WEBVTT 00:00:00.560 --> 00:00:02.000 Good evening, beloved. 00:00:02.640 --> 00:00:03.680 Good evening. 00:00:03.839 --> 00:00:12.080 I want to invite you to take a Bible if you would turn over with me to 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians chapter 5. 00:00:12.480 --> 00:00:17.440 For those of you that do not have a Bible, you can find one in front of you there. 00:00:17.679 --> 00:00:24.559 And you can find 2 Corinthians, as soon as I can get to the page, I'll tell you exactly what page number, if that's helpful. 00:00:25.039 --> 00:00:28.239 Be 1,025. 00:00:28.719 --> 00:00:32.560 1,025 in our Pew Bible. 00:00:34.479 --> 00:00:41.759 Well, this evening we're here to remember our Lord Jesus Christ, especially the day of his death on the cross. 00:00:42.079 --> 00:00:52.640 And in all of our prayers, our songs and hymns, our scripture readings, this proclamation, and soon in our communion, we're celebrating the cross of Christ. 00:00:52.960 --> 00:01:01.439 And so if anyone came in, maybe their first time tonight, a casual observer of us, they would see just how important that is to us. 00:01:01.520 --> 00:01:06.959 And if they were to come and visit us on Sundays, they would see exactly the same thing. 00:01:07.200 --> 00:01:16.000 They would discover that our focus is on Christ and that our focus and attraction to him is primarily about his death on the cross. 00:01:16.239 --> 00:01:24.719 It's not primarily about his example, even though he was a great man, and we desire to follow his steps of faith and love and submission. 00:01:25.280 --> 00:01:33.519 It's not primarily about his teaching, even though he was a great teacher, and we desire to obey him in everything that he commands. 00:01:33.840 --> 00:01:41.040 And it's not primarily about his moral fortitude, even though he was a brave defender of justice and mercy. 00:01:41.280 --> 00:01:48.560 And we too desire to bring justice where wrongs are committed and mercy where wrongs are confessed. 00:01:49.120 --> 00:01:51.280 No, all those things are important. 00:01:51.840 --> 00:01:56.480 But there's something greater that we see in Jesus Christ, and that's why we're here this evening. 00:01:56.799 --> 00:02:06.239 Because what we are celebrating is wrapped up in what this weekend is about the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ. 00:02:06.480 --> 00:02:14.639 In a couple days on Sunday, we're going to join with the apostles in proclaiming and celebrating the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. 00:02:14.960 --> 00:02:24.159 Tonight, however, we're going to focus and narrow our focus on the death of Christ and join with the apostles in glorying in his death. 00:02:26.400 --> 00:02:28.960 Paul boasted about the cross of Christ. 00:02:29.039 --> 00:02:39.520 If you were to read his writings in many different places, you could read how central it was to his person, how central it was to his ministry, how central it was to his proclamation. 00:02:39.840 --> 00:02:43.599 He said in 1 Corinthians, we preach Christ crucified. 00:02:43.919 --> 00:02:53.599 He said also in that same book, in another chapter, I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 00:02:54.080 --> 00:03:03.360 He spoke about the message of the cross, the offense of the cross, the triumph of the cross, and the wonder of the cross. 00:03:03.599 --> 00:03:17.280 And in a culminating statement in his arguments to the Galatians, he said, May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. 00:03:18.159 --> 00:03:24.080 You know, in Paul's day, that would have been a rather strange thing to take a boast in. 00:03:24.319 --> 00:03:26.879 A boast in the cross of Christ. 00:03:27.759 --> 00:03:36.319 Today we think of crosses as something beautiful, maybe something noble, perhaps even wear them as jewelry. 00:03:36.560 --> 00:03:40.719 But that would have been completely unimaginable in Paul's day. 00:03:42.159 --> 00:03:45.199 The cross was the ultimate humiliation. 00:03:46.319 --> 00:03:53.280 The word crux in Latin was even unmentionable in polite Roman society. 00:03:55.199 --> 00:04:07.039 So for the Romans, the cross was something degrading, disgusting, despicable, detestable, disgraceful, unable to be even mentioned. 00:04:07.280 --> 00:04:18.800 In fact, when people were condemned to a death of crucifixion, the sentence that was put against them was done in an archaic sort of euphemistic way. 00:04:19.040 --> 00:04:22.720 Let them hang on the unlucky tree. 00:04:23.040 --> 00:04:25.600 They wouldn't even say crucify them. 00:04:27.360 --> 00:04:32.560 It's hard for us to think of a contemporary equivalent of all of that. 00:04:33.600 --> 00:04:44.240 Perhaps it might be if we if Paul was to say it in our vernacular, I boast in nothing but Christ and his electric chair. 00:04:47.519 --> 00:04:53.360 Or I glory in nothing but Christ and his being guillotined. 00:04:54.560 --> 00:04:57.360 It would be that abrasive. 00:04:59.839 --> 00:05:03.759 See, the cross was an awfully strange thing to boast about. 