What would you think if I walked into the room and proclaimed, “I’m the King!” Ok, you wouldn’t take me too seriously. When someone speaks of a kingdom or being a king what do you think of? Your mind might go to thoughts of England and the Monarchy. For the record, Sharon bought me this t-shirt and written across it says, “king of nothing!’.
The idea of a king or a kingdom was not a new idea at the time of Jesus. Josephus, the Jewish historian wrote of many messianic pretenders that came and went. So, Jesus begins his ministry and begins to proclaim the message that He is going to inaugurate the kingdom. Hope was set high in the hearts and minds of people, but Jesus let them down. He had much larger plans for His kingdom! Today we will discover who Jesus was in His fullness, His character, not in part, but the whole.
To fully appreciate what is going on here we need to understand what is at stake for these people. They had hopes of freedom, deliverance, the end of persecution and suffering at the hands of the Romans. Many pretenders had arrived on the scene with militaristic plans to advance the cause of the nation. One such character named Simon started his following in the wilderness much like John The Baptist and he self proclaimed himself king! It was towards the end of King Herod’s reign and he took his followers and went after King Herod. He didn’t last long against the very efficient Roman army and Simon lost his head literally. He stirred the hopes of the people to overthrow Rome and liberating the Jewish people. He had hope of leading them to freedom and carving out their own national identity.
Will the real King please stand up!
Jesus most audacious claim was the fact that He claimed to be God, not God’s messenger, not God’s prophet, not the ultimate Bible teacher, GOD. It is for this very reason that He got Himself into so much trouble. Let’s look at who He was:
There has been a lot of focus in the quest for the historical Jesus and peeling away the layers of interpretation to get us back to who He really was. The humanity of Jesus is now one of the least areas of controversy but it was not always so. We have just celebrated His virgin birth and the nativity story which brought his entrance into the world. We now move to the challenge of who He claimed to be. As Josh McDowell so accurately wrote, you have one of three options to take on Jesus…either He was God, a liar or a lunatic…
JESUS – HIS INCARNATION
The great truth of Jesus is to recognize, maybe not fully grasp, but the fact that He was both fully human and fully God. We refer to this as His hypostatic union.
Christ’s humanity John 8:40; 1 Timothy 2:5 – one mediator, the man Jesus Christ
JESUS - HIS DEITY
The Son of Man used 81x
One of the titles you will find of Jesus in the gospels is the “Son of Man’ and people will say that this term basically stresses the weakness and mortality of the human condition. However, one needs to go to Daniel 7:13,14 to understand the context of the ‘son of man’. It didn’t mean that at all…
13"In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.
He uses the phrase "Son of Man" when speaking of his roles of saving and judging (e.g. Mk 10:45; Mt 25:31) and of the future coming of an exalted, heavenly figure (e.g. Mt 13:41, 24:30; Mk 14:62; Lk 18:8).
The Son of God
Jesus does not refer to himself as the Son of God in the Gospels, but the term is used in the writings of Paul (e.g. Ro 1:4, 8:31) and in the epistle to the Hebrews (4:14). The Gospel of John refers to Jesus simply as "the Son," which may have a similar meaning. Paul uses the term for both Christ and Christians, but distinguishes between the two. Christians become sons of God by adoption, but Jesus is the rightful Son of God by nature.
Christ as God
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.... The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. (John 1:1,14)
Thomas said to him [the resurrected Jesus], "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28)
But about the Son he [God] says, "Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever." (Hebrews 1:8)
JESUS – HIS ROLE
The One Who Forgives Sin Mark 2:4
The One Who is Without Sin
The Perfect Sacrifice For Sin
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. 2 Corinthians 5:21
The One Who Emptied Himself – kenosis Philippians 2:7Jesus demonstrated non-use of omniscience (Mt. 24:36), omnipotence (Mk. 6:5), omnipresence (Jn. 4:4), righteousness (Heb. 4:l5;9:l4), justice (Jn. 5:30), and infinitude (I Cor. l5:3).
