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Today
is the Sunday before Ash Wednesday. As many of you know, Ash Wednesday begins
the Christian season of Lent, the 40-day period which culminates on
Resurrection Sunday – some call it, Easter.
Many
Christians celebrate the season of Lent as a time to focus our thoughts on Jesus’
sacrifice of Himself as a substitutionary atonement for our sins. While we know
intellectually why Jesus did what He did, when we look at the trouble in the
world around us, and the troubles within our own lives, our hearts too
often forget what our minds know.
But
besides being the Sunday before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, today
is also Valentine’s Day. The day when lovers remind each other of how much they
mean to each other.
And
that is where I believe the Holy Spirit wants us to focus our attention this
afternoon – on how much the glorious, eternal, and beautiful Lover of our soul
loves us.
You
and I know John 3:16 so well, we can almost say the verse backwards. Let me say
it slowly from start to finish: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life.”
Here
now is the next verse: “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world;
but that the world through him [the Son] might be saved.”
The
Lord Jesus said to His disciples that in Him, we will have peace. “In the
world,” He added, “you have trouble and distress and heartache. But take
courage; I have overcome the world.” (my paraphrase of John 16:33)
So, on this Valentine’s
Day, when the Lover of our soul tells us again that He loves us, let’s take
time now to look at the proof of that Love – Jesus who is the Christ. Our
Messiah. I will use each of the letters in the word Christ to make my points.
The first letter of
Christ in C. What was it that Jesus said to those who heard His voice? “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will
give you rest. Take My yoke upon you
and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for
your souls. (Matthew 11:28-29) “Come to me all you who are tired, all who are weary,
who are lonely, and depressed, and hurting in body and spirit. Come to Me.”
Please,
won’t you come to Jesus, the Lover of your soul? And listen to this: God never told us to clean up our lives before we
can be worthy of His love. You remember the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19?
Zacchaeus was a hated
tax collector. His Jewish neighbors spat on him when they saw him in the
streets. One day, as Jesus was passing along the street nearby, Zacchaeus
scampered up a tree to get a better look at him. When Jesus saw him, he said to
the man, “Hurry and come down, for today I
must stay at your house.”
Luke then tells us he hurried down
the tree and gladly brought Him home.
Now think for a moment how you might
have felt, suddenly realizing Jesus is coming to your house NOW. I mean, the
guy didn’t even have a chance to first run home and straighten things up. Maybe
he had dirty underwear lying on the floor by his bed. Or dishes in the sink
from last week. Or dust-bunnies hanging out in the corners of the living room.
And Jesus summarily invited Himself
home with him. No time to clean the house. That scene reminds me of Revelation 3:20.
Jesus says to you and me right now, “Behold, I stand at the door and
knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and
will dine with him, and he with Me.”
You may think your house is not
ready for such an important Guest. That’s okay. He loves you today as much as
He did before you were even born. And He doesn’t care about the dirty clothes
or the dirty dishes or the dirty corners of our lives. He’ll take care of those
things when we let Him in.
All He asks of us, is that we come
to Him and receive Him gladly. You might remember the lyrics to the old hymn, Just
as I Am. Here are the words I want
us to focus on: Just as I am, without one plea, but that Thy blood was shed
for me. And that Thou bidst me come to thee, O
Lamb of God, I come.
You’ve come to Jesus before. Many
times, I am sure. Oh, come again on this Valentine’s day to your Lover and find
rest.
H is the next letter in
His title of Christ. This letter for me signifies HOPE. Look around you. Health
and relationships and finances and dreams and plans and expectations may all
now seem like ashes after a terrible house fire.
I
cannot tell you all will be well with your health and relationships and so
forth. I do not know what lies ahead in your future or in mine. I also struggle
with my own ashes. But we know who holds that future. And we know who holds our hand.
Let
me remind all of us of this promise from the prophet Jeremiah: “For I know
the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord,
‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and
a hope. (Jeremiah 29:11)
Neither you nor I know
the full plan of God for our lives. From the underside, the tapestry of our
life He is weaving always looks mangled and twisted. Only when we see the top
of the tapestry will we know what the tangled threads all meant.
Again I am reminded of
another song, this one by Bill Gaither. Its lyrics are rooted in Scripture. Something
beautiful, something good, all my confusion He understood. All I had to offer
Him was brokenness and strife, but he made something beautiful of my life.
