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Grace Emmanuel Church
Pastor Sam Chess
(God Has A Plan)
It’s Palm Sunday… Many, today, are celebrating this
day as the beginning of Passion Week… we are... This week, on Wednesday
evening, we will look intensely at the Passover meal, blending the
ancient traditions with the reality of the Last Supper, and why God
went to so much trouble to establish symbols pointing to the death of
his Son.
Friday evening we will look at the death of Christ
portrayed on the “Passion of the Christ” movie. I hope you will force
yourself to watch the movie again…then when you take communion after
the meal it will have a profound significance to you.
Then, next Sunday a radical change will take place.
We will barely mention the death of Christ… not because it is
unimportant but because it will be eclipsed by the resurrection of
Jesus. Had Jesus stayed dead there would have been no reason to come
here this week, or any week.
Yet many, many people will look on the events of
this week as just somebody else’s religious beliefs or traditions.
My dentist is Jewish and he goes to church every Easter just to
honor his wife's religion. Many will simply roll their eyes at the
fantasy of anyone believing that the Son of God would come to this
earth and be crucified on a cross for the sins of mankind. Others
would say that all paths lead to God..... yet all paths do not lead
to the cross of Jesus and his resurrection When I went to Israel my
guide was Jewish. He knew his Old and New Testament better than
most Christians, and he believed it… right up to the point where it
said: Jesus, God incarnate, died for the sins of mankind, then
defeated death and sin, and satan, and the grave and rose from the
dead to bring eternal life to all who would embrace him as Savior
and Lord. He bought into first century propaganda.
Matthew 28:11-15 While the women were on their
way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the
chief priests everything that had happened. 12 When the chief
priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the
soldiers a large sum of money, 13telling them, "You are to say,
'His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we
were asleep.' 14 If this report gets to the governor, we will
satisfy him and keep you out of trouble." 15 So the soldiers took
the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been
widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.
It’s a lot easier to rewrite the details of what
happened than it is to deal with the reality of what one must do if, in
fact, Jesus was who he said he was, and he does call all men and
women to repent of their sins and embrace his payment for their sins.
The Muslim Koran says:
Surah 4:157 They said in boast: We killed Christ
Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah- but they did not
kill him, nor crucify him, but so made it appear to them, and those
who differ therein are full of doubts, with no certain knowledge,
but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they did not kill
him.
Talk about re-writing history… if you don’t want
to deal with the claims of a crucified and risen Messiah, just deny
that it ever happened.
Even ancient secular history records that Jesus of
Nazareth was crucified. Secular history records that many people
claimed to have seen this Jesus risen from the dead. But skepticism is
not a modern concept. Paul said:
1 Corinthians 1:23-25 but we preach Christ
crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,
24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ
the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of
God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger
than man's strength.
In Acts 17 Paul went to Athens and started telling
the intellectuals there that God had come to earth, walked among men,
died on a cross and rose again…. It was foolishness to them…..
Reason says babies aren’t born to virgins….
Reason says God doesn’t take on human flesh… An Almighty God would
not allow puny mankind to nail him to a cross… would he? And the
resurrection thing is the most unbelievable of all fairy
tales…isn’t it? The Gentiles thought it all foolishness.
The Jews stumbled over it. Jesus wasn’t like any
Messiah they had expected. If he had marshaled an army, led them into
battle, and defeated the Roman Empire he would have been a Messiah
worth following.
But the “cross thing” got in the way. It was so
“un-messiah-like”. Messiahs don’t get themselves killed…do they? It
didn’t seem very victorious to the Jews, it smelled like
defeat…failure.
I read an article this week about a well know
American preacher who was giving a seminar in Australia and he told
them: Don’t tell the people about the cross, it doesn’t work… that’s
why the Graham crusades are no longer effective. Just tell them God
loves them and has a plan for their life… (we’ve all heard that line,
it’s not untrue, it’s just not the whole story)… the message of a
crucified Jew who was really God in human form who came to this earth
to take the sins of all mankind on himself, die in our place, defeat
sin and satan, and death, and hell and rise from the dead to secure
eternal life for all who will believe… is foolishness to the highly
evolved modern mind. If you want people to come to church you can’t say
anything that will make them feel uncomfortable... and the cross is
uncomfortable.
That preacher forgot to read his Bible…
1 Corinthians 1:23 but we preach Christ
crucified: a stumbling block to Jews (yes)and foolishness to
Gentiles (yes), 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews
and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
I'm not denying the cross seems offensive. You
wouldn't know that by looking around for the shape of a cross. It has
become the most common religious symbol in the world. It wasn’t always
that way. During the days of Jesus, the cross was a symbol of shame and
embarrassment, a symbol of warning and terror (like our skull and
crossbones or radioactive symbols). The Roman empire used the cross as
their lowest form of execution. The cross was only reserved for slaves
and robbers and assassins and rebels. Roman citizens weren't executed
on a cross, because it was too shameful of a way to die.
