October 22, 2025 • 24 mins
What if the Bible’s big story could be summed up in a single movement: God taking back what was always His? We follow that thread—from Israel’s chains in Egypt to Jesus’ startling claim in Mark 10 that he gives his life as a ransom for many—and discover that redemption is less about paying off darkness and more about a decisive rescue that restores rightful ownership.
We unpack the language behind “ransom” and “redeem,” exploring how the Greek lutron points to release and how the Hebrew words gaal and padah reveal God as a family redeemer with a strong hand. That lens changes everything. Success stops being a fragile trophy we have to grip and becomes a gift we can steward. The wilderness ceases to be a shameful detour and becomes a place to tell the truth, receive care, and offer practical help. And grief, though real and heavy, is held within a larger promise that neither death nor fear can sever us from the love of God in Christ.
Along the way, we use down-to-earth images—from fantasy football’s obsession with possession to Pride Rock’s rightful return—to make a complex idea tangible. Then we get practical: how to live as people God has repossessed. We talk about resisting the myth of arrival, naming pain without platitudes, and letting redemption become both a filter for how we see the world and a catalyst for loving our neighbors with courage and joy. We end by inviting you to remember your belonging and to embody it through service, presence, and hope.
If this conversation helps you see your life with fresh clarity, share it with a friend, subscribe for more thoughtful episodes, and leave a quick review to help others find the show. What part of redeemed living are you leaning into this week?
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Uh thank you everyone for being here.
Again, as Liz said, my name'sKyle, one of the elders here at
Madison Church.
Welcome to those of you who arelistening online as well.
I'm thankful to be back with youtoday.
There is no sermon series.
So Steven was like, hey, you canjust kind of talk about whatever
you want.
And I was like, oh boy.
Oh boy.
(00:21):
So the teacher in me was like,oh man, boy, do I have some
things cooked up.
But before I get there, I thinkover the past few weeks you've
probably heard us joke a littlebit about fantasy football.
Um, there's a few of us in afantasy football league in this
church, and you probably heardus complain about it, and you're
gonna hear us complain about ituntil the end of January as we
(00:42):
try to play this very small gamewithout hating each other by the
end of it.
Like that was an unfair trade, Ireject that, uh, etc.
But what I found interestingthese past couple weeks is that
when I go and check myopponent's lineup, I immediately
start cheering for the otherteam.
So, say if my opponent has theKansas City Chiefs quarterback,
(01:05):
then I immediately startcheering for their opponent.
I'm like, please get the ballout of Kansas City Patrick
Mahomes' hands.
Please.
What I really hope for is thatmy team and my players will
control the time of possession.
If they can keep the ball, thenthere's a good chance that my
team's gonna score all thepoints.
And that's what I really want.
I want them to have the time ofpossession.
(01:27):
It gets extra dicey when myplayers start losing the
football, when they fumble, whenthey have an interception,
something like that.
We start losing points.
And then I go to my defense andI say, Hey, defense, will you
repossess the football for me?
Will you take it back, please?
Now you look at me and you say,Kyle, I don't know anything
about football, so that was allgibberish.
(01:48):
To which I say, Well, we canalso learn a thing about
possession from the 1995classic, The Lion King.
And in The Lion King, I wasterrified and I was angry as a
young kid as I watched Scar pushMufasa off the edge of the
cliff.
unknown (02:05):
Spoiler.
SPEAKER_00 (02:06):
Spoiler.
Spoiler.
But I was.
I was angry.
I was so angry for Simba at thetime because Pride Rock had been
taken by someone it shouldn'thave.
We all cheer as Simba and Nalalead the cause to repossess
Pride Rock from the wrongfulhands of Scar and Scar's
(02:28):
henchmen.
Pride Rock was in a wrongfulowner's possession.
And Simba leads the charge toget it back, or we have to
encourage him to get it back.
And so this concept ofpossession and repossession is
the concept that I want us totalk about today.
It's a picture that helps usclarify how the Old Testament
and the New Testament areconnected.
(02:49):
They're actually connectedthrough this concept of
possession and repossession.
It's how the God who repossessedthe Israelites from Egypt is the
same God who repossessed ourlives in Jesus.
And as we go, we're gonna seesome themes throughout today's
message.
There's repossession, there'sredemption, and there's ransom.
(03:10):
And I want us to ask twoquestions.
There's two questions that we'lllook at today.
What does it mean to be redeemedor repossessed?
What does that even mean?
And then two, how do we go aboutliving a repossessed or redeemed
life?
What does that look like?
How do we do it?
Now, to make it easy, I'm gonnatell you the answer right now.
(03:32):
The next two slides are justgoing to be exactly what I want
you to take away from today.
First one, the truth aboutredemption is that it becomes
the filter through which we seeGod, ourselves, and our
neighbors.
It's a filter.
It's a filter how we see theworld that has been cosmically
(03:52):
redeemed.
Second, redemption then becomesa catalyst for loving our
neighbor and for fighting fortheir story as much as our own.
This isn't a selfish gospel.
It's a gospel of action, agospel that fights for the
stranger, that fights for thebroken, the poor.
So, to do this, we're gonna diveinto the New Testament for a
(04:15):
second.
We're gonna look at some OldTestament stuff.
The teacher and me can't helpbut to at least show a couple
things.
And then we'll ask, how do welive that out?
So let's go, let's connectpossession and redemption really
quickly in Scripture.
