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.

Fear God; Love Jesus

No audio is available for this sermon.

Fear God

The fear of God is paradoxical. Like many biblical truths (love your enemies, those who save their lives will lose it), the fear of the Lord seems to defy conventional wisdom, yet...

 • Without it, we can't even begin to fathom the magnitude of our sin and our separation from God.
 • Without it, we can't begin to grasp the unbelievable richness of God's grace in Christ.
 • Without it we can't fully worship or praise or honor the Triune God of the universe.

But, the fear of God also leads us, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to life. Prv 19:23 says “The fear of the LORD leads to life, and whoever has it rests satisfied.” A healthy fear, a true appreciation of who God is and who we are doesn't drive us away from God, but to Him. We will come back to Isa. 6 in a minute, but that passage is a great picture and reminder for us that seeing God as He is is really the beginning of life.

And, as believers, our fear of this holy, awesome, majestic God blends with the grace and love and peace and joy that have no height nor breadth nor length nor depth. Why is grace amazing, if there is not some component of fear in what God could have done instead of saving us? What is so glorious about coming directly into God’s presence if He is not fearfully awesome and simply terrifying in who He is. In the end, we are quite simply compelled and constrained by the love of God that is poured out on us in Christ (2 Cor 5:14).

It has been said that this would be a lot easier if we could see God. In one sense, I agree. But in another sense, I would say we have seen Him. Jesus states it clearly in Jn 14:9 “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” And if we are looking for a New Testament equivalent to Isa 6, we need to look no further than the cross. How can we not fear God when we see first hand the full punishment our sins require? And yet how can we not rejoice and adore and surrender our lives to the one who took our place turned our fear into faith?

At this point, we need to consider some things.

• Do we take certain aspects of God and make them the whole?
• Do we tend to make God in our image?
• Do we so want a God whose job is to make our life easy and comfortable that we neglect the fact that He is the awesome and powerful Creator, Sustainer and Ruler of the universe?

Most of all, we need to ask: what is the purpose of a God who is rightly to be feared? Place the scene from Isa 6 in your mind. Isaiah saw the glory of God and it crushed him. He said “I am undone” What did this fear of the Lord accomplish in Isaiah's life? Isaiah's fear of God drove him to despair of his own ability to save himself. “Woe is me! For I am lost;" He was then able to receive the salvation God provided. "Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” This, in turn allowed him to follow Jesus.

Do you see that pattern? Do you see that we cannot grasp the salvation Christ has procured for us until the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to the reality that our sin will bring us face to face with a fearsomely holy and righteous God? Do you see that this true, healthy fear drives us to a free salvation that exchanges fear for faith and then compels us to serve the one who gave up everything so that we could be free of the fear the immobilizes us and that we can embrace the fear that brings God all of the glory He so richly deserves.

Love Jesus

Again, the word to describe following Jesus is paradoxical. Pause and consider this: Jesus says without Him we can't do anything. Yet, He says my true followers are the ones who do the will of the Father. He says he will draw all people to himself. Yet he says go a make disciples. Throughout the New Testament there is this expectation of obedience. Yet Jesus, Paul, Peter, John and even James insist we are saved and sustained by grace. How do we bridge this gap?

Perhaps it will require us to relearn (or unlearn) things about the Father and the Son and the Spirit. Can we try to listen to Jesus as if we are hearing him for the first time? Let His words, more than that, the heart behind those words sink into your minds and hearts and souls.

Think about the pretensions Jesus was seeking to expose when he asked questions along these lines: "Why do call me Lord and not do what I say?" What if you or I were in the crowd when he said that? Remember when Jesus said this he had just finished taking every single aspect of Jewish moral obedience and driving it to the root issue: the human heart. So when He asks, "Why do call me Lord and not do what I say?" He is not simply asking why aren’t you obeying the 10 commandments. He is not simply asking why aren’t you obeying the current church culture’s version of what’s right and what’s wrong. He's asking something deeper.

External obedience has its place, but Jesus always, always goes for the jugular. He wants to know why my heart doesn’t look like his heart. I can’t follow externally until I am changed internally. So, if we call Jesus Lord, but deep in our heart we’re still Lord, we're not doing what He’s calling us to to do. That is the first step in obedience. But there is another side to the obedience coin.

Jesus also quoted Isaiah in reference to the legalistic Pharisees, "They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me" Jesus knows we can claim to follow him and have our lives not look anything like his. That is a real concern. But Jesus also knows we can have super spiritual lives and we can fool everyone around us and yet have a heart that is far from God. In both cases, Jesus is pressing on our tendency to want to do the bare minimum. But Jesus' expectation is we will be "all in”. All in in our devotion to Him. All in in our obedience to the Father. All in in our love for His bride, the church.

