Jesus is Life

June 13 2021

Romans 1:1-6

         Today we continue in our summer series called Confident. This title refers to something Jesus spoke to his disciples on the night before his death, from the sixteenth chapter of John. Jesus told them “In this world you will have afflictions, but be confident I have overcome the world.” To be confident is to have an intensive trust and this is what I hope is what you come away with as we study together the sixteen articles of faith that are put forth by the Church of the Nazarene. These articles of faith are not just some generic statement about who we are as Nazarenes but they are statements that we hold to be true, a truth that we can be confident about. As Jesus tells us, yes, in this world we will have afflictions, Jesus doesn’t promise to take us out of this world so that we might live somewhere without troubles nor does he tell us that he will take all the problems away; no, what he does tell us is that in the midst of our afflictions, in the heart of our hurts and pains we can have confidence, a powerful trust that Jesus has overcome all that this world can dish out and since his life lives in us, then so can we.

         As I said last week I decided to do a series on the Articles of Faith of the Church of the Nazarene because of a class that I took that goes toward my ordination. The class was called Nazarene History and Polity and the Polity part of it was the study of these sixteen defining statements of belief held by those who call themselves Nazarenes. Now, when it came to the end of the class we were told that in this class there would be a final exam which was somewhat of a surprise because normally the final was a written report. For this class though we instead would have a test and that test was that we had to memorize all sixteen articles of faith, write a little paragraph about each one and include one supporting scripture verse. It just makes your hands sweat thinking about it doesn’t it? I mean it would be like having a grocery list with sixteen items on it and you had to memorize everything on the list and then be graded on how well you did on remembering to pick up each item. Oh, and not only that but you had to get the quantities of each item right and also the right brand as well. So, yes, no pressure at all! And it didn’t help that I have a soon to be sixty year old brain. Needless to say, I stressed quite a bit until that test was done and turned in. That being said, I understood why our instructor insisted on making us memorize them because these sixteen faith statements define just who we are as Nazarenes. As pastors we have to know where the fences are, so to speak and it goes without saying that it is much easier to forget even something as important as this than it is to remember.

         As I thought about how hard it is to remember just about everything now that my brain is getting some miles on it, I couldn’t help but recall something that has always bothered me concerning our remembrance of things. What I’m referring to is  when we take Communion together and as we take the bread we say the words of Jesus, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Now, every time I hear this I wonder just what did Jesus mean by this? I mean, I can’t imagine any of the disciples ever getting to the point where they turned to one another and said, “Who was that guy that we were supposed to not forget? I mean if Jesus is one thing he most assuredly is unforgettable. So, just what is it, I wonder, that Jesus wants us to remember? Well, as we dive into our second article of faith, the one about Jesus, I hope that the answer will become evident to you. So, here is what the second article of faith of the Church of the Nazarene states: We believe in Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Triune Godhead; that he was eternally one with the Father; that he became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and was born of the Virgin Mary, so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say the Godhead and manhood, are thus united in one Person very God and very man, the God-man. We believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and that he truly arose from the dead and took again his body, together with all things appertaining to the perfection of man’s nature, wherewith He ascended into heaven and is there engaged in intercession for us. So, do you see how these faith statements build upon each other, which by the way helps to memorize them. As we learned last week, the God revealed by Jesus is a three in one God, one God in three persons. Jesus as the Son of God is eternally one with His Heavenly Father as we read about in the seventeenth chapter of John’s gospel and Jesus is eternally one with the Holy Spirit. Now, as we read this statement about Jesus some two thousand plus years since he entered into time and history we tend to just take it all for granted that this is just what was always believed but surprisingly who Jesus is as we believe him to be was a discovery by those early followers of Jesus. As we read in our scripture for today, this introductory paragraph that Paul wrote as part of his letter to the Church of Rome, we hear Paul tell us that he was a servant of Jesus Christ who was set apart for the good news of God, the good news foretold by the prophets concerning God’s Son. Then Paul tells us two things about Jesus the Son of God, first, he was descended from David according to the flesh which affirmed that he was indeed the long awaited king anointed by God, the one known as the Messiah, or Christ in the Greek. But there is more to who Jesus is as Paul continues saying that Jesus was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of Holiness by his resurrection from the dead. As we talked about last week, the God revealed by Jesus is a Triune God, a God known in three persons and this is exactly the way Paul writes about God as well. Paul in these few verses of Romans speaks about the Trinity when he writes that Jesus is known to us as being the Son of God because this implies that if he is the Son of God then there also must be God who is known as his Father. And as Paul goes on to tell us that Jesus was raised by the Spirit of holiness, the Spirit of a holy God. So, yes Paul also knew God as Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.

