Good Friday, April 7, 2023

Would you join me in prayer? God we thank you so much for the works that you have done.

We thank you for creation and making this world. We thank you for sending your son after we messed things up.

We thank you for condescending and becoming a man, taking on flesh for the purpose of conquering sin, receiving to yourself a kingdom.

We thank you that you glorify yourself in the things that you do and we thank you that we get to be a part of that.

We are grateful for what today represents. We thank you for your willingness to put forth this plan.

We thank the Son for being willing to to endure and to be obedient to you the

Father. We thank you so much for what we look forward to in the resurrection what you've done in raising from the dead.

So this is indeed a good Friday. Help us to celebrate that.

Lord we pray that we would lift our voices and it would be glorifying to you and edifying to us the

Saints. In Jesus name we pray, amen. Would you stand?

Our hymn of preparation is My Song is Love Unknown. It's in our hymns modern and ancient.

That's the black book in front of you on page 91. On this one there are seven verses.

O who am I that for my sake my

Lord should take his flesh and die?

He came from his blessed throne, salvation to restore.

God made me strange and unloved for Christ would know.

But O my friend, my friend indeed, who at my need his life did spend.

In life no house, no home, my

Lord on earth might have. In death no friendly tomb, but what a stranger gave.

What may I say? Heaven was his home, but mine the tomb

I really am. Here might

I stay and sing, no story so divine.

Never was love, dear King, never was grief.

But this is my friend in whose sweet praise

I hope my days could gladly spend.

From the Gospel of John chapter 19 beginning at verse 23.

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts.

One part for each soldier, also his tunic.

But the tunic was seamless woven in one piece from top to bottom.

So they said to one another, let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.

This was to fulfill the scripture which says, they divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.

So the soldiers did these things, but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister

Mary, the wife of Clopas. And Mary Magdalene, when

Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, woman, behold your son.

Then he said to the disciple, behold your mother.

And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own home. After this,

Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said to fulfill the scripture,

I thirst. 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.

When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, it is finished.

And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

You may be seated. Our hymn of reflection,

Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed, that's 208 in your hymnal. Alas, and did my

Savior bleed, and did my

Sovereign do

He devote, that sacred head, for sinners such as I did, for sins that I have done,

He suffered on the tree.

Amazing pity, grace unknown, and love beyond degree.

Darkness hide, and surety's glory see.

When Christ, the great Redeemer died, for man the creature's sin, thus might

I hide my blushing face, while His dear cross appears.

Dissolve my heart in blissfulness, and melt mine eyes to tears.

The troubles of grief can never repay the days of love.

Again, from the

Gospel of John, chapter 19, beginning at verse 31, Since it was the day of preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the

Sabbath, for that Sabbath was a high day, the Jews asked

Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.

So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him.

But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.

But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.

He who saw it has borne witness. His testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth, that you also may believe.

For these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled. Not one of his bones will be broken.

And again, another scripture says, they will look on him whom they have pierced.

A hymn of adoration, Behold the Lamb, 179. From the foundation of the world,

Where sinners crucify, Where holiness sanctifies,

Behold the Lamb of God, Behold.

Let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for gathering us together on this night.

Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to stop and to think together about the significance of your son,

Jesus Christ, and how for us and for our sake, for our salvation, he died upon the cross.

Lord, we ask that you would help us to think your thoughts about this matter, that we would look upon Good Friday as you do, that you would give us understanding of who you are and who we are in light of your son,

Jesus Christ. And I pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

A. W. Tozer once said that what enters our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.

What enters into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. I had a professor one time who got real close to breaking the second commandment, and he said,

I want you to draw onto a fresh piece of notebook paper some sort of symbol or summation of what you think

God is. Now, we're not going to worship it, right, because then you would actually break the second commandment.

But just draw a symbol, a shape, or something that you think what you think

God looks like. What do you think God is? And he said, you have 20 seconds, go.

Well, if you're ready, you're ready. If you're not, you're not. I wasn't ready. Some other young students were.

And he collected the papers, and he picked out one of the ones that got it right.