00:05:04.800 --> 00:05:10.480 According to the standards of the day, the cross should have been an embarrassment to the early church. 00:05:10.639 --> 00:05:19.839 I mean, what would people think about this one that they're proclaiming as their Lord and finding out he had been executed like a low-life criminal? 00:05:21.360 --> 00:05:29.920 But instead of denying it or covering it up, the Christians proclaimed it in that generation. 00:05:30.319 --> 00:05:42.560 The very thing that seemed to people of that generation too obscene to whisper in polite company became the broadcast of the Christians in the streets. 00:05:45.600 --> 00:05:46.240 Why? 00:05:47.439 --> 00:06:08.720 Why were they so willing to make the death of Christ on the cross something so special and something so significant that they were willing to go past the shame of it all that their generation had put upon them to be able to proclaim it so loudly and so fully and freely to all who might hear it. 00:06:09.120 --> 00:06:11.279 Well, that's why we're here tonight. 00:06:11.680 --> 00:06:15.199 Because we too glory in the cross of Christ. 00:06:15.360 --> 00:06:34.399 And yes, it may sound and be abrasive to our generation, but there's something to know here about what Christ did when he died on the cross that deserves our attention, that deserves our attachment, that deserves our love and our proclamation. 00:06:34.639 --> 00:06:46.879 And so we're going to look at a passage tonight that traces out for us the reason for that devotion of Christ in him crucified and the substance of our proclamation to the world in our generation. 00:06:47.040 --> 00:06:50.800 Let's take a look at this passage in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. 00:06:51.680 --> 00:06:53.920 The Apostle Paul begins in verse 17. 00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:59.680 He said, If anyone is in Christ, he's a new creature or new creation. 00:07:00.000 --> 00:07:03.439 The old is passed away, and see the new is come. 00:07:03.839 --> 00:07:11.279 Everything is from God who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. 00:07:11.680 --> 00:07:18.720 That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. 00:07:18.879 --> 00:07:22.800 And he's committed to us the message of reconciliation to us. 00:07:23.439 --> 00:07:29.279 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. 00:07:29.519 --> 00:07:33.600 We plead on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. 00:07:34.000 --> 00:07:45.439 He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 00:07:46.480 --> 00:07:52.800 This passage of scripture lays out for us the storyline of why the cross is so glorious to us. 00:07:53.040 --> 00:07:57.360 And the first thing that we'll notice in this passage of scripture is our dilemma. 00:07:57.600 --> 00:08:03.680 It doesn't speak of it directly, it's underneath the surface, but not very far at all, actually. 00:08:03.920 --> 00:08:10.480 When you read this passage of scripture, you hear the word reconciliation, be reconciled. 00:08:10.720 --> 00:08:18.240 There's a lot of terms there that talk about this, of God bringing about this reconciliation through Jesus Christ. 00:08:18.480 --> 00:08:28.639 And what this tells us is that our dilemma is this that humanity is not in a harmonious relationship with God. 00:08:29.360 --> 00:08:32.720 We are unreconciled. 00:08:34.559 --> 00:08:45.360 The one striking commonality of us all, no matter how big or short or what size we are, where we grew up, with the color or shade of our skin, it doesn't matter a whit. 00:08:45.600 --> 00:08:51.519 There's one striking commonality to us all, and all of us are estranged from God. 00:08:52.799 --> 00:09:00.320 Since the time of Adam, every one of us had been aligned with that first man in disobedience. 00:09:00.879 --> 00:09:10.480 And because Adam's fall plunged the human race under the consequences of sin, all of us are born sinners. 00:09:11.279 --> 00:09:22.080 The scriptures tell us that just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, in this way death spread to all people, because all have sinned. 00:09:23.440 --> 00:09:33.759 Even David, King David, lamented in Psalm 51, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. 00:09:34.559 --> 00:09:44.080 In Psalm 58, it said that people are estranged from God from the womb, and that we speak lies from birth. 00:09:46.080 --> 00:09:57.519 And if any one of us might think that, well, maybe we could just get past that, maybe sort of pick up ourselves after our birth and do better than maybe anybody else could do. 00:09:57.679 --> 00:10:02.240 The scriptures tell us, as Paul said in Romans, there is none righteous. 00:10:02.799 --> 00:10:04.240 Not one of us. 00:10:05.519 --> 00:10:11.519 Later in that chapter, he said, All have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. 00:10:12.879 --> 00:10:14.960 The Old Testament speaks of that way too. 00:10:15.039 --> 00:10:17.360 There's no man who does not sin. 00:10:17.519 --> 00:10:22.559 And Proverbs 20 says, No one can say, I have cleansed my heart. 