The Perfect Son

Hebrews 1:1-3.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Father's Day Sunday, June 15, 2025.

The relationship between father and son is a powerful one.  Every father was once a son, in the sense of being a child, but are generally still an “adult” son while raising their own son.  The child is destined to grow up and generally become a father too.  This cycle is not just powerful when a father is present and good.  It is powerful when a father is present, but uncaring for the child.  And, it is powerful when the father is absent.

It is not the kind of power that makes immediate and miraculous changes.  It is a powerful influence that builds up on itself over time.  That influence even carries a certain momentum to it when a kid becomes an adult and moves away.

An adult child goes through a transitional time.  They have been used to seeing their father through the immature eyes of a toddler, child, and then teenager.  As a adult, we gain an adult perspective of our father.

Let me say this to parents.  If you approach parenting with the goal of raising the perfect child, and  you are willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen, then may God help your child.  Nothing in our parenting and their child-life is going to be perfect.  However, God does His perfect work through our imperfection.  Of course, I am not saying it doesn’t matter what you do.  No, the biggest thing a child needs is God’s love expressed through their parents.

With that in mind, I would challenge us not to only think of this cycle as a process of physical and emotional maturation.  I believe that we are intended to see it as a shadow of God’s heart for humanity.

Let’s talk about one more thing before we look at our text.  In the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15), we can see different types that sons often fall into.  There is the Golden Son who takes on responsibility at a young age and works closely with their father.  We also see the Prodigal Son, or Black Sheep.  This is the troubled son who turns from responsibility and is lost no matter where he goes.  Yet, as the story progresses, we can recognize that neither of these sons were perfect sons.  In fact, they were both prodigals in different ways.  The elder son was close to his father, but his heart was not like his fathers.  For all of his appearance, he had so far wasted the opportunity to take on his father’s heart, to become like his father internally as well as externally.

Of course, no sons are perfect.  This is because only Jesus is the perfect son.  However, in Jesus, imperfect sons and imperfect fathers can become adult children of God who are perfected before Him.

Let’s look at our passage.

God is speaking to us through Jesus.  Who is He?

Many powerful things are packed into these three verses, but the overall point is the comparison of Jesus to all those prophets who came before him.  When it comes to knowing God, He must reveal Himself if it is going to happen.  Yet, the Bible is proof that God is a revealing God.  Francis Schaeffer made the great points that “God is here, and He is not silent.”  He may not be revealing new doctrines, but He is still helping us to understand what has been written down in Scripture.

Up until Jesus, God had spoken through prophets who were imperfect men, though they were loyal to God and sought to live righteously.  Still, they were all imperfect in imaging Father God to their people.  Before we turn to Jesus, we should recognize that God has always used imperfect people to impact the life of other imperfect people for His perfect purpose in their lives.  This is true whether we are talking about the prophets of the past, or about human fathers trying to raise a son.  We are given the job of imaging God’s love to our kids, to our world, and none of us do this perfectly.

This brings us to Jesus.  This passage has two aspects to it.  We will look first at just who Jesus was, is.  Essentially, he is the perfect revelation (imager) of God the Father.  There is no discrepancy between what we see in Jesus and the heart of God the Father.

In fact, by sending imperfect imagers and then a perfect one, God has hemmed us in.  We can’t complain that the prophets were not a good enough image, nor can we complain that Jesus was too perfect.  “I just can’t relate with his perfection.”  Thus, Jesus is the perfect image of the heart of the Father, both how He feels and what He desires (of us and for us).

This reiterates what I was saying earlier.  The prophets did not have to be perfect to affect God’s perfect work in the world, and neither do parents.  Still, we don’t use that as an excuse.  This is a serious task for God, and it has eternal consequences.

So, Jesus is God’s perfect word to humanity.  What else is he?  Jesus is the Son.  This is not a statement about how he came into being, but about his status among humanity.  It is a title that is found in the Old Testament, particularly in the prophecies to David about one of his descendants (2 Samuel 7), and in the prophecies of Isaiah.  It became equivalent to the Anointed One of God (Messiah or Christ).

Jesus is the perfect son of David who was a Son of God.  All the sons of David had failed and the monarchy had been broken for over 5 centuries.  When Jesus came forth, there was an expectation that he would restore the monarchy and deliver Israel from the Romans.  However, he came to save them from their sins (and us from ours).  Our moral failings had separated us from God, but through Jesus, we can be brought close to Him.

In fact, we are told in Romans 3:23 that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  Yet, we can be justified freely by His  grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

Jesus is also the Heir of all things.  We see this in verse 2.  In Scripture, Jesus is the only One who perfectly stood against the lies of the devil and lived out loyal love towards God the Father.  The failure of Adam and Eve had brought the dominion of humans over the earth in jeopardy.  Through our sins, the devil was able to exercise his dominion over the earth.  The Garden of Eden was a test of loyalty more than it was a test of knowledge.  Humans were not created with omniscience- neither were the angels by the way.  Jesus came forth as the Worthy One who can take up the dominion over the earth.  He inherits it.  Of course, he could keep it all to himself, but in his mercy, he shares it with those who come into a loving loyal relationship with him.

Of course, our enemy tries to get in our heads and use our unworthiness to sidetrack us, or derail us.  Yet, Jesus didn’t come to take the prize away from us.  He came to save us from our lost and plundered state.  This world belongs to Jesus just as much as your life belongs to him. 

The writer goes on to mention that God made the world through Jesus.  He is the creative agent of creation.  In case this verse isn’t clear enough for you, the Apostle John makes is abundantly clear in his Gospel, chapter 1 verse 3.  “All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.”  This shuts down the idea that Jesus is also a created being.  Of course, the body he used in the first century was created within time.  However, he has existed from eternity past as the Word of God.  Thus, John is interpreting Genesis chapter 1 in John chapter 1.  He is showing us that God the Father spoke, “Let there be light,” and the Word of god (the eternal Son of God) went forth and brought it into being.  Everything that is in the class of created things was made through the Word of God (who would later be called Jesus in his incarnation).    Thus, it is illogical to say that he is also a part of the created class.

