Anchors of Truth

Up Close And Personal

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Ty Gibson

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Series Code: AOT

Program Code: AOT000002


00:13 Welcome to Anchors of Truth,
00:15 live from the 3ABN worship center,
00:17 the Extravagant Love series with Ty Gibson.
00:22 Well good evening and welcome to the
00:24 auditorium here at the 3ABN worship center
00:28 and we are so happy that each one of you
00:30 could join with us. It is a cold and rainy
00:34 night here in Illinois. And but there is warmth
00:38 inside this auditorium tonight and we believe
00:41 that we're gonna be blessed by the spirit of
00:43 God just as we were last evening.
00:46 Last evening we enjoyed so much, Pastor
00:49 Ty Gibson's presentation on Extravagant Love.
00:52 He continues that series tonight.
00:55 Ty Gibson as most of you know is the
00:59 co-founder and he is co-director and speaker
01:03 of Light Bearers Ministries.
01:05 And they have spread the light of the Gospel
01:07 all around the world. In this series he's
01:11 talking about how much God loves us and last
01:15 night I know that he touched my heart
01:18 as I felt more than I had ever felt before
01:21 that God really does love me.
01:26 And you know my friend I hope that you
01:27 felt the very same thing because God does love you.
01:32 He cares about you. He cares so much;
01:34 He gave His son to die for you.
01:37 And that is the greatest gift that could have ever
01:41 been given to this world. Well tonight we're going
01:44 to enjoy another presentation by
01:46 Ty Gibson and we're going to enjoy some
01:49 music in just a moment but just before we do
01:52 I'd like for us to bow our heads and have a
01:55 word of prayer. Our Father and our
01:57 God we thank you tonight that we can
02:00 come to you in the name of Jesus Christ,
02:03 for you love this world so much that you gave
02:08 Jesus, your only begotten son,
02:12 our Lord and our savior, to come to this earth
02:16 and to die for each one of us.
02:18 Father, we pray tonight that your Holy Spirit
02:21 will come to each of us, will speak to our hearts,
02:25 will encourage those who need courage
02:28 tonight, and will comfort those who
02:32 mourn this evening. Thank you Father for
02:36 hearing us in Jesus wonderful and powerful
02:41 and loving name Amen. Well before Pastor
02:45 Gibson comes to speak to us, we ask Pastor
02:49 C.A. Murray to sing for us and he is gonna sing
02:53 the song "I'll Tell the World."
03:12 I'll tell the world, that I'm a Christian,
03:19 I'm not ashamed, His name to bear;
03:26 I'll tell the world, that I'm a Christian,
03:34 I'll take Him with me anywhere.
03:41 I'll tell the world, how Jesus saved me,
03:48 And how He gave me a life brand new;
03:56 And I know that if you trust Him,
04:02 That all He gave me, He'll give to you.
04:13 I'll tell the world, that He's my Savior,
04:20 No other one could love me so;
04:27 My life, my all is His forever,
04:34 And where He leads me I will go.
04:45 I'll tell the world, Jesus is coming
04:52 And it maybe near or far, far away
05:00 But we've got to live as if He is coming
05:07 It could be tomorrow or today
05:14 For when He comes, and life is over,
05:21 For those who love Him there's more to be;
05:29 Eyes have never seen the wonders,
05:36 That He's preparing, for you and me
05:46 Go tell the world, that you're a Christian
05:53 Don't be ashamed, His name to bear
06:00 Just tell the world, that you are a Christian
06:08 And take Him with you everywhere.
06:17 I'll tell the whole world, how Jesus saved me
06:26 And how He gave me a life brand new
06:34 And I know that if you trust Him
06:40 That all He gave me, He'll give to you.
06:51 I'll tell the world, that I'm a Christian,
06:57 I'm not ashamed, His name to bear;
07:05 I'll tell the world, that I'm a Christian,
07:12 I'll take Him with me anywhere.
07:20 I'll take Him with me anywhere.
07:40 Thank you C.A, what a blessing.
07:42 Good evening everybody, good evening.
07:44 I'm so happy you've joined us again for this
07:46 series of presentations entitled,
07:49 do you remember? Extravagant Love.
07:53 And this is the first five part series in the larger
07:58 series called Anchors of Truth.
08:01 And so what we did last night as we plunged the
08:05 anchor as deep as you can possibly go into
08:10 Eternity Past. We spent our time
08:12 together exploring the fact that before creation
08:18 before any human beings existed, before
08:20 angels existed, God the Father, God the Son,
08:25 and God the Holy Spirit were involved in a
08:29 beautiful love relationship of self
08:32 giving other centeredness.
08:35 Living each one for the others and how long did
08:39 we discover last night, how long had God
08:41 existed in that Eternity Past?
08:43 It's mind boggling to think of it, how long
08:45 has God existed? Well did Paul say
08:49 that God existed in a non-time region of
08:53 reality, right, you remember that in
08:55 chapter 1 verse 2 of Titus. Where Paul says that
09:00 God existed before there was time.
