Like Father, Like Son - Part A

If there's one issue the world consistently gets wrong, it's the identity of Jesus Christ. They get it wrong every year, every time there's a news article at Easter or Christmas time or a new special documentary on the real historical Jesus. They get it wrong inevitably and invariably, always.

Welcome to Connect with Skip Weekend Edition. I think one of the best indicators that God has a sense of humor are those moments when our kids reflect us. Come on, we've all had those moments when our son or daughter does something that's so aggravating that it's really hard to get mad at them because we know we would have done the exact same thing. It's that moment when we realize just how much our children are like us. Now hopefully we also have those moments when they do something really great as well. Well today in Connect with Skip Weekend Edition, Skip Heizik reveals that Jesus wasn't all that different from any other kid.

He was someone who was very much like his father in all the good ways and we'll take a closer look at that here in just a moment. But first here's what we have for you this month at connectwithskip.com. So it's another new year and you've resolved to study through the entire Bible again. Very often somewhere around 2 Chronicles, that wonderful goal can grind to a halt.

Well this year can be different. We have a package of resources with an excellent strategy for successfully studying through all 66 books this year. It includes Skip Heizik's book, The Bible from 30,000 Feet, which lifts you to a new biblical altitude to help you get a new view of the full counsel of God's word.

Make 2023 the year you truly make it through a solid survey of the entire scope of scripture. This package also includes Skip's super accessible book, How to Study the Bible and Enjoy It, along with The Bible from 30,000 Feet. Both are our thanks when you give $50 or more today to help reach more people through Connect with Skip Heizik. Skip has asked the team at Connection Communications to make it a priority in 2023 to take daily messages as you've heard today and expand them into more metropolitan areas. It is obvious that the population centers of our nation are in deep need of hearing the truth and that is exactly our plan for the future with Skip's teachings. Will you help us make that happen? Call 800-922-1888 or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer.

That's connectwithskip.com slash offer. If you'll turn to John chapter 5, we'll start today in verse 16. So here's Skip Heizik to get us started by reminding us of just how big of an impact Jesus had on history. It can be safely said that no person ever divided time except one person and that's Jesus Christ. He literally divided time so that when we write down the date, we are making reference to His coming the first time on this earth. We talk about BC before Christ and AD, Anno Domini, which means the year of our Lord, and that's how we have divided time according to Christ.

Now not everybody buys into that. The first time I went overseas to Israel and I saw that they changed it in more recent history to BCE which means before the Christian era. Now it's called before the common era and then anything AD is CE or common era.

It doesn't matter what you call it, however. The point still exists that that one person divided time and that no check is valid, no document is considered legal unless someone puts a date on it and in effect bearing witness and testimony to that fact that that single person divided time. Jesus is so important that the Encyclopedia Britannica devoted 20,000 words to a single article about Jesus Christ.

You should know that that's more words than what they than what they wrote about Aristotle, Alexander the Great, Buddha, Caesar, Cicero, Confucius, and the Islamic prophet Muhammad put together 20,000 words. Scholars, skeptics have debated and wondered, well who is Christ exactly? Who really is Jesus? And that really is the central question. In fact, I would say that is the most important issue on earth if I can be so bold. I don't think the most important question a person can ask is who am I? Though we're fond of asking that question, I think the most important is who am I in relationship to who he is? And that's what I want to talk to you about today. Now if you were raised in a Christian church, you know that Christ is central to everything and he is the ultimate answer to all of our issues and all of our questions.

You've grown up believing that. There was a Sunday school class and the teacher was talking about Noah's ark and she wanted to be very creative and get the students to interact and so the teacher said to the class, I will describe something and let's see if you can guess what it is. And so she began, first I'm furry, I have a bushy tail and I like to climb trees. And she waited, nothing. Blank stares, they were catatonic. So she continued, I also like to eat nuts, especially acorns. Again, dead silence.

She continued, I'm usually brown or gray, but sometimes I can be black or even red. Nothing once again. Now the teacher is desperate and she turns to a perky four-year-old who usually came up with answers and said, Michelle, what do you think?

What do you think? Michelle looked around the room at the other students very hesitatingly and said to the teacher, well, I know the answer has to be Jesus, but it sure sounds like a squirrel to me. Now I've discovered something.

This is just my personal discovery. If there's one issue the world consistently gets wrong, it's the identity of Jesus Christ. They get it wrong every year, every time there's a news article at Easter or Christmas time or a new special documentary on the real historical Jesus. They get it wrong inevitably and invariably, always.

And that's nothing new. Ever since he was alive on the earth the first time, they got it wrong. For example, in John chapter seven, some said he was a good man. Others in the crowd said he was a deceiver. In Matthew 16, the disciples announced to Jesus that some people thought he was John the Baptist resurrected from the dead. Others said he was the prophet Elijah. Others said he was Jeremiah or another one of the prophets. In John chapter six, after a miraculous lunch break that Jesus provided for them, they wanted to make him a king, an earthly king by force.

That's what they thought he was, a politician. Luke chapter 23, they called him a tax evader and one who subverts the Roman government. John chapter 10, some people said he was demon possessed.

