Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh – part 2

COMING OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST IN THE FLESH.

            Today, it was said that Jesus Christ called us His friends. He’s our friend. We can come before Him, we can come to Him as to a friend, we can pour out our hearts to Him and we can tell Him about our experience because we know that He will understand us in every experience and He can help us. But this is only because of the fact that He got through it Himself. He even got through experiences that we didn’t. That’s why, the apostle Paul says: “You didn’t resist in the fight against sin up to the blood.” No, we didn’t resist up to the blood so as not to sin. We didn’t get through such experiences, but our Lord Jesus Christ was, as we can read, experienced in everything and, for this reason, He can help us. And we can rejoice because we have someone to come to, to tell everything to and to pour our hearts to. And we can say: “He understands me. This is a friend who can understand me in this experience. He can understand how difficult it’s for me because He got through it too. If He didn’t have this experience, I wouldn’t be able to come to Him and tell Him about this or that, and I wouldn’t be able to tell Him about my pain or anxiety. I couldn’t tell Him about it because He couldn’t understand me.

Therefore, let’s see how big is the love of our Lord Jesus Christ. He came here and, as we read, He came to perfection through suffering. He was experienced in everything and He came to perfection in this, opening the possibility for us so that we could aim at this perfection that we already have in Him and here we come to it. And we come to this perfection in our experiences. We suffer. If we don’t suffer because of sin, we can pride ourselves. The Word of God says: rejoice of the fact that you go through many different experiences. If you suffer for the Name of Christ, rejoice in it.

I’d like us to go back to the Epistle to the Hebrews. We will read the words that we know well. But do we believe these words? Do we come to our Lord Jesus Christ as to the best friend who knows what we feel, who can understand us and guide us. This is a joy for us.

We can’t say: “I can’t”. This is a lie because in Jesus Christ we no longer sin. We are able to pass the test, but only looking at Him and surrendering to Him, to our Lord Jesus Christ.

We met a man who said: “I’m going to sin, I’m saved.” Well, but Christ died for you. He came in such flesh so that you wouldn’t have to sin anymore. “That’s not true, Christ didn’t come in such flesh. He had different flesh and He didn’t feel what I feel. He isn’t able to understand me, so I will sin.” And such a person still sins, but a terrible place is open to him. These are people who don’t believe this truth. They didn’t accept the love of the truth that could save them. Paul said to Timothy that in the final days there would be people who would turn their ears away from the truth and would listen to the flights of fantasy. Yes, these are the flights of fantasy that are preached to other people: you can sin because you have flesh like that and Christ have different flesh so He didn’t commit any sin. This is a lie that’s told to people. We know that Christ had no other flesh. If we don’t believe in it, we will still sin and, that way, we will justify ourselves, but it will help us in no way. We have to believe that it’s true that Jesus Christ was in the same flesh like ours.

Let’s look at Hebrews 4,14-16:

“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let’s hold firmly to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things just as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let’s approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace for help at the time of our need.”

We can say that the time of our need is always when we experience, when we look at our Lord Jesus Christ, when we have no doubts that He can help us and He can actually do so. “What if He doesn’t help me” – then the man begins to turn away. “What if He doesn’t understand me in my experience.” But He will understand us. We read: “But One who has been tempted in all things just as we are, yet without sin.” Yet without sin, but He has been tempted in all things just as we are and even more than we are. What are we put through today? We can see how our brothers were put through. We read that they were dragged off of their houses and their families and children were killed. Today, we can say that we live in clovers. But let’s see that today’s people don’t believe, they don’t accept these divine truths and they turn away from our Lord Jesus Christ. Whenever they are tempted, we can already observe their murmuring and complaining, and sometimes they choose sin. They choose sin “because they have to; Christ cannot help them”.

We can see that Jesus Christ took on the cross. He took all our cares there. Do we believe that our Lord took all our cares? My heart really rejoiced that He had taken all our cares. Therefore, the Lord said: do not be concerned with anything, but seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. He took our cares, so if I’m concerned with something, it’s because I don’t believe. I don’t believe that our Lord can help me in this temptation, that He can help me in this or that, that He can guide me and that He understands me.

That’s why, He is able to help me because He understands me and He got through all of it. But if I don’t give myself to Him, if I don’t believe in it, then I’m a person who quickly turns to Egypt and who runs to Egypt for help. Just like Israel – it didn’t believe and ran to Egypt for help. They didn’t trust that God could help them. We have to trust that our Lord Jesus Christ can help us in everything, that there is no temptation of which we wouldn’t walk out and off which He wouldn’t see us. Man begins to sin because of unbelief or because he already cherishes sin and doesn’t consider anything to be sin.

