The Kingdom of God- 6

Subtitle:  Serving a Crucified King

1 Corinthians 1:18-31.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Resurrection Sunday, April 20, 2025.

We have been talking about the Kingdom of God.  It is important to see the events of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus as foundational to all that we believe as Christians, but particularly about the Kingdom of God.

There would be no Kingdom without the appearance of King Messiah.  Yet, when he comes, his foundational act to set up his kingdom is dying and rising again.  This would have been very perplexing to a Jew of the first century.  This strange kingdom that is now, but not yet fully, was always God’s plan A.  It is not a plan B.  God is trying to teach us something through the way that Messiah Jesus fulfills the Kingdom of God.

Therefore, we are citizens of a kingdom created by a crucified Lord.  It is not easy serving a crucified king because you are misjudged, maligned, and rejected by a world that is not looking for a crucified savior.

If you are going to serve Jesus, then you will have to swallow your pride, let go of the accolades of this world, and pick up your cross and follow him.

Let’s look at our passage.

The message of the cross (v. 18-24)

We need to keep in mind as we go through this that Paul is writing to Christians in Corinth about their penchant to operate with the wisdom and power of this world.  They had grown up in a world of Greek wisdom and Greek power.  Of course, it doesn’t matter what nation or part of the earth people are from.  All of these things are worldly wisdom and worldly power.  Essentially he is trying to convince them to embrace the wisdom and power of God.  Jesus is the very Wisdom and Power of God.

Of course, the believers of Corinth had believed in Jesus.  They were Christians.  However, their choices and actions were contradicting their professed faith in Jesus.  They were mixing God’s word with their own culture, and not in a good way.  Paul goes back to the fundamental issue of how God had provided salvation through Jesus, and why He did it that way.  He is also making it clear that you cannot follow a crucified Lord with the thinking of this world.  They are antithetical to one another.

Verse 18 talks about the “word of the cross.”  This is similar to the way we might say that we want to “have a word with someone.”  It is more than one word.  It refers to a main message that the cross is intended to represent to us.  It speaks volumes about the purpose and intent of God’s plan of salvation.

The cross was necessary to remove sins and provide a covering for them.  We should pay attention to this.  Why did it have to be this way?  Essentially, the cross shows us just how bad sin is.  It is so bad that it requires God to become a man and die on our behalf.  It also shows us what it takes to please God.  A person who believes God will not retreat in the face of laying down their mortal life.  A person who retreats from faith under threat to their life cannot please God.  Jesus was pleasing to God.  Not because of his horrible suffering, but because of his unflinching faith in the face of the horrible persecution of the wicked.  Like Noah (much greater than Noah), Jesus found grace in the eyes of God the Father.  He offers up his sinless life as an offering for humanity, and God the Father puts him in authority over the universe, heaven and earth.

The devil counts on you balking on following Jesus because you are so afraid of losing something, even your life.  Yet, if the Christian dies, God has not failed us because the resurrection of the righteous was always His plan.  He is fulfilling His promises, not just to you, but to all humanity.

When we look at the message of the cross, Paul says that it is foolishness to those who are perishing, but the power of God to those who are being saved.  Of course, those who are being saved used to be those who were perishing.  The message of Jesus and the cross is part of God’s way to break through to a person’s heart and mind.

We can understand why the cross would be a shock to people who were from other nations and followed other religions.  Yet, the cross was a shock even to Israel.  Yet, in that shock, they would have to embrace the message of a crucified lord (savior) over the top of their impression that it was weak and foolish.  Of course, we could not do this without the help of the Holy Spirit.  Yet, a person must make a real choice.  This was hard for religious Jews, just as it was for Gentiles (religious or otherwise).  No one has it easy.

To believe in Jesus and to live as he commanded us is simultaneously to become a fool to the world around you.  No one likes being labeled a fool by others.  However, God didn’t desire only to save us.  He has a purpose in this.

Verse 19 goes to the heart of why God requires us to embrace a crucified savior.  God doesn’t only want to save us, but He also wants to destroy the wisdom of the wise in the way that He saves us.  Paul quotes from Isaiah 29.  This passage is not written about Gentiles.  Rather, God is chastising Israel for her unbelief.  They had given lip-service to God, but had developed a system by their own wisdom that was contrary to God.  What God intended for good, they had turned into a system of harm.  Doing God’s things with our wisdom is a common tendency for humanity.

Their wisdom had so perverted the things of God that He was intent on destroying their wisdom and cleverness.  He would save humanity in such a way that it would make a spectacle of their wisdom.

The same mechanism works in the political realm.  No matter how good t he principles of a society are, if we only give lip-service to God (as we use our own wisdom), then we will pervert that system and use it for our own gain, for our own ends.  This is the basis of all human wisdom and power.  It takes the things of God (He created all things), and it twists those things to the “satisfaction” of ourselves, regardless of God’s purpose in it.

In verse 20, Paul tells them that this is what they were seeing in their day.  The great wise men of Israel and the great wise men of the Gentile world, the scribes and debaters of the world, were not used by God to save humanity.  They were woefully ignorant of what was happening.  And, they were even used by God in their ignorance to bring about salvation by crucifying Jesus.  They don’t get credit for it because Christ’s death saves in spite of what they were trying to accomplish.  I mean, they weren’t trying to cooperate with God.  They were trying to do the opposite.

Is that any different than our day?  Can we not see that the wisdom of this world, whether religious or not, is still dismissive of what God is doing?  The cross begs the question, “Whose side are you on?”  Even some within the Church today have continued down the same path that these Corinthians were following in the first century, and the same path that the Sanhedrin was following back then.

We can say that we believe in Jesus as the Christ, but are we following him with the wisdom of our modern age?  Are we “following him” by employing his things with the power of man?