09:03 I mean there was no way we can
09:05 comprehended it. We can't understand
09:08 the nature of God, I mean what He is
09:11 composed of in nature, nor can we comprehend
09:15 what it means for God to have always existed,
09:19 because we are time-bound creatures, aren't we?
09:24 We are confined to time and all we know is
09:28 succession and history and one event following
09:31 another but God created time so therefore there's
09:35 some sense in which He must be outside of time.
09:39 And we can't really understand that,
09:41 we can't understand the nature of God and we
09:44 can't understand what it means for God to have
09:47 always existed. But I'll tell you what
09:50 we can comprehend the character of God
09:56 we can comprehend something of what goes
10:00 on the divine thought process, in the divine
10:05 emotional process and in the divine behavioral
10:10 process, that's what character is.
10:13 Character is composed of thoughts and feelings
10:15 and the behaviors that flow out of our thoughts
10:19 and feelings. We can comprehend something
10:22 of what God is like another words?
10:26 What kind of person He is? And we all want to
10:29 get to know people for who
10:31 they really are, don't we?
10:34 That's how friendships are formed. Yes.
10:36 Friendships are developed by entering into
10:40 relational interaction, that relational
10:44 interaction may begin at an
10:46 acquaintance phase right? This is the lady that you
10:49 buy your groceries from, you know her
10:51 first name, you know don't her last name.
10:54 She's a pleasant lady, she's an acquaintance.
10:57 But if the events in your community somehow
11:00 outside of the grocery store were to bring you
11:03 into closer proximity maybe at a dinner party
11:06 or something. You might move from
11:08 being an acquaintance with her to being
11:11 a casual friend, right? But then casual
11:15 friendship can develop beyond that if you
11:18 begin say for example playing
11:20 racquetball together. You could develop a
11:24 more intimate friendship and then if you
11:27 happened to be single and she happens to be
11:28 single and you propose to her,
11:31 you could end up being the most intimate of
11:33 all friends, husband and wife.
11:38 Now the universe that we live in, is a universe
11:42 listen carefully now that is defined by relationship.
11:49 In fact I would like to suggest you as we begin
11:51 this evening that relationship
11:54 is the prime reality. Relationship is the,
11:59 what everybody? The prime reality.
12:03 It is the most basic constituent of what it
12:07 means to be a living, thinking, sentient,
12:11 feeling volitional creature.
12:14 Now we know this intuitively because God
12:18 has put it in our hearts to know this
12:21 but I wanna demonstrate as we begin,
12:23 as we launch into our message tonight just
12:26 how primary this thing we call relationship is
12:30 to our, to our nature as human beings and to
12:33 reality as a whole. And I wanna do that by
12:37 asking you to engage with me in a simple but
12:40 very effective psychological exercise.
12:44 Now be careful because I'm going to trick you,
12:46 so you need to be paying attention
12:48 to this exercise, okay. And it goes something
12:51 like this, I want you to imagine and this will be
12:54 difficult that I'm an extremely
12:56 wealthy individual. So wealthy in fact that
13:00 I could give you literally anything you want.
13:05 But I'm going to put anything
13:06 you want in quote marks. And so I'm feeling like
13:12 I'm in the best of moods today and I just happen
13:16 to like you, the way I like D for example.
13:19 I mean I really like D on a very high level of like.
13:23 And so I'm feeling pretty good today
13:25 and I say to you I have the wealth to give you,
13:29 I mean I could give you a lot and I really have
13:33 an excess of stuff and so I'm gonna make you
13:36 an offer, I would like to give you something.
13:38 For starters I own a lot of real estate and so I'm
13:42 gonna give you a paradise tropical island.
13:46 You know there are individuals in our world
13:48 who actually own whole islands, in fact
13:51 down somewhere in the vicinity of the
13:53 Caribbean, they're dumping a lot of
13:55 material to create islands so people can
13:59 buy them, people buy islands and I just
14:03 happen to have a number of them and I'm
14:04 going to begin my offer, my gift by giving to you
14:11 a beautiful tropical island, it's about the
14:13 size of Oahu and it is beautiful and the
14:17 weather is always just right except for the
14:20 tsunamis of course but you can always go
14:22 inland to avoid them and I'm gonna give you
14:25 this island, but not only that I have built on this
14:29 tropical paradise island I have built five
14:35 mansion level homes. I mean these things are
14:39 luxurious, they are extravagant lets say
14:44 and they're all yours as a part of this gift,
14:46 as a part of this island package but not just
14:50 these beautiful houses, check this out I have
14:53 stocked these houses each one of them with
14:56 all your favorite things, your favorite books,
15:00 your favorite music, your favorite movies
15:03 although I would caution you there and
15:06 I have stocked these houses with all your
15:09 favorite food which just happens
15:11 to be Ramen noodles. Lifetime supply, all you
15:15 can eat in your whole life time of these
15:19 Ramen noodles, everything you like is
15:22 there in each house. But I'm gonna sweeten
15:26 it up a little bit and the deal is going to become
15:28 even better. Because in each driveway
15:33 I have parked one of the top five best driving
15:38 machines ever created. There is a Ferrari in one
15:45 parking lot, in one drive way, there is,
15:49 there has to be a Harley- Davidson in one of them.
