Jesus our Mediator

(Note: audio of this sermon can be found here)

1Ti 2:1-7

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle ( I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.

Sinclair Ferguson, has written "Preaching to the heart addresses the understanding first, in order to instruct it; but in doing so it reaches through the mind to inform, rebuke and cleanse the conscience. It then touches the will in order to reform and transform life and equip the saints for the work of ministry". That is my prayer for us this morning as we consider God's Word and as we reflect on another aspect of the person and work of Christ. As I have been praying for this morning, I have been asking our Father that He would grant that the Spirit would take us beyond mere head knowledge to a heart knowledge that affects how we worship, how we pray and how we serve.

As many of you know, Pastor Dan is in the middle of a series he's entitled "Name above all names". His goal is to look at the wide gamut of names, titles, offices and roles of Jesus. So far he's looked at:

• Jesus the King of kings 
• Jesus our Servant 
• Jesus the Son of Man 
• Jesus the Son of God

One thing that has struck me with each successive sermon in this series is that while each of these roles are unique and important, none of them are independent. Is Jesus our King? Absolutely, but what makes that even more spectacular is that he is the King who serves and became a man and took on our sin. Is Jesus our Savior? No doubt, but this is made more astounding by the fact that He is also the coming Judge and conquering King.

I mention this by way of reminder but also to point out reality that the facet of Jesus' ministry Dan asked me preach on today is really built on the two aspects of Jesus' identity that Dan has preached on the last two weeks. Two weeks ago he preached on Jesus as the Son of Man, how his full humanity was crucial to his role as shepherd and high priest. Last week he preached on Jesus as the Son of God, how his full deity is essential to his role as savior as well as the author and perfecter of our faith. In both sermons Dan asked the same question: "How do these two natures exist together?" His answer: "I have no idea." I have no idea either and I suspect that when we hit the million year mark in the new heavens and the new earth, we will still marvel at the Incarnation. But, for this week, it serves as a great demonstration and proclamation of Jesus as our Mediator.

You see, before the incarnation, before the cross, before the resurrection, the Triune God had a divine dilemma. He was perfectly holy and could not even look upon sin. Yet we were utterly sinful, both by nature and by choice. Our best, holiest works were really filthy rags. If God wanted to glorify himself by redeeming and restoring and recreating lost and fallen humanity, He needed a way to bridge the infinite gap between His holiness and our sinfulness. He needed a mediator.

Before we move on, consider the most heinous crime someone could commit against you. Or the most offensive word or deed. Or most disgusting and deplorable act. How can healing and forgiveness possibly begin? You know the hurt and offense. You know the barriers that rise up and the separation that results. And even though the hurts and offenses among ourselves, although real, are slight compared with our offense against God, we know that even our horizontal gaps and rifts can appear to be unbridgeable. So, if we need mediators in our human relationships, how much more is one needed to come from God's throne to connect with sinful, fallen humanity.

The first place I want to look at as we consider Jesus' role as mediator is the passage we read a few minutes ago. The main reason I want start here is that it is one of only a few places that states explicitly that Jesus is our mediator. But there is more to it than that. As there are with every ministry of Jesus there are implications that go along with Jesus as our mediator and this passage drives some of these home for us.

The first thing that is important for us to see is that Paul is emphasizing Jesus' role of standing between God and men. Interestingly, the word Paul used for mediator has the connotation of someone bringing parties together. So the goal, even here is resolution and restoration. This not like the officials at a football game, trying administer the rules independent of opposing teams. This is more like a negotiator, seeking the best interests of both parties, striving for resolution of the offense. Now this is not to say that Father stands remote and ready to smite us and Jesus graciously intervenes. In fact Paul says exactly the opposite. In verse 3 he says God is our savior and that He desires that all should come to repentance. Hold on to that thought, because we'll come back to it a little later.

Paul is declaring that Jesus is the one who is bridging the gap between a holy God and a sinful humanity. Do you see the connection to this role and Jesus' incarnation? If Jesus were fully God but only pretending to be a man, he couldn't fully bridge the gap. His holiness would still overwhelm us. Yet if Jesus were a god-like man, say David without the Uriah episode or Elijah without the bout of depression, he could still not cover the distance. Remember verses like Isa 64:6 and Ps 14:1 apply to all of us. His sin, a slight as it may be, would still render him unacceptable before God.

Consider with me the first few verses of Rev 5. God is holding the scroll of human history. And at first, who is worthy to open it? There is no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth who is worthy. So bleak are the prospects for opening this scroll that John begins to weep. Praise God there is a living/slain lion/lamb who has conquered. Ah, but that's a different sermon. The imagery, however is incredibly important. In one snapshot, we see the divine dilemma.

Now I want to look at this situation from our perspective. How serious is this situation for us? God had a divine dilemma, but what about us? How are we to assess our need for a mediator?

My contention is that the Bible is full of indicators that show us our real standing before God, apart from Christ. One of the reasons I highly recommend reading through the entire Bible and why I continue to do so each year is to simply soak in the general pathos of this book. One of the things we see over and over is that without God's gracious intervention, we are all (spiritually speaking) standing on the down escalator. What's the next major event after the flood? The tower of Babel. How long is Moses gone before the nation has crafted an idol to represent God? How many hours elapse between Peter's brave declaration before Christ and his fearful retreat from a servant girl?

