An Overview of Redemption Pastor Larry Kroon Wasilla Bible Church January 29, 2012 Near the end of his career the Apostle Paul, under the command of God, our Father, and Jesus Christ, our Lord, and moved by the Spirit of God, wrote a letter to a younger pastor by the name of Timothy. And in that letter he states his purpose about a chapter or two into it. And he tells Timothy 'I really want to see you again. I wanna visit you. But I'm writing these things to you because in case I delay, in case I don't make it, I want you to know how to order, how to behave in the household of God, the church of the living God, which is a pillar and a buttress of the truth.' That particular letter is called 1 Timothy. It's found near the back of your New Testament, it's a small little letter. It, because of its emphasis and focus on how we ought to order the life of the church, it has become like the manual of church life since it was written and first sent two thousand years ago. It's an interesting letter in that when you pick it up and start reading it the initial thing it instructs Timothy to do, the primary thing it puts in front of him, is to make sure that wrong doctrine is not taught in the church. Kind of a negative instruction, and it strikes you as you pick up the letter. He says, 'I charge you, Timothy, do not let anyone teach different doctrines.' And by different he means those teachings that are different from the Gospel of the glory of our God, as he speaks of it. And from start to finish in that letter, that is the drumbeat concern. Now, it is matched by a positive side. It's not only 'Make sure that no one teaches wrong doctrine.' There's a charge at the same time: 'Timothy, you make sure you teach the Gospel.' In fact, it is told to Timothy in that letter, he says Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture and to encouragement and to teaching. In that letter is a paragraph I'm gonna read to you. It's found in chapter 4, and it is going to become the foundation paragraph for the next series of sermons we're gonna be going through in the weeks ahead. It's a simple paragraph that echos the concern of the letter, that in ordering the life of the church different doctrine not be taught, and the truth be taught. But the wording's a little unusual, and so I'm gonna read it with you carefully. And as I read it I'll expand on some of the wording so you pick up the nuance of it. It's found in chapter 4, verse 6, and Paul has returned this concern that the right teaching be taught among God's people. And so he says to Timothy, If you put these things... referring to the truths of the Gospel, and the realities of our God, and sound doctrine; he says, If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, 'you'll be doing what those who wanna serve Jesus well will do; they will speak the truth, the good doctrine.' But then he adds this phrase,...being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. He's saying, 'Timothy, being a good servant isn't just about putting the truth in front of people. It's putting the truth in front of people while you, yourself, are training in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that we follow. It isn't just that you teach. You train yourself as you teach.' And the word is a powerful one, 'cause he doesn't say to Timothy, '...the words you've been taught...'; he says 'the words you've been trained in. The words that you have practiced in so much that they've formed your life.' It's a strong term, being trained, and he picks up on that theme with Timothy as the paragraph goes on. When he goes on he says, Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. 'Don't pay attention to babble.' He says, Rather train yourself..., that is train yourself in the words of the faith, in the good doctrine,...train yourself for godliness; with a goal in mind. And by godliness he means that life that gives God His due recognition with reverence and respect. Train in the words of the faith so that you become a godly person who gives God His due recognition with respect and reverence in every area of your life. He encourages that when he says,...for while bodily training..., and here the picture is of athletes, athletic training; he says,...for while bodily training is of some value..., it does produce some good,...godliness is of value in every way..., that recognition of God with proper respect and reverence that...holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. It makes a qualitative difference now and forever. He builds on that to make sure we grip it. He says that saying, the one he just said about godliness,...is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. 'Don't ignore it. It's true; you can rely on it.' He says it's for this end
...we toil and strive... Training in the words of the faith is not easy. It involves toil towards godliness. Paul says we do it because of the promise that comes with godliness, that there'll be benefit now and forever, because we have set our hope on the living God who is the Savior, the Deliverer, the Helper of all people, and especially in a special way of those who believe. Let's put the whole thought flow together again. Paul says to this young pastor, 'Listen, put the truth in front of the people while you are training yourself in it so that you become a person who's godly, knowing that that godliness is gonna bring a qualitative difference to your present and to your future because we count on the living God.' My goal in the next number of weeks as we go through this sermon series is to practice what that verse is...that paragraph talks about to take one of the words of the