If we go to the Gospel of Mark,we come across this really
interesting story.
James and John come up to Jesusat one point in Mark chapter 10,
(04:38):
and they ask Jesus, Lord, can wesit next to you in glory?
That's this really interestingquestion.
What they're really asking thereis, can they have an elevated
status in the kingdom becausethey were so close to Jesus?
Jesus, since we're so close, canwe be elevated above the other
disciples?
Now, when the other discipleshear this, they are extremely
(04:58):
upset.
When they found out they were,it says they were indignant
about it.
But Jesus says something reallyinteresting.
That's where our main passagepicks up today in Mark chapter
10.
And that's kind of the cusp ofwhat Jesus is going to do.
If we start in verse 42, it saysthis.
So Jesus called them together inresponse to this, this kind of
issue that rose up.
And he said, You know that therulers in this world lord it
(05:22):
over their people, and officialsflaunt their authority over
those under them.
But among you it will bedifferent.
Whoever wants to be a leaderamong you must be your servant,
and whoever wants to be firstamong you must be the slave of
everyone else.
For even the Son of Man came notto be served, but to serve
(05:43):
others and to give his life aransom for many.
There's that word, ransom.
I've kind of highlighted itthere.
Our Savior came to serve othersand to give his life as a ransom
for many.
If you have been in the churchfor many years, you've probably
heard that before.
You've heard that term ransombefore.
If you're new to the faith, itsounds probably a little bit
(06:04):
strange.
Paid a ransom to who?
Why?
Does someone have power overJesus and Jesus has to pay some
sort of ransom?
I've highlighted that word todaybecause I want us to do a bit of
study unpacking what that wordreally means here.
So in Greek, Greek is thelanguage that the New Testament
was written in, we see this wordcome up as Lutron, Lutron.
(06:27):
And that breaks down into twoparts.
Luo, which means release.
So you'll hear the word apolu,that means release you from your
chains, essentially like aprisoner is released.
That type of release, luo.
And then tron means instrumentof or means of.
So altogether, Lutron mean isthe means of releasing.
(06:48):
And that brings up anothercouple questions.
Well, a release from what?
And into whose possession,right?
So if we retranslate that, theson of man came not to serve,
but to serve or came not to beserved, but to serve others and
to give his life as a means ofrelease for many, as an
instrument of release for many.
(07:08):
So let's re-piece this a littlebit by going back to the Old
Testament really quickly.
I want us to see how these wordsall come together.
If we go back to Exodus, we havethis concept of redemption that
starts permeating the entiretyof the Old Testament.
It's throughout the entire OldTestament, all their bondage,
uh, all their suffering, allwilderness experiences.
There's this redemption, ransomuh word that comes out.
(07:30):
And it's the very reason whyJesus in this passage is making
this reference in this moment.
Now, we talked about Lutron,which is the Greek, in Hebrew,
which is what the Old Testamentwas written in.
There are two words that areconnected to this.
That's Gaal and Pada.
Gaal and Padah.
And both of these words alsoshow us something significant
(07:53):
about what Jesus means when hesays he came as a ransom for us
all.
Geal is first introduced to usin Exodus chapter six.
It's when God is speaking toMoses and says, Moses, I want to
go and redeem my people.
Let's look at it really quickly.
Exodus chapter 6, starting inverse 5.
This is uh God speaking.
(08:14):
You can be sure that I haveheard the groans of the people
of Israel who are now slaves tothe Egyptians, and I am well
aware of my covenant with them.
Therefore say to the people ofIsrael, I am the Lord, I will
free you from your oppressionand rescue you from your slavery
in Egypt.
I will redeem, aka deliver, kindof seize, ransom.
I will ransom you with apowerful arm and a great act of
(08:38):
judgment.
I will claim you as my ownpeople, and I will be your God.
Then you will know that I am theLord your God who has freed you
from your oppression in Egypt.
So what's interesting about thatword here is it's the word gaal.
It typically gets translatedredeem in the Old Testament.
But that concept of redeem,there's no concept of payment
(08:59):
there.
In the English translation, itgets a little bit muddy because
we kind of think about redeemingsomething, we're redeeming a
coupon or something like that.
There's an exchange there.
But at its root, here in the OldTestament, gaal refers to when a
family member comes to helpanother family member in a dire
situation, maybe a debt or adebt of slavery to another.
(09:21):
If you think about the book ofRuth and Boaz, Boaz being the
gaal, the redeemer.
That's kind of that dire familysituation that it's referring
to.
But it can also refer to anysituation of danger or bad
circumstance.
The point being here, and thisis what I want us to take away
from this (09:37):
God doesn't owe Pharaoh anything.
God doesn't owe Pharaohanything, even though this word
redeem is being there.
God is repossessing the peopleof Israel because they are
rightfully the Lord's.
Now, the word that is closest toLutron in the Old Testament is
Padah.
So we talk about Gaal.
Now let's look at Padah justvery briefly.
(09:58):
This comes up a few books laterin Deuteronomy, when Israel is
retelling the law.
They're reminding one anotherabout their delivery out of
Egypt.
Deuteronomy 7.
Let's look at it really quickly.
Deuteronomy 7, starting verse 8.
That is why the Lord rescued akaPadah, ransomed, redeemed you
with such a strong hand fromyour slavery and from the
oppressive hand of Pharaoh, kingof Egypt.
(10:20):
Understand therefore that theLord your God is indeed God.
