What I Believe About Christmas: God's ransom demonstrates His subsitutionary sacrifical Love
What I Believe About Christmas • Sermon • Submitted
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In Mark 10:45, the idea of “ransom” is freeing someone from bondage or captivity. Because of the fall, we are in bondage to sin and Satan’s kingdom, but nor sin or Satan receives a payment for us. Sin nor Satan has the power to demand such a payment, furthermore, it was not Satan’s holiness that was offended. When we look at ransom we need to see the idea of redemption.
Wayne Grudem best explains:
“We were redeemed from bondage to Satan because “the whole world is in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19), and when Christ came he died to “deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage” (Heb. 2:15). In fact, God the Father “has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col. 1:13).
As for deliverance from bondage to sin, Paul says, “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus … For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace” (Rom. 6:11, 14). We have been delivered from bondage to the guilt of sin and from bondage to its ruling power in our lives.
Jesus paid your ransom by paying the penalty of death that we deserved because of your sins, Christ died as a sacrifice for .
“He has appeared once for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb. 9:26).
He removed God’s wrath by being a propitiation for our sins. “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10 NASB).
He brought us near to God, eliminating our separation, by reconciling us to God, bringing us back into fellowship with God. Paul says that God “through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:18–19).[2]
We call this penal substitution. Christ’s death was penal in that he bore our penalty on the cross, receiving God’s wrath, and the wrath was poured out in full and received in full. The ransom he paid was complete. Christ was able to bear all of God’s wrath. Isaiah 53:11 says, “He will see it out of His anguish, and He will be satisfied with His knowledge. My righteous Servant will justify many, and He will carry their iniquities.” And when Jesus said it was finished, it was finished; made complete (John 19:30). He was our substitute in that he took our place. Why? Because he loves us.
The cross is the ultimate demonstration of God’s substitutionary sacrificial love.
This is the purest expression of God’s love. God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). Furthermore, there is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). He who knew no sin became sin for us. He did not deserve an ounce or a second of the wrath he endured from his father. Yet, for the joy set before him, he endured the cross.
There is no religion on the face of this earth that fixes man’s problem with God through the love of God except Christianity. The love of God in creating man in his image. The love of God pursuing his fallen creatures to save and redeem them. The love of God sending his Son to die for such sinners. The love of God to redeem such sinners at such a sacrifice to himself. The love of God to redeem them to make them his children and heirs to his kingdom. No one speaks this way but Jesus. That is what makes Jesus different. His love is not rooted in moral example, but in personal sacrifice. Because of this, Tim Keller argues that all-life-changing love is sacrificial.[3]
This is true in every sense of the word. Think about it for a minute. Real love, I mean, life-changing love, love that grabs you at the core, is sacrificial. Many of you are parents. What are you willing to sacrifice for your children? When they are infants, you sacrifice your time, and sleep, your money, your recreation, your jobs even, for them to be cared for. They are completely dependent on you for everything they have. Furthermore, you will need to invest a lot of time and energy helping them become more independent becoming adults who sacrificially love their children. Which means you’ll need to learn how easy it is to exasperate your children and the tension you will fight between affirming them on the one hand and being overly critical on the other. This takes a lot of effort and sacrifice. If you are willing to sacrifice your freedom and reorganize your priorities, the reward is great.
Unfortunately, Tim Keller makes the point that there are plenty of parents who just won’t do it. They won’t disrupt their lives that much; they won’t pour themselves into their children. They won’t make the sacrifice. And their kids grow up physically, but they’re still children emotionally—needy, vulnerable, and dependent. Think about it this way: You can make the sacrifice, or they’re going to make the sacrifice. It’s them or you. Either you suffer temporarily and in a redemptive way, or they’re going to suffer tragically, in a wasteful and destructive way. It’s at least partly up to you. All real, life-changing love is substitutionary sacrifice.
Think about how filled the world is with broken and needy people. We see them every day in our church, community, and home. They come to us with so many dynamic and weighty needs. Families broken by drug addiction, or poverty, or alcoholism, or abuse, or any other disfunction come to us and plug their problems into our outlet desperately looking for life, for hope, for redemption, and they suck the life right out you. It costs you something to love these people. It is substitutionary sacrificial love.
