The Love of God in the death of Christ Jesus

The Love of God in the death of Christ Jesus Isaiah 64:1–12 (NIV) 1 Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! 2 As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you! 3 For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. 4 Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. 5 You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry. How then can we be saved? 6 All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind, our sins sweep us away. 7 No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and have given us over to our sins. 8 Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay; you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. 9 Do not be angry beyond measure, Lord; do not remember our sins forever. Oh, look on us, we pray, for we are all your people. 10 Your sacred cities have become a wasteland; even Zion is a wasteland, Jerusalem a desolation. 11 Our holy and glorious temple, where our ancestors praised you, has been burned with fire, and all that we treasured lies in ruins. 12 After all this, Lord, will you hold yourself back? Will you keep silent and punish us beyond measure? John 1:29–36 (NIV) 29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ 31 I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptising with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.” 32 Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33 And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 I have seen, and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.” 35 The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. 36 When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!” John 12:23–28 (NIV) 23 Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25 Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honour the one who serves me. 27 “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” 1 Corinthians 5:1–8 (NIV) 1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. 2 And you are proud! Shouldn’t you instead have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this? 3 For my part, even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this. 4 So when you are assembled, and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, 5 hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord. 6 Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Two things happened this week that received extensive news coverage: The Israel Folau sacking and the burning down of the nearly 850-year-old Norte Dame cathedral in Paris. These two incidents received a lot more publicity than the fact that we are preparing to celebrate Easter. The responses to both events caused me to realise how extremely divided world we live in, is. Bill Shorten said that Australia should contribute to pay for the restoration of Notre Dame and Scott Morrison said that the French could pay for it themselves. On Tuesday French businesses like L’Oréal, Moët, Duval, Ubisosoft and Meyers have already pledged more than 600 million euros to rebuild the cathedral. [I checked this morning more than one Billion dollars are already pledged!] It looks as if an 850-year-old building that took more than 150 years to build and a mere 12 hours to burn down will approximately take five years to be rebuilt. Why? Because man thinks it is a worthy cause. But it was Israel Folau’s understanding of salvation and salvation history, as well as the response that it provoked, that got to me. He gave a broad [maybe even very flawed] summary of Galatians 6: 18-21 [Earlier I said that Israel’ interpretation of Galatians 6 is flawed because it was not correctly quoted. Here is why I’m saying it – this passage has no explicit reference to homosexuals. The Greek word porneia refers acts where people engage in sexual immorality of any kind, often with the implication of prostitution— ‘to engage in forbidden sex, to commit fornication, sexual immorality, fornication, prostitution.’ However, Jude 7 argues his case. I’m saying it is flawed because it was given without explaining Paul’s actual message – that those who have accepted Jesus as their Saviour, crucify their sinful nature daily by focusing of the fruit of the Spirit rather than the fruit of the flesh. This aligns with what Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 4:3–6 (NIV84) “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; 4 that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, 5 not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; 6 and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you.”] In further tweets he also said that Catholics are idolaters, that those who believe in infant baptism are idolaters, that those who celebrate Christmas and Easter are participating in idolatry too. Consequently, some people interpreted his intentions to be narrow-minded, intolerant bigotry, as if he was saying: I know Christ and follow Him; so, I will go to heaven. Your sinful lifestyles show that you don’t know Jesus as the