The final part to this series was probably the most direct in challenging each of us to act on what Christ did for us by humbling submitting to the Father’s will.

Text: Matthew 27:32-56

Things to take away:

1. Our redemption through Christ is secure

“God’s Word makes it clear that the life touched and tainted with sin is a forfeited life. The soul that sins shall die. The wonder that we will never fully understand is that God wanted to save our forfeited lives. So He allowed the blood of the divine Savior to be offered on our behalf. Notice that there must be a blood atonement because blood and life have a vital, mysterious relationship.

The blood of Jesus Christ is of infinite value. The pouring out of blood indicates the termination of life. Because the blood of Jesus Christ, the eternal Son, the Lamb of God, was poured out, our acts of sin may be pardoned.

We need to give this spiritual truth all the reverence and contemplation it deserves. Do we talk too loosely about the price of our redemption? I confess that I cringe just a little when I hear someone speak about Christ paying our debt—buying us back. Sometimes we make it sound like nothing more than a business deal. But I do not like to think of God redeeming us in the way we might redeem a cow or a horse at some livestock show. In God’s plan for redeeming us there is something higher and holier, more sweet and beautiful.” AW Tozer

2. Choosing Christ may result in…

• Abandonment from those closest to us
• Mockery
• Suffering

However, even with suffering there is a hope that makes the suffering to pale in comparison.

I Peter 4:13 “But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.”

We share in the joy of what Christ paid for, this hope is only found and experienced through a relationship with Christ. All the suffering is worth the risk of sharing Christ. Their soul is in the balance of either heaven or hell. Our job? Go and tell! (Matthew 28: 16-20)

The Gospel gives life. The pain and suffering that Jesus went through was temporary. If He had not endured that for us, then there would be no hope after death, there would be no direction in life. We would be blind dead people wandering around aimlessly in life…and we all once were:

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:1-10

What Christ did for us gives us hope in our eternal future but it should also drive us away from the paralyzing effects of fear and our selfish excuses, so that we reach out to our friends and family with the only thing that truly matters in this short life, The Gospel.

“But drops of grief can ne’er repay that debt of love I owe. Here, Lord, I give myself to Thee. ‘Tis all that I can do” (Isaac Watts)

Praying for you all!
Pastor Josh