(Preached at the Gallup Outdoor Native Market)
Cpl. Isaiah Green – Sept. 6, 2014
Praise God, the name of my message is “Pain for Sin, and I am reading out of Isaiah chapter fifty three, verses four through six. Whenever any one uses the word pain, they think of a natural thing that happens to your body or your mind—if you get cut or something you feel pain. But another meaning of the word pain is penalty, punishment, suffer or denounce; suffering the evil inflicted as a punishment for a crime.
What I am going to be talking about is how Jesus suffered pain for our sins, even though He was innocent and the reason that He did it was for our sakes. Right here as I go to Isaiah, chapter fifty three, reading verses 4-6 out of the Amplified, it says:
“Surely He has borne our griefs (sicknesses, weaknesses, and distresses) and carried our sorrows and pains [of punishment], yet we [ignorantly] considered Him stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God [as if with leprosy]. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement [needful to obtain] peace and well-being for us was upon Him, and with the stripes [that wounded] Him we are healed and made whole. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has made to light upon Him the guilt and iniquity of us all.”
When so-called Christians read this they say, “Oh I know Jesus suffered on the cross so I can stay in life. Jesus saves me and I will be fine.” Yes, Jesus died on the cross and shed His blood so that people could be forgiven for their sins. But He also died so that people could come to Him and live a life that was correct in His sight. That is why Jesus died on the cross so you could come to Him and live a life that was correct in His sight, and live up to His standards.
You may think that all you have to do is say, “Jesus forgive me,” and He instantly forgives you because He died on the cross. That is not the only reason Jesus died. That was one of the reasons, but just as importantly, He wants us not to sin after we are saved.
Dying on the cross was one of the most painful ways to die. Because basically you strangulated; as you hung there the weight of your body killed you. After you got beaten by the Romans, then it was even worse. As you hung there on the cross and died your pain would be multiplied. What made this really bad in Jesus’ case is that He had the weight of the sins of the whole world hanging on His shoulders.
He had two criminals on either side of Him who were dying for robbery—two thieves hanging there. But Jesus had never sinned! The only reason he was hanging there on the cross was that His own people rejected Him and did not like what He had to say. They thought He was blaspheming and they rejected Him as their Messiah. That is the reason He was hanging there on the cross. And remember, He had the weight of the sin of the whole world hanging on His shoulders. That weight of the sin of the world was on top of Him, pressing Him down. That must have been more painful than anyone can imagine.
Back then when this was happening when you sinned you had sinned you had to buy and bring the perfect unblemished animal to the temple and the High Priest would sacrifice it and shed its blood, for your sin to be forgiven.
But when Jesus died on the cross, he was doing it for the sins of the whole world. Because He was the perfect unblemished sacrifice. He had not sinned, and He was God’s son. When Jesus died on the cross the reason He was doing it was He was putting himself out, giving himself up, as a sacrifice. Back then you had to shed blood to have sins forgiven. You had to buy a perfect animal that could not be blemished in any way and you had to take it to the priest and they would sacrifice it. And that was the way your sins were forgiven through that blood.
When Jesus died on the cross He made it possible for anyone, any where, to come to Him and ask for forgiveness of their sins—anyone could come to Him. Jesus was an unblemished person; He had never sinned. He was God’s son and He had given His life willingly. He obeyed the Father when God told Him to give His life. He was the perfect, unblemished sacrifice who shed His blood for everyone.
One of the main reasons He died was because He was obeying the desire of God’s heart. God had asked Him to do it, so He obeyed. He was God’s son, and gave us the perfect lesson in obedience right there. If any natural father came up to his son and asked him, “I want you to die for another person.” What do you think any natural son would say? It’s possible that an exceptional person might consider doing it, if they thought they would get something out of it, or something might happen which they wanted if they did it. But Jesus did it because He knew that His sacrifice was going to take away the sins of the world. Basically, when people come to Him through repentance, their sins are taken away.
As Jesus was obeying His Father, He was giving us an example of how we should obey God down to the very last thing—even the giving of His life. If we look at this we can never say that whatever God asks of us is too hard. A lot of people will lose their faith because God asks them to do something simple, yet they take it like God is picking on them and it is too hard.
