Louie Giglio - Jesus In His Own Words (Son of Man)
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H.G. Wells was a well-known writer and historian in England in the 1800s. He said, «I am a historian, not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history.»
That’s what H.G. Wells thought about Jesus. It’s the very center of history. And you can look across the spectrum of people who have lived in the last several thousand years and find all kinds of opinions about Jesus. But what we want to do in these next few weeks together is just let Jesus talk so that you don’t need to hear a preacher tell you about Jesus. You don’t need to hear some pastor tell you what you should think about Jesus. You don’t need to hear some podcast tell you what you need to think about Jesus. You don’t even need H.G. Wells as much as I love what he thought about Jesus. You don’t need some philosopher, some debater, some online voice or critic to tell you what they think about Jesus. Because there are people on all sides of the spectrum, people like this who think he’s the very center of history.
Other people think he is a figment of our imagination concocted by people to start a movement towards religion so that they could gain power on earth. And there is everyone in between. But praise God, we can let Jesus talk for himself, and we can hear in Jesus' own words who he is. That way, you can come face to face with Jesus, and you can choose at the end of this collection to believe what Jesus says and let it change your life, or you can choose to have your own opinion and maybe go a different way. But at least you will have heard from Jesus. Amen.
So I’m excited about taking us on this journey today. We’re going to go all the way back to the beginning. I’m assuming most everyone who came to Passion City Church today believes in Jesus and believes he’s real. But there might be somebody at Passion City Church today who isn’t sure. And I’m certain that you have a friend, a coworker, or a neighbor, someone you might want to send a link to this talk to, and they’re not sure. So let’s, on their behalf and even on our behalf, go all the way back to the beginning today and ask the most fundamental and basic question: Is Jesus real? Did Jesus exist?
To get the answer to that, we’ve got two sources today, and I love it. One of them is the Gospel eyewitness accounts of Jesus. Amen. And before you discount that and say, «Yeah, well, I knew you were going to go there. Everything we know about Jesus, we learn from the Bible. And you know, my neighbor doesn’t even believe in the Bible, so that’s not going to work for them.» Well, let me tell you something. Don’t sleep on the Gospels. The Gospels are the most validated ancient texts of any kind in history. You can dig in and find out all that manuscript evidence for yourself. But I’m telling you, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John’s eyewitness accounts of Jesus are the most contested literature on Earth. And yet here they are today, and here we are today, being changed by the power that is in these eyewitness accounts of Jesus because they are full of life and truth.
Let me give you one example. This is a beautiful little fragment from the Gospel of John, an early manuscript copy. Now, we’ve talked about this many times. You can take a core class and dive much deeper. You can do your own research and go as deep as you want. But the original manuscripts of the New Testament were written by hand, written by men, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and then that manuscript was copied, and then it was carefully copied again.
What we have are some of the earliest copies of original manuscripts of any kind of literature that exists. And this little fragment here is a fragment of the Gospel of John. It’s called Ryland’s Papyrus P52. You can see it in the Ryland collection in Manchester, England. It is such a precious relic. It has John chapter 18 a little bit on one side and a little bit on the other side. This particular verse right here is from John 18:37. And interestingly, Jesus is kind of answering our question today in this little fragment of the Ryland Papyrus, P52. «You are a king then,» Pilate said. And Jesus answered, «You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. The reason that I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.»
Now, why is this little fragment a big deal? It’s a big deal because John’s Gospel was written somewhere around 90 to 100 AD. This fragment is dated somewhere between 100 and 150 AD. So imagine the original Gospel of John being written in, let’s just pick a number, 92 AD, and then 15 years later, 20 years later, that copy still existing now has been copied. And this fragment is that close to the original manuscript of John. You’re not going to find that in any other literature in the world. Nobody’s going to stand up in a university and teach a literature class on some ancient piece of literature and say, «Oh, and by the way, we’ve got manuscript evidence that’s this close to the original writing of this text.»
Yet, they’re going to teach it to you as if it is the real deal. And now we’ve got this little fragment that is far greater evidence than anything in terms of closing the gap between original writing and a manuscript copy. This word of God, I’m telling you, it is trustworthy and dependable. It has been hammered on from every side, but yet God has these little moments where he says, «You’re going to need this because I want people to know this is trustworthy.» I say it again, don’t sleep on the four Gospels. They are dependable ancient texts.
