Lenox Federated Church - Firm Foundations, Creation to Christ

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Firm Foundations

Creation to Christ

Lesson 41 - Jesus is the Christ, The Son of God;

Jesus was Transfigured

Questions for the LFC Firm Foundations Coordinator may be emailed to firmfoundations@lenoxchurch.org

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REVIEW QUESTIONS:

1. Why were the Pharisees angry with Jesus’ disciples? Because they did not follow all the rules which the Pharisees claimed were necessary to please God.

2. What did the prophet Isaiah say about people like the Pharisees? Isaiah said that they say good things about God with their lips, but in their hearts, they do not really believe God’s Word, love God, or want to obey Him.

3. Is it right for anyone to add his own ideas and rules to the Bible? No, we must never add to or take anything away from what God has said in the Bible.

4. Does what we eat or wear make us acceptable or unacceptable to God? No! It isn’t what goes into our stomachs or what clothes we wear that makes us acceptable or unacceptable to God.

5. Man judges by what we do outwardly, but where does God look? God looks inside our hearts.

6. What are the sinful things which God sees in every person’s heart? Mark 7:21,22. “…proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness…”

7. Why did God accept the tax collector and refuse the Pharisee? Because the tax collector agreed with God that he was a sinner and needed God’s mercy. The Pharisee was proud and thought that his own goodness would make him acceptable to God.

Children enjoy make-believe stories. Adults enjoy make-believe, too. But when we consider eternity, we need to have the truth, not make-believe. All over the world, people follow beliefs, stories, and ideas that originated not as truth but as lies of Satan, designed to draw men, women, and children away from the truth of God. But when we read the Bible, we are reading the truth, given to us by God Himself, who is eternal and who does not lie.

Because King Herod had imprisoned and killed John the Baptist, some people thought that Jesus was John come back to life from the dead. Others thought that Jesus was Elijah.

- Elijah was a prophet who had been taken to Heaven by God about 850 years before Jesus came into the world.

- Some people thought that Jesus was Elijah come back down to the earth.

Jesus had clearly presented to the people who He was.

- He had told the people that He was the Son of God, the Deliverer whom God had promised from the beginning of the world.

- He had shown them His power by the great miracles which He had done. But the great majority of the Jews still did not believe on Him.

- Consider:

It is very important who you believe Jesus is. Do you think that He was just another good man? Was He just a good teacher who did some miracles? Was He just another prophet as some of the Jews said He was? Was He a liar, or did He speak the truth? Jesus did not leave us the option to believe only part of what He said about Himself. If anything He said was not true, then He could not be God the Son, because God is holy and perfect. If He spoke the truth, then we must believe Him and trust in what He said.

Jesus said that He was God.

Jesus knew that His disciples would never be accepted by God His Father if they did not believe that He was the Savior whom God had promised to send into the world. Peter knew and believed

- That Jesus was the one whom God had promised in the garden when Adam and Eve sinned.

- That Jesus was the one whom God had promised to send as the descendant of Abraham and David.

- That Jesus was the one whom God, through the prophets, had promised would come into the world.

- That Jesus was the Christ, that is, God’s great Prophet, God’s great High Priest, and God’s great King. Jesus, the Christ, was God’s messenger or prophet to the whole world—He only spoke the truth. Jesus, the Christ, was also the great High Priest—He came from God to take away the sins of the world.

And Jesus, the Christ, was the great King—He was sent by God to be the final ruler of the whole world.

Jesus wanted people to listen to Him and really believe His words in their hearts.

- He didn’t want people following Him just because the disciples said He was the Christ.

- Consider:

God doesn’t want you to believe in Jesus just because a teacher or pastor or someone else tells you what he believes about Jesus. You must not depend on me or anyone else, but you must believe the Word of God. If you only follow people and do not believe the Word of God, you will not be accepted by God. Your faith needs to be in God and in His Word.

Jesus knew He must die.

- Jesus knew that Satan would use the Jewish leaders to kill Him because they did not believe that He was God’s Son, the Deliverer.

- Jesus also knew that, although He would die and be buried, He would come out of the grave after three days and three nights.

- Consider:

Can you tell what is going to happen to you tomorrow? Are you going to get sick, or will you be healthy? Where will you be one year from now? How long will your life on earth be? We cannot know the answers to any of these questions.

- We do not know our future, but Jesus knew His complete future.

God knows everything.

- Jesus was not just a man like us.

