Good morning everyone.
Good morning.
The reading is taken from 1 John chapter 4 verse 7.
! It's on page 1227.
! Dear friends, let us love one another for love comes from God.
! Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love.
This is how God showed his love among us.
He sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through him.
This is love.
Not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Dear friends, since God so loved us we also ought to love one another.
No one has ever seen God but if we love one another God lives in us.
And his love is made complete in us.
Well keep your Bibles open at 1 John chapter 4.
Let me pray and ask for the Lord's help as we come to his word.
Let me pray.
Lord we do pray and ask for your help now as we come and look at your words.
We're very conscious of the slowness of our hearts to trust you, to listen to you.
And so we pray please that you would be at work by your spirit.
Please help me in the words that I say.
Help all of us in our hearts to trust you, to listen carefully and respond in obedience and faith.
In Jesus name.
Amen.
So as Louise pointed out, it is Palm Sunday today.
We are in the build up to Easter weekend.
And what we've been doing the last couple of weeks is taking a pause from our regular working through a passage of the Bible
to have a think about the doctrine of the cross.
So what does the Bible say in greater detail about the work of Christ on the cross?
What is happening as Jesus dies?
And if you were with us last week, we considered the idea of substitution.
That Jesus died in our place.
And at the heart of the cross is this exchange, isn't there, between Christ and us.
You know, our sin for his righteousness.
So on the cross, Christ the innocent son is made sin for us.
Our sin is transferred onto him so that we in him might be made righteous.
And if you weren't with us last week, I'd encourage you to listen online if you can.
And this week I want to see how the New Testament builds on the idea
because I want us to see the fact that substitution means that Jesus necessarily on the cross
is paying the penalty that my sin deserves.
He is facing the punishment that I deserve.
Now, my hope is, and maybe this is an unrealistic hope,
that, you know, preaching is the art of unrealistic hopes.
You know, that's why I'm standing here.
I want you to be beginning to put those two things together
and see that to a certain extent the message of the cross can be summarized like this,
that Jesus is facing my penalty in my place, right?
That's the summary of the message of the cross.
It's what theologians have called penal substitution.
Penal to mean penalty and substitution to mean in our place.
Sometimes it's lengthened to mean penal substitutionary atonement.
That is the idea that through Jesus on the cross facing our penalty as our substitute,
we are made at one meant with God.
We are reconciled to God through the cross as Jesus faces our penalty in our place.
Now, there might be some of you here, I don't know who you are,
and I'm not going to look at anyone particularly as I say this,
but you might be thinking, oh, well, Steve, this is all a bit nerdy, isn't it?
I mean, who uses words like penal substitutionary atonement other than doctrine nerds?
Is it really necessary?
I mean, maybe if I was taking A-level theology, you might expect to have a lesson like this,
but why would we really need to do that in church?
Why are we doing this?
Why not just go through the stories of the Bible?
Well, let me try and answer that really quickly,
because I think it's a really important question.
So turn to 1 Corinthians 1, verse 18.
It's on page 1144.
It's also on the screen behind me, if you don't have time to find it.
Let me read it to you.
1 Corinthians 1, verse 18.
We're told there by Paul,
for the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,
but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.
Now, let me ask you a trick question as you look at that verse.
What is the power of God according to 1 Corinthians 1, verse 18?
What is the power of God?
Well, notice that it's not the cross itself, yeah?
Notice that that's not exactly what it says.
I think that's what we would be inclined to think,
but it says that it is the message of the cross which is the power of God.
In other words, the power of God, God's saving of his people,
is seen in the message of the cross, the logos,
of what Christ has done at the cross,
because the power is in understanding what has happened there.
Of course, the message would have no power if the cross itself didn't happen, right?
It requires the cross to have happened,
but it is the explanation of what Christ has done and achieved on the cross
that is the power of God for salvation for those who believe.
So, of course, we want to take time to make sure that we get this right.
