Robert Morris - Jesus
All right. So, we've been in a series, and I'm taking Easter to finish that series. It's called Divinely Human. In other words, we're all humans, yet when we are born again, or born from above, we become partakers of the divine nature, 2 Peter says. So, what we talked about in this series, just to catch some of you up, if you didn't get to hear it, is that sometimes I am, like, really divine, and I minister to someone or I give them a scripture that they say, "That was in my quiet time this morning. I can't believe you did that". And I just know that was just God ministering through me. But other times I'm really human. And sometimes not even a good human.
And what we did was we looked at people in the Bible, Abraham and Sarah, and David, Moses and his wife Zipporah, Mary and Martha, Peter. We looked at John. We looked at some people and just said, "Look, here were some men and women of God that we know God used them divinely," but we also looked at the human side. And my whole goal, and I believe it was the Holy Spirit's goal for the series, was to encourage you that even though you see your humanity and that you still have things that God's working on in you, my goal is that you see that God can still use you divinely in this life, just like he used the men and women in the Bible. And so, we talked though, about a lot of people on the earth. We're finishing the series, though, with the only person that ever walked on this earth. We talk about how we are fully human and partially divine, but there was one human that walked on this earth that was fully human and fully divine, Right?
So, the title of the message today is Jesus. He's the only one that was ever fully human and fully divine. And I'm going to explain that to you from Scripture. All right? Let me just start with an Old Testament messianic scripture about Jesus. A messianic scripture means that it is in the Old Testament, and it's a prophecy about the Messiah. And Isaiah has more messianic scriptures than any other Old Testament book. So, we'll start with one from Isaiah, and we'll finish with one from Isaiah. Okay? Isaiah 7:14 says, "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign", I just want you to notice, "the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel". The virgin shall conceive.
Now, we're talking about the divinity of Christ and the humanity of Christ. This is how we know He was divine, because a virgin conceived, and she was conceived (found of child) of the Holy Spirit. So, we'll look at those scriptures in a moment, "and shall call His name Immanuel", which means "God with us". Let me show you the New Testament scripture, Matthew 1:23, "'Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,' which is translated, 'God with us'". So, I only have two points this weekend. All right?
Here's the first one. God became human, but I want you to notice I underlined the word God, because my second point is God became human, but I underlined the word human. It's very important to understand that Jesus is God. Not just a good man, not just a prophet or one of the prophets or someone who had wise sayings that we should adhere to to this day, but that Jesus is God. He is God. And this is why there is such a revolt against the virgin birth, because the virgin birth proves without a doubt that He was divine. Proves it without a doubt. There's no doubt to it when a virgin conceives and bears a child. this is what we would call the deity of Christ. We talked about this earlier with Peter.
Matthew 16:13, "When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, 'Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am'? So they said, 'Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets'". This conversation is still happening to this day. Who do you say that Jesus is? Who do people say Jesus is? "He said to them," watch this, "'But who do you say that I am'? Simon Peter answered and said, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God'". Now, listen to me. That question, Jesus is asking of every human being that ever lives on the earth. "Who do you say that I am"? Because if you say, I think He was a good man, I think he was a good teacher, I think this, I think this, I think this, whatever it is. But if your answer is not, "I believe He's the Son of God," then you've got the wrong answer. And listen, your answer to that question determines where you spend eternity, to that one question, "Who do you say that I am"?
Now, again, I told you there is a fight against the deity of Christ, that He was actually God with us. Here are the scriptures I talked about being conceived by the Holy Spirit. Matthew 1:18, "she was found with child of the Holy Spirit". Matthew 1:20, "for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit". Jesus was not conceived by a man. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. He was born of a woman. So, that's when we get to point two, that He was fully human, but He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. He was conceived by God. And something we need to understand is the egg came from the woman, but the seed came from God, not a man. And, if you want to go a little bit further here, it's the sins of the fathers that are passed to the children.
Now, ladies, don't nudge your husband and say, "I knew that they got it from you, and Pastor Robert says that, they got it from you, not from me". "The sins of the fathers". That's the reason Jesus was born sinless. He was born without sin. He was born that way. It's fun to watch your children grow up, get married, and become parents. And it's fun when their children are out of control. It is a blast. And it is wonderful to see them do things, your grandchildren, to see them say things to your children that your children said to you. Now, all of our children have said, "Listen, you need to break the curse that, 'I hope you grow up and have a child just like you'. You need to break that curse off of us". Because if we didn't say it, we thought it many times.
