Speaker: I remember one of the first jobs that I had, I believe I was the
ripe age of 16 or 17 years old, uh, was in the archives of an X-ray department.
My mom was a, a doctor, so thanks to nepotism, I got a job down there.
And, uh, this was before everything was digitized.
And so if a doctor needed an x-ray, they would call down to us
and we would go to the archives.
We would pull the x-ray, we would send it up to where the doctor is.
But I worked with this young man who was older than me, but
still young, um, in his twenties.
And at one point in time he pulled me aside to share some of his worldly wisdom
with me, and he said, pj, if you wanna succeed in life, here's what you do.
He said, you get a credit card and you max it out.
So you can tell this is gonna be good advice immediately.
He said, you max out the credit card, and then after that bill comes, you just open
up another credit card and you max that one out and, and you just keep doing this.
And, and you, you get by in life.
I, I don't know where he is.
I have guesses to where he is right now, but I, I don't know.
Um, because that is obviously not good wisdom kiddos in
the room, uh, don't do that.
Okay?
That is not good wisdom as far as how to succeed in life.
And the reason is, is because at the end of the, the day, in fact, at
the end of the month, what's gonna happen, all of those bills are gonna
come and land right in your lap.
And they're all gonna say payment due.
And if you've got about spending money that you don't have, if you've got about
maxing out your credit cards, if you've got about incurring debt that you have
no business incurring, then at the end of the day you're gonna be sitting there
saying, I can't pay this spiritually speaking every time you and I sin.
It's like we're maxing out a credit card with God.
It's like we're taking out and borrowing against credit that, that we can't pay.
And someday the the bill is gonna come due.
We're gonna stand before a holy creator, and he's gonna say, why
should I let you into my heaven?
My standard is absolutely perfection and you owe me an infinite penalty because
you have fallen short of my standard.
And he's going to look at us and, and there's not gonna be a, a
payment plan for us to get on.
There's not gonna be a, a debt forgiveness plan that we can appeal to at that point.
There's not gonna be a, a spiritual bankruptcy that we can file
and just walk away from it all.
Like nothing really happened.
See, that's the bad news for all mankind.
For every single person who has ever lived from your sweet grandmother,
even to the most evil, desperate in the world, everyone has amassed a
spiritual debt that they can never repay God, and that's the plight that
God chose to address at the cross.
That's the plight that we come to think about this evening together as we
look to Romans chapter four verse 25.
So if you have your Bibles, please make your way over to
Romans chapter four, verse 25.
We're gonna break this into two parts.
We're gonna cover part one tonight.
We're gonna cover part two on Sunday morning.
So hopefully you'll be hooked tonight to find out what happened.
Spoiler alert, Jesus rises from the dead.
Other words, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
We wouldn't be spending our time doing this.
But we're gonna focus on the resurrection Sunday morning.
But right now, I want us to focus on the first half of Romans 4 25,
and just look at it on the page there, it just says this, who was
delivered up for our trespasses?
That's it.
Simple.
If you've read the book of Romans before, your eyes have crossed over this verse,
maybe it hasn't even really jumped off the page all that much to you.
Paul's developing his argument.
He's getting us to the place of saying justification comes by faith in Jesus.
And so he is talking about all these things in this short, succinct
statement, who is delivered up for our trespasses to be delivered up is, is
to be handed over, to be handed over.
And so all this introduces some questions to us that I want us
to walk through together tonight.
And the first question that it introduces is, who did this?
Who delivered Jesus?
The text says there in Romans 4 25, who was delivered up.
That's in the passive tense.
In fact, Jesus himself even says in Matthew 1722, as they were gathering in
Galilee, Jesus said to them, the son of man that's a reference to himself is about
to be delivered into the hands of men.
So this is passive.
In other words, Jesus isn't the actor of the action of the verb here.
Somebody is delivering Jesus.
And so the question for us to begin with tonight is, who delivered Jesus?
Who handed Jesus over?
If you've been around the church for some time, maybe your mind is thinking
of the one who betrayed him so long ago in the garden, Judas Iscariot.
In fact, we read in Matthew 26, 14 through 16, this, then one of the
12, whose name was Judas, went to the chief priests and said, what will you
give me if I deliver him over to you?
That's the same word that we find there in Romans 4 25.
If I hand him over to you and they paid him 30 pieces of silver, and
from that moment on, he sought an opportunity to betray him.
