The Suffering Substitute

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

The Suffering Substitute

Spencer Cary

Transcript

Good morning. As I said before, my name is Spencer. I'm one of the pastors here. We're going to be in Matthew 27, verses 11 through 31. You can follow along on the screen. You can also grab one of those blue Bibles around you.

It's going to be on page 486. If you don't have a Bible at home, please take that Bible. That is a gift to you once you have a Bible that you can read at home. So, one of my friends from Louisville, Kentucky, when I lived there for five years, he was a church planner and was a pastor. And over the last few years, I've kind of watched, really online, he has kind of developed a following as he's stopped being a pastor. He's kind of moved into more being a motivational speaker.

He's done a TED Talk. And it's been kind of sad. I've watched him kind of depart from kind of the core teachings of our faith and really, really departing from the gospel. And about a month ago, he posted this graphic right there. If divine forgiveness requires payment, then it's not really forgiveness, the restitution. And I saw that and I was blown away.

I just was like, oh, okay. Now, my personal policy when somebody posts something on Facebook that's meant to be a discussion starter, that's meant to really be a little bit controversial, is don't comment. Just don't do it. Facebook is not a place for discussion. It's an angry place now. There's no nuance.

Like, it's just not, you know, it's not worth the bet. And I should say that that's probably the policy that all of you should have. It's when somebody posts something on Facebook, don't comment. Right? You're not going to have a discussion. You're not going to convince anybody of your position.

It's just going to devolve into a lot of angry ranting. It's just not the most helpful place to have discussions. It's much better to do it in person. So, having said that, I commented on that post. I reasoned in my head. I was like, you know what?

We don't have a lot of friends that overlap on Facebook. And I don't know. Like, it's kind of out on the Internet somewhere. I was like, I just want to respond. So I did.

And we had, I mean, we're friends. So, you know, we had a civil discussion. The big following that he has amassed, they were not happy with my take on this statement. So, I looked at that and I was like, that's insane. What it's saying is, is that if divine forgiveness, if God's forgiveness requires payment, then it's not really forgiveness, but restitution. Restitution being a payment for something that is wrong.

And a lot of people looked at that like, oh, that's really deep. That's profound. And I thought, only in a Western culture like ours could you divorce forgiveness from restitution. As if they were two completely different ideas and not two sides of the same coin. As only in our culture that is largely insulated from major injustices. Now, we have injustices.

We absolutely do. But in other cultures across the world where they face genocide, where there are people that are going into villages and hurting women and stealing children. That are going through major injustices. They would look at that and think that how in the world could you divorce forgiveness from payment? As if they're two completely different options. So I tried to have this discussion.

And I thought more about it over the last month. And the reality is, it's not based in the Bible. And one of the people that really like this idea, they don't like the idea of God's wrath. They don't like the idea of sin. They don't like those ideas at all. So it's not based in the Bible.

It's also not based in reality. I mean, for example, if I devised a scheme to steal your mother or your grandmother's retirement. Everything she's worked for her entire life. I stole every penny. And then I got caught. There's one of two options of how that really plays out.

It's either I pay restitution. I pay for the wrong that was done. Or she says, no, you know what? He obviously needs the money. I forgive him. But even in both of those examples, somebody is paying restitution.

Either I'm doing it or she's absorbing the debt herself. In her forgiveness, she's the one that's actually making the payment. There is no biblical reality. There is no reality in general. It separates the idea of forgiveness from payment. And that is because forgiveness is not free.

It costs something. Tim Keller, a pastor that we love and look up to, says the only way God can pardon us and not judge us is to go to the cross and absorb it himself. To make the payment himself. And today that's what we're going to look at. Today we're going to walk through that reality. As we see it very clearly.

We've been following Jesus as he's preparing for the cross. And now he is leading up to the cross. And we're going to follow him all the way up to before he walks up the hill. And as we walk through this today, we're going to see over and over again that forgiveness is not free. That it has a cost that Jesus paid. And my hope is, is for those of us who have trusted in Jesus, my hope is that that would lead us to a deeper affection and love for Christ.

And my hope for those of you that have not trusted in Jesus as your only hope. For those of you that do not know him. My hope is that you would see how much our God loves you. That he sent his son to die for you. So that's, that's the goal.

That's what we're going to walk through this morning. Let me pray for us as we walk through this passage. Lord, we love you. And we are thankful for what you have done for us. God, I pray that you would help us see that so clearly. You would become so beautiful to us.

And that you would work on our hearts and we would respond. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. All right, so. Verse 11. Chapter 27.

Now Jesus stood before the governor. And the governor asked him, are you the king of the Jews? Jesus said, you have said so. All right, so context from last week. Chet walked us all the way up to the trial at the Sanhedrin. So, Jesus is arrested.

He's brought before the Sanhedrin. That's the religious leadership. And they put him on trial. And they're looking for a charge that they can, that they can charge him with under their law. Under the Old Testament law. And the charge they come up with is blasphemy.

Which is ironic because Jesus is God. And they charge him of this. But that's not enough to have him killed. All right? That they need the Romans to carry this out legally. Legally.

And the Romans don't care about Jewish law. So they're going to find a different charge to bring him to Pilate with. They're going to work on the charge of kingship. And they claim to be king. That he's an insurrectionist. That he's trying to lead a rebellion.

That's what they're going to bring to Pilate. Pontius Pilate is the governor of this region. He's the prefect of the region of Judea. He is a politician. He's a politician assigned with the assignment of ruling in Judea over the Jews. And in the Roman Empire.

That's not a glorious post. No one volunteers and gets excited about that post. It's not Greece. Right? He could have been in different parts of Greece. With deep into the Greco-Roman culture.

He could have been in places like Alexandria, Egypt. Lots of places he could have gone to. Been assigned to. That would have been good. But he has been given the task of being governor over the region of Judea.

And it is not a fun place to rule as a Roman governor. Because the Jews hate the Romans. They don't like the Romans. And the feeling is mutual. The Romans look down on the Jewish people. See one of the brilliant parts of Roman rule.

Is that when they conquered you. You liked it. It was nice. Once they conquered you. They brought their culture. And a lot of other places assimilated to.

They grew into being Roman. This Greco-Roman. They call it Hellenistic culture. They liked it. They liked what it had to offer. The taxes were high.

But they had roads and infrastructure. And all kinds of things. And they were kind of fine with being ruled. The Jews were not. They rebelled over and over again. They had a different faith.

A different religion that the Romans looked down upon. They didn't have a lot of shared values when it came to that. And so there is that kind of history between the Romans and the Jewish people. But there is also personal history between Pontius Pilate and the Jewish people. You see when he first came to rule in Judea. One of the first things he did was he took the Roman shields.

Which bore a graven image. And he set them up all around Jerusalem. And that is a violation of the second command. Of having a graven image. In the holy city. The Sanhedrin.

The religious leaders. They protested this. And they led a major protest against Pontius Pilate. Against the Romans. And you can look at two different historical sources. You can look at a historian named Philo.

Another named Josephus. When you piece them together. It looks like this was a major protest. That King Herod had to get involved. And it made Pontius Pilate look bad before Caesar. He got a slap on the wrist.

So there is that kind of tension. Also at one point Pontius Pilate went into the temple. Took some of the money from the temple. And built some water systems in the city. So the Sanhedrin.

And Pontius Pilate. Have some cultural history and differences. And some personal beef with one another. Now you might be wondering. That's great. You love history.

Why does that matter here? First off. History is nice. Gives you some context. But secondly.

It's important to understand what's happening right here. Because these two have to work together. Together. The religious leaders and Pilate have to work together. See Pilate needs the religious leadership. Because they help keep the people in check.

They make sure they don't rebel. And as we've seen with the religious leadership. They love power. They're in bed with the Romans. And they like the power that comes with that. So they have to work together.

All of that history comes into this moment. All of that division between these two political rivals. It comes into this moment. Where they bring Jesus to get authority. So that he can be executed.

So Pilate asks. He says. Are you the king of the Jews? And Jesus does not hesitate. He says. You have said so.

Yes. He confirms. He is the king of the Jews. You might be thinking. Alright. Isn't that the charge that does it?

It's not. The reason why. Is because Pilate does not really care. Over who the self-proclaimed king of the Jews is. He didn't care about that. That's not something that's really important.

There is a king. Herod. He's got a weird spot in the Roman Empire. And he doesn't even like Herod at this point. So that's not enough to actually get him crucified.

He doesn't care about the customs. He doesn't care about the law. The Jewish people have. But what the religious leadership is trying to do. Is they're trying to mount a case. They're trying to help him see.

That the Messiah from the Old Testament. The king. Who Jesus is claimed to be. Is going to have a global reign. He is going to have a global reign. And that is going to put him at odds with Caesar.

We see that in John's gospel. When they say. You are no friend to Caesar. If you don't deal with this. So they're going to try to make a political maneuver against him.

Before his hand. And in the midst of this. Jesus confirms his kingship. To Pontius Pilate. But then he doesn't defend himself.

Verse 12. But when he was accused by the chief priests and the elders. He gave no answer. Verse 13. And Pilate said to him. Do you not hear how many things they testify against you?

But he gave him no answer. Not even to a single charge. So the governor was greatly amazed. So at this point. The religious leadership. Starts mounting their case.

Against Jesus. And Jesus is silent. He doesn't say. A word. And this stuns Pilate. He's like.

Can you hear what they're saying? Can you hear. What. What. What. The things.

The accusations. They're letting against you. He doesn't say. A word. And this is shocking. The pilot.

But this is to fulfill. What was spoken of in the prophet. Isaiah. Isaiah 53. He was oppressed. And he was afflicted.

Yet he opened not his mouth. Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter. And like a sheep that before its shears is silent. So he opened not his mouth. He does not defend himself. They keep making this case against them.

He is silent. Like a lamb that is being led to the slaughter. Because Jesus knows. He knows what the father wants. He knows what needs to happen. Our sin needs to be paid for.

And forgiveness is not free. He will not defend himself. This is a part of the plan. And if he wanted to at this moment. Remember what Chet said last week. He said he could appeal to a legion of angels.

In this moment. At this moment angels could come down by his command. And they would absolutely destroy his enemies. But he remains silent. Because forgiveness is not free. Verse 15.

It says now at the feast. The governor was accustomed to release for the crowd. Any one prisoner whom they wanted. And they had been a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. Alright. So now around this time.

Pilate had instituted really a political gesture. That around the Passover feast time. They would release to them one of the prisoners that they had. And it was kind of genius. Because the fear was around Passover. Is that this is the perfect time for rebellion to happen.

It's when everyone is coming in to the city. From all over the region. And they are celebrating the Passover feast. Which remember. Is the festival. That they helped celebrate.

To remember that God helped free them. From an oppressive regime. And the Egyptians. What better time. To start a rebellion. Against an oppressive regime.

At the yearly festival. Where they remember this. So this is a political gesture. Give them one of the prisoners. An act of goodwill. And see all of this is a political exchange.

And at this time. There is a prisoner named Barabbas. Now Mark's gospel tells us a little bit about who Barabbas is. He is an insurrectionist. Meaning that he is someone who has left. Had a rebellion.

And he is a murderer. He has killed at least one person. He is completely guilty. And the ones who were put on crosses. Were rebels. Were insurrectionists.

You can look at Jewish history. At the time when these rebellions would happen. The Romans would quickly put them down. And very forcefully. They would line the roads. Out of the city with crosses.

And they would put rebels. It was a brutal. It was a brutal form of torture and death. For those who would rebel. So it is fair to say.

