Main Idea: “Thank You, Lord, for making Yourself known to me.”
We didn’t know who You were.
Prophets prophesied…
- “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah…out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel… (Micah 5:2). And in Bethlehem He was born…
- “In that day the deaf will hear the words of the scroll, and out of gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see” (Isaiah 29:18). And He healed the deaf and opened the eyes of the blind.
- But “They didn’t know who He was.”
Jesus appealed directly to the people:
- “If you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me” (John 5:26)
- “I am the bread of life,” (John 6:35). And many walked away.
- “Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father” (John 10:36-38).
- “I am the way and the truth and the life… Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. … Believe me when I say that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves” (John 14:5-11)
They didn’t know who He was. And then… it got worse…
- “For not even His brothers were believing in Him” (John 7:5)
- “His family came to take him away for they said “He is out of His mind” (Mark 3:21).
- They didn’t know who He was.
Even after the Resurrection:
- Paul the apostle recalls of himself, “Even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor … I was shown mercy, because I acted ignorantly in unbelief” (1 Timothy 1:13-15). In other words, Paul would say, “I didn’t know who He was.”
- But after his conversion, Paul traveled to Athens and the Scriptures tell us he was distressed to see the city was full of idols. “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you” (Acts 17:22-23).
- In other words, they didn’t know who He was.
And what about us… what about me… Like so many others I didn’t know who He was.
- But the old song also tells us why we didn’t know who He was: “Our eyes were blind, we could not see.”
- “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4).
- So, we must be merciful and prayerful. Because it was only God’s mercy and perhaps someone’s prayer that led to the opening of our eyes.
Angels are messengers from God. They deliver the message as dictated. So, when the angel announced that Jesus’ birth was “good news of great joy that will be for ALL people,” he was sharing God’s perspective of the birth of His Son. Yet 33 years later the Good News and Great Joy was crucified by the very people He came to bless. Still today, instead of being received as God intended, the name Jesus is “controversial.” This is directly attributable to the schemes of Satan, who is a deceiver and a master of confusion and disinformation.
But, even though the old song ends with a mournful, “We didn’t know who you were.” That’s not where God’s plan ended…
Grace conquered the darkness!
- “For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).
- God revealed the One we could not know. We know Him even as we are getting to know Him better. It’s like different arrangements of a familiar song. Not monotonous but fresh and full of life. The same theme but with infinite variety.
- Salvation is just the “introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand” (Romans 5:2). What we have to look forward to is an ever-deepening knowledge of Him that brings with it the unsearchable riches of His power, love and wisdom.
We didn’t know who You were, but we thank You, Lord, for making Yourself known to us.
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