In Romans 3 26, it was to show his righteousness at the present time so
that he might be just, and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Our sin has resulted in a life sentence, in fact, an eternal life sentence.
Eternal condemnation for, uh, the sin that we've committed, but even more so
the, the sin nature that we possess.
And so that introduces a problem for us when we read in Romans 3 26,
that God could be just, that means completely right vindicated in everything
that he does, and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
See, to be justified is not just to be de declared, not guilty, but to be
justified is to be declared innocent, to be declared fully righteous.
And so it's not as though you had a judge being God who decided in
some, uh, measure of, of equity or, or generosity to acquit you.
Rather, you had a judge who looked at you and said, you are not only
not guilty, you are righteous.
How does that work when we are sinners?
How does that work?
When the Apostle Paul has already said that sin is, is falling short of the glory
of God, and that's true of all mankind.
How does this work when the wages of sin is death?
How does this work when our sentence is an eternal life sentence?
Maybe you're sitting out there thinking, that seems harsh after all.
I'm, I'm not that bad.
Well, let me frame it this way.
Maybe while you were growing up, you punched your brother in the face and that
decided the, the, the results of that was you were disciplined by mom and dad.
Maybe you ended up with a little bit of a sore backside after that.
But what if you had hit your teacher in the face?
Same act, but now the stakes have raised a little bit.
If you punch your teacher in the face, you're gonna face
expulsion from that school.
If it's a decent school, at least.
Let's up the ante.
Let's say you punch a police officer in the face.
Now you're in handcuffs with a free ride to, to, to county, to jail.
Let's go up a little bit higher.
Let's say you punch the president of the United States in the face.
You may not survive that interaction depending on the
response of the Secret service.
What's my point in all that?
It's the same action.
It's punching someone in the face.
What changes?
Is the consequence based on the power and the office of the one who gets punched.
Our sin was committed against the all powerful God who holds the highest
office in the entirety of the known universe, which means that our sin has
put us at eternal odds with him, at least unless he does something about that.
Unless he's somehow able to be just in the justifier of the
one who has faith in Jesus.
And so this evening, that's what I want us to consider.
That's what I want us to ask the question.
How can God stay just and at the same time justify us?
Because justice demands that we pay that penalty justice for every single
person in this room is an eternity in hell apart from the presence of God.
That's justice.
So how can God stay just.
And declare us righteous.
Take your Bibles if you have 'em and open up to John Chapter 19.
John chapter 19.
We've been studying the gospel toge of John together as a
church and by God's providence.
He's brought us here to John 19 as we celebrate the cross and anticipate
the resurrection Sunday morning.
But John 19, we looked together this past Sunday at the arrest and the
trial and the beating and the mockery of Jesus, and now we're gonna pick up
and actually look at the crucifixion.
It says in John 19, verse 16, it says, so they took Jesus and he went
out bearing his own cross to the place called the place of a skull,
which in Aramic is called Golgotha.
There they crucified him and with him, two others, one on either
side, and Jesus between them.
Uh, John doesn't give us a whole lot of detail about these two thieves,
some of the other gospels do, but I think John is trying to draw
our attention to something else.
I think John is trying to emphasize the, the contrast between the innocent
Christ and the guilty robbers.
The guilty thieves being crucified on either side of Jesus.
These two men deserving what they get, and Jesus, the one who was completely
innocent between the two of them.
For many, see, including the Roman soldiers that were
carrying out these orders.
Jesus' death was simply one more execution that they were carrying
out one of at least three that day.
And so as the son of God hangs on the cross, two thieves,
hang on either side of him.
Verse 19.
Pilate also wrote in an inscription and put it on the cross it read Jesus
of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.
Many of the Jews read this inscription for the place where Jesus was crucified,
was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin and in Greek.
So the chief priest of the Jews said to Pilate, do not write the King
of the Jews, but rather, this man said, I am the king of the Jews.
Pilate answered what I have written.
I have written.
So as Jesus hangs between two thieves, as the Romans are just
carrying out their job, there's a another scene going on here.