Then there was this guy named Job. From a human perspective, he was a righteous guy, but God decides to show Job (and us) that our love and devotion need to be in God and not in his blessings. Along the way, Job has a dialog with his "friends" who demonstrate that a reasonable theology at one point can easily be extended into absurdity. In the midst of this dialog, Job begins to slowly realize that his own theology is off the mark and that he really can't put God in a box and that there is a great gulf between him and God.

Listen to his words and see if they fit the ache that is in your own heart.

Job 9:2, 25-35
Truly I know that it is so: But how can a man be in the right before God?
My days are swifter than a runner; they flee away; they see no good.
They go by like skiffs of reed, like an eagle swooping on the prey.
If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint, I will put off my sad face, and be of good cheer,’
I become afraid of all my suffering, for I know you will not hold me innocent.
I shall be condemned; why then do I labor in vain?
If I wash myself with snow and cleanse my hands with lye,
yet you will plunge me into a pit, and my own clothes will abhor me.
For he is not a man, as I am, that I might answer him, that we should come to trial together.
There is no arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both.
Let him take his rod away from me, and let not dread of him terrify me.
Then I would speak without fear of him, for I am not so in myself.

It should be noted that the word arbiter in verse 33 could also easily be translated justifier, reconciler or decider.  Job is realizing that he is unable to approach God. So Job's plea is for some one to bring our human dilemma before the throne of God.

Let me be quick to remind us all that Job didn't get the full picture until the end of the book, but this is a snapshot into the reality of the human dilemma. If God has a divine dilemma of how to bridge the gap between his holiness and our sinfulness, we have the human dilemma of having nothing to offer this holy, just and righteous God from whom we've rebelled and to whom we owe an unpayable debt. What makes this worse from our perspective is that not only do we not have the means to pay, but any payment we would attempt to make would be in the wrong currency. It would be like trying to pay your credit card or taxes or mortgage with confederate money. While it may have served a purpose in the South during the Civil War, confederate money is no longer legal currency. A millionaire in confederate  dollars is still bankrupt in the real world.

So, I have to ask: Do you feel this gap? Not simply do you see the facts, but do you feel the separation? God is over here with the need to bridge the chasm to restore humanity. And mankind over here knowing there is an unbridgeable gulf and not having any resources or abilities to even begin the journey. I'm not simply talking about the facts. I want you to feel the weight. Do you grasp, here in the depth of your soul that this separation is real and that it is fixed and there is nothing we can do about it? Can we cry out, along with Job, "Oh if there were only someone who could lay a hand upon us both"?

Please turn with me to Eph 2. I want to make the turn by gazing at a passage whose beauty eluded me because I didn't fully grasp its backstory. So, I would like us to take the divine dilemma and the human dilemma and listen to Paul's words starting in verse 11.

Eph 2:11-12
Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

Separated. Alienated. Strangers. No hope. Without God. Paul sees what Job saw. In reality its what every biblical writer saw. Apart from Christ, God is hopelessly distant from us. I want to linger here just a few moments to make sure we grasp that this is not an accounting trick. This is not like writing a check that exceeds your balance but having money in savings to cover it. This is not like having a lot of friends, but simply having nobody call you on a Friday night. This is real. This is serious. And from our perspective, this is permanent.

But, here is the really good news. Yes, we were separated and alienated, strangers from God and each other, without hope and without God.

Eph 2:13-16
"But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility."

Paul is emphatically declaring that Jesus IS our mediator. Look at the spatial and physical terms that Paul uses. We were far off, but now we've been brought near in Christ. There was a dividing wall of hostility but this has been broken down in Jesus' flesh. There was horizontal hostility but Jesus has achieved peace for us with God and by this peace he has enabled the peace that we can have with one another.

All of this brings us back to 1 Tim 2 with a single question. Why does it matter that Jesus is our mediator?
Here is the primary reason from verse 4 of 1 Tim 2. It is God's desire that we be saved. And in order to be saved, we desperately need a mediator. As we sit here, we are lethally infected with sin and only Jesus can provide us the cure. We really are alienated, separated and without God. But through Jesus, God has bridged the infinite gulf to restore us.

I want speak directly to every one within the sound of my voice to consider this reality. Even if you have tuned me out for this entire sermon, I need your attention now. If you have not placed your faith in Jesus, you are separated and alienated from God. I don't care how good you think you are or how perfect your life may seem right now. I don't care if you are an A student, the CEO of your business, in the perfect marriage with perfect kids, enjoying a blissful retirement or whether you just feel really good about yourself. All of that is as transient as the leaves on our lawns. The God who created you is the one who is lovingly pleading with you to turn from your self salvation and turn to Jesus. The call of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation is: turn from faith in your own abilities and turn to faith in the infinite sacrifice of Christ.

If I can press this just a little more, I would like to echo a common warning of Matt Chandler. There is no one in this room whose life cannot be unalterably changed with one phone call, text message or e-mail. This life we are currently living is incredibly fragile and the things we are trusting in for our ultimate satisfaction and security are very temporary and easily devalued. Jesus however, has achieved a salvation for us that is eternally secure and infinitely valuable. He has fought the decisive victory and is sitting with His Father as the conquering king of the universe. Jesus has bridged the gap for us as we place our faith in Him.

