Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy
Welcome to Day 1141 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.
I am Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
God Joined His Human Family - Worldview Wednesday
Wisdom - the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1141 of our Trek, and it is Worldview Wednesday. Creating a Biblical Worldview is important to have a proper perspective on today’s current events. To establish a Biblical Worldview, it is required that you also have a proper understanding of God and His Word. On our Worldview Wednesday episodes we are in a series in which we are covering another detailed review of a book from one of today’s most prominent Hebrew Scholars Dr. Micheal S. Heiser. We are taking a deep dive and will share Dr. Heiser's insights into the question, which is also the title of his book: ‘What Does God Want?’
God Joined His Human Family
Last week we explored how the nation of Israel, God’s chosen people, had continually turned from Him in a constant downward spiral. This concluded in their final betrayal which the nation was taken into exile. God still desired an intimate relationship with His human family, so there was only one choice left for Him, to become human and dwell as one of them.
Most Christians know all about the coming of Jesus. They know he was miraculously birthed by Mary, a young girl who was a virgin (Matthew 1:18-25). The wider culture is familiar with the image of baby Jesus in the manger, especially in Christmas decorations. Several old, but still popular, Christmas songs celebrate how Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecies about a messiah.
· There's More to Jesus Than The Cross
The entire focus is typically on Jesus being born into the world to eventually die on the cross. He would be the means of forgiveness for our sins, and thus, our entrance back into God's family (John 3:16). In other words, when most Christians think about Jesus, they have the cross in mind. That misses something.
The fact that God became a man in Jesus gets a little lost in focus on the cross. Most Christians don't realize that it was necessary for God to become human for many reasons: to fulfill all the Old Testament covenants and to overturn the results of the supernatural rebellions we discussed in previous weeks.
The hope that human beings could still one day be with God forever was kept alive by God's refusal to eliminate humanity or scrap the plan. He kept returning to humanity, offering them forgiveness and a relationship with him. God wanted them to believe and show they believed by living in harmony with him and each other. But God's children rejected him at every turn. It's as though every time God said, "You can still be with me— believe that and then show me where your heart's at," the problem got worse. The Bible uses the analog of wandering sheep with no shepherd to describe this propensity (Isaiah 53:6; Matthew 9:36). That's pretty much on target.
As was noted last week, God's children needed new hearts and God's presence to help them believe. They needed a means to be saved from themselves and from a destiny that didn't include everlasting life with the God who loved them. There had to be a way for God to honor his covenant promises, to reverse the curse of death, and to help his people continue in their faith.
God's solution to these problems was radical. He had to become a man. He had to join the human race. This is where Jesus enters the story.