Christ, so you go to hell. Polynesian rugby players like Billy Vunapola, Samu Kerevi, Allan Alaalatoa supported Issy, while the Waratahs and Rugby AU called his behaviour ‘idiotic’ and began a process to cancel his contract under pressure from Alan Joyce, the CEO of QANTAS, their main sponsor argument that Issy’s Instagram post is homophobic. Since then the media argue that Israel said that homosexuals will go to hell, which of cause he did say – but conveniently they don’t acknowledge that Issy listed 8 groups of sinners and that hell awaits all of these sinners [drunks, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists, idolaters, and yes also homosexuals.] And they also conveniently ignore that he wrote in the caption: "Those that are living in Sin will end up in Hell unless you repent. Jesus Christ loves you and is giving you time to turn away from your sin and come to Him." Saving an 850-year-old gothic building inspired a few wealthy people to pledge hundreds of millions of euros. Being concerned about the salvation of sinners created an uproar and caused someone to lose his job. It is indeed a strange, strange world that we live in master Jack – a world of politically dividedness [labour vs liberal vs green – and don’t we see it every day during this election campaign]. Yes, we are socially divided [because of differences in language, colour, race, gender, country of birth, etc.]. We are economically divided [because of income distribution and economic inequalities]. We are religiously divided [secular vs religious, Christians vs Muslims, etc.]. You might wonder what all of this has to do with us being in church on a Friday morning in April. I would suggest to you everything. [Just read 1 Corinthians 5:1-8 again.] You see, as a rule, most people, even Christians, are content with this divide as long as there is a truce. We are also satisfied with people saying what they want, as long as they are not upturning our apple cart with what they say. Mostly, we see ourselves as tolerant. And then things like these happen, and we all have an opinion, and we realise that we are not as morally upright or tolerant as what we think we are. We become like Caiaphas, the Sanhedrin, Pontius Pilate, and the rowdy crowd chanting “Away with Him! Crucify Him!” This is what the media, Alan Joyce, the Waratahs, Rugby AU are doing to Israel. We say it is better that one man gets punished for the sake of a code that that the whole code suffers because of the views of one man. But do we have even that right? Good Friday forces us to question what we understand regarding our responsibility before God – the actual cost of discipleship, the riches of God’s grace, or for that matter the universality of the church? And what does our behaviour, our thoughts, our viewpoints display? Are we genuinely tolerant or are we tritely in denial? [Just so that you understand what I mean: to me, denial is not the inability to see that something is wrong. No, to me denial implies the unwillingness to address what is wrong because of the cost.] Friends, this is why this Good Friday story so powerful. It reveals the heart of the gospel – God did this unusual costly thing to draw sinful mankind near to Him again. This is an act that was in progress ever since that fateful day in paradise when Satan deceived Adam and Eve, sending humanity on their way to destruction. Good Friday reminds us that God didn’t give up on humanity. No, He has sent His Son to suffer and to die so that through Him humanity might be reconciled with Him. Yes, Good Friday reminds us that God is not in denial about sin, its consequences and its remedy. Right from the beginning of man’s rebellion against God’s rule, God identified the wrong and promised to address it. When Adam and Eve were confronted in the garden of Eden regarding their sin, they were in denial, and they shifted the blame. When Cain was confronted with the sin of killing his brother Abel, he was in denial, and he shifted the blame. When Joseph’s brothers were confronted with their sinful jealous act in selling him as a slave, they were in denial and shifted the blame. When Israel was confronted with their sin in the desert, they were in denial, and they shifted the blame. So often when you and I are confronted with our sin, we are in denial, and we shift the blame. God is not in denial about sin. On this Good Friday, we are challenged with the question: Why did Jesus have to die? What was God hoping to achieve by Jesus’ death? And the answer is that Jesus died because God was not in denial about what it would take to reconcile sinful man with Him. Friends, when I look at the event of Good Friday, I cannot come to any other conclusion that God knew all of mankind are nothing more than beggars desperately in need of salvation – the salvation that only He can bring. I think this is exactly the conclusion that Isaiah came to in the 64th chapter regarding salvation. He wondered: How then can we be saved? 