But Elaine has a daughter that is just like she was growing up, and she's very precise, and she can remember everything you said. And so, she said, we were down in Houston one time. Ethan and Elaine are in Houston, and we're down there, and Addie, her oldest daughter, said to her, "Now, mom, remember you said Saturday we're going to Chuck E. Cheese". And Elaine said, "No, I said we might go to Chuck E. Cheese". And she got her journal out, and she said, "No, mom, at 7:43 pm, you said, 'On Saturday, we will go to Chuck E. Cheese'". And Debbie and I were having so much fun just thinking, "How are you going to get out of this one"? And so, Elaine talked for a while, and she didn't make much headway, and finally she just sent her to bed. That's what you do when you can't win an argument with a child. "It's time to go to bed".
But Debbie had the greatest one-liner to Elaine. She said, "So, how do you like raising yourself because that's what we used to deal with"? So, even though the sins of the fathers scripturally pass to the children, I think the mothers affect the children, too. Just wanted you to know that, all right. Emmanuel means, "God with us". But I want to give you a little, a surprising fact that is literally Theology 101. I mean, this isn't Theology 201 or 301 or 401. This is 101, but a lot of people don't realize this. Even though Jesus was fully God, He completely laid down His divinity when He was on this earth, completely, so that He could be fully human.
If you want to know how He did the miracles that He did, the Bible tells us He did them by the power of the Holy Spirit and His personal relationship with the Father. That's how He walked on the water. That's how He opened blind eyes. You know what that does for me? It gives me hope. And let me just prove it to you in Scripture, Philippians 2:7 says, "he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being". And then, to show you how He did miracles, watch this, Acts 10:38, "And you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Then [after he was anointed] Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him". Even though He was God, He laid down His Godhead. He laid down His divinity. He became a human.
This encourages me, but it also causes me to respond to the message I shared two weeks ago where we need the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and to ask you this question: if Jesus Himself needed to be anointed by the Holy Spirit to live as a human in this fallen world, how much more do you and I need the anointing of the Holy Spirit? If Jesus Himself did not do one miracle until the Holy Spirit anointed Him, how much more do we need the Holy Spirit in our lives? Think about, He was a carpenter. Did He ever make crutches? We probably never even thought about it. Did He ever make crutches for a little boy He could have healed. Did He ever make a casket for someone He could have raised from the dead? Yet He was waiting, the Bible says, until the fullness of time to manifest.
So, I told you, He did miracles two ways: by the power of the Holy Spirit and by His personal relationship with God or with the Father. Watch this, how He raised Lazarus from the dead. Many people miss this. John 11:41 and 42, "Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying. And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, 'Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me'". See, this whole thing about God with us, let me just go a little bit further with it, God did not send someone to redeem you. He came Himself to redeem you. God didn't send someone with a message. He came with a message.
Jesus came, and He had to become a human being. I'm going to show you the scripture later. He had to become a human being. Two reasons: to live the life that we couldn't live, and to die the death that we should have died. That's the two reasons He became a human being. Somehow we think that He waved His magic wand and got rid of our sins, but He didn't. "For the wages of sin is death". Romans 6:23. He paid the price for us. I have a friend of mine that was a judge and then went on to be a senator. And when he was a judge, we were talking, and I said, "Do you ever have friends ask you for favors"? And he said, "Yeah". He said, "Let me tell you the first time it happened, because God really taught me something out of this". He said, "I took an oath to uphold the law. And so, I had a friend of mine say to me one night, they were over at our home for dinner and some other friends, and he said, 'Hey, I got a ticket. I was wondering if you could take care of it for me'".
And so, he said, "Yeah, I can take care of it for you". And he said, "I was going to just make it go away". And he said, "In my quiet time, the Lord said to me, 'Was a crime committed'? Just like that". And he said, "Well, yes, Lord". He said, "Did you take an oath to uphold the law"? He said, "Yes". He said, "Then a penalty must be paid". So, a few weeks later, his friend said to him, "Hey, did you get to take care of that ticket I asked you to take care of"? He said, "Yeah, I did". He said, "I paid it". And the guy said, "Oh, I didn't want you to pay it". He said, "I wanted you to do, you know, your judge thing". And he said, "The Holy Spirit wouldn't let me do it".
Here's what I want you to understand. When we say Jesus took care of your sin, He paid for it Himself. He didn't just do His judge thing. God became human. So, that's point number one. Here's point number two. God became human. But my emphasis is on the third word here, the second noun, human. God became human. In the same way that there is a spiritual war raging against the virgin birth, do you know what the other spiritual war is? That He wasn't fully human, that He walked around being fully God for 33 years, instead being fully human. And since He wasn't fully human, He doesn't really know what I'm going through. He doesn't really understand. But I want you to know, He really knows. He really understands.
