Emmanuel: The Transformative Power of the Incarnation

if he just claimed to be a great man or a man with a high god consciousness or something along those lines, then you might listen to him and say well i don't know whether i should follow him or not i'll have to decide i'll weigh things up but when he claims to be god then you either have to fall down at his feet and give him your entire life or you need to really run away from him in anger or fear or, and that's exactly what you see in the bible [00:02:28]

because of his claims these astounding claims to have been to be god you never see anybody listening to a sermon and afterwards saying nice sermon preacher i'll go home and think about it people either threw themselves down at his feet or they tried to stone him or they ran away shrieking and we live in a world we live in a society in which most people who name the name of christ clearly do not really understand this they don't understand his claim [00:02:57]

because there is no such thing as being moderately christian you either have to throw yourself at his feet and do everything in your life centered on him or you shouldn't have anything to do with him at all anything else is completely inconsistent and yet most people in this country i would say who name the name of christ they are in the middle and yet that's not taking the doctor the incarnation seriously [00:03:27]

you see the god that jesus christ is is not the god of dualism dualism is a dualistic religions dualistic philosophies and world views believe that there were two principles out there a good principle and a bad principle you even get that in star wars a little bit where you talk about where they talk about the dark side of the force and the good side of the force and the idea there is that you have good and evil locked in a kind of endless battle because they're equally uh powerful but that's not the god of the bible [00:04:00]

the god of the bible is omnipotent the god of the bible is completely in charge nothing can stand against him and if the lord of love jesus christ is god that means you know who cares whether there's life after death what we care is is there love after death and there will be and will all evil and suffering finally be over if the lord of love is god yes eventually it will all be over and that means this world there's hope for it and that means that you and i with all of our flaws there's infinite hope for us too [00:04:35]

he calls for obedience but he knows what it's like to be rejected he knows what it's like to be hungry he knows what it's like to be in pain he knows what it's like to be the victim of injustice he knows what it's like whatever you're going through he knows what it's like he understands you can draw near to him and get mercy and help in time of need but lastly because he's human we can be saved see think of it like this [00:05:35]

why did jesus christ become human if jesus christ was a completely holy god and not loving at all why in the world would he have emptied himself of his glory and come to earth and experienced all this if he was just a holy just god but not a loving god he never would have become human but if he was only a loving god who says oh i accept everybody then there would have been no need for him to come down either he just accepts everybody [00:06:04]

but only a holy god who says sin must be punished and a loving god who says but i i need to punish sin in such a way that i can still love and forgive my people only a god like that who's both holy and loving would have would have become human and that's why he did it so that a holy god could satisfy justice at the same time open his arms to us and if he wasn't human he never real we never we just couldn't be saved [00:06:29]

he looked into the world he saw us he saw us dying he saw us flailing and he loved us so much that he wrote himself in and he became a human being though he was god and he saved us emmanuel god with us that's what it means amen [00:08:17]

there's not anywhere in the bible that jesus claimed to be god that was just made up by other people that he never actually said i am god and you know show me a place where jesus said i am god and i'll give you a minute to think about it or not even a whole minute but i mean louis clearly in in mere christianity said well if somebody says their god you either worship them or you lock them up as a lunatic on the same level as somebody who says he's a poached egg or you revile him as somebody who has a devil so if jesus didn't really claim to be god and um then we need to know about that right [00:08:33]

all the i am statements in the book of john where jesus uh deliberately says ago amy which is unusual by the way you usually didn't in greek didn't use the uh you didn't actually need to use the first with the word a go e i but for example at the end of the book of uh of james chapter 8 when he's saying abraham rejoiced to see my day and the the religious leaders are saying that's ridiculous how could abraham have rejoiced to see your day and then he says before abraham was i am [00:09:41]

he actually says he is not a son of god but he is the son of god he's the only son of god now in that day everybody knew that whatever if you only had one son and one child then the son inherited everything from the father and that meant the son was equal to the father and it actually says at the very end of john chapter five verse nine they try to stone him when he said that because he made himself equal with god [00:10:56]