Finding Purpose w/Russ Andrews

This is Rodney from the Masculine Journey Podcast, where we explored manhood within Jesus Christ. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds.

Sit back, enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Do you feel like your efforts to reach God, find God, and please God are futile? Do you feel like your faith is dead or alive? Today, Pastor Russ Andrews will walk us through Scripture to answer these questions. Join us on Finding Purpose, a local triangle ministry glorifying God by helping men find their purpose for living. For more information and to connect with Russ Andrews and Finding Purpose, you can visit us online at findingpurpose.org.

or connect with us on Facebook. Now let's listen to Russ Andrews as he teaches us how to be a Christian without being religious. You may be familiar with Dr. D. James Kennedy. He's passed away, but he was a well-known pastor down in Florida. But he once said in a sermon, quote, Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter of Galilee, was and is the eternal creator of the universe. Hebrews chapter 1 verses 1 through 8 says, After he, that is the Son, had provided purification for sins, which of course he did at the cross, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven. So he became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is superior to theirs. For to which of the angels did God ever say, You are my son.

Today I have become your father. Well again, I will be his father and he will be my son. And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, by the way, that doesn't mean that Jesus was created by God the Father. It just means that he's the preeminent one who was sent into the world. He says, again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, let all God's angels worship him. And then speaking of the angels, he says, he makes his angels winds, his servants flames of fire. But about the son, he says, that is God the Father says this about his son, your throne, O God, will last forever and ever. In other words, God the Father is talking to his son and he says, your throne, O God, will last forever and ever. And righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom. Remember that word scepter.

I'm going to come back to it in a little bit. So men, according to the writer of Hebrews, Jesus is God. And you would be surprised how many ministers in the pulpit do not really believe that. He was with God in the beginning, according to John Chapter one, verses one and two. And through him, all things were made that have been made. Who is Jesus?

He is. But this is the question that Luke is answering for us in his gospel, the Gospel of Luke. And you may recall in Chapter one of Luke, Gabriel appeared to Mary and said, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. And he will reign over the house of Jacob for how long? And his kingdom will never end. Who is Jesus? He is the appointed king, appointed by God to rule over the throne of God, really to rule over the entire universe. We should remember what Jesus said to Pilate when he stood before him. Remember, Pilate was really kind of, you know, you're the king of the Jews. And Jesus responded him, you're right in saying I'm a king.

In fact, for this reason, I was born. And for this, I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to who? Jesus.

What is the truth? Jesus is first and foremost a king, a ruler. You see, the first time that Jesus came into this world, he came as a little infant born in a manger. But listen, when he comes again, he is going to return men as the king of kings and the Lord of lords. And the moment that he does that, all the earth will then know who Jesus really is. Now I want you to take your Bible and turn back to Psalm chapter 2.

This is, you know, something we asked you guys to read this week. It's one of the most important Psalms. It's hard to say it's the most important, but it's a very important Psalm. In the Old Testament. And in this Psalm, David, King David wrote this Psalm. He's writing prophetically about the coming Messiah's kingship. And by the way, the word Messiah is the Hebrew word and it's the same word that we have in the Greek language, which is Christ. And so Hebrew, excuse me, Messiah and Christ both mean what? Anointed one. It refers to someone who's anointed with oil, symbolizing the reception of the Holy Spirit, enabling that one to do a very important task. Jesus' anointing, as we're going to see tonight, occurred at his baptism. Now when you look at Psalm 2, look down to verse 6. I wish I had time to read the whole Psalm, but I don't. In verse 6, God the Father is speaking about the coming Messiah.

It's important to know that. And here's what he says. He says, I have installed my king where? On Zion on whose hill? My holy hill.

What hill is he talking about? He's talking about Jerusalem. In verse 7, the speaker changes. Now it's God the Son. So you had God the Father speaking, I've installed my king on Zion, my holy hill. Now God the Son speaks.

And here's what he says. He's talking about God the Father said to me, You are my son. Today I have become your father. Ask of me and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You will rule them with an iron scepter.

You will dash them to pieces like pottery. So what is this scepter? You've seen those kings sitting up on a throne and they've got this staff that's kind of between their legs resting like that. And they've got a strong grip on it. That is a scepter.

And the one who holds that is the king. Now turn me to Genesis chapter 49. That's at the beginning of the Bible. You go to Genesis and count over 49 chapters.

