NO GREATER LOVE
For God so loved the world …
When I got ready to order the invitations for the Thirtieth Anniversary Service I was frustrated by the choices that were available to me from my printer. Every layout that had a Cross was a “crucifix:” all of them had a representation of Jesus, still nailed to the Cross.
Old Baptist boy that I am, I am very sensitive to crucifixes. We believe it is important that any time the Cross is represented it is a plain Cross – that Jesus is not on it … “‘cause we know He came down from that Cross, and on the third day morning He got up, with all power in His hands!”
And there, in very simple terms, is a summary of the focus of a typical “Easter Sermon” – not just in the Baptist Church, but pretty much wherever you go in Protestant/Reformed/Evangelical circles. The primary focus of a good Easter Sermon, for most of us, is to preach about the familiar theme “He Is Risen, as He said He would!” And especially in the Baptist Church where every sermon is judged on its merits by whether it takes the audience through the Crucifixion and all the way to the Resurrection.
Which is why I hope it won’t mess with your theology, too much, if I go in a different direction this Easter.
I want to suggest to you that the events that transpired on that weekend were important, to be sure, but long before that horrible time of Passion – in fact, long before God ever implanted His awesome seed into the anointed belly of a chosen virgin – in fact, long before that maiden was ever conceived in her mother’s womb – in fact, long before the foundation of the world – some principles had been set in place in the heavenlies that would overshadow the events of Calvary with purpose!
Here on Easter Sunday in the Year of our Lord 2005 I am standing flat-footed before you to declare to you that there is NO GREATER LOVE than this that a man would lay down His life for His friends.
I stand before you to tell you that GOD LOVED THE WORLD SO MUCH that He gave His only-begotten Son so that anyone who believes in Him will not perish but will have everlasting life!
Easter was God
Loving you … Calvary
Was God Loving you
Jesus looked down from the Cross and declared, “Daddy, I love ‘em”
I know they deserve to be wiped off the face of the universe – especially for what they are doing to me,
right now, but forgive ‘em …
‘cause I love ‘em, but don’t just forgive ‘em
That He gave His only-begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life
May they all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me and I am in You. May they also be one in Us, so that the world may believe You sent Me. I have given them the glory that You have given to Me. May they be one just as We are one. I am in them and You are in Me. May they be made completely one, so that the world may know You sent Me and that You have loved them just as You have loved Me. (John 17:21-23 Holman CSB)
I want to provoke you again to consider the depth of God’s love, when you notice that the very first person chosen to be an Evangelist of the Gospel – the very first person chosen to carry the news that Christ is Risen was a woman who had spent her life outside the fringes of “decent society” – a woman who had been plagued by demons and confined to the dregs of her community – until the day she had an encounter with Jesus and He set her free.
Now she is more than just a woman of ill repute, she is the person designated to come with oils and spices to anoint the body of the Lord in the tomb.
The message?
That Jesus is the God of the “whosoevers”
That He came into this world for the express purpose that “whosoever” would have a right to everlasting life.
Let me set this sacred algorithm before you
Jesus said that that whosoever believed in him would not perish …
And then in chapter 15 He said that the “whosoevers” that believed in Him and did His commands would be His friends …
And because they were His friends, He would lay down His life for them …
And in laying down His life He would be entitling them to have everlasting life.
So I have a message for the “whosoevers:”
The world may reject you, but not Jesus!
Nerd or Nasty
Wimp or Whoremonger
Skank or Scholar
Every Nobody
Every Somebody
Every Busybody
Every Homebody and every Hillbilly
Addict
Advocate
Politician and Playboy
I need you to see Christ for the first time through your spiritual eyes; and see Him with His loving hands extended, saying I am the God who comforts thee, and I want you to know – though the world may call you the Least, the Last and the Lost – if you will obey my commandments, no matter what anybody else calls you, I will call you “friend!”
That morning when Mary Magdalene came to the cave, she didn’t get it right away. Something must have clicked in her, when she heard Him call her name. Maybe in that instant she remembered something she’d heard Him say
I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep … Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. (John 10:14-18)
She remembered, and in that instant the “whosoever” was transformed into the Voice of God
For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:7-8
Can I have a moment?
Last week, when we talked about God’s Triumphant Love, I made a statement to the effect that it’s good it was Jesus and not me who had to go up to that Cross or man – as the kids used to say – would be HIT!
I need to raise some thoughts into your thinking about the extent to which God’s sending Christ was an act of unparalleled love … ‘cause I’m sure that some of you are on the way to the mall right now to get your pretty Easter suit … and I know a lot of you saw Mel Gibson’s The Passion – either Version One or Version Two – and you are probably feeling really sensitive right now about what they did to Him … and that’s all good; but I need to mess with your theology one more time to help you get the full picture of God’s love.
So let me just mention that God didn’t do this for us because we were good! Jesus didn’t die for us because we saw The Passion and decided we were gonna get our act together and start living holy, and start working in the Church, and settle down and stop cheating on our wives,
Or stop hanging out at the bar until we were stinking drunk.
