Why Did Jesus Become A Man - Part 2

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Please make your donation to Visionathon today at vision.org.au. The Songs and Scriptures of Christmas celebrate the most profound love story in history, expressed in the word Immanuel, or God with us. Today on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah considers the eternal significance of this event, the reason that Christmas is worth celebrating all year round. From Why the Nativity, here's David, to introduce the conclusion of his message, Why Did Jesus Become a Man? Well yesterday we started to answer that question. It's an important question because you know a lot of folks think that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and that's where he began, that he was born into humanity, that he wasn't in existence before that. And of course we know better than that. The Bible says Jesus has always been, he will always be, there has never been a time when he was not, and there will never be a time when he ceases to be.

He is the eternal Son of God, but for a period of 30 plus years, he deigned to come to this world and become a man, so that he could walk among us, and ultimately he went to the cross, the man Christ Jesus went to the cross and paid the penalty for our sin. We're sorting out these answers as we open our Bibles in the month of December and talk about the real message of Christmas. You know the other day we were having a discussion at home, it's pretty easy to be discouraged with all of this COVID stuff and everything being shut down, and then it's open again, and then it's shut down again, and you don't know whether you're coming or going. And a lot of people are saying, you know, I'm not going to do Christmas this year like I normally, and I want to scream, no, no, you need to do it better than you normally do. We need Christmas now more than we've ever needed it.

I'm turning my lights on early. I want everybody to know there's light in this darkness, and Christmas is coming, and there's one thing that hasn't changed in all the changing, Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, and he came into this world to be a difference maker for you and for me. We're going to celebrate that with every fiber in our spiritual body and in our physical body.

We're going to celebrate Christmas, and part of that is talking about the real meaning of Christmas. So let's pick up our discussion from yesterday as we answer the question, why did Jesus become a man? Why did Jesus become a man? So that those of us who are men and women who understand other men and women would be able to understand God. When you see Jesus doing what he did in the gospels, you are watching God at work. Do you want to know God?

Get to know Jesus. That's why the only way you can become a Christian is to know Jesus, because Jesus is the way that you know God. That's why Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but through me. If you want to know God, you have to know Jesus, because Jesus is God's revelation to you about himself. Well, first of all, Jesus became a man to satisfy the prophecies of the Old Testament. Jesus became a man to show us the Father. Thirdly, Jesus became a man to save us from our sin. I love what Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1.15. He says, this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, Paul wrote.

And I'm the chief of them. I got to tell you something, if Paul is the chief of sinners, we're all in trouble, amen? That means that if Jesus came to save Paul and Paul considered himself the chief of sinners, then all of us here, we need to be saved, every single one of us. How could Jesus come into this world to save us and why was it necessary? Why couldn't God from his throne in heaven make a sovereign decree of some sort that sin problem was over and that we would all be saved?

Because in the nature of God's holiness and his justice, he had to become one of us so that as a representative of mankind, he could go to the cross and on our behalf pay the penalty that we deserve. If God paid the penalty for us, it would have been an edict. It would have been a sovereign act, but it wouldn't have been the ministry of redemption that the Scripture speaks of and that the Old Testament portrays. We had to have a God-man to save us.

A man couldn't do it, he would have no more power than any other man. And God could not do it in the sense of God the Father doing it without being identified with us in humanity. And I like to say it this way, and I've said this over and over throughout the years, that because he was God and man, he lifted up one hand and he took hold of the Father and he reached down the other hand and he took hold of man.

And at the cross, in a moment of time, he brought them together and now with his hands reached out, he offers his salvation to all who will come. But he could not have done that had he not been God in the flesh. We needed Jesus to come to be our Savior. If he had not come, we would be lost. God would not have saved us apart from the gift of his Son.

The awful price that was paid for us on Calvary is really the story of the cradle. Book 1910, Jesus says, I have come to seek and to save that which is lost. John the Baptist realized this when one day he saw Jesus coming and he said, Behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world. Paul wrote about it in Ephesians when he said, In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace. My friends, if Christ had not come, the course of humanity would be one long downward hopeless trudge toward the eternal night of despair, but Almighty God interrupted all of that. He shut down the cycle of sin by sending Jesus to be our Savior.

