then continuing a series of sermons on the subject why God became man. We sometimes call that the incarnation, the birth of God in flesh. I've been answering that by pointing your attention to some of the answers that Jesus himself gives, or that the New Testament gives. Jesus in passages say, I came to do thus, and so we're looking at those passages. I'm going to begin by reading Mark 10, 45, and then go back into the Old Testament to read from Isaiah 53. We begin with Mark 10, verse 45. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many. He came to give His life as a ransom for many. Then turn back into the Old Testament to the book of Isaiah. Isaiah 53, and I'll read verses 4 through 6. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." Why did God become man? In Mark, Jesus says, the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. The answer there is that God became man to ransom us. Jesus became man to give his life as a ransom. The question might also be phrased this way based on these words. Why did Jesus die on the cross? It's actually a very profound question. It's one that is something of a question that is a dividing line of Christian and non-Christian. I remember having a conversation with those from a cult called the Way International and asking them this question, then why did Jesus die? And they fumbled around a little bit and finally came to say that it was a good example to set for mankind. someone who was so self-sacrificing that he would even lay down his life. But what they missed, and what everyone misses if they don't understand why Jesus came and why Jesus died, is what you might call the elephant in the room. Do you know what is meant by that phrase? The elephant in the room is the idea when there are a group of people and they don't want to talk about something, but everybody knows what it is that nobody wants to talk about. It's so obvious, it's like the elephant in the room. But nobody's going to say, oh look at that elephant. The elephant in the room is that mankind is sinful. And that sin deserves and demands God to deal justly with sin. Everybody knows it. Whether they know it rationally or they know it emotionally, they know that something is wrong. They know that something is broken about the world that we live in. They may not be able to put their finger on it, but they'll even say there's something wrong with me. The elephant is sin. Jesus says he came to give his life as a ransom. This is in fulfillment of what God demands as a payment for sin. I'm going to walk through Isaiah 53 to describe this. In the back of your bulletin you'll find an outline there for my message that has this main idea that Jesus came to give his life as a ransom, therefore live in the freedom that he has purchased for you. I begin with that main idea that Jesus came to give his life as a ransom. The word ransom is something that we often think of in terms of kidnapping. It has the idea of paying a price to buy something back or to rescue something. In the case of kidnapping, maybe the kidnapper sends a ransom note and says, I will release your loved one if you send me this much money. The biblical use of the word has a similar force to it. You and I and all of mankind are captive to Satan and to death. Because of sin, you are alienated from God. You have been captured by Satan and by your own sin. In order to be free from that, a ransom must be paid. This is where Isaiah 53 helps us to understand what this is all about. The first thing I want you to notice in Isaiah 53 is that God is holy and we are not. God has no sin. In fact, God has said, be holy as I am holy. He demands and he deserves perfect obedience. That's the clear testimony of the Bible. That's what everybody understands is broken, is we are not holy. We have all sinned. In the language of Isaiah 53, all we, like sheep, have gone astray. We've turned each one to our own path. Here the prophet Isaiah uses very figurative language to describe the condition of mankind. He says that we have all like sheep gone astray. And I want to just pause there a moment and make sure you understand the seriousness of what Isaiah is describing. It's tempting for you to think of this as a cute little lamb all fluffy and white and innocent that is just kind of chipped along with this nice happy music and has kind of gone off the path a little bit and needs someone to come along and say, no, no, no, come back over here. That is not man's condition. If you think of yourself as cute and fluffy and innocent, then I need to wake you up. You are not innocent. None of you are. I am not. All of us have gone astray. When the Bible talks about going astray, the prophet talks about the disobedience of mankind that the Lord requires. Last week I preached about the obedience of Jesus Christ. Now Jesus came to obey for you. That's something that from the very beginning God has required and still requires. He still requires you to perfectly obey Him. But not one of us can do that. So to have the idea that you just need to be straightened out a little bit, the Bible disabuses you of that when it says that you have rebelled against God. That you are naturally an enemy of God. The New Testament calls us, without Christ, it calls you children of wrath. Children of the devil. That's the description that the scripture gives of all mankind without Jesus Christ. Secondly, Isaiah points to the fact that God is just and that he punishes sin. Since God is holy and just, it is right that God would punish sin. Our offense stands against Almighty God and it carries an everlasting weight because of that. We can't just pass off our sins as something minor. Something that should be excused because we have tried hard or because our error is only just something little. That's not what Scripture says. God is just, and the penalty for sin must be paid. In fact, we can say that if God did not punish sin, then He would cease to be good. He would cease to be God. God is just, and therefore punishes sin. But third, Jesus came to give His life as a ransom. He came to pay the price that you owe because of sin, because of the elephants in the room. And what is that price? The price of sin, or the wages of sin, is death. In order to deliver you from the clutches of sin, Jesus gave His life as a ransom. Look at how Isaiah describes this. Look at verse 4. in