Father, as we open the Word this morning, we just ask for the
protection of your angels that excel in strength and might and
love for you in the presence of Your Holy Spirit.
It is He, Father, that inspired these words and we pray that as
we read and as we meditate on them, Father, that you Spirit
would touch our hearts and open to us a deeper and more
beautiful picture of our Savior Jesus Christ.
We pray in Jesus name, Amen. All right, so the title of this
message this morning is do you know Jesus?
And some of us are saying absolutely, I know Jesus and
others they're not quite sure. And for those that are online
and those that are here, we're going to talk a little bit about
Jesus in a way that I haven't heard before.
I came across a message that touched my heart.
I'm going to share just a part of it.
It's rather long, so I had to abbreviate it and I'm going to
watch my time because I do have commitments after all, right?
So Luke 23 starting in 32 and 30 to 34.
There were also two other criminals who led with him to
put be put to death. And when they had come to the
place called Calvary, there they crucified him and the criminals,
one on the right hand and one on the left.
Then Jesus said, Father, forgive them for they do not know what
they do. So we see here a picture of
Jesus going to be crucified with two other criminals.
And so people being crucified by the Romans as a form of
punishment was very common in his day.
And so the question when we're speaking to somebody and we say,
well, Jesus died for your sins, I actually ran into somebody who
said, So what? Because somebody I know suffered
far longer than Jesus. So what makes him so special?
And it's, and if you think about it, there are people that have
suffered much longer than Jesus on the cross in far more pain
than he did. So why is his death on the cross
different than anybody else's? Why is Jesus's life and death
and resurrection different? Well, obviously the resurrection
is something that nobody else has done, right?
But what makes Jesus's life and what he went through different?
So we're going to talk a little bit about that this morning.
So Matthew 2414 says, and this gospel of the Kingdom will be
preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations.
And then the M will come. And Fred was asking the question
this morning similar to what I'm going to ask you now.
Not exactly the same, but similar.
Where's Jesus? Why hasn't he come back?
Because this verse says and this gospel of the Kingdom will be
preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations and
then the end will come, which means Jesus is returning.
So that would, if A is the gospel is preached and B is the
end will come, then we must be missing something on the A side,
right? Because B hasn't shown up yet.
So when you think of Matthew 2414, what scripture comes to
mind? That's a pretty famous Adventist
scripture that we talk about. And this gospel of the Kingdom
will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the
nations. Anybody.
What scripture do you think ties in very closely to that?
That we preach at most of our seminars.
Anybody. Matthew 28.
It's a good, it's a good one, but not the one I'm thinking of.
There you go. Revelation 14, verse 6.
Then I saw another Angel flying in the midst of heaven, having
the what? The everlasting gospel, to
preach to who? Who twos, to dwell unto the
earth, to every nation, tribe, tongue in people.
So we see here there is a correlation between Matthew 2414
and Revelation 14/6. So manuscript 32, Sister White
tells us the message proclaimed by the Angel flying in the midst
of heaven is the everlasting gospel.
And that's what the Bible says, right?
It's the everlasting gospel, the same gospel.
Now look at what she says, the same gospel that was declared in
Eden when God said to the servant, I will put enmity
between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed,
and it shall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise or crush,
bruise his heel. So it shall bruise or crush thy
head and and thou shall bruise his heel.
So she's saying that the gospel that it was preached in Eden is
the same gospel in Revelation 14.
And so the question is, what's that gospel?
So we're going to just touch on that just a little bit today.
We're just going to give you a little taste of what that might
be. So Revelation 315 says, And I
will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed
and her seed, and it shall bruise thy head, and thou shall
bruise his heel. So here we see that Christ was
to suffer here, right? That bruise is going to cause
pain, is it not? When you get bruised, do you
have pain? Yes, you have pain.
So here we see a very early indication that our Savior was
going to have to be a Savior of suffering, right?
We're going to look at that through many of the books of the
Bible today. So Genesis 37 says and the then
the eyes of them were both open. So they had sinned, right?
They ate the fruit and they knew that they were naked.
So the, and we're not going to go into all the supporting
scriptures, but we know that the garments of light that they had
faded away when they chose to eat and they sewed fig leaves
together and made themselves covering.