Some people are confused by the phrase in Colossians 1:15 that calls Jesus the “Firstborn over all creation.”  Just like the term “Son,” the term “Firstborn” was often used of kings to refer to a status.  It was common in the ancient near east for emperors to refer to kings that had sworn fealty to them (often after being defeated in battle) as “sons.”  Similarly, the emperors would refer to a particular king as their firstborn.  This wasn’t a reference of their biology and birth order.  It was a reference to their status within the Kingdom.  They were the one who would inherit it all, and had a double-portion over all the others.

Think of it.  Everything that we see on this planet and throughout the cosmos is the perfect work of a perfect Son doing the will of a perfect Father.  Any imperfections have come about by the activity of other agents, whether fallen angels or fallen humans.

This is who hung on the cross for us.  God’s wasn’t suffering only in Jesus, and only while he was on the cross.  First, we see Jesus suffering through many things leading up to the cross, both physical pain and the emotional pain of rejection and persecution.  Yet, Jesus is only revealing to us that the heart of the Father has been suffering all along.

Of course, we can pretend like it was easy for him because he was God.  We can think that it is no big deal for God to suffer because He can handle it.  Perhaps, you are thinking about it backwards.  It is most likely that God’s suffering is far more acute because of being God.  Nothing is hidden from Him.  Whereas, we humans are limited creatures, and therefore, our suffering is limited.  Just as we cannot handle the full glory of God without being undone, we cannot handle the full suffering of God.  It would destroy us.

Verse three gives us two phrases that point to Jesus as the perfect imager of God the Father.  This is another way to see the failure of Adam and Even in the Garden.  They failed to image God even though He had made them in His image and likeness.  As descendants of Adam and Eve, we all fail in our imaging of God.  However, in Christ, we are being redeemed back to a perfect image of God.

Of course, you are not perfect yet.  Only Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory.  A good picture of what this means is the sun.  It glory projects forth in an electromagnetic sea of wavelengths and particles.  Jesus isn’t just mimicking God.  He comes forth from God very nature.  Just as Jesus healed people, taught people, and loved people, so he is showing us that God is a healer, a teacher, and the One who loves us.

At the cross, Jesus isn’t just revealing what God would do.  No, the Father already had a crucified heart back at Creation.  He had counted the cost, and He had agreed to pay the price.   It is the very nature of God to suffer with our sin for long periods of time.  He is slow to anger and willing to take our pain upon Himself in order to redeem us.  When Jesus says, “Father, forgive them.  They don’t know what they are doing,” he is revealing the very desire and purpose of God.  It is exactly what He wanted to do, and the cross was the mechanism for rectifying, justifying, that very act!

The second way that this is pointed out is in the phrase “exact representation of God’s nature.”  To see Jesus is to see the very nature of God.

Next, we are told in verse three that Jesus upholds all things by the word of his power.  Everything would fall without him.  This is similar to the phrase in Colossians 1:17.  There it says that in Him all things hold together.  He holds it up and holds it together.  He is the very power that holds the universe in a unified system doing the will of God.

Think about that when he is hanging on the cross, being kissed by a betrayer, and having a high priest cry out, “Blasphemy!” while tearing his robe.  He held the world together that day just so we could spit in his face. 

Welcome to fatherhood.  You are called to be the adult.  But even better, you are called to be the reflection of our heavenly Father, to take on suffering for the good of those who will die if you don’t do it, to do it because you love them!

Jesus is also the one who made purification for sins. He was not just showing us God’s heart for us in the sense of only giving us an example.  He truly was making a way for our sins to be covered and the guilt of it to be removed from us (purified).  This is the foundation of the Father’s ability to allow those who have sinned to become Children of god, dwelling with Him forever, and inheriting that for which we are disqualified.  Jesus paid the price for our redemption.  He lays his perfect life down so that we can no longer be disqualified from our inheritance.

Finally, Jesus is the one who sits at the right hand of the Father.  This too speaks to status.  He is in a position to exercise the authority and power of the Father.  He is there in order to give humanity time to respond to the Gospel of peace.  Through us, God is offering terms of peace to His enemies.  Of course, this puts the ball in their (our) court.  What will we do?  How will we choose?

God is speaking to us through Jesus.  What is His message?

So far, we have focused on who Jesus is, but the whole point of these verses is that God has spoken to us through Jesus.  The message of Jesus is the message of the Father.  This is what Jesus was talking about in John 7:16-17 and 12:29.  He was not teaching his own things.  He was teaching what the Father had sent him to teach.  The same is true of the deeds and miracles that he did.

So, what was Jesus saying, and therefore, what was the Father saying?

First, He is telling us, “I haven’t abandoned you.”  Israel’s problem was never that God was taking too long.  It was always that they were tone deaf to the message He was giving them.  The problem wasn’t Gentile powers, Serpents in the Garden, or giants.  The problem was always their inability to trust God, and the sin that resulted from it.  Sin always leads to separation from God and the good that He intends for us.  The separation is not just God turning from us because it starts with us turning from Him.

Yet, God does not and has not abandoned us.  It can feel like it.  Adam and Even were kicked out of the Garden.  Yet, they were also given a promise.  God was saying to them, “Will you trust Me now?”  When the people at the Tower of Babel were disowned by God and handed over to the Spirit-beings that they were seeking, it could feel like God had abandoned them.  Yet, His call of Abraham was all about blessing the nations.  God gives a promise through Abraham that would impact the whole world.

