Where is God in my Deepest Wounds?

What's so significant that the resurrection isn't just that the resurrection vindicates the accomplishment of his death only does that for sure when the resurrection vindicates what he did. He was sinless.

He died for our sins, not his own. But what's so amazing about the resurrection is you can know him welcome to family life today where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most and will think that Dave Wilson and you can find us@familylifetoday.com or on our family life. This is family life today.

I recently sat down with David Mathis to know yeah I know him because he's written some books yeah and you know is written one called rich wounds, which is a look at the life the death and the resurrection of Christ, which is perfect as we move into Lent season and get ready to celebrate Easter them in this guys a deep theologian. I'm excited for listeners to hear this because you get into the death of Christ.

So Good Friday we often jump forward to Easter and the resurrection that we don't as often it in the death of Jesus. Yeah, I'd say as I listen to what I think our listeners are goal of this as well. It's like you Jenna vision of the glory of God in Christ, but he also did a great job explaining the humanity, which we often miss about Jesus today is all about, so I'm excited for today.

We already talked a little bit about how you walk through Lent. The life the death the triumph of Christ. Let's talk about the death, but really the humanity of Christ, which so often. I think we miss because you know he's God we got in flesh.

I remember in seminary the first time ever heard the phrase hypostatic union that's a phrase. Most people don't hear about. Let's talk about how we can be fully God and fully man and what that means you're the theologian said here in lightness for the apostles and for those who saw and touched and knew Jesus in his human life on earth that he was human was the given what he showed them over time was that this is God himself. This is not just a fully human person.

This is God himself in the flesh. However, once Jesus ascended in the next generation of Christians and on through us to be Christian is to begin with. Jesus is Lord. So the thing that we typically take is the given is that he's gotten he's Lord he's Yahweh himself in human flesh just a wee different than knowing we do start there, they could've started there and sometimes what we don't work at is his full humanity. It might be the case, at least in my little experience.

The churches I've been at in South Carolina and Minnesota probably would be stronger on the full deity of Jesus than they would be on the fullness and the extent of his humanity, and it gets kind of uncomfortable when were talking about the one that we worship as God and how fully human. He is he is shockingly fully human, so not just fully human in his human body, which is an amazing to think that God himself became human like took these bodies. He didn't do this for angels in Hebrews chapter 2 talks about. He has not become angels, not angels that he helped heal the offspring of Abraham and so angels long to look into the redemption that is ours because the God of the universe became one of us since he became human so Jesus had a fully human body didn't just seem human. It wasn't a hologram or a projection. He was fully human, with his feet on the ground but not just his body. Jesus has human emotions as well.

That doesn't mean he doesn't have the divine equivalent of emotions, but he has fully human emotions and one place that we see that so clearly is in John 11 SE weeps with Mary and Martha and those who grieve the death of their beloved friend Lazarus moving come back to that. We just finished the.

The fully human equation. He has a fully human mind.

And that's not in conflict with his divine mind you mention hypostatic union. It's the fancy Greek term for personal union so hide hypo stasis is referring to the word that became edified with with person what what's meant by hypostatic union is that in one person. Personal is the union of two full and complete natures. So Jesus is fully God and he's fully man in one person united Godhead and manhood united in one person, hypostatic union, one person and what that means is with respect to his divinity. Jesus is omniscient, and with respect to his humanity. He's called initiate meaning he doesn't know it all.

Jesus says to the disciples of that second coming of that day. Only the father knows not even the sun. Now all that Jesus knows of the spectrum is humanity.

He knows without error. But he doesn't know everything.

The human mind is finite and with limitations and so with respect to Christ one person, we can say he is both mission as human and he is omniscient as God.

And then, even in churches repurchase further into the seventh century's exact medical Council talking with his divine will that as he acts in the garden of Gethsemane to Satan, not your will, but not my will get that right, not my will but yours be done speaking, there is a human. We hear his word through the Gospels as a human speaking not my human will, but yours father be done and as God himself.