So what are those fig leaves represent?
They represented Adam and Eve were trying to save themselves
embarrassment, right It that's salvation by works.
They were deciding to put on something to cover them because
they realized that they were exposed, right?
Also for Adam and his wife, the Lord made tunics of skin and
clothe them. So when the Lord came to that
garden, what did He do? He searched them out knowing
that they had fallen. So that's part of the gospel.
God comes to us before we're even ready.
Amen. He searches us out.
Now part of the gospel is realizing that we can't save
ourselves. They tried to sew fig leaves on.
Of course, if you put a leaf on yourself, what's going to happen
over time to that leaf? It's going to, it's going to
disintegrate, right? It's going to dry out and fall
off. So in order to teach them a
lesson, some innocent animal had to die and they had to be
clothed. And what animal died we know is
the lamb, right? So the Lord had to kill a lamb,
and it was skin, and then that skin was taken care of and it
made them tunics so they could be covered, right?
So here we have a precursor to once again, the suffering Savior
who represents the lamb had to pay for the sins to cover us.
Amen. So God was helping Adam and Eve
to see their need when He asked them that question, right?
Where art thou? Because you and I need to hear
His voice to say, hey, why are you staying away from me?
Why are you wandering away? What are you afraid of?
I'm here to help you. He's trying to get our
attention. And Sister White says.
And what is justification by faith?
Look at this carefully. It is the work of God in laying
the glory of man in the dust and doing for man that which is not
in his power to do for himself. When men see their own
nothingness, they are prepared to be clothed with the
righteousness of Christ. So when He came to Adam and Eve
in that garden, he asked that question that was to help them
to see their true condition and their need right.
They knew they were in trouble, they were hiding, they knew that
they had were naked, they sewed the fig leaves on, and yet the
God that they were afraid of came and called them to let them
know that they had nothing to be afraid of because He was there
to help them. Amen.
So we know that something innocent has to die to cover
their shame. Now John 129 says the next day
John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Behold the Lamb of God
who takes away the sin of the world.
So we see here the tie between Genesis where Adam and Eve were
clothed with the skin, and John the Baptizer in John 129 saying,
Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
And the lamb was used in the sacrifice on a regular basis in
the sanctuary. And we can see how it all ties
together. Now it says He is despised and
rejected by men, a man of sorrow as we read, acquainted with
grief, and we hid as it were our faces from him.
So here we see a correlation to Adam and Eve doing what?
Hiding from the Lord, He was despised and we did not esteem
Him. Surely He has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten
by God and afflicted. He is the suffering Savior.
We're going to look at some verses today to help us get a
deeper understanding of why can we relate to Jesus Christ?
What did He go through that makes Him relatable?
In Isaiah 53, verse three to five, we read.
But He was wounded for our transgression.
He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by His stripes
we are healed. So in Eden, healed and bruised.
In Genesis 315, right talked about being bruised in Eden,
Tunics of skin. Something had to die.
Genesis 321 in the sanctuary we see the lamb is slain.
In Leviticus 1413 in the prophets they talked about a
Messiah that will suffer and just I didn't have a lot of
space so I put up Isaiah 53, Psalm 22 and Zechariah 13, six
and you can read those at your leisure.
And Jesus said I will suffer. Matthew 1621 to 23.
Let's turn there in our Bible. So I don't have a slide for
that. So let's go to Matthew 16 and
let's see what Jesus said starting in verse 21.
From that time Jesus began to show to his disciples that he
must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and
the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed and be
raised again a third day. Then Peter took him aside and
began to rebuke him, saying, far be it from you, Lord, this shall
not happen to you. But he turned and said to Peter,
get behind me, Satan, you're an offence to me, for you are not
mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.
So we see Peter was struggling with understanding that his
understanding was the Savior was going to come and set them free
from Rome by being a great warrior and a victor and having
an army. And yet Jesus said, I have not
come to battle that way. I have come to pay for your
sins. In Luke 2425 and 26, it says, O
foolish ones, slow of heart, to believe all that the prophets
have spoken. Ought not the Christ who have
suffered these things, and to enter into his glory.
So that's from a sermon we preached a couple of weeks ago
where the disciples were on the road to Emmaus and they were
lamenting, they thought Jesus was the Savior.