If you've never put your trust in Jesus Christ, it would be true to say that without knowing him you cannot know God and without accepting him you cannot be forgiven, for that's the purpose for his coming, to forgive us of our sins. And then there's another reason why he came. Jesus came to satisfy the prophecies of the Old Testament. Jesus became a man to show us the Father. Jesus became a man to save us from our sins.

And here's the fourth one. Jesus became a man to sympathize with our weaknesses. Now this is something that is truly astounding to me. And you say, Where in the world would you pick up such a doctrine? It sounds almost heretical, that Jesus would come down here to identify with our weaknesses.

Well, I didn't make this up, friends. It's right in the Scripture. In the book of Hebrews, in the fourth chapter, we read these words, "'For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses.' He came to 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 might obtain mercy and find grace to help in the time of need." Get your arms around this Scripture, especially at this season of the year. Do you know why you can go to Jesus with whatever's going on in your life and know that he hears you and understands you?

You know that because one day he came down here to walk among us and experience everything that we've experienced. And the Scripture says he experienced it all to the fullest apart from sin. Some theologians like to argue about that, and they say, if Jesus could not sin, then temptation could not have been temptation. Testing could not have been testing.

All they understand is their own finite comprehension of this, but think about it for a moment. Jesus wasn't tempted up until the third hour or the fourth hour or the fifth hour. He felt the whole weight of the temptation. Jesus wasn't tested just a little bit. He felt the whole weight of the testing.

Jesus has been tempted and tested in areas you could never comprehend because nothing ever stopped it since he did not yield to it. He felt the full force of it, and he understands you like no one else. That's why I love the term that comes at Christmastime when we say you call his name Immanuel, and Immanuel means what, class? God with us. Not just God present with us, but God as one of us, God understanding us, God entering into all of our sorrow and our sadness. One of the disconnects at the Christmas season is that so many people who do not know Christ find the season to be one of despair and discouragement because apart from Christ, someone who can identify with us, where do we go to find help in the time of need? The passage says that because he is who he is and because he did what he did in becoming one of us and identifying with our weakness, that means that we can be bold in going to him in prayer, knowing that in praying to him, we will find grace to help in our time of need. Do you need grace in your time of need?

I do, and I'm so thankful that my Lord cared enough about me to come down here and become like I am apart from sin. Dr. Maxwell Maltz is a plastic surgeon. He tells a remarkable story of this kind of love. He said there was a man who had been injured attempting to save his parents in a terrible fire. His elderly parents were both burned to death in that fire, and he was burned over a great part of his body and his face was badly disfigured. He mistakenly interpreted what happened to him as some sort of punishment from God for not having gotten his parents out safely.

In his sorrow and anguish and torture of soul, he would not let anyone see him, not even his own wife. His wife went to see Dr. Maltz, a plastic surgeon, for help, and he told the woman not to worry. He said, I can fix him. I can restore his face. I can give him back his features. And the wife says, well, that's great, except he has repeatedly refused help from anybody.

He won't even see me. And she knew that if he went to her husband with this offer of some sort of plastic surgery that he would be turned down. Well, Dr. Maltz went home, was called again by this woman, and he asked her why she had come again when it seemed as if the problem had been resolved between them, that nothing could be done. And she said to him, I want you to disfigure my face so that I can be like him.

If I can share in his pain, then maybe he will let me back in his life. Maltz wrote in his book, I had never heard anything like that in my life. He said, I'd always been paid to help people look better. She wanted me to make her look like her husband. He wouldn't do it, obviously. He refused. But he decided to go and tell her husband what she had said. So he went to the place where he was, and he knocked on the man's door, and he called loudly, I am a plastic surgeon, and I want you to know that I can restore your face. There was no response. Please come out, he said.

Again, there was no answer. Still speaking through the door, Dr. Maltz told the man of his wife's proposal. She wants me to disfigure her face to make her face like yours in the hope that you will let her back into your life.

