“Who Is Jesus?”
Acts
Intro.: A couple of weeks ago I watched a very
popular and “successful” preacher from a Mega-church talking for more than a
half-hour about a god who is all powerful and is directing every aspect of our
lives to give us everything we want. Unfortunately, such blessings can only be
secured if this god is lassoed, hog tied and coerced by our positive
attitude. Throughout this man’s sermon I
did not hear Jesus’ name mentioned once, yet at the end of his message He
encouraged the hearers to invite Him into their hearts. After hearing the Christless
message many a hearer who was asked to turn their life over to Jesus may have
been wondering: Who is Jesus?
That question has been asked by people
ever since He walked among us. Almost
all agree that He is an influential figure in the history of the world. But is he only a wise and moral man or just
another of the world’s many charismatic religious leaders? Today, in our epistle, we are given the answer
to who Jesus really is from the perspective of the Holy Trinity. The first thing Peter tells us is that …
I.
Jesus Is The Man Who Fulfilled The Purpose Of God The Father. (vv22b-23)
A. From eternity God had a purpose in mind for
the people He would create in His image.
It has always been His plan that we should be like Him in holiness and desire. He created us to live in perfect fellowship
with Him through worship and obedience, to know His love and love Him in
return. When sin entered the world and
each of our lives, however, it was as if someone put a can of florescent orange
spray paint in the hands of an insane person and let them loose in an art
museum. We have effectively ruined the work
of the master, wildly splattering our own ugly color of sin all over His
masterpiece, and pretending that we have produced a better work. Yes, we have ruined what God created and for
us who still stand with spray can of sin in hand it would seem that nothing
could be done to restore His glorious work.
But God, the Father, loves the people He created so much that He would
not rest until everything was made right.
Already in the Garden of Eden, while Adam
and Eve stood shamefully holding their own fig leaf shaped spray cans in front
of them God announced His plan to fulfill His purpose. He would send a perfect man to be born of
woman to crush the head of Satan for them.
Throughout the Old Testament God repeated this promise to send a Savior
who would be a man to take our place in fulfilling God’s purpose of holiness
and love.
But it was not enough that this man should
live for us; it was also part of God’s plan that the perfect man should share
His love for us so that He would willingly sacrifice himself for our sins. So from before the creation of the world God
planned for an innocent man to die on the cross as our substitute to receive
the punishment that our sins rightly deserved.
In today’s epistle Peter announces that Jesus of Nazareth was that
perfect man who was “delivered up,.. crucified and killed by the
hands of lawless men. [not by some unfortunate
accident or miscarriage of justice, but]. according to
the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.”
B. When the question is asked who is Jesus we
can answer He is the one who became man to live and die among us according the
Father’s plan and purpose.
Jesus is a true man who was tempted like us
and even more severely. There is an old
spiritual which cries out, “Nobody knows
the troubles I see, Nobody knows but Jesus…” What a
comfort it must have been for the slaves who originally sang this song. They suffered in ways we could never begin to
understand, but through it all they knew that Jesus did. In the same way Jesus knows all the troubles
we see in our life. He knows what you
and I experience every day as we are attacked by the devil and all his agents
of deception. He understands the desires
of the flesh and the needs of the body.
He is familiar with the way the world attempts to swallow us up and keep
us from fulfilling God’s purpose for us.
He is the man who experienced all our
feelings and emotions. He knows what it
is to be hated by the people he loved and the hurts of betrayal and
rejection. He has felt the same joys and
sorrows, happiness and sadness, excitement and disappointment we do. He is a perfect man, but a man who is always
there for us, who can sympathize with us and be the one unfailing friend to
whom we can go in prayer.
Above all else Jesus is the one who became
Man to suffer the agony of death for us.
After living His perfect life of love and obedience, and struggling with
the temptations and torment in the Garden, He surrendered Himself to the
Father’s will and offered his human body and soul upon the cross to accomplish
the Father’s purpose for us to live in everlasting fellowship with God, fully
restored to the image of our Heavenly Father.
Peter goes on to reveal that...
II. Jesus Is The Very Son Of God Who
Conquered Death. (vv22b, 24-32)
A. When the apostle addressed the crowds he showed
that Jesus was more than an ordinary man by reminding them of all that Christ
had said and done while He was among them.
