This morning I just want to read verse 21, 2 Corinthians chapter five, verse 21 says, for he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. The song we've added to our Catalan of worship hymns this morning is not only theologically deep, it gets to the very heart of Christian truth. Stuart Townend, who along with Keith Getty wrote this song, and incidentally they also wrote Speak O Lord together. They co-authored this and said the goal of their hymn was to carry people's hearts and minds back to the day the Lord Jesus was crucified, to remember not only that Christ was tried and beaten and nailed to a cross and suffered and died, but also to explain and emphasize the significance of it all. It is important for a disciple of Jesus Christ to know the authentic facts of the events that transpired on that darkest of days, but being a Christian is more than just knowing a set of facts. To be a disciple of the Lord Jesus, to be a Christian, is to know the facts of what happened and the significance of why it happened. That is all I'm going to try to do this morning. I want to spend some time telling you the story of the arrest and trials and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. And I think it'll be helpful because this is a very busy day. We won't be able to talk about every event that transpired, but there is a lot of things in that day happening at once. Complicating our understanding of it is that we have four different gospel writers who are writing about different aspects of that day, as well as Old Testament prophetic prediction about what would happen that day, and also some information we gain from later New Testament letters about what happened on that day. And so the goal this morning is to tell the story of that day. collating some of the events into sort of a chronological order. I'm not gonna be asking you to constantly turn to the Old Testament and the Gospels and the New Testament letters. I'm simply gonna ask for your attention to the story. If you hear something that surprises you, something that's new to you, or you have a question about the order of events, be sure to come talk to me afterward. I'm glad to try to show you how the events unfolded in detail, but when we finish the overview of what happened, then at the end of the sermon, we'll consider the single verse of our text, 2 Corinthians 5, 21, which explains to us why it happened. To begin the story of that day, we're actually faced with a difficult decision right off. Like where do you begin this story? And so I'm going to choose to start the story at sundown. Now this is different than our way of thinking because we think of our days starting in the morning, but in the Jewish mindset of the time of the gospels, a day lasted from sundown to the next sundown, roughly 6 p.m. to 6 p.m. After all, their thinking was that when God created, he said that the evening and the morning were the first day, and so that's the order that we should consider things. That's the pattern they followed. So, we'll start at sundown in the first moments of the day. just after sundown seems like an unlikely place to start because in that moment, nothing in the Gospels at that point really prepares us for the Jesus we've come to know to be turned introspective and distressed. After three years of ministering in and around Israel, the Lord Jesus was well known for being a friend of sinners. He was willing to sit and commune and interact with people in order to change their lives and draw them to righteousness. We're used to seeing him lovingly hold little children and bless them. He would willingly touch lepers and cleanse them of their disease. He could authoritatively cast out demons. He could command the wind and the waves to be still and silent and then walk on the surface of the water if it pleased him to do that. He would teach for hours, expounding the truth of God's word. And twice, he entered into the temple of the Lord and used the whip to violently run out the merchants and money changers and expel them from the temple. He always does what is right, even if it's hard. He always knows what is right and He always does what is right. Never once do we find the Lord Jesus thinking wrong or acting wrong or ever getting things wrong. It's evident that this perfect man is the very Lord of glory. He's interacting with people in righteousness. There was never a person that was too small for his attention, and there was never a situation that was too big for him to master. And yet, at sundown on this dreadful day, as it begins, the Lord Jesus is in a large upstairs room in the city of Jerusalem. He is alone with his closest disciples. And for what seems like the first time in the Gospels, he is a study in mixed emotions. No other person in that room knows with certainty what the day holds except the Lord Jesus himself. Jesus and his disciples are sitting down for a traditional Passover meal and unknown to anyone else, this will be Jesus's final meal. This is the last supper. But because they're clueless about