Three Motives For His Sacrifice

Three Motives for His Sacrifice

Titus 2:11-14

Intro

The motive that precedes action is supremely important. We all wonder about the motives that people have as they interact with us from day to day. They wonder about ours. The motive behind an action adds significance to that action.

It is encouraging to study the Word of God to discover the motives of our Father God. One can look through the New Testament and discover that our precious Lord had many motives that moved him in his ministry to bring salvation to a needy race. Our text focuses on three of these actions.

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I. The Proclamation of the Good News

a. As Paul spoke to Titus, he proclaimed the gospel in a sentence: “Jesus Christ gave himself for us.”

i. Jesus expected to die on the cross.

1. Death by crucifixion was not a last minute emergency action on the part of Jesus Christ to bring about our salvation.

2. A study of the prophetic Scriptures of the Old Testament indicate that somehow in the plan of God, the Messiah who was to be Prophet, Priest, and King, was also to be a suffering substitute for us.

3. Isaiah 53:4-9

Surely our grief’s he himself bore, and our sorrows he carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was pierced through, for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquities of us all to fall on Him. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so he did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due? His grave was assigned with wicked men, yet He was with a rich man in His death, because He had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in His mouth.

ii. Jesus chose to die for us.

1. Jesus was not a draftee who rebelled against his faith.

2. Rather, he saw himself as a loving, obedient Son who chose to give his life.

3. John 10:17-18

For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from me, but I lay it down on my own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.

iii. Jesus’ death on the cross for us reveals to us the length to which his loyalty to the Father went.

1. Jesus death for us shows the depth of the Father’s love for us.

iv. The good news is that Jesus died for each of us.

1. By his death he bore the punishment that sinful people should have suffered.

2. In doing so he opened the door to God for us.

3. He permits us to enter the kingdom of God, where we are brothers and sisters to each other.

4. Everyone is included in the offer.

II. The motives for his substitutionary sacrifice

a. There were many motives our Lord to the cross, but our text speaks of three that we will consider today.

i. Christ died for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity

1. Isaiah was overwhelmed with a sense of his own wickedness and iniquity when the eye of his soul was opened and he saw the Lord. (Isaiah 6:1-6)

2. These words may seem strange in this modern day when so many people lack a consciousness of sin.

3. Christ’s atonement has many repercussions:

a. His death sets us free from all wrongdoing.

b. His death rescues us from our evil, self destructive ways.

c. His death frees us from the wickedness that comes from living away from God.

i. To redeem someone is to purchase a person who occupies the role of a slave. It means to rescue someone from self destructive attitudes, aims, and actions. Jesus liberates us from a lawless way of life that disregards the laws of God and pursues selfish disobedience.

ii. Christ Jesus gave himself that he might “purify for himself a people that are his very own.”

1. Our Lord did not die on a cross to save us and then preserve us in a sinful state.