Damascus Road Church

Any time I preach a sermon, I usually spend the afternoon rehashing everything that I said, didn't say, shouldn't have said, or said differently.  Today is no different.  It is been said by men smarter than myself that some of the best preaching are those willing to simply let the scriptures speak for themselves.  This might lead us to believe that the best preaching then is opening the Bible just reading the Scripture publicly.  When all is said and done, I hope that I never step in front of Jesus and let my thoughts and words dominate what He wants to say. 

Today, the only thing I desired to make perfectly clear is who Jesus says that He is.  A lot of people say he is this or that or another thing, but it's probably best to let Jesus tell us who He is.  In John 5, he does just that.  Quite plainly, without apology or explanation he says, I am equal with God, we work together and He tells me everything.  Further, he claims he can raise the dead because he possesses life in himself, and that he will judge everyone who has ever lived.  If any of these claims are false, he's anything but a great teacher, a good man, or a wise prophet.  He's either the biggest nutjob who ever lived or the most persuasive used cars salesman we can imagine.  But if their true (which I believe they are), then what do we do with the fact that Jesus is God.  If our theology doesn't actually impact our lives, why believe it, why meditate on it, why speak about it at all. 

If Jesus is God then he is not some good man to like or respect, he's to be worshipped. If Jesus is God then he is not just some great teacher with good moral advice, he's a god with commands to obey. If Jesus is God, then his blood is of infinite value-it's God's blood on the cross. If Jesus is God, then God is no longer some cosmic distance deity, our God has arrived, he's entered humanity, and we can connect with him.

More than anything, if Jesus is God, that makes God quite specific.  We cannot continue to speak in general terms of worshipping God, or praising God, or praying to God, or loving God, we must speak of Jesus, specifically, Jesus of Nazareth.  We a person who has shown us God by what he said and how he lived.  Any religion, cult, or spiritist can speak about "God" and remain eons away from the God that we might imagine they mean.  When you say Jesus, worshipping Jesus, praising Jesus, loving Jesus, living for Jesus...things get much more specific..  We're no longer worshipping the idea of God as we might imagine, but the person of Jesus as written in the Bible.