Words of Jesus Podcast - Jesus Came As-A-Man to Help Us

Episode Date: September 11, 2021

When we give God the traditional attributes of omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence it is easy to arrive at the conclusion of predestination and a sense of finality that is contrary to the story told in the Scriptures.  There is much to be gained by removing the knowledge of the end of the story of Jesus’ life when we study the gospels.  Let's forgo the thought that everything happened just as God knew it would. Instead let us walk with Jesus as he discovers mankind, how men think and what it is like to live in a human body.  Scriptures record in Philippians, “[Christ Jesus] made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:”  It is proper to study the life of Jesus as an example of how we are to live.  See how many times it is recorded that Jesus went apart to be alone and listen to the Father.  Imagine, if you can, a God who lives with us every day and who provides revelation and instruction.  Jesus said it this way, if you keep my commandments, the Father and I will lead and guide you from the inside.  (Not guide us from the pulpit, nor guide us from the Scriptures, but guide us from the inside.)  Our actions (our obedience), is vital to open the lines of communication with our God.    Here’s the Scriptures: “Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” John 14"...one is your [Teacher], even Christ.” Matt. 23***Chapter 10: Jesus Heals an Insane Man (Part 1)ON A SABBATH Jesus went into the synagogue at Capernaum and taught the congregation. His listeners were surprised because he taught as one with authority of others.One of the men present had an unclean spirit. He cried out saying:"Let us alone. What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us? I know these who thou art, 'the Holy One of God.'"Jesus rebuked the devil in the man, saying: "Hold thy peace, and come out of him."The unclean spirit thereupon cried out with a loud voice. It tormented the man, causing him to writhe greatly; but it came out of him. All who were present were astonished and said among themselves:"What thing is this? What new doctrine is this? For with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him."And the fame of Jesus spread abroad, all about the region of Galilee.Later Jesus went to a solitary place to pray. Great numbers came seeking him. When his disciples found him, they said:"All men seek for thee."Jesus replied: "Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also, for therefore came I forth."And Jesus preached in the synagogues throughout Galilee and cast out devils.

Think Red Ink Ministries presents the Words of Jesus series. I'm Don Harris, your host, and I want to give you something wonderful. The words of Jesus. As we learn what he has to say about things, we're going to learn about his life and his ministry, and we're going to learn the his life and his ministry and we're going to learn the way he dealt with things and we we've been talking recently about how he has a communication with his father that's just it's just second to none it's hard for us to even fathom this but I also wanted you to know that even in the midst of all this, we have a tendency to think that,

well, that was Jesus. That's not us. Well, this comes from the... Jesus could have a conversation with his father. Jesus could be spoken to by his father. He could do all these things, but he's Jesus. Come on. I'm not Jesus. And do you know that is the very thing that he wanted to dispel?

Do you know that is the very thing that he chose the way he chose to come to us? He could have crashed through the sky. He could have rolled back the heavens. He could have barked down cascading his voice through the eons of time and space and energy and everything. He could have done it a hundred different ways. But what he did do was he came to be

one of us so that we can be like him. It's the base or the baseline, the foundational understanding of a covenant. That is that two men decide to go into covenant with one another. They come into agreement with one another and therefore the lesser, and there's always a lesser and there's always a greater involved in any covenant. And that is

that the lesser tends to have possession of the possessions of the greater. And the greater attains the empathy of the lesser. He becomes like him. He helps him attain something that's essentially unavailable to him.

It doesn't matter if a person has a lot of power or money and things like that. He still has limitations. He still has things that he can't do. He still has things that are impossible for him, things that are difficult for him. I know you think that people that have more than you simply have more than you do. So they have everything you have plus. Well that's not necessarily true. I remember when I was learning to fly, I learned to

fly off a little tiny tail dragger airplanes off of a grass strip in Waynesville, Ohio. And I remember talking to an ATP pilot who flew what we call the Big Iron. And he had ratings and he could fly anything that would fly. And I remember he says, we're sitting around the BFO, the office of an airport having a cup of coffee

or something. And he says, so you fly out of Waynesville? And I said, yeah. He said, man, I've always wanted to take off a grass. I've always wanted to land on a grass strip. And I'm thinking, really? Here's a guy that is hugely accomplished in the area of flying. I'm a nobody, you know, with 600 hours in my logbook. And he is envious of me? How can that be? But we have to understand that in situations that

well, essentially that we kind of feel sorry for ourself and that we want more in life and we find somebody that has more, we have a tendency to think that they have everything that we have plus. And that's not true. It's just, it's not so. And I can't think of a case where that is so. And the situation where Jesus decided to come to this earth, be born of a woman,

emptying himself of all of his prior powers and authority and everything that he had that he came to put himself into that position but in doing so gained something that he never had. The outlook from behind these eyeballs, the very same kind I have. He had to operate on this earth with a brain just like mine, with flesh

like mine. And this was extremely valuable to him. And by the way, this is why we receive through Christ like we could not receive through the law. We could not receive under the old covenant, neither the covenant with Abraham or the covenant with Moses or any of the covenants with Noah or any of the covenants that have come about.

