While the Sun's Light Failed (Luke 23:44-49, Jeff Kliewer)

The Demoniac, the Storm, and Jesus Setting Captives Free

Father, we stand on Christ alone, thank you, Jesus, for being our cornerstone, the church built upon you. Thank you, Jesus, that you have brought us into that like living stones, built us together as a spiritual house that rises for your praise.

Lord, thank you for your Word, which is a foundation stone to our lives, built on the Apostles and Prophets. Lord, we need your Word, we stand upon your Word. We ask that this morning your Word would be open to us and our hearts open to your Word.

Speak to us in Jesus' name, amen. In Luke 8, we learn about a man who was clothed in darkness, a demoniac who lived on the other side of the lake. Jesus created an amazing miracle in Luke 8 24, sleeping on the boat there was a storm that came up and Jesus rebuked the wind and the waves and the wind and the waves obeyed the voice of Jesus.

Arriving then on the shore, they meet this demoniac, the disciples and Jesus, and Jesus goes to him and it's discovered that there's actually a legion of demons inside this man. He's controlled by many demons.

Darkness has taken over his life to the point where he lives among the tombs. He harms himself. No one can even restrain him from hurting himself. A chain can't hold him. He's filled with a dark power, but a greater power, and that is the power of Jesus, comes to him and sets him free.

And it becomes his desire at that point to follow Jesus and to stay with him wherever Jesus would go. He wants to be a disciple. He wants to stay with him, but Jesus says, no, go back to where you came from and tell your family.

Proclaim, return to your home and declare how much God has done for you. And he went away proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him. Well, a short time later, Jesus begins his travel down to Jerusalem.

In Luke chapter 9 verse 53, he sets his face to go to Jerusalem. He arrives in the city of Jerusalem after some time and it's here that they will crucify our Lord. He's taken to a cross and hung upon a cross, but I want you to think for a minute.

What must that have been like for the demoniac who's now free? Where was he at this time? Was he still back in his city next to the Lake of Galilee? Because the Bible tells us when Jesus was crucified, a darkness settled over the land in the middle of the day for three hours.

Can you imagine being by the Lake of Galilee and all of a sudden, darkness comes. A supernatural darkness. The sun losing its light, the sun's light failing. What would this man think? Would he think darkness is coming over his soul again?

Are the demons coming back? Is his hope gone? Or maybe he's traveled up to Jerusalem for the festival, as Jews were supposed to do for the Passover. Maybe he saw his Lord, the one who set him free, being led like a spectacle through the city and up to Calvary.

Maybe he's watching from a distance and sees him on that cross and suddenly the darkness of night envelops Jesus on the cross. What hopelessness took over his soul? What dread? The prince of darkness defeating the prince of life?

Are the demons to take over again? Is all hope lost? Darkness settles on the land. When Jesus was crucified, some amazing things happened. Darkness settled over the land. The curtain in the temple was torn in two.

There was an earthquake. Cataclysmic things. Matthew tells us that even some dead saints came back to life and started appearing in the city of Jerusalem. Supernatural things happening. Let's read about this culmination of the book of Luke.

So much of what we've read has led up to this point. The travel narrative into Jerusalem and then the way of suffering, the Via Dolorosa we talked about last week, as Jesus is led up to the cross and now we have in Luke 23, only verses 44 to 49 today, we want to just slow down and think about the dying of Jesus Christ, the death of the Lamb.

Verse 44 to 49. Luke 23, if you have your Bible turned there, it was now about the sixth hour and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour while the sun's light failed and the curtain of the temple was torn in two.

Then Jesus calling out with a loud voice said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. And having said this, he breathed his last. Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God saying, certainly this man was innocent.

And all the crowds that assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts. And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things.

The Glory of God in the Darkness and the Torn Curtain

This is the part of the story where Jesus breathes his last. So what does the death of Jesus mean? What is the significance of the death of Jesus? We're going to talk about that today and really it has a lot to do with us, but not first and foremost.

The death of Jesus is first and foremost about God and his glory and secondarily about us. We'll talk about that. In verse 44, let's pick up there, it was now about the sixth hour and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour while the sun's light failed.

