WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:15.599 Hi, my name is George Sinclair. I'm the lead pastor of Church of the Messiah. 00:00:15.599 --> 00:00:20.480 ! It is wonderful that you would like to check out some of the sermons done by Church of the Messiah, 00:00:20.480 --> 00:00:25.679 either by myself or some of the others. Listen, just a couple of things. First of all, would you pray for us 00:00:25.679 --> 00:00:32.159 that we will open God's Word well to His glory and for the good of people like yourself? 00:00:32.159 --> 00:00:37.359 The second thing is, if you aren't connected to a church and if you are a Christian, 00:00:37.359 --> 00:00:42.159 we really, I would really like to encourage you to find a good local church where they believe the 00:00:42.159 --> 00:00:48.799 Bible, they preach the gospel, and if you have some trouble finding that, send us an email. We will do 00:00:48.799 --> 00:00:55.120 what we can to help connect you with a good local church wherever you are. And if you're a non-Christian, 00:00:55.119 --> 00:01:00.320 checking us out, we're really, really, really glad you're doing that. Don't hesitate to send us 00:01:00.320 --> 00:01:05.280 questions. It helps me actually to know, as I'm preaching, how to deal with the types of things 00:01:05.280 --> 00:01:07.759 that you're really struggling with. So God bless. 00:01:12.239 --> 00:01:21.359 Let's bow our heads in prayer. Father, we thank you for Jesus. We thank you that He 00:01:21.359 --> 00:01:29.599 was our substitute, our representative, that He tasted all there is to taste to death for us after 00:01:29.599 --> 00:01:35.039 He had suffered punishment for the sins that we deserved. We thank you that on the third day, 00:01:35.039 --> 00:01:42.560 He rose triumphant over sin, over death, and over all hostile spiritual powers in His resurrection. 00:01:42.560 --> 00:01:49.519 We give you thanks and praise that He is both in heaven with you as our advocate, and that He walks 00:01:49.519 --> 00:01:56.960 beside each one of your children day by day, moment by moment, as our advocate. And we thank and praise 00:01:56.960 --> 00:02:03.599 you that He will come again in glory. Father, pour out the Holy Spirit upon us. Grow within us deep 00:02:03.599 --> 00:02:09.840 gratitude and wonder at what Christ has accomplished for us. And we ask this in the name of Jesus, your Son and 00:02:09.840 --> 00:02:13.039 our Savior. Amen. Please be seated. 00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:20.480 So I've been doing something unusual. If you're a guest here, you might not know this, but there's 00:02:20.480 --> 00:02:27.039 an ancient part of the original sort of from the English Reformation in the mid-1500s. 00:02:27.680 --> 00:02:32.879 There's a communion service, and towards the end of that communion service, it's actually 00:02:32.879 --> 00:02:38.079 a great time. And we've had the Bible reading and the sermon, and we've had intercessions. 00:02:38.879 --> 00:02:45.519 And then we confess our sins. And after we've confessed our sins, and the minister has pronounced 00:02:45.519 --> 00:02:50.879 God's desire that all would turn to Christ, there is something in the original service called the 00:02:50.879 --> 00:02:55.919 Comfortable Words. And you at this 10 o'clock service don't hear them very often. The 8 o'clock service, 00:02:55.919 --> 00:03:02.399 they'd be there every Sunday. And I decided that I would spend three Sundays going over the three 00:03:02.399 --> 00:03:06.639 comfortable, three of the four comfortable words. Every week I'd add in the first one, Matthew. 00:03:06.639 --> 00:03:12.560 So these comfortable words, you can make a case, I think, they are four different ways, 00:03:12.560 --> 00:03:21.359 three in particular, of one-verse summaries of the whole purpose of Jesus, the whole gospel. And if you 00:03:21.360 --> 00:03:25.840 understand who Jesus is and his mission in the gospel, that's the key to understanding the whole 00:03:25.840 --> 00:03:31.520 Bible. And these are very, very great short summaries of it. And so today I will be preaching 00:03:31.520 --> 00:03:37.680 on this one verse. It's actually half of one verse and the first half of the next verse, 00:03:37.680 --> 00:03:43.280 which is, but if anyone sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, 00:03:43.280 --> 00:03:52.639 Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins. Now, if I wanted to, 00:03:53.840 --> 00:04:03.759 I could hide something from you. And many churches and many ministers hide something from you when they 00:04:03.759 --> 00:04:09.039 read a verse like that, if they read it at all. Letting you know, and those of you watching online, 00:04:09.039 --> 00:04:16.159 often ministers will hide something. Quite a few years now, when Daniel Avitan and Jonathan Kamiri, 00:04:16.159 --> 00:04:22.800 they had to go to a three-day assessment to assess whether they might be able to plant a church. 