Incarnation Changes Us (01.29.2006)

Last week, we saw that incarnating is essential to love. Now let’s look at how incarnating changes us.

INCARNATION CHANGES US
There is a difference between studying something and experiencing it.

Can you adequately explain something to someone who has never experienced it firsthand?

• What about New York City?
• What about skydiving?
• Can anything we say about these things ever take the place of actually experiencing them firsthand?

Similarly, can you relate to someone who is experiencing something you have not experienced?

• What about when a friend loses a parent or sibling?
• What about when a friend is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness?
• It is difficult for us to truly relate until we experience these things ourselves.

Incarnation changes us by giving us an ability to love by truly understanding the other person. It makes our love more genuine, sincere and relevant.

LEARNING COMPASSION THROUGH INCARNATION
Read Hebrews 4:15; 5:2 for a description of Jesus and His incarnation:
"We don't have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He's been through weakness and testing, experienced it all – all but the sin. . . . [He is] able to deal gently with [our] failings, since he knows what it's like from his own experience." (The Message)

In heaven with the Father, Jesus never knew hunger, pain or loneliness.

• He was fully love, but had never experienced these things.
• It's a mystery to us how somebody who was already perfect was made complete by suffering
• However, it is not a mystery for us that when we experience something, we are more compassionate for those who experience it as well.

What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it.

• Compassion is hard because it requires us to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely and broken.
• This is not our spontaneous response to suffering!

GOSPEL CONNECTION
Read Hebrews 2:14:
"Since the children are made of flesh and blood, it's logical that the Savior took on flesh and blood in order to rescue them by his death. By embracing death, taking it into himself, he destroyed the Devil's hold on death. . . ." (The Message)

The big pattern of Jesus’ life (incarnation) is identical to the smaller patterns of His life (incarnating with specific people).

Read Hebrews 2:17-18:
"That's why he had to enter into every detail of human life. Then, when he came before God as high priest to get rid of the people's sins, he would have already experienced it all himself – all the pain, all the testing – and would be able to help where help was needed." (The Message)

Anselm (a Medieval theologian) explained the incarnation this way:
“We sinned against God, therefore we had an infinite obligation toward God. Only God himself could pay the obligation. But he didn’t owe it – we did. The problem is that only God could make satisfaction, but we were the ones who owed it. The only solution is God becoming man: the Incarnation.”

IMITATING THE INCARNATION
Read Philippians 2:5-8

Sermon by Benjamin B. Warfield, chapel of Princeton Theological Seminary, January 8, 1893:
"Let us not, however, do [Paul] the injustice of fancying that this is a morbid life to which he summons us. The self-sacrifice to which he exhorts us, unlimited as it is, going all lengths and starting back blanched at nothing, is nevertheless not an unnatural life. After all, it issues not in the destruction of self, but only in the destruction of selfishness; it leads us not to a Buddha-like unselfing, but to a Christ-like self-development. It would ... light the flames of a love within us by which we would literally "ache for souls." The example of Christ and the exhortation of Paul found themselves upon a sense of the unspeakable value of souls. Our Lord took no account of Himself, only because the value of the souls of men pressed upon His heart. And following Him, we are not to consider our own things, but those of others, just because everything earthly that concerns us is as nothing compared with their eternal welfare."

TABLE TALK:
Love is overwhelming especially when we begin to take Jesus’ command to love seriously – like He did. At your tables, find scripture that tells us how we can love this way. For starters, look at John 15:5 and the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) – but don’t stop there!

PRAYING GOD'S WORD
Use the following passages to pray God’s Word back to Him, either on your own or with others:

• "Father, if I have any encouragement from being united with Christ, any comfort from his love, any fellowship with the Spirit, any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by changing me to be like-minded, to have the same love, and to be one in spirit and purpose. Lord, may I do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than myself. I should look not only to my own interests, but also to the interests of others. Lord, may my attitude be the same as that of Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!" (Philippians 2:1-8)

BEING THE REAL DEAL
Here are some ways to apply this message from God’s Word:

• Do you know someone going through a difficult time right now? Ask him or her, “What can I do for you?” Seek to understand their needs first before you impose your own solution.
• Find time to serve at HFBC’s Mission Training Center or a local shelter. Ask God for opportunities to connect with people (the "customers") so that you can get to know where they are coming from – what it is like to walk in their shoes.