I would urge you to ask God to make Jesus clear to you. I would urge you to read His Word, not as literature, not as an owners manual and not as Christianity for Dummies. I urge you to read God's Word as a letter from a loving Father to his wayward children, saying in effect, I love you and I have made a way for you to come home. And most of all, I urge you to surrender your life to Christ and accept the free gift of his grace.

For those of us who have surrendered our lives to Christ, there is another aspect to why the reality of Jesus our mediator is important. It gives us an appreciation of the incredible value of what Jesus has accomplished on our behalf. Sometimes, I don't think we really grasp the distance between us and God. I had previous pastor say that it was like standing on the beach in California and needing to swim to Japan. Hmmm, maybe. But that doesn't seem absolute enough. When we consider Jesus as our mediator, we need to try to grasp the unbridgeable gulf between us and God. We need the Holy Spirit to give us the perspective of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus from Lk 16 where Jesus teaches that there is a great chasm fixed between heaven and hell and no one can cross between them. Friends, that's what we've been saved from. And, we need the Holy Spirit to give us the perspective of the tax collector in Lk 18 who couldn't even look to heaven but beat his breast saying "God, be merciful to me, a sinner"

In addition to this, Jesus as our mediator helps us grasp both the magnitude and the reality of God as our Father. How could we possibly relate to a Father who is distant and aloof? How could we pray to a Father who is waiting to crush us at our first mistake? But, if the Triune God orchestrated this magnificent plan of redemption, if He rescued us and restored us, if He became a man so He could place His hands on us, both to heal us and to hold us, then this Father, this God, this Savior is one we can trust, and rely on and call out to and know that He will never leave us or forsake us.

Finally, there are two glorious implications that Paul leaves us with. The first reality of Jesus as mediator is that it is the engine that drives our prayers. Whether we are praying for our spouses or children or parents, our focus must be on whether they grasp the reality of the gospel and whether that reality is affecting how they live. Even as we pray for their health and safety, we should always be seeking those blessings as something that either drives them to their mediator or something that highlights the magnificence of their savior. On top of this, it affects how we pray for our leaders, both in the church and in the government. We should be seeking their welfare, not so much that they would make our lives easier, but they would enable the proclamation of the gospel to go to the ends of the earth.

This leads us to the second implication of Jesus being our mediator. It should affect how we serve God and each other. Paul knows that his calling has a single purpose: proclaiming the magnificence of Jesus the mediator and the salvation that is available to everyone. Shouldn't our attitude be the same? Shouldn't we serve Christ knowing that our service is not an end in itself, but is really something that God can use to bring us and others back to this one reality:

Jesus is our mediator.

To God Alone be the Glory

Psalm 130

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!
O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my pleas for mercy!

If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.

O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption.
And he will redeem Israel
from all his iniquities.

Four Reasons Jesus Chose to Die - John 10:11-18

(Note: audio of this sermon can be found here)

A.W. Tozer, a pastor of a church on Chicago’s Southside during the 1940s and 50s wrote the following: "To be effective the preacher's message must be alive; it must alarm, arouse, challenge; it must be God's present voice to a particular people." And that is my prayer and my hope for us today. That God, through the Spirit would in fact alarm us, so we can run to Him for comfort. That He would arouse us, so we would depend on Him for strength and courage and wisdom. That he would challenge us so we would put aside our idols and our pride, take up our cross and follow Jesus.

As you are turning to John 10, I want to tell you, in broad strokes, where, by God’s grace, we are headed. We are going to be looking at a passage of Scripture from the gospel of John that will be familiar to many of you. And, in my experience, the more familiar the passage, the more danger we are in. Either we tune out or we jump straight to the interpretation and perspective we have always had. We are at risk of shutting out the Holy Spirit and not allowing Him to teach us, to encourage us, to challenge us or to convict us.

In the text that is before us, Jesus describes himself as the Good Shepherd. This is a great descriptor and I hope all of us who claim the name of Christ carry that image of Jesus around with us. But the conviction that has been placed on me in preparing to look at these verses is that we should see the goodness of the Good Shepherd not so much in his shepherding skills as in his willingness to die for his sheep.

You may ask why focus on Jesus’ death? What about his birth? What about his life? Well, it is in his death that bears God’s just and holy wrath. It is his death that cleanses us from all that we have said and done, from all that we have not said and not done. It is his death that restores the relationship that was broken and fractured in the garden. It is in his death that the Holy Spirit is commissioned to come and dwell with us. It is in his death that Satan, God’s enemy and ours is principally defeated. It is in his death that our death is swallowed up in victory. And, it is in his death that all of God’s promises are anchored and guaranteed.

[11]"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. [12] He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. [13] He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. [14] I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, [15] just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. [16] And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. [17] For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. [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.”

As I consider this familiar passage of scripture, I want you to see a reoccurring thread. Jesus wanted to reiterate to his disciples and to us by extension, that any benefit they gain from their association with Him is profoundly tied to His death. In these eight verses, Jesus stresses four reasons He chose to die. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Jesus presents four connections between His death and other aspects of who he was as the Son of God.