00:04:23.920 --> 00:04:30.000 And part of that assessment is they each have to think, I can't remember if it's 10 or 12 or 15 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:37.839 minutes, but they have to give a sermon or brief sermon on an assigned text. And that they're assessed 00:04:37.839 --> 00:04:43.439 by it. So I think there were five couples. So there's like, you know, 30 people in the room, 00:04:43.439 --> 00:04:48.479 because you have a whole team of assessors. The assessors are there with pads and pens to make 00:04:48.479 --> 00:04:54.319 comments on what's being said. You can imagine how stressful it is, by the way. Like most people 00:04:54.319 --> 00:05:00.239 don't want to do public speaking, period. But public speaking, while there's people being critical of 00:05:00.240 --> 00:05:06.800 you, that for most people's would be a description of something close to hell. And needless to say, 00:05:06.800 --> 00:05:12.960 usually in those situations, because sometimes the assessors can be really harsh in public, 00:05:14.160 --> 00:05:18.160 when they, because part of it, they give part of the assessment right to the person in front of 00:05:18.160 --> 00:05:24.480 everybody. And probably they know that's going to happen. But by the time you get past the first speaker, 00:05:24.480 --> 00:05:30.240 they know what's going to happen. It's needless to say, people don't do very well in those talks. 00:05:31.520 --> 00:05:36.080 Anyway, afterwards, even though I'm not part of the assessment, but because I'm there to represent 00:05:36.080 --> 00:05:41.960 an advocate, advocate for Daniel and Jonathan, I'm back there and I hear how they're going to assess 00:05:41.960 --> 00:05:48.960 and how they're going to score their sermon as part of their assessment. And I wasn't going to, 00:05:48.960 --> 00:05:53.040 you know, Jonathan, and if they were here, by the way, they'd say, yeah, I didn't do a good job. 00:05:53.040 --> 00:05:59.439 Like, they knew they didn't do a good job, but very hard to do a good job in such a stressful situation. 00:06:00.879 --> 00:06:07.120 You know, I have a bishop here, and he can tell you, speaking in front of clergy is not often the 00:06:07.120 --> 00:06:15.680 best situation in the world. They can be very catty and highly critical, and it's often very stressful to do. 00:06:15.680 --> 00:06:20.400 So anyway, but in the back room, we're talking about it. And one of the people they were going to give 00:06:20.399 --> 00:06:23.759 the highest marks to, and another one they were going to give very high marks to it. I'm listening 00:06:23.759 --> 00:06:28.159 to Puzzle Mitt. One of them, I don't think it was this text, but it's the next text in John that uses 00:06:28.159 --> 00:06:34.079 the word propitiation. And I said to the assessors after I listened to it, I said, listen, I would have 00:06:34.079 --> 00:06:40.399 failed that guy, both of those guys, right on the spot. Boom. I would have failed them. And they pushed 00:06:40.399 --> 00:06:45.919 back. I said, why? They didn't tell you what propitiation meant. They hid the meaning. How can you trust 00:06:45.920 --> 00:06:51.360 them to be a pastor if they hide the meaning of propitiation? Well, they pushed back. You know, 00:06:51.360 --> 00:06:56.560 I pushed back. At the end of the day, we agreed to disagree. They made their assessment, and I just 00:06:56.560 --> 00:07:02.240 said I would tell the bishop my view in our case. Neither of our guys had to talk about it. So what 00:07:02.240 --> 00:07:06.879 am I talking about? What did they hide? I mean, in fact, I think even one of the guys actually said 00:07:06.879 --> 00:07:17.199 that Jesus takes a time out for you. Like the most innocuous, sorry, minimal type of punishment for a 00:07:17.199 --> 00:07:22.240 kid. And rather than you taking it, you know, the kid taking the time out, Jesus takes the time. Okay, 00:07:22.240 --> 00:07:28.639 here's the problem with the word. The word propitiation means that Jesus's death upon the cross 00:07:28.639 --> 00:07:40.719 satisfies God's anger, God's wrath at sin. That's what it means. That when Jesus died on the cross, 00:07:40.719 --> 00:07:50.399 his death turned away or satisfied God's wrath at your sin. Now, you can go online. You can google 00:07:50.399 --> 00:07:55.759 propitiation. You'll say you can find articles and YouTube videos that try to explain that that's not 00:07:55.759 --> 00:08:03.120 what the word means. And all they are is very clever gas lighters. That's what it means. Everybody knows 00:08:03.120 --> 00:08:07.599 that's what it means. That's what it means in ancient Greek literature. That's in fact part of the problem. 00:08:08.800 --> 00:08:16.879 But that's what it means. Now, we can all understand why people want to avoid saying that. And you might be 00:08:16.879 --> 00:08:22.159 wondering why on earth I would even say something like this on Easter Sunday. 00:08:22.160 --> 00:08:31.280 In fact, I think the average Canadian, if I was to say, like in a coffee shop, what the word 00:08:31.280 --> 00:08:37.600 propitiation means, I think people would be a bit shocked. And I think if you could, if you asked them 00:08:37.600 --> 00:08:44.480 and they felt comfortable, I think most Canadians would say this, I could never believe in a God that gets angry. 