Reconciled by the Cross - Luke 23 Vs 39-49

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Morning everyone, hopefully you're all doing well today on this blessed Sunday Before we begin with worship and prayer go over a few announcements that we have

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So today at 6 o 'clock. We'll have a prayer meeting tonight in the fellowship hall and Then later on this week

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We have a continuation of our Bible study of which pastors going over the book of Titus and that'll start or continue

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This Wednesday December 4th at 530. You can join us in person or online Both options are available love to have you there and then we have ladies

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Christmas brunch this Saturday at 10 a .m For those who are interested or ladies only

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But yeah, there'll be food there. So feel free to come and then we also have missionary of the month with Darcy Berlang she works with the ethnos 360 in Indonesia as a

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Bible translator, so just pray for her health and Her ministry as well as well as those who are also impacted by the ministry that they'll also be saved by it as well and then lastly we have

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Baptism Sunday coming on December 29th for those who are interested just let any of the elders or pastors know will be happy to have in -person baptism here, so We had that'll conclude announcements for this week.

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If you'll just join me in prayer before we begin in worship and sermon Dear Lord, thank you for this day given us.

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Thank you for all your many blessings Lord Thank you for allowing us to be here to fellowship in your name Lord Before we enter into worship and prayers or in worship and sermon

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Just prepare our hearts Lord so that we are we're able to give ourselves fully to you Lord during this time

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So that we can better understand your character and how you want us to be in our lives So your name you're praying

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Jesus name. Amen So our first song is going to be one that you're all very familiar with and that's joy to the world

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And I think I'd mentioned before that it's really written originally about the second coming of Christ But I was reading this week

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This song is all about the fulfillment of Christ came to do in the first place Christmas is not only a time to look back at the grace accomplished in the past Christmas is also a time to look forward to the grace that was accomplished for our future

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When we sing these words, we are proclaiming the ultimate joy to be revealed This is why we can sing joy to the world at Christmas So let's stand together and sing joy to the world

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Unexpected Jesus and this was written by Charles Wesley a couple hundred years ago but it's

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Still relevant today and it's it talks about Anticipating the coming of Christ and it's just got good theology

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So let's sing this song together on Ephesians Chapter 2 verses 1 through 10

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Ephesians Chapter 2 verses 1 through 10 and You were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of the of this world

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According to the Prince of the power of the air of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience

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Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh indulging the desires of flesh and of the mind and Where by nature children of wrath even as the rest?

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But God being rich in mercy Because of his great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our transgressions made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved and raised up with him and Seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus for by grace

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You have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves It is the gift of God not as a result of works so that no one may boast

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For we are his worksmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which

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God prepared beforehand so that we Would walk in them. This is the word of the

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Lord. So our next song come behold the wondrous mystery This is new to us. We sang this last week and I think was new to most everyone

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Myself for sure, but it's it's a beautiful song and love the words and the meaning

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So let's stand together as we sing come behold the wondrous mystery be versus 39 through 49

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Luke chapter 23 Versus 39 39 then one of the criminals who were hanged

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Blasphemed him saying if you are the Christ save yourself and us But the other answering rebuked him saying do you not even fear

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God seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly for we received the due reward for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong

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And he said to Jesus Lord. Remember me when you come into your kingdom And Jesus said to him assuredly

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I say to you today. You will be with me in paradise Now it was about the sixth hour and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour then the

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Sun was darkened and the veil of the temple was torn in two and When Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, he said father into your hands

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I commit my spirit Having said this he breathed his last so when the centurion saw what had happened he glorified

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God saying certainly this was a righteous man and The whole crowd who came together to that sight seeing what had been done beat their breasts and returned

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But all his acquaintances and the women who followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things

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This is the word of the Lord Let us pray Father we are grateful for what

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Jesus had done for us on the cross Thank you that he took on the divine judgment that we deserved

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So that we may be forgiven and found righteous in him Help us to receive him through faith alone help us to receive him because he is a free gift from you and Help us to remember him today in Jesus name

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So as we enter into the Advent season We will see

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Christmas decorations Christmas Artifacts everywhere

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From the music on the radio to the holiday sale at your nearest retail store

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However, if Santa in the elves or what takes the center stage

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During Christmas we have missed the meaning of Christmas If gifts and family are under the spotlight of Christmas We have also missed the significance of Christmas Ultimately Christmas is worthy of celebration because of the name

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Christ mess It's because of Christ It is unfortunate to call some of these winter songs

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Christmas songs when they're only about sleigh bells and snowmen and They have nothing to do with Christ They may be great songs

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But they're not about Christmas Although we celebrate

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Christ's birth on Christmas. We must also look ahead to the cross and in the end

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His incarnation him becoming a man

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Is crucial because What he has come to do Which is to die on the cross?

