John 19:1-5 - He Became Our Curse

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon We pray that as we declare the

Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who

Christ is may you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you a

Question that I want to ask in the beginning is why did Jesus have to suffer if he just had to die for us

Why couldn't he have died as an infant? Why couldn't he have died while he was in his sleep Why couldn't he have died a painless death if he's perfect and we needed his perfection

And he we needed him to switch places with us He'd be perfect us be sinners and his death tone for our sin

Why did Jesus need to die such an awful death such a brutal death?

Was it? Was it just the Lord being unjust was it just the Romans? That's just the way that they did things or was their intention behind it.

What our salvation Be possible if Jesus would have died a pain -free death.

I don't think so. I actually think it's highly Intentional that Jesus suffered both spiritually and physically on the cross

I believe that there's something going on underneath that that we need to understand and it goes all the way down into our covenant thinking

It goes down into covenant theology if you're not familiar with covenant theology it is it is the skeletal system of the

Bible It's what holds the meat on the bones. It's it's there even if you don't recognize it It is the conduit by which

God enters into relationship with sinful man He does not enter into relationship flippantly.

He enters into relationship through covenant a great Covenant theological scholar and and that sounds very hoity -toity.

In fact, but it's actually a great book. It's very accessible It's by O Palmer Robertson. It's called Christ of the

Covenants He defines covenant theology this way a covenant is a relationship wrought in blood sovereignly administrated a

Covenant is where God enters into a relationship with people who don't deserve to be in a relationship with him

And he's got certain elements that go into that relationship that make the relationship possible

You think about marriage as a human covenant you think about your relationship with your bank who owns your house?

That's a covenant if you don't pay we take your house. That's a binding agreement. Not not Sovereignly administrated and certainly not bound in blood at least

I didn't sign my mortgage in blood But the relationship that God brings to man is of such

Difference the chasm between us and God and his holiness is so severe that we needed a relationship

That was signed in blood Now there's several elements of a covenant. There's stipulations.

Every covenant has stipulations It's it's you do this and then I will be your

God. I'll be in relationship with you There's blessings for the person who obeys the covenant and there's curses

For those who disobey the covenant now curses is a Word that could seem like you're in the middle of Haiti and a witch doctor is after you

That's not what that means in a covenantal sense curses are the punishments that God will pour out upon those who are covenant breakers and In order to seal the covenant

God always seals covenants in his blood every single one of them Adam The animal was killed in the garden

Abraham the covenant was sealed in the blood of circumcision you go on and on through these Now in Adam there were clear stipulations given to him

You can eat of all the trees in the garden, but there's one that you cannot eat That's the knowledge of the tree of good and evil.

You cannot eat of that or you will surely die Everything else was permissible to Adam. He had clear stipulations he had clear rules between him and God if you want to be in relationship with me, you must obey these things and as we saw

There's also clear curses and condemnations and judgments that befell Adam and his progeny because of his covenant lawlessness, that's what sin is

Sin is breaking covenant with God sin is inviting upon yourself curses as We read in Deuteronomy 28 and with Adam the condemnation fell upon not just himself, but everyone he represented us

He was our elected representative Who his decision became the decision for all of us so that in him?

Everyone inherits a fallen mind Your brain doesn't quite work the way that you want it to It thinks about wickedness when you close your eyes and you see things that you ought not see your brain is at war with you we have fallen this in our relationships like marriage where shame and turmoil and Words like divorce come to bear we have dominion that is now thwarted

Because of sin we have a creation that is groaning where thorns and thistles and earthquakes and and Typhoons and everything else are swirling about because the earth is groaning under the weight of our sin

There's a connection between us and the earth. You know that when we send they fell The more it even says that the more we

Produce sin on the face of the earth the more polluted the land becomes it says that in the law of God That's why homosexuality is such a wicked sin because it pollutes the land and it causes the land to go under curse

It's not just the people who participate in it. The land is cursed as well Fallen physicality our bodies don't work the way that we want them to work

Fallen emotions our hearts don't work the way that we want them to work. And I know I'm speaking to people who are totally together on their emotions

You never have lapses in that you never have moments where you've got a little sassafras going on right

Fallen spirituality we died that day. We fell into spiritual death Adam broke covenant and we fell with him

Now that's not the end of the Bible praise God because if it were it could have stopped at Genesis 3 They send stories over and yet the rest of the

Bible is God entering into Relationships with sinners in order to reinvigorate the covenant. He does that with Adam after they said he does it with Noah He does with Abraham.

He does it with he repeats those covenants to Isaac Jacob and Judah. He does that to Israel He does that to David.

