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Friends??? With Him??? A Good Friday Sermon on Romans 5:6-11
Friends? With Him?
Romans 5:6-11
† Jesus! Son and Savior! †
May the grace and peace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ embrace you!
- Can you imagine?
I want you to picture yourself, sitting in a limousine. You have been invited to spend some time with one of the most famous people in the world.
On your way the excitement grows, as you consider what was said in the invitation.
“I would like to get to know you, for I think you are a person I want to count as one of my closest friends.”
And as you drive to where they are… you even get nervous, this could be an incredible day.
As you arrive, you notice what you think is pretty heavy security, as you get closer to his home, you realize they aren’t his security. They are a SWAT team, and there are police officers all over his property. The limo stops, and a police captain walks up to the window and says that your friend is about to be arrested and taken away—if he’s lucky he will only get life in prison, but if not, the death penalty awaits.
THe paperwork is on the way, and your new “friend “ has promised to surrender when it gets here. But there is an hour or two before that will happen, and the Captain asks, “do you want to spend that time with your “friend” in his garden?
What do you do?
- Here is why we need it…(saved from condemnation)
We need that “friend” who was arrested by a police many times the size that was needed. He would have surrendered anyway, for he knew we needed him to be punished for our sins.
Hear again the apostle Paul,
When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. 7 Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.
I really don’t like people knowing how helpless I am, physically or spiritually. I suppose some suspect it, but I still don’t like it. Yet, amid the brokenness, Christ came to being healing, to restore what sin had damaged.
We needed, no, we desperately needed Jesus to come and deliver us….
And the only way to do that—was to die on the cross.
And so we need to be befriended by this Jesus, this one who would die as a criminal.
- Here is why You want it…
But here is far more to the cross than the forgiveness of sins.
When I started my illustration, I mentioned the invitation to meet was based on the celebrity saying He thought he wanted you as a close friend.
Going back to our reading that started the service….
10 For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. 11 So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.
Therefore, we don’t care about the shame of the cross, or associating with someone the world has written off as worthless, c as wrong. But He invites you to spend time with Him, both now and for all eternity.
This is what the cross is about—our invitation to join Christ in His death, that with all sin and injustice cut away, we can live as His friends… now and forever.
And as His friends, we dwell in His unimaginable, unexplainable peace. For God has placed us there—in the death of Christ, so that we share in His resurrection and eternal life. AMEN!
Fixed with Steadfast Faith! A Good Friday Sermon on Hebrews 4:14-16
Fixed with Steadfast Faith
Hebrews 4:14-16
† In Jesus Name †
I pray that you desire these words of the Apostle Paul to be your own: 10 I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, 11 so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead! Philippians 3:10-11 (NLT2)
- It’s been six hours…where are your thoughts
As we gather this evening, I want you to put yourself in the place of the apostles.
Not as they look at Jesus on the cross – rather 6 hours later, as the sun sets, and they are in shock. Imagine them sitting together, stunned, in tears, all of their hopes and dreams destroyed.
They won’t understand for a while, and even when they do, they will still struggle with it until Pentecost.
Jesus, the one they thought would be the Christ, no, they knew He was the Christ, for who else could feed thousands, walk on water, heal those without help, and even raise the dead.
But they saw the nails, they saw the spear, They witnessed a body that was beaten beyond recognition die.
They had forgotten how many times he told them this was coming, that He would be put to death.
They hadn’t witnessed the power that would raise Him from the dead yet, and so we have an incredible advantage over them…
An advantage that we cannot overlook, an advantage that we must hold firmly to, because of the access that faith gains
- It’s been a few hours…where is Jesus?
One question I am asked every so often is where Jesus from the time is from when He dies until He rises from the dead on Sunday. The creed and two passages discuss His descent into hell, and if you want to know more about that – Tom will discuss that on the 16th in the adult Bible Study!