And he held up the notebook paper, and somebody had just drawn a cross on it. Have you been with me so long,

Philip? And yet you say, show me the Father. You've seen me, you've seen the

Father. When we think about the cross of Jesus Christ, we're thinking about something that is inseparable from the resurrection.

And the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ is central to the supreme revelation of who

God is in the person and work of Jesus Christ. What enters our mind when we think about who

God is is the most important thing about us. What does

God intend for us to think about when we think about him? Now, this is vitally important, because the fear of the

Lord is the beginning of knowledge, and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

To fear the Lord is to depart from evil. The fear of the Lord is life and health to the bones. And the fear of the

Lord is simply thinking of him first and thinking of him most. And so A .W. Tozer is saying, what are you thinking about?

What comes into your mind when you think about God? When I was in college, the thing that came into my mind was a

God who had impossible standards and was perpetually angry with me, perpetually disappointed in me.

That's what I had in my mind when I thought about God. Sorry to bother you when I prayed. I'm pretty sure he didn't want to hear from me again.

Every time I went before God, I had a list of failures that I nursed and told him about every single time.

But what was I supposed to be thinking about when I thought about God? I should be thinking about Christ.

I should be thinking about the supreme revelation of God in his son, Jesus Christ.

We're going to talk about the righteousness of God tonight from Romans chapter 3, verses 19 to 28.

A passage in the Bible that deserves its own year -long series, but we will be moving through.

I invite you to stand with me as we read God's holy word, beginning in verse 19,

Romans 3. This is the word of the Lord. Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God.

Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

But now, the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe, for there is no difference, for all of sin falls short of the glory of God being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom

God set forth as a propitiation by his blood through faith to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance,

God had passed over the sins that were previously committed to demonstrate at the present time his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Whereas boasting then, it is excluded by what law? Of works?

No, but by the law of faith. Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.

This is the word of the Lord. Praise be to God. You may be seated.

It is the judgment of God upon pagan men that he turns them over to their trespasses and sins, that they embrace blindness and God grants them blindness.

When you think of yourself first and you think of yourself most, then you think in terms of righteousness, in terms of your own experience.

And when you seek to make things right, it's based upon whatever accords with your desires.

We live in a world today full of zealots for justice who have no idea what righteousness is.

We live in a world today full of zealots who want to raise the dead and condemn them and judge them.

We live in a world today where it's very apparent that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not known, is not championed, is not celebrated.

I'm glad we read John 19 tonight because the detail, the loving details that John puts into the account of the crucifixion of Jesus, oh, look at the history of it.

You can feel the Judean dust between your teeth when you read that passage, like you were there.

It really happened. Historically, it happened. It changed everything, the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Now, what does it mean? What does it mean and how does it matter for me as I go before God and I think of him first and I think of him most and I know him to be holy and perfect and good?

It is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, that we are made right with God to his glory alone.

That's what this passage tells us. First of all, I would have us look at the righteousness of God revealed in the law, the righteousness of God revealed in the law.

It is unsurprising that the law of God would be consistent with his character and say something about who he is.

The righteousness of God is revealed in the law. Now, God does not cohere to the law.

The law coheres to God. This is something that the famous revivalist

Charles Finney got completely backwards. He believed that because the law was righteous,

God upheld it and wanted everybody else to do the same.

You say, well, that sounds a little bit odd, but it doesn't sound too bad. This train of thought led

Charles Finney to declare that God would never justify a sinner while a particle of sin remains in him.

So you see how far away from the gospel this venerated and totally misunderstood revivalist ended up.

The righteousness of God is revealed in the law.

Notice in verse 19, now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may become guilty before God.

Paul has already done his work in Romans 2 and the beginning of Romans 3, acknowledging and pointing out the difference between the

Jews and the Gentiles, that the Jews received the law and thus they were more accountable.

They had more to answer for. And he states in more than one location in Romans that the

Gentiles were not given the law. And he also states in Romans 5 that sin is still sin whether we have a law or not.

Why is that? Because it's based upon the character of God, not based upon human experience.

But notice it says that the law speaks to those who are under the law, but this impacts every mouth and it impacts all the world becoming guilty before God.

Why is that? Because the law was given to Israel, but Israel was

God's mouth to the world. And every time God dealt with Israel, he was always talking to them about their relationship to all the other nations.

