CSI: EASTER part 3

When all is said and done, the most crucial ? is: WHY?
Why did Christ suffer and die? Not in the sense of cause, but why in the sense of purpose? What did Christ achieve by His Passion? What great thing was happening on Calvary for the world?
What did God achieve for sinners like us in sending His Son to die?

Christ suffered and died...

...To Absorb the Wrath of God

If God were not just, there would be no demand for His Son to suffer and die. And if God were not loving, there would be no willingness for His son to suffer and die. But God is both just and loving. So His love is willing to meet the demands of His justice.
God’s law demanded, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might’ Dt. 6:5

But we have all loved other things more - put them above God - that’s what sin is, dishonoring God by preferring other things over Him and acting on those preferences.
So the Bible says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” Romans 3:23

We glorify what we enjoy most - wouldn’t you say? truck...
our own bodies... others bodies... our past heroics

Get this video and more at MySpace.com

We Glorify what we enjoy the most - for alot it’s not God

Since God is just, He doesn’t sweep these crimes under the rug of the univ. He feels a holy wrath against them - they
deserve to be punished and He’s made that clear:
“For the wages of sin is death” Romans 6:23
But the love of God does not rest - He is not content to show wrath, no matter how holy it is. So He sends His own Son to absorb His wrath and bear the curse for all who trust Him.
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us - for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree" Gal. 3:13
“For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God's anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us. God was being entirely fair and just when he did not punish those who sinned in former times” Ro. 3:25

It refers to the removal of God’s wrath by by providing a
substitute. - This sub. J.C. does not cancel out the wrath of God; He absorbs it and diverts from us to Himself. WOW!

...To Show the Wealth of God’s Love and Grace for Sinners

The measure of God’s love is shown to us by 2 ways:
One is the degree of his sacrifice saving us from the penalty of our sin - the other is the degree of unworthiness that we had when he saved us.
We can hear the measure of his sacrifice in John 3:16, ‘gave His only Son...” (how diff. to give up your only child)
adding to this the horrific death Christ suffered on the cross it becomes clear the sacrifice was indescribably great.
The measure increases even more when we consider our unworthiness.
“While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” Romans 5:8

Why do this at such a great cost? Show His love and Grace

...To Show His Own Love For Us

The early witnesses who suffered most for being christians were captured by this fact:
Gal. 2:20 “He loved me, and gave himself up for me”

This is certainly how we should grasp the sufferings and death of Christ - it is about His love for me personally b/c
It is my sin that cuts me off from God, not sin in general. It is my hard-heartedness that separates me from God.
Then I see Christ suffering and dying for Whom?
Ephesians 5:25 “Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.”
John 15:13“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends.”
and Mt. 20:28
“even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

I have to ask myself, Am I among the ‘many’? Oh yeah, He loves me!
So I too can say, ‘He loved me, and gave himself up for me”

...For The Forgiveness of Our Sins

Forgiveness assumes grace. If I am injured by you, grace lets it go. I don’t sue you, I forgive you. Grace gives what someone doesn’t deserve. That’s why forgiveness has the word ‘give’ in it - Forgiveness is not ‘getting even’ It is giving away the right to get even.
So it is w/ God’s justice. All sin is serious b/c it is against God (talked about) That’s why Christ suffered and died,
“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace”
Ephesians 1:7
Forgiveness costs us nothing - that’s why it’s called grace
God gave us what we needed, not what we deserve.
“for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” Matthew 26:28

...To Give Eternal Life to All Who Believe in Him

In our happiest times we do not want to die. The wish for death rises only when our suffering seems unbearable.
Even then what we really want is not death, but relief.
We would long for the good times to return and the pain to fade away. We want life and happiness.
That’s the longing of the human heart, to live and to be happy. You know God made us that way, Ecc. 3:11
“he has put eternity into man's heart”

We are created in God’s image, and God loves life and lives forever. We were made to live forever. And we will!