00:08:44.480 --> 00:08:50.000 I could never believe in a God that gets angry. 00:08:53.600 --> 00:08:53.920 Now, 00:08:56.720 --> 00:09:00.480 we have to understand, I don't know, maybe some of you are feeling the same way. Maybe some of you have 00:09:00.480 --> 00:09:04.320 never heard that that's what the word means. And by the way, if you go back and you look at the original 00:09:04.320 --> 00:09:11.200 prayer book service, and go back and look at the language of oblation and satisfaction, that the 00:09:11.200 --> 00:09:14.800 the word, it's right in the very center of the heart of the English Reformation. 00:09:15.440 --> 00:09:20.320 And it's a it's a very important idea in the Bible. But we can understand why people have problems with it. 00:09:20.320 --> 00:09:22.320 We all know people who are anger driven. 00:09:22.320 --> 00:09:30.080 Yesterday, when I was working in the coffee shop, a woman shocked me by she looked at what I was 00:09:30.080 --> 00:09:39.200 writing and she shocked me by saying, I have very neat writing. Sorry. I chuckled and said to her, 00:09:39.200 --> 00:09:45.360 I think you're the first person who's ever said that to me. And I said, sometimes I can't read my 00:09:45.360 --> 00:09:51.280 own writing. But she she said, No, no, like, it's very fine. And it's small. And it's very precise. 00:09:51.279 --> 00:09:56.639 And I said, Okay, well, whatever. And we got talking about what I was doing. And I talked a 00:09:56.639 --> 00:10:01.360 little bit about, you know, how what I was going to be talking about today. And she's just waiting 00:10:01.360 --> 00:10:08.879 for a coffee. And, you know, I, she said, Boy, you must, you have lots to say, don't you probably, 00:10:08.879 --> 00:10:13.120 because, because I told her I was going to be talking a little bit about anger, and, and how it 00:10:13.120 --> 00:10:18.319 related to goodness. And she said, because, you know, people aren't angry enough at Trump in Canada, 00:10:18.320 --> 00:10:23.120 United States. Now, I'm not going to get into a political debate with her. But I said, 00:10:24.160 --> 00:10:29.120 I don't know if I quite see it that way. I think, don't you think that maybe in social media and media, 00:10:29.120 --> 00:10:35.360 there's like, maybe too much anger that maybe we got to, like, don't you think it might be better if 00:10:35.360 --> 00:10:40.960 more people just said, I'm just going to think about this for a week or a month or something 00:10:40.960 --> 00:10:46.000 without just shooting my mouth off, we had a bit of a disagreement about it. But, but here's the point. 00:10:46.000 --> 00:10:52.080 Right. We all know people who are anger driven. Every single one of us knows somebody, 00:10:52.080 --> 00:10:58.080 or have been in some situation where we know that we can't say something to them, 00:10:59.200 --> 00:11:03.919 because we don't want to deal with the explosion of anger that will come back at us. 00:11:06.799 --> 00:11:13.679 That is a situation in families and sports teams. It's in business places and government offices, 00:11:13.679 --> 00:11:19.439 we are hesitant to say something to certain people, because we don't want to deal with their anger. 00:11:20.319 --> 00:11:25.759 I've never actually preached a sermon on child rearing. But over the years, people will sometimes 00:11:25.759 --> 00:11:32.399 come and have a private conversation with me asking me some questions. And often, they'll ask me about 00:11:32.399 --> 00:11:39.679 slapping a child if it's ever appropriate. And I start to say a couple of things about it. And I remember this 00:11:39.679 --> 00:11:47.599 one, one, one, a woman, because I, one of the things, one of the things that she said after I, 00:11:47.599 --> 00:11:53.039 she'd listened to me a bit was that she could never slap a child once. 00:11:53.039 --> 00:12:01.360 And I pause, she paused, and she said, because if I slapped the child once, I'd slap and slap and slap 00:12:01.360 --> 00:12:09.919 and slap and slap and slap. And I'd have a hard time stopping. No, I was actually very, I knew the 00:12:09.919 --> 00:12:14.079 woman a bit, and I was actually happy she said it, because I thought that's actually probably what you 00:12:14.080 --> 00:12:23.200 would do. But we know people who are like that. We've all been in situations where maybe in a 00:12:23.200 --> 00:12:30.560 workplace, or in a family, you can see that somebody's anger is building and building and 00:12:30.560 --> 00:12:35.680 building, and you walk around on tiptoes, because, or maybe even try to find an excuse to get out of the 00:12:35.680 --> 00:12:42.000 room, because you don't want to be there for when it blows. And we all know how people who are angry 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:50.399 almost always justify their anger. In fact, we all know that often people paint their anger as a sign 00:12:50.399 --> 00:13:00.720 of their virtue, rather than a fault. We all know that people's anger tends to be highly self-centered. 