HE DID IT ALL FOR ME
I Pet. 2:24
INTRO. Search as I will I can not think of a single thing so personal as sin and salvation. When the Bible says, "For all have sinned", I am persuaded to think, "all but me". And when the Word says, "There is none righteous, no not one", I want to add, "except me". When God speaks and says, "There is not a just man upon the earth". I want to say, "How about me?" But if it is true that I am righteous and sinless and those condemning verses do not mean me then there are others that do not mean me.
Jn. 3:16 ... "all but me?"
"I go to prepare a place for you" ...all but me?
"I will come again and gather.."...all but me?
"Who his own self bare our sins" ...all but mine?
(song) "He did it all for me,
each drop of blood he shed for even me,
When the Saviour cried, bowed his head and died
Oh praise the Lord, he did it all for me."
Yes, I am a sinner. I am a sinner saved by the marvelous grace of Jesus. He came, lived and died the terrible death of Calvary and he did it all for me.
I. HE CAME INTO A SINNER’S WORLD.
A. This is a sinner’s world and a world of sinners. It is a world of pain and grief, of disease, depravation, war and starvation. It is a world torn by storm, earthquake, and eruption, populated by men torn by crime, war, lies and corruption.
1. It was not always so. There was a time of peace when there was only quite and harmony. But since that sad day in Eden when sin entered the world there has been no peace, not of mind, not of heart and not from war.
2. He came from a place where there was and is no sin.
a. There are no lepers at heavens golden gates, no sin and war and crime and no hurting there. No hunger, no pain, no corruption, no disease. Only peace... and ... concern.
b. Yes, there is concern in heaven for the plight of sinful men. For John 3:16 is true, God does love the world in spite of all the many things wrong with it caused by sin.
c. God cares -- Matt. 10:29-31
B. Jesus himself was sinless, perfect and he was without the Adamic sin nature you and I must live and contend with.
1. So he took upon himself the form of a man. Accustomed to the pure atmosphere of his own home, he allowed his eyes and ears to be assaulted by the sights and sounds beneath which must have been painful.
2. Feet that walked heavens pure gold streets walked in the dust of the earth, among the mounds of graves and the traps of evil men who sought from the first to catch and destroy Him.
3. Hands that had beckoned to angels and touched the face of God now washed the dirty feet of common sinners, but also reached forth in compassion to heal the blind and leprous and raise the dead.
4. See Phil. 2:5-7. I am a sinner and he did it all for me.
II. HE LIVED THE SINNER’S LIFE.
A. Not a sinner’s life, but the life of ordinary men or the ordinary life of men. With his hands he labored in the carpenter’s shop; he attended weddings and holiday festivals. As a child he went with his parents to enjoy all of the excitement of a religious holiday in Jerusalem.
1. He knew the heart rending pain that accompanies a funeral. He ate, he drank, he slept. He sailed in a boat with his fishermen friends; he sat weary at the well and was hungry in the sharp morning air.
2. He was familiar with all the things you and I are familiar with. You and I face temptation to sin but he was face to face with the master of sin after he had been alone, neither eating or drinking, for 40 days.
B. Yet, while he lived among sinners, he did not sin. He was tempted but he did not yield. He was offered power and refused....offered food but he did not give in.
1. It was necessary. If he was to be our light to show us the way he had to go first himself.
2. (Heb. 4:15) -- "For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin."
III. HE SYMPATHIZED WITH SINNER’S GRIEFS.
A. Our Saviour knows the feeling of pain, of the flesh, in the spirit, and of the heart. He knows disappointment as when one is rejected.
1. Rich young ruler. Peter’s denial. Judas betrayal. His rejection by the people before Pilate.
2. He knows the pain of not being believed.
B. When leprosy with its sores,...bereavement with its heart-rending loneliness, dumbness and deafness, demon possession came to his notice they elicited the most profound response from his sympathetic heart.
1. In him the outcast found sympathy and forgiveness.
2. See John 8:3-11 (woman in adultery)
IV. HE DIED THE SINNER’S DEATH.
A. He was wounded for our transgressions. He had no sin, he was not guilty of any crime either before men or God.
1. He was treated as the scapegoat, the outcast leper, the sin offering of the whole human family.
2. The iniquities of us all met in Him. As the dark waters of the street and sewage all meet in one whirling pool, so our sins are all found impounded in one heart.
3. He stood as our substitute, sacrifice and satisfaction. All the guilt, and curse and penalty of God’s broken Law borne up and exhausted in his suffering body.
a. Isa. 53:3-5
b. II Cor. 5:21
c. Rejected by His own father -- "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
B. He didn’t have to. The only law driving him to take my place and suffer for my sins was his own Law of Love.
1. (Rom. 5:8) -- "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
2. One day I must stand before God. But I will stand in His marvelous presence free from the stain and guilt of sin,... free from the burden of His broken Law, ... free from the fear of His righteous wrath because His own Son died on Calvary under the weight of my sins. He died the sinner’s death and He did it all for me.
V. HE IS PREPARING THE SINNER’S HOME.
A. "I go to prepare a place for you." FOR ME!! For an old sinner like me He is preparing heaven’s best.
1. "I go to prepare a place for you" and no mother was ever more intent on preparing his bedroom for her sailor boy on his return home from the war, than is Jesus on preparing heaven.
2. And what of the wedding dinner,...the old saints,...the family circle.
3. I am a sinner. But I am a sinner saved by the matchless grace of Jesus. I am a sinner loved by God.
4. He is coming soon to take me to his home in the sky to give me a new body, ... to take away the last vestige of my old sinful nature, ... to let me live with him and his father forever.
CONCLU. If you are a lost sinner than it is my joy to tell you the good new. God loves you. Jesus died for you. He suffered the agony of the cross because of his love for you. Yes, he did it all for you.