In verses 22-23, Paul recognizes that the false wisdom of Jewish people was for different reasons than the false wisdom of the Gentiles.  Jews want a powerful sign from God.  Whereas, the Gentiles want something that sounds wise to them.  Yet, God gave them both a crucified Messiah, which was a stumbling block to those who want powerful signs and foolishness to those who want something that sounds wise to them.

In order to embrace the cross, a person has to die to their own wisdom and power, and the wisdom and power of this world.  This is the only way to salvation.  You can ignore it and walk on by Jesus because it looks foolish and weak.  However, he is the wisdom and power of God displayed for all to see.

The wisdom of God versus the “wisdom” of men (v. 25-31)

Paul then takes some time to explain the wisdom of God compared to the wisdom of man.  Another way to look at this is the wisdom that comes from God (from above) versus the wisdom that is not from God (within us, down here, even from hell).

James 3:14-15 says it this way.  “But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth.  This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic.”  Notice those last descriptions of the false wisdom.  It is of this world, of our own flesh, even of the devil.  This is the same enemies that I pointed out several sermons ago.  It is a wisdom that comes from our enemies to separate us from God.

We must always ask ourselves, “What is the source of my wisdom?”  If it is not sourced in God, then know this.  God is determined to destroy any wisdom that is not rooted in Jesus, and him crucified.  However, the good news is that you don’t have to be destroyed with your bad “wisdom.”  You can let go of it.  You can let go of the world’s wisdom, the devil’s wisdom, and even your own self-made wisdom, in order to receive Jesus, the wisdom of God that comes from above..

In verse 25, Paul is not saying that God sometimes actually does foolish things and other times actually does wise things.  The same is true of the “weakness of God.”  Everything that God does is absolutely wise and powerful.  However, Paul is talking about our impression of what God does.  Our judgment of what God is doing is sometimes impressed with what God does, and other times it is not impressed.  We declare it to be foolish and weak. 

Yet, the way that Paul states this slams the point home powerfully.  The things that God does that seem foolish to us are actually greater than our greatest “wisdom”- remember it is we who call our thoughts wise.  Also, the things that God does that seem weak to us are actually stronger than our greatest “strength.”  If we reject His wisdom and power for something else that we think is wiser and stronger, then we will be just like the Corinthians: worthy of rebuke from our Lord!

In verse 26, Paul reminds them of how they believed in Jesus and the kinds of people who were being saved in Corinth.  What kind of person let’s go of the wisdom and power of this world in order to embrace God’s “foolish and weak” salvation?  In general, it wasn’t the wise, powerful, and nobles who were believing.  It is easier for me to let go of the wisdom of Plato than it is for Plato to let go of the wisdom of Plato.  It is easier for me to let go of the power of the United States of America than it is for the powerful people in our Republic.  In truth, it is hard for us all, but not impossible.

If God asks you to give something up, it is so that He can give you something better.  However, sometimes, He asks us to give something so that He can teach us how to receive it back in the right way.  God is concerned with dethroning the idols of our heart that are revealed in this way of salvation.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with being educated and having power in this life.  But, we can let those things divert us from the wisdom and power of God.  We must submit all things that we have to God and let them take their proper place in our life submitted to the wisdom and power of God.

In verse 27, Paul talks about God choosing the “foolish” to shame the “wise”, choosing the “weak” to shame the “strong.”  Everyone who puts their faith in Jesus steps out of the “wise and powerful” class and steps into the “foolish and weak” class (that is, according to the world). 

God knew that this would be the case.  In eternity past, He saw this and chose to help those who would become foolish and weak in order to shame the wise and powerful.  Of course, shame is not the end of the world.  In our shame, we can see our need of Christ and His wisdom.  The grace of God is present when sinful things are brought to the surface.  In our shame, we can finally die to the things that are pulling us down into destruction.   It is in truly seeing our shame that we are enabled to embrace the message of the cross.  God does not call us to stay in our shame, but following Him will cause you to carry the stigma of shame because of the world’s judgment of you.

Paul then ends this section with an anthem to Jesus.  Jesus is the wisdom of God, the righteousness of God, the Holiness of God, and the Redemption of God (v. 30).  There is no hope for these things outside of Jesus and his “foolish and weak” way.

We should boast in no man, but the LORD Jesus!  This is not to put anyone down, but rather, to put Jesus up above in the place that he deserves.  Yet, today, the Church has become full of men and women that we boast in.  We are like the foolish Corinthians and in need of deep repentance.

The message is the same to us as it is to the world.  Humble yourself.  Divest yourself of the wisdom of the world and worldly Christians.  Refuse to follow the path of power developed by the strong.  Pick up your cross and follow Jesus, regardless of what others say.  And, may the Holy Spirit show us all the ways we must die to ourselves, die to the world, and die to the devil, in order to bring forth the power and salvation of God!  This is what it means to serve a crucified Lord.  It means being a crucified servant.

Serving a Crucified King audio

The Afflicted One

Matthew 27:45-54.  Psalm 22.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on October 20, 2024.

We are going to take a break from the book of Acts this week and look at Jesus, the Afflicted One.

Isaiah 53:4 says, “We esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.  But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.”

Also, Psalm 22:24 says, “He [God] has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted [one].”  It is worth noting that “afflicted” is singular.  It could be referring to all who are afflicted as a singular group.  However, in light of the rest of the psalm, it is more likely that it is speaking of the particular afflicted one that David presented earlier in the psalm. 

Before we go to Psalm 22 though, let’s start in Matthew 27.

The cry of Jesus and the silence of God (Mt. 27:45-54)

Our passage picks up with Jesus having been on the cross for three hours. Verse 45 uses Roman time terminology.  The hours of the day are counted from 6 AM forward.  Thus, the sixth hour until ninth hour would equal noon to 3 PM.  To remind ourselves, Jesus is first put on the cross at 9 AM.