Again, Tim Keller describes this well. He says,
“There are a lot of wounded people out there. They are emotionally sinking, they’re hurting, and they desperately need to be loved. And when they are with you, you want to look at your watch and make a graceful exit, because listening to them with all their problems can be grueling. It can be exhausting to be a friend to an emotionally damaged person. The only way they’re going to start filling up emotionally is if somebody loves them, and the only way to love them is to let yourself be emotionally drained. Some of your fullness is going to have to go into them, and you have to empty out to some degree. If you hold on to your emotional comfort and simply avoid those people, they will sink. The only way to love them is through substitutionary sacrifice.
Are you starting to get the point? Christ loved us with a substitutionary sacrificial love. He left his throne, took on flesh, became a slave, putting our interest above his own, so much so he died a penal substitutionary death in our place demonstrating God’s deeply profound love for us. We demonstrate God’s love to our church, and community, and home when we live a substitutionary sacrificial life by purposing seeking to love the most broken, and needy, and vulnerable at great cost to ourselves.
If we really want to make an impact for God’s kingdom we must love sacrificially like Christ loved. The cross is the best example of that kind of love. Substitutionary sacrificial love is the only kind of love that changes lives. It was the only kind of love that truly changed your life, and my life.
How do you love people through the cross?
Everyday we pray and make an intention to take up our cross and follow Jesus. We must learn to live the cross every day. Take intentional steps to love sacrificially. Start by looking at the body and seeing where our greatest need is and seeking to minster, even if you don’t necessary feel “called.” Where are the darkest are of Litchfield? What group of people are most neglected in Litchfield regarding the gospel? Who are the neediest, the most spiritually and physically dependent, and vulnerable? Ask God for these people. Seek them out and plant yourself as a representative of Jesus and love them no matter how awkward it gets. For me, I am seeking out the disability community. I want to show substitutionary sacrificial love to families with disabilities. By the grace of God, we have a group who comes from the high school at 2pm everyday of the week to FBCL to do some work. I’ve gotten to know the teacher and found out I can volunteer on Fridays with special needs children. It’s costly. It’s demanding. It’s an opportunity.
Greatness in the eyes of God is living a life of substitutionary sacrificial love toward God and neighbor, and this substitutionary sacrificial love begins at the cross.
Substitutionary Sacrificial Love Joyfully Lives To Be a Servant To Everyone (35-44)
Desiring to be great in this world is not an evil pursuit. If you look through these verses carefully, you will see that Jesus never rebukes His disciples for wanting to be great. In fact, he encourages it in verse 43 & ; “If you want to become great…” “whoever wants to be first among you…” The issue is understanding what it means to be “great.”
James and John did not want to be just “ordinary.” They wanted to be great. They wanted to experience the power, prestige, and prominence of being extraordinary as the new rulers of Israel and Rome. They wanted to be great in the eyes of the world, but Jesus had a better “greatness” in store for them. Let’s look at this conversation verse by verse to see what that greatness looks like.
They begin the conversation wit Jesus with a rather forward question. The want Jesus to commit to granting their request before he even knows what it is. Its like asking Jesus to sign a blank check, or like a child who demands a parent do what they want before they say what it is. Anytime my kids want me to say yes to something before they tell me what it is, I am deeply suspicious and already committed to saying no. Why? Because I question their motives. If you are wanting me to assure you of a “yes” answer when you are unwilling to straight up ask me, makes it appear you want something that is either not good for you or is purely selfish.
It’s the selfish angel that gets James and John. The other disciples see it and become indignant (v41). First, it is offensive to the others that are laboring and suffering for the kingdom just as James and John are. Second, it is poor taste to jockey and maneuver for a position of power over your fellow brothers. It belittles them, and makes it appear James and John are elitist, just like the rich young ruler. Oddly enough, most commentators agree that the other ten disciples were not indignant because of James and John’s selfishness, but because James and John had the audacity to beat them to the punch.
Jesus sees this in his disciples but does not rebuke them. Instead he goes along with it provide a heart correction for all of his disciples. In verse 36 he says, “What do you want me to do for you?”
The brothers respond with verse 37, “Grant us to sit one at your right and one at your left in your glory.” Essentially, what the brothers are asking for is to be placed in a position of power, prestige, and prominence. They acknowledge Jesus is the Messiah King. The recognize he deserves the highest honor of all, but, they want to be as close to him as possible because proximity to the king determines what degree of honor you receive. The Talmud says,
“Of three walking along, the teacher should walk in the middle, the greater of his disciples to his right, the smaller one at his left, and thus do we find that of the three angels who came to visit Abraham, Michael went in the middle, Gabriel at his right, Raphael at his left,” (b. Yoma 37a).
