2017-07-09 Luke 22:14-20 From Symbol To Substance (3): Promises Made; Promises Kept

FROM SYMBOL TO SUBSTANCE (3): PROMISES MADE; PROMISES KEPT (Luke 22:14-20) July 9, 2017 Read Luke 22:14-20 – In one sense this text unfolds the message of the whole Bible. The OT is a picture book – symbolizing redemption. Its aim was to prepare the world for the real thing -- revealed thru and implemented by Jesus Christ. The greatest object lesson in the world was the miraculous deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, their reception of the Law of God after their deliverance and their arrival in the Promised Land. It pictures the devastating reality of the human condition of slavery to sin, followed by the glorious redemption thru a substitutionary sacrifice mediated by a redeemer. What Moses symbolized, Jesus actualized. Promises made! Promises kept! That’s exactly the point Jesus makes this last night with His disciples as He celebrates the final official Passover, but then establishes a new memorial based on His own death and resurrection which fulfilled a deliverance that had previously only been promised. It is a glorious depiction. Promises kept! Dizzy Dean visited a kid’s hospital one day and a sick young boy asked him to strike out Bill Terry of the Giants – a hitter Dean had little success against. First 3 times up he had no luck. Bottom of the 9th, 2 men on, Cards with 1 run lead, and Hughie Critz came up. Double play would end the game. But Dean remembered his promise. He walked Critz because Terry was next. As Terry came up, Dean walked halfway to the plate, explained what he had to do and why, apologized, and walked back to the mound. Then he struck Terry out on 3 pitches. A flabbergasted Mel Ott popped up to end the game. Promises kept! So from Gen 3:15 on, God promised deliverance. The Passover imaged it. And now Jesus is saying, “I’m here to deliver. And here is how I want you to remember this priceless gift.” He focused them away from the symbol of Passover to the substance of the Lord’s Supper. Along the way, we learn 7 lessons about deliverance symbolized in Moses and delivered by Jesus. I. The Need for Deliverance – Symbolized by the hopeless enslavement of Israel in Egypt depicting the reality of our enslavement to sin. II. The Mediator of Deliverance – As Moses mediated the Israelites deliverance from Egypt, so Jesus is the one mediator to deliver man from sin. III. The Price of Deliverance – The sacrificial lambs that saved Israel physically on the night of Passover symbolized the greater Lamb of God who died in our place to save us from spiritual death. 1 IV. The Motive for Deliverance – One thing. God’s love. God’s justice condemns; but God love provides the possibility of deliverance. V. The Means of Deliverance This is closely tied to the motive for deliverance – God’s love. But how was that love made available? What was the means of deliverance? It was symbolized in Moses and realized in Jesus -- “by grace through faith.” Familiarity has taken the edge off those words, but they are priceless – “by grace through faith.” It’s the best news ever! “By grace, thru faith.” What is grace? We’ve all heard it. God’s unmerited favor. I was in 2nd grade, country school when our teacher heard me say a bad word one day. In my defense, I didn’t know what it meant. I’d heard it from a friend who heard it from his dad. But I got justice, not mercy. I had to stay after school and write 100 times on the board, “I will not use profanity again.” Then I was released. Grace? No. Merit! I earned my deliverance. But what if the teacher had said, “Tell you what, I’ll take your penalty. You go on home.” Would I have deserved that? No. That’d have been unmerited favor. Grace! But I didn’t get grace; I got justice. Remember that the next time you plead for justice! Grace is God giving you what you do not deserve; in fact, what you never could deserve. That’s grace. That was the means of Israel’s deliverance. They didn’t deserve it. In fact, they proved themselves to be an ungrateful, critical, complaining lot. But when God called Moses, He said in Exod 3:7 “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians.” What was that, merit or grace? It was all grace, wasn’t it? It was all of God and none of them. Isn’t grace wonderful? Grace is magnificent. There is nothing like grace. Look again what God said in v. 8: “and I have come down.” What a picture! That’s not incidental language. This is Christmas! The hill they couldn’t climb to get to God, He descended to get to them. That’s what distinguishes Xnty from religion. Religions all propose gaining God by doing something. They all attempt to climb the mountain to God. The moralism of liberalism, the jihad of Islam, the good works of Mormonism, Jewish tradition – all ways to climb the mountain of merit. To most people, different roads; same top! 2 But the Bible says, the mountain is unclimbable. It’s impossible by any