He is the faithful God who keepshis covenant for a thousand
generations and lavishes hisunfailing love on those who love
him and obey his commands.
So here's what I'm getting at.
If something belongs to me, butit is not in my possession, and
I take it back, that transfer isredemption.
(10:40):
I redeemed it.
Here in the Old Testament, wesee that translate in many ways.
You can redeem land or propertythat belongs to you.
You could redeem a family memberout of slavery.
But the most importantredemption in all of Scripture
is a cosmic redemption.
It's about how all of humanitybelongs to God, but fell into
(11:01):
the possession of sin and death.
And for God to snatch us fromdeath and to bring us into life,
that is God redeeming us.
God didn't know Pharaoh, andhe's not even paying off Pharaoh
in that moment.
He was transferring Israel outof Pharaoh's wrongful possession
and into God's rightfulpossession.
(11:22):
So when Jesus says that the Sonof Man came to give his life as
a ransom for many, it means thatGod is actively rescuing us,
actively redeeming us from thebondage.
God does not owe death or sin ordarkness.
God isn't paying them off.
God became human to offer hislife in the place for a people
(11:44):
who he already possessed.
God is the rightful owner.
And so instead of making humanssurrender their own lives, he
came and surrendered his life asthe Son of Man.
God knew that through his ownpower, assuming the form of
humanity, dying and risingagain, that would break and
redeem the power of death overall of us.
(12:06):
God met us where we were at andhe redeemed us.
So here we go at the turningpoint.
That's what redemption means.
How then do we live in the truthof redemption?
How then do we do that?
What's the importance?
How do I go and do this?
There's three ways that I'llbriefly talk about today.
(12:29):
Number one, we lean into ourredemption and our promised land
moments.
And it feels like a difficulttime to talk about promised land
moments because the more I talkwith people, the more I realize
how this national moment hascreated so much steady anxiety
in us all.
I think we've lost a sense ofwonder or lost a sense of hope
(12:50):
of what a promised land mightactually mean or might actually
look like.
We've kind of lost it a littlebit.
My wife and I were just talkingwith someone recently who said
it feels like we're all livingin a fever dream since COVID.
Like, is this even all realanymore?
Like what happened since then?
But I would also say I look outin this room and I see a room
full of successful people too.
(13:13):
I think we all carry this driveto accomplish.
I think we're fiercely loyal toone another.
I think we cheer for oneanother's accomplishments too.
In my own life, I enjoy a senseof accomplishment.
I enjoy the summit.
Whether that's going and doing aliteral hike and hiking a
literal summit or completinganother project, another degree
(13:36):
program, a career journey,getting a promotion, I enjoy a
summit.
But there is a point when thethrill of accomplishment or the
pressure of success becomes alie.
And we don't always recognizethat in the moment where success
is begetting success oraccomplishment creates more
opportunity, there's a momentwhere we start to look around
(13:57):
and wonder is this all?
Is there more?
And our successes have thisfunny way of creating their own
issues and their own problemsthat we lose sight on how to
handle.
Because we become desperatelyafraid to lose everything that
we fought so hard to get.
We start to wrap our handsaround what we've accomplished
and what we've gained, and westart to forget.
(14:21):
We say, we're not gonna losethis.
And those moments where we'regrasping onto something so
tightly, and it's being pried,our hands are being pried open,
that we've forgotten ourredemption.
That we've forgotten it.
Now, from time to time, I'vebeen known to listen to a little
Billie Eilish.
Any uh Billie Eilish fans?
A few, maybe?
(14:42):
Don't at me, okay?
Um and in one of her songs, Iactually found some really
powerful lyrics.
Uh as Stephen shakes his headover there in the back, like,
what are we doing?
But I'll throw the lyrics up onthe screen.
You know, it says this, or shesays this.
I had a dream, I got everythingI wanted.
(15:04):
Not what you think.
And if I'm being honest, itmight have been a nightmare.
I had a dream, I got everythingI wanted, and it might have been
a nightmare.
What she so aptly captures inthis line is the inherent myth
of the earthly promised land.
(15:24):
We can work, we can achieve, wecan earn as much as we want on
this earth, but there comes apoint when we wake up and we
realize that we've missed it.
Learning to live in ourredemption means learning to see
that God rescued us and redeemedus from those earthly pressures
to accomplish, to control.
And even more so, we wererescued from our own egos, the
(15:47):
need to achieve, to have status.
When Jesus conquered the powerof sin and death, he
restructured the cosmos.
He created a structure where welive most fully when we live in
Him.
We go back to the St.
Augustine quote that we singsometimes in worship.
Our hearts are restless until werest in thee.
(16:08):
Our hearts are restless until werest in thee.
And we confuse ourselves when wethink that the next success or
the next job or the next careercan somehow provide the promised
land that we so you know greatlydesire.
So the second point I want totalk about really quickly is we
lean into our redemption inwilderness seasons.
(16:30):
We lean into it in our promisedlands, we lean into it in our
wilderness seasons.
And this is probably the mostdifficult but the most relatable
one for us all.
Again, I think right now weprobably all feel the immense
pressure we're facing each andevery day.
It almost is like a pressurecooker.
And we're looking around at oneanother to see who's going to
(16:50):
lose it next because we're alljust kind of stressed out.
I think part of that is becausewe're all working really hard.
I think we're all trying reallyhard right now.
We're trying to be faithful toGod, we're trying to be faithful
to one another, trying to go tosmall group, we're here today,
we're praying, we're trying toget into scripture.