Look again at the text: Here are the four reasons Jesus gives:

1) Jesus died because we are his sheep. vv11-13

2) Jesus died because He knows us. vv14-16

3) Jesus died because the Father loves him v17

4) Jesus died because He has the authority to die (and to live again) v18

I am picking up this sermon in the middle of an exchange between Jesus, his disciples and the rest of his entourage, including some Pharisees. From a bible study perspective, it is typically not a good idea to jump into a passage midstream. However in this particular passage, Jesus helps us out by adjusting both the metaphor and the emphasis. In the first ten verses, He describes himself as the door to the sheepfold and he describes the reality that nobody gets to God except through Him. He literally is the door. In fact anyone who thinks that they’re “in with God” through some other means (works, sacraments, family heritage, ethnicity, you name it) is really a thief and a robber.

However, in verse 11 Jesus changes the imagery. Now he expands his self-portrait to show himself as the Good Shepherd. Let me pause here to say there are a lot of directions one could take with Jesus’ imagery of the Good Shepherd. We could focus on Jesus’ provision for his sheep, even tying back to verse 10. We could concentrate on Jesus leading, guiding and comforting of us, bringing in various aspects of Psalm 23. We could spend time plumbing the depths of Jesus’ seeking, rescuing and restoring the lost sheep as he describes in Luke 15. All of these are true dimensions of who Christ is and shows us once again the multidimensional wonder of our great savior.

But today, based on some specific words in verse 11 and some implications in verses 12 & 13, I would like us to look at Jesus’ protection of his sheep. Jesus is very explicit in verse 11 “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” A shepherd’s life is not in danger while feeding or caring for his sheep. There is little risk in leading or guiding. Even in rescuing and restoring the sense is more of extreme care and compassion. But here Jesus has something else in view. Here the shepherd’s life is on the line.

One has to wonder why. The hired hand doesn’t care. When he sees a threat, he is out of there. Yet the shepherd, the Good Shepherd is willing to lay down his life to save and protect his sheep. Why?

I think verse 14 has our answer for us and it is glorious. We belong to Jesus. Jesus doesn’t just lay down his life for just any sheep. He lays down is life for his sheep. Think about the implications of this truth brothers and sisters. Jesus’ death for your sins, his atoning sacrifice, his (can I use a big word?) propitiation of God’s just and holy wrath, was not simply a remote, antiseptic transaction. It was not like me paying my taxes: somewhat reluctantly and not sure exactly what I getting for my investment. No. Jesus died for his own. He died for people who were already his.

I want to push this a little more because it highlights the awesomeness to what God has been orchestrating since the beginning. If the Good Shepherd is willing to die for sheep that already his, his death doesn’t make them his. It may cement his ownership, but it doesn’t establish it. He owned them before he died. And if the owned them before he died, when exactly did his ownership begin? Jot down these verses Eph 1:4 and Tit 1:2. We have always been in Christ’s possession. So much so, that before time began, before Gen 1:1 ever happened, there was an intra-Trinitarian promise that this ownership, this protection would never fail. Jesus, the eternal second person of the Trinity promised and committed to secure your eternal life, your salvation, your sanctification, your glorification, everything that it would take to present you before God’s throne with exceeding joy. And he made this promise before anything but God himself existed.

In light of this, I feel compelled to ask some of the same questions Paul did in Romans 8 and I want to make them personal. If Jesus did all of this for you, if God orchestrated all of this for you, if there is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, then why do you think anything can separate you from the love of God in Christ? What could you possibly do or say (or not do or not say) that could exceed the expanse of this love and commitment? Is our view of Jesus really that small? No! This book screams the opposite. The God of the Bible, the Jesus of Bible is so far beyond us that our deepest comprehension of him is just the outskirts of who he is.

I would love to linger here, but there is another reason Jesus chose to lay down his life. As he moves into verses 14 and 15, his emphasis transitions from owning to knowing. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. It would be a mistake, at this point to say the Jesus laid down his life for me because he knew about that microscopically small nugget of goodness inside of me. It is a mistake to say that or think that because when Jesus died, there was no nugget of goodness inside of me and there wasn’t a nugget of goodness inside of you. I hope you have Rom 5:8 underlined or highlighted in your Bibles: but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

But the implications of these verses go beyond the fact that Jesus knew what we were before he died. Jesus’ emphasis here is on intimacy. He knew us the way close friends or married couples or parents and children know each other. This is a deep, personal knowledge. And to highlight it, Jesus compares it to his relationship with his Father. Since there is no deeper relationship in the entire universe than the Trinity, for Jesus to equate his knowledge of us to his knowledge of the Father is, quite frankly, amazing.

Do we see Jesus death in this light? Honestly, I often view Jesus as the substitute or high preist, which He is, but nothing more. This imagery pushes that envelope. Jesus knows us intimately and because of that pre-existing relationship, he is willing to lay down his life for us. Later in John he will say “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

So here, in two verses, Jesus interconnects the profound love relationship of the Trinity, his deep intimate knowledge of us and his choice to die on our behalf. How can we not worship? How can we doubt His commitment to us? How can we not rest secure in such a loving, sacrificial Savior?

Before I move on to the next reason that Jesus gave up his life, I want to briefly comment on verse 16. Jesus says that he has other sheep, which are not of “this fold”. Does he mean other Jews who are not in Jerusalem and/or geographic Israel? Does he mean the Gentiles who, religiously speaking, are in a totally different flock? Or is he referring to generations of men and women who are separated from the original audience by both time and distance? Most commentaries agree that since Jesus is delivering this self-description in a Jewish setting, his reference is to the other sheep he owns and knows intimately are in the Gentile world. And that, by extension, means you and me. This verse deserves more attention than I can give to it now. It is a huge, ground leveling, gospel expanding verse and we should rejoice that God chose to include it in His holy Word.