There is an interesting change that happens at noon.  For the first three hours that Jesus was on the cross, everything seemed natural.  A man is dying.  It is day time, and the world is going on like normal.  However, at noon, a darkness comes over the land.  This cannot be a solar eclipse because Passover is during the full moon.  This would put the moon on the opposite side of earth from the sun.  There are conjectures on the mechanism that God used to “turn off the lights” for three hours.  A common one is to link it to a large volcanic explosion.  Regardless of how it was done, this ominous situation continues until the death of Jesus.  In fact, after the death of Jesus, a large earthquake hits Jerusalem.  The darkness followed by an earthquake coinciding with the execution of Jesus would leave the average person watching freaked out.  Anyone watching this would think that something really bad had just happened.  For the first three hours, a guy like Caiaphas, the high priest, would feel justified.  But from noon to 3 PM, it would leave one with a strange sensation.

We see this with the Roman soldier mentioned in verse 54.  He has seen a lot of men crucified.  He is shocked and states, “Truly this was the Son of God!”

The death of Jesus is accompanied by a sense of God’s apparent silence.    How could God let this happen?

This is where we should remind ourselves of the hopes of the populace of Israel.  Jesus had healed people and taught them in a way that amazed the multitudes.  They had come to believe that he must be Messiah.  However, the leaders of Israel figured out very quickly that Jesus was calling them to repent too.  This provoked them to despise him and to work to kill him.

The populace hoped that Jesus, who must be messiah, would begin removing the yoke of the Romans, and  yet now, he has been publicly executed.  Think of it.  If you have put all your hopes in a man, and then, he is killed, it shocks you to your core.  On top of this, they heard Jesus crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  It could appear to some that Jesus himself expected God to stop his execution and is now in the throes of disillusionment.

This idea is quite common today.  The average person who doesn’t believe in Jesus will point to some bad thing that happened, or simply that there is evil in the world, and ask, “How could God let that happen?”  If God exists and really is all-good, then surely He would stop all the evil that is happening on this planet.

Jesus at the cross fundamentally challenges this contention.  We think we understand, and we think that God should stop evil.  Our tendency is to talk about these things as if we really understand all the repercussions.  However, these things really are greater than we understand.  This is probably why God designed humans to become parents.  This way, we too can learn what it is like to bend over backwards for the good of a young person who will give you flak for your choices, at some point.  I think parenting is God inviting us to know Him just a little more than we did before we became parents and can have every one of our decisions second-guessed.  There is a certain wisdom to the circle of life.  We generally do not understand these things until we grow old.

The reality on the ground at the crucifixion of Jesus says, there is no way that this man can be Messiah.  Otherwise, God would have stopped it.  So, what about this question that Jesus cried out about God forsaking him?

I mentioned earlier that the first thought of skeptics is the cynical angle.  Jesus realizes that he is going to die, and somehow he thought God would deliver him.  He is no messiah, and he was wrong.

There are good reasons to completely reject this idea.  First, throughout the Gospels, Jesus warned his disciples over and over again that he was going to Jerusalem and he would be killed there.  Of course, the cynic will believe that the disciples made this up after the fact.

Before we look at the next reason to reject this idea, I do want to say this.  I believe that a part of the reason that Jesus cries out this question from the cross is to let us know that he gets it.  For every time we have felt that God has abandoned us while something evil, something bad, does its thing, here is God in the flesh telling us that He gets it.  It is hard, and our flesh doesn’t like it.  The weight of God’s silence in the face of such injustice can be crushing.

We can place ultimatums on God, challenging Him to do such and such by this time, or we are going to cast our faith aside (whether in a rejection of His existence, or of His goodness).  Of course, Jesus knows better than that.  Still, he lets us hear these words from his mouth.

I believe that there is a spiritually immature part of all of us that wants God “to fix” our problems and the bad things in our life.  We typically pray for God to take away anything bad.  We want Him to bail us out of any nightmares that come our way.  Of course, wise parents know that it is often better to help kids through their problems and through their consequences, rather than taking them away.  A wise parent will come alongside their kids and help them through the problem, rather than completely removing it for them.

I think that God is doing this in the Garden of Eden.  He is not judging Adam and Eve because He is hurt and wants to make them pay.  He definitely doesn’t give the decree and make their sin and its consequences just go away.  Rather, He chooses to walk with them down this tough road they have chosen, and He gives them aid against an enemy that is far to strong for them.

The cross causes us to shout, “Take it away, God!”  “Remove the wicked people, and remove all injustice!”  However, Jesus tells us, “Pick up your cross and follow me!”

This leads us to the second reason why this cry in verse 46 is not a cry of disillusionment.  This was a time when books were not divided into chapters and verses.  Though the Psalms are small units within a collection, they were not known by a number.  Jews would not say, “Let’s read Psalm 22.”  Instead, they would use the first line, the first sentence, to refer to it.  Thus, Jesus is not just telling us that he knows our pain of feeling forsaken by God.  He is actually telling us to read Psalm 22 and pay attention to it.  He is connecting that Psalm to his current situation.  Of course, there were some people who couldn’t quite hear what he was saying.  Jesus was also in agonizing pain, making it harder to enunciate his words.  The Aramaic word “Eli” means my God.  However, some thought he might be calling out for Elijah (it was prophesied that Elijah would show up to help Messiah).  However, some would have wondered why Jesus was quoting from this psalm (what we call Psalm 22).