In Christ, a remnant of Israel was raised up, filled with the Spirit of God, and sent out to the nations with a message of peace. 

In the midst of a world that is full of the pain of sin, both our own sin and that of others, it is easy to think that God has abandoned us.  We want God to keep the pain from ever touching us, but sin is pain.  Instead, God joins us in the pain and suffering and gives that suffering meaning and purpose.  Our suffering can be redeemed and become a trophy of God’s saving power.  But, it can also be a strengthening in a person’s life.  They can become a warrior to help and to fight for the souls of others who are suffering.

A second part of what God is saying is this.  “I have paid the price to redeem you.”  The love of God is not just about good feelings and warm thoughts toward us.  It is about dealing with the unsolvable predicament that we have created with our own sin.  No amount of good works can make up for past sin.  Yet, in Jesus, God has stepped in and paid the price for your spiritual and physical freedom. 

Lastly, God is saying, “If you trust Me, I will help you overcome all that stands in your way so that you can sit with Me on My throne!”

In Jesus, it doesn’t matter what has happened to us.  No matter how painful, or how much failure we have done, He will help us to overcome it!

There have always been horrible things in this world since the Fall.  Yet, instead of them destroying you, God will destroy its destroying effects through your faith in Jesus.  What the devil, the world, or any individual, intends for evil in our life, God will turn it to the good if we will only trust Him.

The cross speaks a powerful word about the faithfulness of God in the face of “losing it all.”  If we listen to Him, though it leads to a cross, He will raise us up to sit with Him and inherit all things.

This is what Paul means when he talks about us being seated with Jesus in the heavenly places.  We are not physically there now, but it becomes our status when we put our faith in him.  He will help us to overcome all that stands in our way. 

We may be frustrated today as imperfect dads pointing imperfect kids to a perfect Son who images a perfect Father.  Yet, this is God’s perfect work in us!  He is not removing us from the problem, but rather, He is spotting us through the heavy lifting and bringing us into a glorious future.

Perfect Son audio

The Acts of the Apostles 39

Subtitle: Saul Preaches at Damascus

Acts 9:20-25.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on March 12, 2023.

We have come to the point where Jesus has dramatically saved the life of Saul of Tarsus.  Last week, I mentioned how he was prayed for by Ananias and received his sight.  He was also water baptized and filled with the Spirit too.  This put Saul on a different trajectory than his namesake, King Saul.

It is a wonderful thing when a person is confronted with Jesus, and they surrender to him in faith.  Saul's complete about face.  May God help us to see hungry people seeking Jesus and finding him.  May we be a people who are still excited about the amazing grace of Jesus in our lives.

Let's look at our passage.

Saul is a new man in Christ Jesus

We can talk about becoming a new man in the natural.  Maybe we find some kind of regimen that will whip us into shape and revamp our life physically.  Of course, even if you really do well at that, it is still a losing battle.  In the end, you are mortal and cannot stay ahead of death.

Yes, scientists are working hard to overcome the mortality issue.  Even if they are able to conquer death, so to speak, science cannot fix sin in the heart of people.  A laboratory may be able to lobotomize a man, but they cannot fix his soul and heart.  Science can create technical solutions to issues, but it can't tell you if you should deploy them or not, whether it is good or bad.

Without something outside of us to which we are accountable, our "morality" will be like the waves of the sea, wishy-washy.  Perhaps we will be moved by the group one way, until a new majority shows up and the waves moves another direction.  This is true and good now.  No.  Now this over here is true and good, ad infinitum.  Whether it be a majority group, or a tyrant, this crazy world of changing truths falls woefully short of creating true change in a person's heart.

Saul becomes a new man spiritually rather than naturally.  He can actually see the reality of his life and the life of people around him because he is truly listening to the Creator of the universe.  If we needed proof of Saul's conversion, we see it in the activity following his healing and conversion.

Jesus had given him his mission in at least one vision, if not two.  He didn't need any more proof.  Of course, we might complain that God hasn't given us a vision.  However, God has given you enough evidence to believe upon Him.  Don't play the game of withholding your faith from Him because He hasn't given you a particular experience.  Yes, He loves you, but He's not playing games.

Saul is no longer a student of Rabbi Gamaliel of the school of Hillel.  He is now a follower of Rabbi Yeshua!

We are told that Saul "immediately" preaches Jesus in the synagogues.  That word can mean in the next second, but it also allows for context.  If he was saved on a Tuesday, then it would mean that he preached in the synagogue that Friday/Saturday.  Thus, immediately can mean at the next available opportunity.

The emphasis of his preaching is the amazing reality that Jesus truly was the Messiah, or Christ.  Jesus was the one that they had been waiting for God to send.  God had promised that an Anointed One would come and deliver Israel, but even more, he would be a redeemer of Israel.  These prophecies in the Old Testament stated that one from the line of David would not only fix Israel, but even the nations.  However, they had been under the domination of foreign powers for over 586 years.  It is hard to keep the faith that God is going to save you that long.

He also emphasizes that this Messiah was also the Son of God.  If you pay attention to the words of Jesus, then you will notice that Jesus actually emphasizes Son of Man regarding himself, rather than Son of God.  It is true that these words have a layer of meaning that is essentially "human" for the former and "divine" for the latter.  Yet, there is more going on here than that.

The phrase "Son of Man" is not a denial of the divinity of Jesus.  Rather, Jesus is using a phrase that is also a technical phrase from Old Testament prophecy, particularly in Daniel 7. For example, if I use the word "rapture" in a church setting, many Christians will immediately think of prophecies in the New Testament that speak of a catching up of believers to be with Jesus in the air.  However, a non-Christian may hear that word and only think of a poetic use of ecstatic joy and delight.  Of course, they wouldn't be wrong that this is part of its meaning, but they would be missing the critical theological significance.  The same is true with the Son of Man.