6 All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind, our sins sweep us away. 7 No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and have given us over to our sins. 8 Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay; you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. 9 Do not be angry beyond measure, Lord; do not remember our sins forever. Oh, look on us, we pray, for we are all your people. Easter Friday is God’s answer to Isaiah’s prayer. When I stand before Good Friday, when I listen to the debates about guilt or innocence, when I hear the cries: “Away with Him! Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” When I hear Him sighing “It is fulfilled!”, I realise that God was never in denial about the remedy for sin. This is why Jesus died: “He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds, we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5) Friends, the message is clear: “No cross, no salvation!” This is why the first believers testified: “Christ died for OUR sins according to the Scriptures.” (1 Corinthians 15:3). Here, in this death, God reveals how sinful man – you and I and all of humanity – can be saved. This is what John meant when he witnessed: “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” John 1:29 (NIV) This is what Paul testified about when he said: “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.” 1 Corinthians 5:7 (NIV) This is the hour that Jesus talked about in John 12:23 (NIV) when He said, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” It is in this act that the Name of the Father has been glorified just like Jesus prayed for according to John 12:28. Yes, friends, Good Friday reminds me that sometimes it requires the gravity of the greatest of atrocities [that one innocent man dies for the salvation of many] to instil in us the clearest example of what true salvation, and the peace it brings, really entails. Good Friday reminds us that Jesus suffered this death to make humanity holy through the shedding of His own blood. (Hebrews 13:12) Without the cross, there is no salvation. Yes, Good Friday reminds us that Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to His Lamb as Adrian Howard and Pat Turner proclaimed. This is the day of the mighty deed of God, the day when God’s judgment and grace became visible for all the world to see. Good Friday reminds us that God was never in denial – He knew what it would take to reconcile humanity with Him. He knew that we needed an unusual divine event to show us that He really cares. That is what happened on this Good Friday. God’s extraordinary activity reached its apex. The Saviour of the world – who was born in a stable, with a manger as a bed– was sacrificed on this day to take the world’s sin away. Nobody expected that. Mankind stood condemned in our unpardonable guilt, without a defence. This is what happened on this Good Friday – God said in effect through Jesus “Crucify Me! For this is the reason why I came to earth as Immanuel – God with you!” Yes, Good Friday testifies that our Judge endured our penalty on the cross so that we could go free! Nobody was expecting that. He was dead and buried. All the hopeful expectations He created shattered… Yes, on this Good Friday the wrath of God’s judgment, on all of us who is unclean, was poured on Jesus in those hours that He hung on that cross. This is what happened on Good Friday. God’s gracious reconciliation became a reality at that moment that humanity’s death was swallowed up in the victory over sin that Jesus’ death on that cross achieved. Friends, I want you to note that no human being did anything positive here. God did all that is positive. And He did it all alone. Chris Tomlin is right when he says: “I’m forgiven because you were forsaken. I’m accepted. You were condemned. I’m alive and well… Amazing love, how can it be that you, my King, would die for me? Amazing love, I know it’s true. It is my joy to honour you…” And how then should we honour him? Two Sundays ago, I shared with you, among other things, the apostle John’s profound perspective that the High Priest of that year, Caiaphas, unintentionally prophesied the actual reason why Jesus came to earth. Let's listen to that text again: “You know nothing at all!”, Caiaphas said: “You do not realise that it is better for you that one man dies for the people than that the whole nation perishes.” He did not say this on his own, but as the High Priest that year Caiaphas was led to prophesy that “Jesus would die for the entire JEWISH NATION, and not only for the Jewish nation but also for the SCATTERED CHILDREN OF GOD around the world, to BRING THEM TOGETHER and MAKE THEM ONE.” (John 11:49b-52). I want to suggest to you that this is how we should honour Him – by doing everything in our power to reconcile sinful man with their Saviour. This is our response to His amazing love. [And the ‘OUR’ here includes us all – individually and collectively as a fellowship of believers.] The Anglican scholar Tom Wright (2016) thinks that the church has