THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP - The Second Person of the Trinity

October 15, 2013 The Discipline of God The Son - The Second Person of the Trinity O for thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise, The glories of my God and king, the triumphs of His grace! Jesus! the name that charms our fears, that bids our sorrows cease, ‘Tis music in the sinner’s ears, “Tis life and health and peace. He breaks the pow’r of canceled sin, He sets the pris’ner free; His blood can make the foulest clean – His blood availed for me. Glory to God and praise and love be ever, ever giv’n, By saints below and saints above – The Church in earth and heav’n. (Charles Wesley) Jesus Christ is the second person of the Trinity. He and the Father were one, as Jesus said in John 14:11, “Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me.” All of His names could not be put in this study, but we will try to name enough to whet your appetite to know more about Jesus. We’ll start with the name we are most familiar with - “Jesus.” Jesus means Savior. This baby sent from heaven, born as a human to Mary, a virgin, just as the prophet said in Isaiah 7:14, and His name was called, “Immanuel – God with us.” Matthew 2:21 says, “She will bear a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus (the Greek form of the Hebrew Joshua, which means Savior, for he will save His people from their sins (that is, prevent them from failing and missing the true end and scope of life, which is God (Amp.).” This Truth is incomprehensible that the Creator of the universe would love us, His creation, so much that He would choose to leave the glories (also beyond our comprehension), and come to earth to be >“God with us.” The message in Matthew 1:23 was written for the whole world, all mankind. But it is especially “precious” to those who believe and trust in that name – Immanuel. Every new day, and every moment of the day, we can relish the fact that “God is with us.” Then at night when we turn out the lights and lie down to sleep, we can rest in the assurance that He is still with us. In our joys, in our sorrows and in our temptations we can know that God is with us. Because He fulfilled His purpose as Savior, Jesus Christ, the second person of the God, is not living as a man on this earth, but sent the Holy Spirit, the second Person of the Godhead, to forever live in and with us. God is with us! “Christ” means “anointed – the Messiah.” Christ is the epithet of Jesus (it accompanies and further describes “Jesus”). Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus is the Messiah Who came to save whosoever would believe in Him. He is the “anointed Savior.” The Old Testament does not use the name “Christ,” but from Matthew 1:1 to Revelation 22:21, in the New Testament, it is used throughout, and finishes in Revelation 22:21 with a benediction: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ the Messiah be with all the saints (God’s holy people, those set apart for God, to be exclusively His).” Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Redeemer, came to earth with a purpose – to redeem whosoever would accept Him as Savior. Mankind was lost and couldn’t be good enough or do enough good deeds to buy a place in heaven. Only a perfect substitute would satisfy and be acceptable to Holy God the Father, and Jesus Christ, the Son, was the only “perfect” One who could pay the price and “buy back” those held as slaves in sin. Do you realize the price he paid? Do you recognize the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, His kind generosity, His undeserved favor and spiritual blessing, in that though He was so very rich, yet for your sakes He became so very poor, in order that by His poverty you might become enriched” (II Cor.8:9 Amp.)? His heart was broken (Ps.69:20) so that our broken heart could be healed. He came to preach the good news of deliverance to the distressed in spirit so they can have peace and joy in Jesus; to open the spiritually blind eyes so all can see the Truth of Jesus, and to liberate those who are bound by sin (Luke 4:18). What a purpose and what a Redeemer! In His time on earth “Jesus went about doing good.” He had a mission: To call people to repentance, to save them from their sins, “And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of disease among the people” (Matt.4:23). Jesus said of Himself, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18). “There were many other things that Jesus did. If they should be all recorded one by one in detail, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain or have room for the books that would be written” (John 21:25). To be “born again” is the beginning of a life-long personal relationship with Jesus. Oh, that we would make it our “determined purpose,” like Paul, to get to know Jesus Christ our Lord more and more. Paul says in Philippians 3: 8 & 10, “I count everything as loss compared to the possession of the priceless privilege (the overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth, and supreme advantage), of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord and of progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him (perceiving and recognizing and understanding Him more fully and clearly). For His sake I have lost everything and consider it all to be mere rubbish in order that I may gain Christ. For my determined purpose is that I may know Him, that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly, and that I may in the same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection which it exerts over believers, and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed in spirit into His likeness.” Jehovah is the redemptive name of Deity. It is written LORD or GOD – “The self-existent One Who reveals Himself.” We see in the above verse (John 14:11) that Jesus and the Father were one, therefore the name Jehovah applies to Jesus as well as to the Father. Let’s look at some of these names: Jehovah-Rohi – “Shepherd” Probably the most familiar scripture that refers to Jesus as our shepherd is in Psalms 23. In this Psalm David refers to Jehovah-Rohi as “my” shepherd – He is intimately personal. This perfect shepherd feeds, guides, protects, delivers, heals and comforts – there is no lack of anything. When we are beat down with life’s hurts, problems and trials, Rohi restores and refreshes us as He makes us, as His sheep, to rest in His presence on His comforting green “grass.” When life is chaotic