Participants:
Series Code: HC
Program Code: HC180013A
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00:24 Welcome to 3ABN's Fall Camp Meeting,
00:27 Homecoming, 2018. 00:33 Featuring inspired messages from your 3ABN family. 00:41 And featured speaker Ty Gibson, 00:44 all to prepare your heart for the coming of the Lord 00:49 Hello, friends, and welcome to 00:50 3ABN's Fall Camp Meeting, 2018. 00:54 We've been having a blessed time. 00:55 Can we all say amen to that? Amen! 00:57 If you missed the last program with Miss Brenda 00:59 and these tremendously blessed gifted children, 01:04 then we pray that we'll play back again 01:06 maybe in the second round 01:07 or however the Lord decides to put that in our lineup. 01:09 But now, Pastor Ty Gibson is going to come out 01:13 and he's been talking about the covenant God, 01:16 the messages about the covenant. 01:19 How Jesus became the covenant son. 01:21 And this is about the transcendency, 01:25 the transcendency of the Christ of the covenant. 01:28 And if you've been listening, 01:29 he's not only been teaching but preaching also. 01:31 And I know your life has been transformed 01:33 to hear a message that has never lost his power 01:35 in a new and wonderful way. 01:37 Pastor Ty Gibson is going to have his prayer. 01:39 But before he comes, 01:40 Tim Parton is going to bless us. 01:42 And I know that you've been blessed 01:44 by his ministry of music. 01:45 Let us turn our hearts 01:47 as the Lord lifts us heavenward through music. 01:49 Amen. 01:51 Been so blessed by the preaching of the Word, 01:54 reminding us the love that God has for us 01:58 in this great plan that He amazingly 02:03 put together in eternity past 02:08 and thinking of each one of us. 02:11 He reminds me of this chorus. 02:13 And if you know it, please sing along 02:16 I'm forgiven 02:19 Because You were forsaken 02:24 I'm accepted 02:27 You were condemned 02:32 I am alive and well 02:35 Your spirit lives within me 02:39 Because You died and rose again 02:44 Sing that again, I'm forgiven. 02:47 I'm forgiven 02:50 Because You were forsaken 02:55 I'm accepted 02:58 You were condemned 03:02 I am alive and well Your spirit is within me 03:09 Because You died and rose again 03:14 That's amazing love so sing it out. 03:17 Amazing love, how can it be? 03:24 That You, my King would die for me? 03:31 Amazing love, I know it's true 03:38 And it's my joy to honor You 03:44 In all I do, I honor You 03:49 Sing amazing love. 03:52 Amazing love, how can it be? 03:59 That You, my King would die for me? 04:06 Amazing love, I know it's true 04:13 And it's my joy to honor You 04:18 In all I do, I honor You 04:25 Sing this. 04:26 Jesus, You are my King 04:33 You are my King 04:34 You are 04:38 My King 04:39 Jesus You 04:40 Jesus, You are my King 04:47 Oh, Jesus, You are my King 04:53 Amazing love 04:56 Amazing love, how can it be? 05:03 That You, my King would die for me? 05:10 Amazing love, I know it's true 05:17 And it's my joy to honor You 05:22 In all I do, I honor You 05:29 In all I do 05:33 I honor You 05:49 Praise God. 05:50 Good afternoon, everybody. 05:52 Good afternoon. And happy Sabbath. 05:54 Happy Sabbath. 05:55 Do you like the happy Sabbath greeting? 05:57 Do you like hearing those words? 05:59 Yes. 06:00 Man, I love hearing the words, happy Sabbath. 06:03 But I don't know if you've noticed this, 06:05 I've noticed that when you say something 06:07 over and over again, 06:08 you can go into kind of intellectual neutral 06:12 and forget what it means. 06:13 You know, we say familiarity breeds contempt, 06:17 or at least forgetfulness 06:19 as to what something means, right? 06:21 So sometimes I like to change up my Sabbath greeting 06:25 in order to remember what it means. 06:27 So sometimes, instead of saying, 06:29 happy Sabbath, 06:31 I say happy salvation 06:32 by grace through faith in Christ alone day. 06:36 Now, 06:39 that's because the Sabbath means something. 06:42 The Sabbath means that we have a deep abiding rest 06:47 in Christ 06:48 for all that He has accomplished for us, 06:52 and that there's no merit at all in us to earn His love 06:56 because we already have it. 06:57 So happy salvation by grace 06:59 through faith in Christ alone day. 07:00 Now, try it on the person next to you. 07:02 Go, it's your turn. 07:11 Some of you aren't even trying. 07:15 One Sabbath I walked into the foyer of a church, 07:18 and I used my happy salvation by grace 07:21 through faith in Christ alone Sabbath greeting. 07:23 And this brother, I think he was the elder 07:25 said to me, he looked kind of baffled by it, 07:29 even perturbed. 07:30 He said, "Happy, you better keep the commandments 07:32 before Jesus comes day." 07:38 To which I responded... 07:43 To which I responded, "If you love Him, 07:46 you'll keep His commandments day." 07:50 To which he responded, 07:53 "Happy, the investigative judgment is underway 07:55 and the names of the living are coming up pretty soon. 07:58 So I suggest you get your act together day." 08:02 To which I responded, 08:03 "Happy, I've read Daniel 7 and 8 08:05 and judgment is in favor of the saints 08:07 of the most High God day." 08:11 And that was the end of it. 08:15 I guess, I won with the gospel. 08:17 All right, so this is going to be fun. 08:20 We're going to look into the Word of God. 08:23 But before we do that, 08:25 I want to pray because this message 08:27 is of high significance for me. 08:29 And I want to persuade you to see light, and beauty, 08:34 and truth in what we're about to explore. 