But that’s not the only way we know whether or not Jesus is real and whether or not Jesus existed. I don’t want you to have to walk away. Even though I’d feel confident, I’ve studied so much of the manuscript evidence for the scripture. I’d feel fantastic if this was all I had. But a lot of people say to me all the time, «I don’t believe in the Bible. I believe some people got together in a basement and concocted this thing and wove all these stories together for all their own selfish purposes.»
And I’m like, okay, well then let’s go outside of scripture and let’s go to some of the historians of the day. And today, I’m just bringing one. I could bring a lot. Again, you can get more in core, and you can do your own research. But this one comes from Tacitus. Tacitus was a Roman historian. He had no skin in the game as far as wanting to show you and prove to you that Jesus was a real person. He’s just writing history from his point of view.
And in AD 116, somewhere contemporaneous with this little Ryland fragment that we’re looking at, this is what Tacitus writes, defending the fact that Nero wanted to blame the burning of Rome on the Christians. «Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations called Christians by the populace.» So, Christians being persecuted is not new. «Christus,» which would be Christ, from whom the name had its origin. These Christians, they’re all based on this one named Christ. He suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, in a most mischievous superstition. Thus, for the moment again, it broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular.
A Roman historian is writing in AD 116 about a man who suffered the extreme penalty. What was the extreme penalty in Rome? It was death on a cross. And so now we have a Roman historian telling us that there are Christians, a Roman historian telling us that they’re all centered around Christ, and a Roman historian telling us that under Pontius Pilate, Christ was crucified. This is not just simply, «Oh, the Bible says so.» This is the evidence from history. And we could look at Pliny the Younger. If you want to stay in the Roman historians, we could go to Josephus, a Jewish historian. We could go to Thallus, a Greek historian, or to Lucian, a Greek satirist. There are other voices speaking from the time of Jesus' life, death, resurrection, and the birth of the early church that are saying to us Jesus did exist and Jesus is a real person.
The second thing I want us then to ask is if Jesus is a real person, then who is he? Okay, maybe everybody will cash in today and say, «Okay, that sounds pretty convincing. I believe Jesus existed, but who is he?» Because a lot of people say, «Well, he is a good teacher. He’s a philosopher.» Maybe your coworker says, «I’ll give you that Jesus existed. I think he was a moral leader, a religious figure, a good man, a humanitarian. I’ll give you that Jesus existed.»
But they’re not sure how to answer the question that Time magazine was always trying to ask, and that is who was Jesus? Who was he? Time magazine puts Jesus on the cover a lot. Apparently, Jesus sells. So at least once a year, a couple times a year, Jesus makes the cover of Time magazine. This one is from 1988, but by 2013, they’d come to a different conclusion. They listed the 100 most significant people in history in that edition, December of 2013. And number one on the list, Jesus Christ, the most significant figure in history. But they didn’t answer the question, but who is he? Who is Jesus?
And that’s why we’re coming around to let him answer the question in his own words. And today we’re focusing on the title he used about himself the most. Do you know what it is? He had many titles, Jesus. But the one he used the most, 81 times in the four Gospels, was Son of Man. And Jesus chose this title for a specific reason. And we’re going to see today why it rises to the top of the list of all the titles that Jesus used about himself and titles that were used about him.
What does it mean that Jesus is the Son of Man? Well, it means two things primarily. The first one is that Jesus was fully human and fully divine. The only person ever to live fully human and fully divine. What does that mean? It means that Jesus is the product of a miraculous conception, a virgin birth. This is the hinge of our Gospel. Yes, that he died, was buried, and rose from the dead, but all that is for naught without the virgin conception of Jesus. We see this in the Gospel of Luke. Luke 1:34: «How will this be?» Mary asked the angel, «Since I am a virgin.» And the angel answered, «The Holy Spirit will come on you,» and man, this just gives me chills just to read this line, «and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called what? Son of God.»
