St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church – Watertown, WI
Pastor Mark Gartner
Sermon for Easter 3 – April 11^th and 14^th, 2002

As we look at the Bible we begin to realize that there is quite a bit of information contained in the Bible. From the first book Genesis to the last book of Revelation there are 66 books containing many chapters and many more verses. At times we might begin to overwhelm us. We might think to ourselves where do we begin? What is important? How can I begin to understand all of this information? Looking at it from a human point of view those are very logical questions. We do need a plan to understand the Bible. We need faith to understand anything. We need the Holy Spirit working in our hearts. With this in mind we need to know some of the basics, before we can understand the more complex teachings. We need to daily study the Bible and be able to see how it all fits to together. For many of us this started at an early age, maybe Sunday School or at a Christians Day School. It meant going through a Confirmation Class to help us in our understanding of the Bible. As the years have gone by this daily studying takes on the form of Daily Bible study at home or group Bible study at the church or with other friends. It includes weekly worship where God speaks to us in his word through the liturgy, the hymns, the readings and the sermon.

As we look back at those many years that we have been digging into God's Word, we begin to see that there is one major theme that spreads itself through all of the things we have learned. Whether we think back to our first day of Elementary School or Sunday School, or if we look back to a daily devotion we had yesterday, the only theme that works it way through the whole Bible stands out as God's plan of redemption. With that in mind this morning we are going to let this particular theme of the Bible show itself to us from the words of the Apostle Peter using the theme:

To truly understand the words for this morning or any sermon talking about redemption, we must understand what redemption is. The word "redemption" or variations of it such as redeem or redeemed are used most often to talk about our salvation. Redemption is a word that means "to save someone by buying them back." It was usually used when a slave was bought from his master thus freeing him. It also means paying the ransom for someone being held captive. Redemption is Christ's work of ransoming all people from the captivity and slavery of sin, death and the devil by paying the price of his blood, suffering and death. It is the act whereby God paid the complete price for all the sins we had committed. He bought us or ransomed us from the certain death we were facing because of our sins.

Now we know what redemption so we will begin to see in more detail what redemption is. The first part we will discuss is the scope or what we were redeemed from. What did God pay the price for? Peter writes, "you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers." What is the empty way that was handed down to us by our forefathers? Why did we so desperately need to be ransomed or bought back? We were slaves. We were being held captive. Sin, death and the devil were what had taken us into slavery. We were taken captive never to be released by our sin. Sin had taken hold of us and wasn't going to let go. Sin had wrapped its ugly paws around us and was going to hang on with all its might. Sin had mastered us. Sin had taught us to follow the empty things of this world. Sin was there hiding our hearts from the one thing needful. We need to realize that all sin is slavery. Sin of any sort whether it looks small or big controls us completely.

What a fitting picture when Peter tells us that we were redeemed from these empty things. As the Hebrew word for sins points out, sin is like shooting for a target but missing the mark completely. Sin is empty at every turn. Sin produces nothing good. Sin leads us on a one way path to destruction, which is eternal destruction in hell. And we know that this empty sinless life is passed on from generation to generation from the time of Adam and Eve. Peter says that these empty ways were handed down from our forefathers. Isn't this certainly true? All those who lived before us with the exception of Jesus were just like us. They were all sinners. And their empty way of life full of sin was passed on to us. We can not escape this sin. We cannot pass the buck and say that it was my parent’s fault that I'm a sinner. We all as individuals are to take the blame for our complete and destructive sinful nature. This is what our redemption was from. It was from the empty ways that were passed on to us by our forefather, namely sin.

Sin corrupts us all and that is why we needed to be redeemed or bought with a price. We also know that no man could ever pay this price, because all men are full of sin. No one could ever redeem the world because we are all sinners. That is why we cannot forget the important work of Jesus our Savior. "You were redeemed...with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake." That is the means for our salvation. The picture the Peter uses is drawn from the O.T sacrifices. How many of you here this morning can recall the many sacrifices that God commanded the O.T Israelites to perform? There were four main sacrifices that God commanded them to perform on a regular basis. These sacrifices were a foreshadowing, a type of the perfect sacrifice that would come in the form of Jesus Christ. As we look back at those O.T sacrifices, we see something that we could never begin to imagine. The key to these sacrifices was the blood that was shed. Imagine the amount of blood that must have been shed during just one day of sacrifices. Imagine the amount of animals that gave their lives to atone for their sins. But no matter how many sacrifices they did, they always had to do more, because they were not perfect sacrifices. They were looking ahead to Jesus.

