lot more passages to these things. You can go look at it in your own. The second stool, all right, leg, right? I should say. First Corinthians 15, 5-6, and that He, talking about Christ, Christ appeared to Cephas, who is Peter, then to the 12, sorry, I can't read this right here, 12, so the 12 disciples or apostles really at that time, and after that, He appeared, He appeared more than 500 brethren at one time. So notice how there's three, and Paul goes on to later say in that chapter how he also appeared to him, right, on the road to Damascus. But notice how Paul gives three, three eyewitness accounts, right, of appearances of Jesus, right? Cephas and Peter, or Peter, right? The 12 disciples, so a group of three different entities, Peter, as the kind of the leader of the disciples, and also the other 12. And also, there's 500 other people that've seen Jesus, seen His appearance, right? It's not a hallucination. It's not a ghost, right? They've actually seen Him. And if you have questions, most of whom remain until now, this is 20, almost 20 years later, okay, after Jesus' resurrection. So 500 of those people are still, around 500 of those people probably still living, and He says most of whom remain remain now until Son have fallen asleep, but some have passed away. So Paul's saying, "You don't believe me? Go talk to them. Go get their first-hand account of Jesus's appearance," right? And we know that Jesus isn't like a ghost or a hallucination, because look what He says to some of the disciples here. He says in Luke 24 verse 39, "See my hands and my feet, that it is I, myself, touch me and see me, for Spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see." I think He says that to the ladies there, right? But notice how He says, "For Spirit," right? Spirits don't have flesh. They don't have bones, but touch me. Put your hands on me. This is my bodily body. This resurrection that just occurred, it's bodily, right? You can put your hands on me. You can touch my scars. We can eat together. It's something remarkable, right? It's something wholly other, right? So we have these appearances. Stole number three, the witness of the women, the witness of the women. This is interesting. Matthew 28 verses 8 through 9, "Look what?" And all four gospel accounts have this recorded this. And they, the women, so like Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, the mother of James, they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy. And they ran to report to His disciples and behold, who meets Him? Jesus met them and greeted them. And they came up to Him. They took hold of His feet and they worshiped Him. You're like, "Okay, isn't that just another appearance? Why is that important that the gospels recorded it that way? Does anybody know why?" The reason why is because in the first century, if you're writing a legal account of something to let it hold in the court of law, a woman's claim, a woman's witness held no weight. It meant nothing in the court of law. Law was a witness had to be buried by a man. And so the gospel accounts, if they're trying to trick everyone and deceive everyone to Jesus being resurrected, why on earth, why on earth would they include? The first people see in Jesus some women because they can't legally hold up in court. And it's because it's ironic because it's a historical evidence of it actually happening. They're just being truthful. They're saying, "Yeah, the women saw them first." Right? And then Jesus, as we know, makes this appearance to these others. Right? But we have this, we have this claim, we have this witness of the women that legally would not hold up in court, but the gospel accounts all record that. It's like this ironic twist of, hey, let's see, like, if we were trying to make this up, we wouldn't include this, but the gospel writers do. Because why? Because they're just being truthful. That's what happened. Right? So Jesus is the eternal son. He is truly God. He is truly man. And he is the risen Savior. Lastly, our last memory hook. Okay? How we doing so far? Doing good. I know it's heavy. Okay? It's a lot, right? But Jesus is the only way. All these things build, funny enough, all these things build to this one. Jesus is the only way. Let's look at this first scripture. John chapter 14, five through six, we're familiar with this, right? Neither the betrayal. Thomas said to him, they're scared out of the minds. Disciples are scared out of their minds. And he says, what? He says, Lord, we did not know where you are going. Jesus said, hey, I'm going to go somewhere else. It's a place you can't be. I'm going to send the Spirit to you later on. Right? I'm going to prepare a place for you in heaven or a mansions from where my father dwells. And Thomas said, Lord, we do not know where you are going. How do we know the way? Remember the intensity of the last week, last night's last moments of Jesus's life is building up. And Jesus is about to be killed on a cross. And his buddies are with them that night. They could be held guilty in the court of law. Their lives could be at stake. And so they're scared. That's the essence of this passage. They're frightened. And Thomas, when he says this, he says it out of fear, he says, how do we know the way? Is it illegal? Should we contact a legal attorney within the Jewish community that is somewhat a follower of the Messiah and try to be protected legally? Right? Or should we find some other XYZ way to stay safe? Right? What way can you provide for us, Jesus? And they're most frightened, scared night of their life. What does Jesus offer? He doesn't just offer a slogan. He doesn't just offer a bumper sticker on a car. He offers himself. He says, Jesus said to him, I am the way. I am the way. Jesus said, Thomas, you asked what way? You're looking at him. I am the way and the truth and the life, that life that eternally is given from the Father to the Son, if you want to participate in that, I am the way. And guess what, Thomas? No one. Is all the disciples listening right now? No one comes to the Father, but through me. If you want to be with the Father, the one who has life in and of himself, the only way you can have access to the Father is through the Son. He is the only way. Many people today, you might be one of them, sitting here today, and you talk about God this, God that. God, God was, you