His Perfect Love

Matt VanderVen: Who or what are you serving today? You're going to serve something. Something's going to be your master. It's either going to be you or it's going to be God of the universe. But you're going to serve something. I assure every one of you in here, me included, serve something. That's a fact.

Whether it's your flesh, your lust, your desires, whatever. The thing is, your faith is only as good as what you place that faith in. And when that day comes and you have to give an account, I don't want to be standing before the living God going, "Well, I'm the answer." Okay, the great accuser there turns around and heaps the sin on you and you turn around and go, "Well, yeah. Well, where's your get-out-of-jail card?" You don't have one.

Announcer: We teach our kids in Sunday school to sing "Jesus Loves Me, This I Know," for the Bible tells me so. And yet many of us struggle to believe it. But it's true and we're assured of it in God's Word. Not because we're deserving, but because God is so loving and gracious. That's good news. It's our focus today on His Perfect Love. As we continue in the book of Romans, we'll be encouraged as we hear about the gospel of Jesus Christ. If we'll believe it, live it, and proclaim it, it'll change us and the world around us. Here's Pastor Matt VanderVen in Romans chapter one.

Matt VanderVen: You're going to serve something. Something's going to be your master. It's either going to be you or it's going to be God of the universe. But you're going to serve something. I assure every one of you in here, me included, serve something. That's a fact. Whether it's your flesh, your lust, your desires, whatever. The thing is, your faith is only as good as what you place that faith in. And when that day comes and you have to give an account, I don't want to be standing before the living God going, "Well, I'm the answer."

Okay, the great accuser there turns around and heaps the sin on you and you turn around and go, "Well, yeah. Well, where's your get-out-of-jail card?" You don't have one. Everybody wants fire insurance. Not everybody wants a master, doulos, a bondservant. That's what we are. We're to be slaves. He's our master. But again, this isn't being taught. So many churches across America, it grieves my heart today. This isn't being taught.

Friends, you were given the greatest privilege ever. In Matthew chapter 28, verse 19, you are to take the—you have the Great Commission to go forth and give the good news, to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And I love when you do that, when you go out. I mean, you've clearly brought your friends. That's why we're going to two services. I mean, clearly something's happening. The Lord's leading it.

Psalm 89. He says, "I have made a covenant with my chosen. I have sworn unto David my servant, thy seed I will establish forever and build up thy throne to all generations. My loving kindness will I keep for him evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him." Whose covenant is it? God's. "His seed also will I make endure forever and his throne as the days of heaven. If his children forsake my law and walk not in my ordinances, if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments, then I will visit their transgressions with a rod—for whom God loves, he corrects—and their iniquity with stripes." That's what a good dad does.

"But my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break." No matter what we do, that's grace, friends. That's real grace. That no matter how ignorant or foolish I am, no matter how stupid I can be—because, oh man, I don't have to tell that to you. You guys have been here for a few years. You know. You're like, "Yes, amen." No matter how ignorant I can be, God's covenant never fails. It doesn't change. He's the Ancient of Days. My circumstances change, my God never does, right?

He says, "Nor suffer the faithfulness to fail, my covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn by my holiness, I will not lie unto David." The Davidic covenant. "His seed shall endure forever and his throne as the sun before me. It shall be established forever as the moon and as the faithful witness in the sky."

All conservative scholars, all of them—and this is rare you can say that—all conservative scholars agree that Jesus Christ fulfills the Davidic covenant. The evidence is clear from the Old Testament as well as from the New Testament. All accept the authenticity and inspiration of the scripture here. And that the testimony given to the angel, remember the angel that came to Mary as well, is conclusive.

And I'll read that to you, and that's from Luke chapter 1, verse 31, if you'd like to turn in your Bibles. But it says, "And behold, thou shalt conceive in your womb and bring forth the son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God shall give unto him a throne of his father David." Do you see that again referring to the Davidic covenant? This was a promise that needed to be fulfilled. It was promised thousands of years ago.