There's another drama unfolding, and that's the continued drama
of Pilate versus the Jews.
You remember the trials when Pilate came out multiple times and said,
I find nothing wrong with this man.
And the Jews said, you're no friend of Caesar if you let him go.
Anyone who claims to be a king is no friend of Caesar.
And that was the nail in the coffin for Pilate.
That's when he had to say, okay.
Take him and crucify him.
But this contest is still going on.
And Pilate being in the petty man that he was, uh, took a, a sign and had
it written in three languages so that everybody would be able to read it.
Uh, king of the Jews, he, this was an act not of honor to Jesus, but of
the humiliation of the Jewish people.
And that's why the Jews go to Pilate and they say, well, you need to amend this.
You need to edit your post.
Make it read.
He said he was the king of the Jews.
And Pilate says, what I've written, I have written again,
Jesus is hanging on the cross.
Uh, but the world hasn't stopped.
Pilate and the Jews, they're continuing on as they always have.
Verse 23.
When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments
and divided them into four parts.
One part for each soldier, also his tunic.
But the tunic was seamless woven in one piece from top to bottom.
So here you have what was part of the the Roman law, and that is that
the executioners were entitled to anything the criminal had on them.
When they came to the place of execution, those being crucified would've been
stripped, bare, and nailed to the cross.
And so the soldiers now are in possession of the garments of Jesus.
And the outer cloak, it appears, was woven together, had multiple seams such
that they were able to divide this cloak, rip it along the seams, and parcel out
one piece to each of the four soldiers that were there, crucifying Jesus.
But then they came to the inner garment, the garment that he would wear closest to
his body, and that was woven of one piece.
There were no seams to rip.
So rather than destroying the garment and rendering it useless,
they decided to play a game.
They decided to cast lots to play a little dice game to gamble at the foot
of the cross as our savior hung dying.
It says in verse 24, so they said to one another, let's not tear it.
Let's cast lots for it to see who's it shall be.
This was to fulfill the scripture, which says they divided my garments among them,
and for my clothing, they cast lots.
That's Psalm 2218.
So the soldiers did these things, but standing by the cross of Jesus were
his mother and his mother's sister.
So there's a contrast here, and I want us to notice the contrast.
You, you've got the thieves hanging on either side.
You've got Pilate in the Jews, you've got the noise of the soldiers dividing
the garments, and then you've got another scene over here with Mary.
Jesus' mother, also, Jesus' aunt and Mary Magdalene gathered there and we find
out that John is also gathered there.
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved, that's how John always
referred to himself standing nearby.
He said to his mother, woman, behold your son.
And then he said to the disciple, behold, your mother.
And from that hour, the disciple took her into his own home.
We know from the other gospels that in the background beyond this,
there were the jeers of the crowds.
There was the mockery.
He saved himself, he saved others.
Let him save himself.
Physician, heal yourself.
Get down from the cross.
Where are the legions of angels at your disposal?
And then there's this intimate scene between Jesus and John where he looks
to John and he wants to see that his mother is gonna be cared for.
So he says to John, behold your mother.
Mother.
Behold your son.
Jesus hanging on the cross, caring about his mother in that moment.
But Jesus hangs on the cross and two thieves hang on either side.
Jesus hangs on the cross and the Jews and Pilate argue with each other.
Jesus hangs on the cross and the soldiers play a dice game
as they divide up his clothes,
what happens to him on the cross?
Jump down to verse 31.
We'll back up and pick up the rest of it in just a moment
here, but jump down to verse 31.
It says, since it was the day of preparation, now some time has passed on
the cross and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath.
For that Sabbath was a high day.
The Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and
that they might be taken away.
Now, this gets into how somebody died during crucifixion.
It wasn't from blood loss and it wasn't from trauma, it was from
suffocation most of the time at least.
And so the soldiers would nail the victim to the cross, and in order to
breathe on the cross, they would have to push up on the nail through their
feet to push up on their, their, that nail bearing their weight there, and to
pull themselves up on their arms to get a deep breath before sinking back down.