So maybe you think, okay, yeah, Judas, Judas delivered Jesus.
And yes, Judas delivered Jesus.
But from that point in time, some other actors stepped on to the scene
and, and that is the Jewish leaders.
See, as Judas was delivering Jesus, what Judas was doing was delivering Jesus
over, ultimately to the scribes and the Pharisees for step one of the mock trial
and the, uh, the, the, the arrest and the beating and the eventual crucifixion.
In fact, we read about them here in Matthew 27 2.
And, and so in a sense, when we ask the question who delivered Jesus, we could
say, well, the, the Jewish leaders did the scribes and the Pharisees, his opponents,
the Sadducees, they handed Jesus over, and that's what we read in Matthew 27, 2.
They bound him and led him away and delivered him over.
It's the same word again from Romans 4 25.
They handed him over.
To Pilate, the governor.
And so the religious leaders of the Jews, those opponents, those people
that Jesus had been going toe to toe with throughout his earthly
ministry, they delivered Jesus.
But notice they delivered Jesus to Pilate, and that's the third
person for us to consider tonight.
Did Pilate deliver Jesus?
Well, in a sense, yes.
Pils, uh, an unexpected actor in all of this from the outside because
Pils just this, this Roman official.
And he is governing over the region here, and he has his position there
and he's got some clout that's been entrusted to him by the Roman authorities.
And, and so Pilate, all of a sudden is inserted into the storyline in
one of the most significant moments in world history when Jesus appears
before his court in his tribunal.
And Pilate has to make a decision, what am I gonna do with Jesus?
Well, we read about this in Matthew 27, 6, after some negotiating with
the Jews that failed, uh, Pilate.
Then it says, released for them Barabbas.
When it says he there, it's referring to Pilate.
He, they released for them.
Barabbas.
Uh, an insurrectionist, a murderer.
A.
A felon.
And having Jesus scoured delivered him.
There's our word again, Sam Word is Romans 4 25 delivered him to be crucified.
So Pilate delivered Jesus to be crucified.
So you've got a lot of different people that we could say, these people deliver.
Jesus.
Judas delivered Jesus.
The Jews delivered.
Jesus Pilate delivered Jesus.
But there's one more.
There's one more person.
One more being that we need to consider as far as the one who delivered Jesus.
And this is the being that's active here in Romans 4 25.
And this is the one that makes all of the difference for us, because
if it's only Judas and the Jews and Pilate acting in all of this, then
there's not really much going on here.
This is just a, a, a headline in first Century Israel, and then
it's gonna fade from existence.
But as it is, there's somebody else who delivered Jesus, and that's
the one who's the most significant actor of all, and that's the father.
Romans Chapter eight, verse 32 says this, he the father, this is God,
the first person in the Trinity.
He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up.
That's a different translation, but the same Greek word there.
That's in Romans 4 25.
He gave him up.
He delivered him up for us all.
How will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
Who delivered Jesus did Judas?
Yes.
Did the Jews?
Yes.
Did Pilate, yes.
But most significantly of all the father delivered Jesus for our trespasses.
In fact, acts chapter two verses 22 through 23.
Peter makes this point explicitly again here.
Uh, as Peter's preaching.
He's preaching to Jewish people here and he says this, men
of Israel hear these words.
Jesus of Nazareth, A man attested to you by God with mighty works
and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you
yourselves know this, Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and
foreknowledge of God you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
Notice who is in full control here in Acts chapter two verses 23 or 22 and 23.
The father is.
The father is the one who's acting.
The father is the one whose planet was the definite plan and
foreknowledge of God see the cross.
What we're celebrating tonight, what we're remembering tonight was never plan
B, but always plan A in God's design.
It was always gonna be that you and I were going to fall, always gonna
be that we were going to sin against a holy God and need the payment made
because we were gonna max out our spiritual credit cards and have no
resources to pay the debt that we owe.
So it was always gonna be the cross.
And so who delivered Jesus.
Most importantly, God delivered Jesus.
But that inter introduces a second question for us.
Not only who delivered Jesus, but why was Jesus delivered?
Why was he handed over what was behind all this?
Well, let's go back to Judas for a second.
Judas.
We made track with that and understand, well, here's why Judas delivered Jesus.
Okay, I I can follow that line of reasoning.