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The cross that he came to bear for our sake and really the best gift of Christmas is

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Christ himself Because he bore the punishment that we deserved and rose from the dead

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And today we unpack what? Jesus crucifixion accomplished now there are various false religions that will agree with the historical facts of the matter of the crucifixion the

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Catholics the Jews Even the

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Jehovah's Witnesses they they all believe that Jesus was crucified on the cross the problem of course is

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What are the implications of the crucifixion and if we differ on the implications of the crucifixion?

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We don't agree on some of the most important matters it is

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Not sufficient to just agree with the fact that Jesus was crucified Because in the end as as Hezekiah read to us this morning how we receive

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God's grace from the cross Matters just as much

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What do I mean by that? many of these religions

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Catholics Mormons Jehovah's Witnesses Will hold to this passage that was just read today

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Luke 23 and they will Gladly talk about the thief on the cross the difference is

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How do they view how this thief was saved? For true followers of Christ how this thief was saved as just as anyone else is saved the thief repented and Believed in Jesus and at that moment.

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He was saved He trusted in Christ now you talk to Catholics Mormons Jehovah's Witnesses They'll actually argue that this was an exception for the

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Catholics the thief never really got baptized and baptisms required for the reception of God's grace

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For the Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons he never really got to do any good works How could you when you're hanging from the cross

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Yeah, what does Jesus say today you will be with me in paradise and for them

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This passage is a thorn on their side and they have to label it as an exception but for us

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It's the norm. That's What we're reading today the question today

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That we need to face is what did Christ's crucifixion accomplish?

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It's it's more so than what actually happened, but rather what are the implications of Christ's crucifixion

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What did he actually do? through the crucifixion first When we genuinely trust in the crucified

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Christ We immediately enter into his kingdom when we genuinely Trust in the crucified

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Christ. We immediately enter into his kingdom from the mockery of the religious leaders and the soldiers we see one of The criminals now mocking

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Jesus then one of the criminals who were hanged Blasphemed him saying if you are the

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Christ save yourself and us We can hear the sarcastic tone from the criminal if you're the

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Christ save yourself and us Luke characterizes it as Blasphemous, that's how we can hear the tone.

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It's not a genuine plea for salvation at all It's a mockery

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He is misrepresenting Christ the thief is slandering Christ The call for salvation is a joke to him.

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At least he will die laughing Now even a dying guilty criminal mocks the king who is innocent hanging on the cross

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Of course ironically by staying on the cross

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Jesus saved the guilty By staying on the cross

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Jesus saved the guilty criminal on his right according to Matthew and Mark's accounts

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Both of the criminals were mocking Jesus and I do want to clear this up Yet in Luke we get one mocking criminal and one faithful criminal

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So what is the deal with this discrepancy or I need to say seeming discrepancy?

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There is no discrepancy in God's Word This can easily be understood when we consider that that Jesus crucifixion took hours

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What that means is? Just as Matthew and Mark depicted the two criminals initially started out mocking

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Jesus together Yet after seeing how Jesus suffered

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Righteously, although sinless the second thief Repented and Luke is the only one that will show this interaction

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Luke shows the camera angle that Matthew and Mark did not

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So they're not actually going against each other Luke just shows a different picture of what happened afterwards

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Now verses 40 to 42 Show us what the other criminal responded to Christ crucified

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But the other answering rebuked him saying do you not even fear God? Seeing you are under the same condemnation and we indeed

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Justly for we receive the due reward of our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong

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First the thief on the right rebukes the blasphemous Chris criminal After all the slanderer is in no place to condemn the innocent

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Jesus He Recognizes God's hand in all of this.

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Do you not even fear God? Can't you see what you're doing by mocking the innocent?

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Christ You are opposing God by mocking the righteous one

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After all the ninth commandment prohibited slandering against one's neighbor

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The blasphemous criminal was doing exactly that Moreover the hypocrisy is the criminal who was blaspheming

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Jesus was guilty and Jesus wasn't Moreover, the second criminal has the right view of Jesus.