Isaiah 53. He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Part of the path that Jesus walked is that He stooped down to bear your sins. In the Old Testament sacrificial system, that work of Jesus Christ was prefigured so that we would have a shadow of understanding from the Old Testament perspective, a shadow that pointed forward to the perfect work that Jesus came to do. It's instructive to look at that shadow so that we can understand it. When the people of God came to worship, they brought a sacrifice for their sins. They brought a lamb. A lamb that was supposed to be without spot and blemish. Pointing forward to Jesus, the one without sin. And they would lay their hands on that animal. Why would they do that? It was representing that they were taking what belonged to them and giving it to that lamb as representative of the sin that they carried, that they were putting onto that animal. That animal then would be taken to the altar and it would be slaughtered to represent the penalty that you and I deserve because of sin. There was a special day as well in the Old Testament, the Day of Atonement, when there was another lamb that was brought. And that lamb too would receive the hands of the priests, the hands of those who were there to worship. But this lamb would then be taken out outside of the camp and would be chased off into the wilderness, never to be seen again. We get the word scapegoat from this practice. It represented how our sins are not only paid for by the sacrifice of the one Lamb, but our sins are also borne away by the sacrifice that God provides. This is what Jesus did for you. If you're trusting in Jesus Christ, He paid the penalty for your sins by His death on the cross. Why did Jesus die? Well, it's because you and I deserve that. You and I deserve the wrath of God to fall fully on us. But which one of us can pay that ransom price? Psalm 49 asks that question and says not one of us can. And yet Jesus has. He bore your sin, your grief and your sorrow. He paid your penalty on the cross. And in doing so, he carries away your sin so that God will remember it no more. Verse 4 goes on and says, Yet we esteem him smitten, stricken by God, and afflicted. What a penetrating phrase that is to show how senseless we are to what Jesus came to do. but also to show how it is Jesus and Jesus alone that bears the weight of our sins. In a sense, we go along thinking that we're okay and yet Jesus bears all of our payments completely. Then verse 5 says, He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. Remember that Jesus is the sinless Son of God. There is no blemish in Him whatsoever. There is no sin at all. He came and He obeyed God perfectly like you and I cannot do. So, why did Jesus die on the cross? It wasn't for His sins. It wasn't because of something He did. Isaiah identifies it perfectly, he says, he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. Here is the great exchange that Martin Luther identified, that I pointed to last week. The exchange that is so wonderfully worked out in Jesus Christ. You and I stand as guilty before God in and of ourselves. And Jesus stands as righteous, acquitted of everything and proclaimed to be worthy of life in God's eyes. But in God's mercy and in his grace, there is this great exchange. Jesus takes upon himself your sin and your guilt. He takes the penalty that you deserve and he pays for it fully. And in return, what does Jesus give you but nothing less than his own righteousness. And you receive from him the wonderful gift of everlasting life. The great exchange that I'm emphasizing this morning is that transfer of guilt, that transfer of penalty onto Jesus Christ. Isaiah 53 goes on in verse 6 to say, the chastisement or our peace was upon Him. And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. While Isaiah doesn't name this suffering servant as Jesus, it clearly is our Messiah that Isaiah speaks of centuries before Jesus was born. I remember a story of a fellow pastor who read this passage from the Old Testament to a Jewish friend of his. and presented him what Isaiah says about the suffering servant, about the one who is wounded for our transgressions, who by his stripes we are healed, and the Jewish man said, why do you always have to bring Jesus into this? He understood that Isaiah was speaking about Jesus. He understood that Isaiah was speaking about why Jesus came. He came as a ransom. He came to lay down his life for you and I so that we might be ransomed from the grave. That brings to us the effects of ransom. I'm going to move to that idea now, that Jesus' ransom sets you free. Because Jesus gave himself as a ransom, he sets you free, and there are two things that I'm going to emphasize. I've already been emphasizing that his ransom sets you free from the penalty of sin, We're going to elaborate on that. But secondly, he sets you free from the power of sin. And I'll come to that in a moment. Let's look from Isaiah to see how he ransoms us from the penalty of sin. Look at verse 5 again. The chastisement for our peace was upon him. And by his stripes we are healed. Up to this point, this passage has emphasized the justice of God. But the cross represents so much more, doesn't it? Christ suffered and died on the cross to appease God's wrath and to bring you peace. That answers that question of sin, does it not? The elephant in the room has to be spoken of. You and I are guilty before God. You and I deserve His just punishment. But God laid that on Jesus. And by that act, He has bought you peace with God. I like the way the New Testament speaks of this. It uses a word that I'm going to highlight in several different passages. It uses the word propitiation to describe what Jesus has done. Propitiation means the sacrifice that satisfies God's justice and makes him gracious towards us, or restores that relationship. So listen to Romans 3.25. This is speaking of Jesus and it's in the middle of one of Paul's really, really long sentences. I'm going to jump right in the middle. It says, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. Remember what's been established. God is righteous. But Jesus paid the penalty that is deserved. When you trust in Jesus Christ, the penalty doesn't just kind of evaporate and disappear. The penalty still is paid. But the glorious thing is that it is paid in full by Jesus. By His death on the cross, by His blood, there is forgiveness of sins. The Apostle John writes of this as well. 1 John 2, verses 1 and 2 say this, My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin, but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the propitiation for our sins. And not only for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. Remember what propitiation means, that God accepts the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. He now looks on you, if you're trusting in Jesus, as if your debt is paid fully. He no longer remembers your sin. The penalty that you have deserved has been paid completely. That is a glorious truth to know that your penalty is taken by Jesus Christ. 