08:36 So please pray with me. 08:37 Father, in heaven, You are truly good, Lord. 08:42 And everything we know about You so far 08:45 is beautiful. 08:47 We're deeply impressed with You, 08:49 so much so that we're attracted to You, 08:51 Lord, we're drawn to You. 08:53 We don't feel like slaves. 08:54 We don't feel compelled. 08:55 We don't feel coerced or forced, 08:57 we feel drawn to You 09:00 because of Your beauty. 09:02 And yet, Lord, we know there are things about You 09:04 that have escaped our notice. 09:09 There are things about You that if we could see them, 09:11 we would fall a little bit more deeply in love with You. 09:16 So please God open our hearts right now. 09:19 Help us to see things that we've never seen before, 09:23 in Jesus' name, amen. 09:26 I represent and work with a ministry 09:29 called Light Bearers. 09:30 And one of the things that ministry does 09:32 is we're engaged in running a discipleship school. 09:36 And what that means 09:38 is people from all over the world 09:40 twice a year come to live with us 09:43 in a dorm facility. 09:45 And we have a kitchen, and a classroom, 09:47 and they come from all over the world, 09:48 they live with us for three whole months. 09:51 The program is called Arise. 09:53 And we run it twice a year, once in the United States, 09:55 once in Australia. 09:57 Now, as the students come from all over, 10:00 it's our job to lead them through the story of scripture. 10:02 In fact, the curriculum 10:04 for the program is called The Story. 10:07 And we move from Genesis to Revelation 10:09 in three months trekking right along, 10:13 systematically moving through the Bible as a story, 10:16 as a narrative, 10:17 noting biblical doctrines and prophecies along the way 10:20 that fit in to the overarching narrative. 10:24 Now, we begin the course with some classes 10:27 that are extremely important 10:28 for setting the tone for the course. 10:33 And one of the first classes that we teach 10:35 is one that I have an opportunity 10:38 to teach to the students. 10:39 And so there they are, they've just come 10:41 from wherever they're from, 10:42 we're just getting to know each other. 10:43 They're brand new class, 10:45 and I lead them through a kind of thought experiment. 10:50 I draw a big circle on the board. 10:54 And I tell them, this circle represents the universe. 10:59 Energy, matter, space, 11:03 this is the entire universe, I tell them. 11:07 And then I asked them a question. 11:09 I say, "I want you to think about this. 11:10 Don't answer out loud right away. 11:12 But I say to the students, I want you to think about this. 11:15 This circle represents the universe. 11:16 Where is God? 11:20 Every year same results. 11:23 About half the students answer by saying, 11:26 "Well, God's outside the circle, 11:30 outside the universe. 11:31 He made it, therefore He's outside of it." 11:34 About half the students say, 11:36 "No, no, no, God's inside the circle." 11:40 Now, of course, if you think about it, 11:43 both answers are correct. 11:46 God is both inside and outside the universe, 11:51 inside and outside the circle. 11:52 Think about it like this. Think about it like this. 11:54 God is everywhere within the material universe, 11:58 and God is nowhere 12:01 in the material universe simultaneously. 12:04 Now, there are two words 12:05 that we used to describe these realities. 12:09 One word is omnipresence. 12:11 Omnipresence is the theological idea that God is present 12:16 everywhere within the universe. 12:19 This is David, for example, in Psalm 139, 12:22 "Where can I go from your presence? 12:24 If I ascend into the heavens lo, you are there, 12:26 if I descend to the depths of the sea, you are there." 12:29 Psalm 139. 12:31 I can't go anywhere to escape Your presence, 12:35 because You are omnipresent, You are all present, 12:37 You're everywhere simultaneously all the time. 12:39 Now within biblical theology, 12:42 this is to be distinguished from pantheism. 12:46 Pantheism is the idea that God is in all of creation. 12:52 Omnipresence is the idea that God is present 12:55 to all of creation. 12:58 God is present to, not present in. 13:01 He's not synonymous with the rock, the tree, 13:04 the river, the bird, the zebra. 13:08 So pantheism is a different idea. 13:10 Omnipresence is God is present everywhere. 13:12 And then the second word that we used to describe 13:15 the complimentary reality 13:20 is the word transcendence. 13:23 So we've said that God is present 13:27 in all the universe simultaneously 13:31 and not present in. 13:34 The word transcendence is a very, very powerful word. 13:38 To transcend according to the dictionary 13:41 means simply to be above and beyond, 13:44 to be independent of, to exceed, or to surpass, 13:49 or to be without equivalency to. 13:51 Now you would say all of that about God, 13:52 wouldn't you in relation to creation? 13:56 You would say that God is above and beyond creation? 13:58 Yes or no? 14:00 You'd say that God is independent of... 14:03 He's not dependent on it. 14:04 If all of creation ceased to exist, 14:06 God wouldn't cease to exist, would He? 14:08 So He's independent of energy, matter, space, right? 14:14 Does He exceed and surpass creation? 14:18 Yes, He does. 14:19 Would you say that God is without 14:22 equivalency to creation? 14:25 Well, of course, you would. 14:26 You're a Bible believing Christian, 14:28 you're not a pantheist. 14:30 You believe that God is present to, present in, 14:35 but you do not believe 14:36 God is synonymous with creation. 14:41 These are two separate things. 