We are trying so hard.
(17:12):
But yet we're still hearing theno's.
We're still hearing the denials.
We're being ridiculedunknowingly, we're feeling
isolated, and we're watching thedebt pile up: personal debt,
financial debt, emotional debt,spiritual debt.
It all keeps rising.
We start to look out and westart to see the wilderness all
(17:34):
around us, and we start towonder: is this what life is
supposed to be about?
I'm faithful to God, I go tochurch, I pray, I am trying so,
so hard.
Why does it feel like thewilderness is going on forever?
And unfortunately, I thinksometimes that leads us to say,
honestly, I'd rather go back toslavery.
(17:55):
I'd rather just push myself downinto a little bubble and make
myself work in the system thatI've got.
Because that was a thoughtpattern that actually plagued
the Israelites almost as soon asthey escaped Egypt.
It was three days after theyescaped Egypt that they look at
Moses, the wilderness gets tothem, and they begin to wonder
(18:18):
was it worth leaving Egypt to godie in the wilderness?
They also begin thinking maybeit would be a good idea to go
back to Egypt.
Just work within the systemthere.
Hey, you know what?
Maybe it wasn't so bad.
I can have a little bit ofsuccess in Egypt, even if I'm
captive.
Even if I'm a captive.
(18:39):
And in our wilderness moments,we can fall trapped to the same
way of thinking.
We forget what our redemptionmeans, what we were rescued
from, and what it means for ourlife.
And truthfully, we can findourselves in the wilderness for
all types of reasons.
Uh, Dr.
Tim Mackey from the from theBible Project, names three.
God can lead us into thewilderness for a specific
(19:00):
reason.
We can lead ourselves into thewilderness through our own
choices.
Or we can be thrust into thewilderness by the decisions of
others.
In some ways, it could be amixture of those.
Every single one of yourwilderness stories is unique.
It's happened through acombination of things.
But one truth does remain (19:18):
as we find ourselves in the
wilderness, we must rememberthat Israel was not redeemed
from the wilderness.
They were redeemed from Egypt.
Likewise, we are not redeemedfrom the wilderness.
We were redeemed from the powerof sin and death.
And we cannot always control howor why we find ourselves in such
(19:40):
painful situations.
But we can remember that God hasrestructured our story.
That God has empowered us tocome alongside others who are
also in the wilderness and tohelp them find the resources
they need.
It doesn't mean the wildernessisn't painful, and it doesn't
mean that our wildernessexperiences need to be reduced
down to, well, God works allthings together for good.
(20:03):
That's a lie.
We don't need to lie about ourpain.
But what we can do is name ourpain.
We can remember that God wasfaithful to Israel and that God
will be faithful to us.
And in turn, we can go out intothe world and show the love to
one another that we so deeplylong for in our own lives.
Finding the promised land won'tsolve all of our problems.
(20:25):
Finding a temporary promisedland will not solve all of our
problems.
But returning to Egypt won'teither.
We must continue to askourselves how to live faithfully
in our very present moment.
The last way we do this, lastway we lean into our redemption,
is that we lean into it as weacknowledge physical death as
(20:46):
well.
As we end our time today, Ithink we do have to acknowledge
that physical death still has asay in our world.
It does.
And to me, that feels a littlebit uncomfortable because we
profess a Christ who conqueredthe grave.
But it's still somehow a journeythat you and I will have to face
one day.
We still have to go through it.
We also have scary moments ofloss in our life, whether we
(21:09):
have our own close encounterwith death ourselves, or we see
a loved one who's engaged in afight for their life, or we lose
someone that we are close to.
We see and experience the painof death regularly, even when we
know of an eternal redeemed lifewaiting for us on the other
side.
I certainly don't think that wecan just overcome the grief that
(21:30):
death brings.
And I think it's actually aresponsible thing to grieve and
to mourn, especially as we enterthose seasons.
It's a sign that we care for oneanother.
By grieving and mourning, we'recaring for ourselves.
It's an opportunity to honoranother one one another's lives
that we've cherished.
It's a delicate balance.
We feel the pain, but we canalso appreciate it's not just
(21:53):
our metaphorical souls that havebeen repossessed by the power of
the cross.
Our very bodies and our verylives have been repossessed too.
And why?
Because it was out of God's lovethat we were ransomed and that
we were rescued.
One of my favorite passages,it's ironically just after
Romans 8.28, God works allthings together for good.
(22:15):
Romans 8.38.
And I think that applies mostfor us today.
It says this in Romans 8.
I'm convinced that nothing canever separate us from the love
of God.
Neither death, nor life, norangels, nor demons, neither our
fears for today or our worriesfor tomorrow, not even the
(22:36):
powers of hell can separate usfrom God's love.
No power in the sky above or inthe earth below, indeed, nothing
in creation will ever be able toseparate us from the love of God
that is revealed in Christ Jesusour Lord.
That is the power of redeemedliving.
The same powerful love thatrescued the Israelites out of
(22:58):
Israel, out of Egypt, rescuedus.
No power, not death, notdarkness, not our even on our
fears, not our sin, is evergoing to separate us from our
rightful owner.
We have been repossessed.
We are a repossessed people.
(23:18):
And as we conclude today, Iwonder if you find yourself
realizing at a moment in timethat the promised land you
imagined is not everything thatyou thought it would be.
I wonder if you find yourselftoday in the wilderness
wondering what it was all for.
What is the meaning of it all?