15:53 And whatever you so choose probably the
15:56 1967 Corvette and they're all there and it's
16:03 all for you and I am just going to give it to you.
16:07 How many of you want it? How many of you say
16:09 yes, sign me up, sign it over, give it to me
16:12 I mean why would you hesitate, you want it?
16:14 Yes or no? Yes, of course, you do.
16:21 And then and then with all your desire to posses
16:24 all these things even if you are born again and
16:29 again and you're just gonna sell it all and
16:31 give it to the cause of the Gospel which
16:33 I would highly recommend if you
16:34 would have all that. But there is just one
16:39 little tiny, maybe it's not little, maybe it's not,
16:42 I don't know just one little itsy bitsy fine print
16:48 bit of condition, just one condition.
16:52 You have to go to the island with all your
16:54 stuff that you love and you have to stay there
17:01 for the rest of your life absolutely
17:06 and utterly alone. No email, no texting
17:13 which would be very hard for some of you
17:14 because you are addicted to texting
17:17 I know that because some of
17:18 you text me, please stop.
17:23 No texting, no email, no phone just you and your
17:27 tropical paradise with your finely crafted
17:31 driving machines and your mansions and your
17:34 Top Ramen, just you and your stuff, that's
17:38 the only condition, how many of
17:39 you still want the deal? Absolutely nobody
17:46 except maybe a few adolescent boys,
17:50 but once they get through puberty they
17:52 don't even want the deal anymore.
17:54 Here's the thing you know somewhere
17:59 in your heart that there is one thing that trumps
18:03 everything else, don't you?
18:07 You know if you stop and think about it that
18:09 there is one reality that is more primary than
18:13 any other, don't you? And that reality is
18:19 relationships with those you love and those who
18:24 love you, in fact, the Bible would have us
18:27 believe that the human being, the human being
18:30 that I am that you are is literally
18:34 engineered for love. Psychologically,
18:38 emotionally and even yes even biologically
18:43 you and I, we are designed for a constant
18:48 inflow and outflow of love.
18:54 We are made to receive and to give.
19:00 That's really if you stop and think about it,
19:02 that's really the definition of what it
19:05 means to be human. And by contrast if we
19:12 realize that relationships with others are a
19:16 primary to reality I mean really when push
19:19 comes to shove, we would not, we would
19:21 not take anything this world has to offer
19:25 if it meant being isolated from those
19:28 we love, would we? I mean I would rather
19:32 live with my girlfriend, also known as my wife
19:36 Sue in a dry arid cave in New Mexico for the
19:45 rest of my life with her then to spend the rest
19:49 of my life in a penthouse suit with
19:53 everything I want at my command without her.
19:57 Anybody identify? Of course you do.
20:00 There's somebody you love like that or
20:02 somebody at least in your memory that you
20:04 love like that. So, you understand what
20:07 I'm saying, you understand you know
20:10 that you and I are made for relationship.
20:15 Now having laid that foundation this evening
20:19 what I would like to do with you is explore the
20:23 next step in our Extravagant Love series.
20:29 Now last night you remember where we came from?
20:31 We suggested, well actually scripture
20:34 suggested that all of reality can be
20:37 comprehended as being composed of two basic
20:40 parts, remember Psalms 90 verse 2.
20:44 From everlasting to everlasting you are God.
20:49 What is this from to? From everlasting to
20:54 everlasting how did we define it last night?
20:56 From eternity past into the far reaches
20:59 of eternity future. Now what we can't
21:02 comprehend eternity past and what it would
21:04 mean for God to have always existed,
21:07 this is fascinating, we can somewhat
21:10 comprehend what it would mean to live
21:12 forever and ever and ever without end.
21:15 And if we so choose it lies within the grace of
21:21 God to escort us into eternity future where
21:27 we will literally live from millions and
21:29 billions, yes trillions, I mean Googleplex type
21:33 numbers beyond comprehension and
21:36 never ever age or die. And we're going to
21:41 explore that in our final part of this series
21:44 together called Eternity Future.
21:46 So let's not get ahead of ourselves we're saying
21:49 that in eternity past something was going on.
21:54 What was going on? Well as we mentioned
21:57 and elaborated in greater detail last night
22:01 what was going on in eternity past is a
22:05 beautiful love relationship.
22:08 A relationship in which God himself who is the
22:12 origin of what we just discovered through our
22:15 little mental exercise that we are relational
22:17 creatures, why are we relational creatures
22:20 because God is relational and we were
22:23 made in God's what? Image. We're relational by
22:26 nature because God is relational by nature
22:29 and we are made in his likeness.