faith, one of the words of the good doctrine that we follow and train ourselves in it in such a way that our godliness is strengthened to the point that it makes a qualitative difference now and forever. That's where we're headed training ourselves in one of the words of the faith. And the particular word we're gonna concentrate on, and we're gonna spend a number of weeks on this, training ourselves in it, is the word 'redemption'. It's a word that if you look it up in the dictionary the list of new meanings will have a varied nuance to 'em, but we can run right through it very quickly. If you look it up in the dictionary, this is the first entry you'll see. It says, Redemption: an act of redeeming. Doesn't help a whole lot. But if you then take the next step and look up the word 'redeeming', you'll discover that there's a number of nuances or meanings to it. And it starts off, the primary usage of it refers to 'buying or paying something off, to clear something or set it free by payment.' Another way that it's used is 'to buy back something.' You have something, somebody else has it, and you once owned it but now you're gonna buy it back. You're gonna pay a price and you get it back. Very similar to that is 'to recover by payment.' In other words, you lost something and you pay a price in order to retrieve it. Fourth is one that we all know from use of coupons, and that is 'to exchange for money or goods.' You take a coupon in and exchange it for money or goods. You notice in going through that quick set of definitions that they all have somewhat of a common thread in terms of there's purchase, there's buying, there's payment, there's exchange, and that's the dominant idea in the concept of redemption when it's often used, is that something is purchased, something is retrieved, and it is done so through the payment of a price. It's used that way often. It's also used without an emphasis on payment. It is often used just simply 'of deliverance or rescue,' and it has nothing necessarily to do with money being paid. It's just simply whatever is necessary is done so that a person is delivered from desperation or rescued from a dangerous situation. Then there is in theology...oftentimes when we talk about this concept in a theological way, with respect to God, the idea of a deliverance from sin comes to the forefront. And then fourth, and very related to that, is sometimes it...we refer to it simply in a concept of atonement for sin. And here the emphasis is upon just simply making up for wrong done. And sometimes the word redemption is used that way. Lastly, repurchase as of something sold. Something has been sold or given over to a pawn broker, and you go in and repurchase it back. That's the kind of usages we have of the term, common in our culture and time. If you go to the Scriptures and say 'How is this word redemption used? How does it appear?' you'll find it comes up a number of times in a lot of places throughout Scripture. And let me give you a sampling of the ways it's used. It can be used of the redemption of property; and here you may have a parcel of land and you sell it to somebody, but then you want to buy it back. And so you go to that other owner and you agree upon a price, you pay it for him, and you get your property back. And that is called redemption. And that appears in Scripture a number of times, that exchange and purchase of property. It is often referred to and used in application of a slave, purchasing a slave out of bondage. Money is paid and that slave is released either as now to belong to you, or in some cases given total freedom. But it's the purchase of a slave, often used in a slave market application. Interesting one it can be used of a sacrifice. Redemption of a sacrifice. Example: in the Old Testament the people of Israel, because of all that God had done for them, and all He had given them, were required to give their first-born son to God, to dedicate that child to the service of God at the temple or wherever he was needed. You were not to raise that child to be your son, managing your farm, and receiving your inheritance. He was to be given to God. Now, that's what the people of Israel owed God, but He provided a redemptive process where the parents of that child could offer a sacrifice, a payment, that would allow them to keep their child...and they could redeem that first-born son to be raised in their home as their son, and carry on their farm, and receive their inheritance. That was redemption, one application of it in the Old Testament. It's often used, and here there's no real picture of money being paid or a purchase being made, it's simply often referred to as God's rescue of the desperate. Many times David will use that terminology when he looks back at his life and says, 'God, redeem me from all my troubles.' And the idea is time and again in David's life God did what was ever necessary to deliver him, to rescue him, out of desperate situations and conditions. That's another way to