This is the reason why in this covenant, we have through Christ nothing else has been able to give us. It's called justification. Justification. He lived like we did. He did what we did. So I tell you all that to say that the attitude that many Christians have taken because they've been essentially trained this way is that Jesus was God.

Therefore, he's absolutely untouchable. Anything that he did you could just forget about doing what he did because you're not God. Well, you know, here's the beauty of the whole thing. He wasn't either. He wasn't either. He was at one time he emptied himself of every power and authority that he had in order to come here and be you and show us that we can have relationship with God. This idea of him communicating with his father on a daily

basis, on a daily basis, on a situation-by-situation basis, where he walked up on a situation that required his attention, there was questions that he had to ask because he needed to know. There was also information given to him that he needed to know to make these things happen. We keep seeing this happen. And you know what? You're going to see it happen all the way through his life. There were things that he didn't know. There was just things he didn't know. And as we continue, you're going to find that

there are situations that actually changed. The plan of God to redeem mankind had to change toward the end. I am fully convinced that God did not send Jesus Christ to the earth to be murdered by people. I am totally convinced that he did not come here to suffer and die a cruel murder on a cross outside Jerusalem. I am convinced of this. I know that that's, you know, very common for people to say,

you know, he left the splendor of heaven knowing his destiny. I don't think he did. I thought, I think that this is why we have him in the Garden of Gethsemane crying and sweating as if it were great drops of blood that he felt every ounce of the weight of this redemption in that garden because it wasn't going like it was supposed to go. Are you telling me that he knew this from the very beginning and then all of a sudden, what is he chickening out? Chickening out? Is that a word, chickening? But is that what we're trying to get

across to people? Why is he so distressed in the Garden of Gethsemane, because the plan was failing. He came to be our high priest. Yes, he came to give his life for us, but he came to give his life as a sacrifice. I happen to believe that he came to give his life as a sacrifice in the temple, as the king of Israel, and as the high priest. An office, by the way, no man has held both. It was saved for him. That office

was saved for him from way back in the days that these offices were created. And so we see huge changes taking place and Jesus having to deal with these changes. I don't know how he's going to do that. Walking around with a New Testament in his pocket and thumbing through and looking for scriptures to fix stuff. No, no, no. He was alive and in communication with his father. And he dealt with everything just like you have to deal with it on a day by day basis. These ideas that we've put into people's heads. He was God. He knows everything from the beginning to the end. He's sitting at the end of time drumming his fingers on the throne

waiting for everything to turn out like he always knew it would. No, no, no, no, no. Where'd you get that from? There's no reason to believe that. There's no reason to believe that at all. As a matter of fact, that idea is detrimental to you. You need to understand that he came to be our example. That we're to follow in his steps. Well, good luck trying to follow in the steps of God. You're not equipped to do that. But what he is

equipped to do is to help us like nobody else could help us. By coming and being one of us and overcoming anyway. And so he's a great encouragement to me that Jesus didn't sin. I don't have to sin. What did you say? Well, there's another one of these doctrines that just plague us that we can't help it. We have to sin every day. We have to break the commandments. No, you don't. No, you don't.

Name one of the commandments you have to break. Will you please tell me one of those 10 commandments? I want you to look them over and tell me which one of those you have to break today. Well, you see, people say, well, I may not break the commandments, but I had an ugly thought. Well, where does the Bible say that ugly thoughts are a violation of the commandments of God? We have taken everything that is less than perfect. As a matter of fact, I've heard sin defined that way. Anything less than perfect. Wow, where did you get that idea? Who came up with that? Because you won't find that in the scriptures at all. Do you know how many sins David committed in his life? Do you know the Bible only records two of them? It says that these are the two things that he did that were a problem between him and God. Two things? Really?