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This man has done nothing wrong This pronouncement of innocence is the sixth one in Luke now

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Herod Pilate multiple times and this criminal all find

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Jesus innocent and There will be one more after this They all echo how

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God views Jesus Jesus is the unblemished and pure lamb of God Now verse 41 is also a confession the second criminal

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Personally takes responsibility for his sin He admits that he is condemned justly and he is receiving the due reward for his deed

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He's he's not minimizing what he's done right? He's not saying oh the law is so unfair.

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It was just a little insurrection And there's also no blame shifting.

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Oh, well, you know you coerced me into all of this. It's your fault There is also no self -justification

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Why it wasn't evil. I was fighting against an evil Empire This criminal confesses his sin without minimizing blame shifting or self -justifying

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He knows he is in the wrong and he agrees with God Regarding what he has done.

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That's what confession means con with Fast to speak. Were you speaking with with God?

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You're speaking in agreement with God because he saw what happened and he only speaks what's true and A genuine godly confession is the first fruit of repentance

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You cannot repent without the true view of your sinfulness you cannot repent without the true nature and character of your sin and what you have committed and There cannot be true repentance without one's honest view and admission of his own sin and After his confession, he makes a plea of salvation

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Then he said Jesus Remember me when you come into your kingdom He turns to Christ and asks for mercy

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After turning away from his sin. He turns to his Savior He pleads that Jesus would remember him and There are a couple of remarkable points here first some translations have

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Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom and that's because some of the older manuscripts have

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Jesus remember me instead of Lord. Remember me Either way the thief personally and respectfully approaches

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Jesus for mercy Notice while the uncrucified religious leaders and soldiers who are technically guiltless before the law

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Mockingly mockingly called Jesus King this thief Personally and desperately calls out to Jesus to save the truly guilty one the publicly humiliated one is

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The one who will be saved because he calls out to Christ Notice the thief does not go to Mary first to gain access to her son

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The thief directly speaks to the Son of God and Jesus. That's him alone

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There's no other intermediary between the guilty and the innocent

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Second The thief believes that Jesus's crucifixion will not be the end to this

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King After all look at the plea Remember me when you come into your kingdom

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Despite how Jesus is crucified right next to him right now the thief believes

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Jesus will fully restore his kingdom in another sense despite Jesus's crucifixion the thief knows

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The rightful King will reign Despite the crucifixions

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King Jesus will be victorious Despite the crucifixion

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Jesus will not be hung on the cross eternally What the thief may not have known is because of the crucifixion

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King Jesus rules victoriously third

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The thief believes in Jesus's kingly authority Precisely because of the cross rather than all the miracles that Jesus has performed an

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English theologian Alfred Plummer States it beautifully Some saw

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Jesus raised the dead and did not believe The robber sees him being put to death and yet believes

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Consider that when someone asks for a miracle to prove the existence of Christ There was one who went to heaven without ever seeing one at the plea for mercy

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Jesus gives the thief an immediate response Assuredly, I say to you today.

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You will be with me in paradise Now now we need to know what

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Jesus does not say He does not say how convenient to call a call for salvation right now right before you your death or You have not fulfilled the good deeds to make up for the wicked ones

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After all remember your deed that brought you up here or You must suffer a little bit of purgatory.

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Then you will be with me in paradise My purgatory exists in the

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Catholic theology for the purging of Sin right the purging of Guilt there's that's a consequence for the sin that you've committed

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Rather the Savior's response is a cut as concise as it is comforting

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Assuredly, I say to you Assuredly, I say to you means it's not debatable.

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It is not doubtful. It is not uncertain Assuredly means this is what it is.

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There's no argument There's no uncertainty Today you will be with me in paradise

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Today is not when the kingdom is fully restored who knows when After all that was the prominent view in Judaism on the last days the

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Messiah will come back and he will conquer all the nations and all his enemies and He will rule physically from Zion and that's what we read in Psalm 110

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That's not today. And that wasn't that day either in that little thief's mind

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He's thinking well, the Messiah will come back in the distant future and maybe maybe then

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He will remember this poor old thief

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He spent his last hour hanging by his side rebuking that loudmouth Not at all today.

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You will be with me in paradise means salvation is effective today Deliverance occurs that very day and paradise of course is the heavenly location where the saved souls end up and What makes it paradise is?

