Becoming a Curse For Us
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ME: Intro (9/11, Morning Grace, Richest People in USA)
ME: Intro (9/11, Morning Grace, Richest People in USA)
Who here is familiar with the Forbes 400?
It is an annual list described as the definitive ranking of the 400 wealthiest Americans.
It was started by Malcolm Forbes in 1982,
2020’s list said the 400 individuals who make up the list are worth $3.2 trillion.
Number 400 on the list is worth $2.1 billion.
Most recent newcomer to the 2020 list is not surprising, Eric Yuan,
The founder and CEO of Zoom video conferencing.
The pandemic turned out to be quite financially advantageous for this man.
But the other big names on the list are Jeff Bezos,
Founder and CEO of Amazon,
Bill Gates,
Founder and CEO of Microsoft,
And Oprah Winfrey.
These names represent an observable shift that has occurred over the 40ish years of the Forbes 400.
The first 20ish years,
In the 80s and 90s,
The people near the top of the list inherited their wealth.
Since the 2000s, the richest of the rich were the self-made billionaires.
To use a common phrase,
We now see new money sitting atop the list instead of old money.
And this change represents the way we Americans now perceive ourselves.
Hyper-individualistic and self-made.
Picking ourselves up by our bootstraps and making something of ourselves through our own strength and the sweat of our backs.
Friends, I hope this morning we can see through this facade,
And recognize the dangerous myth of being self-made.
You may be naturally intelligent, for example,
But you still get a degree to even get a chance to get your foot in the door.
Or perhaps you are a natural beauty,
Yet you still do things to enhance that beauty.
Or maybe you have a natural talent,
But you still look to teachers or coaches to hone that talent.
Or perhaps, you are just like most of us,
And you were not born with exceptional talent, beauty, or intelligence.
So, you work hard, build connections, and learn skills.
You do what you need to try and gain an advantage in this life.
You see, contrary to this myth of being self-made,
We all must rely on something outside of ourselves.
So, the question is not about whether or not we are relying on something outside ourselves,
Rather, is that which we are relying on sufficient?
And this is where Christ has something to say to us.
Sure, talent, good looks, intelligence, hard-work, and money may help us in this world.
But are any of these things sufficient enough to help us with God?
God is not impressed by our brains, our brawn, or our beauty.
He is the One who gives us these things as gifts out of the abundance of His own brains, brawn, and beauty.
So, if we are not going to impress Him with these things,
Most of us think then, we must impress Him with our behavior.
Is that what you are relying on to impress God?
Your good deeds?
Your religious acts?
This sense that you are a nice person,
At least better than other people you know?
This idea that we need to impress God with our behavior is a real problem in Christianity.
But the other extreme is a real problem too.
This idea that God should not care what I do.
If God cannot accept me for who I truly am then He is not really a loving God.
The Bible teaches that the truth is in the middle of these two extreme myths.
God is angry at our sin,
And Jesus died to appease God’s anger and accept us into His presence.
For those who do not trust in Christ,
This makes the cross seem like a great tragedy.
A good, innocent man, should not be killed in such a way.
The real tragedy comes when people who claim to trust in Christ get uncomfortable with the substitutionary atonement of the cross.
In an effort to soften the blow to those who do not trust in Christ,
The cross is presented as a display of God’s love alone,
Rather than a display of God’s judgment against sin,
And God’s grace by pouring it out on Jesus.
Subtly, the cross starts to represent Jesus sharing the human experience of suffering,
Rather than the intentional satisfaction of God’s wrath against our sin.
Which brings us back to the question asked earlier,
What can I rely on to help me with God?
You see, if Jesus only went to the cross to share in the experience of human suffering,
Then Jesus’ death on the cross would either have to be the consequence of His own sin,
Or an unjust death that served no purpose.
I say that it would have served no purpose because we are under a curse from our sin.
And we need a means to escape this curse.
A sympathetic display of love is not sufficient to escape the curse.