this, a room full of disciples have no real understanding when they look at Jesus and see his emotions are very intense. Luke 22, 15, he tells his disciples, I have fervently, that is eagerly, I've eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. But John's gospel tells us when Jesus had said these things, he was troubled in his spirit. And so as this day opens, knowing all that the day will hold, The Lord Jesus seems to be filled with both anticipation and apprehension. And the apprehension is not just for what he alone would endure. As a loving master, Jesus is also clearly aching for what the disciples are about to endure as they watch him be betrayed and arrested and tortured and killed. Now there is one disciple in that room who should know what's coming. Judas Iscariot had already made his deal with the religious leaders. He promised them to find a place where they could come and arrest Jesus privately. They could come when there were not any big crowds near. And so Jesus tells all the disciples, one of you will betray me. And without revealing it to the whole group, He makes it clear to Judas that he knows the plot, he knows what Judas is going to do, and he sends Judas away to do his wicked work, saying, what it is you're doing, do it quickly. As for the other disciples, Jesus prepares them in that upper room for the events that are about to transpire. He says, don't let your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me, in my Father's house. There are many rooms and I am going to prepare a place for you. And once I've prepared a place for you, I will come back so that I can take you and have you there with me. And at some point in this Passover meal, as Jesus broke the bread and in breaking the bread, he breaks with tradition. Passover meal was all about the deliverance of God, how God had saved his people from slavery in Egypt and brought them out and set them free and protected them from his wrath. In the final plague, Jesus took that meal and made it about his own work that he was about to do. because he was about to set his people free from the slavery of sin. He's about to absorb God's wrath in their place. And so, proving that he knows what's coming, Jesus tells them, this bread is my body. It's broken for you. And then he takes the cup and he blesses it and says, this is my blood of a new covenant, which is to be shed for many for the remission of sins. the disciples, still mostly clueless about what was to unfold, after they finished that meal, they left the upper room, they walk through the streets of Jerusalem, they descend down the mountainside. Jerusalem is built on Mount Zion, they descend down the side of Mount Zion, they cross over the valley where there is a little, creek called the Brook Kidron, which probably at that moment was running red with the blood of thousands of Passover lambs that had been slaughtered in the temple. They cross over the Brook Kidron and they start going up the next mountain, the Mount of Olives. And about halfway up, there is this little garden, this enclosed garden of large olive trees where Jesus frequently stopped. And so he takes his disciples into that Garden of Gethsemane. And he asked the closest three of them to come with him and set aside with him and pray with him for a while, but all they can do is sleep. Jesus couldn't sleep. Jesus knew what was coming. So Mark's gospel describes that he took Peter, James, and John with him and he began to be troubled and deeply distressed. And he said to them, my soul is exceedingly sorrowful even to death. Luke's gospel said that he's in agony, prayed earnestly so that sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Friends, think about this night. It is a cold night. We know that later on this night, Peter is gonna be joining in with some other people trying to keep himself warm by a fire. But on this cold night, Jesus is already in such agony that he is sweating profusely and blood forms from his head and falls down and waters the ground. Now let me ask, could Jesus have avoided what was to come? I think we could say he could. In fact, later he's going to tell one of his disciples that he could call on legions of angels at his disposal, but y'all, he would not have needed their help. The combined power of every supernaturally created angel combined could not compare to the divine power of their creator, the Lord Jesus himself. And yet the simplest way to have avoided all of this, if that's what he wanted to do, was simply don't go to the Garden of Gethsemane. Remember, he's already sent Judas away. He knows Judas' betrayal, planning to betray him somewhere privately. And so he enters into the very place where it is sure to happen. So don't misunderstand the prayer of Jesus in the garden. This is Jesus who taught us as his disciples to pray, your will be done. And that's exactly what he prays in the garden as he's there on his knees, he prays, Father, if it's your will, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. The idea of this cup, by the way, is a