lost touch with the real, revolutionary nature of the call that cross makes on our lives. He wrote a book about it: “The Day the Revolution Began”. He is sending a wake-up call the church regarding the full meaning of what happened on Good Friday and how it should prompt us into action. Friends, Tom Wright reminds us that “When Jesus died this awful death of crucifixion at the hands of the Romans, none of those who witnessed His death thought that He was a hero. No one there was arguing that Jesus’ death had been triumphant, as they hastily laid His body in Joseph’s tomb that Friday.” If you take the conversation of the travellers to Emmaus, into account, even His followers thought Jesus’ radical ministry was over. They had these high hopes of being free, but when He died on that cross, they thought nothing had changed. In their traumatised minds Death reigned. They were stunned by the senseless killing people. They knew from experience that it was the sort of thing that Rome did best. They realised that this senseless act kept the status quo happy: Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Sanhedrin, even the crowds. But they were shattered and scattered. They thought that death, once again, had the last say. However, little did they know in this situation, it wasn’t the case, because unbeknown to them God was at work here. Eventually, they would get it. But on that Good Friday, all that they we left with were raw stunned emotions. Friends, Scripture makes it clear that later As Jesus’s disciples looked back at Easter Friday in the light of what happened on Resurrection Sunday, they realised that what happened on Easter Friday changed the world forever. They came to understand that with this event the one true God had suddenly and dramatically put into operation His rescue plan to save humanity. To them, this was the day the God’s new revolution began. But while they were in the moment all they experienced was a guttedness. How then should we respond to Good Friday? Friends, we have the privilege of retrospection. Yes, today is Friday, as S.M. Lockridge testified … Sunday is coming. [I heard it first from Tony Campolo, but Lockridge is the original author]: It’s Friday. Jesus is arrested in the garden where He was praying. But Sunday’s coming. It’s Friday. The disciples are hiding and Peter’s denying that he knows the Lord. But Sunday’s coming. It’s Friday. Jesus is standing before the high priest of Israel, silent as a lamb before the slaughter. But Sunday’s coming. It’s Friday. Jesus is beaten, mocked, and spit upon. But Sunday’s coming. It’s Friday. Those Roman soldiers are flogging our Lord with a leather scourge that has bits of bones and glass and metal, tearing at his flesh. But Sunday’s coming. It’s Friday. The Son of man stands firm as they press the crown of thorns down into his brow. But Sunday’s coming. It’s Friday. See Him walking to Calvary, the blood dripping from His body. See the cross crashing down on His back as He stumbles beneath the load. It’s Friday; but Sunday’s a coming. It’s Friday. See those Roman soldiers driving the nails into the feet and hands of my Lord. Hear my Jesus cry, “Father, forgive them.” It’s Friday; but Sunday’s coming. It’s Friday. Jesus is hanging on the cross, bloody and dying. But Sunday’s coming. It’s Friday. The sky grows dark, the earth begins to tremble, and He who knew no sin became sin for us. Holy God who will not abide with sin pours out His wrath on that perfect sacrificial lamb who cries out, “My God, My God. Why have you forsaken me?” What a horrible cry. But Sunday’s coming. It’s Friday. And at the moment of Jesus’ death, the veil of the Temple that separates sinful man from Holy God was torn from the top to the bottom because Sunday’s coming. It’s Friday. Jesus is hanging on the cross, heaven is weeping and hell is partying. But that’s because it’s Friday, and they don’t know it, but Sunday’s a coming. On that horrible day 2000 years ago, Jesus the Christ, the Lord of glory, the only begotten Son of God, the only perfect man died on the cross of Calvary. Satan thought that he had won the victory. Surely, he had destroyed the Son of God. Finally, he had disproved the prophecy God had uttered in the Garden and the one who was to crush his head had been destroyed. But that was Friday… Sunday’s coming How then should we respond? Friends, because we look in retrospect, we should acknowledge what great work God had done on Good Friday. Sadly, in arrogant ignorance we too often interpret Jesus’ death on the cross only in personal terms: “Jesus died for me!”, Conveniently forgetting all the other individuals Christ died for as well. And we bask in our contentedness. How then should we respond? Friends, we should acknowledge that the crucified Christ didn’t only die for me or you on that Good Friday – He died for A LOST WORLD desperately in need of salvation. How then should we respond to Good Friday? We should make sure that this message doesn’t stay conveniently just with us. We should