July 17, 2000
Live life in shape of the cross, Wade says
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___GLORIETA, N.M.--For churches and individuals to become more like Jesus, they need to understand who he is as revealed in the Gospels, Charles Wade told about 1,400 participants in the second Texas Baptist Family Reunion.
___ Wade, executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, led a four-session Bible study on "Knowing Jesus" as part of the family week at Glorieta, N.M., July 1-7.
___ It was Christmas in July as worshippers sang a couple of traditional carols and Wade began the Bible study with the story of Christ's birth. The virgin birth of Jesus is important because it removes all cause for human boasting, he said.
___ "If Jesus had a human father and had lived the life he did and died on a cross, men would have taken credit for Jesus," he said. Instead, the incarnation of God in Christ teaches that God himself provided the perfect sacrifice. "God takes the initiative. God has become his own sacrifice. … God has come low and bent near us."
___ In addition to teaching that Jesus is "God with us," the Gospels also teach what kind of messiah he was, Wade said, noting he was both the royal Son of God and the suffering servant who would "win the world through death and denial."
___ By studying the Scriptures, Christians also come to know Jesus as the one who was perfectly obedient to God, he added: Satan's temptations of Jesus in the wilderness centered on offering another way other than God's perfect will.
___ "The temptation before us it to do God's will God's way or to listen to another voice," Wade said. Too often, believers pray asking God to affirm their will rather than submitting to God's will, he warned.
___ "Jesus found the will of God in Scripture and in prayer," Wade reported. However, he also interpreted the Scriptures afresh.
___ "Jesus exercised authority over Scripture, stripping off the legalisms that had accumulated," Wade said.
___ Knowing Jesus also means knowing the two great passions of his life-- love for God and love for people, Wade said. Both the vertical and horizontal dimensions of life-relating upward to God and outward to other people--characterized the life of Christ, and it should also be evident in the lives of his followers.
___ "We are called to live life in the shape of a cross," he said.
___ From the human perspective, Jesus died because he challenged religious authority, he upset the balance between judgment and forgiveness, he identified himself with God and accepted worship, and he had become disruptive to the public order, Wade said.
___ But from reading the New Testament, Christians understand that Jesus died to be "a sinless sacrifice, a faithful forgiver, a courageous champion, a valiant victor, a suffering Savior and a reconciling redeemer."
___ The resurrection of Jesus is the central event of the Christian faith and the power that gave birth to the church, Wade said.
___ "He not only emptied the tomb. He also empties out from our hearts the fear of death, the power of sin and the authority of the evil one. We are made free in his resurrection."
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