Theologian James Edwards further explains:
“In Jewish custom the place of highest honor was at the center of the company, followed by the right and left hands, respectively. The brothers hope to honor Jesus while honoring themselves. How easily worship and discipleship are blended with self-interest; or worse, self-interest is masked as worship and discipleship.”
The disciples were right to see Jesus as King, but they completely misunderstood the nature of his kingdom. They took their cues from pagan leaders instead of the Messiah whom they have followed for three years. In the kingdom of God, the way to glory is not through competition, domination, or personal ambition, but is through sacrifice, service, and suffering. In the kingdom exaltation involves lowliness. The first must become last.
So, Jesus responds verse 38, “You do not know what you are asking.” The idea of Jesus’ response is that the disciples do not have a complete picture of what they are asking for. We know this because he follows up with two questions: Are you able to drink the cup I drink, or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?
In bible the cup is often a symbol of God’s wrath. For example, Isaiah 51:17, 22, “Wake yourself, wake yourself up! Stand up, Jerusalem, you who have drunk the cup of His fury from the hand of the Lord; you who have drunk the goblet to the dregs— the cup that causes people to stagger… “Look, I have removed the cup of staggering from your hand; that goblet, the cup of My fury…” Jeremiah 25:15-17, “ 15 This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take this cup of the wine of wrath from My hand and make all the nations I am sending you to, drink from it. 16 They will drink, stagger, and go out of their minds because of the sword I am sending among them.” 17 So I took the cup from the Lord’s hand and made all the nations drink from it, everyone the Lord sent me to.”
Jesus also speaks of baptism. Baptism in this sense is the idea of being immersed in trouble, having an overwhelming experience. Job speaks to this in 22:10-11, “Therefore snares surround you, and sudden dread terrifies you, 11 or darkness, so you cannot see, and a flood of water covers you.” David speaks of God delivering him from being immersed in trouble in Psalm 18:16, “He reached down from heaven and took hold of me; He pulled me out of deep waters.” And in Psalm 42:7, David speaks of being immersed in the despair and longing for God’s deliverance, “Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterfalls; all Your breakers and Your billows have swept over me.” In verse 45, Jesus speaks of giving his life as a “ransom” which speaks to his work on the cross. If we connect the cup, the baptism, and the ransom together we get the idea of suffering and martyrdom comes into play.
Jesus is saying he is going to suffer the wrath of God and be submerged into calamity, and he is asking them, “Are you ready to suffer the spitting, and mocking, and flogging, a the hands of the wicked? Are you ready to be submerged into death as a witness to my name as my disciples at the hands of the unjust? Are you ready to sit at my right and left hand in that kind of glory?” “Ya, we got this.” Are you kidding me?
James and John were not seeing Jesus’s glory in the right perspective. They were looking past the cross. They were looking at his resurrection. They were looking at his ascension where he sat down at the right hand of God. They were looking at his coming again to reign in the heavens and the new earth, but they were looking at all of that apart from his suffering and death. They wanted the benefits of being in God’s kingdom without the costs of participating in it. They did not see his road to eternal glory as the Messiah king is walked on the Via Delarosa to Golgotha; the road of suffering to the hill of the cross.
Tim Keller asks the question, “What was Jesus’ greatest moment of glory? Where does Jesus most show forth the glory of God’s justice? And where does he reveal most profoundly the glory of God’s love? On the cross.[12] Do you know who was at his right and his left at Jesus’ greatest moment in glory? It was two criminals. Are you ready to drink that cup? Are you ready to be baptized with that baptism? Are you willing to be at my right and left at the cross, James and John? Isn’t that the question for every disciple of Jesus? Are you willing to take up your cross and follow me? Are you ready to die to your ego and live a glorious life of substitutional sacrificial love toward your neighbors and enemies? Are you ready to be made low for Jesus in the eyes of the world, but seen as great in the eyes of God?
Many people in the church, community, and home misunderstand Christ. Many like Jesus as a prophet or a wise sage, but they not like his cross. They find it scandalous and offensive. N.T Wright explains why,
“The reason James and John misunderstand Jesus is exactly the same as the reason why many subsequent thinkers, down to our own day, are desperate to find a way of having Jesus without having the cross as well: the cross calls into question all human pride and glory.”
