You and your family decide you want a dog. You're not worried about breed, sex, color, none of that, you just want a dog. So you up and go to the pound, might as well save one right? You go in there with intent and a purpose. "I want a dog." You're looking through the choices and find the one that you want, picking it out. To take this dog home though you have to pay X amount of dollars. It's worth it to you because you and your family want a dog that bad. If you don't do all these things, taking time, picking out a dog, and paying for it, the dog will be put down.
You have just redeemed a dog.
Redemption is a word that we use in church that isn't always understood. I think this dog analogy works great for the idea of redemption. But to put it even plainer I'll do a couple more examples.
You redeem coupons, giving them to someone in exchange for something.
You redeem a wage, working throughout the week in exchange for money.
You redeem items, giving someone money for that particular item.
Redeeming things is a lot like bartering. I have this, I think it is worth this much. You have that, and it's worth this much, we can trade these things, I give you this, you give me that. I just redeemed that with this.
In the Old Testament God goes to a man Hosea and says, "You're going to go marry a prostitute." So Hosea obeys. They marry, have some kids, then his wife (Gomer) runs away back to her old life. God comes back to Hosea and says, "Go get her back. It's going to cost money, but it doesn't matter. Go get her." With God telling Hosea to do this it can be assumed that maybe Hosea didn't want her back. And if her own husband didn't want her back, why would anyone else really want her? But he goes and pays to get her back, despite the fact that he has to pay for what is already his. She was already his wife, yet he had to go buy her back. He had to go redeem her from her old life to bring her into the new one. But Hosea got off easy. Yes he had to pay something for what was already his, but you can't really place value on a human life, so whatever he paid to have her back was less than he should have paid.
God had to do the same thing as Hosea, he had to redeem us. Last time we talked about sin. We see throughout scripture, and right now Romans is coming to mind, that we are slaves to sin. Sin owns us. We can do nothing that sin doesn't tell us to do. That is essentially what it means to be a slave to sin.
Yet we are God's creation, his masterpiece. But he still had to buy us back. So what he did was sent his son, putting on flesh and bone, to come and pay for our sin. Romans 6.23 tells us that the wages of sin is death, that is sin is paid for with death. You work a job, getting paid $8.00/hr for 20 hours a week. Before taxes that's $160/week. Those are your wages, money you have earned for the time and work you have done. Exact same concept with this verse. We have done sin, one single sin, and we have earned death for it. Our actions have only gained us death. But the rest of the verse says that the free gift of God is life, in Jesus Christ our Lord.
We have been offered a free gift of life, countering the wages of sin that we have rightfully earned. The gift of grace and life is free to us, but it cost God something so that he could reclaim us. It cost him his son. Jesus was the currency paid so that we could be brought back to God and be redeemed, so that we can be reconciled and receive grace and life.
God paid for us, his own creation, with his sons life.
That's like if Bill Gates wanted a computer that ran Windows, he would have to give up his firstborn for it. It's already his, he's the one that started Windows. Why should he have to give up his son for it?
Well why would God have to give up his son for us then?
So by now you should have an idea of what redemption is, but I want to get a little further into what it does.
Ephesians 2.8 says that we have been saved by grace. We can change the word saved there to redeemed. (I've talked about this before and haven't been struck by lightning so I think I'm good.) So then we have been redeemed by grace, or the grace of God. This is saying that God did all of the work.
This grace of God allows us to be redeemed then.
He had enough love for us to be merciful to us despite our sin.
He had enough mercy on us to not just straight up kill us but instead to extend grace to us (seen in Titus 2.11)
And he had enough grace for us to save us from our sin which is death (Hebrews 2.9 is a fitting reference here).
How he saved us then was with his son Jesus, bring us back to the idea of redemption.
But just above I stated that grace has been extended to all. This means that we all have a chance to take it, but not everyone does. Read Titus 2.11 and tell me that God has extended grace to everyone. And it is grace that saves/redeems us. All we have to do is consciously take it, you cannot accidentally accept the grace of God.
Well how do you accept it? It's been said, "Grace is free, but not cheap." This is a true statement. Grace is a free gift of God. If it wasn't free then we'd have to give something of equal value for it or else it's a steal, and you can't steal from God. But we don't have anything of equal value of God's grace. That's why it's free. But it's not cheap, it costs us everything. What do I mean by that?
When I got baptized at school, I was talking with a professor about it and he told me that the only thing that we own is our sin. This is also a true statement. Think about it. You die right now, what goes with you? Your cell phone? Nope. Friends? Nope. Clothes, money, xbox, dog, bed, boyfriend, girlfriend? Nope to all of the above. Not even your body is yours, you cannot control what it does. From the time you're born it starts to die and you can do nothing to stop it, only further it along.
The only thing you'll take with you after life is your sin, because no one gave that to you. You chose that for yourself. That is all that you own, that is everything you have, most people find their very identity in their sin. I used to always put relationships before God and I found my identity in that. That was my sin, and it controlled and owned me, much as I owned it because it was mine, and I chose to do those things. Yet to receive this grace we must repent of our sin, turning our back to our own lives and handing all we own to God.
For our sin he gives us grace, and by his grace we are redeemed.
Yet he gave us his son for our sin, giving something invaluable for something worth less than excrement in the yard.
This is what it means to be redeemed.
You pay for your dog, you bring it home, and becomes part of your family, it's valuable to you.
God has already paid for you, and he asks that you come join his family, leaving your past life behind, giving him all you own so that you can find joy in this new life, joining his family.
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