Now what Paul also tells us here is that none of this was rightly understood until the resurrection of Jesus. It was when Jesus walked out of the empty tomb that the lights when on in the hearts of his followers and at long last they had a glimpse of who their friend and teacher really was, none other than God himself walking around in a body just like theirs. Listen to what Paul says about the resurrection from the beginning of the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians, “For I delivered to you as first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures and then he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time most of who are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all apostles. Last of all, to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.” This resurrection story that Paul tells us is of first importance, this is where we start in our understanding of Jesus because it was here that at long last it became evident that who Jesus was and is and always will be, the very Son of God. Yet there is more, because if through his raising from the dead this Jesus is God then he is God who is forever united with our human flesh because he was raised from the dead with a body. You see, when Paul speaks of a spiritual body he wasn’t stating that Jesus was a ghost but rather that the life of Jesus was a bodily life living in full power of the Holy Spirit. It was from the understanding revealed through the resurrection of Jesus that everything we believe about Jesus begins to make sense. If Jesus was raised by the Spirit then the Spirit had to have been present with him from the beginning thus implying that the birth of Jesus had to have been in some way been brought about through the creative action of the Holy Spirit within the womb of Mary, the mother of Jesus. This body that Jesus had was of the same flesh of all humanity, mortal and corrupt yet Jesus remained holy because of his unity with the Holy Spirit. Jesus had to take upon himself the flesh infected by our sin sickness if their were to be any hope of at long last curing us of it.

We may think that the Holy Spirit only came upon Jesus at his baptism in the Jordan  yet the truth is that what was witnessed there was  done for the benefit of the followers of Jesus. They would come to understand that it was through their baptism that the Holy Spirit would come upon them and they too like Jesus, through the Holy Spirit would enter into a love relationship with the Father of Jesus the Son. This uniting of us with God is the very reason that Jesus came in the flesh.  This is something that we never understood until Jesus disclosed that his impending death upon the cross was for the salvation of the world. If this was true then Jesus being in the flesh meant that Jesus was united to everyone in the flesh. Thus when Jesus died he condemned the sin of the flesh putting to death once and for all the mortal and corrupt flesh through his death upon the cross. Then three days later, Jesus arose victorious from the grave and his body was alive in the power of the Spirit and because he arose in the flesh, flesh united to our flesh, we now have been given new life in resurrecting power. This is why in the fourth chapter of the book of Romans Paul declares that we are counted as being righteous in the eyes of God when we place our faith in God who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. The reason why we can state that God considers us righteous in his eyes is that our faith is that Jesus was God who took on our flesh and when he died he took our trespasses and crucified the weak flesh that had committed them. Then when Jesus arose from the dead in the flesh our flesh arose to new life because of our unity with him, this new life we have is a righteous and holy life because it is a life given through the Spirit of holiness.

