“God’s Message to the World” - September 8, 2002
Tracy L. Moore
Riverwood Church of Christ
If we had to sum the Bible up into one message – what would it be? If God had the attention of the entire world in one single setting – what would He tell us? In my humble opinion, it would be this lesson.
This connects every other sermon preached in this series thus far.
· Why is it important to know the Bible is trustworthy? Because of the message we are about to learn.
· Why must we believe in God? Because He the author of this message.
· Why does it matter who’s in charge? Because the message has no authority without it.
· Why is faith so important? Because it is necessary to receive the message we are about to hear.
The message to mankind is found in the most quoted passage of the Bible – John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (NKJV)
There it is in a nutshell. Yet, to read this one verse and close the lesson would be to miss the greatest love story ever told. This is kind of like the thesis for a college paper. So much happened before John 3:16, so much has happened since Jesus’ statement, and most importantly, so much is happening today that relates to this verse.
It is a message like none other, and to try and do it justice is impossible. But it is important that we try. Not only today but everyday of our lives.
If this is the first time for you to hear this message, be prepared, it will touch your heart, take your breath, and put chill bumps all over your body while at the same time giving you a sense of warmth from within. It is God’s message to the world.
WE ARE ALL SINNERS.
This, of course, is the bad news, but sometimes we must face the storm before we enjoy the calm. In this case it is imperative we realize this negative before we can understand the Good News.
God not only wants us to know this but repeated tells us, “you are a sinner.”
· Romans 3:10, “There is none righteous, no, not one:” (KJV)
· Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” (KJV)
· To deny it is to deceive yourself (I Jn. 1:8), and it only adds to your sins (I Jn. 1:10).
· Someone may say, “But I have never committed any major sins, like murder, stealing, drunkenness, etc.”
However, sin is not just about committing “the big ones,” but breaking any of God’s laws. John said that sin is lawlessness (I Jn. 3:4). Therefore, it only takes one sin, as one person put it, “a bona fide, certified, card-carrying sinner.”
James says, “The person who keeps all the laws except one is as guilty as the person who has broken all of God’s laws.” (James 2:10 – NLT)
So, if you have ever committed just one sin in your life, you are sinner, a lawbreaker.
You may be saying to yourself, “OK you’ve got me, I have broken a few of God’s laws before, but they never amounted to jail time, or seriously hurt someone.” I have some more bad news – your sins hurt God and have separated you from your Creator.
· God. Because of your sin, he has turned away and will not listen anymore.” (NLT)
· It’s not a matter of God loving you; the problem is that God is perfect, holy, and flawless. He cannot associate with sin and transgressors of the Law.
But there’s more bad news – lawbreakers must be punished.
We know the routine – there isn’t a school, company, city, county, state, or country that doesn’t have laws. And we also know there are penalties for breaking those laws. Some of those sanctions are pretty mild, but others can cost you your life. The penalty for breaking the laws of God are severe – death.
· Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death.” (KJV)
· James 1:14-15, “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” (KJV)
Not just any kind of death, but a spiritual termination. This is the separation of man’s spirit from God while he is still living and walking upon the earth. He is dead to God.
Paul speaks about a person who is dead while he still lives (I Tim. 5:6). This eventually leads to an eternal death, which is separation from God’s presence forever. This is known as the second death (I Cor. 6).
God’s justice must be satisfied by the punishment of every violation of His law. The price of sin is too high, and there is nothing we can do to atone for our sin.
Don’t get me wrong, man has tried to come up with ways to save themselves. Even if you were able to never sin again, they still couldn’t pay for the price of the wrongs they already committed. “Turning over a new leaf” doesn’t nullify sin.
Someone may say, “But we serve a loving God (which is true), therefore He would forgive us if we said we were sorry.” If we think we deserve God’s favor we have only compounded the problem by insulting the infinite holiness of God.
Yet, the greatest hindrance to our salvation isn’t our hostility against God, but His wrath against us. We are reconciled because we decide to accept God.
Here’s the bottom line. I’m a sinner. You’re a sinner. We’re all guilty of breaking God’s law, and God has to punish us. Justice demands it.
Some of you may be wondering why you came today at all. Let’s face it, you could have sat at home and at least enjoyed your sins. But I didn’t come here to tell you the bad news and leave. Because there is some unbelievable news you will want to know.
God had a plan. Paul wrote, “God’s secret plan has now been revealed to us; it is a plan centered on Christ, designed long ago according to his good pleasure.” (Eph. 1:9 – NLT)
We can be justified, completely forgiven of our sins. But how? God Himself says it is an abomination to justify a sinner, equal to the sin of declaring an innocent person guilty. (Prov. 17:15; 24:24)
How can God grant forgiveness without compromising His own standard of justice?
How can He justify sinners without rendering Himself unjust or breaking His own Word, having already sworn that He will punish every transgression?