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Because of the person you are with Jesus says you will be with in paradise

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Paradise is what make paradise with Jesus is what makes it a paradise Paradise without Jesus is hell and this interaction is crucial for us today because it shows us how the crucifies

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Christ saves it shows us What he does?

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Many cults love to claim Jesus as their own But the portrait of Jesus in Luke 23

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Drastically differs from the Jesus they claim to worship And this is why we really have to be careful when someone says

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I believe in Jesus You need to unpack that what kind of Jesus are you believing in?

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Is it the true Jesus of the Bible or is it some made -up Jesus in your own image?

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And here are a series of questions to distinguish the real Jesus from all the fake ones

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After all the fake ones can't save First does your

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Jesus save someone who has a wicked record? Is that even an option?

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Or do you have to be really born perfect? Does your

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Jesus save someone who was never baptized? many cults require baptism for salvation we

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We celebrate baptism. We are having a baptism for Tovia At the end of the month and please be praying for her that she is protected from all harm and We're happy for her.

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We'll rejoice with her baptism doesn't save The mere washing of water cannot wash away sins

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Baptism is a physical Symbol of what happened

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Spiritually the true

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Jesus only required Genuine faith now does your

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Jesus save someone who had no time to get his life together? Catholics Mormons Jehovah's Witnesses required good works along with faith

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This thief could never do a single good work to undo his life of wickedness yet Jesus promise of salvation is certain

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Today, you'll be with me in paradise is Jesus salvation sufficient at the very moment of faith.

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He did not have to wait for the verdict The thief did not have to spend any time at purgatory

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The Catholics believe and among them some other cults that you cannot have assurance of salvation

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The moment you're saved the moment you believed and The reason is after all you can

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You know bankrupt your salvation in the future How can you you don't know when you're gonna die?

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You don't know what you're gonna do before you meet Jesus Well this thief

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Had full assurance that his salvation would be immediate the

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King saved him the moment he believed And now when you bring this up to these

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Cults groups, they will claim that this case is the exception That's the argument.

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I've been seeing from All three of them really Catholics Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses When I brought up Luke 23, and they would say well, that's just an exception after all

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God knows his heart God knows what's going to happen However a

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God who makes an exception for one is a changeable God God who makes an exception

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For one is an unjust God After all wouldn't we call injustice call out injustice if our human judge

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Makes a two different standard for the same crime In fact a

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God who is changeable a God who is mutable is no God at all They're holding on to a fake

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Christ To a false God and as true followers of Christ.

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We believe this passage is the norm rather than the exception

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Which means all who genuinely repent and trust in Jesus Christ alone who was crucified for our sin

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Will be saved at that moment the very faith in Christ crucified

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That was sufficient for the thief crucified is sufficient for us this morning your faith in Christ crucified alone is enough to wash away all of your sins and Expunge the records and there's no exception now.

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What were the results of Christ's crucifixion? Christ faced the divine judgment for our sake so that we may be reconciled with God Christ faced the divine judgment for our sake so that we may be

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Reconciled with God Verse 44 now it was about the sixth hour and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour

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In ancient Israel a person's day started around 6 a .m. So the sixth hour becomes noon around A little note on the hours here

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Another gospel writer has a different hour. I Forget whether it was

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I think it's slightly earlier. It's I think he says third hour or Three hours before and and the reason is this no one had watches back then

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So, what do they estimate? Just the placement of the Sun So if the

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Sun is somewhere in between noon and nine o 'clock, let's say 10 or 11

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One could just as well say it's about the sixth hour But one could round down and say it's about the third hour or so on So in that sense the gospel accounts are not contradicting each other it's it's just a different rounding of the time since no one had a handheld watch

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So that's also important But what matters the most here is that darkness

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Appears in the morning to noon Right in noon and the afternoon

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What is striking is that the darkness lasts for three hours from noon to around three according to Luke That is not natural

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Some people say that that's an eclipse You cannot have a solar eclipse around the full moon after all the

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Passover is based upon the lunar cycle So this this is not just a natural event where oh the the moon cover the

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Sun Now darkness in the

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Old Testament is a motif It's it's it's an ongoing theme of God's judgment and we we saw that in Exodus, right?

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That's the ninth plague. There's darkness over all the land of Egypt. But what what is more?

