Reconciled to God - Corey Hill

Heritage Church Tulsa

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Good evening, church. It pleases me to see all of your faces, to come and to desire to gather together on what we call

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Good Friday. Tonight, I will be preaching from a passage in Romans chapter five.

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Before we get into these verses, I would like us to bow our heads together in prayer just one more time.

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Please pray with me. Heavenly Father, I thank you.

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Father, I thank you for your word. I thank you for what your word tells us. I thank you for what your word tells us about your son, about how he was sent, about how he was sent to die for us, yet, as we were sinners.

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Father, tonight I pray that your word be proclaimed, your truth be heralded.

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Father, tonight I ask that I decrease in your Holy Spirit increase so that saints might be edified and those that yet to be saints might be reconciled to you.

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Father, thank you for your word, but thank you most for your son. It's in his name we pray, amen.

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As I said before, tonight we're gonna be in Romans chapter five, verses six through 10 this evening.

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And as you're turning your Bibles there, by way of introduction, I just want to set the tone.

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Frame what we're going to be doing here for just a few moments this evening. We've gathered together here tonight with the special intention to look upon today's events some 2 ,000 years ago, to look upon Christ and the cross that he bore for his bride at a place that the

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Hebrews called Golgotha. And not just that he bore the cup of wrath, poured out, but who he bore it for and what he bore it for.

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Let us now dig into our theme text tonight. Again, that's Romans chapter five, verses six through 10.

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I'd ask you now to please stand for the honoring and reading of God's holy word.

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Romans chapter five, verses six through 10. For while we were still weak, at the right time,

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Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for the good man, someone would dare even to die.

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But God demonstrates his own love towards us in that while we were yet sinners,

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Christ died for us. Much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him.

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For while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God. Through the death of his son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

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This is God's word. You may be seated. Tonight we come to our text and we come to the first point of the text, to my estimation, and that point is the problem needing reconciled.

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We come first to the problem needing reconciled. If you look with me in your own Bibles in verse six, for while we were still weak, at the right time,

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Christ died for the ungodly. Oh, saint, that we were weak.

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This is not so much implying our physical weaknesses. This is our spiritual weaknesses.

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This isn't really truly about our spiritual weaknesses. It's our inability to fix a problem.

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Man has this issue, this issue of original sin, as it's called doctrinally.

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It is this issue that we have no ability to, none whatsoever to fix in and of ourselves.

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We cannot fix our own problems. We are helpless. We are needy.

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We are weak. We are beggardly. Our issue is that from the start, we're damaged goods.

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From the outset, we are worthless. From the moment in the garden of abdication and abstinence, and that's abstinence in the sense that we are abstaining from the truth that comes forth from the

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God of the Bible and abdicating our roles as men and leading our wives, we've had a problem that's been irreconcilable since, at least by our own merits and our own attempts.

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Adam Clark, the English Wesleyan Methodist evangelist comments on this passage in this manner.

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Considering the weakness, neither able to resist sin nor do any good.

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Utterly devoid of power to extricate themselves from the misery of their situation.

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We cannot pull ourselves out of it. There's no way that we can grab hold of something and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and climb this wall to get to where God is so that way then we may be able to reach up and grab him.

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No, this is not what the scriptures teach us. Now, I don't believe that this evening

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I need to stand up here and to tell you how desperate you are for a need of a savior.

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I would much rather let the scriptures do that. Romans 6 .23 says, for the waging of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our

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Lord. Again, in Romans chapter 3 .23, for we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

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John 3 .3 says, Jesus answered and said to him, truly, truly,

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I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

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1 Corinthians 15 .50, now I say this, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the corruptible inherit the incorruptible.

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Romans chapter 3 yet again, because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

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Chapter 3, verse 12, all have turned aside. Together they have become worthless.

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There is none who does good, no, not even one.

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Now, those of you tonight that know your scriptures, you know your Bibles, you know that I could continue to go on and on and on and on about this reality and this truth.

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That we have this problem that we can't reconcile ourselves. Christ makes this evident.

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God has made this evident through redemptive history. We can't do this on our own. We have no way to come to God.