You know, if we are not clear on the message of the cross,
then we, well, the power of God is gone, isn't it?
The power is in the truth.
I think you could probably say with a fairly high level of certainty
that the death of a local church is almost always preceded
by a loss of the doctrine of the cross.
If we don't get this, we will cease to exist.
And to be honest, rightly so,
because this is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes.
Now, with that in mind, and hopefully you persuaded
that it's worth listening for the next few moments,
turn back to 1 John chapter 4,
and I want to spend most of our time in just verse 10,
and I want us to ask it four different questions.
So let's read the verse again.
1 John 4 verse 10.
This is love.
Not that we love God, but that he loved us
and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Let me ask four questions.
And the first question is this.
What is the penalty for sin?
Really, you'll notice if you look down at the verse
that it is captured in those two words towards the end of the sentence
in the words atoning sacrifice.
Now, the NIV there is using two English words
to translate one Greek word.
The Greek word literally means to deal with anger
or to satisfy judgment.
If you've got a different translation, maybe an ESV,
I think it uses the word propitiation.
But that's not a word that we regularly use.
So the NIV picks up this kind of temple sacrifice language
where an animal is sacrificed in the place of someone else,
their life in place of others.
Now, think what this means.
It means, doesn't it, that the penalty for sin,
the price of forgiveness is a sacrificial death, right?
Not just a physical death, but a sacrificial death,
a death offered to God to face justice and wrath at sin.
And John is saying,
that is what Jesus is doing as he dies on the cross.
Jesus didn't die just because he kind of miscalculated
the hostility of the Jewish leaders.
Oh, whoops, I kind of got that wrong.
No, it's not that at all, isn't it?
It's not even just that he died to show you that he loves you,
although he does, and that's going to come out in this passage.
It's not just that, is it?
Rather, he died because the price of forgiveness is the shedding of blood.
Blood is life in the Bible, and God's wrath has to be dealt with,
and the price is life, a blood sacrifice.
Now, I don't know how you feel about that.
I think for some people, they think, well, you know,
sure, I don't really like the idea of an angry God.
I don't really like the idea of an angry God punishing his son
as a substitute for our sin.
I mean, demanding blood, that sounds kind of gross, doesn't it?
That sounds sort of medieval.
It's the kind of thing that you put on stained glass windows
to scare people into giving money to the church.
Doesn't our passage say that God is love, not angry?
Well, of course, you're right.
God is love, and the passage does say that.
God is the definition of love, the source of all love.
But it's important to notice here in this passage
that John doesn't seem to think that God's love and God's anger
are opposite to one another or exclusive of one another,
not least because God's anger is not the rage of a man or woman out of control.
It is the holy response of a holy God, a loving God,
to sin and wickedness.
And it's the satisfaction of this godly anger on the cross
that uncovers his love.
We'll think more about that in a moment.
But what we need to see and understand is forgiveness is never very easy.
Right?
I know we think forgiveness is easy.
Perhaps you think, oh, I'm a forgiving kind of guy.
You know, I have no problem forgiving others.
Let me suggest to you, if you think like that,
that's because no one's really wronged you very seriously yet.
And that will happen.
As soon as you've been wronged properly,
you know that forgiveness is very complicated and a lot more costly.
And when you've been betrayed or let down
or deserted by those who you thought loved you,
then you will be shocked at the emotional pain that you will feel.
The subtle ways that you'll find yourself trying to get back at them
to make yourself feel better.
And that's because forgiveness comes at a price.
Let me try and illustrate what I mean here to show you by an example.
Imagine that I came round to your house
and you were very kind and you offered me a cup of tea
as I came into your house.
And we were chatting with one another
and then sort of inexplicably as I finished my cup of tea,
I threw my cup at the television and broke it.
Imagine that the TVs aren't actually broken, Nick.
Don't worry.
Now, what does that mean if I do that?
It means I owe you a television, right?
Yeah?