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What is more accurate here would be? what Amos 8 9 through 10 says regarding the judgment against God's people and on that day declares the

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Lord God, I will make the Sun go down at noon and Darken the earth in broad daylight

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You couldn't get clearer than that I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation

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I will bring sackcloth on every waist and baldness on every head I will make it like the morning of for an only

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Sun and the end of it like a bitter day in Amos The Lord promises to judge

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Israel for their idolatry and their oppression of the poor The Cosmological sign of the divine judgment is the darkness over the whole land at noon where Normally the

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Sun is shining the brightest When God judges his people even the heavens will show it

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When that happens all who are in the land will lament Now what is odd in Luke's passage is that the judgment is not poured on the idolaters and the wicked rulers

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But rather on Christ himself The one who cries out is the only innocent person in the whole land ultimately the pain of the cross

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Was not any emotional humiliation nor any physical pain But rather the divine judgment poured upon the

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Son of God for the sin of his people Jesus God himself suffered the wrath of God that we deserve so that we could be forgiven

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The fact that the spectators are not experiencing the divine judgment that very day is the physical representation of the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement

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What that means is that Jesus took the place of sinners in judgment

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So that the sinners may take his place in righteousness Jesus suffered the judgment that was the most

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Painful moment on the cross. It's not the nails. It is the wrath of God that was poured

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Intensely down on him for those hours Now what is the result of this?

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Then the Sun was darkened and the veil of the temple was torn in two After a cosmological sign we see a cultic sign cultic means related to the temple

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The veil of the temple would have been a beautifully woven curtain made of blue scarlet and purple

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Fabric from Babylon. Remember, this is the second temple and That veil divided the holy of holies and the rest of the temple

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Now, what is the significance of this veil? This veil covered the holiest room in the whole temple the temple itself is holy

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But inside that temple there was even an holier portion. It's called the holy of holies

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It's a cubic room as in the length width depth. They're all the same measurement and that room was

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Available for one man and one man only in the entire year for one day and That was on the

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Day of Atonement You might know it as the Yom Kippur Yom Kippur The high priest would enter this room after making sacrifice not only for the sin of his people but for his own sin because he was no perfect himself and He would enter that room to encounter

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God's presence Only one man in the whole world in one day could encounter

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God's presence like that for the atonement of the nation's sin

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And although missing in the first century the

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Solomonic temple the first temple at the Ark of the Covenant in that room and It was as the name suggests the holiest room in the whole building

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And when Jesus suffered the judgment for our sin the veil that separates the

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Holy God from the rest of the world was torn in two Matthew says it's from top to bottom

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Which means it couldn't have been done by a person But it was a divine act

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Symbolically God's Holy Presence became accessible to the rest of the world the the day and at the completion of Jesus' Crucifixion when he suffered the judgment that we all deserved

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What that means is you did not have to be the high priest of one specific nation to approach

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God's presence once a year When Jesus suffered for our sin he established a way to God That any of the

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Old Testament Saints could only have dreamed of Jesus's death made

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Herod's glorious temple obsolete Jesus's death made a way for sinners to reconcile with the

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Holy God After Jesus suffered the divine judgment for our sake he cries out father into your hands.

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I commit my spirit and this is a quotation from Psalm 31 5 and Psalm 30 what if you read the whole psalm, it's a prayer of a righteous man who is in need of Deliverance because he is suffering at the hands of his enemies

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Ultimately Jesus is the most fitting righteous sufferer Ultimately his suffering is the fulfillment of all righteous suffering

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This call is the son's cry of his commitment to his father as he awaits his resurrection

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Despite the death he is about to face Jesus will trust his father with his life and As Jesus died his commitment to God the father was unshaken and unshakable the irony of course is

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There is one man Who obeyed about the tree when the result would have been death compared to one man who was supposed to obey about the tree and The result would have been life

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And he disobeyed Jesus is the perfect righteous son of God Now, how do the spectators respond the next three verses show three different groups of?

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people responding differently first After witnessing all of this the

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Roman centurion evaluates Jesus's innocence So when the centurion saw what had happened, he glorified

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God saying certainly this man was a righteous man This is the seventh and the last pronouncement of Jesus's innocence and it comes from Ironically a

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Roman officer who was in charge of the crucifixion In fact, he praises

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God for this a Gentile Executioner is more sensitive to the heavenly and theological revelation

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During Jesus's crucifixion than the Jewish Spectators and this will unfold in the second book the book of Acts Of course not the same centurion, but salvation will come to the

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Gentiles Second The Jerusalemites who called for Jesus's execution go home lamenting beating their breasts is the physical expression of the inward sorrow

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In the end there is visible regret in the crowd many of them chanted

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Crucify him But after witnessing the divine signs, they are filled with grief for putting their

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Messiah to death Or have someone that some of them will respond in faith at the

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Pentecost Third Luke leaves us in suspense regarding Jesus's acquaintances

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But all his acquaintances and the women who followed him from Galilee Stood at a distance watching these things.

