Son of man

The Old Testament prophecy points to God being revealed.

We understand Moses, when Moses was being called, and he came up on a burning bush, and even he had to ask, you know, who are you? He said, I I'm the God of your father, Abraham.

And when he gave him a charge to command the people to listen to him, that God was going to free them, that God was going to release them from their captivity and their bondage, he asked God and he said, well, who, you know, who do I say? These people, I want these people to listen to me.

When they ask, you know, who is giving you this charge? Who do I say, you know, is telling me? He said, I am that I am, but it wasn't fully revealed yet.

John chapter 14, verse six.

Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the life.

No man cometh unto the father, but by me.

I had one day I was waking up and, you know, we believe that God can give us dreams.

They have this idea.

Some people say, and I've heard this before, the New Testament has a new religion, which means a basically different kind of worldview relating to God and Man, the nature of man, sin, redemption, Jesus.

No, no. It's not a different worldview.

It's not a different religion.

He mentions Jonah and the Queen of Sheba.

He says in verse 39 of Matthew 12, But he answered them, An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

And

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke.

Jesus said to his disciples, I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before others, the Son of Man will acknowledge before the angels of God.

But whoever denies me before others will be denied before the angels of God.

Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven.

And Nicodemus answered and said to him, how can these things be? And Jesus answered and said to him, are you the teacher of Israel and do not know these things? Most assuredly, I say to you, we speak what we know and testify what we've seen, and you do not receive our witness.

If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended to heaven, but he who came down from heaven, that is the son of man who is in heaven." And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Let's pray.

Father, thank You so much for this very familiar portion of Your Word that, Lord, as we have read it again and again throughout our lifetime, we've heard messages on it.

Lord, I pray that the familiarity of it would not keep us from hearing the truth that You have shared with Nicodemus and to us.

Lord, that we must be born again, and that the Son of Man must be lifted up, that He would draw all men to Him.

Lord, I pray for any and everyone in this room that has not been born again of the Spirit.

Amen.

But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus, the Son of Man, standing at the right hand of God.

And he said, behold, I see the heavens open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.

But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him.

They cast him out of the city and stoned him.

Did you hear what sustained Stephen in the midst of his persecution? was the kingdom of heaven.

The glory of God and the sovereign rule and reign of Jesus Christ, that is what sustained Stephen in the midst of his persecution.

The catechism nails it when it instructs you and me how to respond to distress and persecution.

So the early rain happens on individuals.

It brings us personally into conversion, that spark to accept Jesus as your personal Savior.

We say, oh, I did that a long time ago.

Are you trusting in Jesus as your Savior right now? When somebody crosses you up in board meeting or prayer meeting or someplace else, are you trusting in Jesus to do what Jesus needs to do in your heart, in their heart? I want that to happen, but am I? the latter rain also can fall on individuals, and it brings that seed that Christ has planted into full maturity, so that not only do I have the promise of the fruit of the Spirit in my life, but I have the experience of the mature fruit of the character of God in my life.

On a personal level, you can begin experiencing both the former and the latter rain today, friends.

Ask for it.

By name.

He became us so we can become Him.

So severally, Jesus identified Himself as a son of man.

There was a day He spoke about the second coming in the Book of Matthew.

He said, "No one knows the day nor the hour," not even the Son of Man, because He was speaking as a man, that as a man He didn't know the hour.

But as God, He is the one who set the hour.

Jesus is God who became a man.

David describes man in Psalm 8:4-6.

Read for me the book of Psalms 8:4-6.

And in fact, in America, if I can just call our beloved nation out, we tend to be consumeristic about church.

So what do I get? Do they have a kids ministry that's gonna accommodate my needs? Can I get out to the lake by 12:00 so that I can do my thing? We're j- that's what we're thinking about.

Like, does it fit in my kingdom? Yeah.

Wow.

And here's Father Rich- Fa- Father Lopez, and I'm gonna date myself big time right now, as far as how old I am.

My hair dates me as well.

But, uh, in that time, Father Lopez was just different from other priests in that he was walking around the, the halls of the school smiling, and like high-fiving kids.

Like, what kind of priest is this? Now, for some of you who are old like me, you may remember a guy named Hammer, at that time MC Hammer.

But even if the fourth gospel be rejected, and even if the most radical criticism be applied to the other three, it will still be impossible to get rid of this element in Jesus' teaching.

The significant words attributed to Jesus at the Last Supper with regard to his approaching death and the utterance of Jesus in Mark 10:45, "The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many", have indeed been the subject of vigorous debate.

It is difficult to accept such words as authentic and yet maintain the modern view of Jesus at all.

Yet it is also difficult to get rid of them on any critical theory.

But what then was the life purpose of Jesus? According to the shortest, and if modern criticism be accepted, the earliest of the Gospels, the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many.

Mark 10.45 Here the vicarious death is put as the life purpose of Jesus.

Such an utterance must of course be pushed aside by the modern liberal church.

The truth is that the life purpose of Jesus discovered by modern liberalism is not the life purpose of the real Jesus, but merely represents those elements in the teaching of Jesus, isolated and misinterpreted, which happen to agree with the modern program.