That this day. Barabbas was set to be crucified. That Barabbas woke up that morning. Ready to face death. There is something called the death row phenomenon. It is the psychological building up.

That happens with prisoners on death row. And it is pretty intense. I was listening to a pastor. He had interviewed a chaplain. Who was a chaplain on death row. And he said that some of these prisoners.

Would build themselves up. If they were going to face the gas chamber. For example. That they would. Days leading up. Would have moments of just really heavy breathing.

And intense breathing. And really simulating what it is like to be in the gas chamber. Gasping for breath. That those who had been hung before. That they would have this preparation. Where they almost could feel the rope around their neck.

In the days leading up to execution. That there is this. There is this weight to being executed. And Barabbas wakes up this morning. And is feeling and sensing. Maybe even possibly sensing what it is like to be on the cross.

You have to lift up your chest. As you are slowly gasping for breath. As you are slowly suffocating. He is in the cell. Awaiting a grim fate. But then something happens.

Verse 17. So when they had gathered. Pilate said to them. Whom do you want me to release for you? Barabbas. Or Jesus.

Who is called Christ. For he knew that it was out of envy. That they had delivered him up. So Barabbas is waiting in his cell. And there is commotioning happening out in the courtyard. There is political maneuvering that is happening out there.

You see Pilate offers up two different people. And he could have chosen anyone else besides Jesus. He could have chosen a less notorious criminal. It is his choosing. But he chooses the notorious Barabbas.

You see the politics at play here? He presents both of them. Because he understands the motives of the religious leaders. He understands they are envious. They are jealous. And if he can put Jesus alongside Barabbas.

Then it makes it a tough choice for the crowds. All right. The notorious prisoner. Or the Jesus who he knows about. This is the first time that Pontius has heard of Jesus. Jesus.

For three years he has been a celebrity in the land. This traveling sage. This prophet. Who thousands of people have traveled out to hear preach. Who have gone to be healed. It is his job to know what is happening in Judea.

When Jesus comes in and out. When he comes in this very week. Just a few days before. And the people are chanting. Hosanna. Hosanna.

He knows about Jesus. He is this good prophet. That the crowds love. So he puts Jesus alongside Barabbas. Understanding what is at play here. What the religious leaders are doing.

Thinking. That he can get past this. With this political play. But while this is happening. Matthew adds a wrinkle. That the other gospel writers don't include.

Verse 19 says. Besides. While he was sitting on the judgment seat. His wife sent word to him. Have nothing to do with that righteous man. For I have suffered much because of him today.

And a dream. So even more so. While he is on the judgment seat. His wife sends word to him. And says. Don't have anything to do with Jesus.

I have had dreams. I have had nightmares. I have been afflicted because of him. We don't know what the content of those dreams were. But it is enough to scare her.

In this moment. To send word to him. To say. Don't have anything to do with Jesus. Jesus. And while this is going on.

The religious leaders are making political moves of their own. Verse 20. Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd. To ask for Barabbas. And destroy. Jesus.

So the crowds. Are there. And the religious leaders are working their way through the crowds. Now crowds can turn very quickly into a mob mentality. Very fast. When I was traveling years ago.

And study abroad. I was in India. And one of the travel warnings we had for India. Was when you were there. If you see a crowd form. They form very quickly.

And a lot of people. Get out. Because they have a lot of protests. And those protests are violent. Very quickly. With mob mentality.

We saw that. And we've seen that here. In our own country. That when a crowd gets together. It just takes a little bit stirring up. And all of a sudden.

It can turn to violence. And that is exactly what is happening here. And the religious leadership. They know how to work a crowd. Working their way through the crowd. Whispering lies.

They probably. It's possible they've even stacked the deck a little bit. Put people in the crowd. Said we're going to free Barabbas. Barabbas. We're going to chant for Barabbas.

We don't need this Jesus. He's going to bring problems for us. Barabbas. Start the chant. Barabbas. Barabbas.

They're building up the chant. Verse 21. Then the governor again said to them. Which of the two do you want me to release for you? And they said. Barabbas.

So they've won the crowds. They've got them stirred up. Barabbas. Barabbas. They're chanting for the notorious criminal. Verse 22.

Pilate said to them. Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ? So Pilate has lost this political game. He tried it. Presenting two different options. They want to free Barabbas.

Okay. So what do you want? What do you want me to do with Jesus? So they all said. Let him be crucified. And he said.

Why? What evil has he done? I want you to see the shock that's in Pilate there. He says. What evil has he done? You see.

The crucifixion was a Roman punishment. It was not a Jewish punishment. They had a great disdain for this punishment. They didn't like it. And it is shocking to him. That they would ask for crucifixion.

That's overkill. Right? That's something that's reserved for rebels. Who have rebelled against the Roman Empire. That is a step too far. It doesn't make sense.

That a beloved prophet. That they would make a move on him like this. He does not deserve the cross. But it says. But they shouted all the more.

Let him be crucified. All the more. Let him be crucified. It intensifies. They want him on a cross. The Sadducees.

The religious leadership. The Pharisees. They have won the crowd. Pilate has lost control. As it intensifies. As they want crucifixion.

Pilate is shocked. Jesus is not. This is a part of the plan. This is part of the plan. Forgiveness is not free. It has to be paid for.

Verse 24. So. When Pilate saw. That he was gaining nothing. But rather that a riot was beginning.

He took water and washed his hands before the crowd. Saying. I am innocent of this man's blood. See to it yourselves. And all the people answered. His blood be on us.

And on our children. Pilate is a politician. And he is a coward. But it is better for one man to die. Than to have a riot. That he has to answer for later.

Because. Having riots. Not being able to control. Your region. Would get you removed. It eventually does.

For him. Because he cannot control this region. So the coward. The coward washes his hands. Which actually doesn't absolve him of guilt. But in his mind it does.

And the people foolishly in the crowd say. Let Jesus' blood. Be on us. And our children. Verse 26. Then he released for them Barabbas.

And having scourged. Jesus delivered him to be crucified. So Barabbas. Is released. He gets to go home. And Jesus is scourged.

Which is a horrific punishment. Scourging. It's called flagellation. Flogging. Was a brutal form. Of torment.

One commentator. Describes this. He says. A Roman scourging. Was a terrifying punishment. The delinquent was stripped.

Bound to a post. Or a pillar. Or sometimes. Simply thrown to the ground. And was beaten. By a number of guards.

Until his flesh hung. In bleeding. Shreds. Hear that. Hung in bleeding. Shreds.

The instrument. Indicated by the Markan text. That would be Mark's gospel. The dreaded flagellum. Was a scourging. Consisting of leather straps.

Plated. With several pieces of bone. Or lead. So as to form. A chain. So.

It's an illustration. Of what this is. The flagellum. Was a tool. It wasn't just a whip. It had.

Bits of bone. Or lead in it. And the goal. Was that. As you whipped the person. That it would latch.

Into their flesh. And rip out. Chunks of skin. And they would do this. Over and over again. Their backs.

Their legs. It was meant to. Absolutely. Fillet. And mangle the flesh. Of the person.

Who was being punished. He goes on to say. No maximum number. Of strokes. Was prescribed. By Roman law.

Unlike Jewish law. That kept it at 39. So we see. In the book of Acts. That. That they.

They get a flogging. Like this. And the Jewish law. Says. Nope. Not more than 39.

40 Might kill you. 39 is enough. The Romans did not have that. They did not have mercy. They were some of the most brutal. The most brutal.

People. That would. That. Their torture methods. Were. Were unreal.

They. They. They wouldn't stop. At 39. They. They would.

To the point of almost. Killing people. It says. And men condemned to flagellation. Frequently collapsed. Then died from flogging.

Josephus. Who's a historian. He records that. He himself. Had some of his opponents. In Galilee.

Scourged. Until their entrails. Were visible. That they. They would be. Scourged so.

Badly. That so much. Flesh. And muscle. Would be ripped out. That their entrails.

Would be. Exposed. The torture itself. Was enough to kill. Somebody. And then.

They're going to put a cross. On his mangled. And bloodied. And ripped apart. Back. But not yet.

Because they're going to humiliate him first. Verse 27. Then the soldiers. Of the governor. Took. Jesus.

Into the governor's headquarters. And they gathered. The whole battalion. Before him. I've pictured this in the past. I've missed that part.

The whole battalion piece. I've imagined. I don't know. It's because. This is from the scene. Of the passion of Christ.

Or whatever. But I. I've imagined. It's just a few people. But it's not.

It's a battalion. Of soldiers. Six hundred. To a thousand. Soldiers. Are going to mock him.

And his. Bloodied. And mangled body. Is brought before him. And they're going. To make fun.

Of his kingship. It says. And they stripped him. And put a scarlet robe on him. And twisting together. A crown of thorns.

They put. It on his head. And put a reed. In his right hand. And kneeling before him. They mocked him.

Saying. Hail. King of the Jews. And they spit on him. And took the reed. And struck him on the head.

And when they had mocked him. And they stripped him. Of the robe. And put. His own clothes on him. And led him away.

To crucify him. So these Roman soldiers. They also have heard of Jesus. And they see the charge. He's going to be charged. As a king.

Okay. Let's make fun of his kingship. So they take a scarlet robe. And they put it. On his back. Now.

Mark's gospel. And John's gospel. They call this a purple robe. Which means either. They're describing the same color. Which happens in some cultures.

They don't have a whole lot of differentiation. Between certain colors. Or it's two robes. The purple one. On his back. Ripped off.

And these are. These would have been. Not smooth. Robes. These would have been rough. Blending into.

His mangled flesh. Being ripped off. And they're. They're mocking him. They're mocking him. As a king.

And they take. A crown of thorns. And don't think. Like rose thorns. These would have been. Thorns.

Native to that region. These are longer thorns. And they take. A crown of thorns. And they force it. On his head.

To mock him. They take a reed. Stick. Made it look like a king's scepter. They put it in his hand. And they bow down to him.

Hail. King of the Jews. Hundreds of soldiers. Laughing. Mocking. The king.

Of the universe. And they spit on him. And they. They take the reed stick. And they hit him. On the head.

It is a brutal. Mocking. A brutal. Torture. But this is to fulfill Isaiah 53.

It says. But. Isaiah prophesied about this. He said. But he was pierced for our transgressions.

He was crushed. For our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement. That brought us. Peace. And with his wounds.

We are healed. Peace. Does not come. Without a cost. Forgiveness. Is not free.

And we see that so clearly. And we will pick this up. On good Friday this week. As we continue. As he goes up the hill. Now.

One of the things. That sticks out about this. Is how absolutely. How absolutely. Injust. This is.

How absolutely. Unfair. This is. How corrupt. And how evil. This is.

I mean. This situation. Is gross. I mean. Jesus. Is completely innocent.

Of all of these charges. He's only displayed. Kindness. And goodness. Towards. The people.

And then he gets arrested. By these religious leaders. And then he becomes. A political pinball. Between two. Godless.

Groups. The religious leaders. And Pilate. And the Romans. And then. These weak.

Feckless. Cowards. Debate. Over the God. Who made them. Over the God.

Who thought them. Into existence. They debate. Over his life. And then they plan. To murder him.

To murder the ruler. Over all things. And Pilate. In his political maneuvering. He presents. Two different options.

You can have. Barabbas. Or. Jesus. You can have. Jesus.

The prophet. Whom all the crowds love. Let me think. Guys. We've been in the gospel of Matthew. For over a year now.