Think about this: if Jesus loved the church, the people he is rescuing from every tongue and tribe and language. And he died for them to be able to present them as his holy, blood washed bride. And, he is calling us to respond to His love in such a way that our hearts and live begin to resemble his heart and life. Then what should this local church look like? Don’t answer. Just ponder… And pray.

Consider also the fact that Jesus was totally honest with those he called to follow him. What do we do with the idea of the narrow gate and the hard way which leads to life? (Did I mention this was paradoxical?) What do we do with the reality that Jesus describes in which those who try to save their lives will lose them, but those who lose their lives for the sake of Christ will save them. It really comes down to this, whatever we receive from Christ in this life, the narrow road we are called to walk on will require our minds and our hearts fixed on Him.

The good news is that this is all part of God's great design. This summed up powerfully in the book of Ephesians.

• We have incredible spiritual blessings in Christ, including our holiness and blamelessness and adoption and redemption and forgiveness
• We have an inheritance from God, secured by Christ and guaranteed by the giving of the Holy Spirit
• We have unbelievable power in Christ through prayer. It is access to the same power that raised Christ from the dead
• We have been rescued from the domain of darkness and our allegiance to Satan and from our spiritual death
• We’ve been given life and love and we are already considered to be in the closest fellowship with Christ, all by the mercy and grace of God.
• We are joined with fellow believers of every age through the unifying power of the blood of Christ
• Together we (the church) are considered by God to be his temple, the place where he will manifest His presence in the world.
• Together we (the church) are God's declaration and demonstration of wisdom to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.
• We have a Father who has lavished on us a love that is too high, too wide, too long and too deep to comprehend, but in Christ He makes the incomprehensible love known to us.

With all of this in his mind Paul then says: "I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." Our following Jesus doesn't precede our faith in Him, it is fueled by it. And, our obedience to God doesn't earn or pay back his grace, it is a fruit of it.

So, why would we follow Jesus? That question is especially compelling given the upside down nature of God's economy and the promised hardness of the way. One answer is that it is simply a privilege. This goes back to our full appreciation of who God is (including our fear of Him) and who Jesus is. If we knew Jesus even as well as the demons do, we would be pleading to follow Him. In Luke 8 Jesus encounters a demon possessed man. Verse 28 shows the demons know who Jesus is and rightly fear him "When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” Jesus delivers the man from the demons and man's response is not simply gratitude. It is not simply praise and adoration. It is this overwhelming desire to follow Jesus and spend the rest of his life serving the One who delivered him.

But, there's another aspect to why we would follow Jesus. There is simply no other option. We can pretend there are alternatives and make up a faith system the requires a simple one time acknowledgment of Christ. But when our alternative reality meets God's ultimate reality, our house of cards will collapse.  A great example of this is in John 6. The chapter starts with Jesus feeding over 5000 people. Then Jesus and the disciples left for the other side of the lake. On the next day the crowds tracked Jesus down, looking to make him king. Jesus rightly diagnoses that they simply want more bread. So he tells them that the real bread, the bread that leads to life is Jesus himself. He says that He is the bread of life. He says that he is the true manna from heaven. He says in Jn 6:53-54,“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day." The response of even some of his own disciples was “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” So Jesus grew his followers from over 5000 to 12. Then he's ready to go to square one and asks the 12 if they are ready to leave too. And whether they understood the bread of life stuff or what it meant to eat the flesh of the Son of Man, they understood one thing clearly. Peter speaks for the group in Jn 6:68“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,"

Does Peter's statement resonate with you? That thought should be where we are in our perspective and devotion and allegiance to Jesus. Quite simply we ought to have Jn 6:68 tattooed on our hearts. "Where else can we go? You have the words eternal life."

As we close here are some questions to consider:

• How would you assess your own fear of the Lord? Is He a harmless teddy bear? Is He like a grandpa or Santa Claus? Is He an evil ogre or a cosmic killjoy? Or, does your fear have at least the beginnings of a biblical framework to it? We need to allow God's own Word define for us all of His dimensions, including His awesome fearfulness.

• What do you do with the fear of God? Do you run and hide? Do you simply live as if it didn't exist? When you pray, do you consider the incredible privilege you've been granted and rightful fear that should captivate your heart and mind? When you look to the cross do see Jesus exchanging your fear of just judgement with peace and hope and mercy and grace? This rightly understood fear should inform all of our life.

