Easter: “God Will Make A Way”
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As I was thinking about what to say on this day that we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, I remembered what the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4.
“For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4 NKJV)
Therefore, keeping with Paul’s admonition, this is what I’d like share with you today. Now, as a lot of you know, when I put together messages, I like to give you points of application as to how the Bible relates to our lives, and how it isn’t some old, irrelevant, and outdated book, but rather it’s a book, or better yet, a letter from the Lord God Himself that speaks to our time and to our lives.
But today, I want to take a different approach and share with you about this title, which I took from the song we sang in our time of worship, and that is, “God Will Make A Way.”
As we enter this time where we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, which the world calls Easter, we see this theme of God making a way for humanity in order to skip the fires of hell for the beauty of heaven.
And this overall theme and its conclusion is what I’d like to share with you this morning, also in keeping with what Paul said to the church in Rome. He said, “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.” (Romans 15:4 NKJV)
God shows us through these examples written down in the Bible what He was and is going to do through His Son, Jesus Christ.
And so, through these stories and the teachings, God has revealed many things for our lives today, especially as it relates to what we are talking about in how God has made a way. And so, God has put all this down in writing to give us that full assurance that Jesus is our sacrifice, taking our place and dying the death we all deserve (Remember that the wages of sin is death), so that all who believe can be forgiven, where sin, death, hell, and Satan no longer have our souls in bondage, but instead we have been saved and set free, as Paul said, so that God’s gift of salvation and heaven can be ours.
The first and most dramatic way that God made is found in the story of Noah and the Ark.
Back in the time of Noah, humanity spurned God’s love and did great evil. They flaunted their freedom in the face of God, which is not so much different than what we see happening in the world today. In fact, the Bible talks about when the end of times comes, it will be like the days of Noah (Matthew 24:37-39; Luke 17:26-27).
Through Noah, God made a way for humanity not to get completely wiped off the face of the earth because of their great evil. You see, Noah remained faithful to God by keeping himself separated from the world’s wickedness.
God created humanity in His image and according to His likeness it says in Genesis 1:27. God did this so that He could have a special relationship with us. You could say that this image and likeness God created us in, is relational. In other words, God wants to have a relationship with us, and so He made a way for that to happen.
But sin entered the picture back with Adam and Eve, and because of it, God removed them from the Garden of Eden. And what is sad is that sin has now become a part of humanity’s DNA, where we no longer have that close and personal relationship with God because of it.
At the time of Noah, sin and wickedness had gotten out of hand. It had gotten so bad and so out of control that God’s heart was grieved. Humanity spoiled, beyond recognition, what God had created as being good and special.
So, God brought down His judgment. He was going to wash away what had become polluted, but not without first making a way for His creation to survive.
God made a way of escape from His judgment through Noah and the Ark God instructed him to build. God made a way through the great flood and delivered humanity.
“By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.” (Hebrews 11:7 NKJV)
Therefore, it was through His faith that Noah was accounted as righteous before God, thus escaping God’s judgment through the way God provided.
And I hope that speaks to us, because God has provided a way through faith in Jesus Christ, so that we can be saved and escape God’s judgment.
And while there are many other such stories of God making a way for His people, I’d like to share with you how He did so through Moses.
First, I’d like to talk about what happened when God gave to Israel the 10 Commandments.
Seeing the people’s sin of idolatry at Mount Sinai, as God gave Moses 10 the Commandments, what we see is the second being broken, which was not to make an idol.
So, God said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people! Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation.” (Exodus 32:9-10 NKJV)
But Moses thought more of the people than he did of himself and interceded on their behalf asking God to remember His covenant relationship with them. And then Moses said, “Turn from Your fierce wrath, and relent from this harm to Your people.” (Exodus 32:12b NKJV)
And in Exodus 32:14 it says, “So the Lord relented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.”
Moses’s intercession saved God’s people from destruction.
This is what we refer to as a foreshadowing of Jesus’s intercession for us. You see, the Bible says, “There is none righteous, no, not one,” and that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:10: 3:23 NKJV) and that “The wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23a NKJV)
But after this Paul makes this wonderful announcement that while we have all blown it and are worthy of death, God, however, has made a way for us to live eternally.
“But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23b NKJV)
When we consider how often we sin, which is multiple times every day, it is surprising we didn’t perish years ago. And it’s all because of Jesus’s intercession for us. Like Moses interceded for the Jewish people, Jesus is interceding for us.
The writer of Hebrews says, “Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.” (Hebrews 7:25 NKJV)
Now, while some versions of the Bible use the word, “completely,” I personally love this translation. Think of it. God saves to the “uttermost.” That is, there isn’t anything that we can do, any sin that we might commit that God, through the sacrifice Jesus made upon the cross, cannot forgive. Basically, there is no sin goes beyond God’s “uttermost.”
Going back now to how Jesus intercedes for us, the apostle Paul gives us this wonderful promise. In Romans 8:34 (NIV), he said, “Christ Jesus who died, more than that, who was raised to life, is at the right hand of God and is alsointerceding for us.”
Therefore, God has made a way for us.
