Last night we continued our study looking into the things Jesus reveals about God. Here are the notes:
Last week we saw that Jesus is the clearest revelation of God. Today we will begin to see some of what that means. Often that means that Jesus reveals things about God that are totally stretching to our concept of who and what God is. For instance, one of the surprising things Jesus revealed about God was this relationship of “Father” and “Son” which he constantly spoke of, and which, as he revealed, lies within the life of God. In other words, Jesus revealed that to truly know God, you will know him as Jesus shows him to be: you’ll know him as Father, Son, and then, of course, Spirit as well)
See these verses for a look at the way Jesus revealed this truth over the course of his life: Mt 11:27, John 3:16-17, 31-36, Jn 5:16-27, 14:6-10, 14:15-18, 20:24-31
Taking that into account, let’s turn now to see some things, specifically, Jesus the Son reveals about God.
What the Son in particular Reveals:
God as Humble Servant Jn 13:1-5, Phil 2:5-8
God willing to be small/weak/fragile Luke 2:1-7, 2:51-52
God willing to be vulnerable John 18:10-12
God able to be gentle Mk 9:33-37; 10:13-16
God willing to be quiet and obscure Mt 12:14-21
God willing to be misunderstood Mt 13:54-58
In other words, to reiterate, in the coming of Jesus to reveal God to us we see that he is:
…Lord enough to serve.
…Big enough to be small.
…Secure enough to be vulnerable.
…Strong enough to be weak.
…Strong enough to be gentle.
So we need to ask: What does this tell us about God? What does he want us to know about Him? What false ideas about God does Jesus destroy?
Are our ideas about God based on our ideas of what a God must be like, or on what Jesus has shown us about God? For instance, do we think of our ideas of power, and then figure, “raise that to infinity, and that’s what God’s like”? Or do we start with Jesus, and let him tell us and show us who God is, what God is like, what it means for God to be all powerful, all knowing, etc…?
Another way to say it is to say we need to let the Spirit show us the Son revealing the Father. We let the Holy Spirit, in our day, lead us down the lifelong path of getting to know God as our Father by getting to know Jesus the Son. We read, learn, and obey the commands and example of Christ. We start by believing in Jesus as the only one who can reconnect us to God, by dying and paying for our guilt from our sin, and then rising again and offering us his forgiveness.
Applications:
1. We’re called to be made in his image – Romans 8:28-29, 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:6. God has these qualities in himself, so when He calls us to be humble or gentle or small, He is not degrading us but inviting us to transcend our upside-down ideas about what life is, and rise to the level of the Son. He is only calling us to be recast in the mold of Jesus, who is God the Son. Pride presses us further away from God, which we could call “down.” Being like Christ draws us closer to God.
2. Who wouldn’t worship this God? So many people reject God because they don’t take the time to patiently learn who he really is. Don’t you want to know, worship, and serve this God, the one who came and revealed himself this way?