The transaction of the Cross

Intro:

So over the past couple of weeks we have been a Journey to discover what Holiness is out of the Bible.

If your just joining us for the first time in this series you couldn't have picked a better spot to jump right in...t

There is this story that I love about a guy named John Wesley.

John Wesley is the founder of Methodism in England…and now There are a number of groups that trace their lineage back to John Wesley

To name a few: The Methodist Church, The Nazarenes, The Salvation Army, The Wesleyan Church, Churches of God in Christ, The Church of God…And I can go on and on...

This guy John Wesley had a profound effect on our world

In 1735 John Wesley is an Anglican priest…church of England…Oxford Educated, ordained priest…

Decided to go on a mission to Georgia, here in the United States…only at that time it was the colonies...

Wesley is a young priest and he comes here and pretty immediately begins to like a girl and proposes marriage to her…

Well She didn't feel the same way and later announced that she was engaged to another man…

Wesley was pretty upset about this and felt betrayed and he refused her communion

Well this young lady made a big stink about it and a judge put a warrant out for John Wesley’s arrest for refusing this woman communion…Times were different then

So Wesley flees Georgia, catches a boat and goes back to England in disgrace...

Well on this boat there was a storm that threatened to sink the ship and Wesley thinks, Oh my goodness we are all going to die

when just at that time he hears a group sining hymns, with Joy

And John is thinking…What is happening here that these people are joyful don’t they know we are going to die...

And in the midst of running away from his past and being faced with death he encounters this little group of believers who call themselves Moravians

He encountered a faith that was foreign to him

He actually encountered a righteousness that he didn't have

And here is is…Ordained…Over Educated…He is a priest and he is looking at this gathering of ordinary believers and he is saying, I wish that I had what they have...

Well John gets home and he is telling his friend and Mentor Peter Bohler about what happened on the boat…And he is saying, I wish I had that kind of faith...

And this guy Peter Bohler tells Wesley something that was really impotrant in his story...

He says, “Preach faith till you have it”

So Wesley does…He begins preaching about this faith that he doesn't have yet

And I don’t think that is disingenuous or non authentic

I think in many ways when you have to preach on something then you have to seek after it...

So John Wesley did that until one day

May 24th 1738

John went to a public reading of Martin Luther’s introduction to the book of Romans

So when John was sitting there listening to Martin Luther describe faith in God this is what Wesley recorded that happened...

"while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death."

What I always find remarkable about this story is that John Wesley was an Oxford Educated Ordained priest who had not only been pastoring a church but was a significant leader in the church and had even done an overseas missions trip

But it wasn’t until this moment that he had this “Strangely Warmed”

But what he experienced through faith was an alien righteousness…One that he had only seen in these Moravian people on the ship that was in a bad storm a few years earlier

And what we have to understand is that the stuff that God gives to his people, Faith & Righteousness, Hope, Peace....It is not of human origin...

So today I want to ask the question…What does an alien righteousness look like? Where does it come from? And what do I mean when I say...An Alien Righteousness

So first lets look at this verse:

Our version of righteousness is not God’s version of righteousness

This is the first thing to understand...

This is what Wesley understood when he stood on that boat in the storm and saw the Moravians singing

He realized that He didn't have the faith they had…He was running from the law…They had a different kind of righteousness than he had

This is what Isaiah realized and wrote about:

Isaiah 64:6 NIV

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

So Righteousness in the Bible, when it is talked about as God’s, refers to God’s governance over everything, his rule and reign over the world The writer of this Isaiah knows that trying our very best…God’s righteousness is his Holiness

So When Isaiah says…All of our righteous acts are like filthy rags…He is saying compared to God…Our very best that we can come up with our very best behavior…our very best heart, our very best motivations

might as well just be these filthy rags compared to God...

So this is what we bring to the table...

I don’t care how good of a person you are of if you do something really noble for a living

It doesn't matter if you rescue homeless cats and then hand feed them and nurse them back to health

I don’t care if you always donate at Christmas to the salvation army

Human righteous will never come close to what God is capable of...