And eventually they just wore themselves out of exhaustion
and they would suffocate.
That's why crucifixion would take hours upon hours, upon hours.
So that's why I hear the Jews say, we need you to, to break their legs
because the, the bodies need to be taken off the cross before the Sabbath,
before the holy day the next day.
And so the soldiers go to do just that, and they come to the first
man and find him still suffering.
And so they break his legs and they come to the other criminal,
the other thief, and they find him still alive and they break his legs.
But in verse 33 it says, but when they came to Jesus and they saw that he
was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one of the soldiers
pierced his side with the spear.
And at once there came out blood and water.
He who saw it has born witness.
Some have wondered what, what was pierced?
Was it the pericardial sac and is that what led to it, or was there hemorrhagic
fluid that had built up from the violence to the chest and that that's,
that's the water that, that came out?
I, I don't know that John was overly concerned about the medical analysis here.
I think John was simply emphasizing he's dead.
The spear pierced his side and it became clear that Jesus had died.
And that's why John says he who has seen it, or he who saw it, bore witness
and his testimony is true, and he knows that he's telling the truth.
That you also may believe for these things took place, that
the scripture might be fulfilled.
Not one of his bones will be broken, likely a reference
back to the Passover lamb.
In Exodus chapter 12, verse 46, and again, verse 37, another scripture that says they
will look on him whom they have pierced.
Zechariah 1210, Jesus dies.
Notice John's emphasis on death here.
It continues in verse 38 after these things, Joseph of Arimathea,
who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews.
He was a member of the Sanhedrin, asked Pilate that he might take away the body
of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission, so he came and took away his body.
Nicodemus, remember Nicodemus, remember from John chapter three, Nicodemus
comes to Jesus and says, teacher, he.
We know that you must be from God for no one can do the things that
you're doing, and Jesus has that whole interaction with Nicodemus.
Well, Nicodemus, God has been drawing Nicodemus this whole time over these three
years and look where Nicodemus is now.
Nicodemus is with Joseph of Arimathea.
Nicodemus had also come to Jesus by night.
Bring.
He also came now bringing a mixture of Myrrh and Alos, about 75 pounds in weight.
So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices,
as is the burial custom of the Jews.
Now, in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden
and in the garden, a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.
So because of the Jewish day of preparation, since the tomb was
close at hand, they laid Jesus there.
Jesus is taken down by his followers, wrapped in linen, claws, and
spices, 75 pounds of spices, and he's placed inside a tomb sealed.
With a large stone.
It's quite the scene that John paints for us on the side of this hill.
While many of the Passover pilgrims sat unconcerned in their homes
within the city and a couple of Roman soldiers gambled for his garments
in two thieves deserving of their sentence, hung next to him, God died.
And he died in order that the father might be just in the justifier of
the one who has faith in Jesus.
But that should introduce a question for us.
How does God die?
That seems to be a self-defeating statement to say God died.
In fact, plenty of people have announced the death of God only to be proven
wrong time and time and time again.
And yet here we read in the Bible words from the Holy Spirit
through the Apostle John that God.
Die.
Well, to understand this, we have to understand the nature of the one who
was on the cross, the nature of the one who was on the cross, being Jesus.
See, there's a lot of people who die.
In fact, 106 people die every single minute, give or take.
That's 6,360 people a year.
152 or per hour, sorry, 152,600 every day.
4.5
million every month in 54.9
million every year.
Those are the most up-to-date statistics as of this week.
Those are guesstimates, but that's about what we're talking about.
So why does one man in 54.9
million that year, why does he matter?
And it matters because of who he was.
Remember, this is the one in John one 14.
The word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory
glories of the only begotten son from the Father full of grace and truth.
Or John one 18.
No one has ever seen God.
The only God.
This is the one that we're talking about.
The only God who is at the father's side.
He has made him known.
Or in John 1 29, the next day, he saw Jesus coming toward him and
said, behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
Or John 1 49, Nathaniel said to him, rabbi, you are the son of God.
You are the king of Israel.
Or in John 4 25 through 26, the woman said to him, I know that the Messiah is coming.