The prophecy of David in Psalm 22

David wrote this psalm roughly 1,000 years before Jesus.  David wrote many psalms.  However, he was more than a musician.  David was also a prophet.  In 2 Samuel 23:2, David says, “The Spirit of the LORD spoke by me, and His word was on my tongue.”  He goes on to tell what God had told him.  God had told him that the one who rules men should be just.  He should be like the rising of the sun and the coming of the dew in the morning.  These are beautiful images of something that is a blessing.  Yet, David also says that his family was not so.  He had fallen short, and his family would fall short too.  Remember, that David had two sons try to take the kingdom from him while he was alive.  Yet, God also told David that He would still cause the promise of an Anointed King to “shoot forth,” or “branch out.”  Isaiah (chapter 4) and Zechariah (chapters 3 and 6) both picked up this verb and turned it into a title for Messiah, The Branch, or The Shoot.

What I am getting at is this.  David is not just writing a psalm about something bad that happened to him.  This is a prophetic psalm that looked forward to something that God showed David.

Jesus and his apostles also quoted and spoke of David’s psalms as prophecy.  So, why did Jesus point out this psalm?

Psalm 22 is a strange psalm.  It has two different types of psalms stitched together.  It starts off as a lament psalm.  A lament psalm basically cries out to God about a suffering situation.  Often, wicked people are involved, causing the pain.  Or, they at least pile on with condemnation.  Lament psalms typically plead to God for help and will end with a statement of faith in God’s character.  Verses 1 through 21a of Psalm 22 are exactly this.

Yet, in the second half of verse 21, something happens that changes the whole character of the psalm.  Verses 21b through the end of the psalm (verse 31) switch to a psalm of Thanksgiving.  This is somewhat odd.  It would be like a song that starts out singing the blues, and then turns into Pharrell Williams singing, Happy.  More than this, it is not quite clear what exactly happened to change a scene where someone is being put to death by wicked men, into a scene that is praising God and calling everyone to join him.

God showed David something about Messiah through his own affliction.  King Saul and Israel had rejected God’s anointing of David.  Yet, Messiah would also be rejected and afflicted by his own people.

Who is this afflicted one in the first part of Psalm 22?  It cannot be David.  David’s descriptions of the afflicted on do not fit him.  Yes, some of the things fit him.  David was afflicted.  Look at verses 7-8.  This description could fit David.  He had become a hunted man by King Saul under a false charge of treason.  This had him always on the run.  It was common for people to despise and ridicule David at this point in his life. 

How about verses 12 to 13.  The bulls and the lions here are symbolic of people who had power within Israel’s society.  King Saul had power and position.  David often felt like he had no where to turn to and was being encircled like a prey hiding in a thicket from predators.

Still, there are too many other descriptions that cannot be about David.  Verse 14 pictures the afflicted one of being poured out like water and having all of his bones out of joint.  Verse 16 speaks of dogs (more animal imagery for people) piercing the afflicted one’s feet and hands.  Verse 17 has the afflicted one being so emaciated that he can count his bones and people are staring at him.  Lastly, verse 18 has his garments being divvied up while he looks on.

This does not describe David.  It describes someone who is being put to death, someone who is not going to need his clothes anymore because he is headed to the grave.

I imagine that David wrestled with God over why He seemed so silent during David’s affliction.  Yet, God showed David that what he went through would be nothing compared to what King Messiah would go through.  David is the little-“a” afflicted one, but Messiah would be the capital-“A” Afflicted One. 

This Afflicted One would come to remove all injustice.  However, God is also a God of grace who doesn’t want anyone to be destroyed.  In the Affliction of the Afflicted One, God is giving space and giving time for us to repent by putting our faith in Jesus.  We could respond to the horrible truth that is displayed at the cross of Jesus: this is what even the best of us do to God.  If it wasn’t for His grace, we would have been destroyed along time ago.

It is easy to miss this message from David.  Yes, they were excited about Messiah removing injustice because that is clearly the Gentiles.  However, they missed the rejected aspect of the Messiah (well, he will be rejected by Messiah, but not us!).

All along this part of Psalm 22 is the idea that God is silent.  God doesn’t do anything about this horrible affliction from the wicked.  At least, up until we reach verse 21.

“Save me from the lion’s mouth and from the horns of the wild oxen!  You have answered me!”  No matter how you translate this verse, two things stick out that cannot change.  The first verb “save me” is a form of the verb that makes it clear that the person is still praying.  There is no question about this.  However the last verb “answered me” is not in this form.  It is a form that says the action of the verb has been completed.  Somehow the afflicted one goes from crying out for salvation to declaring that God has heard him, answered him.  This is the hinge point of the psalm.  God has answered His Afflicted One, but it will not be explained just exactly what God did.  Yet, it must be something really big to change the scene from a righteous man being put to death, to him praising God.

Even if you were being killed, pierced, emaciated, and your bones were out of joint, and God answered you, you would not be in a condition to be praising God.  You would be in a hospital for a very long time asking why God didn’t intervene sooner.

There is not only a switch of genre in this psalm (lament to thanksgiving), but there is a switch in who is narrating the scene.  All throughout the lament, it is first-person narration of what is happening to him.  Even the praise in verse 21 begins by the afflicted one.  “You have answered me!”  Verses 22 and 23 continue the praise, but in verse 24 we see that the narrator has either began to speak of himself in the third-person, or David has taken over and is prophetically calling Israel to pay attention to this amazing thing that God is going to do.  All of Israel are called to praise the Lord because the Lord delivered (will deliver) this Afflicted One.  David will go on to recount how this amazing deliverance will even cause the Gentiles to praise God (verse 27).  What could happen that would cause the ends of the earth and the nations to give praise and worship to God, remembering what God did for His Afflicted One and “turning to the LORD”?  What could cause “all the families of the nations” to worship before him?  Then, verse 28 clearly ties into the Messianic prophecies that picture the Anointed King that God sends to rule over all the nations.  “The Kingdom is the Lord’s, and He rules over the nations!”  This Afflicted One is that King!  Nothing in David’s life, or Israel’s history, even comes close to something like this, except for one person.  It is Jesus.