00:10:22.960 --> 00:10:24.960 I am pure from my sin. 00:10:27.279 --> 00:10:29.039 This is our dilemma. 00:10:29.440 --> 00:10:38.240 Because of who we are by birth and by action, we're estranged from God, and that problem continues from generation to generation. 00:10:38.879 --> 00:10:43.840 We all as humans are in an unreconcilable position with God. 00:10:45.120 --> 00:10:58.000 We're incapable of being the people that God created us to be, though he made us with the full intent of his goodness and greatness. 00:11:00.080 --> 00:11:02.879 We have all turned aside, Roman says. 00:11:03.039 --> 00:11:06.399 We have all together become worthless. 00:11:06.639 --> 00:11:08.799 There's no one who does good. 00:11:10.320 --> 00:11:11.679 The problem isn't with God. 00:11:11.840 --> 00:11:20.320 The scriptures lay that blame not on him as though he were some cruel taskmaster, but upon us as humans who have rebelled. 00:11:21.600 --> 00:11:29.759 Paul teaches us here that God is the aggrieved party, and that we're the one who caused the alienation. 00:11:30.799 --> 00:11:36.639 And left to our devices, we would only continue to be at enmity with God. 00:11:38.240 --> 00:11:46.000 And so it's in the context of this that we see that our dilemma is that we are estranged from He who made us. 00:11:46.720 --> 00:11:53.120 Isaiah told the people, he said, Your iniquities have made a separation between you and God. 00:11:53.600 --> 00:11:58.639 Your sins have hid his face from you, so that he does not hear. 00:12:03.279 --> 00:12:08.480 It even puts it into terms that are emotional, that resonate with our emotional life. 00:12:08.799 --> 00:12:16.799 God saw how great mankind's wickedness on earth had become, and his heart was filled with pain. 00:12:19.600 --> 00:12:23.120 Why that personal emotional expression? 00:12:24.559 --> 00:12:26.399 Because God created us. 00:12:26.960 --> 00:12:37.919 We were made by God, for God, in the image of God, so that we might dwell and have communion with God. 00:12:39.519 --> 00:12:42.720 But instead we chose rebellion. 00:12:46.720 --> 00:12:56.080 God told Adam that if he were to go down that pathway, that there would not only be the dilemma of estrangement, but that there would be consequences. 00:12:56.399 --> 00:12:57.519 Our doom. 00:12:58.399 --> 00:13:02.960 He said, The day that you eat of that tree, you will surely die. 00:13:07.039 --> 00:13:08.000 And he did. 00:13:08.799 --> 00:13:10.080 And so do we. 00:13:10.879 --> 00:13:12.799 Every single one of us. 00:13:13.279 --> 00:13:17.039 Not one of us gets out of this world alive. 00:13:18.720 --> 00:13:25.919 The consequences of sin reverberate all the way down to our generation and in our home. 00:13:26.559 --> 00:13:30.720 Ezekiel 18 said, the soul that sins will surely die. 00:13:31.519 --> 00:13:40.080 And in Genesis chapter 5, the genealogy of the human race talks about God making Adam in his own image. 00:13:40.799 --> 00:13:49.200 But then it shifts to Adam having a child, and that child being in Adam's image after the fall. 00:13:49.600 --> 00:13:55.039 And then it talks about Adam living for a certain number of years and then dying. 00:13:55.279 --> 00:14:02.080 And his son having children in that son's image and living and dying. 00:14:02.240 --> 00:14:14.799 And as you go through Genesis chapter 5, the thing that speaks so much is not the length of years that these people lived, but the reality that no matter how long they lived, they died. 00:14:15.519 --> 00:14:21.440 And they died and they died and they died, and we still do. 00:14:24.080 --> 00:14:28.720 The prognosis is not any better if we think about it in the spiritual realm. 00:14:29.360 --> 00:14:34.639 Alienation from God in this life and alienation from God in the life to come. 00:14:34.879 --> 00:14:39.360 Death does not end this estrangement that we have. 00:14:40.159 --> 00:14:51.200 God, true to his nature and his holiness, exacts his standards of righteousness by bringing his wrath against ungodliness and the unrighteousness of men. 00:14:51.919 --> 00:15:15.200 And we leave this world as hard and horrible as it might be into a worse death, an eternity apart from God in all of his love, and all of his mercy, and all of his grace, and all of his goodness, and all of his power toward people that he would give, and we would have none of it, and we will bear none of it. 00:15:16.159 --> 00:15:22.639 Isaiah 59, your iniquities have made the separation between you and your God. 00:15:24.320 --> 00:15:29.440 This passage begins here, but it doesn't end here wonderfully. 00:15:29.759 --> 00:15:33.919 It doesn't just stop and leave us in our dilemma and our doom. 00:15:34.159 --> 00:15:38.480 Take a look at this passage again because it reveals something about God. 00:15:38.639 --> 00:15:48.879 It shows that He is a deliverer, which is a remarkable thing in light of what we've just examined Scripture to say about ourselves. 00:15:49.759 --> 00:15:52.559 If anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. 