Have I Got A Deal For You!
Well, it’s now Black Friday; a day notorious for its great deals and the official start of the Christmas shopping season. Stores are counting on the season’s sales to make a clear statement to the stockholders that they are financially healthy and stable. IN fact, that is where the term Black Friday comes from. It’s viewed as the day that companies’ ledger books shed the red ink of debt and begin to fill with the black ink of profit. Regardless, people will flood the internet and the stores, searching for the best bargains.
Well, have I gotta deal for you! Just wait to you see this!
Let me show you a bit of your heritage as Lutherans:
“That is the mystery which is rich in divine grace to sinners: wherein by a wonderful exchange our sins are no longer ours but Christ’s and the righteousness of Christ not Christ’s but ours. He has emptied Himself of His righteousness that He might clothe us with it, and fill us with it. And He has taken our evils upon Himself that He might deliver us from them… in the same manner as He grieved and suffered in our sins, and was confounded, in the same manner we rejoice and glory in His righteousness.”
–Martin Luther, Werke (Weimar, 1883), 5: 608.
So in this once and a lifetime bargain, you take all those ugly nasty disgusting damning sins and you give those to Jesus Christ. What do you get for them?
Christ’s righteousness!
Yes, you read that right. Christ takes all your sins. A lifetime worth. Every sin you have committed, are committing, and will commit, and Christ will give you His holiness so that you may stand before God and His judgement as a holy, justified, and sanctified, creation.
It doesn’t see fair does it. It’s like trading trash for a new house. It’s like trading a pile of rotten vegetables for a lifetime supply of your favorite dessert.
You mean God, took all of my ugliness, and he gave me all of is righteousness?
Yes. Exactly that.
In 2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV) it says this:
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Why?
Why would God make such an exchange?
Why would be given grace at such a bargain? Let’s look a few verses sooner. (2 Corinthians 5:17-20 ESV)
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
So, this Black Friday, give thanks for this amazing deal. God takes your sin. He remakes you into a new holy creation, and he entrusts you with His words of peace and reconciliation. And now you get to live as a living Amazon review where you now get to live your life, telling others of the bargain you received.
I dare you to find a better deal!
-Pastor Dan