Bridge Church Vancouver

The Christmas story is a story of redemption.  Maybe you thought it was a story of a baby and angels, and shepherds with a few kings thrown in bearing expensive gifts.  But in fact it is the greatest story of redemption of all time. 

To  re·deem

1. to buy or pay off; clear by payment: to redeem a mortgage.

2. to buy back, as after a tax sale or a mortgage foreclosure.

3. to recover by payment or other satisfaction: to redeem a pawned watch.

4. to exchange (bonds, trading stamps, etc.) for money or goods.

5. to convert (paper money) into specie.

6. to discharge or fulfill (a pledge, promise, etc.).

7. to make up for; make amends for; offset (some fault, shortcoming, etc.): His bravery redeemed his youthful idleness.

8. to obtain the release or restoration of, as from captivity, by paying a ransom.

9. to deliver from sin and its consequences by means of a sacrifice offered for the sinner.

The reason for the Christmas season for many people is to have a jolly and cute holiday filled with parties, presents and family,  but yet never really delivers the joy we somehow expect it to provide.  Perhaps it is because we become captivated by the cuteness of the nativity and lose sight of the cross. 

Jesus came to save sinners,  that is the reason he was born, “to redeem those under law”.   

As the angel said... “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.”

Matt 1:21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."

The Joy of this season is lost when we are not sure we need a saviour, that my sin is a problem that would require Jesus to come to earth and redeem me. 

This is the great problem of humanity;

We neither consider the seriousness of sin nor the majesty of God. 

This problem has created the great divide – the rift, the schism, the great divide between us and God.  

Jesus came at the time of God’s choosing, born as God’s Son, born of a woman, born under law to redeem those under law – because we needed him to, because we are sinners in a severed relationship with God and need his salvation, apart from him we have no life, no reason to be, no hope, no real joy.

Here is the problem:

God is holy & We are sinful

As in any broken relationship – there is a problem on both sides that must be reconciled before the relationship can be restored.  When someone believes the problem exists with the person on the other side but not on theirs then their belief perpetuates the broken relationship.  To restore broken relationships everyone has to address their side of the problem and this is true as well in our relationship with God – we have a problem and God has a problem and both need to be addressed.

You can say “wait, I thought the problem was all ours and God didn’t really have a problem, He is good and perfect right”  well yes, and that is the problem...

God’s problem – forgiveness  /  Our problem – responsibility

Our side of the problem is our sin, we do not want to take responsibility for it, it is no big deal to us.  We can explain things and that should make everything alright.

God’ side of the problem is He is holy and sin to him is much more than merely a moral breach of decency, it is more than a childish insult.  If we think it is difficult to forgive someone who has hurt us deeply, a spouse that has left you, a parent who has abandonded you, a murder, a thief, a rapist, we know the compromise of the very essence of who you are, it compromises your value as a person.   This morning we will see if we can’t understand a bit of the problem God faces for him to forgive us our sin.

All of this should help us know the great love that he has for us and experience the great joy that is in store for us.

God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law.

We, each one of us are born under law, the standard of living as God’s children, looking, acting, living like he would live.  And we have not fulfilled that expectation – what the Bible calls sin

This passage in Gal 4:4-5 teaches us that when God sent his son, Jesus, to earth, God sent his son to die, in our place.  To redeem us, He becomes our exchange.

The cross of Christ is the only ground on which God forgives sin and that really bewilders many people. 

“Why does God not simply forgive us, without the necessity of the cross?” 

“If we sin against one another, we are required to forgive one another.  Why can’t God practice what he preaches and be equally as generous, and just forgive us?”  Why does God make such a big deal about forgiving us and sending his son to die to do it, to make a ‘sacrifice for sin’?

And in fact, many today believe God forgives all, simply because he is loving, like we forgive because of an obligation to love.  This is not a new question, in fact...