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They're watching and We will later see how they will respond to Jesus's death

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Whether close friends or total strangers Jews or Gentiles officers or civilians

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Jesus's crucifixion publicly left a mark on all who were watching

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Jesus's death was not an ordinary execution but a public world -changing event witnessed by many

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It's it wasn't some new age experience that is just individualized and personal

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It was an historical event that shook the world Although we are far from Jerusalem of the first century

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We are still impacted by Jesus's death this morning The most crucial impact is that through Jesus Christ?

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Anyone no matter your socio -economic background No matter your ethnicity your history of sin

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Anyone can approach the throne room of grace and this is not because you were good enough and this is not because God had to lower his standard or curve the test of righteousness

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But precisely because God fulfilled his righteous standard When he was crucified and faced the judgment on your behalf

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Your present access to God Is in fact the biggest blessing that God has to offer

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Because it's God himself and consider this

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Ever since the beginning of history Ever since the Garden of Eden really

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God and his people have been separated by sin In fact, we often lament the fact that we lost eternal life when

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Adam and Eve disobeyed God However, I would like to bring up or suggest that the biggest loss would be our relationship with God No longer could humans walk freely with God in the cool of the garden this separation continued on for thousands of years and God graciously allowed sinful man to interact with him through the sacrificial systems that and temple worship

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It was restrictive and limited because of Israel's sinfulness

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After all a sinner cannot stand before the Holy God and expect to live for the majority of Israel and the majority for the majority of time and for the majority of the world the direct access to God Was not available

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Now fast forward to the first century and there comes a Jewish man and in the streets of Jerusalem He cries out

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I am the temple of God You mean he's the meeting place between humans and God and he says if you destroy me

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I will raise it up. If you destroy this body. I will raise it up in three days and In fact, that's what exactly they choose to do.

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They do destroy him. They'd crucified him They crucify Christ the God men the meeting place of God if you've met

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Jesus you've met God And what they do what do they do? They kill him when

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God came to his people to dwell among them his people rejected and killed him But in his mercy and grace through Jesus death

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God became Even more approachable God made a way for his people to access him

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Not in the same way as before but in the more personal and intimate way

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When you trust in Christ his death made a way for him to dwell in you

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Think about that when you believe in Jesus death for your sin and his resurrection God himself dwells in you rather than in a building.

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This building is not the temple You are

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God does not dwell in this building when you are not here during the week

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When we gather on Sunday mornings The greatest blessing is that we get to experience

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God's presence in each other through Jesus Christ And that's the ultimate access to God You don't enter a building to meet with God.

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You don't kill innocent animals to meet with God You don't go to a priest to confess you go to Christ alone.

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Who is God himself and Christ's crucifixion

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Accomplished it all once and for all so that you may be completely reconciled with the

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Holy God His atoning sacrifice is sufficient for you as it was for the crucified thief

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He took your sinful place and he places you in his righteousness and What's more is when

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Jesus comes back for his Second coming and after his millennial reign when he sets up the new heaven and new earth

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What is the dimension of the new city It's a cube the whole city

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Is modeled after the Holy of Holies anyone who belongs to that city will experience the direct presence of God and That's a giant city and we all get to look forward to that and That is precisely only done because of Jesus death on the cross

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Which allows us direct access pass to his gracious throne room

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And I would like to end with Charles Wesley's last verse of and can it be

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Beautiful beautiful hymn, we have we have some hymns in the back room if you want to take one

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And can it be No condemnation now I dread Jesus and all in him is mine

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Alive in him my living head and clothed in righteousness divine bold I approach the eternal throne and claim the crown through Christ my own a amazing love

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How can it be that thou my God choose to die for me?

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Let us pray Father we thank you.

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We're grateful that the biggest Blessing that we have this morning is that we can experience the presence of Jesus Just as the thief was promised and father

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We pray that we would not take this blessing for granted that we would seek you we would desire you

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We would long for his return And father we pray that this would be our highest good that it would be the most

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Precious thing in our life no matter what we lose no matter whom we lose

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The fact that we have Christ and his presence is eternally in us