LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON: THE SACRIFICE
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. ”
~ John 3:16
“Oh Pa…What’ll I do now?”
In one of my favorite episodes of The Rifleman (“The Schoolmaster”, Season 3, Episode 10), young Mark McCain has had about all he can take of a difficult (and, yes, unfair) teacher. He threatens to quit school but his wise father, Lucas, tells him he can’t run from his problems and that they will figure it out together. So what does Mark do?
Skip school with his best friend, of course.
In their thrill of freedom, they decide to explore an abandoned mine shaft. Then things go desperately wrong: a loose beam gives way, pinning Mark’s leg underneath an overturned mine cart and heaping a sheer wall of dirt and rock between the two boys. Unaware that his friend has run for help, Mark looks up in agony only to see another loose beam cracking right over his head, ready to give way any second. In vain, he tries pulling his leg free. Finally, in pain, he collapses on the floor.
“Oh Pa,” he moans. “What’ll I do now?”
As we talked about last time, in the beginning God made us—men and women—“in His Image”: as my Dad says, “to look like Him, live like Him, and rule like Him on this earth” (Genesis 1:26). But something went desperately wrong in the Garden of Eden. Tempted by satan disguised as a serpent, mankind in Adam chose to rebel against The Father. Eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, mankind flew directly in the face of our Heavenly Father’s warning and chose to go our own way—make our own decisions, live our own life, thank You very much! No matter our background, no matter our skin color, no matter the geographic location we come from, we’re ALL born with the same selfish root: the ”sin” root, as the Bible calls it. And, as if selfishness that soaks the entire human race weren’t bad enough, our sin brings an infinitely worse consequence. Like Mark McCain’s decision to skip school gone full-blown horror movie, it carries with it the bane of the human race, the fear of every heart, the one thing we all have in common…
Death.
Not just physical death (which is horrifying enough) but eternal death in Hell. Yes: Hell is a very real place. It is a place of eternal, never ending torture and every person who has the sin root reigning in their life goes there forever when they die.
FOREVER.
No exceptions.
But what makes Hell truly horrible, what makes it the never-ending nightmare that it is, isn’t primarily the unquenched fire, the demonic torture, or the screams, weeping, and gnashing of teeth of souls chained forever…it is the absence of the presence of God. This is the thought that freezes my heart. When Adam sinned in the Garden and man received the sin root, our relationship with God the Father—holy and pure—was severed irrevocably. He is the Person we were made for, the One we cannot live without—and now we cannot have Him. Like the wall of rubble separating Mark McCain from all hope of rescue, our sin separates us from our only chance of life. And we can’t fix it: we’re pinned down, trapped under the colossal weight of our sin. We are truly lost: cut off from our Father, doomed for torment and darkness and pain. This is the consequence of our rebellion, the ultimate fruit of our disobedience: eternal separation from the very Heart we were made for—and to be without Him is truly Hell forever.
“BUT GOD…” (Ephesians 2:4-10)
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned, but He who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” ~ Jesus Christ (John 3:16-18)
Like Lucas McCain digging on his hands and knees, crawling desperately through the wall of earth and stone separating him from his son, God the Father had a radical plan. He would save us. He would rescue us. But the cost He would have to pay is truly mind-blowing. To redeem the human race from the fate we had sealed for ourselves would require the payment of one perfect life—a replacement for the one Adam stole from God in the Garden of Eden. In Psalm 49:8 the Psalmist wrote, “the redemption of their souls is costly”, but no one on earth could have anticipated what that cost would be. “Without shedding of blood there is no remission [of sins]”, Scripture says (Hebrews 9:22). Our disobedience demanded death and so, to pay for it, someone would have to die in our place: someone perfect, spotless, sinless.
Someone like Jesus, the Beloved Son of God.
This is the part where I pray the full weight of everything we’ve been talking about through this whole series falls completely on your soul. God the Father sent God the Son—the Son of His love, the apple of His eye, the One Who delighted His Soul and pleased Him as only a Son can please His Father—down to earth to become a man, live 33 sinless years on this planet harassed, ridiculed, despised, and then DIE in the place of sinners. To redeem a bunch of rebels.
To rescue Us!
Why?!
Because that’s how much He loves us.
Not only that, but the Son chose to come, willingly putting Himself through Hell on earth to take our place. Jesus died for you. He died for me. He died for humanity.
Because that’s how much God loves us!
I wish I could seal this into your spirit…but I can’t. I pray God the Holy Spirit will:
GOD THE FATHER LOVES YOU. YOU ARE INFINITELY VALUABLE. YOU WERE WORTH THE LIFE OF JESUS TO HIM—HIS ONE AND ONLY BELOVED SON. WE WERE WORTH JESUS TO GOD AND JESUS AGREED!
Do we get that?! I mean, do we REALLY GET IT?
This is why I’m writing this blog series at all: because when we begin to catch a glimpse of the AWESOME love the Father and Son have for each other, THE SACRIFICE they both made FOR US becomes TRULY OVERWHELMING—THE VALUE OF EACH, INDIVIDUAL HUMAN LIFE TO GOD IS THE STAGGERING VALUE OF HIS PERFECT, BEAUTIFUL SON. The Holy Trinity bled, suffered, groaned, died, agonized, and, ultimately, triumphed over sin and death and Hell…to bring us back home. To save us from Hell, yes. To deliver us from satan, yes. To break the sway of sin over our lives, YES. But all of that for the profoundly simple, unbelievably tender reason that our Father in Heaven just wanted His kids back. He wanted us home. Safe. In His arms.
All we have to do is ask Him to forgive us of our sin, place our trust and our lives in Jesus for salvation, and let the Holy Spirit come into our lives to teach us, empower us, and seal us as God’s chosen sons and daughters: “born again” into His family, adopted as His children…
FOREVER!
And as His strong arms wrap around us, we can say like Mark McCain:
“I knew you’d come, Pa!”
(‘Til next week’s epic conclusion!)
CHOOSE HEROIC,
CHRISTIS JOY