• Do you consider yourself a follower of Jesus? Why? What is the basis of that claim? Does it match biblical reality? If so, praise God! But consider this: how close a follower are you? Would Acts 4:13 apply to you? "Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus."

• What drives you? What is the engine of your life? Is it money? Power? Fame? Someone's opinion? Avoidance of pain? Or is it humiliated and bloodied and gloriously resurrected Savior?

• Does any of this leave you saying in effect, "Woe is me. I am undone."? Great! That was the prayer and the goal! We need to take this to God. We need to ask him to cover us in Christ, to restore us in Christ, to empower us in power of the Holy Spirit.

• And, if you are not yet a believer in Christ, today can be the day of salvation. Know that the fear of God is real and you will face Him one day. And without Jesus, you will be utterly alone. And at the point when you face Him, there will be no second chance. But the good news today is that Jesus will not simply stand with you, He will stand in your place. Your task is to simply accept what Christ purchased for you on that bloody cross and begin the not always so easy journey of following Him.

To God Alone be the Glory.

Ambassadors for Christ – 2 Corinthians 5:14-21

No audio is available for this sermon.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a British pastor during the mid to late 20th century said “that it is through preaching that God conveys the Truth to people, brings them to the realization of their need and thus reveals to them the only satisfaction of their need…By this men and women are brought to a knowledge of the truth.” This is my goal and my prayer for our time together.  That God would use my meager words along with His perfect Word and bring us to the knowledge of the truth.

“Who do you think you are?” This is a question that can be asked in two different tones. It can be asked in an inquisitive tone: who do you think you are? Or, it can be asked in an accusative tone:  who do you think you are. As I’ve read through and prayed through the passage before us, I’ve become convinced that this question can (and should) be asked in both senses when we consider our identity as ambassadors for Christ.

Think about it. Don’t we need the reminder, in the form of a question, asking “do you realize you are an ambassador for Christ?” And don’t we need, in a way, the confrontational question, “how can you possibly think of yourself as an ambassador for Christ?” Considering both of these angles on this one question I believe will help us to capture both the power and the privilege for us to be called an ambassador for Christ.

In order to approach the answers to this question, I want to look at the verses that immediately precede Paul’s declaration that we are ambassadors for Christ in 2 Cor 5. I want us to see three overarching things.

• First, Paul lays out in very clear logic that our status as ambassadors is not something that is optional or questionable. It is not something we can lose or tarnish or destroy.
• Additionally, Paul shows us that as Christ’s ambassadors, we have been given both a ministry and a message. This is not an optional extra, but part of who we are in Christ.
• And, Paul also makes it transparently clear that there is both a responsibility and privilege in our calling as ambassadors for Christ.

Reality 1: We are Christ’s ambassadors.

We really need to start with the fact that whatever identity we claim as believers in Christ, it is explicitly tied to who Jesus is and what He accomplished on our behalf. I start here, not because that’s the theologically correct thing to do. I start here because the biblical writers, front to back start here.  Only a strong, robust appreciation of Jesus can undergird and support who we are in Christ.

Look at verses 14 and 15. The love of Christ controls us. Or as the NIV says it: The love of Christ compels us. Why? This is the love that sent Jesus to the cross. This is the love that set aside the riches of heaven and compelled Jesus to humble himself and give his life as a ransom for many. This is the love that looked at our sin and rebellion and indifference and idolatry and vanity and rescued us anyway. This is the love that has claimed us as ambassadors.

One thing I admire about Paul is that he never assumes the main points of his arguments.  In the second half of verse 14 and on into 15, he continues to stress that our identity is bound up with Jesus’ death and resurrection. If Christ died for us, we are owned by him, but because He lives we now live. And we are freed to live for Him. So whether we see ourselves as dead to sin or if we see ourselves alive for Him, we are belong to Christ. We live as Christ’s ambassadors.

As Paul moves on, he reminds us that Christ’s death and resurrection accomplished the tremendous achievement of reconciling us to God. This is his point in verses 17, 18 and 19. But I think we zip by this truth almost too quickly. How often do we ponder what it means to be reconciled to the infinitely Holy God? How big of a sacrifice was required to cover every one of my sins, the white lies, the lustful thoughts, the harsh words, the divisive conversation, the greedy motives, the anger, the jealously. (And that was just yesterday.) And that doesn’t even consider my broken heart that really wants the universe to revolve around me.

We really don’t see God for how great and glorious He is. Does Rev 4 really say that no one in heaven or earth could approach His throne? And we really don’t see the sinfulness of sin. We don’t see (or want to admit) that even our smallest rebellion and idolatry deserve an eternity in Hell. And what makes our self-illusion complete is that we actually enjoy our little, petty, private sins.