And that way is foreshadowed when Moses came down from the mountain and saw the idolatry of Israel, he threw down the tablets containing the 10 Commandments and shattered them. This foreshadows God making a way for our forgiveness and heaven once this life is over.
What we see, not only at the very beginning with Adam and Eve, but even in our own day, is that humanity can never keep God’s law perfectly. You see, God gave the Law to Israel to deal with the issue of sin through the sacrifice.
But what we have learned over the years is that these sacrifices could never permanently deal with a person’s sin, so the people had to continually offer these sacrifices, because no matter who a person may be there is no one who is perfect, who is righteous enough for God through their own efforts.
And so, the writer of Hebrews gives us the way God chose to work, that is, how God made a way through Jesus Christ, and no longer through the Law. And that is He took away the first covenant given to humanity through Moses, that is the Law, and gave us the second covenant through the sacrifice Jesus made.
Referring to the Messiah, Jesus, the writer of Hebrews said, “Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God.’ He takes away the first that He may establish the second. By that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” (Hebrews 10:9-10 NKJV)
And then, going back to Paul’s letter to the Roman church said, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh.” (Romans 8:2-3 NKJV)
And so, God first made a way for humanity through Moses and the Law, but then He did so through Jesus’s sacrifice upon the cross.
And the way God made to deliver all of us from sin and death was foreshadowed in how God delivered His people, the Jews, from over 400 years of bondage to the Egyptians. It was the last of the 10 plagues, which today is celebrated by the Jewish people as the feast of Passover.
This is the second way that God has made a way that was foreshadowed by Moses.
On that night, every Jewish family sacrificed a lamb without spot or blemish. They took the blood of that sacrifice and placed it upon the top and sides of the home’s doorframe, and when God saw the blood upon the doorframe, He passed over that house thus sparing the people inside.
And the way God made for all of us centers around the lamb that was sacrificed.
We see a similar sacrifice that fills in the gaps for us. It is found in the story of Abraham, when God told him to take his son, Isaac, and sacrifice him.
When Isaac realized that while they had everything for the sacrifice with the exception of the lamb, He asked His father, “Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? (Genesis 22:7 NKJV)
“And Abraham said, ‘My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering.’” (Genesis 22:8 KJV)
And when Abraham was about to plunge his knife into Isaac, the Lord withheld his hand, saying, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” (Genesis 22:12 NKJV)
And then in verse 14 it goes on to say, “And Abraham called the name of the place, The-Lord-Will-Provide; as it is said to this day, ‘In the Mount of The Lord it shall be provided.’" (Genesis 22:14 NKJV)
The significance of what Abraham said about the lamb and the name He called that location, and the location itself, cannot be overlooked, because it was upon this very hill, Mount Moriah, that Jesus was offered as our sacrificial lamb upon the cross as the Passover lamb.
What Abraham said about the lamb in the Hebrew text should give everyone pause to see just how God was going to make the way, and that is God Himself would be that lamb. God Himself would be the sacrifice.
And so, this whole thing, from Noah, to Abraham, and then to Moses was a foreshadowing of the greatest way and the most perfect way God designed to make a way for humanity to be made right with Him.
And all of this was predicted and prophesied by God about the coming Messiah, that He will be that that lamb, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, as proclaim by last Old Testament prophet, John the Baptist.
“The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’” (John 1:29 NKJV)
This prophetic word was given by God through the prophet Isaiah. In the 53rd chapter He gives us the perfect picture of the coming of the Messiah, who is called, “The Suffering Servant.”
“Surely, He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth.” (Isaiah 53:4-7 NKJV)
“By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities … He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” (Isaiah 53:11b, 12b NKJV)
But here’s the question, “Is the Messiah God?” Since we have established that the Lord Himself would be the lamb, and the sacrifice for humanity, can we make that connection that the Messiah would be no one less than the Lord God.
Tell you what, come with me now as we take a journey of discovery through what the Bible has to say.
And it begins with who God is, and what we find is that while there is one God, but, that one God is what the theologians call a Trinity. Let me give you a quick synopsis.
The word, “Trinity,” comes from the Latin word, “Trinitas,” which means the number three. It stands for “three in theunity of one,” or “Tri-Unity.” The word “Trinty,” is used to express the unity of God existing in three distinct persons, also known as the Godhead; that is, three co-eternal, co-equal persons, each having the same substance, but with a distinct existence: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
But how can I say that; since the Bible makes it clear that there is only one God, which we see in God’s own statements. Like in Isaiah 43:10 when God said, “Understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, nor shall there be after Me.” And in Isaiah 45:21 He said, “There is no other God besides Me, a just God and a Savior; there is none besides Me.”
But the very words of God give us the clue that God is indeed three in the unity of one. The idea of a plurality within God is found in the Hebrew word God uses in the Jewish statement of faith found in Deuteronomy 6:4, also known as the Shema.
In Hebrew it reads, “Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad.” In English it is translated, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” And the whole meaning of this unity within the Godhead is tied up in the word God uses for “one.”
