Now let us go before the Lord and ask for a blessing on this word. Lord, may your name be glorified. May you use me as a faithful vessel to preach the truth to your faithful people. And Lord, may these words feed your sheep, and may they be a blessing, and may they edify and strengthen the faith of all who hear. We pray this in your name. Amen. So the text that we're going to be in for this afternoon's service is Isaiah 53, verse 10, and Romans chapter 3, verses 23 to 26. And the title of the sermon is The Sinfulness of Sin and the Cross of Christ. But before we get into the preaching, go ahead and please turn to both Isaiah 53, 10, and keep your finger also on Romans 3, 23, verses 23 to 26. Isaiah 53, 10. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him, and he has been put to grief. And when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring, and he shall prolong his days, and the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Now please turn to Romans chapter 3, verses 23 to 26. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. So as you look at these two texts, you see a main thing come out of these two texts is that the cross serves as judgment on sin and at the same time accomplishes the salvation of our sins. So looking at these two texts, both the prophet Isaiah and the apostle Paul both capture the great problem of sin. and the great need for our redemption. You look at these passages and we understand man is immensely guilty of sin and the Lord must judge sin. If he is to remain a just judge, he must punish sin. If he fails to punish sin, he cannot be a just judge. To be a truly righteous God, he must deal righteously with unrighteousness. This is Straightforward, logical, theological, and so many people struggle to understand this. They want a God who would just simply dismiss and gloss over sins. Why can't he just simply forgive if he's such a loving God? Because he's also a holy, righteous judge. He's not simply a loving God. He is a loving God. but he's also a just God. And if he is a loving God, he will also bring judgment on sin, which is why if anyone ever sins against you, what do you demand? Justice. And in fact, if you went to court with a complaint and the judge let the person who committed a crime against you simply go on the basis of love and grace and mercy, you would be decrying injustice and you would be right to do so. But here lies the problem. If God is holy, and he must crush and destroy everything that is unholy, this is the great dilemma. The greatest problem that mankind faces is the problem of sin. And it's not sin somewhere out there in the ether, it's sin here, within us, our very hearts. are defiled, corrupted by sin through and through. There isn't a single human being who is without sin, nor will there ever was or ever will be a human being who was ever without a sin-stained flesh save Jesus Christ. We all walk this earth with the stench of dying flesh that is ever present within ourselves. But here it is. But we are created to live a life of glorifying this all-magnificent God. We were created by this all-powerful creator for the express purpose of worshiping and glorifying our creator God. But that is the dilemma. Because how can we, sinful crimson-stained man, ever serve a holy, perfect, and righteous God? How could we ever do this? This God who is so holy, who can't even look upon sin, He's so separate and so holy. How is it that we could ever be in service to this God and glorify Him without this holy, just God just destroying us right where we stand? This is the universal problem of sin. It is our greatest dilemma. and the question regarding as to how we as sinful man could ever be permitted to live and serve God and bring Him glory in all that we do, that question to the great dilemma, the answer is found none other than in the suffering of Christ on the cross, who bore not just our sins, but also the wrath, the holy wrath of an almighty God. And so the answer to our great dilemma of sin is in the cross. And two main points that we're going to seek to understand from these texts, we're going to go through other various texts too in regards to sin, but the two main texts that we'll be in is the Isaiah 53 and Romans 3. But two main points, the sinfulness of sin and the work of the cross. Specifically in the sinfulness of sin, We're gonna seek to understand what is the nature of sin? What does sin look like in our own lives as believers still? And we will see that the word tells us that sin is disobedience, first and foremost, and sin is defiling. That's the effect that it has on us. And sin is deceitful. Ultimately, sin brings forth guilt before a holy God. And understanding the second point, the work of the cross. If sin brings guilt, then the question arises, What is to become of this guilt? Specifically, what does God do with our guilt? enter in the cross of Christ. The cross judges our sin, the cross atones for our sin, and finally, the cross redeems us from sin. Ultimately, the cross brings forth righteousness. Sin brings forth guilt before a righteous God or holy