And let me set the stage here for you. Here you've got Abraham and then Isaac and then Jacob. And Jacob is basically getting ready to die. And what they would do back then is they would bring their sons and they would bless them. But in this case it was prophetic in nature. So he has each one of his sons come into his presence. And I can almost see Jacob laying his hand on each son and he prophesizes over them.

Remember he prophesied over Joseph and Benjamin and Reuben and some got a good future foretold about them and some didn't. But when he comes to his fourth son Judah, listen to what Jacob says. Again he's got his hand on his shoulder and he says, You are a lion's cub, O Judah. You return from the prey, my son. Like a lion he crouches and lies down.

Like a lioness, who dares to rouse him? The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the rule of staff, from between his feet until he comes to whom it belongs. And the obedience of the nations is his. His is talking about the one who will come, who will take hold of the scepter, the one to whom the scepter belongs. See Jacob was prophesying that from the line of his son Judah was going to arise one day a king, a ruler, who that scepter would rightfully belong to.

Can you see this? And by the way, Jacob lived more than 1700 years before Jesus was born. Don't you all love the way the Bible fits together?

And you can just read it and the more you study it, the more you learn it. You see how it's so obvious that it's the real deal. Prophecy proves it. In Luke chapter 3 verses 31 through 33, I'm not going to have time to read the entire genealogy tonight, but I just want to show you this one section because in verses 31 through 33 we learn that Joseph's wife Mary came from the line of who? Judah, David, Judah.

How so? Well we see that her line is traced, if you go back I think it's like 1400 years, it comes to King David and then it goes back to Abraham. But you see it's going backwards, all the way back to Adam and then to God. But to get to Abraham, that line's got to go through who? Judah. So look at verse 31. Jesus came from Mary and Mary came, again look at verse 31, from the son of David, the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, again it's going backwards, the son of Boaz, the son of Solomon, the son of Nahshon, the son of Amenadab, the son of Rom, the son of Hezron, the son of Peyres, the son of Isaac, the son of Judah, and the son of, excuse me, Peyres the son of Isaac, the son of Judah, the son of Abraham. I got that messed up here, I'm sorry. It's the son of Peyres, the son of Judah, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham.

Miss print there. So Genesis' lineage goes through Mary, goes all the way back to Adam, who was the first man. Luke is telling us who Jesus is and so first we learn that He is God, then we learn that He is a king born to the Virgin Mary who came from the line of Judah. Next, look at Luke chapter 2, verses 9 through 11. We learn something else about Jesus. An angel of the Lord appears, remember, to the shepherds who were nearby the town of Bethlehem and they came with a very special announcement.

In fact, it was the gospel. I bring you euangelion, good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of Bethlehem a Savior has been born to you. He is Christ, there's that word again, the Lord. What does that word Christ mean?

It's not His last name. You could really, you should say Jesus, the Christ. He is the Messiah. He's the anointed one.

He's a Savior. He's the promised Messiah. What kind of Messiah would He be? Turn to Isaiah chapter 53.

This is one of my favorite texts in the entire Old Testament. By the way, if you ask someone in Israel today who's an Orthodox Jew to interpret Isaiah 53, they have a very difficult time with it because it's so detailed in its prophetic nature that this Messiah would be very different than the kind of Messiah they were expecting. What kind of Messiah were they expecting? They were expecting a king who would do what? Who would take the Jews out from under Roman rule and restore the kingdom to who? To them.

But that's not what they got, is it? And if they had just been familiar with Isaiah's prophecy they might have had a little bit better understanding. According to the prophet Isaiah who lived 700 years before the birth of Christ the coming Messiah would suffer and die for the sins of the world.

Listen to this. Isaiah 53, beginning with verse 5. But He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him and by His wounds we are healed. We all like sheep have done what? Gone astray. Each of us has turned to His own way. Is that not true of all of us? And the Lord has laid on Him, the Messiah, the iniquity of us all.

That's the good news right there. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth. Who did He stand before with accusations being hurled at Him and He never opened His mouth? Herod. Go back and look at it. Herod was amazed that he didn't respond to the accusations. But it was fulfillment of Scripture.

And look at this. Yet it was the Lord's will, that is, it was God the Father, Yahweh's will to crush Him, the Messiah, and to cause Him to suffer. And though the Lord makes His life a guilt offering, He will see His offspring and prolong His days.

