We’ve recently been learning about our identity. God purposefully left much about our own selves a mystery for us to discover and to have revealed. Life is an adventure discovering ourselves and, hopefully, pursuing Jesus.
We learned last week of one way that we discover ourselves; through relationships. After all, we can’t truly know ourselves by ourselves.
We also learned of our identity as servants. The question being whom or what we will choose to serve.
Anyone who has ever fought through addiction, or knows someone who has, knows just how deeply devoted we are all capable of being. We have seen what happens when someone chooses to pour out their worship to created things instead of to their Creator.
Their life is radically transformed in so many ways as a result of this devotion. They are changed into someone that you may not even recognize and certainly not for the better…
When we pour out our worship onto created things, we are left empty. More than just financially, but relationally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, and just about every other way. That addiction steals, kills, and destroys because it is sin and that’s what sin does.
Imagine what life can look like if we get this right, though!
When we pour out our worship onto our Creator, He pours back into our lives more than we can contain! This is what we were created for! This is what our devotion and worship is supposed to look like! We are transformed into someone better than we could have ever been!
Yes we still empty ourselves, but we get filled back up to overflowing with the things that our lives were purposed for!
There is no greater example that we could turn to in order to see this principle in practical application than Jesus. He who emptied Himself in complete humility was promoted and given all authority over all things and the name above every name!
We may have some people in our lives who really like us, care about us, and have done great things for us. However, no one has ever gone to the lengths that Jesus has to relate to us, to serve us, and to improve our lives.
Relationships are built on, well, relating! We enjoy being around people who we genuinely share things in common with. We share different parts of our lives with different people.
God knows us fully; down to the very number of hairs on our heads! However, knowing a lot about someone doesn’t mean that you really know them; that you have a relationship with them.
Although God created us and knows us fully, He could not fully relate to us. He was never tempted by sin, never corrupted by it, never suffered, and so on.
We typically focus on the need for our sin to be atoned for so that our relationship with God can restored. Rightfully so! There is nothing lighthearted about Jesus living a sinless life and then taking on the cross and defeating the grave through His resurrection!
However, it was just as valuable and important that Jesus first chose to live as we live so that He could… Relate!
Hebrews 4:15 (AMP)
For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize and understand our weaknesses and temptations, but One who has been tempted [knowing exactly how it feels to be human] in every respect as we are, yet without [committing any] sin.
Jesus is the perfect priest and mediator! He was fully God and fully man! He never sinned, but He was tempted to sin even by the devil, himself!
He got tired. He got hungry. He laughed. He cried. He got frustrated. He had friends. There were people who didn’t like Him at all. He learned. He was a baby, a toddler, a teenager, an adult. He argued with people.
He fished. He raised livestock. He had brothers and sisters. He cut wood and built stuff. He walked. He ran. He swam. He peed. He pooped.
He encouraged people. He disappointed people. People believed in Him. People rejected Him. He made a whip and kicked some butt. He got punched, slapped, spit on, called names, laughed at, made fun of, and more.
He lived a human life while still retaining His divinity.
This wasn’t so that we would look more lowly upon Jesus, but that we could have confidence when approaching Him in our times of need. He can relate and wants relationship!
Hebrews 4:16 (AMP)
Therefore let us [with privilege] approach the throne of grace with confidence and without fear, so that we may receive mercy [for our failures] and find [His amazing] grace to help in time of need [an appropriate blessing, coming just at the right moment].
There is something about Jesus’ ability to relate to us that breaks down the barrier of us being willing to approach Him. He can relate to us, which makes us able to relate to Him.
He, who was holy and perfect in every way, experienced our humanity. As a result, He who is still perfect and holy in every way, shares a lot of things in common with us. He can relate, so we can have a relationship.
We have common ground shared with Jesus. He is able to reach us from in an in-between place. Jesus is a priest and an intercessor who can meet us in that middle, common ground.
From there, He can pull us up out from the muck and mire we find ourselves in, reach out a helping hand to put our feet up on solid rock. He doesn’t just leave us there, either!
From that solid rock, He invites us to go even higher into a place of holiness and righteousness and glory! He seats us with Him in heavenly places!
Jesus made a way where there was no other way! He pioneered a path from muck and mire straight into heavenly glory! The invitation to follow that path is open to anyone and everyone who is willing to follow Him.
There is a process that we go through. It starts with our salvation and we repeat it over and over again as we develop and grow in our faith following Jesus. This process enables Jesus to continue getting rid of the muck and mire in our lives and transforming it to glory.
It all begins as it did in the very beginning. With the word; God’s word.
Romans 10:17
faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.
We hear God’s word.
We choose to believe it.
We live by faith in Jesus; the living Word of God.
God’s word takes root in our lives and transforms us.
This process is explained better in a quick trip through Hebrews.
Hebrews 1:1-3
God’s Final Word: His Son
1 In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways,
God’s word has always been powerful and impactful. He always spoke through His prophets before acting. He has always been warning people and drawing them to Himself and directing them to the path of righteousness. We just don’t always listen…
Finally, God sent the ultimate expression of His word.
John 1:1-3;14
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Jesus, the word in the flesh.
2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. 3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.
After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.
Hebrews 2
1 We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. 2 For since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, 3 how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. 4 God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
All of the signs, wonders, and miracles, all of the gifts of the Spirit, they all point to Jesus, our salvation, the living word of God, the exact representation of God’s glory! Jesus, who chose to humble Himself and live as a human.
Jesus Made Fully Human
5 It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. 6 But there is a place where someone has testified:
“What is mankind that you are mindful of them,
a son of man that you care for him?
7 You made them a little lower than the angels;
you crowned them with glory and honor
8 and put everything under their feet.”
In putting everything under them, God left nothing that is not subject to them. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them.
Here’s a whole ‘nother message for another time! Everything on earth is subject to us humans, yet we don’t see this being the case. Why? We haven’t fully understood or fulfilled our identities; who we were created to be!
How do we get from here to there? Well, back to Jesus!
9 But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
10 In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. 11 Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.
Jesus is not ashamed of us! Just ponder this truth for a moment. Allow it to soak into your soul and take over your view of yourself. Jesus sees it all!
He sees our sin, our failures, our weaknesses, our everything that we dislike about ourselves. He sees everything and yet He is not ashamed of us. He calls us family!
12 He says,
“I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters;
in the assembly I will sing your praises.”
13 And again,
“I will put my trust in him.”
And again he says,
“Here am I, and the children God has given me.”
14 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil – 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. 16 For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. 17 For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. 18 Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
Hebrews 4:14-16
14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet he did not sin. 16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Wherever you are in your walk with Jesus, it’s time to move forward.
Maybe you’ve never taken that first step, but you feel Him calling you.
Maybe you started, but life got hard, and you gave up.
Maybe you’re following Jesus, but feeling a little distant from Him or lost.
Maybe you’re right in step with Him filled with eager excitement; swinging from glory to even greater glory like a kid on the monkey bars in the playground of life!
Wherever we are, Jesus is reaching out to us right where we are to take us onward!
We can approach Jesus with confidence because He can relate!