22:32 So back there in the far reaches of Eternity Past,
22:36 there's God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit and this
22:39 beautiful relationship of other centeredness and
22:42 self-givingness. Now shift gears with me
22:49 and look at John chapter 1, John chapter 1 in my
22:54 opinion is one of the mountain tops of scripture.
22:59 It is one of the pinnacles of God
23:04 communicating to us who He is and what
23:07 He is all about? In John chapter 1 we have
23:11 these words starting with verse 1, look at it
23:13 with me, in the beginning was the
23:16 word, now notice the language carefully and
23:18 the Word was, what's that very,
23:22 very incidental almost you don't even notice it,
23:25 you just go right on by grammatically
23:27 what's that word? With. With. Okay.
23:30 In the beginning was the Word capital W,
23:32 who is this? This is the pre-incarnate Christ.
23:37 This is before He had the name Jesus Christ.
23:41 Okay. This Word, this Word where was He
23:45 before He came to our world?
23:47 He was with God and the Word, notice this,
23:53 was God, verse 2 He was in the beginning with God.
24:01 Now just do a little bit of editorial sculpting
24:04 here, take out some of words with some
24:07 inserted ellipsis in order to make a point.
24:11 I'm gonna read what's in the text within quote
24:13 marks but just taking out a few words in
24:16 order to make the point. The scripture literally
24:18 says in the beginning God was with God.
24:27 Yes, that's what it says. There is some sense in
24:30 which there was a divine,
24:34 shall we say togetherness?
24:36 Right. God was with God,
24:39 God who was with God who?
24:42 Who was with who? God the Son was with
24:48 God the Father, and by logical extension with
24:52 other scriptures pulled into the picture
24:54 God the Holy Spirit. They were with one
24:57 another in eternity past before
25:01 Jesus came to this world.
25:04 Now when they were with one another my
25:06 friends what does the Bible teach us about
25:11 the nature in quality of their relationship?
25:14 Well, for starters, I want you to look at this
25:18 absolutely astounding scripture in
25:21 chapter 42 of Isaiah. Do you have a Bible?
25:23 Look at Isaiah 42, we're gonna study the Bible
25:26 this evening, we're drawing our
25:29 information from the Holy Scripture,
25:31 so please if you brought a Bible, look at it with
25:34 me, chapter 42, this is gonna just blow your
25:37 mind in a really good way. This is going to,
25:41 this is just going to lift your heart and give you
25:44 a picture of the character of God
25:46 that is just absolutely stunning.
25:50 Notice this with verse 1, the person who's
25:53 speaking is the Father, God the Father is the
25:57 one articulating here, so you keep that in mind
26:00 and God the Father says behold that is
26:02 comprehend understand about to tell you
26:04 something, sit up, take notice, behold
26:08 my Servant, capital S, who is this?
26:14 This is Jesus, this is the coming Messiah. Okay.
26:18 Behold the Father says, my Servant whom
26:22 I uphold, my elect one in whom, notice this
26:28 language, in whom my soul does what?
26:33 Delights. Isn't this fascinating?
26:35 Here is God the Father prophesying ahead of
26:40 time and telling us that Messiah's coming,
26:44 your savior is about to be born into this world,
26:47 He's going to come and I wanna tell you who
26:49 He is to me. He is the one in whom
26:56 my soul delights. What an intimate picture huh?
27:02 What a beautiful insight into how the Father
27:04 feels about the Son, about how the Father
27:09 thinks about the Son. I'll tell you the one that
27:15 I'm sending you just want you to know
27:19 I love Him deeply, I delight in Him,
27:24 there's something beautiful between us
27:29 and I'm willing to send Him for you.
27:34 Well notice this, there's obviously some kind of
27:37 difficult and painful ordeal coming up.
27:41 Because look at verse 6, the Father says I the
27:45 Lord have called you, who is the you here?
27:50 The Messiah, the Son, the one He is going to
27:53 send into the world I the Lord the Father have
27:57 called you the son in righteousness notice
27:59 this and I will, say it loud with me,
28:03 hold your hand. I will keep you and give
28:09 you as a covenant to the people. What?
28:15 This is something the Father says,
28:17 I'm sending into the world, I'm sending to
28:18 you for your Salvation. I'm sending you the one
28:22 in whom my soul delights. And then the Father
28:25 turns to the Son before the incarnation and He
28:29 converses with Him and He says but Son I want
28:31 you to know that when I send you into the world
28:33 to go through this horrific ordeal.
28:38 I will hold your hand through the experience.
28:44 This is the God of the universe, this is the God
28:48 who speaks worlds into existence, this the God
28:51 from whom radiates all the energy of creation,
28:55 He is omnipotent, sovereign God.
29:00 Almighty God and He communicates to us in
29:05 these tender relational terms.
29:10 I find delight in Him and I will hold His hand.
29:15 Because when did your hand need to be held?
29:20 When you're going through something.