14:42 Now, this is how Job is contemplating it 14:46 in the midst of his suffering. 14:48 In Job 26, the first 13 verses, 14:52 Job is naming aspects of creation. 14:55 That is the material universe, 14:58 everything around us that we see, 15:00 and hear, and smell, and touch, all right. 15:03 God is contemplating. 15:04 I mean, Job is contemplating all of creation, 15:06 He names different parts of creation. 15:08 And then the last verse of Chapter 26 of Job's, 15:10 he says this profound thing. 15:12 He says, "Indeed these..." 15:14 That is all these parts of creation that I've named. 15:17 "Indeed these are the mere edges of His ways, 15:22 and how small a whisper we hear of Him." 15:30 What Job is saying is that God is of such majesty, 15:36 such enormity, 15:39 that whatever we know about God is just scratching the surface. 15:43 We're just around the edges. 15:45 This is by the way 15:47 how it can be true that in future glory, 15:51 eternity future, new heavens, new earth, 15:54 this is how we can be forever approaching to the heart, 15:58 and character, and mind of God, 16:00 and never exhaust the titanic reality of who He is. 16:06 You will never get bored for all of eternity 16:10 in your discoveries of who God is. 16:14 You will always be on the edge of your seat 16:17 with one big long continuum of ah-hah moments. 16:22 You will be literally blown away forever, non-stop, 16:27 and not get tired 16:29 as you approach the heart and mind of God. 16:34 Because whatever we know of God, 16:36 come short of the totality of God. 16:40 So think about it like this. 16:42 God made the material universe, we're good so far. 16:47 God made the material universe. 16:48 Therefore, God is not part of the material universe, 16:52 in nature, substance, or kind. 16:56 He made it, therefore He is not equivalent to it. 16:59 This is like you pull out your iPhone, 17:02 and you have evidence of the creative genius 17:07 of Steve Jobs' design, 17:10 but you don't expect to find Steve Jobs himself 17:12 in the iPhone. 17:14 There's evidence of the creativity 17:17 and the genius of the designer of the item, 17:21 but the item is not equivalent to the designer. 17:25 Are you tracking with me? 17:26 Okay, so if you were to ask God, if you could so, 17:29 God, what are You speaking of nature, the nature of God? 17:33 So God, what is Your nature? 17:35 I'm not talking about nature, in the sense of character. 17:39 If you were to say, "God, what are You made of?" 17:43 God would say, 17:44 "That's out of your intellectual orbit." 17:48 You're asking a question that is for big boy pants, 17:52 and you don't have any. 17:54 You are asking a question that you can't even begin. 17:57 I can't answer the question for you 17:59 because you're a made thing, and I'm an unmade thing. 18:04 So if I were to try to wrap 18:06 language around describing to you what I'm made of, 18:09 the best I could do is to say to you, 18:10 I'm not made of anything because I'm not made. 18:15 So God is utterly beyond anything that we in our puny, 18:20 itty-bitty, 18:22 finite humanity can fully grasp. 18:27 Are you still with me? 18:29 Yes. All right. 18:30 This should not be the meeting after lunch by the way, 18:32 I'm just warning you. 18:33 Okay? 18:35 So what you see on the screen right now is this. 18:38 One of these two circles. 18:40 One of these two illustrations is truth, 18:42 and one of them is heresy. 18:48 Either God exists 18:51 within the parameters of creation 18:57 or creation exists 19:00 within the parameters of God's reality. 19:06 Are you tracking with me? 19:07 Okay. Let's say it like this. 19:09 God does not exist within the microscopic puddle. 19:13 Picture a puddle in your mind, just a little mud puddle, 19:16 you can splash in with your foot. 19:19 God does not exist within the microscopic puddle 19:21 of our reality, rather we exist 19:23 within the macroscopic ocean of God's reality. 19:30 And this is the fork in the road 19:32 in the anti-Trinitarian debate. 19:36 This is the fork in the road with regards to all of theology 19:41 and philosophy at the most foundational level. 19:44 Everybody's partying right here 19:46 and going one of two directions. 19:49 Now, what I'm suggesting to you at this part of the message 19:53 is that all words literally all words, 19:57 terms and categories 19:59 that arise in human consciousness 20:02 are necessarily temporal, time bound, 20:07 and material and therefore 20:09 can only approximate who God is. 20:12 Are you tracking with me? Are you still with me? 20:15 Okay, sit up a little straighter. 20:19 Some of you look like, 20:20 you need to breathe deep right now. 20:23 Oxygenate your frontal lobe right now. 20:25 Take a few deep breaths. 20:27 You need blood flow right now to your frontal lobe. 20:30 Okay. 20:31 So all language comes short if you can fully explain God, 20:37 it's not God you've explained. 20:43 There is a manifest arrogance on display 20:48 when an itty-bitty human being 20:52 with strident and authority 20:56 claims to know 20:59 that this one called God and Christ 21:02 began to exist at some point in eternity past. 21:07 As if you know, you are way outside, I am out. 21:13 We don't know what we're talking about, 21:15 in response to the question, what is God? 21:20 But we can know 21:22 the answer forever and ever and ever 21:24 with increasing comprehension and depth. 21:27 We can know the answer to the question, who is God? 21:30 God is a what that we can never probe. 21:33 God is a who that is revealed 21:36 in scripture and in Christ. 