How Much Are We Willing to Sacrifice to Fulfill Our Mission?
Jesus Christ is our example. He fulfilled His mission. As we think about how Christ fulfilled His mission, we also think about our own mission — to what degree are we fulfilling our mission before God? We speak of mission because God redeemed us with a purpose. He did not redeem us by works, but by faith. Yet He redeemed us for the good works which God “prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10). This means that He has a plan, and we are meant to take part in it.
We are dividing this teaching into three parts. The first part had to do with the purpose of the mission of Jesus Christ — the fact that He knew what He had to do. The second part had to do with the focus of Jesus’ mission. He was focused on what He had to accomplish, and He guarded His mission so that it would not be thwarted. The third part has to do with the price that Jesus paid to fulfill His mission. We must always ask ourselves the question of the price, because the gospel truly is free, but the decision to be a follower of Christ is not free. There is a spiritual price that must be paid. It is a price expressed in obedience to Christ; a price that may take the form of self-denial, suffering, enduring persecution for the sake of the gospel, and being deprived of various things. Jesus Christ said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). To carry your cross means to walk toward death. Death does not mean the eternal end of life; it means separation. For when you die to the things of this world, you separate yourself from them so that you can be alive to God. But sooner or later every Christian is faced with this choice. You must decide whether you will choose this world or you will choose the cross. In another place Jesus Christ says, “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” (Mark 8:36) So at one point in your life you have to make a choice — whether you will gain the whole world, or give up everything, take up your cross, and follow your Lord completely. Every Christian sooner or later reaches a point in life when he must make this decision. This teaching about our Lord helps us, because in Him we see the perfect example of the Son of God, of the Anointed One, of the Messiah, who knew His purpose, who guarded it, and who paid an incredible price to accomplish it.
Jesus knew His purpose. Jesus guarded His purpose. What was His purpose? To seek and to save the lost. And how would He do it? By dying on the cross for us. That is why He “set His face” toward Jerusalem and let nothing stand in His way — between Him and the cross. He guarded His mission the whole time. What were the four ways in which Jesus guarded His mission?
- Withdrawal — He avoided His enemies.
- Faithful friends — He surrounded Himself with friends, with people who valued Him and loved Him.
- Carefully considered answers — He spoke in such a way that they could not trap Him in His words.
- Expert management of time — He governed His time step by step.
Jesus knew His mission. He guarded His mission. And now He was going to sacrifice Himself in order to fulfill His mission. This teaching is deeply theological, and it will stretch the boundaries of our thinking as we come to understand and appreciate Jesus. When we are done, we will be truly moved and stirred by what our Lord Jesus Christ did for us. It is like a crescendo of suffering. A musical crescendo is a gradual increase in the volume of sound. When a song begins softly but the strength of the tone gradually grows, in musical terms this is called a “crescendo.” But here we have not a musical crescendo, but a crescendo of suffering — a gradual intensifying of the suffering that Jesus bore, and a rising of the price that He paid for us. It grew from a physical price, to an emotional price, and finally to the spiritual price that He paid to fulfill His mission.
We left off at the moment when Jesus was arrested. So now He goes toward the series of trials that await Him. At their end He is found guilty and sentenced to death by crucifixion. The charges against Him were false. He was accused of stirring up political rebellion, of raising the masses in arms against the emperor. Pilate finds Him guilty, and He was executed.
The Jews accused Him of blasphemy, but for the Romans this was not a capital crime or a crime deserving death. All they cared about was preserving the peace of the empire. So their verdict was that Jesus had proclaimed Himself king of the Jews and had thereby challenged the authority of Emperor Tiberius. His sentence was written on the cross: “The King of the Jews.” Nevertheless, Pilate hesitated to sentence Him to death; he was indecisive in his judgment. But in the end he gave in to the pressure of the crowd. In an attempt to save Jesus, Pilate asked them, “Whom will you choose — Barabbas or Jesus?” But the crowd shouted, “We choose Barabbas! Let Jesus be crucified!” So Pilate washed his hands and sent Jesus to the cross (Matthew 27:11-26).
The Physical Price
When we think about Jesus and about the crucifixion, we usually stop at the physical suffering that He endured:
- the fact that He was scourged;
- that a crown of thorns was pressed onto His head;
- we think of the nails that pierced His body;
- we think of the suffocation He suffered on the cross.
All of this is bound up with pain, with physical suffering. Mel Gibson’s film “The Passion of the Christ” makes us think about the physical pain that Jesus had to endure. It was a film full of violence and blood. The blood of Jesus streamed down His whole body — from His head, from His face, from His back.