He served a threefold office as Prophet, Priest and King
Prophet Luke 4:24; 24:19
Priest Hebrews 2:14-17
King Revelation 19:11-16
Presently -
To mediate between us and the Father I Jn. 2:l,2; Heb. 7:25
To rule and guide the church Eph. l:20,23
Future-
To take over the world and rule it as king for a thousand years Rev. 19:11-16
Reward the members of the church for their deeds done in the body 2 Cor. 5:10; 1 Cor. 3:10-15
The Challenges
The firstborn over all creation Colossians 1:15 Again recognize what ‘firstborn’ means to us compared to what it meant then. Firstborn means the one who ultimately has all the rights of the father. It means unique one, the supreme heir….but if you still doubt, you read the whole letter Colossians 2:9…in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.
Jesus in John 14:7 said “If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well.” Loose translation means you look at me, you have a perfect picture of the Father. John 10:30 “I and the Father are one”
JESUS – HIS RESURRECTION and ASCENT
Go to the eyewitness accounts:
Mary Magdalene John 20:10
The other women Matthew 28:8
Cleopas and another disciple on the road to Emmaus Luke 24:13
Eleven disciples Luke 24:33
The disciples with Thomas absent John 20:19
The disciples John 21; Matthew 28:16
At the Mount of Olives before his ascension Luke 24:50; Acts 1:4
I want to zero in on what we can learn about Jesus at this time in His ministry. In Matthew 14, we begin with a picture of Jesus’ humanity. He has just received the news of John the Baptist’s death and he retreats and seeks solitude to grieve the loss of his cousin and forerunner, the one who baptized him. He more than likely reflects on his boldness, his commitment to Him and to the truth….He barely quiets himself and He is swarmed with the demands of ministry again. He had every right in His humanity to push them aside, but that same humanity leads Him to compassion.
The real fast food! v13-18
The nation Israel had experienced conquest by many nations and they had always been living with the hope of a messiah who would redeem them and give them their national identity back. They mistake his breaking of the bread as manna. At that time one of the messianic misconceptions was that they believed that the messiah would come at Passover and repeat the miracle of the manna from heaven like Moses. One Jewish author expressed it this way. “It will happen at that time that the treasure of manna will fall from heaven and they will eat it in those years because the consummation of the age has come.”
The crowds did get it right, He was the Messiah, but He was not the Messiah they expected. He was not a warrior type, He was a deliverer, but not the deliverer they understood.
The I of the storm v22 -33
The time of Jesus appearance was during the 4th watch of the night. They divided the night into 4 three hour segments so the 4th watch was between 3am and 6am
Have you ever been in a crazy, insane storm. In the midst of it, we feel vulnerable, we feel pretty overwhelmed, maybe helpless but the lesson to learn in the storm is that it should also make us realize how awesome God is
27But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid."
But Jesus spoke to them at once. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Take courage. I am here! NLT
Recognize what is going on here. Jesus says something very specific. By saying ‘I am’ it is the same word usage, it is identical as what would be translated in the Hebrew as Moses appeared before the burning bush and God said to him, I AM. – meaning eternal, self existent One.
John 8:58"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!" 59At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.
The grace and power of Jesus rescues Peter. Yes, Peter has an imperfect faith, but they worship Jesus. This is not to be taken lightly. He is the Messiah God in flesh.
Worship is only reserved for deity. Peter confesses that Christ is the Son of the Living God. At the transfiguration, they hear the voice saying, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.
We have cluttered images of Jesus growing up. Some emphasize one of His traits higher than another. Jesus is all of these, provider, Saviour, Friend, He is the Lord of the Universe, He is a Shepherd, but He is also a revolutionary. A faulty image of Jesus happens when we focus on one area to the exclusion of all others. Doing this may cause us to lose sight of Him. We need a clear image of who He really is! No matter what the storms of life we face, He will be with us, guaranteed.
The Takeaway
Jesus is fully God; however he showed us in His humanity the way to truly live…by dependence on God and empowered by the Holy Spirit (Jn. 14:10-17).