I wish I had two hours to explain this, but this reference in Hebrews referring to Jesus being the high priest calls to mind the work of the one high priest who brought the offering into the tabernacle, pouring the blood out on the Ark of the Covenant. There the blood was sprinkled, putting off the sins of the people for a season
Jesus doesn’t enter the Father’s presence in the temple – His sacrifice will bring us into the Father’s presence in heaven, where His blood was accepted by the Father to atone for all sin.
Where was He that night? I don’t know – and neither did the disciples. But we know where He is now… and that is what matters!
- It’s been a while – where are we?
Because of where Jesus is now – we know where we are!
In the presence of God the Father!
That is why Hebrews can tell us that can come boldly to the throne of our gracious God, and receive mercy and grace when we need it most.
That’s the nature of this night, the darkest night, yet one laden with the hope of the world. Christ’s sacrifice has been made. This is the tie to the gospel account of the curtain separating the Holy Place of the Temple from the Holy of Holies.
It was shredded as Jesus dies, giving people the ability to enter the place where the presence of God was known to dwell for them.
Not just enter it anytime, but to permanently enter this place.
Because Jesus died on the cross…
So this is where we put all our trust, for it is the same place we find our only hope, and the love which God has for us.
It is in the death of Christ Jesus that we find the hope of the resurrection to our eternal life.
Which brings us back to the beginning,
I pray that you desire these words of the Apostle Paul to be your own: 10 I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, 11 so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead! Philippians 3:10-11 (NLT2)
And because He died, and rose.. you shall!
We Could Not Die Eternally… So He Died: A Good Friday Sermon Worth Reading on Saturday!
We Could Not Die Eternally
So He died…
John 19:28-30
† In Jesus Name †
May the Death of Jesus prove to you the love of God!
- Do we “get it.”
You have come here or are watching online because it is Good Friday. Hopefully, that means you know a little about Jesus and why we have a wooden thing hanging over a thing that looks like a table.
Your knowledge has to go deeper than that… and it has to go deeper than he died to pay for your sins.
That is important, but it is the first step on a journey. Perhaps it is better to picture it as having the door opened and being invited into a home built just for you.
What the cross opens up for you is amazing.
A.W. Tozer explained it well,
That life in the Spirit that is denoted by the term “deeper life” is far wider and richer than mere victory over sin, however vital that victory may be. It also includes the thought of the indwelling of Christ, acute God-consciousness, rapturous worship, separation from the world, the joyous surrender of everything to God, internal union with the Trinity, the practice of the presence of God, the communion of saints and prayer without ceasing.[1]
This is what the cross opens up to us, a life that is acutely aware of the presence of God, and that awareness leaves us in awe, but not in terror.
We know we are welcome.
- Sin Exists
This is not to say our sin is meaningless. It would take the death of Jesus to atone for it.
Our sin is severe; it is not just waived away as if it was meaningless. The hurt and pain it causes are real. Very real. We can’t just dismiss it, saying that it is dealt with.
We must realize what it could have cost us.
Everything.
We could be heading to hell, the place we deserve, because we chose to separate ourselves from God. We may think it a little sin, or we may know it is a humongous sin.
It’s real, it is no joke, and it is what the death on the cross saves us from, as Jesus took on the burden of all our sin….
Jesus once told the apostles and Peter that the gates of hell could not prevail against the fact that Jesus is the Son of God. In saying that He was saying what comes at the cross, nothing can keep the sinner from being saved, from being rescued, for Christ has broken the power of sin and death.
But what happens next… what does this mean…
How do you make sense of His brutal death?
Especially when he could have stopped it, with the snap of a finger?
- This is love – we couldn’t
This is what it is all about! This ministry that we have here focuses on the cross, not as the most important thing, but as the entrance into that.
Just as baptism, absolution, and the Lord’s Supper are pipelines of grace, so is the cross a point of grace, the light that shines in the darkness – drawing us to Jesus.