However, there is more.  In verse 29, the David employs language of “all those who go down to the dust.”  They will bow before the Afflicted One.  This language of going into the dust is language that speaks of people who have died (can’t keep themselves alive).  They are mortals who go into the grave.  It appears to say that even those who have gone into the grave will bow before him.  How can that be?  Of course, the New Testament testimony of what the Apostles came to know about Jesus shows us that the death of the Afflicted One was overturned by Resurrection.

Jesus is pointing us to this passage.  He is not saying that he has been forsaken by God.  He is saying exactly the opposite.  He is making the declaration of truth in the face of all the devils of hell and what they are unleashing upon him.  It may look like He is, but the Father will not abandon me!

Where are we today?  The Gospel of who Jesus is has gone to the ends of the earth, and many people of every tribe, language, and nation, have bowed before Jesus and worshipped him.  Yet, the powers of the world are not choosing Jesus as Lord of lords and King of kings.

The challenge for us is to believe what Scriptures says, what the Spirit says, about Messiah, even when it appears that it will never happen.  He will be afflicted to death, but God will answer him, has answered him!

Perhaps you are in the middle of affliction right now.  Perhaps you feel that God doesn’t care about you and has forsaken you.  His testimony is that He does love you and won’t abandon you.  You just need to put your faith in Him and trust Jesus. 

Why would Jesus go through all that affliction?  He was paying the price for your sins and for mine.  He was making a way for us to repent of our sins and believe in him so that we can be forgiven by God the Father.

Fatherly wisdom in the Scriptures tells us that God has come down and gone through the fire with us.  He has helped us and will bring us to the other side of this difficult affliction.  We will come out the other side more like Him.

Friend, our weak mortal state is not the final word.  God has promised something beyond this.  Let’s choose to identify with the Afflicted One who chose to identify with us!

Afflicted One audio

Such Love-Part 2

Subtitle: He Paid the Price for Us

Psalm 49:6-8,15; Isaiah 49:5-7; Luke 23:39-43.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Resurrection Sunday, April 9, 2023.

We continue our series on the love of God.  We talked last week about God loving us so much that He took on the nature of a human.  He became one of us.  This is called the incarnation.

However, God did not use His humanity to rule over us with an iron fist.  Instead, He uses it to pay the price required to help us get back everything that we have lost due to sin.  This can be regarding some of the immediate consequences of sin, but ultimately embraces all that we have lost eternally.

Let's look at our first passage.

The true predicament of my soul  (Ps 49:6-8,15)

The psalmist brings up the issue of redeeming a person.  Verse 7 says that the wealthy of this world (who are so used to being able to buy what they want) will not be able to redeem their brother.  Anyone who may be perplexed at this statement quickly has it cleared up in the next verse.  The psalmist clarifies that they are talking about redeeming the soul.  Redeeming the soul is soul costly that it "shall cease forever," as the NKJV reads.  The phrase can also mean to not be completed. This is most likely the intended meaning.  No matter how long, i.e., forever, a wealthy person saves up, they will always fall short of the cost of redeeming the soul of their brother. 

This concept of redeeming a soul is important to note.

The psalmist then declares that God will redeem them from the power of the grave.  In order to really absorb what the psalmist is contemplating here, we need to take a few minutes to talk about the concept of redemption.

Redemption is the idea of paying the price required to release something back to the original owner, whether that is yourself, or another person.

There were several situations in ancient Israelite society that would call for redemption.  The firstborn of every Israelite family, including of their animals, belonged to the Lord.  A husband and wife were required to redeem their firstborn child by paying a set price to the tabernacle. 

This was not a blatant attempt to make money off of the families of Israel.  Rather, it harkened back to their time in Egypt.  They were slaves, and God was using Moses to deliver them from Pharaoh.  This involved 10 plagues in which God essentially forced Pharaoh to all but drive the Israelites out of his land.  The tenth plague was the death of the firstborn.  A destroying angel would go throughout Egypt and kill the firstborn of every family and every animal.  God instructed Israel to offer a lamb and put its blood upon the doorposts of their dwelling.  God Himself would protect those households that had obeyed and applied the blood of the lamb to their doorposts.  This continuing redemption was to be a reminder to Israel of God's deliverance of the firstborn in Egypt. 

Another situation that required the concept of redemption had to do with property.  If a person became poor, they may need to sell their property.  They could then use the money to set up some other way of making it.  If this fell through, they may even need to sell their labor and become an indentured servant.  Regardless, it could happen that an Israelite would be so destitute that they would never get their land back, until the Jubilee (if that was being observed every 50 years).  Even then, they may be financially unable to do anything with it.  This is where a close relative could step in, pay the value of the land, and give it back to their kin.  This would be a righteous act of grace for one of your extended family members.  The story of Ruth has this issue at the center of its plot.

This sets up a specific word that is used for redeeming that literally means "to do the work of a kinsman."  It is sometimes translated as a Kinsman Redeemer.  This always involves a situation where a poor person who is unable to do so is helped by a rich relative who is gracious.

The idea that a soul may need to be redeemed is a powerful concept that relies upon the imagery provided in such situations as I have described.  God had made sure that this concept would crop up in different ways throughout their society so that they could understand a deeper predicament of humanity, the need for spiritual redemption.

This begs the question.  What was sold, and why are we so "spiritually" poor that we are unable to get it back?  Genesis three and the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden represents part of the problem.  We chose the knowledge of good and evil (I think we have received a good dose of both) over the top of a good relationship with God.  God had warned them against eating from that tree.  This breaking of faith with God had the consequence of separating them from Him, as well as mortality.  They exchanged their eternal relationship of goodness with God for the idea that they could be something without Him.