29:23 Jesus is going to go through something,
29:26 now go with me over to Zechariah, one of the
29:28 minor prophets Zechariah it's kind of hard to find,
29:31 I just, I just and I'm there, that was an
29:33 accident, I want you to know that, I'm just there
29:37 didn't have a marker or anything but it was
29:38 totally accidental and I want you to notice
29:41 again a prophecy and the one who is speaking
29:45 here is the Father again. Who is speaking?
29:48 The Father. And He speaking about the Son.
29:51 Who is He speaking about? About the Son.
29:53 It's in verse 7. And the Father is contemplating
29:57 the incarnation again. It hasn't happened yet
30:02 when this is being written by the
30:03 prophet Zechariah where is Jesus?
30:07 He is with the Father in heaven.
30:09 How long has he been there again?
30:12 For all Eternity Past and so the whole
30:16 universe overhears this. And the Father says,
30:21 Awake O sword,898 does that sound like a
30:25 pleasant thing or painful thing?
30:27 It's a painful thing a sword is,
30:29 what's a sword for? It's for plunging and
30:32 twisting and it's for taking life.
30:39 It's a painful thing and in a metaphor,
30:43 in a symbol, the ordeal that Jesus is about to go
30:47 through is a sword. It is to be plunged
30:52 through His divine heart and His life blood is to
30:56 be spilled for you and for me.
31:00 And the Father knows it. And the Father politically
31:04 says to the universe, the listening universe,
31:06 awake O sword, sword of the divine justice.
31:13 Awake O sword against my shepherd,
31:19 against the man who is my, what does your version say?
31:24 My fellow, you have the King James Version,
31:26 excellent, what's a fellow? Someone with whom
31:29 you have fellowship. My version New King
31:32 James says "Awake O sword against my
31:34 shepherd, against the man who is my companion."
31:38 What's a companion? Someone with whom
31:40 you have companionship. Another version, the
31:45 New Century Version says, the one who is my friend.
31:52 New International version says the one
31:53 who is close to me. So again what is the
31:58 Father contemplating here? He's contemplating the
32:00 up and coming incarnation of Jesus and the sacrifice
32:06 that will be made on our behalf.
32:08 And He thinks of the son in these tender
32:12 relational terms. He tells us ahead of time
32:16 the one who's coming? He's the one who is
32:20 close to me. He is my nearest, dearest friend.
32:25 He is the one who is my most intimate relation.
32:33 Are you beginning, 'cause some of you are
32:34 going ahead in the story, you're beginning
32:36 to sense the palpable pain in the Father's
32:41 heart here. Are you beginning to sense that
32:44 something grand and glorious is about to be
32:47 done for you and me but it will not be
32:50 without cost to Him. Are you beginning to
32:55 sense it? We'll now go back to John chapter 1.
33:00 And in John chapter 1 the Apostle tells us
33:07 who Jesus is and where He came from?
33:13 He in verses 1 and 2 is the word who was God
33:18 had been God for Eternity Past and was
33:22 with God, with the Father. But look now down at
33:26 verse 18. No one has seen God that is God
33:30 the Father at any time the only begotten Son
33:36 who is where everybody? In the bosom of the
33:40 Father He has declared Him.
33:41 What is this Bosom language?
33:44 I'm just, I'm just demonstrating to you
33:47 repeatedly here that if you have a Biblical
33:50 perspective, if you allow the Biblical
33:53 language to have it's weight and to register in
33:56 your mind, you will develop a very intimate
33:59 picture of God. What is the language that
34:04 the Holy Spirit is inspiring these
34:06 prophets to employ? It is the language of
34:09 relationship, it is the language of delight,
34:12 it is the language of relational
34:14 integrity and faithfulness.
34:18 What is this bosom language?
34:19 It's obviously a metaphor, it's a symbol,
34:22 anybody who was alive and old enough to be
34:27 conscious in the 1940s and 50s would have
34:31 been familiar with a terminology that was in
34:34 vogue at the time. If two guys were close
34:39 friends they were bosom buddies,
34:42 now don't be talking like that nowadays,
34:44 that you just don't want any dude near your
34:46 bosom at all and we don't use that kind of
34:50 language, okay. We don't talk about
34:52 being bosom buddies because that doesn't
34:55 sound right in our modern culture but it
34:57 sounds right Biblically. The Father is the one
35:03 who has a heart, the bosom, a deep interior
35:10 of emotional personhood. This is the Father's
35:14 bosom and who was there? Jesus was there, before
35:18 He came into this world. This is the Bible's way
35:20 of saying that Jesus was in intimate close
35:25 relationship with the Father before
35:29 He came into this world. Now look back to verse
35:32 14, to verse 14 of John chapter 1 and notice the
35:40 dramatic and I mean dramatic I wish I had
35:45 stronger language to employ, the dramatic
35:49 change that has occurred now.
35:52 Verse 14 and the word that's the pre-incarnate
35:56 Christ, the word became something.
