James Meehan - The Ultimate Demonstration of God's Love
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Easter Sunday is right around the corner. And on that day, it is estimated that 2.6 billion Christians all across the globe from every country and continent will gather together to lift up and celebrate the name of Jesus, the king of kings and the Lord of Lords, the lamb who was slain and the lion who rose. On that Easter Sunday, we will celebrate the greatest event in history, when Jesus did the impossible, walking out of His own grave, leaving death in the tomb. But before we get to Easter Sunday, there will be a day that is known as Good Friday. Good Friday is the day where we celebrate the death of Jesus. The day when God in the flesh was executed on a Roman cross in the most humiliating way imaginable. And for some reason, 2,000 years later, we call that day good.
You see, during Jesus’s ministry, He had a very clear mission and He spent three years teaching people about the kingdom of God, what life with God is really like. He cast out demons. He performed miracles. He healed the sick and He invited people to become His followers. But all along the way, He knew where He was going. Eventually, He would arrive at a hill called Calvary, outside the capital of His nation, where His hands and His feet would be nailed to a wooden cross, where He would hang suffering until eventually He died. And in John’s gospel right before His death, we were told that Jesus uttered these words, «'It is finished, ' and then He bowed His head and gave up His spirit».
Why is it that we called the Friday Jesus died good? It’s because without the crucifixion, there would be no resurrection. If there was no Good Friday, there would be no Easter Sunday. But have you ever thought about it long enough to wonder why did Jesus half to die? Why did He half to die to accomplish God’s plans for the world? I’m not saying why did He die, like I know pretty well that Jesus died and rose again to rescue us from sin, to repair our relationship with God, and to restore our purpose, like I get that. The question is more specific. Why did he have to die to do all of that? Like if God is really God, if He could speak and form the entire universe just with a word, then couldn’t He have found another way to do what He wanted to do? Like couldn’t He have just snapped His fingers and made it happen? If He really is God, then why did Jesus have to die? And if on the cross, Jesus uttered the words, «It is finished».
And on Easter, we celebrate His victory over sin, and death, and the devil, then why do we still die? Have you ever wondered those questions? If you have, you’re definitely not alone. You know, it’s interesting because it was a little less than a year ago that my dad actually passed away from cancer, and it was a nine month long battle. And losing him was one of the most painful experiences that my family has ever had to walk through, because we love him and we miss him like crazy. And it was right after he passed that my older sister Ali asked me the question, «How can you not be mad at God when stuff like this happens»? And my answer to her, to be clear, was not that I was not mad. It’s not that I wasn’t heartbroken. It’s that I wasn’t mad at God, because I knew all too well that God was just as mad and God was just as heartbroken as we were.
And I knew that because I know that 2,000 years ago, God did something about it. Sin, death, suffering. God cares so much about what we go through, that He went through it himself. And somehow in some way, the death of Jesus was an integral part of God’s plan to deal with sin, death, and darkness. And so, what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna spin this message, answering those two questions. Why did Jesus have to die and why do we still die? Now, I wanna give you kind of the answer before we dig into it. And at first when I give you the answer, it’s probably not gonna fully satisfy the questions. But as we walk through this message, I hope that you will see the beauty and the power in it.
The reason that Jesus had to die was to fully satisfy the demands of perfect love. The reason that Jesus had to die was to perfectly demonstrate the fullness of God’s love, because only God’s love is big enough to hold grace and truth, justice and mercy together. It is only in the love of God that all of those things can be held together, and that was made most clear here through Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. So, why did Jesus have to die? Well, in John’s gospel, John, Jesus actually tells us a little bit of the answer.
In John 12, He’s talking to some people and He tells them that, «The hour has come for the son of man,» that’s Jesus, «to be glorified». That’s how He referred to His death. And then He says, «Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit». Now, He’s talking about himself. He’s saying, «If I don’t die, I will remain alone. But if I die, my death will bring much fruit. My death will actually bring everybody life». How does that work though? To help us answer that question, we’re gonna look at a few scriptures in the New Testament that I think will reveal to us not just the depths of the gospel, but the heart of God himself.
