Trinity and Humanity

Part 2A:

Part 2B:

Full Message:

Bible Verses: Colossians 3:17, 23

Introduction:

Jesus, in his person and work, as God the Son who comes to live inside our humanity IS who and what it means for humans to glorify God and enjoy Him forever as human beings! He is the One true human being Whom the Father envisioned we would all share in to know him, glorify him, and enjoy him forever, in the communion of the Holy Spirit! To live as distinct persons from Jesus but in union with him, sharing in his character in the communion of the Holy Spirit, is what it means to be a real human being! This is what Christians mean when we say that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and that we have received him in the Spirit! Jesus is the Way to the Father, the Truth of the Father, and the Life of the Father in flesh. His claim to fame as a human being is his claim of being free for obedience, in relationship with His Father. As the True Human Being, he loves the Father with all of His heart, soul, mind and strength and, at the Father’s direction and pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon him, he loves his neighbor as himself, and more than he loves himself! This means that most of Jesus’ life is spent on attending to others in love and that he is not primarily self-centered, loving himself! He is primarily Father-centered and then centered on others at the direction of the Father.

Because Jesus sends us his Spirit that we might participate with him in his human life, the question then comes to us, and instructs us: SO, WHO ARE YOU BEING, AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING, AND WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH CHRIST FOR CHRIST AND THE FATHER’S SAKE?

Theological Theme:

The heart and foundation of God’s Good News is Jesus Himself in our place as our Human Substitute and Representative Who glorifies and honors the Father in loving relationship! He sends the Holy Spirit to us so that we can now be response-able with Jesus, to the Father, in union and participation with him in the Holy Spirit This is what it means to Worship God, Know God, Serve God, Have Jesus’ Peace and to share in Jesus’ actual Joy! Authentic, zestful, vibrant human life is for us to actually share with Jesus in His worship of God the Father in the Holy Spirit!

WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH CHRIST FOR CHRIST’S SAKE?! (THE FATHER’S SAKE?!)

Christ Connection:

You were created by the Father-Son-Holy-Spirit-God, you did not create yourself! The Father God says to you: I made you for me, to be aligned and matched up with me, and to dwell with me forever! I am of a particular way and type and style, utterly unique and incomparable – in all the best ways ever! Though you are not me, nor ever will be me, you are designed in such a way as to match up with me perfectly in my relationship as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Because you each and all have sinned and turned from me, falling short of my glory, in grace and mercy, in compassion and at forgiveness, and at great cost to Myself, I have assumed and taken on your fallen human nature in My Son, Jesus!

Jesus continues his Father’s word to us saying, in essence: “In being human I have lived your life in alignment with our Father. In suffering, and at great cost to myself. I say to you that I have borne the cost of your turning from me by taking on your rejection and its consequences into myself, rejecting your rejection of me, and I have bent your fallen human nature into full and willing submission to my Father! In dying, I died your death, killing that which was killing you! Where evil had entrenched itself in you, and in places and ways you’ll never know, I have obliterated evil at its very being and source, and freed you from its bondage and malevolent presence and power. I have undone and am undoing what evil has done with lies and deception to undermine your great purpose to be eternally with me and my Father in the Holy Spirit as our adopted sons and daughters! In rising from the tomb on the 3rd day as THE resurrection, I have raised up and vivified and enlivened your humanity, renewing it in my own risenness. I have set your life and all of creation, personal and impersonal, on a whole new basis, a life of New Creation in Me! I have ascended and remain ascended right now with your reconciled and redeemed human nature and, in Me, you have complete and total victory over all the powers and principalities, over all pandemics, prejudices, and brutalities of every kind including police brutalities! In me and in my grace alone you have total victory over all broken Governments and powers, even if for awhile you must suffer and even die. 

The Holy Spirit of Jesus says to you “I mean what I inspired in Colossians 1:24 ‘You serve the Lord Jesus Christ’, the one and only Son of the Father Who is at the very center of your life’s being and activity, urging you to let go of your right to yourself and encouraging you to surrender all your rights to me! Let me love you and bless you, and free you from your self-centeredness and into Jesus’ overflowing life of Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control! You can trust Me because I empower you! Will you trust me and BE empowered?!”

Missional Application:

As we share with other family, friends and neighbors this Good News of Jesus, we invite them as the Spirit guides to join us in having communion with the Lord even now – to sup with him and the Father in the Holy Spirit, and in His Faith, Hope and Love!

Here is a helpful thing to remember about the Lord’s Supper (or Communion, or the Eucharist), taken from Grace Communion International’s “We Believe” curriculum exploring the core beliefs of our Christian faith:

8.9 What is required of people when they come to receive the Lord’s Supper?
That in response to the proclamation of the Word of God, they come to receive the grace of God made available to all through Jesus Christ. They are to come to the Table with open hearts ready to be identified with Christ, ready to depend upon him, ready to follow him, ready to give up whatever stands in the way of living out of trust in him and in his Word to them. Coming to his Table, they will have repented of their sins and be ready to leave behind any sin that might be revealed even at the Table. They will come intending to follow the lead of the Holy Spirit to depend on Christ and his faithfulness. Above all, they will receive Christ anew, rejoicing in the gift of communion they can have with him and through him with the Father and the Spirit. They will do so looking forward to Jesus’ return and the coming of the fullness of the kingdom of God. (1 Cor. 11:27-32)

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