Now Jesus used primarily Son of Man. But right now we want to see that he’s fully man and fully God. This virgin now is going to be overwhelmed by the presence of God. And it is God who’s going to conceive the baby in her womb. Son of God. But then we see in Luke 2, we’re going to all hear this at the Christmas gathering. «In those days,» say it with me, «Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken in the entire Roman world and everyone went to their own town to register.»
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth — we’re going to come back to this in just a minute- in Galilee, that’s up in the north, to Judea, to Bethlehem, the town of David. Why? Because he belonged to the house and the line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him, and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger because there was no guest room available for them.
The picture here is that Jesus, when he was born, wasn’t delivered wearing a crown. He was delivered like a baby. Because though conceived by God Almighty through the Holy Spirit, he was a biological child of Mary, fully God and fully man. He was wrapped like every baby would have been, cleaned like every baby would have been, and placed in this cloth and in the manger where he cried because he was a biological child by miraculous divine conception. Son of Man, yes, Son of God, conceived of God, miracle of God, hovering of God, but yes, Son of Man, born of a woman. That’s not the only concept of Son of Man, but it’s important for you and I to see today that Jesus is fully man and fully God.
Secondly, it’s important for you to see today that he’s a real person. I don’t mean like he existed, like a real person. I mean, he’s like a real person. So he’s not a special person. It’s not like, «Oh, the little baby’s born. Let’s put him in his golden bassinet. Oh, we don’t even need a bassinet. Look, he’s already walking and talking. Let’s just put him in a little baby high chair. Oh, he doesn’t need a baby high chair. He’s already advanced beyond that.» No, he is a real person who lived a real human life because he was fully God, but he was also fully man. He was born in Bethlehem, but Herod issued a decree, and his family had to flee to Egypt. So, he had a few of his childhood years in Egypt before the time was right for Mary and Joseph to head back to Nazareth.
He grew up in the streets of Nazareth until it was time for his public ministry, and he relocated to the north part of the Sea of Galilee. A real person. Just notice in his life. It says in Matthew 2 that when they had gone — the Magi had gone. Now, most people don’t think they arrived on the day of the birth. They came a little later, so Jesus was a little older at this time. And when they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. «Get up,» he said, «take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod,» says King Herod, «is going to search for the child to kill him.» So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night, and he left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so, was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet, «Out of Egypt I called my Son.»
Now, that’s Hosea’s prophecy, hundreds of years before Jesus was born. And people might have thought, wait a minute, the prophet says that Jesus is going to be born in Bethlehem, and this prophet says he’s going to come out of Egypt. Is it Bethlehem or Egypt? Is it Bethlehem or Egypt? These prophets, they need to get their story straight, right? No, it’s Bethlehem, but they didn’t know about Herod. And they didn’t know Herod was going to issue a decree. They didn’t know Jesus' family was going to have to flee into Egypt. And then out of Egypt, they were going to come back into the Promised Land. So the prophecy of Hosea is fulfilled when Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi. He was furious and gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under in accordance with the time he’d learned from the Magi.
And then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled. So here comes the second prophecy that’s fulfilled in this story. We’ve already got one prophecy fulfilled: «A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more.» After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, «Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.» So he got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee. He went back to Nazareth.
You’re like, man, this sounds like a history lesson. It is because Jesus is a real person. It looked like this. Mary and Joseph up here in Nazareth had to go to register for this census. So they go down to where Joseph is from, to Bethlehem. Herod seeks to take out Jesus even as a young boy. The enemy was already trying to snuff out Jesus. So they go in the night down through Gaza and along the coast into Egypt and down into Egypt at this 2-year-old boy leaving in the night. It’s Mary and Joseph and Jesus.
You ever felt like you had to get out of town? You ever had to get your stuff together in a hurry and hustle on? Did you ever take off and not know exactly where you were going? Has anyone ever pushed you out of your family, pushed you out of a job, pushed you out of a relationship? And you’re like, «God, what’s going on? Jesus, where are you in all of this? I’m getting pushed out into the night, and I don’t know exactly what all the pieces are going to look like, and I don’t know where I’m going, and I don’t have a home right now.» And he’s like, «Yeah, I don’t have like exact memories of it. Probably better than yours because I was fully God and fully man. But I don’t remember all the details of that night. I just do remember that we hustled out that night, loaded up the donkey, and headed out into the dark and started to a country that was not our own.»