The perfect Lamb did come. Jesus the Son of God came as God had planned before the creation of the world. Before we ever entered the picture, God had planned to send the perfect Lamb of Jesus to pay the price for our sins. As Luther so beautifully explains in the explanation to the 2nd Article, "He has redeemed me a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sins, from death and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent sufferings and death." The price of our redemption was not measured in dollars and cents. There could never be a money value placed on our redemption. There is not enough money in the world to pay this price for us. Jesus' blood was the price. Christ made us free. He granted us the freedom for our sin, the devil and the world. His blood tells us that we are now one of his children. And all of this is ours through faith worked in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. We now know through faith that we are not slaves to sin any longer. We have had one pay the ransom to set us free forever. We no longer are trapped in the pits of spiritual despair.

3. The Purpose

This is the part most of us can say without any really difficulty. How were we redeemed? We were redeemed by Jesus' blood on the cross. That is the heart and core of what our redemption is. But our redemption extends past this stage. Why did God redeem us? What purpose did God have for us by redeeming us? As we get the answer to this question we will begin to see the true life God wants and expects for us as Christians. Peter gets us in the right direction by writing, "live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear." What do we think of when we think of fear? For most of us fear is a bad thing. Fear is something that paralyzes us at times. But God tells us to live in reverent fear. What Peter means from this is very clear, if we look at other parts of scripture. Look at passages that say, "But just as he who called you is holy so be holy in all you do, For it is written, be Holy, because I am holy." That is the kind of fear we are speaking about. We are not talking about being afraid of God. We are talking about a fear that we have for God that means we are in awe before God. Everything we do is in reverence to him and for him.

But why are we to live in this way? It is God's purpose for redeeming us. God did not redeem us in order to let us live as we want. God did not redeem us to fall prey to the evil things of this world. God did not redeem us, because we deserved it. God redeemed us with the purpose in mind that we as his children would then go and tell others. God in his grace called us to be one of his children. It is through God's grace that we have faith, which allows us to confidently and boldly believe that we are saved. It is this faith that guides and directs us in all that we do. It is this faith that tells us to be holy, as God is holy. Holy means perfect without sin. God doesn't want us to try not to sin. God wants us to live for him in all that we say, do and think. He does not want us to conform to the evil ways of this world. He wants us to be self-controlled when others are not. He wants us to stand out like a sore thumb, because we are so different. Different in the fact that God's Word directs all our actions. God wants us to be the bright light that all can see and spot. God wants us to remember the purpose for which he redeemed us. It was not to sit back and enjoy the fact we are redeemed. It is to let this fact of our redemption now rule our entire lives. We as bought children want to live for Christ. We want to let Christ shine our lives. We want to tell as many people as we can about God.

This is the real purpose. This is what God expects. Now take a look at our own lives. What purpose do we have in mind? For many of us myself included we often times forget God's purpose, or at the very least it gets awful cloudy. Our own purpose takes the forefront. We begin to forget what reason God had for ransoming us from death. All we can see is our job, or our families, or our daily lives. We are able many times to insert our own agenda and purpose into the places where God's should be. We are able to rationalize or talk ourselves into believing this is what God wants from me, instead of looking at what the real purpose God has in store for us as his children. Each of us can set up our own standards, which many times are a lot lower than God's standards. God has set the standard. It is perfection. Perfection means to be in church 100%. Perfection means to be at Bible Class 100%. Perfection means to always think, say and do God's will. Have we done this? Is perfection our goal, or is squeaking by our goal? Many times we lose sight of what God wants and expects from us as one of his dearly bought children.

That is why we always need to keep the Lamb of God firmly planted in our hearts. That is why we can never lose sight or hold of what Jesus gave to us by shedding his blood on the cross and rising on the third day. When we see how far we are from God's goal of perfection, we begin to see the wonder, joy and assurance that we have in the full forgiveness that God has given to us and always gives to us through his Son. Let this always be in our hearts. Let us never forget the word redemption. It means to buy something back or pay the ransom for someone. God has done this by buying us back from our complete destruction we had in our sin. He saw our lost condition and in his love and mercy sought to save us all. Through the blood of Christ we were saved and are now eager to live in complete awe and reverence for what he has so freely and graciously given to us. Our lives are a daily reminder of our thanks and praise for what he has given to us. Let his sacrifice for us fill our hearts every day as we live on this earth. Amen