The words He spoke were not from men and the works He performed were not
human, they were divine. The apostle
said that Jesus was “accredited…by God through mighty works
and wonders and signs” (v22b) Turning water into wine, feeding thousands on
a few fish and loaves of bread, stopping the wind and calming the seas, giving
sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf, making the lame to walk and the
mute to speak, casting out demons, and even giving life to the dead, declared
that Jesus was more than a man. These
were clear signs that He was the promised Messiah, the Christ, and the Son of
the living God.
B. Jesus is the One of whom David spoke
centuries earlier in the Psalms. Peter
demonstrates that as a prophet David knew and confessed the plan which God had
revealed to Him.
Along with all the prophets David knew
that the Holy One of God was coming into the world to save God’s people from
their sins. Before the humanity of Jesus
was created in the womb of the Virgin Mary He had always been the true,
uncreated and only begotten Son of God who lived and reigned with the Father
and the Holy Spirit as One God. When He
became man none of this was lost or altered, but as the Bible tells us “the fullness of God dwelt in Him in bodily
form.” This is how much the Father loves us, He sent
His only begotten Son to become the atoning sacrifice for our sin, so that all
who believe in Him will not perish but have eternal life.
Because of who
Jesus was it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. He was not just a man who died on a cross,
but God in the flesh who willingly laid down His life for us, the friends He
loves. As Lord of Life He had the
authority and power not only to lay His life down, but to take it up
again. As David foretold, God the Father
could not let His Son see decay, but he raised Him up from the agony of death
suffered for us so that He could conquer death.
Through His resurrection Jesus has now destroyed
the power of death over us. His promise
is that because He lives we shall live also; even now through the life giving
waters of Baptism we have crossed over from death to a new and eternal life
with God. The blood of Christ has
cleansed us from our sins, and begun the restoration of God’s image in us who
are the masterpieces of His creation.
The last thing our epistle tells us is that…
III. Jesus Is The Lord And Christ Who Pours
Out The Holy Spirit. (vv33-36)
A. Peter proclaims to the people of
No matter what we may do with Him God has
made Jesus both Lord and Christ. The
people to whom Jesus first came did not make much of Him. He was not the kind of Christ they wanted,
the kind who would offer them a worldly kingdom of glory, victory over their earthly
enemies, and promise them temporal wealth and success. In the end they rejected Him, mocked and
ridiculed Him, and crucified Him. But none
of this could change who Jesus was, is and always will be. He is the Lord -Yahweh and the promised
Christ, anointed to be our Savior and everlasting King.
Still
today there are those who have no use for a Savior like Jesus and a God who
died on the cross for them. Even we are
guilty of making far too little of Jesus and the kingdom He offers us. We demand what He has not promised and reject
what He offers. Like the crowds who
listened to Peter we have mocked, ridiculed and crucified Him over and over
again by our sin. But what you or I or
the world things about Him can change who He is. Jesus is the Lord and Christ who loves us,
died and rose again for us, and reigns for us in Heaven.
B. Jesus is the one who now pours out the Holy
Spirit upon us. Jesus promised His
disciples that after His ascension He would send the Holy Spirit, the
Comforter, who would lead them into all truth and take all that He had
purchased for them and all that He had done for them and give it to them.
At
the first Pentecost Jesus poured out the Holy Spirit upon His disciples in a special
way. You heard about that last week how
they heard what sounded like a roaring wind, and saw tongues of fire descending
and resting upon them, and how they were given the gift of speaking the Gospel
in every language with great boldness to all the people who were gathered. The result was that many were brought to
repentance and were saved.
Jesus continues to be the One who pours
out the Holy Spirit upon all of us today.
Just as with the crowds who heard the Gospel and received the blessings
of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Spirit comes upon us through the
Word and Sacraments. Like the crowds to
whom Peter spoke we are cut to the heart when our sins against Christ are
uncovered. Yet, we are also comforted
when directed to the cleansing waters of baptism, when the Holy Spirit enters
our hearts because our ears have heard the sweet words of forgiveness, and when
we are invited to taste our salvation in the Lord’s Supper.
Concl.: On this feast
of the Holy Trinity let us confess to all the world who Jesus really is: The Lord and Christ who fulfilled the purpose
of God the Father, who is God the Son and who pours out upon us God the Holy
Spirit.