figure of speech for the Hebrew people at the time it was common. This cup is a symbol of whatever it is that God has planned for you. Sometimes it can be a good thing, right? In Psalm 23, my cup runneth over. God's got great blessings promised to me. But sometimes it's described as the cup of God's wrath. And that's what Jesus knows is coming. He knows full well that this day is the culmination of his life and ministry. It is the purpose for why he's come, and he is not trying to avoid it. And yet, in his humanity, there's no one who would fail to just reel at the idea of what's about to unfold. as he prays in the garden. Meanwhile, back over in the city of Jerusalem, Judas Iscariot has reported to the religious leaders. He's handed over a little army, several hundred, several hundred men at least. Up front were the Jewish temple police who were sent to arrest Jesus. Behind them were hundreds of Roman soldiers who were sent along to deal with any resistance that might come. But there in the garden, Jesus is in prayer. He's sweating drops of blood. The disciples are snuggled peacefully under olive trees. It is not exactly an enclave of seditious thugs that they're coming to arrest. Judas and his little army snake down the side of Mount Zion and cross the Brook Kidron, and soon at the base of the Mount of Olives, you could begin to make out the hush whispers of hurried soldiers, the occasional rattle of a sword or a spear, and as they close in around this walled garden as if Jesus intends to escape. The disciples wake up and despite the darkness, there would have been no way for them to deny that they recognize the form of the man who is at the front of this army. There is their false friend, Judas. and he steps forward to greet Jesus with a friendly kiss. This deceptive sign of affection is the very signal for the mob to descend on Jesus, and there is only brief resistance. Peter, the disciple, pulled a knife, wounded one of the servants of the high priest, Jesus stops him, heals that servant, and then scolds Peter. He tells Peter, if this is the cup that my father has for me, is it not right for me to drink it? Now remember his prayer, can this cup pass from me? He knows it will not pass from him. It won't, it can't, and he's ready. He will drink this cup of God's wrath, and with that, the disciples scatter. They abandon Jesus, and he is taken. He is likely bound. hooded, violently taken from the garden. He's dragged back down the valley, across the creek, up into the city of Jerusalem, and he is taken to a home. He finds himself in the home of a man named Annas, former high priest of the temple. And in that home, the entire Sanhedrin council is awaiting his arrival. This is the ruling body of the Jewish religion, and they're there ready to question him. And Jesus is put on trial, sort of. It is not anything official because the laws of the Jewish people at this time restricted trials from happening at nighttime. It restricted trials from happening in private. Any trial like this had to be done during the day, publicly at the temple, and they knew it. But at Annas' house, they insist that Jesus answer for himself. And it's at this point that Jesus simply and politely refused. What he said to them is, I've spoken openly. I have taught in the synagogues. I have taught in the temple. There are no secrets. You have heard me. You know what I've said. And this simple refusal, one of the officers that was standing nearby struck Jesus in the face. And then they lead him to the home of Annas' son-in-law Caiaphas, who is the current high priest. at Caiaphas's house, they take him there because they have organized at that place many false witnesses, many people who were gonna come and testify against Jesus. But the liars could not all get on the same page. Their testimonies didn't match each other. And so the gospel say the high priest stood up in the midst and asked Jesus, do you answer nothing? What is it that these men testify against you? But he kept silent and answered nothing. And again the high priest asked him saying to him, are you the Christ? Are you the Messiah, the son of the blessed? And Jesus said, I am. And you will see the son of man sitting on the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, what further need do we have of any witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy. What do you all think? And they all condemned him to be deserving of death. And from that moment, They took turns spitting on Jesus. They blindfolded him again. They beat him. They turned it into a game, the gospels described, so that as he was blindfolded and they would strike him in the face, they would say, well, you're a prophet. Tell us which one of us is it that just hit you. This is also likely when the Old Testament prophet Isaiah's words were fulfilled, when he described them taking the Messiah and plucking out hands full of his beard. It's not possible for us to know how long that abuse was endured. It likely transpired over the course of several hours. Yet, because that