Caesar Augustus bragged about capturing 20,000
runaway slaves – whichever ones were not claimed were crucified. 6000
slaves involved in a rebellion were all crucified, at once, on the road
leading to Rome. 2000 people in Israel were crucified for their
rebellion. For a Jew, the cross represented the worst way to die. To be
crucified, in the eyes of a Jew, meant that you have been cursed by
God. (Deut. 21:23- anyone who is hung on a tree is cursed by God)
The cross was not a good symbol in the early
Christian church – it was forbidden by early church leaders to be part
of religious art. It didn't become common until the fourth century,
when everyone who had ever seen a live crucifixion had died.That
changed with the Roman emperor Constantine. He gets a lot of good
press, but he wasn’t terribly interested in Jesus .... in his
opinion, the cross as an embarrassing symbol. But he adopted the symbol
as a “good luck charm” and placed the symbol of the cross on the
shields of his soldiers.
Isn't it interesting that, over time, the cross
became less of an object of the awe of God dying for man and
became more and more, a good luck charm , a trinket?
To God, himself, the cross is the centerpiece of
His love for us. If it's lost it's meaning for humanity, it sure
hasn't lost it's meaning for the God who hung on it, and died, so that
we might be redeemed from our sins! Listen to the cry of God coming
through the pen of Peter:
1 Peter 1:18-20 For you know that God paid a ransom
to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors
(sin). And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. 19 He paid
for you with the precious lifeblood of Christ, the sinless, spotless
Lamb of God. 20 God chose him for this purpose long before the world
began, but now in these final days, he was sent to the earth for all to
see. And he did this for you. (NLT)
Does that sink into your soul? You see the kid with
his pants falling off his hips swaggering down the street.... Prominant
on his chest is a huge gold cross. Kid, do you have any idea what that
cross signifies?? It's not a good luck charm...it doesn't ward off evil
spirits. The God of heaven loved you so much that he gave his only
begotten son to come to this earth and die, crucified on a piece of
rugged wood.... get this kid:
1 Peter 1:18-19 God paid a ransom to save
you..... And the ransom he paid was not gold..... He paid for you with
the precious lifeblood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.
You didn't deserve it... your sin separated you from
God and you deserved to be separated forever, but he paid a ransom to
set you free, and the cost was his own life!
Romans 5:6,8 When we were utterly helpless, Christ
came at just the right time and died for us sinners.... God showed his
great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still
sinners. (NLT)
The implication is obvious... Jesus died for us
while we were still sinners... so we didn't have to go on being
sinners. God wouldn't use the phrase while we were still sinners if
that's all you ever had the opportunity to be!
A few years ago on a TV show the topic was "Having
Affairs With Married Men." One lady responded very positively, saying
that her affair with a married man had been lasting and wonderful.
Someone raised the question of morality. Instantly, the woman took
offense. "I’m a Christian, but I want everyone to know that my personal
life & my religion don’t interfere with one another." Then she went on
to say, "I believe in a God who wants me to be happy, and if this man
makes me happy, then God approves of the relationship."
Please don't be naive about what our society has
done... The adulterous lady (above) can get up each morning and adjust
her gold cross...comfortable that she is not living in sin...she is
simply in "a committed relationship."
As we saw on the video Wednesday evening, the mother
of two can pull up to the abortion center with kids in car seats and
walk in to remove the “tissue” that is the children's brother or sister
and be comfortable that she is not “killing the unborn”, she is just
"pro choice." In today's society she can go to church the Sunday before
and wear her gold cross into the clinic and throughout the “procedure”.
If only the cross could speak:
God paid a ransom to save you..... And the ransom
he paid was not gold... He paid for you with the precious lifeblood of
Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.
Sooner or later, if we can to get beyond the trinket
crosses, we may bump into an “old rugged cross”. There we meet a God
who says, "I didn't come to save you in your sins...I
came to save you from your sins. Your sin is so horrible
that it required me to go to the cross & suffer & die to free you from
the punishment you deserve."
1 Peter 2: 24 He himself bore our sins in his body
on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness;
by his wounds you have been healed (spiritually).
(NIV)
1 Peter 2:24 He personally carried away our sins in
his own body on the cross so we can be dead to sin and live for
what is right. You have been healed by his wounds! (NLT)
Here's the cold hard facts:
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the
free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. (NIV)
Every one of us has earned the wages of our sin:
Physical!
Spiritual!
Eternal!
The wages of sin is death.
My sin has already been punched into my time card,
I've already earned the wages for my sin and so have you. None of us
have the option of earning our wages and then saying, Oh no... that's
not the wages I meant to earn!
1) The wages of sin is death!
2) Have you sinned?_______
3) What do you have coming your way? ________
4) Is there any way you can stop it?________
5) If your sin carries a death sentence somebody
will die for your sin!
6)There's no reason it shouldn't be you...but if
it's not you, somebody still has to die!
Romans 6:23 Sin pays off with death. But God's
gift is eternal life given by Jesus Christ our Lord.
How could God love you so much that he could erase
your sin and give you eternal life instead? His justice prevents him
from simply erasing you sin. What that sin has earned must be paid for
in full!
In order to free you from your sin.. God Himself had
to take your place!
It wasn't as simple as just taking your sin in a
little backpack and laying it at the foot of the cross...
2 Corinthians 5:21 God made him who had no sin to
be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness
of God. (NIV)
If all I could assure you of today was Jesus death
in your place it would still not be enough. If he had died and stayed
dead he still could not have delivered back to us the redemption he had
paid for. He had to defeat sin and satan, and death, and hell and rise
from the dead to secure eternal life for all who will believe… In order
for you to receive his gift of salvation, Good Friday had to become
Resurrection Morning!
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