00:13:00.720 --> 00:13:08.720 We know people who nurture their anger. And most importantly, we all know people, and including 00:13:08.720 --> 00:13:16.800 ourselves, that when we get angry, we go over the top. We just, our anger explodes. 00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:23.920 So I can well understand why it is that for many Canadians, maybe most Canadians, they would say 00:13:23.920 --> 00:13:29.759 this idea of propitiation, I mean, this idea, it sounds nice, George, but if anyone does sin, 00:13:29.759 --> 00:13:34.720 we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sin. 00:13:34.720 --> 00:13:40.320 The first part sounds all very nice, but this propitiation, I could never believe in a God that gets angry. 00:13:41.279 --> 00:13:45.200 And I have to confess, I probably was like that in the early years of my Christian life. 00:13:45.920 --> 00:13:51.279 But I want to bear witness to you today, I could not believe in a God that doesn't get angry. 00:13:54.480 --> 00:13:59.360 I could not believe or worship a God that never got angry. 00:13:59.360 --> 00:14:06.879 There's a movie from 2003. Some of you have seen it. It's not a spoiler alert. It's called Tears of the Sun. 00:14:07.519 --> 00:14:13.600 It's a movie starring Bruce Willis. I confess I like war movies. Not everybody's cup of tea. 00:14:13.600 --> 00:14:19.840 I'm not necessarily recommending you watch it, by the way. But the heart of the movie is a group of, 00:14:20.480 --> 00:14:25.279 I can't remember if they're Marines, I mean a Delta Force or Marine Recon or Navy SEALs. I can't 00:14:25.279 --> 00:14:31.360 remember what it is. One of those special forces groups. There's an African country and a coup arises. 00:14:31.360 --> 00:14:38.399 And part of the coup is Frank genocide. Those rebels trying to take over the country begin to slaughter 00:14:39.279 --> 00:14:46.240 innocents. And the United States government doesn't want to interfere with it, but they do send in seams of 00:14:47.360 --> 00:14:55.039 seals, we'll call them, to rescue people from mainly Americans, but also people from other first world nations. 00:14:55.839 --> 00:15:03.759 And so Bruce Willis heads up a SEAL team that goes to get this doctor. And the whole drama of it is, 00:15:03.759 --> 00:15:11.039 is that he tries to trick her to just take her away and rescue her. And she would have to leave behind 00:15:11.039 --> 00:15:16.319 all of the people that she was treating and she refuses. And there ends up then being this early 00:15:16.319 --> 00:15:21.919 part of the movie where they just, the SEALs, they just keep saying, we're not involved in the nation. 00:15:21.919 --> 00:15:26.879 We're not to interfere. We don't really care about all of that. All we're here to do is to rescue you. 00:15:27.439 --> 00:15:33.279 And it's a big part of the thing and her moral outrage at that. But a point, a turning point comes in the 00:15:33.279 --> 00:15:40.879 movie when they come to the outskirts of a village and the soldiers witness genocide. 00:15:40.879 --> 00:15:51.439 This is not a part of the movie for the faint-hearted. They see the senseless murder. They see the hacking off 00:15:51.440 --> 00:16:00.880 of limbs and body parts. They see the rape. They see the unleashed cruelty against innocence. 00:16:00.879 --> 00:16:09.919 And the soldiers realize they cannot be neutral. 00:16:12.799 --> 00:16:14.879 They cannot be neutral. 00:16:17.919 --> 00:16:24.480 They need to interfere and deal with it. They need to be angry and deal with it. 00:16:24.480 --> 00:16:33.759 You see, one of the things that many people will say if they say, the average Canadian, if you get 00:16:33.759 --> 00:16:39.440 talking to them about, they say that they could never believe in a God that gets angry. They tend to 00:16:39.440 --> 00:16:44.000 talk if you push them. And not push them, just have some conversation with them. They tend to fall back 00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:51.919 in a Buddhist type of idea. That, you know, really God should be above such things, you know, as anger and 00:16:53.039 --> 00:17:00.879 hatred and love, you know, love and hatred and anger and vengeance and even good and evil. That God should 00:17:00.879 --> 00:17:07.279 transcend all of those types of things. And that God should be a type of place of tranquility above these 00:17:07.279 --> 00:17:14.000 types of messy moral situations. And that just seems wise to them. But if you think about it, 00:17:14.960 --> 00:17:20.960 that's exactly how the coup leaders would like you to respond to their evil. 00:17:26.799 --> 00:17:36.160 Moral, it is not a sign of moral superiority to think you are above such categories as good and evil 00:17:36.160 --> 00:17:42.720 and dealing with evil. It is a sign of moral indifference, moral apathy. 00:17:44.000 --> 00:17:51.440 It is a sign that you are walking away from morality. It is not a sign of moving to a higher plane. 