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The scriptures make it evident just how evil, how sinful, how unrighteous, how unrepentant, how iniquitous and deceitful we all truly are.

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Saint, tonight the first thing we need to see from this text is we can't do this on our own.

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We can't do this on our own. We can't ascend to anything on our own.

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Our second point tonight comes from that same verse in verse six. You'll see right after the comma, after it says, for we are still weak, we read at the right time, at the right time.

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So what is Paul trying to tell us here? What is Paul trying to communicate? Our second point tonight, the time of reconciliation, it happened at the right time.

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This verse goes on here to say that the cross was purposed and appointed in time perfectly.

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The time for the cross wasn't at the outset of human history. The time for the cross wasn't at the very end of human history.

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It wasn't 1000 years late or even 70 years early.

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The cross and Christ's subsequent death on that cross were initiated at the most perfect time and exactly according to the plan of redemption.

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That was had by the Godhead before the foundation of the world.

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Some translations even here use due time. Now I was studying this week and listened to different men preach this text and going through and really trying to glean what

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I could and I came across Dr. R .C. Sproul's sermon on this text in these few verses.

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And Dr. Sproul used an analogy that I think is very helpful for us to think about. Dr. Sproul used this analogy of pregnancy.

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All of you women in the room here tonight, you've been given a due date at some point in time. You were given a date that the doctor looked at you and examined you and said,

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I think you're gonna have the baby on July 11th, 2024. I think you're gonna have the baby on October 14th, 2024.

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Whatever that day may have been, may be. You were given a due date. Now as time progresses and your pregnancy progresses and as you grow with child,

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I bet the overwhelming majority of you here in this room probably either stopped short or went past your due date.

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Very few of you probably said, yep, exactly, 402, when Dr. So -and -so told me I was gonna have this baby.

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There it was. Well, no, that's an estimated guess. I think it's going to be around this timeframe.

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I want you to make sure that we're using this to put a good point on what Paul's getting at here.

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What Paul is getting at is it's not this, it was at the right time, the climate was good enough, the political climate was good enough, the cultural climate was good enough, the people being receptive to Jesus was good enough and it could have happened in these 70 -ish years.

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No, it came at the perfect time. It's much like the day that your child was born, the time for that baby was appointed, the time for that child to be born and to breathe its first air on this world was appointed.

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It was meant, it was decreed before the foundation of the world just as much as Christ going to the cross at the perfect time.

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I bet if a lot of you mothers would be honest in this room and definitely the fathers, you probably don't remember all the due dates of your children, but you absolutely know the birth date, do you not?

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Yes, you do. It's the time that they came in, the time that everything changed from. It's the time that your whole world changed, your whole world viewpoint changed.

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This perfect time that Paul's getting at here is much like that. The perfect time for Christ to come into this world and die on the cross and be hung there as a propitiation of our sin was the perfect time that it had happened.

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There's been no mistaking in that. As we continue on through our verse, we come to our third point this evening by my estimation is who

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Christ was to reconcile. Who Christ was to reconcile. So we see right after at the right time,

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Christ died for the ungodly. At the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.

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Now, from the first point of this evening sermon, we've looked at length at the need to be reconciled, our sin issue, but we must ask the question, why is

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Paul explicitly clear here in saying Christ died for the ungodly? Well, I think

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Matthew Henry hits the nail on the head. He says, while commenting on this particular pericope, he states, being ungodly, they had need of one to die for them, to satisfy guilt and to bring in a righteousness.

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I think this point's even further illustrated by Paul in verses seven and eight.

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If you look at verses seven and eight, for one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for the good man, someone would even dare to die.

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Let us first look at verse seven here. If you and I were to divorce this from the text, if we would take it off the shelf as it were and pull it out and look at it, we might think this is kind of an odd chunk of scripture here.

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This is, I don't really understand where Paul's going here. I don't really get what he's getting at here. What is

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Paul trying to show me? What is Paul trying to teach me? I think it's important for our context here to know that these words used for a righteous man and a good man are two different words, and that's why they're translated different.