He does that through Christ God pursues his people But the problem is that the curses are still there

Sin requires a punishment and if God does not punish sin God would be unjust

Just like if you and I went to a courtroom and we watched a judge and there was a woman there who had had been

Violated violently and the judge says no big deal. I'm gonna offer the criminal grace

You would think that is a disgustingly wicked judge So God and his justice will by no means leave the guilty unpunished and yet in some way somehow

God is going to reverse The curse for us. He's going to pay that curse.

He's going to pour out his wrath upon that curse and What we're gonna see today is he's going to do that By pouring out what we deserved on to Jesus.

He became our curse So that we could become The blessing

I want you to think about it like an umbrella It's not that God when he saved us

Did away with his justice in order to save us The wrath is still happening just like when you go outside and you and you walk out into the world

There's not a space of non rain all around you as you walk out

The umbrella is what protects you from getting soaking wet. The rain is still pouring.

The rain is still coming down But you have a covering That's the same with Christ The wrath of God is poured out and it's poured out against all unrighteousness and wickedness

You will either stand under the shadow of his covering or you will be drowned in the fury of his wrath

That is your only option So today I want us to see

Six or just for five things five things. I want us to see five things. I Know when

I say six, you know, you're in for a long ride. So we need to install seatbelts in here for that reason It's five today.

So don't worry. Don't fret this week We're gonna look at the curses that were poured out on Jesus to save us next week

We're gonna look at the curses that Israel invited upon her own head in Rejecting Jesus.

So it's a two -part in these John 19 verses today. We're gonna look at those five aspects

Jesus. Number one. He took the curse of Abraham Number two, he took the curse of Adam number three.

He took the curse of Israel number four He took the curse of creation and number five he took the curse of our guilt and our shame and The application of course is that all those curses that were stacked against us?

He will have poured out on him for us so that his children will be saved. They will be safe you will float on the little ark as The wrath of God is poured out all around you

So if you will join me in John 19 verse 1 through 5 as we examine the text together

It also I think be up on the screen maybe or maybe it won't Maybe go ahead and turn there

John 19 1 through 5 says this Then pilot then took

Jesus and scourged him and the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and put a purple robe on him and they began to come up to him and say hail king of the

Jews and To give him slaps in the face Pilot came out again and said to them behold.

I am bringing him out to you so that you may know that I find no guilt in him Jesus then came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe

And pilot said to him behold the man so when the chief priest and the officer saw him they cried out and said crucify crucify and Pilot said to them take him yourself and crucify him for I find no guilt in him

What a statement The Jews answered him we have a law and by that law

He ought to die because he made himself out to be the Son of God We just read in John 11 that they convened a council against him.

Now. The council has got him and they're ready to kill him Let's pray Lord Jesus We thank you that your death was more than just a

Display of your affection. Although we praise God for that Lord we thank you that your death was more than just Roman propaganda that we that you should not

That you should not go against the Empire or Lord that it was more than just a display of Jewish hatred towards Christ Lord, we thank you that underneath the brutality of this moment

That there are covenant realities that are happening that there are That there that the curses that we deserved are being intentionally poured out on Jesus So that all of us can hide in the shadow of his wings so that we can hide in his safety so that we can

Hide in his victory so that we can hide in his love Lord you have carved out a safe space for us to live as you absorb the violence of God's wrath

Lord Let us see that today Lord let it affect our hearts and also let it affect our gratitude and our worship in Christ's name

Amen the first point I'd like to bring up is that Jesus took the curse of Abraham and We have to do a little background for us to see this now

Jesus is going through what's called a scourging a scourging is 40 lashes from a

Roman Instrument called the flagellum that he would have been it would have been done before the crucifixion

It was the punishment before the crucifixion to intensify the crucifixion He would have been tied to a whipping post in the middle of the courtyard.

They would have stripped him Naked so that his back and his buttocks and his legs were exposed and they would have taken this instrument called a flagellum

And they would have whipped him and beaten him 40 different lashes Which means that this instrument with nine leather straps with bone and glass and metal hooks would have wrapped around his body

The hooks would have sunk in him like sinking into a fish when you catch it and then they would have ripped

Flesh away from his body 40 different times So that at the end of this he would have had muscles and bone

His circulatory system exposed he would have been under circulatory shock

He would have been ready to collapse Under the agony of all of this The only thing that would have kept him conscious would been the adrenaline coursing through his veins

On top of that they add to Jesus's punishment the mockery of a crown of thorns now

There's debate on what kind of thorns these were from the research that I did anywhere from 3 inches to 12 inches long

These aren't little rose thorns These are serious thorns that could pierce the crown of Christ going down even towards touching his skull

And they would have donned him with this fake crown in order to mock him they would have put a purple robe upon him and that That creates a certain image for us because we know purple is the color of royalty but back in those days purple was extremely rare Purple was only the color was only gained by these particular sea snails that emitted a purple dye