00:17:55.680 --> 00:18:00.560 But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, 00:18:00.559 --> 00:18:08.480 and he is the propitiation for our sins. What is God's anger? Why is it different than the anger that 00:18:08.480 --> 00:18:15.200 we are afraid of? Well, the anger that we are afraid of is obviously often connected to injustice. It's 00:18:15.200 --> 00:18:25.039 often connected to just plain evil. It often blinds us of moral right and wrong. But what God's anger is, 00:18:25.039 --> 00:18:36.240 is his unfailing, it's in a sense, love's unfailing opposition to hatred. It is goodness's, 00:18:36.799 --> 00:18:47.920 goodness's unfailing opposition to evil. It is justice's unfailing opposition to injustice. 00:18:47.920 --> 00:18:56.800 That's what it is. And we know from God that God can never, ever, ever, ever be anger-driven. When we 00:18:56.800 --> 00:19:02.160 say, Christians say that God has no passions, it doesn't mean that there isn't something like an 00:19:02.160 --> 00:19:08.400 emotion in God, and that's a complicated topic. But what it means is that while our emotions just come 00:19:08.400 --> 00:19:15.680 and go, one day we're loving, the next day we don't feel love, and our emotions can take us over and can 00:19:15.680 --> 00:19:23.759 rule us, this never happens to God. God cannot have anything overwhelm him being good. God cannot have 00:19:23.759 --> 00:19:30.720 anything overwhelm him being true. God can have nothing overwhelm him being just and being love. 00:19:31.920 --> 00:19:40.480 Nothing can overwhelm that. And God is never anger or evil-driven. He is love-driven, justice-driven, 00:19:40.480 --> 00:19:48.880 goodness-driven, beauty-driven, and yes, in this phrase of propitiation, mercy-driven. 00:19:51.759 --> 00:19:58.640 The word propitiation is this idea that God's opposition, it is what happens when love meets 00:19:58.640 --> 00:20:06.640 hatred and love will not back down, when goodness meets evil and goodness will not back down or allow the 00:20:06.640 --> 00:20:12.720 evil to continue. And it has to be dealt with. There has to be an aspect of punishment. 00:20:14.240 --> 00:20:22.000 That's part of a propitiation. And there has to be an aspect of satisfaction, making things right. 00:20:24.560 --> 00:20:29.280 Now we can see that there's some problems with that idea right off the bat. But if anyone does sin, 00:20:29.280 --> 00:20:34.720 we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins. 00:20:34.720 --> 00:20:41.519 And some people will say, well, George, why does God have to punish? Like, why does that have to be 00:20:41.519 --> 00:20:49.600 part of that? Why can't he just say, you're forgiven? Well, we all know that we say that of God, 00:20:49.600 --> 00:20:57.600 but we don't actually believe it. And it's very simply put. I believe it's the case that Joe Biden 00:20:57.600 --> 00:21:02.240 set the record for the most presidential pardons. I'm not making a political comment because it wouldn't 00:21:02.240 --> 00:21:09.039 surprise me if Trump decides to beat his record. I'm talking about political matters here now. 00:21:09.039 --> 00:21:17.120 I'm not making any type of political judgment between parties. But do we feel satisfied? Maybe 00:21:17.120 --> 00:21:22.240 we do when it's our guys that hand out the pardons, but when the other guy hands out the pardons, do we 00:21:22.240 --> 00:21:29.920 feel satisfied? Do we think it's right that a president with just by a stroke of a pen can say 00:21:29.920 --> 00:21:38.079 that all of the legal penalties and punishments that are due to another person are just gone? 00:21:38.079 --> 00:21:44.880 It didn't cost him anything. It's only to bolster and pay off his friends and his cronies. And once 00:21:44.880 --> 00:21:49.840 again, I am making no political comment about that. I'm not saying Democrats will do it more than 00:21:49.840 --> 00:21:55.760 Republicans or vice versa. And we all know that if that happened in Canada with liberals and maybe someday 00:21:55.760 --> 00:22:02.240 a conservative government, that it would once again be almost definitely connected inextricably 00:22:03.360 --> 00:22:09.920 with just who you happen to like. Is that just? Really? Nobody thinks it does. 00:22:09.920 --> 00:22:16.560 We think justice means that there should be some type of punishment, that there really should. 00:22:18.960 --> 00:22:24.080 Some people say, well, you know, maybe wasn't there something like just like God making some type of 00:22:24.080 --> 00:22:31.120 like counseling type of program that would just end up, you know, having them, you know, be rehabilitated. 