That's how much she loves you. And he said there was a brief moment of silence, and then ever so slowly, the doorknob began to turn. Jesus came into this world knowing what it would cost him. He bore in his body the marks of evil that we deserve. He bore in his sinless soul the weight of sin so that we could be forgiven. He bore in his manly frame the hurt and the pain of injustice that we might be understood. The way that woman felt about her husband is the way God feels about you and me.

But I want to tell you something. He did more than make the offer. He took on our face and our disfigurement. He became a man so that God would become touchable and approachable and reachable. He is Emmanuel God with us, and for all of us, that will be a useful thought during these next weeks. God is with us.

Whatever it is you have experienced, you can be sure that God has been all the way to the end of that road, and when you offer your prayer to him, he will embrace you with his love and he will be able to say, I have been there and experienced that. Jesus became a man to satisfy the prophecies of the Old Testament. He became a man to show us the Father. He became a man to save us from our sin, and he became a man to sympathize with our weaknesses.

Finally, he became a man to secure our hope of heaven. He came down here to be one of us so that he could take us up there to be one of them. He came down so that we could go up.

That's pretty easy, isn't it? He came down so that we could go up. Colossians 1-27 says, Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Let me say it to you this way, friends. Until Christ comes to live within your heart, you are not fit for heaven. You couldn't exist up there.

You can't get in for one thing, but you couldn't exist if you did. The only way you can live in heaven is with Christ in you. He's the one who gives you the heaven equipment.

He's the one who makes you fit for heaven, and until Christ is in you, you can't go to heaven. You say, well, that's very arbitrary. That's very politically incorrect. You know what? I don't care because it's the truth of the word of God, you know? I'm not trying to be nasty or in your face. This is not a put-down of anyone else.

I don't know about anybody else. I just know what my Bible says, and my Bible says, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me. There is one way to God, and as we understand the whole story, it becomes more and more easy for us to understand that, does it not? If God is the only one who became man, if God is the only one who cared enough to take us away from the cross and put his own son there, if God has paid the entire price for all of this, this is God's idea, not mine. And God says, this is the way this works. You come to God by coming to Jesus because Jesus is God.

Jesus is the revelation of God, and Jesus is the one who paid the penalty for your sin and for mine. And one day, if we live until he returns, we'll hear the trumpet and we'll go up to be with him. And if we should die before he comes, our bodies will go in the grave and we will go in our spirit to be with him, and one day our soul and our spirit and our body will be rejoined and we shall live with him forever in heaven.

How do I know that? The Bible says it. The Bible teaches it, and listen to me. If Almighty God said all that he said about the first coming of Christ and it came true minutely in an accurate fashion, everything he says about the second coming of Christ will happen the same way. Everything I believe about the first coming comes from the Old Testament fulfilled in the New Testament, and now here are some more promises.

I believe all of those too. He's coming again, and when he does, we're going up to be with him. Now, I want to give you a little paradigm, and I want you to think about this really carefully, and I want to make sure I get this right because this is a little heady.

Are you ready for that? It's a little bit brainy, but I want you to think about it because it's the kind of thing that if you care about it, it'll stick in your head, and here's what it says. It says this about Jesus, this little paradigm. He had to come as he came to be what he was. He had to be what he was to live as he lived. He had to live as he lived to do what he did.

Now let me go back and explain that briefly. He had to come as he came to be what he was, both God and man. He had to be what he was to live as he lived, totally dependent as a man on his Father in heaven. He had to live as he lived. He lived an absolutely perfect life to do what he did. He gave that life in service and in sacrifice for us.

Let's go back over that just one more time. He had to come as he came, born of a virgin, uniquely entering into the human race. He had to come as he came to be who he was. If he had come the normal route, he would have inherited the sin nature of humanity, but he came as he came to be what he was, and he had to be what he was, the sinless Son of God, to live as he lived. How did he live? Without sin, he was the perfect Son of God, and he had to live as he lived to do what he did, because if he had gone to the cross with one sin stain in his soul, he would have been disqualified as the Savior of the world. So he had to come as he came to be what he was. He had to be what he was to live as he lived, and he had to live as he lived to do what he did. Hallelujah.