God, and the cross responds by bringing forth righteousness. And one thing we'll see is that both in the Old and in the New Testaments, they both agree and they testify in unity to these truths. What was predicted and foretold concerning the judgment of sin in the Old was observed and accomplished in the New. That's what we're going to see. That is, that the Lord predetermined that the Messiah would suffer the wrath of the Father for the sake of the sins of his elect people. so that he could redeem a special people for himself that would live to glorify him and worship him in this life on earth and for an eternity in heaven. But before we can begin to understand the atoning work of Christ on the cross, we first have to understand why Christ had to die, why the Messiah needed to suffer in order to atone for the sins of the elect. And this brings us to our first point, the sinfulness of sin. So we have to understand this. In Hebrew, the word for sin is hata, which means to miss the mark, or to lack. In Greek, the word is hamartia, which means to err, and also to miss the mark. In other words, that are used for sin are things like trespass, iniquity, evil, wickedness, transgression. Each of these terms, if you notice, they all carry a moral connotation, which means that at the core of sin is grievous immorality. That's what it is. It is an immoral act. But it's not just our acts that are evil, our thoughts, our words, Our deeds, our beliefs, our desires, even more so, our emotions, our feelings are evil. Anything that is thought in our thoughts, in our words, or our deeds that fails to meet the perfect standard of righteousness and holiness is what is considered sinful. That's what is considered evil, wicked, vile, and unholy, and unclean, because it fails to meet the righteous, holy standard of God. In other words, it misses the mark. The mark, of course, is God's holy, perfect, and righteous standard, which the standard is none other than himself, for he needs no other standard apart from his own nature, his own holiness, and his own righteousness. And as this holy and righteous God who has created us for his own purposes and for his own glory, he rightfully lays claims to the allegiance of all mankind. He can claim this rightfully, for He created us for this purpose. It means God's absolute right to demand from His creation perfect obedience that glorifies Him. And whenever we fail to fulfill God's righteous demands, and we fail to hit that mark, and we miss it, this is what the Bible refers to as sin. And it is in sin in thought, word, or deed. So when you look at that, sin is utmost disobedience. Missing that mark is to disobey the standard, the law. And because we disobey, the consequence of that disobedience is that we then become defiled. And this defilement is to our very core. It affects the entirety of our nature. It is what we refer to as depravity and its total in nature, meaning that there is not one aspect of us that is good in and of itself. That's the doctrine of total depravity. There isn't, nor was there ever, some part deep in your heart or in my heart, anywhere, where there was this little teeny tiny little light of goodness and I have a little bit of goodness in me, I can do some good things and things. There is nothing in you that was good or I have some kindness, I'm kind of a nice person. No. That is to deny the doctrine of sin and the doctrine of total depravity. We are corrupt to our core, every single last one of us. Right, me, you, our parents, our children, every single human being that has ever lived and walked this earth has been totally depraved from birth. That's what we read in Psalm 51. Except the God man, Jesus of Nazareth. He's the only one. Every one of us has failed to meet the perfect standard of God. Disobey this holy righteous God in thought, word, and deed. And don't let some foolish Catholic or Arminian pastor or theologian or family member or friend tell you otherwise. This is an inescapable truth of scripture. You cannot read scripture without walking away understanding that literally everyone is smeared, every person is defiled with sin, except Christ. And I know that Catholics have twisted it and said, well, Mary was without sin, right? The immaculate conception. No. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So even though they teach that, and that's why they believe that they can contribute to their own salvation, because there's a little light in mankind that still preserves some of his goodness, even though he's about 98% depraved, that 2% allows him to bring forth some sort of good works that works together for merit and works with God. No, absolutely not. The simple biblical truth that scripture proclaims is that we are all fallen and sinful. And any thought of self-righteousness from whatever camp, Catholics, Armenians, Wesleyan perfectionists, legalistic Calvinists, or any other foolish thing out there, it all flies in the face of the testimony of scripture. And here's the simple truth. If they wanted to protest, and some would, Adam and Eve were the only two human