Jesus died for because we are his and because he knows us. In verse 17 Jesus moves us into the third reason that He chose to die. Can I say it this way? He died for the love his Father. We have to be careful at this point. I don’t want to imply that the Father didn’t love the Son before the cross or that somehow the fabric of the intra-Trinitarian love would have been ripped apart without the cross. And yet, Jesus declares “the Father loves me, because I lay down my life”. I think it would serve us well and pause a moment and consider this rare glimpse into the love relationship between the Father and the Son. How often do we put the Trinity into an exalted space on the shelf and not press and peer into the snapshots that we are given in Scripture because we don’t want make our brains work?

One thing to notice is that there is a causal connection between the Father’s love for the Son and the Son’s righteous obedience. Does that surprise us? Don’t we, in our own small ways, mirror this? I love my kids, for the most part unconditionally. Yet when they disobey the house rules, there is, in a sense, the wrath of dad. Do I still love them? Absolutely! Has the dynamics of that love relationship changed? I would say yes. And when they obey, maybe even in exemplary way, does my love for them exceed the bounds that it did before? Not really. And yet, has the dynamics of our love relationship changed? Of course it has. Love, by its very nature must be dynamic.

So, in a pure, sinless way, the Trinity exhibits a dynamic love relationship. What kind of God would we have if there was not a rich interaction between the persons of the Trinity? Does the Father love the Son more because He died on the cross? No. And yet is that perfect eternal love now richer and fuller? Does Jesus go to the cross to earn the Father’s love? Not a chance. But isn’t part, maybe a large part, of his motivation to die for us to live out the love of his Father?

You may ask why spend time on some heady topic like love within the Trinity? Here are just a couple of reasons. First, it makes Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf even more secure. We may know that Jesus’ death is not contingent on us or our obedience, but when we see that it is anchored in the perfect love of the Father, we can know that his sacrifice is beyond our ability to destroy. Second, this shows us that even though to us salvation is the most crucial event in our lives, the Father, the Son and the Spirit are working out an even bigger and better plan, including your redemption, the presentation of the church as a spotless bride, the re-creation of the universe and final defeat of death and sin. And it serves as yet another reminder that God is so much bigger than we could ever grasp or even imagine.

Jesus has already laid out already for us that he chose to die because he owns us, because he knows us and because the Father loves him. As we come to the end of this section of John 10, there is a final reason why Jesus chose to die. It is found at the end of verse 17 and on into 18. This reason may be the most assuring and faith building of them all. Jesus emphatically states that “I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 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.” Simply put, Jesus died because he had the authority to do so.

Think about it. Jesus didn’t have to die. Let me say that again. Jesus didn’t have to die. In fact Jesus says as much “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” At one level we know that, don’t we? We know he was sinless. We know that his trial was farce and the charges were trumped up. We know that cross really should have been ours. And yet as we read the last chapters of the gospels, there seems to be this element of Jesus being out of control. Events seem to take on a life of their own. The crowds, the Romans, the Jews all seem to be in control. Everyone except Jesus.

But Jesus words here in John and elsewhere declare to us that he died, not because he was forced to, but because he had the authority to do it. In very really sense he not only permitted himself to die, he authorized it, he ordained it.

We can’t stop there. These verses don’t simply tell us that he had the authority to lay down his life. They also proclaim that he had the authority to take it up again. Do you know what that means? The resurrection was never in doubt! There was not a three judge panel in heaven weighing the merits of his sacrifice. Jesus wasn’t lying in the tomb wondering whether the Father would accept his death or not. Was Jesus death necessary? Absolutely! Were Jesus’ temptations in the garden and in the desert real? Without a doubt! But Jesus’ authority as God gave him the authority take up his life again. And if Jesus has the authority to do this, doesn’t his authority extend to taking up our lives as well?

So, we have four reasons that Jesus chose to die.

1) Jesus died because we are his sheep. vv11-13

2) Jesus died because He knows us. vv14-16

3) Jesus died because the Father loves him v17

4) Jesus died because He has the authority to die (and to live again) v18

But what do we do with these truths? How can we take them with us into the rest of our lives? Here are just a few quick items that I pray the Spirit will press upon your hearts.

First, remember that Jesus was speaking both to build our confidence and to bolster our assurance. We must realize that whatever comes our way, He died for his own, for us who by grace have put our faith and trust in him. The hardships in your life are not a surprise to him. The temptations that seem to derail your walk with Christ are not insurmountable obstacles to him. Remember that he died to secure your eternal redemption.

Second, rest on the reality that Jesus’ death was intentional, purposeful and born out of love. We are too quick to view Jesus’ death as just a point in time event. While it was that, it was (and is) so much more. The Father, Son and Spirit planed your redemption before the world began. They have been acting throughout history to bring the cross and the Christ together. They have been working everyday of your life, first to bring you to faith, and second to build you up in Christlikeness. And they are laboring now toward the restoration of all things. As Paul asks in Romans, if God is doing all this, will He not, along with Christ graciously give us all things? On top of that, if Christ has done all of this, what in all of creation could possibly separate us from the love of God that is in Christ?