path. Ecc 7:20: “20 Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.” The mountain of God’s purity mountain is infinitely high. You can’t get there from here. religion that says you can climb your way to God is lying. You cannot. Grace is not one answer. Grace is the only answer. God coming down in the person of Christ is the only answer. Do you see that? C. S. Lewis once walked in on a group of colleagues at Cambridge just in time to hear, “What separates Christianity from other religions?” Without hesitation Lewis answered, “Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace.” The room fell silent as Lewis explained grace meant God’s love comes free of charge. No strings attached. No other religion dares such a claim. After thinking about it, another scholar said, “You’re right. Buddhists have their 8-fold path – not a free ride. Hindus have karma, set in motion by you. Jews misunderstand their law to require their own merit. Islam requires actions to appease God’s judgment”. Every other god demands; only the God of the Bible gives. He came down the mountain. The others require you to go up. Religion says, “Do this to get to God.” The Bible says, “Here is what God has done to reach you.” “I have come down.” That’s Jesus’ name. Immanuel. God with us. Eph 2:1 summarizes human inability: “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins.” Comatose! Jesus illustrated with Lazarus. He purposely waited until Laz was dead before showing up. But then, Jn 11:43: “When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” This is Jesus’ great object lesson of Eph 2:1. How dead was Lazarus? Completely. What could Lazarus do to help himself? Nothing. Did Lazarus earn new life? How could he? He was dead! So what was the means of his resurrection? Grace – pure, unadulterated grace. Laz’s resurrection is an object lesson. It shows salvation from sin is by grace alone. Grace is meant to capture hearts. In 1949, Jack Wurm was walking a beach in CA – out of work, broke, hopeless – a bum. But he spotted a bottle with a note in it. Not a note –the last will of Daisy Alexander – Daisy Singer Alexander, heiress to a Singer sewing machine fortune. The will read, “To avoid confusion, I leave my entire estate to whoever finds this bottle and my attorney, Barry Cohen in equal parts.” Jack inherited more than $6M. Earn it? No. Deserve it? No. Pure grace. That’s the gospel. God came down the mountain we could never climb to deliver grace. Have you got yours? It is the only means of deliverance. Grace. VI. The Appropriation of Deliverance 3 Listen carefully. Most people think it’s enough that Jesus died. They think that means everyone is in. But that wasn’t the case in Egypt and it isn’t the case in life. Israel’s rescue from Egypt was God’s deliverance done in God’s way. Who’d have thought a substitute lamb could save the firstborn of the house? But – but if the blood of that little lamb was not applied to the doorpost -- no deliverance. The blood had to be applied. God required an act of faith! So, why did God do that? Why wasn’t the death of the lamb enough? Why did the blood have to be applied to the doorpost? God is making a point. The decision to accept or reject God’s deliverance is an individual decision. It was not enough that the lamb died. Nor is it enough that Jesus died. Rescue requires an act of personal faith! Each of us must apply the blood personally. I can’t do it for you; you can’t do it for me. Each must decide for ourself. God taught that same object lesson all over again after they left Egypt and reached the Red Sea. Pharaoh’s army behind; the sea in front. God made provision. He parted the sea. But it took an act of faith to walk between those walls of water – a lot of faith, I imagine – to get to the other side. Another object lesson. It symbolized passing from death to life. Being buried with Christ into death and resurrected to a new life on the other side. But it was a personal commitment to walk between those waters. It took an act of faith to be delivered. Just as each person must decide for himself or herself by faith to accept the gift of grace that God provides freely to all who believe. This is Jesus’ point in Lu 22:19b: “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” “Given for you”. How? In death. So is that enough? Is that the end? No – Jesus says “Do this.” Do what? Eat it. He does the same with the cup. “Drink this.” What is His point? His point is, “What I am about to do you must personally appropriate. You must come with me spiritually by denying self, taking up your cross and following me. It is not enough that I die. You must die, too.” Remember when the 5,000 he fed came to Him the next day, looking for more food. He refused to give them physical food but told them in Jn 6:51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” 52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” What in the world was He saying? It is so profound, yet