36:00 What is the word became?
36:01 What does it mean to become?
36:03 It means to go through some kind of change,
36:05 some kind of metamorphous, right something there's
36:08 something going on here, there's movement.
36:11 Now this movement is occurring at a very
36:15 extraordinary level. The word that is the
36:19 one who was with God and was himself God.
36:23 The word became what everybody?
36:27 Flesh and dwelt among us. Now the Greek here is
36:31 literally, the word became flesh and
36:35 tabernacled among us. You know what this
36:37 means to tabernacle? In Biblical language
36:40 this basically means that God came into
36:44 close proximity, he pitched his tents in our midst.
36:50 Modern language we might render this in one
36:52 Bible version does render it this way,
36:55 God moved into the neighborhood.
36:58 That's the sense that you get here. Okay.
37:01 God came out, stepped out of Eternity Past
37:04 came right into our immediate proximity.
37:09 Pitched His tent right in our midst.
37:15 Now how did He do this? He didn't pitch a
37:19 physical tent did he? Well in a sense not a
37:22 physical tent made out of canvas but a tent of flesh.
37:27 Right. He pitched His tent, he tabernacled among us.
37:31 In other words God took on a body.
37:35 He became a member of the human race.
37:40 Are you with me so far? Now this is astounding
37:44 This is not playacting, God is not giving us a
37:47 charade, or a charade if you're
37:49 from over the Atlanta. God is giving us here
37:56 an account of historic reality.
37:59 This actually happened. Now there are some
38:01 schools of theological thought I won't name
38:03 them specifically for the sake of time, but there
38:06 are certain Christian denominations who
38:09 basically say that God is projecting an image
38:13 or an illusion here, it didn't really happen,
38:16 how could God possibly do this?
38:18 God couldn't possibly do this, if he wouldn't
38:20 condescend that far, no, no, no. Yes, yes, yes.
38:24 God literally is telling us His own personal history.
38:29 He's saying I want you to tell, I want to tell you
38:32 that I became human literally, concretely
38:38 actually that God himself underwent
38:44 a transmigration if you will, the word Trans
38:48 meaning to move, to become, to travel, right.
38:52 A transmigration of nature, He didn't just
38:55 moved geographically from heaven to earth,
38:59 he moved in nature. He became human,
39:07 now we know the past history and we can
39:10 comprehend now that one moment he was there.
39:14 And had always been there, where is there?
39:16 In Eternity Past, in the bosom of the Father,
39:20 in relationship with the one who delighted in
39:23 Him, in this beautiful relationship,
39:26 one moment He was there and had always
39:29 being there. And the next moment
39:32 He vanished from all heavenly sight and touch.
39:38 The angels were astonished, where is he,
39:41 the one that we have always known as our
39:44 commander throughout all of our existence.
39:49 Where is he? Well one moment He was there
39:52 and the next moment He vanished
39:57 and took on form in the womb of a teenage girl
40:04 and stitch by stitch, chromosome by
40:06 chromosome God almighty began to be
40:12 reconstructed as a human being.
40:16 And the embryo grew and the babe developed
40:20 and finally God came into our world.
40:23 This is the astounding announcement
40:25 of the Gospel. In Matthew chapter 21
40:28 this is no kind of mediocre,
40:32 tepid announcement. This is Emmanuel,
40:38 God with us. Or to use the words of Paul in
40:44 First Timothy chapter 3 verse 16, Great is the
40:49 mystery of Godliness, God likeness.
40:53 Great is the mystery of God's character.
40:56 God became human. Great is the mystery of
41:02 Godliness, God was manifesting
41:04 the flesh my friend. Now when He
41:07 was manifest in the flesh,
41:11 what we're comprehending here to whatever degree
41:16 we can, what we're comprehending here is
41:21 that the God head, to use the language of
41:25 Paul in Romans chapter 1. The God head underwent
41:32 some kind of fracture to use the words of an
41:37 extremely insightful women author,
41:42 they underwent a divine sundering.
41:46 Do you know what it means to be sundered?
41:49 Means to be split apart, to be fractured,
41:54 to be separated. Now earlier in our time
41:57 together I pointed out, we lead ourselves
42:00 through an exercise in which we determined
42:03 that the most primary of all realities, realities the
42:07 most important and fundamental and
42:10 elemental of all realities is relationship.
42:15 But on the other side of that truth is the fact that
42:21 if relationship connectedness is the
42:26 most primary of all realities, then my
42:29 friends separation is the most
42:33 horrific of all realities. And that's exactly the
42:39 language the Bible uses to describe for you and
42:43 me the ultimate destiny of the lost.
42:47 In chapter 20 of Revelation, don't go
42:49 there for the sake of time, the wicked of all
42:52 ages, the lost, those who have not found
42:56 refuge and in Christ all though refuge was granted.
43:01 They're described as being resurrected and
43:03 they stand before the Great White Throne and
43:06 the Bible describes their physiological situation
43:10 and says, there was found no place for them.