In Daniel 7, we have the Ancient of Days, God, seated on His throne with other thrones around him.  The final beast-empire of the earth is slain before Him and the government taken from it.  Next we see "And behold, One like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him."  Notice that the great powers of the earth are described as beasts though comprised of men.  They are beasts of men ruling in a beastly way.  However, this one who is like a human receives a kingdom from the Ancient of Days that never ends.  Thus, his heart and his rule will not be beastly, but human, i.e., it will have the proper relational love that should exist in any governance.

Yet, there are some powerful things signaled in the text.  This one like a human rides the clouds to the Father.  This is no mere mortal.  Biblically speaking this is language used of God, or the gods.  It is considered divine activity.  Jesus emphasized this in Matthew 26:64 when he responded to high priest.  They understood the connotation that he was making and accused him of blasphemy.  On top of this, we have the fact that his kingdom is everlasting and the peoples of the earth will "serve" him, a word used of service to a deity.

So you see, Son of Man is not contradictory of Son of God.  In fact, it actually embraces the phrase Son of God and adds to it prophetic significance.  Jesus was revealing that he was that strange, unique God-man that Scripture revealed.

I know that I took some time with this, but this is what Saul is preaching.  Jesus is the Son of David, but even more, he is the Son of God.  He has a divine origin.  We see this in the way the Gospels treat the origin of Jesus.  Matthew, Mark, and Luke focus upon the human origin of Jesus in their story without denying his divinity.  In a sense, they write their accounts as it was experienced.  He was born, ministered, and then we figured out who he was!  John, however, begins with a focus on the eternal origin of Jesus.  "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...and the Word became flesh (human) and dwelt among us..."  This is Jesus spoken of from God's experience, stepping into the world and taking on an additional nature of a human.  Of course, we may wonder how that is possible.  The answer would be that God created humans in a way that made it possible for Him to take on our nature.  Who'd have thunk it?  This is His artistic flourish as the Creator.

Saul is preaching to believers in the Father.  They worship Him with songs, readings, and prayers.  However, they don't know His Messiah, and that He had come to save them.  They didn't know the Father's salvation yet.  If there is one thing we should learn from the Old Testament, it is this.  All people, even religious people, who have the truth of God in their hands, need a spiritual transformation.  The same thing can happen to them that happened to the nations at the time of the Tower of Babel.  They had been exchanging truth for a lie, little by little, until they cooperated with Nimrod.  God judged it and handed them over to those "gods" they were seeking.  Over the centuries, and millennia, they became so dark that they were cutting hearts out of live victims for their so-called gods.

The people who heard Saul preaching about the Messiah having come were amazed at the idea, but the real source of their amazement is Saul's complete turn around.  He was fighting against them one day, and then became one of their strongest proponents the next day.  This is just how radically Jesus can change, transform, a life.  Or better, we could say that Jesus is able to save even the chief of sinners!

At the heart of the teachings of Jesus and his apostles, we have this idea of spiritual transformation.  Saul would later write in 2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

I grew up in the Church, but I did not live for Jesus during my teenage years.  My freshman year in college began with too much partying and running around.  However, Jesus confronted me and I yielded to him.  He radically changed my life.  A friend that I used to run around with told me one day that he had talked to his mom about me.  She told him that I was just going through a "religious phase."  Well, here we are 35 years later, and I'm still going strong in this "religious phase," hallelujah!  Listen, Jesus did not come to give us a "religious phase," even though some people approach it this way.  He came to transform our lives.  It is not enough to have the truth.  It is not enough to look like you are following Jesus.  Judas followed Jesus!  But, when it really mattered, Judas betrayed the Lord Jesus with a kiss in the middle of  the night.  Let us not settle for having the right religion.  We must be transformed by Jesus!

In verse 22, we are told that Saul increased in strength.  Luke is showing us that God's blessing was upon Saul.  He is not talking about physical strength, but spiritual.  Saul made a 180 degree turn from fight God and His Holy Spirit to working with Them.  This required spiritual growth.  He grew in hearing the Holy Spirit and cooperating with Him.  He grew in his ability to be convincing to others.  Of course, his familiarity with the Old Testament would help.  However, Saul would have to let go of a lot of rabbinical teaching, and some parts would be retained and redeemed by the mind of Christ.

Saul had lots of natural gifts.  He could learn material, and was very industrious with lots of desire to move ahead, to prove himself.  However, natural talents that are not surrendered to God's direction will get in the way.  Later, Saul would say in Philippians 3:8 that all of his accomplishments in the natural were rubbish.  They were meaningless if he didn't have Jesus.

The word in verse 22 for "proving" has the sense of knitting two things together.  They believed in a coming Messiah, but they also believed that Jesus was poles apart from what Messiah would be.  Saul's preaching brought those things together in people's minds and knit them together, each stitch a different point.  Another way to see it is the knitting the person to the view that Jesus is Messiah.  Either way, he was convincing people, proving to them, that Jesus is the Messiah.

Always remember that spiritual growth is the result of a living connection to Jesus that is lived out in faith.  True spiritual growth is also always connected to the blessing of God. 

The blessing of God is a multi-faceted thing.  It doesn't look just one particular way.  We have to be careful that we do not equate the blessing of God with everything going well, and getting all the stuff we want.  In this land of plenty, it is easy to make the blessing of God be a very material thing.  I have a nice, big house, retirement nest egg, lucrative business/job, etc.  Saul is a blessed man, but remember the words of Jesus.  "I will show him [Saul] how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake."