Jesus died for us despite those things!
The Bible says He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. (John 1:11-12)
Isaiah’s prophecy said in advance that He would be rejected. John picked up on the fact that His own people rejected Him – maybe because he was trying to say if anybody embraced Him it should have been His own people, who had prophecy on their side to tell them he was coming!
But that is not all: not only did His own people reject Him but Isaiah says that everybody rejected Him:
He was despised and rejected – a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way when he went by. He was despised, and we did not care. Isaiah 53:3 NLT
Now I mention this in the first place because I want to make it clear: if it’s me, and I know that I’m about to be nailed to this Cross – but not before they beat me to within an inch of my life, spit on me, mock me, and drag me through the public square lugging the penal lumber on my shoulders – I know this … and I know that no sooner than I spit out my last breath you are going to turn your back on me and spit on my sacrifice … guess what? I ain’t going!
Let somebody else go through the agony!
Let somebody else suffer the humiliation!
And while we’re talking about this thing, let me bring up a few other things.
You do know that in human society there is this concept called “punishment fitting the crime?” What this concept means is that the greater the punishment the greater the crime.
So a person steals a piece of candy doesn’t get the same punishment as the murdered, or the rapist, or the evil dictator belonging to the “axis of evil.” And when you think about it in even human terms the most heinous crimes are only punishable by the death of the perpetrator – not the death of somebody else.
But SIN …
Sin is so great a crime against God that even the death of the perpetrator is not enough to vanquish it. Sin is such a heinous crime that it required that somebody else die – someone blameless and without Sin – die in the place of the perpetrator otherwise not only would the perpetrator suffer the punishment but his children, and his children’s children, children’s children’s children … to the nth degree until somebody got the message and produced someone blameless and without Sin.
And that’s not all: just any blameless, sinless individual will not do. Sin is a sin so terrible that only the blood of the Son of God had the power to take it away.
Let us now be abashed at His love, let us be ashamed at the excess of His lovingkindness, since He for our sakes spared not His Only-begotten Son, yet we spare our wealth to our own injury; He for us gave His Own Son, but we for Him do not so much as despise money, nor even for ourselves. And how can these things deserve pardon? If we see a man submitting to sufferings and death for us, we set him before all others, count him among our chief friends, place in his hands all that is ours, and deem it rather his than ours, and even so do not think that we give him the return that he deserves. But towards Christ we do not preserve even this degree of right feeling. (John Chrysostom 354 A. D., emphasis mine)
Now, let me get back to me …
You tell me man is not gonna respect and appreciate my death on the Cross … that even the people who saw The Passion and promised to turn their lives around and start living for God were gonna be up to their old tricks, before the pop stains were dry on the carpet --- and I’ll tell you – in no uncertain terms – send somebody else!
Here’s my rule: “Fix your life!”
“Stop sinning and be in Church every single Sunday – at the Altar, repenting for what you did!”
“Do that for about 2-3 years and then we’ll convene the Divine Parole Board, and I’ll think about going to the Cross for you!”
I can hear Divine Justice in the background, saying, “Humph! You’re a good one … I say Annihilate him! Don’t deserve a second chance!”
God said, “You’re right – both of you – but I love him! And to show you how much … he doesn’t have to clean up. He doesn’t have to wait until he starts living up to the gift I’m about to give him. He doesn’t even have to love me, the way I love him. Just believe, and I’ll do it Myself!”
And so He came. He came and He lived, and He affirmed His love toward us and He endured the mockery, and she shame, and the pain, and the Passion …
And He died …
And on the morning of the third day … this Easter Day … He shook off the grave clothes and arose to go to His Father with the news: “I did it, Father … I LOVED THEM TO DEATH!”
“Now instead of perishing – and they truly were perishing, even if they didn’t realize how close they came – now instead of perishing they can have everlasting life.
So, what have we learned? Adam Clarke, I think, said it better than I ever could:
First, The world was in a ruinous, condemned state, about to perish everlastingly; and was utterly without power to rescue itself from destruction.
Secondly, That God, through the impulse of his eternal love, provided for its rescue and salvation, by giving his Son to die for it.
Thirdly, That the sacrifice of Jesus was the only mean by which the redemption of man could be effected, and that it is absolutely sufficient to accomplish this gracious design: for it would have been inconsistent with the wisdom of God, to have appointed a sacrifice greater in itself, or less in its merit, than what the urgent necessities of the case required.
Fourthly, That sin must be an indescribable evil, when it required no less a sacrifice, to make atonement for it, than God manifested in the flesh.
Fifthly, That no man is saved through this sacrifice, but he that believes, i.e. who credits what God has spoken concerning Christ, his sacrifice, the end for which it was offered, and the way in which it is to be applied in order to become effectual.
Sixthly, That those who believe receive a double benefit: 1. They are exempted from eternal perdition-that they may not perish. 2. They are brought to eternal glory-that they may have everlasting life. These two benefits point out tacitly the state of man: he is guilty, and therefore exposed to punishment: he is impure, and therefore unfit for glory.