43:17 And so they fled from the face of the one who
43:20 is seated on the throne. They find in relation to
43:25 God, they find no relational connection.
43:31 The whole universe has no place for them.
43:35 They are out of sync with the one
43:38 overarching pervasive principle of life.
43:43 The law of life for heaven and earth.
43:47 The law of benevolence, the law of love.
43:51 They have no harmony with the love of God
43:57 and so there is no place for them.
44:01 They experience utter and complete
44:04 separation from the source of life.
44:11 Relational connectedness is the prime reality
44:14 and separation from all others and from God
44:22 is the most horrific of all realities.
44:25 Now friends, this is exactly what the God
44:30 head voluntarily chose to endure to save
44:37 you and me. In the incarnation, we are
44:43 witnessing a deep fracture, a separation,
44:50 to use the words of Jesus hanging on the
44:52 cross, a forsakenness. We are witnessing in
44:56 the incarnation this most incredible of all
45:00 things imaginable that the ones who had been
45:03 forever in intimate relationship one with
45:08 another, voluntarily chose to undergo a
45:13 severing one from another.
45:17 In the book Early Writings if you have
45:19 access to that book page 127, An angel is heard
45:26 to cry out, to shout over the universe,
45:31 "think ye that the Father gave up His dearly
45:35 beloved Son without a struggle? No, no.
45:40 " Said the Angel. "It was even a struggle
45:45 with the God of heaven, whether to let a guilty
45:50 man perish or to give His darling
45:58 son for our salvation." Can you imagine God
46:05 engaged in a struggle somehow I think we
46:10 tend to imagine Him as impassible,
46:13 that is without passion,
46:15 without any sense of emotion.
46:19 How could God possibly struggle,
46:21 everything obviously always goes His way, right?
46:25 Well on second thought, everything doesn't
46:28 always go His way because you and I in
46:31 the human race rebelled against Him and that
46:33 certainly wasn't His choice. It was ours.
46:38 But here's the glorious truth.
46:42 God so deeply, so personally, so selflessly
46:46 loved you and I that He was willing to undergo
46:52 this horrible, horrific fracture of relationship
46:58 on our behalf. Now in the Bible we get
47:03 a sense of this separation
47:07 in many different places but in Genesis 15,
47:12 we have one of the earliest, one of the
47:15 earliest windows of understanding into what
47:20 would be involved in the incarnation and
47:22 sacrifice of Christ. All the way back with
47:25 Abraham, God communicated through a process of
47:30 symbolism, through a process of
47:32 enacted metaphor. Exactly what the God
47:36 head would have to endure.
47:39 God said in a vision to Abraham in chapter 15
47:43 of Genesis, Abraham, I want you to do
47:45 something, I want you to get a few animals and
47:49 he names them. And I want you to take those
47:53 animals and I want you to sever them straight
47:57 down the middle in half. And I want you to
48:01 lay each of the pieces of these animal sacrifices
48:07 I want you to lay them across from one another
48:09 forming a path between the pieces.
48:14 And then Abraham having obeyed the Lord
48:19 and having sacrificed and severed the animals
48:22 in two, Abraham went into vision and He saw
48:27 something like a, like the King James version
48:30 I think it says like an oven, another version
48:34 says like a torch, like flaming fire of some
48:37 kind which is associated through out scripture
48:40 with the presence of God, you remember
48:41 that Moses encountered the burning bush
48:46 and through out the Bible God has
48:48 associated with fire in this way.
48:51 Paul in Hebrews went so far as to
48:53 say our God is a what? Consuming fire.
48:57 So in vision Abraham sees this fiery presence.
49:03 And what does this fiery presence do?
49:06 This fiery presence walks the gauntlet
49:11 between the severed pieces.
49:15 Abraham is not called upon to pass through
49:18 the pieces, he can't make the sacrifice for
49:21 the salvation of the human race.
49:25 No, Abraham watches as God enacts this
49:28 parable and says in so many words through
49:32 this metaphor Abraham, I'm going to show you
49:36 what I will endure to save you and the rest
49:40 of the human race. Sever the animals and
49:42 I will pass between the pieces.
49:46 This goes into ancient customs in which
49:49 covenants were made in this way.
49:53 In ancient times a covenant formed not by
49:55 signing on the dotted line, obviously that
49:58 doesn't work, our culture has proved that.
50:02 But the way that covenants or
50:04 agreements were entered into is the two
50:05 agreeing parties would sever an animal,
50:08 sacrifice in half and they would each pass
50:11 through the pieces indicating through the
50:13 symbolism that they were committing the
50:16 totality of themselves to the agreement and
50:21 indicating in symbolism that if they don't follow
50:23 through with their end of the covenant
50:26 that they will be severed, they will be cut
50:30 off, they will be giving themselves in sacrifice
50:37 for not following through. God is saying in so
50:39 many words, I'm gonna make a covenant with
50:41 you, I'm going to enter into a relational
50:44 agreement with you, I'm going to promise to
50:47 give you myself as a sacrifice for your
50:53 salvation and I'm going to show you in the
50:56 symbolism Abraham that God will endure
51:01 some kind of painful fracture, some kind of
51:05 separation for you. Now what form does
51:09 this take through out scripture?
