Sheryl Brady - The Journey

What is the purpose of the journey? Well, I’ll tell you that the purpose of what we are trying to get across is to better help people understand some of the things that took place in the death, the burial, and the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, as well as the ascension when He ascended on high and, as the Bible says, He gave gifts to men. Now, I think that Easter is one of my favorite holidays, but what I believe we fail to do as the church is that we kind of rush through Easter Sunday morning; we give it all we’ve got, but I think we fail to really articulate that Easter is not just a holiday. It is not just a Sunday morning in the springtime. I’ve asked our team, and myself, we have been preparing ways that we could take the journey that Jesus made and break it down so that we can see it through our own eyes. So I want to point out a few things that I can highlight that He accomplished on this incredibly significant journey. One of the things, and you know this, most of you would already say you know this if you know Jesus, but one of the most exciting things that He accomplished through the death, burial, and resurrection was that He purchased our salvation. When He purchased it, He didn’t wait; He didn’t say, «I want to throw a sale.» He paid the full price for our sin. It was displayed for us. He paid the full price for not only my sin but your sin and the sin of every person who has ever been born or ever will be born. He not only paid the price for mine and yours and those that may be yet unborn, but He also paid it in full, covering every sin—every sin that you have committed, every sin that you might be committing right now, every sin that you might commit in the days to come. The Father has paid the price for our sin. The Son of God, the spotless Lamb, the purest of the pure, the most innocent out of all of the innocent, was the one who was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities, beaten, betrayed, mocked, mutilated, and despised by men. As if that wasn’t enough, then they hung Him on a cross, and He died in my place and yours. He became sin; He did not know sin, but for you and for me. The Bible says that He became sin. It states in Second Corinthians 5:21 that He who was sinless became sin for the sin of the entire world, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. So, He was made sin, and we were made righteous. We swapped places because we had sin and He had righteousness, but He took on our sin so that we could take on His righteousness. Watching Him being made sin is really more than most can bear to look at; it’s more than most can bear to behold. His flesh had been ripped and torn, yanked away from His bones, and His face was draped in blood and spit. His eyes were swollen; the very hands that had touched the lepers, the very hands that cleansed the temple, the very hands that toppled Babel’s tower, the very hands that split the Red Sea so that the children of Israel could pass through to the other side, those very hands were nailed to the tree. The feet, the very feet that had walked upon the water, those identical feet were pinned down with spikes. Every sin that had ever been committed, every lie that has ever been told, every promise that has ever been broken, every pain that has ever been felt, was laid on the shoulders of a man who had been laid on a cross, and the slab of wood that he was laid on was holding His convulsing body. Well, that cross, that slab of wood, has now become the centerpiece of our faith. If you are a believer, that cross is the centerpiece of our faith, and why I say that is because it was there that the carpenter, the carpenter’s son, began crafting our salvation on the cross. He was working; He was crafting your salvation, and He was crafting my salvation. The cross is a picture of Him strong-arming every enemy that we would ever have. The cross is a picture of Him strong-arming every sin that we would ever commit. It is Him taking whatever means necessary to secure your salvation and my salvation. The cross is God scaling over every wall; it’s Him climbing over every hurdle; it’s Him pushing back every power; it’s Him pulling down every principality and stronghold. It is God bridging the gap between you and Him, between me and Him, and it is.