It requires the consequences of the curse being satisfied.
Which brings us to our passage this morning.
Galatians 3:10-14,
Which explains that we escape this curse by Jesus Becoming a Curse For Us.
The past two weeks we did a short series focused on biblical worship.
These two weeks are the foundation upon which we are seeking to build our corporate worship,
And each of us individually must seek to build our personal worship of God.
So, even though the curtain was opened,
And we had more instruments,
And the platform is back,
Do not forget what the visual changes sought to communicate.
That biblical worship is about God,
To worship God is to love Him and exalt Him with all our heart, head, hands, and character.
Looking ahead to where we plan on going,
Lord willing next week we will be in 1 Peter 2:21-25,
Then we will conclude our It Is Well series the following week in 1 Peter 3:18.
After the It Is Well series,
We plan on rolling right into a series titled Naturally Supernatural,
This series will take us through the book of 2 Peter,
Where we see impactful teaching on living a supernatural Christian life in this world.
So, for this morning,
If you have not already turned in your Bibles to Galatians 3,
Please do that now.
If you do not have a Bible,
We do have free Bibles on the back wall,
Please take one home with you if you do not have your own.
The author of our passage this morning is once again the Apostle Paul.
And in this letter he is very concerned about what Christians are relying on to help us with God.
Historically, the Christians he is writing to in Galatia are a part of a church that Paul founded.
But since his last visit,
False teachers who claimed to be Jewish Christians, just like Paul,
Had come into the church.
They were teaching the Galatians that in order to be right with God,
You first need Jesus,
Then you needed to rely on the law.
This heresy was a great concern for Paul,
Making the primary purpose of this letter to correct this false teaching.
So, in the opening chapter, he establishes his apostolic authority,
And how this authority is connected to the gospel he preaches,
Not the person himself.
Giving an example of how even the Apostle Peter needed to be corrected when he misrepresented the Gospel.
So, Paul teaches about the Gospel using the OT father, Abraham,
Knowing his audience is being heavily influenced by the OT.
His argument is summarized in Gal. 2:16;
yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
The Galatians were desperately trying to justify themselves by their works of the law.
So, in our passage this morning,
Paul says to rely on anything other than Christ alone is to be under a curse.
Relying on Christ alone is the only way to be delivered from the curse.
And Christ accomplished this deliverance on the cross.
So, the four points we see in our passage this morning are;
The Curse (vs. 10)
The Life (vs. 11)
The Principles (vs. 12)
The Contrast (vs. 13-14)
WE: The Curse (vs. 10)
WE: The Curse (vs. 10)
Our pass begins with The Curse in Gal. 3:10;
For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”
Paul’s point here is that none of us can keep the entire law.
It is impossible!
If we rely on our works of the law,
Then it brings a curse upon us.
We are controlled by this curse.
A curse is a word meant to bring about a negative result.
In this case,
The curse is an action from God that punishes.
The earliest example in the Bible is when God cursed the serpent in Gen. 3:14 for deceiving Adam and Eve.
One chapter later, God cursed Cain because the blood of his brother, Abel,
Whom he murdered, cried out to God.
But the example we are looking at here comes from an OT reference that was a prophetic curse.
Paul uses the OT reference of Deut. 27:26 to reinforce his opening point in vs. 10.
Deut. 27:26 says we are cursed if we do not do everything,
EVERYTHING,
Written in the law.
This verse is the last verse in ch. 27 of Deuteronomy.
Immediately after,
Deuteronomy 28 lists out a multitude of curses for disobedience to the law.
Which I am going to do my best to summarize.
God says, curses in the city,
Curses in the field.
Curses in your basket and kneading bowl.
Curses as the fruit of the womb and fruit of the ground.
Cursed when you come in and when you go out.
The Lord will send confusion and frustration in all you undertake until you are destroyed,
And perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds because you have forsaken the Lord.
The Lord will make pestilence stick to you until He has consumed you.
