Fully Human

There's often a vast difference between knowing and experiencing. You know, you could read all about the Grand Canyon. You can look at pictures of it. You can talk to people who've been there, but anyone who has actually been there can tell you that none of that is the same as experiencing it for yourself. How many of you can attest to that personally?

Right? Pictures just don't do it justice. I've read and I've watched videos about pregnancy and prenatal development. I witnessed the births of both of my sons, but my wife, Allison, has experienced pregnancy and childbirth in a way that I can't. Speaking of Allison, she had surgery this last week and she's doing great.

Thank you for all of your prayers.

Super grateful for all the support. You know, whether we're talking about an epic movie or an amazing concert or a juicy steak or snorkeling in the Caribbean, experience is so much more than just knowledge. Now, over the last few weeks, we've looked at five statements. Jesus spoke from the cross. Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise. Woman. Here is your son, here is your mother. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Now, compared to those statements, the words we're going to unpack today found in the Gospel of John probably are not going to seem quite as dramatic.

But they capture a vital experiential truth about Jesus. John, chapter 19, verse 28 says later, Knowing that everything had now been finished and so that scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, I am thirsty. A jar of wine vinegar was there. So they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant and lifted it to Jesus lips. Jesus was in the midst of an extended period of bloody torture, and he was severely dehydrated.

But beyond the physiological Jesus thirst in this text is important for at least two other reasons. The first of those we've already hinted at in earlier parts of this series, that is that Jesus fulfilled ancient prophecy. We saw last week that many of the specific details of Jesus crucifixion had been predicted by David 1000 years ahead of time. Psalm 22, which we looked at last week, includes this statement. My mouth is dried up like a potsherd and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.

And that sponge Jesus was offered, soaked in wine vinegar, actually points back to Psalm 69, which says, they gave me vinegar for my thirst. These prophetic connections demonstrate that Jesus, suffering for the world's sins, had been planned and foreseen by God long before it happened. But not only that. Jesus thirst points to the fact that Jesus experienced what it means to be fully human. Between scripture and songs and movies and paintings, it's easy to think we know all about Jesus.

But Jesus said In John chapter 4, God is spirit, meaning that God's fundamental essence is spiritual. He's not confined by time and space the way our physical bodies are. So for Jesus, God the Son, to inhabit a human body and feel thirsty is not how God typically operates. Jesus putting on flesh and becoming God in a bod, what theologians call the Incarnation is a radical concept. How the infinite, all powerful God of the universe put on flesh and blood, that's a mystery.

And yet that's exactly what happened. The gospels of Matthew and Luke tell the story of Mary's miraculous pregnancy and Jesus birth in Bethlehem. Angels who announced his arrival and shepherds who visited. But John's Gospel describes Jesus arrival on earth very differently. This is what John says, the word Jesus.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. The apostle Paul described the Incarnation in the words of an ancient hymn which said, Jesus being in very nature, God did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant. Being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man.

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Jesus went from supremacy to dependency. We sang earlier about how Jesus mission to save us took him from a throne of endless glory to a cradle in the dirt, from riches to rags. I mean, I can't imagine what it was like for Jesus to exist side by side with God for all eternity, create everything that exists, and then be confined to a tiny infant body. It reminds me of the genie in Aladdin.

Right? Phenomenal cosmic power. What comes next? Itty bitty living space. Jesus entered the world as a helpless baby.

He had to learn to crawl and feed himself and walk and navigate the awkwardness of puberty. You've probably never seen a painting of an adolescent Jesus with pimples, but that doesn't mean he got to skip that stage. After living from eternity past with a perfect heavenly father, Jesus now had to depend on and submit to human parents who were good and honorable people, but not perfect people. The concept of Jesus being both God and man is hard to wrap our heads around. And because of that Tension.

People sometimes, in their desire to uphold Jesus divinity, downplay his humanity. They see Jesus kind of like Superman. He looked human, but he wasn't really superhero. Jesus would never stub his toe or get the flu or have a headache. There are other people who, in their desire to stress Jesus humanity, who downplay his divinity.