Yet, it is more than this.  We had opened the door to the idea of rejecting God's purpose, or plan, and moved in the direction of living life in our own wisdom (or was their own?).  Humanity exchanged immortality for mortality, and the sure plan of God for the sketchy plan that we could come up with on our own, or with help from fallen spiritual beings.  This was an immoral response to the goodness of God.  Such sin not only separated us from God, but it also began to stack up as we continued to double down on sinful actions.  At a basic level, humanity as a whole is a prodigal son in bondage to the things of this world and far away from the place we were meant to have next to Father God.  We have no means of getting that good place next to God back, and continue to descend into a hell of our own making.  We need redemption!

God promises a redeemer  (Isaiah 49:5-7)

Isaiah speaks about the redemption over 24 times between chapters 40 and 66.  It is interesting that this section has 13 chapters (40-52) and then the amazing chapter 53 gives us a powerful picture of God's answer for man's redemption.  In fact, throughout that section, there are 4 glimpses of God's Redeemer who would come forth to redeem both Israel and the nations.  These glimpses are called the "Servant Songs" by theologians.  This section builds up to chapter 53, which is the shocking reveal that the Redeemer would come forward to be a sacrifice for the people.  We then have another 13 chapters to the end of the book as a sort of resolution of the tension. 

Isaiah 49 is the second "Servant Song," which pictures the Redeemer of Israel.

Another aspect of chapters 40-52 is that Israel was supposed to be the servant of God to help take back the nations for God.  However, God's servant Israel was a deaf and blind servant.  Just picture for a moment how helpful a deaf and blind servant would be to their master.  Israel had become deaf and blind because of their sins.  How would they ever get back the position that God had made for them next to Him in redeeming the nations?  It would only happen through God's a special and unique redeemer sent from God.  Israel could not do it for themselves; they were spiritually too poor, but God would help them.

This is something to understand.  With sin, no amount of money, or even good works, could pay for what we have done.  The penalty is to die as a slave and go into eternity out of relationship with God.

In Isaiah 49:6, it is said that it would be too small of thing for this coming Redeemer only to redeem Israel and cause their scattered exiles to be gathered back to God in the land.  This Redeemer would also become a light to the Gentiles, i.e., the nations, and He would be God's salvation to the ends of the earth.

This may help you to understand why it was so important for Mary and Joseph to name this special child that she carried, Yeshua.  It means "Yahweh's Salvation." 

The early Scriptures are a story of humanity's relationship with God continuing to fracture into a worse and worse predicament.  The Fall in the Garden causes humanity to be kicked out of the earthly paradise and close relationship with God.  Of course, there was interference from a spiritual interloper, the devil.  This happens again in Genesis 6, which causes mankind to become extremely evil.  After the flood, we see the Tower of Babel rebellion.  Their sin causes the judgment of God.  They are cast off to serve those false pretender gods that they were seeking, and God goes to Abram to make a new nation for Himself.  Yet, this nation of Israel essentially fails to be the servant that God wanted because...you guessed it!, because of sin.

God knew this would happen all along, but we needed to both live it out and see it for ourselves.  We are too easily manipulated by evil spiritual forces, and  too stuck in our sins to be free, and that includes the so-called "righteous" among us.  Thus, God's promise through Isaiah that He would raise up a special Redeemer who would do what humanity could not.

Redeemed by the life of our kinsman  (Luke 23:39-43)

Jesus was not just coming to give us the good example, though He truly is a perfect picture of what we should be.  He became human, and then lived a perfect life, a sinless life, so that he could perform the work of a near kinsman, that is, pay the price to help us get our inheritance back.

Jesus could pay the price of death that was owed by Israel, but also by all the nations of the earth.  None of us were worthy, and none of us are worthy today.  We still need the redemption of Jesus.

That is what Jesus was doing that day in which we nailed him to a cross between two thieves.  This is just how "righteous" we are.  When God gave us the perfect person, we killed him.  If God were to do it again, we would just kill that one too.  Thus, all the prophets who had a glimpse of God's coming Redeemer also saw that he would be despised and abhorred by many. 

We are all in the same predicament, no matter how good we are compared to others.  We have lost our inheritance to dwell eternally with God, and we are bereft of any spiritual value to get it back.  Yet, in this state, God knew that some would believe.  For those who will stop demanding that God accept their life as "righteous enough," and simply admit that they cannot do it themselves, Jesus comes to pay the price.

Jesus became your kin so that he could pay the price for your sin, and restore you to the eternal inheritance that God always intended for you.  This is particularly on display in the two thieves who were crucified with Jesus.

These thieves are real men, and this is what really happened.  However, they are more than just incidental, accidental, parts of the story.  They are symbolic of all of humanity.

All of humanity is destined to die as sinners.  Yes, we can point to another person and rightly say that we are better than them to some degree.  However, we are still spiritual beggars who are unable to pay the full price for our sins and live with God.  Our relative righteousness is like a person bragging that they have one million dollars in the bank and laughing a person who lives paycheck to paycheck.  Comparatively, they have it better.  But, if the analogy is to properly fit mankind, the person who has a million dollars in the bank, and the poor person, both owe a debt to God that is astronomical.  A debt that they cannot ever pay back.  They will be in the same boat on the day that they die and their debts come due.

These two thieves are both dying for their sins.  Yet, in that state, they have two very different hearts.  One thief is full of self-righteousness and challenges Jesus to save himself and them.  You can notice that he is only thinking of the natural problem.  Jesus is no good to him, unless he can help him get out of this predicament in a natural way.  There is no sense within this thief that he is guilty, but Jesus is innocent, none at all.