00:15:52.639 --> 00:15:55.039 The old has passed away and the new is come. 00:15:55.679 --> 00:15:56.320 Why? 00:15:56.639 --> 00:16:02.159 Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ. 00:16:04.399 --> 00:16:11.120 God, in verse 19, was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. 00:16:11.360 --> 00:16:15.519 And he's committed the message of reconciliation to us. 00:16:16.799 --> 00:16:22.320 Amid our dilemma, amid our doom, there's good news in this passage. 00:16:22.480 --> 00:16:30.159 There's good news that God is also a God of mercy and love and has provided a remedy for sin. 00:16:30.480 --> 00:16:33.039 And he has come as a deliverer. 00:16:33.759 --> 00:16:39.039 And he makes it clear that all the glory should go to him for that reconciliation. 00:16:40.480 --> 00:16:52.960 Paul describes this: that we in our sin-severed relationship between us and a holy God can be restored, as we'll see in a moment, in and through Christ. 00:16:53.440 --> 00:16:56.080 But by the will of God it has happened. 00:16:56.320 --> 00:16:58.320 It flows out of his love. 00:16:59.120 --> 00:17:01.519 Why is God the source of this? 00:17:02.559 --> 00:17:07.039 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son. 00:17:07.680 --> 00:17:14.319 God demonstrated his love toward us, Paul said in Romans 5.8, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 00:17:15.119 --> 00:17:21.519 Though we were enemies, we've been reconciled to God through the death of his son, Romans 5.10. 00:17:22.559 --> 00:17:35.759 Ephesians 2, God, who is rich in mercy, and because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, he's made us alive in Christ. 00:17:37.519 --> 00:17:41.279 Hear this, because this is the good news. 00:17:41.680 --> 00:17:49.200 The remedy of our broken life and our broken relationship that we have with God is not within ourselves. 00:17:49.839 --> 00:17:51.839 It's only found in God. 00:17:53.039 --> 00:18:02.799 Only God knows how to make sinners who deserve hell acceptable in his sight and welcome to be with him in eternity in his presence. 00:18:03.279 --> 00:18:20.880 Only God could design a way for our sin to be dealt with and for that judgment to satisfy his demands of justice and turn away his wrath in such a way that is consistent with his love and his grace and his mercy. 00:18:21.519 --> 00:18:32.960 Only God would know what it would take to take us who are under the dominion of darkness and to move us and to translate us into the kingdom of his son, where there's nothing but light. 00:18:34.319 --> 00:18:40.319 Only God could be the author and the executor of this plan of redemption. 00:18:41.119 --> 00:18:44.720 And his plan is to do it in Christ. 00:18:45.839 --> 00:18:55.839 So we have a dilemma and a consequence of doom that God, the deliverer, brings through his Son, Jesus Christ. 00:18:56.079 --> 00:19:00.640 So let's take a look now at this passage and see its deliverance that it offers to us. 00:19:01.200 --> 00:19:05.440 The answer to many questions is found in this passage. 00:19:05.920 --> 00:19:12.720 The answer to the question, how can an absolutely and infinitely holy God be reconciled to sinners like us? 00:19:13.359 --> 00:19:21.440 How can God's just and holy law, which demands condemnation and punishment to those who violate it, be satisfied? 00:19:22.079 --> 00:19:25.839 How can those who deserve no mercy receive mercy? 00:19:26.960 --> 00:19:31.680 How can God uphold true righteousness and give us grace? 00:19:32.799 --> 00:19:37.440 How can the demands of justice and mercy be met? 00:19:38.240 --> 00:19:45.440 This passage tells us that God is both the just and the justifier of sinners. 00:19:46.960 --> 00:19:47.599 How? 00:19:48.960 --> 00:19:54.240 Through the satisfying, substitutionary sacrifice of the Son. 00:19:54.640 --> 00:19:56.960 That's what this passage talks about. 00:19:57.200 --> 00:20:03.279 And in fifteen Greek words, we find the answer to that in verse 21 of this chapter. 00:20:04.319 --> 00:20:16.319 He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 00:20:17.440 --> 00:20:24.720 It is through the satisfying substitutionary sacrifice of the Son that we find our deliverance. 00:20:25.519 --> 00:20:35.279 The scriptures speak about Christ's death with overtones and direct connections to the sacrificial system of the Jewish people in the Old Testament. 00:20:36.160 --> 00:20:45.519 Those mapping out of their sacrificial system as finding its culmination and its conclusion in the Lord Jesus Christ. 00:20:46.240 --> 00:20:51.200 Even the prophecies of Christ's coming speak in these terms. 00:20:52.240 --> 00:21:02.960 Isaiah 53 talks about us going astray like sheep, turning every one to our own way, but it says the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. 00:21:03.279 --> 00:21:11.680 And a little deeper in that chapter, it said, the Lord was pleased to crush him when he made him a guilt offering. 00:21:12.319 --> 00:21:14.960 There's that sacrificial terminology. 