And it would have taken Hundreds of these in order to die, maybe even a thousand of these in order to die an entire robe

It would have been expensive. It would have been something that only a king could have afforded and they're wasting

This robe in their mind not in ours, but in their mind they're wasting this robe on mockery they're soaking the purple robe that would have been tens of thousands of Dollars in our economy today and they're soaking it with his blood and mocking him as they spit in his face

He would have been the epitome of curse When you looked at him, you would have sent you would have not seen a human

You would have seen someone who had been treated like an animal like a sacrificial animal in the Old Testament And you would have seen that the curse really truly had fallen on this man and that takes us all the way back to Genesis 15

In Genesis 15, we have this peculiar story and I'm going to tie these two stories together Abraham is in a deep sleep

Abraham is in a a very heavy slumber and he wakes up in Genesis 15 and he sees

God walking through severed animal parts and Marching through those now, do you know what that means?

We've talked about this before but I'll explain it in Those days when two people wanted to enter into a covenant with one another

It's called a suzerain and a vassal treaty That just means you have a powerful person and a non powerful person who are entering into covenant together

The powerful person will make stipulations you do this You give me your money and then

I'll let you live It's kind of like the Mafia back in in Southie, you know, hey sure would be sure would be a bad thing

If your sub shop burned up. Oh, yeah, it would be a bad thing What do I need to do? Why if you give me money then I don't think it'll burn up Okay, that that's kind of the way that suzerain vassal agreements went in those days

You give me all your money and I'll make sure you live Well when God comes into a suzerain vassal treaty agreement with Abraham God is infinitely more powerful than Abraham and God requires certain

Obediences from Abraham and in those days the curse the punishment would be that they would take animals and they would literally

Saw them in half Laterally down their torso and they would flay them in half and they would lay them on the left and the right and they would

Create a bloody walkway where the suzerain and the vassal the powerful man and the non -powerful man would walk arm -in -arm together through the severed animal parts and symbolism that was being communicated was if you

Vassal don't obey me. Then I will do to you what I just did to the animals.

I will rip you in half. I Will slaughter you So when

Abraham wakes up and he sees that God has not invited him to join him in this walk What he saw

Was the gospel? That God was not going to slaughter Abraham if the

Covenant did not come true God himself was going to die By being slaughtered so that the

Covenant would come true And now you get to John 19 Where Jesus is being severed and ripped in pieces.

He is the animal of Genesis 15 All those years ago when God showed up as the smoking fire pot and and the torch and he walked through need declared

I am the Lord and I'm gonna do this now in John 19 the smoking fire pot has come in the in the person in the flesh of Jesus Christ the

Son and now he is walking the path of destruction He is being ripped apart like the animal in Genesis 15 so that you and I can walk away unscathed

He is living out the very Covenant curses. He's inviting them upon himself

He is being ripped to shreds for us brothers and sisters. The brutality of the cross is not meaningless

Jesus is dramatically Demonstrating Genesis 15 and he's saying that you will be

God's people you will be the families that are blessed under the seat of Abraham Because I was ripped apart for you

That is the gospel if you lose the cross if you lose the brutality if you lose Jesus being shredded

For us you lose the Covenant symbolism Now, let's go deeper.

That's point one The second point is that he's not just taking upon himself the

Covenant imagery with Abraham He's taken upon himself the Covenant curse of Adam when

Pilate says and do we really think that Pilate said these things apart from the sovereignty of God forcing this through his pagan mouth

He said behold the man did you catch that Behold, I mean he said behold a man

He didn't say behold. Look at this guy. He said behold the man. He is calling Jesus unintentionally.

He didn't do it on purpose He's doing it unwittingly He's calling him the man the prototypical man the man that pointed to Adam in case we forget

There already was one of those Adam was the man in the beginning was the only man

So he was the man. He wasn't one of many. He was the man So Jesus is being called the man not a man the man.

Let me give you an example of this. I Had to ask Derek because I've stopped paying attention to football

But apparently in college football, there's things called bowl games There's the sugar bowl the orange bowl the

Rose Bowl the cotton bowl there Whatever the blimp is there's a blimp bowl

There's there's all kinds of bowls and I would say that in one degree or another they are super Those are super bowls.

It is a super kind of bowl game But none of you are confused and you don't think that I mean, it's the

Super Bowl It's a Super Bowl game. It's not the Super Bowl game

You know the difference the a is in is an indeterminate amount of items

But the V gives it something special and superlative. We know what the Super Bowl is is the pinnacle of Football, it's it's the the height of these championship games.

If you if you watch men in tights, I'm just kidding Jesus is not a man among men.

