The Son Who Was Sent: God’s Plan for the Whole World

This morning I’m reading from the New International Version. If you have a pew Bible, the first selection is from Philippians chapter 3, verses 7 through 14. It’s found on page 1829 in the pew Bible.

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

The second selection is from Matthew chapter 21, verses 33 through 46. It’s found on page 1533 in the pew Bible.

Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.

The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. Last of all, he sent his son to them. “They will respect my son,” he said.

But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, “This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.” So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

“Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”

“He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.”

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.

May the Lord bless the reading and hearing of his Word.

As the Gospel lesson was read, who came to your mind?

Jesus was laying out the picture of a great vineyard—the vineyard that was owned, with its winepress dug—a symbol of this world, the creation of God. And he had servants in it to work it. But there were people who came against his servants, the ones telling the good news of God. They came against them.

Finally, what did he do? He sent whom? His son. He sent his son, saying, “Surely they’ll listen to him.” But what did they do? They killed him.

Jesus was talking about what God was doing in their midst and what was to come: that he is the Son. He is the Son who was sent into the world. He is the Son they turned against, and the Son they killed.

But it wasn’t a surprise to God. It wasn’t something that wasn’t supposed to happen. God had set that plan in motion from the beginning of time. He knew that all he had created, and the human life he had brought forth, would be swayed to go their own way and would live in sin. And he knew that despite everything he put in place—even the law, as we talked about last week—we would not be sufficient for our own salvation.

So he had a plan: at the right time, he would send his Son into the world. And after he lived among us, after he set the example of how one—and only he—could live the righteous life, he was killed. For your sin, for my sin, for the sin of the whole world.

You might say, “Well, preacher, that makes sense from Jesus on to the present day. But what about the people who came before?”

Scripture tells us that during the three days his body lay in the grave, he went to the place of the departed spirits and preached to them. Jesus himself went to all who had come before, to all who had lived under the law, and he preached to them. I believe God gave an opportunity at that moment to all the people who lived before Christ.

So God has this love set on the whole world—and on us.

Let’s read one more passage, from the Gospel of John. We all know it. It’s powerful. John, chapter 3. I want to start at verse 13.

Jesus has been talking with Nicodemus. Nicodemus asked, “How can I be born again? I keep hearing about being born again—how can that be?” And Jesus has been explaining that it is of the Spirit. It’s a Spirit thing. The Spirit comes. The Spirit speaks to you. The Spirit woos you. The Spirit draws you into relationship, so that you are able to understand and believe. Then in verse 13 he says:

No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

Do you remember what was happening with Moses—the event Jesus is referring to? As the people were wandering in the wilderness, a plague of serpents suddenly came among them. The serpents were poisonous; they were biting people, making them sick, and people were dying. So God told Moses, “Make a serpent and put it on top of a pole, and everyone who looks at it will be healed of the snakebite.”

Jesus is saying, “I have to be lifted up, just like that.” Back then, the people had to look at the serpent and understand that God was doing something for them—look at the serpent and be healed of the bite. Now, when we look upon the Son of God on the cross, we know that he is the cure for sin and for the death it brings.

In another part of Scripture he says, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” The lifting up of Jesus on the cross is an event the whole world still sees, recognizes, and knows. He had to be lifted up.

Again, starting at verse 14:

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.

God has loved us so much that he gave his only Son. That’s what we come to celebrate today. And he didn’t do it just for Moravians, or just for Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Catholics, or Episcopalians. He did it for everyone who was knit together in the womb, for everyone who has been born into this life. He gave his Son for everyone.

So as we come to this table, remember what God has done through Jesus Christ for you.