Questions for Discussion and Small Groups:
1. How did Jesus rescue you? What did Jesus rescue you from?
2. When shame from your past threatens to undermine your acceptance of Jesus’ forgiveness, how do you respond?
3. Jesus described himself as the mirror image of his father God so what are three things that must be true about God?
4. What's the difference, if any, between being a Christian and being a Christ-follower? Which term best describes you?
To fully appreciate what is going on here we need to understand what is at stake for these people. They had hopes of freedom, deliverance, the end of persecution and suffering at the hands of the Romans. Many pretenders had arrived on the scene with militaristic plans to advance the cause of the nation. One such character named Simon started his following in the wilderness much like John The Baptist and he self proclaimed himself king! It was towards the end of King Herod’s reign and he took his followers and went after King Herod. He didn’t last long against the very efficient Roman army and Simon lost his head literally. He stirred the hopes of the people to overthrow Rome and liberating the Jewish people. He had hope of leading them to freedom and carving out their own national identity.
Will the real King please stand up!
Jesus most audacious claim was the fact that He claimed to be God, not God’s messenger, not God’s prophet, not the ultimate Bible teacher, GOD. It is for this very reason that He got Himself into so much trouble. Let’s look at who He was:
There has been a lot of focus in the quest for the historical Jesus and peeling away the layers of interpretation to get us back to who He really was. The humanity of Jesus is now one of the least areas of controversy but it was not always so. We have just celebrated His virgin birth and the nativity story which brought his entrance into the world. We now move to the challenge of who He claimed to be. As Josh McDowell so accurately wrote, you have one of three options to take on Jesus…either He was God, a liar or a lunatic…
JESUS – HIS INCARNATION
The great truth of Jesus is to recognize, maybe not fully grasp, but the fact that He was both fully human and fully God. We refer to this as His hypostatic union.
Christ’s humanity John 8:40; 1 Timothy 2:5 – one mediator, the man Jesus Christ
JESUS - HIS DEITY
The Son of Man used 81x
One of the titles you will find of Jesus in the gospels is the “Son of Man’ and people will say that this term basically stresses the weakness and mortality of the human condition. However, one needs to go to Daniel 7:13,14 to understand the context of the ‘son of man’. It didn’t mean that at all…
13"In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.
He uses the phrase "Son of Man" when speaking of his roles of saving and judging (e.g. Mk 10:45; Mt 25:31) and of the future coming of an exalted, heavenly figure (e.g. Mt 13:41, 24:30; Mk 14:62; Lk 18:8).
The Son of God
Jesus does not refer to himself as the Son of God in the Gospels, but the term is used in the writings of Paul (e.g. Ro 1:4, 8:31) and in the epistle to the Hebrews (4:14). The Gospel of John refers to Jesus simply as "the Son," which may have a similar meaning. Paul uses the term for both Christ and Christians, but distinguishes between the two. Christians become sons of God by adoption, but Jesus is the rightful Son of God by nature.
Christ as God
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.... The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. (John 1:1,14)
Thomas said to him [the resurrected Jesus], "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28)
But about the Son he [God] says, "Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever." (Hebrews 1:8)
JESUS – HIS ROLE
The One Who Forgives Sin Mark 2:4
The One Who is Without Sin
The Perfect Sacrifice For Sin
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. 2 Corinthians 5:21
The One Who Emptied Himself – kenosis Philippians 2:7Jesus demonstrated non-use of omniscience (Mt. 24:36), omnipotence (Mk. 6:5), omnipresence (Jn. 4:4), righteousness (Heb. 4:l5;9:l4), justice (Jn. 5:30), and infinitude (I Cor. l5:3).
He served a threefold office as Prophet, Priest and King
Prophet Luke 4:24; 24:19
Priest Hebrews 2:14-17
King Revelation 19:11-16
Presently -
To mediate between us and the Father I Jn. 2:l,2; Heb. 7:25
To rule and guide the church Eph. l:20,23
Future-
To take over the world and rule it as king for a thousand years Rev. 19:11-16
Reward the members of the church for their deeds done in the body 2 Cor. 5:10; 1 Cor. 3:10-15
The Challenges
The firstborn over all creation Colossians 1:15 Again recognize what ‘firstborn’ means to us compared to what it meant then. Firstborn means the one who ultimately has all the rights of the father. It means unique one, the supreme heir….but if you still doubt, you read the whole letter Colossians 2:9…in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.
