Table of contents for Who is He?

1. Who is He? Part 1: Who do you say He is?
2. Who is He – Part 2: What did He do?
3. Who is He – Part 3: Why and How?

1 John 5:13-15
13-15My purpose in writing is simply this: that you who believe in God’s Son will know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you have eternal life, the reality and not the illusion. And how bold and free we then become in his presence, freely asking according to his will, sure that he’s listening. And if we’re confident that he’s listening, we know that what we’ve asked for is as good as ours.

Rev 3: 20
20Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.

Why did Jesus do what He did?

Can you really understand the “Empire Strikes Back” without having seen “Star Wars, A New Hope”? Can you really understand “The Return of the Jedi” without having seen “The Empire Strikes Back”? Well, in the same way you can miss out on today’s lesson unless you understand what we’ve been speaking the past 2 weeks. You can walk away with “an” understanding of what is presented but it risks being the complete understanding because you’ve not seen the two prequels leading up to today. Many well meaning people across the world begin by answering that question without first flushing out who Jesus is, and secondly, explaining “what” He did in the first place.

And today …

Today we conclude by focusing on the Why and the How – but we will once again have an incomplete understanding unless we understand WHAT He did, which can only be understood in its completion if we realize WHO He is.

Table of contents for Who is He?

1. Who is He? Part 1: Who do you say He is?
2. Who is He – Part 2: What did He do?
3. Who is He – Part 3: Why and How?

John 3:16 (The Message)
16-18″This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.

The problem we have in the world however is that His primary purpose for being born is oftentimes overlooked, masked, or cloaked in all the awesome and wonderful things He did.

Last week we talked about the importance of understanding WHO Christ was through the lens of Matthew 16:13-18. In that text Jesus confronts the disciples with a discussion on who Christ is; in verse 16 Peter gives the answer: “You are the Messiah, the Savior, and the Son of God”. We spent a great deal of time talking afterwards about how we stand on that decision and how it relates to others – let me re-iterate that that this understanding of who Christ is in this scripture is not a discussion on evagelism, or how we go sharing Christ with other people – that’s for another sermon. Rather it’s a question on whether or not WE, all of us here right now, fully understand who Jesus is. This week we continue in our series as we look to what He did.

Table of contents for Who is He?

1. Who is He? Part 1: Who do you say He is?
2. Who is He – Part 2: What did He do?
3. Who is He – Part 3: Why and How?

As we approach the Advent Season, Christians all over the world turn their focus towards the birth of Jesus Christ. As exciting as it may be, however, we cannot truly appreciate the importance of His birth unless we understand who He is. I say this because it’s a very tricky road as well we come upon this time of the year. In particular, it’s tough because we have to accept that in knowing *who* Christ is, we have to recognize that which makes Him different than all other Gods and, as such, those things which make us different from other religions.

Why does this matter? For many reasons, however the ones I want to focus on are:

• As a church we should love and care anyone & everyone, however there are boundaries we observe as Christians, and we cannot accept everything – the church that stands for everything, stands for nothing.
• As a church we should love and care anyone & everyone, however this does not mean that we have to embrace their religious and faith choice – as Christians we see Christ as the only way.
• As a church we should love and care anyone & everyone, however we cannot forget the purpose of Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection – to give us eternal life through our father in heaven. This concept is unique only to Christians – life & heaven through the death of Jesus Christ.

It’s through these precepts that we then celebrate the love, joy, peace, and hope we find in Advent.  It’s also important for us to understand that it is only through Him that we receive God’s version of love, joy, peace, and hope.

Who is He? vs. Who do you say He is?

Matthew 16:13-18 Son of Man, Son of God