00:22:31.120 --> 00:22:36.640 But really, is that is that that really, really, really what we want? Like, if you read the papers, 00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:42.320 I mean, most of the time the papers push stuff like that, but occasionally they will talk to a victim 00:22:42.320 --> 00:22:49.840 who hears that somebody who's done some horrific act of violence to them, some woman who has been 00:22:49.840 --> 00:22:58.080 horrifically attacked and abused by a man and find out that he has only spent a mere months or a year or 00:22:58.079 --> 00:23:04.480 two in prison and has supposedly been rehabilitated and let out. And does she think justice has been done? 00:23:05.119 --> 00:23:14.079 Never. And even if God was to force some type of treatment upon you that would bring you out at the 00:23:14.079 --> 00:23:19.759 other side rehabilitated, is that really what we want? We know that we don't want that. That's why they have 00:23:19.759 --> 00:23:26.879 movies like The Manchurian Candidate, where some type of psychological process and maybe physical means 00:23:26.879 --> 00:23:34.240 are used against a person to, against their will, have them be something different. Those are dystopian 00:23:34.240 --> 00:23:42.319 movies, not utopian movies. Dystopian, horrible things of the state forcing you to be a way that you do not 00:23:42.319 --> 00:23:50.480 want to be. Is that what we want God? Is that actually what anybody thinks is better? And if anyone does sin, 00:23:50.480 --> 00:23:56.639 we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins. 00:23:59.359 --> 00:24:06.559 You see, it's not just that there is punishment, but there's also this thing of making right. But we 00:24:06.559 --> 00:24:13.359 understand that both of these things have to happen. Imagine for a moment that you were doing a kitchen 00:24:13.359 --> 00:24:20.879 reno, a renovation of your kitchen. And then one day you come and you find out that there's been a fire. 00:24:21.679 --> 00:24:28.240 And the fire is in your kitchen. And you discover that part of the reason that there's a fire is 00:24:28.240 --> 00:24:33.919 because the, you know, the worker, the workers decided after work one day to all smoke some joints 00:24:33.920 --> 00:24:39.600 and drink some booze and have a bit of a party. And, and they started a fire and it burned a big part of 00:24:39.600 --> 00:24:43.360 your kitchen. And then you discovered that they had lied to you and they don't have insurance. 00:24:43.920 --> 00:24:49.120 And your insurance won't cover it. And in fact, even if it, if there was insurance, they probably 00:24:49.120 --> 00:24:54.400 wouldn't cover it because the bloody fire came about as a result of these guys staying illegally in your 00:24:54.400 --> 00:25:03.120 house, smoking joints, doing drugs and drinking and causing the fire. And you would want justice. 00:25:05.759 --> 00:25:13.759 And you would want satisfaction by which you would mean if they came to you and said, well, listen, 00:25:13.759 --> 00:25:19.680 we can't afford to fix it. You'd say, well, you're going to take out a loan and fix it. 00:25:19.680 --> 00:25:26.080 Well, we won't make any money that way. We'll lose money. It's going to be hard to, well, that's your 00:25:26.080 --> 00:25:32.320 problem. Now we can see how something like that might be able to work in something like a home 00:25:32.320 --> 00:25:37.840 renovation. But now we get to another crux of the whole problem. And it's when we get this other 00:25:37.840 --> 00:25:45.840 aspect of the problem that we begin to understand the beauty and why the beauty and the wonder of the 00:25:45.839 --> 00:25:51.439 gospel and why I say I would never believe not only in a God that doesn't get angry, 00:25:52.399 --> 00:25:57.919 but then a God who takes it upon himself to see that propitiation is done. 00:26:00.720 --> 00:26:06.399 It's a very common thing in certain types of movies where somebody has gotten murdered and maybe 00:26:06.399 --> 00:26:11.919 their husband or their wife or their son or their uncle or their grandfather or some other person decides 00:26:11.920 --> 00:26:17.360 to pursue the wrongdoer because they've escaped or they've done some type of trick so that they walk 00:26:17.360 --> 00:26:27.039 away free. And as this desire to make the person pay goes on, there will be people who will interrupt 00:26:27.039 --> 00:26:32.400 that man or that woman and say, well, even if you make them pay, you cannot bring your loved one back. 00:26:32.400 --> 00:26:44.080 In other words, you can only get part. You can get maybe the payment, but you can't get the satisfaction. 00:26:44.080 --> 00:26:53.120 You can't get making things right again. And that's maybe a bit abstract, but at a very personal level, 00:26:53.120 --> 00:27:01.120 many of us in this room, maybe all of us in this room, have been part of a damaged relationship where 00:27:01.119 --> 00:27:07.279 somebody has done something to us, where we have done something to another person. And even though 00:27:07.279 --> 00:27:14.079 we can say we're sorry, and even when we can accept punishment, and even when we can make a partial 00:27:14.079 --> 00:27:23.199 amendment of life, we cannot make full satisfaction. And we know that that relationship is broken and 00:27:23.200 --> 00:27:36.000 damaged until the day we die. And here the Bible says, but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with 00:27:36.000 --> 00:27:43.920 the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sin. It's not just that love 00:27:43.920 --> 00:27:54.960 meets hatred, goodness meets evil, justice meets injustice, truth meets lie, and deals and punishes the wrong. 