This is the point of God’s love.
He couldn’t let us die eternally; that was not His plan.
We couldn’t die eternally…. So He died…
This is what grace is… this is what love is…
This is God’s desire to spend eternity with you.
Trust Him; he laid it all on the line… so you would know you are loved.
AMEN!
[1] A. W. Tozer and Marilynne E. Foster, Tozer on the Holy Spirit: A 366-Day Devotional (Camp Hill, PA: WingSpread, 2007).
Encounter God with Everyone: A Good Friday Sermon
Encounter God with Everyone
Isaiah 52:13-15
† Jesus, Son, Savior †
May the grace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ convince you that God desires all to be transformed because He loves you!
A Different Perspective
The Crowds stood there that day…. Looking upon Jesus, and they cried out for Him to die for Him to be crucified.
Isaiah’s description of it was all too accurate.
Beaten, whipped thirty-nine times, a crown of 1’inch thorns smashed on his head, beaten and slapped senseless.
Then carrying that beam, significantly over 100 pounds, out of the city, then up the mountain, to the peak of the hill, then spikes hammered through both wrists and through the ankles.
Is it any wonder that the prophet describes him as one so disfigured that he hardly looked human? That stomachs were upset as they looked upon what they had cried out for?
Sunday is undoubtedly coming, but we have to pause a moment here, on Friday, and consider the way Jesus looked?
We need to consider what our sin did to him,,,,
We need to see Him, and the pain our sin caused…
Beautiful
We need to be part of the group Isaiah describes, that looks upon Jesus on the cross and marvels. We need to join the leaders of the world, who are unable to speak.
We need to understand how this wretched sight is a most beautiful thing…
We need to see and understand…
(long pause.._)
We need to understand that it is love that drove him to this point.
We need to understand what the author of Hebrews wrote that Jesus did this for the joy set before Him. The shame he despised, the pain he dreaded, but He volunteered to take this beating.
Not just the physical torture.
Not just the agony of seeing his friends betray and abandon him or his mother look upon his broken body.
But he bore the spiritual trauma of taking every sin, the millions upon millions of sins committed by you and me.
He accepted that weight, that burden, all the guilt, and shame.
See Him them, crushed, almost inhuman,
And now we see and understand, absolutely, stunningly beautiful.
He took this on… for us. AMEN!
The Greatest Identity Theft….ever!
Devotional Thought of the Day:
5 David became very angry at the rich man and said, “I swear by the living LORD that the man who did this ought to die! 6 For having done such a cruel thing, he must pay back four times as much as he took.” 7 “You are that man,” Nathan said to David. “And this is what the LORD God of Israel says: ‘I made you the king of Israel and rescued you from Saul. 2 Samuel 12:5-7 (TEV)
So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Look! Here is the man!” John 19:5 GNT
Identities are stolen every day.
Some are as innocent as a wife seeing her husband’s Facebook page open and typing in, ” I have the most beautiful, precious wife in the world!” Others have a more evil intent, stealing money, credit, anything they can from their victims, their families, even their workplaces.
Identity theft is so prevalent that it is has created multiple industries to defend against it, from computer programs and special routers to wallets that protect the information on your credit and atm cards, to special companies that scan your information regularly and alert you, and insurance policies to compensate you while it all gets straightened out. It is a billion-dollar industry.
But the greatest identity theft we see happen in two Bible passages above.
David, full of sin, and not all that remorseful judges a sinner as being worthy of death (and paying back 4 to 1 what was stolen.) The sentence was right and just, it was what the man deserved, Without a doubt, without any hesitation.
And then David hears the harsh words, “David, you are the man”
Remorse sinks in faster than the realization of Nathan’s words. His contempt for God has been revealed, his sin is now known to all. He is broken, or perhaps one can say, the brokenness he lived with is finally brought to light.
And this is where the identity theft comes in, as another man hears similar words, “Here is the man”, and a death sentence is carried out.