I stress this point because if we see God as He is (read Isa 40 or Ps 33 or Job 26 or Rev 4) and we see ourselves as we are (read Rom 1:18 – 3:20 or Isa 64 or Jer 7 or Mt 23) we will see more clearly the incredible value of the reconciliation that Jesus bought with his own blood. And when we begin to grasp the magnitude of this reconciliation we will begin to understand why the love that drives and sustains this reconciliation is the same love that must compel and control us. We are ambassadors of the living, loving, reconciling Savior.

Paul lays down one final truth regarding our identity in Christ in verse 21. Read it carefully with me. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” This is what many call the Great Exchange. But, I plead with you; don’t lose the power of this verse in its familiarity. Christ became sin for us. The righteous replacing the unrighteous. Jesus is taking on our identity. Can we grasp that? Not just the penalty of our sin. Not just the just wrath of God. He became sin. He became what we were.

But wait! There’s more! Not only did Jesus take on our identity, but we received His identity. We the sinful, unrighteous, traitors are now holy and righteous and absolutely forgiven. Nothing can stand between us and God because we in are in fact righteous in Christ. So, in a very real sense, we are ambassadors of Christ. We are redeemed by Christ. We are compelled by Christ. We are reconciled by Christ. We are righteous in Christ. Everything we are is from Christ, to Christ and in Christ.

Reality 2: We are ambassadors for Christ.

As I mentioned at the outset, there are three aspects to the reality that we are ambassadors. There is the reality that we are ambassadors because Jesus has rescued and redeemed us. But in addition to that, there is also the reality that we are ambassadors on His behalf.  Paul has been making this argument alongside his statements of our identity in Christ.

He started by laying the ground work in verse 14. Christ’s love compels us because we are identified with Him. But Christ’s love compels us to what? We are initially left hanging, but consider verse 15. “he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” Christ’s love, demonstrated in His death and resurrection, compels us to live not for ourselves but for Christ.

This, of course, only pushes the question down one layer.  What does Paul mean when he says we will live our lives for the one who died and rose for our sake? Does he mean we should be cleaning up our lives? Living morally upright, crossing every T and dotting every I? Does he mean we should all be great students of theology, preaching  sermons, witnessing on street corners and praying all night? Does he mean we should sell our houses and cars and move to Africa or Asia? It could mean any or all of these things, but it could also mean none of them. You see, when Paul speaks of living for Christ, he is not envisioning some set of external criteria, but rather the whole of a life that is more and more emulating Christ. And, it will be different for each of us.

Such a thought brings us full circle, since the essence of who Christ is tied up in what He accomplished for us on the Cross. He put the desires of his Father first and He gladly submitted himself to the Father’s will to redeem a people for Himself. And while we cannot save anyone, we can certainly expend our lives on behalf of Christ to serve others, both spiritually and physically.

But Paul goes on. He wants to hammer into us this one reality: Being in Christ fundamentally changes who we are. We may look the same on the outside, but on the inside we have been remade.  We may still see each other by our physical appearance or how we act or by any number of external characteristics. But the call on us as believers here in verses 16 and 17 is to not see based on the external, but based on the internal. And, in Christ we are a new creation. The old is gone and the new has come.

All of this stressed for a dual purpose.  One is, as I’ve already mentioned, to undergird our identity in Christ. It is to remind us (again) that we are in fact absolutely and unequivocally new in Christ. But the other purpose is to show us the ministry we have been given. Paul states this bluntly in verse 18. We have been given the ministry of reconciliation.

As soon as I’ve said this I sense some of you, or maybe all of you, are objecting in your minds. You are saying, my ministry is teaching, my ministry is administration, my ministry is service, my ministry is hospitality. I could go on and list a hundred different things that we would rightly consider ministries. And yet Paul’s point, really the Holy Spirit’s point, is that whatever the presenting ministry, the real, root level ministry must be about reconciliation, the reconciliation between man and God. And that, my friends, is the essence of being an ambassador for Christ.

I think it is important at this point to take note of what an ambassador’s role was back in Paul’s day. Much like today, ambassadors were the connecting point between kingdoms and nations. But the main role of an ambassador was as an emissary of peace. Whether two nations negotiated their peace or one nation conquered the other, the ambassador would be the one who would proclaim peace and he spoke with the authority of the king.

And so it is with us. Notice how Paul states it is verse 19. Christ is at work, reconciling this fallen world to a holy and just God. And we have been given a message. This message, this good news is the message of reconciliation. It is as if we are God’s emissaries. We are the proclaimers of God’s “peace treaty” with a fallen, sinful rebellious world.

