“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; He took it away, nailing it to the cross.”
Colossians 2:13-14
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
As Mark Scott points out in his sermon on this text, the value of something depends on whose hand it is in.
For example. A basketball in my hand is worth about $19. But, if you put this same basketball in the hands of Lebron James, it’s suddenly worth $19 million dollars a year. Put a baseball bat in my hand and it’s worth maybe $13, depending on where you shop for bats! But if you put a bat in the hands of Vladimer Guerrero it becomes worth $13 million dollars a year. A golf ball and a club in my hands is worth about $100 bucks. In the hands of Tiger Woods it is worth $100 million dollars. Give me a bike and if I’m going downhill with the wind at my back I might be able to keep up with Bill Wehunt on one of my good days. But in the hands of Lance Armstrong that same bike is worth a record seven consecutive victories at the Tour de France.
Do you see what I mean? The value of something depends on whose hands it’s in. Here’s one more example. Give me a nail and with some help from Buddy Young I might be able to tack down a roofing shingle such that it stays there a few years. But as Calvary’s cross proves, in the hands of Jesus a nail has infinitely greater value.
This morning when you entered the sanctuary you were given a nail, a little piece of steel that is at least similar to the nails that Jesus in His hands when He hung on that cross. And, before we share communion, I want you to hold that nail in your hand and consider the power that Jesus displayed with those nails. As we partake of this memorial meal I want us to remember all the things Jesus has done with those nails, things that make those ancient fingers of steel infinitely valuable. To put it another way, as we consider the power of these nails, I want us to think about why it is that, as the hymn writer put it, Christians cherish the old rugged cross.
Body
Here’s the first reason.
(1) With the nails in His hands Jesus washed away the SINS of all mankind.
As 1st John 2:2 says, Jesus hung on the cross as,“…the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” I don’t want to be accused of going from preaching to meddling, but the uncomfortable fact is that all of us are sinners who desperately need saving. Romans 3:23 and 6:23 say, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God… and the wages of sin is death.” Isaiah 53 says,“We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” Friends, each of us have used our hands to sin, and we do this every day. I have a brief video clip to illustrate this sad but very true fact. Please watch.
I wonder, which hand in the video could you relate to? Or, should I say which hands? Did that clip prick any consciences this morning? No need to raise your hands but did it help you understand better the value of the nail in Jesus’ hands pierced hands He powerfully used to pay your sin debt, my sin debt, and forgive us of all our iniquity? This is one reason these nails are so precious, because Jesus used the nails in His hands to wash all our sins away. This is why in Romans 1:16 Paul says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.” This is what he’s talking about in 1 Corinthians 1:18 when he says,“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” With those common Roman nails, similar to the one in your hand, Jesus paid our sin debt. He died in our place, freeing us from the fear of death. Wouldn’t you agree that those nails held in the hands of Jesus Christ are valuable?
(2) A second reason those nails are precious to us is because with them Jesus showed how much God LOVES us.
Another reason these nails have value, another reason Christians cling to the old rugged cross like a life-preserver is because we all have this inborn need to know that in spite of our sin we are still loved.
I remember reading a few years ago about how the diary of the late Madelyn Murray O’Hare (founder of American Atheists). I remember reading how her diary was auctioned off by the IRS in an attempt to raise money for back taxes and money she owed her creditors. It was discovered that on several different occasions this devoted atheist had written in her diary, “Somebody, somewhere, please love me.” Throughout her life, as she was seeking to be loved, she fought against the God she believed didn’t exist. So, ironically, tragically, she ran from the God Who loved her in the way she desperately wanted to be loved, needed to be loved. And we are all like Ms. O’Hare, all of us are sinners with an inborn hunger to be forgiven and loved by our Heavenly Father.
When Daniel was about 2, Sue and I traveled out west with my parents to attend SS week at Glorieta Conference Center. You may remember that several of us went to Glorieta last year for the same week last year. Sue and I went 22 years ago, before the invention of the mini-van, and we drove all that way, four adults and a very active toddler, in a two-door Grand Prix. In spite of the length of that journey, in spite of buying diapers in almost every state east and west of the Mississippi, it was a good trip. We made lots of memories. One memory I have, is something that happened once we finally arrived at Glorieta. One day the four of us left the adult conference and picked Daniel up from the day care there and headed for our motel.