R is the next letter in Christ. It reminds me of our
Lover’s redemption of our soul from death and destruction. Bible dictionaries
define Redemption as “the purchase or ransom of something that had been lost.”
The Greek word translated as ‘redemption’ appears nine times in Scripture, and
always with the idea of a ransom or price paid.
You and I were lost to
God because of our sins. We had only one destination after death, and that was
eternal separation from God in the Lake of Fire. The wages of sin is always
death – physical and spiritual death.
But God – oh, how I love
those two words when used as the Bible uses them in Ephesians 2:4-5 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love
with which He loved us, even when we
were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with
Christ…”
That’s why God again tells us in Colossians: “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us
to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we
have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians
1:13-14)
And again, in Ephesians 1 – “In Him
we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our
trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished
on us . . ..” (Ephesians 1:7)
Our heavenly Lover does not
want to lose anyone to an eternity away from His presence. Therefore, He did
the only thing a holy God could do to both satisfy His pure justice which
demands punishment for sin, and His pure love which calls for mercy. He gave
His only begotten Son to be our ransom. Our redemption. And with Messiah’s
death, God purchased you and me back to Himself from the power of sin and death
and hell and the devil.
No wonder the Scripture tells
us Jesus led captivity captive. Jesus led those held captive by the devil,
Jesus led them captive to Himself by His death and resurrection. You and I now
are Christ’s captives. Glory, glory to God.
The next letter in Christ is I.
I take that to point to this next truth about our divine Lover. Because “I” am
in Christ, because YOU are in Christ – when Christ is our savior through our
baptismal faith in His atoning blood, the Holy Spirit then assures us we
can boldly declare: “I am crucified
with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the
life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who
loved me, and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:20, AKJV)
And when Galatians 2 is true for us, then so is 1
Corinthians 15:
“Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all
be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last
trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be
raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For
this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal
must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put
on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then
will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death,
where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting
of death is sin, and the power of sin is the
law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our
Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable,
always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is
not in vain in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 15:51-58)
Listen, Christian. THAT is what the Lover of your soul has done
for you and me when we are IN Christ. Not only did He redeem us, ransom us,
He gave us this sure hope and firmly established future with Him forever and
ever.
Next, on this Valentine’s Day, we come to the next letter in Christ: S.
Jesus is our great Shepherd.
I love the imagery of this text in Isaiah 40:11 “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with
his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead
those that are with young.”
Can you see yourself here? I can. I am His young
lamb – even if I’m 70 years old, I am to Him His young lamb. Can you see
yourself as His young lamb, also?
Sometimes I get so tired and cold and weary and
frightened – all I want to do is lay down and let the world just pass me by. But
the Lover of my soul knows what I need far better than I know what I need. And
so, He bends down to my level, and then with His own hand He feeds me as a
loving parent spoons food into his child’s mouth.
He feeds me the milk of His word, as Peter tells
us in his first epistle. He tells me through Isaiah: “Everyone
who thirsts, come to the waters; And you who have no money come,
buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why
do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what
does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourself in abundance. (Isaiah 55:1-2)
Shepherd Jesus feeds me – and
you – when we are tired and cold and lonely and frightened with food from His
own hand, and then He gathers us in His arm and carries us next to His chest.
And if we listen closely
enough in our imagination, we can hear His sacred heart beating as we lean our
head over his heart. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Luv-you. Luv-you. Luv-you.
And finally, for the sake of
time, let me close with the last letter of the Jesus’ title, Christ – T.
What can we glean about our
Lover from the letter T?
I said at the beginning of
this message Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Lenten season, which
culminates on Resurrection Sunday.
But between Ash Wednesday and
Resurrection Sunday is Good Friday. Good Friday looked to be anything but good
to Jesus’ family, and His disciples as He hung bloodied, bruised, and beaten,
waiting to die on that cross.
The cross.
That is what
I want the T in Christ to remind us of on this Valentine’s Day. I want the T to
remind us of the Cross on which the dearest and best, for a world of lost
sinners was slain. And so, I close this message of how much our divine Lover
loves you and me with the words of this 300-year-old hymn by Isaac Watts:
When I
survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Forbid
it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.
See
from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
Were
the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
I think if we could hear His voice in our ears, He is
saying to us, “A blessed Valentine’s Day to you, from God the Father and the
Lord Jesus Christ, and the ever-present Holy Spirit.” Amen.
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