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 Sermon > The message of the cross |
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Title |
The Message of the Cross(8) - Why Jesus is our Savior 3 |
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Speaker |
Rev. Jaerock Lee |
Bible |
1 Co 2:6-9 |
Date |
2005-05-08 |
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[Scripture]
[1 Corinthians 2: 6- 9]
"We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. [7] No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. [8] None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. [9] However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him"
[Introduction]
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Since the first man Adam committed a sin by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, not only Adam but also all his descendants became sinners.
The mankind who became sinners had to live in sorrow, tears, and hardships on this earth according to the law of the spiritual realm that dictates, "the wages of sin is death," and had to fall into hell after their life on earth. They had to fall into the eternal punishment in the lake of fire and lake of sulfur.
But to save the mankind who committed sins, God prepared Jesus, who would be the Savior, before the time began.
As said in Acts 16:31, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved--you and your household," God opened the way of salvation for those who believe in Jesus Christ so that they will escape from the punishment of hell and enter into the kingdom of heaven.
But when you preach the gospel, sometimes people ask the following question.
"Why do we have to be a Christian while there are so many other religions? Isn't it just that we should live in goodness even though we do not believe in Jesus Christ?"
Or "There are many great men in history, and why is that only Jesus is the Savior?"
Then, can you answer to these questions? John 14:6 says, "Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'"
Also, Acts 4:12 says, "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."
No matter how much one thinks he lives in goodness, he still is a sinner who has the original sin and self-committed sins, so after all, he cannot escape from the punishment of death, which is the wage of sin.
We can be saved only by believing in Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is the only one who is qualified to become the Savior according to the law of the spiritual realm.
Then, what are the qualifications to become the Savior?
This is the eighth session of the message of the cross, and continuing from the last session, I will tell you why only Jesus can become our Savior. I hope you will build your faith upon the rock of the word through this message.
Also, I pray in the name of the Lord that you will be able to testify that Jesus Christ is the Savior to many people so that you will lead numerous souls to the way of salvation.
[Body]
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, viewing audiences, not anybody can become the Savior to save the mankind who fell into sins.
He must have the proper qualifications according to the law of the spiritual realm.
We can find the qualifications of the Savior in the law of the redemption of the land which is in the law that God gave to the people of Israel.
It says that the land distributed to the people of Israel belongs to God, so it can never be sold permanently. Even if the owner of the land becomes poor and sells it, his nearest relative is to redeem the land by paying the price on behalf of the original owner.
When the first man Adam disobeyed God's command and committed a sin, the mankind was sold to the enemy devil as the wage of that sin.
Like the land, men cannot be sold permanently because they are made from the dust of the ground and belong to God.
If somebody who has the qualifications come and pay the price of their sins, the enemy devil has to give out men who have once been sold due to their sins.
The first qualification is that the redeemer has to be a man.
In the law of the redemption of the land of Israel, the redeemer has to be the nearest relative of the original owner.
In the same way, the one who can pay the price of the man's sins has to be a relative of men, who have spirit, soul, and body. Namely, he must be neither angel nor animal but a human being. That is why Jesus was born as a man with flesh and bones although He is the Son of God.
The second condition of the Savior is that he must not be Adam's descendant. All Adam's descendants are born with the original sin.
Even if a person who has sold his land has a relative, if that relative is also poor, he cannot redeem the land.
Likewise, Adam's descendants who are born with the original sin are destined to fall into hell since they are sinners, so they cannot redeem others from their sins.
But only Jesus is a man, but not a descendant of Adam.
It is because he was not conceived by the union of the sperm and egg but by the Holy Spirit in the body of the Virgin Mary. Thirdly, to become the Savior, he must have the power to win over the enemy devil. To save the prisoners of war in a battle, we must have enough power to overcome the enemy and bring the prisoners back.
In spiritual realm, it is power not to have any sin.
Everyone after Adam had to submit to the enemy devil and Satan since they are sinners who have original sin and self-committed sins.
But only Jesus, who has neither original sin nor self-committed sins, had the power to break the authority of the enemy devil and Satan and save the mankind.
I explained to you up to this point in the last session.
Fourthly, to become the Savior of the mankind, he has to have the love to sacrifice his life.
Suppose a younger brother has to be punished because of his debt. If his rich older brother pays back his debt, he does not have to be punished. But even if his older brother is very rich, it would be of no use if the older brother does not love his younger brother. He would just ignore the difficulty of his younger brother saying, "I have worked so hard to make this fortune, and why should I take the loss because of you!"
But if the older brother loves his younger brother, he would want to pay back younger brother's debt even though he himself has to take up a great loss.
