My Redeemer Lives
Romans 3:23, 6:23
Job 19:25-27
Intro: What does Easter mean to you this morning. Yesterday, we had our annual Easter egg hunt for the children. We had a great time. Is that what Easter means to you? In our world today, it seems that egg hunts and bunny rabbits are what Easter is all about.
. A Sunday school teacher asked her group of 8 year olds what Easter meant to them. One little girl said that Easter meant that they would be eating egg salad sandwiches for the next two weeks. Some of you remember back when the Easter eggs were the hard boiled eggs don’t you. I do too and I’m glad we have switched to the plastic eggs we used yesterday.
. Easter means different things to different people. I don’t know where all this came from but I want to spend the next few minutes illustrating to you exactly what Easter means.
. Little Philip, born with Down’s syndrome, attended a third-grade Sunday School class with several eight-year-old boys and girls. Typical of that age, the children did not readily accept Philip with his differences, according to an article in Leadership magazine. But because of a creative teacher, they began to care about Philip and accept him as part of the group, though not fully. The Sunday after Easter the teacher brought Leggs pantyhose containers, the kind that look like large eggs. Each receiving one, the children were told to go outside on that lovely spring day, find some symbol for new life, and put it in the egg-like container. Back in the classroom, they would share their new-life symbols, opening the containers one by one in surprise fashion. After running about the church property in wild confusion, the students returned to the classroom and placed the containers on the table. Surrounded by the children, the teacher began to open them one by one. After each one, whether flower, butterfly, or leaf, the class would ooh and ahh. Then one was opened, revealing nothing inside. The children exclaimed, That’s stupid. That’s not fair. Somebody didn’t do their assignment.
Philip spoke up, That’s mine.
Philip, you don’t ever do things right! the student retorted. There’s nothing there!
I did so do it, Philip insisted. I did do it. It’s empty. The tomb was empty!
Silence followed. From then on Philip became a full member of the class. He died not long afterward from an infection most normal children would have shrugged off. At the funeral this class of eight-year-olds marched up to the altar not with flowers, but with their Sunday school teacher, each to lay on it an empty pantyhose egg.
. Phillip understood that Easter is about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
. As we look at the Easter story this morning, I want to take you back three days before the resurrection. You see in order to understand Easter; we need to understand Why Jesus was in that tomb to start with.
. Romans 3:23 tells us this:
. 23For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.
. Did you know that there are two ways to get into Heaven.
. The fist way is to live a perfect sinless life. I f you can live your life obeying God’s
commandments and never transgressing. You are seen righteous in the eyes of God.
. Now what that means is not thinking bad thoughts about others. Never coveting what another person has.
. Never stretching the truth or lying. Never allowing foul or abusive language to come out of you.
. I could go on and on. The point is that we cannot do this. None of us can.
. That’s why Paul wrote in Romans that we all have sinned. We all fall short of God’s standard.
. So then there is only one way left.
. That way is through the belief and acceptance of what Jesus did for us on the cross. Three days before the resurrection.
. In Bible speak we call this redemption.
. Jesus died on the cross to redeem us.
. This concept of redemption is a legal term they used back in the Old Testament. Many times people would have to sell their children or relatives into slavery for a while in order to survive and when things got better they would go and redeem or buy back these people.
. Or they would have a relative that had somehow gotten sold and they would redeem them and set them free from their bondage.
. Basically a redeemer is someone who buys back something that was once theirs; or buy someone in order to set them free.
. A little boy had made a little boat, all painted and fixed up beautifully. One day someone stole his boat, and he was distressed. In passing a pawnshop one day he saw his boat. Happily he ran in to the pawnbroker and said, "That is my little boat." "No," said the pawnbroker, "it is mine, for I bought it." "Yes," said the boy, "but it is mine, because I made it." "Well," said the pawnbroker, "if you will pay me two dollars, you can have it."
That was a lot of money for a boy who did not have a penny. Anyway he resolved to have it; so he cut grass, did chores of all kinds, and soon had his money.
He ran down to the shop and said, "I want my boat." He paid the money and got his boat. He picked it up, and hugged and kissed it, and said, "You dear little boat, I love you. You are mine. You are twice mine. I made you, and now I have bought you."
. That’s what God’s redemption is.
. He created us and gave us the free will to choose how to live and all of us choose to live outside of His commandments.
. We all sin and fall short of His standards.
. When we do that, we get disconnected from God.
. On over in chapter 6 of Romans in verse 23 Paul tells us:
. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
. Our sin separates us from God.
. Paul describes this separation as being slaves to sin.
. Our wants and desires are what controls us and we are slaves to them.
. God wants us back. He loves His creation and wants us back so He gives us a way back to Him.
. That is through the process of redemption.
. When we accept Jesus’ voluntary death on the cross in order to redeem us and place us in a right relationship with God.
. We are freed from the sin that enslaves us.
Dr. A. J. Gordon was the preacher of a church in Boston many years ago. One day he met a little boy out in front of the church. The boy was carrying a rusty bird cage in his hands and several little birds were fluttering around on the bottom of the cage, as if they knew they were going to be destroyed.
Dr. Gordon said, “Son, where did you get those birds?” The boy answered, “I trapped them out in the field.” “What are you going to do with them?” the preacher asked.
“I’m going to take them home and play with them and have some fun with them.” “What will you do with them when you get through playing with them?” Dr. Gordon asked. “Oh,” said the boy, “I guess I’ll just feed them to an old cat we have around the house.”