We know him theology. He saying my will is God, but not my will is man be not. I don't want to die. God made humans not to want to die. We rightly recoil from pain and death. And even though Jesus in his humanity in his flesh. He recoils from death. In embracing the divine will, which is his own will. Has God and embracing the divine will. He steps forward in obedience in Gethsemane okay got that I can envision your wife or husband listening right now going okay that's all great is pretty deep. Words were down there words it Steve, what is that mean for me as a husband and me as a wife. I think I know where you're going to go but you know as I listen to that.

It's profound in one sense, like I said I'm said in a seminary class years ago. I hear this term let you know you just played out hypostatic union which I don't think I ever used once in a sermon.

You know, probably good thing to the churches like our you explain that, but it's a beautiful picture of the euro fully divine, fully human deity humanity all in Christ.

Okay so help us understand how I lived that out as I hear that and I reflect on that. How does that impact me in real time. Right now there's a sense in which the whole of the Christian faith goes through the hypostatic union. However it what we need to flesh out some particular that manifestations we could talk about the dignity of humanity, that of all the creatures got himself in the person of his son took our humanity.

There is an remarkable dignifying of what it means to be human. And Christians need not feel like our humanity is this error or problem or that God means to free us from our humanity that eternity will be were freed from this human body and all the terrible things of being human and that we can float around like the Angels another angels long to look into what we are remarkably because of Jesus. There is a remarkable dignifying of humanity in it at another thing is find a way you know it when you say that I think of a number times, and I'm guessing I'm not alone, that I look in a mirror and I don't feel that it I don't I don't always like a mirror like you're not old enough to remember the funds in happy days I've I've heard of him. I guess our reruns.

Lego is activated by somebody would look in the mirror to begin his show with his calm and he just like I look so good I there's nothing that I can make better we usually look in the mirror and think you know I would change this and that we don't appreciate the dignity of who God says we are and like you just said of Christ taking on human form. It means that we we matter. We thought we do have dignity that that changes our identity as were a son of the king were the daughter of the king such a beautiful thought, that's real that changes how I live today absolutely Wednesday and for the mirror like my being informed by Instagram and tabloids and a general cultural worldly sense of what really matters of humanity or my being informed by God, Jesus, and in worldly terms, he had no former Majesty that I should not take offense to the prophecy from Isaiah, Jesus did look like fonts and all what beauty that God himself would take on human forms of one thing. If you have working hands. That is a marvel like what these human hands can do and what God designed do to look at those hands marble have hands or eyes that work or a mouth or tongue that forms words or ears that hear words or no smells not being on and on about the amazing part of humanity that is necessarily fully Christian yet to make those applications to Jesus and his salvific work, so maybe the next place I would go is to the extent to which God himself went in the person of his son to save you all the way, not just save your spirit to free your spirit from this world in your body when you're done. He took a body to save your body. He took a human mind to save the human mind. He took human emotions to save our emotions, our hearts are feelings and he took human will to redeem your will. He means to change us from the inside out.

He's written in Christ, our wills are being redeemed. Our emotions are being redeemed. Our minds are being redeemed for a famous line from a great father of Christian theology way back in the fourth century, Gregory of 90 ounces. He said that which he has not assumed he has not healed meaning if he doesn't take a fully human body and a fully human soul in its mind and emotions, and will then he doesn't redeem us all the way Christ took all of what it means to be human to redeem us all the way heaven and new heavens and new earth. And it's important to say their accepting sin to be human doesn't mean to be a center like sin is a blight on humanity. Sin is going to be wiped away and you are going to be all the more human when you do not set when God has made you fully holy. So Jesus in this sense has experienced and is more fully human, then we have yet to taste and one day will taste in him as our sins are fully wiped away were fully purged with Christ in living out the human life apart from sin experienced the glory of humanity.