about us in this hot, dry land, He lets us drink as much as we want of His cool, restful drink from the “Living Water,” – His presence and His Word. “He leads us in the paths of righteousness” – the way we should go, not because we deserve it or earn it but because we are His people and the sheep of His pasture (Ps.100:3). He will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs in His arm, He will carry them in His bosom and will gently lead those that have their young (Isaiah 40:11). We may walk through the dark, sunless valley of the “shadow of death,” but we don’t have to fear any evil because Jehovah-Rohi is with us – He is always with us. His disciplining rod trains us to use and stand on His name (Phil.2:9) which protects us from the onslaughts of the enemy of our soul; and His staff (His Word) (Heb.4:12) will guide us in the path we should go and keep us from the pitfalls and snares of the enemy. We can go forward in comfort knowing that fighting in His name and His Word is our sure victory (Psalm 138:2). Although the enemy is waiting and watching to attack us, our Shepherd has prepared a table of His good things on which we can feast (His love, His power, His rest, His righteousness, His patience, etc.) If we will just sit down and partake of Rohi’s goodness it will renew our strength and invigorate us so we can rise up and fight the good fight of faith (Isaiah 40:31; Ps.23:5). As Rohi’s sheep, surely only goodness and mercy and unfailing love will follow us all of our days, as we walk in the paths of righteousness, and through the length of our days His presence shall be where we remain (Ps.23:6). In John 10:11 & 14, Jesus (Jehovah-Rohi) calls Himself “the Good Shepherd.” In Hebrews 13:20, the author calls Him, the "Great Shepherd." In I Peter 5:4 He is called, “the Chief Shepherd.” When Jacob was blessing Joseph in Genesis 48:15 he said, “God Himself, has been my Shepherd and has led and fed me from the time I came into being until this day.” John referred to Jesus Christ as the “True Vine” in Jn. 15:1. He was prophesied In Isaiah 9:6 as Jehovah-Shalom, the Prince of Peace. He is Jehovah-Jireh, “My Provider” (Genesis 22:14). He is the “God Who is there” (Matt.28:20) – Jehovah Shammah. In Jer.33:16 and 23:6, He is Jehovah Tsidkenu – “The LORD our Righteousness.” In Exodus 15:26 He is Jehovah-Ropha – “The LORD Who heals.” He is Jehovah-Nissi – “My banner (of victory),” in Exodus 17:15. In Leviticus 20:7-8 He is Jehovah-M’Kaddish – “The LORD Who Sanctifies you.” “GOD is love” (I John 4:8). He is “The Rock” in I Cor.10:8. He is called, “The Sun of Righteousness” in Isaiah 49:9. In John 4:14 He is the “Living Water.” In Isaiah 9:6 He is the “Wonderful Counselor.” In Ps.32:7 He is “Our Hiding Place.” He is “the Morning Star” in II Peter 1:19. He is the “Chief Cornerstone” in Eph. 2:20. In I John 2:1, He is our “Advocate, He is the one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus” I Timothy 2:5. "Jesus Christ stands between us and God, and for that very reason he stands between us and all other men and things. He is the Mediator….Since the whole world was created through Him and unto Him…He is the sole Mediator in the world."(Dietrich Bonhoeffer) John tells us in John 1:1 that Jesus Christ is the “Word.” The Greek word is “Logos,” which means: “spoken word.” God (the Trinity) spoke creation into being, as the Bible (God’s Word) tells us in Genesis one. In the beginning God spoke and there was: Day 1 - light, vs.3-5; Day 2 - the firmament (sky), vs. 6-8; Day 3 - earth and waters – vs. 9-10 and vegetation – vs.11-13; Day 4 – the sun, moon and stars, vs. 14-19; Day 5 – water creatures and birds – vs.20-23; Day 6 – the wild beasts – vs. 24-25 and man – vs. 26-31. God spoke everything into being, then He spoke to man – vs. 28-30. He spoke the Word (the Bible) by the Holy Spirit and prophets wrote it down. He spoke to all who witnessed the plagues (Exodus 8:19). He spoke the Ten Commandments with His finger on the tablets of stone in (Ex.31:18). In James 1:18, James affirmed that Jesus is the “Word of Truth” (Jn.17:17), and Truth will never pass away – “not a jot nor a tittle” (Matt.5:18). Jesus Christ ( came into the world to speak and bear witness to the Truth (Jn.18:37). Whatever Jesus said or did He was speaking truth, love, peace and grace. He spoke peace to the stormy waves in Mark 4:39. He spoke “grace and love” with His finger when He wrote in the sand when the woman was taken in adultery (John 8:6). The Law came through Moses, but love and grace came through Jesus Christ, which He spoke in all His thoughts, words and deeds. (Jn.1:17). He is not silent today, He still speaks. If we are tuned in to Him we will hear Him. He speaks in righteousness. His sprinkled blood speaks mercy (Heb.12:24). Jesus is a Friend that sticks closer than a brother (Prov.18:24). He is a Friend that loves at all times (Prov.17:17). He is a Friend of Publicans and sinners(Matt.11:19).“I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father but by me.” There is only one “Way” to reach the Father, and that is by going through Jesus Christ, His Son. He is the Life, only those who accept Jesus can receive true Life, and His Life more abundantly. As John said in John 21:25, space and time do not allow me to put down all of Jesus the Christ’s names, just know that He is the great “I AM.” He is all we need Him to be, when we need Him. Praise the precious name of Jesus Christ, our LORD! DO YOU KNOW HIM? If you know Jesus Christ and know He is soon returning for His own; if you know the world is lost and has no hope for eternal life with Jesus; if you see the fulfillment of prophecies regarding the chaos in the world and the world-wide natural disasters – How Then Should We Live? The scriptures answers this question: “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Heb.10:22), because without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb.11:6). “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope” (Heb.10:23), because hope keeps us focused on Christ’s promise to return for us (Jn.14:1-3). “And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching" (Heb.10:24-25). The central activity of Christianity is the gathering of believers together for encouragement, education and edification (Acts 2:42). “Let us prepare for Christ’s return with faith, hope and love” (I Cor. 13:13). Matthew Henry said, “It ought to be the business of every day to prepare for our last day.” ARE YOU READY FOR JESUS CHRIST’S SOON RETURN?