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

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 in your everyday life.

That's today. Thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Living on the Edge is an international teaching and discipleship ministry focused on helping Christians live like Christians. In this program, Chip continues his series, What Child Is This? The Baby That Changed the World.

He picks up with the message, Who Is He? by asking a critical question. If the baby in the manger really was God who came down from heaven to earth, how does that affect my life? Well, Chip will tell us today, but let me encourage you to keep listening after the teaching as he further explains how we can apply the truth we're about to learn to our everyday lives.

You won't want to miss it. Okay, turn in your Bible to Colossians chapter one for the remainder of Chip's talk. 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. You 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.

Yeah, I made it, but I made something else. I'm the head of the body, the church. I'm the first born 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 first born.

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. And he says, I'm the first born 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 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 of course I want great relationships, and 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, here's, 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 has 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 want to just save the sheep because I'm going to make a lot of sacrifices to God and 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.

You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. We'll return you to Chip's message in just a minute, but first let me tell you God is doing incredible work through this ministry all around the world. And if you'd like to join us consider partnering with us during our year-end match. Every gift we receive until midnight on December 31st will be matched dollar for dollar. Join us today by going to livingontheedge.org or by calling 888-333-6003. We appreciate your generosity.

Well with that here again is Chip. 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 gotta 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 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 he's like wow you know she's really neat and we love each other we compliment one another on and on and on and it was very interesting he goes so I said so what's in your future? He goes 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's gonna 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 literal 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 and 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. It 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 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 and 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 gonna do this in a hundred years we feel like this this is gonna 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 and the guy I was with turned to me goes you understand this is all reclaimed land I said well what do you mean by that he goes well for 30 years what 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 and we went over with the top of this high-rise he goes look look out over here he said you see all that area we're gonna reclaim all see those barges out there I said yeah he's yeah they're doing the same thing so the city government has 30-year plans there 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 it's 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 place 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 this 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 gonna get into your word I'm gonna seek you with all my heart and you will see God do a miraculous work in you and then through you thanks for the reminder chip and if you're looking for some practical help in recommitting your life to Jesus let me encourage you to check out chips book true spirituality through this resource he walks through Romans chapter 12 unpacking how to become a genuine follower of Christ to get your copy of true spirituality or to order a couple of copies for you and a friend to go through together go to special offers at Living on the Edge org or the chipping roadmap let us help you deepen your relationship with Jesus today chip still with me in studio to share one last thing with all of you chip thanks so much Dave I think we would all agree as we look at the United States and the entire world the world needs Jesus right we're all on the same page here but the fact of the matter is is that the average person who claims the name of the Lord Jesus doesn't look a lot like Jesus the churches have become social clubs who don't stand for the truth they're not hospitals that care for the sick pastors literally are admitting only 11 to 12 percent say I think I'm competent and I know how to disciple people churches aren't meeting some of the deepest needs in their community somehow some way we've lost our way not just doctrinally but how we live this must change and Living on the Edge is a catalytic ministry that equips followers of Jesus worldwide to become Romans 12 Christians we exist to help Christians live like Christians we exist and God has blessed us to help train pastors and leaders here and around the world and to reach the next generation most believers in the first century at great risk actually lived and spoke and sacrificed their lives they didn't have our technology and they turned the world upside down and it wasn't because they had extra something it was because they were disciples who reflected the Lord Jesus I meet so many people that want to be that kind of follower they don't know how they need help and that's where we step in if you are committed to Christians living like Christians and changing the trajectory of what's happening in America and the world would you pray would you ask God what do you want me to give to Living on the Edge to be a part of this movement and if you will obey him we'll have all the resources we need to do our part as God builds his church thanks so much well if you want to be part of encouraging Christians to really live like Christians it's a great time to become a financial partner from now until December 31st every dollar we receive will be doubled thanks to some generous friends of the ministry to give a gift give us a call at triple eight three three three six zero zero three or visit Living on the Edge dot org that's triple eight three three three six zero zero three or go to Living on the Edge dot o-r-g app listeners tap donate we appreciate you giving whatever God leads you to give as we close our mission at Living on the Edge is to help Christians live like Christians and one of the best ways we can continue to do that is through programs like this so when you hear a message that helps you pass it on to someone else in your life now you can easily do that through the chip engram app or by forwarding them the free mp3s that you'll find at Living on the Edge dot org and don't forget to include a note about how it made a difference in your life well thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge with chip engram i'm i'm dave truey and i hope you'll join us again next time you