So on the cross Jesus paid a physical price in order to fulfill His mission.
The Emotional Price
But that was only the beginning. Jesus suffered even more. He experienced not only physical pain, but emotional pain as well. What was the emotional price that Jesus paid — a price bound up with His feelings? On the cross Jesus was placed in a position where He experienced the deepest shame.
The Shame of Nakedness
The Jews had three great fears. First, they feared being crucified, because the Old Testament said, “Anyone who is hung on a pole is under God’s curse.” They thought that to be crucified was a curse from God.
The second fear of the Jews was to be left unburied. If you were crucified, there was a great likelihood that your body would be eaten by birds and animals and would not be buried. Deuteronomy 21:22-23 says:
22 If someone guilty of a capital offense is put to death and their body is exposed on a pole, 23 you must not leave the body hanging on the pole overnight. Be sure to bury it that same day, because anyone who is hung on a pole is under God’s curse. You must not desecrate the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. (Deuteronomy 21:22-23)
Studying ancient crucifixion, archaeologists have found the bones of people executed in this way. Very often the Romans would leave them hanging on the crosses as a warning to others, that if they did not submit, the same fate would befall them. The sight was horrifying, as the corpses hung on the crosses and the birds came and fed on the dead, decaying flesh. That is why this was one of the three great fears of the Jews — that they would not be buried, but instead the animals or the birds would eat their flesh.
The third fear of the Jews was to be stripped naked before others. This came from the time of Noah. Remember Noah, who, after he came out of the ark, planted a vineyard, and after one drunken night his sons saw the nakedness of their father. From that patriarch came the shame of being naked before others. And Jesus was crucified naked on the cross. Most likely He was not completely naked, since He had a loincloth, but we know for certain that He was stripped. How do we know this? The Gospels say that the soldiers cast lots — they gambled — for His “clothing.” The most valuable garment He had was His tunic. In Greek it is called “chiton” — this was the first garment worn against the body. Today’s equivalent of such a garment would be what we call “underclothing,” or what you wear beneath your outer clothes. His outer garments are called “himatia” — the plural of “himation” — and His “garment” is called “chiton” — singular (John 19:23-24).
23 When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. 24 “Let’s not tear it,” they said to one another. “Let’s decide by lot who will get it.” This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled that said, “They divided my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.” So this is what the soldiers did. (John 19:23-24)
Notice, the lot was not cast for His clothes — His clothes included His outer garment, His belt, His sandals, and His turban, and they divided these among themselves without arguing. But the lot was cast only for one of His garments — for His tunic, or chiton.
In Mark 15:20 it says that after they had mocked Him, dressing Him in a purple robe, they stripped Him and put His own clothes on Him (Mark 15:16-20).
16 The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. 17 They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. 18 And they began to call out to him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” 19 Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. 20 And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him. (Mark 15:16-20)
The fact is that Jesus was naked on the cross, and He was shamed by the nakedness that was seen by everyone who passed by Golgotha. The women standing beneath the cross — His mother, Mary Magdalene, and hundreds, if not thousands, of people who passed by — all saw Him stripped. Perhaps it is not by chance that the evangelists emphasize that they watched Jesus “from a distance” — perhaps because they were ashamed to draw near to Him, because on the cross Jesus was naked (Mark 15:40-41).
40 Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joseph, and Salome. 41 In Galilee these women had followed him and cared for his needs. Many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem were also there. (Mark 15:40-41)
The Creator Humiliated by His Creation
Jesus was crucified outside the city walls, on a hill called “Golgotha.” Jerusalem lay on a trade route. Remember the inscription above Jesus’ head. What did it say? “THE KING OF THE JEWS” (Mark 15:26). It was written in three languages (John 19:20). Why? Because Jerusalem was a commercial center, and people from all over the world of that time streamed into it. They could read the inscription; they knew who the crucified one really was. The Jews were not pleased with what Pilate wrote. They wanted him to write “the self-proclaimed king of the Jews” (John 19:21-22). All who passed by mocked Him (Matthew 27:39-44):
39 Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads 40 and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!” 41 In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. 42 “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43 He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” 44 In the same way the rebels who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him. (Matthew 27:39-44)
They mocked Him, they spat on Him. But if you would only pause for a moment and consider… Who was on the cross? God. God, the Creator, hung there crucified. For in Colossians 1:16 it says:
16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. (Colossians 1:16)
Jesus was a full participant in Creation. The entire Trinity took part in Creation. In Genesis chapter 1 we have this phrase, which is repeated several times: “And God said…” — that was God the Father.