It's the same in the law of the redemption of the land. When a person becomes poor and sells his land, if he has a rich relative, that relative has both the qualification and power to redeem the land.
But no matter how rich that relative is, if he has no love to redeem the land, the land cannot be redeemed.
Only when the relative has enough love to help, can the redemption of the land take place. We find such a case in Ruth chapter 4. A woman named Naomi became poor and sold her land, but her nearest relative refused to redeem her land because he did not want to take the loss.
But another relative, Boaz had love and redeemed her land for her. If Boaz had no love, he could have refused to redeem the land, too.
It is the same with redeeming the mankind from their sins. As we have already seen, Jesus had all three qualifications to redeem the mankind from their sins.
He was born as a man, but not a descendant of Adam, so He had no original sin.
Since he had neither original sin nor self-committed sins, he had the spiritual power to save the sinners from the enemy devil. But if Jesus had no love, he would not have redeemed the mankind from their sins.
It is because to become the Savior and redeem the mankind from their sins, He had to make such a great sacrifice.
To become the Savior, He had to receive the punishment of death instead of the sinners.
Moreover, He had to be crucified like the most atrocious criminal shedding all His water and blood.
There are many ways of executing criminals in this world, but the Savior to redeem all mankind from their sins should not only just be executed.
According to the law of the spiritual realm, he must be hung on a 'tree' and shed his 'blood'.
Galatians 3:13 says, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.'"
"The curse of the law" here refers to the law of the spiritual realm that dictates the 'wages of sin is death' in Romans 6:23.
According to the law of the spiritual realm, the curse of the law called 'death' came to men who commit sins. Therefore, the way to free the mankind from the curse of the law has to agree with the rules of the spiritual realm.
Namely, it is by the law of the spiritual realm that the Savior has to be hung on a tree on which the cursed mankind has to be hung.
It is the same with shedding the blood and dying on the cross. Leviticus 17:14 says, "the life of every creature is its blood."
Hebrews 9:22 also says, "In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness." The mankind lost their eternal life due to sins.
Of course, they have breath and seem to have life while they are living on this earth, but they lost true life and cannot live forever.
Spiritually, blood is the same with life, and therefore, only by the shedding of the blood of the Savior, the sinners can be forgiven of their sins and gain life.
Of course, the sin of the mankind will not be forgiven just by anybody's shedding his blood.
As I already explained, the blood that can redeem the mankind from their sins has to be the blood of a person who is without any sin. The man who is blameless and spotless without any sinful nature has to shed his blood.
But why would a person who is without sin want to die for other people in such a wretched way? One can make such a sacrifice only when he loves others more than himself and when he is willing to take any kind of pain to save others.
Our Jesus has given this kind of love for you and me. The crucifixion that Jesus took was the cruelest way in execution during the old days, and the pain is beyond our imagination.
If Jesus had not loved us, He might have complained.
He might have thought, 'what kind of sin do I have that I should take the cross for those people?' 'Why should I take the pain because of those sinners?' and refused to take the cross.
But Jesus quietly took the way of sufferings and shed His blood until death on the wretched wooden cross because He loved you and me. Also, because our God the Father loved us so much that He gave even His one and only Son unsparingly.
Romans 5:7-8 says, "Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. [8] But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
Why don't you think of this kind of example? A king in a kingdom has a very lovely only son.
And one of his people was a very cruel murderer, and he was to be executed according to the law.
The only way for this criminal to be saved is that a sinless person has to die for him.
Then, which king of this world would give out his only son who is sinless to death to save that criminal? Nobody would do that. But our God did it.
God the Creator who cannot even be compared to any king of this world gave out His sinless one and only Son to the punishment of death to save the mankind who became sinners.
He gave out blameless and spotless Jesus, His one and only Son, to the cross and proved His great love for us.
What would God have felt when Jesus was arrested by the sinners, flogged, and crucified?
God the Father, who was watching His beloved Son suffer, had to go through heart-tearing pain, too.
Nevertheless, He still gave out His one and only Son to save the sinners and took all the sorrow and sacrifice. There is nobody who can give this kind of love to the sinners of this world. Of course, though very rare, we hear some moving stories of people who sacrifice their lives for the good people or for those whom they love.
But there is nobody in this world who can give out his life unconditionally for an atrocious criminal who has got nothing to do with him. Furthermore, if they hate him, curse him, and try to kill him while he healed them, loved them, and treated them with only goodness, there will be nobody who will take the terrible suffering for that kind of people.
But our Jesus did it. Because He had such great love, He took the way of suffering of the cross for the sinners and died shedding all His water and blood.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, 1 John 4:10 says, "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." The love of the Father God and the Lord cannot be compared to any love of this world.