We have not yet fully tasted and he will draw us into that all the more that humanity is glorified that this is a little side note about sin, but the main thing to say is Jesus in taking our full humanity is saving us to the uttermost all the way he wants to save and redeem and rescue every aspect about you and do so forever and draw you in to the great joy to the happiness to the bliss for which you were made in you long for St. Augustine said, our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God in Jesus as man experience that restlessness he experienced that sense of I want to know my father better in my human human flesh and in coming to save us all the way fully human in mind-body emotions, will, he saves us to the uttermost to bring us to himself and his father for everlasting joy. So, would we offer our bodies and our minds and our will to Christ couldn't take him unless we offer them when we offer help us understand what it means when he and you know you walk us through and enrich wounds. His death and his triumph we receive a resurrected triumphal Christ through his Holy Spirit into our temple, our human body. How does that transform us in the way you think and talk. I just know I get to hear something rich come out that is often said like okay the living Christ lives in this body in this human form. What does that mean will one thing to say so many things that again you can run the whole faith through it. What's so significant that the resurrection isn't just at the resurrection vindicates the accomplishment of his death only does that for sure in the resurrection vindicates what he did. He was sinless. He died for our sins, not his own, and that his work was complete and finished at the cross is vindicated by the resurrection, but what's so amazing about the resurrection is he's alive.

You can know him.

He's sitting right now on the throne of the universe. When we read the Gospels, we are not reading about a great religious hero who died in isn't alive now and isn't available to know by the power of the Holy Spirit and by his word. Jesus reigns on the throne of the universe and he is putting his foes under his feet. He is going to bring history to a great close but right now he is available to know by the spirit through his word is what's so precious about lingering in the Gospels lingering in the Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, but in particular the Gospels are sweet and that we see Jesus living out human life. Human emotions in a human body with the human mind. Human will, and we glory in this friend that we have in him seated on heaven's throne now is not I a buddy buddy. I mean, Jesus, we would high school together. He's the King of the universe and yet rightly do we sing, what a friend we have in Jesus.

He has drawn near to us in coming in and saving us, and he draws near to us now through his word, by the power of the spirit to come to the Bible is not a dead word. This is not a history book, mainly the history and it is reliable and true, but this book is far precious beyond thing to think about the past. This book is the living God. Christ Jesus himself on the front of the universe speaking to us by the spirit in real time. I you know, as you say all that I can imagine you sitting and I don't know if this true or not in your family room or at your kitchen table. I met your your 11-year-old twin sons. This is how you talk about Christ in your home. The way your talking right here adult adult does it change at all because I think it's so beautiful. I just wonder what it looks like in your home is you talk about is you wrote his life we have anyone talk about his death. We got it we can sort out and layer with the wondrous Cross and we just talked about his triumph in his resurrection, but we talk about this in your home. Is this how you do it because I was hoping you're sort of a model for us as men and women of how do we talk about these grand things in real time and are in our families, who said how you do it day. I'm trying to figure it out and unit figuring out what is the right rhythm and frequency and depth that would let that eight-year-old nine-year-old to write a letter-year-old I think with the boys at 11 1/2 more and more of the filters are coming off where it's I'm just talking to them more and more closer to how I just talk to adult that when you are saying. I was thinking 11-year-old 12-year-old like it they can handle the way you just said it.

That's really encouraging to hear how I think San.I want to do more of that with them. I hope this was coming out. He was weak and would travel together go on a trip to increasingly have those very like Frank and direct conversation them about everything in the world. They see when they get up in the morning they see dad at the kitchen table hunkered down over the book and there's an opportunity to provide more and more explanation for that and I do hope in family devotions. I try to think that I'm not mainly here explaining this text, not preaching the thing that your dad preach at the part of the picture for someone is a pastor is they hear you talking public about Jesus. That's aspect of it to consider one that I don't deluge them in private in a way that is suffocating but also that in writing to back up but I say in public together.

You remember as men and as women dad sitting with the book just visual's never going to go away and if dad's living what he's reading and studying. It's going to be cemented in their brain so we got. And with this Good Friday is coming up that Easter is just yet on the horizon on the counter.