We've already imagined what that would look like for the formerly demon-possessed man whose entire hope has been put in this Jesus and now he sees darkness coming over the land. But what would that have been like for the soldiers, for Pilate who washed his hands of Jesus, for Herod who mocked him?

What would it have been like for a little kid living in Jerusalem when all of a sudden the sun's light began to fail? I was thinking about that this week and that phrase, while the sun's light failed, captured my attention and I began to imagine what it looked like.

I wrote these words that flow from that. While the sun's light failed, the moon called for rays to reflect upon their earthly mark. Children called for mothers to hold them safely in the dark. Animals called for owners with howling cry and angry bark while the sun's light failed.

Pilate called for his wife to tell him more about her dream. Herod called for John back from the dead it would seem. Soldiers called for torches to see their victim on the beam while the sun's light failed.

The earth called for quakes shaken deeply by this dark verse. The oceans called for flooding of Noah's world, only worse. The trees called for their brother to release the hanging curse while the sun's light failed.

The devil called for demons to admire this wicked thing. The angels called for permission to rescue heaven's king. The thief called for curses while the other began to sing while the sun's light failed.

The Father called for justice upon Jesus in our stead. The Son called forgiveness over the church for whom he bled. The Spirit called for faith in these words that we have read while the sun's light failed.

Just imagine that scene. All of Jerusalem and all of Israel, perhaps all the world, enveloped in darkness for three hours. This moment in time is the focal point of all of history. This is the pinnacle of the mountain.

This is the mountaintop. This is where the innocent Son of God is hung upon a tree. This is the display of God's glory. It's a display of his justice that the Father punishes sin. It's a display of his love that God makes a way for sinners to be forgiven.

The cross, this is what has brought us here today. This is what brought us all together as a people. It's the cross. There's differences among us as Christians. We have different perspectives. We look at the world differently in some ways.

We're more or less sanctified. Me being less, I'm sure. But there's one thing that brings all Christians together. It's the cross of Jesus. What happened here on Calvary's tree is the center point of history.

It's what started this thing, which is called our faith, and it's what sustains us as we look back to the cross. It's the cross that saves us. A dark, dark hour. Read the next verse, 45, while the sun's light failed.

That's the first supernatural miracle that happens in the dying of Jesus. Darkness, the sun itself fails to give light to the earth. But a second cataclysmic thing happens here in the text, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two.

A six-inch curtain in thickness separated the holy place in the temple from the holy of holies. Hebrews chapter 9. Turn with me there. If you have your Bible, turn it on. Or if you have it in page form, flip there.

Hebrews chapter 9. I just want us to read quickly through the first 14 verses of this chapter. Picturing the tabernacle, which is now a temple with a holy place and a most holy place, separated by this curtain.

Luke 23 says, in the dying of Jesus, this curtain was torn in two. Chapter 9, verse 1. Hebrews 9, 1 and following. Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness.

For a tent was prepared, the first section, in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of the presence. It is called the holy place. Behind the second curtain was a second section called the most holy place.

Having the golden altar of incense and the Ark of the Covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden urn holding the manna and Aaron's staff that budded and the tablets of the covenant.

In other words, the Ten Commandments, those stone tablets that God had engraved with his own finger, the law of God. Above it were the cherubim of glory, overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.

These preparations having thus been made, the priests go regularly into the first section, performing their ritual duties. But into the second, only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people.

By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened, as long as the first section is still standing, which is symbolic for the present age. Or probably a better rendering is which is symbolic for the age then present.

So pause with me for a moment. You have the holy place, and on the other side of this giant curtain is the most holy place. And that separation, that curtain that keeps people from coming, because only the high priest can go there, and he can go there only once a year.

That curtain pictures a distance, a block, that keeps people from the most holy place of God. There's a separating between God and man. We can't be where he is, symbolically. Now keep reading. Verse 9, according to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper.

So these offerings are made again and again, but they can't make anybody perfect. That's why they have to keep being made. But deal only with food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of Reformation.

Now that's not talking about 1517 there. That's talking about the the old covenant giving way to the new in the dying and rising of Jesus. Verse 11, but when Christ appeared, now catch that, but when.

Here's a change. Here's some good news. Here's a but. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that is not of this creation, he entered once for all into the holy places.

