A Lamb God’s Perfect Gift to Man
John 1 29-42
Prayer
Introduction
The recent news story of the pregnant Missouri woman who was lured to her death and then robbed of her unborn baby is one of the most tragic stories to cross our news wires in a very long time. Even though we have been confronted with other horror stories such as the hunters murdered last month in northern Wisconsin and the recent murder of eighteen American soldiers in Iraq by a suicide bomber, this story seems unsurpassed in its gripping and horrible result. How could anyone do such a thing? To brutally kill a woman about to give birth and then to violently rip a child from a mother’s womb seems a crime beyond conscience, even in a culture like ours so attuned to death and violence. Time and time again our minds come back to that terrible picture of a little, innocent child, violently taken, cold and in shock, from the warm security of a womb he was not ready to leave, the only home he had even known, without any chance of ever hearing that familiar heartbeat or feeling the gentle and loving touch of his mother again.
Perhaps the hardest thing about this story is the hardness of the crime and the total vulnerability of the mother and child, and the utter helplessness of both mother and child. These are the things that continue to haunt our thoughts and feelings. Yet, despite the gruesome scene painted upon our minds by such wanton and senseless violence, we do find some relief. The baby is not lost and he does find his way into the loving arms of his father. It is a gruesome story; but one with an ending that is just and happy. Although the memory of the killing and the kidnapping will never go away, over time the picture of a father holding his “Christmas” baby is one that will rest upon our hearts as well as our minds.
God’s hears those prayers and it is in just such situations of hopelessness and helplessness that his almighty power is born. It is there that God leaves his treasure. In Mary and in all of us, as Christ is born anew within.” (Sermon Illustrations, 1999.)
Hopelessness and helplessness! When you and I were born into this world we were, in a very real sense, just like that little baby robbed from its mother. Born into a world of sin and violence and already bearing the shock and cold of our parent’s sin, our birth was not clean or holy. It was not the kind of birth that God had intended for us from before time. Ours was to have been a warm and comfortable birth; one that resulted in a close and perfect relationship with our Heavenly Father. But, rather than laying in His bosom, we were stolen away by the Prince of this world, Satan. It was not a pleasant birth nor an intended one for any of us. The picture was that of hopelessness and helplessness. Would this story end on a happy note? “O God, don’t let that be all that there is.” Only by a just and loving God who gave His Son into birth and death for us, were we able to find reunion with the One who loved us from before we were born, our Heavenly Father. By His almighty power, our violent and unclean birth is removed forever and replaced with the pure and holy birth of Jesus Christ. Born again in Him through baptism, we become Him and nestle in the bosom of His mother, under the tender and watchful eyes of our doting God. Justice is served after all. The one who stole us has been punished and we, as rightful heirs of our Father’s love, have been returned to His loving embrace; an embrace from which we will never be parted again. What a blessed Christmas gift that is!
I. What is God’s perfect Gift?
a. It is a lamb that will bear our sins.
i. In ancient times lambs were used in sacrifice to God to atone for our sin.
1. Adam’s rebellion against God brought sin into this world.
2. Adam’s rebellion required the shedding of blood to pay the debt. Remember that God killed animals to make them clothes but those animals were sacrifices so Adam and eve could still have a relationship with God.
3. Sin brought not only corruption to the flesh but it also brought death.
a. Death of this fleshy body
b. Death of the soul by eternal separation from God.
ii. Man is separated from his creator. There is nothing that we can do for ourselves to be reconciled with God. In fact we often don’t even want to be reconciled with God.
1. Buddha, confucisous, Hindi, Allah, scientology, John Smith, Mohammad, or any other religion can not save us because they all teach that we can do something to bring us back into a right relationship with a supreme being or force.
2. The reason why they can not save is that they all are based on what we can do. They all are based on works. They all teach that we can work toward salvation, earn our salvation but God’s word says that we are only saved by faith. That it is a gift from God. Not because of anything we have don but we are saved in spite of what we have done. God’s grace saves us least anyone should boast.
3. So if we can not be saved or reconciled by our works how then can we be saved.
a. God created a way that we can be saved
i. He sent the prefect Lamb as a gift for man’s sin.
ii. This Lamb would be sacrificed for all of sin.
iii. This Lamb would be God’s only son Jesus Christ.
iv. Only Christ could pay our sin debt.
DO YOU REMEMBER "DO OVERS?"
They were part of the "Good Ole" Days. I know, Let’s play a little game… Everyone stand up. Now sit down when you can’t remember what I mention next…
How many of you remember…
90’s – Beanie Babies; Teenie Beanies; Grunge; and the phrase CHA-CHING!!!
80’s – PacMan; the Rubic’s cube; Leg Warmers; the Fraggles TV show.
70’s – 8 track Tapes; platform shoes; and leisure suits.
60’s – LP’s; Troll dolls; and the first lava lamps!
