HE CHOSE THE NAILS - I Peter 1:3-5
Feb. 25, 2001
Preached by Brent W. Zastrow, Saybrook Christian Church - Saybrook, Il.
I remember reading about a guy who stopped in the grocery store on the way
home from work to pick up a couple of items for his wife. He wandered around aimlessly
for a while searching out the needed groceries. As is often the case in the grocery store,
he kept passing this same shopper in almost every aisle. It was another father trying to
shop with a totally uncooperative three year old boy in the cart.
The first time they passed, the three year old was asking over and over for a candy bar.
Our observer couldn’t hear the entire conversation. He just heard Dad say, “Now, Billy,
this won’t take long.” As they passed in the next aisle, the three year old’s pleas had
increased several octaves. Now Dad was quietly saying, “Billy, just calm down. We will
be done in a minute.”
When they passed near the dairy case, the kid was screaming uncontrollably. Dad was still
keeping his cool. In a very low voice he was saying, “Billy, settle down. We are almost
out of here.” The Dad and his son reached the check out counter just ahead of our
observer. He still gave no evidence of loosing control. The boy was screaming and
kicking. Dad was very calming saying over and over, “Billy, we will be in the car in just a
minute and then everything will be OK.”
The bystander was impressed beyond words. After paying for his groceries, he
hurried to catch up with this amazing example of patience and self-control just in time to
hear him say again, “Billy, we’re done. It’s going to be OK.” He tapped the patient father
on the shoulder and said, “Sir, I couldn’t help but watch how you handled little Billy. You
were amazing.”
Dad replied, “You don’t get it, do you?” I’m Billy!”
Life is about choices isn’t it. Mark Twain said, “I have discovered that people are
about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” I believe he is right. And you are here
today in a frame of mind that you have chosen. O, we suffer through trials and problems
caused outside of our control, that’s true enough, but how we react to them, how they
affect us, that is a matter of our own choice.
Today I want to begin a series of sermons that points us toward Ressurrection
Sunday. This series is about some choices Jesus made. The choice to obey his Father’s
will completely, the choice to go to the cross and be our perfect sacrifice and also the
choice to experience all the things that led up to the cross -- the beatings, the ridicule, the
betrayal, the refusal of the drink of wine on the cross and even the nails. He chose the
nails.
I hope that these sermons will give us an even greater appreciation for what our
Lord has done for us. I hope it will help humble us knowing that someone has loved us
that much. Most of all I hope it will deepen our commitment and trust in Him.
Have you ever thought about all the choices the Heavenly Father has made for
you? Creating us and then giving us a free will, though he knew we would use it to
choose against him. Would you make a choice like that? I wouldn’t. Sending his
prophets to warn us about the dangers that lay ahead, again knowing they would be
rejected and some put to death. Continuing to receive His people back even though timte
after time they would wander away. Sending His only Son as our savior, a son that would
love with only perfect love, only to see him cruelly treated and hung on a cross between
two thieves. Then sending his Holy Spirit to live within us and be there as a guide to us,
just to see us do our best to snuff him out. Why has God made these choices? Becasue of
the great love he has for us. We are his pride and joy!
I have some pictures at home. They are pictures of me and my children and
grandchildren. In them you can find me with funny hats on, making silly faces or just
doing things that swank debonare gentlemen such as myself don’t always do, like putting
out fires with vacumn cleaner hoses, riding imaginary horses or being the engine of the
plane that flies Jordyn around the room. Why do we do those things without a second
thought as to its appearance? We love our children and grandchildre. They are our pride
and joy. And dear friends, God feels the same way about you.
Max Lucado in his book “He Chose The Nails” writes about the choices we make
because of our love for others. Listen to this description he gives of a time he went to buy
his wife a purse for a gift.(read pp. 3-6 He Chose the Nails)
And that folks is our message today -- God is many things, buts most of all he is a
giver. You know, when you think about it, we could really exist on far less. He could
have left the world flat and gray; we wouldn’t have known the difference. But he didn’t
He splashed orange in the sunrise
and cat the sky in blue,
And if you love to see geese as they gather,
chances are you’ll see that too.
Did he have to make the squirrel’s tail furry?
Was he obliged to make the birds sing?
And the funny way that chickens scurry
or the majesty of thunder when it rings?
Why give a flower fragrance? Why give food its taste?
Could it be
he loves to see
that look upon your face?
Jesus in describing God’s giving ways put it like this: If you hardheated, sinful
men know how to give good gifts to your children, won’t your Father in heaven even
more certainly give good gifts to those who ask him for them? - Ma. 7:11
And Paul said this, At just the right time, God chose to send his son into the
world to be a sacrifice for our sins.
Choices. God has made some wonderful choices for you and me. And one thing
is for sure, he has a son that is exactly like him. And so we find Jesus making similiar
choices. Choices that reflect a love beyond comprehension. Choices that caused him to
suffer so we might have life. Life eternal. Just as Peter describes it in our text today.
So as we consider the choices of a loving Father and a Savior who went through
so much for us, we are left with a very simple but very important choice ourselves, how
do we choose to respond? Unfortunately in our society today we believe that we can get
by and not have to make touch choices. I was watching TV yesterdy and folks the
labor-saving device that you have all been waiting for is finally out and here is the selling
line - Now you can have all the COMPOST you want. I don’t know about you but that
is a dream come true for me. I never could get enough compost for my liking. But now it
is available in this new machine that makes it for me and basically all I have to do is load in
the waste, turn a handle once in a while, and come back and get all that compost.
And one of the selling points is this -- you don’t have to work hard to have
compost any longer. Do you understand the message there? Now we even have to have
waste provided without effort. We are a people who will go to any length to get out of
work of any kind. So we try to skate through life. But it is not possible. Choices are
there to make. To decline to choose is to make a choice. So again I ask you, how will
you respond to the love of a savior who has gone through so much for you? What has he
gone through? Beating, being spit upon, feeling the pain of thorns as they are crashed
down upon his scalp. Being hung with two criminals therefore being identified as one of
them. Being stripped of his clothes. Watching as most his followers run for cover to save
themselves at his time of greatest need. And finally having nails driven through his hands
and feet. That’s what he went through for us. Those are the choices he made. Because
he loves you. And so, how do you respond to that? With calloused indifference, as
though it really never happened? With stubborn rejection, thinking you don’t really need
his help or his salvation? Or with a love in return that brings with it an ironclad
committment?
You see, as Peter wrote this first letter all those who read it had one thing in
common. They were all suffering for their faith. And Peter never apologizes for that nor
offers advice how to get around that. No, in fact Peter implies that if you are a Christian
in this world and you are not being persecuted in some way, you need to take a second
look at your committment to Christ. Most likely noone else even knows you are a
Chrisitian. Did you get that? You cannot live the Christian life in this world and escape
persecution. So if you are not being ridiculed, ostracised, rejected or critisized for your
faith, than your faith is not apparent. Jesus said they did it to the prophets, they will do it
to me and they will do it to you. If you try to get around it you are acting as if you are
greater than Jesus. That is called blasphemy and it is a very serious sin.
I suggest that we all take another look at our committment to Christ. How much
are we willing to suffere for him. Jesus said, if you save your life you lose your soul. He
chose the nails, what will you choose?
