What an amazing condescension, from the King of Glory to the Babe of Bethlehem! In this message Pastor Clark builds a Bible study framed on 2 Corinthians 8:9: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.”

<p>What an amazing condescension, from the King of Glory to the Babe of Bethlehem! In this message Pastor Clark builds a Bible study framed on 2 Corinthians 8:9: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.”</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Dalton SDA Church

The Characteristics and Titles of Jesus

Chester Clark

Jesus: The Creator

Jesus: Prince of Peace

Jesus: The Promise Keeper

Jesus: The Good Shepherd

Jesus: Older Brother

Jesus: Wonderful, Counselor

Jesus: The Truth

Jesus: Light of the World

Jesus: The Morning Star

Jesus: One of Them

Jesus: Promised Seed

Jesus: One of Us

In our time of study together this morning, we're going to be looking at Jesus' incarnation to become 1 of us.

You know, I was thinking of the many stories that I've heard of those who have been selfless, who have been incognito, leaders who have tried to be in contact with their subjects.

1 of the stories that is perhaps remarkable in history, there are many different stories we could tell, even of some current leaders, but 1 of them happens to be from the country of Thailand.

Now it was the kingdom of Siam at this time when the story is told.

And a farmer from 1 of the provinces tells this story of how his family became the owners of a precious heirloom rifle that they hold.

Some 100 years ago, the grandfather of this farmer had received a group of visitors.

There were strangers who were visiting the village.

Now the leader, the obvious leader of the strangers was clearly somebody wealthy and powerful, but he was very, very friendly and he showed a great interest in the farmer's grandfather as well as in the village in general.

In fact, the grandfather invited him over to his house and the visitors enjoyed a meal with the grandfather and the family.

At a certain time, at a moment during their meal, the grandfather expressed his admiration for the rifle that this visitor had.

And the stranger said that, well, since he had been so welcomed so warmly, he would like to give this farmer a rifle such as this.

If he could only come to the city, to Bangkok, and visit him, he would do so.

Before he left, he gave him a piece of paper with his address on the paper.

Now sometime later, the old farmer, the grandfather of the farmer that's alive today, he had a reason to go into Bangkok, so he goes to Bangkok and he's going through the city, he has no idea what part of the town this address would be at and so he begins asking people and to his surprise everybody he asked knew which way to tell him to walk.

And so he continued until to his astonishment he arrived outside of the royal palace.

Now he showed his piece of paper to the palace guards, but they weren't inclined to allow him to enter until a large delegation began to come out of the gates.

And there he saw the stranger, the stranger who had been in his house eating at his home, who had offered him such generosity.

And the stranger saw him and recognized him and called him over to himself and invited him back in the palace.

The grandfather was shocked to realize that his kind visitor, back in the village on that day, had been the king himself.

Moreover, the king did exactly what he had promised, and he gave the grandfather a magnificent gun inscribed with his initials.

I won't try to pronounce the rest of his name, but His initials were CPR, and the family still has that rifle today.

You think of these nobility, these royal families, these kings, these rulers who are so humble to go into the houses of their subjects and our hearts are filled with admiration.

In fact, I found the story in a book called Worshipping the Great Modernizer, talking about King Chulalongkorn.

You have to understand in the Buddhist mindset, They don't have deities like we have deities, so we don't, they don't, it's not that they're making a god out of him, but this is how it says.

The story of the precious gun is but 1 example of a story that says the king loved his subjects so much that he decided to go and see with his own eyes how they lived, what their needs were, and how he could improve their circumstances.

The king interacted with his subjects in an intimate manner.

Basically, the story reconfirms the image of King Tullalongkorn as a benevolent and concerned ruler.

Now, this rider, I don't believe, knows the god that I serve Because if the earthly rulers could so warm our hearts by going and seeing with their own eyes how their subjects fared, how can we compare that with the ruler of heaven and earth, not just going to planet earth to see how his subjects fared, but becoming 1 of them, to live with them, to be 1 of them, not just for time, but for eternity.

Father in heaven, as we open your word today, we just want to pray that you would send your Spirit to touch our hearts, that God you would give us a better understanding of who You are and Your great love that You have for us, that You sent Jesus.

I'd invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 8.

2 Corinthians chapter 8 and we're going to read verse 9.

And we're going to sort of frame our Bible study around this passage today.

And when you're there, if you could just say Amen.

Alright, 2nd Corinthians chapter 8 and verse 9.

And Paul says this, For you know that you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich.

This passage is packed with meaning, but we're gonna look at 3 different aspects of the condescension of Jesus here this morning.

3 different aspects of Jesus' condescension.

First of all, we're going to look at the prior condition of our Savior.

And the Bible here is clear that He was rich.

And secondly, the condescension of our Savior.

And finally, the effect and consequences, the result of that condescension, that we might be made rich.

Let's do a Bible study on these 3 thoughts and just see what we can learn about Jesus, our King, our King who loves us very, very much.

You know, some of the thoughts from this sermon I came across as I was reading, and I found a message by – now my mind's drawing a blank – The great English preacher Charles Spurgeon, and as he was speaking he spoke on this text in part, and he shared several thoughts, not these verses, not this Bible study, but I'm gonna share with you several thoughts that he shared as he went through this discussion of Jesus' condescension.

So first of all, first of all, we can see that Jesus was eternal.

We're talking about his prior condition here.

So we're gonna start in Colossians, and we're going to look at how Jesus had eternity before he came here to live and die as a human being.

He was eternal, Colossians chapter 1, and verse 17 says this, and he is before all things, and in him all things consist.

Now I believe that Jesus came to understand us.

But I think that we should be very careful not to try to make Jesus altogether such a 1 as ourselves because Jesus was God, wasn't he?

Jesus had an eternal pre-existence before his incarnation as a babe in Bethlehem.

Jesus is the 1 who is the creator, it says here, who by him all things exist.

He had that capacity, and he was God himself.

Not only that, the Bible tells us that Jesus had everything.

You know, sometimes we give our tithes and our offerings and We might even talk like God needs us.

We need to give so that God can bless us.

God does not need our tithes or our offerings.

If God needed something, he wouldn't ask us.

It's Not because he needs, it's because he wants us to have the blessing of giving, that he asks us to be faithful in returning our tithes and offerings.

Notice in Psalm chapter 50 and verses 10 through 12, it says, for every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills.

I know all the birds of the mountains and the wild beasts of the field are mine.

If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine and all its fullness." Now that pretty much sums up how Jesus Christ possesses all things.

When you want to talk about rich, that's rich, okay?

Now, there's no other standard of rich besides that.

That is, if you own everything, that's pretty much the epitome of being rich.

Jesus was rich as the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

Not only did he possess everything, but if he ever wanted anything that he didn't have, he had creative power.

Now that's taking it another level yet, isn't it?

The Bible tells us that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made." So Jesus had eternity, He was eternal, He possessed eternal life, He was the giver and sustainer of life, He possessed all things on in heaven and on earth.

Not only that, he had creative power, we find in John chapter 1 and verse 3, but also we notice that Jesus was the recipient of worship and adoration and praise.

Now, that means that in the heavenly choirs, if we were to, in the heavenly courts, if we were to be there, we would hear the choirs tuning up and we would ask them the question, who are you going to sing about?

And we would ask them the question, who are you going to sing for and they would say Jesus.

We would ask them, what are you going to honor and who are you going to honor and glorify and they would say Jesus.

They exist to glorify God upon the throne and that was Jesus.

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The Characteristics and Titles of Jesus

Jesus: One of Us

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