They picture Jesus as a kind man, a wise teacher and influential leader, but not God. I mean, if Jesus were only human, the supernatural things that Scripture claims he did can only be myths or metaphors. But the question of Jesus divinity and humanity is not either or. It's both. And the New Testament book of Hebrews opens like this.

In the past, meaning before Jesus came to earth, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways. But in these last days. And notice that last days began when Jesus came. We've been living in the last days for 2,000 years. In these last days, he has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.

The sun is the radiance of God's glory. And the exact representation, the Greek word here is hupostasis. We'll talk more about that in just a second. The exact representation of His Being sustaining all things by his powerful word. And after he had provided purification for sins by giving his life in our place at the cross, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty in heaven.

Now, in 451 A.D. church leaders convened at the Council of Chalcedon, which is near Istanbul in modern day Turkey. And they met to clarify the nature of Christ because of this ongoing tension. Is he human? Is he God? What does that even look like?

And that Greek word hupostasis, that we just saw in Hebrews Chapter one was a focal point of their conversations. The council agreed on the concept that theologians call the hypostatic union. That's your vocabulary word for today. The hypostatic union is this doctrine that Jesus Christ is one person, hypostasis, possessing two distinct natures, fully divine and fully human, united without confusion, change, division or separation. Now, that's a lot of words, but the point of the hypostatic union concept is the idea that Jesus is not a mixture of God and man, the way that blue and yellow make green, but he is simultaneously fully God and fully man.

As fully man, Jesus could represent humanity before God. And as fully God, he could reveal God to humanity. Now, you've probably noticed we sing and we talk a lot about the divinity of Jesus, his miraculous birth. We celebrate that Every Christmas, his oneness with God. I mean, just a few minutes ago, we sang Praise the Father, Praise the Son, Praise the Spirit, Three in one, God of glory, majesty, Praise forever to the King of Kings.

We sing and we talk a lot about Jesus miracles, how he healed the sick and cast out demons and raised the dead. And you better believe we celebrate his resurrection. Because Jesus didn't just die for us, he rose to give us life. By the way, if you haven't heard, next Sunday we're gonna talk about that. We're gonna celebrate that together.

We have lots of these invite cards. We would love for you to grab some of those. Since our resident baker at home is recovering from surgery, I baked some brownies this weekend to give to some of our neighbors to invite them to join us. And I've even heard from a few of them they're still alive after eating them. I think that bodes well.

But don't pass up the opportunity to invite some people to come and worship with us next weekend. We worship Jesus for all of these reasons, but today I want us to focus for a few minutes more than we usually do on Jesus humanity, the numerous ways in which he experienced life as we know it. God's son became human so that we can become God's children. And as a flesh and blood human being, Jesus identified with our physical struggles. You know how thirsty you get after working outside in the sun, or how hungry you feel after a hard workout, or how good it tastes to sit down and enjoy a well prepared meal.

Well, Jesus ate and drank just like we do. He attended a wedding feast where he turned water into wine after the host ran out of wine. And we assume that Jesus, because he was a guest there, that he ate and he drank along with the other guests. We read in John chapter 4 about Jesus after a long walk, being thirsty and stopping at a well to ask a woman for a drink of water. We know that Jesus ate in the homes of Matthew and Simon the Pharisee and Mary and Martha and Simon the leper and others.

He picked and he ate grain with his disciples as they walked through a field. Jesus final moments with his disciples prior to his death. Something we just focused on during our communion time. All of that was at a Passover meal. Jesus ate and Jesus drank because he was fully human.

Now you know how exhausted you feel after a hectic morning till night kind of workday, or after a long hike, or after you've built a deck or a shed in your backyard, or you've been up all night with a fussy baby Jesus got tired just like we do. Jesus grew up the son of a blue collar builder, and he didn't begin his public ministry until he was about 30 years old. So I'm sure that alongside his dad, Jesus did plenty of manual labor. We know of a time when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, but as far as we know, he walked everywhere else he went, often for long distances. We know for sure that he didn't ride a Harley because the Old Testament law said that hogs were unclean.