beings initially created without original sin. without total depravity. Adam and Eve, they were created perfect, without original sin, no corruption, perfect in their nature. And yet, what was the outcome? The two only perfect human beings failed to keep the perfect standard. They sinned, they disobeyed, they rebelled against the commandment of God, and they fell into sin. with their perfect unstained nature, devoid of original sin and total depravity, yet they fell. And we're supposed to believe that some sinful fallen man who's already totally depraved, born in original sin, has some inherent goodness in himself? I'll bet you they'll never answer that question, because they can't. So sin, ultimately, is disobedience. And to capture this point even more, we're going to look at Genesis chapter 3, verses 8 through 13. Genesis 3 8 through 13 Beginning at verse 8 and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden and the cool of the day and The man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden But the Lord God called to the man and said where are you? And he said I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself and he said who told you that you were naked and Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? And the man said, the woman who you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate. And then Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done? And the woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. Sounds like a married argument in a living room, blaming each other. He did it, she did it. But look specifically at verse 11. Have you eaten of the tree which I commanded you not to eat? There's the command. There's a standard. And what did they do? They failed. They ate. There it is. Sin is disobedience. They failed to keep the commandments of God that he had laid before Adam and Eve at the time. And as simple as that commandment was, the only two perfect human beings, remember, without the stain of original sin, and free from total depravity, and yet these two human beings fell and they failed to keep God's simple commandment. It always strikes me as odd when someone tries to give themselves brownie points and says what I think is a ridiculous statement like, well, I may be a sinner, but I'm not a murderer or adulterer, right? Kind of try to minimize their stuff. I'm not like that guy or that girl. Honestly, those people who say that, you should really read your Bible more. Better yet, let the Bible read you. Because they clearly don't understand. You can't claim any sense of good in you or gain any brownie points with God. He threw out the only two perfect human beings that were ever created without sin. He threw them out. Why? because they failed to keep what we would consider today a simple commandment. Don't eat. Don't eat from the fruit of the tree in the garden. They disobeyed and God cast them out from his presence forever. And yet there are people who would say, well, I can't be all that bad because at least I'm not some murderer, rapist, or adulterer. It's folly to think this. What it's essentially saying is like, the Lord will judge those things, but he won't judge my things. He just judged Adam and Eve for eating from a tree that he commanded him not to eat. And people out there seriously think that the Lord would just gloss over your sin. He'd throw you out so fast, your head would go spinning off like a top. It would never. And I don't think we don't grasp this because we don't grasp the holiness of God. That we would think, well, those sins he would definitely deal with. We understand that. But come on, my sins? They ain't all that bad. But sin is disobedience, plain and simple. And as a consequence, we have become defiled. The moment that you disobey in thought, word, or deed. And when we disobey and we're guilty of sin and defiled, we're defiled through and through. We're not partly defiled and partly undefiled like Catholic doctrine would teach, no. Sin is defiling to our core. The very disposition of our hearts, the very center of our core is unclean. Filthy rags, says the prophet Isaiah, and that's true of every single one of us, regardless whether we're murdering, rapists, adulterers. Now, don't misunderstand me. I am not equating all sin, right? Not all sin is equal, but all sin is equally condemnable. One sin condemns you as a lawbreaker, lawlessness. But not all sin is equal in nature. We understand this. The fact that it's even debated kind of blows my mind because someone's like, well, I didn't do those sins of like Hitler or Pol Pot. No, but if you ended up rightly judged by God, you would all be in hell together. And tell me how that works out for you. I don't think you're going to comfort yourself with the thought, well, at least I'm not having it as bad as Hitler. You're already forever cast outside the presence of God. Is it really going to matter? I think it's just a ridiculous thing. But we're all totally depraved. And listen to a definition of total depravity by Dr. Robert Raymond. Man in his natural state as he comes from the womb is morally and