What Child is This? - Who is He?, Part 2

Who is Jesus? I mean to you. Who is Jesus to you? Now before you answer, let me add this. Who is Jesus to you and what difference does it really make in your life? If you're like most of us, the answer to that question can get foggy in everyday life. So today we're going to learn how to clear away the fog and get a fresh understanding of who Jesus is and how He can help you every minute of every day.

That's today. Thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Living on the Edge is an international discipleship ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram. I'm Dave Drew. In this program, Chip continues his series, What Child Is This?, by asking a rather penetrating question. If the baby in the manger really was God come from heaven down to earth, how would that reality affect my life? It's possible when Chip finishes his teaching, you'll want to share this message with someone you know.

So stay with us and I'll have an easy way for you to do that. Now with this message from Colossians chapter one, here's Chip. If we would ask Jesus, so what's your role? You're the creator and the sustainer. You're the physical revelation of the invisible God. He would say, well, that's with regard to the physical creation. Let me tell you about this other creation.

This is something really special. This is a creation of what I did. It's called a spiritual body. It's why I came and it's called the church. So let me tell you who I am, not just with the physical world.

I made it, but I made something else. I'm the head of the body, the church. I'm the firstborn from the dead, the first resurrected, in order that I might have supremacy or first place in everything.

The word head here means both source and authority. He says, I'm the source of the church and I'm the authority. I'm the CEO, I'm the Lord, I'm the master. I died for these people when they trusted me, my spirit, the Holy Spirit has come into their life and now the expression of my body isn't me walking around, it's them. God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, taking up residence in regular human beings and I'm the head of that group of people.

He's not talking about a building, he's not talking about a local church. He's talking about every single person in whom the Spirit of God dwells, that you're born again, you're a follower of Christ. He goes, I'm the head. And then he says, he uses this word again, I'm first in rank, I'm the firstborn.

Now he wasn't the only person, right? In the Old Testament, you had people that rose from the dead. Lazarus in the New Testament, you had people rise from the dead. When he says, I'm the firstborn in the resurrection, he's the first who is resurrected and will never die. And the first with a resurrected body and 1 Corinthians 15, Paul teaches in the same line, because he rose, you will rise with him. But he's the first to rise in a way that will be just like you will rise with him for those who believe.

And so what's the truth here? The truth is Jesus is Lord over the church. And the response is, we must obey him.

And would you underline fully? We must obey him fully. He's not content at all to be sort of on the pantheon or the salad bar of multiple God choices, which is how things work out. You know, like a little Baha'i here, a little Christianity here, maybe a little Buddhism over here. You know, and I'm just going to eclectically take what I sort of believe and what I like about different things. And, you know, there's parts of the Bible that are really good and parts of what Jesus said are really good. And, you know, I'm going to selectively obey what I think is best for me.

And see, when you really do the math on that, and this is how people live, this is how even a lot of Christians live, I'll do that. I'm not going to do that. You know, that command, that's a pretty old-fashioned command. I just don't think I'm going to do that one. And by the way, it's pretty costly. It could be pretty painful. There might be a lot of risk. So I'm going to obey this and this, and I'm not going to do that.

I'm not going to do that. You know who becomes God? The person who decides what's right and what's true and what you're going to do is the person who becomes God.

And the idol that we worship is ourselves. So we basically say, you don't think about it this way, and we sort of slide into it. But, you know, I know better than you about relationships. I know better than you about the future. I know better than you about sexual purity. I know better than you about ethics and business.

So, but these things sound pretty good, and I, of course, I want great relationships, and so I want to have a great relationship with you. It's called selective or partial obedience. And statistically, it's killing us. I mean, it's killing us. It's killing us because when non-Christians meet Christians who selectively obey, what they realize is, you know, I don't want any part of that. You say this, but really you're living that. It's killing us because when we don't obey God, you know who loses?

We do. It's His good, acceptable, and perfect will. There's always a hard process. You find a great athlete.

I will tell you, a great musician, a great artist, a great business person, if you ask them, what's it take? Oh, clear focus, strategy, discipline, it's hard, you pay a price, you invest, and well, that's how God made life to work. And it's really not a whole lot different than I'm in a new relationship just like a marriage to a person, and you learn to communicate, and you learn to put the other person first, and you learn to work through issues, and you don't give up.