There are two words in the Hebrew language for the word “one.” They are “echad,” and “yahid.” “Yahid” means absolute oneness or singleness, leaving no room for any meaning other than one and one alone. But “echad” brings with it the idea of many that make up one, or what is referred to as a composite unity.
There are several instances seen within the Bible of this composite unity.
We see this plurality in oneness in the plural language used to describe God, by the Lord Himself when He recounts His creation of humanity. In Genesis 1:26 God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.”
But here comes our dilemma, and that is, how do we know it to be three co-eternal, co-equal persons that make up God?
The Apostle John said, “For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one.” (1 John 5:7)
And of Jesus, we read, “For in Him (Jesus) dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” (Colossians 2:9 NKJV)
Now, since the Lord is to be that sacrifice for our sins, what we see is that this was the Son’s, that is Jesus’s part to play in the Godhead. You see it was the Father who made the plan, Jesus accomplished it, and the Holy Spirit is the one who then sealed our salvation.
But we still have to answer the question. ‘Is Jesus God?”
The answer is yes. The Apostle John said in His gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him, nothing was made that was made.” (John 1:1-3 NKJV)
So, who was John referring to by the title, “The Word?” He was referring to none other than Jesus, by what He went on the say in verse 14. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14 NKJV)
But this is also found in the Old Testament, and how the Messiah was none other than God.
Through the prophet Jeremiah, the Lord gives the following description and name to the Messiah, a name that has not given to another, only to the Lord God Himself.
“In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell safely; now this is His name by which He will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.” (Jeremiah 23:6 NKJV)
The name, “The Lord our Righteousness,” in Hebrew is, “Jehovah Tsidkenu.” Not only does the Lord call the coming Messiah by His holy name, “Jehovah,” which He said He would never give to anyone else (Isaiah 42:8), but He also gives Him the name and title of righteousness, and only the Lord is righteous.
And then through the prophet Isaiah where God said, “Listen to Me, O Jacob, and Israel, My called: I am He, I am the First, I am also the Last. Indeed, My hand has laid the foundation of the earth, and My right hand has stretched out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand up together.” (Isaiah 48:12-13)
We clearly see that the Lord God is speaking when He says, “I am He.” And next when He said how He was the First and the Last. And than finally going to the creation account where it says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)
Further, the Lord wants to make sure we know this isn’t the prophet Isaiah or anyone else speaking as He says, “I, even I, have spoken.” (Isaiah 48:15a)
And then comes this statement made by the Messiah revealing the Trinity, or one God manifested in three Persons. “Come near to Me, hear this: I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, I was there. And now the Lord God and His Spirit have sent Me.” (Isaiah 48:16 NKJV)
Now I can go on for hours detailing all of this, but I hope that you have made the connection by this time. God has made a way for us to be made right with Him, and that way was none other than Jesus Christ.
And as we always like to quote these verses during the Christmas season, look at them now with new eyes and see the significance.
“For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6 NKJV)
As a sign to the people, Isaiah said that the Messiah would be called “Immanuel,” which means, “God with us” (Isaiah 7:14; cf. Matthew 1:23).
And so, Jesus is the Messiah, the Lamb of God, and He sacrificed His life upon the cross, making a way for all to be save.
The Apostle Peter said that our salvation is only through Jesus. He said, “But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” (1 Peter 1:19 NKJV)
And finally, we get to the whole reason for Easter, and that is the resurrection of Jesus. How important is it? Paul explains, “And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!” (1 Corinthians 15:17 NKJV)
But how will we know, not that Jesus rose from the dead, because it has been well documented not only by history, but writers from that time, and the fact was never disputed, if it was, then it would have been easy enough to produce the body.
You see, the importance of the resurrection of Jesus means that God accepted His sacrifice upon the cross.
Let me explain, because our salvation hinges upon our faith believing it to be so.
I’d like to explain this through the temple that was in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus. There were two temples built. First was Solomon’s temple, but it was destroyed in 422 B.C. by the Babylonians, and the second temple, the one at the time of Jesus, was then built in 516 B.C. upon Israel’s return from their Babylon captivity. And it was destroyed several decades after Jesus’s death and resurrection.
Both Solomon’s Temple and the Second Temple were inaugurated with sacrifices, and afterwards, God’s presence was seen and felt, thus signifying that God accepted the sacrifice.
Now, after Jesus overturned the money changers’ tables in the temple and the Jewish leaders demanded a sign to prove His authority to do so. Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” (John 2:19 NKJV) And John goes on to say, “But He was speaking of the temple of His body.” (John 2:21 NKJV)
The temple of His body was destroyed on the cross, and His resurrection, 3 days later, proved that God accepted His sacrifice. We come to God through faith in Jesus Christ; He is the acceptable sacrifice for our sin, and He rose from the dead proving it.
And so now we see that it was through His resurrection that God made a way for our redemption, which was and is finalized, so that all who believe in Him shall be saved.
“If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9 NKJV)
And so, God has made a way, now it is up to us as to whether or not we accept the way God has given and walk in it. But let me get a little more personal. It is up to you whether you accept the way God have given or reject it. Your eternal destiny rides upon your answer.
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6 NKJV)
