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Today, the story and title is
The Incarnation Was Always the Plan. Or to flesh that out a
little longer, The Incarnation Was Always the Plan. The incarnation
was always the plan. I don't think anyone in here
doubts that. Right, Philip? Is that right?
No, I don't think anyone here doubts that that was always the
plan. But for some reason, some people aren't so sure, you know.
Then others say, well, the incarnation was the plan, but the crucifixion
was not always the plan. How did they get that? But no,
that also was always the plan. The text, again, is Luke 24,
26-27. We read it earlier. I'm going to read it again. This
was after the resurrection. just after. And so no one, you
know, hardly anyone knew that there had been a resurrection
yet. And so some of these disciples of Jesus were walking on the
road to Emmaus and they were dejected because Jesus, whom
they had thought would perhaps usher in a new kingdom of the
Jews crushing the Romans, they were met by Jesus on the
road. And he says, why do you look that?
Why you say, haven't you heard? Are you crawling out of a corner
somewhere, sir? Didn't you hear about all the
things that happened to this man, Jesus? And then he explained
to them everything about himself from the Old Testament. Was there
a New Testament yet? No. There hadn't been any of
the New Testament written yet. Jesus had just been crucified
and raised from the dead. No one knew yet, hardly anyone.
Jesus explained it to them and he said, Luke 24 verse 26, was
it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to
come into his glory? And the expected answer is yes,
it was necessary. So beginning with Moses and with
all the prophets, he explained to them the things written about
himself in all the scriptures, meaning all the Old Testament. So, it was always a plan, and
was it not necessary? Yes, it was necessary. It was
necessary. Looking at this idea that the Scriptures
are about Jesus, okay? The Old Testament Scriptures
are about Jesus. This is mind-blowing to some. Let's look at 1 Corinthians 9.9.
1 Corinthians 9.9. 1 Corinthians 9. So, Paul is talking about himself. He does it now and then. Why?
Well, because he was maligned and he was, what's the word? People would tell tales about
him and spread rumors about him and say things about him that
were not true, libel, defamation of character, libel, what's the word? Gossip,
but anyway, I forget the word, the legal term. So sometimes
he had to say a few things in his defense, And in chapter 9
of 1 Corinthians, he's doing that. And he says, yes, I'm going
to... He says, verse 3, my defense
to those who examine me is this, to those who examine me. That
was a kind way of saying those who say bad things about me and
judge me, okay? But they have examined me and
found me wanting. He says, He says, do we not have
a right to eat and drink? They complain about everything
I do. I eat and drink. Do we not have
a right to take along a believing wife? Even as the rest of the
apostles and the brothers of the Lord in Cephas, that's Peter,
you know that they travel to the churches and they bring along
their wives and Peter had a wife. He was the Pope supposedly, but
he had a wife. Okay. Or do only Barnabas and I not
have a right to refrain from working. Oh, so these other apostles,
they don't work. Don't I have the right to not
work? They get paid, and I have to
work for my food to eat and drink. Verse 7, who at any time serves
as a soldier at his own expense? He's in the army of the Lord.
Paul's really right out there in the front line, Paul is. And
he says, I'm serving the Lord, and I'm not being paid. Who plants a vineyard and does
not eat the fruit of it? If I start a church, shouldn't
they be paying me some money? Or who tends a flock and does
not use the milk of the flock? I am not speaking these things
according to human judgment, am I? Or does not the law also
say these things? Okay, now here comes our text
that I was heading towards, not our text today from Luke, which
says that the Old Testament Scriptures are written about Jesus. Well,
here we come, here it comes. Verse nine, for it is written
in the law of Moses, you shall not muzzle the ox while he is
threshing. That's the law. Paul says, God is not concerned
about oxen, is he? And the expected answer is no,
he's not concerned about oxen. Now, obviously God is concerned
about oxen, but it's hyperbolic here. But the degree with which
God is concerned about his new covenant is so much greater than
his concern for oxen. God's concerned about oxen, but
his concern about the pastor or the apostle is much greater,
okay? Does God care for animals? Yes,
but guess what? Because Jesus was coming, and
Jesus was going to be slain, God told the Jews to kill oxen,
and to kill lambs, and to kill goats, and all these animals
that were slain for the purpose of pointing us towards Jesus.
