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What's up? I'm Brian Sumner and I'm going to talk to you today about who Jesus Christ
is. And if you've said that prayer and you've asked Him to become your Lord and He showed
up in your life and He's transforming you, it's really relevant that you understand who
He is. It's so essential that you know He's the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords because
when you think about the Bible, what it is, it isn't just a book written by men. It begins
in Genesis, in Genesis 3 we have a prophecy of the coming Messiah, who is Jesus Christ.
And when the Lord talks to the devil, the serpent in the Garden of Eden, and He speaks
this curse over him for causing Eve and Adam to stumble, what He tells him is that He's
going to come and crush your head. And the "He" He's referring to is Jesus Christ. The
Lord is speaking to the devil that one day Jesus Christ is going to come and crush your
head. And that's what takes place when you make Jesus Christ your Lord, He shows up in
your life and He squashes out the devil, and the blood that you've been washed in transforms
you, and you're free from sin. And then you become a Christian, you're a child of God.
And really who Jesus is is, to explain it simply, if you think of the glory of God,
which can be everywhere, but dwells in heaven specifically, Jesus is the man that God is
represented by, the flesh here. Colossians 1:15 talks about Him being the full representation
of God in the flesh. And then you also have the Holy Spirit that goes along with that.
And when you think about who Jesus is, He's more real than you or I. He's the God that
created the whole earth, the heavens, everything that's here. He's the God that we were separated
from when we fell into sin. And He's the God that's reconciled us back to Himself by hanging
on that cross and shedding His blood. Because the Bible says without the shedding of blood
there can be no reconciliation for sins. So what happens is God looks down from heaven,
and He sees that we're in sin, and He realizes that He has to shed perfect blood for us to
be able to be brought back to Him and enter into His kingdom. And so God gets off His
throne, comes down onto the earth, is born as a baby, lives His whole life, earlier in
the gospels we hear about Jesus going to the temple, and when His mother Mary and Joseph
came to see where He was He said "Didn't you know I was about My Father's business?" So
we see as a young boy that Jesus is active in ministry, in understanding the Scriptures,
and He's coming to be the Messiah, that's who He is. About the age of 30 years old,
which is typically when you'd be a rabbi, when you'd get your father's inheritance,
He goes out to the Jordan and John the Baptist, who'd been proclaiming who He is, sees Jesus
and said "Here is the Lamb of God." John the Baptist baptizes Jesus and when Jesus comes
out of the water, the dove descends from heaven and the Lord says "Here is My Son, in whom
I am well pleased." And from that point on Jesus begins His ministry for three years
until ultimately He faces death for your sins and my sins. What He does is He's brought
by the Spirit and He goes out into the wilderness. He's tempted by the devil and He overcomes,
proving to us that we can actually overcome the devil, we're to flee from him. And we
see Jesus living His life, performing signs and miracles, doing all these wonderous things,
loving on people, meeting them right where they are, being the salt and light of the
earth, and being the example He was called to be. Jesus is our example, He's who we're
meant to be like. The apostle Paul talked about us crucifying our flesh daily to be
more and more Christ-like. As a Christian, you may see a lot of Christians running around
that say they're Christian but actually don't walk how the Bible says. And as you read the
Word, it's been told in the Bible that Jesus is the Word, and that He was with God, is
God, from the beginning. The Bible begins in the New Testament by saying that Jesus
is the Word, He was the Word, and He's with God. So to understand that, what you're saying
is that Christ is God in the flesh, like we established, and as you read the Word, this
is the written word, so it's Jesus Christ written down, it's the truth. And when you
go back into the Old Testament you hear time and time again, Isaiah 53, about Jesus coming
to be beaten for our iniquities and our sins. You hear prophecy time and time again in the
Old Testament, and the New Testament is Jesus Christ revealed. So you take the Old Testament
and it's the mystery of Jesus Christ being spoken, of how He's going to come and redeem
His people, and then you read the New Testment and you see how He came, and He came to redeem
His people, you and I. And back in the Old Testament the covenant was all about the nation
of Israel and those who submitted to that authority under Yahweh, the God of Abraham,
Gentiles you and I who aren't Jewish, we can be grafted in to that same tree, to that same
branch of the elect, who God calls of the nation of Israel. We can be counted and adopted
in to be God's children because of Jesus' blood. And so Jesus shows up to Jerusalem,
to the city, the city of David, and He walks into that city, fulfilling Zechariah 9:9,
on the donkey, riding on the *** that day. And He walks into the city weeping because
He realizes His people don't know who He is. He walks in there and He declares that forever,
this season, for this time, spiritually, Israel, scales are over their eyes, but the forgiveness
of sins has come for the whole world now. He walks in there, He's crucified, He's hung
on that cross, blood is shed, and today you and I can be called children of God because
of who Jesus is. You need to pray only to Jesus Christ, the Bible says there's one mediator
between man and God, the man Christ Jesus. Jesus tells us to be like Him, live a life
like Him. He is our example, He lived a perfect life, having perfect blood, being the perfect
example, reading the Scriptures, walking in love, He gives us His peace, He's overcome
the world so now we can overcome, and he was even persecuted. And the Bible even says when
you're persecuted for My name's sake, you will be blessed. Jesus is our Heavenly Father,
Jesus is actively in partnership with the Holy Spirit, part of that Godhead. Jesus is
our example who we need to live for, and it's a blessing to sit here today and tell you
that Jesus Christ is my Lord, and He died for our sins, and it is an honor and a blessing
to walk this out. Amen.