Jesus is the Sum Total of Saving Knowledge | Clip from The Jaw-Dropping Beauty of Jesus

Yeah, if you think about the many temptations that come to the genuine believer, when we can see sin in our lives post -conversion, and now what used to be our pet that we protected has become our greatest grief.

Amen. And the only way for the conscience of the true believer not to be paralyzed with the sense of the ingratitude and shame of that is not to say, well, sin's not that big a deal, but is to get the right measures of the one who has purchased our freedom.

Well said. Without that, I mean, I find without that, I am just completely paralyzed.

If I try to answer my conscience with any other argument than the majesty of the one that purchased my freedom.

Yeah, I mean, it both qualifies the severity of our sin that somebody of such dignity, he didn't sing

Gabriel the archangel to die for your sin and mine. He sent someone of such dignity, heaven's favorite, the highest possible, the highest possible one to represent both

God and man. So it elevates the severity of our sin, but it also elevates what you're just saying.

How could I hang on to that for which such a one died? How could

I continue to live in the sin that such a one died to remove from my life?

Yeah, brother, I'm with you. So it's one thing to hear what God directs a man to write about the son.

Yeah. And that's wonderful and it's infallible, but it is even sweeter to be allowed to hear what the uncreated

God, the father says about his son. What does he think about the son?

And what a measure of Christian sanctification. Am I thinking more like the father about the son than I was last year?

Yeah. Yeah. It's so hard to quantify questions like that. How do you measure it?

What metric do you use to try to get your mind and your heart around quantifying greater appreciation for God the son?

But I think that's a really good question. Do my thoughts and does my appreciation and value, honoring,

I think, treasuring, loving, embracing, does my heart latch on to the son in a consistent way that the father speaks about him?

Is that how I admire and value him? So I don't think that the father's descriptions in Scripture of the son are more weighty than the human authors, right?

So we're not weighting, you know, red verses are for black verses or whatever, you know, it's more inspired. But there is something,

Lord help me with a word, there is something so mesmerizing about the inter -Trinitarian conversations that to meditate on those descriptions, the son to the father, the father to the son, does catalyze a

Christian's heart to both know and love this Savior. So before I even mention some of the father's particular descriptions of the son,

I'll try to limit myself to a few. They're all so incredibly amazing. I'll pick out three or four. Let me just say that Jesus said, if you love and obey me, this is

John 14, here's a reward I'll give you. I will reveal myself to you.

Wait, that's all you got? You know, we gave up fishing boats and houses and aspirations in this life.

And so if I love and obey you, the sum total reward is more accurate embrace of who you are.

Yes. And guess what the disciples didn't do? Throw a pity party and walk away and say, I'm done.

You know, that was the great attraction. So I just want to say Jesus Christ is the great attraction to Christianity.

He is the sum total, David Dixon said, of saving knowledge. And Dixon was one of Spurgeon's favorite commentators.

So he said, Jesus Christ is the sum total of saving knowledge. Well, this is what we get in Hebrews 1. Descriptions like relationship.

So leaning into the Old Testament, verse 5 to 14, really 5 to 13, is just one rapid fire citation of the

Old Testament after another. But they're all coming. Verse 5 says, of the son, he says, and then you get

Old Testament quote, Old Testament quote, Old Testament quote. All right, from verse 5 to 13. He, the father, says,

Old Testament, things like this about his son. Psalm 2, 2 Samuel 7.

That's verse 5. You are my son. Psalm 2. I will be your father.

Well, didn't Jesus know that? Of course he did. From eternity, he knew that. But in his incarnation, learning, growing, maturing, that's the precipice of mystery.

Right? How do we understand omniscience? Not abdicated.

So Jesus didn't give up his all -knowingness. And Luke 1 is true. He increased in wisdom, favor, stature with God, and man all the days of his life.

Well, part of the way he grew in his understanding of his relatedness to God is through reading the

Bible. So as the incarnate son read Psalm 2,

I believe Hebrews 1 is letting us know he's saying, that's me.

I have this unique relationship with the father.

Namely, son. He relates to me that way. And then he wants me to know, 2

Samuel 7, that he also relates to me as father. He will always and forever fulfill the responsibility of father to me.

I believe that's why Jesus was untouchable. He didn't need man's applause. He wasn't debilitated by man's criticism.

He needed nothing from any other person because he knew he had the full approval of the father.

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