A Judas had grown disenchanted with with Jesus.
Jesus was not the Messiah, Judas thought he was gonna be.
Judas was looking for a political messiah.
He was looking for a military messiah.
Judas was looking to ride the coattails of fame and riches into Jerusalem to
drive out the Romans and to see Jesus become the next Solomon, the next
David and Judas was gonna be right there to ride all the glory behind him.
We see that because right before Judas agrees to go betray Jesus, to deliver
him, Jesus is in the home of of a, a man.
In Be Theda, you know, a woman we believe to be Mary Magdalene comes and anoints
Jesus with a, a, a flask of perfume that was insanely expensive, would've
cost a year's salary to buy this.
And she anoints Jesus, and Judas is there, and Judas is singled out.
There's more than just Judas upset with this, but Judas in
specific says, what are you doing?
Why wasn't this perfume sold?
And then we could have given the money to the poor?
Seems like a noble suggestion other than the fact that we know that Judas used
to skim from the top of the money bag.
See, Judas was after his own glory, his own fame, his own.
Idea of what Jesus should be, and when Jesus didn't measure up,
Judas was gonna deliver Jesus over.
That makes sense.
How about the Jews?
Well, we can track there too.
For three years, the Jews had been defeated and befuddled and even
humiliated by Jesus as Jesus had gone toe to toe with them in different
context, from the Temple Mount to Galilee, to everywhere else in between.
And he had had conversations with them.
He'd even confronted them.
He'd even cursed them by calling out.
Woe to you scribes and Pharisees.
Cursed are you?
Why?
Because you're like whitewashed tombs.
You look great on the outside, but you guys are just hypocrites.
Okay.
We can track why the, the Jewish leaders would've said, yeah, let's deliver Jesus.
Let's hand him over.
Let's get rid of this guy, Pilate.
Yeah, we can understand Pilate too.
Pilate was again, a Roman official.
And, and he wasn't super high up the ladder.
He was in this obscure area that, that wasn't really super
close to Rome at this point.
So Pilate at this time is, is trying to hold on to things.
He's got political ambitions, he's got a career in mind.
And so when the Jewish people bring this, this rabbi to him initially,
he's like, what are you doing?
Why is this guy here?
I see nothing wrong with him.
Why don't you take him and deal with him yourselves?
But then they say something that stops him dead in his tracks when
they say You're no friend of Caesar.
If you don't do what we're asking you to do, because this man
makes himself out to be a king.
Emergency breaks go off in Pilate's mind.
If Pilate allows an insurrection under his watch, if Pilate allows
riots under his watch, it's not gonna look good for him with the
Roman officials that he reports to.
So Pilate, being a selfish and ambitious man, we understand why Pilate would've
delivered Jesus over to be crucified.
Lemme just get rid of this guy.
It's not gonna matter.
Judas the Jews, Pilate, we get it.
But why God?
Why the father?
Why his father?
Why the first member of the Trinity, with whom Jesus the Son had endured
and or experienced and enjoyed perfect and intimate communion and
fellowship for all of eternity to this point, what would cause the
father to send his son for our sins?
Well, it's that.
As Paul puts it, our trespasses, the sins that you and I committed.
See that those sins put us in a predicament of
insurmountable depth to the Lord.
His standard is absolute perfection.
You shall be holy for I the Lord your God.
Him holy God being holy, cannot tolerate any sin, no matter how small it is.
And so because we by nature even are prone to sin and our sinners, we have created
an infinite chasm that we even sang about earlier this evening between us and God.
And, and the problem that you and I face tonight is we can't cross it.
Have you ever heard the world say something like, you got
yourself into this mess.
You can get yourself out of it.
And thank God that he didn't say that to us.
That may work in the world in some instances, but it doesn't work when
it comes to your sin and the holy God.
There's nothing you can do to get yourself outta the mess
that you've made in your sin.
Or maybe sometimes you've, you've heard the world say,
you know what you're saying?
It's, it's not that big of a deal.
A after all, nobody's, nobody's perfect.
And you know what?
Yeah, you, you sin, but you're not as bad as this person over
here, so don't beat yourself up.
You're fine.
You're good.
You're, you're a good person.
God's fine with you.
I'm sure.
Again, thank God that's not his approach either, because
that's just a self-deceived lie.
I can't be a good enough person to be holy after I've fallen short of holiness.
