Title: Jesus Is . . .Our Savior
Series: Who Is Jesus? (Sermon # 3)
Text: Mark 10:32-34, 45
Date: March 16, 2008 (Palm Sunday)
COPYRIGHT © Joe La Rue, 2008
INTRODUCTION
A. When we were sinners, Jesus came,
Took upon Himself our blame,
Willing to bear our sin and shame.
He died for us. He died for us.
The Son of God became a man,
Fulfilling God’s eternal plan,
Conceived before the world began.
He died for us. He died for us.
There once stood a wall, deep and wide,
Strong and tall, there it stood,
Built of all our unholiness.
But this man, by His blood,
Broke that wall and loosed the flood
Of the mercies of God to mankind.
And now God offers to each one,
Priceless pardon for what we’ve done,
Because of Jesus, His own Son,
Who died for us. He died for us.
—Author Unknown
B. Why did Jesus have to die? Why did He go to the cross? The drama and the movie clip that we just experienced—why did those things have to happen? This morning I would like to answer that question by looking at what Jesus Himself said. Look with me at Mark’s Gospel, chapter 10, beginning in verse 32. Mark 10:32. The Bible says that Jesus,
“Took the twelve aside and began to tell them what was going to happen to Him, saying, ‘Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and will hand Him over to the Gentiles. They will mock Him and spit on Him, and scourge Him and kill Him, and three days later He will rise again.’”
Now look at verse 45,
“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:32-34, 45, NASB).
C. You want to know why Jesus died? Right there it is. He gave His life as a ransom for many, so that we could be redeemed. That’s what it means in the Bible when it talks about “ransom”—a ransom is paid to redeem someone or something. And Christ gave His life as a ransom, so we could be redeemed—so we could be saved. That is why theologian John Stott has correctly written, “Christianity is a religion of salvation, and there is nothing in the non-Christian religions to compare with this message of a God who loved, and came after, and died for, a world of lost sinners” (John Stott, Basic Christianity, p. 15). Islam doesn’t have such a god. Neither does Hinduism nor Buddhism nor even the Jewish faith. Only Christianity worships a God who died our death, that we might live His life. This is the good news of our faith; it’s what our faith is all about!
D. As I shared the first week of this series, the historical evidence affirming that there really was a man named Jesus, who really was crucified under the governorship of Pontius Pilate, and who really did die, is overwhelming. Jesus’s life and death is accepted by almost everyone as an historical event. It’s hard to find even a hard-nosed atheist who denies that it took place; it’s part of accepted historical reality. Even those who belong to other religions, like Islam and Judaism, believe Jesus really was crucified. That’s just not really in question. What is in question is what Christ’s death means for us today. So for the next twenty minutes or so I want to focus your attention upon what we mean when we talk about Christ redeeming us, and why Jesus chose to do it.
E. Trans: So, what drove Jesus to the Cross? Plain and simple, it was His love for us, coupled with our sin, and our desperate need for a Savior. Put another way, and this is the blank on your outline, it was
I. OUR NEED FOR REDEMPTION DROVE CHRIST TO THE CROSS.
A. ILL: Several years ago now there was a television show called That Seventies Show. Perhaps some of you have seen it. While the credits ran each week as the show opened, the cast was shown sitting in the car that belonged to the main character on the show. And the entire cast sang a song about hanging out with each other and being there for each other as best friends. And at the end of the song, the cast sang loudly, forcefully, in a chanting, sing-song style, “We’re all alright! We’re all alright!”
A re-run of that show was just coming on the other night when I turned on my television, and I heard that song, and I thought about it a little bit. And I realized: I’m not alright. I’m not. I do things that are wrong. I am a committed Christian. I am called by God as a minister of the Gospel of Christ. I really try to live my life in the right way. And yet, I still sometimes do things that I really don’t understand why I do. Sometimes I have bad thoughts. Sometimes I say things I should not say. Sometimes I act in wrong ways toward others. I am not alright. Not at all. And lest there be any doubt, let me tell you right now: neither are you. Neither is anybody. You sometimes do things that you know are wrong, too. We all need to be redeemed. We all need to be made alright. We all need to be saved.
1. The Bible says, “The wages of sin is death.” (Rom 6:23). That is what everyone who has ever done anything wrong deserves. The Bible says that God is a holy God, God is a righteous God, and so God must punish sin. And the punishment is death. “The wages of sin is death.” And the ‘death’ being discussed there is spiritual death—a spiritual separation from God. We call that ‘hell.’ That’s what sin deserves.
2. That means that I deserve hell, because I’ve sinned. And that means that you deserve hell, because you’ve sinned. The Bible says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom 3:23). The Bible also says, “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves” (1 John 1:8), and, “If we say that we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar” (1 John 1:10, NLT), because God has said that we all have sinned.
3. So, we all have sinned. We all from time to time do what is wrong, or fail to do what is right. Everyone of us does. And so, we all deserve hell.
B. Friends, this is what makes what Jesus did on the cross so significant. Look back at the passage we read a few moments ago, Mark 10:32-34, and then verse 45:
Jesus “took the twelve aside and began to tell them what was going to happen to Him, saying, ‘Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and will hand Him over to the Gentiles. They will mock Him and spit on Him, and scourge Him and kill Him, and three days later He will rise again. . . . For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.’”
