To Know Him and Make Him Known
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While it’s tempting to think of Jesus as simply a helpless victim of injustice, Scripture makes it clear that Jesus willingly chose to suffer and die for very specific reasons which we need to understand and properly respond to.
Sermon Summary: Jesus targeted the bad leadership of the religious leaders of his day for their lack of courage, their resistance to revelation, their unwillingness to admit their mistakes, and their cynical pragmatism. He came to offer a new kind of leadership that Israel desperately needed.
The First Christmas was birthed out of the love between the Father and the Son before the world was made, a love which crafted a plan designed to give us the greatest possible gift.
When the “Direct” approach proved unfruitful, God adapted His strategy by sending Jesus to be the ultimate revelation of His glory, character, and nature. While a huge improvement over the “Direct” approach, it still had some downsides. In the end, it comes down to a choice: will you believe, or not?
Jesus wanted us to know, as we wait for the Kingdom, that He would one day come back to the earth, both to reunite with His people and to rule and judge humanity. This should encourage us to be ready and eager for that day to come! SHOW MORE
It was only natural for the disciples to want God’s Happy Ending for the world immediately – they’d been through so much! But Jesus challenged them to be patient, for they had work to do first. The good news was that they’d have help along the way, and their happy ending was soon to come.
Disappointment with God’s choices of how to run the universe is inevitable when we encounter circumstances that make no sense to us. Jesus calls us in those moments to express it to Him openly, study the clues that He has left behind for understanding, and trust His heart that it’s all necessary.