The death sentence David deserved is taken by Jesus. He steals David’s identity as a sinner, as an adulterer, as a murderer, The death David deserved is given to the Lord, who steals his identity.
And leaves David with his own, as David will become known as a man after God’s own heart.
But David is not the only one whose Identity has been stolen on a Friday like this.
Your identity is stolen as well.
Maybe you didn’t actually have someone killed, Maybe just in anger, you wanted someone dead. Maybe you have committed adultery, being unfaithful to your spouse, or causing someone else to be unfaithful to theirs. Or maybe it was simply desiring someone you aren’t married to.
Or any of the millions of sins in thought, word or deed that you committed, or the sins you committed by doing nothing.
That identity you have, and the accompanying guilt and shame is something you’ve lived with, maybe so long you have grown hardened to, and indifferent.
Jesus comes along, nailed to the cross, and steals that identity. We lost our identity, it is no longer ours, It is nailed to the cross, all of its ugliness, all our painful brokenness.
We are free, that is no longer us.
As we realize this, as we explore this new identity we have, as children of God, as we explore the breadth and width, depth and height of God’s love for us as Jesus is there, hanging on the cross…
it is time to say thanks, time to adore Him, time to let that old identity completely go…and be healed.
Heavenly Father, thank you for sending Jesus to steal our identity. And thank you for the Holy Spirit who establishes our new identity. Help us to heal and live new lives, sharing this “theft” with the world. AMEN!
Our Suffering, our Doubts, and Jesus’s Struggle at the Cross. A Good friday Devotion
Devotional Thought for Good Friday:
1 My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far away when I groan for help? 2 Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer. Every night you hear my voice, but I find no relief. Psalm 22:1-2 (NLT)
22 Here’s the story I’ll tell my friends when they come to worship, and punctuate it with Hallelujahs: 23 Shout Hallelujah, you God-worshipers; give glory, you sons of Jacob; adore him, you daughters of Israel. 24 He has never let you down, never looked the other way when you were being kicked around. He has never wandered off to do his own thing; he has been right there, listening. 25 Here in this great gathering for worship, I have discovered this praise-life. And I’ll do what I promised right here in front of the God-worshipers. Psalm 22:22-25 (MSG)
He is pleased to withhold from us the milk and honey of his consolation, that, by weaning us in this manner, we may learn to feed on the more dry and solid bread of vigorous devotion, exercised under the trial of distaste and spiritual dryness. 3. That as violent temptations frequently arise amidst these desolating drynesses, we must resolutely fight against them, since they do not proceed from God; but nevertheless, we must patiently suffer them, since God has ordained them for our exercise.
The Bible tells us that Jesus was tested in every way we are, that he faced the same issues, the same temptations, the same situations which can cause us to doubt, or to want to run.
We see that today, in the passage that Jesus quotes from the cross.
He too had moments where the Father seemed to far away, where the illusion of being abandoned was strong. Where the feeling that God has left us on our own to struggle dominated every other feeling we have.
I’ve often wondered why God allows us to go through these times. Surely they don’t come from God, yet St Francis de Sales indicates they are ordained by God for our exercise. God allows them to come upon us, as He did Job and Jesus, for a purpose.
IN Jesus case, the abandonment was seen for what it was, a pouring out of wrath that far exceeded the wrath of the Pharisees, Sanhedrin, and the Roman guards. A wrath that one taken upon Jesus would kill him, yet like the grain in the sand, it would give life to us, and to all those who believe and are baptized.
In our case, the suffering intended to defeat us, intended to drive us away from God can and does (eventually) ordain for us to be drawn toward Him. De Sales calls this being drawn a vigorous devotion, I beg to differ a little. Like the psalmist I look at my own pain, my own suffering to early, to often, being drawn down into the darkness, being overwhelmed by the pain. But there He rescues me, He reminds me of HIs love, He shows me that He was always with me.