- Jesus was also God the Son.

Hundreds of years earlier, the prophets had foretold many exact details of what would happen to Jesus.

- He would suffer many things.

- He would be rejected by the Jewish leaders.

- He would be killed.

- But He would be raised from the dead.

Jesus knew and believed what was written in the Old Testament about Him.

- He knew that He was the Deliverer whom God had promised, and He knew that all that had been said about Him would come to pass.

- God’s Word is always fulfilled.

Jesus had a human body just as we do. He was a real man, but He was also true God.

- As people looked at Him, He looked like any other man.

- But what He did and said showed that He was different.

This is the only time while Jesus was on earth that the “God part” of Jesus showed through His human body.

- His human body usually hid the “God part.”

- So when people looked at Him, He just looked like an ordinary man.

- Recall:

Do you remember the tabernacle which God told Moses and the Israelites to build for Him when they were at Mount Sinai in the wilderness? The outside of this building was covered with the skins of animals .When the people looked at it, they saw only the old, dried-up skins, but inside the inner room, underneath the skins, was the very bright light which showed that God was there.

- Consider:

That is how it was with Jesus. His human body just looked like that of an ordinary man, but inside, He was also the great, almighty, all-knowing God who created the heavens and the earth.

Matthew, who was one of Jesus’ disciples, says in the book he wrote in the Bible that, up there on the mountain, Jesus’ face began to shine like the sun.

Elijah was a Jewish prophet.

- But Elijah did not die like other men.

- As we mentioned earlier, he was taken to Heaven by God about 850 years before Jesus came to earth. The Bible tells us in Deuteronomy that Moses died and was buried by God.

- Moses’ death took place approximately 1,400 years before Jesus came to earth.

- God did not take him to Heaven in the same way as He took Elijah.

- Moses left his body when he died, and his body was buried.

- Consider:

Elijah and Moses had been with God for hundreds of years. When they were alive on the earth, they had believed God’s Word and they had trusted in God and the coming Deliverer. Because of this, when they left this world, they were not in Hell, not separated from God. God accepted them along with Abel, Seth, Enoch, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, and David, and everyone else who had agreed with God that they were helpless sinners and trusted in God to send a Savior.

God now allowed Elijah and Moses to come back to earth to talk to Jesus.

Heaven is a real place, but it is not in this world.

- Heaven is God’s home.

- Everyone who agrees with God and trusts in Jesus, the Savior whom God sent, will go to live with God in Heaven when they die.

When Moses and Elijah, God’s prophets, were alive on the earth, they knew that the promised Deliverer had to be born and die. Luke, who also wrote about Jesus’ life here on earth, said that there on the mountain Moses and Elijah talked to Jesus about His death, which was to take place in Jerusalem.

Even though these men left the world many, many years before Jesus was born, they knew that God’s promises about the Deliverer would all happen exactly in the way which God had promised. God never forgets His promises, even though thousands of years may pass before they are fulfilled.

This was God the Father speaking. He told the disciples that Jesus was who He claimed to be, that is, the much loved Son of God.

- Because Jesus was the Son of God, God told the disciples that they must listen to and obey whatever Jesus said.

- There has never been and there will never be anyone else like Jesus, the Son of God.

God does not speak to us by a voice from Heaven now, because all that He wants to say to us has been written in this book, the Bible. All of the words of Jesus that God wants us to know and obey have been written in the Bible, and God expects us to listen to them and put our trust in them.

Years after Jesus’ transfiguration, Peter wrote the following:

The Bible is true. God’s prophets spoke God’s truth. Jesus spoke the truth. His words were given to lead us to God and to eternal life.

QUESTIONS:

1. Is it important who we believe Jesus really is?

2. Who did Peter believe Jesus to be?

3. What did Jesus tell His disciples was going to happen to Him?

4. When people saw Jesus, did He look just like an ordinary man?

5. Even though Jesus looked like other men, what was different about Him?

6. What happened to Jesus on the mountain?

7. Who was Elijah?

8. What were Jesus, Moses, and Elijah talking about up on the mountain?

9. What did God the Father say to Peter and the others?

10. How can we know the words of Jesus so that we, too, can believe?

Suggested Daily Bible Readings:

Day 201: John, Chapters 11 and 12

Day 202: John, Chapters 13 and 14

Day 203: John, Chapters 15 and 16

Day 204: John, Chapters 17 and 18

Day 205: John, Chapters 19 and 20