51:11 Well we move forward into Genesis 22 and
51:14 God takes Abraham through another enacted
51:17 parable He says Abraham, I want you to take your
51:20 son, your only son, emphasis on your only
51:23 son Abraham, I want you to feel what I feel,
51:28 so you can communicated to the world.
51:31 Abraham take your son, your only son and
51:33 sacrifice him on an altar and Abraham follows
51:37 through and he feels all the emotional anguish
51:40 of this separation from his son.
51:43 His hand is lifted, his lips are quivering;
51:46 he begins to thrust the knife only to have his
51:50 hands stopped and for God to say no.
51:55 I'll provide the sacrifice. You can't.
52:00 But now you know what it feels like to be God.
52:04 Now you know Abraham what it feels
52:06 like to be God. Now you know and can
52:10 tell the world the good news, the gospel,
52:13 the glad tidings, the happy message that
52:17 God so loved the world that He will give His
52:21 only begotten son. So that anyone who
52:26 believes in this beautiful self sacrificing
52:29 love of God will never perish
52:32 but have eternal life. We fast forward in our
52:38 understanding of this great sacrifice and we
52:43 come to the practical implications of the
52:46 sacrifice in the New Testament.
52:48 When Jesus became human, Hebrews
52:51 chapter 2 tells us in verse 9 that He did so,
52:55 He became human so that He could taste
52:59 death for every human being.
53:03 Verse 9 of chapter 2 of Hebrews.
53:05 Then in verse 14 of Hebrews of chapter 2
53:09 the Apostle Paul builds a bridge in our
53:11 understanding between the incarnation and the
53:13 cross and He says that He would become flesh
53:19 and blood, he would become like us,
53:24 so that through death He might destroy him
53:28 who had the power of death that is the devil.
53:31 So in Paul's understanding and
53:33 Paul's theology there is a vital linkage between
53:38 the incarnation and the cross my friends,
53:43 vital connection. Well in chapter 2
53:49 of Hebrews, we get the distinct feeling that
53:53 something tremendous has occurred
53:59 to save human race. That God came down
54:04 all the way down my friends and became
54:06 human and then Paul fills out our
54:09 understanding yet further in
54:12 chapter 2 of Philippians. One of the most incredible
54:16 scriptures you will ever read bar none,
54:18 you ought to commit it to memory and after
54:20 that put it on paper and put it with a magnet on
54:22 refrigerator and do other things with it to
54:25 bring you into an understanding of this
54:28 text, never forget it, Paul says let
54:30 this mind be in you. This disposition, this
54:33 character this way of thinking and feeling,
54:36 let this mind be in you, which was
54:38 also in Christ Jesus. Now what kind of
54:41 mind was it? Who being in very nature God.
54:46 Thought it not something to be held on
54:50 to be equal with God but made himself
54:52 New International version nothing,
54:55 King James of no reputation, made
54:58 himself nothing, so that he could endure the
55:02 cross even the death of the cross.
55:06 This is Paul's understanding.
55:09 The incarnation this monumental severing
55:17 of the son from the tribune God head,
55:21 this severing was the precursor to the cross
55:26 where God's love reaches it's zenith
55:29 level of expression. The apex, the crescendo
55:34 my friends, the climax, where as we're going to
55:37 talk about tomorrow night God's love goes
55:40 off the charts, it's immeasurable,
55:45 can't even begin to fully comprehend it,
55:49 that's where we go tomorrow night.
55:52 Well I have a friend and we were at a table
55:57 together, just eating I mean at least I was
56:00 eating; he was just picking at his food
56:03 obviously no appetite. I could feel the heaviness
56:07 and I knew something was wrong.
56:10 I looked across the table and caught His eyes in
56:13 mine for a steady two seconds to
56:15 communicate with my eyes. Hey, I don't know what
56:18 you're going through but I'm here for you.
56:22 I gave Him permission and he blurred it out.
56:26 Ty, Katy is leaving me. A wave of nausea came
56:32 over me, I could hardly bear it.
56:35 My friend was enduring this fractured
56:37 relationship, he said Ty, the ache is so deep
56:42 because I so want her back. And I said I know,
56:50 it wasn't even my experience
56:51 and I could feel it. And my friends,
56:54 there was a sense in which an ache like that
57:00 hangs over our world. A hurt like that hangs
57:04 over you and over me. And in Christ God is
57:09 saying, it hurts to be separated from you
57:12 and I so want you back. Father in heaven,
57:21 thank you for your great love manifested in Christ,
57:25 brought up and close personal in
57:27 his incarnation, in Jesus name. Amen.


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Revised 2014-12-17