Do You Know THIS Jesus?

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." (Matt. 28:18)

Please understand how radical this claim is. But it’s not just radical. It is CRAZY... unless it is true.

Ask people, "what do you think of Jesus?"

Most will say that they think he was an all around good guy who did some good stuff.  They are cool with Jesus.  But have they understood his claims? Most have not.

Don’t let them say that he is a good guy.  He is NOT a “good guy”.  Good guys don’t say things like "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me".  Roll that one around in your brain for a bit.

He is either Lord of all the universe, or he is straight nuts, or the biggest liar the world has ever seen (side note - you could add here that the NT is unreliable in what it records Jesus as saying, but I won't go into that.) . He has given us no room at all to call him a “good guy”.

At The Vine, we declare to Madison, WI that King Jesus is LORD over all of Madison and the rest of the breathing world.  And they look at us and say...

"How arrogant, how insensitive, how intolerant."

But the beef is not with us, it is with Jesus.  It is his claim, not ours. We don’t have the authority independent of him, but he has all the authority in himself and gives us the mandate to tell them about it.

Here is what we have to ask them:  Do you know this Jesus? Have you met this Jesus? I know you know me, but do you know this Jesus?  You know the Oprah Jesus, and you know the Jesus that is anesthetized as a good moral teacher, but do you know this Jesus?

As we move forward into all the world with this message, are we asking people to know this Jesus?