Also in Isaiah we get some idea that even God’s ways…and his thoughts are different from ours

Isaiah 55:8–9 NIV

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

This is as true now as it was 2,700 years ago when it was written

In fact I have said this before and I will continue to say it again today.

I think this verse hi-lights one of the most prolific sins of people of God today.

Our society has shaped us into believing that if you have an opinion then you must be right just by virtue of the fact that you have that opinion

When your a christian for a while and you have some biblical training under your belt then you sort of effortlessly begin to speak for God...

And before you know it…God’s ways are your ways

And your right all the time....Because you reshaped God in your image

This is a sin that flys under the radar we don’t even notice…WE JUST ASSUME ALL OR WAYS ARE RIGHT...

I often wonder how the world would be a different place if we just understood and took to heart this verse: My thoughts are not your thoughts…My ways are not your ways...

To realize that our own opinions and ideas are often human righteousness…and sometimes it is cloaked in some very religious talk, but its not God’s ways

Paul in the new Testament sums it all up by saying this

Romans 3:23 NIV

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Sin is the problem of all humanity since Adam...

Adam and Eve rebelled against God and since that rebellion this has been the condition of all of humanity.

And this is really easy to see because not only do we see it in human history

With People like Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini…and thousands more

But we get this sense that this sin is alive in ourselves.

I mean how often do you see, greed, lust, anger hate get stirred up in your own life?

From the madmen of the world to us

Paul will later write in Romans that this entire problem of sin started with Adam

Romans 5:12 NIV

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—

See in the gospel we come to an understanding that God undertakes a radical and universe shaking solution.

Since the entire human race is incapable of solving the problem of sin…and redeeming everyone…The only solution is if God himself becomes a man…

So God is born into humanity and Jesus is the new Adam

Satan tries as much as he can to get Jesus to rebel…Jesus spends 40 days in the dessert fasting and being tempted by Satan but Jesus wont give in, he wont rebel

So Jesus is looked at as this new Adam figure...

1 Corinthians 15:22 NIV

For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

See if a human is the one who messed this all up, then we need a human to fix it

But not just any Human, the kind of human who is fully united with God as well...

The kind of human that can stand up against the trials of this world

The kind of human who can pass the test...

The kind of human who lives with a different level of righteousness than we have

So what does this alien Righteousness look like?

Jesus preaches:

Matthew 5:48 NIV

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

After an entire section of preaching about loving your enemies and caring for others he says literally God is perfect so you be perfect

Now this is such a radical statement from the Son of God that I am afraid that we immediately dismiss it as not available for us to achieve so we just go yeah Jesus said that, but we throw it out because it sounds hard

But the reality is that:

But this wasn't Hyperbole

It wasn't figurative language

The Word for perfect is “Teleios”

English messes us up a bit when we read the Bible because we read the word of Jesus and we think of the dictionary definition of perfect: We think when Jesus said “perfect” he means without any blemish and never making the wrong step in life...

Well in that case…I keep messing this one up...

But probably the better understanding of this word is “complete or mature”

Bible Scholar Morris Leon says, “Let there be no limit to your desire for goodness and doing good...”

In other-words to follow Jesus here means to not limit goodness

Matthew 2. Paradigmatic Preaching: The Sermon on the Mount (5:1–7:29)

J. Walvoord rightly observes, “While sinless perfection is impossible, godliness, in its biblical concept, is attainable.”

Jesus is not trying to frustrate us by giving us something that is unachievable…

Jesus is challenging his listeners to not stay where they are at in their walks with God but to always grow in obedience to God’s will...

Just hearing that Phrase: Be perfect as I am perfect..its frustrating right....Its frustrating because we know that our own righteousness is filthy rags…we know that God’s ways are not our ways

Next: Jesus Interacts with a woman who is caught in adultery...

And the story there is a long one and it deserves a whole sermon...

But the end of the story…Jesus says “let those without sin cast the first stone”

And I love this story because the only one there without sin was Jesus and he didn't even throw a stone

But then Jesus has this interaction with the woman

John 8:10–11 NIV

Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

So Jesus looks at this sinful woman and says…listen I don’t condemn you…Go and leave your life of sin

Again

This is not figurative language

This is not Jesus speaking in Hyperbole or in the abstract

I mean just from these two examples and there are more.....