The church father, Archbishop Anselm, of the eleventh century addressed this  and wrote,  “that God can simply forgive us as we forgive others, that person has 'not yet considered the seriousness of sin', or literally 'what a heavy weight sin is'”

Also, that by proposing such a response from God we ‘have not yet considered the majesty of God.’ 

Or as John Stott has said, ‘It is when our perception of God and man, or of holiness and sin, are askew that our understanding of the atonement is bound to be askew also’. 

For us to argue ‘we are to forgive others unconditionally (without a sacrificial death), let God do the same to us’ is not an argument of sophisticated reasoning but shallowness, since it overlooks the fact that we are not a holy God.

We are private individuals, and other peoples offenses are personal injuries.  But God is himself the maker of the laws we break and sin is rebellion against him. 

The question we should ask is not “why God finds it hard to forgive us” but “How he finds it possible to forgive us at all.

As Carnegie Simpson put it 'forgiveness is to man the plainest of duties; to God it is the profoundest of problems'.

Forgiveness is a problem for God!

For God, the problem of forgiveness is grounded in the conflict between divine perfection and our rebellion.  A conflict between God as he is and us as we are. 

The obstacle to forgiveness is neither our sin alone, nor our guilt alone, but also the divine reaction in love and wrath towards guilty sinners. 

For although ‘God is love’ – we also have to remember that His love is ‘holy love’, a love that longs for sinners and at the same time refuses to condone their sin.  For him to accept sinful people would require him to receive their sin with them and his holiness cannot allow it.

God is holy.  He is morally and intellectually perfect in every way.  He is good and no evil exists within him, sin is incompatable with his holiness. 

How can a holy God, lovingly forgive sinners without compromising his holiness and also in holiness judge sinners without frustrating his love? 

Hab 1:13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong.

Our sin effectively separates us from him so that his face is hidden from us and he refuses to listen to our prayers. (Isa 1:15; 1 Pet 3:7)

It was clearly understood by the Biblical writers 

Ex 3:6  At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God

Isaiah had a vision of God enthroned and exalted and was overwhelmed by a sense of his uncleanness.  When God revealed himself personally to Job, Job’s reaction was to despise himself and to repent in dust and ashes. 

Ezekiel saw only the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord in a burning fire and brilliant, but it was enough to make him fall prostrate to the ground.

Daniel also collapsed and fainted, with his face to the ground. 

Even those in the New Testament who were confronted with the Lord Jesus were profoundly impacted, he provoked in Peter a sense of is sinfulness and his unfitness to be in his presence.  And John when he saw his ascended magnificence ‘fell at his feet as though dead.

Closely related to God’s holiness is his wrath, which is a holy reaction to evil.  The idea that God could actually be angry with us is a very troubling thought.  That he could be hostile towards us is in direct opposition to our preferred understanding of a loving God.  However God’s holiness will always be antagonistic towards evil and will be expressed in its condemnation.

A dramatic way to understand that the holy God's rejection of evil is to consider the human body's rejection of food poison by vomiting.

If you have ever had food poisoning you know how your body absolutely rejects the bad food.  It is not just that you find it distasteful, you don’t like it, but it cannot stay in you.  Vomiting is probably the body's most violent of all reactions. The immoral and idolatrous practices of the Canaanites were so disgusting, it is written, that 'the land vomited out its inhabitants' (Lev 18), and the Israelites were warned that if they committed the same offences, the land would vomit them out as well.

God says that he 'abhorred' the Canaanites because of their evil doings.  The identical Hebrew word is used of him in relation to the stubborn disobedience of Israel in the wilderness: 'For forty years I was angry with (literally 'loathed') that generation.'

Yet it continues in the New Testament. When Jesus threatens to 'spit' the lukewarm Laodicean church people out of his mouth, the Greek verb literally means to 'vomit' (Rev 3:16)

Sin is like ‘food poisoning’ to Gods holiness – not that he finds our sin as distasteful, or disgusting, but it cannot stay with him.The picture may be shocking, but its meaning is clear. God cannot tolerate or 'digest' sin and hypocrisy.   Our sin is so repulsive to him that he must rid himself of them. He must spit or vomit them out.

