The story goes that someone went into a jeweller's shop to buy a silver cross
and the assistant said:
'Would you like a plain one or one with a little man on it?'
Maybe it's only a story but it illustrates the fact that the cross for so many
is only a piece of jewellery, with or without a 'little man' hanging there.
If we did a survey on the streets of Cork and asked people about the cross
we might find that younger people might have a very hazy idea about it;
possibly older folk would say Jesus died for our sins
but few enough have that particular sense that he died for my sins.
The cross for so many is all right around their necks
or viewed at a distance in the symbols of the Lord's Supper
but how many can echo Paul's words in Galatians 2.20?
'I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God,
who loved me and gave himself for me.'
A pastor in an African country was finding
that the people were being lured away
from faith in Christian different tempting directions:
there was the pull of traditional religion, the practices of their ancestors;
the younger people went to college and were attracted by Marxism;
there was the prospect of a take-over by Islam.
How could he show them that they should follow Jesus?
He told them a story about a baby rescued, alone of his family, from a hut fire.
Who would have the privilege of looking after this special child,
so wonderfully rescued and favoured by God?
Claims were made by wealthy, prominent people.
Then one insignificant man insisted he had a superior claim.
He showed them his hands. They were burned.
He was the person who had rescued the baby from the flames.
The old pastor told this story and leaned over his pulpit and said:
'I don't dispute that the old gods and our forefathers have wisdom and power.
I don't dispute that Muhammad has taught many great and noble things.
I don't dispute that Marxism has much to offer a colonial people like us.
But we must follow Jesus because he alone has scars in his hands.
'He loved me and gave himself for me'.
No other god, not other system of belief has someone who died for us.
What happened when he gave himself for us?
Peter writes (1 Peter 2.24):
24 'He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree,
so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness;
by his wounds you have been healed.
25 For you were like sheep going astray,
but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.'
Do you see the echoes of Isaiah 53?
4 'Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.'
It can be so simply described by putting a book on top of your hand.
The book stands for all that's wrong in your all that blocks God out
all your sin, 'iniquity' wrongdoing.
As the book is moved from one hand and weighs down the other
that describes what Jesus did in dying for us.
Through the cross the weight of that block is lifted off you and placed on Jesus.
Is that hard to grasp? Perhaps in today's world it seems strange.
It's not fashionable to talk of sin and guilt.
We seek reasons to explain and justify why people do wrong
we especially want to avoid our own responsibility
Perhaps these 4 headings may help explain
what sin does to us and how it can be removed.
THE POLLUTION OF SIN
Sin is dirty; it makes us unclean.
In the Old Testament they symbolised that
with a list of foods that were clean or unclean
and of actions that cleansed or defiled.
But Jesus went deeper In Mark 7.20-23 he said
"What comes out of a man is what makes him `unclean.'
21 For from within, out of men's hearts,
come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,
22 greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.
23 All these evils come from inside and make a man `unclean.'"
Just check those things in your own lives;
who here would have a 'clean' record?
It won't be much longer until they bring in a points system for driving offences
(probably not until after the next election)
Suppose your employer or the insurance company
looks for a 'clean driving licence;
it won't be any use saying there are only 3 points
on it rather than the maximum ten or whatever.
It won't be any use
pointing out that someone else has 9 points while you have only 5.
Either the licence will be clean or is it not.
How then can we clean our lives
especially looking at so many of those 'inside' things that Jesus highlights?
In the OT days they tried to get clean by going to the temple
by offering a sacrifice of a bull or a goat
a perfect unblemished animal to be the sin bearer,
and when its blood was shed there was a, temporary, assurance
of sin being cleansed
But what was temporary and inadequate under the Old Testament
becomes full and final in the sacrifice of Jesus.
As John writes in his first letter'
the blood of Jesus his Son purifies us from all sin;
or as Paul puts it in Romans 3.25
'God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.'
How wonderful it is, how free to sense the cleansing of the blood of Christ.
Maybe as the cup comes to you in the Lord's Supper
'the new covenant in my blood poured out for many for the taking away of sins'
you get a sense that Jesus did die for you
and you drink from the cup in token of trusting and accepting him.
Has that ever happened?
Pray and indeed expect that you will sense forgiveness for your sin
as you receive the tokens of the death of Christ with faith and thanksgiving.
Or as we sing in our closing hymn:
'Not what I feel or do / can give me peace with God
Not all my prayers and sighs and tears / can bear my heavy load.
Thy work alone, O Christ, / can ease this weight of sin;
thy blood alone O Lamb of God can give me peace within.'
That's where we find peace with God, in the death of his son,
not in coming to church, or saying our prayers, or trying to be a nice person.
