Why Did Jesus Become A Man - Part 1

This podcast is made available by visiting Christian media close to the generosity support is your donation today means great podcasts like these remain available to help people look to God daily. Please make your donation to vision on today we send out all day. Welcome to Turning Point, we can agree that there are things rivers policy of the room like the room in your Christmas shortened. Jeremiah begins a fascinating Christmas series why the Nativity to answer some of the most important questions about the birth of Christ is the message, why did Jesus become a man surrenders ago I realized how many questions there were about Christmas and how easy it is for us to celebrate Christmas and never really understand what it's all about. So I begin writing these little articles about why ultimately became a book called why men Nativity and now it's this series were going to do during the month of December to prepare your heart for Christmas wanted to talk about why Jesus became a man why Joseph why Mary why Bethlehem why there was no room in the in why the shepherds why the gifts of the wise man why music is so important. Christmas why they call him Immanuel. Why they call him Savior. Those are the questions in the series. Why did Jesus become a man. I know that you are ready to get started on this Christmas adventure and how many of you have children in grade school and you get ready go to all the programs and is usually a different program for every child, which means every night you're going to children's programs and then those are just the schools you add churches programs.

This can be a busy time. It's interesting what happens with children. I read this week so I sent me an email about a Christmas program that actually happened where there were some children who were supposed to walk out on the stage at a particular time in the Christmas program with cards that spelled out the word star STA are water in the back room. The kids got mixed up and they got in reverse order and when everybody was ready. The lights came on in here were these four kids standing with the word rats spell the word star backwards and that's rats, so be prepared for anything. When you go to your Christmas program. It's a delightful time when children make it all worthwhile. Do they not what is the moonlit treetops in the evening breeze cooled her skin. Mary rested quietly renewing her strength, she gazed in wonder at the tiny living gift that she held in her arms.

Any child of course is a miracle from heaven, but the firstborn in particular.

Even so, Mary understood that the child she held was set apart from any other that it ever been born in the history of the world. She knew what the angel had told her and what her heart had confirmed here at my breast. She thought, is the son of God.

Those are the very words, the very designation that the angel had given her son of God, yet surely she couldn't bend so much different than the rest of us. She must've asked some questions to Shirley in the mind of Mary on that day was the word why. Why had Jesus come to this earth. Why had she been chosen as the vessel to bring him into humanity.

Why was God becoming a man. What purpose could there possibly be in such an unprecedented event why the Nativity while some of the answers to those questions appear in the gospel records of the Scripture. It takes all of the Bible to even get close to a full understanding.

Today I want to begin unpacking some of the reasons I have discovered in answering that question, why the Nativity why was Jesus said to this earth. Why did Jesus become a man. Why here are what I believe to be the five most important reasons for Jesus becoming a man. First of all, Jesus became a man to satisfy the prophecies of the Old Testament in Luke chapter 24 and verse 44 we read and these are the words of Jesus. All things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses and the prophets, and the Psalms, concerning me. That's what Jesus said about Jesus said this to the two on the road to Emmaus, who had just come out of Jerusalem and were discussing what happened in the death of Christ and did not know that he had come back from the grave and his Jesus began to talk with them. Jesus responded that and it says here that Jesus said all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning the when Jesus made that statement he encompassed the entire Old Testament, the prophets, the law and the Psalms were the Old Testament as they were spoken of in that day and what Jesus said was this that everything that had been said about him in the Old Testament, all of it had to be fulfilled in his coming. These words recorded by Luke remind us that when Jesus came to this earth to be our Savior. When God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. One of the reasons he came was to satisfy all of the prophecies that have been made concerning him in the Old Testament, he realized that it would be almost possible to write a complete Christology of Jesus Christ using only the Old Testament prophecies concerning him.

The Old Testament prophets spoke frequently about a coming champion every page from Genesis to Malachi trembles with the wondrous anticipation of the coming of this champion. The prophetic books were written by many different writers at various times over many centuries and yet together throughout the words of the prophets. There were glimmers of the Savior. A king who would rescue his people and restore them to God. The prophets spoke of this one. Who was to come.

In fact there were more than 300 specific prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures about the promised Messiah. The hints were tantalizing. Isaiah said that this special deliverer would be miraculously born of a virgin and that his name would be called Emmanuel. Isaiah wrote this not one year before it happened, not 10 years, but hundreds of years before it took place in the words of Isaiah 714 therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign.

Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and he will call his name Immanuel hundreds of years before that event took place.

Isaiah prophesied that it would happen. Micah offered a prediction that was both specific and startling. He said that the king would be born in Bethlehem and that he would come from the distant past when you open your Bibles to Micah chapter 5 in verse two we read these words. But you, Bethlehem, Ephrata, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me the one to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from old, from everlasting. Micah said that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem and that that would not be his beginning with the would have existed long before that he had come from the past and he had been born. But he did not begin in Bethlehem hundreds of years before Joseph and Mary made their little trick. The hundred and 10 miles from Jerusalem to Bethlehem hundreds of years before that happened and Bethlehem was hardly in existence. It was just a little stopping place. The prophet Micah said it's going to happen. It's been a happened here and when it happens it won't be the beginning of his existence. He will have come from the past from eternity. Jeremiah perhaps the greatest prophet of the Old Testament. Jeremiah prophesied that the birthplace of this coming one would suffer a massacre of infants in the film the Nativity story. One of the most moving scenes is when the soldiers of Herod swooped down upon the city of Bethlehem with the intent of destroying all of the male children in the city. Jeremiah prophesied it would happen in the 31 of his prophecy in verse 15 we read thus says the Lord of voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and weeping bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children because they are no more Rachel's tomb. According to tradition is located near Bethlehem and her weeping represents the overwhelming sorrow of the families of these slain infants. Perhaps you're not a veteran student of the word of God and you think will. That's a very obscure passage you chose from Jeremiah. Dr. Jeremiah why would you choose such a passage and are you really sure that's what it means chosen to trace this with a little more carefully than the other two so that you will understand how carefully this all fits together this book we call the Bible look with me at Matthew's account of this tragic moment in the history of Israel. For in the New Testament in Matthew chapter 2 and verses 16 and 18 we have the story of what happened when the wise men were told to come back and tell Herod where Jesus was. And remember, they were warned not to do that and they didn't go back so beginning in Matthew chapter 2 verses 16 and following, and I want you to follow the story carefully so you can connect it with Jeremiah in the Old Testament then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men was exceedingly angry and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and all its districts from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, a voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, weeping, and great morning, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, because they are no more. The New Testament draws a straight line back to Jeremiah and says this is what the prophet was talking about in Jeremiah 3115 written hundreds of years before the massacre in Bethlehem. Why did Herod have all those babies killed because he feared that among them was a king who would become his rival in the best way he knew to obliterate that possibility was just to kill all of the male children two years old and under, can you see the picture that's emerging. It was as if many artists had drawn strange squiggles on paper separately, only to find out that when the fragments of art were put together on a single canvas. There was this portrait of a cane who would come to this world and would be known as Jesus Christ. It was if the picture was painted back here of what was going to happen over here nearly all the more than 300 prophecies of the Old Testament have already been fulfilled with a few left to be fulfilled in Jesus second coming every prediction concerning the first coming of Christ. Every prediction concerning his birth and his childhood and all that would happen him every single prediction has been fulfilled in minute detail and no one has been able to disprove it from that date until this, a mathematician calculated that the possibility of all of these Old Testament prophecies being fulfilled in one person is one in 83 billion. So Jesus came to be a man to be the fulfillment of all of these things that were spoken of him from the Old Testament.

But secondly, Jesus became a man to show us the father stay with me on this one.

Watch carefully on one occasion Philip was talking with Jesus in John 14. He said Lord, show us the father will be sufficient for us and Jesus said to Philip Philip have I been with you so long and yet you have not known me now. Listen to what he says at the end of this Philip.

He who has seen me has seen the father. One of the most misunderstood things about this season of the year is the nature of the person who is actually being celebrated as far as his birthday is concerned, this is not just a wonderful man were talking about. Note Jesus was God in the body. Jesus was God walking around in flesh and blood. The incarnation means that God was poured into the flash of humanity. And so when Jesus came to this earth.

He came for the purpose of showing us who God was. Now how do you understand God if you cannot know any more about him that the Old Testament's description of him as God's Spirit. You can know about him through the Scriptures. Hebrews tell us that the prophets spoke of him, but the word which is Jesus has come to reveal to us the father is. If you want to know who God is. You need to know who Jesus is. Because Jesus teaches you who God is. Lee Strobel says that what Jesus was telling Philip was this Philip when you look at the sketch of God from the Old Testament you will see the likeness of me.

