Jesus Gets It

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much, and hello again radio friends. How in the world are you? Yes, this is your friend Bob Cook and I’m glad to be back with you. I look forward to these times of sharing from God’s word, it does me good. I don’t know if it helps you, but it certainly helps Cook. [chuckle] I look back and I have to thank God for the way He’s provided for me. A man who is going to minister anything needs constantly to be refreshed himself. And the daily contact with you by way of radio has done something for my own heart. It’s kept me in the word of God and I just am so grateful to Him for planning it and grateful to you, dear friends, for making it possible. Oh, to have something just spill over from your heart out of the word of God is the most delightful experience in the world. I learned long on the go from Dr. Stephen Olford his way of maintaining himself spiritually. He said, “Stay within a given passage of scripture until it says something to you. Then proceed to write down what was said to you. Not a sermon outline, but just whatever God said to you out of His truth. Then pray that back to God until your heart gets warm and tender with the truth and then share that with someone as soon as you can, that very day.” A very good idea and one that has worked for me for a great many years.

Well, thank God for the privilege of being together. We’re looking at John Chapter 1 and we were talking about the fact that the equation that we have here is receive a person, believe upon Him, that is trust Him to do what His name means and that equals born again, which we’re born. Verse 13, “Not of your inheritance,” that word “blood” means your inheritance and your background, “nor of the will of the flesh,” something you decided you were gonna do, “nor of the will of man,” something legislative put upon you by way of rules, “but of God.” Now he said, “How did all this come about? The word was made flesh.” I thought about that. And just as we went off the air the last time, we were talking about it. “He felt what I feel, the word was made flesh.” The body in which you live is the instrument through which you receive all of the stimuli and all of the experiences that go with the business of living. You feel your wrist and your hand and your finger joints and they hurt and you say, “I got arthritis.”

It’s no fun, is it? And why do you say, “I have arthritis and I hurt?” “Well, because it hurts Bob Cook.” That’s right. You live in a body that talks to you and sometimes it talks back to you. “He was made flesh.” He knew the taste of pain. It says, “He was tempted in all points like as we are yet without sin.” Did Jesus Christ ever get tempted to do wrong? The Bible says he was. We have a story in Matthew 4 of his temptation in the wilderness. “Make these stones bread.” That was for the flesh. “Cast yourself down from the pinnacle of the temple that everybody might see.” That’s the lust of the eye. “All these kingdoms will I give thee if thou would fall down and worship me.” That’s the pride of life. “All that is in the world,” John says in his first epistle, “is the lust of the flesh, the lust of eye and the pride of life.” Desires that comes through your body, desires that come to you through your eyes and your emotions and your mind. And desires that are based in your will to be somebody.

Jesus was tempted, oh yes He was. “The word was made flesh.” He got tired. The Bible says He was weary with His journey and He sat down on the stone coping of Jacob’s ancient well at the town of Sychar in Samaria. He’d been teaching the multitudes for several days, and then as they went across the Sea of Galilee on a little boat said, He fell asleep with His head resting upon a pillow. So soundly was He sleeping that even the sudden onset of the storm didn’t awaken Him. The disciples came and shook Him and said, ” Carest thou not that we perish? We’re drowning. Don’t you care?” [chuckle] Oh dear. Yes, He cared. He said, “Well, little faith.” When He said, “Ye of little faith.” That’s one word, littlefaiths. “Oh, littlefaiths, what are you afraid of? You got God the creator in the boat with you. You’re unsinkable as long as God is in the boat.” That was the basis of a chorus we used to sing 40 years ago. “With Christ in my vessel, I can smile at the storm. Until He brings me home.”