Sanhedrin council knew their own rules, no trials at night, no trials in private. When the sun began to rise, they dragged Jesus to the temple for a third official trial. It was not fair. Luke's gospel records it like this. As soon as it was day, The elders of the people, both chief priests and scribes, came together and led him into their council saying, if you are the Christ, the Messiah, tell us. But he said to them, if I tell you, you will by no means believe me. And if I also ask you anything, you will by no means answer me or let me go. Hereafter, the Son of Man will sit on the right hand of the power of God. And they all said, are you then the Son of God? And he said to them, you rightly say that I am. And they said, what further testimony do we need? We have heard it for ourselves from his own mouth. And they judged him to be worthy of death. They condemned him, supposedly, officially. But to condemn him officially is one thing. Carrying out the sentence of death was something entirely different. The Roman government who was in power reserved the right to execute people themselves. No one else was allowed to do it. They needed to secure the Roman governor's approval for their plans, so they brought Jesus out of the temple and they dragged him to the Roman's head right next to the temple, joined up against it, built this thing called the Fortress of Antonia, and they took Jesus surely there to meet with Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, to ask Pilate to have Jesus executed. Unexpectedly, Pontius Pilate asks them, Why? What has he done? Now they had just condemned Jesus for admitting that he is the son of God. But if they tell that to Pilate, they know Pilate is not going to care. So for Pilate, they make up a different story. He says he's the king of the Jews. He's telling people that we should overthrow Caesar. He's telling people not to pay their taxes to the Roman government. It's fair to say that Pilate sees through their lies. He speaks briefly with Jesus and Jesus tells Pilate, my kingdom is not of this world. So let me tell you what Pilate said about Jesus at this point. Probably one of the most important statements and true statements of this entire day. Pontius Pilate, after talking to Jesus, comes back out to the Jewish leaders and says to them, I find no fault in him at all. But, since Pilate heard Jesus was from Nazareth in Galilee, he thought, I've got a great way I can wash my hands of this whole thing. It just happens the ruler of Galilee, a man named Herod, is in town for Passover. So I could just send him over to Herod and make this Herod's problem. And so Pilate sends Jesus over there. This will be Jesus's fifth trial of the day at this point. When Herod questions Jesus, Jesus keeps silent because after all, this is the Herod that had murdered John the Baptist. Herod ultimately sends him right back to Pilate. Luke says, then Herod, with his men of war, treated Jesus with contempt and mocked him and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe and sent him back to Pilate. And so when the problem returns, Pilate comes up with a new plan. Maybe he can have Jesus punished enough that the Jewish leadership will be content with that. And so he turns Jesus over to his soldiers to be tortured. Now almost certainly many of the soldiers who were doing this to Jesus that day were some of the same soldiers who had been sent to arrest Jesus the night before. Roman soldiers being brutal men took this as an opportunity for their own amusement. They dressed Jesus like a king. They made a crown of thorns to beat into his head. Don't think little thorns like from rose bushes. These were date palm thorns, probably two or three inches long, the equivalent of ice picks being driven into his skull. Jesus had already been beaten all night. Now blood is running down his brow. They put a rod in his hand, like here, this is a king's staff, and then they snatch it away in order to beat him with it. Some of the same men who had arrested Jesus the night before, who had witnessed him heal the priest's servant's knife wound, literally reattached the man's ear, are now holding him down to beat him. They openly abuse and ridicule this man who at the very least they know full well is extraordinary and far better than them. And at some point in that process, the Gospels tell us Jesus was also scourged. That's a short word that would have meant a lot for people who originally read the Gospels. It takes some explanation for us. If you know from the book of Acts that the Jews would limit a beating to 39 lashes, you can put that out of your mind. There was no limit to Roman scourging. The device that would be used for torture was called an announce or a cat of nine tails. It had pieces of bone or iron or sharpened bronze attached to the end of leather strips. and the victim would be stripped of his clothes and either stretched upward against a post or pulled down and bent low over something, and his hands would have been tied with no means to defend himself. And the