Third, we need to rely on the fact that all of this, our salvation, sanctification and glorification, the redemption of all things, the restoration recreation of the universe all hinges on the magnificent and incomprehensible love of God. Jesus’ love for the Father sends him to the Cross. The Father’s love of Christ accepts, approves and is filled out by Jesus loving submission. The love of the Shepherd for his sheep compels him to protect them and preserve them despite the cost to his very life.

Finally, we are both recipients and responders. The Bible is God’s story of creation, redemption and restoration. From Genesis to Revelation, we are simply recipients of God’s unmerited favor. Jesus did the heavy lifting. In reality, He did all the lifting. And yet, God expects a response to his grace. We need to receive it. We need to own it. We ought to revel in it. We ought to run with it. But whatever we do, we dare not reject it.

But I would remiss not to reiterate that the security of Jesus’ sacrificial death only applies to His sheep. If have not surrendered your life to Him, if have not accepted the free gift of his grace, neither I nor the Bible can offer you any assurance. Yet the Bible is clear: today is the day of salvation. If the Spirit is pressing on your heart, if the love of Christ has hemmed you in, if you are experiencing a gut wrenching hunger for this kind of assurance, let go of your tightfisted grip on a self-righteousness that can never save and reach out to embrace the magnificent gospel of grace and the Savior who chose to die so that you could live.

Jesus is our Good Shepherd. He has laid down his life for us. We are safe, we are secure. We are free to live and serve and die for the one to has our lives in the palm of his hand.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

To God Alone be the GloryA.W. Tozer, a pastor of a church on Chicago’s Southside during the 1940s and 50s wrote the following: "To be effective the preacher's message must be alive; it must alarm, arouse, challenge; it must be God's present voice to a particular people." And that is my prayer and my hope for us today. That God, through the Spirit would in fact alarm us, so we can run to Him for comfort. That He would arouse us, so we would depend on Him for strength and courage and wisdom. That he would challenge us so we would put aside our idols and our pride, take up our cross and follow Jesus.

As you are turning to John 10, I want to tell you, in broad strokes, where, by God’s grace, we are headed. We are going to be looking at a passage of Scripture from the gospel of John that will be familiar to many of you. And, in my experience, the more familiar the passage, the more danger we are in. Either we tune out or we jump straight to the interpretation and perspective we have always had. We are at risk of shutting out the Holy Spirit and not allowing Him to teach us, to encourage us, to challenge us or to convict us.

In the text that is before us, Jesus describes himself as the Good Shepherd. This is a great descriptor and I hope all of us who claim the name of Christ carry that image of Jesus around with us. But the conviction that has been placed on me in preparing to look at these verses is that we should see the goodness of the Good Shepherd not so much in his shepherding skills as in his willingness to die for his sheep.

You may ask why focus on Jesus’ death? What about his birth? What about his life? Well, it is in his death that bears God’s just and holy wrath. It is his death that cleanses us from all that we have said and done, from all that we have not said and not done. It is his death that restores the relationship that was broken and fractured in the garden. It is in his death that the Holy Spirit is commissioned to come and dwell with us. It is in his death that Satan, God’s enemy and ours is principally defeated. It is in his death that our death is swallowed up in victory. And, it is in his death that all of God’s promises are anchored and guaranteed.

So, please stand with me to read from John 10, verses 11-18,

(read John 10:11-18)

As I consider this familiar passage of scripture, I want you to see a reoccurring thread. Jesus wanted to reiterate to his disciples and to us by extension, that any benefit they gain from their association with Him is profoundly tied to His death. In these eight verses, Jesus stresses four reasons He chose to die. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Jesus presents four connections between His death and other aspects of who he was as the Son of God.

Look again at the text: Here are the four reasons Jesus gives:

1) Jesus died because we are his sheep. vv11-13

2) Jesus died because He knows us. vv14-16

3) Jesus died because the Father loves him v17

4) Jesus died because He has the authority to die (and to live again) v18

I am picking up this sermon in the middle of an exchange between Jesus, his disciples and the rest of his entourage, including some Pharisees. From a bible study perspective, it is typically not a good idea to jump into a passage midstream. However in this particular passage, Jesus helps us out by adjusting both the metaphor and the emphasis. In the first ten verses, He describes himself as the door to the sheepfold and he describes the reality that nobody gets to God except through Him. He literally is the door. In fact anyone who thinks that they’re “in with God” through some other means (works, sacraments, family heritage, ethnicity, you name it) is really a thief and a robber.

However, in verse 11 Jesus changes the imagery. Now he expands his self-portrait to show himself as the Good Shepherd. Let me pause here to say there are a lot of directions one could take with Jesus’ imagery of the Good Shepherd. We could focus on Jesus’ provision for his sheep, even tying back to verse 10. We could concentrate on Jesus leading, guiding and comforting of us, bringing in various aspects of Psalm 23. We could spend time plumbing the depths of Jesus’ seeking, rescuing and restoring the lost sheep as he describes in Luke 15. All of these are true dimensions of who Christ is and shows us once again the multidimensional wonder of our great savior.

But today, based on some specific words in verse 11 and some implications in verses 12 & 13, I would like us to look at Jesus’ protection of his sheep. Jesus is very explicit in verse 11 “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” A shepherd’s life is not in danger while feeding or caring for his sheep. There is little risk in leading or guiding. Even in rescuing and restoring the sense is more of extreme care and compassion. But here Jesus has something else in view. Here the shepherd’s life is on the line.