Let me just say this.  To suffer for Jesus is a great honor and blessing.  To be martyred for Christ is also great honor and blessing.  You might have to put that one in the "To Be Believed Later" file.  We should never try to make these things happen.  Instead, we are following Jesus and letting him show us how we are to honor him and how he will bless us.  The cross was the most blessed place in the universe, but it sure didn't look like it when it was happening.  Remember that!   Yet, your life doesn't have to look like that to be blessed.  Trust Jesus!

It is like you see Jesus saying to you, "Come follow me!" and you really want to follow him.  But then, you see him going to a cross, and your flesh is saying, "I'm not following that guy; He's crazy!"  However, after the resurrection, you are like, "Crazy like a fox.  Wow!"  Even then, after such an emotional rollercoaster, you find yourself torn.  Your flesh shrinks back from one who tells you to pick up your cross and follow him, and yet your spirit desires to come out after him.

It is one thing for Peter to ask Jesus to come out on the water when he saw him walking on it.  However, no one was asking Jesus to come on the cross with him.  They all hid, and Peter chief among them.  God understand this about us, and works with us to bring to the place of faith and courage, where we can follow him by faith.

Verse 23 opens up with "Now after many days were past..."  There is a lot more time in that phrase then we may assume.  Galatians 1 gives some more details about this period.  There we are told that Saul left Damascus to go into Arabia, and then came back.  Three years transpires in this "many days."  For perspective, we need to understand that Arabia is a very general term that basically means desert.  If you left Damascus going south, southeast, you were basically in Arabia.  If you kept going you could make all the way to the Arabian Peninsula.  We don't exactly know where and how far Saul went into Arabia.  He seems to be getting away to go out into the wilderness. 

Regardless, it is about three years at the point that things change in Damascus.  Saul is preaching and God is blessing him.  However, the Jews of Damascus begin to plot to kill Saul.  Now, it is one thing to be in a foreign land and they don't like you.  However, this is Saul's own people.  Yet, he had been just like them, not to long ago.

It is not that he isn't blessed anymore.  The devil isn't stationary.  He's working to neutralize the work of God.  However, God isn't static either.  God sees what the devil is trying, and folds it into His plan, which is not for Saul to die yet.  Thus, the plot becomes known to Saul, though we are not told how.  Jesus has more work for Saul to do.  As the resistance against Saul increases, God is teaching Saul to identify with the sufferings of Jesus, to join him in those sufferings.  This is a intimacy that we can experience with Jesus.  Yes, suffering for Christ is a blessing, though our flesh does not believe it for one moment.

When Jesus miraculously supplied bread in the wilderness, the people were all gung-ho for him.  But, later they cried out "Crucify him!"  People are fickle.  We cannot let ourselves be stuck looking at people and hoping that lots of them will embrace us.  One day you may see great fruit, and then boom, the next day they are calling for your head, and that's okay, if God is with you.

This part of the story reminds me of the prophet Jeremiah in chapter eleven of his book.  Verses 18-22 describe a group of people in Anathoth who were plotting to kill Jeremiah.  God reveals to Jeremiah what they are plotting and says that He will punish them.  If you look at Jeremiah 1:1, you will see that Anathoth is Jeremiah's hometown, and it is filled with priests!  This town of priests are secretly plotting to assassinate one of their local boys.  Jeremiah had become the opposite of a hometown hero.  Even more interesting is the fact that Jeremiah uses language that clearly borrows from Isaiah 53 (written some 100 years earlier).  He was like a docile "lamb brought to the slaughter," and the people wanted to "cut him off from the land of the living."  Jeremiah is basically looking at the mistreated individual of Isaiah 53 (who would eventually be Jesus) and says, "I can identify with that!"

Though some of the Damascene Jews were waiting outside of the city gates to kill Saul, God out-foxed them by making the plot known to Saul, and the Christians out-foxed them by letting Saul out of a window in the wall with a rope and a basket in the dead of night.  Yes, great Saul who had marched to the city with strong men to arrest Christians was now sneaking out of the city by night.

We might think Saul should have walked out of the city daring them to try and touch him.  Surely, God's angels would protect him.  Perhaps, an army of angels would march out of the desert and escort Saul out of the city.  How cool would that be?  However, God delivers Saul with a much more humble method, which seems absolutely appropriate for a man who had had a big ego.

We must be careful that we are not presumptuous about how God should save us.  Don't assume.  Through prayer, seek God for the answer that He is giving, and not that one that your flesh is providing.

Perhaps you are hearing this and thinking to yourself, "That's a nice story, but stuff like that never happens for me.  God didn't do that for me."  Of course, you are not Saul in those circumstances.  Even in that day, countless Christians could have complained that God didn't give them the visions that Saul had, or the mission that He gave to Saul.  Don't give yourself over to envy and complaining against God.  Stop looking at what God might be doing through others and being envious over it.  Stop looking at what God isn't doing in your life and whining over it.  Rather, turn to God in prayer and seek Him.  Don't just seek Him to get visions and a cool mission.  Seek Him because He is worthy to be found.  Intimacy and relationship with Jesus is far more important, and yet, believe you me, He will give you plenty of tasks and you will see fruit, if you keep your eyes on Him!

Let's be a people pressing into Jesus in order to have intimacy with him, to know him better.  Then, we will be a transformed person who is capable of being used to draw others to Christ Jesus.  Only Jesus can tell you all the things that you have to go through for him, and only Jesus can prepare your heart to thrive in the midst of it!

Saul Preaches audio

Lessons of Christmas- The Miracle of it All

John 1:1-3, 14.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on December 13, 2015.

The modern, scientific world basically rejects the idea of miracles.  Unless one is a strong Christian and a scientist, miracles sound like the antithesis of sound reasoning.  However, much of this is a matter of semantics.  The common argument against miracles will go something like this. Miracles are against the laws of science and cannot be duplicated upon demand.  Therefore they are mythical, whether through insincerity or not.