Reality 3: As ambassadors, God is making his plea through us.

At this point, I need to ask a question that I hope you ask often as you read and study God’s Word. The question is this: “What’s the point?” Why has God preserved these words, these thoughts, these ideas for us to consider and ponder? Is it simply to give us deeper insight into our identity in Christ, which, by the way, is incredibly important? Or does he have something more for us? Is He trying to push us beyond where we are to where He wants us to be?

Consider this: we have a ministry of reconciliation v 18. Consider this: we have the message of reconciliation v19. Given these two realities, what is Paul’s point in verse 20? What is he driving us to? “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”

His point is simply and profoundly this: As believers, as God’s redeemed, as disciples of the risen Christ, we have been given a mission and a message. The message of God’s grace. The message of Christ’s love. The message of the Spirit’s power. God has entrusted this message to us. God’s plea from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation is this: Be reconciled to me.

You may be asking, what does this look like? How might this play out in your life and your ministry? The short answer is, I don’t have a clue. God can do a thousand different things a thousand different ways. But, I think He gives us snapshots of possibilities within His Word. For example, in Acts 16 Paul and Silas come to Philippi and have three very different encounters. One is aligns with what we would consider ministry within the church. Another is very confrontational ministry against the culture and its effects on people’s lives. And the third is essentially life style ministry with Paul and Silas ready to give an answer for the hope that they have in Christ.

So, brothers and sisters, I ask you, as I ask myself, how are we doing? Do we see this as our ministry, our calling from God? Are we pleading, appealing on behalf of Christ? Is the love of Christ compelling us not just to worship (as great as that is), not just to live a good life (as important as that is), but to be an ambassador for the One who gave his life so that we might both the reconciled and the proclaimers of the reconciliation that Christ purchased with the shedding of His own blood? Do we consider each ministry opportunity, however obscure, as a chance to allow God to make His appeal through us?

As I close, we need to remember this one thing. If we claim Jesus as our Savior and Lord, we are His ambassadors. But we are not alone in this task. The message of reconciliation which He has entrusted to us and the pleading that we are called to set forth to a lost and dying world, does not start or end with us. Think of the Great Commission in Mt 28, “All authority has been given to me, therefore go”. Yes we need to be pleading and proclaiming, but we are doing so in the authority of Christ and the power of the Spirit.

And the message of reconciliation, spelled out on the pages of God’s Word has a power and authority of its own.  We need only look to 1 Pt 1:23 “you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God” or Heb 4:12 “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” or Isa 55:11 “so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it”

In the end my friends, we are ambassadors because of 3 things.

• We are ambassadors because Jesus has claimed us as His own.
• We are ambassadors because God has given us the ministry and message of reconciliation, the unbridgeable gap between God and man has been bridged in Christ.
• We are ambassadors because Christ’s love compels us to plead with our friends and neighbors and all who the Spirit brings into our lives: Be reconciled to God.

I think it is fitting to close with the words from Isaiah. Despite the cultural decay and spiritual apathy around him, he continued to plead for reconciliation on God’s behalf:

Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
  Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
  Incline your ear, and come to me;
hear, that your soul may live;
and I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David.
Seek the LORD while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
  let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

To God Alone be the Glory

Our Inheritance in Christ – 1 Pet 1:3-9

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

Richard Baxter, a 17th century English pastor and writer, often said, “I preach as a dying man to dying men.” And that’s where we are today, isn’t it? We are all smart enough to know that we are only one car accident, one house fire or one cancer diagnosis away from the grave. So my goal, as a man who is dying and who does not know the number of his days, is to proclaim to you the glorious inheritance prepared for the children of God. And, my prayer has been that you, as people who are dying, may see more clearly the majesty of what Christ has purchased for you.  May we all be moved to no longer cling to the stuff that can never satisfy us and pursue that which is truly life.

I need to admit at the outset that there is more in this passage than can be adequately covered in one sermon.  So, my approach today is to first look and the arc of what Peter is saying to his 1st century audience and, by extension, to us. Following that, by God’s grace, we will drill down into just a few of the deep anchors Peter lays for us in these verses.

As we begin, we need to remember that Peter was writing to a collection of persecuted churches. While we don’t know the extent or the severity of the persecution, a few things are clear. Peter’s original audience had fled their homes. They were exiles for the gospel. In addition to that, Peter saw the warning signs and the seeds of doubt in the goodness and faithfulness of God.