He was called Christ.
When he comes, he will tell us all things.
And Jesus said to her, I am he or John 6 38.
I have come down from heaven not to do the will of myself, but
the will of the one who sent me.
Or John 6 68 through 69, Simon Peter said to him, Lord, to whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life and we have believed and come to know
that you are the holy one of God.
John 8 58, Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you before
Abraham was, I am John 10 30.
I and the Father are one.
John 1125, Jesus said to her, I'm the resurrection in the life.
Whoever believes in me, though he die, he shall live.
So we see the one on the cross wasn't just a man, and that's why it
matters for us that this one died.
God died.
But how does God die?
Well, the Bible teaches us a reality that, that God in Christ, that Jesus,
the second member of the Trinity, was both truly God and truly man.
It's what we refer to in theological circles as the hypostatic union.
Uh, that is the, the fullness of his deity and the fullness of
his humanity represented in one person, two natures, one person.
Neither one is lessened.
Neither one is compromised.
This is not a mixture of the two, but two fully formed natures within the one person
Jesus Christ, truly God and truly man.
And so it's in the true humanity of Jesus, that Jesus very truly died for us.
So how does God die?
Well, Jesus died in his true humanity.
And why does that matter for us?
Because if God is gonna be just in the justifier of the
one who has faith in Jesus.
Jesus has to be able to take our place.
He has to be able to pay that penalty for us.
That life sentence, the eternal life sentence, the wages of sin is death.
And the way that he could do that is by taking on full humanity to our, to
himself and taking our place on the cross.
Point number one this morning, just two points tonight, is this, trust
Jesus humanity to take your place.
Trust Jesus, humanity to take your place.
And again, in his very true humanity, Jesus very truly died.
What about his divine nature?
What happened to his divine nature on the cross?
Luke 2343 says this, Jesus said, truly, truly, I say to you today,
you will be with me in paradise.
So Jesus, there is talking to one of the thieves on the cross.
John doesn't give us this information, Luke does, and Jesus tells that
thief on the cross, today, you will be with me in paradise.
Well, that same day, his fleshly body was gonna be laid in a tomb.
And so the divine nature, the, the, the full, the true godness, the true deity
of Jesus was gonna be with the Father.
In fact, that's why Jesus says in Luke 2346, while on the cross he calls out with
a loud voice, father, into your hands.
I commit my spirits.
And having said this, he breathed his last.
And so RC Sproul put it this way, he said, so we have every reason to believe
that at the moment, Jesus died, the divine nature remained united to his
soul, which was in heaven and to his body, which was in the tomb waiting to be
reunited at the moment of resurrection.
And so when we say God died in Jesus, we're saying that his true
humanity tasted the fullness of death, but his divine nature.
Did not die.
In the same sense, his divine nature did not cease to exist.
It participated in the sacrifice, it participated in the offering and
the satisfaction of God's wrath, which we'll look at in just a moment.
But the divine full deity of Jesus did not cease to exist on the
cross, but is in his humanity.
He fully died there on the cross.
Why does that matter?
Well, it matters because of this, the humanity of Christ and the death of Christ
is an essential tenet of Christianity.
Your Muslim neighbor isn't going to understand how God can die.
In fact, they're gonna argue that they're gonna give you, yes, fine, Jesus died,
but they're not gonna give you the fact that he was God and rose again.
Three days later, your Hindu neighbor is not gonna understand.
How in the world would you worship a God who would subject himself to death?
Th And so we have to, to understand this because it's a basic tenet that defines
the uniqueness of Christianity, but we also have to understand it because it
matters when it comes to the ability for God to be just in the justifier
of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Romans 6 23, the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is the
eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
See, in his true humanity, Jesus had to die because the wages of
your sin and my sin is death.
God couldn't be just if the payment wasn't paid, that the payment of physical
death wasn't offered, and in his true humanity, Jesus died because without it,
our balance has not been paid, and we're still under that eternal life sentence.
So God can declare you just tonight because the sentence demanded by your
sin was paid by Jesus on the cross.