(23:40):
I hope that today is a time toreset, to re to remember, to
live into your redemption.
And in just a couple minutes,we're gonna have the opportunity
to take communion.
The band will come up here,they'll sing, you have the
opportunity on your own to getup and go to the back and
partake in communion.
Anyone in this room can go tothe back and take communion.
(24:01):
But as we do, it's a reminder ofour redemption and our
repossession.
It's an opportunity to remember,remember our Savior.
And my prayer for us today andthis week is that the truth of
redemption becomes a filterthrough which we see God,
ourselves, and our neighbor.
And secondly, I really hope thatredemption becomes a catalyst
(24:24):
for loving our neighbor and forfighting for their story as much
as our own.
Uh thank you everyone for being here.
Again, as Liz said, my name'sKyle, one of the elders here at
Madison Church.
Welcome to those of you who arelistening online as well.
I'm thankful to be back with youtoday.
There is no sermon series.
So Steven was like, hey, you canjust kind of talk about whatever
you want.
And I was like, oh boy.
Oh boy.
(00:21):
So the teacher in me was like,oh man, boy, do I have some
things cooked up.
But before I get there, I thinkover the past few weeks you've
probably heard us joke a littlebit about fantasy football.
Um, there's a few of us in afantasy football league in this
church, and you probably heardus complain about it, and you're
gonna hear us complain about ituntil the end of January as we
(00:42):
try to play this very small gamewithout hating each other by the
end of it.
Like that was an unfair trade, Ireject that, uh, etc.
But what I found interestingthese past couple weeks is that
when I go and check myopponent's lineup, I immediately
start cheering for the otherteam.
So, say if my opponent has theKansas City Chiefs quarterback,
(01:05):
then I immediately startcheering for their opponent.
I'm like, please get the ballout of Kansas City Patrick
Mahomes' hands.
Please.
What I really hope for is thatmy team and my players will
control the time of possession.
If they can keep the ball, thenthere's a good chance that my
team's gonna score all thepoints.
And that's what I really want.
I want them to have the time ofpossession.
(01:27):
It gets extra dicey when myplayers start losing the
football, when they fumble, whenthey have an interception,
something like that.
We start losing points.
And then I go to my defense andI say, Hey, defense, will you
repossess the football for me?
Will you take it back, please?
Now you look at me and you say,Kyle, I don't know anything
about football, so that was allgibberish.
(01:48):
To which I say, Well, we canalso learn a thing about
possession from the 1995classic, The Lion King.
And in The Lion King, I wasterrified and I was angry as a
young kid as I watched Scar pushMufasa off the edge of the
cliff.
unknown (02:05):
Spoiler.
SPEAKER_00 (02:06):
Spoiler.
Spoiler.
But I was.
I was angry.
I was so angry for Simba at thetime because Pride Rock had been
taken by someone it shouldn'thave.
We all cheer as Simba and Nalalead the cause to repossess
Pride Rock from the wrongfulhands of Scar and Scar's
(02:28):
henchmen.
Pride Rock was in a wrongfulowner's possession.
And Simba leads the charge toget it back, or we have to
encourage him to get it back.
And so this concept ofpossession and repossession is
the concept that I want us totalk about today.
It's a picture that helps usclarify how the Old Testament
and the New Testament areconnected.
(02:49):
They're actually connectedthrough this concept of
possession and repossession.
It's how the God who repossessedthe Israelites from Egypt is the
same God who repossessed ourlives in Jesus.
And as we go, we're gonna seesome themes throughout today's
message.
There's repossession, there'sredemption, and there's ransom.
(03:10):
And I want us to ask twoquestions.
There's two questions that we'lllook at today.
What does it mean to be redeemedor repossessed?
What does that even mean?
And then two, how do we go aboutliving a repossessed or redeemed
life?
What does that look like?
How do we do it?
Now, to make it easy, I'm gonnatell you the answer right now.
(03:32):
The next two slides are justgoing to be exactly what I want
you to take away from today.
First one, the truth aboutredemption is that it becomes
the filter through which we seeGod, ourselves, and our
neighbors.
It's a filter.
It's a filter how we see theworld that has been cosmically
(03:52):
redeemed.
Second, redemption then becomesa catalyst for loving our
neighbor and for fighting fortheir story as much as our own.
This isn't a selfish gospel.
It's a gospel of action, agospel that fights for the
stranger, that fights for thebroken, the poor.
So, to do this, we're gonna diveinto the New Testament for a
(04:15):
second.
We're gonna look at some OldTestament stuff.
The teacher and me can't helpbut to at least show a couple
things.
And then we'll ask, how do welive that out?
So let's go, let's connectpossession and redemption really
quickly in Scripture.
If we go to the Gospel of Mark,we come across this really
interesting story.
James and John come up to Jesusat one point in Mark chapter 10,
(04:38):
and they ask Jesus, Lord, can wesit next to you in glory?
That's this really interestingquestion.
What they're really asking thereis, can they have an elevated
status in the kingdom becausethey were so close to Jesus?
Jesus, since we're so close, canwe be elevated above the other
disciples?
Now, when the other discipleshear this, they are extremely
(04:58):
upset.
When they found out they were,it says they were indignant
about it.
But Jesus says something reallyinteresting.
That's where our main passagepicks up today in Mark chapter
10.
And that's kind of the cusp ofwhat Jesus is going to do.
If we start in verse 42, it saysthis.