So, just to show you the scripture. We're talking about the deity of Christ and the humanity of Christ. And I thought to myself, even when God gave me this message, I thought, "Lord, this is such a doctrinal, theological message. I don't know if this is an Easter message". And it was like the Lord was saying to me, "Am I giving you this message? I've had more Easters than you have to preach. So, okay, I know what I'm doing here". All right. But let me just show you how we know God became a human. All right? John 1:1, "In the beginning was the Word". And I'll show you for sure that "the Word" is Jesus, Revelation 19, when He comes on a white horse and His name is the Word of God. Okay? But I'm not going to show you that scripture, I'm going to show you another one. You'll know for sure it's Jesus. "In the beginning was the Word", that's Jesus, "and the Word was with God, and the Word was God".
So, there's no doubt He's God. But watch verse 14. This is how you know that it's Jesus. "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth". Now, again, it's important to believe in the virgin birth. Let me help you understand something. It's important to believe that Jesus came in the flesh. And I'm going to show you how important it is. I told you a moment ago, your answer to that question, who do you say that I am, determines your eternal destiny. Watch how important it is that you believe that Jesus came in the flesh, or became human.
1 John 4:2. "By this..." So I underlined it to think, "Well, by what"? Well, it's going to tell us. "By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God". Or became a human. "And every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ [became human, or] has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming". Now watch this. So, many people who preach on the end times miss this, "and is now already in the world". Now, that was written 1900 years ago. What's amazing to me is, I don't know if you know, but every generation since about the 1500s has had a person they picked out to be, "This is the Antichrist. This is the Antichrist. God showed me. This is the antichrist".
And John writes toward the end of the first century, "He's already here". He's already here. The Spirit of the Antichrist is already here. And this is how you know: when they don't confess that Jesus became a human, that God became human. Here it is again, 2 John 7. "For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist". Okay? So, why is it so important to confess and to understand that Jesus became a human? Here's the reason. If He didn't become a human, then He didn't die, because God can't die. And if He didn't die, then He didn't pay for your sins. And also, if He didn't die, then He didn't do what we're celebrating this weekend and rise from the grave.
See, this is why people are saying, "Well, if you say He was God, and then you also say that He rose from the grave... You can't have it both ways". Yes, you can, because He was fully God and fully man. You need to understand that as a human, He suffered. As a human, He bled. As a human, He died. He was beaten so badly and crucified so horribly that his human body died. He died for us. It's true. Jesus died for your sins. Jesus died for you. But He had to become human to die. So, you have to understand, this is the whole thing of Divinely Human. We are fully human. We're born human, but we're born partially divine. But He was fully divine and fully human, but He laid down His divinity and lived as a human. And what that tells me, and it gives me hope that no matter what I'm going through, He knows how I feel.
Did you know that Jesus knows what it feels like to lose a loved one? And I've shown you this before in Scripture. It's as clear as it can be. His father, Joseph died. His father was much older than Mary, and died when Jesus was either a teenager or in his twenties. And we know that because, I told you this, Jesus told John, "John, behold your mother". And he told Mary, "Behold, your son". And it says, from that day, John went home to live with Mary, or Mary went home to live with John. Well, she wouldn't have gone home to live with John if her husband was still alive. He knows what it's like to put your arm around your mother and walk away from the grave of her high school sweetheart, the one she met when she was just a teenager, the one she fell in love with. He knows what it's like to lose a spouse. He knows. He watched it. He knows what it's like to lose a parent. He knows what it's like to lose a friend. He understands everything.
You can't go through anything and say to me, "Jesus doesn't know how I feel". You can't tell me also that Jesus doesn't know how I feel to be tempted, because we know he was tempted. By the way He didn't go into that temptation until He was filled with the Holy Spirit. Just a little point on a few weeks ago. Now, here's a scripture that's going to sum up the whole thing about God becoming human. And then I've got a scripture that's going to sum up the whole thing about Jesus being divine and human. Okay? But here's the scripture, and what I'd like you to do if you can, if you want to remember the reference, if you're good at remembering numbers and things, or if you want to write it down or take a picture of it on the screen, or whatever. I would love for you to read this scripture every day this week in several different versions. This is why Jesus had to become human. All right?
Hebrews 2:14, "Because God's children are human beings, made of flesh and blood". Remember, if they don't confess Jesus came in the flesh, they're not of God. "Jesus also became flesh and blood by being born in human form". Remember the word born. "For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the Devil, who had the power of death". I just don't know if it hits you like it hits me because I've seen and studied this scripture so many times in so many versions, and in the Greek. Here's what it's saying: because we were human beings, the only way He could break the power of death over us was to become a human being Himself and conquer death, sin, and the grave. That's the only way He could do it, and He did it. That's what Easter is all about. It's all about that our God didn't send someone to redeem us, but He came Himself and redeemed us.