21:39 We can know, in other words, the character of God, 21:42 but we cannot know the nature of God 21:44 by virtue of the fact 21:46 that we are ourselves created beings. 21:49 We are temporal material creatures. 21:53 We don't even have language at our disposal 21:57 to talk about who God is 21:59 in His ultimacy by virtue of His nature? 22:04 I don't know if you're familiar with Abraham Joshua Heschel. 22:07 He is a Hebrew scholar, He's deceased, 22:10 the late Abraham Joshua Heschel. 22:12 He marched with Martin Luther King Jr. 22:16 You'll see him in some of the photos of that era 22:19 in that great movement. 22:21 And he was a Jewish scholar 22:24 who stood in the civil rights movement. 22:27 But my goodness, 22:29 this guy is firing on all cylinders 22:31 when it comes to understanding Yahweh. 22:34 In one of his remarkable books that I've read twice, 22:37 and I'm about to start a third time 22:40 because it's so remarkable, God in search of man. 22:45 Heschel says this, 22:47 "It is a fact of profound significance 22:49 that we sense more than we can say." 22:53 Have you ever had those moments 22:54 where you're just awestruck with God? 22:58 And you're thinking there's no way 22:59 I can explain to anybody what I'm sensing. 23:02 I could do my best to try to testify to somebody 23:07 regarding this overwhelming sense of God's beauty, 23:10 His Majesty, His glory. 23:12 I sense more than I can explain. 23:14 Heschel says this, 23:16 "All statements about God are understatement." 23:20 Literally, if you just marshal 23:23 all the vocabulary at your disposal, 23:28 and you attempt to explain the goodness of God, 23:31 the beauty of God, the character of God, 23:33 the love of God, 23:34 you will come short of the task. 23:38 He is always more, and yet more, 23:43 and yet more than any of us can comprehend. 23:46 By the way, parenthetical statement. 23:50 This is why the body of Christ is necessary. 23:54 I love 3ABN, but you cannot be 23:58 a vibrant, thriving, 24:00 flourishing follower of Jesus and stay home channel surfing. 24:05 You need the fellowship of the body of Christ, 24:10 because in the fellowship of the body of Christ, 24:14 cross pollination occurs. 24:16 You see God in ways I'll never see Him, 24:19 but you can try to explain to me what you see. 24:23 And I can be enriched by your perspective, 24:26 and vice versa. 24:28 And we can grow corporately in ways 24:30 that we can never grow individually. 24:35 It's vital that we cross pollinate. 24:38 Or this is what Martin Luther the great reformer, 24:41 called the priesthood of all believers. 24:45 So really, there's a sense 24:47 in which as we try to describe God, 24:49 vocabulary comes short. 24:51 We're always kind of in a crisis of vocabulary. 24:55 If we're really digging in to the gospel, 24:58 to the character of God, 24:59 we're always in a crisis of vocabulary. 25:03 By the way, that's great language. 25:04 And I'll just, 25:05 this is just a little short marriage seminar, 25:07 has nothing to do with our subject here. 25:09 But to my brothers, I will say, 25:11 if you forget an anniversary card 25:12 or birthday card or something like that. 25:15 This is what you say, say, "Baby, you're so beautiful. 25:18 You're so amazing. I had a crisis of vocabulary. 25:21 I couldn't even write the card. 25:23 I couldn't even 25:26 write the card. 25:30 No extra charge for that. Okay. 25:33 So Abraham Joshua Heschel clinches his point 25:36 by saying this, "We have an awareness 25:40 that is deeper than our concepts." 25:45 We have an awareness with regards to God 25:47 that is deeper than our concepts. 25:49 "We possess insights," emotional insights, 25:51 relational insights, 25:54 "we possess insights that are not accessible 25:56 to the power of expression." 25:59 I'm telling you, sometimes I am overwhelmed 26:02 with a sense of God's love for me 26:06 that I could never do justice to with words. 26:10 I just know that it's true 26:12 at the deepest level of my being. 26:14 That's what John's talking about, 26:15 by the way, in 1, 2, and 3 John, 26:19 when he says, 26:21 nobody can explain this stuff to you. 26:23 You have a witness in yourself. 26:26 And that witness in yourself is the greatest evidence 26:28 of God's existence and His love for you, 26:31 and nobody can ever take it from you. 26:33 Now, that which can be named or described by us 26:38 is not God as God is in God's ultimacy. 26:43 We can say true things about God, 26:46 we cannot say everything about God. 26:48 Now, I'm setting you up for something, obviously. 26:51 All of this is to move us in to asking 26:56 and answering a question as best we can. 26:59 So if God is transcendent, 27:05 if God in fact, exists above and beyond 27:08 anything that we can ever fully comprehend, 27:11 if God exists beyond 27:13 all material creation, 27:18 the question is, why do we encounter God 27:23 within the parameters of material and temporal 27:29 and progenerative categories? 27:32 Why is God introducing Himself to us as a Father? 27:35 Why is Jesus called a Son? 27:38 But we know that those are procreation terms. 27:41 We know that the man 27:43 is to the woman a sexual counterpart, 27:45 and that the woman is to the man 27:47 a sexual counterpart, 27:49 and the two shall be one and that the only way 27:51 you get a son or a daughter is by procreation. 27:55 We know that father and son, 27:59 not to mention the fact that in Isaiah 28:01 once God introduces Himself as a mother, 28:05 we have no way of comprehending except by asking, answering, 28:10 in my opinion, this question, 28:12 "Why would God who transcends all of creation, 28:18 speak to us in language of creation?" 