00:27:55.759 --> 00:28:04.160 But also that there is a making right, a satisfaction that takes place at the same time. 00:28:04.160 --> 00:28:15.040 Today's Easter Sunday. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Hallelujah. And I'm not going to spend any 00:28:15.040 --> 00:28:19.440 time trying to argue these types of things today, but if you're here and you don't know this, 00:28:20.080 --> 00:28:26.000 for Christians, it's not just a good story. It's not a moving story. It's nothing like that. I mean, 00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:33.360 it is a good story. It's the best story of all. But we Christians believe that the resurrection of 00:28:33.359 --> 00:28:40.000 Jesus is just as true as you have a body is true, just as true as your bank balance is true, 00:28:40.559 --> 00:28:46.719 just as true as saying that Ottawa is the capital of Canada. It's just as true as that. It is literally 00:28:46.719 --> 00:28:52.879 that Christians believe that if God, if scientists were able to create a time machine and you were able 00:28:52.879 --> 00:29:00.559 to dial it back to that time in early 33, and you were there on Easter Sunday afternoon, and you were 00:29:00.559 --> 00:29:06.720 able to track down and advance the disciples, you would see the resurrected Jesus. In fact, even more dramatic 00:29:06.720 --> 00:29:12.799 that if you could be on a time machine and go back in time, you would on Good Friday see Jesus hanging 00:29:12.799 --> 00:29:19.279 on a cross, stripped naked. You would see him say his final last words. You would see him breathe his last 00:29:19.279 --> 00:29:26.079 breath. You would see him say, it is finished. You would see the spear pierce his side. You would see 00:29:26.079 --> 00:29:33.839 him taken down and wrapped in grave clothes and packed with spices. You would see him put in a tomb. You 00:29:33.839 --> 00:29:42.159 would see the stone rolled across it. You would see the stone that it's sealed and people guarding it. 00:29:43.279 --> 00:29:50.000 You wouldn't see the resurrection. But what you would see on Easter Sunday morning is you would see the 00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:56.000 stone rolled away. Whether you saw the angel doing it or not, that's a separate whole question. But you would see the 00:29:56.000 --> 00:30:02.720 stone moving away apparently on its own if you don't see the angel. You would see the soldiers running away in terror. 00:30:03.440 --> 00:30:12.000 And if you waited for Mary Magdalene to discover that the grave is empty and other women, and you would see Peter and John. 00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:20.880 And if you hung around because you know the story, you could be with Mary Magdalene, the first person to see 00:30:20.880 --> 00:30:29.920 the resurrected Jesus. That's what would happen if you could go back in a time machine. It really happened. 00:30:29.920 --> 00:30:39.519 And this is part of the profound good news. You see, on Good Friday, you have God punishing 00:30:40.240 --> 00:30:47.920 you, paying the penalty that you deserve to have paid for the wrong that you have done, the evil you have 00:30:47.920 --> 00:30:56.320 done, the injustice you have done, the lies you have told. For those times when you could have been generous 00:30:56.319 --> 00:31:02.079 and you held back, when you could have stepped into the breach for somebody else and you refused to do it. 00:31:02.079 --> 00:31:08.720 For all that, the cumulative weight of all those things that you have done will at some point in time 00:31:08.720 --> 00:31:16.559 come into a collision with a God, the true God who really exists, who is unstoppably good, unstoppably true, 00:31:16.559 --> 00:31:22.559 unstoppable love, unstoppable justice. And you will collide with that God. 00:31:22.559 --> 00:31:30.480 And what we Christians understand is that on Good Friday, the punishment that I deserved 00:31:31.519 --> 00:31:37.039 laid on him. You see, you have this wonderful story. It's as if the weight, you just could imagine, 00:31:37.039 --> 00:31:42.159 you know, all these things, the punishments and the satisfactions and all of those things that I just, 00:31:42.480 --> 00:31:46.639 the punishments I deserved, the satisfactions I just can't make. And they, in a sense, they could just 00:31:46.639 --> 00:31:51.279 pile on me and pile on me and pile on me and pile on me and pile on me and pile on me and pile on me 00:31:51.279 --> 00:31:56.559 because I don't always face the consequences of these when it happens. But they're still there. 00:31:56.559 --> 00:32:01.519 They're just piling up and piling up and piling up. And if you were to see that, if God was allowing 00:32:01.519 --> 00:32:06.319 you to see that in my life from a distance, you would know that when George dies and meets God, 00:32:06.319 --> 00:32:13.839 that will crush George. It will completely unmake him. And the wonder of the gospel is 00:32:13.839 --> 00:32:22.079 that Jesus, that Jesus taps George on the shoulder. He taps you on the shoulder. And he says, 00:32:22.079 --> 00:32:23.599 Father, 00:32:26.480 --> 00:32:34.480 George is made in my image. George did what George did, but he is made in my image. I am that image in 00:32:34.480 --> 00:32:44.960 which he is made. George, if you let me, if you let me put my hand on you, I will take your place 00:32:44.960 --> 00:32:52.000 underneath that load and you can walk away. And the punishment that should crush you 00:32:52.799 --> 00:32:57.440 will crush me in your place. That's Good Friday. 