This is the point David is making in the Psalm, which starts out so dark, which so describes the pain of being crucified or struggling today. The point where we can see as the light shatters the darkness, as our faith, no even more sure of God’s presences testifies to naturally, without even thinking. read it again,
22 Here’s the story I’ll tell my friends when they come to worship, and punctuate it with Hallelujahs: 23 Shout Hallelujah, you God-worshipers; give glory, you sons of Jacob; adore him, you daughters of Israel. 24 He has never let you down, never looked the other way when you were being kicked around. He has never wandered off to do his own thing; he has been right there, listening. 25 Here in this great gathering for worship, I have discovered this praise-life. And I’ll do what I promised right here in front of the God-worshipers. Psalm 22:22-25 (MSG)
When we are struggling, when Satan and his minions are oppressing us, when all seems dark, this is what is true. He is with you, He loves you, and you will soon be praising Him as the Holy Spirit convinces you of this reality. Like the cross, the victory, the depth of God’s love is revealed in these trying moments, in the midst of the pain, and the darkness. We then see the truth;
You weren’t abandoned, He was there… and you will tell others about this!
AMEN!
Francis de Sales, Saint. An Introduction to the Devout Life. Dublin: M. H. Gill and Son, 1885. Print.
Good Friday Sermon: A Cry of Great Faith – Into Your Hands…
Into Your Hands…
Luke 23:46
† Jesus, Son, Savior †
May you realize the depth of the love of God our Father for you, revealed in Christ’s purchase of your grace. AMEN!
Is this what we perceive?
It has been said that people hear what they want to hear. Matter of fact, I think most of us are pretty good at it.
Like for instance, if I ask my wife if I can go to Sam Ash or Guitar City, her approval also means I can come home with a new guitar or keyboard. After 28 years of marriage, she won’t let me go to Best Buy or Fry’s alone. She did, however, make the mistake of letting me go to the car dealership to get my oil changed two weeks ago…
It can work the other way as well if a professor says something critical, a student’s world collapses, or if a boss says you need to improve, you go home and tell the wife you are in danger of getting fired.
When we hear the words from the cross, we hear things through our frame of reference as well.
It’s true in the last words Jesus says, the words that he pushes out with his last breath…
Into your hands….I commit my spirit.
They are not just the final words of a man who has been betrayed by his friends, tried, beaten, forced to carry a cross out of the city, up a hill and be nailed on it.
They are a lesson in faith, an example of great dependence on God.
It would be what Paul talks about when we are told to imitate him, as He imitates Christ Jesus.
It was a cry of faith, not one of despair.
But that is not how we hear it.
The struggle of faith, and praying
There is rapid decline, or so the experts say, in the prayer life of people in America.
I can believe it because we have forgotten the joy, the comfort, the peace that comes in trusting God. In depending upon Him, in the words of Jesus, in our ability to says these words, “into your hands I commit my Spirit.”
We hear Jesus, broken physical and I think we expect Him to be broken spiritually. We hear the pain in His voice, the anguish, the trauma. There is, in my mind, no doubt of the pain and anguish, that He felt, and I struggle to imagine these cries being anything else but the despair I would feel in such a situation.
The despair and even doubt I feel when I am subjected to suffering, or when those I love and care for are.
I hear these words, when I am in pain, when I hear them said with His dying breath, and they sound like a surrender, an admission that I am defeated, that you can feel the hope draining out from Jesus,
Because that is what I feel, that is the effect of the brokenness of sin on us who are mortal.
There is nothing left, no strength of body, or mind, or will. There is only the inevitable; there is only death.
In times less trying we can’t even think of God because the weight of despair is too much. We just feel numb, lost, empty. hopeless. It is as if, for the moment, sin has won, and life has been taken from us.
We hear these words as the final admission of defeat.