28:23 And the answer is very simply and profoundly, love. 28:26 God is love. 28:28 And because God is love. 28:29 Listen, listen, listen. 28:31 Love is by its very nature social. 28:34 God likes you, and He wants you to like Him back. 28:39 So He condescends by love to engage 28:43 in something called mediation. 28:46 Love necessitates mediation. 28:48 If God is infinite, and we're finite, 28:52 there's some serious ground that needs to be bridged. 28:56 Yes or no? 28:58 We can't bridge the ground 29:00 in the direction of infinitude. 29:04 So God, because He loves us 29:06 must bridge the ground toward our finitude. 29:12 He's infinite, we're finite. 29:13 He's got to come down to where we are, 29:15 or we will never know Him. 29:19 And so God is humble, because God is love. 29:24 Love by its very nature is social. 29:25 And that means that love 29:27 by its very nature is communicative. 29:29 Love wants to know and be known. 29:33 That is its nature. 29:35 And so God wants us to know Him. 29:40 So knowledge and perspective is mediated to us 29:44 so that we might know Him. 29:47 John Chapter 1 unpacks 29:49 what this mediation looks like in its ultimate form. 29:54 Now, God mediates to us in lots of other forms as well. 29:58 The laughter of children, if correctly perceived, 30:03 will open your mind to the beauty of God. 30:08 Blooming flowers, 30:10 a sunrise or sunset 30:11 will whisper to you of the character of God, 30:14 if you're tuned in. 30:17 But in its ultimate sense, God bridge to the gulf 30:22 between the finite and the infinite 30:24 in the person of Christ. 30:26 John 1:1 says it this way, 30:28 "In the beginning was the Word," 30:31 the logos, that is the thing, behind the thing, 30:34 behind the thing that defines reality. 30:37 That's what logos means. 30:39 Logos means the rationale of existence, 30:43 the true meaning and significance of reality, 30:47 the logic of existence in life. 30:51 "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God," 30:55 check this out, "the Word was God." 30:59 Now, if you do a little bit of editorial sculpting, 31:01 and just pull out some of the words here, 31:04 you have some pretty amazing theology, 31:07 because the scripture says, "In the beginning was the Word 31:09 and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." 31:14 So literally, look at the text on the screen, 31:16 literally, within the quote marks 31:19 you can say, "God... 31:22 was with... God." 31:29 God was with God. That sounds redundant. 31:33 It's not. 31:34 God is love and love is a social reality. 31:36 Therefore, God has always been engaged 31:38 in some kind of social interaction, 31:41 else God could not be said with any intelligible meaning 31:45 to be love. 31:47 So this scripture is telling us that there is a... 31:49 This isn't a word, but I'm going to use it. 31:51 There is, in God's reality there is a withness, 31:55 a withness, a social dynamic. 32:00 God was with God, 32:01 I can work through it with you like this. 32:03 If I ask you the question is the Father God, 32:06 you'll say, 32:08 and if I asked you the next question, 32:09 is the Father all there is of God, 32:12 you'll say, "No." 32:13 If I say, "Is the Messiah, the word God," 32:16 you'll say, "Yes." 32:18 If I asked you, "Is the Messiah, 32:20 all there is of God," you'll say, "No." 32:24 If I say, "Is the Holy Spirit God?" 32:26 You'll say, "Yes." 32:27 And if I say, "Well, is the Holy Spirit, 32:29 all there is of God?" 32:30 You'll say, "No." 32:34 In order to have a complete picture of God, 32:38 we need to understand that there's a sense 32:39 in which God is a social unit, God is with God, 32:42 Father, Son, and Spirit collectively 32:46 constitute the totality of God. 32:50 So the scripture goes on and says this 32:53 in verses 2 and 3. 32:55 "He," the word "was in the beginning with God. 32:59 All things were made through Him." 33:01 This is very complex language, you got to slow down to get it. 33:05 "All things were made through Him, 33:07 and without Him, nothing was made." 33:09 That was made. 33:11 Nothing was made, that was made. 33:14 Nothing was made, that was made. 33:17 I'm going to say to you like this. 33:19 There are only two basic categories to reality. 33:23 The made category and the unmade category, 33:27 and the word, the Messiah, the Christ 33:30 occupies the unmade category. 33:34 There is no point at which in any sense, 33:37 the one being described here began to exist 33:41 distinct from the Father. 33:43 This one has always existed, 33:47 and that's beyond our comprehension. 33:50 If you think too long about what it means, 33:52 you say, "God, what does it mean for You 33:53 to have always existed?" 33:55 See, we're time bound creatures, 33:57 we only think in terms of 33:59 a linear succession of historical events. 34:03 That's all we know. 34:04 So we're saying, "God, 34:06 what does it mean for You to have always existed?" 34:12 If you think too long about it, your hard drive, 34:13 your mental hard drive will start to wobble 34:15 and smoke will come out of your ears, guaranteed. 34:18 You can't answer the question 34:20 because you don't have not only the vocabulary 34:24 to answer the question, 34:26 you don't have the nature to access the concepts 34:31 that transcend the made category. 34:34 You're created. 34:35 All you know is contingency, temporality, 34:39 all you know, is time material categories. 34:43 It's all you can even bring words to articulate. 