Yet if this were not good enough news there is more because as the gospel accounts, especially Luke’s gospel, records Jesus not only arose from the dead but he also ascended into heaven. We read in the first chapter of the book of the Acts of the Apostles, that as they looked upon Jesus, he was lifted up, a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand there looking into heaven?” This Jesus who was taken into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” Jesus ascended up into the presence of his Heavenly Father, into that high and holy place. So, once again considering that we are united with Jesus through the flesh, that his body is now there in the holy realm of God the Father, so too our flesh is there as well. It is knowing this about Jesus that helps us understand why in the book of Hebrews we are told, in the tenth chapter, that through Jesus doing the will of his Heavenly Father we have been sanctified, made holy, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And further in that same chapter we are told, “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified, those set apart as holy.” We so often think and say that Jesus came to save sinners which is right but only partially right. No, Jesus came to make us holy people and this is what he has achieved once and for all. We cannot forget that the standard God set for his people as found in the nineteenth chapter of Leviticus is that we are to be holy as God is holy. This is echoed in the fifth chapter of Matthew, where Jesus speaking of how our Heavenly Father loves all people even his enemies, that we are to be perfect in our love of others just as God is perfect in his love. This call to be by Jesus implies that this love is not something that we do but is instead who we are, it is the perfection of our being. Jesus taught this not to set the bar so high that we pass it off as some in achievable goal but rather as a preparation for what he came to earth to accomplish, the creation at long last of people who could faithfully bear the holy image of God. This helps us understand what Paul meant that his purpose was to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of Christ’s reputation among the nations. We are to believe the fullness of what Christ has accomplished because what is at stake is the name of Christ, his reputation, because he taught us that we ought to be people who can love like the God who created us. So, if God is able to bring forth people out of the death of their sins, then he most assuredly is able to make us into people who are able to love like God loves. If we do not love as God first loved us then the very reputation and honor of God will be ruined in the eyes of the world. Paul understood this because in this opening paragraph of his letter he address his writing to those in Rome who are loved by God and those who are called to be saints, holy people. Now, were the actions of the people Paul wrote to always holy? No, the actions of the people in the churches that Paul wrote to were quite often appalling. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians address them as being saints and then proceeds to address all kinds of unholy behavior that has been reported that they have been doing. They were fighting and quarreling, they were judgmental and showed favoritism. They allowed false belief and immortality to take a foothold in their midst but nevertheless, to Paul they were saints. The reason this is so is that a person’s holiness just like their righteous stance before God has already been determined beforehand through the action of Jesus. It was the offering of Jesus, who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God so that our consciences, our minds might be purified, cleansed of all the wrong ways we used to think about ourselves so with a new way of looking at all that has been given to us by Jesus we might now serve the living God.

All of this then brings us back to what Jesus said at the last meal that he ate with his disciples where he took the bread and he broke it and gave it to those seated around him and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” What we are to remember in that moment is that because Jesus, the very Son of God, took on flesh and in that flesh gave himself as a spotless offering to do the will of his Heavenly Father upon the cross, now all of us have the hope of living a life lived in resurrection power no longer chained to the power of sin and death. This is what we are to remember, this incredible newness of life that Jesus has brought about through his taking on of our flesh and his willingness to die in that flesh. We are called to remember that it is what Jesus has already done for us and not what we do that gives us life; he is our daily bread, our daily life. This is what is so easily forgotten in amongst the cares, worries and anxieties of life which confuse us to believe that there is something we must do to keep and preserve our life. This is why Jesus tells us that when we eat the bread, the bread so associated with being the bread of our life that it is he who is our life, it is he who is our bread, the bread of life who came down from heaven. It is through his willingness to lay down his life as the greatest act of love, this death has put to death our life of sin once for all. In his rising from the dead he lifted all of humanity into new life, the new creation where he is the new Adam. In his ascension then, he has taken us in the flesh to share in his intimate relationship with his Heavenly Father sanctifying us forever. As Paul says in the third chapter of Colossians, our life is now hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ who is our life appears we will appear with him in glory. This is what we so often forget and it is this what we must be called to remember again and again because it is in our remembering what Christ has done for us this is when we are transformed from one degree of glory to another. So who is Jesus? Well in the fifth chapter of the first letter of John we are told this, “God gave us eternal life and this life is in the Son. Whoever has the Son, Jesus, has life…” So, if someone ever tells you to, “ get a life”, you confidently tell them that you have a life and your life has a name, a name that is Jesus. To God be the glory! Amen!