The cross: the hour of darkness

Upper story/lower story

• God created us for His good and fellowship with us.

• Upon sin, God made a way for restoration

• Jesus in the lower story is carrying out the upper story.

Golf

• Master teacher golfer

• As with all the problems, is there one that is overriding all others?

• The one problem we have is sin. Solve that problem and you solve all the other problems.

Jesus took our sins. He became our substitute

• To many times we reduce God to a petty favor

• Increase my paycheck

• Find a parking space close

• Get me a promotion

• Understanding God’s love for you

• He is the off setter of the other sins, He is the cure for sin

• He cherishes you, owns you, loves you immensely

Choosing between eternity with you or without you, God said, I will do whatever it takes to make sure you are with Me.

• Christ didn’t start a work on the cross. He didn’t continue a work on the cross. According to His words, He finished a work on the cross.

Why does God’s forgiveness require someone’s death?

• Holiness of God and the severity of sin.

• God’s holiness is from Genesis to Revelation

Our rebellion stirs a holy disgust in God. • When Israel rebelled against God in the wilderness,

God said, “for forty years I was angry with that generation,” and the word “anger” literally means nauseated.

• In revelation, God’s reaction to the church at Laodicea that had grown lukewarm in their faith was that he wanted to spit them out of his mouth. That’s the verb “to vomit.”

Revelation 3:16 (ESV) • So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot

nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.

OUR REBELLION STIRS A HOLY DISGUST IN GOD

• When God’s holiness encounters our rebellion it makes Him sick.

• God devised a plan of salvation where the guiltless Christ took on the horrible punishment of the guilty and He died, not like a sinner, but as a sinner.

The assessment of Jesus' death on the cross by the religious leaders was correct.

• Jesus could not both save Himself and save us also.

• He could save Himself and leave us in eternal jeopardy.

• He could save us and lose His own life on the cross.

• The process of God is that God restores life to the world by the death of his Son.

The cross reveals both the holiness of God and the severity of sin.• That God is holy is a foundational truth of the

bible, presented from the book of genesis to the book of revelation.

• Holy means to be set apart, to be unique; God is totally and utterly different.

• Our holy God cannot look on evil because our sin absolutely disgusts the holiness of God.

Habakkuk 1:13 (ESV) • You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and

cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?

Application:

• We never hear on 20/20 or dateline, “well, the world’s problem is sin.” We hear about government, business, education, psychology and sociology. Not a word about sin.

• The holy God does not pretend our sin is a mental lapse or condone our sin as simple stubbornness.

• God hates sin and cannot turn a blind eye to it.

• God will not compromise His holiness by indulging our sinful behavior.

God’s stern holiness operates from God’s infinite love.• God will both honor these two strong stallion emotions—His

fiery holiness and his tender love

• God’s holiness and love function together.

• If God were only holy, we would be destroyed; if God were only love, a lack of discipline and correction would destroy us.

• God’s holiness and love combine to do something unimaginable: God becomes a human being!

MATTHEW 27:45–54 (ESV) • “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my

God, why have you forsaken me?”

• “Truly this was the Son of God!”

Jesus was forsaken so that we might be forgiven and received by a holy God—this is the beauty of the cross.

• Jesus became sin as all the sins of the world were placed by God on Jesus.

• The sinless righteousness of Jesus Christ can now be ours.

2 CORINTHIANS 5:21 (ESV)• For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no

sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

Application:• God is holy and God is love. Our merits do not

enhance God’s love and our mistakes do not diminish it.

• Will you receive God’s love in Christ for you?

JOHN 19:28–30 (ESV) • 28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now

finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” 29 A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. 30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

• God sent his Son, Jesus, who wrapped His

arms around you and me, took the horrible fall with all its sin so that in the midst of the wreckage of this world, we might live.

• So I say again, God is holy and God is love. Our merits do not enhance God’s love and our mistakes do not diminish it.

• Will you receive God’s love in Christ for you?

Martin Luther:

• By a wonderful exchange, our sins are not now ours, but Christ's, and Christ's righteousness is not Christ's, but ours.

Application

• Where does that leave us?

• It only falls to us to accept it.

American theologian Donald Bloesch

• The prison has been stormed. The gates of the prison have been opened. But unless we leave our prison cells and go forward into the light of freedom, we’re still unredeemed.

Have you stepped out?