Some people find it very difficult to forgive others and that can give us a glimpse of the problem that forgiveness raises for God. 

For God, the problem of forgiveness is grounded in the conflict between His divine perfection and our rebellion.  It is a conflict between God as he is and us as we are. 

The obstacle to forgiveness is neither our sin alone, nor our guilt alone, but also the divine reaction in love and wrath towards guilty sinners. 

The problem is our own sin. 

God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law.

We, each one of us are born under law, the standard of living as God’s children, looking, acting, living like he would live.  And we have not fulfilled that expectation – what the Bible calls sin.

Our problem comes when we do not want to regard The seriousness of sin

 The very word 'sin' has in recent years dropped from most people's vocabulary. It belongs to traditional religious language which, at least in the increasingly secularized West, is now declared by many to be meaningless. Moreover, if and when 'sin' is mentioned, it is most likely to be misrepresented and misunderstood. What is it, then?

The New Testament uses five main Greek words for sin, which together portray its various aspects.

1.     The commonest is ‎hamartia‎, which depicts sin as a missing of the target, the failure to attain a goal, our inability to live a holy, pure, morally right, good at all times and in all ways kind of life.     

Rom 3:23  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

2.    ‎Adikia ‎is 'unrighteousness' or 'iniquity', - when we have acted unjust to someone, we have not done the good and right thing towards another person.

1 Peter 3:18 For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.

3.     ‎poneria ‎is evil of a vicious or degenerate kind. When we have desired evil on someone, desired to trap or trick them.  When we want to do something ‘wrong’ because we can and think it will be fun or make us feel good.

Matt 5:22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brotherb will be subject to judgment.

Matt 22:18   But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me?

Both these terms seem to speak of an inward corruption or perversion of character.

4.      The more active words are ‎parabasis  a 'trespass' or 'transgression', the stepping over a known boundary, it is when we brag about breaking God’s law      

Rom 2:23  You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? 2

5.     ‎anomia‎, 'lawlessness', the disregard or violating God’s ways. In each case there is either a standard we fail to reach or a line we deliberately cross.    

Matt 23:28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

Sin is not a regrettable lapse from conventional standards; its essence is hostility to God (Rom 8:7), issuing in active rebellion against him. It has been described in terms of 'getting rid of the Lord God' in order to put ourselves in his place in a haughty spirit of 'God-almightiness'.

We have all sinned, though we are hesitant to admit it.  We minimize our sin, pass it off to someone or something else.  We make light of it, joke about it and at the same time we endeavoured to set ourselves up as God, to call the shots like we were God.

Like Isaiah 45:21, God declares himself to be ‘a righteous God and a Saviour’?   God demonstrates his righteousness by taking action to save us.  At the cross in holy love God through Christ paid the full penalty of our disobedience himself.  He bore the judgement we deserve inorder to bring us the forgiveness we do not deserve. 

JESUS IS THE SOLUTION TO OUR PROBLEM

As Stott put it: “On the cross divine mercy and justice were equally expressed and eternally reconciled.  God’s holy love was ‘satisfied’.”

Gal 4:4  “But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son...”

God’s plan was fulfilled on the cross

Rom 5:6-8 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

When Jesus died in our place, our sin died with him, He took on him all our sin so that what remains is us who can be received by a holy God. 

Rom 6:10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

Rom 5:9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! 10 For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

When the angel said...” , "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.”

They knew what they were talking about.

Now the question is – Are you experiencing the redemption Jesus came to provide?

Are you living in the light of Christ’s redemption, where your standing before God has changed from one who his holiness has to reject entirely to one his love receives completely.  

This Advent, we celebrate our relationship with God because we have been redeemed through the death of his son Jesus on the cross, he gave his flesh and blood for us so that we might live.

Now we live with joy.