"And he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end." And the promise of David's throne, David's kingdom, and all that's included is declared in the prophecy of Jesus Christ himself when it's titled that was given to him, the Son of David. Remember when he would walk in and people said, "Son of David, have mercy on us!" It was a title, and what they were referring back to was Messiah, Yeshua. They were confirming that they knew who he was. The record of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham, is recorded in Matthew chapter 1, verse 1.

It's all over your Bible. It's constantly telling you Jesus is the Lord. And not only is Jesus Lord, he's the Son of David. He's the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant. Everything that God has matched or promised, there's always a match to it. You won't find an open end that doesn't get closed. It's not like, again, this was an account. If you've ever had a situation where you whisper something across, by the time it gets all the way to the end, it's mismatched. It's so different.

The Word of God, it's not that way over 5,000 years. How many different translations, how many different manuscripts? We don't have time this morning to go through this, but I mean just the study on canon alone. If that doesn't bring you to become a believer, I don't know what will. We have no other modern work, any writing, any work throughout the Iliad, anything in 5,000 years that even closely, from textual criticisms—those are people that necessarily can be a humanities major and study, can be a professor, a doctor of humanities in a college, and they will take works and they will go back and they will try to understand where that work was developed, what time period it was written in. You might have studied it in history as you were going through high school or college.

That's called textual criticism. Every single time you get a textual critic on the Bible and they go back and read it, they say there's nothing else like it. There are so many things in the Old Testament that were promised that begin to be answered and fulfilled in the New. Just as Jesus Christ said, the Old Covenant was not done away with, but it was fulfilled in the New Covenant. It's miraculous. It's amazing. I mean, that's why God could say this is God-breathed. It's supernatural, this book you have in your hand. There's nothing else like it.

And again, I encourage you. You're visiting today, you don't believe, go test it. Test it, do it yourself. Be earnest. Go look at what I'm showing you. I did that. When I was 23 years old, I grew up a Roman Catholic. Some of you know that. I walked away from God. I didn't really have a personal relationship with him. I grew up kind of kneeling, standing, kneeling, standing. I didn't know why I did it. I did it because everybody else did it. I grew up that way. I was Italian. My family, that's what was cultural. I don't know how else to say it.

But as I went through this experience, I remember going to the point where I was in college and all these guys are talking this and that. I said, "I don't think this is real." God got the last laugh, huh? I'm an under-shepherd, he got the last laugh. I don't know if this is real. And I turned around and I went and I pulled out all the books. I did everything I'm telling you. I took out the history books. I went and I said, "God, you're going to have to show me. And if you show me, I promise I'll believe. I promise you, I will believe Jesus if you show me."

I didn't have some type of spiritual experience where some people, and I'm thinking away from people who do, where they have this sort of kind of glory come up. I didn't have that. Mine initially was very cerebral. I opened books and I studied and I looked and I looked at translations and I looked at the differences—less than a 2% in all 5,000 and whatever, 200 and something manuscripts. I looked at them. I went online, even back then we even had the internet. But I went online, I looked at that and I began to study it.

And then I began to turn around and look at the history books, as I mentioned. And every single time it pointed just as it says here: which is promised before his prophets in the holy scriptures. And I went, "Lord, that's it. This whole time I had been chasing my interests. I had been making myself a god and I didn't even know it. Like I didn't intend to do that. I didn't set out to do that. I didn't want to do that. It wasn't malicious. I just didn't know." It's amazing what God's Word does.

And that's why, you know, I know we just camped out for 30 minutes on verse two. And we will pick up the pace in Romans, you guys know that. We usually pick up the pace. But this is so important because it's foundational and it's the gospel of Jesus Christ. So how did Jesus fulfill this New Covenant and when did he fulfill it since it says the Davidic covenant in here? I'm glad you asked that question.