So Jesus called them together inresponse to this, this kind of
issue that rose up.
And he said, You know that therulers in this world lord it
(05:22):
over their people, and officialsflaunt their authority over
those under them.
But among you it will bedifferent.
Whoever wants to be a leaderamong you must be your servant,
and whoever wants to be firstamong you must be the slave of
everyone else.
For even the Son of Man came notto be served, but to serve
(05:43):
others and to give his life aransom for many.
There's that word, ransom.
I've kind of highlighted itthere.
Our Savior came to serve othersand to give his life as a ransom
for many.
If you have been in the churchfor many years, you've probably
heard that before.
You've heard that term ransombefore.
If you're new to the faith, itsounds probably a little bit
(06:04):
strange.
Paid a ransom to who?
Why?
Does someone have power overJesus and Jesus has to pay some
sort of ransom?
I've highlighted that word todaybecause I want us to do a bit of
study unpacking what that wordreally means here.
So in Greek, Greek is thelanguage that the New Testament
was written in, we see this wordcome up as Lutron, Lutron.
(06:27):
And that breaks down into twoparts.
Luo, which means release.
So you'll hear the word apolu,that means release you from your
chains, essentially like aprisoner is released.
That type of release, luo.
And then tron means instrumentof or means of.
So altogether, Lutron mean isthe means of releasing.
(06:48):
And that brings up anothercouple questions.
Well, a release from what?
And into whose possession,right?
So if we retranslate that, theson of man came not to serve,
but to serve or came not to beserved, but to serve others and
to give his life as a means ofrelease for many, as an
instrument of release for many.
(07:08):
So let's re-piece this a littlebit by going back to the Old
Testament really quickly.
I want us to see how these wordsall come together.
If we go back to Exodus, we havethis concept of redemption that
starts permeating the entiretyof the Old Testament.
It's throughout the entire OldTestament, all their bondage,
uh, all their suffering, allwilderness experiences.
There's this redemption, ransomuh word that comes out.
(07:30):
And it's the very reason whyJesus in this passage is making
this reference in this moment.
Now, we talked about Lutron,which is the Greek, in Hebrew,
which is what the Old Testamentwas written in.
There are two words that areconnected to this.
That's Gaal and Pada.
Gaal and Padah.
And both of these words alsoshow us something significant
(07:53):
about what Jesus means when hesays he came as a ransom for us
all.
Geal is first introduced to usin Exodus chapter six.
It's when God is speaking toMoses and says, Moses, I want to
go and redeem my people.
Let's look at it really quickly.
Exodus chapter 6, starting inverse 5.
This is uh God speaking.
(08:14):
You can be sure that I haveheard the groans of the people
of Israel who are now slaves tothe Egyptians, and I am well
aware of my covenant with them.
Therefore say to the people ofIsrael, I am the Lord, I will
free you from your oppressionand rescue you from your slavery
in Egypt.
I will redeem, aka deliver, kindof seize, ransom.
I will ransom you with apowerful arm and a great act of
(08:38):
judgment.
I will claim you as my ownpeople, and I will be your God.
Then you will know that I am theLord your God who has freed you
from your oppression in Egypt.
So what's interesting about thatword here is it's the word gaal.
It typically gets translatedredeem in the Old Testament.
But that concept of redeem,there's no concept of payment
(08:59):
there.
In the English translation, itgets a little bit muddy because
we kind of think about redeemingsomething, we're redeeming a
coupon or something like that.
There's an exchange there.
But at its root, here in the OldTestament, gaal refers to when a
family member comes to helpanother family member in a dire
situation, maybe a debt or adebt of slavery to another.
(09:21):
If you think about the book ofRuth and Boaz, Boaz being the
gaal, the redeemer.
That's kind of that dire familysituation that it's referring
to.
But it can also refer to anysituation of danger or bad
circumstance.
The point being here, and thisis what I want us to take away
from this (09:37):
God doesn't owe Pharaoh anything.
God doesn't owe Pharaohanything, even though this word
redeem is being there.
God is repossessing the peopleof Israel because they are
rightfully the Lord's.
Now, the word that is closest toLutron in the Old Testament is
Padah.
So we talk about Gaal.
Now let's look at Padah justvery briefly.
(09:58):
This comes up a few books laterin Deuteronomy, when Israel is
retelling the law.
They're reminding one anotherabout their delivery out of
Egypt.
Deuteronomy 7.
Let's look at it really quickly.
Deuteronomy 7, starting verse 8.
That is why the Lord rescued akaPadah, ransomed, redeemed you
with such a strong hand fromyour slavery and from the
oppressive hand of Pharaoh, kingof Egypt.
(10:20):
Understand therefore that theLord your God is indeed God.
He is the faithful God who keepshis covenant for a thousand
generations and lavishes hisunfailing love on those who love
him and obey his commands.
So here's what I'm getting at.
If something belongs to me, butit is not in my possession, and
I take it back, that transfer isredemption.
(10:40):
I redeemed it.
Here in the Old Testament, wesee that translate in many ways.
You can redeem land or propertythat belongs to you.
You could redeem a family memberout of slavery.
But the most importantredemption in all of Scripture
is a cosmic redemption.
It's about how all of humanitybelongs to God, but fell into
(11:01):
the possession of sin and death.
And for God to snatch us fromdeath and to bring us into life,
that is God redeeming us.
God didn't know Pharaoh, andhe's not even paying off Pharaoh
in that moment.