So what do Christians mean by the word miracle?  Well, we do not mean the “miracles” of nature, like a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly.  As amazing as many of the processes of nature are, they are not technical miracles.  Scientists can observe and test to determine the underlying fundamental principles that enable metamorphosis.  In fact all over the world metamorphosis is happening all the time.  There are two main concepts behind the words that are often translated as miracle.  The first has to do with the observation of something amazing.  It is a memorable thing that sticks out among the stuff that naturally occurs.  Another word has the concept of being a sign.  This memorable thing points to something about God and the world. 

This leads us to three main parts to defining a miracle.  First, it is something for which God is immediately responsible.  Everything of nature follows certain laws and operations (physics) that God hardwired into the creation.  Thus he is technically responsible for all actions of nature, but this is a secondary responsibility.  In a miracle, something happens that would not have happened if God had let nature run its normal course.  The red sea parting or Jesus walking on water were not things that would have happened naturally.  There is a supernatural source to the happening of this event.  Second, though the event has a supernatural cause, this does not mean that it breaks scientific laws.  Miracles are not magic.  Rather, God Himself introduces power and laws that are generally above our understanding of physics.  Even if we could completely understand the physics of our world, we can’t completely understand God and how He interacts with it.  Thus miracles would always be beyond mankind’s ability to comprehend.  Plus God does not intend to give miracles in order to extend our knowledge of physics.  He doesn’t owe us an explanation.  Third, miracles always occur in a religious context.  They are given to God’s people, or to substantiate God’s Word.  Thus the struggle between Moses and Pharaoh is accompanied with miraculous signs in order to help Pharaoh see the truth about God and His people.

Now at Christmas we have several miracles among which some are: the virgin birth and the angelic visitations.  However the greatest miracle of all time is the incarnation.  Just when it looked like mankind was doomed to failure and destruction under the wrath of God, God becomes a man.  This was a cosmic game-changer.

The Word Became Flesh

In chapter one of the gospel of John Old Testament wording and imagery is used throughout in order to connect it with Jesus.  He starts out by referencing something called “The Word.”  This is an allusion back to Genesis 1, where God is seen speaking things into existence.  “And God said, let there be…”  The Word is the purpose, logic and reasoning of God coming from within Him and going out from Him.  John begins to define this Word in a way that makes clear it is not just words and it is not just a force.  As we walk through the first two verses, John establishes the preexistence of Jesus in a sequential manner.

First, he establishes that The Word existed at the beginning of creation.  “In the beginning” is the title of the Book of Genesis in Hebrew.  In Genesis 1:1, The Word existed already.  Second, The Word was in relationship with God the Father, “with God.”  It didn’t just exist.  It existed in relationship with God.  Third, we are told that The Word was divine.  It may appear that he is just equating them.  But he is clearly distinguishing two that are both God (and divine).  In verse two this is restated.  Lastly, John states that The Word was the agent or means of creation.  The Father speaks and the Word goes forth to accomplish it (in verse 14 & 18 it is clear the word is a personality).  What is not made clear in Genesis 1 is being revealed here in John 1.  Thus John describes two distinct persons existing together and yet God.  Later in verse 14 and 18 he defines this further as God the Father, and the Only Begotten Son.  All created things were made through Jesus in his divine capacity.  The Son is not a created person, but a reality that had been kept secret until the incarnation.

Thus the birth of Jesus is more than a man that God chooses to use.  Rather, it is the eternal Word and divine Son stepping into the world and taking on the additional nature of humanity.  This all happens when Satan had all but captivated all the nations of the world, Israel included.  The knowledge of God was all but extinguished either by outright rejection, or by perversion.  Thus in verse 14, John says that The Word became flesh and dwelled among us.  The word “dwelled” is the same word used for the tabernacle in the wilderness with Moses.  God has always tried to teach us that He longs to dwell with us.  It is as if God waits until the last seconds to bring out His secret weapon.  He is going to suit up on our side.  It is a miracle because mankind couldn’t have done it.  No matter how hard we try, we will never be able to produce God, much less make ourselves Gods.  The more we try the less like God we will become.  It is a miracle because it can’t be explained by mere natural means.  Yes, Jesus could have been just a baby, but then what about the miracles he did as a man?  If you reject those, what do you do with his prophecies about Jerusalem and the rest of the world?  If you reject that what do you do with the resurrection?  And, if you refuse to believe that then you are open to what God is trying to show you.  This is all history and yet it can’t be explained with the natural.  Also, it is a miracle because it fulfilled all that God prophesied and underscored all He had been trying to teach.  What if God was one of us?  Well in Jesus He has become one of us.  He has become our champion.  He has stepped in between us and our enemy the devil.

He Humbled Himself

In some ways it goes without saying.  But the point is too important to skip over. The humility of this miracle is mind-boggling.  The divine becomes human and the immortal becomes mortal.  This miracle of God taking on the nature of a man is unexplainable.  These are things that only the designer of creation and mankind could fully comprehend.  However, that is not what is important.  The “how” is incredible, but it is the “why” that truly blows your mind.  While we are busy trying to become gods, God a long time ago became one of us.  This humility is explained in Philippians 2:5-8.  Jesus was not just moving to a lower station.  He is choosing to embrace those who had lost and deserved to die.  He is identifying with that which was crushed and captivated by the devil.  He would rather hang out with the losers than with the winners.  Why?

