Dave spoke from Phil 2:5-ll TNIV this morning on the most basic of Christian creeds: ‘Jesus Christ is Lord.’ Jesus asked Peter ‘Who do you say I am?’ (Luke 9:20 TNIV), and this question is one every disciple needs to answer.
Jesus is God, but He laid aside His majesty and humbled Himself to become man. He was born in a manger in Bethlehem, grew up in Nazareth (a town from which no good came!), and lived as a carpenter for many years. At the age of thirty, He became an itinerant preacher who ultimately was betrayed by those He trusted and abandoned by those He loved. Ultimately, the Nicene creed says of this man ‘We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father;through him all things were made.’
‘Your Majesty’, Aaron Shust
The word ‘Lord’ is ‘kyrios’ in Greek and denotes one supreme in authority. One way this was manifested in Jesus’s life was His ability to forgive sins. He had God’s authority to forgive sins since He was in very nature God. Those who try to ascribe to Him simply ‘good teaching’ are mistaken: as C. S. Lewis wrote, ‘A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great moral teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.’ (C. S. Lewis, ‘Mere Christianity’)
Jesus’s Lordship is also seen in His victory over death. His resurrection transformed the disciples from timid, fearful followers into bold proclaimers of truth and His resurrection could not be disproved, though many tried. (see also 1 Cor 15:6 TNIV). Christians believe that Jesus Christ is Lord – our master, owner, ruler and boss! Jesus is the one in charge of all history and in charge of our lives. One day, He will return and every knee will bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord. We eagerly await that new day with no more crying, shame, pain, fear or death, but until then are just as eager to own Him as Lord in the now!