April 18, 2024, Rescue - Accomplished
Notes
Transcript
Welcome
Everyone in Person and those Online
Intro
Last Sunday - We reviewed together all the Excitement over Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem.
Some welcomed the King
Some wanted Him dead
However, before the week would end,
those who wanted Jesus dead,
were able to convince the majority to crucify Him.
Today Christians all around the world will stop and remember
the day that Jesus was crucified.
Christianity has labeled this day; Good Friday.
However, as we read the scriptures
they make us aware of the great suffering Jesus endured on that day,
and we struggle with calling this day Good.
But as difficult as it may be to call this day Good,
we only have to imagine if this day would have never happened,
or if by Jesus dying that day, He somehow fell short of what He set out to accomplish.
If this were true, we would certainly have the right to call this day Bad Friday.
Nevertheless, this day did happen,
Jesus did accomplish what He was sent to Earth to do. (John 17:4)
God became a man, (He became flesh and was with us)
He suffered and died at the hands of mankind
so He could Rescue mankind.
As Jesus hung on the cross and just seconds before He “gives up His Spirit” into God’s care,
He assures us that He had accomplished everything necessary to Rescue believing mankind.
30 So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.
Pray
Jesus Accomplished our Rescue by - Taking away our sin
29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
John, excited as Jesus approached yells out; “Behold! The Lamb of God…
John recognizes Jesus as God’s Lamb,
not a human offering, but God’s offering
the perfect Lamb required by God Himself
God had been teaching the Jews to slay their lambs,
lambs without spot or wrinkle
and sprinkle their blood as a sacrifice.
the lamb was killed as a substitute and its blood shed so sin could be forgiven.
Jesus accomplished our Rescue by
taking away our sins
by the shedding of His blood.
Remember the 1800’s hymn?
What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Jesus Accomplished our Rescue by - Removing God’s Wrath
By dying in our place for our sin,
Jesus removed the wrath of God that we rightly deserved.
Why God is wrathful or angry?
First let start by saying that God’s wrath
is not to be compared with one of His attributes like Love or Holiness
God’s wrath is a reaction to evil or sin.
Sin generally can be defined as;
any thought, word or action that falls short of God’s perfect will
And God being holy and righteous is justified in being angry at sin.
God’s wrath is not a popular topic today in our misinformed culture
This is why any attempt to correct sin is met by opposition
It is considered to be an unloving act when a person attempts to tell another about how God views sin.
However, revealing to someone how sin angers God is the most loving thing we could do.
Yet with the understanding, all of us are in the same boat.
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Jesus’ death on the cross is the means in which God can righteously remove His wrath,
without being unrighteous.
An unrighteous way would be for God to say that He loves us
and just let us off the hook, without His wrath being satisfied
God’s wrath was poured out on Jesus as He hung on the cross
God’s anger over our sin did not just go away,
it was removed from us
and placed on Jesus.
9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.
Jesus Accomplished our Rescue by - Reconciling Us Back to God
Can you imagine being an enemy of God?
The all-powerful, all-mighty, creator of the Universe?
Humanly speaking
think of someone who you would not want to be enemies with and times it by 1,000 %
Yet that is what we do when we fall for the schemes of the Devil
Listen to what Jesus says about those who do this;
44 You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.
We become an enemy of God when we side with the Devil
and disobey, just as he did.
But the good news is that now that the wrath of God is not longer on us,
we can now be reconciled back to God through Christ’s death on the cross.
10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
People who were once alienated from God, (His enemy)
can now be reconciled
In accounting, the term means that both side agree
Jesus Accomplished our Rescue by - Paying Our Ransom
Our sin has entered us into a debt we cannot pay off.
Most of us, but not all of us have credit cards these days.
And it is amazing how quickly we can rack up debit
But what makes our sin debt different than our credit card debt
Is that we can possibly find a way to pay off credit card debt
Whereas we have no way to pay off our sin debt on our own.
We become indebted to sin, or to say it a different way,
we are slaves to it.
The price that is paid to deliver someone out of slavery is called a “ransom.”
This is what Jesus accomplished when He suffered and died on the cross.
He ransomed us, He paid the debt for sin that we were unable to pay
18 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers,
19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
No amount of silver or gold
No amount of good deeds
But only with the precious blood of Christ could payment be made for our sins.
…”without shedding of blood there is no remission.
no forgiveness of sin.
Even the shedding of our own blood cannot erase the debt.
We are spotted, we are not without blemish
Sinners are unable to redeem themselves
Redemption not only frees us from the penalty of sin
but it also free from the power of sin!
The slavery to sin is broken
we are now free to live righteously.
Illustration: Jail Ministry
Over the years I have been blessed to be part of Jail and Prison ministry
And many of these visits would mean seeing men again and again.
But sometimes we would visit and find that a few of the men had been released,
then return the following year to see them in Jail or Prison once again.
The problem was that they were unable to truly free themselves from the crime that placed them there in the first place.
Thus it continues to keep them in prison.
But not so with Christ’s Redemption
The power of sin has truly broken
and we are free to live a righteous life
We now have the power, through the Holy Spirit
not to sin.
Jesus Accomplished our Rescue by - Defeating the Powers of Darkness
Jesus defeated our true enemy
An enemy that goes unseen,
without having spiritual eyes.
12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
And The Powers of Darkness are led by Satan
Jesus’ death on the cross defeated Satan and his power over all those who would trust in His name.
Which was once hidden is now exposed and brought to shame.
15 Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.
Jesus has disarmed Satan and his army
The Cross has taken away Satan’s power to harm the believer
Does this mean I can no longer sin?
No, this means that the only damage Satan can inflict on the believers life
is when an person continues in unforgiven sin.
The irony of this is that,
Jesus went to the cross and defeated Satan and his entire army
stripping him of all harm he could bring to a believer,
Yet the believer continues to harm himself by living a life of unrepentance.
Jesus Accomplished our Rescue by - Dying in our Place
This is the idea that we began with today
The reality that Jesus willing suffered and died in our place.
It can be difficult to call this day Good.
But with all of Jesus’ Accomplishments on the cross done on our behalf
May I suggest that we no longer call this day Good Friday?
But rather we call it “Really Good Friday!”
We should remember that God did not wait for us to get all cleaned up on our own.
If that were the case, Jesus would still be in Heaven.
But it was His love for us that sent Jesus to Rescue us from our sin!
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
There we sat…
Unable to Take Away Our Sin
Unable to Remove God’s Wrath
Unable to Reconcile Ourselves Back to God
Unable to Pay our Ransom
Unable to Defeat the Powers of Darkness
But Yet, Christ Died for Us!
He died in our place
It was us who deserved to die
not Jesus.
So What should Our Response Be to All This?
20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
We have been crucified with Christ
The day that we believed on Christ
our old man died along with Christ
It is no longer we who live, but Christ in us
We crucify the passions and lusts of the old man,
that the body of sin may be done away with
and the new man in Christ may now live
And the life which we now live, we live by faith in the Son of God
That we should no longer be slaves to sin
but slaves to Christ!
Jesus’s Rescue - Accomplished Everything We Need to Live
In this World
and the World to Come
Pray
Stand if you are able, as we worship together