First, Jesus fulfills the promise by his present placement at the right hand of the Father in heaven, a throne where he will reign forever and ever. Second, Jesus fulfills this promise by his return and righteous reign on earth during the thousand-year millennial reign. Well, where's that? Well, you can turn to Revelation chapter 19 and you can read that. You can also listen to the study at the website or online, on the church app. You can go back and listen to when I taught through that.

Now, we could spend the rest of the time here this morning going through the natures and divinity and humanity because it says "in the flesh." I'm going to touch on it. I encourage you to read a little bit more about this because I just don't have time this morning to cover all this as we look at the hypostatic union. That's what it's called from a doctrinal perspective. It's called a hypostatic union. I'm going to cover it the best I can as quickly as I can because I want to make sure that we get to communion and I want us to have a time to memorialize what Jesus Christ did for us.

But I think I'd be in error to leave this verse when it says, "Concerning his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh." What does that mean and why is that there? Well, Jesus was both God and man. How many of us have struggled with that, trying to understand that? Well, I'm going to raise my hand. How many people have struggled with understanding the Trinity? Right? God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Okay, we got it, we got it.

Well, the two natures of Jesus—for some of you put on your theology caps, we're going to school here—the two natures of Jesus refers to the doctrine of one person, Jesus Christ, and how he had two natures: a divine nature and a human nature. In theology or by theologians, again, they call this the hypostatic union. Okay, this is what it's been referred. And it really comes from the Greek word hypostasis, which means a substantive reality or substantive reality.

Jesus is God if you're taking notes. The Bible teaches that Jesus is not merely someone who was a lot like God or someone who has a very close walk with God. That's not what we see. Rather, Jesus is the Most High God. That's what the Bible declares himself. Titus chapter 2, verse 13 says that Christians, we are looking for what? The blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God—great God—and Savior Jesus Christ.

When someone tries to say, "Well, the Bible doesn't declare Jesus Christ the Son of God as God," please take them to Titus chapter 2, verse 13. Because there's a movement right now going on that's trying to seduce people away to try to attack the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ. It's nothing new under the sun. We saw the very same thing 2,000 years ago within the first 70 years after Jesus Christ ascended to the Father at the right hand. It was started with the Gnostics. And we can read that because Peter wrote about it and said, "Hey, watch these destructive doctrines," and he started warning us.

Upon seeing the resurrected Christ, Thomas cried out—doubting Thomas, as people have referred to him. That poor guy got a bad rap, man. "My Lord and my God!" Right? John chapter 20, verse 28. Likewise, the book of Hebrews, one of my favorite books—I say that about every book—but Hebrews, one of my favorite books. I can't wait until we get to Hebrews. It gives us God the Father direct testimony from God himself, which all of the Bible's inspired by God. But God himself in his own words, right? But of the Son he says, "Your throne, O God"—speaking of God the Father speaking of God the Son—"of your throne, O God, is forever and ever."

And the gospel of John calls Jesus, John chapter 1, verse 18 says, "He is the only begotten God," right? Now, what about the humanity of Jesus? I'm glad you asked, because obviously we've just gone through a few verses on the divinity and we could have spent hours and hours on the hypostatic union and going through and talking about the natures.

And oh, by the way, we will as we cover Romans. As we exegete Romans and we go line by line and verse by verse, we will go because Paul himself begins to cover this when he starts to get into chapters seven and eight and he goes through and all of a sudden Paul's reflecting upon his own, I will say, his own sin and what he's looking at. And he's going to be looking at the union and what goes on and who he is in Christ and how he's been given grace. And how, the things he wants to do, that is not what he does, and the things he doesn't want to do, that's what he does. Some of us, amen, get that, right?

Jesus's humanity is just as important to hold to as the truth of his deity. The Apostle John teaches how anyone denying that Jesus is the man is of the spirit of Antichrist. Lowercase "a" again. This is not a capital Antichrist with an "A," but that's 1 John chapter 4, verse 2 and 2 John chapter 7. So clearly we can see that the spirit of Antichrist is in those that deny Jesus's humanity as well as even his divinity that way.