He is the man The words even though pilot had no idea what they meant.

The words are very intentional He is the one and only man he is the man to which all men must craft their lives after and all of this drips with Adamic imagery, it means it points back to Adam Adam was the first perfect man.

He was created in perfection. He was created sinless. He was created spotless He was created the man who would obey the

Lord and yet he fell from his perfection He went from being a for the man to a man and His progeny inherited his rebellion here pilot calls

Jesus the man and in signaling that the royal thee has returned

After Adam there wasn't any these there was only a's He's a man a sinner a scoundrel a rebel a this a that here's the man the has returned

The new man the new Adam the new head of a new creation

God in Genesis, did you know that God in Genesis said behold the man also? Did you know that?

When God made Adam he looked at creation and he said behold the man God is bringing his prized man in front of the

Sun the moon and the stars in front of the trees in front of the swarming beast and the Creeping things and he's saying the man look at my prized creation.

He is presenting Adam to the cosmos and he's saying behold the man and In a dramatic turn of irony pilot quotes

God and he quotes and he parades Jesus in front of the fallen creation who had turned on God and He says behold the man

Adam was presented as the man to all creation and with Adams life.

He ruined it Jesus the second Adam the better Adam is now being presented as the man to all creation and by his life

He would heal it He's taking the curse of Adam. He's switching places with Adam He's taking

Adams disobedience and he's turning it into obedience He's taking Adams cowardice and he's turning it into courage.

He's taking Adams sin and he's replacing it with righteousness He's taking Adams squandered life

And he's replacing it with a legacy Pilot announced the covenant reversal, which

I think is pretty ironic and pretty beautiful number three

He's not only taken upon himself the sit or the curse of the animal in Genesis 15

He's taken upon himself the curse of Adam. He's also taken upon himself the curse of national

Israel Pilots not the only person who said something about Jesus in this passage the

Jews in his passage say that he's Made himself out to be the Son of God.

They use this term Son of God so Pilot calls him the man the

Jews call him Son of God. That's ironic in and of itself That they call him what he is and they could not see it

But I also think there's another layer of irony here You know that Israel was called the

Son of God in the Bible Did you know that the nation of Israel is called

God's Son? So when they look at Jesus and they say he's making himself out to be the

Son of God Think about the ignorance because they themselves were called

God's Son The title was first given to Adam It's only given of three people in the

Bible Adam Israel and Jesus and it was given to the Jews in Exodus 4 22

Also given to a pagan the Pharaoh God says through Moses thus says the

Lord Israel is my son my firstborn They were the firstborn

Son of God. They were the Son of God not in the divine sense, but they were God's child

They were supposed to love him and live under his fatherly rule They were supposed to obey him like like joyful little children and they failed to see the irony of what they were saying

They were supposed to act like children of the Living God and in John chapter 8 Jesus tells him that you are not children of God.

You are not children of Abraham. You are children of your father the devil The irony is as they called

Jesus the Son of God They were announcing the fact that they had been replaced as God's Son Do you see the irony?

They didn't say He makes him out to be what we are They didn't even see it.

They missed it They had emancipated themselves from the rule of their father Jesus calls them children of Satan.

They had prodigalized themselves squandered their legacy and severed themselves from the vine

Matthew 21 it says that that this kingdom will be ripped away from them and given to a people who will bear its fruit in John 15 he says that they will be severed from the vine and they'll be thrown among the bramble

Jesus came to replace Israel as the true

Son of God They were the false Son of God Who failed? Jesus came as the true

Son of God to succeed I Want to show you a couple examples of this because I know that this is

Maybe something you've never heard before Maybe I'll start off by saying the most controversial thing.

I'll say today National Israel the country of Israel there is nothing biblically or eschatologically significant about national

Israel today God has not made a covenant with national Israel national Israel is a secular nation who hates

Christ Now that does not mean that revival will not come to every tribe tongue and people including the

Jews That doesn't mean that if the Jews continue along until the very end that they won't be redeemed and saved

They will Romans 11 even makes an argument for how the Jews will come to Christ So I just want to make a point here that national secular

Israel the government of Israel is not God's chosen people

That title is given to the church the Israel of God There is no difference

Spiritually speaking Politically geopolitically there is a difference in what I'm getting ready to say spiritually.

There is no difference between Israel and North Korea North Korea believes something that's going to damn them and send them to hell

Israel believes something that will damn them and send them to hell if they do not repent both

Nations will fall headlong into the fires of hell. We pray for their repentance We don't wish

Bad on them, but we pray that they turn to Christ because there is no salvation apart from Christ He is the way the truth and the life and no man comes to the father but through him and as we talk about praying for the

Jews, I Do want you to pray specifically for that nation? I Have never in my life

Seen a nation that hates and despises Jesus so ferociously as modern -day

Israel because of dispensationalism in this country and because of our

Geopolitical situation where we're allies with Israel, which I'm not saying anything about that.