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John Calvin believes that Paul is really just kind of repeating himself in a different way and using a different word here to distinguish between two phrases, but I'm gonna go on the record with disagreeing with John Calvin.

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Matthew, Henry, and many other Puritans, even many contemporary theologians would as well.

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And I see this as Paul making two distinctions to kind of play into our emotions some.

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Paul is effectively saying that, and look at it in your own Bible here, Paul's effectively saying that nearly no one is gonna sign up to die for a righteous man.

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Nearly no one's gonna sign up to die for the do -gooder. Nearly no one's going to sign up for the guy that crosses all the

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T's, he dots all the I's, his shoes are always tied, his suit is always pressed, and he's got the law down pat.

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That's what Paul's effectively saying here. No one is really gonna sign up to die for that guy. No one's jumping up and down, waving their hand from the back of the room, saying,

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I'll die, I'll die, I'll be a substitute. That's not happening here. Well, then he goes on to say, well, what about the good man?

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What about the guy, the good old boy? What about the guy that's kind? What about the guy that he does things the right way, he loves people well, he gives anybody the shirt off his back that he could.

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Well, what about the good old boy? Well, Paul says, some might even dare to die for the good old boy, but it's still not a whole bunch.

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Then if you look in verse eight, and I want all of you to look at it in your own text of scripture, please, and you see these two wonderful words.

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And what are those words? But God, right? We come to, but God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners,

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Christ died for us. Christ died to reconcile the ungodly.

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Christ died to reconcile the sinners. This evening, there may be some of you in this room, in these chairs, hearing these words of scripture proclaimed and this gospel proclaimed that fall into this category.

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Some of you may yet be reconciled. It hasn't happened in your life yet.

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Some of you may be sitting here listening to these words and thinking, that's me,

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I'm ungodly, I'm still a sinner. Those of you that are sinners, you're simply a sinner by birth.

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You're a sinner by birth. You're forever separated from God. You're forever estranged from your creator.

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You sit in it, constantly stirring, wallowing in your sin, kicking against the goads, running from righteousness, sinking further and further in through the depths of your sin, you're initiating your iniquity every waking moment, but there's been made an intercession.

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But there's been made an intercession. You who are yet sinners,

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Christ died for you. If only, if only you would repent and believe.

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This evening, on this day, we celebrate the most heinous thing that has ever been done on this planet.

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If I took a straw poll before we walked in here tonight, I asked all of you, what's the worst thing that's ever been done? Some of you may have said the death of Christ on the cross.

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Some of you may have said Hitler's Nazi Germany. Some of you may have said slavery. Some of you may have said something else.

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Those are all atrocious things, but there's one thing that stacks far and high above the rest, and it's

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Christ dying on the cross. It's the most heinous thing that's ever happened here, ever, on this earth, and that most heinous thing ever, friends, the most gruesome, terrible, unrighteous thing ever was done for your eternity.

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It was done with your eternity in mind. It was done with your eternity in mind.

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The worst thing that's ever happened on this planet was because God wanted to show you how much

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He loved you. Those of you that are yet to be saved, that this might be the first time you're really understanding the gospel, you have access to the perfect substitute, the only substitute.

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You must just repent and believe in Christ so you may live unto Christ in His death.

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Second Corinthians 5 .15 tells us, and He died for all, so that they who live would no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again in their behalf.

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And this all here doesn't mean everyone. This isn't universalism. This is those that would repent and believe and lay everything down beside and walk and turn and follow

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Him. Stephen Charnock, the quippy

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Puritan, is quoted as saying, the doctrine of death of Christ is the substance of the gospel.

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The doctrine of the death of Christ is the substance of the gospel.

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Saints this evening, see this substance. See this substance tonight. Your Savior died for you.

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His death the most horrific ever to be. He died to atone for your sins.

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Saint, it's been said from this pulpit multiple times, and will be continued said from this pulpit multiple times, the only thing that you can add to your salvation is what?

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The sin that made it necessary. Christ's death was absolutely necessary so that you might be reconciled.

