SERMON BRIEF
Date Written: August 17, 2015
Date Preached: August 23, 2002
Church: OPBC (AM) Sunday
FOUNDATIONAL ELEMENTS
Title: Remembering What Jesus Accomplished FOR Us
Text: Mark 15:33-40 (ESV)
33And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 35And some of the bystanders hearing it said, “Behold, he is calling Elijah.” 36And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.” 37And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. 38And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. 39And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” 40There were also women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome.
Introduction:
During the Great Depression, a man worked at a RR bridge crossing on the MS River. One day he took his only child (a son) with him to work.
He had the bridge raised to allow ship traffic to pass under the bridge. It was a peaceful day and he had been enjoying the nice weather… but all of a sudden he heard the whistle of the passenger train out of the city headed his way…
He moved over to the controls to shut the bridge so the train could pass over the river safely… HOWEVER, to his horror he had lost track of his son and just as he was about to throw the switch to lower the bridge he saw his son…
His son had ventured out of his control room and was playing in the gears of the bridge and had gotten stuck. He was stuck with a dilemma… He could save his son BUT if he did there would not be time to lower the bridge and the train would derail into the river over 100 feet down and ALL the people on the train would die!
He had a choice to make… his son OR 400 people… with a heavy heart, he knew the choice he had to make as he threw the switch… Screaming and crying he watched his son die in the gears of the bridge… then he stood and watched the train go safely by…
On that train were 100s of people who were sitting comfortably, drinking coffee, reading the paper, talking and joking with friends… TOTALLY oblivious of the sacrifice that had just been made to save their lives!
The man was so overwhelmed he began to scream, “I sacrificed MY son for you! Don’t you even care!”
I think this could be just how God feels every time we celebrate the Lord’s Supper! We celebrate Communion many times per year and I believe we want to think we have a firm grasp on just WHAT we are celebrating!
However, do we TRULY understand the importance of what we are remembering? Do we really understand WHAT God has done for us? I believe that we CAN understand it, but only when our hearts are in the right place and our minds are focused on Him!
In our passage this morning we read about the final moments of Jesus’ life…moments when it SEEMED to all around that the enemy had won and that evil had conquered the day!
Jesus was bleeding out, hanging on the cross… He cried out to God about being forsaken… He screams to the top of His lungs and then gives up His spirit!
Nature itself seemed to shudder as Jesus died… the sun darkened, the earth shook and gave up its dead…
The Temple where the Jews believed God dwelled here on earth was shaken and the veil separating the Temple from the Holy of Holies was torn from the top to the bottom…
What happened that day, changed the face of everything within this world! But sadly, many people did not SEE… many people did not even know it happened…
Even today… people don’t comprehend the enormity of what God has done for them! This morning we are celebrating in remembrance the FACT that God sacrificed His son, WILLINGLY, so that we could be saved!
What a WONDERFUL act of love… a WONDERFUL act on God’s part to provide salvation for us…Scripture describes this in John 3:16 (ESV)
16“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Sacrificial love is EXPENSIVE…it costs a great deal!
Sacrificial love is GIVING and it gives and keeps on giving!
God sacrificially sent Jesus to be the atoning sacrifice for our sin, and Jesus, being God, carried out that mission. It cost Him a great deal! Scripture tells us that he showed that love by emptying Himself of His glory and by being willing to die as a sacrifice for our sin!
In John 1:29 we read about John the Baptist who was sent by God to tell the people about the coming Messiah.
29The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
John called Jesus, “The Lamb of God!” Why would John refer to Jesus as the ‘lamb of God’? Well John had to relate to the people he was speaking to… the Jews understood that animal sacrifice was how their sins were taken care of…
They would bring a lamb to the Temple and it would be killed and placed on the altar and offered to God… However, this had to be done… over and over again! They would have to continually bring a lamb for sacrifice.
The writer of Hebrews draws the comparison to their sacrificial system AND to what Jesus accomplished on the Cross of Calvary.
In v1 the writer reminds the people that there was a covenant God had made…
1Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness.
This covenant was the 1st from God and it had its regulations for worship…then in v2-5 he describes the Temple and how it was divided into 2 sections… the 1st section was called the Holy place where the priests performed all their daily sacrifices according to the Law.
The 2nd section was called the Holy of Holies… (see v5) He could not even describe what was in this place because it was a holy place that NO one was to go unless offering sacrifice for the nation…and that job belonged ONLY to the High Priest ALL of which he attempts to describe in v6-10
God set the Temple aside for the sacrifices for the forgiveness of the sin of the people. The priests were the ones who ensured the sacrifices were accomplished according to the Law. However, I want us to take note of what the writer said in v8-10
8By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing
9(which is symbolic for the present age). According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper,
10but deal only with food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation.