make sure that the news about what God did for a lost world is getting to that lost world Jesus died for. How then should we respond to Good Friday? Friends, far too often Christians today think that the death of Jesus was all about God saving sinners from “sin,” so that they could “go to heaven.” But this interpretation doesn’t do any justice to the revolution that took place in Jesus’ first followers’ lives. Listen carefully; Jesus’ didn’t die to open heaven for those who believe. Jesus died so that those who came to faith could live that faith on earth. In Galatians 2:20 (NIV) Paul made this profound statement: “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me!” I suspect this is what Peter Krins had in mind when he wrote: “Living for Jesus in all that I do that’s how I travel lives road. He is my friend, and I know it is true, Jesus will carry my load. He died on Calvary to rid me from sin. Jesus, my Saviour, is living within. Living for Jesus in all that I do; that’s how I travel lives road.” Paul reminds us in that Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. Galatians 3:22 (NIV84) And what was promised? This is what Good Friday reveal – the depth of God’s Love. Here is revealed the fullest meaning of John’s testimony: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:16–17 (NIV84) Friends, what is it that I want to highlight? I want you to understand that God’s message on Good Friday is more daring and dangerous than what most people are willing to accept. If we take to heart that God reconciled us to Him through Jesus’ death when we were His enemies, Romans 5:10 (NIV84), should we not enter into this ministry of reconciliation by starting to proclaim the message of God’s grace, so that those in our world who are still His enemies, can be saved? Friends, it is an undeniable fact that Jesus’ death to save the world is more important than the fact that you and I live because we accepted it. And just as important is the fact that we have the task to proclaim this truth: Jesus died to reconcile sinners with God! This is the revolution that you and I had signed up to when we accepted the message of Good Friday. With Edward Burns, we have a gospel to proclaim. Good news for men in all the earth – The gospel of our Saviour’s name: We sing His glory, tell His worth. We tell of His death at Calvary, hated by those He came to save – In lonely suffering on the cross. For all, He loved, His life He gave… Friends, this is indeed the revolution that you and I are called to participate in. Instead of living in complacency because we are saved, we should live as God’s ambassadors. Listen with me to 2 Corinthians 5:16–21 (NIV84) “So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded even Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” Yes, it is only because of what happened of this Good Friday that we can sing in retrospect: “Go, tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ was born.” His birth, His coming to earth, the life He lived while on earth makes sense only when we look back at it in retrospect through the light Good Friday sheds on it. Therefore, friends, on this Good Friday 2019 you heard the renewed call to become a revolutionary. And this is the cause that we are fighting for: God’s message of reconciliation. This is the message of Good Friday: God did rend the heavens and came down. Yes, God had reconciled the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. We are not messengers of damnation. No. We are God’s ambassadors of reconciliation. We are sent into this world to challenge people positively on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled with God! “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.” John 3:16–17 (NIV84) Friends, we should admire Israel Folau’s willingness to make a stand for what he believes [warped as it might be according to some]. My issue with him is not the fact that he made a stand. My issue is only with the perceived flawed content of his stand if you only look at the very selective biased view the media portraits. Sinful man’s salvation is always a worthy cause. However, this is what I should say to him: Issy people don’t come to faith or change their behaviour because they fear hell. People come to faith and change their way of life because they understand what God did for them in Jesus. In simple terms, explain to them God’s love for them displayed on Good Friday’s cross when Jesus died for them while they were still God’s enemies. God sent His Son, the called Him Jesus – He came to love, heal and forgive. He lived and died to buy our pardon… THIS is the gospel that we should proclaim. Go out and proclaim it. The church is only church when it is there for others. True discipleship implies that we allow the event of the cross to convey its full meaning and to respond to it by making it the guidepost of our lives. Therefore, let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Remember it’s Friday… Sunday’s coming… hope to see you then… Amen.