The writer of Hebrews describes it this way for us, he says, but
we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels.
Namely Jesus crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death,
so that by the grace of God, he might notice this taste, death for everyone.
Or Hebrews two 14 through 17 says, since therefore children share in the flesh and
blood, he himself likewise put partook of the same things, true humanity.
That through death, he might destroy the one who has the power of death
that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death
were subject to lifelong slavery.
For surely it's not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham.
Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he
might become the merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make
propitiation for the sins of the people.
So in his true humanity, Jesus identifies with us and dies for us.
He takes our place on the cross.
He's our substitute.
But physical death is only part of the consequences of our eternal life sentence.
The other part of it is the eternal wrath of the Father, the punishment that we know
of as hell, that that place that Jesus talked about as being unending, the place
of weeping and gnashing of teeth, and this is where his true deity comes into play.
His true humanity was such that he could represent us by dying for us,
but his true deity is such that he can pay the eternal weight that we owed.
And so keep going with me.
Let's look back up at that section that I skipped there in John
chapter 19, verses 28 through 30.
John 1928 says this, after this, Jesus, knowing that all now was final was
finished, said to fulfill the scripture.
I thirst.
A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full
of the sour wine on the SAP branch and held it through his mouth.
When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said it is finished, and he
bowed us head and gave up his spirit.
If we need to trust the humanity of Jesus to take our place, we
have to point number two, trust the deity of Jesus to pay our debt.
Trust the humanity of Jesus to take our place.
We trust the deity of Jesus to pay our debt.
It is finished.
What is finished?
He drained the cup.
He drained the cup of God's wrath for your sin.
In my sin when he prayed in the garden.
Father, if there's any way, let this cup pass from me and the father.
Essentially with, without it being written down for us, said There is no other way.
This is the way.
And Jesus said, okay, not my will, but your will be done.
That cup that Jesus prayed by pass from him was actually poured out
upon him on the cross, the cup of God's wrath, and this is the
part that we can't resonate with.
This is the part that no movie or TV show can ever depict for us.
This isn't the physical suffering that Jesus went through,
although that was a part of it.
This is the spiritual, this is the the wrath of God.
This is the Forsakenness.
When he calls out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
This is what you and I will never know because he knew it for us.
It is finished.
The cup has been drained.
There's not a drop left for us.
That eternal torment, the weeping and gnashing of teeth.
That's ours because of our frail humanity would've been yours eternally
without Christ, unending without Jesus.
And yet because Jesus was fully God, Jesus could bear the full
wrath of God against our sin.
God is infinitely holy, and the penalty for our sin must be infinitely great.
And so we needed an infinite savior to be able to satisfy that wrath, and
that's exactly what we have in Jesus.
Because it wasn't just that he was man, he was truly God as well.
Being truly man, Jesus was qualified to take our place on the cross being truly
God, Jesus was qualified to satisfy God's wrath against our sin on the cross in
Selma of Canterbury, put it this way, he said it could not have been done unless
man paid what was owing to God for sin.
But the debt was so great that while man alone owed it, only God could pay it.
So that at the same person must both be God and man again, as man Jesus
could identify with and assume the debt that was owed take it upon himself.
But as God, Jesus alone had the means to pay the debt, and that's
what he did for us at the cross.
All of this is what's known as the doctrine of propitiation, which is a word
that that means satisfaction, that God's wrath was satisfied against our sin.
Romans 3 25, Paul says.
That God put forward Jesus as that propitiation, that satisfaction by
his blood to be received by faith.
This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance,
he had passed over former sins.
The next verse from there, y'all, that's the verse I started with.
This, was to show his righteousness if the present time, so that he
might be just in the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
You see the way that God can be, just that God can be right.
And declare you righteous in spite of your sin and in spite of my sin.
The way that he can do that is because Jesus took our place on the cross and took
all of God's wrath against our sin for us.
That's how God can be just in the justifier because he made Jesus
the propitiation by his blood.
For us, there's no other way and no amount of good works
can satisfy the wrath of God.
