Text: 1Peter 2:24
The young couple visited the church. The wanted to know more so they enrolled in the pastor’s Bible information class. Early on, the pastor found out they were living together and not married. Now the pastor could have told them right off, that’s wrong. You need to repent. But he didn’t. Instead he waited for the Word to work. In his lessons, he taught them about Jesus, brought them to His cross. He showed them in God’s Word what God had done for them there. He didn’t shy away from teaching God’s will for our lives. But never without holding up Jesus and his saving love.
One day they came to the pastor. We have something to tell you. Pastor, we’re not living how God wants us to. We’re going to get married and while we wait, we’re going to live apart.
What had happened? What moved them to make such a change in their lives when so many are unwilling. What made them want to live a new life? Not shame, not someone telling them that’s wrong. No, what changed them, what moved them was something we see in this Word now facing the cross. Listen again: 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.
Today: Facing the cross – we see a kind of power
I. Jesus took from you a crushing burden
II. So that you can take up a new life.
Ever go backpacking when you were a kid. If you were like me, you brought too much stuff. Stuff that got very heavy on the trail. Of course, there may have been times when your dad taught you a lesson by making you carry what you brought. But there may have been another time when your shoulders were aching from the heavy load, your legs, feeling kind of rubbery. Then you heard a voice that said: Here son, let me carry that for a while. — Thanks dad. I know now you carried far more than that for mom, my sister and me. If only I would have appreciated it more.
Well tonight we want to appreciate what we see facing the cross of Jesus. There Jesus took more than a load from our tired shoulders. He took from us a crushing burden on our soul. We sometimes forget that. We don’t take it so seriously. So from time we need to stop and sense what a crushing burden it was. We need to go out to that Garden of Gethsemane where we see it begin to bear down. Listen as Jesus as prays in great anguish and drops of blood come from the pores of his skin.
But it’s the next day, Good Friday, where we really need to stop and sense that crushing burden. We get a glimpse of that in the gospels. But it’s Psalm 22 where the Holy Spirit reveals to us the thoughts of Jesus. There we sense that crushing burden, the burden of our sin. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint, my heart has turned to wax, it has melted within me. (Ps 22:14)
The hymn writer says it well: If you think of sin but lightly Nor suppose the evil great Here you see its nature rightly, Here its guilt may estimate. Mark the sacrifice appointed. See who bears the awful load…. Not me but him. Not me, the one deserves it many times over. But Jesus. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.
He himself did. The very Son of God. In his body. A body than not once in his life was given over to hatred or lust or self-centeredness. Yet he took our guilt on himself and let his body be hung on the wood of a tree. For there he took our place and suffered God’s curse, the crushing burden our sins deserve.
And by his wounds, you have been healed. That gapping, festering, infected wound of our guilt has been healed. There’s not even a scar for God to see and remember. In Jesus, God forgives and forgets every one of our sins. We’ve been healed. For Jesus took our crushing burden on himself and died for us. And why? Not just that we could be forgiven. Also so that you can take up a new life. There’s that power at the cross.
Let me tell something about Jerry, my kidney recipient. About twenty years ago, Jerry became very sick with kidney disease. He was put on the transplant list but it so is very long. Well at that time there was terrible car accident down in National City which killed a family. Jerry received one of their kidneys. When that happened, it wasn’t just his kidney that was changed. It was also his heart. From someone’s death had come another chance at life. Jerry made a promise to God that he would make a difference for him. And he did until he became sick again. As a chef at Sea World he and another man raised over a million dollars for charities. He and his wife took in a foster child whose mother was on drugs. Finally they decided to adopt her so she could escape that life for another.
Think about that. We are more like Jerry than we might realize. From someone’s death has come life for us. But that death was no accident. It was a gift, a sacrifice, an awesome act of love for you and me by the very Son of God So facing the cross, we see a kind of power and purpose for our lives. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness.
We Die to sins. What’s that mean? When someone dies a relationship comes to an end. We don’t want death to bring our relationships to an end. But with sin, it’s a different story. As God’s people we want to die to sin. Like that couple I mentioned, we want to put an end to those things in our lives that dishonor God and go against his will. So we confess those things and repent of them. We die to sins.
And we live for righteousness. Let’s make sure we understand. In Christ, that’s what we are. The good news is that God has covered our sins with a robe of righteousness. We are justified by faith in Jesus and his redeeming blood. And so now, we want to live for righteousness. We want all the more to be the kind of people that God would have us be.
But it’s a struggle. It will be as long as we live on this side of heaven. How blessed we are then to face the cross. How blessed we are to turn to this Word and see what God shows at the Cross. A love that took from you a crushing burden. A love that empowers you to live a new life. — dying to sin, living for righteousness, we seek to honor him who has blessed us so. Amen.
