Why Jesus Came to Die

Bibles, we're gonna read 11 to 22, and then we'll turn on to that passage in Revelation chapter 5.

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are gentiles by birth and called uncircumcised by those who call themselves the circumcision, which is done in the body by human hands, remember that at that time, you were separate from Christ excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of promise without hope and without god in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you, who once were far away, have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the 2 groups 1 and has destroyed the barrier the dividing wall of hostility by setting aside in his flesh, the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself 1 new humanity out of the 2. Thus making peace, and in 1 body to reconcile both of them to god through the cross by which he put to death their hostility.

He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him, we both have access to the father by 1 spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with god's people and also members of his household. Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him, the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple.

In the lord. And in him, you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which god lives by his spirit. And then we'll turn to Revelation 5 versus 1 to 10. Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with 7 seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?

But no 1 in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it. I wept and wept because no 1 was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. Then 1 of the elders said to me, do not weep. See the lion. Of the tribe of Judah.

The root of David has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its 7 seals. Then I saw a lamb looking as if it had been slain standing at the center of the throne encircled by the 4 living creatures and the elders. The lamb had 7 horns and 7 eyes, which are the 7 spirits of god sent out into all the earth. He went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne.

And when he had taken it, the 4 living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb. Each 1 had a harp, and they were holding golden holes of incense, which are the prayers of god's people, and they sang a new song saying, you are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals because you were slain And with your blood, you purchased for god, persons from every tribe and language and people and nation, you have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our god, and they will reign on the earth. That's god's wonderful word to us this evening, and Josh is gonna come and preach to us now. Thanks, Josh. Good evening.

If you haven't met before, my name is Josh. It's lovely to see all of your faces here tonight. As I was preparing the sermon, I was thinking about this concept of loss of, something which is which needs to be recovered or restored to how it once was. Have you ever some lost something of yours, which you really love, and which you thought you would give anything just to get it back? Or have you seen people work on projects for days, months, years, where they're trying to restore an old car or a bike or a piece of art or an old property.

See, the amount of effort or money that they are willing to spend is a reflection of what they value, of how much they value has been lost. Now, of course, sometimes it's not just an object, an inanimate object that's lost. Sometimes it's a person. See, there's a whole area of law enforcement capability that's dedicated to combating crimes of kidnapping for ransom. There's specialist teams of detectives and hostage negotiators who focus on that.

And there's countless books, TV shows, and movies, some of which you you you I'm sure seen about where the story line is someone gets abducted, and their loved ones are forced to pay something to recover them. And that is a ransom. Now, this is not a modern phenomena. Indeed, the Bible itself speaks about Ransoms. In the evening service, we've been going through John Piper's book, 50 reasons why Jesus came to die.

And tonight, we're going to be looking at reason number 45. Now I appreciate if you haven't read the book, that will mean nothing to you. If you've read the book, but not memorize the table of contents, that will still mean nothing to you. So reason number 45 says Jesus came to die to ransom a people from every tribe, language, people, and nation. That's what we've seen in the passage that we read, and I'm going to draw our attention again to verses 9 and 10 of chapter of 5.

But we'll we'll take a look at what those verses say in the ESV translation because I think it's slightly different and the wording is is, is a bit more clear. And the problem, I guess, of looking at a topical sermon of trying to preach it or listen to it is the Bible has a lot to say on these topics. And so sometimes you have to jump between a lot of different passages. I've tried to minimize that, but throughout this service, passages will come up, and you'll be able to read them off the screen. But I would ask you to keep chapter 5 and chapter 7 of revelation open in front of you, as that as that is where we'll be spending most of our time tonight.

So what does Revelation 5 9 to 10 say in the ESB? And they sang a new song saying worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals for US Lane. And by your blood, you run some people for god from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you made them a kingdom and priests to our god, and they shall reign on the earth. Let's take a little step back. So if you've read Revelation before, if you're familiar with the background of what's happening here, the apostle John is a prisoner on an island called Patmus.

