ONLY JESUS Part One

 ONLY JESUS Part One

What makes a person a Christian? It has everything to do with what he does with Jesus.

 

What will you do with Jesus; neutral you cannot be. One day your heart will be asking, “What will He do with me?”

 

We cannot take a neutral position on Jesus Christ. We must either accept Him or reject Him. In fact, if we do not accept Him as Lord and Savior, we reject Him.

 

John 3:18 (NKJV) He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

 

Jesus is a dividing line in today’s culture. Many people claim God as a part of their life, but struggle to profess Jesus as God. They also paint a picture of Jesus that bears little resemblance to the Jesus described in the Bible. 

 

Last week I talked about our belief in the God who is there. He exists and is not silent. He loves us and is with us. 

 

I want to continue along that theme again today, but specifically deal with what we believe about Jesus. 

 

The third tenet of our statement of faith reads: We believe in the Deity of Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father to make intercession for us, and in His personal return in power and glory.

 

Let’s take this apart phrase by phrase and see what the Bible says about each one. We will take two weeks to do this, so don’t worry about a super long sermon!

 

1.    We believe in the Deity of Christ. 

 

Simply stated, we believe that Jesus is God. We made this clear last week in our discussion of the Trinity. Jesus is not merely a good man, a gifted teacher or a radical political revolutionary. He is God. Belief in the deity of Jesus is essential to our faith. Everything that follows on this tenet of our faith flows from that distinct, singular doctrine.

 

Hebrews 1:1-3 (NKJV) God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. 

 

1 Timothy 3:16 (NKJV) And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness:

God was manifested in the flesh,

Justified in the Spirit,

Seen by angels,

Preached among the Gentiles,

Believed on in the world,

Received up in glory.

 

2.    We believe in His virgin birth. 

 

In this age of religious skepticism, the virgin birth is often treated as an archaic remnant of some senseless non-scientific myth. But the Bible is clear: The Messiah would be born of a virgin!

 

Isaiah 7:14 (NKJV) Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.

 

Some have said, “Virgin here just means a young woman.”

 

Let’s go to the New Testament. 

 

Luke 1:34 (NKJV) Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?”

 

Mary is testifying that she is a virgin! There can be no doubt!

 

Why is this important? Because we get our sin nature from our father. 

 

Romans 5:12 (NKJV) Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned. 

 

Jesus did not have an earthly father, so he had no sin nature and could be the perfect sacrifice. But there is more. 

 

3.    We believe in His sinless life.

 

2 Corinthians 5:21 (NKJV) For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

 

Hebrews 4:14-16 (NKJV) Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

 

Because of his sinless birth and sinless life, He could, and did, redeem us!

 

1 Peter 1:18-19 (NKJV) Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

 

John the Baptist proclaimed when he saw Him: 

 

John 1:29b (NKJV) Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

 

Oh brothers and sisters, what a blessing that declaration brings to our lives. Jesus, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God not just forgives our sins, not just covers our sins, He takes them away! He removes them as far from us as the east is from the west. He puts them out of sight, behind His bank, and hides them in the depths of the sea! And He did it “once for all!”

 

Romans 6:10 (NKJV) For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.

 

Hebrews 7:27 (NKJV) Who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.

 

Hebrews 9:12 (NKJV) Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

 

Hebrews 10:10 (NKJV) By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

 

We need to sing with the angels:

 

Revelation 5:11-14 (NKJV) Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain To receive power and riches and wisdom, And strength and honor and glory and blessing!” And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying: “Blessing and honor and glory and power Be to Him who sits on the throne, And to the Lamb, forever and ever!” Then the four living creatures said, “Amen!” And the twenty-four elders fell down and worshiped Him who lives forever and ever.

 

MINISTRY TIME