beating would commence with that whip sometimes getting stuck in the flesh and having to be yanked out, bringing flesh with it. The Roman method of this, generally included four to six soldiers taking turns, swinging until they were tired and handing the whip over to the next person. It was common for the victim to die. And so now, battered and tortured, hardly able to walk, barely recognizable, Pilate has Jesus brought back out and he shows Jesus to the Jewish leaders. It says, behold, the man, look at him, right? This crown of thorns is still jammed onto his head. He's wearing this purple kingly robe, which is meant to mock him. He's covered in blood. His skin is ripped to shreds. Pilate's telling him, look at him. Isn't this enough? This is what I have done to the man who said has no fault in him at all. And the religious leaders responded by whipping up the crowd into a frenzy, insisting Jesus be crucified. They shouted, no, it's not enough. If you let him go, you are no friend of Caesar. If you let him go, we're gonna make sure Caesar knows. You have to crucify him. And so Pilate orders it to be done. Having judged Jesus to be blameless, he takes the very man that he found not guilty and sentences him to immediate execution. Jesus is handed over to the soldiers again to be abused, again. When they finally lead Jesus onto the streets of Jerusalem, they lead him out there with a wooden beam over his shoulder. Since the Romans frequently used crucifixion as a means to execute people, They had, along a main road coming into Jerusalem, all the uprights for a cross. Those things were planted in the ground. They did not move. But whatever criminal was being taken to be executed would be expected to carry the cross beam that they would be attached to when they got there. Jesus is so badly beaten, he's not even able to carry that. The soldiers in charge reach into the crowd and grab a man named Simon of Cyrene and make him carry it for Jesus. The Romans had perfected this process of killing a man as brutally as possible. A condemned man could hardly resist being pushed through the streets. Every step he takes brings him closer to death. And when he gets to the place of the cross uprights, he would be knocked to the ground, forced onto his back, over the cross beam, held down by one soldier, while another soldier uses ropes in order to extend the victim's arm, usually to the point of pulling his shoulders out of joint. And yet another soldier would use a hammer to drive nails to the hands or the wrists. and once affixed, that agony was just beginning. Jesus would have felt himself being dragged backwards across the ground along the back that had just been scourged that day. Stretched painfully upward onto that main upright beam of the cross. And then they would gauge how tall a man was and they would take a footing piece and they would apply it in just the right place so that the person being crucified would be able to, with their feet, push up and relieve some of the pressure that they had on their arms. And at that point, nails would be driven through his feet or ankles in order to affix him there. In addition to all the external injuries, the internal damage would have been intense. The process of being crucified would be that his hands were out, his body's pulling down all of his weight onto his arms. It would lift up the diaphragm so the lungs can't expand, you can't get breath. And what you just naturally do when you can't get breath is push up with your feet so that it relieves that pressure and you can breathe. But the agony of pushing up on feet that are nailed to a cross gets too much to bear and you drop back down to relieve that pressure and suddenly you can't breathe again. All the while that up and down motion is going on the scourged back that's running up and down the splintered rough piece of wood that you're attached to. The pain of crucifixion is indescribable. In Latin, they actually ended up inventing a word to describe it. The word excruciating was to describe the pain of crucifixion. Jesus did not avoid that pain. In fact, one of the aspects of crucifixion for the Romans was to offer the victim a drink with some kind of narcotic in order to dull the pain at the beginning of the process. It was not an act of mercy. It was an act meant to keep them from passing out so that they're awake to feel every bit of the process. Matthew's gospel tells us Jesus refused this drink so that he would feel every spike of pain that was there to be felt. And as he felt it, our Savior was praying for those who were abusing him. Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they do. This kind of character is entirely foreign to the rest of mankind. It is not within our nature to be so loving as the Lord Jesus. I think one of the thieves that were being crucified with him heard that and recognized, look, this man on that cross, he is different. Jesus truly is the Son of God, and when that thief asked Jesus, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom, Jesus' answer could have been, shut up, stop whining, you deserve this, I don't. But instead, Jesus said, today you'll be with me in paradise. at this point, because they're no longer feeling threatened, at least a few of Jesus's disciples find their way to the base of the cross. Jesus looks at one of them, a young man named John, and in his display of his divine love, he commands John to take care of Mary, his mother. What kind of man is this who prays for his enemies, who forgives thieves, who looks past his own physical torture to the emotional torment going on in front of him? The only answer can be that this is the God man. He is perfect. He is not suffering for anything he had done. He is suffering for others. This is what Isaiah said would happen. He said the Messiah would suffer for the sins of others. He would suffer in their place. But think about what this means for a minute. Let me ask you a question. If you suffered for your own sin, at whose hand would you suffer? Or let me ask it this way, who has your sin offended? Who have you sinned against? Who is rightly and justly angry and incensed over the wickedness in your heart? The answer is God himself. It is the God who made you, who owns you, who gave you life, who sustains your life, that God demands righteousness in your life. It is God's wrath that must be satisfied. When Jesus died for sinners, it didn't satisfy the anger of the Jewish leaders. It wasn't just suffering under the maniacal wrath of Roman soldiers. This is absorbing the righteous wrath of God himself. We know this in many ways. For example, in Isaiah in the Old Testament, it says, it pleased the Lord to crush him. That is the very act of pouring out his righteous wrath on Jesus, satisfied God. We'll talk more about that in a moment, but we also know this is true because at this moment of the day, it is about noon and God turns out the lights. Jesus was crucified at about 9 a.m. and for the first three hours, after those three hours pass at noontime, the sky goes dark. And in that darkness, the voice of the Lord Jesus from the cross is heard saying, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And understand, this is not Jesus asking a question that he doesn't know the answer to. It is Jesus quoting the very words of Psalm 22 verse one in the Old Testament, because he knew what was coming, he knew why it was coming, and he's saying that experiencing the agony of the cross is him knowingly and willingly fulfilling scripture. But the greatest agony then was not the wounds on his back. It was not the thorns in his head. It wasn't the nails in his hands and his feet. The greatest agony was enduring the righteous wrath of God himself. We cannot fathom the dreadful realities that transpired over the next three hours as Jesus endures the wrath of God. What we can know is that the Father in heaven was satisfied with what Jesus had done. When the next three hours was over, Jesus' voice is again heard and it makes a clear declaration that he knows God is satisfied when he says, Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. Those are almost the final words of Jesus on the cross. Almost. The fact that Jesus could speak at all at this point is remarkable. Listen, Roman executioners are good at their job. They control everything. They are the ones who decide when you can breathe, when you can talk. They are the ones who will decide when death will come. This is what they'll do for the thieves. They'll come along and they'll break the legs of the thieves so that the thieves can't press up and get their breath and they'll just asphyxiate. And yet at the very moment when Jesus should have been quiet and weak and hardly able to talk, just the short, rasping, rattling breaths that precede death, the Gospels let us know that he fills his lungs a final time and shouts for a world full of sinners to hear. It is finished. He had done everything he came to do. That final shout makes it know his life was not taken from him, it was given. He didn't say I am finished, it was it is finished. If you hear this story, you contemplate this day, and you think of Jesus as a helpless victim, you have missed the point. The man on the cross was not a victim, he is the victor. It was so obvious that the Roman centurion who was in charge of the crucifixion started shaking in fear, looks up and said, truly this man is the son of God. I mean, that man thought he had been in charge of the crucifixion and he found out that the man on the cross was the one in control the whole time. This is the same Jesus who said of his life, no man takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again, and he's going to do that. And yet, you did not have to be at the base of the cross in order to know something miraculous and divine had happened that day. The sky was already dark for everyone. The religious leaders in the temple get a shock when the massive veil in the temple just rips in two from top to bottom. The gospels tell us that the earth quaked, that rocks broke apart. In fact, the rocks are