Think about it. How often have our expectations of God failed to line up with the reality of God and resulted in our disappointment, maybe even the beginnings of our own doubt? I thought God really wanted me to get that promotion. I thought God really wanted us to get married. I thought God loved children. If we can be transparent for moment, (we can do that in church, right?) we would have to admit that we do this a lot. And it betrays that our vision is not focused on the right object.

Undoubtedly, Peter’s audience had similar problems. We’ve trusted in Christ and now we’ve lost our homes. We’ve lost our jobs and our friends. Not only that, the government is looking to arrest us. How can following a dead man possibly be worth all of that? How can we possibly go on?

This is the pastoral problem that Peter is speaking into as he starts his letter. Note his choice words as he begins to redirect our vision. In Christ we have:

• A living hope (v3)
• An inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading (v4)
• God as the guard of our salvation (v5)
• Necessity of trials (v6)
• A tested, genuine, precious faith (v7)
• A faith the results praise, glory, honor for Jesus (v7)
• An inexpressible and glory filled joy (v8)
• A salvation is ours (forever) (v9)

If we take these truths as a package, the question we should ask is this: how do these truths overcome and overwhelm our tendency to lose sight of God’s faithfulness in our circumstances? How do they take us from looking at what we want or expect and re-orient us so that we are looking at what God’s doing and what He wants for us? In dealing with this question, Peter provides the answer in four parts.

First, we have a living hope. How often in the New Testament do we see the writers not simply stress the death of Jesus, but his resurrection as well? Christ died as a propitiation, a wrath absorbing sacrifice to God, but he also rose again as a clear testimony to God’s acceptance of that sacrifice. Paul makes this case profoundly in 1 Cor 15:17 when he states “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins”.

Peter’s point here is that Jesus did rise, that he is alive and that the hope we place in him is not static or fixed (like my hope of retirement), but rather it is alive and dynamic. Also, implicit in Peter’s statement here is that a living hope is a sure hope. If Christ had simply died, we could say he paid for our sins and that we have peace with God. But how could we be sure? However since Christ died and rose again we can clearly see that all of God’s promises are “Yes” in Christ.

The second part of Peter’s answer is that our inheritance is being secured by God. I’m not sure why, but it seems our human tendency is to think that when things are the toughest, God is the furthest away from us. Even the Psalmist thought so (read Ps 22:1-2, Ps 74:1 or several others). And yet Peter states clearly, as does the rest of Scripture, that God does not abandon his children.

The Psalmist says it this way in Psalm 121:1-4“I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.”

Jesus says it like this in John 10:27-29 “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.”

Paul makes a similar claim in Rom 8:38-39 “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And Peter states here that we are being guarded by God for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last days. Peter is not simply talking about what we often refer to as our conversion. He is talking about that and everything else tied up in Jesus presenting us spotless and blameless before God’s throne.

On top of that, look at the adjectives Peter uses to describe our inheritance in Christ in v4. Imperishable – it will never spoil and will always be good and useful. Undefiled – sin will never tarnish it and it will never let us down. Unfading – the general effects of the curse (a world that doesn’t last) are now reversed for those who are found in Christ.

Each of these biblical authors, along with others I didn’t have time to reference, underscore the simple but profound reality that God is preserving us. He is protecting us. Jesus has secured for us an eternal redemption so the Father, the Son and the Spirit are always near us and working for us no matter how we may feel.

There is a third aspect of how Peter addresses our easy distraction from God’s vision when troubles come upon us. He reminds us that our trials serve as a test of the genuineness of our faith. And, as much as we may not like the idea of being tested, tests have a purpose. I think if we take a Christ-centered perspective on the testing we may find ourselves agreeing with Peter that the results are more precious than gold.

Perhaps we can think of it this way. Since our faith is in the finished work of Christ and our salvation depends upon the gracious gift of God and our comprehension of what we’ve received is through the enlightening of the Holy Spirit, then the test is not really directed at us but at God. In a very real way, God uses struggles and trials in our lives to demonstrate to us that the faith we have received from Him is genuine. And a genuine faith that secures our eternal redemption is more precious than gold. Let me expand that: it is more sure than gold, which Peter reminds us, perishes even though it is also tested by fire.

A fourth antidote to the ease at which we replace God’s vision with our own vision is that Peter reminds us of the magnificence of our salvation. It has been said that we under value our salvation because we both under estimate the seriousness of our sin and we over estimate our own righteousness. Peter cuts through that mirage by clearly stating that our salvation rests exclusively on Christ. Anything else would result in glory going to someone other than Jesus. And it would result in a shaky and unreliable salvation.