34:47 So there's the made category, there is the unmade category. 34:50 And then wonder of wonders. 34:54 The most astounding thing 34:55 in all of universal history occurred. 34:59 There's not even a close second. 35:01 This Word, this logos, 35:03 this one who was in very nature, 35:05 God, and with God 35:08 in this beautiful social dynamic 35:10 of other centered, self giving, outgoing, incoming, outgoing, 35:16 incoming love. 35:18 This one 35:22 came to be with us 35:26 in our reality 35:30 in a stunning manner. 35:32 And the Word became... 35:35 I'm going to pause right there, the Word became. 35:40 What did it mean to become? 35:44 It means to be and then to become, 35:51 to become means to undergo some kind of transition 35:54 from one configuration to another configuration. 35:59 For example, you are right now 36:00 in the process of becoming something 36:04 that you weren't just five minutes ago 36:05 by the thoughts that are being downloaded 36:08 into your mind right now, 36:10 you are receiving ideas and concepts 36:12 that are incrementally changing who you are. 36:17 The same thing will happen to you 36:18 when you have conversations with your loved ones. 36:21 You and I were always were malleable, we're plastic, 36:24 we're plateau. 36:25 We're always in the process of becoming what we're not. 36:29 Any given moment 36:31 is a transitional moment for us. 36:36 And the logos who always was has now become. 36:41 He's not become something 36:43 that by natural composition he never was. 36:49 Now when it says he became, when it says, 36:51 "The word became flesh, and dwelt among us, 36:58 and we beheld his glory, 36:59 the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, 37:01 full of grace and truth." 37:02 We're being told something astounding. 37:07 Jesus, the logos, the word, the one in whom was life, 37:12 and light unborrowed, original, underived life. 37:18 The one who always wasn't never, 37:19 ever came into existence. 37:21 Now, on some level comes in to an existence 37:25 He's never known before. 37:27 Now, that is to say this, 37:31 the incarnation or the enfleshment of God. 37:36 God becoming human 37:38 was not merely God making a journey through space, 37:42 it's not a geographic, 37:44 a geographic relocation. 37:47 He didn't just come 37:49 from one place to another place. 37:52 He didn't just come from heaven to earth. 37:55 Jesus, God underwent what we might call 37:58 a transmigration of nature, 38:02 He became human, 38:04 He didn't just move 38:06 and relocate to another place in the cosmos. 38:11 He was forever and only eternal God. 38:17 And for love of you and me, 38:20 He entered into an eternal solidarity 38:25 with the human race. 38:26 Incarnation means 38:29 that God came down in humility. 38:34 It means that God came close in empathy, 38:38 and I love Him for it. 38:40 And it means that God came as one of us 38:45 in an epic act of solidarity 38:48 that will never ever be reversed. 38:52 According to the Book of Hebrews, 38:53 He has become our eternal brother, 38:58 and He's not ashamed to call us brethren. 39:03 And this means as we're going to discover this evening 39:07 that redeemed human beings 39:09 are destined for the throne of the universe with Him. 39:16 We'll get there tonight. 39:17 But here's the point. 39:19 I want you to engage with me in a thought experiment. 39:22 We began with a thought experiment. 39:24 Let's begin to wind this down with a thought experiment. 39:28 Albert Einstein, of course, 39:29 was famous for thought experiments, 39:32 people would interview him in journals, 39:33 "Hey, how do you come up with these ideas, 39:36 these groundbreaking scientific insight? 39:38 How do you come up with this stuff? 39:40 Do you spend a lot of time at the blackboard 39:43 or with a pen in hand, working out equations?" 39:45 He said, "I do equations, mostly, 39:47 I close my eyes and I play my violin." 39:54 And he said, 39:55 "The first time I began to understand relativity 39:59 was through a thought experiment." 40:01 As a little boy, 40:02 Albert Einstein out in nature 40:08 imagined himself riding straddling like a horse, 40:13 riding a sunbeam, a light beam. 40:16 He knew the speed of light, because he had been taught. 40:21 He knew that light moves because he had been taught. 40:26 But Einstein discovered relativity, 40:31 the time space continuum, 40:33 and that the fact that time and space are one and curved, 40:38 he discovered this first in its most embryonic form, 40:42 he didn't have it all worked out. 40:44 But as a child, he discerned it by imagining himself 40:48 like riding a light beam and imagining the trajectory. 40:53 Where does this go? 40:55 What shape does it take? 40:57 Where does it end? 40:58 Doesn't end? 41:00 And he imagined, 41:02 and it came to him that it's not linear, 41:07 it's curved. 41:09 And if you, I mean, one of the things he said, 41:12 that's just mind-blowing, he said, 41:13 if you had a telescope powerful enough, 41:15 you could look through it and see the back of your head. 41:20 Everything in the universe is round and rotational. 41:24 That's his basic discovery. 41:27 In other words, geometrically, 41:30 the whole universe operates in circular motion, 41:34 everything receives to give. 41:38 And the moment you stop giving, 41:42 your life begins to be extinguished. 41:45 The fact is, 41:47 that the whole universe was built on a grid, 41:50 if you will, a template after the image of God. 41:55 Everything is created on its multiplied 42:00 different levels on the pattern of giving. 