Pastor Jann Braaksma
I needed help with this sermon today, and it came from SermonCentral.com and Pastor Jim May.
My job at the factory is to take rectangular pieces of metal and feed them into the slitter where they are cut into four similar pieces and I throw a scrap from each side away. Then each piece is fed into the bottom rail machine.
There it is formed into long rectangular shape with “ears” on each end. Two rails are stacked together and placed in the cart. Each cart holds nearly 1,000 pieces.
Thursday my co-worker cut his elbow on a bottom rail in a cart. Being steel it cut clean and I thought quite deeply. He bled quite a bit from the cut on his elbow. I tried to get him to stand still and I went for the boss.
After he and the boss went to the office for further first-aid, I began to clean up the drops of blood from the floor. I, of course, didn’t have on the right gloves for that, but didn’t get into too much trouble.
One of the after effects of the accident was that because we couldn’t identify which rail caused the accident, we had to throw hundreds of them away, to insure they were not contaminated.
So I push the cart to the outside recycle container and began to throw them away. On the way back with a now nearly empty cart people began to ask questions. “Make them wrong?” “Did the other shift make them wrong?” To which I answered, “No, it was the blood”.
In that moment God answered my question of what to preach today.
Before we continue, I’d like us to hear the definition of Atonement from The Wesley Study Bible, page 142.
“The meaning of the word atonement, going back to the time of William Tyndale, is literally “at-one-ment”, or reconciliation. As such, it represents overcoming the alienation that exists between two parties, God and humanity, due to the serious effects of sin. The work of the mediator, Jesus Christ, who is truly God and truly human, is therefore necessary to bring about this reconciliation. As God in the flesh, Christ reveals the humble sacrificial love of God at Calvary, a love that can melt away the stubborn resistance of the sinner. As truly human, Christ satisfies the justice of God precisely by standing in the place of sinful humanity, with the result that all humanity can be free from the guilt of sin due to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.”
Blood is mentioned over 300 times in the Bible and is essential to the doctrine of Jesus’ blood as an atonement for our sin. The shed blood of the Son of God is the heart of the Gospel, for it is through that blood that we have hope today.
Some years ago a terrible railroad accident occurred, killing a lot of people. A commuter train had stalled on the tracks just a few minutes before a fast freight train was due to arrive. The conductor was quickly sent to flag down the approaching train.
Those on board the commuter train weren’t concerned. After all, the railroad workers had everything under control. They just sat quietly, some even took a nap, while others sipped coffee and read the newspapers.
Then the unthinkable happened. The fast freight was seen just yards away and still traveling fast. It smashed into the rear of the commuter train, sending wreckage in ever direction and screams from dying passengers.
The engineer on the freight train had survived by jumping out of the cab of the locomotive just moments before the impact. He was brought to court in the investigation of the accident to explain why he had not stopped when he saw the conductor flagging him down.
Listen to his answer, “I saw the man waving a flag, but it wasn’t red, it was yellow and yellow flags mean slow down, not stop. I slowed down, but continued forward until I saw the back of the commuter train, but it was too late to stop before we would reach the train in front of us. I could do nothing at all, so I jumped.”
The warning flag was then introduced as evidence and it truly was no longer bright red. It had been red at one time, but because of long exposure to the sun and weather it had become a dirty yellow. Neglect and abuse had turned a powerful warning into a deadly mistake.
My friends, every time we come to church we need to make sure that we aren’t preaching a “false gospel” where the power of the blood of Jesus has faded away.
A yellow, weak, faded gospel, void of the red blood of Jesus Christ, cannot save a lost soul. If we don’t preach the truth, that only through the blood of Jesus can humans be saved, then we are doing nothing more than waving a yellow flag and sending souls to their eternal doom.
Only Jesus and His blood sacrificed on the cross can redeem a soul from hell.
It’s like the old song says, “There is a fountain filled with blood; Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins; And sinners plunged beneath that flood; Lose all their guilty stains.