spiritually corrupt in his disposition and character. Every part of his being, his mind, his will, his emotions, his affections, his conscience, his body has been affected by sin. His understanding is darkened, his mind at enmity with God, his will to act a slave to his darkened understanding. and a slave to his rebellious mind. His heart, corrupt. His emotions, perverted. His affections, naturally gravitate to that which is evil and ungodly. His conscience, untrustworthy. His body, subject to mortality and death. That's the state of mankind. That's the reality of every human being from physical birth until their new birth. And even then, we still have a sinful nature that wages war against our new nature, does it not? And as followers of Christ, we have to come to terms with the reality of the ever-pervasive sin nature. Just like the Apostle Paul groans in Romans 7, 14 to 18, we know that the law is spiritual, Paul says, but I am unspiritual. Sold as a slave to sin, I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate to do, that I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I admit that the law is good. In that case, it is no longer I who do it, but it is the sin living in me that does it. And here it is, verse 18 in Romans 7. I know that nothing good lives in me that is in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. This is still the reality of sin even in the life of the believer. There is an ongoing battle. That is the defiling nature of sin. It's so defiling it corrupts our very nature. And a consequence of this defilement and depraved nature is that sin is deceitful. And of course, the deceitfulness of sin is captured beautifully in the words of Jeremiah chapter 17 verse 9, where the prophet states this, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it? The word translated deceitful there means sly, slippery, and insidious. So far from being something we can trust, our heart, it is a lying, deceitful, and even insidious part of us. Yet so many people today deny this, and they talk about trusting in their heart, and they like to think that the answers to the problems in our lives lie somewhere deep down within our hearts. That couldn't be further from the truth. You don't want to look deep down into the recesses of your hearts. It's like, do you really? Because you're going to find nothing but depravity and deceit lying there. What did the Apostle Paul say? I know that there is nothing good that dwelleth in me. Continue to read that chapter in Romans 7, and he points to any goodness that now is in him is due to the grace of Christ, who we are all indwelt by as believers. But we can't take any credit. It's not us. It is him. So this is the deceitfulness of sin, and people try to think that there's something good within themselves, something that they can trust. And as Christians, we ought to know this point more than anyone else. Because now that we're in Christ, we understand the reality of our sinful hearts. This is why as you grow and you mature in your faith, at one point, yes, you gain more victory, progressive sanctification, you begin to walk in greater holiness, yes, but there's also the reality that is increased of your sin. This is why people like even Charles Spurgeon, as much as they were growing in holiness and sanctification, they became more keenly aware of the sin that is in them. That's part of spiritual maturity, is understanding how pervasive and how sinful the sinfulness of sin is. And we ought to know this more as Christians. Because we understand this, we understand the reality of our sinful hearts. And we also understand this because we look back from a different time in our lives before we were in Christ, walking with Christ. And we look back at that time and we look back and from the perspective and the insight and the knowledge that we have now, and we understand how long we went deceiving ourselves, each and every one of us. Lying to ourselves, lying to others, masquerading behind lies, trying to make ourselves look good constantly to those around us, to give the facade that there's really something good in us, right? And some are still doing so. They are so affected in the deceitfulness of sin to look to the approval of man, that they still desire to look good for others. And you feel this pressure, so much so, that even if your neighbor starts cutting their grass, you go out there to go cut your grass right away, because, gosh, it would look really bad if I don't go out there now to cut my grass, and I need to look good before everybody on my neighborhood. Where does that come from? Where does that thought come from, that desire? It's just like, oh, immediately. It'll look bad if I don't. What is it? It comes from vanity. It comes from a vain desire to look good before man, the approval of man. So we feel this pressure, this constant desire to want to look good before others. And we'll take it in any external way that we can get. And this is part of the deceitfulness of sin, right? To chase the approval of man, to look good on social media, to try to show off how good