know, I'm praying to God, God's working on me, blah, blah, blah. No, no, Christ. You can't, you don't have, if you are not a believer, if you have not been born again by placing your faith in Christ and repenting of your sins and trusting in Christ alone for your salvation and been given a new heart with new desires, if that hasn't taken place today, you don't know God. You don't have access to Him. The only way you can get access to the Father is through the Son. That's why in the, in Genesis chapter 1 through 3, they're placed in a garden. They get to dwell with God for, for it seems like what's going to be fruitful and of eternity and they sin. And what happens to the Father? Or what does the Father say? What does God say? He says, "Cast ye outside of Eden." And now, the whole Bible, the, the, the plan of redemption has started to unfold throughout all of the Old Testament and New Testament. It's fine in its climax right here, right? The beginning of John chapter 1, Jesus goes and He's calling His disciples and He goes to Nathaniel, right? He goes to, He goes to other disciples, right? And He says, "Hey, I've seen you sitting by the fig tree," right? And He says, "How do you know this? You're Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth." And He says, "You know that, that Father Jacob that you've read about in your Torah and your Hebrew Scriptures, you remember His, His night in Bethlehem, right? In Bethel, the house of God where He put His head on a rock and He had a dream where He could have access back to the Father and His forefathers, Adam and them were casted out. And He's now been wondering about how we can have access to the Father and there's ladder going up and down. There's only one way, there's only one staircase, and Jesus says, "That's me." Thomas asks Him again because that's us humans, right? We have to keep asking things because we can't accept it on the first time. We have to chew on things. And Thomas says, "What's the way out of this?" And He says, "You're looking at Him. I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life." And if you want access to the Father, if you want peace, if you want the eternal love that the Trinity has, you have to go through His Son, the eternal Son, the one who's God and man, the one who's crucified and risen, He's the risen Savior, He's the only way, right? What does Peter go on to say? After the day of Pentecost, he's out there in the streets in Israel, right? Just preaching away in Jerusalem. And what does he say? All these people who know their Bible, they know their Old Testament in this sermon, Peter's preaching. They're all good Jews. They all go to synagogue. They know the Scriptures. And they've been trying to do this checklist of things. They say, "No, I've got all these laws of Moses that I have to follow." And also, all these other Pharisees added commentary to them that I also need to follow. Maybe that's my way into the Kingdom of God. Maybe that's my way to have peace. But Nicodemus tried that, and at night he had to come to the only way to ask him how he could get in, right? Jesus said, "What, you must be born again, and how do you be born again? How is there salvation? There is salvation in no one else." For there's no other name, Peter says, "And under heaven that has been given among men, man, Jesus, fully representative of us, truly human nature, by which we must be saved." He's the only way. For there's one God, Paul says in 1 Timothy, that the oneness of God. Remember, first layer of the Triune nature of God is monotheism, that God is one. His being is one, and he's revealed his essence. He's revealed his being through three persons. Me, Jake, I got one being, I got one person. I don't have any, I don't know. Sometimes when I'm hungry I feel like I'm revealing another person, right? But God, he reveals his being through the Father, through the Son, through the Holy Spirit, and they're eternally exist, right? And they're in relation to each other. For there is one God, and one mediator, Christ is the one between you and the Father, right? He's mediating between you and the Father. He's praying for you. He's provided salvation for you. He's the great high priest that Hebrews talks about. That has been the one who's been the only mediator to be the atonement, the sacrificial spotless land of the blood of the land. He's that. He's the mediator, and that's between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus, the one person who has two natures, who's truly God, he's truly man, who's been the eternal Son of God, who existed eternally, has that say it to you life, that that self-existent life that also the Father has, that they've been sharing for eternity back, just like the hockey table that's always been turned on, right? And what are these hooks are? We believe in Jesus. And if you say, what do you believe, your body says, what do you believe about Jesus? And so, you know, there's really four things I believe in. Number one, I believe that Jesus is the eternal Son of God, right? I believe that he is truly God, and he's truly man. I believe he's the risen Savior, that he was crucified, and he rose again on the third day, and that this man, Jesus, who is the eternal Son, who is God and man, who's the crucified and risen Savior, this Jesus is the only way, is the only way. These are our memory hooks, right? I think basically just talked about this. So, listen, I know that was a law, I guess we got, we got a couple minutes for or is it time? All right, so I know there could be some questions, maybe certain passages. I want people to feel free about what questions they might have for this. Does anybody want to start off with any question? All right, Kate, I'll put Kate on the last year. All right, I asked you earlier in the book of Mark when Jesus is on the boat. He's with his disciples, the storms come, and they're all freaking out, right? He gets up and he hushes them. Which nature does Jesus do that accordingly to? When Jesus says, "Hush, be still," and he controls the forces of nature, he does that according to his divine nature, right? Right? What is the key text for Jesus as God? John 1, right? What is the key text for Jesus as man? John 1, 14, right? We have any questions? I do have one question. When Jesus died on the cross, what died? Did God die? Why did God not die? Jesus is