50’s – Wax coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside, Hula-hoops, and putting peanuts in your ten-cent 7 oz glass coke bottle before you drank it.
40’s – Party lines on your telephones; and Big Band Music.
All of us can remember the good ole days
When you could happily catch fireflies for an entire evening.
When money issues were handled by whoever was the banker in "Monopoly."
And it wasn’t odd to have two or three "best" friends.
When being old referred to anyone over 20 years of age.
When the net on a tennis court was the perfect height to play volleyball – with no real rules.
Remember when the worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was "cooties."
How it was magic when dad would "remove" his thumb.
Remember when you were finally tall enough to ride the "big people" rides at the amusement park and when a foot of snow was a dream-come true.
And the best part for me was how you could correct any mistake by yelling, "do over!"
Well the good ole days are not done! God gave us a “Do Over”! It’s called being “born again” and it is a wonderful gift!
B. What is the purpose of the Lamb?
a. To be sacrifice for all the world’s sin. To pay a sin debt that not a single one of us could ever hope to pay.
b. How does this sacrifice reconcile us with God?
1. It is God’s perfect plan. Before the 1st foundation of the universe was laid down God the Father and God the Son knew that man would fail. They came up with this plan where God himself would bear our sins and reconcile us to Himself.
2. Why? Because He love us even before He created us. He knew every human being that has ever lived, is living, and will live. He desired to reconciled with all of us. So He came to die on the cross even though He knew we hated Hi and man would reject His gift of salvation.
C. Many will reject His gift. Why?
a. Out of pride, I want to do it my own way
b. Out of unbelief. To smart for their own good
c. Our of religion. They are depending on the rituals and traditions to do for them what God has already done.
d. Out of open rebellion against God. They refuse to bow to anything.
II. What must I do to accept this gift?
a. 1st you must accept that you are a sinner.
i. That you can not do anything about your condition yourself.
ii. You can never ever clean yourself up enough to get into heaven.
iii. You can never do enough good works to get into heaven.
iv. You can never be good enough to get into heaven.
v. Must understand that human righteousness is not good enough to enter into the presence of God on Jesus’ righteousness is good enough.
vi. So we must accept that we are a sinner and hopelessly lost and in need of a savior.
b. secondly we must believe that Christ is God’s son and that He died for our sins.
c. Thirdly we must confess our sins to God. We must pray what is called a sinners prayer confess that we are a sinner. That we can do nothing ourselves about our condition. That we need Jesus Christ as our savior.
d. We then must accept that gift of salvation.
III. Jesus is waiting this morning to welcome you into the kingdom.
a. Are you willing to accept His eternal gift of salvation.
i. It saves you from Hell for all eternity
ii. The best part once you are saved you can share your gift with everybody. You can continue on giving this perfect gift.
iii. Are you ready to believe this morning.
iv. Are you ready to confess and surrender your all to the one who gave his all for you.
IV. Conclusion.
a. The fact that our good deeds are not good enough to get us into heaven is no more cruel than it’s cruel for you to tell the fish in the water (I hope your not talking to the fish in the water) “I just can’t breath in your environment.” To say that, is not a cruel statement it is just a statement about your nature. You can’t breath under water. To say that my good deeds to God is like water to my lungs is not to say anything cruel about God it’s just the facts. God can’t tolerate us. And that’s not mean and it’s not cruel it’s just the facts. And in the world of our modern celebrities who seem to represent the thoughts of our culture, they in essence want us to believe that God can hang with sin. That God, the perfect God can somehow tolerate imperfection. And God can look at people like you and me, people who’s lives are out of sink and say “you know what, it’s OK”. But God would cease to be God the day He said that. You don’t want a God who accepts sin. Because a God who accepts sin is not a holy perfect God. It’s like when Grocho Marks said “I will never join a club who will accept me as a member.” And in reality we don’t want a God who looks at us in our sinful fallen state and say, “it’s OK your alright your in.”
The fact that you can’t breath underwater isn’t entirely true. People can breath underwater when equipped with scuba apparatus. You can conquer the environment but it’s going to take something, something you don’t have inherent in yourself. And that is what Good Friday is all about. Good Friday is about what we have in a bloody cross that allows us to live in God’s environment. And God says I’m going to provide the oxygen tanks for you, I’m going to make you acceptable in my sight. But you must recognize that there is an exchange that has to take place; your life for my Son’s. You take His life and you trade yours in for it and you can be with me. God will accept us but as the Bible puts it He will only accept us in Christ. I don’t want to just be accepted in David, I want to be accepted in Christ. That retains God’s perfection and makes me understand that I cannot be accepted aside from Jesus Christ. What I need I can’t provide, God is going to have to provide it for me.
The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is (scuba gear) eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:26) God says in effect you put on the scuba gear; put on Christ and you can survive in my environment.