probably referring to the stones that would have been rolled in front of other tombs, because Matthew says the rocks were split, the graves were opened, and many saints who had died arose. When Jesus shouted in triumph and entered into death's domain, death lost its grip on those who trust in Jesus. The day ended with two disciples begging Pilate for permission to bury Jesus by the next sundown. So once the full day had transpired, they had wrapped his body, they laid it in a tomb, and three days later that tomb was empty because Jesus who had lived, had died, and had risen again to never die again. And when he says, all who believe in me have everlasting life, that life is his to give. He has already died for those who believe in him. Those are the events of the day. There are more details, of course. That's what happened. And yet you can know what happened without understanding or believing why it happened. That's what the single verse of our text is meant to tell us. 2 Corinthians 5, 21 is the gospel in one verse. It explains what transpired at the cross, what the work of Jesus has the power to do. It says, for he, and by the way, to know who the he was, just glance back the former verse, it's God, right? That's the last word of the previous verse. for God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Paul says Jesus knew no sin. I promise you Pontius Pilate agrees with that. I find no fault in him at all. Jesus was without fault, without sin, without evil. He never did anything wrong. He never broke a single law of God. He never deviated in the slightest degree from the path of God's will. It's common criminals who deserve crucifixion. Unrighteous rebels deserve God's wrath. Jesus deserved none of it. The writer of Hebrews says, in essence, he experienced life like us, but never committed sin like us. He is right, righteous in all things. Jesus only and always said what was right and thought what was right and felt what was right and did what was right. Yet though he knew no sin, this verse tells us God made him to be sin for us. This is the first part of this great exchange that took place on the day of Christ's crucifixion. Jesus Christ, God's son, accepted the place of sinners. He took our sin onto himself so that he could bear the wrath of God in our place. Why did it please the Lord to crush him? Well, because that's what our sin deserves. Jesus absorbed the righteous wrath of God in place of sinners. He did not commit sin, but he was made to be sin for us. So that means whatever anger or lust or greed or selfishness or deception or jealousy, whatever it is that's in my heart, that's in your heart, every bitter thought, every evil deed in our record of wrongs, Jesus took it and then stood before the wrath of God and accepted the punishment in our place. That's the first part of this great exchange. There is a second part too. Jesus became sin for us. Paul says that we might become the righteousness of God in him. It's been said like this. God the Father treated Jesus as if he was you, so he could treat you as if you were Jesus. You are not righteous by nature, but through faith in Jesus, God will remove your sin and give you the perfect righteousness of Jesus himself. This is what Paul means by we'll become the righteousness of God in him. You need to have a relationship with Jesus Christ through faith and trust in Him. You can have a relationship that is so close that it can be truly said, I am in Jesus Christ. This is more than attending church or participating in services. It's more than wearing a cross around your neck or having a I love Jesus tattoo. It's more than showing your religious affiliation by having some bumper sticker on your car. This is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, through believing in Him. Not just believing, oh yeah, I believe that that's all the things, that's what happened on the day Jesus died. But knowing I believe that I am the reason why those things happened. He was securing me a room in the Father's house. He was bearing the wrath that I deserved. It's his broken body and shed blood that are my hope for eternal life. This is the essence of being a Christian. This is the essence of being saved, of having any hope for everlasting life. This is entirely different from any of the man-made religions of this world. Listen, Mormons don't talk about being in Joseph Smith. Buddhists don't think about being in Buddha. Muslims don't claim to be in Mohammed. But when you repent of your sin and trust in Jesus Christ as your savior, that becomes a reality for you. You are saved, you're forgiven, you're rescued, you are set free, you are given everlasting life. The Lord Jesus Christ is in you and you are in him. You can and should know the facts about what transpired the day Jesus was crucified, but the power of the cross is knowing why it happened through faith. You know that He paid the price for your sin at the cost of His own blood and that you are forgiven and your sin was placed on Him and His righteousness was given to you.