Jesus Suffered with Temptation

6/29/2009

So He is created a little lower than the angels and when men killed Him, God exalted Him to His right hand. And now He sits on a throne and will judge all humans. One of the reasons He has the right to judge all humans was this ingenious idea of the Father's that: "I will make My Son so much like them that He can feel their pain, that He can suffer in temptation. He won't just be tempted by the devil, He’ll suffer with temptation by the devil. He'll really want to do the wrong thing, He’ll want really badly to do the wrong thing, but he’ll decide, 'Not my will, Father, not my flesh, but Your will be done.'" And He would suffer in that decision process of wanting to do the right thing and deciding always to do the right thing. But He would suffer in that.

In God's majestic genius, He decided that a judge that has never felt what humans feel would never be a very good judge. And a priest, a high priest (a priest was someone that helped God meet man) – a priest could only do his job well if he understood what men felt. So God decided to feel what men feel and what children feel and what women feel.

He decided to feel what they feel – physical pain, tempted to complain about it; being tired, tempted to complain about it; being left out or uninvolved or mistreated somehow, tempted to complain about it, tempted to be angry, tempted to feel as if something is not fair or right; tempted to not like somebody; tempted to like something they shouldn't like.

Jesus was tempted in all ways as us, the Scriptures say, in all ways as us. And He always chose to do the right thing, but He suffered. It was hard for Him to make that decision. That's why God became human – so He could feel what we feel. Therefore He has the right to judge us and the ability to help us. So this is quite an ingenious God that we serve. A very spectacular, amazing thought.

There are lots of world religions – Buddhist, Hindu, Bahai, all sorts of weird things out there, Islam – the Muslim faith, so-called. All of those things just have man-made concepts of a God up in the sky some place. But God did something that is almost, seems almost absurd, almost ridiculous to talk about. But that makes it all the more easy to believe. What kind of God is it that creates the Milky Way Galaxy and the Andromeda and all the stars in the sky and the galaxies? And even just, if you use a microscope you see whole universes on a leaf or in a bug. Ya know, there is universes big and universes small everywhere.

What kind of "God" would that be that would just kinda be a “God” up in the sky some place? No, our God is truly a Genius. And He came up with this amazing plan of making Himself lower than His creation, His angels.

The angels are very, very powerful. It talks about how powerful they are. They’re flames of fire. They’re servants for all of those who are saved. There are angels serving every human that has given their life to Jesus. You can’t see them with your eyes, usually, but there are, according to God, angels that are flames of fire – powerful, powerful, invisible beings that are sent to serve those who will inherit salvation, who are Christians.

So if you are a Christian, you’ve got that going for you. You have angels that are protecting you. If you're thinking about becoming a Christian, you have angels that are watching over you. If you’re a child, you have angels watching over you. The scriptures teach that also.

So God decided to make Himself human, make Himself lower than His creation, lower than the angels. And He gives all the reasons and the proofs of why that Jesus, created lower than the angels, is actually God. And that’s what the whole of chapter 1 is about. That they missed it. They underestimated who their Messiah would be. The Hebrews, the Jews really thought they were just going to get a really good King, just a really nice, powerful king that would drive out the Romans and make them all rich and pay all their mortgage payments for them. Kind of like our king, who's going to pay all of our car payments for us and make everything good for us. That's all they expected, and the Hebrews writer said, "You missed it." This is GOD that came down from Heaven and put His feet on this muddy planet and became like man to suffer in all ways that men suffer, so that He could deliver them from the penalty of sin and from the pain of sin. So that's chapters 1 through 3.