As they walked on that road, Jesus pulled up next to them and
they were walking and they were talking and they shared.
And Jesus reminds them, O foolish ones and slow of heart,
ought not the Christ who have suffered all these things and to
enter into his glory? It was a misunderstanding they
had and he was trying to help them understand.
So Jesus was not just a man who died to give others a better
life. So we see and Eden once again,
he was healed and bruised, tunics of skin.
Lamb is slain, Messiah will suffer.
Jesus says I will suffer. In Acts 2623 we see the Messiah
suffer. That's how the disciples
preached about it, right? They explained it that way.
And in and in Revelation 1318, we see once again who was slain.
The Lamb was slain and who was the Lamb?
The Lamb is Jesus Christ, so he here we see from Genesis all the
way to Revelation, and there are many other verses that we could
put in there that Jesus was a suffering Messiah for us.
And we say, well, how can we relate to him?
He wasn't just a man who gave us a better life.
So people are looking for someone who can understand the
situation that they're going through.
Amen. And so let's look at some of the
verses. Matthew 118, He was conceived
out of wedlock. So imagine Mary and what she
went through in that day, right? Deuteronomy 2220 to 21 says if a
woman was not a virgin at the time of marriage, having engaged
in sex while her in her father's house, she was to be stoned to
death. So Mary's life was in danger
even though she decided to cooperate with him.
And that made Jesus, and I'm not going to use the term that's
used to commonly describe somebody who's born out of
wedlock, but he was born in a way that many people thought was
illegitimate, right? They thought she had an affair
with, not an affair, but had sex with somebody that she should
was not her husband, right? So imagine what Jesus and her
had to go through as he was growing up, people knowing that
Joseph was not her husband, right?
And imagine in in Matthew 119, we know that the Bible says that
Joseph, her husband, being a just man and not wanting to make
a public example, was minded to put her away secretly until the
Lord spoke to him and said what is in her womb is of the Lord,
right? Amen.
So we can see for those that were born out, conceived out of
wedlock, Jesus went through the same thing.
Amen. Where was Jesus born?
He was born in a stable. Did they have a lot of money?
No, right. So he was born poor.
He wasn't born in a big house, right?
Matthew 317 says. And behold, a voice from heaven
said, This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.
So God said to him, this is my beloved son.
Are any of you? Well, I know Ernie or Phil is a
son of a preacher, right? Ernie.
Yeah. And who else?
Anybody. Son or a daughter or a preacher
or somebody who's well known. Right.
Is there a lot of pressure to live up to a certain standard
when you're a child of a preacher?
Phil, Come on, You can, right? There's a lot of pressure,
right? If you're, if you're a child or
a sibling of somebody who's famous, there's a lot of
pressure. Well, here Jesus is being told
right in front of everybody that he is his beloved son, the Son
of God. So imagine if Jesus was to
stumble, imagine the pressure that was on him not to fall
because he had been told he's the beloved son of God, right?
Is that more pressure than any human has ever had?
Absolutely. So Jesus understands the
pressure that siblings and other children go through when their
parents or their relatives are very famous.
Isaiah 52. He was beaten beyond the point
of recognition. Verse 14 And just as many were
astonished at you, so his appearance was marred more than
any man in his form, more than the sons of men for those that
have suffered physical violence. And it is unfortunately more and
more common today than it used to be.
Jesus understands He was whipped twice, not just with a whip, but
with metal pieces and fragments that were in it which tore his
flesh. He was dehydrated, he was tired,
He suffered societal rejection, emotional suffering, physical
suffering, hunger, hunger and thirst.
And we see that also in Paul the disciple.
So can Jesus relate to you when you don't have enough bread to
put on the table? Yes.
Can you relate when your water stops working 'cause you can't
pay the bill and you don't have any water coming out of the
faucet? Yes.
Can he understand when you've been abused by a spouse or a
brother or a sister or whatever? Yes, because He has been through
physical abuse. Isaiah 53 verse 3 says he was
despised and rejected. Amen.
Has anybody ever been despised or rejected by somebody falsely
accused? Jesus was falsely accused.
