My six year old granddaughter recently shared with me that she did not wish to attend vacation bible school (VBS). She said it was boring. “But don’t you want to hear about Jesus?“ I asked. She responded “oh and that, I’m not so sure about that”. “Sure about what?” I asked. “Jesus”, she responded, “I’m not so sure I know who that is.” Out of the mouth of babes!

I was reminded of the scripture where Jesus asks His disciples: “who do men say that I am?” and subsequently, “Who do you, say that I am?”
(Matthew 16:15, Mark 8:29)

How do we respond to that question to a six year old, to a sixty year old, to an atheist, agnostic, or fellow Christian? How do YOU respond?

We must respond the same, the truth in love.

At six, she has heard of God and accepts at this point that God is the creator of all things, that He is invisible , that He is a Spirit and unlike humans. Romans 1 tells us the visible declares the invisible. She somewhat understands that when we die, our spirits which are housed in earthly vessels continue on. God makes sense to her, but the “Jesus Thing” not so much……..doesn’t she represent so many of us?

Without explaining the “how” (six year old), I simply told her that Jesus was God manifest in the flesh, that Jesus is the face of the invisible God that created all things. God so loved us that He came among us so we could have a tangable relationship with Him. Humans could see Him, touch Him, observe His power, His control over physical laws of nature. He could walk on water and raise the dead to life to name a few. He did these things that many saw and are recorded in the Holy Scriptures. Jesus is what God looks like as a human. I went on to tell her that mankind was once in communion with God and there was no pain, sickness, hate, hunger, anger, or death. Everything was perfect as God is perfect. We were God’s greatest and most loved creation. We were perfect and sinless. We shared eternal life with God. Perfect love requires free will though; you can’t make someone love.

Free will got us into trouble. All we had to do was obey God and we could have lived in this paradise forever. Man chose to disobey God and was separated from Him, pushed away from His presence. Humans were on their own. We call this sin. Sin means doing anything that is not God’s will for us and it separates us from God.
She stopped me and said, “ is it like when I don’t do what Mommy and Daddy ask me to do?” “Yes”, I replied. “Why didn’t they just go back and say they were sorry?” she asked. I attempted to explain that “sorry” was the right answer but wasn’t good enough because we were in a perfect place and God is perfect. Sin cannot be where God is. It’s like darkness and light, they can’t occupy the same space.
“So what happened?” She asked. “Jesus, I replied. God so loved us and wanted to be with us in that perfect place that He became one of us. God became human, born as we are born but without sin. (Once again, I didn’t get into the specifics of the Holy Spirit overshadowing the Virgin Mary). Jesus was born just like we are, except His Father was God, the Holy Spirit. Jesus is called the son of God because He was human and was the first born human of its kind; A God man, a new creature, an example of what we could be”. She stopped me and said: “I know, Baby Jesus, CHRISTMAS!”
“Yes! I affirmed. Baby Jesus lived and played and grew to be a man and at the right time, He began to show His friends that He was God in the flesh. He turned water into wine, healed sick people with just a thought or touch, made blind people see, got out of a boat and walked on the water, and even raised the dead to life. Once, he took a little boys lunch and fed over 5000 people.” “What? She exclaimed, He did all that, REALLY?” “Yes, and more I affirmed, to show that He was not just a man, but God in the flesh”.

“Jesus then revealed the reason He came to earth, I continued. He came to make things right between God and man. He promised to take all of the sins of the world onto himself. All of the sins that anyone has done or will ever do. But, to do so, Jesus would have to trade His perfect life for our sinful life. He had to die to make the trade.” “Why did he have to die?” she asked.
“Well, I said, the wages of sin is death. Life is in the blood and the only perfect payment to satisfy the debt of sin to a Holy and perfect God. God told the first man if he disobeyed, he would die. God can’t lie. They didn’t believe it but they died, not physically, but spiritually. They would also now die physically at a later time, something they would not have done as perfect creatures. God is life and without God, there is no life”. Jesus traded His life for our life.
“So how do we get it back?” she inquired. I told her that when we accept by faith, (trust) the gift that God gave us in the person of Jesus Christ, He promises to come and live in us the way He did before we fell or disobeyed (John 14:23). “How, is it like a ghost or something”? she mused.
Out of the mouth of babes again!
“Yes! I exclaimed, the Holy Spirit. Jesus died for the sins of the whole world and rose again on the third day to return from flesh to the Spirit in glory he once was (John 17). He could not be with us all physically, so He left His Spirit with all that would believe, forever. He lives in us and we in Him. We are one (John 17). The spirit we lost is reborn. We live as long as He lives. Eternal life. We are sealed by the Spirit and He will never leave us (Ephesians 1:13, John 6:27). Even though we die, we live (John 11:25). We’re still human and flawed, still make mistakes but we are humans now with God living in us, like Jesus. Like Jesus!
We become flesh with God living in us!!!!!!!!! The best news you will ever hear.
The Gospel.”

