Sermon Theme
It’s something we do not keenly experience unless you have faced some devastating prospect
- On hearing of a fatal car crash along a road loved ones are travelling… RELIEF when it is not them!
- Months spent in courts charged with an offence → imprisonment – Not guilty verdict → sheer relief!
No greater sense of this relief than for us Christians who know we have been spared from Hell
All too often we do not sense this relief because we do not think much about our former destination Having a CLEAR understanding of what God has done for us → righ appreciation of our salvation
Sermon outline
- SNATCHED FROM THAT WHICH CONDEMNS
- THE GREATEST TRANSACTION ON THE CROSS OF CHRIST
- FREEDOM AND A NEW WAY OF LIFE
Readings reproduced on this page:
The Holy Bible: New International Version. 1996, 1984. Grand Rapids: Zondervan
Sermon Outline
Readings
Heidelberg Catechism LD 21
56 Q. What do you believe concerning "the forgiveness of sins"?
A I believe that God, because of Christ's atonement, will never hold against me any of my sins nor my sinful nature which I need to struggle against all my life.
Rather, in His grace God grants me the righteousness of Christ to free me forever from judgment.
Mark 15:21–39 (NIV84)
21A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross.
22They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull).
23Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it.
24And they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get.
25It was the third hour when they crucified him.
26The written notice of the charge against him read: the king of the jews.
27They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left.
29Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days,
30come down from the cross and save yourself!”
31In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself!
32Let this Christ, this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him.
33At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour.
34And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
35When some of those standing near heard this, they said, “Listen, he’s calling Elijah.”
36One man ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down,” he said.
37With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.
38The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
39And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”
Text
Romans 7:14–8:4 (NIV84)
14We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.
15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.
17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.
18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.
20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.
22For in my inner being I delight in God’s law;
23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.
24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
1Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,
2because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.
3For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man,
4in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.