Not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctified for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

Here we have a priest, not a Levite doing the Levitical rituals, but from a different order, a higher order, the order of Melchizedek. We learned about that earlier in Hebrews. Here we have a priest that doesn't just bring a bull or a goat and sacrifice that and take the blood and put it on the mercy seat.

No, he comes and the sacrifice he offers is his own body and blood. The blood. The priest brings himself as the sacrifice. That's what was happening at Calvary. The blood of the Lamb, the blood of Jesus being offered that can truly take away sins.

And the cataclysmic event that happens when he does it is symbolic of this. The curtain is torn in two from top to bottom. It's God who does the tearing. It's he who opens the way. Forgiveness of sin.

And now a sinner like me, with all my filthiness, can go to the most holy place. Not a part of this creation, not a mere temple made with human hands. I will stand in the presence of God. How? I would be undone.

I would die in the presence of God. But no, a way has been made. It's the blood of Jesus that purifies this sinner and brings me in. That's the meaning of the cross. And the tearing of the curtain symbolizes it.

He makes a way for us, brothers and sisters, to come in to the most holy place. Back to Luke 23, the curtain is torn in two. Something interesting happened at this time. The Jewish Talmud was written after the Bible and it records the history of the traditions of the rabbis.

But there's something interesting that's found in Tractate Yoma 39b. Now these are people who don't believe that Christ died as the sacrifice. But listen to what the Talmud says after the fact. The rabbis taught that 40 years prior to the destruction of the temple, the lot did not turn, did not come up in the high priest's hand, nor did the tongue of scarlet wool become white.

When the sacrifices were brought, especially on that one day when the priests would go into the most holy place, they would have two goats. One would be the sacrifice and the blood would be would be sprinkled on the mercy seat.

The other goat was called a scapegoat. And the scapegoat would stand in the place of the people. The priest would lay his hand and impute the sin of the people into the goat. And then they would send the goat off into the wilderness.

That's where we get this term, scapegoat. But a tradition developed probably because of Isaiah 118 where it says that though your sins are scarlet, though they're red, they shall be white as snow. A tradition developed where the Jewish people would tie a thread or a piece of cloth around the scapegoat's head.

It was a red cloth. And a miracle would occur when they would tie that red cloth around the scapegoat's head, that in that process of laying their hands on the goat and imputing the sins to the goat and sending him off, they would see that as he began to go, that red cloth would turn white.

This miracle was recorded and it would happen many years, not every year. And especially as the Jewish people fell more and more into apostasy, it would happen less and less. But the Talmud records that 40 years prior to the destruction of the temple, it never turned white again.

The temple was destroyed in 70 AD. The first visit of Jesus into the temple was either 27 or 30 AD. 40 years exactly prior to the destruction of the temple. If Jesus died in 30 AD, which many historians and many scholars believe, that means that from the time the temple curtain was torn, that miracle never took place again.

Demonstrating that God is no longer accepting these animal sacrifices because the final sacrifice has been made. The temple curtain was torn in two. What happened that for those 40 years? Did the Jewish people just leave it torn?

No. Imagine, they would have climbed back up there with ladders and actually sewn it back together and worshipped that way for 40 years, but the glory had departed. Brothers and sisters, the curtain was torn because the sacrifice that Jesus made was once and for all.

A final sacrifice. Here as we go into verse 46, it says, then Jesus calling out with a loud voice, the other Gospels, I think it's John tells us, he yelled to Telestai, it is finished. And then he gives up the ghost.

He finishes the sacrifice. Verse 46, then Jesus calling out with a loud voice said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. And having said this, he breathed his last. It's amazing because it really shows who is in control of his dying, doesn't it?

The person who's in the throes of death doesn't get to decide when his last breath is, unless that sacrifice is offering his own life and laying his life down willingly for the sins of the people. It says here, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

That word spirit, pneuma, is the same word from which we get breath. He says, into your hands I commit my spirit, and then he breathes his last. He gives his life. It's a miracle. He releases his spirit.

