First Peter chapter three and verse number 18. Finish the verse today and move on later on. Wednesday, Lord willing. Elizabeth Barrett's parents did not particularly appreciate the man that she married. And as a result, she was disowned. Her parents would have nothing to do with this poor woman. Almost every week for years, Elizabeth wrote letters to her parents, at least one letter a week, begging for reconciliation. They would have nothing to do with her, none whatsoever. They never replied a single time. And then after years of this, about 10 years of this, she received a large box. She ripped it open, and inside the box were all of the letters that she had written to her parents. Not one of them was opened. Not one. Hundreds of them. Today, those filial love letters are considered to be, by some people, the greatest literature or among the greatest literature in the English language. If Elizabeth Barrett Browning's parents had read the letters that she had written, they probably would have been moved to receive their daughter again. It's a sad story, but not nearly as sad, ultimately, as humanity's rejection of the love and the love letters of God. The Lord bleeds with us. Yearning, that's not the right word to use for God, but trying to instill a yearning in us for reconciliation with Him. This morning I tried very hard not to address the particular part of this verse that we're going to consider this evening. This morning we looked at the fact that Christ suffered for us. The purpose of that suffering was to bring us to God. Please forgive me if you think that another message on this scripture is too soon or whatever, too much, but this is without a doubt Chapter 3, verse number 18, one of the great scriptures when it comes to the salvation of God. It needs to be preached over and over and over again, sometimes with rapid succession to make sure we get it all in there. And as it should be, our approach to every Bible passage, we need to be as simple as we can be. grasping what's obviously there. Don't dig too deeply into the Word of God. So this evening, we're going to notice the condition that's based here, the solution, and then the conclusion with the emphasis on the conclusion. Christ suffered for us. He died for us on the cross to bring us to God. to bring the sinner to God. The subject of these words could be described as reconciliation. There's a great need for reconciliation when it comes to sinful human beings and God in all of his holiness. We have left him in our rebellion and he says, come. Before heaven, there must be hell. Before reconciliation, there must be repentance. Before reconciliation and restoration of fellowship, fellowship with God, there must be a change in our condition. Now, how does that change in condition come about? We'll get to the details in just a moment, but as we saw earlier, Christ, the just one, died for the unjust. He died for the wicked. Christ died to accomplish, at least according to this scripture, we could look at other scriptures and see other things, but according to this scripture, Christ died to bring about a reconciliation, to bring us to God. I will try not to belabor the point tonight because we do it often enough around here, but we are all sinners. We don't have diseased hearts. We are dead spiritually before God. It's not that we have been brought up spiritually deprived. We are totally depraved with sin corrupting every part of us. We're not just morally uneducated. All we have to do is get in the Word of God and learn a few things and everything will be all right. That's not the way it is. It is not that we are ignorant of God's will. It is that by nature we are rebellious against God and His will. We don't want to do the things that God would like us to do, what He commands us to do. We are sinners before God with blackened hearts. and with corruption which runs into our very bones. Our spirits are dead, our souls are depraved, and our bodies are dying, obviously, because of these things that I've just mentioned. It cannot be uttered too often. You are a sinner. You are a sinner. You are a sinner. I am a sinner. We are all sinners before the Lord. And your finest righteousness are as filthy rags before the Lord. And your worst sins are not any worse than the sins of anybody else. We're all basically the same. Unrighteous, sinful people. As many of you know, Judy and I used to live in Calgary, Alberta. Calgary has one of the finest zoological complexes in Canada. We won't compare it with the rest of the world, we'll just say in Canada. And as you might guess, Calgary in the wintertime can get to be relatively cool. Cold. Cold. So the animals in this zoo have both indoor and outdoor enclosures. In the summer, they're outside for the most part. In the winter, they're inside for the most part, although there is some leniency there, I suppose. And if you go to the zoo in the wintertime, as we often did, we got yearly passes when the kids were small, and we'd go to the zoo quite often. If you go to the zoo in the wintertime, You won't find the tigers outside or the bears outside. They are all in their indoor enclosures. And usually they're in groups. So we have the North American exhibit and we have the South American and the Australian, whatever. And when you go through the door to go into that enclosure, if you are not prepared, if your nose is not prepared, You may be shocked by the stench of that place. It