The Lord will strike you with wasting disease,
With fever, inflammation, fiery heat,
With drought, with blight, and mildew.
From heaven dust will come down on you until you are destroyed.
The Lord will curse you to be defeated before your enemies.
You will become a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.
Your dead body will become food for birds of the air,
And beasts of the earth.
The Lord will strike you with boils, and tumors, and scabs, and an itch,
Of which you cannot be healed.
The Lord will curse you with madness, blindness, and confusion.
You will not prosper in your ways,
You shall be oppressed and robbed continually with no one to help you.
You will build a house you will not live in.
The Lord will strike you on the knees and legs with grievous boils of which you cannot be healed,
From the sole of your foot to the top of your head.
You shall become a horror, a proverb, a byword among all the people.
All the curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed,
Because you did not obey the Lord,
Because you did not keep His commandments and statutes.
Because you did not serve the Lord with a joyful and glad heart.
You will be cursed to serve your enemies whom the Lord sends against you.
You will be cursed with hunger and thirst,
With nakedness, lacking everything.
The Lord will put a yoke of iron around your neck until He has destroyed you.
If you are not careful to do all the words of the law,
To hear the glorious and awesome name of the Lord,
Then the Lord will bring on you and your offspring,
Extraordinary afflictions that are sever and lasting,
Grievous sickness, and all the diseases that were brought upon Egypt,
Of which you fear.
Every sickness,
Every affliction will be brought upon you until you are destroyed.
Just as the Lord delights in doing you good,
He will delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you.
You shall be plucked off the land.
The Lord will scatter you to nations where you will find not respite,
No resting place.
The Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a languishing soul.
Your life will hang in doubt before you.
Night and day, you will be in dread with no assurance of your life.
In the morning you will wish it was evening,
In the evening you will wish it was morning,
Because of the dread you feel in your heart,
And the sights you see with your eyes.
This is a partial summary of the curses listed in Deut. 28 for failing to fully obey the law.
And here is what is important we all realize,
We all have failed to obey the law.
We all have sinned.
John Piper gives a great summary of Romans 1-7 where he zeroes in on what sin is;
He says,
“What makes sin is not first that it hurts people, but that it blasphemes God. This is the ultimate evil and this is the ultimate outrage of the universe. The glory of God is not honored. The holiness of God is not reverenced. The greatness of God is not admired. The power of God is not praised. The truth of God is not sought. The wisdom of God is not esteemed. The beauty of God is not treasured. The goodness of God is not savored. The faithfulness of God is not trusted. The promises of God are not relied upon. The commandments of God are not obeyed. The justice of God is not respected. The wrath of God is not feared. The grace of God is not cherished. The presence of God is not prized. The person of God is not loved. That is sin.”
Pastor Andy Davis adds;
“The infinite all-glorious Creator of the universe, by whom and for whom all things exist, the one about whom it is said, in Him we live and move and have our being, is disregarded, disbelieved, disobeyed and dishonored by everybody in the world apart from Christ. That is the ultimate outrage of the universe. And God is outraged by it. Why? Because God is perfectly holy. He is perfectly holy. It’s the most important attribute in the Bible…God is infinitely above all creation. He is the Creator and we all are creature. And there’s an infinite gap between Creator and creature. That’s the holiness.”
And that is our God.
Then there is us,
Sinful people.
The Bible says that none of us our righteous,
Not even one.
Our passage this morning presents the wrath of a holy God against our sin in curse language.
The curse has to do with God’s wrath against our sin.
It means God is actively against us.
He is against the sin we our doing in our lives,
We are under a curse,
Because we do not always obey everything in the law.
In response, Psalm 7:11 say;
God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day.
This daily indignation is a warning of an eternal future wrath.
2 Peter 3:10 says;
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
This is the coming wrath of God.
Also on that day,
Matthew 25:41 says about the Son of Man;
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
Those on His left are those who do not trust in Jesus Christ.
And here again Jesus calls them cursed.