It becomes clear that God has a level of righteousness that we simply do not possess

But Jesus doesn’t call us to impossible things

The point that I am trying to make thus far is that we are sinful People but Jesus in his preaching and his life is saying..>Another world is possible...

A world where you are not defined by your past sin

A world where you don’t let past sin dictate future behavior

A world in which you can step into a new kind of righteousness!

Indeed, a world where we embody the righteousness of God

The Cross as a transaction of Holiness

Jesus on the cross absorbed our sins

If you want to see a picture of what it looks like for Jesus to absorb sin then here you go

Matthew 27:38–44 (NIV)

Two rebels were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!” In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’ ” In the same way the rebels who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him.

Do you see what happens here? I love this verse because it says that these people hurled insults on him

It will become a picture of what the cross is all about

The cross is a picture of us hurling our sin onto Jesus

In the same way those passing by Jesus hurled their insults on him

This is exactly why Jesus came to die...

He is absorbing the sin of the world at this moment

Thousands of years before Jesus would die…There is this festival that the Jews would follow called Yom Kippur…And they had a goat called the scapegoat and the priest would literally stand there and confess all of the sin of Israel on to this goat....For like a whole day...

And the priest would transfer sin onto that goat…and then they would take the goat out and kill it…This is how they would remove their sin year after year

But Jesus on the cross does this once and for all

For the guards

Jesus on the Cross forgives our sin

So not only does Jesus absorb the sin of our lives, he has the capacity and the ability to forgive our sin as well

Luke 23:32–34 NIV

Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

Luke 23:39–43 NIV

One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

The cross is a picture of Jesus interceding on behalf of humanity

Saying father forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing

Taking this man who was a criminal…a man with just hours left to live and forgiving his sins and welcoming him into life wit him in Heaven.

Jesus on the cross clothes us with His righteousness

So the cross doesn’t just remove sin but there is a transaction that happens…Jesus takes our sin and replaces it with his righteousness

This is what John Wesley was missing on the boat when in the middle of a storm he was freaking out and all those moravian people were singing

See this last point is key to understanding Holiness

So many times I see people in the church look at the cross and say, Ok, Jesus absorbed my sin, and then he forgives it

And then the transaction that they imagine is that every time they mess up they come back before Jesus on the cross and ask for forgiveness

But you see!

IF THATS YOU: YOU’RE asking for the wrong thing!

You dont need another dollop of forgivenss

You need the righteousness of Jesus christ to dwell powerfully in your body

let’s look at these verses

John 19:23–24 NIV

When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. “Let’s not tear it,” they said to one another. “Let’s decide by lot who will get it.” This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled that said, “They divided my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.” So this is what the soldiers did.

What these soldiers probably could have never realized is that they were living in a word picture!

That these sinful soldiers needed the clothes of Jesus because even though they are crucifying God

He can clothe them with righteousness

What is the first act God did in the garden with a sinful humanity?

He made garments of an animal and he clothed humanity

What is Jesus doing on the cross? He is clothing humanity with his righteousnes

2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Romans 3:24 NIV

and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

The Alien righteousness of God is a gift from the cross that you have to accept!

Maybe your here today and God is strangly warming your heart

Holiness is something you have to chose

This is one of the great transactions of the cross

Not that he just forgives our sins but he literally trades

He takes our sin and we take his righteousness

See this is what is looks like to live a holy life...

By the power of the holy spirit, we don’t just come to the cross defeated and say ok God I sinned again...

But that we freely confess our sin and that we beg God to pour out his righteousness on us

That we stand before a Holy God and say make me new oh God

Holiness: you have to choose it

The righteousness of Jesus is available to you today, but you have to choose it

Its a free gift to you, but you have to accept the gift

Jesus isn't going to sit you down and force feed you his righteousness

You have to seek it

you have to ask for it

You have to beg God for it

So maybe your here today and your ready...

You are at a moment in your life where you are saying…yeah…My own righteousness is junk, I need Jesus’ righteousness

We are going to take communion

Communion: Eating from the Tree of Life

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