so simple. He is saying, “I’ll set the table and I’ll provide the meal. But you must eat it. 4 I’ll die for you, but you must, by faith, accept my death as yours. You must apply the blood.” How do you do that? You give yourself to Him – by faith. No greater example exists than at the cross itself. Two criminals died with Him – mocking as they went. But as one of them watched he saw the perfection of Jesus. He saw the sin that was his. He came under severe conviction. And at the last possible moment! Lu 23:42 And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” That thief could offer nothing! Yet even as he hung next to Jesus, he applied the blood; he ate the body of Christ and drank the blood of Christ by simply asking Jesus to save him. He appropriated the gift personally, just by asking for it. But -what of the other thief? No such promise for him. Jesus’ death was not applied! Do you see, Beloved. Killing the lamb was not enough. Jesus’ death was not enough. You must accept Him personally as your Lord and Savior. VII. The Consummation of Deliverance The point of deliverance is that there is an end in view, right? It’s good to leave Egypt, but it’s not much use if there is no Promised Land in your future. So it was with Israel. So it is with believers. Passover anticipated physical deliverance to Canaan. The Lord’s Supper anticipates spiritual deliverance in heaven -- with Jesus – forever – the consummation of deliverance. Lu 22:18: “For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” Remember, in once sense the kingdom has already come in the person of Jesus, the King. By His death and resurrection, the way was paved for God to take up rulership in every repentant heart. That spiritual aspect of the kingdom is operative, even now. But here, Jesus is clearly anticipating the culmination of the physical kingdom – God’s rule thru Christ not just in hearts but over all the earth and heaven put together. This is the kingdom He anticipates – and in celebrating Communion we are not only looking back to His death for us. We are also looking forward to life with Him in His kingdom. This is the culmination of deliverance. This where it all leads. This our future – eternity with Jesus where there is no slavery, no sickness, no sin, no sorrow, no Satan, and no suffering. Fairytales? No – the promise of a very real, tangible, supreme Jesus who said, “I can’t wait to celebrate this remembrance with all of you in the kingdom. It’s the whole reason I’ll die. And the whole reason – I will be back!” 5 Woody Allen did a movie, Hannah and Her Sisters. Allen gets a slight cold but thinks he’s dying of a brain tumor. He goes to bed saying, “Death – I can handle this.” But he barely hits the bed before he breaks out into a cold sweat and hollers, “Help. I’m going to die. I can’t handle this. I’ll make a deal with God.” The bad news is, God doesn’t negotiate. But the good news is, He saves. It’s a hope you can’t find anywhere else -- only available in Christ. Conc Isn’t God’s plan for deliverance amazing! Wondrous in its complexity and yet compelling in its simplicity. In the Passover God promised redemption; at the cross he purchased redemption. Promises made; promises kept. But, what will you do with His gift? It is not enough that Jesus died and rose again. It only becomes yours when you apply the blood. I read once of a poor woman named Maria who lived in a poor area of a village in Brazil with her only daughter, Christina. As Christina grew up she hated the poverty and spoke often of going to the city, Rio, but her horrified mother knew what that would mean. She did all she could to prevent her daughter from leaving but one morning, the bed was empty. In despair Maria went to the drug store, took as many pictures of herself as she could afford and set out for Rio. Knowing that the only way her daughter would be able to survive was by selling herself, so Maria went to every bar, nightclub and brothel she could find. She never found Christina, but everywhere she went she taped a pix of herself to a bathroom mirror or bulletin board. When she ran out of money, she returned home. Months later, Christina descended a hotel stairway, haggard, tired, and alone with nothing but broken dreams. But as she reached the bottom of the stairs, she noticed a familiar face. On a lobby mirror was a small pix of her mother. Tears ran down her cheeks as she removed the photo. On the back was the invitation: “Whatever you’ve done; whatever you have become; it doesn’t matter. Please come home.” Now – the choice was hers, right? Go home – or refuse. That’s the gospel in a nutshell. Promises made; promises kept. God has come down the hill we can’t climb. He’s paid the price we can’t pay. He’s made the invitation only a fool would refuse. But now we must choose. Continuing trying the hill you can’t climb – or apply the blood by faith. This body and this cup is for you. Will you accept it? Let’s pray. 6