Think of all. Of the beautiful displays. Of our savior. Of how good he is. Of how righteous he is. Of how kind he is.

You can have this. Jesus. Or you can have. Barabbas. You can have this. Notorious.

Criminal. This. Murderer. And the religious leadership. The ones. Who are supposed.

To uphold. Justice. And mercy. And righteousness. They start a chant. To free.

Barabbas. And they take Barabbas. When you look. At all of it. It's not fair. It's not fair.

That Barabbas. Avoids the cross. That was meant for him. And Jesus takes his place. And when you come to that conclusion. And when you fully absorb that.

As the reality of this situation. It is then. That you can begin to appreciate. That Jesus died in our place. It is then. That you can begin to appreciate.

And fully understand. That the reality is. Is that we have sinned. Against a holy and perfect God. That our sin. Over and over.

Is a violation. Of his good will for us. That we rebel. Against the God. Of the universe. That we are insurrectionists.

With our lives. That we hurt. Other people. Over. And over. And over.

And over again. That we are. We are prisoners. In a cell. Awaiting our sentencing. Our just.

Sentencing. Against. For sending against the God of the universe. And we are brought up. Out of. The cell.

And there is an exchange. That happens. For those who trust in Jesus. We point to him. And we avoid the cross. And he goes to the cross.

For us. That is what theologians call. Penal substitutionary atonement. Theologians like to use big words. All that means. Is that.

There is a penalty for sin. That's the penal part. For the wages of sin is death. Romans 6. 23. That we deserve death.

Because of our sin. But God. In his rich mercy. Provides for us. A suffering. Substitute.

That Jesus takes. Our place. My buddy from Louisville. Has lost the thread. On the gospel. There is no reality.

Where forgiveness does not cost. That there is no. There is no. Reality. Where our sin. And rebellion.

Does not cost. And here is the deal. We may not. Play out that same thought exercise. We may not. Come to that same.

Intellectual. Conclusion. But the reality is. Is that for many of us. Practically. We live that way.

Practically. Our lives. Show that we believe that. Because over and over again. We just don't think. Our sin costs.

We don't think. Our sins. That big. Of a deal. We dismiss it. We rather live our lives.

On our terms. And we'll justify it. And we won't think. It's that big of a deal. So much.

Of southern Christianity. Is just. Claiming. To be a Christian. And living your life. On your terms.

And it's this. This thought process. That because God is good. And because God. Is loving. That it'll all just work out.

In the end. That it's forgiveness. Doesn't have this real cost. And we can live our lives. On our terms. And that is an eternally fatal.

Belief. No. Our forgiveness. Costs. Rebellion. Costs.

Paul. In Colossians says. In Colossians 2. He says. In you. Who are dead.

In your trespasses. In the uncircumcision. Of your flesh. That's the sinful nature. Of your flesh. God.

Made alive. Together with him. That's through. Faith. God made alive. Together with him.

Having forgiven us. All our. Trespasses. All of our sins. By canceling. The record.

Of debt. The record of debt. We have an endless. Record. Of sins. That stands.

That stands against us. With its. Legal. Demands. The legal demands. His death.

This he set aside. Nailing it. To a cross. That is the heart. Of the gospel. That in our sin.

That in our rebellion. That we have. Rebelled against God's. Good design. That we are waiting. In the cells.

In the prison cells. Of our sin. And death. Awaiting to be sentenced. And God loves us so. Much.

That he doesn't leave us there. That he steps in. That he steps down. From heaven. That he comes to live the perfect life. That we could not live.

And that he comes before us. And we are brought out of the cell. And all we have to do. Is say. I believe in you Jesus. My life belongs to you.

I trust you. And he says. Good. Take my perfect record. And I will take your place. And he goes to the cross for us.

It is not fair. That God in his rich kindness. Redeems. Sinners. And man. It has a cost.

And I want us to sit in that. This morning. If you are. If you are a Christian. This morning. If you have trusted.

In Jesus. As your only hope. I want you to sit. In this painful. Beautiful. Reality.

I don't want us to stare. To stare away from. The cross. And the brutality of it. It teaches us. Grace.

When we look at the cross. When we think about what they did. To Jesus. It reminds us. That we can never earn that. We can never do what Jesus did.

And praise God. That we could not. That we don't have to earn his favor. That no amount of good works. Could make this right. That we look to the cross.

And we say. Praise God. It teaches us repentance. It motivates us to repentance. That there are moments. When we become so tempted.

When the lusts of our flesh. When our sinful selfish desires. Arise. And present to us. The option of sin. We get to in that moment.

Remember. No. No. We get to literally just picture the cross. And say. No.

No. No. My life was bought with a price. It was too costly. And I'm not going to run. To sin.

I want Jesus. It leads us to worship. Y'all. It's. It's. It's all over the songs.

That we sing. That we respond. And we sing. About the blood of our savior. About what Jesus has done for us. It motivates us.

And it inspires us. To love God. That he's so loving towards us. That he came to die on a cross for us. If you're a Christian. I want you to sit in that reality this morning.

And I want you to see Jesus as beautiful. In worship. If you are not a Christian. If you have not trusted in Jesus. That's your only hope. My hope this morning.

Is that you would see. That God loves you so much. That he did not leave you. In sin and brokenness. We all have sin. All of us have our junk.

We've all rebelled against God. And this morning. He has you here. And he wants you to see. I love you. Can't you see.

That two thousand years ago. I came for you. I died for you. I bled for you. So that you might believe.

My hope this morning. Is that you would see. That his arms are open. And he wants you. And that you would believe. That you stop running.

And sin. That you stop trying to earn. Your salvation. By your own good works. By your own merit. My hope is that you would trust.

Only in the finished work of Christ. He wants you. My hope is that you believe. Because forgiveness is not free. But he wants to give it to you.

Freely. The band is going to come up. And I want us to sit. In these truths. As we prepare to respond. If you are not a Christian.

Please. Do not delay. Don't walk away from this. Don't walk away from conviction. My hope. Is that you would trust.

In Christ. That right now. As we sing songs. You would take a moment in your seat. And you would pray. Pray for God to reveal himself.

Ask Jesus to forgive you. Of your sins. And give your life. And trust. In him. If you are a Christian.

I want you to take a few moments. And just be reminded. Of how good your Savior is. About how beautiful his blood is. About how much our sin costs. And it doesn't lead us to shame.

It doesn't lead us to guilt. It leads us to praise. Because we get to look at our sin. And then we immediately. Get to look to our Savior. Let me pray.

Let me pray. Lord. Your kindness. And your mercy. And your goodness. Are so profound.

And so beautiful. God. I pray. That you would help us. In this moment. See it.

Clearly. Don't let us run away from it. Don't let us hide from it. God. I pray. You've got to work in our hearts.

Right now. If there's anyone here. That's not trusted in you. God. I pray. That you would become so beautiful.

So good. That you would win their hearts. And they would believe. God. I pray. For those of us that are Christians.

Lord. We love you. Help us see. The brutality of the cross. As beautiful. And may it lead us to worship and praise.

In Jesus name. Amen.

When the Rooster Crows (Matthew 26:46-27:10)

Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.

When the Rooster Crows

Chet Phillips

Transcript

You Well, good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. I'm excited to be here with y'all this morning. Grab your Bibles. Go to Matthew chapter 26.

If you have one of the blue Bibles, it looks like this. It'll be page 486. And if you do not own a Bible, take this one home with you. That's our gift to you. We want you to have a Bible. We want you to read it often.

We are walking through the Gospel of Matthew, and we are coming into the end of Matthew. And so these next few weeks, we're going to spend looking at the arrest, the trial, the crucifixion of Christ. And in what we're going to look at today, we're going to cover a decent amount of ground this morning. We're going to work through this story, and we're just going to walk through the story and talk about it. We'll make some observations as we go. And then at the end, we're going to look at Peter and Judas and the religious leaders, and we're going to look at their response to sin, their response to shame, their response to their guilt.

The truth is, in life, there are times where we come face-to-face with ourselves. We come face-to-face with our own sin, that we cease to be able to hide who we really are. Often we're very good at deceiving ourselves, but there are times where we finally see it. And so we're going to ask the question as we walk through this text, what do we do in those moments? How do we respond to our own sin and guilt? So let's pray, and then we'll walk through this story together.

God, we ask for you to bless this time. We pray that you would help us to love your word, to trust your word, and to see clearly Christ in his glory, in his greatness towards us. And may we see our sin, so that we might run to a savior. In Jesus' name, amen. Matthew chapter 26, starting in verse 46. Jesus has just been in the garden.

He's been with his disciples. He had the last supper. He said, this is my body broken for you. This is my blood that's shed for you, and a new covenant in my blood. And he says, as often as you do this, you declare my death until I come. He tells his disciples that one of you is going to betray me.

They go through and they ask, is it me? Is it me? Eventually Judas leaves. He goes out with his disciples to the garden, and he tells them, wait and pray and keep an eye out. He takes Peter, James, and John with him a little further in. He falls on his face.

He begins to ask the Lord, if this cup can pass from me, let it. He's stressed. He's troubled. He tells them he's sorrowful to the point of death. He goes back. The disciples are sleeping.

He wakes them up and says, you couldn't stay awake for an hour. Keep an eye out. Pray for yourselves. Pray for me. He goes back. He does this three times, and eventually he says this.

Rise. Let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand. At some time in the middle of the night, Jesus hasn't slept. The disciples have slept some because they're exhausted. But he wakes them up and says, see, my betrayer is at hand.

And while he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs from the chief priests and the elders of the people. So Judas has agreed to betray Jesus. He knows where he is. He comes to him in the garden. And he's got a great crowd with him with swords and clubs. Other gospels tell us they had torches and lanterns.

And that some of these are Roman soldiers. Some of these are soldiers that belong to the Sanhedrin that are actually part of the temple group of soldiers. But they've come to arrest Jesus to try to have a trial, to try to pin something on him so that they might kill him. So Jesus wakes up the disciples. He's been praying that this would pass, but now he's facing it. The disciples are waking up.

And you know, immediately, if you've ever jumped out of a kind of a groggy sleep, but maybe you heard a noise or something, their hearts are beating. They're looking. They're suddenly, adrenaline's pumping because there's this large crowd of armed men coming towards them in the darkness. Torches and lanterns, and they're surrounded. And Judas, it says one of the twelve. So one of the men that had been closest to Jesus, had spent the most time with Jesus, had professed that he believed and would follow Jesus, has come to betray him.

Verse 48. Now the betrayer had given them a sign saying, The one I will kiss is the man sees him. And he came up to Jesus at once and said, Greetings, Rabbi. And he kissed him. Now, for Americans, that's weird. And often Americans have read this and tried to read things into it and tried to understand what's going on here.

But this is a, for Middle Easterners, this is not an odd greeting. He's basically saying, The one I go greet, the one I go say hey to, this is the man. Ben Johnson, who's one of our group leaders, was a missionary in Lebanon for ten years. And they greet each other with kisses. They greet, they do three kisses. Just on the cheeks.

They get good at it. They know how to do it. He came traveling back. His home church was in Georgia. He was jet lagged. He was tired.

But he had to run by the, his church building before he could run to his house and try to get some rest. He showed up. He ran into the custodian there who he knew. The custodian said, Hey Ben. Ben said hey and grabbed him and went to kiss him. And it goes over different in Georgia than it does in the Middle East.

And so we read this and we're going, What's going on here? But really all that Judas has said is, It's going to be dark. These people would not have recognized Jesus. Maybe some of them have seen him. It's not like they had wanted posters up for him. It wasn't like us where we get to see famous people.