He is my Savior and my Lord. And we take for granted at this season of the year all that happens. My purpose at Christmastime is, you know, I love this season. I have to be one of the true romantics when it comes to Christmas.

But I don't want us to get lost in the tinsel, in the paper, in the fun and miss out on this truth. I've told people as I've done interviews with response to this book on the Nativity, they asked me, why did I do it? And I said, because I want to take back Christmas. Because the story of Christmas as it was originally written is more exciting than anything I have ever heard that they've tried to come up with since then, and it's filled with the redemptive truth for all mankind.

Wouldn't you want to really get excited about that? Because Almighty God has visited us. He has come to be one of us, and we take it for granted. Charlie was 10, school was out for Christmas, and the family had chosen to spend the holiday in the country. The boy pressed his nose against the bay window of the vacation home and marveled at the British winter they were experiencing. He was happy to trade the blackened streets of London for the cotton white freshness of the snow-covered hills. His mom invited him to go for a drive, and he quickly accepted, and they snaked the car down the twisty road, the tires crunching the snow as they went, and the boy puffed his breath on the window. If you have never lived in the Midwest, you won't understand that, but it is a marvelous thing that happens at a certain time of the year.

He was thrilled, and the mother, however, was a bit anxious. She could tell that this was more than a normal storm. Heavy snowfall came down, visibility lessened. And as she took a curve, the car started to slide, and it didn't stop until it was in a ditch. She tried to drive out of the ditch, but she couldn't do it.

Little Charlie pushed. She pressed the gas, but they were just digging themselves in deeper. They were really stuck, and they needed help. Mile down the road, there was a house, and off they went, knocked on the door. Of course, the woman told them, of course you can come in.

Please come in and warm yourselves. The phone is yours, and she offered them tea and cookies and urged them to stay until the help arrived. An ordinary event? Don't suggest that to the woman who opened the door. She has never forgotten that day. She retold the story a thousand times if she's told it once, and who could blame her? It's not often that royalty appears on your porch, for the two travelers stranded by the England winter were no less than Queen Elizabeth and the heir to the throne, 10-year-old Charles.

You wouldn't forget that day, would you? But I want to tell you something far more wonderful than that has happened. The message of Christmas is that royalty has walked down our streets. Heaven's prince has knocked on our door, and God has moved into our neighborhood, and he has you on his heart today. He has moved into our neighborhood. He is one of us. He is here. Almighty God is here. We do not serve a God who is far away.

We serve a God who is close at hand, for he has come to be with us. He is our Savior, and Christmas is here. Amen.

Amen. Well, Christmas tomorrow is about Joseph, the unheralded father of the Lord Jesus Christ, only in name because he was not his human father. He is sometimes referred to as the forgotten man of Christmas, but what a man he was. And we'll talk about him tomorrow. Why was he important? Why does the Bible give so much information about him? Why did the angels actually come and talk to him about all of this?

Because he was an important player. We'll find out why tomorrow as we talk about the next question, why Joseph. And we'll see you right here tomorrow on this Good Station. Today's message came to you from Shadow Mountain Community Church and Senior Pastor, Dr. David Jeremiah.

We'd love to hear your story of Turning Point's impact on your life. Please write to us at Turning Point, Post Office Box 3838, San Diego, California, 92163. Or visit our website at davidjeremiah.org. Ask for your copy of David's 365-day devotional for 2021.

It's called Strength for Today. It's filled with biblical truth for each day of the year ahead, and it's yours for a gift of any amount. And to keep your spirits bright through the holiday season, visit the Home for Christmas channel at turningpoint.tv. It's your free source for Christmas music, videos, messages, and more. The Home for Christmas channel at turningpoint.tv. I'm Gary Hootflee. Please join us tomorrow as we continue the series, Why the Nativity. Let's hear on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.