Christ came to give his life – ‘to pay the price,’ that’s what that word ransom means, so that many could be saved from what sin deserves.
1. It’s what the hymn-writer expressed when he wrote,
“Jesus paid it all!
All to him I owe!
Sin hath left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow!”
(Elvina Hall, Jesus Paid It All (1865)). Jesus paid the ransom to set us free from what our sin deserved. Speaking of the cross, New Testament scholar Alfred Plummer wrote, Jesus “was held, not by the nails, but by His will to save them” (Plummer, An Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to S. Matthew, p. 397).
2. You want to know why Jesus went to the Cross? He went because He loved us and wanted to save us! In the Cross God accomplished for us what we could not do for ourselves: He paid the price, He became our ransom, He saved us from our sins, He paid our penalty and set us free from what our sin deserves!
3. And, Christ’s death has given us what we could have never gotten for ourselves. The Bible says that because Jesus died, “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Rom 5:1, NASB). We don’t have to fear God’s punishment and wrath. We have peace with Him. We are in a right relationship with Him—that’s what the biblical word ‘peace’ means.
4. Trans: Jesus paid the penalty for you and me, so our sins could be forgiven and we could have peace with God. That’s why Jesus died on the cross. He died to save us. Let me quickly share one more reason:
II. GOD’S LOVE FOR US LED CHRIST TO THE CROSS.
A. The first verse of the Bible that many people ever learned was John 3:16, which says, “For God so WHAT, Church?” That’s right: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16, KJV).
B. This was part of God’s plan even before He created the world. The Bible says, “God paid for you with the precious lifeblood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. God chose him for this purpose long before the world began.” (1 Pet 1:19-20, NLT), and in Revelation the Bible calls Jesus, “The Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.” (Rev 13:8, NIV).
1. Now, what this means, friends, is this: God knew how things were going to turn out when He created the world! Sin didn’t surprise Him. He knew, that if He gave us the ability to choose, we would choose to rebel against Him. We would choose to do wrong. We would choose the things that would lead to punishment in hell. God knew that if we were going to be redeemed, Jesus would have to die for us. God knew.
2. And God created the world anyway. God loved us and created us, even though He knew it would cost His Son’s life on the cross.
3. And so, before God created the world, He determined that Jesus would die in our place, so we could live forever. Make no mistake, friends: Jesus was not killed by chance, or even because of the hatred of the religious leaders who betrayed Him and demanded His death. No, Jesus was killed because God loved us.
a. Our sin required punishment. And God could either send us to hell, or take our punishment on the cross. And He chose to take our punishment, because He loved us too much to lose us.
b. William Barclay has written, “The cross is the one place on earth, where in a moment of time, we see the eternal love of God.” (William Barclay, The Gospel of Luke, p. 312).
C. You want to know why Jesus went to the cross? He went because God’s love for us required it.
CONCLUSION
A. There you have it, friends. That’s why Jesus came. That’s why Jesus died. He gave His life a ransom for many, so we could be saved. So we won’t have to go to hell. So we can have peace with God and be in a right relationship with Him. So we can have the promise of heaven. That’s why Jesus died.
B. The only question this morning is whether you have accepted God’s offer of salvation. God’s offer of salvation is there, for you! Jesus paid the full price for it. You can’t earn it. You can only accept it. The Bible says, “For by grace have you been saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8, NASB). So, how do we accept Christ as Savior and receive salvation? The Bible says that when we:
1. Put our faith in Christ and believe in Him and trust Him to save us; and,
2. Repent of our sins, which means commit ourselves to trying to live life God’s way, under His authority; and
3. Are baptized for the forgiveness of our sins; THEN
4. God forgives our sins; and
5. Places His Holy Spirit inside us to help us and guide us; and
6. Promises us heaven.
C. Do you need to make that decision this morning? If so, come forward as we sing. I’ll meet you down front here, and we’ll discuss privately what your spiritual need is, and you will leave here today knowing that Jesus has saved you.
1. You say, “Joe, I can’t come forward. What will all these people think?” And I answer you, It doesn’t matter what anybody thinks, except for God. And if you have never accepted Jesus as your savior, I can assure you, God thinks you should come forward. Salvation cost Jesus’s life, and God sent Jesus to the cross because He loves you! God wants you to receive salvation, and His opinion is really all that matters.
2. You can come up with a million reasons, if you want to, not to come forward to talk to me about your spiritual state this morning. But God is still calling. And if you feel Him tugging at your heart, you know that He wants you to come forward and make sure that you are right with Him.
3. If you need to accept Jesus in faith, repentance, and baptism, come forward. Or, maybe you have considered yourself a Christian for years, you’ve believed in Jesus since you were a little child, but you’ve never been baptized. You, too, should come forward. The Bible says, “Baptism now saves you. Not the removal of dirt from the body, but the appeal to God for a clear conscience.” (1 Pet 3:21, NASB). Whatever your spiritual need is, please, come forward as we sing.