Uh, uh, no amount of penance can satisfy the wrath of God.
In fact, there are sex of Catholicism right now during this season that are
beating themselves and flailing themselves with whips, thinking that somehow
that's gonna atone for their sinfulness.
Those scars aren't the scars that save.
There's three scars that save, four scars that save, and those
are on Jesus and Jesus alone.
See, unless our faith is in Christ and in his finished work on the
cross as fully man and fully God,
then you can't be justified in the sight of God.
In fact, I was reading someone today who even suggested even our sinful
nature, even aside from our sinful acts, even our, our fallen nature is such
that God cannot tolerate our presence.
Without Jesus, but that changes with Jesus completely changes with
Jesus because now with Jesus, we are declared righteous and, and so here's.
Here's how it works, y'all.
And, and, and God, just by his grace and mercy gave me a, a, a
phenomenal example of this, this week that also just wrecked me 'cause
it convicted me at the same time.
And it's like this, uh, uh, about a month ago, um, my son who just turned
16, went out to his car and went to go start it and it just did a, a, an
extended crank and wouldn't turn over.
And we're like, okay.
I went out there and tried it too, in case he didn't know how to push a button.
And I'm happy to report he does know how to push a button.
It wouldn't work.
So we called AAA and got it towed up the road here to Christian Brothers
in Salina, near nearby our house.
Um, and they began to do their diagnostic work on it and they
came back and, and there were two massive repairs that had to get done.
And so that was not fun.
Uh uh, and, and we got the car back though, and it was great.
We got the car back.
That was exciting.
He got to drive it for about a week and a half.
And then last Sunday we came home from church and.
Being 16, he was like, dad, I'm gonna go to McDonald's.
And I said, great.
And he went and got in the car and went and pushed the button and it
was the, the extended crank again.
Same exact thing he came in, dad, the, the car, uh, won't start, which is exactly
what you want to hear after a, a good long day at church when you get home.
So I was like, well, lemme try.
'cause I thought again that I could fix it by pushing the button different.
So I went out and tried it again, pushed the button.
Still nothing.
Aaa again, we're ge, we're on a first name basis now with aa.
They came out, they towed it back to Christian Brothers Monday morning.
Uh, I got ahold of the guy that helped me with the car last time there.
His name's Clayton.
And uh, Clayton said, well, we'll get after it.
We'll, we'll take a look.
So all day Monday they were looking, uh, checked in Monday evening.
He's like, yeah, we're going to keep looking tomorrow.
We're, we're still trying to find it.
We're, we're not exactly sure.
Tuesday, all day, they had it around two o'clock on Tuesday.
Um, I called to, to check in on it and he said, well, we think it's
something to do with the wiring.
We're, we're, we found a, a ground wire that was loose.
It's way more detail than you need.
Anyways, Tuesday, they're still chasing the problem.
Wednesday I get a call or I get a text.
I'm sitting at my desk in my office preparing this sermon Wednesday.
I get a text from him about one 15 that says, Hey, uh, pj, we, we've
identified what the problem is.
Uh, I'm working on the final details of the report, but we have an answer
and I'll, I'll be with you shortly.
An hour goes by, two hours go by, and I'm just, my stomach's in knots right now.
'cause we just paid a bunch to fix it.
Like a, a few weeks ago gone, I, I'm, I don't know how this is gonna happen.
I can't, there's no way I'm gonna be able to afford this.
So he eventually calls me after two and a half torturous hours of sitting there not
being as productive as I wish I had been.
And he starts walking through what's wrong with it, and he starts telling
me the problems with the car.
And as he's telling me the problems with the car, the, the, the weight
just keeps sinking in, in my gut.
And I realize more and more, man, I, what am I gonna do?
I, I can't fix the car.
I know nothing about cars.
And then as he's talking to me about this, it's part of the electrical system.
The fuse box is all burnt out and, and other things are happening here.
And, and I, I, I just am sitting there and I'm just waiting for
the, the, here's what you owe.
And I, I was outside, I was going for a walk because I didn't
wanna see my staff to see me cry.
Um, no.