42:05 And the only thing wrong with the world. 42:09 And I say the world because this problem 42:11 has been localized and quarantined. 42:16 That's why your travel by the way is restricted 42:18 to United Airlines. 42:20 And you can only travel if the quarantine were lifted, 42:22 you could travel the whole universe. 42:25 In fact, you will travel the whole universe 42:28 sometime in the future, right now you're too dangerous. 42:32 You have to be held captive here in a sense, 42:34 because you're so messed up 42:37 that God can't expose the universe to you, to me. 42:42 But the plan of salvation is so deeply healing 42:45 and restorative that God is leading us 42:48 to the place where you and I can literally, 42:50 not in imagination, 42:51 literally ride sunbeams throughout the universe, 42:54 and discover worlds afar that we have only begun to imagine. 43:00 So the whole universe is round and rotational, 43:03 everything is moving out and in, 43:05 out and in, out and in. 43:08 One author calls this the circuit of beneficence. 43:12 So circle, it goes round and round, 43:15 and round and round. 43:16 And that's the secret of life. 43:18 And it exists in the person of Christ. 43:23 In Him was life 43:26 and the life was the light of man. 43:31 So Einstein had his thought experiment. 43:35 I like for you to engage with me 43:37 in a little bit of a thought experiment. 43:41 Imagine on the premise 43:43 of what we have looked at so far in scripture. 43:46 Imagine deducting 43:51 from reality everything material... 43:58 And ask yourself the question, what do you end up with. 44:01 So just in your imagination, 44:03 remove all of the cosmos, 44:08 planetary systems and their rotation, 44:11 the rotational bodies, sun, moon, and stars, 44:15 innumerable throughout all of cosmological space. 44:20 Remove from your understanding the sun that lights the earth, 44:26 generating the photosynthesis process 44:28 by which we get blueberries, 44:30 and strawberries, and broccoli, and kale, yuck. 44:33 But anyways, we have it and as well we eat it. 44:36 Supposedly, it's good for you, 44:38 put it in a smoothie and mascot 44:40 with a lot of berries, you'll be fine. 44:43 But remove 44:45 the whole photosynthesis process. 44:48 Remove in your imagination, 44:52 the entire progeneration process, 44:55 the sexual process in all of animal creation 45:00 by which the male and the female produce, 45:06 arrays maleness, femaleness, 45:08 arrays sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, 45:12 everything that has to do with generating life, 45:18 remove all of it. 45:20 And you will find yourself face to face 45:22 with the profound reality of God and God alone. 45:28 God who alone occupies the unmade category, 45:33 which is to say, 45:35 God who occupies that category of reality 45:40 in which there is only pure love 45:44 and eternal existence in love, 45:47 and no procreation or progeneration. 45:52 And having imagined 45:55 what you get when you delete 45:57 all of material creation from your imagination. 46:00 Take in what Moses says to us in Numbers 23:19, 46:05 "Explicitly God is not a man that He should lie, 46:09 nor the son of man, that He should repent." 46:16 Moses is writing this when... 46:19 Well, let's just say he's writing this prior 46:22 to at very least 46:23 the incarnation of God in Christ. 46:27 And Moses is articulating an ultimate truth 46:32 about reality and about God. 46:33 There is an ultimate sense in which God is not a man, 46:40 and God is not a son of man. 46:43 There is an ultimate sense in which God is... 46:47 Can we say it like this? God is just God. 46:51 And transcends anything that we can comprehend 46:54 and so God condescends. 46:57 And His condescension is perpetual 46:59 throughout scripture, 47:01 not just father, son, mother, God says, "I'm like fire. 47:08 I'm like bread and wine. 47:09 I'm like an eagle. 47:11 I'm like the stars that shine forever. 47:15 I'm like the rose of Sharon." 47:18 God is constantly condescending, condescending, 47:21 condescending, 47:22 or else we could never know Him. 47:25 And the ultimate condescension is that God 47:29 in the person of Jesus Christ became one of us. 47:35 Listen, listen, listen, 47:37 you will sometime soon and very soon, 47:41 you will find yourself face to face 47:47 with the God of the universe in the person of Jesus Christ. 47:50 You will have eye contact with God. 47:54 You will be able to reach out your hands 47:56 and touch the flesh of God. 48:01 A God who prior to Christ never had any flesh. 48:07 The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. 48:12 God is not a man, God is far more than a man. 48:16 And yet think this through with me. 48:19 God is not a man. 48:20 God is not a man, Moses says, and yet He is. 48:25 In the person of Jesus Christ, 48:28 the God of the universe 48:30 has entered in to a relationship 48:34 with the human race 48:36 that is just absolutely nothing short of staggering 48:40 and having become a human being. 48:43 Listen, 48:45 He took our very humanity, our flesh. 48:50 The Book of Hebrews says it like this, "He became us." 48:54 And having become us, one of us, one with us. 48:59 In eternal solidarity, He became us, 49:02 Jesus took that flesh, 49:06 and He marched it 49:09 through the Garden of Gethsemane 49:12 to the cross of Calvary. 