Introduction (title slide)
Everyone wants a good deal, but what’s a good deal for one person may not be such a good deal for another.
Whenever I fly, I like to read “Sky Mall” magazine , the mail-order catalog that is found in the seat pocket in front of your seat.
This magazine contains some of the most overpriced and unnecessary merchandise available.
For instance, they have an electric nose hair trimmer for $32.
But one of my favorites is called the “Correct Posture Dog Feeder,” which, according to the description,
“…this feeder’s raised stand allows your pet to stand upright in a more relaxed, healthier position.”
This is actually only a dog dish with legs that you can purchase for $44.95 plus shipping and handling.
Whether you are buying a car, a house, a TV, clothing, or groceries, you want a good deal.
But we don’t want to pay more for something than we have to; in essence, we don’t want to overspend.
God doesn’t either. But the advantage God has over us is that he is not going to be ripped off.
¨ He’s not going to be fooled by bait-and-switch advertising…
¨ …or “0% down, 0 interest and 0 payment” deals.
¨ He’s not going to be closed on something he doesn’t want and…
¨ …he’s not going to pay more for something than it is worth to him.
But we might and we feel like we didn’t get a good deal if something we bought turns out to be less valuable than we thought it would.
Like let’s say you bought a 16 year-old fixer-upper house and you quickly found out that you’re not a very good fixer-upper.
What you thought was a good deal could quickly turn out to be a not-so-good deal. And it did.
But God could’ve felt the same way after he created the human race.
He creates two people whose entire existence revolves around worshipping God and loving each other—and observing one rule.
All they needed to do was to stay away from one tree. But they couldn’t. At first, it probably was not too hard to stay away from the tree.
They could even walk by it while they’re eating fruit from other trees, and not give it much thought.
But then over time, they became more and more curious. “Why that tree? What’s so special about that one?”
And one day, it was just too much, and with the enemy’s help, they got the answers to their questions.
As a result, sin enters their world and changes everything. And as time went on, this race of people whom God created would eventually…
¨ reject him,
¨ mock him,
¨ resent him,
¨ claim he didn’t exist,
¨ and even kill each other in God’s name because they couldn’t agree on how to worship him.
Some would say they believed in him, but not really.
And then, when he became one of them, he was subjected him to…
¨ personal rejection,
¨ public humiliation,
¨ judicial perversion
¨ and physical torture
…resulting in a slow, painful, lonely, agonizing criminal’s death.
Now, if someone did this to you, how would you respond? The answer will depend on their value to you.
If its someone for whom you care deeply—someone who is valuable to you, then you would stop at nothing in the pursuit of reconciliation.
And that’s exactly what God did. So at the risk of appearing politically incorrect, or having a low self-esteem,
…or not being fully self-actualized, the first thing I want us to think about this morning is that…
We Are Sinful
I don’t know if there is a less politically incorrect or sociologically controversial word than “sin.”
¨ To some, it sounds judgmental.
¨ To others it smacks of intolerance.
¨ For others it may represent abuse.
Or maybe, you’re very comfortable with the concept and have even reconciled the issue between you and God.
The word entered our language by way of the Bible, yet few people who have heard it…
…really understand what it means in the context of the Bible from which we got it.
At some point, everyone must come to grips with the fact that God does not regard the issue of sin in terms of comparisons.
When we think about whether someone is good or bad; sinful or not, we tend to think of it relative to how they compare to us.
And usually, if someone is better than us, they’re not very sinful, and if they’re worse, they’re really sinful.
But the common denominator is that we tend to set ourselves up as the one who decides what is right and wrong…
…and then we judge ourselves and others accordingly.
Yet the difference is that we judge ourselves based on our intentions, but we judge others on their actions.
Think of the last time you were in an argument or a disagreement or a conflict.
When the conversation was about the other person, you may have heard yourself saying, “But you said this…” or “You did that…”
But when the conversation turns to us, we hear ourselves saying, “But that’s not what I meant!”
We judge ourselves by our intentions, but we judge others by their words and actions and we view sin by comparison.
And the difference between us and God is that he doesn’t look to us to determine what sin is or to what degree different people are good or bad.
He set the standard long before you and I ever came along and his word teaches that we are sinful and that this sinfulness is not just seen…
¨ when I lie,
¨ or lose my temper,
¨ or when I am greedy,
¨ or tempted somehow.
But that it also becomes visible when…
¨ I am selfish,
¨ or when I want to be the center of attention,
¨ or when I become angry because things don’t go my way,
¨ or when I place unrealistic expectations on others.
The word “sinful” is not a word reserved exclusively for murderers, racists, child molesters, drive-by shooters, and corrupt politicians.