In Mark chapter three, even his own family tried to rescue him and here's their words, his own family, he's out of his mind. Now all of those are wrong assessments of Christ. Traditionally, the Jewish people have regarded Jesus as an illegitimate child. That's what the Talmud says of Jesus, that he was the illegitimate son of Mary whom they fancy was a hairdresser.

I don't know where they got that idea. Islam regards and reveres Jesus as a prophet. Others have called him an ascended master. Strauss, the German rationalist said he was the highest model of all religion. Napoleon Bonaparte said whoever he was, he was more than a man. There was even a film 40 years ago in the 60s that said Jesus Christ was a superstar. All of those assessments consistently are wrong about the identity of Christ. Now let's recap before we get into that and by the way we're going to get into what Jesus says about himself in a very shocking paragraph that will shock his own audience. But here's the recap because we've been away for a few weeks. Jesus in John chapter 5 attends a festival at Jerusalem, probably the Passover.

He happens to go down to a pool called the Pool of Bethesda and some of you were there at the Pool of Bethesda about a week and a half ago. Well at that time there were hundreds of people who were sick, diseased. The King James calls them impotent folk, that is helpless. There was one man who had a disease for 38 years. He caught Jesus eye and Jesus walked up to the man who was walked up to the man who had a disease for 38 years and healed him.

So it's the story of the impotent man who meets the omnipotent man and that one man's life will never be the same. It was the greatest day in his life when Jesus healed him. But it happened to be the Sabbath day and that is where all the controversy happened because though the law of God did not prohibit doing good on the Sabbath day, Jesus evidently broke one of their rules regarding the Sabbath and they're all upset and they confront him. And in the confrontation, Jesus doesn't back Jesus doesn't back down but he reveals himself and he speaks about four things, four things about the relationship that he, Jesus, has with God in heaven whom he calls his Father. Four things about the relationship Jesus has with the Father, all that lead to the inevitable conclusion that he is claiming to be God. Well let's begin by looking at verse 16 and we're going to by the way read down to verse 24 today but here's the first thing he says about the relationship with his Father that both of them are working, they continue to work. The Father in heaven and the Son on earth continue to work no matter what day it is. Verse 16, for this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus and they sought to kill him because he had done these things on the Sabbath.

That's a pretty violent reaction, right? Not they were just mad at him, not they just rebuked him, they want to kill him. But Jesus answered them, now listen to this and watch the reaction, my Father has been working until now and I have been working. Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill him because he not only broke the Sabbath but he also said that God was his Father making himself equal with God.

That's called dropping the bombshell. They're already mad at him, he says something that makes them infinitely more mad at him and they will not be satisfied until two years later when they put him on a cross. Now what they're so angry about is the way Jesus dares to talk about God in heaven as his own unique Father, as his own unique Father. Now that's why it says in verse 18 you're calling him your Father making him making yourself equal with God. Every now and then I pull out a translation that I share with you called the Wiest translation. W-U-E-S-T. Kenneth Wiest was a Greek scholar and he came up with a wonderful translation that expands the meaning of the text so it's unmistakable as to what it says.

Here's the Wiest translation of verse 18. He was saying that God was his privately owned unique Father. A Father in a way in which no one else had him for a Father making himself equal with the deity. See when Jesus called himself the Son of God he didn't mean it in the Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Phil sense of the word where God is everybody's Father and we're all children of God. He meant it in the very narrow unique sense when he referred to himself as one that has the very same nature as God himself. See it's sort of like when my son was born 24 years ago when Nathan was born the day he was born he had the nature of a man.

He had a human nature. So Jesus is saying that he has the very nature the divine nature of God himself. Did you know that verse 18 is one of the strongest verses in all of the Bible that attests to the deity of Jesus Christ and it's from the mouth of his own enemies. They knew exactly what he was saying he was and this isn't the first time they will make this remark. In John chapter 10 they'll say why is it that you being a man are constantly making yourself out to be God.

I find this fascinating because the Jehovah witnesses the Mormon church oneness Pentecostals will all deny that Jesus ever claimed to be God and that baffles me because even his own enemies knew that he claimed to be God. That was their testimony. Now I have a question for you this morning.

Can any of you think of a single passage in the Bible just a single passage just one where Jesus said anything remotely like this. Well I I just want you to know that I'm really just another nice guy. That's all I am. I'm a model of religion.

I'm here just to be a good example for people to follow. Did he ever say anything like that. Never once. Well what did he say about himself. Well he said a lot of things about himself. Here's a sampling to the Samaritan woman.

Remember what he said. Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. To the crowds in John chapter 6 he said I am the bread of life. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever to the leaders in John chapter 8. He will say I am the light of the world. He who follows me will never walk in darkness. He said also in that chapter I am from above.

I'm not from this world. And if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be you will indeed die in your sins. He also said in he also said in that chapter before Abraham was born I existed. John chapter 11 he will say I am the resurrection and the life.

Whoever believes in me will never die. John chapter 14 the famous one I am the way the truth the life. No one comes to the father except through me. And in that chapter when Philip the disciple finally says look Jesus just show us the father and that that'll be enough for us. Jesus said Philip if you've seen me you have seen the father.