He was transferring Israel outof Pharaoh's wrongful possession
and into God's rightfulpossession.
(11:22):
So when Jesus says that the Sonof Man came to give his life as
a ransom for many, it means thatGod is actively rescuing us,
actively redeeming us from thebondage.
God does not owe death or sin ordarkness.
God isn't paying them off.
God became human to offer hislife in the place for a people
(11:44):
who he already possessed.
God is the rightful owner.
And so instead of making humanssurrender their own lives, he
came and surrendered his life asthe Son of Man.
God knew that through his ownpower, assuming the form of
humanity, dying and risingagain, that would break and
redeem the power of death overall of us.
(12:06):
God met us where we were at andhe redeemed us.
So here we go at the turningpoint.
That's what redemption means.
How then do we live in the truthof redemption?
How then do we do that?
What's the importance?
How do I go and do this?
There's three ways that I'llbriefly talk about today.
(12:29):
Number one, we lean into ourredemption and our promised land
moments.
And it feels like a difficulttime to talk about promised land
moments because the more I talkwith people, the more I realize
how this national moment hascreated so much steady anxiety
in us all.
I think we've lost a sense ofwonder or lost a sense of hope
(12:50):
of what a promised land mightactually mean or might actually
look like.
We've kind of lost it a littlebit.
My wife and I were just talkingwith someone recently who said
it feels like we're all livingin a fever dream since COVID.
Like, is this even all realanymore?
Like what happened since then?
But I would also say I look outin this room and I see a room
full of successful people too.
(13:13):
I think we all carry this driveto accomplish.
I think we're fiercely loyal toone another.
I think we cheer for oneanother's accomplishments too.
In my own life, I enjoy a senseof accomplishment.
I enjoy the summit.
Whether that's going and doing aliteral hike and hiking a
literal summit or completinganother project, another degree
(13:36):
program, a career journey,getting a promotion, I enjoy a
summit.
But there is a point when thethrill of accomplishment or the
pressure of success becomes alie.
And we don't always recognizethat in the moment where success
is begetting success oraccomplishment creates more
opportunity, there's a momentwhere we start to look around
(13:57):
and wonder is this all?
Is there more?
And our successes have thisfunny way of creating their own
issues and their own problemsthat we lose sight on how to
handle.
Because we become desperatelyafraid to lose everything that
we fought so hard to get.
We start to wrap our handsaround what we've accomplished
and what we've gained, and westart to forget.
(14:21):
We say, we're not gonna losethis.
And those moments where we'regrasping onto something so
tightly, and it's being pried,our hands are being pried open,
that we've forgotten ourredemption.
That we've forgotten it.
Now, from time to time, I'vebeen known to listen to a little
Billie Eilish.
Any uh Billie Eilish fans?
A few, maybe?
(14:42):
Don't at me, okay?
Um and in one of her songs, Iactually found some really
powerful lyrics.
Uh as Stephen shakes his headover there in the back, like,
what are we doing?
But I'll throw the lyrics up onthe screen.
You know, it says this, or shesays this.
I had a dream, I got everythingI wanted.
(15:04):
Not what you think.
And if I'm being honest, itmight have been a nightmare.
I had a dream, I got everythingI wanted, and it might have been
a nightmare.
What she so aptly captures inthis line is the inherent myth
of the earthly promised land.
(15:24):
We can work, we can achieve, wecan earn as much as we want on
this earth, but there comes apoint when we wake up and we
realize that we've missed it.
Learning to live in ourredemption means learning to see
that God rescued us and redeemedus from those earthly pressures
to accomplish, to control.
And even more so, we wererescued from our own egos, the
(15:47):
need to achieve, to have status.
When Jesus conquered the powerof sin and death, he
restructured the cosmos.
He created a structure where welive most fully when we live in
Him.
We go back to the St.
Augustine quote that we singsometimes in worship.
Our hearts are restless until werest in thee.
(16:08):
Our hearts are restless until werest in thee.
And we confuse ourselves when wethink that the next success or
the next job or the next careercan somehow provide the promised
land that we so you know greatlydesire.
So the second point I want totalk about really quickly is we
lean into our redemption inwilderness seasons.
(16:30):
We lean into it in our promisedlands, we lean into it in our
wilderness seasons.
And this is probably the mostdifficult but the most relatable
one for us all.
Again, I think right now weprobably all feel the immense
pressure we're facing each andevery day.
It almost is like a pressurecooker.
And we're looking around at oneanother to see who's going to
(16:50):
lose it next because we're alljust kind of stressed out.
I think part of that is becausewe're all working really hard.
I think we're all trying reallyhard right now.
We're trying to be faithful toGod, we're trying to be faithful
to one another, trying to go tosmall group, we're here today,
we're praying, we're trying toget into scripture.
We are trying so hard.
(17:12):
But yet we're still hearing theno's.
We're still hearing the denials.
We're being ridiculedunknowingly, we're feeling
isolated, and we're watching thedebt pile up: personal debt,
financial debt, emotional debt,spiritual debt.
It all keeps rising.
We start to look out and westart to see the wilderness all
(17:34):
around us, and we start towonder: is this what life is
supposed to be about?
I'm faithful to God, I go tochurch, I pray, I am trying so,
so hard.
Why does it feel like thewilderness is going on forever?
And unfortunately, I thinksometimes that leads us to say,
honestly, I'd rather go back toslavery.
(17:55):
I'd rather just push myself downinto a little bubble and make
myself work in the system thatI've got.