Jesus in John 14:7 said “If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well.” Loose translation means you look at me, you have a perfect picture of the Father. John 10:30 “I and the Father are one”
JESUS – HIS RESURRECTION and ASCENT
Go to the eyewitness accounts:
Mary Magdalene John 20:10
The other women Matthew 28:8
Cleopas and another disciple on the road to Emmaus Luke 24:13
Eleven disciples Luke 24:33
The disciples with Thomas absent John 20:19
The disciples John 21; Matthew 28:16
At the Mount of Olives before his ascension Luke 24:50; Acts 1:4
I want to zero in on what we can learn about Jesus at this time in His ministry. In Matthew 14, we begin with a picture of Jesus’ humanity. He has just received the news of John the Baptist’s death and he retreats and seeks solitude to grieve the loss of his cousin and forerunner, the one who baptized him. He more than likely reflects on his boldness, his commitment to Him and to the truth….He barely quiets himself and He is swarmed with the demands of ministry again. He had every right in His humanity to push them aside, but that same humanity leads Him to compassion.
The real fast food! v13-18
The nation Israel had experienced conquest by many nations and they had always been living with the hope of a messiah who would redeem them and give them their national identity back. They mistake his breaking of the bread as manna. At that time one of the messianic misconceptions was that they believed that the messiah would come at Passover and repeat the miracle of the manna from heaven like Moses. One Jewish author expressed it this way. “It will happen at that time that the treasure of manna will fall from heaven and they will eat it in those years because the consummation of the age has come.”
The crowds did get it right, He was the Messiah, but He was not the Messiah they expected. He was not a warrior type, He was a deliverer, but not the deliverer they understood.
The I of the storm v22 -33
The time of Jesus appearance was during the 4th watch of the night. They divided the night into 4 three hour segments so the 4th watch was between 3am and 6am
Have you ever been in a crazy, insane storm. In the midst of it, we feel vulnerable, we feel pretty overwhelmed, maybe helpless but the lesson to learn in the storm is that it should also make us realize how awesome God is
27But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid."
But Jesus spoke to them at once. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Take courage. I am here! NLT
Recognize what is going on here. Jesus says something very specific. By saying ‘I am’ it is the same word usage, it is identical as what would be translated in the Hebrew as Moses appeared before the burning bush and God said to him, I AM. – meaning eternal, self existent One.
John 8:58"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!" 59At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.
The grace and power of Jesus rescues Peter. Yes, Peter has an imperfect faith, but they worship Jesus. This is not to be taken lightly. He is the Messiah God in flesh.
Worship is only reserved for deity. Peter confesses that Christ is the Son of the Living God. At the transfiguration, they hear the voice saying, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.
We have cluttered images of Jesus growing up. Some emphasize one of His traits higher than another. Jesus is all of these, provider, Saviour, Friend, He is the Lord of the Universe, He is a Shepherd, but He is also a revolutionary. A faulty image of Jesus happens when we focus on one area to the exclusion of all others. Doing this may cause us to lose sight of Him. We need a clear image of who He really is! No matter what the storms of life we face, He will be with us, guaranteed.
The Takeaway
Jesus is fully God; however he showed us in His humanity the way to truly live…by dependence on God and empowered by the Holy Spirit (Jn. 14:10-17).
Questions for Discussion and Small Groups:
1. How did Jesus rescue you? What did Jesus rescue you from?
2. When shame from your past threatens to undermine your acceptance of Jesus’ forgiveness, how do you respond?
3. Jesus described himself as the mirror image of his father God so what are three things that must be true about God?
4. What's the difference, if any, between being a Christian and being a Christ-follower? Which term best describes you?
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