The other thief is a different story.  He recognizes that he deserves what he is getting.  These are the just desserts of a thief, even if it is the dirty, rotten, no-good Romans doing it.  Yet, he simultaneously recognizes that Jesus does not deserve the death that he is receiving.  Something comes alive in him in this moment.  He comes to believe that somehow this Jesus must really be the Messiah.  He doesn't know how, but in some way the God of Israel will do something powerful, and this man Jesus will be the king of a Messianic Kingdom.  Like Abraham offering up his child in faith, so the man gives a prayerful request to Jesus.  "Remember me when you come into your kingdom."

We want God to come down and get us out of our mess, but instead, God came down and let himself be crucified among us.  What good does that do for us?  Yes, we all believe that the biggest problem in life is all those other evil things, people, nations, etc. out there.  God come stop the Russians, the Chinese, Washington D.C., etc.  God stop that race; God get those greedy bankers; God make the rich give us their money.  In our self-righteousness, we call for God to "solve" our problems.  However, those things are not our true problem.  Our true problem is the sin within us.  A willfulness to reject God and try to make our way without Him, and then rail against Him when there are bad consequences.  

The day they were caught and sentenced to execution was the greatest days of their lives because it would put them in a place to see God's great Redeemer.  In our pain and suffering, God is not only there, but He has been there long before we ever made it there.  When God created the heavens and the earth, He did so in tears.  He was the One going forth sowing in tears, knowing that He would doubtless come again rejoicing with a harvest.  Our sense of suffering is only the tip of the iceberg of the timeless assault of evil, pain and suffering upon the heart of God.

God used the wicked Romans that day to help one of those thieves come face to face with His sin, while also coming face to face with the righteousness of Jesus.  He believed that day, and Jesus told him that he would be with him in Paradise that very day!

This bothers some people.  This man had lived the life of a thief.  We can make it noble by saying he only stole from Romans, but we don't know that.  Sin always pulls us lower than we ever intended to go.  This man would die within hours.  He has nothing to offer God.  Why would God save Him knowing that He is not going to get any good works out of this man?

This begs the question.  What does God really want?  The answer is that He simply wants you, your heart, mind, and love.  On that day, that man quit rebelling against God, turned, and embraced the truth about whom Jesus was. 

God is looking for whosoever will let go of demanding that their righteousness be accepted as enough.  He wants whosoever will let go of their way of thinking, their plans, and whosoever will yield to His wisdom, purpose, and plan.

Yes, that man had nothing to offer God that day, but himself.  All of mankind is symbolized in these two guys.  We are all sinners who are going to die.  Some will die doubling down on their own righteousness and despising Christ, and yet, some will yield to Christ and ask for mercy, forgiveness.

God wants you to have the place that He intended for you all along, a place at His side in a loving, eternal relationship, where there is no sin, no evil, no pain, no suffering, and no consequences of our sin wrapped around us like chains.

Jesus came to redeem you from the bondage of your sins.  God doesn't want you to wait until you are dying nailed to a cross.  But, if you delay and one day find yourself nailed to a cross, know this.  It is the grace of God use our sins to nail us to a cross.  Can I even now let the Spirit of God and the Word of God nail me to a cross that I deserve, and in that moment, not only recognize my need for a redeemer, but recognize Jesus as the One who loved me so much that He paid the price for me?

O friend, yield to Jesus today.  Quit trusting your way, and the way of the world.  Submit and follow the only one who ever laid down his life, and then three days later rose up out of the grave, with over 500 witnesses to this fact.  Give yourself to Jesus today!

Such Love 2 audio

The Acts of the Apostles 6

Subtitle: Peter Preaches to the Crowd II

Acts 2:22-24.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on June 26, 2022.

Today, we continue with Peter’s address to the crowd following the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the disciples of Jesus almost 2,000 years ago.

As a quick reminder, Peter is essentially answering the question that the crowd has.  “What does this mean?”  He starts by countering the mockers who were saying that they were just drunk.  After this, he points them to the Promise of God in Joel 2:28-32.  There God promises to pour out His Holy Spirit upon all people in the last days.

Let’s look at our passage and continue Peter’s message.

The Holy Spirit Speaks through Peter (22-24)

In these verses, Peter explains how this outpouring of the Holy Spirit is connected to what happened with Jesus, especially the events concluding 50 days prior to Pentecost.

The religious authorities felt that they had dealt with the “Jesus-Problem” once and for all.  Of course, Jesus isn’t actually a problem.  Jesus is a solution, salvation.  Their true problem was that his activity and words kept highlighting how unrighteous they had become.  It is only a problem for the proud who refuse to admit that they need to repent.

Of course, within a matter of three days rumors began circulating in Jerusalem that Jesus had risen from the dead.  The tomb was empty and the guards had no helpful explanation of how Jesus escaped their watch.

During these 50 days, the disciples basically kept a low profile due to the fact that they were fearful of the authorities, and Jesus had been appearing to them.  Ultimately, he had told them to wait until this event of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit before they proceeded to spread the Gospel.

Now, we have this strange event on the Day of Pentecost.  What gives?  Peter gives the crowd understanding of how all of these events are connected and what God is doing through them.  They are not just random strange events that make no sense, if you understand what God is doing.  So what was God doing through Jesus?

In verse 22, Peter reminds the crowd that Jesus of Nazareth was no ordinary man.  He had been “attested by God” to Israel.  The word “attested” has the sense of proving something through demonstration.  God had publicly demonstrated to Israel that Jesus was an exceptional prophet, and that they should listen to him.  These public attestations, or proofs, were not done in a corner and hidden from anyone, and they were not mere tricks that could pull the wool over the eyes of simpletons.