It is here that he has given this vision, this vision of heaven, and can you imagine the grandeur of what he is seeing? See, when he is caught up in this vision, He hears this loud voice that's been amplified like a trumpet, and he gets transported into the throne room of God. There he is dazzled by the glory of Jesus, the son of god who shines brighter than the sun in all of its brilliance. How must John have felt to be reunited with the teacher with a friend that he spent 3 years every waking moment of nearly 3 years of his life? And whom he loved dearly.

Here is that Jesus, but Jesus in all of his resurrected eternal glory. And then John walks in. He walks in through a door, and he stands in front of a throne. Of the throne of god, which has lightning and flashes and peels of thunder. In front of the throne, there's a sea of glass.

And around the throne, there's these mysterious fearsome creatures who guard the throne of god and ceaselessly, 24 by 7 are worshiping god. What would any mortal feel in the face of such awe inspiring majesty? How fast do you think his heart would have been thudding in his chest? Would a shiver have run down his spine? Are his palms sweaty?

Is his tongue dry and sticking to the roof of his mouth? Are his senses just completely overwhelmed by all of this? See, he's been seeing a lot of wonderful things here, but equally strange or uncommon I would say, is this part of the vision where he sees this crowd? Because he sees this diverse crowd of all kinds of backgrounds, but they're all united and existing there in peace. Now we only need to open social media.

Or look on the news to learn about the thousand and 1 tragedies that rock our planet every day. We can see gut wrenchingly horrific war footage. We can see commentators and analysts draw lines on digital maps. We can hear podcasters, eloquently speaking about geopolitics. We can read tweets by presidents who threaten to wipe out entire civilizations.

And it's clear that we don't live in this kind of utopia. Now we live in a world that's very, very different. We live in a world that's marred by strife. It's got interstate an international and inter ethnic conflict wherever we look. But the bible is showing us a very different picture.

The bible is showing us a picture of peace between diverse peoples. So the question for us this evening is, is the Bible presenting us with some sort of beautiful pipe dream that, you know, is attractive but is ultimately impractical? Or is it displaying a wonderful picture? A reality of what has been achieved is being built, and will 1 day be fully realized? So what do we need to live in a reality like this?

Do we need a United Nations and international board of peace. Well, actually, if thousands of years of history are any guide, then we as humans, on our own, we are just completely incapable of achieving anything like the picture that we see here. Now it's clear that there needs to be some divine plan, some providence at play, if anything close to this is to be achieved. So the Bible tells us a story right from Janice is that shows god planning and working in our world to bring about our redemption. See, in Genesis, we see god choose a man, a man called Abraham.

And god chooses him and promises to bless him and all of his descendants. Now why is god doing this? Why choose Abraham and not his neighbor? With Abraham, from a special leave spiritually faithful or, spiritual family. No.

He was actually from a family of idol worshipers. Was Abraham and his ethnic group just genetically superior to everyone else alive on the planet? Not at all. Because even as god is giving Abraham these covenant promises, he says to him, all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. See there is nothing special in Abraham or his descendants that makes them worthy to be chosen by god.

God in his sovereignty, in his divine providence, he chooses them for himself. But the promises of god, they are not meant to just stop with Abraham and the Jews. This isn't just god's exclusive private members only club. No. The promises given to Abraham are meant to overflow to the rest of humanity.

But how is this to happen? See, the story of the Jewish people is not some failed old testament experiment that god abandons. No. It's all part of god's purposeful plan where he weaves a singular redemptive weave thread through history. God in the beginning in Genesis creates a perfect world.

He creates humanity in his image so that we might live with him and enjoy him. But what do Adam and eve decide? They decide that they don't want to live under the rule of god. And by choosing to do that, they end up living under the rule of sin. They end up being captives of sin and death.

They are hostages to death and decay. So what does someone need? Who is being helped who's being held hostage? What does someone in need in that situation? Will they need a rescue?

And they need someone to affect that rescue? They need a rescuer. That's what we need. See, we needed someone that pay the ransom required to purchase us back from sin, and god in Jesus does that. He restores us back into fellowship with him.