In Genesis 1:2 it says that the Holy Spirit took part in creation.
2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (Genesis 1:2)
And from John 1:3 and Colossians 1:16 it is clear that Jesus, too, took part in creation. So on the cross hung the Creator. And who was mocking Him? Who was spitting on Him? Who was scourging Him? Who nailed Him to that cross? The creation! The creation humiliating the Creator?! The creation that He made. The creation blaspheming against its Creator. All of this crushed God’s heart. Jesus could have said in that moment, “After everything I have done for you, is this how you treat Me? You have stripped Me before everyone, you spit on Me, you humiliate Me, after I gave you the gift of life.” What ingratitude! The shame and the ingratitude were the emotional blows to Christ’s soul. This was the emotional price that crushed His heart. The creation despised, spat upon, humiliated, and blasphemed against its Creator.
Here there is a crescendo of suffering. The pain increases. First, Jesus endured this physical pain, which was unbearable. With that scourging, crucifixion, suffocation, dehydration — He was simply in agony. Crucifixion is execution by torture, so cruel and so brutal that none of the ancient authors permit themselves to describe exactly what crucifixion on a cross involves. Even in the New Testament it is not described, but it simply says, “they led Him to the place called Golgotha and there they crucified Him.” It does not say exactly what they did while they were crucifying Him, because it was something horrifying, and hanging on that cross was something truly brutal and unbearably painful. Here the crescendo of Christ’s pain and suffering grows greater — from the physical to the emotional price that He had to pay in order to fulfill His mission.
The Spiritual Price
Against the backdrop of all this physical pain came the shame, the emotional pain that Jesus endured on the cross. But the true measure of Jesus’ pain and suffering can be understood only when we grasp the spiritual price that He paid. To do this, we must go to Gethsemane. There, during the prayer in Gethsemane, Jesus took upon Himself the sin of the whole world. It is very important that we understand exactly what happened there. Jesus is praying in the garden, and something terrible is happening to Him. Something that causes Him to sweat drops of blood. Matthew 26:36-46 is the main account of Gethsemane, and there it says that Jesus grieved so deeply that He was sorrowful to the point of death. Three times He prayed the same prayer.
36 Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” 37 He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” 39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” 40 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. 41 “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:36-41)
42 He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” 43 When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. (Matthew 26:42-43)
44 So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing. 45 Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. 46 Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!” (Matthew 26:44-46)
How many times did Jesus pray? Three times. There is a very important rule in hermeneutics (the branch of theology that deals with the interpretation of the Scriptures), and it is this: if something is repeated several times in Scripture, it is important. If there is something in the text that God wants us to notice, then it stands out through repetition and by being mentioned more than once. This is a very important rule in interpreting the Bible. For example, each one of the seven letters to the seven churches in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 ends the same way: “Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” It is something that stands out and draws attention. In the Sermon on the Mount the phrase repeated several times is: “You have heard that it was said…, but I tell you…” and so on (Matthew 5:21, 22, 27, 28). So if something is repeated in the text, we, as disciples of the Word, must stop and say to ourselves, “There is something important here that God wants me to see.” In the case of the prayer in Gethsemane, what was the interesting thing? The fact that He prayed three times with the same prayer. So God wants us to see something important in this prayer. What was the prayer (Matthew 26:39-44)?
39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39)
42 He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” (Matthew 26:42)
44 So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing. (Matthew 26:44)
He prayed with the same words not once, but three whole times. What does God want us to see in this prayer? What does Jesus mean by, “If it is possible, may this cup be taken from me…”? What was He asking of God the Father? Jesus was not asking to be freed from the cross. He was not praying to be spared and to somehow avoid death. When did Jesus agree to go to the cross? Before Creation. Even then Jesus said, “I will go and I will die for them.” He was chosen as the Lamb without blemish before the creation of the world (1 Peter 1:18-20).
18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. (1 Peter 1:18-20)
The Cup of God’s Wrath
There is something in Christ’s prayer in Gethsemane that hints at what God wants to draw our attention to, and that is the word “cup.” Let us read several other verses of Scripture that mention the word cup, and notice what the cup is a metaphor for in them.