A third amazing thing, but what I noticed here from the darkness, notice what Luke chose to record. What is Luke doing with what he's saying? Darkness, the curtain, a final breath. This expression, Father, forgive them, earlier on, and now, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

It teaches us what the meaning of this death really is. The meaning of Jesus's death is not primarily about us. This is a transaction, an exchange between the Father and the Son, and the purpose of the dying of Jesus is the glorification of God.

The death of Jesus is first and foremost about God and his glory, and secondarily about us. Jesus surrendering his life, laying down his life as a substitute to glorify the Father. Well, how does that glorify God?

Because in the dying of Jesus, the perfect justice of God is displayed. That he is a just and holy God, and he will punish sin. The dying of Jesus is the wrath of God poured out on the Son, demonstrating the holiness of God, his justice, and at the same time, demonstrating the love of God.

The love of God, that he would pour out his wrath upon a substitute to spare a sinner like me, an enemy of God, who brings nothing to the table, nothing at all, but sin, filthy rags, and yet God would love us so much that Jesus would die in our stead.

It demonstrates his glory and his righteousness. John Piper did a great job summing up this. You have it on your paper. He notices that the death of Jesus accomplishes a lot of things, but ultimately it's to glorify God by bringing to God a people to praise his glorious grace.

So, the death of Jesus, what does this dying accomplish? The forgiveness of sins for a people, the removal of the wrath of God, the defeat of death and the devil, the deliverance from hell and everlasting misery, the resurrection of our bodies someday, and with that, the healing of every physical and mental disease and disability, the entrance into the new heavens and the new earth.

But then Piper directs us to 1st Peter 3 18, talking about the righteous given for the unrighteous. Why? In order that, in order to, that he might bring us to God. And Piper says that the ultimate reason for the dying of Jesus is to bring a people to God who could value and treasure the attributes of God, to know God and enjoy God, treasure God, reflect God.

The dying of Jesus brings a people to God that behold the God who saves us. Another way to put it, what's the main idea of the gospel? Is it Jesus loves you and he has a plan for your life? If that's the main message of the gospel, the main reason for his dying, who does that make the center of the universe?

You. Because the dying of Jesus was about you, that God loves you. But if there's a higher motive than that, then we understand the meaning of the cross. God loves you, yes, and he saves a people that will come and praise his glorious grace.

And so he is the center of the universe. Follow me with this, Ephesians 1 6, this grace that he gives to us because he loves us, is that we would be brought to him to the praise of his glorious grace.

This accomplishment of redemption is not primarily about us. So the message of the gospel is not God loves you and has a plan for your life. I tried to put it into words and I just wrote down as best I could.

The message is that God is holy and he justly punishes sin and he graciously pardoned sinners on account of the fact that their sin was punished in a substitute. Who is none other than the Holy Son of God, who is God in the flesh of infinite worth.

The value of his divine worth is communicated into his human nature such that the death of his human body is the distinguishing, the extinguishing of a life of infinite value. The spilling out of infinitely valuable lifeblood.

The perfect display of justice and love. That's the gospel. That this one who dies on the cross is no ordinary man. He is a hundred percent man but he's infinitely valuable. He is the Son of God, the treasured one, the infinitely valuable one, and it's he who is dying.

So the glory goes to him. And because his blood is so valuable, it's not just like the blood of a bull or a goat. His blood is so valuable it atones for the sins of his people. How much sin? Every thought, every motive, every action, every word.

Disgusting things that mark our hearts, the darkness that is our hearts without God. All of that atoned for by this infinite blood, this infinitely valuable blood. You see, the gospel is about Jesus and a display of his glory.

The love of a father who would give his own son. All the glory goes to him. These are the solas of the Reformation. The final one, to the glory of God alone. This is why we exist. You were not created for yourself.

You were made for God and it's at the cross alone. Only at the cross can this all come together because there your sin is taken away and you become who you were created to be for the praise of his glory.

What is the chief end of man? Why were you created? It's to glorify God and enjoy him forever. That's the reason we were created. So we see now in the final three verses the response. We had three verses, cataclysmic things that point us to the glory of God, how the Father and the Son are relating in the death of Jesus, the darkness which represents sin, the tearing of the temple which makes a way for sin to be forgiven, the breathing out of his life which represents him giving his life, dying, that the Father's wrath is satisfied and the love of God is demonstrated.