He’s the Son of Man. And he lived a real life. Yes, fulfilling prophecies. Yes. But ultimately, when Herod had died, the family does a turnaround, and they do the dotted line journey all the way back up through Gaza, back to the northern coast, and then back to Nazareth. And that’s where Jesus grew up. That’s where he played in the street. I remember going to Nazareth for the first time and closing my eyes and just thinking, he ran up and down the streets here. He yelled at his brothers and sisters here. Who knows what they all got into? And what is Nazareth all about? Nazareth is a little agricultural village. So insignificant at this time that when news of Jesus began to spread and some guys told this man named Nathaniel, «Hey, there’s this man named Jesus. He’s a miracle worker. You should meet him. He’s a special man. He’s from Nazareth.» And Nathaniel said, «Nazareth? What? Nothing good could come out of Nazareth.»
I mean, it’s kind of like, «Come on, you know?» It just had that vibe to it, you know? It was just like where nothing good came from. And so Nazareth wasn’t prominent. It wasn’t special. Jesus didn’t grow up in Tinseltown. He grew up in this little agricultural village. If you do the research, the highest number of people that they think would have lived there would be 2,000. I don’t know about 2,000; more likely 1,000 or less. Most of the data you’re going to get is going to tell you 200 to 400 people. And most of them were farmers. They worked the fields, agriculture was the norm.
So no joke. When Jesus came later to start teaching the people and he used all these agricultural references, like sowing seed and crops coming in harvest, he’s just talking out of his second nature of what he knew from when he was four, five, six years old, arriving back in Nazareth and then growing up there. This was where Jesus was from. He was a small-town boy, but he knew the big city. His parents and the Jewish family would go and observe the Passover in Jerusalem every single year. They would go for the Passover celebration. And Jerusalem at the time had somewhere between 25,000 and 75,000 people. Still small, but giant compared to Nazareth.
And Jesus every year would go up to Passover. And you know, like all those kids, they’d be like, «Oh, this is going to be amazing. We’re going to the big city. We’re going to see like the real stuff.» And he knew that world. It says in one place in scripture in Luke 2 that every year Jesus' parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. «When he was 12 years old, they went up to the festival according to the custom. After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it.»
Now, let’s not judge them right away. Has anyone ever forgotten to pick up your kid at school? One time they were traveling as a caravan coming down from Nazareth, probably picked some other people up along the way on this journey, and as they were going home, some of the kids were with the other family and some of the kids were with that family. But finally, after a minute, they all realized, wait a minute, Jesus isn’t with any other family.
So thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. And when they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him after three days. I know we all know this story, but how cool! They found him, a 12-year-old, got a 12-year-old kid at the arcade. No, they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Isn’t that awesome? Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. They’re reading the scriptures that are talking about him, and he’s figuring it out at 12 years old. He’s starting to understand who he is. When his parents saw him, they were astonished.
Imagine walking in and finding your kid run away from home, or you’re leaving him at school and then you realize an hour later, he’s not there. You looked all around the school, and finally, you realized he’d come over to Passion City Church, and he was up in the office talking to the pastors and had the Bible open with all the pastors, asking them questions about the Bible and answering some of the ones they had. And you came walking in, and he’s in there just eating it up. They were astonished. His mother said to him, «Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.»
And here’s what this 12-year-old boy said: «Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?» But they did not understand what he was saying to them. But then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. Good lesson for all the kids here. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. Jesus was saying, «Didn’t you know? Because I’m starting to figure it out. And I know. What do I know? I know that I’m Joseph’s son, but I also figured out I’m not Joseph’s seed. I’m Mary’s seed.»
And that’s important because in Genesis 3, it was spoken about the serpent. The Lord said to the serpent, «Because you’ve done this, cursed are you above all livestock and every beast of the field. On your belly will you go and dust will you eat all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. Her seed will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.» So it was important that Jesus be fully God and fully man. It was important that he be the seed of Mary, but he wasn’t conceived by Joseph. And he understood that. He’s like, I have a dad I know and call him Dad. Abba! When Joseph is in the workshop, I go, «Abba,» but I also know that though I have a dad, I have a Father. Capital F-A-T-H-E-R.