The answer is: God Himself has made His Son, Jesus Christ, the atonement for our sins. It is known in Scripture as the “gospel of Jesus Christ.” (II Thess. 1:8) The word gospelmeaning “Good News!” It is the message of God to the world, and the only hope for any sinner seeking forgiveness.
Actually, it is God’s message to me or to each individual. This message is personal and is written with me in mind. Paul didn’t say, “We are crucified with Christ.” He said, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is not longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.” (Gal. 2:20 – NAS)
I’m sorry I had to make you realize you were a sinner and lost, but it is the only way we can understand what has been done, and what God continues to do.
You must know that you contribute nothing of any merit to the process of forgiveness.
· Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” (KJV)
So you may still be confused as to how man is reconciled to God. We are saved by the atoning work of Christ. By God Himself, not by the sinner.
· Romans 5:10-11, “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.” (NKJV)
You may say, “I still don’t understand.” Jesus Christ was God and God was Christ Jesus. He came to this earth and lived a perfect life. Never once disobeying the Law of God. (I Pet. 2:22)
Do you remember what it was that separated man from God? It was sin. And how did sin come about? Through the transgressing of His Law. Jesus never disobeyed, therefore He never sinned. Therefore He substituted His life for ours.
· II Corinthians 5:21, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (NIV)
This means that Christ died our death. He bore the punishment for our sin. He suffered the wrath of God that we deserved.
When we say God will forgive us, we are not speaking in terms of forgiving a child for messing up. It wasn’t a judicial pardon on His part. By doing so, as we have already discussed, would taint the perfect and holy nature of God.
Someone had to pay the price for sins. But not just anyone. The guilty man on death row cannot die in the place of someone else on death row, because both are subject to their own sins. There had to one who could come and live perfectly to die for the guilty. That was Jesus Christ.
For example, if people are convicted of a serious crime, such as a felony, they lose their civil rights. They are not allowed to vote or hold public office unless granted a pardon by a governor of a state or by the president if it is a federal case. But the interesting thing about a pardon is that it is not conditional upon guilt. That is, when someone receives a pardon, it is not necessarily an indication of innocence. It simply means that the person does not have to pay the penalty for the offense. To some, that is there definition of how God forgives man.
God, like a governor or president, has the power to pardon those who are guilty. But the nature of God requires that those who dwell in His presence must be sinless. Sin carries with it a penalty that must be paid. Hebrews 9:22, “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” (NIV)
A man cannot walk into a bank and expect his loan payments to just disappear because they want it to. Imagine someone talking to the president of a band and apologizing for being so irresponsible with his money. He cannot pay the loan back, but asks the president to forgive him and then expresses an interest in doing business with the bank in the future. Regardless of how kind and understanding the president of the bank is, the nature of his job restricts him from simply patting the man on the back and saying, “No hard feelings. We understand. Forget about the money and try to be more careful next time.” It doesn’t work that way. The builder will not be in good standing with the bank until his debt is paid.
The same is true with our sins and the debt of our sins. We do not have the potential to regain what was necessary to make us acceptable to God. It was checkmate; the game was over; there were no more moves for us to make.
It is nobody’s fault but our own. Yet, in our darkest hour, God gave us an extra Player and, in doing so, a second chance.
There was an unusual ceremony under the Law of Moses. God told the Israelites to take two goats and offer one as a sacrifice. The priest was to lay his hands on the other’s head as a symbol that their sins were being placed on the goat. The goat was then sent out of the camp to symbolized the sins of the people being carried away from them (Lev. 16). And while there sins were carried away, they were not removed, because “the blood of bulls and of goats” cannot take away sins. (Heb. 10:4)
But Jesus could be our Scapegoat to “take ways the sins of the world.” But He would have to die.
Therefore, Jesus became our substitute for sin. Which means that Christ died our death. He bore our punishment for sin. He suffered the wrath of God that we deserved.
Isaiah prophesied this coming. Chapter 53:4-6, “Yet it was our weakness he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God for his own sins! But he was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped, and we were healed! All of us have strayed away like sheep. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the guilt and sins of us all.” (NLT)
God treated Christ like a sinner and punished Him for all the sins of all who would believe, so that He could treat them as righteous and give them credit for Christ’s perfect obedience.
His death was a payment for the sins of those who would follow Him. Jesus said, “The Son of man came to give His life a ransom for many.” (NIV) God laid on Him all our sins at Calvary and He carried them with Him to the grave.
This is what is known as grace – the unmerited favor of God. You didn’t earn it, nor deserve it, but God desired it.
WE ALL CAN BE SAVED
How? By being “in Christ,” because it is in Him that we find forgiveness, justification, righteousness, and atonement.
It begins by faith. Not hope, as we discussed last week, but faith, which is trusting in the promise of God to save us through Christ.
If you don’t believe that Jesus is God’s Son and that He died on the cross to save you from your sins, or that He raised again on the third day – you cannot be saved.
