Camp Joy: Redemption

Introduction

How many of you have a hard time waiting for something? Whether it be a present, a new movie, or a fun event that you’ve been looking forward to, waiting can be really hard - even for us as adults. One of the reasons why waiting is so hard is because we want to know how things will end up being. Does anyone here like Roller Coasters? They’re pretty big and they can be a little scary, but if you are a roller coaster fan, try to think back to what you were thinking before you rode your first roller coaster. You’re excited but you’re also a little nervous probably because you want to experience the ride and you want to know what it feels like. Before you ride the roller coaster, you’re kind of on the edge of your seat waiting… and that’s not always fun.

Think of some of the stories in the Bible where we’re on the edge of our seat waiting to see how it all works out.

Abraham and Isaac go up to the mountain to offer a sacrifice and there’s no animal to offer. To a sane person, you’re wondering, “Ok God, how exactly will this scenario work out?!” Eventually, we know that God provides a ram.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego are tossed into the fiery furnace in Daniel 3 and we are left to wonder momentarily what will happen with them. We know that there was a 4th person with them in the furnace who protected them from the flames.

Hezekiah (one of the few good kings after David) was king and Jerusalem was surrounded by the Assyrian army and times were hopeless - it appeared as though they were about to be destroyed. Then Hezekiah prays and the next thing you know the Angel of the Lord delivered the people from 100,000 enemy soldiers.

Thinking of Easter time, we celebrate the greatest cliffhanger of all as Jesus Christ was killed and we are left to wonder what has happened? The disciples thought He was gone and they spent a few days afraid for their very lives… Yet, we see that Jesus arose from the grave.

We like it whenever we don’t have to wait too long for the answer to the problem and for the story to play itself out for us. Last night we studied out of Genesis 3 as Adam and Eve choose to sin and disobey God’s command. We examined how severe their disobedience was for all of humanity as we are all separated from God as a result of their sin - do you remember what sin is? Things seemed hopeless as they were kicked out of the Garden and that sin and death had now entered the playing field. Last week wasn’t bad news and we desperately want to hear good news today. We want to hear how the bad news is dealt with and we got a breadcrumb of the answer last time in Genesis 3:15 as God made a promise that an offspring would come to crush the head of the serpent. Today, we are going to look at how God deals with our sin once and for all. We are going to look at what God did and what He continues to do for His children: He saves us!

Galatians 3:13–14 CSB

13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. 14 The purpose was that the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles by Christ Jesus, so that we could receive the promised Spirit through faith.

Galatians 3:27–29 CSB

27 For those of you who were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ. 28 There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise.

Galatians 4:4–7 CSB

4 When the time came to completion, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then God has made you an heir.

God’s Promise: Send His Son

As we’ve been studying the main acts or scenes in Scripture, we now get to a pretty big chunk of Scripture here as a whole lot of things happen from Genesis 3 to Matthew 1. In these pages, we find a lot of characters come and go, if you will. We see heroes, leaders, warriors, judges, prophets, villains, priests, and kings arrive on the scene and time and time again we see these people drop the ball. We see people amass a large following and have a great track record only to fall dramatically on their face and let those around them down.

How many of you have had someone make a promise to you but they ended up breaking that promise? How does that make you feel? Not good - and it makes us doubt people who make promises to us in the future.

In college, Lindsey and I had one such friend who was the nicest guy you’d ever meet, but you couldn’t count on him! From missing intramural basketball games, Bible studies, and even my own wedding, George missed a lot of things and dropped the ball from time to time. Whenever someone breaks a promise to us, that makes us sad and sometimes even mad… but haven’t we all broken a promise or two before? It’s ok to be honest tonight! See, as we read in the Bible we see that we’re not that much different from the people that we read about. Take the Abraham’s, David’s, Peter’s, Paul’s, Elizabeth’s, and Mary’s and we see that they were used by God in awesome ways but they all had some flaws. The Bible reminds us that every single one of us have sinned and sin makes us deserving of a punishment. What do you think the punishment for sin is?

Separation from God

Does that sound fun or fair?

Yet, even though we are sinners and deserve punishment, God’s promise in Genesis 3:15 stands out. God promises that help is coming. What do we see unfold throughout the Old Testament? We see God use fallen people to accomplish His plan. We see God use broken vessels to bring about divine restoration and justice. We see God hit straight shots with crooked sticks. We see God bring about deliverance and all of these wonderful stories, but the overarching question remains: Will God make good on His promise?

The patriarchs come and go. The judges come and go. The kings come and go. The prophets come and go. The people go into captivity in Babylon and they cry out and ask God if He has forgotten His promise… Have you ever been in this boat? You feel like you’re at your wits end and at the end of your rope you cry out to God and have one of those moments: Are you really there? Do you really care? How much longer, Lord? This is the Israelites throughout the Old Testament, but specifically at the end of the Old Testament. They’re ready for deliverance. They’re ready for their king. They’re ready for salvation. They’re ready for hope! They’re ready for evil to be done away with… This sounds an awful lot like our world today!