Because that was a thoughtpattern that actually plagued
the Israelites almost as soon asthey escaped Egypt.
It was three days after theyescaped Egypt that they look at
Moses, the wilderness gets tothem, and they begin to wonder
(18:18):
was it worth leaving Egypt to godie in the wilderness?
They also begin thinking maybeit would be a good idea to go
back to Egypt.
Just work within the systemthere.
Hey, you know what?
Maybe it wasn't so bad.
I can have a little bit ofsuccess in Egypt, even if I'm
captive.
Even if I'm a captive.
(18:39):
And in our wilderness moments,we can fall trapped to the same
way of thinking.
We forget what our redemptionmeans, what we were rescued
from, and what it means for ourlife.
And truthfully, we can findourselves in the wilderness for
all types of reasons.
Uh, Dr.
Tim Mackey from the from theBible Project, names three.
God can lead us into thewilderness for a specific
(19:00):
reason.
We can lead ourselves into thewilderness through our own
choices.
Or we can be thrust into thewilderness by the decisions of
others.
In some ways, it could be amixture of those.
Every single one of yourwilderness stories is unique.
It's happened through acombination of things.
But one truth does remain (19:18):
as we find ourselves in the
wilderness, we must rememberthat Israel was not redeemed
from the wilderness.
They were redeemed from Egypt.
Likewise, we are not redeemedfrom the wilderness.
We were redeemed from the powerof sin and death.
And we cannot always control howor why we find ourselves in such
(19:40):
painful situations.
But we can remember that God hasrestructured our story.
That God has empowered us tocome alongside others who are
also in the wilderness and tohelp them find the resources
they need.
It doesn't mean the wildernessisn't painful, and it doesn't
mean that our wildernessexperiences need to be reduced
down to, well, God works allthings together for good.
(20:03):
That's a lie.
We don't need to lie about ourpain.
But what we can do is name ourpain.
We can remember that God wasfaithful to Israel and that God
will be faithful to us.
And in turn, we can go out intothe world and show the love to
one another that we so deeplylong for in our own lives.
Finding the promised land won'tsolve all of our problems.
(20:25):
Finding a temporary promisedland will not solve all of our
problems.
But returning to Egypt won'teither.
We must continue to askourselves how to live faithfully
in our very present moment.
The last way we do this, lastway we lean into our redemption,
is that we lean into it as weacknowledge physical death as
(20:46):
well.
As we end our time today, Ithink we do have to acknowledge
that physical death still has asay in our world.
It does.
And to me, that feels a littlebit uncomfortable because we
profess a Christ who conqueredthe grave.
But it's still somehow a journeythat you and I will have to face
one day.
We still have to go through it.
We also have scary moments ofloss in our life, whether we
(21:09):
have our own close encounterwith death ourselves, or we see
a loved one who's engaged in afight for their life, or we lose
someone that we are close to.
We see and experience the painof death regularly, even when we
know of an eternal redeemed lifewaiting for us on the other
side.
I certainly don't think that wecan just overcome the grief that
(21:30):
death brings.
And I think it's actually aresponsible thing to grieve and
to mourn, especially as we enterthose seasons.
It's a sign that we care for oneanother.
By grieving and mourning, we'recaring for ourselves.
It's an opportunity to honoranother one one another's lives
that we've cherished.
It's a delicate balance.
We feel the pain, but we canalso appreciate it's not just
(21:53):
our metaphorical souls that havebeen repossessed by the power of
the cross.
Our very bodies and our verylives have been repossessed too.
And why?
Because it was out of God's lovethat we were ransomed and that
we were rescued.
One of my favorite passages,it's ironically just after
Romans 8.28, God works allthings together for good.
(22:15):
Romans 8.38.
And I think that applies mostfor us today.
It says this in Romans 8.
I'm convinced that nothing canever separate us from the love
of God.
Neither death, nor life, norangels, nor demons, neither our
fears for today or our worriesfor tomorrow, not even the
(22:36):
powers of hell can separate usfrom God's love.
No power in the sky above or inthe earth below, indeed, nothing
in creation will ever be able toseparate us from the love of God
that is revealed in Christ Jesusour Lord.
That is the power of redeemedliving.
The same powerful love thatrescued the Israelites out of
(22:58):
Israel, out of Egypt, rescuedus.
No power, not death, notdarkness, not our even on our
fears, not our sin, is evergoing to separate us from our
rightful owner.
We have been repossessed.
We are a repossessed people.
(23:18):
And as we conclude today, Iwonder if you find yourself
realizing at a moment in timethat the promised land you
imagined is not everything thatyou thought it would be.
I wonder if you find yourselftoday in the wilderness
wondering what it was all for.
What is the meaning of it all?
(23:40):
I hope that today is a time toreset, to re to remember, to
live into your redemption.
And in just a couple minutes,we're gonna have the opportunity
to take communion.
The band will come up here,they'll sing, you have the
opportunity on your own to getup and go to the back and
partake in communion.
Anyone in this room can go tothe back and take communion.
(24:01):
But as we do, it's a reminder ofour redemption and our
repossession.
It's an opportunity to remember,remember our Savior.
And my prayer for us today andthis week is that the truth of
redemption becomes a filterthrough which we see God,
ourselves, and our neighbor.
And secondly, I really hope thatredemption becomes a catalyst
(24:24):
for loving our neighbor and forfighting for their story as much
as our own.
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