As a new year approaches, many people are making resolutions
and commitments to change things in their life for the better.
There are those who will focus on the external: try to lose
weight, work out more. There are those who will try to read their Bible more,
be a better Christian, etc.
But we as followers of Christ often forget this old message
that is faithful and true.
God is Holy, we are sinners, God became man, Jesus paid our
penalty, our response is to receive His forgiveness and live for Him by
worshipping Him.
01. God Is Holy
The Bible tells us that God is Holy (Leviticus 11.44-45). Peter quotes
this passage in Leviticus in 1Peter 01.16.
At the commission of Isaiah the prophet in Isaiah 06.01-13, the Seraphim cried out that
the LORD is Holy. John in his vision of Heaven wrote about the four living
creatures and how they constantly worship God in Revelation 04.01-11. John tells
us “…that God
is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” (1John 01.05).
What John is saying here is that there is nothing impure at all about God, He
has a character that is Holy. He is so good that there is “no darkness at all” in Him! Paul
tells us that the Law of God is holy in Romans 07.12.
02. The Problem
The problem though is that all of mankind has sinned and
fallen short of the glory of God (Ecclesiastes 07.20; Romans 03.23). All of mankind “…like sheep
have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way…” (Isaiah 53.06).
God is Holy, we are sinners, and therein lies the problem. Because of sin, we
can have no fellowship with God, since “in Him there is no darkness at all.” (1John 01.05).
Light and darkness cannot mix, so we are cut off from having any type of
fellowship with our Creator, the God of this universe. But because of sin there
is a price that needs to be paid. The sin problem doesn’t just isolate us from
God, but keeps us in debt. Paul tells us “the wages of sin is death” in Romans 06.23.
There is not a sliding scale though for sin. God does not
grade on a curve. All sin is the same, you do not receive a worse punishment if
you commit a certain sin, or get off lightly if you do a “small” sin. The
reason for this is because God is Holy, and all sin is essentially against the
Holy God (Psalm
51.04). But “the wages of sin” that Paul mentions in Romans 06.23
is not just physical death, but a death that is spiritual. This is Hell, a
place where you are eternally tormented while conscious (Luke 16.23). Hell is described by
Jesus as a “furnace
of fire” and “in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 13.50).
The idea of a real Hell is contradictory to what we are taught in society
today, where everyone is a winner, everyone can be president, you can do
whatever you want if you just put your mind to it (the false New Age teaching
of the power of positive thinking) world that we live in. No one likes to think
that we could end up in a place of eternal torment. People often say, “How can a loving
God send people to Hell?” The answer is that He doesn’t, each one
makes their own choice whether the end up in Hell or not (2Peter 03.09). God’s justice
demands that there be a payment of sin.
03. God Became Man
God saw that we were a miserable creature, unable to pay for
our sins, so He sent His only Son to be miraculously born of a virgin, thus
keeping Him unstained and unspotted from sin (Matthew 01.18-25; Luke 02.01-20).
Philippians 02.05-11
God becoming man, Jesus, lived thirty-three years here on earth, yet
He never sinned. Never once did He disobey His parents, never once did He break
the Law of God, but instead He came to fulfill the Law (Matthew 05.17). Jesus lived His life in the way
that you and I should live, in complete submission to the Father, doing the
will of the Father (John 04.34; John 05.30; John 06.38).
04. He Paid Our
Debt
Because He was perfect, righteous, and lived a life of no
sin, He became the perfect substitute for our sins. Many of the Jews wanted Him
dead because He preached a different message then they taught. The Jews were
now under Roman rule, and around 12ad we know from
Josephus (The Jewish War 02.08.01) and history that the Romans took away
capital punishment from the Jews. In the mind of the Jews, this took away the
foundation of their government, which is to be able to put to death those who
deserved it. All this was done in fulfillment of Jacob’s prophecy on his deathbed in Genesis 49.10.
Unbeknownst to the Jews, when their right to offer capital punishment was taken
away by the Romans, their Messiah was about 16 years old! The Jews needed the
Romans to put Jesus to death, and because Pontius Pilate wanted to appease the
Jewish people, he went along with their ruse, even though he knew that Jesus
was innocent and not deserving of death (Matthew 27.18; Matthew 27.23-24). God was still
in control, for He had foretold that the Messiah was to suffer greatly (Isaiah 53.01-12)
for the sins of this world. Jesus voluntarily laid down His life (John 10.14-18),
allowing the sins of the world to be placed on Him and suffering the
consequences of that. Paul tells us “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness
of God in Him.” (2Corinthians 05.21). But the account doesn’t end there! For on the
third day, the tomb was empty (Matthew 28.01-10; Mark 16.01-08; Luke 24.01-12;
John
20.01-18; 1Corinthians 01.01-05)! Because the tomb is
empty, you and I are now able to confidently approach God (Hebrews 04.16) and have a
personal relationship with the God who created all things! Isaiah tells us that
the Messiah was to bear the sin of many and justify many in Isaiah 53.11-12.
The free gift of God is eternal life (Romans 06.23), available to all men (John 03.16).
God treated Jesus as if He were us, and He know treats us as if we were Jesus!
05. Our Response
Our response is to accept and acknowledge Jesus as Lord (Romans 10.09-13).
Knowing and be reminded of what He has done for us ought to be the motivation
for you and I to spend time studying His Word, worshipping Him, praying to Him,
telling others all about Him, and living our lives completely devoted to Him.
Ephesians 01.18-02.22
Many ideas of this message came from: An Open Letter to You
in 2014: The Same Old Message for a Brand New Year
http://thecripplegate.com/an-open-letter-to-you-in-2014-the-same-old-message-for-a-brand-new-year/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheCripplegate+%28The+Cripplegate%29
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