Then Dr. Gordon asked the boy how much he would take for the birds and the boy answered, “Mister, you don’t want these birds. They’re just little old field birds and they can’t sing very well.” Dr. Gordon said, “I’ll give you two dollars for the cage and the birds.” “All right,” said the boy, “It’s a deal, but you’re making a bad bargain.”
The exchange was made and the boy went whistling down the street, happy because he had two dollars in his pocket. Dr. Gordon took the cage out behind his church and opened the door of the cage and the birds flew out and went soaring away into the blue, singing as they went.
The next Sunday Dr. Gordon took the empty bird cage to the pulpit to use it in illustrating his sermon. Then he said, “That little boy said that the birds could not sing very well, but when I released them from the cage they went singing away into the blue, and it seems that they were singing, “Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed.”.
. They were bound for death with the little boy but when the pastor bought them and released them, they had been redeemed.
. They had been set free from bondage in that cage.
. We too are in bondage to our sins.
. We are in need of redemption.
. That’s what Jesus did on the cross that Friday.
. He voluntarily Sacrificed himself in order to redeem you and me.
. We are like those little birds, caged up with our sin and bound for death and an eternal separation from God without our redeemer.
. Thank God we have a redeemer this morning. His name is Jesus.
. Jesus redeemed us on the Cross.
. Scripture tells us that after Jesus had died, He was removed from the cross and placed in a tomb or cave that had been hewened out of rock. He was placed there and the tomb was sealed with a big boulder rolled over the opening.
. On Sunday, some women came to anoint Jesus body with oils and spices as was the custom in that day
.
.As they were walking and talking they wondered how they were going to get into the tomb knowing that the stone had been rolled over the entrance. I Imagine they figured that they could get the guards that the Romans had put there to help them with that.
. Let’s look at Marks account of this event in 16:1-6;
. 1Saturday evening, when the Sabbath ended, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome went out and purchased burial spices so they could anoint Jesus’ body.
2Very early on Sunday morning, just at sunrise, they went to the tomb.
3On the way they were asking each other, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?”
4But as they arrived, they looked up and saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled aside.
5When they entered the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a white robe sitting on the right side. The women were shocked,
6but the angel said, “Don’t be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead!...”
. Folks that what Easter is all about.
. He Is Risen From The Dead.
. That’s what sets Christianity apart from all the other world religions.
. They worship and listen to the teachings of dead people.
. There was a movie a few years ago about a little boy who could see people who were dead. One of the memorable lines from the movie was when someone asked him what was wrong, he sai “I see dead people”
. All the other religions worship and listen to dead people.
. Thank God we serve and listen to a living God.
. One who loved us so much that He was willing to die for us.
. One of the most memorized and loved passages in the bible is so true.
. For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son and whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.
. God died for us and then to show us His power and assure us that we will have life after death, He defeated the Grave as our songs say.
. Jesus conquered the grave and He is waiting for you to just accept what He did for you. He wants to redeem you this morning.
. In Job, the oldest book in the bible, Job says this:
. 25“But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last.
26And after my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God!
27I will see him for myself. Yes, I will see him with my own eyes. I am overwhelmed at the thought!
. I am overwhelmed at the thought.
. We should be overwhelmed at the meaning of Easter.
. God loved us so much that He Sent Jesus to redeem us and bring us back to Him.
. I want to close with a story this morning.
. It was almost 1:00 in the morning when the phone rang. Dr. Leo Winters, the highly acclaimed Chicago surgeon, was abruptly awakened. There had been an
accident and his skill hands were needed for immediate surgery. The quickest route happened to be through a rather tough area, but with time being a critical factor, it was worth the risk. At one of the stoplights his door was yanked open by a man with a gray hat and a dirty flannel shirt. “I got to have your car!” the man screamed, pulling him from his seat. Winters tried to explain the gravity of the situation but the man would not listen.
. When the doctor was finally able to get a taxi to the hospital over an hour had elapsed and it was too late as the patient had passed away 30 minutes earlier. The nurse told him that the father of the victim had gone to the chapel wondering why the doctor never came. Dr. Winters walked hurriedly to get to the chapel and when he entered he saw the father… he was wearing a gray hat and dirty flannel shirt. (J. Utley) Tragically, he had pushed from his life the one who could save his son.
. Similarly, scores of people push from their lives the very One who can save them from the penalty and the power of their sin.
.Countless numbers turn away from the One who can save them from their emptiness, confusion, hopelessness, and enslavement to sinful ways.
. They are too busy for the One who can deliver them from a meaningless life.
. They can’t seem to find time for the One who can redeem their lives.
. It is so sad, so tragic because things could be
different for so many if they could only find time for the Lord Jesus Christ who came to earth to save us. Christ is the Savior we all desperately need.
. Folks your redeemer lives.
. That’s what we celebrate on Easter.
. Have you accepted this redemption from Jesus?
*** To my Christian brothers and sisters, thank you for taking the time to read this sermon. I ask that you take another second and score this for me. I am always open to feedback so that I can continue to grow in the proclamation of God’s word.
May God bless you as you continue to strive to walk worthy of His calling.
Sources: The Holy Bible, NLT
Redemption, David Sweeny, sermon central
Redeemed- oh yes, Steve Shepherd, sermon central
