The sermons and lessons that have been and will be preached and taught about Jesus Christ must number in the hundreds of millions, if not billions. Jesus is our life and light, our heart and soul, our reason and purpose, our hope and goal.
In our last Teaching Notes we looked at Jesus Christ as the Second Person of the Trinity. We now look at why He came to earth from Heaven.
[These notes are from a message preached 40 years ago. The notes are in outline form.]
I. Jesus Christ was pre-existent with God. He always was God and will continue to be God throughout all eternity.
II. Why did Jesus come from Heaven to earth?
As we search the scriptures for an answer to that question, we see that Jesus came for many different reasons.
- He came to crush the head of Satan
- He came to save His people from their sins
- He came to baptize them into a great body by the Holy Spirit
- He came to be their light
- He came to give them abundant life
- He came to set them free from the bondage of sin
- He came to send them out into the world as witnesses of the love and grace of God
- He came to call them to obedience and holiness
- He came to comfort and encourage them
- He came to shepherd them
- He came to love and be a husband to them
- He came to support and uphold them
- He came to shield and protect them
- He came to produce fruit in and through them
- He came to give them absolute truth
- He came to give them real peace and security
- He came to model the message of eternal hope
We could call these some of the secondary or resultant reasons for Christ’s coming, but what about His primary purpose in coming to earth from Heaven?
III. Turn in your Bibles to John 17:1 (read vss. 1-5)
vs.1 – Jesus highest goal in life was to bring glory to His Father.
vs. 2 – God the Father gives Jesus His people and Jesus gives them eternal life.
vs. 3 – Eternal life is knowing God.
The Greek word for know in this verse means “to understand completely” and it carries the concept of appreciation because of the knowledge.
vs. 4 – Jesus was obedient to His Father’s will and brought glory to Him.
vs. 5 – Part of doing the Father’s will was to leave the glory of eternal reign to become a man and serve in meekness and humility.
Turn to John 6:35-38 (read)
Turn to Luke 22:39-44 (read)
IV. What significance does this insight have in our lives?
The Scripture tells us that we are called to be and do many things as God’s children. We are called –
- to be witnesses
- to be ambassadors
- to be ministers of reconciliation
- etc.
Again, however, I think that these are secondary callings and resultant upon a higher purpose for existence.
The great call of Christ to His disciples upon earth was “Follow me.” He called them with those exact words 17 times in the Gospels. The word “follower” is used for disciples 77 times in the Gospels. The concept the Holy Spirit is trying to convey to us through divine inspiration is that we are to walk in the same steps that Jesus walked. In fact, the Greek word for follower means “one going in the same way.” (Illustrate)
To be a true follower of Christ is to completely abandon oneself to the will of the Father.
Turn to Matthew 6:9-10 (read and close)
[Thank you for reading these teaching notes from 40 years ago. My prayer is they will be a blessing to you and your ministry.]