He felt what I feel. Today, when you say your prayers, realize that the Lord Jesus knows exactly how you feel. There’s a mother that’s crying over her son, or a daughter that’s wayward and drifting from God. Jesus knows how you feel. There’s a strong man who’s battling with the temptations that come to him just because he is a strong man. Jesus knows how you feel. There’s somebody who’s hurting very deeply because you’ve been rejected and thrown out of the crowd that should have accepted you. Jesus knows how you feel. Can you realize that today? Is it coming across to you at all? “The word was made flesh.” You live in a body. The body can hurt and your eyes can cry and your heart can break, and temptations can hit you. Jesus took on a human body and He’s been there. I used to tell the students at the college, “Anything I tell you, I’ve been there. What I tell you is something I’ve experienced.” Well, that’s true of your Savior. He’s been there. He knows. “In that He hath suffered being tempted, He knows how to succor.” That means, effectively help. That’s what that means. He knows how to help effectively those who are tempted, made flesh.

You say, “I’ve got a headache. Does Jesus know about it?” Yes He does. You say, “I’m getting old and I can’t do what I used to do. Does Jesus know what it means to be physically weak?” Yes, He collapsed under the weight of the cross on the way to Calvary. Everything that happens to you because you’re a human being is understood by the Savior to whom you pray. Isn’t that a beautiful thought? Everything, that is, everything that happens to you because you’re a human being and living in a body is understood by the Savior who went through it Himself. Oh, I love the Lord Jesus today. Do you? Are you thankful for the fact that He was willing to leave Heaven’s glory and become a man? “He dwelt among us,” it says, “He experienced what I experience day by day.” A visit is one thing, a dwelling is another. He dwelt among us. This was not just a symbolic tasting of human nature.

He was there, 30 years growing up in Joseph’s carpenter shop home, three years approximately, three years of ministry, public ministry, and then the cross. “He dwelt among us.” He experienced what I experience day by day. It’s not just a quick flash of deity and then it’s gone. Today, somebody is going through, well, a routine day. For most of you, it ought to be Wednesday and that’s the middle of the week. The thrill and blessing of Sunday has worn off and you’re getting a little tired of routines. And as I recall in some of the jobs I’ve held, Wednesday turned out oftentimes to be a day when more problems seemed to surface and things had to be handled and the world seemed to fall in on you, oftentimes on a Wednesday. Does Jesus know about that? Yes, He does. He dwelt among us. Jesus knew what it was to be tired, to be hungry, to be discouraged, to be burdened, to cry. He knew all about it. He dwelt among us.

And so, if you’re in the midst of a routine day or week and you may be bored, or you may be blue, or you may be scared, or you may be angry because of things that are happening. I don’t know what the circumstances may be, obviously, I can’t know, but I want you to know there is one who does know and who does care. Peter says, “Casting all your care upon Him for He careth for you.” You’re His concern. Why? Because He’s been there, He knows. Now because that’s true, because He came to share our lot. It says, “We beheld His glory.” And the word “beheld” is parallel to the word dwell. If you’re beholding something, you’re gazing at it. And you can’t gaze at something that just appears for a second and then gone. He dwelt, that means he stayed. We beheld, that means we had a chance to take a long, long look.

“An experience with deity, we beheld His glory. An appreciation of His sacrifice, the only begotten of the Father. Oh, the vastness of God’s redemptive sacrifice and love. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. An experience with deity and appreciation of the vastness of His sacrifice and then a reception of His remedy for our sins. Full of grace, we beheld His glory, full of grace and truth.” Full of grace and truth. Grace to pardon, truth to reveal and to regulate.

What is the essence of the work of Jesus Christ to you and to me? Well, you say, “He died for our sins, He paid the penalty.” Yes, He did. “God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” We find there in Romans Chapter 5. Yes, He paid the penalty for sin. He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our inequities. And Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6, “God hath made Him to be sin for us, He who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” Yes, that’s all true. But what’s the essence? What’s the essence? Boil it all down. What’s the essence of it? Full of grace. Grace to pardon, grace to forgive, grace to pick up a poor lost sinner and make him a child of God. And truth to reveal who and what God is, and to regulate my life along the lines of the will of God. Jesus did it all. Hallelujah.

Father God, today, may we reveal what Christ is through the light shining through our lives, this wonderful Savior who is full of grace and truth. I ask in His name, Amen.

Well, until I meet you once again by way of radio. Walk with the king today, and be a blessing.