All of this is accomplished. So how do we respond? You see three responses here real quickly. One, faith. Then you see repentance and then you see looking, just looking from a distance, valuing, treasuring, beholding.

Verse 47, here's faith. Now when the centurion saw what had taken place, these miracles, these supernatural things happening, he praised God. So this is a confession of faith saying, certainly this man was innocent.

When you see these miracles in the text, when the Holy Spirit illuminates it to you and makes it alive to you, it brings faith into your heart. Maybe you've been struggling to have faith. How can I believe in a God I can't see?

How can I believe in a God that allows suffering in my life and in the suffering of children and earthquakes and disasters? How can I have faith? This world is too broken and dark. It's foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, the message of the cross is the power of God.

Here's where faith comes from. The dying of Jesus. When you look at him on the cross, you're like the centurion and you say, surely, certainly this man was innocent. Here's a sinless one dying for sinners.

Faith is the first thing that's born from the cross, the message of the cross. Now look at the second thing, verse 48. And all the crowds that had assembled for this spectacle, when they saw what had taken place, returned home beating their breasts.

That is a picture of repentance. Recognizing, no, this this one who died on the center cross, he's not like the thieves on the other side. He's not like anybody else who has ever died. This is something different.

And the result is to beat your chest and say, I'm undone. Like Isaiah, when he saw God, he said, I am undone. I'm a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the King.

He was undone. The beginning of faith, that moment of coming to faith, always involves repentance. You can't turn to Christ and believe in him without seeing yourself for who you really are, seeing your own sin and hating your sin, and not that you can do anything about it, but saying, I am a wretch, but here's my hope.

You have to turn away from sin to turn to Christ. When Martin Luther nailed those 95 theses on the door, it's because the gospel had been lost and they were selling forgiveness as if penance, which relates to repentance, was something you can sell.

When you throw some coins in the coffer, a soul springs from purgatory. You want to know what the first of the 95 theses said? Martin Luther obviously wrote these. He says, number one, our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, in saying repent ye, intended that the whole life of his believers on earth should be a constant penance.

Our lives as Christians are a constant penance, a repentance. We don't just repent from sin one time and come to Christ. No, this is our constant daily attitude of our heart, looking inside and seeing that sin still remains, that it still clings to us, and repenting and turning again to Christ.

The first of the 95 theses said that. Penance, genuine penance, is that attitude of the heart, where you're turning away and you're looking to that crucified one and saying, you alone are my hope because I am a wretch and apart from you I'm lost.

Martin Luther then pointed out the contraries, that the moment where you're realizing how wicked you really are is when you're coming to Christ. When you truly see the depth of your own sin is when you can actually turn in faith.

He put it this way, he was describing his 95 theses when he wrote this, God works by contraries so that a man feels himself to be lost in the very moment when he is on the point of being saved. Man must first cry out that there is no health in him.

He must be consumed with horror. This is the pain of purgatory. In this disturbance salvation begins when man believes himself to be utterly lost. Light breaks. Peace comes in the Word of Christ through faith.

So that's what we see in our text. You have some people in the crowd, when they see these miracles their reaction is to beat their chest in horror because they're seeing inside themselves how wicked they are and that one is innocent.

And when you come to an end of yourself and you feel broken and undone and you say I am a wretch, there's no health in me, there's no life in me, I bring nothing to the table, now you're ready to come to him.

When you stop trusting your religion, when you stop trusting that you'll ever be good enough, you can't just get your act together and then come because you can't get your act together. It's the person who comes to the end of themselves who then looks up at the cross and there's forgiveness there.

There's salvation there. Have you come to the end of yourself yet? Maybe you say well I can't believe. Well you can't believe because you can't see how much you need them. You still are clinging to some hope on your own that you have something.

No, you have nothing. You have nothing to bring. Your religion won't help you. Your good deeds won't help you. You need to turn to that Christ who hangs on the cross and say you are my only hope and then you'll be saved.

Come to an end of yourself. Turn away from your sin. Recognize who you are without him. That's the contrary place. Dying to yourself where you'll be raised up with him. Finally, I love this last verse, 49.