And so God's concerned about animals, but God told them to
kill animals. They were not doing anything
wrong. I mean, there are times when you have to kill an animal
because it has gored somebody. Okay. I think that's in the law
too. Right. In Moses law, but, uh,
but perfectly good. In fact, preferably perfectly
unblemished animals are brought for sacrifice. Perfectly good
animals are brought for sacrifice and slain because of the new
covenant that's coming. Okay. It's pointing towards Jesus. And so when Paul says, these
laws that you read in the Old Testament, they have a different
meaning from what you think, okay? You think God's concerned
about oxen, but that's not what it's about. Let's see what it
says. So verse nine says, for it is
written in the law of Moses, you shall not muzzle the ox while
he is threshing. And what was the point? Well,
the ox is doing all this work, Maybe he should be allowed to
eat a little bit. Well, he's doing that instead of putting
a muzzle over him. So he's doing all the work, but doesn't get
any food. So that was the seemingly the purpose of it. But Paul says
God is not concerned about oxen. Is he? No, he's not. Or verse
10, is he speaking altogether for our sake? What? He's talking to New Testament
Christians in that verse, in that Old Testament verse that
says, don't muzzle the ox when he's stretching the grain. Paul
says that was for us in the New Testament. Okay. Yes. For our
sake, it was written because the plowman ought to
plow in hope. and the thresher to thresh in
hope of sharing the crops. So now he comes back to himself
and Barnabas. If we sowed spiritual things
in you, is it too much if we reap material things from you?
So this is not, today we're not talking about paying the pastor,
okay? What we're talking about is interpreting
the Old Testament That's what I'm talking about today. When
we look at the Old Testament, we can't limit the meaning to
how the Jews at that time, no doubt, saw the verse, okay? We
have to say, what does it mean for the Christian in the New
Testament? This verse about not muzzling the ox, according to
Paul, was written for us, not for the Jews. It was written
for us to pay the apostles and to pay the pastors, okay? So
we need to remember that that's the Old Testament. So when Jesus
was walking on the Emmaus Road, okay, in our text in Luke 24,
and he says, was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these
things and to come into his glory? Then beginning with Moses and
with all the prophets, he explained to them the things written about
himself in all the scriptures. No doubt, there were some verses
he took And man, their heart burned because they were amazed
at the way Jesus, they didn't know it was Jesus yet. He was
telling them what in the Old Testament was talking about himself.
And they were amazed. Their hearts burned within them
as he explained the scriptures about himself in Moses and the
prophets, see? So the Old Testament takes on
new meaning now that we have Christ. Christ has brought a
new covenant and he brings us a different understanding of
the old covenant than may have been understood by most during
that time. So the question comes up, you know,
was it necessary for Christ to be incarnate? Well, that was
the whole purpose of making man, essentially. God made man so
that eventually Christ would become man. Think about that. Why did Christ make marriage
between men and women? Because Christ and the church
would be married. So God gave us marriage between
men and women so that eventually we would understand what it meant
for Christ to be married to the church. Everything that is in
existence in the Old Testament and now somehow relates to Christ
and the church. And so that's one item, is marriage. As I said, just the existence
of man at all. Why was it necessary for Christ
to become man? Well, there was no other purpose
to make man, but that Christ would become man, and then God
would be glorified through that. And ultimately, of course, that
man would glorify God. But there's multiple purposes. But man was made, it says about
Jesus in Hebrews, I'm not sure where it is, but
it says that a body you have prepared for me. the prophecy
of the incarnation of Jesus, a body you have prepared for
me. God prepared a place for Jesus. He planned it from the beginning
of creation. And it was necessary and always
the plan that Jesus would come. And so this coming of Jesus,
who's the Lord of Glory, is once again illustrating what God is
doing for his glory, which is that he takes himself, his glorious,
majestic self, and somehow he becomes a man. It's amazing. This is glorifying to God, and
it gives us pause to think that He would do it, yes, for His
glory, but for our benefit, the benefit of the people that were
in rebellion against Him. Why did He have to do it? I mean,
we see the big picture, but the step along the way is that there
was a need for it. I don't think most people, most
people don't think they're that bad. Have they not seen what
God did because they're bad? He killed his own son because
they're bad. Because I'm bad, God killed his
son. So I'm pretty bad if God would
kill his son over me because I'm that bad. Praise the Lord
that he would do that. And so, not only of course that,
but it required that he would become a man. God cannot die.
God cannot die. But a man can die. Jesus had
to become a man to die so I would have life. He had to become a
man. It was always the plan. The whole
purpose of creation surrounds the creation of man, the pinnacle
of creation in God's image in such a way that God could become
man. There had to be some level of
godliness in man that God could then become a man. God didn't
become something else, okay? God became a man. And so man's
in God's image, praise the Lord. Before the fall, we were not
corrupt we were corruptible though okay having been saved and then
once we receive our new creation bodies to go with our new creation
soul our resurrection bodies we will be incorruptible like
like God is incorruptible, of course, and so we're not returning
to the state we were when we were like Adam, corruptible. When God comes, Jesus returns,
we will be changed. We're not there yet. We'll be
changed. In the twinkling of an eye, the last Trump, I went
to see Messiah last night. My son, Anthony, was one of the
chorus basses. He's a bass like me. And they
had a good bass section this year. And it was over there,
Alice Stevens Center at UAB. with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra.
