A brief note before I begin: the recent delay in sending these out hasn't been due to a computer glitch, website troubles, or a system error of any kind. Instead, the problem has technically been diagnosed as a PICNIC error- which, as I learned yesterday, stands for "Problem In Chair, Not In Computer." So, yup... it's me... just haven't been able to get these out. However, the quality of the messages we heard during February mandates some follow-up. So, later this week, I'll be blogging about how we can continue to apply the series on purity. OK, note over. On to this week...
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Over the last two Sundays, we began our series entitled "5 Big Words"- our study of Old Testament concepts that help to inform how we understand the atonement (what Christ did for us on the Cross). None of them are "new" words to most Christians; but many of them can be words that are easily glossed over due to familiarity. I hope that our look at "substitution" and "redemption" over these past two weeks has served you. Here's a brief review:
- Consider the Drama: God had created people to bear His image and represent His nature on the earth- but they didn't... they rebelled and rejected God's significance as the Creator. They wanted to displace Him in the garden, they murdered and killed each other outside the garden, and even after God started over with Noah after the flood- they still lived their lives in an attempt to demonstrate their own permanence and power. But God was merciful and chose to restore His people to Himself through one man... a man whose family would produce a nation... a man whom God would use to bless the entire earth... a man whose only son represented the fulfillment of all God's promises... the man who was walking up Mount Moriah to kill that very son. It would have been easy for Abraham to despair that God was going to be faithful to His promises... just like it's easy for us to be so marred by sin (ours and others) that we wonder if God can keep His promises to us. Have you ever been so low in life that you've wondered if sin will have the final say in your life? What tempts you to think that right now?
- Consider the Trama: Abraham and Isaac approach mountain... alone... and Isaac turns to his dad and asks, "Where is the sacrifice? Fire- check, wood- check, sacrifice- uhh..." Isaac seems to understand that sin requires sacrifice... that our general condition as fallen folks and our specific contributions to that condition require a sacrifice that will stave off the wrath of God towards us. But where will that sacrifice come from? This moment has been called "one of the most dramatic and theologically significant episodes in Genesis." And I think these moments in our lives are the most theologically significant as well. We're all affected by sin- sometimes from others who've ruined our lives and sometimes because of the ways we've sinfully and selfishly treated God and others. We're often so aware that things are botched up financially, relationally, spiritually and we know that someone has to pay! There must be some way to atone for this mess we've made, but how can it be done? These are traumatic, theological moments because they say so much about what we believe. And the only true way to respond is the way Abraham responds: "God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering." So consider: how easy is it for you to respond the same way? Are you quick to remember Christ as the substitute when someone sins against you (or your friends or your kids)? Are you quick to remember Christ as the substitute when you fail or blatantly sin against others? Why or why not? What else do you turn to?
- Consider the Triumph: What a great moment it is, then, when God intervenes, when Isaac is spared, and when the substitute is revealed. God provided for Himself the sacrifice. Just like He did for Adam and Eve who were covered in leaves- God provided the lamb. Just like He did for you and for me who so often cover ourselves in our own ways of patching things up and making things right- God provided the Lamb. This is how the horrors of sin can be explained, how our past can be redeemed, how the guilty can find sleep at night, how the innocent victims can endure... there is a Substitute who comes and stands in our place. If we really believed this and lived it, it could change the way we live, react, rejoice, suffer, and stand against evil. Because the point of the passage appears to be: We can trust God's promises to us because He sent His Substitute for us. If you really caught that and believed it to be true, what promises from God might make a real difference in your life this week?
On Sunday the 14th, we opened to Exodus 6 where we read about God's promise to "redeem" His people... the descendents of Abraham. We saw that "redemption is when one person pays the price to free another from slavery." Although redemption language seems like some coupon-clipping kind of life, it's actually language that was much more familiar to those in Old and New Testament times. It came from an living in a reality where slaves really could purchase their freedom and where captives of war really might need to be purchased from their bondage to the conquering nation. Consider the way that comes through in Exodus 6:6-8...
"Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord.’”
God promises to redeem His people and we see three things about redemption here:
- Redemption looks to the past: Consider the history that Israel knew as a "slave nation." Their past was marred by bondage to Egyptians, by misery, by an inability to ever imagine life different than it was at the moment. So consider how tempting it might have been to hear Moses declare that God would redeem His people: "Moses, what do you know about us? You were raised in privilege, we were raised in the mud. No, my friend, bondage is all we've ever known and all we ever will." It's easy for all of us to feel like slaves to sin... especially for those who really are. Jesus, Paul, and Peter all declared that our natural condition apart from grace is in slavery to sin... we have no options- our master exerts its will over us and we are incapable of living in a manner that pleases God. (see John 8:34, Romans 6, and 2 Peter 2:19). But praise God that when He looks to the past, He not only remembers our suffering and sees us (Exodus 2:23-25), He also remembers His promises to redeem and change those He's called to Himself. Redemption looks to the past and sees sin but it also sees God's promises to save! Do you have hope that when God looks to your past, He sees both your suffering under sin and His commitment to redeem you from your sin? What tempts you to lose hope?
- Redemption looks to the cost: Looking back at Exodus 6, it's interesting to see how God describes the redemption He will bring to Israel. He won't simply redeem them (He could do it immediately and effortlessly); instead, God promises to do with by stretching out His arm- He's flexing and demonstrating His strength! God's plan to redeem Israel would come through the 10 plagues- violence targeting the very gods of Egypt... who not only captivated the Egyptians, they had become a stumbling block to Israel as well. In fact, Israel's history proved this out: even after they were free (see Mt. Sinai) and after they had kings in place in their land (see Jeroboam), they continued to worship Egypt's deity of the Golden Calves. Israel needed to be redeemed not simply from the Egyptians but also from the Egyptian's gods. In a similar manner, you and I can create false sources of hope and refuge and delight that might be enjoyable but were never meant to displace God. This idol worship throughout history has brought God's righteous response- often boldly communicating His great displeasure towards this sin. God's wrath is a terrible thing to the idolater and it's justly deserved. But praise God that He redeemed us from this curse- how? Galatians 2 says that "he became a curse for us", Titus 3 says that "he gave himself to redeem us from all unlawlessness and to purify for himself a people who are his own possession." Redemption has looked to the cost and provided a Savior in Jesus Christ who took upon Himself the cost. If we truly believed this, I think we could enjoy the reality of Exodus 6:7-8... that we can be God's own people... because-
- Redemption redefines the future: Our God (the LORD) personally and intimately offers to redeem us not simply out of slavery but to Himself that we might be His people and that He might be our God! How this redefines our future! We won't remain captive to sin, we don't have to wonder about the reign of sin, we can even have hope as we remember that the domain of sin over humanity has been broken! God is a Redeemer, and we know that our Redeemer lives! He has triumphed over sin as Colossians 1:13-14 says, "He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." What if we claimed that verse as our own, memorized it and had it on the tips of our tongues? Wouldn't it change the way we helped each other when we struggled? Wouldn't it help us to re-imagine what life could be like for those who struggle? Wouldn't it help us to fight sin when tempted or to instruct our children with hope? Couldn't it infuse our church with hope that our best days truly are ahead of us... that Christ really has defeated sin... that the cost for sinfulness has been paid? If the answers "yes", then get busy encouraging each other with this wonderful truth: We know that OUR REDEEMER LIVES!