He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief and as one
whom men hide their faces. You ever needed help and you
call out to your friends and they just turn their backs on
you. Jesus had that happen.
He was despised and we esteemed Him not.
What challenges are you going through?
Jesus can relate to what you're going through.
In Isaiah 53 verse four, He was overwhelmed by sorrow and grief
as He went through what He went through.
He felt stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.
He was wounded, bruised and chastised.
He received many stripes. He was oppressed and abused.
Have you ever been abused and oppressed?
Jesus understands. He understands the challenges
that you and I are going through.
He was mistreated in prison and in the courts.
He died childless. He was found guilty for things
he never did. Has anybody ever accused you of
something you haven't done? It happens, right?
It happens. Trust me, it's happened to me.
I'm sure it's happened to many that are here Accused.
He died for things he was totally innocent of.
So he paid for something that he never even did, and they killed
him for that. Psalm 22 says he felt forsaken
of God. If you look at verse 1, he felt
that God was not hearing him or helping.
He was crying out but felt unheard.
He remembered that other people received help when they prayed,
but didn't feel that his own prayers were being heard or
responded. You ever feel like your prayers
are going up to the ceiling and bouncing back and they're not
being heard? Jesus has gone through that.
When he was on the cross, what did he cry out?
Father, why have you forsaken me?
Right. He felt alone.
He couldn't see through the portals of the cross.
He was despised and ridiculed. Have you ever been despised and
ridiculed over something? Even something you haven't done?
Some maybe in your family, right?
Maybe when you became a Christian, your family disowned
you because of your beliefs. Or maybe when you became an
Adventist, they disowned you because you became an Adventist
and they think you're in a cult. Jesus has been through that.
He's been accused of many things.
People mocked him for being a child of God.
Has that ever happened to you when you became a Christian?
Have people mocked you for your beliefs?
It's common today. He felt exhausted and empty in
verse 14. He had no strength left.
Verse 15. He was stripped of his clothing
and cried to God for help. Verses 18 and 19, Verses 22 to
24, he came to understand that God was listening and hadn't
abandoned him, so he held strong.
He held firm even with all of the doubts that were being
pushed on him by the enemy. And he came to the conclusion
and trusting that God was listening, even though he had to
go through what he was going through.
So Jesus understands us in the pain.
He was filled with praise in Matthew 2, verses 13 and 15.
He was a refugee and had to flee his homeland due to violence and
political unrest. Do we know people like that
today? Absolutely.
It's in the news, isn't it? It's all over.
There's places in Africa, we have the Palestinians over in
Israel, we have Ukraine, right? Refugees, they've lost
everything due to violence and political unrest, right?
Jesus understands he had to go through that.
Matthew 4, he was tempted to doubt his identity as God's
child in verse 3 when the devil says if you are the Son of God,
right? Challenging him when he's weak
and hungry and tired and thirsty.
He was tempted to provide for his own needs instead of
trusting God to provide for him. So he had to wait on the Lord to
provide for him and the devil's tempting him to provide for his
own needs. Have you ever been tempted to
try and do something on your own instead of waiting for God?
Remember Saul? King Saul?
Did he not become impatient and not wait for Samuel to show up
and decided to do the offering himself instead of waiting?
That didn't lead to very good things, did it?
Fortunately, Jesus waited. He was tempted to comfort
himself with food when stressed. Anybody ever done that?
Decide to eat when you're stressed.
Comfort yourself. Jesus was tempted.
He understands what we're going through.
He was tempted to prove his worth in pride.
Verse 6 from Matthew 4. If you can read Matthew 4,
you'll see that he was tempted to physically harm himself.
We have a daughter who for a while was very depressed and was
struggling with harming herself almost to the point of suicide.
And quite frankly, I actually lost one of my daughter's to
suicide a number of years ago. So I understand some of the
pain, right? People are tempted, the devil
whispers in their ears and tries to discourage them and get them
depressed to harm themselves. Jesus understands he was tempted
to give up his faith in God to receive everything the world has
to offer. Verses 8 and 9 from Matthew 4,
right? So pride, physical harm, the
worldly goods to give everything up for the world, but he held
firm, Amen. He understands the temptations
that you and I go through. In Matthew 14, a close relative
and friend of his was brutally murdered.