Now, people followed Jesus wherever he went, hoping he would heal them. You know when you feel like there's always someone needing something from you, that can be exhausting to find time to pray. We're told that Jesus often got up early, so he had to sleep whenever and wherever he could, even in a boat on a stormy lake. When Jesus calmed a storm on the Sea of Galilee, it was only after his disciples woke him up. If you're sleeping through a violent storm, that means you're exhausted.

You know how it hurts to sprain your ankle or wreck your bike or whack your thumb with a hammer? Well, Jesus felt pain just like we do. Now, scripture doesn't tell us whether Jesus ever fell and skinned his knee or broke a bone or got sick. But his humanity made him susceptible to all of the above. We don't know about every time Jesus felt pain, but we do know what he endured to pay for our sins.

We know that at the moment Jesus said, I am thirsty. He'd been beaten by Roman soldiers. He'd had a woven crown of spiky thorns jammed into his scalp. He'd already been scourged with a device that was designed to rip flesh from bone. He had had to carry a heavy wooden cross on his raw and bleeding shoulders.

And then he was nailed to that cross where he hung. And he suffered for several hours until fluid buildup in his chest exerted enough pressure to finally stop his heart. All of which points to the reality that Jesus became mortal just like we are. Scripture is emphatic over and over and over again that Jesus died for our sins. And the only way the almighty, eternal, immortal God could die was to put on mortal human flesh.

Jesus identified with our physical struggles, but not only that, Jesus identified with our emotional struggles. You know, as humans, it isn't just physical pain that makes life hard sometimes, is it? We also struggle with a wide range of emotions, and Jesus relates to those too. Have you ever sat with a grieving friend or perhaps grieved the loss of a loved one? Personally, well, in becoming human, Jesus felt grief just like we do.

Not only did Jesus become mortal himself, but he stepped into a world where everyone is mortal, where death is the norm. And he had to personally grapple with with the pain of grief and loss. John the Baptist, who was Jesus cousin, who prepared the way for Jesus ministry, was murdered for political reasons. The Bible's shortest verse tells how after the death of his friend Lazarus, Jesus wept. Even knowing that he was about to raise Lazarus from the dead.

Jesus saw his friends grieving and he was moved to tears by their pain. And it seems apparent that Jesus adopted father Joseph died when Jesus was young. So Jesus can relate personally to all of us who have ever lost a parent. If you've ever felt dread about a hard conversation or jumping out of a plane or a major surgery or being deployed in combat, know that Jesus felt apprehension just like we do. Just before his arrest, Jesus went with his friends Peter, James and John to pray.

And he began, Scripture says, to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Jesus was all in on God's mission and will, but he still asked the Father three times for any way besides the cross. Jesus knew the horrific pain that awaited him there. And Luke, who was a medical doctor, reports in his Gospel that Jesus stress level ruptured blood vessels.

Luke 22 says being in anguish, Jesus prayed more earnestly and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. That's a documented medical condition called hematidrosis, when stress causes capillaries beneath the skin to rupture and actually bleed. If you've ever been let down by a friend or hurt by cruel words or left by a spouse, know that Jesus felt heartbreak just like we do. One of his own disciples betrayed him into the hands of his enemies. For and after Jesus was arrested, his disciples abandoned him and fled.

Peter, one of his closest friends, denied three times that he even knew Jesus. The Jewish people who knew Jesus was innocent were given the opportunity to set him free. But they demanded instead that a convicted criminal be released and that Jesus be crucified. And as Jesus hung on the cross, looked at this over the last few weeks, the crowd literally added insult to his injuries. But what I most want to highlight, what I most want us to see this morning, is this reality that Jesus identified with our spiritual struggles.

Both Matthew and Luke tell how right before Jesus began his public ministry, he was tempted in the wilderness by to use his power for his own benefit by turning stones into bread to show off by jumping from the top of the temple and daring God to catch him to exchange the cross for wealth and power by worshiping Satan. And in each of those instances, Jesus answered temptation with words from Scripture and he resisted. And I'm grateful he did. We can learn a lot about resisting temptation from the approach that Jesus took. But have you ever read about Jesus temptations in the wilderness and thought those don't sound like my temptations?