Sin isn’t just the really bad stuff. It’s all the stuff.
We need to understand that the issue is not our actions, but our nature even though we are all express our sin-natures differently.
One person expresses it by robbing a bank, another by deceiving and cheating in business.
One person expresses it by shooting someone, another by grinding the life out of their family through verbal abuse.
Some reveal it by beating someone up, while others do it by saying things behind the backs of others they would never say to their faces.
Some express it by verbally or physically abusing someone, while others do it by harboring bitterness, anger and unforgiveness toward others.
But what we all have in common is it’s presence. And really, we shouldn’t be surprised.
For thousands of years, words describing this sin-nature have been residing on the pages of God’s word. Words like these:
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9)
Or this one from the New Testament:
This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. (John 3:19)
Those words could be offensive if they weren’t true. But it could be that they are absolutely accurate. The Bible says we are sinful.
If you’re following along in the Bible, go to Romans 5:6-8.
We all have this nature, a “sin-nature” which has become a barrier between God and ourselves.
And the truth is, the barrier of sin is impossible to remove through our own good works.
This barrier is so insurmountable that it took God himself, in the form of Jesus Christ, to overcome it on our behalf. And so Romans 5 says,
6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
¨ How sinful are we?
¨ How far are we from God?
¨ How vast is the distance between people and God?
So sinful, so far and so vast that God himself was the only one who could close that gap and reconnect with his creation.
And that which it took to close the gap actually reveals and defines the extent of our sinfulness.
We cannot and will not be able to overcome the barrier of our separation from God by ourselves.
Because of that it took an infinite God in the form of a sinless man to bridge this gap.
And while God’s word clearly teaches that we are so sinful, it also teaches that…
We Are Valuable
I have brought with me a picture of my son at age two and a half kissing his one year-old sister on the cheek.
The paper itself isn’t worth much and the frame is only worth a few dollars.
But if this was stolen out of my home and I couldn’t get a reprint, then I know that I would pay a significant amount of money to get it back.
To anyone else, it would be worth very little. But it’s valuable because it has value to me.
If you were to go out into the city today and mention my name, the vast majority of people would not know or care who I am.
If there was an article tomorrow in the Arizona Republic describing my death,
…most of the readers would feel no emotion as they read it, if they read it at all. And that’s okay.
It’s okay because God has communicated to me through his word that while my value in they eyes of people may be slight;
…my worth to him is infinite. And so is yours.
But this concept of value is more foreign to some of us than we want to admit.
Some of us grew up in homes where love and acceptance and approval were given freely and demonstrated well.
But many of us grew up in homes where that didn’t happen.
If someone would have asked, “Does your family love each other?” you would have said, “Yes, of course.”
But if they asked, “How did they show it?” The answer doesn’t come so quickly.
The reason I know this is because of my own upbringing and from hundreds of stories I’ve listened to in my office over the years.
But the truth is that, even if no one in your life has ever treated you like someone of worth and value, you are still valuable to God.
But if you’ve never received it from people, especially your parents, it’s difficult to receive it from God.
¨ It’s sometimes difficult, but it’s never impossible.
But again, the Bible clearly teaches that, no matter what you’ve done in the past or what has been done to you, you are of infinite value to God.
Even the worst of sinners has value to God because they are people whom God has created and for whom Christ died.
It doesn’t mean that my sins are the same as yours or that yours are the same as mine. It just means that, as God’s word says in Romans 3:23,
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…
We have all sinned against God, whether it has been in small ways or big ways, we have all sinned…
…and the Bible says that he has paid the price for it because we couldn’t. Look at how God’s word completes this sentence:
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:23-24)
For most of us there are people in our lives for whom we would make any sacrifice. It may be…
¨ your parents,
¨ your employer,
¨ your spouse,
¨ your children,
¨ or a close friend;
¨ anyone whom we truly love and value.
Because God values people, he was willing to make an incomprehensible sacrifice for every one. The reason is because…
You can tell how much you love someone by what you’re willing to do for them.
Turn now in your Bibles to Luke 15:1-2.
God says that you are so valuable to him that nothing could ever lessen the intensity of his love for you.
So what would motivate someone to spend $45 dollars on a dog dish with legs? They really love and value their dog!
There was a point in Jesus’ ministry when he was keeping company with some fairly undesirable types of people,
…at least in the eyes of those who felt qualified to determine such things. Luke 15:1-2 tells us this:
Now all the tax-gatherers and the sinners were coming near Him to listen to Him. And both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”
Here is Jesus hanging out with white-collar criminals and religious rejects.
And the ones who are upset with him are the local religious experts and authorities.
It says in the New American Standard Version that the Pharisees and Scribes were “grumbling.”