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Do not forget this. Do not forget this, Saint. Don't in your reformedness, in your

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Calvinism, don't forget this in your doctrines. Don't forget this in your systematic theologies.

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Don't lose sight of the need of a Savior. Oh, what a grace of God.

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Oh, what a grace of God. The uttermost grace that He sent His Son to the cross so that He might reconcile a people to Himself.

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Oh, what a grace, Saint. We come into point four here.

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The beginning of verse eight, we're gonna kind of repackage and reparse verse eight a little bit here, but I want us to look at the demonstration of reconciliation.

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Point four, the demonstration of reconciliation. We see in verse eight here, but God demonstrates.

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You look in your own Bibles, you'll see in the verse eight, but God demonstrates. I wanna take a closer examination of this so that we might not skip any over these jewels of Scripture that give us such a clear image of reconciliation to God.

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In verse eight, Paul tells us that God demonstrates His love towards us. In our next point, we're gonna get into the how of the demonstration happening, but I want us to just take a moment to consider

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God's love. Now, if I asked all of you in another straw poll tonight before we walked in here, what is

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God's love? I probably would have got a myriad of answers. It's a topic that has a lot of correct answers, but here, looking at this, how do we look at and see

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God's love demonstrated toward us? This is an often debated topic, and it reaches the fringes, and they're being disagreed upon by men as we speak who probably have too much time of it on their hands.

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But I wanna point out to you tonight the three types of God's love, at least from my estimation and my understanding, that are explicitly clear and helpful for our text tonight.

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Those three loves are God's love of benevolence, God's love of beneficence, and God's love of complacency.

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Now, if you're looking for some more reading, some better understanding of these three types of love, Dr. Sproul has a book that is wonderful on these three things, and it really spells it out much better than I can, but I'm trying to be helpful.

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So God's love of benevolence. So benevolence, at its root, is

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God's goodwill towards the world, God's attitude, if you will, of goodwill towards the world.

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And then we have the love of beneficence, and beneficence, at its root, is God's good actions towards the world.

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So we have God's goodwill towards the world and God's good actions to the world, right?

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Towards the world of how the world is working, and all of the saints and the sinners combine in that world.

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But it's important for us to note that benevolence and beneficence are unconditional. They're universal in nature from God to humanity.

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That's not the case with this third kind of love I want to point your noses at.

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This third kind is the love of complacency. Now, when I say the word complacency,

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I'm sure a lot of you go to a standard 21st or 20th century definition of complacency of, well, they're just complacent, they're not doing enough, they're a little smug, they're kind of like, ah, yeah,

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I got it, no big deal, whatever. That's not what complacency means here. So to define that, the

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Oxford Dictionary uses this definition. This is where the primary meaning given is that the fact or state of being pleased with a thing or person, tranquil pleasure or satisfaction in something or someone, the state of being pleased, the tranquil pleasure or satisfaction in and with someone.

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Dr. Sproul, in this book, expounds on Jonathan Edwards' thoughts, and Jonathan Edwards, a great

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Puritan minister, Dr. Sproul says, expounding on these thoughts, he says, God's love of complacency is a special delight and a pleasure he takes, first of all, in his only begotten son.

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It is in Christ who is the beloved of the Father, supremely. He is the

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Son in whom the Father is well -pleased. This love is reserved for the redeemed and who

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God delights, not because there's anything inherently lovely or delightful in us, but we are so united to Christ, the

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Father's beloved, that the love the Father has for the Son then spills over onto us.

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God's love for us is pleasing and sweet to himself, and it is oh so sweet and pleasing to us.

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Children, I'd like for you to find my eyes. What's the sweetest gift that you've ever been given?

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What's the sweetest, most kind, most caring gift that you've ever been given in your whole entire lives?

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Some of you might mention something that you've gotten for a birthday, or something you've gotten for Christmas, or maybe an experience you've gotten to do with your grandparents or your aunts or your uncles or your moms or dads, or maybe it's just simply been time.

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Although those might be great gifts, children, they pale in comparison. That means they are no match in comparison for the gift of God's love.