This is why Moslems, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, or any other religion that denies the Lordship of Christ cannot be saved. They believe He was a good man, but not the Son of God.
· Galatians 2:16, “A man is not justified by works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ.” (KJV)
That faith is developed through the Scriptures (Rom. 10:16), which teach us the truth about Christ and Salvation. That faith must develop into repentance. This is a word that means to make an about face.
Some had to change their religion (Acts 8:27), some had to change their way of thinking (Acts 9:6); Some changed their actions (Acts 16:33); and some even destroyed possessions that were of evil influence (Acts 19:18-19).
We might refer to this as a commitment. Not to the rules of a church, but a commitment to Christ.
We are saved by grace, but Paul asked this question, “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” He answered by saying, “God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” (Rom. 6:1-2 – KJV). Jesus said He came to call “sinners to repentance” (Matt. 9:13 – KJV), and said that unless we repent we will perish (Lk. 13:3).
Confession is also necessary to enjoy the blessings of God’s grace. Not “confessing sins”, but confessing Jesus Christ as Lord. (Phil. 2:11). It is simply saying that you “believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” (Acts 8:37)
· I John 4:15, “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.” (KJV)
It is not only a confession of the mouth, but by showing my life as a follower of Him. (Matt. 10:32)
Then, we must be baptized.
· This is a burial in water (Rom. 6:4), that puts us into Christ.
· Galatians 3:27, “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” (KJV)
Why? Because it in Him we find forgiveness (Col. 1:14).
This was God’s choice, and if we have faith in the Bible and Christ, then we will be baptized. Salvation always followed baptism (Mk. 16:15; Acts 2:38; 22:16; I Pet. 3:21).
Some may call this a work of God, and we already noted that we are not saved by good deeds. This is still true, but baptism is not a work that merits salvation, but an act of obedience which leads to salvation.
For example, I read a true story about a teacher who handed out a written exam. It was difficult and the students knew early on that they had not studied enough. The further they read the worse it became. By the time they reached the end they all realized it was impossible to pass. But on the last page was a note that read, “You have a choice. You can either complete the exam as given or sign your name at the bottom and in so doing receive an A for this assignment.” Each student sat there stunned. Thinking to themselves, “Was he serious? Just sign it and get an A?” Slowly, the point dawned on them, and one by one turned in their test and silently filed out of the room. One student said it took him the rest of the afternoon to get over it, that he had the urge to go back and check with him one more time to make sure he was serious.
Question: By signing their name at the bottom of the page, did they earn an A on the test? However, if they didn’t sign the bottom of the page they would get the failing grade they deserved and earned. Do we think when we are immersed in water that this made up for our sins? God, in essence, is saying if you want a passing grade sign your name at the bottom of the paper – repent and baptized. Just calling on the name of the Lord is not going to save you, but doing the will of the Father (Matt. 7:21).
Later on this one student did talk with his teacher about the exam and he shared some of the reactions he had received through the years as he had given the same exam. There were always students who did not follow instructions and began to take the exam without reading it all the way through. Some of them would sweat it out for the entire two hours of class time before reaching the last page. Their ignorance caused them unnecessary anxiety. Then there were the ones who would read the first two pages, become angry, turn in their paper blank, and storm out of the room. They never realized what was available. As a result, they lost out totally. One fellow, however, topped them all. He read the entire test, including the note at the end, but he decided to take the exam anyway. He did not want any gifts; he wanted to earn his grade. And he did. He did make a C+, which was amazing considering the difficulty of the test. But he could have easily had an A.
This vividly illustrates people’s reaction to God’s plan for salvation. Many are like the first group. They spend their lives trying to earn what they discover years later was freely offered to them the whole time. They spend years sweating it out, always wondering if God is listening to their pleas for forgiveness, always wondering if they have finally pushed Him too far. They hope God has forgiven them; they suppose He has.
Many people respond like the second group. They look at God’s standard – moral and ethical perfection – and throw their hands up in surrender. They say, “Why even try?” or “I could never live up to all that stuff.” They live the way they please, not expecting anything from God when they die. They may decide there is no God. What a shook it will be for them when they learn God’s gift of grace was extended to all mankind, but had never asked.
Then there is the guy who took the test anyway. These are people who are unwilling to simply receive God’s grace. They try to do many good works, trying to earn enough points with God to “even the score.” But when it comes to forgiveness, there is no room for boasting in one’s own ability. Forgiveness is not a team effort. It is not a matter of God’s doing His part and us doing ours. In God’s economy anything less than 100% is failing.
References:
1.Dan Chambers, “Is Baptism Really Necessary?”. Published by Gospel Advocate.
2.Charles Stanley, Forgiveness. Published by Oliver Nelson.
3. John F. MacArther, The Freedom and Power of Forgiveness. Published by Crossway Books.