So, we’re gonna look at Romans 6:23. We are told here by the apostle Paul that, «The wages of sin is death». Now, I’m underlining that word because this right here is God telling the truth, because God is not a liar. Truth is this word that means the way things really are. And the way things really work is that sin always has and always does produce death. It produces death physically and spiritually. And the reason this is so important for us to understand is because on the cross, Jesus took the full weight of sin upon himself, so that He could give us freedom and forgiveness in His name. He took sin and He gave us life. And because He took sin, He took the consequences of it too. If Jesus didn’t really become sin for us on the cross, then He wouldn’t have had to die. Like He could have cut corners. He could have just taken a little bit of the sin, but He wanted to take all of it, so that He could give us all of the life and the forgiveness that He promised.
Why did Jesus have to die? Because God always tells the truth. And Jesus really did take the weight of sin upon himself. But thankfully, that’s not all. Jesus also died to bring us mercy. He died to give us mercy. It was through His death and sacrifice on the cross that God’s mercy was made available to everyone. In 1 Corinthians 15, the apostle Paul writes these words, he says, «Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting»? He says, «The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God. He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ». Death sucks because sin is real. Death is painful, because it is the last moment up until then that we can throw ourselves on the mercy of God and receive forgiveness.
And the reason that sin is so powerful because it tells the truth that we have broken God’s law, that we have failed to honor Him, and we have done wrong to others. We are all sinners. We are all lawbreakers. But think be to God that God is merciful and because of His mercy, sin does not get the final say He does. And what He says to us is that you are forgiven and the legal charges against you have been canceled. We’re gonna go to the next scripture. This is in the Book of Colossians, where we read about how, «When we were dead in our sins. that God made us alive with Christ. That He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us. He has taken it away». How? «By nailing it to the cross».
There was something about the death of Jesus that took the power away from sin, that robbed death of its sting. And having disarmed the powers and the authorities, Jesus made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. It was by the cross that the truth that sin always leads to death. And the mercy of God as the ultimate judge and authority was made available to us sinners and lawbreakers who deserve to be punished, but instead, we were granted mercy. Okay, awesome. If we got mercy, then why do we still die? And the reason is because God’s love is full of truth. It is full of mercy, and it is always just. You see, justice is this word that means getting what we deserve. And even though the mercy of God removed from us the legal consequences of our sins, the natural consequences of sin still remained.
Here’s what I mean by that. Imagine you are driving and you are under the influence. You have had some drinks, you are drunk, and you crash into the wall of a building. And because of this incident, you are taken to court and everything says that you should be punished legally, but the judge decides to pardon you. He grants you mercy. So, you don’t get thrown in jail. Your license is not revoked. But in the crash, you broke your arm and you got whiplash. You being pardoned legally does not magically make those injuries disappear. The legal consequences were removed, but the natural consequences remained. This is why we still die, because sin leads to death. And even though God has removed the legal consequences, we still experience the natural consequences because the love of God is always true.
The love of God is full of mercy. God is always just. But thanks be to God that He also gives us grace. God’s love is full of grace. We’re gonna go back to Romans 6:23, and we’re gonna look at the back half of that scripture. Paul tells us that the wages of sin is death. We’ve gotten that. But the gift of God, the grace of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Grace is getting what you do not deserve. It is the undeserved, the unearned kindness of God that is made available to us through the sacrifice of Jesus. It is something that no matter how hard we try, we can never earn. It is something that no matter how bad we want it, we don’t deserve it. But God gives it to us anyway, because He loves us. And because of God’s grace, death is not the end.