When we come to church, or get alone with God, we need to do a check up from the neck up, and make sure that the arteries of blessing that come only through the blood of Jesus are open wide and not blocking the flow of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
His blood allows us to enter into the very presence of God just as the High Priest was able to enter the Holy of Holies only by the blood of the sacrificial lamb. It consecrates us, cleanses us and makes us worthy to stand before God.
Hebrews 10:19-22 (NIV), “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, His body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”
The cleansing power of the blood of Jesus is limitless. There is no sin too great, a life too evil or a cry for mercy that God will not hear, and the blood of Jesus can’t meet.
God says that “whosoever will” may come and drink of that living water, and that means allowing the blood of Jesus to wash over them. Whether it’s a murderer on death row, or a traffic violator; whether it’s an alcoholic in the gutter or a wealthy merchant on Wall Street; Jesus’ blood is sufficient for all sin.
1 John 1:7 (NIV), “But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.”
The blood of Jesus is our bridge to Heaven. We are made close to God by the blood of God’s Son. His blood bridged the gap and now we can commune with God just as Adam did in the beginning. That wall of sin that separates us from God is broken down, flattened by the power of the blood.
Ephesians 2:13-14 (NIV), “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility.”
In the Old Testament economy, there were daily sacrifices in the temple as well special sacrifices at the times of the great feasts. Animals were slaughtered by the hundreds of thousands, yet the scriptures tell us that all of the blood shed by those sacrificial animals could only serve to purify the flesh so that the priests could stand before God and not face certain and immediate death.
God’s holiness and glory requires perfection and nothing less than perfection can stand before him. That perfect sacrifice could only be found in the shed blood of the perfect Lamb of God. It is by the blood of Jesus that we are made perfect in the sight of God. It cleanses the heart and the soul, something that the blood of an animal could never do.
Hebrews 9:13-14 (NIV), “The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!”
The price of our salvation is paid in full by the blood of Jesus. We are bought with a price, the price of perfect blood sacrificed for our sin.
1 Peter 1:18-19, “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.”
Only by that blood will we stand in Heaven one day. No good works of the flesh, no blood of sacrificial animals will get us there; only the blood of Jesus Christ. Through his blood he washes our sin away and makes us white as snow.
Revelation 7:14, “I answered, ‘Sir, you know.’ And he said, ‘These are they who have come out of the great tribulation’; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
In our times the world doesn’t want to hear of the blood of Jesus. When most people look at the sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross, if they even notice it at all, it doesn’t have the impact that it should.
Violence in our world, either real or depicted on the screens in theaters and in our homes, has desensitized people to the suffering of Jesus Christ. They see the pain, listen to the story of his death and burial and think, “So what. I’ve watched thousands die on the news and in the movies. Death doesn’t mean a thing.”
But what they never see is the “Resurrection”. Jesus is the only one to come back from the grave. And what they miss is the meaning behind it all. It’s not enough to see a suffering Jesus, a buried Jesus, or even a Resurrected Christ, if we cannot get them to understand that it was all done for the sake of one lost sinner – them!
It has to be made a personal thing. The Holy Spirit must help them to understand that Jesus took their place so that they would not have to suffer pain and death forever. Until they catch that vision, and that message gets into their heart, then the suffering of Jesus is nothing more than any other man who dies.
Through the foolishness of preaching the cross, the shed blood of Jesus, his death, burial and resurrection all for the sake of redeeming lost souls to God, we can see men come to Christ, but it has to be revealed in their hearts by the Holy Spirit.
When we come to church we want to make sure that our sin is cleansed by the blood of Jesus. We want to make sure that the blood still flows in our heart and life and makes us into a new creation in Christ. It’s only by the blood that we live today, and it’s only by the precious blood of Jesus that we shall live eternally.
Are you washed in the Blood of the Lamb? To the world, the sight of the cross is a terrible thing, but to those who are washed in that blood, it is a wonder to behold.
Come to Jesus today and let his blood cleanse you from all sin.
Let us pray.
Resources: The Wesley Study Bible; SermonCentral.com and Pastor Jim May.