We get to see them on TV that you might could actually run into a famous person at Walmart and recognize them. They would have heard about Jesus. They might have seen him in the temple, but the ability to recognize him in the darkness is not much of a chance. But they wanted to go under cover of darkness and arrest him. And so that's how they worked out with Judas. Judas will identify him.

Judas has been with him for three years. I bet Judas in the dark, just seeing the disciples silhouetted, could probably tell you by the way they carried themselves who was who. And so he says, I'm going to identify him for you. The one I go greet, that's the one. So he walks over and he says, Greetings, Rabbi.

Would you know that had to sound weird? Too hard trying to sound normal, a little too loud for some reason, a little too quiet. There's no way this came out right because he shows up with this band of people with swords and clubs. Hey, Jesus. Greetings. But he grabs him.

He kisses him. Jesus said to him, this is verse 50, friend, do what you came to do. Then they came up and laid hands on Jesus and seized him. So these military soldiers knew as soon as he, whoever he greets, that's Jesus. That's who we're arresting. They come in.

They grab him. They rough hands clamp down on him to hold him. Verse 51. And behold, one of those who were with Jesus, and that's Peter. We find out one of the other gospels. One of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand, drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear.

So Peter, as soon as they grabbed Jesus, it's go time. He pulls his sword out. He said, I'll go with you even to death. And he meant it. He pulls his sword out and he cuts off the ear of the high priest's servant. The reason he cut off his ear was because he missed.

He was aiming to kill him. You don't swing a sword at someone's head unless you think this is it. Let's go. He missed. I'm assuming he came something like this. The high priest's servant went something like that.

He caught his ear. Cut it off. It would have been a bloody mess. Peter would have. I don't know if you've ever fought multiple people at once. But if you do.

You attack one, you back up and keep your eye on the other one. So Peter doesn't follow that up with more strikes. He swings at that guy. I'm assuming he backs up and looks. And in that that moment, that brief pause when everything got much more intense because they've got swords, they've got clubs, they've got the disciples surrounded. We know at least there's 11 disciples.

There's potentially more here. And they've come armed because they want to show have a show of force to try to a keep there from being violence or be when if there is violence. I don't know if you fought multiple people at once. If you're actually going to get in a fight, it's better to be on the multiple people side. That's what they showed up with. We're going to make this go well for us.

But Jesus, I mean, Peter cuts the ear off and then this is what happens next. Then Jesus said to him, put your sword back into its place for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my father and he will at once send me more than 12 legions of angels? But how then should the scriptures be fulfilled that it must be so? So Peter attacks.

And in that breath in between when everything could have broken loose, Jesus says, put it up. That's not what this is about. How else would the scriptures be fulfilled? But Jesus says something very interesting here that I think we need to see. He says, do you not think that I could at once appeal to my father and he would not send me more than 12 legions of angels? A legion is a thousand.

He says, I have at my disposal at this moment over 12,000 angels. We see in the Old Testament where one angel kills 185,000 Assyrians in one night. So if Jesus calls on more than 12,000 angels, Jesus says, if I want to just let the angels do it, we can kill the entire population of the earth in less than 30 minutes. If I want them to do it rather than me do it. I want us to see something here. We just last week read where Jesus prays in the garden, Lord, if this cup can be moved from me.

If we can go another way, let's do that. But not my will. Your will be done. But even in that, Jesus says, Peter, if I want to stop this, I can. You see, it would show great bravery for Jesus to walk into this and to hand himself over and to then it be outside of his control and him have to face torture and death. But the reality is it was moment by moment inside of Jesus's control to stop this.

He could have moment by moment chosen. To not save us. He could have moment by moment chosen to let us receive the wrath we deserve. He could have moment by moment, lash by lash. Strike by strike. Hammer hit by hammer hit.

He could have moment by moment chosen to stop this. If he had just uttered the words he had at his disposal, more than 12,000 angels. He looks at Peter and he says, no, how else will it be fulfilled? How else will salvation come? How else will the rescue happen if I don't do this? And so Jesus isn't caught up in something that is beyond him.

And faces it bravely. Which we would honor a man if they did that. But Jesus isn't caught up in something beyond himself. He is caught up in something that is under his control at all times. But willingly, humbly, graciously submits himself to it for the sake of those whom he loves.

Don't miss that. Verse 55. At that hour, Jesus said to the crowds, Have you come out as against a robber with swords and clubs to capture me? Day after day I sat in the temple teaching. And you did not seize me. But all this has taken place that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.

Then all the disciples left him and fled. So the disciples now facing, we're not going to fight. This isn't going to be done in hot-blooded anger. This isn't going to be done with adrenaline pumping. What's coming now is going to be dealt out in a cold manner. What's coming now is going to be calculated.

What's coming now is going to be us humbly submitting to arrest. They flee. And Jesus says all this has been done to fulfill the scriptures. That this was God's ultimate plan. That one day Christ would come. That he would die for sin.

That he would die for sinners. That he would save a people for himself. This is something that God had intended all along. Verse 57. Then those who had seized Jesus led him to Caiaphas, the high priest.

Where the scribes and the elders had gathered. And Peter was following him at a distance as far as the courtyard of the high priest. And going inside he sat with the guards to see the inn. Now that's a bold move. Peter just cuts somebody's ear off. Runs.

Catches his breath. Starts sneaking back. To see what happens. Joins the crowd. It had to be a pretty big crowd. For him to just start walking with them.

And kind of keep up with them. It had to be a large group of people that had come out. And he goes. And then he sits with the guards. The guards of the high priest's headquarters. His area.

He sits outside of where the trial is going to take place. But it does seem like he would have been able to see all this taking place. But he sits and he just wants to see what's going to happen. Probably trying not to make a lot of eye contact. But make enough eye contact to not be suspicious.

If you've ever been on the run. You know what I'm talking about. That's what Peter's doing. Verse 59. Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus.

That they might put him to death. Okay. This is a sham trial. This isn't a real trial. They've arrested him so that they can find somebody to give just enough on him that they can kill it. They're looking for false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death.

I want you all to see that Jesus submits to, in order to undo, in order to redeem, he submits to wicked justice. Perverted justice. Perverted justice. Perverted justice. That he's caught up in this moment being small and having those who should be handling this well and honestly and appropriately. Those in power using their power for their own gain.

And Jesus steps into that so that he might undo that. Verse 60. That's a testimony to the righteousness of Christ. That even with liars they couldn't get anything to stick to him. That Jesus is sinless. By a human court would have been acquitted.

And we're told that by a heavenly court would be acquitted. That he has no sin. That he's a perfect spotless lamb. But they're trying to lie about him and they can't find anything. And then it says, and though many witnesses came forward, at last two came forward and said, this man said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days. Okay.

That's true. He did say that. We're told that he said that and that he was talking about the temple of his body. That he was saying that the temple was the place where God meets earth. And then he uses that term for himself saying that I am where God meets earth. I'm where humans are going to now be relating to God and connect to God and find sacrifice.

He refers to himself as the temple. And he says, this temple will be destroyed and I'll raise it in three days. But they, misunderstanding what he meant, are like, I'm pretty sure he's a terrorist. He said he's going to blow the temple up. He did say he would build it back in three days, which seems unlikely. But we know that he said he was going to destroy it.

That's the accusation. Verse 62. And the high priest stood up and said, have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you? See, one of the things that Jesus is doing here is he's not trying to defend himself. He knows how this is playing out.

He's not in the hands of the religious leaders. He's in the hands of God. The reality is Jesus is more in control of the situation than they are. So he's walking through this process. He's not there to defend himself. He's there to head to a cross.

The high priest stands up and yells at him. He says, if you know answer to make, what is it that these men testify against you? But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, I adjure you by the living God. Tell us if you are the Christ, the son of God. And Jesus said to him, you have said so.

That phrase seems a little cryptic to us. You have said so. But we have phrases like it. We have phrases like, yep, you guessed it. You called it. Bet.

Bingo. We got phrases like it. That's what he's saying. Nailed it. That's the phrase there. You have said so.

Is that kind of a phrase? He's not trying to just defer. He's saying, yeah, like you finally said an appropriate. We're now in the place that we need to be talking. You've called it. You have said so.

But I tell you, from now on, you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. I tell you that from now on, you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. He doesn't just say. You called it. He doubles down on it. He makes it more.

He quotes Daniel to the religious leaders. They're going to freak out. They understood exactly what he meant. But let's look at Daniel so that we can see this. Daniel chapter seven. This is what he's talking about.

The son of man seated at the right hand of power. He says, I'm not just the son of God. I'm the son of man. The one that you've read about in Daniel. I'm the fulfillment of this prophecy. Daniel 7, 13 says, I saw in the night visions and behold, with the clouds of heaven, there came one like a son of man.

And he came to the ancient of days. That's God. And was presented before him. And to him, the son of man, was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples and nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. He says, are you the Christ, the son of God?

And he says, oh, I'm the one presented to the ancient of days. I'm the one who's given dominion and glory and a kingdom. I'm the one that all peoples, nations and languages should serve. I'm the one who has a dominion that's an everlasting dominion. I'm the one that will not. My dominion will not pass away and my kingdom shall not be destroyed.

Oh, you finally. You finally found it. I am the Christ, the son of God, who has an everlasting dominion. I will be presented to the ancient of days. The next time you see me, I'll be riding on the clouds of heaven. Verse 65.

Then the high priest tore his robes and said, he has uttered blasphemy. What further witness do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy. What is your judgment? And they answered, he deserves death. The high priest tears his robes.

It's an aggressive response to this. The only place we see that is like WWE or something. This is not a muted response. Now, it's possible that this is a bit of a put on because they've heard Jesus say things like this before out in the open and they did not respond this way. But in this trial, this is what they've been waiting for.

This moment when Jesus says something, they can finally pin on him and he stands up and says, what else do you need? He's claimed to be the Christ. The problem with the high priest's question is that he allowed no room for Jesus to actually be the Christ. Jesus actually is the Christ. Caiaphas has since passed away and Caiaphas has since seen the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power. At this moment, they respond and they say he deserves death.

I want you to know that Jesus does go to his death and I want you to know that he is the Son of Man who is seated at the right hand of power. That the humility here, the grace here, the love here that is shown for sinners is beyond understanding. Then they spit in his face and struck him and some slapped him saying, prophesy to us, you Christ, who is it that struck you? They show him great dishonor. They slap him. Men slap other men, open hand slap other men when they feel that they are in complete power over them.

This is why I would be much more offended if you slapped me than if you punched me in the face. If you punched me, you're showing me some amount of respect. If you slap me, you don't think there's going to be any return fire from my side. It's very hurtful. They show him great disrespect. They spit on him.

They strike him. They slap him. We're told in the other gospels that they blindfold him. That's why they ask, prophesy to us. Who slapped you? They line him up.

They slap him. Jesus takes this. At any moment, he could stop this. But he submits to the will of the Father and he loves sinners. Verse 69. Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard.

And a servant girl came up to him and said, you also were with Jesus the Galilean. Well, that's a startling moment for Peter. He's sitting in the courtyard. He's paying attention to what's going on. He's heartbroken. He's probably trying to keep that together.

The servant girl walks by and says, hey, you're with Jesus. You're on his team. I don't know if you've ever been trying to hide something and someone pinpoints it. I don't know if you've been in class hoping the teacher wouldn't call on you because you had no clue what the answer was. And it's almost like they could see it in your eyes. So they called on you.