GOD: The Life (vs. 11)
GOD: The Life (vs. 11)
After Paul points to the curse of failing to obey the law,
Paul points to The Life in Gal. 3:11;
Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.”
In light of the depth of the law,
Paul says it is obvious that none of us can be justified before God by obeying the law in its entirety.
Quoting Hab. 2:4 as an addition to Abraham’s example of being declared righteous by faith.
This is why we need God’s grace.
Tragically, the world sets the grace of God aside.
It does this by denying the wrath of God.
You see, most people just don’t even think about God or His wrath.
Effectively denying He exists,
And denying that His wrath is coming.
To a certain degree,
It is understandable that an unbeliever would deny the wrath of God.
But what I find shocking is people who claim to be Christian who deny the wrath of God.
Who find the thought of God’s wrath shameful,
Or do not think it is right for God to have any wrath at all.
They think God is anger-free.
Later, we will close our service by singing part of the hymn, In Christ Alone.
I’d like to highlight the third verse;
“In Christ alone, Who took on flesh, fullness of God in helpless babe. This gift of love and righteousness, scorned by the ones he came to save. Till on that cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied. For every sin on Him was laid, here in the death of Christ I live.”
Regarding this verse,
The Anglican priest, Bosco Peters said,
“The understanding is that God the Father was angry at us in our sinfulness and that God took out His rage on Christ instead of on us and this now enables God the Father to love us. This understanding is heresy. God doesn’t have anger management issues.”
Peters is correct that God does not have anger management issues.
Scripture repeatedly gives evidence that God is slow to anger,
But it is also clear that in His holiness,
There is a time coming when His full wrath will be poured out.
It has not yet been poured out because He is in complete control of His anger.
But God is not ashamed of His wrath,
He has warned us about it,
And instead of justly consuming us in His wrath,
He offers grace.
We need His grace!
We are in great trouble if we nullify God’s grace,
By denying God’s wrath.
And God’s grace comes only through the cross of Christ.
As Paul said earlier in Gal. 2:21;
I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
This leads us to ask another question then,
Why did God give the law if it was not so that we could keep it to earn His approval and be made right?
Paul explains this later in Gal. 3:21-24;
Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.
The point of the law is not that we would sand the edges to crowbar it into something we might be able to keep.
No, the point of the law is to teach us that we could never keep the law,
So, that in response, it would drive us to faith in Christ.
The point of the law is, in essence,
To drive us to despair trying to be self-made.
So, that we would look outside of ourselves to find God through Christ.
Our problem is that law-keeping exalts us and our glory,
While faith in Christ exalts God and brings Him glory.
Because we are trusting in God and His promises,
Not in our own efforts.
So, what are God’s promises?
He promised that all who trust in Christ will not die but have everlasting life.
All who confess with their mouth and believe in their heart that Jesus is Lord will be saved from the curse.
Whoever comes to Christ will never be turned away.
These promises sound too good to be true!
Friends, if we were making them up,
They would be.
But these promises are not from any person,
These promises come from God.
So, they are too good, but they are also true.
Yes, Christianity asks you to take a step of faith,
But this step is not a blind leap.
Our faith is to be, as Paul says in Rom. 4:21;
fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.
Look, if there is no God,
Then Jesus was not God in the flesh.
And if Jesus was not God in the flesh,
Then He did not rise from the dead,
And His flesh simply became fertilizer for the ground somewhere near Jerusalem.
But the body of Jesus was never found in the tomb,
Because Jesus is God,
And He was risen from the dead.
Therefore, He can keep His promises.
The law displays the beauty of our promise-keeping God.
So, friends, what are you relying on?
What do you trust in?
Are you trusting in yourself, to be self-made?
Or will you trust in God?
Will you have faith in God?
YOU: The Principles (vs. 12)
YOU: The Principles (vs. 12)
These are the two competing principles Paul is comparing in our passage.
The principle of the law,
And the principle of faith.