Anybody remember John the Baptist, right?
He was taken into prison and he was murdered not because of
anything he did wrong, because he was willing to stand up for
God. And he was a cousin of Jesus.
They were around the same age, right?
And he was the precursor to Jesus.
He was out in the wilderness preaching that the Lord was
coming soon and repent. So imagine how Jesus felt to
know that his cousin was brutally murdered people many.
We had Doctor Walsh in our congregation.
A relative of his down in Florida was shot and murdered
needlessly. Just random violence, right?
It happens way too often today. Jesus understands.
His own family thought he was out of his mind in Mark 3 verse
21. Does your family ever thought
you were crazy because of your beliefs?
Jesus understands. He's been through that.
In John 7. His own brothers mocked him and
did not believe in him. That ever happened to anybody.
Your siblings mock you. They make fun of you because
they don't understand what you believe and why you believe what
you believe. Jesus understands Matthew 26.
He wrestled with accepting the will of God for his life and
being willing to go through with the suffering.
Here He is on the Mount of Olives and what does he say?
Lord, if you allow it, please let this cup pass.
But I want your will, not mine. Our future was in his hands up
on that mountain, in that garden, and yet He was willing
to yield everything for you and I.
Are you and I willing to yield everything for him, is the
question Today. He was betrayed by a close
friend. Judas came right, turned him in.
Judas had been with him for 3 1/2 years.
Jesus washed Judas's feet. He called him friend.
Do you betray me with a kiss? Betrayed with a kiss by a
friend. How sad is that?
You ever been betrayed by a friend?
Jesus understands. He was abandoned by his friends
in his greatest time of need. As he went up on the Mount of
Olives, He brought the disciples.
The 11 were with him. One had already gone to betray
him, so he had 11. He had eight stay outside and he
brought 3 in. Peter, James and John went with
him and he asked them to pray, to watch and to pray.
How did they do? They fell asleep.
You ever been betrayed by a friend?
Jesus understands. One of his closest friends
denied that he even knew him. Peter right, said I would die.
I would never deny you. And yet shortly after that, what
happened? Not only did they all run away
when Judas came with this this small group of people to arrest
Jesus, but later on Peter denied Jesus 3 * 3 times.
Jesus denied that he even knew him, and he denied him with
vulgarity in front of others. Does Jesus understand being
abandoned by friends and denied that people even knew him?
Yes, he understands he didn't receive a fair trial.
People lied to secure his conviction.
He understands when people lie against us and turn against us.
He was spat on and abused by the religious leaders.
You know there is a time coming when those of us who are willing
to stand firm in the Lord will go through exactly what Jesus
went through. We will be accused of many
things, but be assured Jesus understands and will be with us.
Matthew 27, one of his closest friends, committed suicide.
Judas, after he betrayed him, was so weighed down with guilt
that he went and committed suicide.
Jesus was brutally beaten, tortured, stripped, and mocked
by the equivalent of the law enforcement of the day.
Verses 26 to 28. And yet he didn't offer one word
of rebuke, did he? He understands what people go
through. He was tempted to numb his pain
with wine. Verse 34.
He understands addiction, he understands what we're tempted
with to try and hide the the physical pain or the emotional
pain with alcohol, with drugs, with other things.
He understands because he suffered too.
So as we close today, this was just a brief overview of just
some of the scriptures that help us to understand what Jesus went
through and why He can relate to you and I.
And I pray that as you meditate on those scriptures, you would
be blessed to understand that we have a Savior that understands
suffering, emotional, physical. He is truly the Savior of
mankind. Amen.
Let us bow our heads. Father, we are grateful for
being reminded of all that your son went through for us.
That whatever situation we're in, Father, he can relate to it
because in some way, in some form, he suffered through it for
us. Lord, your son came here and
gave his life for us. He gave his life as an example.
He lived and was hated and chastised physically,
emotionally, and in so many ways, Father, And we can trust
that when we're struggling, Jesus can relate to us.
Thank you, Father, bless each and everyone who is here and
those who watch online. Keep them Father, and encourage
them to be in Your Word, to see the Savior that understands us,
that can empathize with us, and that loves us beyond measure.
I pray in Jesus name, Amen.