stinks. Most wild animals stink. They reek on purpose. They try to stink. And they don't consider it stink. We do. To them, there is no stink or stench at all. They think that their smells are delightful. And so it is with stinking men. Reeking of sin, they are an abomination to God. But to their own noses and to their own minds, there isn't the slightest idea of how repulsive they are before God in His holiness. As we saw this morning, this verse declares that sinners are unjust, especially when compared to the just Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior. And just what does unjust mean? It does not mean that you and I are unfit to sit as justices on the Supreme Court. If you'd look up the Greek word, you'd find that it's translated three different ways. It's translated unjust, as it is here. Sometimes it's translated with the word wrongfully, which we just won't get into. And then, many times, it is rendered unrighteous. Man lacks the moral character necessary for admission into the presence of God. We are unrighteous. He is righteous. We are unholy. He is holy. We are unjust. He is just. We're not permitted in. We are aliens. We have no passport permitting us into the presence of God. Would you recommend taking one or two weasels into a chicken coop? Are open and unrepentant whores and transvestites good candidates to teach kindergarten? Would garbage men fresh from the dumpster work alongside the surgical nurse chopping away on Judy's finger. I don't think we'd like that. Neither is an unjust, unrighteous man fit to enter into the throne room of Jehovah. But Christ died for those unjust sinners, the just for the unjust, to open the door for us to enter into the presence of God, to bring us to God. Why did he die? To reconcile the alienated. To bring us to God. As long as unrighteous sinners live without Christ, according to Ephesians 2 and other places, they are aliens. They're strangers. They're without hope. They are without God. The wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray as soon as they be born. They are all wicked. We are all wicked, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We may pretend to draw nigh unto God with our mouths, With our tongues, we may honor him with our lips, but our hearts remain farther from God than Spokane is from Sao Paulo. Here's our condition, we're sinners, unjust and alienated from God. And it doesn't matter what our particular sin looks like to our neighbors. Some may look at you and say, you're a terrible person. And another person doesn't see it quite that same way. It doesn't really matter. What matters is God's opinion of us, how he sees us, all of us, including the neighbor who is pointing his finger at you. is a sinner before God. But there is a solution. Christ hath once suffered for sins to bring us to God. Notice that according to this verse, technically Jesus did not die for the sinners. According to this verse, That would be like taking an aspirin to soothe the pain of first-degree burns or a knife wound to the chest. Yes, there's a sense that Jesus died for us. To correct the condition that we are in, Jesus died for our sin and our sins. He died for us, but the scripture says he died for our sin here in this particular verse. You might wonder what the word also is doing here. For Christ also hath once suffered for sin. Remember the context. Peter is tying the suffering of Christ to the sufferings that we endure in this world as children of God trying to serve the Lord. Be patient in your suffering, Peter says. God will make all things right. You might also wonder about the word once. Christ also hath once suffered for sins. It means exactly what you'd expect it to mean. He died once. That was enough. The one time death of Christ on the cross is the only sacrifice which can meet the demands of our sinful condition. And the constant re-sacrifice, re-sacrifice, re-sacrifice that is found in some churches is an abomination to God. There are whole chapters in Hebrews which deals with the fact Christ died once and it was enough. Let's just trust what the Lord has done for us. He died once on the cross to bring us to God. Now look again at the word suffered. We considered that this morning, but I didn't get into the Greek. It's the word pascho. which is from where the English word passion originates. Have you ever been to a passion play? How many of you have been to a passion play? You've been to a passion play, haven't you? No. When my parents moved our family from Calgary to Omaha, Nebraska, the nearest mountain was in the Black Hills. Black Hills of South Dakota. And every year in the Black Hills, there is a passion play. It is a play. It is a long skit. People in the neighborhood get together, they learn their lines, they practice their parts, and it is a depiction of the sufferings of Christ and his nailing to the cross. It is a show, but it points to the sufferings of the death of Christ, and it's called Passion Play. He died for our sins according to the scriptures. He suffered passionately for our sins according to the scriptures. He didn't just hurt for our sins. He wasn't embarrassed because of our sins. He didn't just lose his job because of our sins, he suffered and died for our sins. He suffered for our sins and in the course of those sufferings, he gave his all. His death was very, very real. His blood was poured out on the ground under that cross, on the top