use the word redemption. It can also be used in the Old Testament of God's deliverance of Israel; not just individuals, but the whole nation. And here it's one of the most common words used to refer to the way God took the nation of Israel, when it was living as a slave people in Egypt, and brought them out of slavery and brought them to the Promised Land. Now, there was not money involved. There was not a purchase involved. It simply indicates that God did everything necessary to rescue His people out of a desperate situation and set them free from Egypt. That was redemption. Probably the grandest use of the term, kind of the pinnacle of 'em all, is when Jesus uses the term. And it's how He explains what He was doing when He came to earth, what He accomplished. There's a moment with His disciples, and they had [been] going along and there was a discussion that arose. In fact, there was a little bit of a debate. And He settles the debate; He answers the question by saying this. He says, Even the Son of Man, a reference to Himself, He says to His disciples, Even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve... He says, 'You know, I didn't come for you to serve Me, or for you to take care of Me.' Jesus says to the disciples, 'I came to serve you.' And then He takes it a step further,...and to give His life..., the Son of Man did this...give His life a ransom to redeem the many. The only way to understand what Jesus did when He came to this earth is to understand it as redemption. That's the term that we're gonna be training ourselves in in the weeks ahead. And I wanna emphasize...when we speak of it (I'm gonna skip across this)...i wanna emphasize when we speak of it that we're talking of being trained, not just taught. It's gonna be very important here, and I wanna make sure we catch the distinction. 'Trained' means that you practice the reality of this truth so much that it begins to shape you. It isn't just simply that you have the correct definition and you know how to spell it, and you can give biblical references as to where to find it in Scripture. We are talking about being trained and practicing this truth so much that it begins to shape your life. Let me give an example of when somebody does weight lifting exercises, for example. And they lift those weights over and over again. They're practicing that. As they do so, that exercise, that training, that practice, is shaping them...and pretty soon you'll notice the difference in their arms and their shoulders. It's training that shapes. A musician that goes over and over and over again practicing scales and chords, and drills them over and over again, and practices them so much that they are then able to play complete songs using those chords and those notes, has been trained. What we're talking about here is taking a word, a word of faith, practicing the reality of that word until it begins to shape us. It's important we do that. See, the word 'redemption' if practiced, if you've trained yourself in that truth, will shape how you speak to one another when you walk in this room. If you train yourself in that word it will shape how you talk to your children when you go home today. If you train yourself in that great and grand word of faith it will shape the way you interact with your spouse in this week ahead. If you're a businessman and you're going through transactions, and you're dealing with customers and clients, if you train yourself in this word, the truth and reality of redemption, it will shape the way you transact business it will. In fact, if you train yourself in this word, practice its reality, it will ultimately shape the way you speak, act, and feel three weeks below zero. It will. This is so important I'm gonna take time right at the start of this series to walk you through it a second, 'cause you need to see this. Now I'm gonna go to an area that, it's not because I'm great at this, it's probably the area I've spent the longest in my life working on this with, and that is in the role of being a husband, and how this relates there. And I'm gonna use some goofy little diagrams, but we'll walk through this and you'll begin to see what I'm talking about. In any given circumstance and situation that my wife and I are involved in, and something happens, there is a wide array of attitudes I can adopt, of actions I can take, and words I can speak. In over 40 years of marriage I have probably done most all of them. Ok? Any given circumstance, situation, there is a wide array of attitudes you can adopt, actions you can take, and words you can speak. Now, in those given situations the attitudes you adopt, the actions you take, and the words you use, will be based upon your perspective of the situation, your understanding of it, and how the various pieces of it fit together. The way you see reality at that moment will determine what attitude you adopt, what action you take, what words you speak. If for example, in a certain situation you take attitude A...I mean perspective A, it will form your attitude, actions, and words in a certain direction. If you adopt, or if you have a different perspective, you see it in a different way, and the way the pieces fit together are different in your thinking, then you're gonna choose a different set of words, actions, and attitudes. And yet if there's a third perspective you have, and there may be a lot of different ways to look at that situation, the perspective you have will determine the attitude you adopt, the actions you take, and the words you speak. Now the challenge is how do you have the right perspective? How do you have (and the correct word here)...how do you have wisdom in that circumstance and situation so that you can take it all in and adopt the right attitude, the wise attitude, take the wise action, and speak the wise word? The answer, biblically, is very simple. Not easy, but simple. Biblically, the answer is the only way you can have wisdom is if you understand the unseen reality of every