And what happens? Difficulty ups down, difficulty ups down, but pretty soon you have this deep, rich relationship. And the same thing is exactly what happens in our relationship with God. But what so many of us do is that we get to the point, oh, that's a hard one. And so right now about 50% of all evangelical believers in the United States between the ages of 18 to 30 currently live with their boyfriend or girlfriend and say, I agree with all of Christianity, but I just don't think this not sex before marriage could really be, I mean, it's the 21st century, give me a break.

Or we have about 30% of our teenagers who probably have never heard a whole lot different. I mean, it's no worse sin than any other sins, but about a third of our teens in our churches think that same-sex unions are okay, as long as people love one another. See, at some point in time, someone, quote, calls the shots who's Lord and God, and Jesus said, that's me. I'm the head, I'm the firstborn, I'm the Lord, and here's the thing.

I love you. Trust is hard, but it's only hard if you don't believe that God is the creator and the sustainer, and He's worthy, and He really has your best in mind. I've never yet met anyone who's made really hard faith decisions to do what they know is right, not sort of out of some formula, if I do this, God will do this, but out of relationship to not break God's heart.

And usually there's a front-end cost and some pain and some difficulty, and then there's this amazing reward. Because God loves us. Jesus said this to His disciples. Those of you that have My commands and keep them, those are the ones that love Me. John 14, 21.

But that wasn't the end. He says, then I will come with My Father, and I love the old version of this, and we will make our abode with you. In other words, the presence of the Son and the presence of the Father by the person of the Holy Spirit, we're going to take up residence in you, and we're going to flood you with the reality of our love and our kindness and our power and our holiness, and we're going to transform you from the inside out. See, that's why the baby came in the manger, fully man and fully God. I remember early in my Christian life, because I've been a master at selective obedience, actually, and rationalization, it's a gift I have.

And so I kind of was living this way, and I remember reading through the Old Testament, and it was maybe my second time through, and it's a pretty thick section, so it took me a while, and I'd never read the Bible growing up. And there was this king named Saul, and he's handsome and big and strong, and God made him the king because the people asked for it. So he has his couple victories, and then God gives him this really tough assignment, and he's supposed to eliminate everything, the animals, and he feels a little peer pressure. And so he rationalizes, and instead of killing all the animals, he decides, well, I'll make him a sacrifice, and he kind of selectively decides what part of God's command he's going to obey. And I'll never forget Samuel the prophet comes, and he says, Saul, man, what are you doing?

I mean, this is God. He said, do this. Oh, I obeyed him. I obeyed him. I obeyed him. And then there's this line.

I have it underlined in my Bible, I think, in some funny color. And Samuel says, if you obeyed him, what is this bleeding of the sheep that I hear? And then he turns around and goes, well, you know, I wanted to save the sheep because I'm going to make a lot of sacrifices to God, and, you know, I'm going to do a lot of good things, and I'm sure he's going to appreciate it. And Samuel says, you do not get it with God.

With God, obedience is always better than sacrifice. He doesn't want your stuff. He doesn't want your time. He doesn't want your money. He doesn't want your religious activity. He wants you to obey.

And I remember reading that thinking, you know, I think my selective obedience days need to come to an end. And maybe I need to give God my girlfriend life and my basketball life and my ego life and my future and just trust that someone who came and took on human flesh and made everything and sustains everything could probably figure out to give me the best woman, the best future, and in my perverted little mind, the best basketball. If you could but believe how good God is and what Paul's trying to help these Colossians who are being bombarded like we are in our day. He said, I want you to understand Jesus is the physical revelation of the invisible God. I want you to understand this. Jesus is the creator and the sustainer of everything. And I want you to understand he's Lord. He's Lord rightfully over all the church. And so you can know him and you can trust him and you got to obey him.

And then the fourth question is, what are your goals? Sounds like a silly question to ask God. But I asked Frank and we got talking for a while and I didn't tell him, you know, it was just a very warm conversation and I didn't bring up his girlfriend or any of that kind of stuff. He just he just turned to me and I found out her name and sounded like a neat relationship and how they became friends for a long time. And we were just friends. And he said, you know, we didn't date or anything. And then all of a sudden one day I was like, wow, you know, she's really neat and we love each other.