17 Awake, awake! Rise up, Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his wrath, you who have drained to its dregs the goblet that makes people stagger. (Isaiah 51:17)
15 This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it.” (Jeremiah 25:15)
10 they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. (Revelation 14:10)
19 The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath. (Revelation 16:19)
What is the connection between Jesus’ prayer and these four verses? In all of them “the cup of God’s wrath” is mentioned. The Jews knew from the Old Testament, from the prophets, that figuratively speaking God’s wrath is poured out from a cup, from a goblet. In the prayer Jesus was especially stirred with emotion. He was asking that “this cup” would “be taken from” Him. What did He want? Jesus wanted to be spared from God’s wrath, if it could be avoided. He was ready to suffer physically, to be scourged. He was ready to be nailed to the cross. He was ready even to be mocked and shamed. But what He wanted was, if it were possible, to be spared from God’s wrath. Until that moment the Father had never treated the Son with wrath. Remember, at the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan a voice came from heaven that said, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11). The Father loved the Son. Their relationship is a relationship of incredible love. The Father had never treated the Son with wrath. This was precisely what Jesus was praying for, that it might be spared Him if possible — “the cup of God’s wrath.” But He knew that this had to happen. That is why He said, “Not My will, but Yours.”
What was happening in that moment was evident from the words that Jesus spoke from the cross. We can picture God’s wrath from the statements Jesus made while He was on the cross. They are not arranged in the Gospels in a definite chronological order, but we will try to gather them into what was most likely the order of the “Seven Words from the Cross.”
1: Father, Forgive Them, for They Do Not Know What They Are Doing
What was the first thing Jesus said? As they were nailing Him to the cross, Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:33-34). The word “Father” is very important. What was the last thing (the seventh) that He said? “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:44-46). After He said this, Jesus bowed His head and breathed His last. But notice, again the word “Father.” At the beginning of the cross was the Father. At the end of the cross, again, was the Father.
Before we continue, let us recall the clues in the text about the crucifixion — the way the Romans divided time. By the Roman clock, Jesus was crucified around the third hour (from sunrise), according to the text of Scripture (Mark 15:25).
25 It was nine in the morning when they crucified him. (Mark 15:25)
And while they are nailing Him, Jesus prays, “Father, forgive them…” This takes place around nine in the morning. When did He die? It was around the ninth hour — that is, around three in the afternoon. On the cross Jesus was for a total of six hours. At the end of His time on the cross, He again says “Father” — “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
2: Truly I Tell You, Today You Will Be with Me in Paradise
What was the second word? The second thing He says is to the criminal: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).
3: Woman, Here Is Your Son!
What was the third word? The third was to His mother Mary: “Woman, here is your son!” and to John: “Here is your mother!” (John 19:25-27). These two may be interchanged, but most likely Jesus says them while He still had strength. Because the longer His body hung on the cross, the more His strength waned. Jesus was losing blood, becoming dehydrated, suffocating. He could not draw breath. And from the lack of air, the sac around His heart (the pericardium) began to fill with fluid…
7: Father, Into Your Hands I Commit My Spirit
Now let us continue from the end backward. We said what the seventh word from the cross was: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
6: It Is Finished!
And what do you think number six was? Jesus’ next-to-last words were: “It is finished!” (John 19:30). This is an extraordinarily important statement. Among other things, this word, translated literally, means “paid in full.” “Paid in full” is an accounting term. For example, suppose I am a bank clerk, and you are a businessman who has taken out a loan from my bank. If you come and pay only the interest on the loan, I will stamp your documents with a stamp that says “partially paid.” But when you repay the whole loan, then I will take another stamp, on which it will say “paid in full.” In the Old Testament people took animals — lambs, calves, doves — and brought them to the temple and offered them as sacrifices for their sins. But the blood of the sacrificial animals forgave sins only temporarily — “partially paid.” But when the true Sacrifice came — “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” as John the Baptist called Him — things changed. While Jesus hung on the cross, just before He died, He declared, “Paid in full!” All the sin of all humanity — Redeemed! Forgiven! — through the blood of Jesus Christ. No one can earn his own salvation. It was paid in full by Jesus Christ there on the cross.
5: I Am Thirsty
But what did Jesus say before “It is finished”? What was the fifth word from the cross? He said, “I am thirsty” (John 19:28-29). What was happening to His body? His body was becoming dehydrated, losing its bodily fluids, exposed under the hot sun. He still had to say that our sins are forgiven, to declare our redemption, to say “It is finished!” — but His tongue was dried out and swollen. He needed strength. He needed moisture. That is why He said, “I am thirsty.” Then the soldiers raised to His lips a sponge soaked, not with wonderful cold water, but with vinegar. Why did they do this? The Romans were experts in torture. Imagine what an incredible torment it is — if you and I were dying of thirst, would we want vinegar at that very moment? But this was part of the torture. Jesus needed to moisten His tongue; He needed strength so that He could say, “It is finished. Paid in full! The sins of every person are forgiven.”
4: My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?