Paul speaks about The Principles in Gal. 3:12;
But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.”
Here Paul again emphasizes the law as God’s requirement,
If not for God’s covenantal promise.
The law is not based on faith.
So, Paul is saying regarding salvation that the law and faith are competing principles.
Again he quotes the OT law to support his argument.
This time, referencing Lev. 18:5 in a negative sense,
Which states the requirement of righteousness is keeping the entire law.
A few chapters later in Lev. 26,
The law predicts the failure to obey the law,
And the curses that follow.
Similar to Deut. 28,
Lev. 26 goes on for nearly 40 verses listing the curses.
But at the very end of ch. 26,
God repeats His covenantal promise.
Our failure to uphold His law does not void His covenantal promise to us.
But if we do not live by faith,
And instead try to live by obedience to the law,
We will be under the curses listed in both Deut. 28 and Lev. 26.
WE: The Contrast (vs. 13-14)
WE: The Contrast (vs. 13-14)
The contrast between these two competing principles is then summarized in Gal. 3:13-14;
Galatians 3:13–14 (ESV)
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
We broke God’s covenant by violating His law.
As a result, we deserve to receive the curse of the law,
We deserve to be condemned by God.
But instead, Christ bore the curse of the law in our place.
He is our substitute,
Granting us peace with God instead.
He delivered us from the harm of the curse of the law by His crucifixion.
Pastor Andy Davis preaching on this verse, said;
“Christ on the cross was the very essence of everything that God has ever hated or ever would hate, while at the same time being His infinitely beloved Son. It’s a mystery we will never be able to understand, but this is the mystery of the substitutionary atonement of Jesus.”
Sin is absolutely despicable to God.
It is repulsive!
He despises it with all His being.
We struggle to comprehend how much God hates it.
Think of the most repulsive person you every heard of that later came to faith in Christ.
Picture some of the disgusting things they have done and how vile they are.
One example I am certain some of you may be familiar with comes from Corrie ten Boom.
Years after she survived the holocaust,
A guard she knew from one of the concentration camps where she was held,
Came to faith in Christ.
This man approached her one day and asked to shake her hand.
She writes about how she recoiled in disgust at the thought of shaking this man’s hand.
He tortured and killed innocent people,
And it was incredibly difficult for her to consider shaking this man’s hand.
Picture that sense of disgust she must have felt.
Now understand that her disgust toward that man pales in comparison to the disgust God felt toward the guard’s unjust actions during the holocaust.
Another story I once heard about a man C.H. Spurgeon led to Christ stirs a similar sense of disgust.
The man in this story was a heavily addicted alcoholic.
He used up every last cent of his family’s money to buy gin.
As a result the family was not even able to buy food or clothing or medicine.
This man’s daughter became ill,
And because of his addiction to gin,
He spent all the money on his addiction,
And the girl was unable to get any medicine to treat her illness and died.
The man’s neighbors were outraged at the man,
They knew the girl,
They saw this sweet innocent child out in the yard,
And they knew she only had rags to wear.
So, for her funeral,
They decided to pool some money together to purchase a beautiful little dress to bury this precious little girl in.
And they did,
They bought a dress,
Had the sweet little girl dressed in it,
And they put her in the casket.
The father, fully aware of what his neighbors were doing,
Broke into the funeral home the night before she was to be buried,
Went into the casket and stole his dead daughter’s dress off her body,
So, that he could sell it to buy more gin.
Then Spurgeon shares how this man came to know Christ.
I hear this story and I shudder.
It feels as if this man should rot in Hell for something like this.
It is difficult even telling this story,
The picture of a father doing something so evil to his daughter is despicable!
What do we do with this sense of disgust toward a man like that?
The Bible tells us what God did with His disgust for this man’s actions,
He poured it out on Jesus, instead of that man.
Jesus became this reviled pit of all that God finds disgusting in His people.
Everything God has ever hated in me,
Everything God has ever hated in you,
All of it,
He poured all of that just wrath on Jesus.