It’s written: “Therefore let’s approach the throne of grace with confidence”. Let’s approach our Lord. Let’s give ourselves fully to Him. Let Him do in us what He wants to have. May He be the one who, by dwelling in us through His Spirit, can triumph. Triumph over the devil who will perpetually fail whenever he comes to us to draw us into the darkness. Let’s not give in to unbelief, let’s not say that Christ can’t help us. The man doesn’t say it with his mouth, but he does it with his heart. When we read about Israel, we know that they told it in their hearts. They told: “We aren’t going, we aren’t listening”. But did they say it with their mouths? They said it in their hearts as they came to Jeremiah saying: “Go and pray to your God. May He show us whether we should stay or go.” But what was in their hearts? They have already decided: “We won’t listen to it”. Jeremiah came to tell them, but they had already decided in their hearts: “We won’t listen to it”. This is what happens sometimes with the man. He doesn’t want to listen, he doesn’t want to take it because he cherishes sin. He no longer calls sin a sin. He calls it completely differently: weakness. But this is sin and everything that comes from unbelief is sin.

We no longer have the right to sin. The Word of God says that we were born of incorruptible seed, of pure seed so that we wouldn’t sin anymore. As it’s written in the Epistle to the Hebrews: we no longer have the sinner’s consciousness. This consciousness was nailed to the cross so that we would no longer sin. It has been removed from us. Now, we have a different consciousness – consciousness that is aimed at bringing good, love, peace and showing what’s pleasing to God. It’s already in us and we are to persevere in it, looking at our Lord Jesus Christ, giving ourselves completely to Him and not being reluctant people who don’t want to give themselves to Him.

Hebrews 5,7-9:

“In the days of His humanity, He offered up both prayers and pleas with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His devout behavior. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey Him.”

Beautiful words, aren’t they? But it’s written there that Jesus Christ became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey Him, who give themselves to Him, who listen to Him, who don’t want to guide their body’s parts and who don’t say in their hearts: “I won’t listen, I won’t do it. I will do what I want.” He and only He can guide us through everything. Do we believe that we won’t manage to do it ourselves or do we still try to do something on our own without giving ourselves to our Lord Jesus Christ? Then, we will sin and if we don’t repent, we will have to go to eternal destruction.

In the Epistle to the Hebrews we could read that Jesus Christ was made like His brothers in everything. He was made like them in everything but one thing – except sin. He never committed it. In 1 Peter 2,22-25, we can read about it:

“He who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth; and while being abusively insulted, He did not insult in return; while suffering, He did not threaten, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; and He Himself brought our sins in His body up on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness; by His wounds you were healed. For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.”

We can see what our Lord Jesus Christ did for us: He didn’t commit sin, but, as it’s said, He became sin for us. He became sin, He took this sinful flesh. Let’s never be deceived that He came in different flesh – in the flesh in which it was easy for the Lord to do everything, where the devil could come, tempt, but it wouldn’t affect the Lord at all. That’s true, it didn’t affect Him, but it was because of the fact that the Lord didn’t give Himself to it and He kept that sin in death. He never allowed it because He didn’t have such character, even though He had the same flesh.

Paul also writes to Timothy: and you remember about Jesus Christ who is of the family of David. Why of the family of David? These words mean that Jesus Christ was born and took such flesh. As we read, He took His flesh from the flesh of Mary. People say that He took His flesh from the flesh of Mary, but it wasn’t the flesh like ours. So is the Spirit of God or the spirit of the antichrist who guides us in this case? That’s why John wrote: and you, study the spirits and watch whether the one who speaks does it in the Spirit of God or in the spirit of the antichrist. Everyone who speaks in the Spirit of God claims that Jesus came in the flesh. Everyone who speaks in the spirit of the antichrist will deny it. He won’t want to give glory to God because the glory of God is that our Lord Jesus Christ, being in such flesh, defeated the devil, sin and death.

Do we see how great a blessing this is for us? Do we see how much benefit we have from it? We have huge benefit because otherwise, there would be no salvation for us. There would be no salvation for us because the Lord could bear our sins being only in such flesh. He could take them and nail them to the cross. How did He nail those sins to the cross? How could He take our lust? How could He take all our weaknesses? How? Sometimes, it may seem simple, but it’s reluctance to the heart of man. Sometimes, a man is so reluctant to take it – just because of such flesh. The Lord let His flesh be nailed to the cross and He bore it all in that flesh without ever sinning Himself. Do we believe it? Do we let it dwell in our hearts? Do we want to serve the Lord with all our hearts? Do we want to be devoted to Him? It has to really dwell in our hearts and we have to give ourselves to it. And the Lord, as He triumphed, will triumph in us. We can be absolutely sure about it if we really give ourselves to Him. If we offer our flesh to Him, He will triumph in this flesh. We won’t say that we have to sin because we will never sin. If this flesh really belongs to our Lord Jesus Christ, then we will go without sinning and giving glory to Him in everything. Amen.