God can ask you to do something simple, like Jesus did with the rich young ruler. That is a good example in the Bible. This really rich guy came up to Jesus and he said, “I know all the laws, I follow every word you say,” and other statements about himself, for he was a religious person. Jesus said to him, “That’s good, but now take every thing you have, sell it, and give the money to the poor and then come follow me.” That made the guy go away tearful because he had a lot of money.
The same thing would happen now a days if God asked a lot of these so-called Christians that are millionaires and billionaires to give up their money. They would scream and run away! They would not do it. Besides, now-a-days, Christianity has just become a money making thing any ways. It’s all for the money. You can get up and preach all about faith and yet only be doing it for money.
I once watched this program where a guy was in a debate, and it was a good debate presentation because the guy had a lot of good points to make. I was a lot younger when I watched it, but I remember that the guy who was hosting the debate presentation would run up to the microphone every five minutes and ask for money. Every five minutes he would come up and say, “After this, you need to give to this church to help it keep going.” And the guy could not even get on with his presentation without the interruptions of the host. The speaker was getting irritated because of the disturbing interruptions by the money grabber. That is NOT how things are meant to be.
If God asked those kind of people to give up their money, they would do the same thing as the rich young ruler: go away sorrowful. We are not supposed to say that whatever God asks of us is too hard, because it is never going to be as hard as giving up your life. Jesus gave up His life to please His Father, so whatever He asks of us is not going to be that hard to give up.
My next scripture is Romans chapter six, verses seven through eighteen:
“For when a man dies, he is freed (loosed, delivered) from [the power of] sin [among men]. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, because we know that Christ (the Anointed One), being once raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has power over Him. For by the death He died, He died to sin [ending His relation to it] once for all; and the life that He lives, He is living to God [in unbroken fellowship with Him].
Even so consider yourselves also dead to sin and your relation to it broken, but alive to God [living in unbroken fellowship with Him] in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore rule as king in your mortal (short-lived, perishable) bodies, to make you yield to its cravings and be subject to its lusts and evil passions. Do not continue offering or yielding your bodily members [and faculties] to sin as instruments (tools) of wickedness. But offer and yield yourselves to God as though you have been raised from the dead to [perpetual] life, and your bodily members [and faculties] to God, presenting them as implements of righteousness.
For sin shall not [any longer] exert dominion over you, since now you are not under Law [as slaves], but under grace [as subjects of God’s favor and mercy]. What then [are we to conclude]? Shall we sin because we live not under Law but under God’s favor and mercy? Certainly not! Do you not know that if you continually surrender yourselves to anyone to do his will, you are the slaves of him whom you obey, whether that be to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience which leads to righteousness (right doing and right standing with God)?
But thank God, though you were once slaves of sin, you have become obedient with all your heart to the standard of teaching in which you were instructed and to which you were committed. And having been set free from sin, you have become the servants of righteousness (of conformity to the divine will in thought, purpose, and action).”
Jesus died on the cross and suffered all of that pain so that we could be free from sin, from the power of sin in our lives. That is why Jesus suffered pain on the cross was so we could be freed from the power of sin in our lives! When we give our lives to God, we are supposed to be stopping sin. The reason that Jesus allowed His blood to be shed was to cleanse us from our sins, but not so we can return to sin and follow every impulse of our carnal nature. Jesus wants to be our Master so that we can escape the power of sin in our lives. That is why Jesus wants to be our Master. That is why He shed his blood on the cross—so that we could come to Him and call our selves His slaves and His servants, and He could be our Master and save us from the power of sin in our lives.
The conclusion is this: Jesus went through pain so we could be forgiven of our sins. Undoubtedly, we should give our lives to Him. but after that, we have to walk the straight and narrow way with Him, not walking in sin. Because whoever we give ourselves to is who is our Master. If we give ourselves to sin, then that is going to be our master, that is going to control our lives and what it is we do. But if we give yourselves to God, then it is He who will control our lives. He is the best Master you could ever have over your life, and this is the prayer that will start you on the straight path.
“Dear Lord, I come before you, please forgive my sins. I repent to you, cleanse me in your blood and heal my sin torn life. I love you and want to serve you. I want to stop sinning and walk on the straight path, in Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.”