As the Old Testament comes to a close, we see that God makes good on His promise and He sends Jesus Christ to do something that we could never do! Live a perfect life and take our punishment on Himself. This is the promise that God made all the way back at the beginning of the Bible in Genesis. This was God’s perfect plan! That probably wouldn’t have been our plan - but Isaiah 55:8-9 as we looked at on Tuesday morning reminds us that God’s plan is better than ours and God always accomplishes His plan and fulfills His promises.

How does it make you feel that God always comes through on His promises?

This gives us hope!

God comes through on His promise, and in Galatians 3-4 we see that Jesus comes to save us from our sins

Jesus’ Work: Save His People

Now we get to Galatians 3-4 as Paul shares with us what Jesus exactly does - He makes us heirs of the promise. Jesus’ coming isn’t an accident. All of Scripture is pointing us to Jesus in some way or another. This was God’s plan from the foundation of the earth as Revelation 13:8 tells us. But whenever Jesus came, people were a little bit confused. Why do you think people were confused whenever Jesus came? What were people expecting?

The Bible tells us the purpose of Jesus’ coming before His birth in Matthew 1

Matthew 1:21 CSB

21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

The Jews were expecting the Messiah to be a king like David. They were expecting a deliverer like Moses. They were expecting a giant in the faith like Abraham. They were looking for the right things but in the wrong places! Have you ever done this?

Let’s look at why Jesus came when He did and what Jesus accomplishes for His people.

Why did Jesus come when He did?

Galatians 4:4 tells us that the time came to completion - that it was the right time. How was it suddenly the right time for God to send His Son?

Right time Theologically (Old Testament prophesies had been fulfilled

There are a lot of things in the Old Testament that talk about Jesus and what He will one day do. It is estimated that there are over 300 prophesies given in the Old Testament concerning the coming Messiah. God’s promises with Old Testament leaders had been pointing to their fulfillment with Jesus Christ! Whenever it was the right time according to these prophesies, Jesus came.

Right time Religiously (the law was being twisted by Jewish religious leaders to the point that people longed for freedom, additionally the Gentiles were searching for a God that was real and satisfied their longing)

In the years leading up to Jesus’ birth, many of the Jewish leaders were taking power into their own hands and turning the law into legalism. As a result, you have Jews getting burnt out of following the powers that be because of the corruption taking place. Further, you have millions of Gentiles who follow Greek and Roman gods/goddesses who are looking for a genuine God who provides, cares, and loves His people unconditionally.

Right time Politically (Rome had conquered much of known world - see Acts as this helps - and Greek language was unifying among various people

During Jesus’ time, the Romans had conquered much of the known world and things were relatively peaceful across the empire - Pax Romana. Several centuries before this, Alexander the Great had conquered even more territory and had spread the Greek language across his empire. Whenever Jesus arrives, you have a peaceful Mediterranean world that largely understands the same language - meaning that the message of the Gospel could easily spread from place to place. This is what we see in the early church in the book of Acts.

What did Jesus accomplish?

Our Justification - He atones for our sin as the once for all sacrifice (Heb 10:14). Born of a woman under the law to redeem those under the law. As we talked about last week in Romans 5, had Jesus been born of Mary and Joseph, He would have inherited Adam’s sinful nature. He had to be born through supernatural means in order to be fully God and fully man and deal with our sins in full. Because of His work on the cross, we have this legal transaction take place. We sinned against God and deserved to be punished accordingly - Jesus didn’t sin and didn’t deserve to be punished. Jesus bore our sin and was punished in our place so that God would treat us as if we had been perfectly righteous like Jesus was. We are justified through the work of Jesus and declared innocent in the court room.

Our Purification - He sanctifies us. During Old Testament sacrifices, a person would bring forth an animal for the priest to sacrifice because of their sin. The blood for this animal would cover their sin for a year and then they’d have to repeat the process every single year! Not only does Jesus not sacrifice an animal on our behalf, He sacrifices Himself and serves as our great high priest

Not only does Jesus change our legal status, Jesus changes our heart. He accomplishes life transformation for His followers from the inside out!

Only Jesus can do this! Imagine if every time you sinned, a tally was kept on God’s scroll. Over the span of your life, you and I would accumulate a whole bunch of tally marks! The only way we can get into heaven is by having a scroll with no tally marks… Do you see the problem here? We start picking up those tally marks awfully young and they don’t go anywhere, they keep on growing! What does this mean?

Sin was eternally serious because Jesus became a curse for us! Not only did He become a man and suffer, He became a curse on the cross and bore the wrath of God against sin in our place!