I broke it.
My debt to you is to replace the TV.
But if you choose to forgive me,
if you say, don't worry, Steve,
I forgive you for breaking my television,
what are you doing in that moment?
What you are saying is,
I take on myself the cost of that.
I will replace it.
Don't worry.
I forgive you.
And if you don't replace the TV,
then you have the suffering of living without a television.
In other words,
my sin of throwing the teacup at the television
incurs a debt that must be dealt with
for forgiveness to take place
and for reconciliation to come about.
And that is always how forgiveness works.
There is always a cost.
It's not often one tangible like a television.
It is rare that someone comes around to your house
and throws a cup at the TV.
If you know that story and it's happened to you,
tell me, I'll be intrigued.
But it's more often than not something like
you break one another's happiness
and the cost of forgiveness
is that we have to voluntarily suffer the sadness
for a period of time.
The opposite of forgiveness in that
is to inflict unhappiness on the person
who has wronged you
to make them pay the debt.
But you can't ignore it.
It's more likely perhaps
that someone's damaged your reputation
and the cost of forgiveness
is for you to live through
the misunderstanding and misrepresentation
that will come.
Choosing not to slander them,
not to get back to them in like manner.
But whatever it is,
forgiveness is never free.
And to offer someone forgiveness
is in effect to say,
I will suffer for your sin
so that I can forgive you.
And if that's true between you and I,
it's even more true between God and us, isn't it?
You know, think about this.
What is our offense before God?
We were talking about this with the children,
weren't we?
We've not broken God's television.
We've not slandered him in the workplace.
We've not jeopardized his happiness.
What have we done?
Well, the Bible will tell you
that you and I have stolen something
that belongs to God.
What is that?
Our lives.
God graciously and generously gives us life
to live for him and his glory.
And yet we steal it back
and live it for ourselves
and for our own glory.
We've disobeyed his law.
We've run the other way.
And of course, God can't just say,
oh, do you know what?
Just forget about it.
There's no debt there.
Yeah, let's just pretend that never happened.
You know, if God were like that,
he wouldn't be God or he wouldn't be good.
You'd have no reason to trust him.
There's a debt and it needs to be paid.
And the debt for stealing life is life itself.
I know this is obvious,
but let me just rub this in if I can for a moment.
Imagine back in that scenario
that I threw that cup at the television
and broke the TV
and it incurs this debt
of needing to replace the television.
And I said, you don't worry.
You don't have to forgive me.
I'm going to repay it myself.
And I turn up the next day at your house
and I've got a brand new notebook.
I said, you don't worry about the television.
I bought you a notebook.
And if you like,
you can draw pictures in the notebook.
And if you flick through the notebook really fast,
it looks like they're moving.
And that will be an adequate replacement
for your television.
What do you say?
Well, I've added to my offense,
haven't I really?
I've offended you that I thought
that I could buy and replace your TV
with a notebook.
But that's what we do with God, isn't it?
All the time.
Nothing less than the sacrifice of a life
in the place of a life
could pay the debt that we owe to God.
It's underlined over and over in the Bible.
It's why God does not delight
in the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament.
Why?
Well, because really they're just the drama
of what will come
in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus.
A blood of a lamb can never swap in
for the life of a person.
And our good works,
our religious observance,
the idea that I can buy forgiveness from God
by my diet,
by my attendance at a special place of worship,
by my observation of particular spiritual days
or seasons,
that massively underplays the nature of my debt
before a holy God.
It's offering a notebook for a TV
when I owe him life, my life.
And so God the Son,
in human flesh,
the perfect one in the place of sinful ones
like you and me,
sheds his blood,
lays down his life,
breathes his last
to pay the payment
that our sin deserves.
And of course,
the death of the perfect son
is payment not just enough
for the salvation of one other person.
He is the author of life itself.
His death is of infinite value.
Salvation sufficient for all who would turn to him.
I want to move on.
