What if YOU Were God?

Luke 3:22

What would you do if you were God? To be clear:  You are not! I shouldn’t have to say that, and yet many humans have claimed to be the Almighty. Further, some act like they must be divine in that they worship and adore themselves. But I’m asking, what if you were Him, and had unlimited power? What would you do? How would you wield that ability? Would you go around healing the sick, and blessing those that are down? Would you punish evildoers, smiting them until they learn a lesson? Or would you speak certain of them out of existence?

Some wouldn’t focus their power on others at all, but would rather grant to themselves their every wish. Let’s be honest and confess what we might be tempted to do. [erase debt / lose weight / grow hair / become rich]

Hold that thought. We will return to it.

This is one of those great portions of Scripture where the Trinity is clearly seen.  You have Jesus the Son being baptized, the Spirit descending, and the Father speaking out of heaven.  They are the three eternal persons of the one eternal God. 

We focused on the Son last week.  He submitted to baptism. We usually say that was a great act of humility because He is not a sinner so He didn’t have to do that. But Jesus said actually I do have to do that because I must fulfill all righteousness. I must live a perfect life for you, in your place just as I must die for you, in your place. Any good act that God expects of the righteous I will do.

Now we go to the second member of the Trinity here, the Holy Spirit. Prepare yourself for an eye-opening, heart thrilling experience. I want to show you the significance of the coming down of the Holy Spirit.

The words of the Father out of heaven are self-evident. They don't need a lot of explanation.  “You're My beloved Son,” we understand that.  “In whom I am well pleased,” we understand that.  But what about the Holy Spirit coming down? At the end of v. 21 heaven opened, and then the Spirit came down.

This does not mean that up to this point Jesus did not have the Holy Spirit.  That is not the case.  Jesus always was in full communion of the Holy Spirit because Jesus is God.  We serve one God, Who is manifested in three persons.  Those three persons are indivisible. 

So when the Spirit of God comes down, that is not telling us that up to this point the Son of God was without the Holy Spirit, not at all.  This is merely a symbolic act indicating the Spirit's involvement in His life, indicating it publicly so that people will know that His ministry is in the power of the Holy Spirit.  In fact, the Holy Spirit is called in Romans 8:9 the Spirit of Christ.

Romans 8:9

⁹ But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

That is an eternal fact. But what about when He came to Earth and took on flesh? The Holy Spirit was operating in the human Jesus from conception. God said that Mary would conceive by the Holy Spirit. 

Luke 1:15 says that John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb.  If that is true of John, the human prophet, that would certainly be true of Jesus, the divine Son.  So even as a living, growing embryo and fetus in the womb of Mary, this life was being controlled by the Holy Spirit of God, who was superintending the physical development of that life so that that child, the Son of God, was also filled with the Holy Spirit from His mother's womb. In fact, I think we can even go beyond that. 

John 3:34

³⁴ For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.

Now what is this saying?  He didn’t have a limited measure of the Spirit, but the fullness. You see, throughout salvation history God spoke through preachers and prophets, teachers, and the apostles.  God chose His human vessels and spoke through them.  Each of those were given a measure of the Spirit that was suited for their ministry.  Sometimes you read in the Old Testament the Spirit of God came upon so-and-so. That includes John the Baptist who was filled with the Spirit from his mother's womb and may well have had a greater measure of the Spirit than anybody ever before him, and that's why he was called by Jesus the greatest man that ever lived in Matthew 11:11 — but everybody in that prophetic line, everybody who was a spokesman for God, everybody who was a writer of Scripture was given a measure of the Spirit empowering them to do the duty they were called to do.

But Jesus was given the Spirit without measure, in other words, without any limit.  He was given the Spirit in fullness.  From the beginning of His life at conception until the resurrection, His life was under the control of the Holy Spirit.  What Jesus was called to do was infinitely greater than any work ever to be done by any human, and therefore He was given the Spirit without measure.  And that's what's being symbolized at the baptism as the Spirit descends.  People saw the Spirit come down because the Spirit took on a visible form to convey the reality of what was happening. Here’s why it was important that the Jewish people see this. It was prophesied of the Messiah who was to come.