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This love provides substitution, kids. It provides substitution. That is, in Christ, substitution is provided for sin.

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Children, that gift may be had by you as well. The best gift in the world, the most wonderful gift in the world, the only gift that we should ever really care about getting is having a relationship with Christ.

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Saints, those of you that are parents, I know this prayer is probably one often found inside of you, is often found inside me, for my children.

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There's no sweeter gift to pray for. There's no sweeter thing to ask God for, for your children, out of your own supplications.

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Do not cease. Do not stop. Those of you that don't have children yet, start praying now.

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Start praying now for those babies that God may give you so that you can pray for their soul, so that they may have a relationship even better than yours.

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As we close the book, if it will, or as it were, on how God demonstrates His love towards us,

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I wanna look at the action of that demonstration now. The action of that demonstration.

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Our fifth point this evening, and the way in which sinners were reconciled, the active way in which sinners were reconciled.

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Romans 5, eight says, "'But God demonstrates His own love towards us, "'in that while we were yet sinners,

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Christ died for us.'" Now we've discussed and we've looked at who

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Christ died for and the substance behind the demonstration of which saints are reconciled.

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Now we must look at the physical demonstration by which saints were reconciled. So we have the substance behind the reconciliation, is

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God's love, and now the action of the reconciliation, this demonstration, this action of demonstration in Christ's death.

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As many of you may know that have ever sat inside of a good Friday sermon, one thing that's most often said or most likely said, or I've heard it for many different good

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Friday sermons that I've been a part of, be able to sit down and listen to the preach word is that the Persians created crucifixion.

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And they created it some 300 to 400 years before Christ's birth. And then those three or 400 years, the

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Romans perfected it. The Romans perfected it so much so, it was the most painful way to die.

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It was the most painful way to die. In fact, the word excruciating comes from how painful it is to die on the cross.

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Christ's death doesn't immediately start at the cross though it started in his betrayal. In the early morning hours, some 2000 years ago,

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Christ was betrayed with a kiss by one of his best friends. From there, he was arraigned and cross examined all night long until finally

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Pilate finds no fault in Christ and he wants to wash his hands of him. He goes to the

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Jews in the early morning hours and they desire his judgment instead of a thief Barabbas.

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They said, no, no, let the thief go. He needs to pay for what he's done. And then

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Pilate thinking, okay, I'll really rough this guy up and that'll satisfy these people.

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He has Jesus flogged. I don't know how many of you have an idea of what this means.

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I don't know how many of you understand what a flogging is like. Christ was beaten to the point of nearly not being able to be recognized.

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His back was one whole open wound. He most likely had shards of glass sticking out of his skin and pieces of bone protruding from his flesh.

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His, from his shoulders down was probably so crimson red that you couldn't see much flesh color underneath it.

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If that wasn't enough, your savior that bled and died for you had a crown of thorns fashioned and shoved down on his head onto his brow.

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And if that wasn't enough and he wasn't physically demoralized and embarrassed they put a purple robe on him.

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As he walked by and they led him up to the Jews as Pilate said, bring him here. I can imagine them giving him some pats and some really shoving that purple robe into all of those open wounds.

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For any of you that have had any type of serious injury or serious open wound and you pack it full of gauze or you bandage it really, really well.

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When you pull that off, it feels like all of your skin is coming off. That's probably been something minor for you.

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I want you to imagine over your whole back. Pilate assumes that this physical humiliation along with presenting

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Christ as a King, emotional humiliation would satisfy the bloodlust of the

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Jews, but it only ignited them more. They screamed, maybe until most of their voices were hoarse.

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Crucify him, crucify him. He's made himself out to be a

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God, the son of God and he deserved death and death on a cross is what they said.

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So Pilate obliged them. The crucifixion was taking place, as I mentioned at the outset of the sermon at a place the

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Hebrews called Golgotha. It means the place of the skull. A passerby who we just know as Simon of Cyrene helped carry the cross up this hill.

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As they arrived on the place, they stripped him bare just to humiliate him even more so.