00:21:15.519 --> 00:21:37.519 And Peter pointing back for Jewish people to look back there and to see that and to tell them this you were redeemed from your empty way of life, inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like gold and silver, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb. 00:21:39.119 --> 00:21:50.880 He draws the language of the sacrificial system and points it to Jesus Christ and says, This one who died on the cross died as a sacrifice there. 00:21:52.319 --> 00:21:53.759 Hebrews 10. 00:21:54.319 --> 00:21:59.759 Brothers and sisters, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus. 00:22:01.279 --> 00:22:06.960 He's inaugurated for us a new and living way through the curtain, that is, through his flesh. 00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:09.200 Hebrews 9. 00:22:09.440 --> 00:22:23.519 Christ appeared as a high priest to the good things that have come, and in a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, he entered the most holy place once for all, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood. 00:22:26.079 --> 00:22:34.880 How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works? 00:22:35.279 --> 00:22:36.640 Hebrews 7. 00:22:37.200 --> 00:22:42.400 He doesn't need to offer sacrifices every day as high priests do, first for their own sins and those of the people. 00:22:42.640 --> 00:22:46.640 He did this once for all time when he offered himself. 00:22:47.839 --> 00:22:52.880 The scriptures speak of the sacrificial nature of this death. 00:22:53.920 --> 00:22:59.599 But it also speaks of him as a sinless one in sacrifice. 00:22:59.839 --> 00:23:17.039 That unblemished lamb, that lamb without a spot, that one that had to be pure in every way possible, laid on the altar in the Old Testament, was a figure of Christ who is to come, the sinless one, made himself a sacrifice. 00:23:17.759 --> 00:23:22.880 The one who did not know sin, our passage says. 00:23:23.839 --> 00:23:32.480 Attested to by many other places, Peter, he committed no sin, neither was there found deceit in his mouth. 00:23:33.200 --> 00:23:39.759 Hebrews 4, 15, he was tempted in every way, just as we are, yet without sin. 00:23:40.640 --> 00:23:48.960 Hebrews 7, this high priest that we need, who is holy, innocent, undefiled, separate from sinners. 00:23:49.519 --> 00:23:56.880 1 John 3, you know he was revealed so that he might take away sins, and there's no sin in him. 00:23:58.559 --> 00:24:04.960 Romans 8:3, taking the sinlessness of Christ and this offering of sacrifice, and puts it together. 00:24:05.279 --> 00:24:10.559 What the law could not do, since it was weakened by the flesh, God did. 00:24:11.039 --> 00:24:18.000 He condemns sin in the flesh by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin offering. 00:24:19.279 --> 00:24:23.519 This is the significance of Christ being human. 00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:31.279 But he's not just like us in the sense that he did not rebel against the Father like we had. 00:24:33.599 --> 00:24:45.200 However, he did identify with us, and that brings us to our next point that not only was his death a death of sacrifice, but it was a death of substitution. 00:24:46.400 --> 00:24:49.039 And this is where it gets glorious. 00:24:49.519 --> 00:24:57.839 He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, on our behalf. 00:25:00.799 --> 00:25:06.240 Listen to some other places where Paul talks about it in the book of Galatians, chapter one. 00:25:06.720 --> 00:25:09.759 He gave himself for our sins. 00:25:11.599 --> 00:25:16.640 The Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me in chapter two. 00:25:17.519 --> 00:25:22.559 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. 00:25:23.519 --> 00:25:31.759 There's all that terminology of doing it on our behalf, doing it in our place as a substitute. 00:25:32.079 --> 00:25:36.640 Christ's death was taking what we deserved. 00:25:39.119 --> 00:25:47.279 He didn't come merely to share the lot of humanity with us, to be a great example of how humans ought to live their lives. 00:25:47.839 --> 00:25:53.599 He came for the purpose of giving up his life in place of ours. 00:25:55.279 --> 00:25:58.079 He died that we might live. 00:25:58.400 --> 00:26:02.640 And thus the scriptures tell us that Christ's death was substitutionary. 00:26:03.279 --> 00:26:12.160 In this salvation, it is this one point that the death of Christ is a death that we deserved. 00:26:12.400 --> 00:26:14.799 Our punishment is borne by Him. 00:26:15.119 --> 00:26:19.359 He voluntarily took upon Himself a doom he did not deserve. 00:26:19.519 --> 00:26:28.640 He was sinless in order to die on the behalf who deserved everything that the wrath of God could pour out. 00:26:30.319 --> 00:26:33.039 This is why there's no room for boasting. 00:26:33.759 --> 00:26:36.240 We can only boast in the cross of Christ. 