There are several “motel” buildings on campus and unless you get a ride on the little tram they run, you walk to and from everything. We walked that day the entire way, about a mile, and as we did Daniel embraced the behavior that is typical of someone going through the very terrible twos. He threw fits and cried and yelled and kicked, and would not behave no matter what we did, you parents know what I’m talking about, the kind of behavior that makes you want to pretend he’s not your child! Plus, he did this in front of the hundreds of other people walking to their motel rooms, Christian parents who aren’t supposed to have poorly behaved children. Daniel threw his fit all the way across that beautiful campus. His screams echoed across those mountains.
When we finally got to our room Daniel still refused to behave and my dad did something he rarely did. He picked his grandson up, put him across his knee and gave him a loving but firm spanking. Dad’s tactic worked because Daniel stopped crying and kicking, and a few minutes later when Dad lay down to take a nap, Daniel came up to the side of the bed with a trembling lower lip and looked up at my dad with tears in his little eyes and asked if he could lay down beside him. Daniel needed to know that in spite of his sin, his granddad still loved him. And of course, he did! Dad scooped him up and Daniel smiled and snuggled up next to his granddad as the two went to sleep.
We are all like Daniel. We need to know that in spite of our foolish choices. In spite of our rebellion, in spite of our sin, our Heavenly Father loves us and the nails in Jesus’ hands are precious because they tell us that yes, He does.
I love the way the Contemporary English Version translates Romans 5:8. It says, “God showed how much He loved us by having Christ die for us, even though we were sinful.” Now as you hold that nail in your hands and remember this, does it’s value increase a bit? Does it become more precious to you?
(3) One final reason those nails are so valuable is because with them in His hands, Jesus freed us from the power of sin and enabled us to live abundant lives.
As 1 Peter 2:24 says, “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, for by His wounds you were healed." Before Jesus held those nails in His hands on the cross of Calvary, mankind was in bondage to sin, a truly terrifying way to live. Remember? Before we became Christians every moment of every day we were powerless when it came to withstanding the temptations that come with living in a fallen world. But with those nails in His hands Jesus changed all that. As Paul writes in Romans 6 Paul, “For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin because anyone who has died had been freed from sin. Sin is no longer your master, for you are no longer subject to the law, which enslaves you to sin. Instead, you are free by God’s grace.“ (Romans 6:6-7, 14)
As this text and dozens of others like it say, thanks to the nails in Jesus’ hands, we have access to God’s power, power that enables us to say no to sin. Through His death Jesus freed us from sin’s tyranny, and made it possible for us to pursue holiness and righteousness.
Jerry Bridges writes, “We can now stand up to sin and say no to it. Before we had no choice, now we have one. When we sin as Christians, we do not sin as slaves, but as individuals with the freedom of choice. We sin because we choose to sin.” Bridges is right. Because of the nails, because of the cross, we can at last choose to be all that God intends us to be and in that decision experience “…life in all its fullness.” (John 10:10)
In his book, Grace Awakening, Charles Swindoll puts it this way, “Each moment of every day we choose whom we wish to follow. If it’s the Savior, the benefits are many. If it is sin, the consequences are destructive and miserable. Before Christ, we had no choice. Sin was our one and only route. All of life was marked by unrighteousness. But once we came to the Cross and gave the Lord Jesus the right to rule our lives, we were granted a choice we never had before. Grace freed us from the requirement to serve sin, allowing us the opportunity to follow Christ’s directives voluntarily.”
In his book, Fresh Faith, Jim Cymbala shares the testimony of Calvin Hunt, one of the lead tenors in their world famous Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. Calvin has a powerful voice and in fact has recorded two CD’s of his own. This is his picture on one of his CD covers.
Today Calvin has a loving wife, a great job, a son, and three lovely daughters, but things were not always this wonderful for Calvin. Years ago both he and his wife Miriam were addicted to crack cocaine. Every week they would spend his entire paycheck financing their habit. Eventually, due to the influence of her brothers, who were Christians, Miriam gave up her habit and put her faith in Christ. But Calvin refused to do so, and continued his life of bondage to this powerful addiction. His drug use eventually caused him to lose his job. He would spend long periods on binges, away from the family. In spite of this Miriam’s faith grew and as it did she dedicated herself to praying for her husband. In fact the entire church prayed that Calvin would come to Christ and be freed from the power of sin in his life.