There's other things I need to say,
and I'm probably running over time already,
but let's just pause
and just consider this for a moment.
Can I say to you,
have you considered
that the cross of Jesus Christ
says to you really loudly,
you matter,
and what you do matters.
Your life is a serious business.
God cares about what you do.
Sin is serious.
Punishment is real.
You know,
the Christian message
is not a message about self-improvement.
It's a message about rescue and escape
from the wrath of God that we deserve.
Because either we turn to the son
and the infinitely valuable
of the cross of Christ
pays for our sin,
or we spend eternity
under the just judgment of God
paying ourselves
the debt that we owe to God.
Here, forgiveness is being extended to you.
I will pay, says God,
but you must receive it.
Can I ask you if you've received it?
Have you received it from the Lord?
Second question,
who is it paid to?
Now, I know,
these are obvious questions, aren't they?
And you're probably thinking,
I know the answer already,
but let's just slow down
and make sure we've thought
about this carefully.
In the temple language
that John is using here,
Jesus, God the Son,
is the sacrifice.
Yeah, he is the atoning sacrifice.
And it would also be right
to say from the verse
that it is God
who is making the sacrifice.
So God is both the priest
and the sacrifice.
Yeah, you get that.
The Roman soldiers
might have been the people
who drove the nails
into the hands and feet of Jesus.
But if you look down at verse 10,
it's God who sent the Son.
God made the sacrifice.
He was the priest.
And he made the sacrifice
to himself, right?
Because he was the one
to whom the debt was owed.
It is before God
that we owe the debt of life.
In other words,
what you've got here
in these verses
is God making the sacrifice
of himself
to himself
for the satisfaction
of himself.
Do you get that?
It's incredible, isn't it?
God is satisfying
his own holiness
with his own sacrifice.
Do you just see
just how God-centered
the cross is right now?
This is not
us asking God
for forgiveness
and him going,
okay, let me see
whether I can make the way
for that to happen.
It's not even God
building a bridge
or opening a door
for us to kind of
walk across.
No, this is God
coming down
in the person of the Son,
taking the initiative,
sending, coming,
dying, paying
before we did anything.
I wonder whether
you really thought
about this.
You know,
the cross isn't
really about you.
I mean,
I know it is about us
and in a way
and we'll get to there
in a moment,
but it's really about
who God is first.
It's about God's holiness,
his just,
right,
wrathful response
to sin,
satisfied in himself.
You know,
the cross tells you
if you didn't know it
from anywhere else,
the cross tells you
God is absolutely
consistent with himself.
He is unflinchingly holy.
God will not,
even at the price
of his own Son,
for a moment
compromise his holy goodness.
He won't.
He can't.
And he is now able
to forgive sinners
with joyful liberty
and without any compromise
of his righteousness
or his goodness
because of the cross.
You know,
the cross of Christ
means that the forgiveness
that we've got from God
is not some kind of
back alley deal,
you know,
where God sort of agree,
I'll turn a blind eye
to that for the people I like.
It's not that,
is it?
No,
sin is always paid for.
And here it's paid
by Jesus on the cross
instead of us
in the judgment of hell.
And so because the cross
we can cry,
holy,
holy is the Lord God Almighty
and salvation belongs
to our God
who sits on the throne.
It means,
doesn't it,
if you're a Christian
this morning
that the holiness of God
is no longer
a danger to you.
In fact,
it's a joy to you.
Do you know that?
When you,
when you think
of the holy otherness
of God,
the fact that God
cannot even look on sin,
it's kind of scary,
isn't it?
How awesome he is.
But actually,
when you understand
the cross,
that everything
about his holiness
is satisfied
in the sacrifice
of his son
in our place,
that means his holiness
is no longer
terrifying for you.
It's a good thing
for us.
The cross means
that the goodness
of God
is now wonderfully
attractive to us.
Thirdly,
why does he pay it?
Why does he pay it?