We compliment one another on and on and on. And I did. It's very interesting. He goes. So I said, so what's in your future? He goes, I think I think I should marry Mary Ann.

It's interesting. He realized what he really wanted. He wanted a permanent reconciliation. He wanted to come together in a permanent relationship that they could both really trust and know the other person is going to be there for him. And if you had asked Jesus, you know, why did you become fully man and fully God and. What was the goal? What was the game plan?

What were you trying to accomplish? And he would say it was the father was pleased to have all his fullness. Literally means all the fullness of deity dwell in him.

And why? To underline that word reconcile. What? Reconcile. Bring together all things to himself. Well, like what do you mean by all things? Things on earth and things in heaven.

That's the why. The word reconcile literally is, you know what it's like. You've had a fight with your boyfriend or girlfriend and you get reconciled. I've had on a handful of occasions people who've divorced and they get reconciled. I've had the chance to remarry them.

Or people that are separated. Or, you know, you can be reconciled with your boss. You can be reconciled with a friend. You can be reconciled with a mate. But here's what reconciliation is. You go from adversaries to friends. Heart to heart connection.

You become friends. Things are right now. And in a fallen evil world, the purpose and goal of Jesus coming to the earth was to make right or to reconcile everything on earth or in heaven. But did you notice it doesn't say or under the earth. There's some things that are irreconcilable. There's a third of the angels that followed Satan. And there's people that have come to this earth and been given offer and opportunity and say, I want nothing to do with God. To which God in his dignity says, you can have your own way. All your time on this earth and forever and ever and ever. I will not force myself.

This is a love relationship. And notice he describes exactly how he did it. Having made peace through his blood shed on the cross. When Christ died, this little baby grew up and he hung upon a cross. And when he hung upon a cross, your sin, my sin, the sins of all people and all time were placed on him. And he became our sacrificial substitute. And God the Father looked down from heaven and for the first time ever looked away because your sin and my sin was placed on the substitute of Christ. And he became sin, a sin offering on our behalf. And peace occurred between us and God. And what we could never do for ourself, Christ accomplished. He covered or atoned for our sin. So that all people have been made savable. Doesn't mean all people are saved or all people will be reconciled. Because God doesn't force himself.

But all people have been made savable. The offer is your sins, the good news of the early church was not do A, B, C, D and E and then God will love you and forgive you. It was God has already forgive you by the death of his son, proved it by the resurrection. Do you want the free gift of eternal life? As many as receive him, John would write of Jesus. As many as receive him, to them he gives the right or the authority to become children of God, even to those who believe on his name.

It's an amazing offer. That's why it's called good news. The truth is Jesus is the sovereign king of time and eternity. So he's going to reconcile all things to himself. And there's a coming day when this earth will come to a close and the reigning king will come. And not just the temporal heaven but there'll be a new heaven and a new earth and the new heaven will come down on this very physical new earth. And he will reign as king forever and ever. And here's your response, you will reign with him. Those who've trusted Christ by faith, who his spirit comes in and indwells you and as you follow him and he changes your life. This God has a plan and the plan is bigger than just now. You'll reign with him forever.

And what that does is it changes the lens by which you look at everything. See we're Americans, we want everything now. Instant gratification. We want great relationships now, we want the business to go now, we want our kids to be great now, we want everything. Now, now, now, now, now. Godliness, patience, endurance, life change, character happens by people who understand I live in time but I'm made for eternity. I'm going to prioritize and make decisions and trust and do what mounts for eternity, not just now. Changes your perspective.

See everyone today is I can't wait, I can't wait, I can't wait. Or it's fear, fear, fear, this might happen, that might happen. As though like okay this little 70 or 80 years you get like okay, what if some really bad things happen?

But you're really right with God and you live forever and ever and ever. And what you do now, even if it doesn't all work out the way you would like it to for the present, actually sets you up for something that's better and better, longer and longer and forever. When I was in Singapore I learned something later in China that they think differently than we do. They think about time completely differently than we do. For Chinese it's like hey we're going to do this in 100 years, we feel like this is going to work out.