If we try to make ourselves clean and perfect before God
it doesn't work, there's always some dark dirty bit that we've missed.
But when we say thank you to Jesus for dying for us on the cross
and dealing with all our sin, then we can have true peace
and then we are free to please God
because we are not trying to earn his peace any more -
instead we are enjoying that peace which comes through the blood of the cross.
As well as making us dirty sin traps us:
THE POWER OF SIN
In John 8.34 "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.''
Wrong doing has a binding, addictive power in our lives.
We are not simply talking here about drugs which harm the body and the mind
but of habitual thoughts and deeds which harm mind and spirit
and possibly also leave us tense and restless in our bodies.
Bad temper, envy, arrogance selfishness, gossip,
self pity, self righteousness bitterness
and the list could go on. How can we ever get free?
The picture that the Bible uses to help us here
is of someone being set free from the slave market.
In those days if you got into debt, you might have to sell yourself into slavery
in order to clear your debts.
It was a drastic solution, losing your freedom.
But there were people who were called 'redeemers'
merciful people who might come into the slave market,
see you standing there in shackles
and pay the price to set you free, buy you back, redeem you.
That is why Paul writes in Romans 3.24 that we 'are justified freely by his grace
through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.'
That is why in 1 Corinthians 6 Paul argues with Christians that sexual immorality
is unthinkable for redeemed people
'You are not your own; you were bought with a price.
Therefore honour God with your body'
It is quite like the approach I recently suggested
in the story of David and Bathsheba.
He did not have to sin, however beautiful the woman,
however strong the temptation.
In Christ, because he has paid the great price for us, we do not have to sin.
We are able to step out of those chains.
I know the chains can seem so strong and tight.
I know we often seem to choose to go back and pull them around us.
But can I suggest at those times that we need to do
is not so much to look at the chain, the addictive deadening habit
but look at the redeemer, who died for us?
Look not at the problem but at the solution,
not at the sin but the Saviour.
And how does he pay the price?
by fulfilling through his death THE PENALTY OF SIN
God is a God of love and a God of justice.
We can sense that
because in ourselves we have a hunger for love and for justice.
The hunger for love is obvious but so actually is our desire for justice.
It happens all the time.
We think we have been short changed with these new coins?
We tell the shop keeper and want it put right.
A driver ignores a crossing keeper outside a school:
that makes us cross, it is not right
or at a national level both North and South,
so many tribunals and enquiries and calls for even more.
Even as sinful human beings, we want wrong to be righted,
we want the innocent to be acquitted and the guilty punished.
But here is an amazing picture, this time from the law court.
We stand in the dock, guilty, deserving punishment.
Along comes someone completely innocent who takes the punishment instead.
It is like the story of the judge who one day see his old school friend in the dock.
He loves his friend but he must uphold the law,
so he sentences him to pay a huge fine
and then comes round afterwards to pay the fine himself.
Justice is upheld but love is also demonstrated.
Romans 3.22 p
'This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ
to all who believe. There is no difference,
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
24 and are justified freely by his grace
through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
He did this to demonstrate his justice, ...at the present time,
so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.'
But there is a danger in seeing the death of Christ
as only a legal or commercial transaction
as if his blood is the ultimate insurance premium
a price paid so that we can do as we like without reference to our Saviour.
Such a view ignores THE PARTITION OF SIN
the awesome separation that sin brings between us and God
Isaiah 59.2
'your iniquities have separated you from your God;
your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.'
If I took your car without your permission and wrecked it
I would not only have owe you some thousands of euros
as well as having to face a charge of theft
but as well our friendship would be spoiled.
Our sin against God does not just mean that we owe him so much
and that we deserve punishment,
it also means we have broken relationship
and we need reconciliation with him
That is why Paul in 2 Corinthians 5.19 speaks of God
'reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
20 We are therefore Christ's ambassadors,
as though God were making his appeal through us.
We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.
21 God made him who had no sin to be sin,
so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
The cross is like a multi faceted diamond, with many different aspects, each contributing to the precious beauty of the whole thing.
It deals with our need for cleansing through the sacrifice of Christ
taking away the pollution
It deals with our need for freedom as we are redeemed from slavery
breaking the power
It deals with our need for pardon for sin as Jesus takes our place,
the just for the unjust, paying the penalty.
and it deals with our need for a restored reconciled relationship
breaking through the partition.
May I simply implore you? Be reconciled to God
Follow the one who bears the scars of the wounds of your rescue
Give yourself to him who gave everything for you
Thank you Lord Jesus
for making me clean, setting me free taking the punishment I deserve
and offering a way back to Father God
May I always look to you and live by faith in you
who loved me and gave yourself for me
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