Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Romans 3:24
Of the 2223 passengers and crew who were aboard the Titanic when she sailed from Southampton, England, April 10, 1912 on her fatal maiden voyage, only 712 of those people disembarked from the Carpathia when the ship carrying the survivors arrived in New York on April 18. That’s a survivor rate of less than 32 percent. For the rest of their lives, the most significant fact for all of those 712 people was that they had been rescued on April 15 as the Titanic was sinking. There is a Web page that lists the names of all those aboard the Titanic, and after the names of each of the 712 survivors, is the word ‘Rescued’. That one word meant all the difference between life and death. But there is an even greater listing in Heaven of all those who have lived on this earth, and after an even smaller percentage than survived the Titanic’s sinking, there is a very important word appended, ‘Redeemed’.
Look about you as you gather today to remember the Lord, and consider the fact that those you see participating in worship are part of that tiny fraction of humanity who have been redeemed. Just as the only difference between those who lived and those who died when the Titanic sank was the lifeboats and the rescue vessels, so too the only difference between those of us who are saved and those who are lost is the redemption we have received. We are no better or more worthy than any of the rest of humanity. But the grace of God has extended to us the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
The term ‘redeemed’ refers to a purchasing or paying of a price for deliverance. And that is just what the Lord Jesus did in order for us to have redemption. Our worship today surely considers the great price He was willing to pay to buy us back from the slavemarket of sin. How reverently we consider His offering of Himself, the willingness to endure such contradiction of sinners against Himself. How precious to our souls today is the truth that He purchased our redemption in drops of His own most precious blood.
We give thanks today for the infinite price paid for our redemption, and the great privilege of gathering into the presence of our Redeemer to thank Him. – Jim MacIntosh