Two? I would think it would be 20 million things. David never had an ugly thought? Of course he did. As a matter of fact, there's a lot of things about David that displeased God that weren't sin at all. David says, I want to build you a house. And God says, you know, I appreciate that, Dave, but you know what? You have not had a lifestyle of a man that I want to build my house. You've been a man of blood. You're a man of war. My house needs to be a house of peace because I appreciate what's in your heart. And I want you to do what's in your heart, but we're going to let your

son do it that's going to come after you. He's going to be a man of peace. I'll make sure that there's never a war as long as Solomon is king. How's that? And Solomon can build that house. So here you have the Lord rejecting David in one area, but not necessarily because of sin. We have a wrong idea about sin. I don't know where, well, I do know where we got it from. But people promoting their doctrine.

But, you know, there's such a thing as really, really stupid behavior. There's such a thing as really selfish behavior. There's such a thing as sins against our fellow man that aren't sins against God, but they are sins. They're shortcomings with our relationships with other people. The Bible talks about you can grieve the Holy Spirit of God. You can sin against Christ. But you see, we just have to have an understanding that when the Lord demands of us sinless

perfection, He expects us to keep these Ten Commandments. People say, well, you know, I can't keep the ten. I only keep the two. Let me tell you something, sister. You're deceiving yourself. If you think that you're keeping the two commandments, two. Let me tell you something, sister. You're deceiving yourself. If you think that you're keeping the two commandments, you know, the Pharisee came to Jesus and said, what's the greatest commandment? He said, well, the first greatest commandment is love of the Lord thy God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself is the second commandment. On these two, hang all the law

and the prophets. So there are people who believe that I'm just keeping the two, therefore I'm keeping the ten. Look, you're not keeping those two. You're just deceiving yourself. You don't love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Don't tell me that you do. It's an impossibility for us to do. And he knows that and knew that. You can't love your neighbor as you love yourself. You feed yourself and dress yourself and bathe yourself and make sure you have everything you need. You don't do that for your neighbor. So to love him and to care about him

more than you do yourself, or at least as much as you do yourself? You don't do that. You're just deceiving yourself. So what was God's gift to us? He says, I'll tell you what. If you keep these 10, I'll credit you for the two. How's that? It's going to be an impossibility for you otherwise. Just keep these 10. I know you can't love me with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength,

but you can make sure other gods aren't in front of me. That's what you can do. There's one thing you can't love me with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, but you can make sure other gods aren't in front of me. That's what you can do. There's one thing you can do. You can make sure my name's not taken in me. You cannot bow down to images. How about all that? Can you do that? Yeah, I can do that.

Well, if you do that, I'll credit you for this. It's really the Ten Commandments are a wonderful gift to us. They're not a curse. They have a curse with them to people who break them, but they themselves, they're not a curse. They're a wonderful thing. What does the apostle say in the scriptures? He says, the commandments aren't grievous.

They're not a grievous thing. I mean, essentially, they're simple to keep. Alright, off on different subjects. We are talking about, we are in chapter 10 of our little book, Jesus heals an insane man. And the fame of Jesus spread abroad all about the region of Galilee. Later, Jesus went into a solitary place to pray. Great numbers came seeking him.

When his disciples found him, they said, all men seek for thee. Jesus said, let, a lot of subjects are mentioned here that need to be covered, and they will be covered as we continue through the red words. So I don't want to take a whole lot of time with each one here. But there are some things here that are important. One of them was that as I've told you, Jesus was our example. He was He came to this earth to give us an example of how we should live. One of the things that was

Jesus' habit was that He would set Himself apart from the world and people that love and care about him and these kind of things to the point that as we see here, even his disciples had to find him because he was off by himself. And what was he doing when he was off by himself? The Bible says he was praying. He was praying to

the Lord God Jehovah, His Father. And in doing so, this is where the great strength of Christ would come from. I believe that He received instruction day by day as to how things were going to happen. As I said before, the changes that were taking place even in the redemption process there was a time and I can almost because of the inconsistencies

in the Gospels the timeline is very difficult to deal with in aligning the synoptic Gospels and especially the Gospel of John. But I can pretty much tell you the time when one of these encounters that he was having with the Father was when the Father was telling him this is not turning out the way it's supposed to turn out. We're going to have to make a change. You remember when Jesus went back to his disciples and said, hey guys,

I've got bad news. The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of sinful men. He's going to be scourged and he's going to be tortured. And they said, well, we're not going to let that happen. He said, no, no, no, no, no. Don't talk like that. We're going to try to fix this situation. I'm no longer going to be the king. I'm no longer going to be set as high priest

over Israel. That idea has come and gone. This is not turning out like it should. So he was explaining to the disciples that things are about to go wrong. Well I happen to believe that the Lord God Jehovah is that they're working this out as they go.