we look, to try to show off our good works in front of others. We can do it even within church and perform in a particular way to receive kudos from others, right? This is externalism. My externalism, medals and accolades from my military service. It'd make it kind of hard to not fall into that, because they already just slap it on you. But there was this desire, and that's deceitfulness of sin. And it will harden you. It'll begin to harden you if we fail to kill it. Hebrews 3.13, the writer of Hebrews, exhorts us and warns us that we must exhort one another daily as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Sin is so deceitful, it will slowly harden our hearts and gain mastery over us. It seeks to devour us, to take our eyes off Christ, right, the approval of man. Instead of thinking the approval before God, we look to the approval of man. It'll slowly begin influencing us, corrupting your thinking and your desires, that we start to look at the things of this world until they begin to glitter before our eyes, as if there's something truly good or desirable in them. This is the same problem that the serpent gave before Eve and how he deceived Eve. Read that text in Genesis 3, and it says, she looked with her eyes at the forbidden fruit that she was commanded to not eat, and it says, it was pleasing to the eyes. Pleasing to the eyes. That's where the deceit was beginning. And so if we do not deal with our sin, And if we don't go before the Lord daily in repentance over our sin, begging and pleading for Him to clean our heart and remove the corruption of our life and all the evil desires, not just the external behavior, the roots of sin. all those evil desires that are still dormant within our nature, the temptations will slowly win you over and begin to harden your heart until you start to become cold to heavenly things. Your passion will drain and dwindle, and before you know it, the things that you used to be on fire for have all but lost their heat and fervor. In short, sin will deceive you, hardening you to the things of the spirit, and will begin to slowly but surely lull you to death. Just take a look at all the churches all over here in West Michigan. When I first got here, they called this the Bible Belt of the Midwest. I was like, what do you mean by that? He said, just wait. Drive around a little bit, and then you'll see what we mean why we call this the Bible Belt of the Midwest. And I was like, OK. Surely enough, there it is. Yeah, Bible Belt of the Midwest. There's a church everywhere. Should be such a holy place. Right? Remember where Dr. Kelderman preached about like a month, two months ago? And he gave that statistic, and West Michigan was like, Way bottom doing really poorly Grand Rapids West and we got churches all over the place. What does that mean? This is spiritual deadness. It's lukewarm Nothing of a passion for the Word of God anymore or for the preaching of the gospel It's all cheap entertainment We've all seen it. We all know it some of us probably came from maybe a church that went in that direction right cheap entertainment for goats pretending to be sheep and It all became about feeling good and helping people to live a better life on this earth. It's all just one big community center and a place for people to feel welcome like they can be longed and be accepted. Come as you are and stay as you are. Feel welcomed and make friends, have fun, entertain yourselves. Get some motivational quotes for the week to help you with your day. Right? And it's all about your own personal fulfillment and your selfish desires. It's all spiritual deadness. They've been lulled to sleep and are now dead. They fly rainbow flags. They say it's in the name of Christ. They have married the church with the culture and they say it's the sake for the gospel so as to not offend. The people complain when a sermon is too long or when the preacher gets too preachy. I thought that was interesting. Imagine that. Preachers who are preaching aren't permitted to get to preaching. You can't even talk about sin anymore, let alone hell and repentance. You'll be mocked. They'll say, that's not love. That's not what Jesus wants. That's not what the gospel is about, talking about repentance and sin and hell. I don't know how they come up with that one, but that's not what the gospel is about, apparently. They'll say, that's not what Jesus died for. Well, what did he die for then? Right? That's not love. Why is that so pervasive? Right? Rob Bell used to be at that big church over there in Granville. He's a byproduct of West Michigan. How did that happen? Right? They tell you you can't talk about sin anymore. Right? That God just wants you to know that he loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Don't talk about sins. People feel bad already. They'll shame you for making others feel ashamed. But listen. Ought we not feel ashamed for being guilty of shameful sins? So why are they constantly talking about do not feel shameful? And don't sins mean guilt? So should we not feel guilty? Is that not right today? Not today it