49:16 The nails were driven through His hands and His feet. 49:20 And the vicious Roman soldiers with no empathy pulsating 49:26 through their emotions lifted the cross 49:30 and dropped it in the hole prepared for it. 49:34 And every tendon of His body wrenched downward in pain. 49:43 And as God in Christ 49:48 hung, suspended, beaten, bloody, 49:52 bruised, spat upon, naked before the universe, 49:58 it became evident 50:00 not only to those humans right then 50:03 and there who were thinking and processing 50:07 and then later to the other humans 50:09 that would hear the good news and believe. 50:13 And then not only you and I, right here right now 50:18 knowing and believing the love that God has for us. 50:21 But the whole on looking universe 50:24 saw in Christ, 50:28 that God is love 50:30 in the most extreme and beautiful sense imaginable, 50:35 that if push comes to shove, 50:37 God always chooses the other over Himself, 50:44 that if we would prove unfaithful, 50:48 and we did and we have, 50:50 that God would remain faithful, 50:54 that He would follow through with His covenantal love 51:00 to reach not only out of Himself, 51:03 but to reach down to where we are, 51:07 and to embrace us, not just with His arms, 51:12 but by taking our very nature 51:15 and becoming the Son of God. 51:20 We were always meant to be 51:22 in order to show us how it's done, 51:25 to demonstrate what it really looks like to be human, 51:31 the way God created humanity to be. 51:34 And so John Chapter 1 doesn't just say, 51:38 "That in the beginning was the Word, 51:39 and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." 51:42 It doesn't just say that the Word became flesh 51:45 and dwelt among us. 51:47 John Chapter 1 says, "To as many as received Him, 51:52 to them He gave the power, 51:54 the authority to become sons of God." 52:00 Jesus is not the Son of God 52:03 in some kind of 52:04 ancient ontological, metaphysical sense. 52:09 Jesus is the Son of God 52:10 in precisely the way you and I 52:11 were meant to be sons and daughters of God. 52:16 Jesus is the second Adam. 52:18 Jesus is the one who has come into this world, 52:22 and put on full display 52:25 what it looks like to love like God loves. 52:29 And when He died at the cross for you and I, 52:33 something happened 52:36 that crossed a vital line 52:40 that made it possible for you and I 52:42 to become what we were always meant to be. 52:47 And so we can say, with the Apostle Paul, 52:49 with all the enthusiasm we can muster, 52:53 we can say looking at the cross of Calvary, 52:56 "I am crucified with Christ. 53:01 Nevertheless, 53:04 not I, 53:06 but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live, 53:12 I live by the faith of the Son of God, 53:18 who loved me 53:20 and gave Himself for me, 53:25 so that I might become a son of God." 53:30 So that you might become a son of God, 53:32 a daughter of God. 53:36 And having died, 53:38 Jesus was in the tomb for three days, 53:42 but the grave couldn't hold Him for one reason, 53:45 He never ceased loving us 53:51 all the way to the point of death. 53:55 And the devil's kingdom 53:57 in that moment was completely defeated. 54:01 He died, and Scripture says that death couldn't hold Him 54:04 because He died with the keys of hell 54:06 and of death in His hands. 54:09 He defeated death because love trumps sin. 54:15 And Jesus, having died for you and me, 54:17 came forth on the third day, 54:21 having lived as the Son of God, 54:25 having now died as the Son of God, 54:28 He rose as the Son of God. 54:33 His humanity came up out of the grave, 54:38 and He ascended 54:40 to the right hand of the Father, 54:43 the position of favor, 54:46 the position of victory, 54:48 bearing our humanity. 54:51 Listen, listen, 54:54 a human being, 54:56 this very moment 54:58 occupies the throne of the universe, 55:04 hypothetically, just hypothetically, 55:07 don't dwell on this too long because it's really depressing. 55:10 Hypothetically, 55:12 if all of us said no to the gospel. 55:15 If every human being said no. 55:16 If all of us were eternally lost, 55:21 humanity's already saved in Christ. 55:24 A specimen of the human race is already there. 55:29 A human being occupies the throne 55:31 of the universe awaiting our arrival. 55:37 And so we set our affections on things above, 55:39 not on things of this earth, 55:41 where Christ sits at the right hand 55:42 of God for us, 55:46 awaiting our arrival, 55:48 waiting for us to catch up to where He is. 55:53 The point of the gospel, 55:55 the point of the biblical narrative 55:59 is not that God 56:02 would take back control of the world as God, 56:07 but that God 56:10 would take back control of the world as man. 56:16 So that human beings 56:17 are returned to their rightful position 56:21 as stewards of the earth 56:24 given charge in the vast cosmos of this world, 56:30 and in Christ given charge of the whole universe, 56:34 as Paul says, "We shall reign with Him." 56:38 As John says, "To Him who overcomes, 56:44 He will grant to sit with Him in His throne, 56:47 as He overcame and He sat down with His Father 56:50 and His throne." 56:51 You and I, we are destined for the throne of the universe 56:53 by the grace of God, 56:55 because the Son of God is there 56:57 and to as many as received Him, to them, 57:00 He gave authority and power to become the sons of God. 57:05 Father, You're incredible. 57:08 Yes, we're just scratching the surface, 57:10 but we like what we see. 57:12 You are amazing beyond our estimation. 57:17 We can't imagine what life would be like 57:22 if You had not gotten hold of us. 57:25 Thank You for loving us 57:26 with an infinite love that is beyond our grasp, 57:30 but thank You that we can grasp... |
Revised 2019-01-03