He breathed His last…
But what if these words mean something more? What if they are not the words of despair, but words from the last breath that reveal hope, that reveal faith, that reveal a trust that is deeper than the pain?
What if these words, like Psalm 22’s cry, accept the pain of the moment given victory that is complete and total and joyous?
Into your hands, I commit my Spirit.
A quote from Psalm 31, a quote which continues
5 Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God.
Hear it one more time…
5 Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God. 6 I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols, but I trust in the LORD. 7 I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love because you have seen my affliction; you have known the distress of my soul, Psalm 31:5-7 (ESV)
5 Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God.
These last words, are not just those of a man has hit rock bottom. They are a cry of faith, a cry of wisdom that knows that the answer is found in the very steadfast love of God. A cry that celebrates that we aren’t alone in our distress, that we aren’t alone in our grief.
That though we barely have a breath left, it is a breath that is taken with God’s spirit.
It is a lesson for us, a cry for us to utter, not just when we have only one breath left, but when we are brought to life in Christ. When we are crucified with Him in our baptism when we kneel and take and eat the Body and Blood of Christ, when we share in His death… and in the promise of His life.
It is His cry, a lesson to us with our very last breath.
A lesson in trusting God through it all, a lesson that we aren’t alone in our trial, in our fight, even when it gets down to the last breath.
St. Paul said it well,
4 For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.
Romans 6:4 (NLT)
So repeat these last words of Jesus with me, knowing that the Holy Spirit with strengthening you, and help you make them your own.
Into your hands, I commit my Spirit…
And in God’s hands, in the Father’s hands, you will know peace that goes beyond your understanding, even as it guards your weary hearts and minds, for as you died with Christ in His death, so you find life in Christ. AMEN!
Walking with Our Father, during Easter Week
Devotional Thought fo the Day:
9 This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven: May your holy name be honored; 10 may your Kingdom come; may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today the food we need. 12 Forgive us the wrongs we have done, as we forgive the wrongs that others have done to us. 13 Do not bring us to hard testing, but keep us safe from the Evil One.’ Matthew 6:9-13 (TEV)
The word “Father” makes me sure of one thing: I do not come from myself; I am a child. I am tempted at first to protest against this reminder as the prodigal son did. I want to be “of age”, “emancipated”, my own master. But then I ask myself: What is the alternative for me—or for any person—if I no longer have a Father, if I have left my state as child definitively behind me? What have I gained thereby? Am I really free? No, I am really free only when there is a principle of freedom, when there is someone who loves and whose love is strong. Ultimately, then, I have no alternative but to turn back again, to say “Father”, and in that way to gain access to freedom by acknowledging the truth about myself. Then my glance falls on him who, his whole life long, identified himself as child, as Son, and who, precisely as child and Son, was consubstantial with God himself: Jesus Christ
The purpose of observing ceremonies is that men may learn the Scriptures and that those who have been touched by the Word may receive faith and fear and so may also pray.
My work today in the office is to try to get 8 services planned and prepared for printing, all which will occur in the next week. Services for Maunday Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and two funerals as well.
It was a good reminder then to hear the words in green above, that remind me of why we do these things, what the ultimate purpose is, that trusting in God, and being in awe of His love and mercy, that we can turn to Him…. and pray. The result of a worship service is to teach people to communicate with God! What a radical idea!
Talk to your creator, talk to Him, not as a minion to a master, not as a lowly employee to the CEO of the company, not as a prisoner to a warden, but as a child, who knows they are loved, talked to their dad.
Yes it is a level of humility that we would not normally want to admit to, but it is not the kind of humility or perhaps better, humiliation, that those other relationships often create.
You see, I think we see the Father-child relationship the wrong way. Pope Benedict nails it, we want our independence, we want to be emancipated, freed from the burden of answering to someone else. But that isn’t the relationship that is pictured in the Lord’s prayer, in all of the times God shares his desire to care for us, to encourage us, to nurture us.