It began all the way back at the very beginning of the story of Israel with Abraham when he said,

I'm going to ensure that you're going to be a blessing to all the families of the earth.

You're going to have impact on all the families of the earth. And then in all the earth, those who bless you will be blessed and those who curse you will be cursed.

So from the very beginning, there was a relationship to all the other nations. When Israel, things were going well with Israel, this testified to who

God was, his righteous standard, his good character. And everybody began to be aware that there was actually only one true

God. And he's the one who sets the rules for the entirety of creation. So says

Israel. And wow, look at them. I think the point is proven. And then when

Israel broke God's law, broke God's covenant, and God brought curses upon them, he told them that this would happen, and then told them what the nations would say.

The nations would hiss and wag their head and say, why would God destroy his people this way?

And the answer would come to them because they broke his law, take warning. And so the law was given to Israel, but this was to proclaim

God's righteous standard so that every mouth may be stopped and all the world become guilty before God.

Every mouth stopped. So you see the word of God versus the excuses of man. What excuse, what excuse is going to hold up before the creator?

The way that God has created everything, sustained everything, the way that he has operated, his power, his righteousness, our condition as the creature, every mouth is stopped before the word of God.

The result of the word of God being declared through his revelation is no excuse, no excuse.

Verse 20 says, Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

So they're the sight of God and the works of men. Well, anybody nail it, get it right, keep up, do enough to impress

God. The Pharisees tithed their mint and their dill and their cumin and their righteousness like ours before the eyes of a holy

God is his filthy rags. There is no way to take up God's law, the righteous expression of his character, and find something in it whereby we may stand and say,

I'm excused. I have a special exception. God is not a respecter of persons.

There is no way that we can ever measure up to the sight of God, his wholly piercing gaze.

The contrast is not simply between God's word and our excuses or God's sight and our good deeds.

The contrast is between the glory of God and the sin of man. Verse 23 is very familiar.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. This is true whether they were a

Jew or a Gentile. What goes on here? This sounds shadow or the substance.

The righteousness of God is indeed revealed in the law, but it's also revealed in the sun.

And this is not something that is in great contrast to the law because it was witnessed by the law and the prophets.

It was attested to by the law and the prophets. Here, this righteousness of God revealed in the sun is law attested.

It was what Moses and the prophets were talking about the whole time, this kind of righteousness, this very righteousness of God revealed in the image of God, Jesus Christ, who for us and for our salvation is

God of very God and man of very man, our only mediator.

This righteousness of God revealed in the sun is attested by the law. It's law attested.

And notice, this is very important, it is faith imputed. If you go through verses 21 through 31 in your

Bibles and you take the time to underline every time it says righteousness or justify or just, it's the same

Greek word, okay? Righteousness, justify, just, and you underline all of that maybe with one color of pen.

And you go back, same verses 21 through 31, and just underline with another color of pen the words believe and faith.

You should meditate on that a long time. This is the good news of Jesus Christ.

Verse 22 says that this righteousness of God, God's own righteousness, is revealed, notice, through faith, it is manifested through faith in Jesus Christ.

It shows up, it appears, it is recognized through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe.

Paul says in Philippians 3 .9, after listing his amazing resume of the type of righteousness that he was pursuing by trying to keep the law and keep up with the law, he said it was all rubbish, it was a dung heap, and he counted it all loss that he may have

Christ. And what was his desire, Philippians 3 .9, to be found in him, to be found in Christ, not having my own righteousness.

Let that sink in. Let that sink in.

Not my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith, the very righteousness of God that was achieved by Jesus Christ, that He is the end of the law, the culmination of the law unto righteousness for all who believe in Him, Romans 10 .4,

that He does all that the Father demands of His Son, His servant, and He is completely righteous, completely perfect, completely pleasing to the

Lord. He is God's perfect, spotless, unblemished Lamb who satisfies

God upon the cross. Not a single bone of His was broken as He was offered up to God in our place and for our sake.

It is that righteousness that Paul wants, not a righteousness of his own, not a righteousness of,

I started this many churches, and I went on this many mission trips, and I witnessed to this many people, and I said these wonderful things, and I was able to give extra money to these people over here.

