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Where Jesus leads, we are to follow. This is often a challenge for the church, but perhaps most so where we must learn to trust in Jesus that is accompanied by the brokenness of this world, in its pain and suffering.
Observations:
- Jesus has truly experienced the suffering of human death
- Jesus has gone ahead of us through death
- Jesus has identified with us in yielding to our humanity, including death
- Jesus has been born to make us holy by his death
Conclusions: What does the incarnation establish?
- Affirmation – God has designed humans to rule
- Qualification – Jesus was made man
- Substitution – You and I will and have screwed it up
- Initiation – Jesus rules perfectly
- Imitation – Jesus, our Champion, now shows us how to suffer victoriously
Application:
- Look to Jesus
- Look like Jesus
- Look with Jesus
Matthew 1:21
“She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
Acts 4:27-28
“Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.”
Revelation 13:8
“All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.”
Acts 3:15
“You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this.” (Archegos)
Acts 5:31
“God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins.”
Hebrews 12:2
“Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith…”
Philippians 2:8
“And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient onto death— even death on a cross!”
Philippians 2:5-8
“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient onto death— even death on a cross!”
Colossians 1:16
“For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.”
1 Peter 2:21-23
“To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.”