Isaiah 42:1

Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him:

Isaiah 61:1

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

He had the Spirit before He came to Earth, and He had the Spirit as an infant, and for the 30 years before His baptism, and after His baptism.

Luke 4:1

¹ And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,

Luke 4:14

¹⁴ And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about.

Acts 10:38

How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power.

So, the Holy Spirit was always active in the life of Jesus.  On His divine side they are always one.  On His human side, from His conception on, the Holy Spirit had been involved in His human life.

Now here’s the heart thrilling experience: The God-Man idea is mysterious.  But let’s see if we can take a little mystery out of it. How can someone be 100% God and 100% man all at once?

When you look at Jesus' life and you see wondrous things. You see a sinless life.  You see miraculous healings.  You see casting out of demons.  He dies and rises from the dead. All of these wonders -- who did those?  Where did they come from?

Think of it this way.  Out of His deity, Jesus WOULD not do those things.  I'll say that again.  Out of His deity, Jesus would not do divine works.  When Jesus came down into the world, when He descended, when He thought it not something to hold onto to be equal with God, when He set that aside in the words of Philippians 2, and He humiliated Himself and came all the way down to be a man, He set aside the independent use of His power.  He didn't stop being God.  He didn't get rid of His power because He couldn't “un-God” Himself, but He set aside the use of His deity and He submitted Himself to the will of the Father.  He could have called legions of angels, but He didn't.  He could have functioned in the divine power that was His by virtue of His nature but He did not.

At the beginning of the message I asked what would you do if you were God. Well, we see Jesus’ answer to that question in that He didn’t just come down and start displaying His power and privileges. Instead, He laid in a manger and grew and became a toddler and skinned His knee, and when He went out with other boys to skip rocks on a pond, He didn’t use His power to make His stone go farther. He worked with His dad in the carpenter’s shop and got splinters and learned a trade. Had he not laid aside the privileges of His deity He could have made a perfect table on day one.  So I say it this way: Out of His deity Jesus would not do divine works.

Now listen to the next statement.  Out of His humanity He COULD not.  Out of His humanity Jesus could not do divine works because that's not possible for flesh and blood, for humanity.  Humanity, by definition, is natural. The God part of Him was supernatural, but that was the part He laid aside. And so, Jesus, out of his deity, would not do these things because He had submitted Himself to the Father and had set aside the independent use of His divine attributes and out of His humanity He could not do those things.

The question then is: When Jesus did those things, who was doing it?  It was the Holy Spirit acting on His humanity.  Jesus did only what the Father willed and only what the Spirit empowered.

Now that is not to say that Jesus is not God.  He is fully God.  He chose not to use His divine powers.  And He couldn't do what He did, say what He said, from the human side because humanity is so limited.  If He would not use His divine power, if He could not use His human power, then by what did He accomplish these things?  By the power of the Holy Spirit.

He really did humble Himself, limiting Himself to human abilities.  And then He operated with the Holy Spirit as a bridge between His deity and His humanity. 

The point is this.  From His conception to His resurrection, everything wondrous that goes on in His life, His triumph over temptation, His preaching, teaching, healing, casting out demons, dying on a cross, and rising from the dead – it’s all energized/made possible by the Holy Spirit. 

Therefore, when Jesus was three, He didn't know everything that the mind of God the Son knew, obviously, or He wouldn't have been able to grow in wisdom as it says in Luke 2:52.  In Bethlehem He was a baby; not God pretending to be a baby.  There in Nazareth we had a little boy growing up; not God pretending to be a little boy growing up, but God becoming a little boy growing up.  He had human experiences of dependence, growth, and discovery, and the perplexities of life, and the joy of learning.

It is God through the Spirit informing that human nature as it developed.  His human nature then was under the full control of the Holy Spirit while He was growing up.  His divine nature didn't directly communicate anything at all to His human mind. Everything communicated to the human mind of Jesus came from the Holy Spirit.