This is a lot for a 6 year old but she somewhat understood and what followed has to put a smile on your face. She thought I meant holey spirit as in you could throw something through it and it would leave a hole. Now she talks to this “holey spirit” that she believes is always with her and will never leave. She calls Him “Holey” and talks to him when no one else is around.
She doesn’t understand it all, but I suspect “Holey” will teach her.

This is truly who Jesus is. Jesus can’t physically be with each of us, but is with all believers by the Holy Spirit. He is in us and we in Him. He is as close as our thoughts, breath, sinew and marrow. It’s not just a belief that is with us, but God is actually in us. We are the temple that God has chosen to live. He does not live in temples built with human hands. He lives so therefore we live.
We are where He is. Think about that. The Holy Spirit of God allows this by faith in the finished work of Christ. We become new creatures, a new human genome if you will, a new human family with Jesus Christ the man as the first born of creation.
James Tabor, in his book “Paul and Jesus” puts it this way: what this means is that God, as Creator, has inaugurated a process through which He is reproducing Himself- literally bringing to birth a “God-Family”. Jesus, now transformed into the heavenly glorified Christ/Messiah, is the firstborn brother of an expanded group of divine offspring. Those who “belong to Christ,” or are spiritually “in Christ,” to use Paul’s favorite expressions, have become impregnated by the Holy Spirit and like tiny spiritual embryos are growing and developing into the image of Christ until the time comes for their transformation “birth” from flesh and blood to life-giving Spirits. As Paul Says, “He who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.” Paul compares this union of “ “spirits” to that of a man and a women when “the two shall become one flesh”

We are told by the Holy Scriptures that In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1) and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt amount us (John 1:14).

Jesus Christ is the Word that spoke the universe into existence.
The Word that became flesh.
All of the attributes of God are found in the man Jesus Christ.
He is God in the flesh.
He is the only mediator between God and man.
He is the Son of God, virgin born, crucified on Calvary’s Cross, shed His blood for the payment of man’s sin.
He arose from death, ascended into heaven and sit down at the right hand of the father and intercedes for you and I.
The man Jesus is God’s last will and testament to man.
He will come again to judge the believers and nonbelievers.
He is the one and only God that became flesh.
He is the way, the truth and life. You cannot go to the Father any other way, not religious or self works.
Jesus Christ and the Father are one.

This is who Jesus says He is. Who do you say He is?

The great C.S. Lewis once said: “either Jesus is a nut and lunatic or He is God in the Flesh. But, you can’t put Him anywhere in between”

If this is true, and I believe it is, it’s glorious for the one who believes Him- Disastrous for the one who rejects Him.

We don’t deserve any of this, but by His Grace, (underserved favor) He offers us this gift.
It’s a gift, you can do nothing to earn it, only receive it.
By grace through faith, we are saved, not by works lest any man boast (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Friends, this glorious gift is yours for the asking. He will take you no matter your past.

YOU CAN NOT OUTSIN THE GRACE OF GOD.

The greatest proof of this is not in books or claims of men but this: when you just call on Him, ask Him to reveal this truth to you personally …. He will.

It’s mere foolishness to the arrogant intellect, but salvation to those who believe.

Call on Him today from wherever you are, and He promises to do the rest.

It’s so easy that a six year old gets it!

THE SINNER’S PULPIt
“Come in a sinner and leave a Saint”