I guess that's the Alabama Symphony Orchestra. And what a great, just an amazing, really I think
miraculous thing, the Messiah by Handel. Of course Handel wrote the music.
Now you say, yeah, the words are from the Bible. But somebody
picked those verses to use, and I don't remember his name, but
that's not Handel, believe it or not. Handel did not choose
the verses. But God used someone else to choose what they called
the libretto, the words to such a magnificent piece of music.
And they sat in a pile for months, I forget how long, before Handel
got around to say, OK, it's time to write the music for this.
And it just came out of him like it was coming from God sort of
you see I'm just saying Handel wrote that music and it's amazing
and it stood the test of time Messiah and Part of that is of
course it just goes through the Old Testament. What's the oldest
book? In the New Testament, it's a
trick question. Okay, and Does anyone here know the oldest book
in the Old... Did I say new? I mean old. In
the Old Testament, what's the oldest book? You'd guess Genesis, right? Because
Genesis talks about the creation. But we know who wrote Genesis. Who is that? Who penned it? Moses, right? But there were
actually books older than that in the Bible. One book. Yes, Job, thank you. Job is older
than Genesis, or Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
Those five books were written by Moses. But before Moses lived,
Abraham lived. And Moses wrote about Abraham,
but those books didn't exist during the time of Abraham. Moses
wrote those books. But people rely back in the time
of Abraham and his brother, or nephew, Lot, yeah thanks Lot. Lot, thank you. I'm glad everyone's
here to remind me of the names of everybody because otherwise
you'd just be standing here for five minutes while I think. But
contemporary with Abraham and Lot approximately was the man
Job. Job lived around the same time
as those patriarchs did, okay. Job did
and that book was written perhaps by his friend that came by, the
fourth friend who came by, the young man. And Moses may have
had a hand in this book also, but in fact, I think Jeremiah
collated a lot of these books together, the prophet, later
on. But the basic text of Job is written that time, old, old
things. And there in Job, we read Job
saying, I know that my Redeemer lives, and I will see him from my flesh.
you know, and it just gives me goosebumps to think of Job back
then, thinking of Jesus or God, his Redeemer, and that even though
Job was spoken of poorly by his friends. You're all messed up,
Job, because of something wrong you did, Job. And Job says, no,
I wish God could come down here and tell you that I haven't done
anything wrong that's causing all these sores to cover my whole
body. And of course, he was correct. But he did have to shut his mouth
when God showed up and told him, where were you when I made everything,
Job? So, uh, I have the right over
you, Job, to do as I please. And Job said, I've shut my mouth.
I said one thing I'm not going to say anymore. And, uh, but,
but Job knew, and even in his suffering that, that God was
his redeemer and that he would see him. And, uh, so we're thankful
for the fact that From the beginning, from the creation, we know the
prophecies about Jesus in the book of Genesis. And we see the
evidence in this book of Job, of the redemption that comes
through God for us through the blood of Jesus. And it was always
the plan. It was always the plan that Jesus
would come and be incarnate so that he would bring glory to
his father through the purchase of the church by his blood, his
eventual bride. So we thank you so much. We thank
God so much for his plan and the glorious lowering of Jesus
to come as a sermon and as a baby and in a manger and a feed trough,
in other words, and to be greeted with dirty, stinky shepherds
that were considered the scum of the earth, really. Don't come
near us. You smell like all those animals,
you shepherds. Well, that's okay, Jesus said,
because I do too. I'm with a feed trough. So come
on and worship me. So let's pray. Gracious Heavenly
Father. Thank you for lowering yourself to be us and to take
our place on the cross. We thank you for the whole life
that you lived in service to the people that you were given
by your father to take to yourself and to conform to your image,
eventually giving us the resurrection both spiritual and physical eventually,
that we may eternally be with you and we'll learn forever and
ever more and more about the greatness of what you have done.
We just thank you for it. Lord, we know that you're empowering
us to be a part of that growth of your kingdom. Empower us with
that same resurrection power today. And we ask in Jesus' name,
amen.
Incarnation Always the Plan
Series Ephesians 2023
| Sermon ID | 12282318225255 |
| Duration | 24:59 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Luke 24:26-27 |
| Language | English |
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