I can't turn stones into bread. I'm too afraid of heights to even think about jumping off any temples. Devil worship has zero appeal to me. My temptations are more along the lines of being selfish with my time or greedy with my money or short with my family or crass with my speech or looking at porn or drinking too much or sleeping with my girlfriend. What does Jesus know about any of that?

Well, check out these words from Hebrews chapter four. Hebrews says, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. In ancient Israel, only the high priest could enter the most holy place. The most holy place was the innermost part of the temple where the presence of God resided above the ark of the Covenant. And once a year on the day of atonement, Yom Kippur.

On our modern calendars, the high priest would enter the most holy place to offer sacrifices for Israel's sins. But when Jesus died on the cross, he became our high priest and he made all other sacrifices obsolete. Now don't miss this next verse because Hebrews goes on to say, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses. But we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are. Yet he did not sin.

Did you catch that? Jesus has been tempted in every way, just as we are. That means that Jesus dealt with a whole lot more temptations than just those three that we read about in the wilderness in Matthew chapter four. Now we don't have book, chapter and verse details, but do you suppose that Jesus was ever tempted to disobey his parents? How could you grow up as a human and not have to make decisions in that area?

You suppose Jesus was ever tempted to use the money that was given to support his ministry in self indulgent ways? Or to cuss those hypocritical Jewish leaders up one side and down the other? Or to use his power to make himself more comfortable? Or to entertain lustful thoughts about attractive women who followed him? Or to punch difficult obstinate people in the throat.

I mean, we don't know every temptation that Jesus faced, but we know he was susceptible because he was human. Jesus faced the same temptations we do, and he didn't give in to them. He never sinned, not because he couldn't, but because he wouldn't. If Jesus weren't capable of sin, then nothing could have tempted him. The fact that Jesus has been tempted in every way, just as we are, means that Jesus grappled with temptation throughout his life, just like we do now.

Why does this even matter? Well, because Jesus came to offer his life for our sins and only a perfect sacrifice would do. One of the titles applied to Jesus in Scripture is the Lamb of God. We sang about that just a few moments ago. John the Baptist, Jesus cousin, referred to Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Exodus chapter 12 talks about God's final plague on the land of Egypt, the one that finally broke the will of Pharaoh and convinced him to let the Israelite people go. On that night, God took the life of every firstborn person and animal in Egypt except the Israelites, whose door frames were marked with the blood of perfect, unblemished, sacrificial Passover lambs. The apostle Paul had that night in Egypt in mind when he wrote that Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed Egypt. In other words, Jesus was God's own perfect, sinless, unblemished sacrifice for our sins. The book of Revelation describes Jesus as a lamb standing on a throne who is worshiped because he was slain and because his blood purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people, nation.

Jesus bought us, all of us, everyone willing to trust him as Lord and Savior, back from sin and death and hell at the cost of his own life. And to make clear that Jesus death was no mere accident or mistake, Revelation refers to him as the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world. In other words, from the beginning of time, God knew that we were going to sin. And before we ever did, he had already decided. He had already planned to put on flesh and offer his own perfect life as a sacrifice for our sins and provide us a way back to him.

That's how much God loves us. God's son became human so that we can become God's children. That's what the gospel is all about. Jesus experienced everything that's hard about being human, physically, emotionally and spiritually. He empathizes with every temptation we face.

The only facet of our humanity that Jesus didn't share is our sinfulness. And because he alone had no sin of his own, Jesus was able to to die for our sins as God's perfect passover lamb. And that truth is the basis for this invitation that Hebrews 4 moves on to. Verse 16. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Friends, Jesus knows what it's like to be us. He gets what it's like to be you, to be me. He faced all of our challenges. He relates to all of our struggles. He died for all of our sins.

So we don't have to question whether God loves us. We don't have to wonder whether we've sinned one time too many. We don't have to cower in fear and insecurity. Jesus invites us to approach God's throne with confidence and receive grace and mercy, the very things that we need in order for sinful people to approach a holy and sinless and perfect God. God's son became human so that we can become God's children.

The question is, will we accept that invitation? Would you pray with me, Lord God, we are grateful today that you are not aloof and far away, distant out there somewhere in the cosmos, unconcerned about us, unable to relate anything about us. But Father, out of love for us, out of your grace and your mercy, you, you chose to put on flesh.