I don't know if you've been in the middle of a lie and someone asked the exact right question they needed to ask to make you have to lie perfectly in that moment. This would have felt like a lightning strike. But he denied it before them all saying, I don't know what you mean. I don't know what you're talking about. I'm like I'm one of the arrestor guys. And when he went out to the entrance, another servant girl saw him.

I'm assuming he waited an appropriate amount of time. Maybe he just started like, well, I was heading this way anyway. But he tries to move away from those people in that situation. He goes out to the entrance. He moves a little bit further out. He thinks maybe if this is going to keep happening, I need to be close to the exit.

Another servant girl saw him and she said to the bystanders, this man was with Jesus of Nazareth. Doesn't even talk to him this time. Just starts telling other people. And again, he denied it with an oath. I do not know the man. This time he promises.

I swear on the temple, I don't know him. He starts doing things that Jesus expressly said not to do. For the record, he lied last time. He's also not supposed to do that. But now he's lying with an oath.

After a little while, the bystanders came up and said to Peter, certainly you too are one of them for your accent betrays you. He sounds like he's from Galilee. Not like he's from Jerusalem. He's from Hicktown. He's like, dadgum, I don't know him at all. They were like, I live here all my life.

No. Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear. I do not know the man. And immediately the rooster crowed. So this time he calls a curse.

He swears. Last time it was an oath. This time it's may God strike me if I know him. I've never seen him before. Peter remembered the saying of Jesus. Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.

And he went out and wept bitterly. Peter had told Jesus, I'll go with you to the bitter end. I'll go with you to imprisonment and death. Jesus says, you're going to deny me this very night. And he says, even if everybody else falls away, even if everybody does, I won't. And Jesus says, this night you're going to deny me three times.

Before the rooster crows, you'll deny that you know me three times. Peter says, no, I won't. And Peter does. The rooster crows. And what Jesus had said was true. And it breaks him.

And there are moments where who we want to be and who we think we are and who we tell ourselves we are is crushed by who we are. There are moments where the rooster crows and we wake up to who we are. Not who we think we are. Not who we say we are. Not who we are willing to pretend we are. But who we actually are.

The decisions that we've actually made. And Peter got here quickly. He was doing fairly well. But when it came down to it and he suddenly had this moment where he'd have to profess Christ and face the consequences, he decides not to. And the truth is that some of us have done pretty well until we got into some tight spots. And then we quickly made several decisions that put us in a place where we suddenly realized we were someone we did not think we were.

We made some decisions pretty quickly and in some tight spots that suddenly told us that we weren't exactly as good as we were, as honest as we thought we were, as good of a husband, as good of a businessman, as good of a mom, as good of a friend, as good of a student. That what we had been telling ourselves about ourselves wasn't actually true. Peter goes out and he wept bitterly. Chapter 27. When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to the death. And they bound him and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate the governor.

We'll see more of this later. But the Sanhedrin decides that Jesus deserves death. They're not allowed to perform capital punishment. The Romans gave them some soldiers, let them have some of their own soldiers, let them have some Roman soldiers that they oversaw. But they weren't allowed to do capital punishment.

Every once in a while, mobs would come together and stone people. But it wasn't the Sanhedrin wasn't allowed to oversee that kind of stuff. And so they decide they want to put Jesus to death and the charge against him is blasphemy. But they've got to come together and talk because the Romans don't care about blasphemy. They do it all the time. They're not going to that's not going to work.

So they're going to have to have a discussion about what they're going to accuse him of. We'll see later. They what they accuse him of is sedition. Treason against the Roman Empire. But that's why they take counsel and they decide to deliver him over to Pilate.

Because they're. Let's figure out how to put him to death. Verse three. Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and he brought back the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. So Judas is going through a similar thing.

He's seeing the outcome of the decisions that he's made. When he sees that Jesus is condemned, he realizes this. I shouldn't have done this. He changes his mind. The phrase there in the Greek is short of repentance. But it does mean he changed his mind.

He decided this shouldn't have gone down this way. He shouldn't have done this. He changed his mind. He brought back the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders saying, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. And they said, what is that to us? See to it yourself.

And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed. And he went and hanged himself. I want you all to see for just a second the absolute failure of the chief priests and the elders. We've been seeing that Jesus has said this, that the temple is done, that they have failed, that this has not worked, that they have not responded the way they ought to. Judas comes to them and says, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood. But in the chief priests, priests, the ones who are supposed to stand between the people and God, the ones who are supposed to oversee the sacrificial system, say, what is that to us?

We have nothing to do with helping people get past sin. That's on you. What is that to us? See to it yourself. And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed and went and hanged himself. But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, it is not lawful to put them into the treasury since it is blood money.

So they took counsel and bought with them the potter's field as a burial place for strangers. Therefore, that field has been called the field of blood to this day. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying, and they took the 30 pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a piece, a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel. And they gave them for the potter's field as the Lord directed me. Some of that phrase also comes from Malachi. He just ascribes it to Jeremiah because he was the more well-known of the prophet.

They do that a couple of times where they're just saying this has been fulfilled and highlights the main prophet. But he's just showing that Jesus did come to fulfill scripture and that these events do fulfill scripture. So what do we do when we come face to face with our own son? What do we do when we fail to live up to who we think we are, who we want to be? If you're much past high school, you've already begun to do that. You've already begun to see that.

If you're in high school, in middle school, you're doing that, but you're not seeing it. Ask your parents. They might can help you out. But as you get older, you begin to realize that this isn't exactly working out how I thought it was. You begin to see your sin. You begin to see your failures.

You begin to have what you wanted to be and who you hoped you were and how you thought life was going to go. And that begins to fall short. And then we also begin to do things that we wish we could take back, that have consequences. And once you're past it, you're looking back going, how did I ever get there? How did I ever get here? How did I ever make these decisions?

How on earth could I have been a person who did that? What do we do? What do we do in our sin and shame when it clings to us? When it threatens to destroy us? Let's look first at the chief priests.

Verse 5, it says, In throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed and went and hanged himself. But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money. Y'all, this is insane. He says, I've betrayed innocent blood. He throws the coins back to them. They say, we don't have anything to do with that.

That's on you. He leaves. They go scoop the money up. And they go, we can't put this in the treasury because it's blood money. And we don't want to break the law. The religious law.

Y'all, they paid the blood money. Potentially out of that treasury. This is where Jesus told them, Y'all strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. You're worried about all these little fine points of the law, and you're just blind. They don't see their sin. They know it's blood money, but they don't see how that's on them.

Even though they're the ones who paid the blood money. And then they have the audacity to stand there and have a discussion about caring about applying the law. We've got to do this in a lawful way. Whenever you commit murder, you shouldn't murder on the Sabbath. And if someone pays you to murder, you need to tithe on the earnings. It's like, what?

What? This would be somebody who's saying, man, I know that divorce is wrong, so I'll kill my spouse. What? It's that level of insane. And for us to think that for one second, we're not capable of this. Like we haven't shown up to a community group and discussed minute little parts of the Scriptures and failed to acknowledge our sin.

Like we hadn't discussed what it would be like if I did actually, you know, maybe, you know, I think Christians need to repent. We need to understand that God... But we're not... Like we haven't highlighted the parts of our lives where we're obeying pretty well that I give money and I do this and I'm generous here and I'm generous with my time so I don't have to do that. Or I'm... I mean, yeah, okay, I may be falling into some sexual sin, but I'm showing up to my group more than I ever have.

We don't do this. One of the ways that we deal with our sin and our shame is absolute blind denial. God help us. This is one of the reasons why we want to be in community groups. This is one of the reasons why we show each other love by being in life with one another so that we can point out each other's blind spots. Not to make ourselves better, but to help us by God's grace see our sin so that we'll run from it.

But they don't see it. And they head to destruction. Let's look at Judas, verses 3, 4, and 5. It says, Then Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned and he changed his mind. And he brought back the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. And he's saying, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.

And they said, What is that to us? Let's look at this part first. See to it yourself. He sees what he did was wrong. He brings the money back. His hope is that he can talk to the chief priests and he can somehow maybe undo this.

His hope is that maybe he can somehow atone for this. And they give them, give him the response that religion gives you. And I don't mean religion in the general sense that Christianity is a religion. I mean the process by which humans do good things to make God love them. How we do what's right and don't do what's bad so that we might be on good terms with God. They give him the same answer.

What does your sin have to do with me? See to it yourself. That's the answer that religion gives you. That's on you. If you're good enough you'll be fine. But it's on you to go be good, to go do what's right, to go be moral, to handle your affairs well.

And that works if A, you're too blind to your sin or B, you see your sin but you minimize it to the point that you feel like you're probably not that bad. But that falls completely apart when you see your sin clearly. Because the idea that I'll be moral enough or I'll be good enough and that'll fix it falls apart because we can't fix it. Our good works cannot atone for our sin. Our good works, our good behaviors, our self-made righteousness cannot atone for our sin. It cannot handle our shame.

It's about as good as a spider web is at catching a rock. It can't do it. It falls apart. And you know this. Some of you are in this process right now. You've done some things that were terrible that you're ashamed to mention, that you feel shame creep up on you when you think about it.

You've made some choices that make you, if you really look at it, make you into a person that you don't want to be. And if you admit that that's who you are, it's crippling. So some of you are in the process right now of doing good religious behavior. As if somehow good religious behavior on this side will offset your wickedness on that side, but that's not how judgment works. This is the example I use. I've used it to try to help explain this to people at different jobs I've had, try to help walk them out.

But if you had a doctor who is an excellent doctor, like a real world doctor house, but nicer, and he was the reason why people's lives got saved. They were going to die. Nobody could figure it out. And this person would figure it out. And let's say he saves two lives a month, sometimes more, 50 lives a year, and then three, four times a year, three or four times, sneaks into someone's house and murders them. When he gets to court, he doesn't get to have a chalkboard and go, I've saved 50 lives this year, killed four people that y'all know about.

I'm a plus 46. I rest my case. He didn't get to do that. Because that's not how justice works. And some of y'all are figuring that out. I've been trying.

I've been trying to show up. I've been trying to do good. I've been trying to... And it's not fixing this. It's not fixing what's wrong with me. It's not fixing what I did.

It's not restoring what was broken. He gave the money back, but it didn't fix it. Some of you are figuring that out, and the truth is you're way, way, way further off than a plus 46. So he moves on to the next thing that happens. What happens when religion begins to fail us? Verse 5.

Throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself. What happens when we have to carry the weight of our sin and our guilt and our shame and we have no religious ability to cover it up is we begin to hate ourselves. We begin to destroy ourselves. Some of you walk around daily, mentally, undercutting everything you do. You're wicked. You're terrible.

You're evil. You're broken. In your group, when someone says they love you, you go, not if you knew the real me. You don't say that out loud, but that's what you say in your head. You end up destroying all the relationships you have. This can move on down the line to where you're destroying your body because you care so little about yourself because you know that you deserve destruction.

Even if on most days you're not willing to fully admit it in those terms, that's what you're doing. So you're destroying yourself through guilt, through shame, through pain. Some of you eventually move into cutting. But it's this, this I deserve punishment and the truth is you do. You're not wrong. Some of you look back at what you've done, the way you've used people, the way you've treated people, the way you've treated your spouse.

Some of you, if you would just look at how you treated the people you love most dearly and you still hurt them. Those are the people you're giving your best effort to. And your best effort is at times pathetic. And if you stare at that, it's crushing. And you feel like I don't deserve anything. I just deserve pain and destruction.