But Peter is clear. Our salvation is secure and it brings glory and honor and praise to Jesus. On top of that, it produces a joy that is inexpressible. And this joy, this inexpressible joy, is what replaces our desire for the fading and fleeting things of this life. Since joy is one of those words that are often vaguely defined, I want to share one man’s description of joy. Thomas Watson summed up Christ-centered joy in this way:

• Joy is a delightful passion. It is contrary to sorrow and the perturbation of the mind, and it overcomes the heart that is perplexed and cast down.
• By joy, the soul is supported under present troubles. Joy stupefies and swallows up troubles; it carries the heart above them, as the oil swims above the water.
• By joy, the heart is fenced against future fear. Joy is the antidote by which the fear of approaching danger is blocked off. "I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me."

At this point, I would be remiss, if I didn’t underscore the fact that everything Peter is proclaiming, both to his original audience and to us, hangs on one inescapable reality. We must be born again. Peter states it directly in verse 3 and comes back to our salvation in verse 9. He also sprinkles in references to salvation and faith in Christ throughout the intervening verses. Thus, he leaves us no other choice than that the hope, the joy, the security and the preciousness that we have been promised is intricately tied to our salvation in Christ.

I want to stress this because I think it is very easy for each of us to focus the entailments of our new life in Christ and neglect the foundation. It would be similar to driving in a fancy suburb and admiring a magnificent 3rd floor deck while forgetting that the house and the deck only stand because of the sureness of the foundation. We dare not think in our minds or in our hearts that we somehow outgrow the gospel and move on to its implications. Instead, as Peter says in chapter 2 verse 2, we must grow up into salvation.

At this point I want to address myself to anyone who may not believe that Jesus died as a payment for their specific sins. I need you to listen very carefully. You need to know you are in a very dangerous place. To put it bluntly, you are headed to Hell. But the good news is that Christ has died. The price has been paid. The gift has been offered. Will you not repent and believe? You need to know that none of the good and glorious promises in the Bible apply if you reject the salvation that God has freely and graciously provided. In the words of Ezekiel I would plead with you, “Turn! Turn! God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. O that you would turn from your way and live.”

I also want to speak directly to those of you who would call yourselves believers, Christ-followers, disciples. I have one question for you: What place does the gospel have in your life? Is it one among many important things? You want to work on your marriage and your parenting. You want to be diligent and productive at your job. Perhaps you want to excel at a craft, say singing or karate or preaching. And of course you have the gospel to make everything fit.

Or perhaps you have the gospel first on your list. All the other things have their place, marriage, parenting, job, hobbies and interests, but gospel is always first on the list of all the important things in your life.

Or, is the gospel the list?

If we take a serious look at what Peter has to say, not just here, but throughout both of his letters, we can’t escape the fact that he saw that the gospel is in a category by itself. In chapter 1, his call to holiness is grounded in the gospel. In chapter 2, his view of the church and suffering flow from the gospel. In chapter 3, his call to prayer and to witness, even in the face of persecution depend on the gospel of a savior who suffered for those who deserved to suffer.

We can add to this Paul’s relentless pursuit and proclamation of the gospel and Jesus unwavering drumbeat of His kingdom transforming our lives. At the end of the day we are forced to stand back and admit that the gospel drives everything. We cannot have the gospel in our heads only. We dare not keep it on a shelf like some piece of treasured china.  We must allow it to own us, to mold us and to shape us, to propel us and to sustain us.

As I said at the beginning of this message, I wanted to drill down into just a couple of the deep anchors that Peter is laying to strengthen and solidify our faith.  The anchors I want to focus on are not more important than the ones that I’m passing over.  They are simply the ones I sense are perhaps more neglected than the others. But, I would encourage each of you, young or old, new believer or senior saint to take some time, either this afternoon or this evening or maybe tomorrow and slowly, reflectively, prayerfully reread this passage. Allow the Holy Spirit to sink all of His anchors deep into your soul.

Anchor number 1 is found in verse 3. Look at it again. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” There’s a ton packed into that single verse, but I want to zoom into the very basic statement that is being made. God caused us to be born again. Let me say that again. God caused us to be born again.

Brothers and sisters, this goes beyond the concept that most of us have of election. I would dare say that most of us see God’s election like picking teams on the grade school playground. God chooses who He wants on His team. If we think about it hard enough and long enough, we would probably admit we don’t have the skills to play the game we’ve been picked to play. On top of that we are the most antisocial kid in the school. Yet God picked us anyway.