Because there are things that are going to have to change. You're never going to be the king of Israel. It's just not going to happen. And you're not going to be high priest. We have to set aside the Levitical priesthood. These people won't even let us question their doctrine, much less set aside the Levitical priesthood and install the Melchizedek priesthood. It's just not going to happen. So what are we going to do? We're going to work this thing out. We're going to make it happen.

And we're going to see all this as we go. I'm not going to leave you hanging on this. Maybe you're hanging right now. But it's an interesting process because there was a time when I think that Jesus saw this whole thing as a failure that there would be no redemption. Because if they murder him, you know a sacrifice has to be a willing sacrifice. It has to be an innocent sacrifice. There's many criteria involved in a sacrifice

that were going to be made impossible because they were going to carry him away and murder him. I mean they tried to push him off a cliff once when he first got started. And now they've decided and murder him. I mean, they tried to push him off a cliff once when he first got started, and now they've decided to destroy him. The religious leadership of that day, they're amazing how conscienceless they are. It's amazing to me. As a matter of fact, it's kind of an obscure scripture. People aren't so familiar

with it, but did you know how they were going to punish Lazarus for causing people to believe in Jesus? Because he was raised from the dead? They think Lazarus has caused all kinds of trouble for us because he's been raised from the dead. Well, what are we going to do? Well let's kill him! They were going to kill him! It seems like this is their answer for a lot of the problems that they encounter is to just kill their enemy. And Jesus turned out to be their enemy

and now they're coming after him. Well we see that Jesus took time as a part of his day that he would go and find a solitary place and fellowship with his father. This is, I see this as just absolute instruction for us. You hear me say that three ways that can straighten out

70% of your problems overnight and 100% of them over the course of your lifetime is that, number one, you keep the commandments, you never disobey your conscience, and you take time every day to hear the voice of God. People say, well, where did you get that from? I don't remember reading that in the scriptures. Well, it's all over the scriptures. And here's one of them right here, where Jesus took time every day to hear the voice of God. He went to a solitary place. Well, you know, I just couldn't make it from week to week unless I went to church.

Well, that's because you've got a problem, my friend. That's not a solution. That's a problem. We need to have within us a relationship with God that's not contingent upon who or when or where or how many people we fellowship with. As a matter of fact, we find Jesus, he doesn't say, come on guys, let's go have church. You know, I need to get my batteries recharged, as some people say. I need to get my batteries charged, so let's go off and have church. Just the 13 of us.

No, he didn't. As a matter of fact, he didn't say, well, in one place he did say, you stay here, I'm going over there to pray. But in this particular case, he didn't even tell his disciples where he was. He said, I just don't know if I can just go off by myself like that. Really, are you by yourself?

Is that the problem? You don't have a real relationship with God so much so that you could go off by yourself and feel lonesome? I mean, he's not that real to you. Is that what you're saying? That's a shame. Matter of fact, that's a huge indicator, should be an indicator for you that something needs to change. And that is you need to have a real relationship with the Father through Jesus Christ. To be able to approach the throne of grace, you have that ability and you don't do it except in church when some schmo stands up and says it's time to pray?

Really? You know, if you did this, you just wouldn't be so pitifully dependent upon things in church that come as a matter of schedule. I heard a man tell a story one time. They had a big problem within the church or within the denomination or whatever, but there was a whole bunch of hoodoos around the table, all in suits, big spiritual guys or whatever. And somebody said, okay, it's time to open the meeting.

Let's open it with prayer. Well, one old gray-haired man says, look, if anybody is here right now and you haven't been praying about this situation, you need to get up and leave. Well, when I heard that, I wanted to stand on my feet and cheer. I thought, surely there's got to be somebody that understands how prayer works. It's not time to pray. We pray because we want God's input on certain things. We want to come before him. We want to get his opinion about things. And if there is something pressing, we should way before now have had some kind of communication with him. What did I do?

Did I just run through the whole show? Run through the whole show. Time is gone. But we'll continue right here next time. Join us next time to hear more of the words of Jesus. Hope you're enjoying the series. All right, until next time, think red ink.

We'll see you then. Bye-bye. You've been listening to Don C. Harris of Think Red Ink Ministries. Email don at thinkredink.com. That's thinkredink.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series.