It wasn’t the end for Jesus and it is not the end for us. Because of God’s grace, death is just a speed bump on the road to eternity. Because of God’s grace, we can have eternal life in Christ Jesus. That is life and life to the full. That begins the moment we put our trust in Jesus and it continues on forever. So, why did Jesus have to die and why do we still die? The answer is because only His death and sacrifice on the cross could satisfy the demands of perfect love. That only through laying down His life, so that we could experience forgiveness, could the love of God be demonstrated fully.
So we’re gonna go back to 1 Corinthians one more time. «Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin. The power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God. He gives us, he graces us, the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ». Why did Jesus have to die? Jesus had to die to prove that love conquers all. Jesus had to die to prove that the love of God really does conquer everything, sin, death, and the devil. Before Jesus stepped onto the stage of history, death was the undefeated, undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. Everybody who stepped into the ring with death, lost. There was that one guy, Lazarus, you may have heard of him, that Jesus raised from the dead.
And so like he made it past the first couple of rounds, but at the end of the fight, Lazarus still died. And if Jesus did not die, then we couldn’t say He actually beat death. The best we could say is that He avoided death. He escaped death. But it is only by actually dying, stepping into the ring with death itself that Jesus could prove once and for all that His love conquers all, even death itself. This is why Good Friday is called good because it was on Good Friday that Jesus went to death’s home turf. And it was on Easter Sunday that Jesus walked out of the ring, walked out of the tomb, our risen king, His hand raised. Death still lying on the ground behind Him. A championship belt around His waist, proving once and for all that He is the king over life and death.
Jesus had to die to prove that His love conquers all. And we die to share in His victory. This isn’t just some like theoretical, abstract, or spiritual thing. This is real. This is concrete. This is true. Every single one of us, when we are in Christ, we will die, but we will rise again. And just like Jesus stepped into the ring and beat death at His own game, we will too because we belong to Him. It’s almost like after Jesus beat death, instead of like going home to celebrate, He just sat down, made sure to give us the coaching and the tips that we needed.
So that one by one, every disciple of Jesus could step into the ring and put death down too. It’s almost like what Jesus wanted to do was to put on the most humiliating masterclass possible on death itself. And He wanted every single one of us to participate in His victory. This is why Jesus died. This is why we die. This is why when my dad died, I was mad and I was heartbroken, but I didn’t grieve the way the rest of the world grieves because I know that my dad knew Jesus.
And so I know that for my dad, death is not the end. It’s just a speed bump on the road to eternity. And that there will come a day when Jesus returns to finish what He started to put death down once and for all. We’re told that there will come a day where sin, death, suffering, weeping, mourning, all of that is no more. That every tear is wiped away. That God makes all things new. And the newness of life, the forgiveness of sins has been made available to us, because Jesus died. And the life and life to the full, eternal life with God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit is available to us because Jesus died and because we will too. Only the love of God is big enough to hold grace and truth, justice and mercy together.
Jesus died to satisfy the demands of perfect love. Jesus died to demonstrate the goodness of God’s love fully. But before He did, He said these words. He said, «I am the resurrection in the life. The one who believes in me will live even though they die». When you believe in Jesus, even though you die, you will live again. And whoever lives by believing in Him will never die. Once you have been raised to new life, you will never taste death again. Do you believe this? Do you believe this?
That Jesus really does have the words of eternal life. That Jesus love really is big enough to cover all of your sins. And that Jesus love is really personal enough to be for you. Jesus, the Savior king and Son of God, died and rose again to rescue us from sin, repair our relationship with God and restore our purpose as His people. So, trust Him with your whole life. Commit everything to following Him, and you will be given life and life to the full, because Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Without the crucifixion, there would be no resurrection. Jesus died to prove that His love really does conquer everything.
And so Lord Jesus, we come before you right now, grateful that your love is big enough to put death down and your love is close enough to meet us right where we are. I pray that every single one of us would trust in your words, trust in your life, trust in your death, trust in your resurrection, that your grace is here and it is available for us. We love you. We are thankful for you, and we want to share in your victory. It’s in your name, we pray, amen and amen.