In Philippians 2 we are told that Jesus did not consider his prior state, being God, as something to be gripped tightly.  His nature is such that He is not clambering to be on top, but is the one to choose lowly things.  He voluntarily cooperates with the limitations of being a man, who is also under the law of Moses.  The phrase sometimes translated as “made himself of no reputation,” would be better translated “he emptied himself.”  It is not clear what exactly he emptied himself of.  He doesn’t cease to be God, but he does cease to operate as only God.  He takes on limitations and chooses to suffer pain, hunger, rejection, and death.  He submits not just to death, but to death on a cross, which was a social shame and excruciating.  He obeyed the will of the Father to the point of death on a cross.  Part of the miracle of the incarnation is the depths to which God is willing to lower himself in order to lift us up.  Jesus reveals to us that it is those who lose according to this world who are desired by God.  We are always looking at what is possible and how to get ahead and move up.  But Jesus is God’s word to mankind, “Let me defeat your enemy for you.”

He Came Full Of Grace And Truth

In verse 14, John describes what they saw when the incarnation came into the world to dwell among men.  “We beheld his glory.”  Of course John had seen the transfiguration of Jesus when he had been transformed into a glowing being.  But he is speaking of more than that.  Here he is referencing the whole experience of dwelling with Jesus.  His glory was constantly being revealed for those who had eyes to see it.

It was especially displayed in that he was full of grace and truth.  God shows compassion to those who are captivated by sin and whose lives have been devoured by the devil.  He comes like a gift from heaven to heal, set people free from demons, and speak words of truth that cut through all the confused and deceived wisdom of mankind.  Even more amazing, He does so regardless of the fact that we do not deserve it.

Rather, we deserved him to come into the world full of wrath and judgment.  The miracle of Christmas is that instead of flaming judgment raining down from heaven, we are given aid against our enemy and victory over him.  This is not the story of underdogs overcoming at the end and winning.  This is the story of mankind losing the battle to the devil and his angels.  And, yet, God chooses to have a celebration with the losers and despises the “winners.”

Have you lost in life?  God is calling you to stop trying to win the game of this life and come into relationship with Him.  Are you winning in this life?  Beware that you are not caught up in the judgment that God is going to pour out on the devil, his angels, and all those who have joined his rebellion against God’s Son.  Choose this day, whom you will serve.

Christmas: Miracle audio

When The Lord Questions You

Luke 20:41-47.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on September 20, 2015.

In the previous chapter we saw how Jesus wept over Jerusalem because of the hard hearts the people there had, especially the leaders.  This chapter has given us snapshots of the last week before the crucifixion, in which Jesus speaks to the people in the temple area.  This last attempt to turn their hearts runs into stiff opposition from the religious leaders.  Today we see that Jesus somewhat turns the table on them and asks them his own questions.  However, we should be careful of thinking that Jesus is only giving them a taste of their own medicine.  Rather, he specifically asks about a passage that is key to explaining who the Messiah really is and why they stumbled at the way Jesus spoke of his connection with The Father.  They claim to know so much.  But, if they would simply admit that there are some unexplained things in the Scriptures, they would be in a better position to accept what God was trying to reveal to them.  Jesus was the Son of God come down to do for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Jesus Exposes Their Willful Ignorance

There is nothing wrong with being ignorant.  All of us have areas of ignorance, no matter how smart we are.  No one can know all that mankind “knows,” much less all that is possible to be known.  Being ignorant is not a problem.  But, willful ignorance in the face of God’s revelation is a sin that we should be quick to repent of. 

The religious leaders questioned Jesus in order to undermine the authority that Jesus had with the common people, and to find fault with him.  Now God can handle our questions.  We can question Him, but we must recognize that when we are done He may have some questions for us.  This is part of the error of those who scoff and mock the Bible with questions that are clearly intended to manipulate how it looks rather than to find truth.  Go ahead and mock God’s Word, but also recognize that God will in turn have His time of questioning you.  Would you survive the same tactics against yourself that you employ against Him?  Honest questioning for the sake of Truth is not a threat to God.  But dishonest questions as a covering for sin and rejecting God will be shown for what they are.

They were calling Jesus a heretic because he called himself the Son of God.  I will share a couple of examples.  In Luke 19 Jesus told a parable about the owner of a vineyard.  At the end the owner sends his son to the caretakers and they kill him.  It was clear to the religious leaders that the owner was God, the vineyard was Israel, and they were the caretakers.  Notice that Jesus casts himself in the parable as the son of the owner.  This was not lost on them.  They resented and rejected his characterizations.  In John 10:30 Jesus said, “ ‘I and my Father are one.’  Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him.  Jesus answered them, ‘Many good works I have shown you from my Father.  For which of those works do you stone me?’  The Jews answered Him saying, ‘For a good work we do not stone you, but for blasphemy, and because you, being a man, make yourself God.’”  It is being disingenuous to say that they misinterpreted Jesus.  He knew what he was saying.  His “oneness” with the Father was a bold claim of sharing in the divine nature of God.  We also have Luke 22:70 when Jesus is on trial.  They ask him point blank if he is the son of God.  What is the response of Jesus?  “You rightly say that I am.”  This was not their main point for rejecting Jesus.  They had already done this from the beginning.  Yet, it became the leverage they needed to cover their evil desire to execute him.  So is it really blasphemy to claim that the Messiah would be the Son of God?  This is the heart of what Jesus is asking them when he points them to Psalm 110 in this passage.

First of all let’s establish the fact that the Messiah would be the son of David.  This was accepted by all parties involved.  It is in 2 Samuel 7:12-17 that God promises David that his kingdom and throne will be established forever.  God would not reject the claim of David’s family to the throne like He did with Saul.  Thus David’s line becomes essential moving forward.    The prophets picked up on this and added further revelation.  In Isaiah 9:6-7 we are told that One would sit on the throne of David who will be called: Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.  Several of these titles pose some problems if you are contending that the Messiah will not have a divine nature.  Thus this coming Messiah would fulfill all that was missing in those earthly kings of David’s line.  Each successive king quickly proved that they were not the messiah and so Israel waited.  In Micah 5:2 it says, “You, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me the one to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.”  Again this coming messianic ruler is spoken of in terms that go beyond a mere human.  Yes, we can interpret it to mean that the prophecies about his coming are of old, though he is not.  But, it is phrased in such a way that doesn’t negate that his existence would be from ancient times.  Lastly, at the announcement to Mary of her coming pregnancy by the angel Gabriel, it says in Luke 1:32, “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Highest and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.”  So the messiah is the ultimate Son of David.  But it was being revealed to the people of the first century that he was more than a man.  He was the Son of God.  This was not in contradiction to Scripture and only made some Scriptures more understandable.  This leads us to Psalm 110 which Jesus quotes from in today’s Scripture portion.

