Why did God need Jesus to die? Why couldn’t he just forgive us? Why does the biblical God seem to need to be reconciled by the human sacrifice? How could God allow them to kill his only son?
All religious philosophies basically say: ‘Don’t pursue success so much, don’t be in such slavery, you have value, God loves you.’ – When you hear this, you feel good for a while, don’t you? It’s a principle, it’s information. – God loves you. But Jesus Christ comes and says: ‘I have something deeper. Look at all the different gods of all these religions, they all say they love you, and maybe that’s how it is, maybe they love you as much as I do, But I proved it.” Because he gives his life as a ransom. The ransom is the little Greek word ‘Auntie’ and means instead, In replacement for…. To give his life as a ransom for many. And Jesus says, “I want you to see what I have done for you.”
I will tell you another story
There are several bridges in New York that run across the Potomac River. And one of them on 14th Street is called Arland D. Williams. Do you know why?
In January 1982, the plane that took off from Washington began to lose altitude and fell into the river at 14th Street.
When the helicopters arrived there, the plane was sinking in the frozen river, only the tail sticking out. They all drowned or drowned, except for a few people in their tails. The few passengers were still alive and one man, Arland D. Williams, was the most visible, the most accessible and seemed to be the most conscious. So the rescuers from the helicopter lowered the lifeline to him… and every time they pulled the rope, there was someone else on it!
The first time, Arland tied someone other than himself, the second time someone else, the third time, and so on. Each time he left his place of rescue to someone else. All the people who were ever rescued from that plane and there were only four or five of them were saved thanks to him! The last time they sent the rope down, he was no longer there, he sank and died.
He died when he preferred the others instead of his own liberation. He exchanged the destruction that was about to be saved at the expense of himself.
Why are you moved? Because it’s morally beautiful. It’s a story about a proxy victim that just moves us.
And Jesus says that Other religions give you information, but I give you a story. Other religions say that God loves you, but how do you know? How can you know? – This is proof – when I hear it, when I see it. When I see that he has given his life as a ransom for many, only it is capable of breaking our selfishness and liberating us. It changes all this because you will know what value you have. then it is clear to you how much you mean to him. You know it. Then money is not your source of value, but it is only money. And relationships, love and your appearance are not the source of your value.
You will realize that you can have relationships or not, you can be in them or leave and life will go on. You are freed!
Why is your heart freed? Not based on the general claim that God is a loving God, but based on giving His life as a ransom for you. Therefore he came to free your heart. If he didn’t pay the debt, then he wouldn’t be able to free your heart.
How can you connect with him? You must become a little child. What does that mean? Well, think about it, don’t forget it’s a metaphor and there’s a lot of depth in it. He says be spiritually childish.
Let me recommend two things – feeling helpless. – Jesus died to repay your debt. it is necessary, however completely count on him doing it, and not on himself. Not for anything you did.
Children don’t come to negotiate, the children come to you and just say: ‘Daddy.’ You know they are helpless, that they need everything from you.
So on the one hand, the child is helpless and dependent, but on the other hand, the children expect,
that they will be accepted and that they will be loved.
A four-year-old child comes and makes sure that everyone is interested in what they want to say. I mean he is convinced that everyone will be interested. I mean he is absolutely certain of acceptance. And that is something to be well noticed.
If you have too high an opinion of yourself, you are not addicted as a child, you are not spiritually childish.
But even if you have too low an opinion of the love of Jesus, you are not spiritually childish. If you’re self-deprecating, you don’t understand your worth.
Because what is so special about the cross that it shows us that it values us even when we are the worst.
If one of you came to me and said that I was the most worthy person, I would feel good that day. But if my wife said it, I would be in heaven. Since she not only saw me in the worst, she experienced me in the worst case. She doesn’t just know in general that I’m selfish, she knows it because I hurt her with my selfishness. She doesn’t just know in general that I punish people by emotionally pulling away from them, she was punished by my emotional withdrawal. She saw me in the worst and says: ‘I love you. You are the most amazing, worthy person, etc. and so on.’ When she says this, it goes right into me and it changes me forever.
I believe that only in the cross we have God who says: ‘I saw you in the worst. Look what you have done to me.’ And yet, at the same moment, he says, ‘And see how much you mean to me, look how valuable you are.’
I was always a little surprised by what George Whitefield said, who was a famous Anglican evangelist in the 18th century. He was a historically very important personality and I read a lot of his sermons. And some of his sermons ended like this: ‘Go and learn what it means!’ – ‘The blood of Christ cleanses from all sins.’
I used to think it was a bit weird. After all, he told us about it here, and then he says: ‘Go and learn it.’ That doesn’t sound very confident, does it? When he was just explaining all this, why he was saying at the very end: ‘Go and find out.’ Wasn’t it his job to teach it? What did he mean?
Then I realized how humble it is of him.
In fact, it is trying to say: “It is absolutely impossible for me to expand the depth of everything that this verse means in 35 minutes.
And this is the only thing you need in your life, and that is to understand why he died. You need to understand the meaning of the ransom. You need to understand. Because to the extent that you will understand it, to the extent that you will be transformed as disciples. So go ahead and learn about it!
I hope I helped you at least a little, but I couldn’t expand it to the fullest, so study it, find out what it means that Jesus’ blood purifies every sin.
Prayer
Let us pray: Father, give us what we need to grow spiritually. We need to understand not only that Jesus died, but also why he died. And once we understand why he died, help us be spiritually childish so that we can connect with you. Some of us are actually too confident. We look at each other and say to ourselves: ‘I’m a pretty good person’. But we don’t have much cross in our lives.
Some of us are too low in our awareness of you and your love. We keep fighting, we keep cursing each other and say, ‘Oh, God can’t love someone like me. No one can love someone like me’. – And that’s not spiritually childish either.
Teach us what it means that Jesus paid our debt for us, that he redeemed us from slavery, that he cleanses us of all sins. We ask for it in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Thank you, the gospel really changes everything!