And now we are left with one final statement that we have not mentioned — the fourth. And what was it? “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus spoke these words right in the middle of them all. The text says that something happened in the sixth hour, at twelve o’clock noon. What happened? Darkness covered the land for three hours.
45 From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. 46 About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”). (Matthew 27:45-46)
Does this darkness remind you of something? It reminds us of the exodus from Egypt. Then there was a similar darkness. It was one of the Ten Plagues of God. How long did that plague last? Three days (Exodus 10:21-22). There it was for three days, and on the cross it was for three hours. And remember at what time Jesus was on the cross — during the Passover. The darkness in Egypt preceded the pouring out of God’s wrath. After it came the final plague, which was the death of the firstborn in Egypt. Whose death did the darkness precede now? The death of the Firstborn Son of God.
The darkness in Egypt was because of God’s wrath, because Egypt rejected God. He was drawing their attention with miracle after miracle, but again and again they rejected God. That is why God judged them with darkness. What happened at the cross? Darkness came for three hours, and God was pouring out His wrath upon the human race, upon all of us. All have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. Every one of us has sinned, and what is sin? Sin is rebellion against God. And here Jesus says, “Why have you forsaken me?” Why had God forsaken Jesus? We find the answer in Habakkuk 1:13:
13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves? (Habakkuk 1:13)
So what happened at that very moment, in the sixth hour? God poured out His wrath toward all of us — upon Jesus. This is confirmed by Isaiah 53:6:
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6)
God laid our transgressions upon Jesus. The sins, the transgressions of all humanity fell upon Him. And because God’s eyes are too pure to look on evil, He turned away from His Son. He forsook Him. Jesus wept and prayed. And the interesting thing is that here He called Him not “Father,” but “My God.” What did He call Him at the beginning of the crucifixion? “Father.” What does He call Him at the end? Again, “Father.” But now He does not call Him “Father,” but “My God.” Why? Something is happening in this sixth hour. Something is happening in Their relationship during these six hours on the cross. “My God, my God…” The full fury and wrath of God came crashing down upon Jesus. And the Father had never treated the Son in this way.
This is what Christ was praying about in the garden. “Let the cup of Your wrath pass Me by, but not My will, but Yours be done.” But after the pouring out of the wrath, their relationship was restored, and Jesus could once more say, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
So do you see why this is the greatest suffering of all? The death of Jesus on the cross is not merely some physical suffering. It is not merely some scourging and nailing with spikes, which in itself was horrifying. The greatest suffering was when Jesus bore upon Himself the wrath of God. And for whom was that wrath intended? For us. Stop and think for a moment together with me: How many of us could bear the wrath of God and live again? Not a single one. We cannot. We would not survive.
What is the secret of Jesus? It is that He is 100% human and 100% God. God became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14).
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
He is one hundred percent human, but also one hundred percent God (Colossians 2:9).
9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, (Colossians 2:9)
He is one hundred percent God, and only He could endure the pouring out of God’s wrath and survive it. Why did He do it? Because He loves us. We cannot comprehend and understand this. His love is indescribable. Every time I take the Lord’s Supper, I am amazed and broken by Christ’s love. By the fact that He was so determined to go to the cross for me, by the fact that He was willing to pay this incredible price and to endure all this suffering. This goes beyond the depth of our understanding. And this is precisely what motivates me to preach the gospel in the best way I can. This is what makes me want to expand God’s kingdom as far as I can. This is what makes me want to be faithful to the end of my life. And this is what you and I need to understand for our lives.
Conclusion
Now, listen to these questions and reflect on them:
- Do we as a Church know our chief purpose? Do we as a church know our mission?
- Do we as a church guard our purpose? To what degree are we focused on fulfilling our mission? Do we guard it, or do we forget and neglect it?
- Are we as a church ready to pay the price to fulfill this purpose? Do we sacrifice for the fulfillment of our mission, and if so, in what way, and what does our sacrifice consist of?
The Church is not a building, the Church is not an address, the Church is not a Sunday morning service. What is the church? We are the church. The Greek word for church is “ekklesia.” The church is “the called-out ones.” God has called us — from where? Out of darkness into His wonderful light.
9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2:9-10)
And we, like Jesus, have a mission; and we, like Jesus, have a task. And we, like Jesus, must guard it. And we, like Jesus, must pay a price in order to fulfill our mission. So think about this! Because if we are serious about this, God will give us revival. If every one of us is motivated and says, “I have a mission. I must make disciples, because Christ said, ‘Go and make disciples!’” (Matthew 28:19), then we will have a truly victorious Christian life.