In Matthew 12, the Jewish leaders had heard Jesus and they had watched His miracles and particularly had an interest in His casting out demons.  So in verse 22, there's a demon-possessed man. Apparently because of the demons he was blind and dumb.  Jesus healed him and so he spoke and saw.  Well this is pretty clear power over physical problems, and power over the kingdom of darkness that's behind the physical problems.  So in verse 24 the Pharisees say, "This man casts out demons by Beelzebub." That's an old word for the devil, Satan, "the ruler of the demons."

So this was their conclusion.  “Jesus does what He does by the power of Satan.”  After all, they're looking at Jesus, and they're saying He's just a man.  He's got supernatural power alright but it's of the devil.  So they see a man - but they see a man empowered.

How did Jesus answer their accusation?  'Therefore, I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven.'

Jesus doesn't say you blasphemed Me.  He says you blasphemed whom?  The Spirit.  You didn't blaspheme Me. This is not My deity in action. This is the Spirit. You blasphemed the Spirit. 

Matthew 12:32

³² And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.

I mean, you can criticize My humanness, you could say, you know, He's not a very good communicator, we don't like His personality.  You could say anything you want.  You could accuse Me as a man of anything and that could be forgiven.  But when you speak against the Holy Spirit, that will not be forgiven; not in this age — time — or in the age to come — eternity. 

Now think about the cross of Calvary. We know about His human suffering with the whipping, the crown of thorns, the nails, the agony, the pain, all of those things that are going on from the human side.  What sustained Jesus?  Well, you might say, He was sustained because He was God.  Well, the fact of the matter is He was actually sustained by the Holy Spirit because He wasn't using His own independent deity to get through that. 

Hebrews 9:14

¹⁴ How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

It was the eternal Spirit who kept Him without blemish.  It was the eternal Spirit who gave Him the strength to be offered as a sacrifice to God.  It was the Spirit's power that let Him bear sin and not run from it.  It was the power of the Holy Spirit operating on His humanity that gave Him the ability - that kept Him willing to die, that kept Him on the cross, that caused Him to have the power to be able to offer Himself as a sacrifice to God. And what did He say as He died?

Luke 23:46

And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.

How about the resurrection? You say, "Well, Christ rose from the dead because He's God, He's God the Son, He has the power." 

Romans 1:4

⁴ And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:

Romans 8:11

¹¹ But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

Here is a descriptive title for the Holy Spirit. He's the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. 

The Jewish people knew their Old Testament, that the Messiah would have the Holy Spirit upon Him.  And here they are standing there at the Jordan river, here comes this man to be baptized and all of a sudden while He's being baptized heaven opens and down comes the Holy Spirit and settles on Him in a form that everybody can see.  This is what was promised.  Then comes the voice of God out of heaven.  This is the divine inauguration of Jesus into His ministry.

Oh, about the dove. We see it on bumper stickers and necklaces. I just want to say that the Holy Spirit is not a bird, OK?  The Holy Spirit didn't come down looking like a bird.  The Spirit descended like a dove.  Do you understand that?  The dove is not so much the shape as the movement.  You remember on the day of Pentecost when it says, "The Spirit of God came down and appeared as if it was cloven tongues of fire," remember that?  It looked like flames. It came down and settled on Him the way a dove would flutter down and settle. 

Then the very words of God Himself boomed out of heaven attesting to His Son being God, the Messiah. 

So, what can we leave with today after considering this marvelous scene? A better understanding of the Trinity, for one. But I’ll tell you what God is saying to me:

1. It’s a good thing I am not God. I couldn’t wield that power appropriately. I couldn’t resist being selfish, or vengeful. I couldn’t lay that power aside. I’m so glad Christ submitted Himself to the will of the Heavenly Father. He’s my example. I want to learn to submit myself to His will.
2. If Jesus needed the filling power of the Holy Spirit in order to overcome the weakness of His human flesh, then I certainly have the same need.

Good news, when Jesus ascended back to heaven He left behind the Holy Spirit Who will reside within a believer, and will absolutely fill him, without limitation, if we ask Him to, and if we will die to our flesh, starving it, and feed our spirits with His good gifts, we will experience the fullness of God. We can walk in the Spirit, and not fulfil the lust of the flesh. We can, as humans, follow in the footprints made by Jesus, the Son, be filled with the Spirit, and come to know the Father more and more.