That's for our government to decide I'm not speaking on politics politics. What I am saying is that spiritually

There is a hatred of Jesus that I don't see in the most ardent atheist in the people of Israel today for instance in their own religious book the

Talmud The Babylonian Talmud, which is just called the Talmud. It's their sacred scripture in the in the 200s to 400s ad

They had to invent a new religion because their temple and their sacrificial system were wiped out by Rome So modern -day

Judaism is not biblical Judaism Modern -day Judaism is not Torah Judaism where they're following Yahweh in the way that the

Torah describes it is not it is Rabbinic Judaism based off of the writings of the rabbis and the writings of the rabbis are written down in the

Talmud in The Talmud, I'm not going to quote it directly because I'm trying to clean it up a little bit the

Talmud describes Jesus as Being the greatest scum on earth

That the Pharisees were righteous in murdering him that God as a reward for the

Pharisees righteousness through Jesus into hell and for all of eternity According to the

Talmud Jesus will be boiling in a pot of liquid feces and semen That's what the most pious and the most righteous

Jew today believes about your Lord and your Savior There is a visceral hatred that began 2 ,000 years ago when they convened that council in John 11 and it has stuck with them ever since and Yet for the grace of God, so would we?

So would we we would hate him? We would turn on him Paul says

For us not to be puffed up with pride as Christians Because they were cut off from the covenant and we were brought in do not be puffed up with pride

Because the same thing could happen to us if we turn on Jesus like they turned on Jesus the point

I'm making is that there was a hatred that formed in them a

Covenantal curse that fell on them That we pray that the

Lord would break even to this day We pray that the Lord would save them out of it and they would turn to Jesus for their salvation

So pray that those are our these are our in some ways prodigal brother

Who's gone? Who we pray will return But don't be confused.

They are not the chosen people of God anymore. They will not join that rank until they come back to Jesus Now, how does

Jesus show that he's replacing Them as the as the

Son of God and that he's going to now stand in that office forever Well, he reenacts their entire story This is not coincidental

Jesus marches through the entire story of Israel in the Gospels and he redoes every area where they failed

Everyone have you ever wondered why Jesus was called out of Egypt as? A as a baby just like Israel was called out of Egypt as a baby

Have you ever wondered why Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River? Just as Israel as a little toddler entered into the promised land through the

Jordan through a baptism If you ever wondered why Jesus Wandered in the wilderness for 40 years or for 40 days just like the

Jews wandered in the wilderness for 40 years Right after he's baptized in the

Jordan He goes to the wilderness led by the Spirit of God just like Israel was led by the Spirit of God flame by night and cloud by day

If you ever wondered why Jesus was tempted in the wilderness just like Israel was tempted in the wilderness They were tempted with bread.

Remember he said you can't gather on the Sabbath They were tempted with bread Jesus was tempted with bread turn these stones into bread.

That's what Satan told him They're tempted in the same way Israel was they're tempted with the Midianites who came in and took them to the high places like Balaam Took them to the high places and tried to curse them

Satan takes Jesus up to the high place and tries to evoke a curse on Christ Israel was supposed to conquer the nations

Satan offers Jesus the nations. Do you see what Jesus is doing? He's marching through their defeat and he is rotting

Wro Victory, isn't it?

Interesting that after these things he was brought into the garden land. He sent out his 12 disciples

To do ministry just like the Jews sent out their 12 spies to see if the land could be tamed

Then he enters into at the end of his life his faithful garden just like the Jews were supposed to come into a garden land

It was flowing with milk and honey. They were supposed to live according to the truths of God and Every aspect of Jesus's life.

He's being successful where Israel failed. He's overturning their curse They were acting like orphans for their entire history now

He's saying the Sun has come and because the Sun has come Israel cannot bring you into blessing Israel's temple can't bring you into blessing

Israel sacrificial system can't bring you into blessing their their feast their priest none of it can bring you into the blessings of God because it was a type and shadow of the things to come

Jesus comes As the true son of God making you and I not having to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem But now he's made us walking talking temples according to the

Spirit of God. He has brought us into the forever feast He has brought us into the blessings of Yahweh.

He is the true son who's made us a part of the family In a way that Israel never could in a way that Israel.

