00:00Hey friends, you know, there is something strange in my mind about the way we sometimes
00:06talk about Jesus.
00:08You ever notice that we could spend hours arguing about who Jesus is, and almost no
00:14time asking whether we're becoming anything like him?
00:18And that's why I think today the Council of Nicaea is going to be something that is actually
00:25worth us talking about.
00:26Now, not because I'm going to give you a history lecture, or because I expect you to remember
00:32a bunch of Greek words, and definitely not because I think your relationship with God
00:38depends on knowing what happened in a meeting almost 1700 years ago.
00:44I want to talk today about Nicaea because buried underneath that ancient argument is a lesson
00:52about Jesus that I think Christianity desperately needs to recover.
00:58Now, in the year 325, church leaders gathered in Nicaea because Christians were fighting
01:05over a massive question.
01:08Who exactly is Jesus?
01:10There was a priest named Arius who believed that Jesus was above every ordinary created
01:18thing, but he still believed the Son ultimately had a beginning.
01:23Others said no.
01:26Jesus was not simply the greatest being God ever created.
01:31The Son was eternal.
01:33He truly shared in the divinity and identity of God.
01:39And eventually, the Council rejected Arius and declared that Jesus was begotten, not made.
01:47Now, people sometimes tell the story as though Constantine gathered everybody together and turned
01:54Jesus into God in one afternoon.
01:57That did not happen.
02:00You see, Christians were talking about Jesus in divine terms long before Constantine.
02:07John had already written his gospel.
02:10In the beginning was the word.
02:13Thomas had already looked at the risen Jesus and said,
02:18My Lord and my God.
02:20Paul's letters, well, they were already describing Jesus in extraordinary terms.
02:26Generations before Nicaea ever happened.
02:30So, Nicaea did not invent a divine Jesus.
02:35What Nicaea did was try to put language around something Christians were already struggling
02:43to understand.
02:45And here's where this becomes personal.
02:49Suppose Nicaea was right.
02:52Suppose Jesus really does reveal God.
02:55Now, don't race past that.
02:58Because Christians have heard that statement so many times that sometimes I think we no longer
03:05hear how shocking it actually is.
03:08If you want to know what God is like,
03:13look at Jesus.
03:15And suddenly, this stops being an argument about 4th century church history.
03:20Now, we have to look carefully at the man walking through the gospels.
03:25Because if Jesus shows us God,
03:28then watch what God does.
03:32Jesus walks toward people everyone else walks away from.
03:37There's a leper.
03:38Nobody wants to touch him.
03:40People are afraid of him.
03:42Religious and social boundaries have pushed him outside normal life.
03:48And Jesus?
03:49Well, Jesus reaches out his hand.
03:53He touches him.
03:55Think about that.
03:56If Jesus reveals God,
03:59then God is not standing at a safe distance from a broken people.
04:04God moves toward them.
04:06There's your first lesson about Jesus.
04:10Jesus doesn't just talk about compassion.
04:13He crosses the distance.
04:15Then, look at the woman caught in sin.
04:18And this is one of my favorite stories.
04:21Everybody around her was ready to reduce her to the worst thing she had ever done.
04:27They drag her into public.
04:29They humiliate her.
04:30They turn her failure into a religious spectacle.
04:35And Jesus?
04:36Well, Jesus refuses to join the crowd.
04:40He does not pretend sin doesn't matter.
04:44But he also refuses to let condemnation have the final word.
04:49If Jesus shows us the heart of God,
04:52then maybe some of us have completely misunderstood what holiness actually looks like.
04:59Because holiness in Jesus doesn't look like standing far away from the sinful
05:05so that everybody else can see how righteous you are.
05:10It looks like truth and mercy standing together.
05:16Then, watch Jesus with his disciples.
05:20These men are arguing about which one of them is the greatest.
05:23And Jesus does something astonishing.
05:28He gets down and washes their feet.
05:32Now, the person they call Lord takes the position of a servant.
05:37Now, I want you to think about what that means if Jesus truly reveals God.
05:44We spend our lives trying to climb, don't we?
05:48We want recognition.
05:50We want status.
05:51We want people to know our name.
05:53We want to be important.
05:56And Jesus says, you want to see greatness?
06:00Then he kneels.
06:03That's Jesus.
06:05And if that's what God is like,
06:08then maybe our entire definition of greatness is upside down.
06:13Power says, serve me.
06:16Jesus says, I came to serve.
06:21Power says, notice me.
06:24Jesus kneels with a towel.
06:28Power says, get even.
06:32Jesus says, forgive.
06:35And then we get to the cross.
06:38Now, this is where everything gets uncomfortable because Jesus is being mocked, beaten, rejected, crucified.