“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life” Jn. 3:36

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him"
1 Cor. 2:9
It is true every moment of life, now and always. The best is yet to come. For those who believe. (review)(do you believe)

...To Reconcile Us to God/Bring Us to God

The reconciliation that needs to happen between sinful man and Holy God goes both ways.
Our att. toward God must be changed from defiance to faith.
God’s att. toward us must be changed from wrath to mercy.
But the 2 are not the same - I need God’s help to change, but He does not need mine. My change will have to come from outside of me; God’s change originates in his own
nature. Which means overall it’s not a change for God at all.
2 Cor. 5:19
“in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.”
1 Peter 3:18
“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God”
J.C. was the bridge between Father God and man.(Jn.3:16)

...To Free Us From the Slavery of Sin

How does the blood of Christ liberate us from the slavery of sin? The answer is not that he is a powerful example to us and inspires us to free ourselves from selfishness - although Jesus is an example to us, and a good one too and He clearly meant for us to imitate him, John 13:34 -
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one
another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”

But the call to imitation is not the power of liberation.
There is something much deeper.
God gives us the power to change through the person of the Holy Spirit. That’s the beauty of the fruit of the Spirit...
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Gal. 5
In Christ we are now justified by His death and resurrection
and we live our lives for Him with the Holy Spirits help is called, sanctification. (life long process)
It is in God’s grace, thru Christ, that we are free from both the guilt and slavery to sin.
“All praise to him (J.C) who loves us and has freed us from our sins by shedding his blood for us” Rev. 1:5

...To Enable Us to Live For Christ & Not Ourselves

(ever get caught up in a little selfishness) “He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” 2 Cor. 5:15

Christ died that we might live for Him. Which doesn’t mean that we might help Him as if He needed any help.
Mark 10:45 says, “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve,
We just talked about the fact that Christ wants us to follow His example - He wants us to serve others - when we
sacrifice and serve others the love of God shines thru us.
(to put aside selfish desires)
We want to be a people who are known by love How?
sacrifice and serve - Christ S.D. enabled us to do just that.

...To Enable Us to Live by Faith in Him

(Paul) “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20

Christ is living in us and enabling us to live the way He teaches us to live. It’s His work. But from our side, it’s experienced by trusting Him moment by moment to be w/ us and help us. The proof that He will be with us and help us is the fact that he suffered and died to make it happen.

...To Create a Band of Crucified Followers

Christ died to create comrades on the Calvary road. Calvary is the name of the hill where He was crucified.
He knew that the path of His life would take Him there eventually.
And that nothing would hinder His mission to die.
He knew where and when it had to happen.
Christ wants everyone, all of us to meet him there - on that path and His words to us are this in Luke 9:23,
“If anyone would come after me, let him take up his cross daily and follow me.”

When Christ went to the cross, his aim was to call a great band of believers to continue the mission - we have been commissioned to go out, Matthew 28:19-20,
“go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you.” and in Luke 10:2,3
“He told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out
workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out...”

We are to continue the work in the power of Christ.

...To Free Us From The Bondage of Fear and Death

“Because God's children are human beings--made of flesh and blood--Jesus also became flesh and blood by being born in human form. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the Devil, who had the power of death. Only in this way could he deliver those who have lived all their lives as slaves to the fear of dying.”
Hebrews 2:14-15
Jesus called Satan a murderer. John 8:44
“He was a murderer from the beginning and has always hated the truth... for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
So this is what Christ came to do - take that weapon out of Satan’s hand. To do this, Christ took our sins upon Himself and suffered for them. When that happened they could no longer be used by the devil to destroy us.
Taunt us. Yes. Mock us. Yes. But try as he will, he cannot destroy us - the wrath of God is removed - His mercy is our shield and Satan cannot succeed.
To accomplish this deliverance, Christ had to take on a human nature, b/c w/out it He could not experience death. Only the death of the Son of God could destroy the one who had the power of death.
That’s why the Bible says in Heb. 2, we ‘share in flesh and blood’ b/c Christ took on a human nature. When Christ died for our sins, He took from the devil his one lethal weapon:
unforgiven sin.
The devil may be able to kill our body, but he can no longer kill our soul - it is safe w/ Christ.

...To Show That the Worst Evil is Meant by God For Good

"That is what has happened here in this city! For Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate the governor, the Gentiles,
and the people of Israel were all united against Jesus, your holy servant, whom you anointed. In fact, everything they did
occurred according to your eternal will and plan.” Acts 4:27-28

All of Christ’s suffering, the emotional and physical abuse even unto death was always the will and plan of God.
There is a greater good!
Jesus Christ stepped out of eternity and into humanity so that we might be saved! J C was born to die so that we might live!

we could go on and on...
...cancel the law, take away our condemnation, make us holy, blameless, and perfect, heal us of all our sickness,



one reason in a nutshell -
Christ suffered and died...
so our...
...past is forgiven; there's purpose for living; we have a home in heaven!