A while back my wife and I had the opportunity to go to a conference together. When you have children, it’s a lot more difficult to get away for one night let alone 4 nights!
Before the event came around, the event crew sent an email out asking for volunteers in a number of different areas. They asked for set up crews, clean-up crews, merchandise team, photography and video crews. We decided that we would be able to meet one of those needs. We had opted for clean-up crews which would have allowed us to see all of the sessions but still been able to help.
Surprise! That’s what everyone else thought too!!
Clearly this wasn’t the first time they’ve done this! The Staff asked you to give your top two choices in the Volunteer sign up questionnaire. Most of the other roles required specific time expectations that we couldn’t meet. We we’re driving from a few hours away and would be arriving shortly before the event started. So, load in, set up, staff hospitality, merch team and most of the other positions weren’t an option. Neither of us are photographers!
Our only real option. Was something we’ve never done before.
Videography.
No Experience necessary!
(They did provide a brief training.)
We each were assigned 5 sessions out of the 10-total sessions. We were supposed to sit behind the video cameras and record the speakers while they presented. A few of the sessions were even being live streamed!! We were expected to be at our assigned sessions between 15 and 30 minutes early to get our positions or receive any special instructions. In order to actually get in, we were given special yellow VOLUNTEER bracelets to show the staff and crew that we were allowed to get in.
We had exclusive access to the worship center pretty much anytime we wanted. It was just a general volunteer bracelet so there was no specific distinction on WHAT we were actually volunteering for. We were basically general participants for the sessions we weren’t running cameras for but at the same time, we were marked as volunteers. We had access that general participants weren’t entitled to yet we also there for the same event as the general participants. We were both fully regular participants and fully volunteers. While I’m certain the event staff wasn’t going to throw us out, I would be lying if I told you we didn’t take advantage of our privileged position even when we weren’t going to be running cameras for the upcoming session. Our volunteer access allowed us to get preferential seating!
We “cheated” with our access. Most people would never have questioned us for using our access.
“You’re a volunteer, of course you’re going to use the ‘perks’.” Nearly everyone would shrug off our ‘confession’ of cheating access when we weren’t actively volunteering.
This is the amazing thing that really blows my mind. Jesus never did that.
While He was both FULLY GOD and FULLY MAN, Jesus never cheated and used His deity while He walked the earth. In His 33 years on earth He NEVER acted as God, although He was God in the flesh.
“Whoa dude! You’ve gone off the deep end! I’m out!”
No, please hear me out. This isn’t some wild new age theology. I believe this is clearly lined out in Scripture.
Let’s start out with the with a really fast look from the beginning. Adam and Eve were created by God. They were in perfect communion with Him and were righteous before Him. They were then tempted by the serpent, they ate the apple and sinned against God. They broke relationship and intimacy with The Father. Fast forward to the Israelites wandering and complaining in the desert after being set free from Egypt. God gives Moses the Law which consists of 613 laws and the Ten Commandments. It says in Romans that the law was given to hold everyone accountable to God. (Rom. 3:19) Because of that, “no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.” (v. 20)
With the law as the standard, no one is without sin. It doesn’t matter if you’ve grown up in church, or been a heroin addict for 30 years, you’re considered guilty. If you’ve transgressed one of the laws, you’ve transgressed them all. Therefore, righteousness was gained in complete adherence to the entire law. The law needed to be fulfilled by man. God was not going to renegotiate this plan because God is unchanging and has perfect knowledge. He knew that we weren’t capable of fulfilling the law. So that is why He sent Jesus. But Jesus had to live AS A MAN. So Jesus didn’t cheat and pull down His deity while he was on Earth.
In Matthew 4 we read of when Jesus was led into the wilderness and tempted by the devil. We also read in James that God cannot be tempted. (James 1:13) But a man can be tempted. Jesus was tempted – as a man – who was in perfect communion with The Father. Jesus didn’t cheat and use His deity to get past the temptation. He used the knowledge of God and His Word to stand up to temptation. Hebrews 4:15 says that Jesus was tempted at ALL POINTS, in all ways, just as we are yet He never sinned. Jesus-Man didn’t tap in Jesus-God to handle all of the temptations because if He did, we would never be able to receive the gift and calling that The Gospel promises. Jesus’ entire life was walked out as 100% man in perfect relationship with the Father.
If none of that is convincing enough, then maybe the very words of Jesus Himself will affirm for you that Jesus didn’t cheat in His 33 years on the earth. Often in the gospel accounts Jesus says things like,
-“Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” John 5:19
-“I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.”John 8:28
-“For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken.” John 12:49
Jesus who is 100%God and 100%Man humbled Himself so that He didn’t even take His God-authority in any action, word or deed. He lived as a man under the authority and direction and in complete dependency to the Father.
This is really important to understand. It gives a whole new weight to the power of the Gospel! While no one would have faulted Jesus for tapping into His identity as God to perform miracles, resist temptation, and teach the disciples, it would have “foiled the plan”. If Jesus cheated the Law couldn’t have been fulfilled.
The book of Romans is amazing at highlighting this. Read it. Read it slowly. I want to look at Romans 8:3-4,
“For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
God sent Jesus in the “likeness of sinful flesh”. He was still “in the flesh” but He was sinless. He looked like sinner, but He was without sin. Jesus was to condemn sin while in the flesh. In order for the law to be fulfilled, every one of the 613 and 10 had to be walked out perfectly without fail. Jesus did that all without cheating.
AND THEN! He BECAME sin on the cross of Calvary, and He forgave us for all the ways we failed to keep the law. This is only possible because a man, the man – Jesus, satisfied every last requirement. Because the sinless one took on Him every sin God’s law was satisfied in Jesus. This was done so that we could be cleansed from unrighteousness, have that same intimacy with the Father that Jesus had, so that WE can live ‘according to the Spirit.’
Perhaps most of this is basic knowledge to you. Maybe this is a new concept for you. It was mind-blowing to me when I first understood that Jesus didn’t cheat. It adds a lot more weight to the price that was paid to rescue me. It illuminates how deeply the Father desires every life that He created to be in relationship with Him. It gives me this crazy idea that I could have the depth of relationship that Jesus has with the Father.
What if sought the depth of relationship that Jesus had with the Father. What if every Christian “did nothing on his own” but only what the Father has led him to do? What would the world look like if we each had an intimacy with the Father that relied on Him for every step and every breath?
What if I woke up every day with the understanding of what Jesus did on the Cross to allow me to have the same intimacy that He has with the Father?
Jesus didn’t cheat. He loves you too much to do that.
BriceEugene
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