The question that Jesus asks is this.  How can you say that the messiah is the son of David when David calls the messiah his Lord?  How can an earthly descendant of David also be his lord?  Now when we look at the verse we need to recognize that in the Psalms there are two different words being translated as Lord, in fact you will notice the first “LORD” is in all caps (or small caps) and the second is only capitalized.  This is because the translators are letting you know they are two different words.  Here is a rough translation that helps us see this.  “YHWH said to my adonai….  The first is a reference to the name of God given to Moses at Mt. Sinai.  Historically it has been translated as Jehovah or Yahweh.  The second is a term that refers to a king, master or teacher.  The word always places the person in authority another class (i.e. king to citizens, master to slave, teacher to disciples etc…).  Thus David is literally revealing that he saw the messiah (who would be a descendant of him) as his king and master.  When Jesus asks them how they can call the messiah the son of David, he is not doing it to say they are wrong. But, instead, he is taking them back to a messianic passage and saying, if statement one is true then how do you understand statement two.  Now the answer that is being revealed in the days of Jesus is that the body of Jesus was biologically from the line of David.  As a side not on this biological aspect of Jesus, we should note that the creative act of the Spirit in causing Mary’s pregnancy is not explained further.  Thus even the biology of the body of Jesus is at least partially from David and possibly also from God.  Yet, the spirit of Christ is from before David and has existed from the beginning. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  Jesus was the prophesied “Right hand” of God accomplishing salvation for himself. 

Though these were new truths that God was revealing regarding His plan, we must note that none of it is contradictory to the Old Testament.  This is the problem.  The religious leaders claim to know the truth and will not accept what Jesus is saying.  Yet, Jesus shows them that the very Scriptures they claim to know point to the very things that he is revealing.  Thus they are choosing to reject this new light.  This is what I meant earlier by a willful ignorance.  You might ask yourself this.  Is God trying to open my eyes to something that I am resisting and rejecting?  We know that God is working everyday to open the eyes of people to the Truth and yet many reject it.  One day you will be questioned by God himself.  He will expose the flimsy arguments that we use and give back to us according to how we questioned Him.  I encourage those who don’t accept Jesus as both man and divine to be careful how they deal with God’s Word and Christians, His people.  Do you want to be dealt with in the same way by Him?

He Exposes Their Sin

In verse 45 Jesus turns back to the people and warns them about the sin of the religious leaders.  Those who are going to follow Christ must first learn to avoid the pitfalls that keep people from accepting Jesus.  First, Jesus points out the misplaced desire and love that these religious leaders have.  Their desire was for public attention and the adoration of people rather than to please God.  They were filled with pride regarding their godliness, and yet, they did not really love God.  Instead, they loved to be honored and have the best.  There is nothing wrong with wanting people to approve of our actions.  But when that desire goes outside the proper boundaries it becomes an inordinate desire.  They desired man’s applause more than God’s.  They desired the authority that they had for their own purposes and ends rather than for the purposes of God.  This same sin is rampant today within the churches of the USA.  Our churches are overwhelmed with people who have inordinate desires and misplaced loves.  At the end of the day they are serving their own ego at the expense of the work of God.

The religious leaders also were taking advantage of the desperate within society.  Devouring widows houses is a reference to the way they would worm their way into receiving the money of widows while they live and in their deaths.  The term devour depicts the beastly nature of their actions.  They preyed upon the desperate situation of the widows in order to enrich themselves.  They loved money rather than those widows for whom they were to be a protection.  The love of money has infiltrated the churches of this country to the point that it has become a mark of godliness to be rich.   Although there is nothing wrong with being rich, we must recognize how inordinate desires and love pulls us away from God and in the “name of God” we pursue whatever our heart wants.  As long as we slap a Jesus sticker on it in the end, we are living godly.  If God rejected such mockeries then how much more will He reject those who bring ridicule to the Son of God whom we are supposed to be serving?

Jesus also points out their false piety.  They pray long prayers, not because they love talking with God, but because they love putting on a show for the people.  They are not as pious as they depict.  Such pretensions are false and are revolting to God.  We tend to follow spiritual leaders who look pious and godly.  Many are being misled because they foolishly do not look to the Scriptures.  God has warned us and exposed the methods of the unrighteous.  Don’t let yourself fall into the trap of trying to please men.  Focus on pleasing God and let the chips fall where they may.

Lastly, Jesus states that these leaders will receive a greater condemnation.  Why is this so?  They will receive greater condemnation because they spend their days studying and writing about the Scriptures and yet reject the very things the Scriptures are trying to teach, and they reject the very one who authored the Scriptures.  They receive a greater condemnation because they declare that they have the truth and force others to come under error and miss the truth.

Friend, the day will come when God will judge each and every one of us.  How will it go for me in that day?  It will not be the fact that we have sinned that will be the issue.  No, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  Rather, it will be the fact of how we dealt with that sin.  Did I submit and plead guilty before the court of heaven?  Did I then cling to Jesus, the Son of God, to be my teacher and savior?  These men refused to hear what God was trying to teach them from the Scriptures and thus they missed the blessing He had for them.  Make sure you don’ t miss God’s blessing for you!

WhenTheLordQuestions Audio