I pray will join and bowing the knee to Jesus Christ The greatest way to love

Israel and every other fallen nation is to tell them about Jesus The most loving thing we can do is pray for them that they would repent and turn to Christ Jesus took the curse of that people and he became the servant the true son and guess what he's done

Israel was a fallen nation what has he made us into a kingdom of priests and a holy nation

If you're in here and you're a Christian, you're not an American That's secondary You don't even need citizen citizenship papers to be an

American anymore, but that's also tertiary If you're a Christian in this room your citizenship is in heaven and you await your king to come and bring you home

It doesn't matter where you're at on planet earth we in this room have more in common With a single mother in Palestine if she's a

Christian Then we do with a rabbi in Jerusalem Jesus has overturned the curse of Abraham of Adam and of Israel number four

He's also taken upon himself the curse of creation If you remember in Genesis in the garden the curse affected more than just Adam even their children it affected the land as we've talked about before Genesis 3 17 and 18 says cursed is the ground because of you and Toil you eat of it all the days of your life both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you again

The ground the earth the land the atmosphere the oxygen all of it was brought under a curse because of Adam Instead of gardens, it turns into thorns and thistles

How does Jesus bear the curse I Want to say something I Could talk about this for a long time and there's so much to say so I will

I will measure my words in Christian circles today, especially in the

Reformed Church. We've been infected with a heresy in the early church called Gnosticism Gnosticism means that the physical world is evil

The spiritual world is good and what you will find in a lot of Reformed churches

Is that there is a pietism in a focus on the spiritual? Without a focus on the physical there's an ignoring of the physical

God made us as both spirit and body And I believe his redemption will come to both the soul and the body

Because Christ is going to redeem everything that was fallen. How do I know that? Because what does

Jesus wear in this passage on his head? He wears a crown of thorns. He doesn't wear a crown of clover.

He doesn't wear a crown of gold he puts on his perfect brow the symbol of creation's curse

Which was the thorn that came out of the ground because of our sin he put on his head

The symbol of creation's curse and why would he do that if he had no intention on healing it?

His blood was applied to our soul in regeneration and justification

And his blood was applied even to those thorns as they sat upon his perfect head

He was symbolically in that moment taking the curse on him Paul says that that the creation itself is groaning for what we have.

The creation is groaning for redemption Do we not believe that he will redeem creation? Yes, we believe that eventually at in the eternal state

He will redeem everything that was lost. But do we believe that he's also going to push back the curse Even in his kingdom now

He says in Genesis 3 15 and I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed and he

Shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel. Isaiah 53 talks about this bruising as a piercing

The crown of thorns was a part of the piercing that Jesus endured Taking upon himself that curse and I believe reversing that curse through his resurrection

I believe he's going to reverse everything that was fallen now We we admit we know that death itself is the final enemy and then comes the end

He's going to overturn death first Corinthians 15 He's gonna give us imperishable bodies and then the end comes but do we really believe that he's going to that he's going to leave

Creation broken and he's not gonna make any progress on redeeming creation until he overturns death

I don't believe that I believe death is the final enemy, but I don't believe it's the only enemy I believe he's going to make progress on these things and there's a lot of evidence to this

We've got to get outside of our 21st century minds for a moment and go back into the squalor of what it looked like to live in the

Roman world For instance, let me give you a couple examples or 10 or 20.

I don't know More food today is being produced on planet Earth and at any point in human history

Do we see that as Jesus? Bringing fruitfulness to the land redeeming the curse of the land that would that would rebel against production of food

By his people Do we believe that Christians and the gospel going to all the nations has an effect upon the world?

Because if you look at history every nation that's ever come under the power of the gospel, they're lifted out of their poverty

It's not health and wealth. They're lifted out of their poverty they're lifted out of their out of their squalor and there's 2 ,000 years of this history and Those who love

Jesus you will not hear this in secular education. You will not hear this on PBS You will not hear this on what's the radio station that's owned by the government

NPR. Yeah, you definitely not hear that here. Listen to this Christians all of these are Christians world changing technologies that are overturning the curse happened by Christians the printing press

Johannes Gutenberg Literacy has been illiteracy has been lifted out of most nations on earth because of a

Christian who made a printing press He died with pennies to his name, but the legacy remains

The telescope Galileo Calculus Isaac Newton the laws of motion Isaac Newton again the law of gravity

Isaac Newton again. He was busy the barometer Evangelista Torricelli Don can tell you if I pronounce that right modern chemistry

Robert Boyle genetics Gregor Mendel Antiseptic surgery and we not believe that that has brought flourishing and life to the world that you don't have a dirty needle anymore

And you don't have a dirty scalpel that's cutting you open Life expectancy has has grown leaps and bounds because of things like this because of Christians inventing things to the glory of God vaccinations not in the hands of pagans

But in the hands of Christians have cured diseases University system again not in the hands of the woke

But in the hands of Christians they were created by Christians Harvard Yale created by Christians go back further than that Oxford Cambridge created by Christians Musical staff notation the language of music discovered by a

Christian mechanical clock benedictine monks braille and Lewis Braille apparently Morse code, did you know?