None of it. A righteousness not my own. All of it is meaningless without the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

It is imputed to us, written down as in our accounts, reckoned to us by faith, by faith alone, not by works, not by the law of Moses.

That we would be saved is exactly the same. It's exactly the same. If there is a murdering pedophile in prison today, and he hears this word, he gets saved the same way

I got saved as a five -year -old weeping boy in my father's church.

Same righteousness of Christ, same grace of God, same trusting in Christ.

There is no difference. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That's the standard, not our experience.

It's the glory of God being justified freely by his grace, justified as a gift by his grace.

The gift, how we receive it, his grace, how it is given, has nothing to do with what

God thinks we can do for him. Has nothing to do with, I was kind to someone one day, and God said, well,

I think I could use that person in my kingdom. There is no difference.

I've fallen short of the glory of God. This is applied to us by grace.

It is not according to our merits, not according to our capacities. It is not according to our abilities.

It is not according to anything other than the free grace of God that we are saved.

This righteousness of God revealed in the Son is law -attested, faith -imputed, grace -applied, and it is God -satisfying.

It is God -satisfying, being justified freely by his grace, notice, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom

God set forth as a propitiation. The redemption, the slave price, the propitiation, the blood price, to be delivered out of bondage was costly.

To have our sins atoned for and forgiven is costly.

And notice, redemption, propitiation, and who is it about? Christ Jesus, the

Lamb of God, whom God set forth. He did not hide it.

Paul said to Felix, God didn't do this in a corner. He did it out in front of everybody.

Everybody saw it. Everybody knew what was happening. And he'd been talking about it for centuries before it happened.

This redemption, this propitiation is satisfying to God. It's satisfying to God.

Isn't it satisfying to you? What other plea will you make?

2 Corinthians 5 .21 said that the Father made the Son. God made him who knew no sin, knew no sin.

He had no sin in his life at all. He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

On the cross, Christ screamed the scream of the damned so that we would sing the song of the redeemed.

He suffered what we deserve that we might receive what he deserves. This is the great exchange.

Now listen to me. It is satisfying to God. Isn't it satisfying to you?

You carry the guilt and the weight of your sins, your failures.

You come short. I come short. Day after day after day we are confronted with our weakness.

It is hard to read the scriptures for we see by their light how unholy we are, how incomplete we are, how wretched we are.

And we come with that and we bear that every single day. And yet Christ died upon the cross and he was satisfying to God.

Is he satisfying to you? Is his righteousness enough for you that you will live in that and live by that?

Listen to 1 John. 1 John 1 7. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.

You know what I used to think that meant? If I do everything perfect and holy,

I get the fellowship with God. No, listen. If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son cleanses us, cleanses us from all sin.

How am I walking in the light if I have to be cleansed of sin? Verse eight, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

This is the apostle John, the beloved, saying to his fellow

Christians, if we say that we have no sin, we're just lying to ourselves. That's what it means to walk in the darkness.

Deceit. But if we walk in the light, what is that? It's confession. It's saying the same thing

God says. Yes, yes, Heavenly Father. Yes, yes, indeed. I do have sin.

That's walking in the light. That's being honest and truthful. Verse nine, if we confess our sins, see, walk in the light.

Say what God says about it. Put his light on it. If we confess our sins, he is faithful.

He always does this and just, we'll come back to that, to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Why is the judge of the universe just to simply let go of our guilt and our sin?

We vote judges like that out of office. We have them indicted and thrown in jail in our justice system.

So why is God just to forgive us our sins? Because he is satisfied with the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross.

He is pleased with the righteousness of his only begotten son to satisfy his standards.

So he is just to forgive us our sins. And look, he cleanses us from all unrighteousness. All the zealots for justice today, they speak of things in such foreboding woe.

There's no hope. You're polluted and you're sinful and it's never going to change.

There's no salvation. There's only doom. But here, look, Jesus Christ is such a savior that he cleanses us from all unrighteousness.

If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. Let us not say that we have not sinned.

My little children, these things I write to you so that you may not sin. Now, listen, if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the father,

Jesus Christ, the righteous, and he himself is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.