It does beg the question,
doesn't it,
why?
Why would God
choose to go
to such lengths
to make a way
to save his people
without compromising
his character?
I have to say,
if you smash my television
with a cup,
that might be the last time
you came round to my house,
right?
Why does God
go to such lengths?
Well,
read the verse
and let's see.
This is love.
Not that we love God,
but that he loved us
and sent his son
as an atoning sacrifice
for our sins.
Verse 11,
dear friends,
since God
so loved us,
we also
ought to love
one another.
I think of all
the aspects of this,
this is both
the simplest
to understand,
but the most astounding.
God pays the price
of our forgiveness
in the death
of his son
because
he loves us.
That's it.
In other words,
God's love
is not a response
to our love for him.
He loves us first.
It's not even
a general response
to the loveliness
of humanity.
No.
Rather,
God's love
is not that
we loved God,
but that he loved us.
So here,
John says
that God pays
for our forgiveness
in the death
of the son
because he loves
sinners,
people who don't
yet love him
in a way
that's completely
beyond our understanding.
This is so important.
Let me try and prove it
to you with another passage.
It's going to come up
on the screen.
You might want to turn to it.
Romans chapter 5,
verse 6.
It's page 1132
if you want to turn to it.
Paul writes this.
You see,
just at the right time,
when we were still powerless,
Christ died for the ungodly.
Very rarely will anyone
die for a righteous person,
though for a good person,
someone might possibly
dare to die.
Oh, they're good enough.
I might give my life
for them.
But God demonstrates
his own love for us
in this.
While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.
It's exactly the same,
isn't it?
God demonstrates
his love
by Christ's death
while we were still sinners.
I said last week
that substitution
means,
the doctrine of the
substitution of Jesus Christ
at the cross,
means that
my contribution
to salvation
is my sin, right?
Because that's been
counted over
to the Lord Jesus.
Well, here,
if you like,
it's exactly the same story.
What is my contribution
to the love of God?
What is it that I have done
that's made myself
so attractive to God?
Well, nothing really.
I'm a sinner.
But God loves sinners.
He loves sinners.
Not because he approves
of their lifestyle choices.
Not because he doesn't
judge sin.
Not because sin itself
doesn't arouse
his righteous anger.
It's not because God
has no standards.
No, the cross screams
the moral justice of God.
Rather, the point is
that the God
who is love,
freely,
for reasons only
understood by him,
freely chooses
to love sinners
like you and me.
Incredible as that might be.
In fact,
according to John,
this is the very definition
of God's love.
God is love,
he says,
and the overspill
of his character
is as it overspills
onto the undeserving.
God's love
is by its very nature
not deserved
or earned
or merited.
Anything it is,
it's spilling out
from God's very character.
And so he lovingly
doesn't compromise
his justice
or act as if
sin doesn't matter.
He upholds
the holiness
of his character
while in love
saving the lost
by paying the price
for their sin.
Again,
can we just
pause there
and can I ask you
the question
whether you've seen
that God
really loves you?
God loves you.
And that's not
because he has
a gushy feeling
welling up inside of him
when he thinks about you.
It's way better than that.
God loves you
even in the depths
of your sin
and so provides
a way through
the atoning sacrifice
of the Son
to save you.
And you do know,
don't you,
as I say to you
that God loves you,
you know
that no one else
in the world
loves you like that.
No one else
loves you like that.
There is not a person
in your life
that if you didn't,
if you shared with them
exactly what was going on
in your head
at every single moment
that they would still
feel the same way
about you.
Maybe you're married.
You know that's true,
don't you?
You know that's true
of your parents.
And so,
to some measure
or other,
we are always going
about this process
of kind of hiding
ourselves from one another
in order to make sure
that we don't compromise
people's love for us.
Because we're afraid
if they really saw
what we were really like,
they wouldn't want
anything to do
with us anymore.
But God knows
all about you.
He knows everything
you've done.