Why is Friday good from one angle Good Friday, the day we call good Friday was the worst day part in the history of the world God himself was crucified. This is the most rebellious, insidious act of insurrection by the human race in the history of mankind that we killed God himself and nobody called Good Friday on holy Saturday when his apostles were experienced in the longest day of their life from sun up to sun down on that Saturday. Nobody call good but he rose on Sunday morning and what he accomplished on that Friday in all the blood in the harbor in the gruesome this in the shame, the crucifixion was such a public shame. Hebrews 12 to highlight that despising the shame, he went to the cross in all that we see the good that God was doing and so rightly do.

We call it good. Not flippantly by all good Friday under God painted good on the otherwise worst day in the history of the world because what he was accomplishing in Christ, and so get this. Whatever wound you have whatever pain you've experienced bitter scars you have in your emotions in your mind on your body. God can write good on he did it in Jesus and so one thing I love to celebrate on Good Friday is how our God does. Some of his best. Some of his sweetest, the greatest expressions and revelations of his goodness on some of the darkest and hardest times in our life, which doesn't mean they're not hard like let the pain stand.

Let the difficulty stand that is going to be the dark strokes that accent the beauty of his glory. He will shine out all the more beautiful in his deliverance and his rescue when we let the harbor stand as it is and see what God is doing with his banner of good over the wounds in our lives having you stated so well. I love the picture of the wounds that we carry being healed because of his wound again. That's why it's a rich wounds. You know his wounds heal us.

They give us hope. I know there are men and women families even you know in 2022. Walking into Easter without hope, because it's been a hard year maybe a hard week maybe hard decade in their lives. And yet this bad Friday.

That is the best Friday. The history of the world, even though as a terrible moment is made good on our behalf because of Sunday.

It is the greatest story ever told us the story, its history, and it can change you and your family raise your right now I'm hoping that people walk through Lent, understanding, rich wounds take a book and just sit down as a family. I can envision a husband or wife that I can envision a family did you have that vision your mind going through it together and understanding. Maybe for the first time his life. His death his triumph and passion week in a way that transforms not only them but their legacy.

Whether were dad, mom read the Bible to her kids are reading the book a short devotional.

It's short enough to keep the kids attention span. The most important workers. Dad is then and finishing the reading. Being able to apply that to your children. I think most four-year-olds are not going to understand my will, short devotions here, but when daddy then looks at the four-year-old and says he was really precious to daddy about this and talks about how it struck your own heart and make the translations of the foyer to the six-year-old to be at your own as parents probably the best way to help our young kids understand the truth of what Scripture communicates about how to know God is to do it through our own experiences and talk with our kids about what it actually means to us. We live as if we actually believe what the Bible says we unpack the wounds that Jesus experienced. We unpack his death and resurrection.

Through our relationship with him and our kids are able to see that and powerful new ways.

Dave Wilson is been talking with David Mathis and he's written a book called rich wounds. This is that a 30 day Lenten devotional that leads us toward the Easter season the day that we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It's a book to help you reflect and meditate on Marvel at really the sacrificial love of Jesus as we count down the days to celebrating his resurrection.

This is a book that you can go through just by yourself.

Does the book you can go through with your family with your kids as well as a group, leading up to the Easter season.

We want to make this book available to you as a way to say thank you for any gift that you give to us at family life to a you could head to our website. Again, that's family life to a.com and make a donation of any amount when you do, we will send you a copy of David Mathis's book rich wounds again.

You can make a donation online or you can call us at 1-800-358-6329 that's one 800 F as in family L as in life, and then the word today. If this content today or any of the family life programs have been helpful for you. We love you to share today's podcast with a friend or family member where you get your podcast you can really advance the gospel effort of what were doing at family life to a if you scroll down rate and review us and we come back tomorrow. Our very own Ron Beale sat down with Lori and Sherry short talked about what to do when you find yourself in a brand-new situation as stepparent was it look like stepparent with Springs is coming up tomorrow on behalf of David and Wilson.

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