I mean they actually think and plan that way. I was in a set of high rises, beautiful high rises and you know all these new buildings and it looked just spiffy and this brand new harbor and the guy I was with turned to me and goes you understand this is all reclaimed land. I said well what do you mean by that? He goes well for 30 years from China we've taken granite, just boatload and boatload and boatload and barges and we brought granite for the first 20 years and then we brought tons and tons and tons and tons of sand and then we let it settle for another 10 years. And then we build all this and all the plans are drawn. In fact look over here. We went over with the top of this high rise. He goes look out over here. He said do you see all that area? We're going to reclaim all.

See those barges out there? I said yeah. He said yeah they're doing the same thing.

So the city government has 30 year plans. Oh and he looked at me like 30 years. I mean that's nothing. It's nothing. It's nothing.

You want to hear something else? 70 years is nothing. It's a vapor.

It's nothing. You'll reign with him and how you will reign will be determined by how you walk now. If he's the image of the invisible God, if he's the creator and sustainer of the universe, if he's the creator and head and Lord of the church in order that he might be supreme or first placed in everything, in every galaxy, in every relationship among humans and angels, invisible and invisible. Here's the only question I have. Doesn't it make sense that the baby in that manger that was fully man and fully God who lived to be Jesus and died and rose from the dead and sits at the right hand of the Father and holds all things by the word of his power, wouldn't it make sense for him to have exactly the same place in your heart and your life and priorities that he has with everything else?

Doesn't it? And you know what I love? What I really love about Jesus and the Bible and I mean I could explain everything I've said to an eight year old who could completely get it. Because see the common people heard Jesus gladly. And so he is the king. The question is, is he your king? He is the Lord. The question is, is he your Lord? He sustains the universe. The question is, does he sustain your life?

And you know what? It starts with a step. And the step is, no matter what it means, no matter what it costs, since you are who you say you are, I'm all in. Before we go on today, I wanted to stop and I wanted to ask you, is he your king? Is he the Lord of your life? You know, Jesus came and he wants to love you and to help you.

But he has a condition. This is the will of God. He says, I urge you, therefore, my brothers, in view of God's great mercy, to offer your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to him. This is your spiritual service of worship. The good and perfect and acceptable will of God begins when you surrender all that you are and all that you have to him. You know where you're at.

You know where you're lined up or where you're not. Can I invite you right now at this minute to give him the place in your heart and life and future that he holds in the universe? Bow your head if you can.

Close your eyes if you're not driving. And in this moment, say, Lord, I want you to be my king. I will follow you. I'm going to get into your word. I'm going to seek you with all my heart. And you will see God do a miraculous work in you and then through you.

And one more thing about the app, it's a great way to share any of these messages you think are especially helpful. As we close today's message, you heard me offer the Lordship of Christ. I mean, it's Romans 12.

Does that sound familiar to a lot of our real regular listeners? I mean, true spirituality. I mean, when people surrender to God, I mean, that is the channel through which his highest and best blessings flow. It's how God brings about change. And I want you to know about a million people listening to my voice heard that message and we just know statistically hundreds if not thousands upon thousands took a step from nominal Christianity, a step from casual Christianity, a step from I know what's right to do and I'm sort of doing it to I'm all in. And here's what I can tell you. I have thousands upon thousands of emails, church-wide campaigns that we've done all over the world that tell us when people go all in, marriages change, addictions get broken, communities change. I mean, people get new parents, employers get new employees, employees get a new boss who says I'm all in.

And they may not put a Bible on their desk, but they start living with compassion and integrity. And here's what I want you to know. Major things began to occur because the message of Romans 12.1 went forth and it only goes out because people like you, pray fervently for Living on the Edge and people like you have given generously. Thank you so much for your partnership.

God is at work. And let me ask you, if you're not a part of that team, would you consider this December joining the Living on the Edge family? Would you give a gift today? Would you pray for us today that we might help more and more people go all in so God could go forth?

If you'd like to partner with Living on the Edge, we'd love to have you join us. Whether it's in prayer or sending a gift, you can begin making a difference in the lives of other people today. And through the month of December, any gift you send will be matched dollar for dollar. Thanks to the generosity of a small group of financial partners, whatever we receive between now and December 31st will be doubled. To send a gift, call us at 888-333-6003.

That's 888-333-6003. Or if you prefer to give online, just go to livingontheedge.org and click the donate button there on the homepage. App listeners, tap donate. And let me thank you in advance for your generous support. Well, next time Chip continues his series, What Child Is This?, so be sure to join us then. For Chip and the entire team here, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.