He knows everywhere
you've been.
He knows the thoughts
of your heart.
He knows what you're
thinking right now.
He knows where you're
going this week.
He knows what you will do.
And He loves you.
He loves you.
There's no one else
like that.
Finally then,
what difference
does this make?
What difference
does this make?
Just as we finish,
I want to look
just a little bit
outside of verse 10
to see what difference
this penalty-paying love
makes to us.
Just have a look down
at verse 7.
Dear friends,
let us love one another
for love comes from God.
Everyone who loves
has been born of God
and knows God.
Whoever does not love
does not know God
because God is love.
This is how God
showed His love among us.
He sent His one
and only Son
into the world
that we might live
through Him.
This is love.
Not that we love God,
but that He loved us
and sent His Son
as an atoning sacrifice
for our sins.
Dear friends,
since God so loved us,
we also ought
to love one another.
No one has ever
seen God,
but if we love one another,
God lives in us
and His love
is made complete in us.
Notice what John
is saying here
about this love of God
in Christ's sacrifice.
Notice that he's saying
it changes us.
In verse 7,
he says that
encountering this love
is like being reborn
into someone
who then loves others
in the same way
that God has loved us.
He says,
verse 7,
everyone who loves
has been born of God.
The logic here
is that if we are able
to love like God,
it is because we,
not because we're good people
or because we're particularly
good at this kind of thing,
it's because that love
has not come from us,
it's come from God Himself.
We have been born of God
into these kind of lovers.
It's not so much that,
sorry,
so much so that the loveless
are those who haven't
encountered this love.
Those who are unable
to love like this
is because they haven't
been loved like this
by God.
Verse 9 pretty much
repeats the same point,
but here the image
is not birth but life.
So we live through
the one and only Son
who was sent into the world
to lovingly pay
the penalty for our sin.
The verses are really dense,
aren't they?
There's a lot going on here
but the big idea
is really simple,
that encountering
the love of God
in the wrath-bearing
penal substitution
of the cross
remakes us.
It remakes us.
John is like,
it's like saying
encountering Christ's cross
is as significant
as being created
in the first place
because you are being
remade.
You are being given
a new life to live
and you are now living it
not in that old way
but you are living it now
through the love of God
seen at the cross
bringing a life
that we've not experienced
before that's capable
of loving others
in a way that we were
not capable before.
You know,
we sometimes experience this,
don't we,
on a human level.
You know when you've
fallen out with a friend
and then you are able
to sit down together
and have a conversation
and you agree
that the debt will be paid
and that forgiveness
will mean reconciliation
for the two of you
and as you walk out
from that kind of meeting
there's a new kind
of freshness,
isn't there?
It's like you've been
reborn again
in your relationship.
This is that
but on a whole new level
that through the cross
we are reconciled
to the God who made us.
The death sentence
that was hanging over us
has been lifted
through Christ's
atoning sacrifice
and we are remade
to live new lives.
Coming to Christ,
trusting in him,
receiving the forgiveness
of the cross
is nothing less significant
than being made
completely new,
says John,
and new in a way
that is able to love
and forgive others.
A life that is even
able to do that
to the extent
to which it reveals God
to other people.
A love that can't
generate itself
but comes from
the power of the cross.
The cross, if you like,
is the kind of
moral capital
that pours into us
and flows out of us
to those around us
as Christ dies
facing my punishment
in my place.
Let's pause
and have a moment
for quiet prayer
and then I'll pray
for us.
Heavenly Father,
we thank you so much
that you love us.
As unlovely as we are,
you love us.
And not with a kind of
sentimental,
gushy love
but with a
committed,
active,
saving love
that you sent
your son,
the Lord Jesus Christ
to face
our punishment
and die
in our place.
How we praise
and thank you
for Jesus.
Give us, we pray,
just even this morning
a fresh grasp
on what he has done
that we might
love one another
as he has loved us.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.