Did you know that Samuel Morris or Samuel Morse? Excuse me, not Morris Samuel Morse he was a painter and he was working on a project and His wife died while he was working on the project and the letter took so long to get to him

That by the time he received it She had already died and she had already been buried and the letter from his family said

By the time you get this your wife will already have been buried So, you know don't leave finish your job and come home and grieve then

Did you know that the ache in his heart that any other person would experience that? That same reality caused him to invent what we call the telegraph

So that instantly communication could be sent Did you know that men and women Christians?

Invented the transatlantic cable that transmitted the very first message from America to Europe and you know what that message was

He shall have dominion They held hands in the middle of the ocean they connected the cords together and they prayed

Do you know the first telegraph was about? God and how God was going to bring his knowledge of God to all the nations

Thermodynamics Lord Kelvin planetary laws Johannes Kepler anesthesia William Morton and Crawford long the

Mercator projection map. I don't know what that is, but I'm assuming it's really great Gerhardus Mercator scientific classification system a careless

Linnaeus vacuum science x -rays electrochemistry Cinematography all of these things are pioneered by people who love

Jesus who are seeing that the curse Should not remain and that we push it back through God honoring discoveries

Why have we? Squalor why have we turned away from the greatest legacy that has ever been invented the heights of music were because of Christians the heights

Of art were because of Christians nations that were built on Christian worldviews were transformed out of poverty and into blessing

Nations that were built on Christian values became strong The Protestant work ethic is real

Christianity pulled the Gothic tribes of Rome out of their paganism and into civilization Europe and America was civilized

By Christians and now it's being ghettoized because they've turned their back on Jesus you want to get an example of this look at what

America was like in the past when they were at the height of Belief in God and the blessings that were here and now look at San Francisco And I look at Los Angeles and I look at these cities there is a correlation between the land and Us as we pursue

Christ blessings come upon a land when we leave him chaos ensues

That's beyond dispute. You look at every example in history pagans are not the ones who elevate people out of poverty

They're the ones who put people in it. They're the ones who celebrate death. Look at what has happened

We have handed we have handed the scalpel that can be used for so much good to the world

Who's now using it as a weapon? Vaccines used against his people and being and being tempted in order to you must take this vaccine

You're gonna lose your job a vaccine that hasn't even really been thoroughly investigated or or tested

When we give these things over to pagans, they don't know how to use them

They use them for the glory of man and for death. They don't use them for life Life expectancy was lengthened by Christians infant mortality was was almost obliterated by Christians What does the world do they kill infants in the womb?

They don't save them Cures for diseases were found by Christians the world weaponizes creation.

They slaughter babies with it They refuse to recognize God with it They give birth control to our teenage daughters and they think that that's somehow liberation

They promote promiscuity and self -fulfillment and they kill the elderly in nursing homes and they call that justice

They use technology to destroy life not promote it the church Everywhere it is ever flourished life has flourished

Why are we so avoidant in this world with bringing the life that God has given us?

to culture Cancer is not going to be cured by pagans because they're making too much money on it

Cancer will be cured when Christians enter into the sciences and for the glory of Jesus Christ work and research and cure it

Isaiah says that in Jesus's kingdom. It's Isaiah 65 that the young man will die at a hundred years old and No more will babies die at only a few days old

Listen this is not about the Millennial Kingdom Why do

I know that because there's still death This is not about heaven because there's still death

There's no death in heaven this promise in Isaiah is that young men will will die at a hundred years old because Because of Jesus because of the church because of in because of Technological advances people will live long lives again.

Just like they did outside of Eden and They will still die because you don't die in heaven.

It will still be on earth They will still die, but the blessings of Jesus's kingdom will bring long life again

Our culture is a culture of death. They're consumed with it They want to kill people at every single rung of human development it is only the church

That can promote the flourishing of life that God has That God has given

Listen, this is not health and wealth health and wealth is is a lazy is a lazy alternative to the gospel message

That's in the Bible It is a slothful couch potato doctrine where if you can just imagine

It in your sweet little head, then it will happen with no work. No effort. No blood. No sweat.

No tears. That is foolishness and It cripples people with despair because when when your parents still dies, maybe

I didn't have enough faith What the gospel says what the Bible says is that through Christians working hard and diligently they will push back the curse and As Christians become lazy in society the curse will come and encroach upon us

Look around you at this world and see where the Christians have fallen short.