00:26:36.400 --> 00:26:38.079 This is what Paul meant by that. 00:26:38.240 --> 00:26:40.720 There was nothing we could add to this. 00:26:42.880 --> 00:26:51.839 And while we stand and gaze at Christ, we stand and gaze at him, not simply a man dying as an example of how committed we need to be to God. 00:26:52.160 --> 00:26:52.480 No. 00:26:53.920 --> 00:27:12.799 He's a man doing a service by being a substitute for sinners, taking our place, dying our death, giving himself for us, becoming a curse from us, so that that curse might be lifted off of us. 00:27:14.720 --> 00:27:17.359 And then this passage of scripture tells us something else. 00:27:17.519 --> 00:27:26.400 Not only is his death a sacrifice, his death is a substitution, but his death is satisfactory to God. 00:27:29.039 --> 00:27:39.039 It tells us here that everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself in verse 18, through Christ. 00:27:40.079 --> 00:27:45.039 Verse 19, in Christ God was reconciling in the world to himself. 00:27:45.359 --> 00:27:47.680 How is that reconciliation made? 00:27:47.920 --> 00:27:51.440 Not counting their trespasses against them. 00:27:52.000 --> 00:27:54.559 Well, where did those trespasses go? 00:27:54.960 --> 00:28:05.440 Verse 21 says, They went on him who knew no sin, so that we might know the righteousness of God in Christ. 00:28:08.079 --> 00:28:19.039 You see, there is the darkness of our sin, that dilemma that we're in, but there is also this righteousness of Christ, which is given to us. 00:28:19.519 --> 00:28:26.319 All of our sins credited to Christ, and all of Christ's righteousness credited to us. 00:28:26.799 --> 00:28:29.119 What a remarkable thing this is. 00:28:29.759 --> 00:28:40.000 That God the Father would count our sins against his own Son, so that we might become his children. 00:28:40.720 --> 00:28:42.799 What a remarkable thing. 00:28:43.680 --> 00:28:54.640 That all of God's anger against sin and all of that separation from God and all the consequences that we deserve sits on Christ. 00:28:57.119 --> 00:29:00.880 And God accepted his death on our behalf. 00:29:07.920 --> 00:29:10.319 And you might ask, how do we know? 00:29:11.359 --> 00:29:13.519 Come Sunday, you'll find out. 00:29:13.839 --> 00:29:18.240 Up from the grave he arose with a mighty triumph over his foes. 00:29:18.720 --> 00:29:22.079 How do we know that the death of Christ was satisfactory? 00:29:22.240 --> 00:29:25.839 Because death could not hold him in the grave. 00:29:26.079 --> 00:29:27.519 That's why. 00:29:30.480 --> 00:29:32.640 Was there a price to be paid for our sin? 00:29:32.960 --> 00:29:34.079 He paid it. 00:29:34.400 --> 00:29:36.880 Is there a penalty to be born for our sin? 00:29:37.119 --> 00:29:38.079 He bore it. 00:29:38.319 --> 00:29:40.880 Is there a judgment to be faced for our sin? 00:29:41.200 --> 00:29:42.720 He faced it. 00:29:43.759 --> 00:29:46.559 Is there a victory that needs to be won? 00:29:47.039 --> 00:29:48.240 He won it. 00:29:49.440 --> 00:29:51.200 This is our Savior. 00:29:51.440 --> 00:30:05.200 And this is why picking up Isaiah, Peter says this: He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, because by his wounds we are healed. 00:30:06.079 --> 00:30:07.599 We're delivered. 00:30:09.359 --> 00:30:11.759 He is the remover of wrath. 00:30:12.480 --> 00:30:16.480 And that leads us to another part of this passage. 00:30:16.720 --> 00:30:32.559 Not only is there a dilemma and doom underneath the surface here, there is the statement full and free of God as a deliverer and the deliverance coming through the sacrificial, substitutionary, satisfactory death of the Son. 00:30:33.200 --> 00:30:34.720 What does this bring us? 00:30:34.960 --> 00:30:35.920 A delight. 00:30:36.400 --> 00:30:37.119 A delight. 00:30:37.279 --> 00:30:41.359 You can feel the reverberations of joy in this passage of Scripture. 00:30:41.519 --> 00:30:45.119 If anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. 00:30:45.359 --> 00:30:47.359 The old is gone, the new is come. 00:30:47.519 --> 00:30:50.880 You can almost feel Paul yelling these words. 00:30:51.440 --> 00:30:55.200 The triumphant glory of a new creation. 00:30:55.759 --> 00:31:02.799 This old one that was full of death and destruction and disobedience and all of that is gone. 00:31:02.960 --> 00:31:04.559 There's a new one here. 00:31:04.799 --> 00:31:08.000 And if you're in Christ, you're part of that new creation. 00:31:08.400 --> 00:31:11.119 You can feel him singing these words. 00:31:11.519 --> 00:31:17.920 And you can see him not speaking about himself, but speaking about the glory of God's grace. 00:31:18.160 --> 00:31:23.599 All of this is from God who has reconciled us to himself in Christ. 00:31:24.640 --> 00:31:26.319 That's our delight. 00:31:27.839 --> 00:31:29.359 How rich is it? 00:31:29.680 --> 00:31:32.079 Take a look at verse 21 again. 00:31:33.599 --> 00:31:38.000 In him we might become the righteousness of God. 00:31:39.680 --> 00:31:44.160 We started out this talk talking about our dilemma and our doom. 00:31:44.480 --> 00:31:45.680 But we're not going to end it there. 00:31:45.759 --> 00:31:47.599 We're going to end it with these words. 00:31:47.920 --> 00:31:51.359 That the righteousness of God might be seen in us. 00:31:53.359 --> 00:31:58.400 That when God looks on us, he sees the sinlessness of Christ. 