LATEST SERMONS @ HIGHFIELDS
- 19th February, 2012
►“What’s Next?” - 12th February, 2012
►“How the Holy Spirit Works as a Change Agent” - 5th February, 2012
►“Spiritually Dry” - 29th January, 2012
►“Faith Journey” - More...
Discover Jesus
9625 New England Highway, Geham
Copyright © 2010-11 Highfields Church | Phone (07) 4698 7122 | Fax (07) 4698 7133 | Affiliated with Churches of Christ in Queensland | Contact Us
 |
Jesus of Nazareth is the most extraordinary person in history. I invite you to not just know about him, but to meet Him. To meet the Jesus that you may have never known.
1. Jesus was TOUGH.
Jesus was tough physically. As he grew up and until he was 30 years old, Jesus had a trade as a carpenter. I don't know any wimpy carpenters. They have rough calloused hands, a strong grip & sun darkened skin. Carpentry in Jesus' day, was more physically demanding then it is now. Carpenters today use electric tools, have a 1 ton ute with leather seats and a CD player. The timber often gets delivered to the site. Carpenters in those days often had to go into the forest, cut down their own trees, split and cut up the wood and carry it to the building site. Jesus had a physically demanding occupation.
Jesus walked from town to town, sometimes 20 kilometres a day, in the heat, along rocky and narrow paths. He got blisters and corns on his feet. At the end of the day, he didn't have a home to go to, no pillow or mattress to sleep on. Jesus once said, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but I have no place to lay down my head." Jesus was a homeless person, who with his little band of followers, wandered from town to town. Often he would lie down at the bottom of a fishing boat or sleep on the hard earth.
One time Jesus walked through a desert for 40 days, without having anything to eat. Most of us wouldn't even last 40 hours. At the end of his life, he was flogged with a whip which had sharp bits of metal in it. As He bled, he was forced to carry a cross on his back through the city of Jerusalem and up a hill called Calvary. Jesus was tough physically.
He was also tough emotionally. Jesus was among many things, a teacher. Those of you who teach, know how emotionally demanding teaching can be, especially if you have an important message to pass on, it takes an emotional toll on you. If your important message is resisted or refused, it's extremely demanding emotionally. Jesus was the smartest person who ever lived. He is the most influential teacher in history. He didn't just teach information. With power and passion, He preached life transformation. If we put into practice what He said, our lives, communities and country would be radically better.
When Jesus taught, He laid his heart out bear to try to inspire people to a relationship with God. His message was soaked up by ordinary people. Sometimes they would sit for 3 days straight, without food, just to hear his riveting words. The people that loved to hear him, were people who knew little of religion. But his message was met with overwhelming defiance from the religious establishment of his day. They lied about his teaching, they spread half truths to people behind His back, and they threatened him. Sometimes even his disciples didn't like what he said. Peter would often take Jesus aside and say, "What your teaching is too heavy. The commitment you're asking for is too much." This takes an unbelievable toll on a teacher who has a life changing message for people. But Jesus never caved in. He didn't back down. Whether people applauded Him or accepted Him, Jesus never modified His message or His mission. He stayed on course.
2. Jesus was TENDER.
Military leaders will fulfil their duties to take an army into heavy battle without blinking an eyelid. CEO's of companies often lay off staff, and do so without a trace of emotion. Great toughness and gentle tenderness rarely exist in the same person. But they did in Jesus. Crowds of people would sometimes surround Him, and Jesus would take the time to be with a noisy blind beggar or a haemorrhaging woman who shyly touched his clothes. He had compassion and touched a man with leprosy. The man who had the power to calm raging seas and change the course of history, thoroughly enjoyed being with children, talking with them and blessing them.
The one who had the power to heal the sick, the lame and the blind, would sometimes look over a town and see people living self-centred self destructive lives. He would be so deeply moved with compassion, that he would stop and say. "Here are more people wandering around like a sheep without shepherd." And then Jesus would have a good cry.
Jesus was both tough and tender. But there is something else about Jesus. Something far greater than his toughness and his tenderness. It is deeply connected with the question Joan Osborne asks in a song which topped the charts for 4 weeks in Australia in the late 90's:
If God had a name, what would it be
And would you call it to his face
If you were faced with Him in all his glory
What would you ask if you had just one question
Yeah, yeah, God is great
Yeah, yeah, God is good
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
What if God was one of us
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on a bus
Trying to make His way home
If God had a face, what would it look like
And would you want to see
If seeing meant that you would have to believe
In things like heaven and in Jesus and the Saints
And all the prophets
Just trying to make his way home
Back up to heaven all alone
Nobody calling on the phone
Except for the Pope maybe in Rome
The most amazing event in the history of our world, is this - the Maker of all things, shrank down, down, down, down, to become an ovum, a single fertilized egg barely visible to the naked eye, inside a nervous single mother to be. God became one of us. Unlike our hygienic maternity wards and birthing suites today, Jesus was born in a dusty barn at the back of a pub in Bethlehem. His cot was an animal feed trough. God became one of us. He came as a tiny baby, who dirtied his nappy. He lived in poverty. God has a name - His name is Jesus. What did he look like? He looked like a Jewish carpenter. Jesus is not just an ordinary man, a tough teacher, a tender healer or a man that God sent to us.
3. JESUS IS THE LORD OF ALL
Jesus made some exclusive claims. He referred to God intimately as His own Father. By doing this He was claiming to be equal with God. In John 14:6 he basically says, "If you want to get to God, you got to go through me first." He is not just saying he is the way to God, He says He is God. "If you've seen me, you've seen God. "not just a god, but the God, the Big Guy in the sky, the creator of the universe."
Now if someone claims to be God and it's not true, they are either a liar or a lunatic. A bit like a man who says "I'm a Big Mac hamburger." Jesus was not like this. Everything He said about Himself, was consistent with His life. He lived a perfectly sinless life.
People sometimes say to me, "All religions will get you to heaven, they all the same really." Others say to me, "I'm a good person. God will let me into heaven." Don't you believe any of it. We don't have to climb a ladder into heaven to find God and be with Him. God has come down the ladder to meet us and take us back with Him. God is not up there in heaven as a distant remote ruler who doesn't care what's happening in our lives. God is passionately concerned for us, that He became one of us. When we know Jesus, we know God. When we meet Jesus, we meet God.
Only Jesus Christ claimed to be God. Jesus is God in the flesh. Only Jesus Christ was nailed to a cross because He wouldn't back down on this claim. He died on the cross, not for His sin, but for ours. If we could go to heaven by living a good life, why did God go to all the effort to humble Himself, to become a human being and die on a cross? Only a tough and tender God would do that. If all religions lead to heaven, why is it that only Jesus offers us forgiveness of sin and a living relationship with God? All spiritual leaders and the founders of religions, Buddha, Mohammed, etc are all dead. Only Jesus Christ rose again from the dead. Jesus is alive now. People can begin and be in a relationship with Jesus. Throughout my week, I talk with Jesus. I can tell Him anything I want, ask Him any question I like and Jesus communicates to me - mostly through the Bible, sometimes by giving me ideas as His Spirit prompts me. Everyone can get to know Jesus. Being a Christian is not about following rules, regulations or religion. It's about a relationship of talking with, listening to and following Jesus.
Would you like to get to know Jesus of Nazareth? Contact us for information