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They laid the cross down and they laid Jesus down and they held him down and you can imagine there's

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Roman centurions holding his arms down and holding his feet down.

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There's another soldier coming around with spikes. I'm not gonna call them nails, nails doesn't do it justice.

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Spikes to drive through his hands. Can you just imagine that metal cling as they swing that hammer through his hands and after they did his first hand, they did a second hand and after both of his hands, they did his feet.

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If that wasn't enough, after all of these spikes had been driven into his body, they lifted the cross up and they slid it down into a hole that they dug in the earth, jarring his body as it came to rest so that all could see hanging there in agony, dying the most painful death that could be for him.

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He can hear and see his garments being gambled over. He can see the criminals on either side of him.

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Beloved, I don't know about you, but this makes my gut wrench. The most brutal, undeserving death in human history, as gruesome and terrible as it was, was the ultimate love of God for you.

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God's demonstration in action here of his love towards us was to utterly break and pulverize his son for you just so he could show you how much he loved you.

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Lastly tonight, I want us to look at the sweet fruit of reconciliation. The sweet fruit of reconciliation.

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The first and primary fruit of Christ's death is for the saints is justification and reconciliation.

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And Romans chapter five, verse nine says, much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him.

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His blood is what justifies us. We read in Hebrews chapter nine, verse 22, and according to the law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood.

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Without shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. Without the blood of Christ, there is no cleansing.

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There is no forgiveness. Christ had to die so that we might be cleansed, that we might be forgiven.

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Matthew Henry, again, commenting on this verse, says this. Sin is pardoned.

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The sinner accepted as righteous. The quarrel taken up, the enmity slain, an end made of iniquity, and an everlasting righteousness brought in.

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Saint, the slaying of Christ, the enacting of the internal plan of redemption is what was necessary for your salvation.

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It was what was necessary to secure your eternity. I heard

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Pastor Brandon say this, I don't know, six or eight months ago, maybe a year ago now.

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He said something that's stuck with me ever since then. He said, God's cup of wrath was drank to the dregs by Christ and his work on the cross.

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He took all of God's wrath for you so that God could show you how much he loves you.

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This wrath that we're saved from through Christ is the eternal wrath of judgment and damnation. It's the fiery hell and brimstone that awaits all of those found unbelieving.

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We got what we didn't deserve. We got what we didn't want.

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True justice would place you and I in hell for eternity. Our life sentence would be just and we would have no possibility for parole.

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But God, the great governor of governors chose to pardon you, saint.

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He chose to pardon you, saint. Praise God for his pardon. Praise God for his pardon.

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Paul goes on in verse 10 to say, for if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of a son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

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Saints, we are saved by his life. But understand, saint, that it's not his earthly life we're saved by, not alone, anyways.

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It's in his living, it's in his resurrection that we are saved. On Easter Sunday, two days from now, we're going to get to celebrate this reality even more fully.

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Saints, tonight I hope and I pray that tonight that your eyes have been pointed to the cross.

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And I pray that as we continue our time of gathering together tonight, that your focus will only enhance as the love of God demonstrated in sending his son to die is even more fully expounded on.

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I pray that all of you will meditate on the cross of Christ and its ghastly reverberation throughout the scriptures that has been presented to you tonight.

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As you should, looking and seeing this day, what we call Good Friday is far more than good.

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It's the single most influential day in the history of the world 2 ,000 some years ago.

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It's far more than good, saint. It's great. This is Great Friday. In it, saints, you were given the greatest gift, reconciliation to God through Christ, which you could have never accomplished yourself.

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Bow your heads and pray with me. Heavenly Father, we are even unworthy to think on these things.

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Father, we're unworthy to look at the cross.

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Father, we're completely unworthy, but yet you demonstrated your love to us and you reconciled us back to you by sending your son for him to die on the cross at the perfect time.

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For the ungodly, for the sinners. Father, tonight as we continue, tonight as we sing songs and we sit underneath the preached words some more,

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Father, and as we fellowship and we love you and we get to take communion together on this day.

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Father, I pray our gazes are fixed and our eyes wide and our tears heavy at the work that your son's put forth.