Series: Growing Together in God's Grace
February 24,
2013
Dear friends in Christ.
I’d like to begin this morning by
telling you a story that you might recognize, because this is a story that I
have used on a number of occasions. I
know I used it in a sermon when I was in South Dakota. I know that I’ve used it in confirmation
classes, but I cannot remember if I’ve ever used in a sermon since I’ve been
here. So, if you’ve heard it before,
hopefully you’ll enjoy it as much as you did the first time you heard it. It is a story about a little boy named Tom
who carried his new boat to the edge of the river. “He carefully placed it in the water and
slowly let out the string. How smoothly the boat sailed! Tom sat in the warm
sunshine, admiring the little boat that he had built. Suddenly a strong current
caught the boat. Tom tried to pull it back to shore, but the string broke. The
little boat raced downstream. Tom ran
along the sandy shore as fast as he could. But his little boat soon slipped out
of sight. All afternoon he searched for the boat. Finally, when it was too dark
to look any longer, Tom sadly went home.
A few days later, on the way home from school, Tom spotted a boat just
like his in a store window. When he got closer, he could see -- sure enough --
it was his! Tom hurried to the store manager: "Sir, that's my boat in your
window! I made it!" "Sorry, son, but someone else brought it in this
morning. If you want it, you'll have to buy it for one dollar." Tom ran
home and counted all his money. Exactly one dollar! When he reached the store,
he rushed to the counter. "Here's the money for my boat." As he left
the store, Tom hugged his boat and said, "Now you're twice mine. First, I
made you and now I bought you.”[1]
Well, in the same way that Tom made his boat
and then later redeemed his boat when he bought it back from the store clerk,
so also Jesus, our Savior redeemed us from our lives of slavery to sin and
death. For the truth is, that is what we
were before we came to faith in Jesus as our Savior. Just as Jesus tells us himself when he says,
“I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 Now a slave has
no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36 So if the
Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." (John 8:34–36, NIV84) and as
Paul tells us, “Just as sin entered the world through one man, and death
through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned—"
(Romans 5:12, NIV84). Though the Lord
had made us, just as Tom had made his boat, we were lost to the Lord when we
fell into sin. For when we fell in to
sin, we became slaves of sin, worthy only of death, and subservient only to our
master, the devil. Only about 150 years
ago, this was the norm for so many people of color in our nation. They were slaves who were subservient to
their masters. If they disobeyed their
masters, they could be beaten. If there
master was in a bad mood, they could be beaten.
If there master was cruel, vindictive, or simply wanted to show off,
they could be beaten. In so many cases
the live of a slave was a miserable existence.
This is why Christ came to redeem us.
He came to redeem us, to buy us back, and set us free from our slavery
to sin, death, and satan.
In the publication, Our Daily
Bread, Paul Lee Tan illustrated the meaning of redemption with this story,
“When A.J. Gordon was pastor of a church in Boston, he met a young boy in front
of the sanctuary carrying a rusty cage in which several birds fluttered nervously.
Gordon inquired, "Son, where did you get those birds?" The boy
replied, "I trapped them out in the field." "What are you going
to do with them?" "I'm going to play with them, and then I guess I'll
just feed them to an old cat we have at home." When Gordon offered to buy
them, the lad exclaimed, "Mister, you don't want them, they're just little
old wild birds and can't sing very well." Gordon replied, "I'll give
you $2 for the cage and the birds." "Okay, it's a deal, but you're making
a bad bargain." The exchange was made and the boy went away whistling,
happy with his shiny coins. Gordon walked around to the back of the church
property, opened the door of the small wire coop, and let the struggling
creatures soar into the blue.”[2] Before Christ redeemed us, we were like
those struggling creatures. We couldn’t
free ourselves from our slavery to sin, so Christ set us free from our sins by
shedding his precious blood in our place.
In the Old Testament, God said
that when an animal (such as a sheep or bull) was sacrificed, it was the blood
of the animal that paid for the people’s sins.