And I had to be in his house. Jesus played in the streets. He went to church on the Sabbath. He worked with his dad. He grew up most likely in the trade of his father, the carpenter. He had calloused hands and cut forearms and biceps. He can prepare a table before you in the presence of your enemies, but it’s likely that he prepared a real table before some people in their house. He lived in a stone house on a street in Nazareth, and he was a tough guy. He wasn’t milquetoast with a little staff. And he knows what it feels like to have a tear run down your face. He knows the frustration of having someone you’d given everything for stab you in the back. He knows how to dance.
It says our God dances over us with joy — a reference maybe more to the Father, but they’re Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I don’t think Jesus stands on the side and goes, «I don’t know. I don’t really dance.» He’s fun at a party. He got invited to a lot of them. He’s been tempted in every way that you have. He thought about quitting. He’s got a quick wit. He knows how to build a fire. He knows how to fish. Just trying to find different people in the room. Some of you love nothing more than getting out on that lake. He’s like, «I’ll go fish with you.»
He built that fire at the end of the day when the disciples were out in the boat and hadn’t caught anything all night long. They came in, and there’s fire going with fish on it. Where’d they get those fish? Whole Foods? No, he caught those fish. He was a hard worker. He gets his steps in. He loves kids, and he knows what it’s like to be misunderstood and rejected. Have you ever been misunderstood and rejected? When it was time for Jesus to start his public ministry, the Holy Spirit drew him out into the wilderness. Can I just underscore that one more time? Every time you get in the wilderness isn’t because you made a wrong turn. Sometimes the Holy Spirit leads you out into the wilderness. But he didn’t fall to temptation. He returned, it says, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
And you know what he did? He went back to Nazareth, walked into the synagogue, the same place where he had grown up, and he reads a scroll that day open to Isaiah 61. «The spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me.» And then people are like, «Wow, this is phenomenal. Great job reading today.» And then he goes on to explain, «No, this is really about me.» And once the tables turned, and they began to understand that he was talking crazy that he could be the Messiah, they pushed him out of the church and down the street into a cliff and were going to throw him off and kill him. He knows what it means to be misunderstood and rejected. On the first day he did anything public, after 40 days in the wilderness, people tried to shove him off a cliff and kill him.
He came back after he’d started doing miracles. He returned back to Nazareth. It says in Matthew 13, «And when Jesus had finished these parables, he moved on from there. And coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, same place as before. And they were amazed. Where did this man get this wisdom and these miracle powers? They asked, 'Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary? And aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? And aren’t all his sisters with us? ' So, he knew what it was like to live in a big family too. Where did this man get all these things?»
And they didn’t just marvel at him. They took offense at him. And Jesus said to them, «A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.» He did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith. To sum it all up in three words that we’ve heard a lot in the last few years: He gets us.
So, what’s the significance of him choosing the title Son of Man? The significance is, I think, two things. One, it’s a flex on Jesus' part because in the Jewish mind when he said, «I am the Son of God,» it would have triggered a prophecy from Daniel. And that prophecy says this: «In my vision at night, I looked, and there before me was one like a Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority and glory and sovereign power. All nations and people of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.»
And so when Jesus referred to himself as Son of Man, he’s attaching himself to Daniel’s prophecy. And he’s saying Daniel said a Messiah is coming, a ruler, a sovereign king, one with eternal dominion is coming. And guess what? You’re looking at him, Son of Man. I don’t want to say all that out loud right now. I’m not going to unpack everything about what I’m doing and who I am right in this moment. That will come over time. You will hear me say a lot of different things about me. But right now, I’m just sending a little telegraph out. Son of Man. Son of Man. You’ve been looking for the Son of Man. You’re looking at the Son of Man. There was a prophecy that the Son of Man would come, and I’m telling you, the Son of Man has come.
And we see this in Jesus' statements. In John 1, he says, «Very truly I tell you, you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.» And then Jesus said to them, «The Son of Man,» speaking of himself, «is Lord of the Sabbath.» When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. He’s reaching back and connecting himself to what was prophesied long ago.