00:31:58.960 --> 00:32:06.319 That he no longer deems us guilty, but he actually sees us as righteous in his eyes. 00:32:07.839 --> 00:32:08.480 Wow. 00:32:09.119 --> 00:32:11.680 Now that is good news. 00:32:13.200 --> 00:32:15.440 There's no way we could earn this favor. 00:32:15.839 --> 00:32:18.480 There's no way that we could gain it. 00:32:18.720 --> 00:32:22.240 It's granted to us on the basis of Christ Himself. 00:32:23.359 --> 00:32:40.319 This is why Paul in Colossians said this for God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in Christ, and through him to reconcile everything to himself by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. 00:32:40.559 --> 00:32:44.079 And he turns it back to his hearers and back to us. 00:32:44.160 --> 00:33:01.519 And he says, Once you were alienated and hostile in your minds, as expressed by your evil deeds, but now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through his death to do what? 00:33:02.160 --> 00:33:08.480 To present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him. 00:33:09.519 --> 00:33:12.000 That is amazing. 00:33:12.400 --> 00:33:15.920 To present, yes, disobedient, Doug. 00:33:16.559 --> 00:33:19.599 Yes, in a dilemma, Doug. 00:33:19.920 --> 00:33:25.200 Yes, a doom to an eternal separation from God, Doug. 00:33:26.079 --> 00:33:43.119 And to turn anyone who believes on Christ, to be presented before a holy God as holy, to be presented before a holy God is unblamable, to be presented before a holy God is unreprovable in Christ. 00:33:44.640 --> 00:33:47.920 We have no perfections of our own to offer him. 00:33:49.440 --> 00:33:54.960 The only thing we can offer him is to be behind Christ. 00:33:55.680 --> 00:34:00.720 And when he sees Christ, he sees those who are in Christ. 00:34:01.039 --> 00:34:10.079 And he sees us as Christ, righteous in our union with him, because he took our place. 00:34:10.480 --> 00:34:32.320 In the imagery of Colossians is some large Colosseum being brought before a king or an emperor, and that those are brought into the presence of this king or emperor are presented and guaranteed an acceptance only by right of their life without blemish, free from accusation. 00:34:32.559 --> 00:34:35.679 And not a one of us could say we deserve to be there. 00:34:36.159 --> 00:34:39.519 But if we're in Christ, we are. 00:34:40.320 --> 00:34:40.960 We are. 00:34:42.639 --> 00:34:44.800 We are there because of Jesus. 00:34:45.119 --> 00:34:48.400 He made him to be sinned for us who knew no sin. 00:34:49.440 --> 00:34:55.199 So that what we might be made the righteousness of God in him. 00:34:56.400 --> 00:35:06.719 The good news is that sin which separated us from God has been removed, and he accepts us as we had never sinned at all. 00:35:07.119 --> 00:35:15.280 He declares us innocent, he acquits us, he drops all charges against us, and he grants to us the gift of righteousness. 00:35:17.039 --> 00:35:33.840 One sixteenth-century German theologian said this God grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, as if I had never sinned or had ever been a sinner. 00:35:34.800 --> 00:35:40.559 As if I had been perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me. 00:35:41.920 --> 00:35:43.920 What a wonderful thing. 00:35:44.400 --> 00:35:46.639 That's something to sing about, isn't it? 00:35:47.280 --> 00:35:50.400 And that leads us to a last point that we're going to make here. 00:35:51.360 --> 00:36:14.960 We've started with a dilemma in our doom to hear the shocking, surprising, glorious word that God is also a deliverer, who's given us deliverance in his Son, Jesus Christ, and that we might receive with delight the good news that we are received without blemish in his presence. 00:36:16.079 --> 00:36:19.039 And that leads us, last of all, to our declaration. 00:36:19.760 --> 00:36:37.440 Why was the early church willing to step in front of people who were unwilling to even say the word cross in polite society and speak from the street corners and speak in the homes and to speak in the synagogues and to speak wherever they might get a hearing? 00:36:37.519 --> 00:36:40.400 To speak about, have you heard of the death of Christ? 00:36:40.639 --> 00:36:44.079 Have you heard about him being crucified on the cross? 00:36:44.559 --> 00:36:51.440 And to do so with joy, and to do so with gladness, and to say, like Paul said, to glory even in that. 00:36:52.239 --> 00:36:54.400 Why is this our declaration? 00:36:55.760 --> 00:37:01.519 Because this is how sinful people can be reconciled with a holy God. 00:37:01.840 --> 00:37:03.440 There's no other way. 00:37:04.719 --> 00:37:32.719 But it's wonderfully a way God has made that his holy displeasure against alienated sinners is appeased, that his hostility can be removed, that a harmonious relationship might be established, to be reconciled with God, that God designed a way for everything that estranged us from him is done away with. 00:37:34.000 --> 00:37:44.960 That our sins might be removed from us as far as the east is from the west, cast into the depths of the sea, thrown behind his back into the ocean of forgetfulness. 