Jesus as our sacrifice

I LOVED the sermon at church this past Sunday, and I wanted to share just the very end with you. The leader of our small groups, Jim, was filling in for Mike since Mike is in Isreal right now, and Jim was revealing the parallels between Adam and Jesus to demonstrate how Adam's story foreshadows Jesus's story. The last parallel Jim drew really struck me. He pointed out how Adam and Eve sinned, resulting in their recognition of their nakedness and their attempts to cover their nakedness with fig leaves. But when God comes through the garden, He recognizes the pitiful attempt to cover their sin with leaves and instead makes them garments from animal skins. Jim explained that in order for God to make these clothes to cover nakedness, an animal had to die.

Of course, that directly relates to Jesus. We sin, and we do our best to cover our sin, but our best is still just tying some fig leaves together. Instead, it is only Jesus's death that can completely cover our sin, and it is God's recognition of our pitiful attempts and our deep need for a covering that caused Him to send Jesus as our sacrifice.

So cool! It really made Jesus's role in our salvation all the more real to me again. It was a refreshing sermon, and I'll tell you about the rest of it sometime too.