But how does this happen? See, the purchase price to purchase all of humanity, can you imagine the currency that's required for that? Can you imagine how big and vast the bank account would need to be to rescue and ransom all of humanity? Well, because humanity's problem is sin, and because the punishment of sin is death, the ransom, the currency of the ransom required is also blood. It's blood that needs to be shed, but not just any kind of blood.

It's innocent blood. So who is this who can pay the price for everyone's sin? Like we sang, who is worthy of this? See no human being has met or can ever meet god's standard of perfection. So to save this world, we needed someone from outside this world.

Jesus the son of god, the 2nd person of the trinity, takes on humanity to save us from this curse. And when he is on earth, what does he say? What does he talk about as being his purpose? He says he did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. And so it is that he lives a perfect life and dies the death of a guilty sinner on the cross.

He provides his life as a ransom to meet the price needed for us captives to go free. But if we fail to grasp the significance of this, then our faith will be weak, and our evangelism efforts will be tepid. See, the Bible is telling us that god has made a kingdom and priests from every nation and tongue. So this includes tongues that speak differently to us, and it includes people who look differently to us. But how can this be?

In the morning service, we saw someone, Ken Brown, who I would recommend you watch the interview, to learn more about his story, from this morning, but he spent, years of his life in Mozambique, in a remote part of Mozambique, ministering to, and doing missionary efforts with the people there. With the predominantly Muslim community. Now why is that worth it? Think about all of the other things that he could have done with his life. And is this really worthwhile devoting our efforts, our time, our resources to surely god really can't let's be honest, can't save people from pagan cultures, and he he can't possibly change the hearts of people whose ancestors have worshiped other gods.

See, if we feel like that at any level, then our attempts to reach others will be halfhearted at best. And we do know that god can change people and he can break into hostile cultures because he has done that here. Has anyone has anyone in the room ever visited a druid Grove to conduct a human sacrifice to appease the gods? Good. I'm I'm I'm glad, that is the answer I was hoping for.

There's a lot of archaeological evidence that the Celtic peoples in Britain were doing that on a regular basis, more than 2000 years ago before the Romans even, came here. And then under Roman rule, it was a common practice to write a curse tablet. Anyone ever done that? A curse tablet written to the goddess Soullis Minerva to punish someone that you don't like that feels like a convenient thing, but no 1 ever does that. Do you?

And then when the Anglo Saxons came, they built wooden temples to honor pagan gods like wood, wooden, and thaw around 499 AD. We've had brilliant weather this week, but I don't suppose for a moment that it was due to any of you sacrificing to the gods to North gods like the Vikings would do for hundreds of years in England. See, these days, no mention of all of these gods that I just talked about remains. Why? Because Christianity, and more importantly, the god of Christianity is able to transform peoples to transform cultures and to transform entire nations.

So when we encounter in our day to day lives, people from pagan cultures, let us not dismiss them. Let us not give up on sharing the gospel with them. See, god's promise to bless the nations of the world through Jesus is not void. And his power to rescue people, his people that are being held captive from evil forces has not diminished. But secondly, what do we see in Revelation chapter?

7. So if we look at verse 9 of chapter 7, We see there a similar picture of a united people. Verse 9 of 7 says after this, I looked, and there before me was a great multitude. That no 1 could count from every nation, tribe, people, and language standing before the throne, and before the lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.

Now that is an incredible thing that John is seeing in his vision, isn't he? Notice how heaven is not just described as a place filled with these people from every land and language, but notice particularly how they're described collectively. The Greek adjective for great and the noun that's used for multitude are both grammatically singular. See, this isn't a picture of segregated ghettos in heaven. No.

We have 1 united multitude. It doesn't say I saw multitudes plural. He says I saw a multitude filled with countless diverse individuals. Now the diversity of those individuals is not erased but we do see them as a redeemed united people. Now this wasn't just some conceptual future promise for John and the early church.

Now this was actually part of their day to day reality. See, if we see the read the book of acts, right from the very beginning, the early church was deeply multi ethnic and multicultural. The church began primarily with the Jewish people, but even then at the day of pentecost, There were Jews from different cultures and languages, Judean Jews, and hellenistic Jews, and parsons, and medes, and Arabs, and others. And then there was explosive growth in the early church, and the gospel was taken to places like Antioch, Ethiopia, Cyrene, and within the 1st few hundred years of, Christianity, even to places as far as far away as India. Now with all of their differences, how did the early church make this all work?