When Jesus became a man, he proved that God is not merely a principal but that God is a person. Jesus was not just some idea about God not a picture of God but God himself in human form. If Jesus had not come to this earth, we would never have had a correct understanding of God. We could not know what God is like and he sent us his own son to reveal himself to us. They took pity on our ignorance and our inability to comprehend him and he said if you want to know what I am like I will pour myself into humanity that you understand and as you watch him. You will see me. So when you read the Gospels and you learn of Jesus, and you study his life. You are taking a course in who God is, for Jesus came to reveal him to us. Colossians chapter 1 verses 15 and 19 support this truth in a marvelous way he Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation for it please the father that in him in Christ all the fullness should dwell. Almighty God poured the Godhead into the body of Jesus. Jesus is God. The apostle John, I think explains it best when he writes these words in the prologue of his Gospel.

He says it this way was in the beginning was the word in your Bible, you will notice the word is capitalized. That's a word that speaks of Jesus in the beginning was the word and let's just put the word Jesus in there so we understand it clearly in the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God and Jesus was God and Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the father full of grace and truth. In the beginning was Jesus. And yet Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Don't let anyone ever tell you that Jesus began in Bethlehem, he did not begin there.

He had existed from time past, but he came into this form of humanity when he was born in Bethlehem. Historian William Barclay is in all this truth and one of his books. He writes these words here was the shattering. The new thing that God could and would become a human person that God could enter into this life that we live that eternity could appear in time that somehow the creator could appear in creation. In such a way that man's eyes could actually see him.

Jesus did not come to talk to men about God, became to show men what God is like, so that the simplest mind might know him as intimately as the mind of the greatest philosopher when John says that Jesus dwelt among us. He uses the word that means to live in a tent military people would say he came to bivouac with us or as theologians define he came to tabernacle with us and that's what Jesus did came to be one of us. He came and moved in among us. So Jesus came to be a man to show us God as he really is.

Once again, Barclay explains that before Jesus came man could only grasp and understand God's nature and his ways, in part, it was only when Jesus came that they saw fully and completely what God has always been like Jesus is telling us that God was and is and ever shall be like Jesus but men could never know and realize that until he came. Why did Jesus become a man, so that those of us who are men and women who understand other men and women would be able to understand God when you see Jesus doing what he did in the Gospels you are watching God at work you want to know God get to know Jesus. That's why the only way you can become a Christian is to know Jesus because Jesus is the way that you know God. That's why Jesus said I am the way the truth and the life no man comes to the father but through me if you want to know God, you have to know Jesus because Jesus is God's revelation to you about himself well first of all, Jesus became a man to satisfy the prophecies of the Old Testament. Jesus became a man to show us the father. Thirdly, Jesus became a man to save us from our sin. I love what Paul wrote to Timothy in first Timothy 115.

He says this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Paul wrote, and I'm the chief of them. I got a face of that if Paul was the chief of sinners were all in trouble. A man that means that if Jesus came to save Paul and Paul considered himself the chief of sinners than all of us here. We need to be saved. Every single one of us will that's the first part of the answer to the question why did Jesus become a man, and I hope that you will be with us tomorrow as we finish up our discussion of that question. Then the next day Rinne talk about Joseph to know he sometimes referred to as the forgotten man of Christmas and we have some really interesting things to share with you about Joseph in the ministry of the word of God on the radio in the month of December. Tomorrow will finish up our discussion of why did Jesus become a man. I hope you'll join us then right here in this good station. Let's have a wonderful Christmas in December.

We needed we have the right to it. Let's prosecuted. Let's do it every day is Christmas and were going to enjoy it. For more information on Dr. Jeremiah's commissaries why the Nativity, please visit our website with those I find two different ways to help you stay connected to monthly magazine Turning Points and L daily email devotional sign up today at David Jeremiah thought oral/radio that Jeremiah thought oral/radio when you do ask for a copy of Dragon 365 day devotional for 2021. It's called strength for today and it's filled with biblical truth for the yearly and the gift of EMS and to keep the spirits right through the holiday season. Visit the house for Christmas candlelight Turning Point.tv you'll free souls to Christmas music videos, messages and the harmful Christmas channel at any point. TV and Gary Hercules. Please join us tomorrow as we continue the series like the Nativity is here on Turning Point of the dog. Jeremiah, thanks for taking time to listen to on tonight from these increased in size and he's an old guy