But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. No one can forgive sins on earth but God alone. And he’s saying, «I know the Son of Man is here.» And to prove that to you, he said to the paralyzed man, «Get up, take your mat, and go home.» Jesus is flexing. He’s proving. He’s showing. He’s showing his hand here as to who he is. But I also think he’s using Son of Man to say to us, «I’m not trying to minimize my divinity, but I’m trying to maximize the values of the kingdom of God. I am the king who is coming. But the king who is coming wants to demonstrate to you the values of the kingdom of God.»
And look at these references. He says, «For even the Son of Man did not come to be served.» Well, if you’re the coming king, if you’re going to sit on a glorious throne, if your dominion has no end, of course you came to be served. He goes, «No, I came to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.» In Luke 19:10, «For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.» Jesus replied, «Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.»
Luke 9:22, «The Son of Man must suffer.» Just focus on that word for a moment. He must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the law. He must be killed, and on the third day, be raised to life. Reaching back to Daniel’s prophecy, Jesus chose Son of Man to let you know that he’s the coming king. But he also chose Son of Man to let you know that as the coming king, he wants to highlight the values of the kingdom, which are humility and service.
So, what does it matter to you that he chose Son of Man? It means this: a) You can know him. b) You can be real with him. c) You can be sure that he understands. We were talking earlier about Christian’s new album that just came out, «Come to Jesus.» There’s a song on there I love so much. It’s called «Say It That Way.» Wow. What a gift. Because that song understands that there are days when we don’t get it. There are days when we don’t even want it. There are days when we are perplexed. Days that we’re happy. Days that we want to praise God and days that we want to cash it all in.
There are days that we’re like, «Man, I’m on board. I’m here for it.» There are other days we’re like, «I don’t know.» And Christians just encourage us that when you pray, don’t go, «Yeah, I’m really not feeling it today, but oh, hi God. I love you so much, and this is amazing, and I love everything about what we’re doing together so good.» No. If you’re not feeling it, say it that way. Recognize that he’s God. Remember that he’s sovereign. Honor him because he’s king. But be real with him. Why? Because he gets it.
And when you come to him, there is not a moment in time, a circumstance that you walk through, a fear that you’re fighting, an emotion that you don’t know how to get a handle on that you can’t say that to him, and he doesn’t respond, «I know. I get it.» He’s not going to say, «Oh, what are you talking about again? Oh well, I don’t know. Maybe we can find something in here.» He’s going to just say to you, «I get it. I understand because I’m the Son of Man. I am fully God and fully man.»
Now he is delivered now into heaven. Praise God! He doesn’t have any more heavenly limitations. Praise God! He doesn’t have to sleep anymore. He doesn’t have to eat if he doesn’t want to anymore. He doesn’t get tired anymore. He’s perfected now. Fully man, fully God in heaven. No earthly limitations. But he still gets you. He’s the same Jesus, just in a celestial realm, not a terrestrial realm. But if you could walk with him here, trust me, you can walk with him now.
If he reached for the forgotten while he was here, then I know he’s reaching for the forgotten even though he’s there. Because somehow, even though he’s there, he said if we gathered together in his name, he’d be here. Even though he’s there, he said he would be our life, and he would live in us. If you could have dinner with him while he was here on earth, guess what? You can have dinner with him right now. Jesus, would you like to have dinner on Wednesday? He says, «I’d love to do nothing more. Let’s go to dinner.»
If he was a miracle worker here, then trust me, he’s still doing miracles right now. If he left 99 to save one while he was here, then he will leave 99 today to go after one wayward son or daughter who thinks they’ve gone too far to come back home. If he wept over the city while he was here, trust me, he’s weeping over the city today. If he knew while he was here that someone reached out and touched the hem of his garment, he knows now when anyone reaches out for the hem of his garment.
If he came to seek and to save the lost while he was here, don’t you know he’s still seeking and saving the lost right now? Fully God, but fully man. And there will never be a moment that he doesn’t understand everything about you. There’s not anything. And when I say that, I mean there’s not anything about you that he doesn’t fully understand. And he loves you. He is the coming king. But he’s not asking you to grab a towel and wash his feet. He’s the one who grabbed the towel to wash yours. He does deserve all praise and honor. But he’ll stoop down to walk with you.