Why did Jesus die?
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Good morning, brothers and sisters. Victor Chong is my name. The message today is entitled “Why did Jesus die?”
As most of you are aware, we are going through a series on the Gospel over 8 weeks or so, to mirror the Alpha course that is held every Wednesday night. We have gone through 2 messages so far; the first message was entitled, “Is there more to life than this?”, the second, “Who is Jesus?”. And now we have come to the third message, “Why did Jesus die?”
In our first message by Glenn, we have gone through the fact that there is more to life than the things of this world; there is a special place in our heart that only God can fill. In our second sermon by Stewart, we looked at who is Jesus.
And this week, we shall look at “why did Jesus die?” Let us start the sermon today with a word of prayer.
Prayer
Prayer
Because they killed him.
Because they killed him.
Why did Jesus die? Well, Jesus died because they killed him - the Sanhedrin; that is, the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Why did they kill him? Because Jesus, being a man, claimed to be God. We read this in John 10:30
Jesus answered them, “ … I and the Father are one.”
Now the Jews would understand that this is a claim to be God, as this comes from Deuteronomy 6:4, the confession of their faith, which they recite twice a day
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
And Jesus substituted the phrase “the LORD is one” with “I and the Father are one.” No wonder the Jews reacted as they did in John 10:31-33
The Jews picked up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?” The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.”
But there is more to that.
You see, if I stand up here on the pulpit and claim to be God, you would not kill me. You would think that I am mad; deluded, crazy, or whatever. You might ignore me, you might walk out of here, but you probably wouldn’t kill me.
Jesus did not only claim to be God, he speaks like God; he speaks like as though he himself is God. The apostle John recorded Jesus calls himself, “I am” 7 times in his Gospel:
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.
This echos Exodus 3:13-14
Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”
When Moses asked God what is his name, and God answered him, “I am who I am”. It is clear that Jesus claims to be God himself.
Now even if Jesus speaks like God, they probably wouldn’t have killed him; they might think he is raving mad, but not sufficiently threatening to them to have him killed.
The problem then, is not just Jesus claims to be God, and speaks like God. He acts like God. And he backs up his claims with miracles that only God could perform. And not only are these miracles that only God could perform, but also miracles that the prophets say God himself will perform when he comes again to rescue his people.
You see, the Old Testament prophets, especially Isaiah, prophesied that God will come again the second time, to rescue his people in a Second Exodus, a New Exodus, just like he did in the First Exodus in the time of Moses. And when God comes again, he will perform great miracles, just like he did in the first Exodus, when he redeem his people from Egypt. Jesus comes claiming to be this God, who is now coming the second time to rescue his people by fulfilling the prophecies, and performing the miracles spoken by these prophets in their prophecies.
When Jesus came, he calls 12 to be his disciples (Matthew 10:1), drawing analogy to the 12 tribes of Israel that God led through the desert by a pillar of cloud and fire (Exodus 13:21 and 40:36; Isaiah 40:11); he performs miracles that mimics those God performed in the Exodus. He fed the 4000 (Mark 8:8-9) and the 5000 (Matthew 14:20-21), analogous to the provision of manna for 40 years in the desert (Exodus 16:4; Isaiah 40:11); he demonstrates that he has power over nature by walking on water (Matthew 14:25) and calming the storm (Mark 4:39); the same power that God demonstrated when he parted the Red Sea (Exodus 14:21-22; Isaiah 11:15) and the River Jordan (Joshua 3:14-17). He heals the sick, just like God healed the Israelites bitten by snake (Numbers 21:8-9; Isaiah 42:6-7). He even raised 3 persons from death, the daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:41-42), the widow’s son (Luke 7:14-15) and Lazarus (John 11:43-44; Isaiah 26:19). The first thing he did after entering Jerusalem triumphantly is to cleanse the temple (Matthew 21:12-13), fulfilling Malachi 3:1. The list could go on.
So Jesus gets himself into trouble by claiming to be God, speaking like God, and by performing the miracles to back up his claim and his words that he is God. And many of the miracles he performed are those prophesied by the prophets hundreds of years before, like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah and Malachi; the miracles that God himself will perform when he comes again to save his people in the New Exodus, just like the same mighty acts of miracle that God himself performed in the very first Exodus.
Some among the Jews accepted him as their Saviour, and welcomed him into Jerusalem, as we read earlier. But others, especially among the rulers, feared Roman’s reprisals and planned to kill him, as John recorded in John 11:48
If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”
That is why they killed him, John 11:53
So from that day on they made plans to put him to death.
What is our reaction to Jesus’ claim? Do we accept him as who he claims to be - God and Saviour?
Is Jesus merely a great moral teacher? A prophet, but human nonetheless. Well, Jesus didn’t really leave that option to us. Here we have a man who claims to be God - you can’t be sane to claim to be God, to speak like God and to act like God, unless he is truly God himself. So, he is either deluded and mad, or he is God himself.
John 10:38 and John 14:11
but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”
Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.
But not only does Jesus claim to be God; he backs up his claims with miracles that the prophets of old said God himself would do when he comes again. So it clear to me that Jesus is indeed God himself.
Jesus died for our sins - 1 Peter 3:18
Jesus died for our sins - 1 Peter 3:18
If Jesus is truly who he claims to be - the Almighty, all powerful Creator God, surely, we human would not have been able to put him to death! Well, unless he intends to die. Why would he do so?
Jesus did intend to die; he intends to lay down his life, John 10:18
No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”
Why then would he lay down his life?
Well, he comes to die for our sins, 1 Corinthians 15:3
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,
Now, all of us have done something wrong; when we do something wrong, not only do we wrong against someone, we have also wronged God, Romans 3:23
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
And Romans 3:10-12
as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
All of us have sinned.