And Judas jumps to the end of that line very quickly. He goes out and hangs himself. And some people work themselves to that eventually in life, trying to bear the weight of their sin and shame. And others do it daily, slowly. For years and years and years. Punishing themselves for their guilt.

Trying to atone for their sin. Chapter 26, verse 75. Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times. And he went out and wept bitterly. Through the words of Jesus, Peter sees his sin. Through the words of Jesus, Peter sees his failure.

Peter weeps. He's broken over his sin. Y'all, the next time Peter shows up in the Gospel of Matthew, he's showing up to see Jesus, to listen to him and follow him after the resurrection. We see that Peter moves on into the church that he leads in the church. Peter saw his sin, saw his shame, saw his shame, and took it to Jesus. Peter saw his sin, saw his shame, was broken over it, and ran to the only one who could fix it.

You see, Judas and Peter saw the same thing, that they had failed, that they had shame. Judas knew of no way to fix it, and Peter knew Jesus. Judas proves that he doesn't know Jesus. As if Jesus wouldn't accept him, as Jesus wouldn't give him an opportunity, as Jesus wouldn't accept repentance. He just takes the weight of his sin and shame and is destroyed by it, and Peter runs to Jesus with it. And that's what 2 Corinthians 7.10 says.

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. We talk about repentance all the time, that we would see our sin, that we would repent, that we would turn from it. The truth is, we want to be grieved by our sin. I think so many people, though, who only understand the worldly approach to this, think that the church gathers so that we can feel bad about ourselves, and that by feeling bad about ourselves, we can go out into the world and be motivated by guilt so much that we'll be good people. No. And if that's what you're trying to do, welcome.

Let me explain this. It's so much better. The truth is, we do want to grieve. We do want to be called to repentance because we want salvation without regret. Somebody say, without regret. Now, the people who really need to say without regret, say without regret.

How on earth is that possible? Jesus Christ bears the sin of the world for all those who believe in Him. He takes your sin. He becomes your sin. He dies to your sin. We are buried with Him in baptism.

We are raised with Him in a new life. We are washed clean and we have no regrets. Why? Why can we have sin and no regret? Because we have a Savior that washed us clean and my sin only magnifies His glorious grace. my sin only works in me to produce praise. My sin only works in me to help me see, yes, how small and wicked I was.

Yes, how much of deserving of destruction I am. When the enemy comes along and he begins that, let me tell you, he's preaching the first half of a good sermon. When the enemy comes to you and says, you are wicked, you are a sinner, let me drag up behind what you have done in the past. Let me tell you what you've done. Let me tell you how you've hurt people. Let me tell you what you did in high school.

Let me remind you of your sin and your wickedness and your brokenness. Our response, if you belong to Jesus, is come on, get to the end. Get to the end. Tell me about Christ. Tell me about when He went to the cross. Tell me about how His blood was shed.

Tell me about how He died. Tell me about how He was in a tomb and everything seemed dark. Tell me about when life came back into Him. Tell me about how He saved me from my sin. Tell me about how I'm free. Tell me about how I have a salvation without regret.

That is what is for you in repentance. We want you to grieve. We want you to hate your sin so that you will repent so that you will find Christ. Worldly grief just feels bad and destroys you. Grief, when Jesus enters the picture, dies and rises again. We have a salvation without regret.

Thomas Watson says, till sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet. For some of us the first step is to hate our sin, to grieve over it, to have the rooster crow to stare face to face with our wickedness so that we can see how glorious Jesus is that He dies for sinners. The band's going to come back up. My prayer for you is that you will respond like Peter. The truth is you are responding to your guilt. You are responding to your shame.

Some of you are trying to cover it up. Some of you are trying to deny it. Some of you are trying to hide it. Some of you are trying to just muscle through. Some of you are destroying yourself slowly over time and feeling terrible about it as if somehow tearing yourself up, tearing your body up, tearing your mental state up, will atone for your wickedness. And the reality is Jesus atones for sin and Jesus alone.

Only He sets us free. Only He provides salvation without regret. Some of you are Christians. You've placed your faith in Jesus and you are still in the middle of your sin, not getting to the part of salvation, just grieving, just trying to atone for it by feeling bad. Stop. Do not rob the Lord Jesus of His glorious grace.

Praise Him that He saves wicked sinners like you. When you see your sin, turn from it and run to the one who saves. Some of you right now are trying to deny this. You're trying to hide from your sin. You're trying to cover it up through religious good works and the reality is religion says to you, what has this got to do with me? See to it yourself.

And Jesus says, I'll see to it myself because your sin has everything to do with me because I'm going to cover it for you. May we hope in Christ, in Christ alone. We're about to sing a song called Nothing But the Blood and I want that truth to sink into your head. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Nothing else will fix it.

No amount of good work, no amount of shame, no amount of feeling bad will fix this. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Let's pray. God, we thank you that you're good. Thank you that you save sinners and we pray that in the middle of our shame and our doubt that we would move from grief to repentance and from repentance to salvation without regret that we would walk in the freedom provided by the cross that we might proclaim the glorious grace of Jesus. Lord, may we repent of our religion that stands in the way of us loving you.

May we repent of all of our self-righteousness. May we repent of our wickedness in the places that we failed. Help us to see ourselves clearly so that we may love you fully. In Jesus' name, amen.

Atonement

Atonement

Chet Phillips

Transcript

Good morning. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. This morning we're going to be talking about sin. Happy Father's Day. We are, though.

We're in our second week of our Glory Series, and we're talking about how big and glorious and magnificent and beautiful and holy Jesus is. And last week we specifically spent some time looking at that He is the image of the invisible God, that He's the radiance of God's glory, and that He exists over and above all of creation, from the smallest thing to the greatest thing, and that He is most glorious and most worthy of worship. And today we're going to spend some time talking about the atonement. We're going to spend a little time talking about this concept of atonement whereby God takes sinful humans and develops a system, makes a plan to make them okay with Himself, to bridge the gap between His holiness and our sins.

So in a minute we're going to turn to Leviticus. I want us to start here, though, and we'll have this on the screen. It's Hebrews 1, verse 3, and in a second that's going to get brighter. We're having some issues with the projector today. So it says, He is the radiance of the glory of God.

It's talking about Jesus. That Jesus is the glory of the glory. He's the beauty of God's glory. He's the light and the heat from it. He's the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature. That if we want to know what God is like, we look to Jesus.

And He upholds the universe by the word of His power. So if you only think of Jesus as a Galilean peasant who holds sheep and cries and is just having conversations with the weak and the poor, He does these things. I don't know if He holds sheep. I'm just assuming maybe at some point He did. He does in all the pictures you see in Sunday school. But He does weep.

He does bend to those who are weak and poor and hungry and needy. And He does spend time. But if that's your only picture of Him, your picture of Jesus is underwhelming. It is petite. It's cute compared to the true magnificent Christ that we meet in Scripture who upholds the universe by the word of His power. Now I know that the Bible says that and I understand what the words mean, but I actually have no clue how that works.

But it means that Jesus rules and reigns over everything. And then it says this, After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. So what it's saying is that after Jesus Christ died for sin, that's what He did on the cross, that's what people know about Jesus. If you don't know much about Jesus, people will say, well, He died for our sins. People who don't even believe that will say that. What did Jesus do?

He died for our sins. So what we're going to talk about today is what does that mean? That Jesus Christ had to make purification for sin. First, we see from that three words, purification for sins, we see that sin exists and it needs to be cleaned up. It needs to be taken care of and that Jesus does that. That's what atonement is, is that there is sin.

Objectively, it exists. It has marred. It has destroyed. It has sullied. It has dirtied. And Jesus purifies.

So first, very simply, what is sin? In a simple definition, sin is the rejection of God's good reign in the world. It is our action, attitude, and nature that intentionally and unintentionally rebels against God and His moral law in the world. That God is the creator, that He oversees the universe, and that we rebel against His law, His rule, His reign, His system. That we break His laws. Paul says this in Romans.

He says that the Jewish people who were given the law of God will be judged based off of the law they were given. And then he says in the non-Jewish people, that their conscience actually bears witness and that they show through their actions that what the law requires is written on their hearts. That they actually have a conscience imprinted in them. And this is why many of the cultures that have grown up in society, they have very similar systems for what right is and what wrong is. That stealing is wrong. That murder is wrong.

There's this kind of internal policing of... This is why when you do some sort of an action, you feel it. You feel bad. You feel wrong. That's what he's saying, is that those who were given the law will be judged by the law. And those who weren't given the law, the non-Jewish peoples, show that it's written into them.

But it's not just a failure. Sin is not just a failure to live up to God's moral code. It's also primarily, it begins with a failure to relate to God properly, to appreciate who he is, to worship him, to love him, to bend to his reign, to submit to his rule. It's this... Paul says in the beginning of Romans that all of our sins starts with us loving something, worshiping something more than God. That once God leaves his rightful place, as the most...

That's what we spent time talking about last week, that Jesus is the most worthy of our devotion and our love. But once God gets moved and you put something else there, romance, finances, power, prestige, anything you get stuck up there suddenly begins to bend us. We begin to love it too much and it leads us into sin so that at first, sin is not just a breaking of rules, but it's at first worshiping and loving something other than God that leads to us rejecting his rules and running from him. Augustine says that sin is disordered love. Augustine's an African church leader in the early church. He says it's a disordered love that we love something too much.

We love ourselves too much. We love our families too much. We love something other than God. It's moved from its rightful place. And you can see this in simple things. So if you imagine a home where it's Father's Day, so we'll use this for an example.

You imagine a home where there's a father, a mother, some children and there's supposed to be an amount of love that goes towards this. The husband's supposed to love his wife and his children in a way that makes the rest of everything else fall into place. But if he begins to love work more, suddenly his love is greater for his job or greater for his title or if his love is greater for money or even just his own personal satisfaction and rest, suddenly everything gets out of order. And that's the system that we have in the world where we've begun to love things more than God and the whole system has begun to break down.

Paul says in Romans 3, he says, None is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless.

No one does good, not even one. The biblical stance on sin is that it is bad and you are a sinner. That's where we're starting this morning. I'm going to pray and we're going to jump into in just a second, and we're going to be going to talk about what sin actually does and how it's bad. But before we do that, we have to realize that naturally we don't want to think of ourselves as sinful.

You give yourself the benefit of the doubt. You judge other people by their actions, but you judge yourself by your intentions. It's one of the things like my wife will say, you know, you really hurt my feelings. And my response is, well, I didn't mean to. And I feel like that's a perfectly good response. That was not my intention.

And maybe that's helpful. I wasn't malicious, but I still caused harm. I still broke our relationship down. It's like, well, that wasn't what I was going for. And that's why people, you know, when someone, you tell somebody they did something wrong and they, well, I'm sorry that it offended you. And you immediately want to be like, time out.

That's not an apology. What you just like, like it's really looking at someone and going, well, I'm sorry that you're too sensitive to handle being around me. We don't want to think of ourselves as sinful, but we are. And we need God's help for us to see ourselves as he sees us and for us to see him as we ought. And so let's take just a second and pray for ourselves. Wherever you are, just ask God to help you see that this morning as we look into this.

God, I pray that you would give us a glimpse into our sin, into what it does to us and to others, as you'd help us to see your holiness and that we would leave here today with a true appreciation for what you've accomplished through the cross on our behalf. In Jesus' name, amen. I have three pictures, three reasons, three truths I want to talk about sin to help us see what it does and how the Bible talks about it. One of the ways the Bible talks about sin is that it pollutes or it defiles, that a whole land can be polluted, can be defiled by sin. So first thing is that our sin destroys God's good world.