See, the, the problem is this holiness is, it's a one and done shot.
As soon as you aren't holy, you aren't holy forever.
To have any imperfection is to blow it completely.
And so whenever your first cognizant sin was.
We'll even just start there, let alone the fact that you have a sin nature
handed down from you, from Adam from the very beginning, but from the very
moment that you punched your brother because he took a toy from you, or from
the very moment that you screamed at your mom because you didn't like what
she served you for lunch, you have an infinite chasm between you and God that
can't be mended, can't be repaired.
It's that that prompted God to deliver Jesus.
For our trespasses.
See, if you're here tonight and you think to yourself, and you're in
the camp, that would say, yeah, but surely if I'm a good person, then
it doesn't really matter, right?
As long as I'm a good enough person, I've done some things in my past, but as
long as I'm a good enough person, then God's gonna be fine with me in the end.
'cause my good will make up for my bad.
I want you to think about it this way.
If you're out on Preston Road and you're driving north.
Preston Road speed limit 55, at least in the good parts of Preston Road.
But let's say you're late and you're flowing it, you're going
75 and a 55, and here come the, the red and blues in your mirror.
You're getting pulled over and when you pulled, get pulled over, the cop comes
up, you roll down your window, you've got your license and registration ready for
'em, and you say, officer, I just want you to know that I'm a really good driver.
I, I, this is not like me at all.
My track record before this, I, I, I really don't speed, or at least
I'm not caught speeding, you know, but we're all like that, aren't we?
We all are a little lead footed, but I, I normally drive very safely,
and I'll tell you what, officer, if you'll just forgive me this offense,
I promise you that I will obey the speed limit for the rest of my life.
What's the problem with that?
Number one, you're lying, right.
Number two, the problem is this, you're supposed to obey the speed limit.
You are not doing him any favors by doing what the law says you should do.
I, if you're out there, depending on good works to make you right before God, guess
what y'all, you're just doing what God created you to do in the first place.
God's not gonna be impressed with your track record.
God's not gonna be impressed that you're not a molester.
God's not gonna be impressed that you're not Hitler.
You're just doing what he created you to do by doing good.
And so you can't make up for the bad that you've done by just
doing what you're supposed to do.
You see how that logic of saying, well, if I do enough good,
then God will be okay with me.
It doesn't address the fact that God's not okay with us because of
our sin, and so we are left saying, I'm on this side of the infant chasm.
He's on that side of the infinite chasm, and I can't bridge it.
I can't get there.
That's why God delivered Jesus for your trespasses.
And, and, and here's the thing we have to remember, church, we put
ourselves in that predicament.
Sometimes you'll hear about the cross as a ransom that a payment's
being made and, and that that's true.
A payment was made.
That's what I'm talking about tonight.
You have a debt that you can't pay, and a payment was made on your
behalf to ransom you from your sin and, and from the wrath of God.
But here's the thing, sometimes when we think of ransom, we
wrongly associate ourselves with an innocent victim in all of this.
See, when you hear about a ransom, you think of somebody that was kidnapped or,
or taken, and a ransom is paid to free.
That person, that person, we all, our heart goes out to them.
We feel bad for them, and we're like, they're, they're the victim in all this.
You and I aren't victims of our sin.
We are willing captives, willing slaves to our sin.
We, in fact, by nature love our sin.
And so we have submitted ourselves to that which has divided us
from God by this infinite chasm.
And now we are on the other side meeting rescue when we're the ones that put
ourselves there in the first place.
That's why.
He was delivered up for your trespasses.
That's why God gave his son, and, and, and that's what makes
the cross all the more amazing.
In the end.
We didn't receive the, the mercy and grace and love of God
because we were worthy of it.
We didn't receive it because we deserved it.
We didn't catch God's eye with how nice and kind and good we are.
We received it in spite of how fall, how far short we fall of his perfect standard.
And that's what makes the cross so amazing.
That's what makes grace.
Grace, is we had put ourselves into captivity under the enslavement
of sin and that's when God came forth and that's why Christ was
delivered up for our trespasses.
Because our trespasses were those spiritual credit cards
that all of us had maxed out.
And we owed the debt that we couldn't pay.
And so for that debt, for those sins, for those trespasses,
Christ had to be handed over.
But that introduces one final question for us tonight, and that's this.
What was Jesus delivered to?
