Jesus Had to be Fully Human to Fully Save

Jacob (0:02)

Matthew chapter 4

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, if you are the son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. But he answered, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, he will command his angels concerning you. And on their hands, they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. Jesus said to him, again, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all of the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, all these I'll give to you if you fall down and worship me. And Jesus said to him, be gone Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and only him shall you serve. And the devil left him and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.

Jeremy Dunne (1:13)

Good afternoon and welcome. I'm Jeremy. I'm the lead pastor here at City Light. Great to have you with us this afternoon as we move through the Gospel of Matthew, and as we open up Chapter 4 together that Jacob just read out to us a portion of just then. But just before we get there, if you are here and a regular member, you may know that we're in the middle of making a decision about where we will gather. And so we would just appreciate that if you would be taking some time over this week to pray, as the leadership team think and pray these things over. We took a day last week to meet, then to pray and fast over things. I'll speak a little bit more into that later on. But really when it comes to a decision as a church, we want to make sure it's not just about the decision that you make, but how you make it, isn't it? And in a way that really honors God and is slow in coming to a unity over a decision. So we would love for you to continue to be praying for us, and we will keep you posted with things. If you're wondering where things are up to, check your inbox. If you're not getting the emails, please let me know. I'd love to make sure we're keeping you informed as we continue on with that. We are looking at Matthew chapter 4, and every week that we open up the scriptures, this is God's Word about who His Son Jesus is, we will find out something new and distinct about who Jesus is. Matthew, each week, is unfolding for us a story of the claim that Jesus is the Son of God, the one who came to save us from our sins. And each week so far, he's revealed a little bit more about who this Jesus is. And the question that's on the table today is this, how human was Jesus? Now, the idea of what makes a human or whatever has been wrestled by with artists for all eternity. But one story that you may be at least familiar with on a popular level is that of Frankenstein. Now, if you've actually read Mary Shelley's classic, you would have been struck by a couple of things straight away. The first thing you would have felt betrayed by was the fact that the monster isn't called Frankenstein. That's the name of the doctor that makes the monster. The monster never gets a name. It's just the monster. That's the first thing. The second one is, it's not cartoonish and fun. It's so violent. It is such a violent story. And the third thing is, that the monster doesn't walk about and moan and groan. He speaks like a bard, is a poet, and he will say things like, I will glut you with the more of death while mashing people's heads with a bat. He is just, it's a funny kind of story like that. It's a wild tale. But at the heart of the story is a profound question about this monster. If you give you some background, if you are not familiar with Frankenstein, he has exhumed all these body parts, kind of stitched them together to form a human in a sense, or something that looks like a human, and then vivified it, given it life, and this thing has come to life. And the whole wrestle throughout the book is, is this thing human? Is it just a monster, a monstrosity, or is this thing a person, worthy of love, and honor, and affection? And the whole story is of Dr. Frankenstein abandoning this monstrosity, and the monster chasing after him, spurned by his rejection.