Why Jesus Died 1. - To Show the MASSIVENESS of God's love for us!

We can measure God's love for us by looking at two things:

First, the Hugeness of God's Sacrifice.
Second, the Hugeness of our Sin.

So first: The Hugeness of God's Sacrifice.

John 3:16 tells us that God gave His only Son! This is huge! The God of the universe as a Son, an only Son and sacrificed Him for us! That’s like a bloke who goes fishing with his son in a boat, sees some people stranded on the rocks nearby about to be crushed by the waves, and goes to save them. While he's rowing hard his son falls in the water and he makes the decision to save the people and not his son!

Jesus 'Christ' - That Christ bit is not Jesus' second name, it’s his title. The name Christ, or Christos, comes from a Hebrew word meaning the messiah, or, the Ultimate King of the Whole Universe! This is mega-monarchy! His crown could support a race track! Yet He came to earth to die! That’s like the Queen of England dying for her country, times by quite a lot.

Christos also is 'divine' title, not as in fairtrade divine chocolate, but a title which shows that He is God! Jesus Christ is God! He is an infinite being and He came to die for us! Thus this is an infinite sacrifice!

Think finally about the death that Jesus died. He didn't just fall over or die peacefully in His sleep, He was crucified. A brutal way to die where the person on the cross slowly drowns because of the weight of their ribs on their chest makes their lungs fill up with blood. It is a horrendous, horrific, horrible, hugely hurtful way to die!

That’s the -hugeness- of God's Sacrifice!

Second: The Hugeness of our Sin.

We all sin, we know that, two minutes looking inside tells us that everyday we say, think, and do things which offend and infinitely holy, clean, and perfect God. But there’s more, it was while we were still sinners (Rom. 5:8) that Jesus died for us! It was in the middle of the mess, before we did anything to acknowledge God, that God made the first move, and died for us!

The wages of sin is death so Romans also tells us. That sin is punished by death. We deserved punishment, not God's sacrifice!

Also, sin isn't just doing things wrong, that’s like 10% of what sin is! A much bigger proportion is just treating God as inconsequential in our lives. God sustains our every second, we are alive now, not because God wound us up and let us go, but because God thinks and speaks us into existence every second! To treat this God as if he doesn't matter is infinitively offensive and treasonous to God!

Our debt it huge! So huge that no human could pay for it, only a divine sacrifice would do!

That’s the hugeness of our sin!

If you’re a mathematician you could think about it as an x/y graph, where y is the vertical axis, and x the horizontal from +10 to -10 intercepting at 0. God did EVERYTHING, all positive, as much as could possibly could be done, the ultimate, infinitive sacrifice. So that’s +10 on the x axis. Quite a lot of love. We did everything wrong, totally, completely negative in our sin. We were as messed up as we could be, so the hugeness of our sin is at -10.

That’s the extent of Gods love, stretch wide your arms and hands as far as they can go, +10 all up to -10... You may recognize the shape?

Imagine you were found guilty in court for murder. You've been sentenced to death, but just as the hammer is coming down the doors burst open and a young man runs in and puts his hand under the hammer before it falls. He whispers in the judge’s ear and the judge nods his head. Then the young man and the guards come to you, remove your handcuffs and place them on this man, who then goes and dies in your place. You're then told by the judge you’re free to go; your sentence was borne by another. But when you get outside you're confronted by the press you inform you that the man who died was the judges own son.

You deserved death because of the hugeness of your crime, the judge and his son gave the most ultimate sacrifice! Huge love, for you!

Theirs one explanation (Ephesians 1:7), the riches of His Grace! GRACE. G.R.A.C.E. God's Riches at Christ’s Expense. All Yours. All Free. It’s not a response to your worth; it’s the overflow of God's worth.

This is why Jesus died. To show the massiveness of God's love.

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For more on this, grab yourselves a copy of 'The Passion of Jesus Christ' by John Piper