2 Corinthians 5:21 CSB

21 He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Guys, this is the Gospel! Jesus saves sinners. He mends the broken. He restores the rebels. He loves the lonely. He credits our account with His own righteousness. What Jesus does to the person who repents of their sins is He takes our sin and He gives us His righteousness - which means His perfect standing before God. This is really cool news - if you’re a Christian, it means that whenever God looks at you, He doesn’t see our mistakes and sins… He see’s the perfect life of Jesus because Jesus took our sin and gave us His perfect standing! He gives us hope and this hope is the best news of all!

John 1:12 CSB

12 But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name,

So tonight I want you to ask yourself this question, have I believed in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? Jesus saves sinners and the Bible tells us that we’ve all sinned and made mistakes. But even if you’ve made 10,000 mistakes, Jesus loves you so much that He can forgive you of all those mistakes and He will help you and He will change you - but you have to ask Him to forgive you and you have to follow Him.

Eternal Outcome: Sinners Are Adopted

Because Jesus died for us on the cross, we are forgiven from the punishment of our sins… but Galatians 4 also tells us that we are redeemed (saved) and adopted into God’s family as His son’s and daughters! This means that that if you’re a Christian, you have a new family - God’s family!

How many of you know someone who is adopted? If you don’t know anyone who was and you know me, you can raise your hand because I was adopted whenever I was just a few months old. To be adopted means that you used to maybe not have a family or you were waiting for a family, but after your adoption, you have a new family that loves you just like you were their own child because legally, you are! I was adopted by my parents and they’re not my “adopted parents” or kind of my parents - they’re my real parents just like I’m their real son.

This is what God does for us. The Bible tells us that used to, we were children of darkness and we didn’t have a spiritual family. But once you are saved by Jesus, you are adopted into God’s family and you become a part of His kingdom of light. This also means that you have brothers and sisters in Christ too who are here to help you out and encourage you.

Some of you kids have been baptized recently at FBC Salem - if you have been baptized in the last year or two, please stand up. What Galatians 4 is telling us is that God has saved you into His family and that means that each person who is standing up has been saved by Jesus and are in the same family now as brothers and sisters. This is what God does for us now - He gives us a family and this is why coming to church matters so much because the people at your church are like your family because you’re adopted by God. In fact, I’m going to be honest with you, I’m closer with a lot of people at my church than I am with some of my family members and this is God’s design. Whenever we are saved, we have a new family and we also have a new Father and that Father is none other than God! Jesus gives us access to God and we can come to God whenever we want to because of Jesus and God doesn’t break His promises!

Romans 8:31 CSB

31 What, then, are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us?

Lots of people think that they’re good enough as they are because they try hard or do nice things or come to church… but how are you and I saved from our sins? Only through Jesus! You and I can try really hard and be nice and kind, but that doesn’t mean that we’re good enough on our own… We’ll never be good enough to earn our own way. We all need Jesus to save us from our sins and this is what He alone is able to do! This is why Jesus came - to save us from our sins and to bring us into God’s forever family!

If you know someone who has been adopted, you know that it’s a hard process. There are certain things that the adoption process requires. Adoption requires someone to come at the right time and someone who possesses the right resolve. The adoption timeline varies from couple to couple, but for some it takes years and years. It comes with emotional heartache from previous times where things didn’t work out. One pastor and his wife adopted a son from another country and he shared this conversation they had:

Dad said, “Son, I love you”

Son - “Why?”

Dad - “Because you’re my son”

Son - “Why”

Dad - “Because we wanted you, buddy. And we came to get you. That’s why you’re my son”

The adoption process can be hard and time consuming, but the end result is the forming of a family. This is what God does with us. We’re separated from God and we’re walking in darkness - yet, He came to us. He took the initiative and sent forth His Son at the right time in order to redeem us from the law! God doesn’t accidentally adopt His children - He does so with a purpose in mind.

Why does God save us?

To bring us into His family

To build His Church

To give us an eternal inheritance

Today you might be dead in your sins and trespasses, but through Jesus Christ, tonight you can be made alive. Jesus doesn’t leave us where we’re at - we read that as adopted sons, we receive an inheritance. What gift does Jesus give to Christians? Jesus promised His followers in Acts 1 that they’d receive power when the Holy Spirit came. Friends, Jesus doesn’t leave us to walk in this world on our own. Weeks like this are awesome whenever we get to hang out with our friends and read our Bibles and play fun games and eat awesome food and sing cool songs - I loved going to camp as a kid and I love camp as an adult! But there’s a temptation to leave the Jesus stuff here at camp… and that’s the last thing Jesus wants us to do. Jesus wants us to see our need for Him and He wants to save us and He wants to change our lives for the rest of our lives! I know that tonight we have some fun stuff planned, but as we get ready to pray, if you would like to talk more about Jesus and what it means to be adopted into His family and have Jesus save you from your sins, I’d love to talk with you and I know that your cabin counselor would love to do that as well. Let’s pray!