Now, I just thought of something that I put in my notes, and this has not much to do with the message, but I just thought it's funny. You have to be careful when you teach older people to use social media. Amen. I just heard an amen. The younger people, like my kids, are thinking, amen. All right? But the reason is, I heard about a lady, probably around my age, that she sent a text to all of her kids that said, "Aunt Martha passed away today. LOL". "Aunt Martha passed away. [Laugh out loud]" And so, one of her daughters figured out she doesn't know what LOL stands for. And so, she called her and said, "Mom, what do you think LOL stands for"? She said, "Lots of love".
Again, that had nothing to do with the message. I just thought it was funny. So, Jesus knows what it's like to have parents, too. Okay? All right. You ready for the scripture that sums up the humanity and the divinity of Christ? Back to Isaiah. I told you we'd start in Isaiah and finished in Isaiah. Isaiah 9:6. Hopefully you'll see this before I have to explain to you. "For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given..." Okay. Unto us a human is born. He was born a human of a woman; a child is born. But as the Son of God, John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He..." Unto us a Son is given. Fully human. Fully God. He was born a human, but He was given as the Son of God. There was a chasm between us and God that we couldn't cross. In other words, between the human and the divine, there was no way for us to get across to the divine, so the Divine came to us. I'm going to tell you an analogy. All right?
So, this isn't the way it happened, we know, but I want to use it as an analogy, and say to you, it's very possible that it represents something. All right? What if Adam had not been with Eve when she sinned, when she ate the fruit? Now, we know he was right there beside her, and we know he ate the fruit, too, so he sinned also. We know they both sinned. But what if he had been across the garden and had not eaten the fruit, then God would have had to say to him, "I'm so sorry to tell you this, son". And by the way, if you go, Matthew starts at Abraham and goes to Jesus. Luke, when it does the genealogies, starts at Jesus, he goes all the way up to Adam, and it actually says, "Adam, the son of God". Now, he wasn't the only begotten of the Father, but remember, he had no earthly parents. Okay? All right.
So, he might have said, "Son". He might have said. Again, this is just an analogy. God might have said to Adam, if Adam had not been with Eve, but he was, "I'm so sorry to tell you this, son, but your bride that I created for you has sinned, and so she's going to die because sin brings about death". Okay, that didn't happen. We know that didn't happen. But did a conversation like this happen in heaven? Did God the Father have to say to God the Son after Adam and Eve ate the fruit, "I'm so sorry to tell you this, Son, but your bride that I created for You has sinned, and so, she's going to die". And Jesus probably would have said, "But I don't want her to die". And then God would have said, "But she sinned. The price of sin is death. So, I'm sorry, Son, but your bride is going to die because she sinned". And Jesus would have said, "I'll die for her".
That is what Easter is all about, that God became human so He could live the life you couldn't live, never sinned, so that He would die the death that you should have died, so that you could have a relationship for all eternity with God. The question is, who do you say that He is? I want to ask you to bow your heads and close your eyes, and I want to ask you just take a moment and just answer that question. Peter's answer to that question was, "You are the Christ". Which the word there would be Messiah. "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God". Because if that's your answer, according to the Bible, if you'll confess Him with your mouth and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, that's how important Easter is, then you'll be saved. And that's verse 10, and then verse 13 says, "For whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved". It's open to everyone, if you'll just believe that Jesus is God and that He came in the flesh so that He could become a human being and die for your sins. So, you can do that right now. You can just take a moment right now and just say:
Lord, I receive You. I believe that You're the Son of God, that You died on the cross for my sins, and that You rose again on the third day. And I receive You as my Lord and as my Savior.
You can do it right now, just right there in your seat. And then of course, at some point, the Bible says, we need to make it public. We need to tell someone. We need to confess it with our mouth, which you can do at the end of the service at our altar, just as the testimony of the man who suffered with addiction just came to one of the pastors at the altar and just said, "I just need to pray. I need to talk to someone". And then you could be water baptized next weekend. But at some point, if it's true, what happens in your heart, it's going to come out of your mouth and it's going to become public in your life. But you can do it right now in your heart. I want to pray for you.
Lord, I want to tell You, thank You, thank You, thank You, thank You, thank You for Easter. Thank You for resurrection weekend. But Lord, we are reminded not only that You rose from the grave, but that You had to bleed and die for our sins first, and that You became a human so that you could break the power of death over us. And we tell You, thank You that You are fully God, and yet You became fully man to redeem us, in Jesus' name, amen.