These verses lets us know that IN this system (1st covenant), a person could not come to God on his own… the holy places are not yet opened as long as the 1st section (which represents this age) is still standing…
In other words, as long as the 1st covenant was still in place, the Temple and this ‘way’ of doing things…the only way for someone to get to God was thru the priest in the Temple!
However, he goes on to say:
11But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) 12He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. 13For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
In other words, the first covenant had limited contact with God thru the act of the priest and the blood of animals… NEITHER of which could not perfect the conscience of the worshipper… which meant they were incomplete and had to be repeated constantly!
BUT then Jesus came as our new High Priest…He describes Jesus as the high priest of the good things that have come! Jesus entered into the holy place… where NO one was able to enter and made sacrifice for ALL… not with the blood of animals, but with His own blood!
Then he wraps up his explanation by telling the people that they no longer have to make sacrifice for their sin because Jesus has done it…
25Nor was it to offer Himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not His own, 26for then He would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
What the writer was saying here was that Jesus did this so that a new covenant would be put into place. He promised that new covenant to His disciples at the last supper…
The writer of Hebrews lets us know that WHAT Jesus did on the Cross… What the Lamb of God did for us was permanent and did NOT have to be repeated over and over again! And I truly love the final 2 verses here in this chapter…
27And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
These 2 verses tell us that as sure as death is a part of life… what Jesus did is real and will save you!
Beloved, what the writer of Hebrews is saying is that Jesus, the Lamb of God has done it ALL, and there is NO need for us to ‘do’ anything to obtain salvation. The Lamb of God has accomplished what could not be accomplished with the 1st covenant.
I also love the contrast God uses here by calling Jesus the “Lamb” of God. I understand that the lamb represented the sacrifice, but lets look at Jesus and the typical sacrificial lamb…
Lambs would wander aimlessly and without purpose other than feeding themselves…
Jesus was focused and KNEW both His destination and purpose in this life… and it was NOT for His sake, but for ours
Lambs are vulnerable and need constant protection and care…
Jesus was NOT vulnerable, but constantly protected AND cared for those he loved, but also those he did not know.
Lambs are slow to respond to command… not paying attention
Jesus was never slow to respond but always answered in God’s timing, always quickly meeting the need of every situation.
When we look at this Jesus was NOT like your typical sacrificial lamb, but He was greater!
The lamb was important for the 1st covenant… it was the centerpiece to forgiveness of sin. The lamb was for the sacrifice!
In the beginning, Abel sacrificed a lamb… a sacrifice for an individual…
In Egypt, the lambs were sacrificed and the blood placed on the doors… as a sacrifice for each family…
In the wilderness, lambs were sacrificed on the day of atonement as a sacrifice for an entire NATION…
But NOW the Lamb of God became even MORE important as His sacrifice on Calvary was a sacrifice for all of humanity for all time!
I can hear the voices taunting Mary as Jesus hung there on the cross… “It’s over… He is dead!”
I can hear the voices of the defeated disciples as they probably said to Mary, “We are done… we are through!”
THEN Mary heard the words from the her own son…from the cross, Jesus said, “It is finished!”
Mary initially saw her son’s death as a defeat, but on the 3rd day He overcame death and rose to victory and glory!
When Jesus said, “It is finished!” on the cross, it was NOT an admission of defeat! It was a statement of completion! His work was NOW complete!
His sacrifice had been made and His blood had been shed for the forgiveness of the sins of the world… but this sacrifice did not STAY dead! He arose! He arose… Hallelujah He arose!
The cost of the Lamb was high, but the reward for His sacrifice was eternal!
This morning we celebrate and remember what the Lamb of God has done! He did it for YOU and for ME! He came willingly to give out of His love for us… to sacrifice Himself for you! What a Savior! What a reward!
Beloved, at this time I want us to all remember what Paul said about participating in this celebration in an unworthy manner! He said that to do so would bring the wrath of God upon you…
As the Father sits in heaven today, I know He sees MANY who profess Jesus as Savior, but they are living their lives totally wrapped up in what THEY desire! They are like those passengers on that train… doing what THEY want and living oblivious of what Christ has done for them!
Are you guilty of that? Is God standing in heaven ‘screaming’ at you this morning? Is He crying out, “Don’t you even care what my Son did for you?” I pray that you will make things right with God at this time!
This altar is open to ANY who wish to come… I want to encourage every believer to come and confess your sin to God…Come and prepare your heart to observe communion with us this morning…would you stand as the music begins to play during this time of invitation!?
ALSO give evangelistic invitation here…