There is a price to pay for our sins.
Christ paid that price for us - he died for our sins.
Christ died for our sins to reconcile us to God, 1 Peter 3:18
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,
Because he died to purchase God’s forgiveness, he asks us to forgive one another. In the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18:21-35, Jesus told the story of a servant who owed his master 10 000 talents, which is equivalent to 60 million denarii; an enormous sum, something like the wages of 5500 men for 30 years; something like 3 billion dollar today. The master forgave him, but the servant then had his fellow worker who owed him 100 denarii thrown into jail. So the master summoned the unforgiving, wicked servant and said this to him, Matthew 18:32-35
Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
How easy is it to forgive?
How easy is it to forgive?
I was talking to my father a few days ago; and like many men his age, he likes to reminisce. He told me about his father, my paternal grandfather, whom I don’t know. My grandfather was a market garden farmer, living in a house made of tree bark with dirt floor at the edge of the jungle in Malaysia, what is today the National Park, a dense tropical jungle of 130 million years old - that’s one of the oldest on earth. He was married with 4 children, and his wife, my grandmother was pregnant when the Japanese came in the Second World War. And on one Chinese New Year eve, they executed him on false charges. My dad’s eyes were wet when he recounted this for the thousandth time. How easy is it to ask him to forgive them? They killed his father when he was a young lad of 4-5 years old and widowed his young pregnant mother with 4 toddlers in tows and plunged the whole family into deep poverty for decades, at a time of the worst man-made disaster ever on earth, in a place with no support whatsoever. How easy is it to ask him to forgive them?
And yet that is what God asks us to do.
The anatomy of forgiveness
The anatomy of forgiveness
My son drives, or drove, a Toyota 86. His car was stolen one day when he went on call in the hospital. It upset him, and it upset the entire family. It is easy and common when we are wronged, we wish the worst to happen to the perpetrator who wrongs us. This is but natural; and it is because we want justice. Forgiveness is, firstly, to trust that God is the perfect judge, and we can entrust this judgment to him. We can trust that God will make the perfect judgment for all of us. And we are not to assume the role of the Judge.
And what judgment would God make?
The Apostle Paul had a rich friend called Philemon, who owned slaves. One of his slaves, Onesimus ran away to Paul. When Paul asked Onesimus to return to his master Philemon, he gave Onesimus a letter, what we know today as the Epistle to Philemon. In the letter, Paul asks Philemon to forgive Onesimus; and this is how the Apostle Paul put it if Philemon believed he was wronged in Philemon 18-19
If he has wronged you at all, or owes you anything, charge that to my account. I, Paul, write this with my own hand: I will repay it—to say nothing of your owing me even your own self.
And when we entrust God as judge for the wrong that someone else has done to us; God would say this very same thing, imagine Jesus writing this letter to you and me; Philemon 18-19
If _ has wronged you at all, or owes you anything, charge that to my account. I, Jesus, write this with my own hand: I will repay it—to say nothing of your owing me even your own self.
God is asking us to charge to him whatever lost we might consider we have suffered when someone wrongs us, and he will pay it in full and more - and indeed, he has already paid us in full by forgiving us our sins and in addition to that, giving us eternal life. Therefore, we can forgive, because God has forgiven us all our sins, and in spite of our sins, he has even given us eternal life. In fact, because we have been forgiven, we must forgive.
Jesus died for us because he loves us - John 3:16
Jesus died for us because he loves us - John 3:16
Why would Jesus die for us? Actually, if Jesus is God himself, why would God, the Almighty God, Creator of all Universe, die for us?
Indeed, as the Psalmist asks in Psalm 8:4
what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?
The author of Hebrews asks this same question in Hebrews 2:6
It has been testified somewhere, “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him?
The reason is, because he loves us; in Romans 5:8
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Why does God love us? Because we are his children - he created us. The author of Hebrews goes on to answer this in Hebrews 2:13
And again, “I will put my trust in him.” And again, “Behold, I and the children God has given me.”
John reiterated this in 1 John 3:1
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
This is the picture of my grandson; and I think he is the best looking kid ever. And this is my daughter Nicole, many of you would know her. Now, she would do anything for him; and many, if not all, the parents here would know this in their hearts. Deep down in their hearts, a parent would do anything good for his or her child. So, too, God would do anything good for us, his children, even to the extent of dying on the Cross for us.
That is why.
What is the application of this. Well, if we are all children of God, then we are brothers and sisters, spiritual siblings. As John puts it in 1 John 3:11
For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
and 1 John 3:16-18
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
The bond that holds Edge together is not only truth, but also love. The same love that God or Jesus has for us; the same love that drives Jesus to the Cross to die for us. The same love that compels God to send his son to die for us. Jesus himself commanded us in John 13:34
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
Can we love one another as God loves us? Can we love one another as a mother her child? With God’s help.
Summary
Summary
In summary, why did Jesus die? Well Jesus die because he was killed, he was killed because Jesus claims to be God; he speaks like God, he acts like God, and he backs up his claims with miracles that God promises to perform through the prophets hundreds of years before Jesus, and miracles that only God could perform.
Therefore, we are to make a decision - is Jesus raving mad, or is he truly who he claims to be, God himself.
Why did he allow himself to be killed? Because he died to pay for our sins.
And because he died to purchase God’s forgiveness for us, he demands us to forgive one another.
Why would he do that for us? Because he loves us.
And he asks us to love one another as he loves us.
Closing prayer
Closing prayer
Now, if you believe that Jesus is truly God, and that he died on the Cross to pay for our sins, you could say this prayer together with me this morning.
And if you would like to speak to someone this morning about what you have prayed, please stay back and speak to either the pastor, or one of the elders.