It's so simple. And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance watching these things. These disciples, I'm sure some of them were there at a distance. Peter on a distant hill.

John was the only one right at the foot of the cross among the twelve and some of the women were right at the foot of the cross but most of the followers, remember there was a whole group that had come down from Galilee.

Probably thousands of people that were believing in him and all they can do when he's dying on the cross is stand at a distance. And so it is. Believers, we bring nothing to this. All we can do is stand at a distance and look back to that cross.

Look to Calvary. Look to Golgotha, the place of the skull. Look up at Jesus. That's how Spurgeon was saved, by the way. Charles Spurgeon could not understand the gospel till some simple preacher said, just look.

You don't have to do anything. Just look. Just look to him. Like the serpent was raised up in the wilderness when Moses lifted it up and whoever would look on the serpent would be healed. So it is with you if you'll just look.

Look to Christ on that hill. He alone will save you and recognize he alone deserves the glory. There's always that certain distance between creator, creation. There the king, the author of life, the light of the world is displayed at Calvary's tree.

Let your life be all about him. So in closing, to apply this, the message of the cross, foolishness to those who are perishing, it's the power of God to us. The message of the cross is about the glorification of God.

It's a display of his glory, his justice, his love, the infinite worth of the sacrifice, who is the priest who doesn't bring just bulls and goats but brings himself, that infinite treasure hung upon a cross.

It's a message of the cross that the Son of God is infinitely valuable. He lays down his life for you who believe. What's your part in this? Turn from your sins, look to him in faith, believing this man is innocent, this is my hope, this is life.

You look to the cross for your entire life. Keep repenting. Too often we just get comfortable in our sin. We think that that's normal. No. The hour of darkness was the hour of the cross where Jesus bore the sin of you and I who believe in him.

And now we are children of light. He bore that darkness on the cross. Will you walk in the light as he is in the light? Or will you continue to hide secret sins? All of us are prone to do that. We hide like Adam and Eve in the garden.

But no, we are children of light. Come in repentance to the place where you were first saved. Come into the light. Turn away from your sin. He'll wash you clean. 1st John 1 9. If you say you don't have sin, well that's because you're hiding in the dark.

But if you know you have sin, he is faithful and just to forgive your sin. To cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Children of God, walk in the light. Be holy as he is holy. You say, well I can't be as holy.

Right. You will sin. And that's why we live a constantly repenting life, day in and day out. But don't settle with your sin. Don't get used to it. Don't think it's okay. We were purchased out of that to be children of light.

And if he's brought you out of darkness into his marvelous light, go proclaim it. We circle back around now to Luke 8. When that man was brought out of darkness, demons were cast out of him. He was set free.

He went home proclaiming what God had done for him. That's what we go and do. Evangelism happens out there. Not as much in here. Can happen in here too. But the primary place evangelism happens is you going back to your own.

Your co-workers and family and friends. And telling about the light of the world. Jesus Christ. Go proclaim. Tell it on the mountains. Let's close in prayer. Michael, if you come on up. Worship team.

Hey, if you've, if you're not sure that you've repented and you've looked to Christ, do that right now. Maybe you've done that at some time but you've walked away. Come back to the same place. It's the cross.

The cross. Close your eyes now and you use your own words between you and God. Say something like this. Say, I am a sinner. I have nothing. I am a wretch. I've come to the end of myself. There's no health in me.

But I look to that Lamb of God dying on the cross. Jesus Christ, the righteous one, in whom is no sin. He is innocent. He is the Savior. He bleeds for me. His blood is to wash away my sin. Jesus is my only hope.

I come to him in faith. He died on a cross and rose from the dead on the third day, I believe. And brothers and sisters, if you've fallen into sin, some area of darkness in your life, repent that in your own heart right now.

Confess it. Turn away from it. Come into the light. Take a moment just to pray. And Jesus, we thank you. You are the light of the world. Thank you for going to that dark place. The Father made you, who knew no sin, to be sin for us.

That in you we would be the righteousness of God. Thank you for the cross. Thank you for the cross. Thank you, Jesus, for the cross. All of our hope is in you. We're repenting again today. We're turning back to the light of the world.

Now send us out in the power of the Holy Spirit to share the good news. In Jesus' name, amen.