One has to wonder why. The hired hand doesn’t care. When he sees a threat, he is out of there. Yet the shepherd, the Good Shepherd is willing to lay down his life to save and protect his sheep. Why?

I think verse 14 has our answer for us and it is glorious. We belong to Jesus. Jesus doesn’t just lay down his life for just any sheep. He lays down is life for his sheep. Think about the implications of this truth brothers and sisters. Jesus’ death for your sins, his atoning sacrifice, his (can I use a big word?) propitiation of God’s just and holy wrath, was not simply a remote, antiseptic transaction. It was not like me paying my taxes: somewhat reluctantly and not sure exactly what I getting for my investment. No. Jesus died for his own. He died for people who were already his.

I want to push this a little more because it highlights the awesomeness to what God has been orchestrating since the beginning. If the Good Shepherd is willing to die for sheep that already his, his death doesn’t make them his. It may cement his ownership, but it doesn’t establish it. He owned them before he died. And if the owned them before he died, when exactly did his ownership begin? Jot down these verses Eph 1:4 and Tit 1:2. We have always been in Christ’s possession. So much so, that before time began, before Gen 1:1 ever happened, there was an intra-Trinitarian promise that this ownership, this protection would never fail. Jesus, the eternal second person of the Trinity promised and committed to secure your eternal life, your salvation, your sanctification, your glorification, everything that it would take to present you before God’s throne with exceeding joy. And he made this promise before anything but God himself existed.

In light of this, I feel compelled to ask some of the same questions Paul did in Romans 8 and I want to make them personal. If Jesus did all of this for you, if God orchestrated all of this for you, if there is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, then why do you think anything can separate you from the love of God in Christ? What could you possibly do or say (or not do or not say) that could exceed the expanse of this love and commitment? Is our view of Jesus really that small? No! This book screams the opposite. The God of the Bible, the Jesus of Bible is so far beyond us that our deepest comprehension of him is just the outskirts of who he is.

I would love to linger here, but there is another reason Jesus chose to lay down his life. As he moves into verses 14 and 15, his emphasis transitions from owning to knowing. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. It would be a mistake, at this point to say the Jesus laid down his life for me because he knew about that microscopically small nugget of goodness inside of me. It is a mistake to say that or think that because when Jesus died, there was no nugget of goodness inside of me and there wasn’t a nugget of goodness inside of you. I hope you have Rom 5:8 underlined or highlighted in your Bibles: but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

But the implications of these verses go beyond the fact that Jesus knew what we were before he died. Jesus’ emphasis here is on intimacy. He knew us the way close friends or married couples or parents and children know each other. This is a deep, personal knowledge. And to highlight it, Jesus compares it to his relationship with his Father. Since there is no deeper relationship in the entire universe than the Trinity, for Jesus to equate his knowledge of us to his knowledge of the Father is, quite frankly, amazing.

Do we see Jesus death in this light? Honestly, I often view Jesus as the substitute or high preist, which He is, but nothing more. This imagery pushes that envelope. Jesus knows us intimately and because of that pre-existing relationship, he is willing to lay down his life for us. Later in John he will say “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

So here, in two verses, Jesus interconnects the profound love relationship of the Trinity, his deep intimate knowledge of us and his choice to die on our behalf. How can we not worship? How can we doubt His commitment to us? How can we not rest secure in such a loving, sacrificial Savior?

Before I move on to the next reason that Jesus gave up his life, I want to briefly comment on verse 16. Jesus says that he has other sheep, which are not of “this fold”. Does he mean other Jews who are not in Jerusalem and/or geographic Israel? Does he mean the Gentiles who, religiously speaking, are in a totally different flock? Or is he referring to generations of men and women who are separated from the original audience by both time and distance? Most commentaries agree that since Jesus is delivering this self-description in a Jewish setting, his reference is to the other sheep he owns and knows intimately are in the Gentile world. And that, by extension, means you and me. This verse deserves more attention than I can give to it now. It is a huge, ground leveling, gospel expanding verse and we should rejoice that God chose to include it in His holy Word.

Jesus died for because we are his and because he knows us. In verse 17 Jesus moves us into the third reason that He chose to die. Can I say it this way? He died for the love his Father. We have to be careful at this point. I don’t want to imply that the Father didn’t love the Son before the cross or that somehow the fabric of the intra-Trinitarian love would have been ripped apart without the cross. And yet, Jesus declares “the Father loves me, because I lay down my life”. I think it would serve us well and pause a moment and consider this rare glimpse into the love relationship between the Father and the Son. How often do we put the Trinity into an exalted space on the shelf and not press and peer into the snapshots that we are given in Scripture because we don’t want make our brains work?

One thing to notice is that there is a causal connection between the Father’s love for the Son and the Son’s righteous obedience. Does that surprise us? Don’t we, in our own small ways, mirror this? I love my kids, for the most part unconditionally. Yet when they disobey the house rules, there is, in a sense, the wrath of dad. Do I still love them? Absolutely! Has the dynamics of that love relationship changed? I would say yes. And when they obey, maybe even in exemplary way, does my love for them exceed the bounds that it did before? Not really. And yet, has the dynamics of our love relationship changed? Of course it has. Love, by its very nature must be dynamic.