So tally all what I just said up. What Jesus claimed is that he was the quencher of thirst. He was the satisfier of hunger. He is the light of the world. He comes from heaven. He predated the existence of Abraham. He's the door of salvation and the exact representation of God the father. Do you see any room in there where he said I'm just another nice guy.

No here is the here's the bottom line I want to get to here's the inescapable reality. Jesus claimed to be the eternal God in a human body over and over and over and over again. That's the whole theme of the Gospel of John.

He did it all the time unmistakably. So if anyone denies that Jesus claimed that they are denying the historical accuracy of the gospel record and they are setting themselves up as the better higher source of truth than the biblical record. And what they are in effect saying is that they know much more about what happened 2,000 years ago than even the eyewitnesses themselves. And if anybody says that to you the onus is on them to prove what they just said and they'll have a difficult time.

Listen to the words of William Lane Craig one of the greatest apologists in modern history. Within 20 years of the crucifixion a full-blown Christology proclaiming Jesus as God incarnate already existed. How does one explain this worship by monotheistic Jews of one of their own countrymen as being God incarnate? Apart from the claims of Jesus himself. If Jesus never made any such claims then the belief of the earliest Christian in this regard becomes inexplicable. Now what point is Jesus making to these guys when they're saying it's the Sabbath day? The big point I want to apply this to us well God the Father doesn't take the day off and neither do I.

He has been working up until now and I do too. You know that God never takes the Sabbath? He doesn't take the Sabbath.

The Sabbath wasn't made for God it was made for man Jesus said. Now some of you who know your Bibles will say now Skip wait a minute it says in Genesis that God created the heavens and the earth in six days and on the seventh day God rested. But why did he rest? He rested not because he was pooped.

He didn't say man those elephants really took it out of me. He rested because he was done. He was done as creator. His work of being creator was finished on that day and so as to set a pattern for man's rest he stopped. But he continued to work as he does today.

He didn't take the day off. He sustains the universe. He pours out love and mercy and rules and runs the universe and that means he's ruling and running your life. Here's the point even when you're resting God is working.

The Bible says in Psalm 121 he who keeps Israel never slumbers nor sleeps. He's always working. He's always busy. While you're resting he's always working. So here's the question why don't we rest more and let him do his work? Why do we get into this thing as well it's a good day to worry a lot more than I've worried before. Yeah I really have to worry about this because maybe God has taken a vacation today. He never does. He doesn't say well at Sabbath today I'm sorry I would hear your prayers but I'm taking a break. He's always working always caring for you never slumbers never sleeps. You know Jesus was very much like his father so much so that he told his disciples that if they've seen him they've seen the father.

All that means is that if you want to know what God is like just take a look at Jesus and he'll show you. That's going to wrap up our time for today so to end our time here's Skip and Laniya. Did you make any new year's resolutions? I made a resolution not to make a resolution. Well then you're keeping it aren't you because this is right about the time people stop keeping them. No it's funny though I do always evaluate myself at the end of the year and the beginning of a new one don't you? Do you ever talk about what I want to accomplish? That's a good practice to get into. We talked about that this year on new year's day we got up and spent time in prayer and we talked about our Heitzig family values and things yeah and goals that we do and it wasn't necessarily one two three you know the Heitzigs are going to lose 10 pounds or something like that but it was more like in the Lord what do what what passion what do we aspire to how can we you know keep our faith and and and move forward so that was a lovely thing for me personally I've always kept a journal and so the beginning of the year for me is a new fresh journal it's a fresh time to start writing and praying and reading through the bible and this year my journal we are praying for the United States one state per week and what's great about that is you can look back can't you at the end of the year in the middle of the year to what you have previously written to see if you're on target or if the Lord spoke to you and if that's being fulfilled it's kind of a way to have a reference point and keep track and find answers to prayers or find thematic things that the Lord's speaking to you're right I my first journal I bought in 1981 so you still have it yeah hiding don't you go home and start looking through my journals no but I do still have them so some people make those resolutions and some people have really made neat commitments where they have decided to support prayerfully or financially the ministry that you have here I'm humbled by that and I'm honored that people would partner with us we have a goal and that is to get the word of God out to preach the gospel to people who haven't heard it to train those who have heard it but need to go deeper to equip people so that they have successful marriages successful spiritual walks that the journey that they have is one of confidence and and one where they are experiencing the power and passion of the Lord so that that's what we're all about we love it when people come alongside and say I believe in that too and that's important to me as well and I don't think you could ever put your eggs in a better basket than in the kingdom of God seek first the kingdom and his righteousness and everything else would be added to you we believe that and we're asking people who do believe that to partner with us just so we can keep going for his glory well thanks Skip and elena and we sure would love to hear from you anytime our mailing address is p o box 9 5 7 0 7 albuquerque new mexico 8 7 1 9 9 or when you visit connectwithskip.com well next time we'll learn some more ways that jesus was just like his heavenly father and what that means for us is his followers right here in connect with Skip weekend edition a presentation of connection communications connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever-changing times