Because you see the early church was an institution unlike any other of its time. See, the early church had such a variety of social classes and groups that no other singular institution could could hold. See, all other religions of the time were tribalistic. They were separated and they were constrained by borders and languages. And then here comes this church, and it is totally different to anything else.

So the question is, how did this happen? What was their strategy? Well, it was no human strategy because we can see what makes this work in scripture. What does scripture say about what made this possible? Romans chapter 10 verses 12 and 13 say, for there is no difference between you and gentile, the same lord is lord of all, and richly blesses all who call on him for everyone who calls on the name of the lord will be saved.

Ephesians 2, 14 to 17, For he himself is apiece, who had made the 2 groups 1 and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility by setting aside in his flesh, the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself 1 new humanity out of the 2 thus making peace and in 1 body to reconcile both of them to god through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility And verse 19 goes on to say consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with god's people and also members of his household. Finally, colossians 3, verses 9 to 11 say, Since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its creator, there is no gentile or you circumcised or uncircumcised barbarian, scythians, labor free, but Christ is all and is in all. See, the early church is able to be a united people because they are a renewed people. God in his church is creating a new humanity scripture tells us and has removed barriers and hostility that existed between people groups.

Jesus's work on the cross. Has achieved real, cosmic eternal victory. See, Jesus' death on the cross reconciles us to god and also to 1 another. The Bible speaks of differences between people groups but it speaks of them as being descriptive and not defining. There is no room in a biblically faithful Christian worldview for racial and ethnic tension and divide and segregation.

Now the challenge for us this evening in this room for those of us who profess to be Christians is this do we actually believe this? See, we might think that there is a danger here of us turning woke or becoming social justice warriors, but we cannot let that fear keep us from looking at the word of god because these excerpts, these passages that were we just read, are excerpts from scripture. They're not part of the communist manifesto. And there is a danger, isn't there? Of us becoming pharisees with cold dead hearts, if we ignore what the scriptures have to say.

See, most of the most of the people in this room would say that we are bible believing Christians. And that is a great thing. But if we choose to ignore those parts of scripture that don't fit into our world view that challenge us, that challenge any sense of pride, superiority that we might have, then what are we doing in that moment? CVR cherry picking, and we are selecting parts of the Bible to believe. And that puts us in essentially the exact same position as liberal Christians who would do the same thing just on different issues.

So how can we genuinely believe the cosmic consequences of the cross if we do not believe in the earthly achievements of the cross? How can we believe that we have been reconciled to god if we do not believe in the power of the cross to reconcile us to each other. Finally, we also get a glimpse of what this multitude is doing. Verse 10, of chapter 7 goes on to say, and they cry out in a loud voice. Salvation belongs to our god who sits on the throne and to the lamb.

We see here that they are a missional people. They are a missional people. Now this great multitude have been saved, and now they can't help but share this good news in a loud voice. But why is God choosing this multitude? See, god isn't choosing this diverse multitude so that the heavenly brochure pictures will look nicer.

He doesn't have diversity quotas of people in heaven to meet. Now this crowd has been saved for a purpose. See, they have a mission. They have been rescued from the dominion of sin, and now they cannot help, but speak of the 1 who delivered them. See, they are clearly speaking the truth of the gospel.

But notice, even though they are a diverse multitude, they are not declaring some kind of watered down message. They aren't saying there that salvation belongs to all faiths and none. No. They're saying very clearly that salvation belongs to our god and to the lamb. See, we are offered salvation freely and without any respect to our ethnic backgrounds, our socioeconomic backgrounds, our class or status, but we are offered salvation only through believing in the lamb.

Jesus, the lamb of god is the 1 whose death is worthy enough to take away the sins, not just of 1 particular tribe or 1 particular nation, but of the entire world. There's no 1 else in any religion, in any faith in any philosophy or ideology, who can accomplish that. We began this evening by thinking about hostages and ransoms. Of course, sometimes it's not just an individual that has been taken captive who needs to be ransomed. Sometimes in history, we see entire nations and swathes of territories being occupied by enemy forces.