What's that referring to? Did He see His days again? Jesus.

He rose. It's a reference to the resurrection. And it says, And the will of the Lord will prosper in His hand. He was the Lamb of God who died for the sins of the world. And this was according to the will of God the Father. And He had to fulfill all righteousness in order to be approved of God so that He could actually be the sacrificial lamb because the lamb had to be without what?

Defect or blemish. That's what the entire Old Testament is about. That's why they sacrificed all these lambs. And they had to be without defect. They had to be perfect. It was a picture of the Messiah who was coming into the world.

Last week we covered this. John announces that Jesus is coming one day to do what? To judge the world. In verses 15 through 17, again Luke chapter 3, if you're following with me, Luke writes, The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John the Baptist might possibly be the Christ. But John answered them all, I baptize you with water.

But one more powerful than I will come. He will baptize you with Holy Spirit. With the Holy Spirit and with what? Fire.

His winnowing fork is in His hand to clear His threshing floor and to gather the wheat into His barn. But He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Why do we preach the truth? It is for the purpose of salvation. But it's so that our friends will avoid this.

I mean, when He returns, it's going to be a day of separation. The chaff from the wheat, the goats from the sheep, the lost from the saved. And the reason that we do this is we're casting the net, pulling it in, hoping to bring in fish. In John 5, excuse me, Acts 17, 30 and 31 says, In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent. For He has set a day when He would judge the world with justice by the man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising Him from the dead. In John 5, 22, Jesus says, In Philippians 2, verses 5 through 11, we learn that Jesus humbled Himself, became obedient to God the Father and came here in the form of a man and then suffered on a cross, died, so that we could be saved. And then it says in verse 9, I believe, Therefore, because of what Jesus did, God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So let me ask you something. Do you believe that every knee one day is going to bow before Jesus and say, yes, you are Lord?

Do you believe that? So let me ask you, don't you think it would be a good idea to go ahead and bow your knee now? If you don't bow your knee now, you'll be forced to bow it when you come before Him. When Jesus returns, I believe, in the not-too-distant future, He will return to this earth to judge the world.

And on that day, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that He is Lord. So let me ask you guys a question. How do we know all this is true? Well, how do we know the Bible is true? But I want you all to remember, Luke was a physician and a historian. And the first night we gathered here, we learned that he set out to give us an orderly account because he had examined everything from the very beginning. And he went and he interviewed eyewitnesses such as Mark, John, Peter, Paul and others. He traveled with them and he was taking meticulous notes.

These were reliable eyewitnesses whose testimonies would easily stand up in a court of law. And guys, listen, Luke wrote this gospel so that not only everybody during the last 2,000 years, but that the men who are sitting here tonight might know with certainty the things that were being talked. That we would believe them, that we would know in our mind and hearts that it's true, that it's real, so that our faith might be sure and certain. Is your faith sure and certain?

Mine is. And I don't take any credit for it. The faith we have comes from who? God.

But I want you to remember this. Don't let anybody ever tell you that it's blind faith. Our faith is a reasonable faith because it rests upon reliable evidence. Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. I remember Dr. Bruce Little in a philosophy class said that, yes, our faith is based on what is not seen, however, it is not based on what is not known.

Did you all hear that? Our faith is based on what is not seen, but it's not based on what is not known. That's why you have eyewitnesses in a court of law because they don't have a videotape.

They can't reenact it. So you're bringing an eyewitness who tells you the facts. So even in a court of law, our justice system, it's not based on what is seen, although you can't produce real evidence.

But more often than not, it's just based on what is known. So then my question for you is, do you really believe the Bible or do you think this is a fairy tale? Now, I want us to take a look at Jesus' baptism because it's really fascinating. So turn with me again to Luke chapter 3.

Let's look at verses 21 and 22 which reads, When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. Anyway, as Jesus was praying, Luke says that heaven was opened. Did he see it? No, he wasn't there.

But he knew because he was relying on what? Eyewitness accounts. And it says, And the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came from heaven, You are my Son whom I love.

With you I am well pleased. You want to hear another eyewitness account of the same event? Turn over to Matthew chapter 3. Matthew chapter 3, verses 13 through 17. Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John tried to deter him saying, I need to be baptized by you.