The cross calls into question your pride. The cross has the audacity to say your self-centeredness, your pursuit of personal glory at the cost of your neighbor, is condemned by God for not loving him with all you mind, heart, and soul, and not loving your neighbor as yourself. It exposes your selfish maneuvering for power and glory and honor. The cross shows just how petty we can be about our personal agenda’s in the name of ministry. Do you find it interesting that Jesus speaks of his suffering and dying on the cross in verses 32-34, and the disciples move right past that to their own personal ambitions for power, prominence, and prestige, as if he said in passing or at a glance? I wondered what Jesus’s face looked like when asked him their request?
Furthermore, the cross tells you that you can do nothing on your own about it. It exposes your neediness and helplessness before a holy and righteous God. It shows you God is willing to lay himself down for you and forgive you if you will confess your pride, confess your neediness, confess you are absolutely helpless before him, and accept his free offer of grace through Jesus.
James and John answer respond to Jesus with an affirmative answer, a bit naive, but yes none the less. He told them they will drink his cup and be baptized in his baptism. Both brothers suffered for the faith. In Acts 12:2, James dies at the hand of Herod. John goes on to live a long life in the faith but spends a great deal of it in prison being tortured for the gospel. He then moves on to turn their world once again on its head.
In verse 41-44, Jesus explains how leadership works in the kingdom of God. He begins by contrasting the world with the kingdom. The Gentiles refers to the Romans and Greeks, and every other worldly ruling system. Jesus describes their leadership as “exercising authority over” and “lording over.” T. W. Manson said that the “kings or emperors in the first century A.D. did not seem to rule. They did rule, and usually with a heavy hand.”[14] The two terms “exercising authority over and “ Lording over” mean to gain mastery over or to subdue, much like a fighter bringing his opponent into submission.
Some of you may be familiar with 12 century Chinese emperor Genghis Khan. He was the founder of the first great Khan of the Mongol Empire, one of the largest in the world. A saying is attributed to Genghis Khan sums up the essence of what it means to be a leader who “Lord’s it over”. Khan maintains that “a man’s greatest work is to break his enemies, to drive them before him, to take from them all the things that have been theirs, to hear the weeping of those who cherished them, to take their horses between his knees and to press in his arms the most desirable of their women.”[15]
The philosophy of leadership in the world today is not that far removed from Genghis Khan. We may package it up with progressive ideologies and an arbitrary view of love, but the root of it still exists. If you are going to be a great leader, you must be able to subdue your opponents and your enemies intellectually and physically.
Jesus turns this upside down. He says, “43 But it must not be like that among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first among you must be a slave to all.” The word for servant is the same word used in Acts to describe those who waited on tables. The word for slave is doulos, one totally owned by another possessing no rights but those given by his or her master, a slave. Jesus says to lead in a Kingdom minded, Christ exalting, God-glorifying manner, you must lead in self-giving, substitutionary sacrificial love manner. Your life, your leadership, your pursuit of greatness is not striving to state of superiority affecting a person or object in a particular place or area. Its not seeing greatness as possessing a natural ability to be better than all others. Its living everyday joyfully advancing the kingdom of God by making much of Jesus in striving to empty yourself for the love of your neighbor. It is putting Philippians 2:3-4 into daily practice, “Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. 4 Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.” And in doing so you will look exactly like your Savior who, “6 who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used for His own advantage. 7 Instead He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men. And when He had come as a man in His external form, 8 He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death—even to death on a cross.”
You see, substitutionary sacrificial love begins with the cross and ends with the cross. It’s at the cross Jesus begins his reign. Its at the cross Jesus brings every one of his disciples. It is from the cross we go into the world and preach the gospel. We have a message for a broken and dying world that can only be preached by a life that is sacrificially self-giving.
Substitutionary Sacrificial Love is Fulfilled in the Life-Giving Sacrifice of the Cross (45)
Substitutionary Sacrificial Love is Fulfilled in the Life-Giving Sacrifice of the Cross (45)
“45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life—a ransom for many.”
Jesus is the supreme example of what to means to live a substitutionary sacrificial love filled life. Verse 45 sums the whole thing up, “For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life-a ransom for many.” Jesus invites you to live a great life this morning. He wants you to pursue greatness. But you have to understand, says David Garland, “The road to the cross leads in a different direction from the road to success. If one follows Jesus along his road, seeking glory for oneself is out of place.[16] The road to greatness in the eyes of God, leads to self-giving, substitutionary sacrificial love of neighbor.