You chose to walk in our shoes. You chose to experience life as we know it, to face the same hurts and challenges and struggles and temptations. And yet you lived that life on earth without sin. And that at a moment when you would have been completely entitled to turn your back on us and the mess that we've made of our lives and your world and to return to heaven to claim the reward that you were rightfully entitled to, you chose to go to a cross instead, to suffer and die in our place for our guilt, for our sins, so that we could be cleansed and renewed and restored to fellowship with you, God. We are thankful that we serve a God like that.

We're thankful for your willingness to humble yourself, to empty yourself, to serve and to sacrifice for our benefit. Lord, we thank you for loving us in the way you do. And Lord, we ask that you would give us the courage, that you would give us the confidence on the basis of your invitation to receive the grace and mercy that you offer. Through Jesus, our perfect and eternal high priest. We pray all these things in his name.

Amen.

I know name that can silence roaring waves under the Name that can empty out a grave hand over name it's the only name that saves and it's worthy of all praise I call you Jesus I call you, I call you healer Risen and raing in power Something comes out of the grave every time I call you Jesus I call you, I call you Savior Worthy of glory forever Something comes out of the grave every time I call your name King I have a king with dominion over death he holds the key in His Holiness gardens He is the he that has crushed the serpent I resurrected Great I am I I call you Jesus I call you, I call you Jesus Risen and reigning in power Something comes out of the grave every time I call you Jesus I call you, I call you Savior Worthy of glory forever. Something comes out of the grave every time I call your name Chains break dry, bones wake Every time I call your name the gates of hell shame Every time I call your name Chains break dry, won't sway Every time I call your name the gates unhappy hell shake Every time I call your name.

Come on, sing. Where, O death, where, oh death is now your singing and where, O grave, your victory? Come on. Where old death is now your sea and where, O grave, your victory Dead things come alive Dead things come alive Dead things come alive, alive in the name of Jesus Dead things come alive Dead things come alive Dead things come alive in the name of Jesus Dead things come alive Dead things come alive Dead things come alive in the name of Jesus Dead things come alive Dead things come alive Dead things come alive in the name I call you Jesus I call you, I call you you healer.

Something comes out of your grave and every time I call you Jesus I call you, I call you Savior worthy of glory forever Something comes out of your grave Every time I call your name Change dry bones. Wait. Every time I call your name God Gates of hell sake Every time I call your name Dead things come alive Dead things come alive Dead things come alive in the name of Jesus Dead things come alive Dead things come alive Dead things come alive in the name of Jesus Christ.

Wow, What a declaration we just made in singing that song. You can have a seat for a moment. You know, the enemy wants to come and tell us lies, accuse us, destroy us. But we know a name. And that name is Jesus.

And he's more powerful than the enemy. And that's a truth that we can hang onto. You know, all of us came today with something that. That might have been fear. There may be doubt, brokenness.

Maybe you're struggling with grief. Maybe you have a situation that just feels really overwhelming. The enemy wants to take those things and define us by that and make that our story. But we know a name, the name of Jesus, who is mightier than that. And so that prompts a question for us.

What is my next step that I need to take? Maybe it's trusting in Jesus for the first time. Maybe it's surrendering something that you've been holding onto really tightly, naming it, laying it down at the feet of the Jesus. Maybe it's making a decision to be baptized. Maybe it's asking someone to pray alongside of you and not walking through this season alone.

I'd like to invite our next Steps team up here to the front. These people are here to pray with you to encourage you. We offer this at the end of our services because we want you to have someone to talk to and to figure out how you move into your next step. And so I don't want to rush past this moment. If you're feeling a stirring and a prompting to come talk to someone, I encourage you to do that, to come see one of my friends down here at the front.

If you're online and you want to connect, you can text the word next to 317-707-9997 and we'll reach out to you that way. If you have a prayer request at any time during the week, you can submit that@greenwoodchristian.com prayer our staff gathers every week to pray over those prayer requests for you. So let's call on the name of Jesus because when we do, things change and hope rises and freedom begins. Thank you for worshiping with us this morning, and we look forward to seeing you next weekend at Easter.