situation and every circumstance, the unseen reality of our God what He has done, what He is doing, and what He will do. In other words, you're a person of godliness who recognizes the reality of God with proper reverence and respect. And it's only when you have that, you will have an accurate view of the situation and choose wise words, wise actions, and adopt a wise attitude. You do not have that godliness you do not have it unless you train yourself in the words of the faith. You do not have it if redemption is just a definition you heard once in a sermon when a preacher was talking about it. You have to be trained in that truth and practice its reality. I wanna be emphatic at this point. In marriage the situations come at you, and the circumstances develop too quickly, dramatically, emotionally, to kinda sit back and say, 'Ok, here's my array of actions, attitudes, and words I can choose at this moment. And here's my different ways of viewing the situation as I pick 'em. And while I try to decide which is the wise way to view it let me review the definition of redemption and its usage in Scripture.' You don't have the time to do that. Example: This is a real example, but not from my marriage. I used a real example from my marriage first service and decided it wasn't wise. True. So I'll use an example from another marriage in our church that I really admire. Here's the situation. You're the husband, alright? Your wife has gone to Costco. You guys are budget-conscious and you're careful, and she's gone to Costco and she's taken the pickup. And she has loaded the whole back end of that pickup with food stuffs and groceries and everything else! I mean, it is a load! I mean, you don't go to Costco to buy a jar of peanut butter! So she's got all the bulk goods in the back of the pickup loaded, ready to go. And on the way home she decides to go through the car wash. You got the visual? For some reason, when I get the visual I see a roll of toilet paper floating. Listen, when that soggy mess comes into your garage and the water is draining on the garage floor...you do not have the time to define redemption, get a proper perspective on God, wisely sort through the situation, and use the correct word with the right attitude and do the correct thing. It's gotta happen like this [motions like snapping his fingers]. And it won't happen if you're not trained. It's like a basketball player coming up to the foul line and the game is on the line. There's one second left to the game and he's got the opportunity to win the game with the foul shot...but he hasn't practiced shooting foul shots in two years. He can tell you and define for you everything about shooting a foul shot the muscle reflexes, the trajectory it needs to follow, the size of the receptacle the ball has to go through. He can recite for you the rules from the rulebook about how important what a foul shot is, the results of a successful one, the results of a negative one, all that sort of stuff. He can do all that, but he has not practiced it?! Game gone. Game gone. It's the same here. We don't practice the words of the faith, and I mean it literally, a word like redemption...if we don't practice and train ourselves in the truth of it we lose our grip on it. And when that happens in a culture, and it no longer has itself trained in these grand, wonderful truths, then you start losing the wisdom that comes from them, and husbands and wives no longer know how to react wisely in situations. And after a while, and this happens, by generations as a culture drifts, is pretty soon they don't even have the relational skills to be polite to one another. And you find yourself in the situation where you have to face a culture and a society and even a Christian community where the teaching not only has to be about the great theological truths, but you have to help people think wisely, and you have to even teach the basics of relational skills of politeness! That's a challenge. And it's one of the challenges of our culture, our time, even in Christian communities. We've gotta answer to it, so that's why I look ahead and I say let's go for it. Let's train ourselves in redemption, to develop a godliness that makes a qualitative difference in this life and in the next. But it's so much more than just simply meeting a challenge. Because of that I've asked the worship team to come up to close the service on this particular day as we move into this sermon series. Because when you study redemption and you train yourself in it, there's an amazing thing that happens. It's wonderful! In fact, I think it's the most precious thing that happens in our Christian experience, is when you train yourself in redemption you deepen your relationship with the Redeemer, and the wonder, and the glory, and the mystery of Jesus as our Redeemer becomes a reality that grips us and shapes us. And so as we get ready to study redemption I wanna make sure we keep our eyes focused on the core reality of it all, the Redeemer. I'll ask you to stand with me as we sing this song.
There is a Redeemer There is a redeemer, Jesus, God's own Son, Precious Lamb of God, Messiah, Holy One, Jesus my redeemer, Name above all names, Precious Lamb of God, Messiah, O for sinners slain. When I stand in Glory, I will see His face, And there I'll serve my King forever, in that Holy Place. Let's pray over this sermon series. Our Father in heaven, As we go forward from here we pray and we ask that, Father, You would release Your grace as we come together in the weeks ahead to spend time training ourselves in this grand and glorious word of faith. Father, we pray that You would release Your grace in such a way that our faith would be strengthened, our hope would be refreshed, and our hearts will be engaged in a new way, and that, Father, this song that means so much to us will only become richer and more profound to us each time we sing it again. We pray that in the name of Jesus, our Redeemer. Amen.