But I was outside going for a walk and, and around our building.
And he says to me, he says, so this is what it's gonna be.
And he said, he said, pj, uh, he said, we're gonna take care of this.
You're not gonna know, owe anything on this.
What y'all, I, I almost, I dropped down to like a catcher squat.
I, I was just, it overwhelmed me, said you, I said, say that again?
He said, yeah, we're, we're gonna cover this.
We've got it covered fully for you.
You're not gonna owe anything on this.
We'll take care of it, y'all.
The relief that washed over me in that moment.
Here's why it wrecked me with conviction.
Because I need to feel that every single day when it, when I look at the cross
to an infinitely higher degree.
See, I couldn't fix the car.
It had a problem.
And, and that problem was such that that car was worthless.
I, I, it was broken.
Good for nothing.
Can't do anything.
It's dead, and I can't bring it to life.
I don't have the expertise, I don't have the knowledge, I don't have the means.
And so I had it with somebody who did have the means, and rather than telling me,
Hey, this is what you have to bring to the table, they said, we've got it covered.
Don't worry about it,
y'all.
Our standing before a holy God is that we are dead
and we can't bring ourselves to life.
We don't have the means, we don't have the expertise, we don't have the resources,
and so we have to place ourselves into the hands of the one who can.
And what I want you to hear tonight is that he doesn't look at you
and say, this is what you owe.
He looks at you tonight and says, you don't owe anything.
I've taken care of it.
Because of the cross, because Jesus took your place in his true humanity
and he paid your debt in his true deity.
There's an old hymn I've decided to follow Jesus, that came to mind
as I was thinking about this this week, just thinking, man, I want the
cross more and more in front of me.
And there's a, a line in this hymn, there's a verse in this hymn that says,
the cross before me, the world behind me.
The cross before me, the world behind me, the cross before me, the world behind me.
No.
Turning back y'all.
When we rightly understand what took place at the cross, this is our prayer.
This becomes our hymn.
This becomes our, our, our verse in life,
the cross.
Where Jesus took my place and paid my debt.
What we're gonna do together this evening now is we're gonna remember the cross.
We're gonna take communion together here.
Uh, remembering Jesus truly, man, truly God, taking our place on the
cross, uh, to to be our substitute and also to satisfy the fullness
of God's wrath against our sins.
And you're gonna have a, a piece of bread and a cup of grape juice there.
By the way, I know we have a lot of kiddos in the room.
Let me just encourage you.
Parents, uh, communion are, is, is an act that are, is for believers, okay?
And so with your little ones, I, I'd encourage you to use this even as an
opportunity to, to teach them as the, the elements are passed to encourage them
not to take, uh, from these elements.
That this is something that is, is for believers for the church.
Um, and it's not to keep them out, it's not to exclude them, but it's to
teach them about something that God has commanded us to do as the church.
But these elements, you're gonna have a, a, a piece of bread
that's gonna have jagged edges.
It's not gonna look smooth.
And it's a reminder as Jesus told us of his body broken.
And you're gonna have that grape juice that's gonna be the same color
or, or similar to the color of his blood, that's gonna remind, remind
you of the, the blood that shed.
And as we take these elements, you're gonna take the bread and,
and be reminded of Jesus saying, I am the, the bread of life.
Whoever eats of my flesh shall never die, but have eternal life.
And, and then you're gonna drink the cup and be reminded, whoever
drinks my blood shall never have, see death, but have eternal life.
But then I also want you to note.
After you drink that little plastic cup of grape juice, whoever designs
those has designed them such that there's a juice trap at the very
bottom of that cup, there's always a little bit left in that cup.
And what I want you to think of tonight is I want you to think of the glorious
reality that there's nothing left for you when you die and stand before Jesus.
That the cup that Jesus took on the cross for you is drained, completely dry.
There's no juice trap at the bottom of the cup of God's wrath.
It's completely empty so that when you get to heaven, you'll be welcome.
Welcomed in, well done, good and faithful servant.
So the ushers will pass the elements all come back up and we'll take
them together in just a moment.