The theme for today’s sermon is building a new nation in Christ. This theme highlights the importance of the Lenten season and recounts the message of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For by this offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.
(Hebrews 10:14) This event is the foundation of the building of a new nation in Christ.
The definition of a nation is that of a stable community of people with a common language, history, religion and culture. God created Adam and Eve with the mandate to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. His divine purpose is to live among His people while they exercise their God given authority and dominion over His creation and respond to His presence with thanksgiving, praise and worship. Sin ruined and delayed God’s plan until at His appointed time, He chose Abraham to be the father of a chosen people that would point the way and reveal Jesus Christ and restore God’s divine plan and purpose. Israel has blessed the world with the Word of God, with God’s revelations through His prophets, and most of all with His only Son, Jesus Christ and the Gospel.
There are still revelations from God that have not yet been fulfilled and this is the reason why Israel has survived to this day in spite of all the difficulties and defeats it has faced in its history. After the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, the Jews were expelled from their homeland by the Romans, and Israel ceased to exist as a nation. The second world War and the loss of six million Jews in German concentration camps, led to the rebirth of Israel. A nation that had ceased to exist for 2000 years, was reborn in a day as prophesied in the Scriptures (Isaiah 66:8) on the 14th of May, 1948. The Hebrew language, a language that had ceased to exist, became the official language of Israel. Such a thing had never happened in the history of the world before. Israel, however did not have access to the whole of Jerusalem. In 1967, after the six-day war against the combined might of their Arab neighbours, the West bank, the Golan Heights and all of Jerusalem came under Israel’s control. In 2018, Trump declared Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel and moved the American embassy from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem.
Jesus Christ is the foundation for the building of a new nation in Christ, “for no other foundation can anyone lay than that, which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” He laid the foundation with His death, burial and resurrection. This is the Gospel message. It is not enough to only hear the good news it must be believed. It is important to believe that Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty for sin and was raised from the dead for our justification. He was made sin with our sinfulness to make us righteous with His righteousness.
Many nations around the world today have failed in nation building because many politicians and leaders do not believe that the Word of God has the answers to the complex religious, social and economic problems. The Word of God contains a blueprint for nation building that God recorded thousands of years ago for our benefit. The success of any nation depends on God and the character of people in leadership positions. God is concerned about the needs of His people and how they are treated.
Laying the foundation of a new nation in Christ is not anything we can do in our own strength. It has already been accomplished by Jesus Christ and all that is necessary is to accept God’s gift of salvation for “By grace are we saved through faith, and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God”. (Eph. 2:8) As believers we build on the foundation by relying on God’s guidance and His Word. We are to renew the mind and bring it in agreement with what the Word of God declares. A person with a renewed mind will rely and trust in the protection and provisions of God and not in their own strength and efforts. Why do we think we can begin our spiritual journey through faith in the grace of God and continue with our own works in our own strength?
The apostle Paul learnt that only God was His source and protection. He had every reason to have confidence in himself. He was an Israelite of the tribe of Benjamin, circumcised on the eighth day, a Hebrew of Hebrews and a Pharisee. If any Jew had a reason to boast it was Paul, but he counted all these as rubbish compared to knowing Christ. In Christ he was made righteous with the righteousness of God, a righteousness that had never known sin. Paul’s new desire was to become like Christ, to know him and the power of his resurrection, and share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible, he may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
The sacrifice of Christ qualifies believers to boldly enter God’s presence. Psalm 126 is a Psalm of Ascents as the pilgrims approach the Temple Mount. It also describes a spiritual truth of the believer’s entrance into God’s Holy Presence as a citizen of heaven. “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering,
and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect,and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
(Hebrews 12:22-24)
The purpose for Christ’s death, burial and resurrection is to make us citizens of this new nation. As believers we have dual citizenship, we are citizens on earth and citizens in heaven but our citizenship of heaven with its rules and demands has priority over the rules and demands of our citizenship on earth. We obey earthly governments as long as their rules and demands do not contradict those of heaven. As citizens of a new nation, we serve as ambassadors of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We have at our disposal all that belongs to the kingdom of heaven. An ambassador of a foreign country has access to the same things that are available in the country he represents and his duty is to do the will of the King or the government he represents. As ambassadors of Christ, we have His protection, His provisions and the duty to do His will. The nature and character of Christ, His humility and service should be evident to all. When this is missing, we are only fooling ourselves.
Was the nature and character of God evident in Judas Iscariot. Did Christ not choose him and did Judas not spend 3 years with Jesus during His ministry? Was he not a witness to the many miracles that Jesus performed? Why was he so offended when Mary by her action exhibited the nature and character of Christ? His nature and character revealed his true identity. Mary’s nature and behaviour revealed her true identity. She was sensitive to the Holy Spirit and anointed Jesus with very expensive perfume before His death and burial. During His trial and suffering when His disciples deserted Him and denied Him, He could still smell the sweet aroma of that perfume that reminded Him of Mary’s unconditional love. When He was buried just before the Sabbath there was no time to properly embalm Him and when the women appeared on Resurrection Day to complete His embalming, He had already risen from the dead. Mary had embalmed Him for burial. Judas was offended because he did not belong to Christ and his character was flawed. He was a thief and desired for himself what Mary had given to Jesus.
The nature and character of God could clearly be seen in Mary’s sacrificial giving to Christ. What can we also give sacrificially to Him? We have heard the gospel and have a duty to share it that whosoever believes may be born into the new nation of Christ. Christ took all the evil we deserved and gave us all the good we did not deserve. He loved us and gave us everything He had. “As He is so also are we in this world”. (1 John 4:17) Christ gave His life for sinners and to be like Him we are to make disciples of all nations to the praise and glory of Almighty God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen!