Benedict XVI’s words call us back to that point, to the point where we like Christ identify ourselves as the sons (and daughters) of God.
As you walk with the Father through this week, as we prepare to remember the last supper, the garden, the cross, consider the Father hearing these words from Jesus. Consider our Father hearing these words from Jesus, this incredible prayer he taught us, not just in words, but with His very life… For this is the prayer of a Son to the Father. It is His prayer, and as we go through this week… don’t just say it, hear it said, from Jesus to the Father….
… as Jesus clears the temple courtyard., so people who are not His people can pray and know they are heard
….. as Jesus washes the feet of sinners, because they argued about who was greatest and taught them the greatest serves
…. as He breaks the bread, and blesses the wine, and gives us a feast beyond anything we could imagine
…. as Jesus is whipped and beaten, that by the scars we would find healing,
…. as Jesus carries the beam he would be nailed to
….as Jesus dies, showing the world that all glory, honor and power is the Father’s.
So come to worship the King of Love, our Lord, and learn to depend on Him, and depending on Him, share your life in words, of praise, and of prayer.
as the sons of our Father!
AMEN!
Ratzinger, J. (1992). Co-Workers of the Truth: Meditations for Every Day of the Year. (I. Grassl, Ed., M. F. McCarthy & L. Krauth, Trans.) (pp. 97–98). San Francisco: Ignatius Press.
Tappert, T. G. (Ed.). (1959). The Book of Concord the confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. (p. 250). Philadelphia: Mühlenberg Press.
A Tithe To Remember – A Good Friday Sermon
A Tithe to Remember
Luke 23:46
May the grace of God our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ bring such comfort and peace, that you with joy commit your spirit into their hands
Introduction
As this service draws to close, there is something we need to discuss, something I need to encourage you to do, that you might not want to do.
I am here to convince you to tithe.
Is that okay Pastor Rich? You aren’t going to mind if I talk about tithing a little, right?
By the way, by tithing I am not talking about a measly 10 percent of your net, or better 10% of your complete worth.
I am going to talk about a tithe of 100 percent.
The goal is to give it all to God, for that is what Peter is talking about when he tells believers,
“For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps.” 1 Peter 2:21 (NLT)
To tithe, to give it all, to take up your cross,
It is difficult, but not as difficult as you think. For Jesus shows the way, even as He utters these words,
46 Then Jesus shouted, “Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands!” And with those words he breathed his last. Luke 23:46 (NLT)
I entrust my spirit, or as the translation here has, “Into your hands I commit my spirit.”
When we hear Paul say, imitate me, as I imitate Christ, this is the kind of tithe we are talking about.
When we hear Jesus say, take up your cross that too is part of this tithe which we speak
So are you ready to tithe?
II. Christ’s tithe.
To tithe, means to commit, to entrust, to give over.
It is what Jesus does, as He entrusts everything to the Father as he is dying. Not 10 percent, not holding back anything. Theologians will talk discuss whether this is an act of the human part of Jesus, or the divine part, missing the point.
Jesus trusts the Father. They committed themselves to our salvation, before the world was began. You see it during all the work God did with Israel, assuring us of Christ’s presence, His love. And here, in the depth of His pain, as he bears the weight of the sin of the world, as He bears the weight of our sin.
Jesus entrusts Himself to the Father. He tithes.
He endures to the end, trusting in the Father, and the promises the Father made to us.
He entrusts Himself to God the Father, even as we should.
That is tithing,
Trusting, having faith, believing that the Father will keep to His promises.
III Our tithe.
So now, let’s talk about you and I, and how we take up our cross, how we walk in Jesus steps, how we are to tithe, commit, and entrust our Spirit to Christ.
The simple answer is, you already did. Well you didn’t…God took care of that for you. Nevertheless you are committed into His hands. You just need to realize it.