06:46And instead of calling for revenge, he asks for forgiveness.
06:52Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
06:57And I want you to hear how radical this becomes if Christians are right about who Jesus is.
07:03If Jesus truly reveals God, then forgiveness is not some weak little religious idea.
07:11Enemy love is not sentimental Christianity.
07:15Mercy is not God lowering his standards.
07:20This is what God is showing us about himself through Jesus.
07:24And now, Nicaea starts asking something of us that is much harder than memorizing a creed.
07:35Because it is possible to say that Jesus is fully divine and live nothing like him.
07:45It is possible to defend Jesus in an argument and then destroy somebody with your words.
07:52It is possible to put a cross around your neck and refuse to forgive your brother.
08:00It is possible to tell everybody that Jesus is Lord,
08:04while money, anger, pride, resentment, and popularity actually control your life.
08:13That's the danger here, friends.
08:15We can make Jesus a doctrine we defend instead of a Lord we follow.
08:21And I think that this is where Christianity gets into trouble.
08:26We become experts at explaining Jesus.
08:30We know the vocabulary, the Trinity, the Incarnation, His divine nature, His human nature,
08:39the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
08:43And you know what?
08:45Those things matter.
08:46But Jesus keeps asking a much more uncomfortable question.
08:52Are you going to follow me?
08:55Because Jesus did not walk up to Peter and say,
08:59understand every theological detail about me.
09:02He said, follow me.
09:06And following Jesus means his way starts becoming your way.
09:10When somebody hurts you,
09:12Jesus starts affecting how you respond.
09:15When you have power over somebody,
09:19Jesus starts affecting how you use it.
09:23When somebody is struggling,
09:26Jesus starts affecting whether you judge them or you move toward them.
09:31When everybody else rejects someone,
09:34Jesus starts affecting whether you join the crowd.
09:38When your pride wants the last word,
09:41Jesus starts affecting whether you can become humble.
09:46That's discipleship.
09:49And this is the lesson I think Nicaea accidentally put right in front of us.
09:55The council asked,
09:56who is Jesus?
10:00And that's an important question.
10:02But once you answer it,
10:05another question immediately follows.
10:08If Jesus truly shows us what God is like,
10:11what should somebody who follows him look like?
10:16Because if Jesus is merely a teacher,
10:19maybe we can admire him.
10:22If Jesus is merely a historical figure,
10:25well then,
10:27maybe we can study him.
10:29If Jesus is merely an inspirational speaker,
10:33maybe we can quote him.
10:35But if Jesus Christ is actually Lord,
10:39we don't get to leave him in a book.
10:42His teachings become a challenge to our lives.
11:10Treat people the way you want to be treated.
11:14Those aren't decorations around Christianity.
11:18That's Jesus showing us another way to be human.
11:24So,
11:24didn't Nicaea change the way Christians saw Jesus?
11:29Yes.
11:30In some ways,
11:31it gave Christianity more precise language for describing him.
11:36And history shows us that institutions,
11:39politics,
11:40and human ambition became tangled in those theological arguments.
11:45But I don't think the biggest danger is that
11:49bishops used a Greek word in the year 325.
11:54I think the bigger danger is what happened afterward.
11:59Christianity became very good at saying the right things about Jesus,
12:03while Christians sometimes ignored the things Jesus actually taught.
12:11And I don't want to do that.
12:13I don't want to win an argument about Jesus and lose the way of Jesus.
12:18I don't want to prove that he is Lord while refusing to let him be Lord over my anger,
12:25my pride,
12:26my relationships,
12:28my money,
12:29my forgiveness,
12:31and the way that I treat people.
12:34So,
12:35maybe today,
12:37instead of asking what Nicaea believed about Jesus,
12:41ask something much closer to home.
12:44Look at Jesus again.
12:48Watch him with the unwanted.
12:50Watch him with sinners.
12:53Watch him with hypocrites.
12:55Watch him with children.
12:58Watch him with his enemies.
13:01Watch him with people who fail him.
13:03Watch him kneel.
13:05Watch him forgive.
13:07Watch him serve.
13:09And then I want you to ask,
13:11if this is truly what God looks like,
13:14what needs to change in me?
13:18Because knowing who Jesus is matters.
13:22But eventually,
13:23knowing who Jesus is should change who we are.
13:29And maybe that's the lesson we're supposed to learn all along.
13:37My name is Douglas Van der Graaff,
13:40and I believe in Jesus Christ.
13:43God bless every single one of you,
13:47and everyone you love.
13:52Bye-bye.
13:54Bye-bye.
13:54Bye-bye.
13:54Bye-bye.
13:54Bye-bye.
13:54Bye-bye.
13:54Bye-bye.
13:55Bye-bye.
13:56Bye-bye.