Peter mentions that God used miracles to prove Jesus.  Miracles are acts of supernatural power.  He also mentions wonders and signs.  These are essentially the same thing, but seen from a different purpose.  A wonder is that which leaves your jaw dropped.  It is an amazing thing that gets your attention.  However, God is not in the business of merely trying to impress humans with what He can do.  These wonders have purpose and meaning.  They are signs that are intended to point us in the right direction, and even explain God’s purpose to some degree.

Peter also makes it clear that these miracles, wonders, and signs were done through Jesus.  This is not just saying Jesus was only a conduit.  Jesus is the effective agent on the ground by whom these things are being done.  Jesus had done many spectacular healings of people who had been blind and lame since birth, and these healings were immediately upon command.  He powerfully cast out demons that plagued individuals who could not be handled by others.  He fed 1,000’s in the wilderness with only a handful of food.  Probably the most amazing was his resurrection of Lazarus.  A man who had died, was buried for 4 days, and was brought back to life by Jesus on command, and in front of a crowd.

I could add on top of this that many of the things Jesus did parallel what God did through Moses and the children of Israel.  For the sake of time, I will just mention that there is a contrast to the 10 plagues of Egypt.  The waters were turned to blood in judgment of Egypt, but Jesus turns water into wine as a blessing.  The flies, lice, and gnats seem to be symbolic of demonic hordes that Jesus dismisses.  The death of the firstborn in Egypt is countered by the death of the Son of God who becomes the Lamb of God protecting us from the destroying angel.  He fed the people miraculous bread in the wilderness.  All of these things are signs that tell Israel that Jesus is the prophet that Moses had told them would come.  He was publicly proved by God.

How could the religious leaders reject such proofs?  We should issue a caution that even the apostles highlight in the New Testament.  Satan does have supernatural power though it pales in comparison to God.  2 Thessalonians 2:8-11 makes it clear that people who reject the love of the truth that God is trying to give them will become deluded by lying signs and wonders.  Thus, it is important to note that the only “sin” the religious leaders could pin on Jesus was that he put himself on a level with God that they felt was heretical.  Of course, Jesus points them back to the Scriptures they claimed to follow and neutralized their accusation (see Psalm 82 and John 10:33 and following).  Jesus was pointing people back to proper worship of God the Father in spirit and in truth, not superficial actions that covered lives that were anything but godly.

Peter in verse 22 says that Jesus was “delivered” over to them.  He was handed into their power.  From a standpoint of authority, Jesus is essentially their higher authority, so they would have no authority to do what they did.  From a standpoint of power, Jesus could not be seized by them and held without his cooperation.  He who created the universe can only be arrested, tried, and crucified if he allows it to happen.  In this sense, Judas is immaterial.  Yes, he opens the door for Jesus to be arrested in secret, but it is the purpose and plan of God the Father that puts Jesus under their power.  This is why Peter mentions God’s foreknowledge (He knows what people will choose to do before they do it), and His determined purpose.

Of course, the test of putting Jesus in their power is to prove publicly what they would do with the God they claim to worship if He came down to their level.  It is easy to say that you love and worship and invisible being, but if He comes down and becomes visible in a way that we can’t control, we may find that we don’t love Him nearly as much as we put on, if at all.  The shocking reality that they had executed a man whom God had publicly proved to them is being highlighted.

We should notice that, even though they made it look like they were merely following the Law, their hands were “lawless” (vs 23).  No number of judges, prosecutors, police, lawyers, military, politicians, etc. can make something righteous that God has defined as unrighteous.  In the name of law, we can become a lawless people.  Whether these are actions that are done under the color of law, i.e., we make it look like we are only following the law, or we make up laws that are contrary to God’s Law, i.e., the laws we follow themselves are lawless against God’s law, God will always bring such actions to account.

They had put Jesus to death, a public execution.  However, Peter declares that God raised up Jesus from the dead.  Essentially, God had overruled their decision and Pilate’s decision.  Jesus was raised up and freed from the “pains of death.”  This is not talking about the physical pain of dying.  Jesus experienced that to the hilt.  It could be translated the sorrows of death.  There is a sorrow of being separated from loved ones, and the fact that even righteous souls were held in the grave, unable to directly enter the presence of God.

Peter even states that it is not possible that He should be held by death (i.e., death and the resultant residence in the grave-Hades/She’ol).  Jesus is not just able to give life.  He is the source of all life and by definition could not be held by death, or Hades.  We might say that it would be impossible for God to truly die, and yet through the incarnation, it became possible for God to die a physical death.  Jesus took on the nature of a man so that he could truly die.  Thus, God could truly die and enter Hades, but Hades had no power to hold Him.  The Lord of Life could not stay among the dead.  Those righteous souls who had been held in the grave could now enter into God’s presence because Jesus had paid the price for their sins, for the atoning of their sins.  Jesus is quite unique among the righteous because he was the only one to enter into Hades who had never sinned.

We are going to press pause on Peter’s discourse for now.  Peter is going to point forward from the resurrection to the fact that Jesus is now seated at the right hand of the Father, and he is the one who is responsible for this outpouring of the Holy Spirit that they are witnessing.

Today, it may seem like this has no connection to our world, having happened so long ago.  However, we must ask what Jesus is doing now?  He is still pouring out the Holy Spirit upon those who believe upon him and want to serve him.  It is important for us as Christians to be focused upon the purpose and will of God, and to be empowered by the Holy Spirit he is giving.  However, if we are not expectant, repentant, and waiting upon the Lord, we can cruise through our life with a thin veneer of religiosity and not empowered by God’s Spirit.  Friend, don’t settle for being religious in your flesh.  Ask God each day to fill you with His Holy Spirit, and then share the good news of Jesus with a lost world that is in danger of judgment every day.

Peter Preaches II audio