And at that point, wars need to be waged to liberate them. The world wars are very good examples of such efforts. But what we may not re truly realize, from history is that they were also a truly grow global effort. I mean, obviously, the allies and the access powers were composed of many, many nations But if you look at just 1 party to the war, the British empire, what we are actually talking about is men from all across the globe, from South Africa to Australia, from Canada, to India, and all of the British dominions and and, colonies in between. And so if we take the example at complete random of 1 British ex British colony called India, from India alone, About 1400000 Indians served in World War 1, with more than 144000 dying wounded or missing.

In World War 2, there were more than 2500000 Indian soldiers sailors and ammon who served and there were about 242000 dead wounded or missing. Now if you add in the rest of the Commonwealth, that figure is higher. But the question is, how did they make this work? How were they successful in winning the war? But we know that they won the war because among many other indications, this sermon is not in German.

So how did they win? Well, I think 2 of the more important reasons there but that they all swore allegiance no matter where which part of the empire they were formed, they swore allegiance to a common king. King George the 6th. Their differences paled in the face of the brutality of the cruel enemy that they were facing, the Nazis and the Japanese. See, that def differences were still real, but their differences were secondary in importance to the common mission that they had of liberating these captive people's.

Now King Joyce the 6th might have been a great king, but I would suggest that there is a greater king. See, if we are part of this heavenly multitude that we see in Revelation, then the basis of our unity is our allegiance to Christ the King. Now the Nazis and the access powers were evil, and they did need to be defeated, and the it was a noble mission to liberate people from under their control. However, scripture warns us of a more deadly enemy, of a more devious enemy. We are warned in scripture about the devil who prowls around seeking souls to devour.

We are also warned to stand firm against the devil's schemes. We are told that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual powers. The Christian life is defined and described in scripture as, like, being on a battlefield and not on a holiday spar. So if we're in this multitude, then we tonight have a mission from our commander in chief to make disciples of all nations. Now there is a need for this mission, and we saw about international machinery efforts in the morning service, but I would like to ask you your best estimate.

So imagine that in this room, there are 100 people. There might be there might be slightly less than hundred, but for the purposes of this, let's just say there's 100 people in this room. Now let's think about the UK. How many out of 100 people? How many people do you think would be practicing Christians who regularly go to church?

How many people think over 70 out of the hundred would be? Practicing Christians. You can raise your hand if you if you think that there's more than 70. How many think over 60 over 40? Over 20?

How many people think around 10? Okay. We've got some hands around 10. How many people think around 5? So some of the some of the studies that have been done around this topic estimate And there there have been census and, all kinds of, processes that have been, gone to derive with this figure, but people estimate that 6 percent of the population are practicing Christians who would go to a church on a weekly basis.

Out of that, how many do you think? So out of the hundred, how many do you think go to bible teaching evangelical churches? The national estimate is around 2 to 3 percent. So what that looks like in the Royal Barah of Kingston upon thames, for instance, if we say the 3 percent of Kingston po Kingston's population goes to a Bible teaching church, That would mean that just over 5000 people in Abara go to a Bible teaching church. And even that estimate, I think, is a bit optimistic.

But anyway, regardless of that, we know that all people groups are being held captive by the enemy, and they are in need their need of the freedom of the liberation of the ransom that only Jesus can bring. So we cannot afford to be complacent. So Christian tonight, will you resolve to put on the full armor of god and join in god's campaign to rescue people from the dominion of darkness? But maybe you're here this evening. And you are not a Christian.

So please know that no matter what your background, no matter where you may have been born or where you come from, you are welcome into the kingdom of god. You are welcome into the family of god. There is enough space in heaven for every language and every ethnicity. And if you are from another country and your barrier to come to Jesus is that you believe that Christianity is just not for you is this European religion, then do not believe that lie. You do belong with Jesus.

See, the Bible is telling us that everyone, everyone it says who calls on the name of the lord will be saved. So if you have not done that before tonight, then let tonight be the night where you call on him, and you become a part of this blessed band of the redeemed.