There is no difference. There's no difference between me and my brothers in Mongolia and my brothers in Indonesia.

One sacrifice and he is God satisfying. I pray that he is also satisfying to you.

And his righteousness is indeed enough for your sins, that you see that your sins are taken away by Christ and dealt with at the cross.

God thinks so. Let us think so. And this righteousness of God revealed in the sun is

God justifying, God justifying. Notice why

God did these things in this way. God set him forth as a propitiation by his blood, verse 25, through faith.

Now watch this to demonstrate his righteousness, to demonstrate God's righteousness.

Why? Because in his forbearance, God had passed over the sins that were previously committed. So David sinned a lot.

He was a wretched sinner. What did God do about those sins? Abraham wasn't perfect.

Solomon was a horrendous sinner. What did God do about all of those sins? He in his forbearance, he had passed over the sins that were previously committed.

This whole entire Old Testament sacrificial system passing over, passing over, passing over until he deals with it all in Christ.

So that David, the king, is saved by Christ the same way that my son is, that my daughter is, by the blood of Jesus Christ.

And God is showing his justice. He's not sweeping sins under the cosmic rug.

He's putting all of the sins of all who would ever believe upon Christ and putting them all upon Christ upon the cross and dealing with them there.

And not only about those who lived in the past, verse 26, to demonstrate at the present time, his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

He might be just and the justifier of the one notice who has faith in Jesus, not the one who has it all together and lives well.

And this righteousness of God revealed in the Son is also God glorifying.

Where then is boasting? Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith.

Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Where then is boasting?

Where does all the boasting go? Listen, Paul says in Galatians that he knows, and we ought to know that a man is justified, not justified, not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.

So that even we who have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ, not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified.

He says it five times, beating it through their thick skulls, pressing it into my hard heart.

Verse 19, Paul says, for I through the law died to the law that I might live to God.

I have been crucified with Christ. This is what faith means. When I, by faith, by the power of the

Holy Spirit, in the grace of God, by faith, when I am united to Christ, I'm united to his entire person and his entire work.

So that when Christ dies upon the cross, I die on the cross. That I have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh,

I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then

Christ died in vain. Listen, Paul elsewhere said,

I am what I am by the grace of God, and that's all that I am. How could he say such things? It's because the entire life that we have now as Christians is entirely bound up with Christ.

Not slightly attached, but entirely bound up with Christ. So that there is nothing in my life right now upon which

God would look and say, that's righteousness. That's righteousness in his marriage, or that's righteousness in the raising of his children, or that's righteousness in his pastorate, or in his work, or in his speech, or in his affections.

There is nothing in my life where God would find righteousness that isn't Christ. It's Christ all the way through.

If there's righteousness in my life, that is the life of the resurrected Christ with the power of the Spirit. Righteousness in me.

And I delight in that because God has given me a new heart. Every wave of sanctification, you know, that living out the new life in Christ, every wave of sanctification that breaks upon the shore of your life flows in from the ocean of justification.

It's Christ all the way through. And that's what it means.

That's what it means. When Christ died upon the cross, what

God is offering to us is that we're being made right by the glory of his own Son.

And we come to this meal, we're saying again and again, Christ is my life.

He gave his life for me. Christ is my life. He gave his life for me. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this night.

We thank you for an opportunity to stop and to ponder the goodness and the glories of Jesus Christ dying upon the cross for us.

Help us to believe it. Oh, Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief.

In Jesus name we pray. Would you stand for the hymn of communion, the power of the cross?

It's in your hymns, modern and ancient. Oh, to see the dawn of the darkest day,

By sinful man, torn and beaten and bled,

Bailed through the cross of woe. Verse two.

Oh, to see the pain written on your face,

The weight of sin. Christ became sinful,

Took the blest death for me,

Exhausted, spaken, Bows his head,

Torn in two, Dead or raised to life,

Failing to see my name

Written in the wounds For through your suffering,

I am free. Death is crushed to death,

Life is mine to live, One through your salvation.

Oh, it's the power

Of the cross. Son of God, Strange for us.

Lord, the Lord of hosts,

We stand forgiven and blest.