isn't, right? Sin is sickness. I have some chemical imbalance. That's why I don't pray. That's why I don't read God's word anymore. That's why I've abandoned the fellowship because I just can't anymore. It's not my fault though. It runs in my family. The woman who gave me the serpent deceived me. It runs in my family, so it's not my fault. Or the new favorite thing today, I have some trauma that I'm recovering from. Or the other popular one that I've heard is I have church hurt. So I can't fellowship with the church. I'm not about church and religion, but I'm about Jesus. I can't be with those people. I'm church hurt. So you abandon fellowship, sin is sickness. And then you have to stop and think what Christ must think of all this. And I'll tell you what I think he thinks, that he has to be repulsed by it, which is exactly why the Son of God had to come down and condescend and live life as a man and be put to death, be ridiculed, mocked. Beaten, scorned, smacked, slapped, whipped and flogged, flesh torn, head full of thorns, his body broken and crucified. He had to be put to death on a cross. The Holy Son of God, the Savior and Messiah, the rightful Lord and King, treated like some cheap peasant. And His glory scoffed all by the very people He came to save and redeem. And His glory is still scoffed today, His sacrifice still scoffed today, when they fly their little rainbow flags pridefully high. It mocks the atoning work of the cross. He's so repulsed by sin, that in order to pay the debt for the level of depravity, it was necessary for the glorious Son of God to be put to death. I heard one false teacher say, he's like, Christ's death is indicating the price and the value of humankind, of mankind. And I thought, I was like, wait, what? The fact that the son of God had to come to die means you are so valuable? And that's how people spin it. I was like, no, no, no. That's not demonstrating the value of mankind. That's demonstrating the depravity of the debt that had to be paid, that it was so costly that nothing else could possibly pay it. The fact that mankind is so deceived and wanting to twist even the cross of Christ just tells you exactly how deceitful sin is and how pervasive it is. And this is true for every single one of us, that our depravity was a reason for the death of the son of God, that he had to die for you, for each and every one of you, for all of us, all of us here at Seventh, And for everywhere the true church is found, that Christ had to pay this debt, this high costly debt. And we have to look at this, this cost of sin with seriousness and severity. And I'm thankful that this church is so faithful I'm not going to put the church on a high horse, hear what I'm saying. But I am thankful and I am grateful to be part of a faithful body. Because yes, it can be so easy to point at all the churches that are compromised out there, flying flags and just glossing over sin, treating it like nothing. But we have to also understand that no one is exempt. No person, no church is exempt from deceitfulness of sin. So we must pray daily for this church and for our faithful leaders here. Sin is so serious it required the death of the Messiah. And look at this. This is the glorious truth of the gospel. And look at how the prophet Isaiah captures it. We've already read the text. For it was the will of the Lord to crush him and he has put him to grief when his soul makes an offering for guilt. He shall see his offspring, and he shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand." Here in this Old Testament verse, we have the gospel summed up as the sovereign will and purpose of the Lord, which is what? To crush the messianic son of God in order to make his death, what? An offering for guilt. That's the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement. That God the Father is pleased to crush, crush the Savior, the Messiah. That's the penal element. And it is his own soul that makes an offering for guilt. There is your substitutionary element and your atoning element. And we know it's substitutionary because Jesus is not being offered for guilt for his own, but for the guilt of another. It's substitutionary, dying in the place of another for someone else's guilt. And his life is presented as a guilt offering. And that tells us that the suffering servant here in Isaiah 53 will atone for the guilt of sins. So we've been talking about sin up until this point. And now we're going to come to the foot of the cross. In Romans 3, 23 to 26, the same glorious gospel truth in Isaiah 53 in that passage is also depicted here in Romans 3, 23 to 26. Here in the Apostle Paul's gospel-saturated passage, we see the divine work of the cross of Christ and what it accomplishes, that the cross judges our sin, the cross atones for our sin, and lastly, that the cross redeems us from sin. See, 1st Paul makes the case that all have sinned before God. And the reason why he does that is because before we can get to the truth of the gospel, first it must be established the universal guilt of sin. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Because there's no salvation without there first being a reality of damnation. That must come first. And so the Apostle Paul labors to make that point. And then Paul continues and declares, just as all have fallen, and they've all sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they can also be justified by the free gift of His grace. And what is the gift of grace that Paul speaks of? None other than the redemption that is only in Christ Jesus. And this redemption that is found in Christ cannot come until God had put Him forward as propitiation. Specifically, propitiation by his blood, by Christ's blood. And what does Paul mean by propitiation? What does it have to do with the blood of Christ? It means this, that the word translated propitiation properly means a sin offering that is presented in order to appease the wrath of a deity, of God. And the reason that the blood of Christ is connected with the appeasement of God's wrath is because without the shedding of blood, there can be no forgiveness. That is Hebrews 9.22. In fact, the law requires that purification is made through the shedding of blood, which is why the high priest in the Old Testament would have to sprinkle blood on the mercy seat on the Day of Atonement for the forgiveness of people's sins. And the same word interpreted as propitiation is the same Greek word for the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant, which means the Apostle Paul is connecting the Old Testament Day of Atonement ceremony with the work of Christ on the cross. And just as the high priest in the Old Testament would need to bring forth the vicarious lamb, the substitute lamb that was sacrificed on behalf of the people of God in order to be presented as a propitiation, that the substitute lamb's blood would be sprinkled on top of the mercy seat in order to appease the wrath of God in the Old Testament. And in the Old Testament, the Lord designed the Ark of the Covenant's mercy seat to be the means by which God could be appeased. In the New Testament, God sent forth his very Son to fulfill all that was foreshadowed in the Old. What was once repeatedly accomplished, the sacrifices in the Old Testament, which was the work of the high priest, there was a sacrificial lamb, and the mercy seat, or the atonement cover. That is now accomplished once and for all through Jesus Christ. He is that high priest who brings forth the substitutionary sacrificial lamb, which is Christ himself, our sacrificial lamb of God, who comes to take the sins of the world, John the Baptist proclaimed. And lastly, he is our very propitiation, the mercy seat, by which God's wrath is appeased once and forevermore. He's our superior high priest, our superior sacrificial substitute, and our superior propitiation and atonement cover. This is why, despite our sin and guilt, we can all come before God today and offer up our sacrifices of praise and worship to His holy name, and why we can live every day in service to our Lord and for His glory. the very reason why he created mankind. It's why we can live each day with the eternal hope knowing that we have been cleansed once and for all by his blood and therefore we can be forgiven and possess the assurance of redemption. For salvation comes through the gracious work of the glorious and ultimate High Priest and Sacrificial Lamb and the once and for all propitiation of Christ. Thus it is God who receives the fullness of the glory. He accomplished it all. And he has made himself both the just and justifier of all who believe and have faith in Christ Jesus. Christ truly is all in all. What needed to be repeated and done multiple times by multiple high priests has now been accomplished through one man, the God-man, Jesus Christ, and that is And he is the primary reason, the only reason, why we can come today, this afternoon, and every week after, offering sacrifices of worship and praise in all of our life and everything that we do. And that is why, brothers and sisters, we ought to run this race of faith with all the hope and assurance and the grace and power of Christ's work on the cross that has been accomplished once and for all and the power of the gospel to save and redeem sinners. That's what the gospel is all about. That's what the church's main mission is. It's not just a big community center. It's not social justice and getting out there and making the world a better place. And it's not some fire insurance policy. It is the proclamation of the finished work and the victory of Jesus Christ over sins and judgment. That's what happened. That's what was taking place on the cross when he was being offered as the propitiation for our sins to save and redeem every single sinner here who has put his faith in him. and to God be the glory in this forever, and amen. Let us pray. Lord, we thank you, Lord, for your sacrifice. We thank you for your work on the cross, Lord. May we never forget your cross. May we never cease to be humbled by your grace, and may we always be faithful to proclaim the wonder and the power of your cross, Lord. We pray these things in your name. Amen.