Chapel 8/28 Jesus' Death

Good morning, we gotten to the part in the chapel preaching schedule where we’re looking at Jesus

Last week was on Jesus’ life,

I’ll say this, it was perfect.

Jesus lived in complete obedience to the Father

He never sinned, never did anything wrong and always did what was right

He did that for you and He did that for me,

He did it for His Father, because it was God’s will

Today I’m going to talk about Jesus death.

Let me pray

Jesus’ Death

I’m first going to read some info from Josh McDowell Ministries,

Josh McDowell truly believed that Christianity was worthless. However, when challenged to intellectually examine the claims of Christianity, Josh discovered compelling, overwhelming evidence for the reliability of the Christian faith. After trusting in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, Josh’s life changed dramatically as he experienced the power of God’s love.

He has become an ardent defender of the faith.

He writes;

Why did Jesus have to die?

Here’s why the question is critical: if you and I don’t get clear on the need for Jesus’ horrific death on the cross, we’ll never fully grasp the full nature of God.

And we’ll cheapen the significance of the cross.

Why Did Jesus Have to Die? Because of Justice.

Reason #1: So that God can welcome us into His holy presence.

Once humanity chose to sin, our sin separated us from God. Because God is completely holy.

This might be hard for us to understand, so let’s use an analogy. Imagine a freshly shampooed carpet in our family playroom — and our muddy-pawed puppy racing toward it.

We’d stall the puppy to prevent it from spoiling the carpet, right?

The torture that Jesus endured on the way to His death was shameful.

Crucifixion, perfected under the Romans, remains the most monstrous form of public execution ever devised. It is excruciating and inhumane.

But when we isolate the words horrific, excruciating, and shameful, we get our first hints of the depth of sacrifice God was willing to make of Himself to reconcile us to Him.

Jesus sweated drops of blood over what He was about to endure. But He chose to make that sacrifice, to reconcile us with God.

Dr. Andy Bannister answers our question like this: The cross, he explains, is the cross-section of God’s mercy and justice. When true forgiveness or mercy is bestowed, someone has to pay the price for it.

The cross offers true mercy and forgiveness, but not at the expense of justice. God, through Jesus, was perfectly unselfish. He stepped up to pay the exorbitant fine required for our sin.

Notes Richard Cunningham in his excellent article on BeThinking.org: “We underestimate the significance of our sin — which is why the death of Jesus looks like gratuitous violence.”

Bibleinfo.com adds, “…a just and perfect God could not simply sweep sin under the carpet and go on running a perfect universe.”

Because we can’t see our sin the way God does, we view His standards as too high. But our perspective is wrong.

Christ suffering was so terrible because it was equal to the seriousness of our sin.

Why Did Jesus Have to Die? Because of Love.

Reason #2: To demonstrate God’s complete and utter love for us.

Why, asks Cunningham, did Jesus so deliberately co-operate with a series of events that took Him to a place of torture and bloody execution? It seems unnecessary. Except for the point we just made in Reason #1: That God Himself was in Christ, personally dealing with the sin.

“True love has the power not to ignore hurt, but to absorb it,” wisely notes Cunningham. God and Jesus absorbed the pain of our sin and digested it. And Christ, he adds, “plumbed the depths of His own divine heart for those inner resources which alone can quench God’s righteous anger.”

Bibleinfo.com’s view is spot on: “The cross is graphic enough to reach the most hardened criminal, but also the most sensitive humanist.”

Jesus was willing to die brutally for us, to prevent our brutal punishment.

Once we understand the depth of His sacrifice, we can’t help but be grateful.

Again that was from Josh McDowell

Let’s look at some more of what Jesus death did

It Justified us, this is a Biblical word that has a legal meaning.

A simple way to remember it is Just As If I’d Never Sinned

What this means is this, if we had a dirty sin filled record against God and His commands, which we all do, Jesus’ death makes our record look clean, just as if we’d never sinned. How?

The great transaction on the cross is one where our sin filled record gets put onto to Jesus’ account, and His perfect, never did anything wrong and always did everything right, record is put on our account, when we put our faith and trust in Him.

When God looks at our record, it’s clean, spotless, just as if we’d never sinned, because it’s actually Jesus’.

That solves our legal problem, but we have others that Jesus’ death takes care of.

It Ransomed us

Matthew 20:28 ESV

even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

These are Jesus words, give His life as a ransom for many

First thing to notice is that Jesus gave His life, willingly, it was not taken from Him.

He willingly went to the cross, of His own volition, in John 10 says,

John 10:11 ESV

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Why, well in part it was to ransom us, so what does that mean?

Well, we know what a ransom is,

but in case you don’t here’s how Merriam-Webster defines it, to free from captivity or punishment by paying a price, that’s the verb

Or Oxford, a sum of money or other payment demanded or paid for the release of a prisoner.

So, in essence we, the human race, since Adam and Eve were prisoners that needed to be ransomed

We may not be aware of this, or haven’t felt as if this is true, but Biblically, in God’s eyes, we were prisoners of sin and death, held captive.

Romans 8:2 ESV

For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

Without Jesus’ death in our place, we would remain a prisoner of sin and death, eternally separated from God.

that solves the eternal problem, but there’s more

Reconciled, Jesus death reconciled us back to God.

reconciled: restore friendly relations between.

why did we need to be reconciled?

Our sin was a rebellion, if God is king and His kingdom has rules, we have all disobeyed, rebelled against His rule and reign.

We in a sense, made ourselves kings of our own lives, that’s treason and it’s punishable by death.

So, our treason has made us enemies of God.

But, God was not willing to let that be the case

Listen to these verses on reconciliation

Romans 5:10 ESV

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

2 Corinthians 5:18 ESV

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;

Colossians 1:19–20 ESV

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

We now, because of Jesus’ perfect life and death on our behalf, can be reconciled, made right with God and have peace with Him, no more hostility, no more sin that separates us.

That solves our relational problem,

Ok, one more thing that Jesus death did for us.

It gave us the opportunity to be restored, restored to our original position.

What do I mean by that?

Restored: return (someone or something) to a former condition, place, or position.

John 1:9–13 ESV

The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

Adam was the original child of God, an image bearer.

But His rebellion created a new human, one tainted by sin, no longer born clean or pure the way God intended

Jesus is referred to as the second Adam

By faith, by belief in Jesus, what He did on our behalf, we can once again be a child of God, and this is the will of God.

Ephesians 1:5 ESV

he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,

Romans 8:15 ESV

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

These last two change life for us here and now.

We have peace with God and are now a child of God.

God is once again our Father, or Abba, Daddy, who loves us, He demonstrated that love for us in Jesus

We can now approach Him, pray to Him and He hears and cares.

He has given us the Holy Spirit to help lead and guide us, and to help us live in this world the way He would want.

All of this was made possible by the life and death of Jesus.

So, my question is, do You know Him.

As you can see, hopefully, our situation was way worse than we might have realized

Jesus life accomplished for us what we are incapable of accomplishing on our own, in fact it’s impossible.

We were in a hopeless situation and we needed rescuing, we needed saving and that’s exactly why Jesus came.

But the Bible would say you need to believe, you ne

ed to trust in Jesus, that we need to turn ourselves in and receive from God the pardon that awaits us.