Before we can get into talking about the system that God has for taking care of sin, we've got to understand a little bit more about sin. So our sin destroys God's good world. I had a friend of mine that was a, she was a student youth group leader and she was a good cook and one of her students is actually here today and I just ran into her and now I'm going to have to really make sure this story is told true and accurately because it's based off of how I remember her telling it to me. But she made brownies for her entire like student group and so she was a good cook. She made brownies. Everybody was just chowing down on these brownies while they were hanging out before they were going to kind of do their study time and then she kind of called everybody up and she starts teaching from the Bible and she says, okay, sin pollutes, it defiles, it creeps in and it works its way into everything and she says, and that's what sin does in us and some of us like to minimize and act like just a little bit of sin is okay and she goes, in order to help us see this, I have a confession.

As I was making those brownies, using my same recipe as normal, I just added one ingredient. I went out of my backyard where my dog lives and I got a small helping sample really, just a little bit of dog poop and I mixed it in with the brownies. Now immediately, they did not take it well. close to anarchy very quickly with people like hyperventilating and very frustrated and some of you are thinking, there's no way that anybody would ever do this. I will tell you that this certain lady has lived a life in such a way that this is plausible and she said, it was just a little bit, it was just a little bit, it was hardly any at all, really, it was just a tiny little bit and people are like, you made us eat poop brownies and she's like, no, they're not poop brownies, they're brownies with a little bit of poop.

It's completely different and so the question, when it comes to sin, when it comes to brownies, the vouchers will ask about brownies, what's the minimum acceptable amount of poop? What's the maximum acceptable amount maybe? What's the range here when it comes to your brownies and poop? And the answer is zero poop. None. None whatsoever.

I don't care if it was really a sprinkle. It's like, why would you add that to brownies? Absolutely not. And this is what God says that sin does, that it immediately defiles, that it works its way into everything because if you told me I have brownies that are 98% brownies and 2% poop, I would say those are poop brownies. Those are not, they are no longer edible. This is not a good brownie batter system recipe.

Throw it away. This is terrible. That's what God says sin does. That it works its way into the world that a little bit of it begins to destroy everything. I have another picture of this. One of our pastors became a pastor.

We ordained him in January of this year. He has a gluten allergy, celiac disease. It's kind of aggressive in the way he has. I know some of y'all have gluten issues. He's got significant gluten issues. And I don't know much about gluten.

I don't know the science behind it. From what I understand, it's the thing that makes all food taste good. And so like when I eat a biscuit, all the biscuits I've eaten over my lifetime are slowly working together to try to kill me. If he eats a biscuit, it goes immediately and tries to kill him. That one biscuit just right then tries to kill him. And so we were eating a meal.

He had some soup. I was there. Our other pastor, Matt Freeman, was there. And Matt Freeman, because no one ever really taught him basic social norms, does what he will do from time to time, which is while you're eating with him, he will just eat some of your food. And so Matt's sitting there talking to Raz. Raz is eating his soup and Matt takes a saltine cracker and just dips it in Raz's soup, scrapes some up, and just starts eating.

And Raz looks appalled as any normal human should. But then over and above was just staring at Matt like, what on earth? And I was like, what? I'm just like, I didn't even pick up on the gluten thing. I was just like, you ate his food, dude, stop. Like, but Raz goes, I can't eat my soup now because you defiled it with gluten.

It was like, it wasn't just breaking social norms. It was attempted murder. And sin does that. It enters in. This is what God tells us about sin and creation. It enters in and it begins to erode.

It begins to corrode. It begins to destroy everything. Let me give you an example. In real life, you'll have someone talking to you and they'll tell you something. They'll tell you a story about their life or something they did or they'll tell you some sort of an event and there's this moment in you where you go, mmm, nah. You just have this, I don't think that's true.

Or someone maybe comes and they start complimenting you and they start saying nice things and there's this moment in your soul where you go, mmm, this is starting to feel a little bit like you're trying to trick me. You have nothing really to base this off of in this conversation other than the fact that you know lies exist. You've been told lies before and you've told lies before. You've been manipulated before and you've manipulated before and so what happens is this relationship is already being torn apart by things that have happened in other situations. It's quite possible that that is the exact truth.

When people tell me things, my natural reaction is, no, okay, probably not. And maybe I'm way too pessimistic. People complain to me that I am. But it's because sin has worked its way into relationships before I even meet somebody. my child has never been abducted. But when we go to a playground, we are less free because other children that we do not know and have no relationship to whatsoever have been.

And that instance that had nothing to do with us where nothing was taken from me has worked its way into my life so that it is now breaking down how life should look for us. that's why we have to take our shoes off when we go to an airport. It's because sin in other areas has begun to work its way in and this is what sin does. You've been manipulated so you treat everyone like they may do that. It begins to work its way into the world. Our sin destroys God's good world. And the issue in the Bible is that how is God going to get rid of sin without getting rid of us?

Because it's in us. For lack of a better example we're all poop brownies. It's infected us and God has to get sin out without destroying us if he's going to keep us. Secondly in our sin we have joined God's enemy. The story of the Bible is that God has an enemy in Satan who is an angelic being who led a rebellion and that in the Garden of Eden he continued that rebellion as he recruited humanity to join his side and to actively reject God's good rule and reign. And when we sin it is not a benign action but it is the willful rebellion of God's creation against him.

And in our sin we have joined the enemy in the same way that someone who grows up in our nation can join ISIS carry out and carry out an attack claim allegiance to ISIS and ISIS will step in and say yes they were on our team. That is us in our sin when we reject God we join the cause of the enemy to sow dissension and pain in the world. And this happens through our selfishness this happens through our racism this happens through our lies that we tell this happens in every way possible that we choose to sin we actively join God's enemy. Thirdly God is eternal in size glory worth and majesty he is eternal in size glory worth and majesty so that read earlier that he rules the world holds it together by his word of his power and that he sat down at the right hand of majesty that God is infinitely glorious and that all of our sin is first and foremost against him.

This is what David says after he commits adultery and murder he begins praying to God by saying I've sinned only against you because that's who our sin is first and foremost against. So we know that our actions carry consequences of greater weight depending on the object that we carry out our actions against. It sounds complicated it's not. If I take a sheet of white paper ball it up and throw it away I should not have done that. I just wasted paper. But if you had just drawn a picture on it or my son had just brought it to me from Kid City with a little picture on it and I'd balled it up in front of him and threw it away that's worse because something went into it.

That's worse because something went into it. If I waited until you got done taking your SAT and then snuck over and grabbed your Scantron and tore that up and threw it away you should choke me you just wasted three hours of a Saturday working your hardest to guess what words meant if I tore up the Mona Lisa and threw it away now it's the object that our sin

Is against that makes the greater weight and so when we look at an eternal and glorious and holy and majestic God and actively sin against him and then say it's not that big a deal what we're really saying is you aren't that big you are not that glorious you are not that beautiful you need to calm down

See one of the major issues we have as humans is that we do not think our sin is that big of a deal and is because we do not think our God is that big of a deal we exist at his will we're here because he allows us to be and the truth is often as humans we dislike that God

Expects anything from us we find God to be an imposition that he would hold us accountable that he would care about our sin that he would eventually judge us seems unfair frustrating and as if he should really just leave us alone there's a quote from Jonathan Edwards who's a pastor in the 1700s in America I'm going to read this it says in this world

God puts forth his authority to command them them being humans the rest of the time he's talking about humanity and to require subjection to him meaning that God says he's in charge and humans should subject themselves to him in his commands he's very positive strictly requiring of them the performance of such and such duties and positively forbidding

Such and such things that are contrary to their duty all he's saying is that God says do this don't do this this is how you ought to relate to me but they have no regard for these commands God continues commanding and they continue rebelling they make nothing of God's authority God threatens but they despise his threatening

They make nothing of dishonoring God they care not how much their behavior is to the dishonor of God he offers them mercy if they will repent and return they despise his mercy as well as his wrath he calls but they refuse thus they are continually plunging themselves deeper and deeper in debt

And at the same time imagine they shall escape the payment of the debt and design entirely to rob God of his due but God has undertaken to right himself he will reckon with them he has undertaken to see that the debts due to him are paid all their sins are written

In his book not one of them is forgotten and everyone must be paid see God is the glorious eternal king and him requiring anything of me is an imposition it's an annoyance it's an annoyance maybe at best and at times it's ludicrous and it seems as if he's out of line so we as humans sin

And make a little of our sin and in so doing trample on the honor of God and make a little of him and act as if he should not care or hold us accountable one of the beautiful things about the state of South Carolina is that we live in an at will state meaning you work at the will of your employer I say this is

Beautiful because my dad runs companies he is an employer and this means this if he has an employee who shows up late talking on his cell phone listening to his headphones doing one in one a year and my dad tries to tell him hey you need to get to work you're late and he looks at my dad and goes

And goes right back to talking on his phone and then when he gets off my dad's like hey you can't show up late you start explaining to him the duties of his job and that person who's a 15 year old boy looks at him and says I don't understand why you're getting all up in my face you need to calm down my dad can look at him and say

There's the door and it brings joy to my soul when it happens and here's why if if a my dad as a boss keeps him there and does not try to corral that does not try to change that he makes the rest of our work environment terrible you ever worked in a place where the boss did not oversee his employees so that anyone

Who showed up late and did whatever they wanted to like who does that it tears everything apart and I would be watching and going who on earth are you to be a 15 year old and talking to someone who's older than you and your boss and of course he started this company he can do whatever he wants to with it but we will stand and look in the face of God and say it's a little bit ridiculous for you to care

About my sin and I think you've stepped out of line and if there is a God this is the type of God I will accept well there is a God and you have to accept the one you got who is glorious and holy and is just and will not let sin be unaccounted for because it destroys his good world

That he created out of his own goodness and his own love and his own joy that he invited us into and we exist at his will the reason you are still inhaling and exhaling oxygen is because he is allowing it C.S. Lewis in his essay God in the dock dock being where a guilty person would stand or the accused would stand

So we might would say God on the witness stand the ancient man approached God or even the gods as the accused person approaches his judge for the modern man the roles are quite reversed he is the judge God is in the dock God is on the witness stand he is quite a kindly judge if God should have a reasonable defense for being the God who permits war poverty

Disease he is ready to listen to it the trial may even end in God's acquittal but the important thing is that man is on that the man is on the bench and God is in the dock that we approach this glorious holy God as if he has some explaining to do he owes us nothing why are you allowed to swat a mosquito

That bites you why am I allowed to rid my backyard of fire ants who destroy my son's ability to play back there freely and how on earth do I think that the God that created me owes me something we have a problem God is just and sin must be punished and God doesn't owe us anything but I have really good news

The Bible also clearly and repeatedly says that God is loving and merciful and faithful and gracious in Exodus chapter 34 God shows up and he begins to declare who he is and what he's like and this is what he says he says the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him

There him as Moses and he proclaimed the name of the Lord the Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord the Lord a God merciful and gracious slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness keeping steadfast love for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin but who will

By no means clear the guilty visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation God says he will by no means clear the guilty let me explain to you something about a good judge a good judge does not let the guilty walk someone in your family had been harmed and you went to trial and the person