God, right? So God died. If Jesus is God, he was on the cross, and he died, didn't he die? Didn't God die? Why not? Okay, so Jesus died according to his human nature. So his human nature is what died. So what this other nature he has, what's that called? What did that do on the cross? It lived. It saved our suit. Yeah, it's living. It always lived. Why? Because his divine nature, the essence of God, has self-existence. He doesn't need eternal, right? He has life within himself, right? The father and the son, what is the distinction, what is the primary distinction between the two? Okay, who else? The gotten versus unbegotten, right? Son is the only begotten of the father, right? Father is the unbegotten father, right? The unbegotten father has eternally given life to the son. That is how they communicate, or that's the theological term, but share the essence of Godness, right? If you say, how is Jesus God? Well, he's received eternally his essence, his God essence, the name of Yahweh, right? Any other questions? Yes, so, yes, so you could work your way down. You know, we're doing, this is we believe one, which as I plan on doing, Pastor Darren and Brother Dana have us work on, is we believe two. So we're giving these four categories, right? God, Jesus, salvation, and the Bible. When we do our cult class, we're going to try to take those four categories, and it'd be helpful if you'd already gone through this class, so you know what you believe, so we can trust it with what they believe. But as Pastor Danny said, what cults always deny, is they one, they, the first thing they attack is the divine nature of Jesus. They say, Jesus isn't God, he's the, he was created, and what passages would you go to for that? Was Jesus, was there a time where Jesus was created? In church history, there was a, in a heretic named Arius, okay? He got up to preach one day, and he said that there was a time, this is a famous saint, there was a time when the sun was not, there's a time when the sun was not, and every heretic knows their Bible well, right? And so they might start at certain passages, and he might pull up that firstborn of all creation and first Colossians 115. So you see, he's the firstborn of creation. God created him, right? The Father created Jesus, right? He might have these divine attributes, but he's not God. He's not sharing the essence of God, right? And you'd say, well, what would we say? You're not interpreting, you're interpreting firstborn in your own plain reading of Scripture, but that is not how the author of that, of that text, the Apostle Paul, is using it. Apostle Paul is an Old Testament, steeped in the Old Testament. He's making references to it all the time. He's using Old Testament words in the context of what they believed about that, that this firstborn is not about created first, it's about supremacy, it's about rank, it's about preeminence, right? And Col, if someone brings up to you that Jesus is it's God, the first text you have to go to is John chapter one, verse one. You say, and you just need to read this, keep reading this and think about it. In the beginning, so an eternity pass, before Genesis one one, right? Was the word, okay? So that word we know is Christ, no one will deny that, or some will, but they can't in this moment, right? In the beginning was the word, okay? And the word was with God, so he's like, okay, there's two entities here, it looks like, right? There's two persons, a word, and it sounds like the Father, right? In the beginning was the word, the word was with God, and then John doesn't escape, the word was God, right? So the quality of oneness that the word has with the nature, the essence of God, right? These are things you always got to just keep thinking about, right? So you can properly, why is this important? This is just a theology class, this is to know God clearly, right? To dwell upon the beauty that the Lord is, right? And to defend your friends and family and yourself from false beliefs, right? Because ultimately at the end of this, what you believe about Jesus determines your eternity, okay? So, we're probably in a different time now. So any more questions before we leave? Okay, if you have a question, and you just don't want to answer, you can come talk to me more chats, all right? We're always free to help you, all right? Thank you guys, I hope you guys, I know it was a lot, but I hope you guys, it was beneficial for each of us, all right? Let's pray, and we'll head out here. Thank you Father for this day, thank you for allowing us to open up your word, to see the beauty of your trying in nature, and how you as one God have revealed yourself through the three persons. Particularly we focused on the Father and his relation to his son, and his son means Jesus Christ, who is one person who has two natures, who was in the beginning by himself, but also with you, and shares in quality nature of you Father, that you both are in the essence, have the essence of that which is God Lord. We praise you for the eternal plan of Jesus, leaving the glory he wants to share with you, and coming down to the earth, and putting on our flesh, and partaking in the same, sameness and lightness of us, so that he could truly be our representative of the Lord, and yet he truly kept his complete deity, and he was able to live a sinless life through the power of that which is God who could not sin, but yet he was able to be tempted, and he was able to relate with us as humans, because according to his human nature, he was. Lord, it is a mystery to us, we do not fully understand it, because we are your creatures, and you are the Creator, and there's a, your thoughts are yours, and your own ways, and we have our own thoughts, Lord, you have a nature that is incomprehensible, but you have given us your word that we can comprehend what you want us to know, Lord, let us be faithful to that. Let us not just gather knowledge here tonight, but let it perfect our lives, let it bring worship to you, and through your Son, and let your Holy Spirit within us drive out through our hands, throughout the week, through devotion in the morning to you, Lord, through killing our sin by submitting to the Holy Spirit, by sharing the gospel of your Son, Lord, so that people can be provided the one way that which is peace with you, Father. We ask this all in Christ's name. Amen.