(see Leviticus 17:10-14) The life
of the animal was in its blood. When the
blood was drained from the animal, its life was God. This was the price that had to be paid for the
people to have forgiveness, and this was the price that Jesus paid to ransom
us, or redeem us from our slavery to sin.
This is the very truth of which Paul assures us in his letter to the
Romans: “But now a righteousness from
God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets
testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to
all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the
redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as a sacrifice of
atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice,
because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—
26 he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just
and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus." (Romans 3:21–26,
NIV84)
In an online Bible Study Robert
Davis paints a very vivid picture of the price that Jesus paid to redeem
us! Using the name Yahweh to refer to
God the Father, and the name Adonai to refer to Jesus, Robert Davis says,
“Yahweh The Father laid His hand on the head of the Son Adonai and crushed Him
with the full force of His wrath to pay for the sin debt for all
mankind....Adonai was slaughtered across His back with a cat of nine
tails...beaten and whipped....spikes nailed through His hands and feet so
Adonai couldn't get off the altar [of the cross]....and when His job was
complete...all sin had been paid for...He cries out it is finished and slumped
over on the alter....and they speared Adonai to drain the blood…onto the altar
for man and for God....and on the third day Adonai rose from the
dead...Hallelujah!!!!! [3]
There was no price other than the
blood of Jesus that could set us free from our sins, as the Sons of Korah tell
us in Psalm 49: “No man can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom
for him— 8 the ransom for a life is costly, no payment is ever enough—"
(Psalm 49:7–8, NIV84) and as Peter tells us, “For you know that it was not with
perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty
way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, 19 but with the precious
blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 20 He was chosen before the
creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. 21
Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him,
and so your faith and hope are in God." (1 Peter 1:18–21, NIV84)
Not all the money in the world
could ever be enough to pay for the sin of even just one person! But Jesus’ blood did what all the world’s
money could never do. It paid the ransom
to free us from our slavery to sin, death, and the devil. It was able to pay the ransom because it was
God who made his Son, who had no sin, to be sin for us, so that we might be the
righteousness of God. It was God, the
Father, who laid on his Son the iniquity of us all, allowing him to be pierced
for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities so that by his wounds we
might have peace. In short, God the
Father made his Son the Scapegoat who bore our sins in our place. (see
Leviticus 16:20-22) You see, each year, on the Day of Atonement, a live goat
would be brought to the temple so that the High Priest might place his hands on
its head and confess all the sins of the People of Israel. In this way the High Priest would place the
sins of the people on the scapegoat.
Then the goat would be led out into the desert to be left to die, thus
picturing the sins of the people going away with the goat. Though the goat hadn’t sinned, he died
because all the sins of the people had been placed on him. So it was with Jesus. Even though he hadn’t sinned, he died because
all the sins of the world had been placed upon his innocent head.
He died in our place to free us
from our sins, and he rose again from the dead to assure us that we have been
redeemed. Though he was the one who made
us, he was also the one to redeem us by his death and resurrection from the
dead. Now, through faith in him, we know
the forgiveness that is ours. Out of
thanks for the one who made us and redeemed us, we now seek to live our lives
to serve him. Through faith in the one
who loved us so much that he gave his life in our place, we now look forward to
the day when he will take us to be with him forever in his heavenly
kingdom. As John say, “How great is the
love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!
And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1, NIV84)
Give thanks to the Lord your God
that he has redeemed us through the precious blood of his Son, Jesus Christ,
Our Savior.
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
GraceEvangelical Lutheran Church--Le Sueur, MN
[1] Copied
from: http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/r/redemption.htm
accessed on February 23, 2013, Originally published by Good News Publishers,
Westchester, IL.
[2] Copied
from: http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/r/redemption.htm
accessed on February 23, 2013, Originally published in Our Daily Bread.
[3] Copied
from: https://faithlife.com/notes/16055
accessed February 23, 2013.