Jesus became a curse for me,
And for you.
It is difficult to even put into words,
Because the Father’s perfect love for His Son never stopped,
So, He perfectly loved and perfectly hated Jesus at the same time.
This is what is happening on the cross.
This is what Paul says here in vs. 13.
Quoting Deut. 21:23,
Paul shows that by being hung on a tree,
Specifically the cross,
Jesus was cursed in our place.
As Paul says similarly one chapter later in Gal. 4:5;
to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
He became a curse for us our passage says.
Communicating the same idea as 2 Cor. 5:21;
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Meditate on this for a moment.
This substitution has us become, by faith, everything that God loves.
We become righteousness.
This is truly amazing my friends.
And it is clear that Christ is the only way for this exchange to happen.
Jesus was not sent to be one of many ways.
There was no other way for us to be saved.
This was and is and always will be the only way.
Our world nullifies the grace of God by denying Christ’s death on the cross as the only way.
Pastor Andy Davis comments on this subject so well;
“We are a weird people. We post-modern tolerance-loving people are just weird, and we think weird, especially on this exclusivity issue.”
The popular thought in our culture is that every religion is true,
And each one presents a unique way to reach God.
This is weird.
Religions are different and conflicting with one another.
Saying Christianity is a different path to the same result as Islam,
Is like saying Capitalism is a different path to the same result as Socialism,
Or Democracy is a different path to the same result as a Monarchy.
Capitalism and Socialism are at odds with one another,
Democracy and Monarchy are two vastly different forms of government.
Likewise, Christianity and Hinduism and Buddhism, and Islam are not one in the same.
Yet, in our, culture, religions are being lumped together as if they are.
We are a weird people.
Christ’s death on the cross in our place,
Is the only way that the wrath of God is satisfied.
Pastor Mark Dever explains;
“On the cross, Jesus Christ took on himself the guilt of lawbreakers like us. One the cross, he endured the penalty of a lawbreaker. He bore God’s wrath and condemnation; he was cut off from God and experienced in his flesh the judicial sentence that we deserved.”
This is the striking contrast.
We deserve to be cursed,
Not Jesus.
We are unable to escape the curse,
Jesus willingly endured it.
We are born under this curse.
Jesus had to become it.
We could never satisfy the curse.
Jesus exhausted it for us all.
He was delivered over to the curse of death,
So, we are delivered from the curse of the law.
He died.
We live.
He was condemned.
We are justified.
Brothers and sisters, this is what Christ has done for us.
But why did God do this?
Why did God have Jesus become a curse for us?
Paul says in vs. 14 of our passage,
So, that in Christ, the blessing of Abraham comes to us who are not a part of the nation, Israel.
Paul introduced this back in Gal 3:8;
And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”
This is a quote from Gen. 12:3.
Friends, we are the Gentiles Paul is talking about here.
Believing in Christ means our lives will be marked by the Holy Spirit dwelling in us.
We will realize the promise that through Abraham all nations will be blessed.
The Holy Spirit living in us is the promised blessing.
From the cross, we receive the Spirit by faith.
The Spirit of God leads us to call out to God, Abba, Father.
The Holy Spirit leads us to live in freedom as sons and daughters of God,
Children who delight in our Father because we delight in our Father’s love.
As Paul asked in Gal. 3:2;
Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?
We become recipients of this promise through the saving work of Jesus Christ,
Our Mediator.
As Paul summarizes elsewhere in 1 Tim 2:5;
For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
We have talked about what it means to be a mediator at least once before during this It Is Well series,
But it is helpful to take a quick refresher.
A mediator is someone who brings two parties together that are alienated, estranged, or at war.
In order to mediate,
The mediator must have some established connection to each side,
So they can identify with and maintain the interests of both.
This enables them to represent both sides.
Now, Romans 8:7 teaches that all of us are hostile to God.
The entire human race is alienated, estranged, and at war with God due to our rebellious fallen nature.