We've seen who delivered him, the Father did.
We've seen why he was delivered because of our trespasses.
But finally, we need to ask ourselves what was he delivered to?
And the answer we find in Colossians chapter two verses 13 through 14.
You who were dead in your trespasses, in the uncircumcision of your flesh,
God made alive together with him having forgiven us all our trespasses.
There's our word trespasses.
Sins.
By canceling the record of debt that stood against us with his legal demands.
How did he do it?
This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
See, this is why this is necessary.
He was delivered over to the death on the cross.
He was delivered over to be your substitute to bear the wrath of
God against your sin on the cross.
He's not just that.
He tasted death for the wages of sin is death.
Yes, he died for us.
But more than that, what he did on the cross was he absorbed all
of hell so that the Christian won't absorb a single drop of it.
Consider that for a moment hell is the existence under the just and righteous
anger and wrath of God against your sin.
I, I was thinking about, how do I understand that this week, and the
closest I got to it is this, as a father, if somebody was threatening
my child, you would see my righteous anger being unleashed on that person.
As a husband, if somebody was threatening my wife, you would know my
righteous anger unleashed on them, and nobody watching that would say, well,
that's, that's extreme, that's harsh.
That's unjust for him to treat that person that way.
You, you see, when we, someone we love is threatened, then our righteous
indignation and anger shows up.
In a theory that's unmatched.
God being God loves himself with a perfect love, which is right.
He loves his holiness.
He loves his justice.
And when His holiness and his justice, our threatened by our sin, what he
responds with is that same righteous anger and indignation and fury and wrath.
And that's what Jesus took when he absorbed it on the cross for us.
God was that angry with you
and with me,
and then he poured out that anger and that fury on his son instead of you.
He was delivered over for our trespasses to the cross.
So that that wrath could be satisfied so that we don't have to fear hell anymore.
If you are in Christ.
That is, you don't have to fear hell.
You don't have to fear the wrath because the father bore it or poured it
out rather on the son who bore it for you, and we didn't deserve any of it.
Not an ounce of it.
That's what's so amazing about grace.
Grace is unmerited favor getting that which you don't deserve,
receiving the forgiveness of God.
None of us deserve it.
He didn't decide to forgive you because you had done enough good that he was
like, okay, you've come far enough along.
Well, let me help you the rest of the way.
That's a false gospel.
He doesn't.
He doesn't forgive you because he's looked at you and gone, okay, you finally did it.
You did enough good works to outweigh your bad works.
So congrats.
Here's your ticket to heaven.
That's a false gospel.
He didn't forgive you because he looked at you and, and thought, well, you're,
you're a, a good investment because you know a lot about the Bible and you've
gone to church your whole life, and you got the Awano Award when you were
little and you read commentaries for fun.
He didn't do that.
He didn't forgive you for those reasons.
That's a false gospel.
The only reason he forgave you is because of the unmerited favor
in which he poured it upon you by his own prerogative, his own will.
And if you say, why join the club?
But that's grace
and that's mercy.
Mercy is not getting what you do deserve.
We deserve the anger of God.
We deserve the wrath of God.
We deserve his righteous indignation.
Instead, what we got is his forgiveness
and that the love
the Father coming after us, moving towards us, giving his son for us when
not a single one of us deserved it.
It is good for us to think about the the cross.
I know there may be some unbelievers in the room this evening, but I
trust a lot of you in the room would profess at least to be Christians.
It's so good for us to be ever mindful of the cross.
If you think about it, back to that debt analogy, when God forgave you,
when you came to faith in Jesus Christ.
It's not that he took you back to just a blank slate.
It's not that he took you back to just square.
Everything's good now.
Go and try not to, to mess this up anymore and praise God.
He didn't do that because guess what?
How many of you in the room have stopped sinning since you came to faith in Jesus,
right?
Instead, what did he do?
Well, he forgave you, and then he filled up your bank account with the
perfect and infinite righteousness of Jesus that can never be exhausted.
It, but church, don't try it.
Right?
One of the, the byproducts of thinking about the cross of a service, like a good
Friday, why don't we just skip to Easter?
Let's just, pastor, let's just celebrate the resurrection.
That's the good news.
He's a resurrected savior, interceding for before us, for us, before the father.
Let's just focus on that.
That makes me feel better.
Amen.
It does.
But this is good for us to think about.