If you’re reading a New King James Version, it says they were “murmuring.”
And those of you reading a New International version see that they were “muttering.”
So, just to get a picture of what this probably sounded like,
…I want those of you on this side to repeat the word “grumble” over and over until I tell you to stop. Not loudly, just in your normal voice.
And those of you in the two center sections, I want you to say “murmur” in the same manner.
And those of you on this side, all the way back, say “mutter.” Ready, go.
This is how the religious people voiced their disapproval of Jesus’ friendship with these “sinful” people.
Yet the attitude Jesus demonstrates is just the opposite. These people were valuable to God and he knew it—
…so he treated them like people of value.
In fact, he said in earlier that these were exactly the types of people whom he came to reach when Jesus said,
“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:31-32)
Their value, like yours was not determined by what they had done or not done.
Their value, was defined by God’s love for them. As we saw in Romans,
God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
¨ Your value is not defined by how much you make or the things you own or don’t own.
¨ It is not defined by how you have been treated by other people—whether you have been treated well or not well at all.
¨ It is not defined by the number of friends or relationships you have or do not have.
¨ It’s not defined by the number of people who have said “I love you.”
Your value is defined by the price that was paid for your eternity
Your value is defined by the price that was paid for your eternity and
God does not overspend.
God is not going to pay more for something than it is worth to him.
He paid a price equivalent to your value to him—and that price was infinite because you are of infinite worth to him.
And so What Is The Paradox Of The Cross?
It’s that We are so sinful, it took the death of Christ to pay for it.
But at the same time, We are so valuable to God, He was willing to pay the price himself.
So what this means is that…
We Are Sinful and We Are Valuable
God says we’re sinful and valuable at the same time. That’s why the Bibles says, …while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
He doesn’t wait for you to redeem yourself, but meets you right where you’re at.
One of the most quoted and memorized verse of the bible is John 3:16. And the longer I walk with God, the more profound it becomes to me.
God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
God loves you. And he defined your value to him by paying the highest possible price for you.
This is why the Bible says that a relationship with God and the promise of eternal life is a gift. The book of Ephesians says,
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8)
We can’t earn it and we don’t deserve it, but the good news is that God knows this and he is not expecting nor asking you to earn it.
God paid the price for our sin through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross so that you don’t have to go through life…
…wondering if you died today whether you would go to heaven or not.
And the power of his death on our behalf was proven by his literal resurrection from the dead—that which we celebrate on Easter.
God offers salvation and heaven as a gift to anyone who will receive it.
And we experience this gift in it’s fullest…
¨ when we are willing to accept the truth regarding our sin;
¨ and when we stop blaming others or blaming God;
We receive it when we come to God humbly and honestly, believing that only he can save us, and that he really wants to.
As Keith mentioned earlier, we’ve been looking at the lives of the famous people of the Bible.
And as I have been able to spend my weeks studying these peoples’ lives…
…and then telling their stories on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights is that these people were a lot like me.
They were sincere in their faith, but they weren’t perfect and their faith wasn’t perfect either.
For some of them, it was their failures and fears and mistakes—all the things they would go back and change if they could—
…those became the very things God used to make them better, to draw them closer to him, and to a difference in their world.
If any one of those people and the others we’ll be looking at had to depend on a 4.0 grade point average on a spiritual report card…
…in order to have confidence that God loved them and accepted them and that they would spend eternity in heaven with him,
…they’d be in trouble and so would I.
But what I and many others in this room have discovered is that God loves us simply because we’re his creation…
…and he died for us so that we could be free from guilt and fear and spend eternity with him because we’re of infinite value to him.
He promises heaven to his children so that we can live our lives with in hope and confidence instead of insecurity.
And maybe you’re already a child of God and a follower of Jesus,
…but you still struggle to find love and acceptance apart from God and his word and today,
…God’s message to you is to stop searching and accept that his love for you is complete and permanent and it’s already yours.
But maybe you’re not so sure about all of this.
Or maybe you believe, but you’re still not confident that God is with you and that you’ll be with him forever.
Maybe you were raised to believe something different or, like me, you weren’t raised to believe anything at all.
But for whatever reason, today’s your day to accept God’s love and forgiveness and the promise of eternal life…
…by just telling him in your own words in your own heart that you want to receive those things and become his child and a follower of Jesus.
And if that’s where you’re at or if there is anything else at all that you would like to talk about or pray about,
I want to invite you to give me a call. Whether you’re here for the first time or you’ve been coming here for a long time,
…we could sit down and talk about it confidentially and it be my privilege to listen to you, to pray for you…
…and to share what God says about his love for you and his presence in your life.