1 John 4.10 puts it this way, and this is love. Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Because of what Jesus did, you have peace with God. If you trust in Him, He has ransomed you from the penalty of sin. That chastisement, that penalty for our peace was upon Him. That means that God really genuinely and forever pardons all of your sins in Jesus Christ. That truth is something that you experience right now. It is a complete act that Jesus has done for you. It's not something that is waiting for you to somehow fill up what is lacking. It's not for you to somehow grasp and hold on to by your own strength and by the grit of your own power. It's not something that is waiting for God in some future event to say, okay, you've done well enough. Instead, as you accept Jesus Christ, He says, your sins are forgiven. Your sins are forgiven. You have peace with God now and forever. Jesus' ransom sets you free from the penalty of sin. We must take that next step then and say that Jesus' death also ransoms you, sets you free from the power of sin. Sometimes people hear the message of the good news and they say, well, if Jesus does it all, then it doesn't matter what I do. I can go and live however I choose. But then this is the point that Jesus has indeed set you free to follow after him. He set you free from not only the penalty, but the power of sin as well. In this sense, the ransom sets you free from Satan. You no longer live under his power. The New Testament uses language like this. It says you have crossed over from death to life, from darkness to light, from a life of disobedience and rebellion to a life of righteousness. I want you to see what an incredible privilege it is that God would apply the work of Christ to you in this way. He sets you free, leading you out of the bondage in which you were born. A bondage to sin. You genuinely were a child of wrath. A child of the devil. But by his power, He has set you free from Satan and from all of sin. Now, we still struggle with sin because that's the life we live. We are not completely free from the temptations of the world around us. In fact, you will always need the grace of Jesus Christ to cover over your sins and to enable you to live the life that He chooses. But this is what Jesus came to do. His death was not only to take the penalty but to free you from the power of sin. Listen to these words from Romans chapter 6. I'm going to draw out several verses from this and encourage you to read the chapter in its entirety. I could say read all of Romans in its entirety. It's about the answer of sin that Jesus brings. But Romans 6 gets to this point about the power of sin. Verse 1. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? So he's just made the point that it's by Jesus' death that you're made alive. That's your forgiveness of sin. So ask that question. Shall we sin so that grace may abound? By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death. In order that just as Christ was raised from the dead to the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. That's why Jesus came. That you and I might walk in newness of life. He breaks that power of sin in your life and he sets you free to follow after him. going on in chapter 6 of Romans, slide down to verse 11 through 14. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law, but under grace." This is the work of Jesus, the glorious work of Jesus. Your sins are forgiven, because Jesus died on the cross to take your place. And in doing so, he has brought you from death to life, from disobedience and rebellion to a newness of life that knows God, that wants to be like God, and is enabled to do that. The message of the gospel is that Jesus came to do this. Christ has set you free, and so you are free indeed. You are free from the penalty of sin, because Jesus has taken that for you. You are free from its power as well. Free to follow after Him in newness of life. Since Jesus came to give His life as a ransom, live in that newness that He has purchased for you. Please bow with me in prayer. O Lord God, grant that we might understand the depth of our sin. I pray, O Lord, that we would not go from here turning a blind eye to the elephant in the room. Instead, O Lord, I pray that you would help us to acknowledge our own sin Help us to understand what that sin deserves. And then, O Lord, help us to find forgiveness in Jesus. I pray, O Lord, that that gospel message would call us to Yourself. That You would be calling to Yourself those who have been bound in sin for all of their lives. I pray, O Lord, that they would know the great joy of freedom that comes to know that their sins are forgiven by Jesus. And Lord, give us boldness to wage war against the sins that entangle us then. I pray, O God, that you would help us to not give ourselves over to habitual sins, those things that we have become entangled in that have their hooks in so deep that they that we are addicted to them. Instead, O Lord, help us to see that you have set us free to follow after you, that you enable us and that you give us your own spirit to be able to do that. So, O Lord, I pray that as we struggle with habitual sins and addictions, that we would look to Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, who set his face towards the cross, so that he might set us free. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Let's respond by rejoicing at the freedom that we have and the forgiveness of sins and the newness of life that God has given to us. We'll sing of this in Psalm 85, selection A, rejoicing in the forgiveness of our sins. Please stand to sing Psalm 85.