When a pastor poured water over you, or dropped you into a baptism tank, it wasn’t the pastor at work. It was God, taking you into His hands, promising to care for you, body, soul, spirit and mind. He united you to the cross with Christ, nailing your sins there, but promising that by the power that raised Christ from the dead, you would know that resurrection as well.
He committed Himself to holding you in His hands. He tithed you, completely into His hands.
When you hear a pastor forgive your sins, you are reminded, you are not your own, you’ve been bought with a price, the price pain on that cross.
When you are given His Body, when you drink His blood, the promise remains.
He died for you, and you shared in that death.
Even as you hold His body and blood in your hands, He has placed you into His own. He tithed you there.
When He says, Father, into Your hands I commit my Spirit… we are there, the children of God, the sisters and brothers of Christ, united to God through the death of Christ.
Here His words from the apostle John:
19 And I give myself as a holy sacrifice for them so they can be made holy by your truth. John 17:19 (NLT)
All this, the sermons, the music, the service, is here to convince you to persuade you of this, that as Christ tithes, as He commits His Spirit to the hands of the Father, so all in Christ are placed there too.
Secure, saved, redeemed, in Christ. Dead to sin, and alive to Him.
AMEN
(for the Greek and Hebrew Scholars out there, yes, I know that there is a word in Hebrew that means 10th, and iithemi – or paraTITHEmi is the word in Greek. Yet a tithe in Hebrew is a iving that represents ownership of the whole, by the one the 10th is given to.)
The Incredible Awe and Joy found in the Cross of Christ
Devotional Thought of the Day:
5 Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again— my Savior and 6 my God! Now I am deeply discouraged, but I will remember you— even from distant Mount Hermon, the source of the Jordan, from the land of Mount Mizar. 7 I hear the tumult of the raging seas as your waves and surging tides sweep over me. 8 But each day the LORD pours his unfailing love upon me, and through each night I sing his songs, praying to God who gives me life. Psalm 42:5-8 (NLT)
2 “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Tell her that her sad days are gone and her sins are pardoned. Yes, the LORD has punished her twice over for all her sins.” Isaiah 40:2 (NLT)
15 Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep. Romans 12:15 (NLT)
I sit here in my office, as prayer requests continue to role in. There are so many people out there who are hurting, grieving, struggling. There are families, torn apart, not just by the loss of a loved one, but by the turmoil that was anticipated, the turmoil there just below the boiling point,
I am sad, discouraged, grieving with those who grieve. Yesterday was hard, as we prepared for our serving, celebrating Christ’s last supper, the night when thoughts of death oppressed Him, our Lord. Oppressed Him as He looked upon the disciples, who hadn’t learned the lessons of serving yet. They argued about who would be first in the Kingdom. (after Jesus of course!) Oppressed as He considered Judas, who would betray Him with a kiss, and Peter, who would betray him not once, but three times. Considering the agony of the garden, where his closest friends couldn’t pray with Him one hour, even as many refuse to do so today. Considering that pain adds to the pain I am enduring, as tears come too often, as I consider the trauma of friends, the pains, the battles, the grief.
it seems ironic that this day, the day when He would die, when we celebrate His death, I would find joy and relief.
I came across the verses above, these incredible words of promise. That God’s love would pour over us like the constant swell of the ocean’s waves. That the days of dealing with our sin, and the brokenness that it thrusts upon us are over. Christ has been victorious, over my sin, over the bondage of guilt and shame that Satan used to oppress us.
It will be nearly 48 hours before this sinks in, and I like that. I need to spend some time in the awe of Christ dying for me. You should as well.
He died for us. Those nails that physically held Him to the cross didn’t bind Him there as strongly as the love that drove Him there… and again the words of Hebrews comes blaring back into my ears….
For the JOY set before Him!
The Joy we know, that we need to know, even as we feel discouraged, tired, betrayed; as we know grief, and pain,
and LOVE.
May you find rest and joy in this moment of contemplating His death, the death He embraced for you. AMEN!