00:37:45.679 --> 00:37:47.119 What is our declaration? 00:37:47.360 --> 00:37:50.400 It's exactly what Paul says here in verse 20. 00:37:51.679 --> 00:37:54.079 We're ambassadors for Christ. 00:37:54.480 --> 00:38:01.119 Since God is making his appeal through us, we plead on Christ's behalf. 00:38:01.920 --> 00:38:03.679 Be reconciled to God. 00:38:06.079 --> 00:38:07.360 How do you do that? 00:38:08.719 --> 00:38:09.679 In Christ. 00:38:10.159 --> 00:38:11.599 That's the only way. 00:38:12.320 --> 00:38:14.239 Be reconciled to God. 00:38:14.880 --> 00:38:27.199 Yes, God could reverberate this message from the heavens, but He's desired to take people who've experienced the reconciliation and made them messengers of the reconciliation. 00:38:27.679 --> 00:38:35.760 So that people might be able to understand the transformation that's happened in a life that once was doomed, but now is welcomed. 00:38:38.320 --> 00:38:40.559 Be reconciled to God. 00:38:43.039 --> 00:39:00.159 Nothing else will get us there but the deliverer, God, in his means of reconciliation, the deliverance that's found in the sacrifice of Christ, that is a substitute for us and satisfactory for us. 00:39:01.679 --> 00:39:07.440 And the scriptures tell us that all who call upon the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. 00:39:08.400 --> 00:39:30.719 That if we acknowledge our rebellion, if we acknowledge our need of forgiveness, and we don't try to play games with God by trying to turn over a new leaf or trying to be better than what we were, or trying to look around and see if perhaps maybe there's somebody we could, you know, one up against, you know, those guys in jail or whatever. 00:39:31.119 --> 00:39:35.679 But we honestly come before God and say, I have nothing to bring. 00:39:36.159 --> 00:39:39.840 The only thing I can do is throw myself on Christ. 00:39:40.880 --> 00:39:45.679 The scriptures say, There you will be reconciled. 00:39:47.760 --> 00:39:56.079 To acknowledge your rebellion and your need of forgiveness is to repent and to believe on Christ. 00:39:56.800 --> 00:40:01.039 You see, this reconciliation is not something you do, it's something you receive. 00:40:01.280 --> 00:40:06.559 This is reconciliation, it's not something you accomplish, it's something you can embrace. 00:40:07.119 --> 00:40:20.079 This reconciliation is not something you decide to have happen, it's something God has decided to do and to awaken people to their need so that they might flee to the Son. 00:40:21.679 --> 00:40:28.800 The scriptures tell us be reconciled, be reconciled to God in Christ. 00:40:30.239 --> 00:40:36.079 We're going to close with these words that Paul wrote to the Ephesians. 00:40:36.880 --> 00:40:45.840 He said, In Christ, you who were formerly far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 00:40:46.400 --> 00:40:48.880 For he himself is our peace. 00:41:02.480 --> 00:41:23.199 So that in himself he might make the two into one new man, and thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both, Jew and Gentile, in one body to God through his cross, so that by it he's put to death the enity. 00:41:25.119 --> 00:41:30.960 The judgment and the wrath and the separation are gone in Christ. 00:41:31.199 --> 00:41:34.480 And the question is: are you in Christ? 00:41:35.360 --> 00:41:42.159 And if you're not, I can only plead with you the very words that Paul says here, be reconciled to God. 00:41:42.639 --> 00:41:46.480 It's your only hope, it's your only means of life. 00:41:46.719 --> 00:41:48.079 Let's pray. 00:41:49.360 --> 00:42:07.119 Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for this wonderful message, a message that's worth singing and shouting, this message that's worth savoring, a message that's worth turning to you with song of delight, because it is our only hope. 00:42:07.360 --> 00:42:14.400 And it is wonderfully by your design the means by which we are brought back into relationship with you. 00:42:15.280 --> 00:42:30.800 And so, Father, if any inquisitive observer might walk into our midst and wonder what it is about Jesus that we love, certainly we'll talk about his example, his faith, his love, his submission to the Father and all things. 00:42:31.039 --> 00:42:35.920 Certainly we'll talk about his teaching, how wondrous it is, and our desire to obey it. 00:42:36.079 --> 00:42:49.519 Certainly we'll talk about his moral stance and fortitude, a defender of justice and mercy, yes, but there's something much, much broader and grander and greater that we would speak about first. 00:42:50.159 --> 00:42:56.000 And that is all wrapped up in this that Christ has died for sinners. 00:42:56.880 --> 00:43:04.000 While we were ungodly, Christ died for us, and that through him we are reconciled to you. 00:43:04.960 --> 00:43:16.159 And so tonight, as your people, we say, May we never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. 00:43:16.480 --> 00:43:17.039 Amen.