But, what Peter is saying goes deeper than that. God did choose us. God did pick for himself people who were the most unlikely followers and set His affections on the most rebellious of people. Yet Peter insists that God not only choose us and set His affections on us: He caused us to be born again. This is not just a selective action. This is an operative action. He didn’t just declare us not guilty by some act of divine fiat, He worked in and through His Son to cause our sins to be absorbed by the body and blood of Jesus. He strained to take the righteousness of Christ and set it on us and locked it in place, never to be moved again. He groaned through the compassion of the Holy Spirit to awaken our spirits to the truth and the reality of everything that He has done and continues to do for us in Christ.

My friends, God saved us. And He continues to sustain us in that salvation. That’s Peter’s point in verse 5. And to top it off, God will ultimately, finally and completely save us when we stand before His throne. Nobody expresses this truth better than Jude in verses 24-25: “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.”

What is our response to this great God? How do we even begin to express our love and gratitude? How can we hold back when He lovingly commands us to obey? How can we doubt His love and mercy and grace and power for us who believe? Should we not proclaim with Jeremiah: “If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.”

The second anchor I want to focus on in the time that remains is the preciousness of our faith. Peter points to the breadth of our faith in verses 5 and 9, but verse 7 is the key verse that I want to drill into. “so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
Peter states clearly that our faith is more precious than gold. As good, Bible reading Christians, we may intellectually agree with this statement. But do we believe it practically? Do really see our faith as being that valuable? Or have we lost sight of what is really precious, what is really valuable?

It should be noted that from beginning to end, the Bible consistently paints God’s economy as totally different often antithetical to ours. Our economy is always based on work and resources, our work, our resources. It results, if we work hard and have the right resources, in our wealth. The problem is, our work doesn’t last, or isn’t enough. And our resources never last and are often the wrong ones at the wrong time.

God’s economy is also based on work and resources. However, His work is perfect and His resources are infinite. But what makes God’s economy totally different than ours is that it is outward focused not inward focused. We work for money for food or clothes or rent for ourselves or our family. If we are really altruistic, we give some our stuff to ministries we support. God, however, does everything for the benefit of others, even those who hate Him. He makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust. He sent Jesus to die for a rebellious and sinful people. He delays the day of Christ’s return so more people can hear the gospel and believe. And he ties our salvation to faith so that it can be made secure in Christ and result in praise and glory to our Savior.

The bottom-line is this: God secures our salvation through faith. Any works on our part and our salvation would rely, at least in part on us. If this were the case, we would have reason to doubt, since we could never be sure if we did enough or if we did it correctly. This is the religious heritage in which I was raised. But thanks be to God that we are saved by grace through faith and that faith itself is a gift from God (see Eph 2:8), so there is no room for doubt. God secures our salvation, He gives it inestimable value and He brings it to completion in Christ.

There is one thing about our faith that must be made crystal clear before we conclude. As precious as it is, as secure as it is, as God glorifying as it is, it is only as good as its object. D.A. Carson tells a story of two Israelites talking at the well on the morning before the first Passover. One man is quite anxious and asks the other what he thinks of all the plagues. The second man replies that they have been traumatic and frightening, but he has confidence in God and so far everything Moses has said has borne out. The first man, still quite nervous presses. What about this sacrifice of a lamb? And the spreading of its blood on the door posts and frame? He only has his one son. He can’t lose him. How can a lamb’s blood stop the angel of death? It doesn’t make any sense. The second man responds with calmness. Everything Moses has said about the plagues has been true. Everything he has said about God matches what the elders told us from Noah and Abraham and Joseph. I don’t how a lamb’s blood can avert the angel of death, but I will do what God told us to do and trust Him. The first man, still nervous, leaves shaking his head and wringing his hands, saying, I just don’t get it. I’m just not sure. Yet, that evening both men followed Moses’ prescription, sacrifice their family lamb and spread the blood on the door posts and frame.

Then Carson asks this provocative question. Which first born son was saved?
The answer is that both boys were saved. You see it is not about the quality of our faith nor is it about the quantity of our faith. The preciousness of our faith, the genuineness of our faith and the sureness of our faith is found in its object: Jesus Christ.

As I close, ponder the words of Charles Spurgeon: “Consider this, believer. You have no right to heaven in yourself: your right lies in Christ. If you are pardoned, it is through his blood; if you are justified, it is through his righteousness; if you are sanctified, it is because God has made Him your sanctification; if you shall be kept from falling, it will be because you are preserved in Christ Jesus; and if you are perfected at the last, it will be because you are complete in him. Thus Jesus is magnified-for all is in him and by him; thus the inheritance is made certain to us-for it is obtained in him; thus each blessing is the sweeter, and even heaven itself the brighter, because it is Jesus our Beloved ‘in whom’ we have obtained all.”

To God Alone be the Glory

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