I want to see this culture this generation of Christians invigorated to build cathedrals again,

I Don't want to meet in this building for the rest of our existence I want to meet in a stone cathedral that will last a thousand years and I want to do it deliberately as a defiant declaration

That Jesus Christ is the rock on which we build our faith and we're not gonna meet in sheetrock and in drop ceilings

We're gonna meet in cathedrals again Because of the gospel the earth groans less because of Christians the earth groans less and when we abandon it chaos ensues

Now we can go on and on with this but I think we've made our point number five

He's not only gonna take the curse of Abraham the curse of Adam the curse of Israel and the curse of creation He's also gonna take the curse of guilt and shame

He's going to endure the physical suffering and the curses that Adam should have underwent

Do you remember in the garden? Adam and Eve found themselves naked and they ran and they hid and the first thing that God does is he does not take out

The the flagellum that was put on Jesus. He kills the animal and clothes them in their nakedness

Why did he do that? How could he do that? How could God overlook their sin because God was looking past Adam to Christ Adam was clothed in his guilt because Jesus would be skinned for us

Adam was covered by Christ Even as early as the garden because Christ Jesus would be stripped for us.

He would bear our guilt And He would bear our shame Adam and Eve had were naked and they were ashamed and God provided for them by covering them and Now God provides for you and I by taking our guilt and by covering our shame

What that means is he has given you it's not just a negative. It's a positive. He's not just taking away your guilt

He's given you his righteousness. He's not just taking away your shame. He's given you honor and dignity the most honorable and dignified people on earth

Our people who are covered with the royal ropes of Jesus Christ. I Don't care what has happened in your life.

I do care. I say this all the time I do care what's happened, but in light of the gospel the

Gospels bigger and better. So here what I'm saying You may be carrying all kinds of shame today shame for something someone has done to you

Shame for something someone has has said about you shame for something you've done to yourself

Shame for something that you've done to someone else Shame for an event that happened in the past that hurts you that haunts you when you close your eyes

You still are or have nightmares about it It may be as vivid to you today as it was 20 years ago 10 years ago 5 years ago or yesterday

What I'm saying to you is because of the ferocity of the gospel of Jesus your shame is gone

You are no longer naked and ashamed in your sin. You are clothed with his royal robes dear lady

You're a princess dear man. You're a prince You've been clothed with Christ so as we

Come to a close. I Want us to remember that there is no more curse for you

The curse that you deserved to be ripped apart Christ was ripped apart for you the curse

That you should never have a relationship with God like Adam Jesus the father turned his face

From Jesus so that he would never turn his face from you the curse That you and I if we were there

We would have been just like Israel and we would have yelled crucify him crucify him crucify him We would have yelled it too and we who are who should never have been considered the people of God have been made into a nation of priests and a holy nation because of Jesus because of Jesus our work matters

Jesus took the crown of thorns upon his head because your work matters When you go to work little by little

When you work to the glory of Christ, you are pushing back things that are cursed and you are offering to Jesus work

That gives him tremendous glory brothers and sisters. Remember who you are

You are not cursed. You are blessed You are the very best blessed not best.

You're the very blessed people on earth and everything you do now Is meaningful

That is why Jesus died on the cross Because the punishment was meaningful

It wasn't gratuitous violence, it wasn't accidental it wasn't happenstance.

He died bloody and brutally because Everything he did mattered

Let that be a balm to you that comforts you in the deserts that you walk through and let you remember

That everything you do has intention You're a Christian. The curse is lifted now go to go to the glory of God and bring his blessings.

Amen If you're not a Christian today, I want you to remember I don't know what's happening to my voice

If you're not a Christian today, I want you to remember That you are not under the umbrella of his grace

That the torrent of his fury will drowned you and you'll be drowned forever There's two types of people in the world.

There's the person who will face the holiness of a righteous God hidden in Christ Protected by Christ and Then there is the one who will face the holiness of God and all his sin alone with no mediator

Do not even leave this space today. If you do not know Christ, it is too dangerous

Repent and Christian cling and let us pray Lord Jesus we thank you so much for the gospel of Jesus Lord we thank you that in our sin.

We deserve the curse at every level We deserve the curse upon our body the curse upon our soul the curse upon our mind the curse upon our heart the curse upon our our feet and limbs and legs and relationships and our homes and our neighborhoods in our world in our land and Yet at every level

Jesus you did not just die So that you could bring our souls out of our bodies to live a disembodied

Spiritual existence in heaven. No, you are Redeeming and restoring everything that was lost

You were doing it incrementally here on earth and you will do it perfectly in heaven when all of the new heaven and the new earth when every trace of the curse has been put away and We live with you in perfection forever

Lord, I pray that our people your people Would revel in that truth

Lord, I pray that we would never be convinced by Satan that our work and our life is meaningless and doesn't matter and that we're

Just waiting on an elevator out of here Lord, I pray that your redemption and your removal of the curse would infect