We cannot pay back this grace even if we give all our life and possessions.
That is why those who realize this love deep in their heart do not deny the name of the Lord even under severe persecutions and they even become martyrs giving up their lives.
If we know this love, we cannot forsake God's love to gain authority, wealth, and fame of this world.
We cannot forsake the love of the Lord no matter what kind of persecutions we face. We cannot love our brothers, children, or husband or wife more than God and the Lord.
Of course, as much as we love the Lord, we will love our family members and other people as well. We will love them more truthfully and deeply in spirit. The love of this world, even though they say they can give their life, is after all seeks one's own, and it changes by the passing of time.
For example, when a couple is dating each other, they might say, "I will love you forever" or "I love you more than my life."
But even those couples who love each other so much break up after some time since their love cools down and changes.
After breaking up, they meet somebody else, and again confess, "I love you only."
Even if they love each other for a long time and get married, their attitude changes than while they were dating each other.
While dating, even if they stay with each other for hours, they used to talk over the phone after they get back home, but after getting married, they say they have a boring marriage life.
They used to seek each other's benefit before marriage, but now they seek their own first. If there is any problem, now they blame each other. Then, if this gets worse, they even get divorced.
It is the same between the parents and the children.
When the children are young, they love their parents the most and it seems that they will love their parents for the rest of their lives. But after they grow up, get married, and have their own children, they no more care about their parents.
Sometimes, there are conflicts among brothers since they do not want to care for the sick and old parents. Some tragic things happen, too.
The love of parents, too, seems to be sacrificing for their children, but when something does not meet their benefit, it changes, too.
After the children grow up, they may have conflicts and arguments with their parents. Then, if the children disappoint their parents so much, they sometimes even break off their relations.
But the love of God is not either changing or self-seeking. God gave His one and only Son for the sinners who stand against Him with this love.
Our Lord gave His life for those who mocked and crucified the Savior who came for them. He asked God to forgive them with this love. It is the true, life-giving love.
The spiritual love between brothers in faith and in the Lord will be deeper and more beautiful as time goes. It does not seek one's own but with this love one can sacrifice his life for the other person.
So, as you love the Lord more, you seek the benefit of your spouse between husband and wife, and serve your parents with all your heart physically and spiritually, so you have peace and happiness in your family.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, so far, I told you about the four conditions as to why Jesus is our Savior. Jesus was born as a man, is not a descendant of Adam, and has the power to win over the enemy devil because He has no sin.
Also, He redeemed you and me by being crucified and shedding His blood with His love to give His life.
Then, now, what should we do? Jesus died to redeem the sinners from their sins, but it does not mean that everybody will be saved.
Even though Jesus opened the way of salvation, if the people do not take it but keep on going to the way of destruction, they will finally fall into destruction.
They can be saved only when they believe the preachers' words and come out to the way of salvation. Only by believing that Jesus Christ is our Savior, can we get to the way of salvation.
Then, why is it that we are saved by believing in Jesus Christ? I will tell you about this in the next session.
[Conclusion]
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, viewing audiences, John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
In the whole human history, there was nobody who met all the four conditions except Jesus.
Only Jesus is qualified to become the Savior, and He so loved you and me who were sinners that He died for us, receiving the punishment that we had to take.
God already had the plan about Jesus Christ even before He created the human beings.
It is because He knew Adam would disobey His command and go to the way of destruction, although He wanted to give such great love and grace to Adam after creating Him in His own image.
From the beginning, God prepared the Savior who is perfectly qualified according to the law of the spiritual realm to save the mankind who would be going to the way of destruction, forsaking God's love.
When the time came, God sent Jesus to this earth and let His one and only Son, sinless Jesus to receive the punishment of the cross on behalf of the sinners.
In order to open the way of salvation for us, God paid the price of our life with the life of His beloved one and only Son.
When we realize this love of God the Father and of the Lord deep in our heart, we also realize that we should love God and the Lord more than anybody else in this world.
Once we realize this love, we can never leave the Lord in any kind of trials or tests.
We can never leave God even by the temptation of wealth or honor. When you understand this grace and love God, He will love you more deeply and let you experience the works of the living God in every moment of your life.
Also, on the last day, He will lead you to the kingdom of heaven and let you enjoy eternal happiness.
I hope you will certainly remember that only Jesus Christ is our Savior.
Please keep in your mind the love of God the Father who gave His one and only Son for the sinners and the love of Jesus Christ who gave His life for us.
I pray in the name of the Lord that you will give out the scent of the Christ wherever you go and lead numerous souls to the way of salvation. |
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