of Calvary or Golgotha. And as I said this morning, he suffered inexpressible pain and grief for our sins. A man was describing to his young daughter one day the sacrifice of the Passover lamb. Well, this young lady had recently been to a petting zoo and she'd come face to face with a lamb. Is there anything cuter than a lamb? Maybe a goat, I don't know. They're pretty cute. And as her father was describing the sacrifice of the Passover lamb, she started to bristle. She angrily declared, I don't like killing lambs. Later that evening, the dad was thinking about that. If his daughter was repulsed by the thought of the slaughter of an innocent lamb, how must the father of lights have been repulsed by the grisly death of his absolutely innocent son? And how God must be repulsed by our sins, which necessitated the death of God's own son. There's no other way to be reconciled to God but by Christ's sufferings. But why would the Lord even be interested in reconciling us to himself? The only answer is grace. Then Peter tells us that Christ was quickened by the Spirit. That speaks of life, of Jesus' resurrection. I hope that it's sufficient to say, if Christ be not raised from the dead, your faith is vain, and he are yet in your sins. If Christ be not raised, those who are asleep in Christ will forever sleep in Christ. Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures, and he was buried, and he rose again the third day, according to the scriptures, that we might have hope, that we might have life, that we might be brought unto God. There's the purpose, to bring us to God. There are a lot of perfectly correct theological things which are not said in this verse. It doesn't say, for example, that Christ died that we might have forgiveness of sins, even though that is absolutely true. It doesn't say that we might become the sons of God, adopted into the family of Jehovah, even though that is true. This doesn't say so that we could go to heaven and escape hell. That's also true, but way down there at the bottom of the list. This verse says that Christ died for our sins that he might bring us to God. It doesn't say anything else here. If you took my wife away from me, I would be half a man, a shell, a pupa. But that's only looking at David Oldfield from the human point of view. My spirit and soul were created to fellowship with their creator. And so was yours. All of ours. This is why we were created. And as long as we live without Christ, we live without God. If we live without Jehovah God, we live outside the purpose of our creation in Adam. Without the Lord, we are half men and half women. We are shells, we are husks, we are hulls. We're nothing. By nature now, because of sin, we are aliens and strangers from the Lord and from the promises of God. That is because our sin, our unjustness, has brought about a spiritual death and broken that connection that we had with our creator. But Christ suffered for sins that he might give life and restore, once again, that fellowship with the Father, with God. He died that we might be reconciled to Jehovah. Paul wrote to the church in Colossae and reminded them of their return to the Lord. And you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, hath he now reconciled. There you were, but here you are now. How did that occur? Christ created peace between the holy God and the sinner. through his sacrifice. And this is the point that I would like you to remember this evening. I hit it at this morning. There are mistakes that are often made when it comes to evangelism. For example, we put too much of salvation into the context of heaven. Don't you want to go to heaven? Don't you want to go to heaven? Well, that'll be a great thing. You trust Jesus, ask Jesus to come into your heart, sign this little decision card or whatever, and then 40 years from now when you die, you can go to heaven. That's not the gospel. Too little do we talk about the prodigal who came back to the father. Too little do we talk about the father in the light of the prodigal. The Christian life is not just justification. The Christian life is not just the proper accounting that our sins are now covered by the blood of Christ. It's not just regeneration, a new life. It's not just a mansion in heaven. What man needs is reconciliation and communion with the Most Holy God, Jehovah. We need to be like Adam in the garden in the cool of the evening, fellowshipping with our creator. We need to be like David in the Psalms, rejoicing in the Lord in the fullness of fellowship. We need to be like the loved one in the Song of Solomon. That's the place where God wants his creation to be. Jesus died to bring us back to God. to bring us to the Lord. We have to remember that Peter is not preaching to a large crowd in the temple grounds. He's not delivering a message to a bunch of lost people. He's writing to God's saints in Bithynia and Cappadocia and Asia, Galatia. Peter is simply sharing something about salvation which these people may have forgotten. Don't sit on your hands and say to yourself, one of these days I'm going to go to heaven. Salvation is about today's fellowship with today's God. It's for now. The modern preacher has two responsibilities. To preach the gospel to the lost, and to teach the blessings of the gospel to the saved. Peter gives us an avenue to do exactly that. For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. And with that, I'll stop for the