DO YOU WANT JESUS TO BE HIMSELF?
If Jesus knows everything and can do anything, then why is COVID-19 hurting us so terribly? An ancient donkey has the answer.
Notes And Next Steps
Matthew 21:1-11 + Part 4 of the series “In Defense Of Jesus"
Who do you want your children to be?
I want Jesus, who knows all things and can do anything, to _____________.
“See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey.” (Matthew 21:5)
The call to servanthood, obedience and faith can be a difficult one.
When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?” (Matthew 21:10).
“[Jesus] is a peculiar King: you do not seek him, he seeks you; you do not find him, he finds you … your faith comes from him not from you; and all that your faith works in you comes from him, not from you.” —Martin Luther
CROSSTALK
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- Solve this problem: Jeff coaches 10-year-olds on a local soccer team. If he allows a bunch of 10-year-olds to each believe their versions of the right training regimen, practice agenda, and team lineup are the best, what would that look like? If he projects his knowledge and expertise onto each of the players, imposing his firm expectations about the skills they learn, their position on the team, and how they play the game, what might he be missing? What advice would you give to Jeff about his coaching? Please comment and let’s have a conversation.1a. What is the cause of projecting our expectations of others onto them (Who do parents want their children to be … spouses … friends?). What is the effect?1b. Why is the solution of relativism (Be whoever you want to be and it’s okay. Believe whatever you want to believe and you’re right.) just as harmful?
- What does this teach us about spiritual relativism, especially one’s viewpoint of Jesus? Read John 8:31,32.
- “[T]he relativist believes that relativism is true not just for him but for every person. He believes that relativism applies to the nonrelativist (‘true for you’), not just to himself (‘true for me’). The relativist finds himself in a bind if we ask him, ‘Is relativism absolutely true for everyone?’ If he says yes, then he contradicts himself by holding to an absolute relativism, which would be an oxymoron” (Lee Strobel, A Case for Christ, 248).
- “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity; Bk. 2, Ch. 3)
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