As a result, we are under His wrath.
We need to be reconciled.
But this reconciliation can only occur if God’s wrath is quenched,
And our hearts no longer oppose God.
Therefore, in His mercy,
God sent His one and only Son into the world to bring about that reconciliation.
As the early church father Augustine said of God,
“In a wonderful and divine way even when He hated us, He loved us.”
So, it was the Father’s will for the Son to be our mediator.
In perfect obedience to the Father’s will,
Jesus accomplished reconciliation for all who would trust in Him by being our substitute.
He took our place on the cross,
As our passage this morning says in vs. 13,
He became a curse for us.
Therefore, it is by the sacrifice of His shed blood that we have peace with God.
Paul says it this way in Col. 1:20;
and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
This peace Paul speaks of in Colossians,
It is the end to the hostility toward God,
And the guilt we bear.
Without Christ’s death in our place on the cross,
We remain under the curse.
There is no way to avoid it.
Christ’s death on the cross forgives us for everything in our past,
And it secures us God’s acceptance for all eternity.
We who are reconciled to God by grace through faith in Christ are justified,
We have peace with God.
If you remember, we looked at this back in Romans 5:1, where Paul said;
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
This is what Christ has done, past tense.
Presently, Christ, our Mediator,
Carries forward His gospel work through human messengers.
We are blessed to be tasked with the glorious work of being the beautiful hands and feet that take the Gospel to every tribe, tongue, and nation.
To, as we say here at FBC, Go into the world to multiply disciples.
We tell people about how Jesus is the Mediator of this new covenant,
As the author of Hebrews says in Heb. 9:15;
Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, 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.
He initiates this new relationship of peace with God.
This goes beyond what God’s people knew under the OT law.
In the NT, we see Jesus fulfill this threefold role of prophet, priest, and king as our Mediator.
Jesus is the King whose name is above every name,
He is exalted in heaven,
Every knee bows down to His kingship.
He is the Great High Priest,
He offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice,
Holy and without blemish,
To God on our behalf.
And He is the Prophet.
He is the messenger,
He preached the Gospel concerning Himself.
He has instructed people through the declaration of God’s Word.
In the OT, mediation would be done by separate individuals in these three offices.
Our Mediator upholds each of these three offices perfectly.
He is the all-sufficient Savior of the world.
We who believe in Christ understand this,
When writing about Christ fulfilling these three offices,
R.C. Sproul adds;
“We who believe are called to understand [Christ as prophet, priest, and king], and to show ourselves His people by obeying Him as our King, trusting Him as our Priest, and learning from Him as our Prophet…To center on Jesus Christ in this way is the hallmark of authentic Christianity.”
Our confidence in Jesus as our mediator gives us freedom to say,
I deny being self-made and rely on Jesus to be remade.
Communion
Communion
Friends, rely on Christ and His death for you.
All who do must also remember Christ and His death for you.
The most specific way we do this is by participating in what we call communion.
On the night that Jesus was betrayed,
Jesus gathered together with His closest friends for their last supper.
Today, we continue to do this regularly to remember and celebrate Jesus’ atoning death in our place.
So, in just a moment,
We will have some music playing.
When we do the table will be open.
All who trust in Christ are invited to the table.
If you have yet to trust in Christ,
You can do that at this very moment.
Believe in your heart,
And confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord,
Then come to the table and join the celebration.
Once you have the bread and the cup,
Take a moment in silent prayer or contemplation,
Confess any sin you have that is unconfessed,
Repent of relying on your self to save yourself through obedience of the law.
And give God thanks for His grace that had Jesus become a curse for us.
After a few moments of this time of prayer and contemplation,
I will return and we will partake of Communion together.
Pray
When He was with His friends at the table that night,
Jesus took bread,
And 1 Cor. 11:24 says;
and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
Likewise, we eat.
1 Cor. 11:25-26 go on to say;
In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
So, likewise, we drink.
Amen.