Miriam said, “I knew Calvin was in a prison. Being an ex-addict myself-I had done heroin before I ever met him-I knew the unbelievable power of this kind of substance. That’s why I prayed so hard, crying out to God to set him free, and got all my friends to pray with me. Every mealtime prayer with my kids, every bedtime prayer included, ‘O God, please set Daddy free!'”
Three years passed and Calvin got worse instead of better. At one point he was actually sleeping in a large doghouse in somebody’s backyard. It became Calvin’s practice to sneak into their apartment on the nights that he knew Miriam and the girls were at church to get food and clothing or to find things to sell to finance his habit. On one such night, he heard someone weeping. He thought that perhaps someone was home after all but he looked and found no one. He started to lie down for a nap but something inside him seemed to say, “If you go to sleep tonight, you’ll never wake up again.” This caused him to panic and he ran from the apartment to the subway where he caught the train that would take him to the church so he could find his family. When he finally arrived at the church he burst through the back doors and when he did he heard the same sounds of weeping he had heard in the apartment earlier, only much louder.
He discovered that the sound of weeping was coming from the entire congregation. All of them were in earnest prayer, calling out his name to God in faith! He was thunderstruck as he slowly moved down the aisle, gazing at the tears running down the faces of the people as they bowed and prayed, saying: “O God, wherever Calvin Hunt is, bring him to this building! Don’t let this family go through this horror another day. Lord, You are able! Set him free from his bondage once and for all!”
Soon Calvin found himself at the front, right in front of the pulpit. The pastor in charge opened his eyes, took one glance and then gazed upward toward heaven as he said into the microphone, “Thank you Lord! Thank you Jesus! Here he is!” With that, the congregation opened their eyes and saw Calvin, and when they did, they went absolutely crazy. Think about it! They had been calling upon the Lord to bring Calvin to himself and it was happening right before their eyes! Falling on his knees, Calvin burst into uncontrollable sobs. Miriam and the girls came to huddle around him as he prayed, “O God, I don’t want to be this way. Please come into my life and set me free. O Jesus I need You so much!”
That night was the turning point for Calvin, because that was the night that he clung to the precious Cross of Christ. It hasn’t always been easy for him, he went through a very difficult six month treatment program, and there have been numerous times that he was tempted, but he has found that every time he has faced temptation, when he turned to Jesus for strength, he found it. And down through the centuries all who have turned to Christ have discovered what Calvin did, that with the nails in His hands Jesus gives us the power to be free from the bondage of sin.
Thanks to Calvary when we are tempted to sin we can, “…approach the throne of grace with confidence, and receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need…” (Hebrews 4:16) The nails in Jesus’ hands are precious because they remind us that Jesus died so that we could live, really live.
Gipsy Smith, an outstanding evangelist of another age, once put it this way. He said, “I am not afraid of the cross. I know that men used to come there to die, but since Jesus died they come there to live.” As we remember all Jesus did with these nails in His hands, do you understand now why they are so precious? In His hands Jesus used them to make it possible for the sins of all mankind to be forgiven. With these nails, He showed us the extent of God’s love. With these nails in His hands Jesus freed us from sin’s power and made it possible for us to live righteous, abundant lives. Instead of putting that nail in your pocket when you leave, maybe you should put it in your wallet or purse, or safe-deposit box, because the nails in Jesus’ hands are priceless in value!
Remember these things as we share communion this morning, this meal that Jesus gave us to help us celebrate these truths. And as we come to the Lord’s Table, let me invite all Christians present to partake with us.
Because, after all, even if you are not a member of this church; If you are a Christian, if you are His, this is Yours.
1 Corinthians 11:23-24 says, “For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: the Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said,’This is My body, which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.'”
This morning, if you’ve never responded to that invitation, if you’ve never asked Jesus to forgive you of your sin and come into your heart and life, we urge you to do so this morning. Jesus stands at the door of your life knocking, let Him in. If you have other decisions to make public, come and share them with me now as we stand and sing.