And you come to me? And Jesus replied, Let it be so now. It is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness. Then John consented. Matthew says, As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment, heaven was opened. It literally says heaven was torn open. And Jesus saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, This is my Son whom I love.

With Him I am well pleased. Do you want some more evidence? All four gospels confirm that these events happened.

Here's what I want you to think about though. From earth's perspective, you know there was a people that were gathered there. It probably looked like a normal baptism of just a normal man. However, from heaven's perspective, this baptism was like no other baptism that's ever taken place in the history of the world. As Jesus was praying, three miraculous things happened. First, heaven was torn open. Second, God the Father's voice could be heard saying, Excuse me, the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in bodily form like a dove. And then third, a voice from heaven spoke saying, You are my Son whom I love.

With You I am well pleased. So here's my question. What do you think the significance is of these three incredible occurrences?

Well here's what I think. I think it's the skies over the Jordan were torn open. A revelation from heaven was offered to the multitudes who gathered around this river. In other words, we know that John could see it.

I'll show you why in a minute. So if John could see it, theologians believed that the people around there could see it. And so imagine them all looking up into heaven as heaven is literally somehow revealed. Did you know that this is not the only time this has happened in the Bible? The opening of heaven to the eyes of men happened several times. It happened to Ezekiel, Isaiah. Remember he saw the throne of God.

He said, I'm a man of unclean lips. It happened to Stephen when he's been stoned. He saw Jesus standing there waiting to receive him. It happened to Peter. It happened to Paul. And it happened to John when he was on the island of Patmos.

So why did this happen? Well I believe these revelations were given to certain men to make them see events folding on earth from heaven's perspective. In 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 16 Paul writes, So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view, though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. You see men, God wants us to see everything through the lens of scripture.

Do you know why? To have an eternal perspective so that we can better understand what's taking place on earth. I can tell you when I watch the news, I watch the news through the lens of scripture. Why? Because I know that this earth in its present form is passing away. Hallelujah.

Have you all seen all the potholes recently? Because I know that everything that I can see with my eyes is temporary. Because I want to live for things that are eternal. Someone once said our life is like a line. You've got one dot here that represents your time on earth.

Let's say 80 years plus or minus. And then the rest of, as you know mathematically, the rest of that line is just a series of dots going all the way out into eternity forever. So let me ask you something. Should we be living for the dot or for the line? And so what are you living for? The dot? When you get up in the morning, are you living for the dot?

That doesn't mean you don't concern yourself with the dot. But what should you focus on? Eternity. So what was unfolding on earth at the baptism of Jesus? Well God the Father was making a very big deal about it. He was anointing His one and only Son as the Savior of the world. God was saying to all of us, This is my Son. If you want to get to heaven, you better listen to Him.

Because He's the only way. This is the one who was prophesied to come from the line of Judah. This is the one my Son who was prophesied to be born of a virgin. This is the one my Son who was prophesied would take hold of a scepter and rule all the nations. This is the one my Son who was prophesied to be the Lamb of God who would die for your sins and my sins. And to make sure that John knew who the Messiah was, God the Father opened up heaven and sent the Holy Spirit in bodily form like a dove and that dove landed on Jesus, probably a shoulder. And then God the Father spoke from heaven and confirmed that this man from Nazareth was His one and only Son. In John chapter 1 verses 32 and 33, it says, Then John, talking about John the Baptist, gave this testimony. God says, here's a testimony, okay?

You're sitting here, you're not sure you believe? Well, listen to John's testimony. He witnessed it. I saw the Spirit, He says. He's telling men of Raleigh if He could speak from heaven. He is speaking from heaven. I, John the Baptist, saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remained on Him. I would not have known Him except the One who sent me to baptize with water told me, Hey John, the man on whom you see the Spirit come down from heaven, He is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.

And then John the Baptist said, I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God. Being a Christian is not about being religious, but about having a dynamic, alive relationship with Jesus Christ. You've been listening to Finding Purpose with Pastor Russ Andrews, a local triangle ministry glorifying God by helping men find their purpose for living. You can discover more about finding your purpose in life by checking out the resources at findingpurpose.net or connect to Finding Purpose on Facebook. Pastor Russ would also like to extend a special invitation for you to join him and over 300 other local triangle men to study God's Word together every Tuesday night at 7 p.m. in downtown Raleigh. Find out more at findingpurpose.net. This is the Truth Network