“Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up!”
Part 1
“He Was God”
Matt 24:1-5 “Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple. 2 And Jesus said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” 3 Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many.”
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While preparing for this series I remembered an old TV show called To Tell the Truth.
Three mystery guests who all claimed to be the same person were presented to a panel who asked questions to find out who were the impostors and which one was the real, say, Mr. Jones.
Finally at the very end the host would say,
“Will the real Mr. Jones place stand up!”
—In this series we want the real Jesus to please stand up!
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Now, in answer to the disciple’s questions we read about in our text of what the signs of his return would be, Jesus immediately warns of DECEPTION.
The word “deceive” is from a Greek word that means “to cause to wander, to lead astray, get off-course, to deviate from the correct path, to roam into error.”
And Jesus warned that one of the forms or manifestations this deception would take was with the appearance of false Christs—deceivers wearing a Jesus disguise.
He predicted this kind of deception would cover the globe, saying “MANY false Christs,” not just a few.
And they will be extremely convincing!
24:24 “For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.”
So with this in mind, we can know for certain that by way of fake messiahs and phony prophets, the REAL Jesus—who he WAS and IS—will be targeted with a flood of false messaging in order to cause people to roam away from the truth.
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Historically the person of Jesus has always been under attack.
The Jews of his day accused him of being demon possessed, of being an illegitimate child, of being insane, a blasphemer, a liar, and a fraud.
Moving forward in history the subject of who he was, the works he performed, his birth, death, and resurrection have been the constant target of critics.
About every 6-12 months a new book comes out to prove he wasn’t who Christianity claims him to be.
The latest book I’ve heard of is written by a Muslim entitled, “Redefining Jesus” where the Jesus of the Bible is undermined and distorted.
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So I want to take at least a couple of weeks to explore who the real Jesus was and is——because if the church isn’t sure, how will we discern and defend against the deceptions!
So today I want to ask TWO important questions about Jesus:
One—who did HE say He was?
Two—who did his DISCIPLES say he was?
So first:
I. Who did Jesus say that he was?
Simply put, Jesus said that he was God!
For instance, one day when the religious leaders—the Pharisees—were debating Him, they said:
John 8:53-59 “Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?” 54 Jesus answered,…“56 Your father Abraham rejoiced as he looked forward to my coming. He saw it and was glad.” 57 The people said, “You aren’t even fifty years old. How can you say you have seen Abraham?” 58 Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I am!” 59 At that point they picked up stones to throw at him. But Jesus was hidden from them and left the Temple.”
The Jews knew exactly what he meant with his “I AM” statement, which is why they tried to stone him.
When Moses said to God at the burning bush, “Who will I tell the Egyptians has sent me?”
God responded, “Say this to the people of Israel: I Am has sent me to you.”—Ex. 3:14
I AM means the eternally existent one.
In other words he claimed, “Before Abraham was born, I already existed.”
Now, Abraham lived 1767 years before Jesus was born.
That comes to 18 centuries or 42 generations before Jesus.
Yet Jesus said, “Before Abraham was born, I existed!”
Jesus clearly claimed here to be God!
This is why John records, “So the Jewish leaders tried all the harder to find a way to kill him. For he not only broke the Sabbath, he called God his Father, thereby making himself equal with God.”—John 5:18
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Jesus made many other statements about His Godness, His divinity.
John 6:38 “For I have come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent me…”—He claims he didn’t come from planet earth, which all of us have, but from heaven.
John 8:19 “If you knew me, you would also know my Father.”—To know me is to know God.
John 10:30 “I and the Father are One [in essence and nature].”—I am God the Son, equal to God the Father.
John 12:45 “And he who sees Me sees Him who sent Me.”—To see me is to see God.
So Jesus irrefutably claimed to be God.
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Then secondly,
II. Who did the disciples say he was?
Well, in the opening lines of John’s gospel, he writes:
“In the beginning…,”—1:1
We note that John opens with the same three words of Gen 1:1–“in the beginning.”
The beginning John points to is the beginning of creation as described in Genesis 1:1.
So when God began creating the heavens and the earth, Jesus, the Word, was there.
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John then has a unique name for Jesus: “In the beginning was the Word…”
Now, Jesus is called “The Word” to draw a parallel to the way our words explain our thoughts to others.
So the Son of God was sent to reveal the Heavenly Father’s mind to the world.
He was the Word of God or God’s word to the world.
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And John makes it crystal clear that Jesus, the Word, was eternal God.
1:1 “And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
And notice in the next verse 2: “He was [continually existing] in the beginning [co-eternally] with God.”
As a feature true only of God, Jesus as God has always been in existence.
Hence, he was never created, he never “came to be” at some point in history.
All other created things, the spiritual beings like angels, cherubim, seraphim, and all material things—the universe and everything in it—are not eternal but were created with an expiration date.
But not Jesus—He was never created—he has always been and always will be.
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Both John and the Apostle Paul write that he was not only God, but also CREATOR of all things in union with God the Father:
John 1:3 “All things were made and came into existence through Him; and without Him not even one thing was made that has come into being.”
Col 1:15-17 “Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, 16 for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see—such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. 17 He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.”
We note that in Genesis 1:26 it says “Let US make man in OUR own image…”—Plural pronouns are used (us, our), so who’s the “us?”
God the Father and God the Son!
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Isaiah the prophet prophesied of Jesus’s divinity or ‘Godness’: “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us;…and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.”—9:6
To Titus Paul wrote that we (the church) are “looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us…”—2:13-14
—God and Savior are one and the same!
The Apostle Peter wrote of Jesus, “…now Christ is in heaven, sitting in the place of honor next to God the Father, with all the angels and powers of heaven bowing before him and obeying him.”—1 Pet. 3:22
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So who did Jesus say that He was? He said he was God.
Who did the disciples say that He was? They said he was God.
And HISTORY will end with:
“…at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”—Phil 2:9-11