Because this should have a sanctifying effect on our lives.
If we understand what Jesus did for us on the cross, if we understand the wrath
that he bore against our sin, then who are we to go back out and to trifle with the
pleasures and sinful things in this world.
So it's good for us to remember how much was born for us and how much
was paid for us when he was delivered over for our trespasses to the cross.
That's what bridges that infinite chasm, and that's the only thing
that bridges the infinite chasm.
Jesus told a parable in Luke chapter seven.
If you've got your Bibles, flip over there real quick with me.
Luke chapter seven.
Just to set the stage here.
Jesus is dining in the house of a Pharisee, one of the, the Jews that would
ultimately, well, I don't know if this one did particularly, but wouldn't be
surprised, deliver him over to Pilate.
In Luke chapter seven, here's what happens.
He, he's there, he's gone into the house and, and here comes a, a woman.
It's described in verse 37, a woman of the city who was a is
sinner, a woman of ill repute.
She comes in and, and she begins to weep at the feet of Jesus.
Verse 38, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the
hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment.
Now, the Pharisee, who had invited him saw this and said to himself,
well, if this man were a prophet.
He would've known who and what sort of woman this is, who's
touching him for She is a sinner.
And Jesus answering him said to him, Simon, I have something to say to you.
And he answered, say it, teacher, A certain money lender had two
debtors, one owed 500 denar, and the other 50 when they could not
pay, he canceled the debt of both.
Now, which of them will love him more?
Simon answered the one I suppose for whom he canceled the larger debt, and
he said to him, you have judged rightly.
Then turning toward the woman, he said, Simon, do you see this woman?
I entered your house and you gave me no water for my feet, but she
has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.
You gave me no kiss.
But from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet.
You didn't anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.
Therefore, I tell you her sins, which are many, they are many are forgiven for.
She loved much, but he was forgiven.
Little loves little lest.
We undo what we're talking about here.
It's not her actions that lead to her forgiveness, it's her actions
that reveal her forgiveness.
It is her actions that show how much she loves Jesus because she
was aware of how much she had been forgiven in that parable.
She's the one who had the 500 denary eye debt, overwhelmed by that.
She can't help but fall at the feet of Jesus and wet his feet
and wipe his feet with her hair and kiss his feet and anoint him.
Expressions of love and gratitude and hospitality and compassion.
None of which this Pharisee had done for Jesus though culturally,
he should have done all of it.
So Jesus simply asked the question,
who will love him more?
Church, the question I want us to resonate on tonight is, do you love him much
in light of what he's done, in light of the cross?
Do you love Christ much
Sunday, we're gonna gather and celebrate his resurrection.
The reality is, if he's not risen, none of this matters.
And so we'll talk about that on Sunday.
I hope you'll come back and join us for that.
But tonight I want us to contemplate the cross.
It's more than jewelry or wall art,
what this represents for us.
When we think back to this idea that Jesus was the one who was delivered up
for our trespasses, I want us to spend time tonight contemplating this, thinking
about it and thinking about in its impact and its meaning for our own lives.
We're gonna do that as we transition here to communion, and as I often do
with communion, I, I want to, uh, give our, our warnings and, and, and maybe the
fall fresh tonight in a different way.
And the first is that we need to be aware of a lack of, of conversion.
That what we're doing here is remembering the cross of Christ
and the cross of Christ is only significant if you are in Christ.
And so I, I want to plead with you tonight, if you're in the room and you
would say, I'm not a Christian, that tonight can be the night of salvation.
There is no prerequisite to coming to faith in Jesus.
You don't have to go get your affairs in order at your house.
You don't have to clean yourself up so that you're more holy
next week when you come back.
You don't have to, to jump through hoops or buy a certain type of
Bible or do any of the, tonight can be the night of salvation.
And so don't leave without getting right with the Lord tonight.
The offer is here tonight.
Salvation is free for you.
Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins so that you can be forgiven.
He died for your trespasses.
He was delivered over to the cross for your trespasses tonight.
And there's not a single thing that you've done in your life that's
beyond the scope of his forgiveness.
Not a single thing.
There's nothing that excludes you from coming to faith in Jesus tonight,
that you've done in your past.
And so come and trust in Jesus' death for your sins and his
resurrection for your eternal life.
That's what we're gonna talk about on Sunday, that he didn't
stay dead, but he rose again.