Stood up and said yes I'm guilty yes you have proof that I'm guilty but I just want to let you know I'm really sorry and it'll never happen again and the judge went good enough for me said they're sorry if someone stole your car they found it and they said you know what now that you found me with it I'm willing

To return it the judge said sounds good we have a system where it's like no you have to make restitution you stole something but it didn't just it wasn't just the car that went missing it's the action that you took and there has to be restitution a good judge does not let the guilty walk free and God declares himself a good judge God is just

When he defends his good creation against what is polluting and destroying it he is just when he executes vengeance on his sworn enemies and he is just when he defends his holiness and his majesty against those who trample on it with utter contempt for the God that created them but keeping steadfast love for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgression

And sin God doesn't have to do that but he chooses to and he comes go to Leviticus chapter 1 Leviticus is in the law it's going to be on page 40 something 46 47 47 if you have a white bible it's going to be early on if your bible some other brand different Numbers God comes

God comes to Israel and he says I'm going to make a way for this to happen I'm going to make a way for me to forgive sin because when you've sinned you've incurred debt that in God's economy there's actually debt that is incurred through sin he says I'm going to

Make a way for this to be paid for it says the Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting saying speak to the people of Israel and say to them when any one of you brings an offering to the Lord you shall bring your offering of livestock from the herd or from the flock if his offering is a burnt offering

From the herd he shall offer a male without blemish a burnt offering was the one that atoned for sin a male without blemish he shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting that he may be accepted before the Lord he shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement

For him this means that this animal is going to pay for his sin it's going to make him right with God and if you're unfamiliar with this I hope you have not gotten attached to this animal verse 5 then he shall kill the bull before the Lord and Aaron's sons the priests shall bring the blood and throw the blood against the sides of the altar that is at the entrance of the tent

Of meeting they would take the blood of the animals that they had sacrificed and they would splash it against objects and this was making purification that they would take the life out of another animal and they would use that life to atone for sin and to make purification and this was the sacrificial system that God set up now we don't really have a category for this

But God says you have a debt that has been incurred by your sin and in his justice and his mercy he makes a system where your debt can be paid now we don't understand that someone else could pay the penalty for something you did so that if I commit a crime my wife can't go to jail for me but we do have a system where if I owe a debt anyone can pay it that that makes restitution and God somewhere in the blending of this says that I'm going to

Set up a system because I am merciful he does not have to do this but because I am merciful and good I'm going to set up a system that allows you to pay for your sin to atone for your sin a few observations your sin deserves death the penalty for your sin was death and they had to redo this over and over and over again you'd have to walk out to your herd you'd have to find a male that was without blemish means it was worth something it was good it should keep breeding

It does not deserve to die you would have to then bring it with you walking with what was going to have to pay for your sin you'd bring it to the priest you would lay your hands on its head transferring your sin your action your decision your willful rebellion against God to this animal and then in front of you it would be killed and it would be a bloody mess and they would take some of the blood and they would sprinkle it to purify

For the sin that had caused the stains something had to die for you to go free but this is God in Exodus chapter 34 this is him accomplishing this because this this little phrase in Exodus doesn't make a whole lot of sense forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin but who will by no means clear the guilty so you're saying a whole second iniquity transgression and sin make you guilty

So how does he forgive that and not clear the guilty and this is where he does both he forgives it by giving you a way to not be guilty anymore by allowing you to transfer your guilt to something else allowing you to take your guilt place it on something that's why they would lay their hands on this animal place it on something and have it die for you every year this can be found in Leviticus 16 we're not going to spend any time there this morning but you can read through it

Every year they would have the day of atonement where they would do this for the entire nation they would get two goats they would bring them the high priest would lay his hands on one to lay all the sin of the nation on it and it would die for the sins of the nation and the high priest would lay his hands on another one to lay all the sins of the nation on it and it would be carried off to take the sin away

Because God's wrath had to be paid for and sin had to be taken away and then the high priest with the blood would purify everything in the temple that this was a ritual that they had to do day after day year after year because they kept piling up sin before God and they kept needing their debt to be paid now this is an actual debt I find that that when we're talking with people

About this sometimes they'll say well yeah well why couldn't God just forgive us why couldn't he just wipe it away this is his process that he made for it because let me explain to you if I come to your house this is how sin works with God if I come to your house and I break your television it's more likely that my two year old would do it but if I break your television we have a couple of options now

You can make me buy you a new television that I pay for the decision I made or you can say don't worry about it but if you tell me not to worry about it who's handling the television you are who's incurring the cost you are you're paying for the television you're either going to buy yourself a new one or you're going to pay for it day after day

After day after day of having to talk to the people who live in your house so you're going to buy yourself a new television but you're going to have to incur the cost and what God says is there's an actual debt that has been mounting against us that he's holding back the debt and it continues day after day to rise and to rise and to rise that there's a flood of sin

That we are piling up that he's counting that he's watching and he's either we have to pay for it but ultimately to forgive something someone has to pay for it and what we find in scripture is that God says I'll incur the cost of your debt God looks at us and says you don't have to worry about it

I'm going to pay for it and Jesus Christ comes as the atonement see he gave us this picture of animals having to die for our sin but they had to keep doing it year after year and day after day and every time you sinned you'd have to walk another animal and I would have to be very rich to handle all the sin

That I would have to kill goats for and they continually had to do this but eventually God says I'm going to fix this problem turn to Hebrews chapter 9 the book of Hebrews walks through and clearly connects a lot of the Old Testament to the fulfillment that's found in Christ will be on page 583 starting in verse 11

Hebrews chapter 9 verse 11 but when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come so this is when he says the high priest he's talking about the person who would have overseen the day of atonement who would have overseen the sacrificial system it says that Jesus steps in as the new high priest the one that's going to make atonement for the people

He appeared as a great high priest as a high priest of the good things that have come then through the greater and more perfect tent this is where the high priest would have gone to make atonement not made with hands that is not of this creation he's talking about his body he says he entered once and for all into the holy places this is the day of atonement this is the picture he's painting

That they would have gone into the holy places and made atonement for the people he's saying this is what Jesus did he entered once for all into the holy places not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by the means of his own blood thus securing an eternal redemption redemption for if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling

Of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for the purification of the flesh how much more will the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God what he's saying is that Jesus Christ was our perfect sacrifice he was the one without blemish

Without sin who willfully chose unlike a goat who has no choice Jesus Christ willfully was led to the slaughter to make atonement for the sins of others therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant meaning there's a new system now between God and humans so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal

Inheritance since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant Jesus Christ came humbled himself the creator of the world who holds the world together by the word of his power and who owes us nothing but yet we owe him everything not only our existence but also for our rebellion in that existence he comes to

Swap places with us to walk with us and to as a great high priest pay the penalty for our sin to be both the high priest and the sacrifice so that we may forever be at one with God forever be made right with him and forever have our sin taken away I have a few points of application that I think

Come out of this concept for us to consider this morning as we finish first I want us to see that in this God saves humanity he remains just because sin is dealt with the guilty do not go free either the sacrifice is accepted and your guilt has been taken away because

It was placed on Jesus or we are still in our sin that God remains just and he vindicates the glory of his name in this picture of atonement that we're given in scriptures we learn that we are guilty of sin and unable to make restitution we have a debt that we are unable to pay that every

Human will stand before God with a debt of a life lived in rebellion and be unable to pay secondly we learn that God in his love and mercy and grace through Christ provided an acceptable sacrifice this is why Jesus is called the Lamb of God that God in his mercy provided someone

To pay our debt thirdly you should hate your sin and you should hate the fact that you don't really hate your sin that if we look into this and see the weight of the burden of the guilt that we had before a holy and just God knowing that one day we would have to pay for it

And we should hate all the sin that had to be laid on Christ that he had to die for and we should hate the fact that we so often minimalize and do not hate our sin feel okay with it think God winks at it act as if his holiness does not matter if you have not trusted in Jesus

Christ as your atoning sacrifice you should do so now you should repent of your sin and look only to him as the acceptable satisfactory payment of your debt to God Jesus Christ has been put forward as your way to not

Pay for your sin and what I would encourage you to do is to walk to the cross just as you would have to walk and pick out a goat and walk to the high priest and lay your hands

On it knowing that this animal that is currently breathing and looking at you and has walked with you this whole time because it is a tame animal is about to breathe its last breath because of the actions

That you have taken and the choices you have made and lay your hands on it and know that your guilt has transferred from you to this animal and it will die for you I would encourage you to walk to Christ

And lay your hands on him and transfer your guilt to him and know that he'll breathe his last breath to pay for the guilt that you owe God so that you can be eternally redeemed if you have not placed your faith in

Christ you should do so now because God forgives transgression and iniquity and sin but he will not clear the guilty for those of you who have placed faith in Christ we should rest confident in the eternal redemption provided by

Him questions of have I done enough am I good enough betray the fact that we have begun to believe that somehow the guilt has shifted back to us or somehow believe that we have to atone for our sin something that we were

Never going to be able to do and we should rest fully confident and free in the fact that a death has set you free that you did deserve punishment but in Christ you will not receive it this is why Christians no longer practice

Animal sacrifices we have a sacrifice once for all that has eternally redeemed us the blood of the lamb has been shed we have been purified we will stand before God guiltless because he

Stood before God guilty we should tell everyone about our terrible state before God and the good news of hope offered through Christ if we believe this and see this and know this to be true the most loving thing you can do is for those who feel guilty help them know that there is a

God who pays for guilt and for those who do not feel guilty help them see how guilty they are and then let them know that there is a God who pays their guilt for those of us who stand here or sit here this morning and say we believe this

There is no other loving option for those around us other than to tell everyone we possibly can that there is a debt of sin and a savior that offers redemption lastly for those of us in Christ we should spend the

Rest of our days marveling and rejoicing at the sacrifice of Jesus that God would humble himself to redeem creatures like us that he owed nothing to but that he loved enough to rescue and to make his own to reclaim his willful enemies

Who have actively destroyed his good order and with an utter contempt for his rule he came for the purpose to bleed and to die and to sacrifice himself so that we could have life the band

Is going to come back up and as we begin today to leave here as Christians marveling at the grace of God that we do not have to pay for our sin that we incurred debt that he paid for that we

Can walk with Christ and walk away free and blameless the way we are going to immediately respond as Christians in the room is to take communion where we remember the sacrifice of Christ where we take take the cup

We take the bread and we remember that Jesus Christ was broken and bled for us so that we can go free that we get to walk pick up a goat we get to walk with guilt hanging over us to a high priest

And walk away free that we get to walk to the cross with guilt bearing down on us but because blood is shed and death reigns we get to walk away free but you see Jesus Christ

Is both goats from the day of atonement sin is laid on one and it is killed and sin is laid on one and it carries it away and Jesus Christ died on a cross and rose from the

Grave and we have an eternal redemption and an eternal inheritance and we get to celebrate today as we wonder and marvel at the graciousness of a loving God who would die in our

Place we get to take communion remembering that we owe a debt to God that we could never pay but that Jesus Christ has and if you are not a Christian you should place your faith in Christ you should

Become a Christian and you should go take communion for the first time as a Christian who knows the weight of what you're doing that Jesus has redeemed you from your sin and that you can be forever free let's

Pray God we thank you that you made atonement for us that you purified us that we no longer stand under our guilt because we are in Christ thank you that you figured out a way to rid us of sin

To atone for our guilt without destroying us but that you were willing to be destroyed for us as an eternal sacrifice who reigns supreme seated in the right hand of majesty forever giving your life to those

Who place their faith you thank you in Jesus name amen