So, in a pure, sinless way, the Trinity exhibits a dynamic love relationship. What kind of God would we have if there was not a rich interaction between the persons of the Trinity? Does the Father love the Son more because He died on the cross? No. And yet is that perfect eternal love now richer and fuller? Does Jesus go to the cross to earn the Father’s love? Not a chance. But isn’t part, maybe a large part, of his motivation to die for us to live out the love of his Father?

You may ask why spend time on some heady topic like love within the Trinity? Here are just a couple of reasons. First, it makes Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf even more secure. We may know that Jesus’ death is not contingent on us or our obedience, but when we see that it is anchored in the perfect love of the Father, we can know that his sacrifice is beyond our ability to destroy. Second, this shows us that even though to us salvation is the most crucial event in our lives, the Father, the Son and the Spirit are working out an even bigger and better plan, including your redemption, the presentation of the church as a spotless bride, the re-creation of the universe and final defeat of death and sin. And it serves as yet another reminder that God is so much bigger than we could ever grasp or even imagine.

Jesus has already laid out already for us that he chose to die because he owns us, because he knows us and because the Father loves him. As we come to the end of this section of John 10, there is a final reason why Jesus chose to die. It is found at the end of verse 17 and on into 18. This reason may be the most assuring and faith building of them all. Jesus emphatically states that “I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 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.” Simply put, Jesus died because he had the authority to do so.

Think about it. Jesus didn’t have to die. Let me say that again. Jesus didn’t have to die. In fact Jesus says as much “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” At one level we know that, don’t we? We know he was sinless. We know that his trial was farce and the charges were trumped up. We know that cross really should have been ours. And yet as we read the last chapters of the gospels, there seems to be this element of Jesus being out of control. Events seem to take on a life of their own. The crowds, the Romans, the Jews all seem to be in control. Everyone except Jesus.

But Jesus words here in John and elsewhere declare to us that he died, not because he was forced to, but because he had the authority to do it. In very really sense he not only permitted himself to die, he authorized it, he ordained it.

We can’t stop there. These verses don’t simply tell us that he had the authority to lay down his life. They also proclaim that he had the authority to take it up again. Do you know what that means? The resurrection was never in doubt! There was not a three judge panel in heaven weighing the merits of his sacrifice. Jesus wasn’t lying in the tomb wondering whether the Father would accept his death or not. Was Jesus death necessary? Absolutely! Were Jesus’ temptations in the garden and in the desert real? Without a doubt! But Jesus’ authority as God gave him the authority take up his life again. And if Jesus has the authority to do this, doesn’t his authority extend to taking up our lives as well?

So, we have four reasons that Jesus chose to die.

1) Jesus died because we are his sheep. vv11-13

2) Jesus died because He knows us. vv14-16

3) Jesus died because the Father loves him v17

4) Jesus died because He has the authority to die (and to live again) v18

But what do we do with these truths? How can we take them with us into the rest of our lives? Here are just a few quick items that I pray the Spirit will press upon your hearts.

First, remember that Jesus was speaking both to build our confidence and to bolster our assurance. We must realize that whatever comes our way, He died for his own, for us who by grace have put our faith and trust in him. The hardships in your life are not a surprise to him. The temptations that seem to derail your walk with Christ are not insurmountable obstacles to him. Remember that he died to secure your eternal redemption.

Second, rest on the reality that Jesus’ death was intentional, purposeful and born out of love. We are too quick to view Jesus’ death as just a point in time event. While it was that, it was (and is) so much more. The Father, Son and Spirit planed your redemption before the world began. They have been acting throughout history to bring the cross and the Christ together. They have been working everyday of your life, first to bring you to faith, and second to build you up in Christlikeness. And they are laboring now toward the restoration of all things. As Paul asks in Romans, if God is doing all this, will He not, along with Christ graciously give us all things? On top of that, if Christ has done all of this, what in all of creation could possibly separate us from the love of God that is in Christ?

Third, we need to rely on the fact that all of this, our salvation, sanctification and glorification, the redemption of all things, the restoration recreation of the universe all hinges on the magnificent and incomprehensible love of God. Jesus’ love for the Father sends him to the Cross. The Father’s love of Christ accepts, approves and is filled out by Jesus loving submission. The love of the Shepherd for his sheep compels him to protect them and preserve them despite the cost to his very life.

Finally, we are both recipients and responders. The Bible is God’s story of creation, redemption and restoration. From Genesis to Revelation, we are simply recipients of God’s unmerited favor. Jesus did the heavy lifting. In reality, He did all the lifting. And yet, God expects a response to his grace. We need to receive it. We need to own it. We ought to revel in it. We ought to run with it. But whatever we do, we dare not reject it.

But I would remiss not to reiterate that the security of Jesus’ sacrificial death only applies to His sheep. If have not surrendered your life to Him, if have not accepted the free gift of his grace, neither I nor the Bible can offer you any assurance. Yet the Bible is clear: today is the day of salvation. If the Spirit is pressing on your heart, if the love of Christ has hemmed you in, if you are experiencing a gut wrenching hunger for this kind of assurance, let go of your tightfisted grip on a self-righteousness that can never save and reach out to embrace the magnificent gospel of grace and the Savior who chose to die so that you could live.

Jesus is our Good Shepherd. He has laid down his life for us. We are safe, we are secure. We are free to live and serve and die for the one to has our lives in the palm of his hand.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

To God Alone be the Glory