Jesus's humanity is displayed in the fact that he was born as a baby from a human mother. Luke chapter 2, verses 7 and Galatians chapter 4, verse 4 tells us that. And he became weary, which shows all the normal things that you and I would expect for someone that was human in humanity, right? John chapter 4, verse 6. He was thirsty, right? John chapter 19, verse 28. He was hungry, Matthew chapter 4, verse 2. And that he experienced the full range of human emotions even when he marveled, Matthew chapter 8, verse 10. Or what about when he sorrowed, John chapter 11, verse 35?

He lived on earth just as we did. And that's how we can say he understands all the things that we struggle and suffer with. He too understood those things. He has empathy. Now, while he did not have sin or a sin nature, he knows what it was to be tempted in all ways as we are tempted. But he was able to overcome his temptation. He was able to overcome the flesh and therefore he could redeem you and I, humanity, to his Father in right relationship.

Now, we must understand there are two natures of Christ that remain distinct and yet retain their own properties. So what's this really mean? Two things. One, they don't alter one another's essential properties. And two, neither do they mix together into a mysterious sort of third kind of nature or multiple mixing. You might like chocolate and you might like applesauce, but I'm not sure you'd like chocolate applesauce. I don't know, maybe some of you are nodding your heads, maybe you do. But you could see where it was unique. It's not a third kind of nature.

Actually, this is one of the heresies the early church had to fight, the heresy that taught both. Now, both natures are represented in scripture as constituting one thing, that is united in one person. We read in John chapter 1, verse 14, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." Again, I'll say it, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." Here we see the two natures of the Word: his deity, right, the Word, Jesus; his flesh, his humanity. Right? We see both of them captured in this. So next time somebody questions you and says, "Show me a passage where it shows the hypostatic union or the doctrine of the hypostatic union," please take them to this passage in scripture and show them.

Clearly, we get to see right here in John 1:14 that he became flesh and dwelt among us. And we see his two natures in his deity and his humanity, right? I love that. Jesus never speaks of himself as "we" but always as "I." Paul tells us, "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son born of a woman, born under the flesh." Galatians 4:4 says, "who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped—that is exploited to his own advantage—but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant and being like the likeness of men." Philippians chapter 2, verses 6 and 7.

Okay, so born of the seed of David, High Priest forever, and born of the flesh. This is the God-man who sat in the Upper Room with his disciples and ushered in the New Covenant. This is the New Covenant that you and I belong to, the covenant we've been given through grace in Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. It's centered on Christ, it's centered on the blood of Christ. And that's why he told us that the gospel, as we've just read here, was centered on the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Announcer: Well, thanks for joining us today for His Perfect Love. You can hear this study from Pastor Matt VanderVen again when you visit hisperfectlove.org. Catch up on what you may have missed in Romans at hisperfectlove.org. Look for us on oneplace.com and most of the major podcast platforms. The Calvary Chapel Harrisburg mobile app is another great way to listen to Pastor Matt's messages shortly after they're delivered. We can help you get started when you visit hisperfectlove.org.

His Perfect Love is made possible through the support of listeners just like you. Together we can bring the truths of God's Word to the radio every day. You can make a donation at hisperfectlove.org. And Pastor Matt would like to hear from you. Tell us the station you listen to and what you're getting out of this study in Romans. He would be so encouraged. Email us there at the website hisperfectlove.org. We hope you'll visit us at Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore. Sunday morning services begin at 8:30 and 10:30. We have a midweek service too, Wednesdays at 7:00 PM. We're located at 28 North Locust Point Road in Mechanicsburg, PA. Go to ccharrisburg.org for more information. And then we'll come back to our study of Romans next time on His Perfect Love with Pastor Matt. See you then, and God bless.