So that one day you will live with him forever.
So communion is for the Christian.
If you are not a Christian, please let these elements pass by parents.
I would ask you help your kids to, to learn and understand that this is
something that is, is for believers.
It's okay if they go home saying, I wish I could have taken communion.
That's a good thing.
They should want to be a part of the body of Christ, and
we desire that for them too.
But tonight it's, it's okay for you to, to pass the elements over them.
The second is thing is beware of a lack of confession.
It's good for you and I to keep short accounts with God.
Remember, as believers, we, we need to be cautious about flirting with sin,
about venturing into that which put him on the cross in the first place.
And so as we take communion and the elements are past here momentarily,
you're gonna have time to clear the slate, so to speak, before the Lord.
To say, Lord, here's the sins that I'm aware of, that I know
that I need to confess, that I need to bring to the light, that I
need to admit that I need to say.
I'm sorry.
Will you forgive me?
And you can lay them at the foot of the cross tonight and
know that they are forgiven.
And then the third thing I would encourage you and warn you with tonight
is beware of a lack of concentration.
We can do this so flippantly that we neglect to feel the weight of what
it is that we're remembering tonight.
And that's kind of the whole point of tonight's message, that we would
contemplate the cross, that we would feel the weight of it, and that we would
rejoice knowing that Jesus was indeed delivered over for our trespasses so
that infinite chasm might be bridged and we might be brought close to God.
So the elements are gonna be passed as the music plays, and then we will come back up
and take them together In some of the more liturgical churches, sometimes you'll see
people make the sign of the, the cross.
It's become more just habitual and rote than anything else today.
And it's not something that you'll see us do a lot around here.
But the reason, and, and what that started as is they always wanted to,
to remind themselves of the of, of the cross, the cross going in front
of them, the cross going before them.
It's a little bit of what we're doing here tonight.
If you wear a cross necklace, I would encourage you every time
you put that on, to think about the significance of what that was,
what that means, why you do that.
If you got cross wall art at home, I want you to think about it.
When you look at the cross, I want you to do your best to remember.
That's what that represents.
Think about the cross.
Remember the cross?
In fact that's, that's what we're doing right now.
There's, there's, you've heard me say this before, if you attend our church there,
there's nothing magical that's taken place in you receiving these elements.
It's, it's still the mats of bread from Kroger and the
grape juice from Kroger too.
Nothing is transformed about it.
Uh, it's, it's not going to,
that's not what Jesus gave it for.
In fact we, we read that and, and this is what it says, and
we'll take it together this way.
Uh, Paul said, I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you.
That the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed, took bread and when
he had given things, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.
And so in remembrance of the cross and remembrance of the broken body of
Christ, let's take and eat together.
In the same way.
Also, he took the cup after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
Let's drink in remembrance of him.
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim
the Lord's death until he comes.
You remember the cross until he comes back.
On your way out this evening, I, I'd love for you to, to stop by those
three white baskets on the back table there if, if you'd like to,
and inside the basket is a stamp.
It's just a normal stamp.
It's got the American flag on it.
Don't read too much into that.
This is just the stamps that we're able to find.
But if you wanna take this stamp as just a, a, a token to remember
the idea of being delivered over.
'cause you put a stamp on a letter to do what?
Deliver the letter, right?
So maybe you can take a stamp, you can slip it in your notes, you can slip
it in your Bible and just have that as that reminder to you again, that Jesus
was delivered over for your trespasses.
Lemme pray for us and then we'll be done.
Lord God, we thank you so much for this glorious reality that we've just
studied and talked about and unpacked tonight that you indeed did deliver Jesus
over for us that we might be forgiven.
Well, not because we inherently are, are worthy of it.
In fact, it's quite the opposite.
Your word tells us that we are depraved.
Your word tells us that we are not worthy, but that's what
makes grace, grace, and mercy.
Mercy, and we are so amazingly overwhelmed and thankful for that.
Lord, do you love us?
You've saved us.
You've redeemed us.
You've given us your spirit now to live in a, a life faithful and obedient to you,
even as we go forward from this place.
And so I pray that we would reflect on the cross and set ourselves even the
rest of this evening to think about these things and to live in a way that
would please and honor you as the one who has done so much on our behalf.
So we thank you for Jesus.
We thank you for salvation.
We praise you for all this in Jesus name.
Amen.