00:32:57.440 --> 00:33:06.880 But how does all that satisfaction work? Well, we don't know the full thing of it. It's a mystery, 00:33:06.880 --> 00:33:15.039 but that's another part of the reason why Easter Sunday is so important. Remember, if anyone does 00:33:15.039 --> 00:33:20.480 sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins. 00:33:22.080 --> 00:33:26.080 I know this is a bit of a spoiler if you've never read the books or you've seen the movie, but that's just, 00:33:26.720 --> 00:33:30.399 you know, you probably know enough about the end of the Lord of the Rings. It's not really possible, 00:33:30.399 --> 00:33:36.159 if you haven't read it, to have a spoiler about it. But there's a scene towards the end, and of course, 00:33:36.159 --> 00:33:43.759 the books were written by a Christian, where I think it's Sam, he wakes up after the ring has been 00:33:43.759 --> 00:33:53.279 destroyed in a beautiful room, and the people that he thought had died are alive. And he asks if he's in 00:33:53.279 --> 00:33:58.399 heaven, and they say, no, you're not in heaven yet. Just those people you thought were dead are alive. 00:34:00.240 --> 00:34:07.279 And then Sam asks Gandalf. Gandalf says something else about there will be a heaven. And then Sam says, 00:34:07.279 --> 00:34:11.599 does that mean that everything sad will become untrue? 00:34:11.599 --> 00:34:19.519 Does that mean everything sad will become untrue? 00:34:19.519 --> 00:34:25.360 See, that's the beauty of the resurrection. 00:34:25.360 --> 00:34:38.320 In Christ, everything sad will become untrue. The making right is a key part of the resurrection 00:34:38.320 --> 00:34:46.640 and the new earth. It's why that hymn that says, there is no sorrow that heaven can't heal, 00:34:48.559 --> 00:34:51.360 is a true understanding of the nature of the resurrection. 00:34:51.360 --> 00:34:58.559 We don't understand how it all will be. Maybe that's one of the delights of the first days, 00:34:58.559 --> 00:35:04.240 the first months, the first years of decades of being in heaven, as we see not only the meaning of 00:35:04.240 --> 00:35:09.599 our life from the perspective of what Christ has done for us on the cross, or how God and his providence 00:35:09.599 --> 00:35:16.000 has worked different things in our lives, but also how Jesus not only paid for our sin, but in fact, 00:35:16.000 --> 00:35:24.719 in light of eternity made satisfaction. And that's why, you see, the comfortable words begin with the 00:35:24.719 --> 00:35:35.760 words of Jesus in the book of Matthew. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. 00:35:38.639 --> 00:35:45.280 I am a herald. You are too. Jesus wants us to tell people, come on to me. 00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:51.440 That's not, not come on to me. I want to be, Jesus says, come on to him. That's what he says to you. 00:35:52.000 --> 00:35:59.599 I will give you rest. There is no rest in anger. There is no rest in injustice. There is no rest in 00:35:59.599 --> 00:36:08.639 hatred. There is no rest in lies. And there is no rest if at some point in time the full consequences 00:36:08.639 --> 00:36:15.119 of your actions fall upon you. There is no rest in sin. There is no rest in sin. 00:36:15.119 --> 00:36:21.279 If the things that you have done wrong, every single one from conception to death have been dealt with, 00:36:21.279 --> 00:36:29.279 and satisfaction has been made. If in fact, but if anyone does sin, Jesus, we have an advocate with 00:36:29.280 --> 00:36:38.240 the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins. Advocate means this. 00:36:41.120 --> 00:36:44.160 Brother, I don't know if we're going to sing it. If we don't sing it this week, let's sing it next week. 00:36:44.159 --> 00:36:49.279 That, how does it go again, brother? You know, when Satan tempts me to despair. 00:36:50.719 --> 00:36:54.559 You know, when Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within. 00:36:55.519 --> 00:37:00.639 We have this advocate that, what it means is this, that Jesus walks with you if you are in him. 00:37:01.519 --> 00:37:06.639 The one who really knows literally the most that you have done that's wrong, and all of the, 00:37:06.639 --> 00:37:11.519 the reparation and satisfaction that was needed that you could not make and dealt with it himself, 00:37:11.519 --> 00:37:20.559 he is the one who walks beside you because he is for you. Not to gaslight God or the angels, 00:37:20.559 --> 00:37:30.800 but to bear witness of what he has done for us, and his great love, and the Father's great love for us, 00:37:30.800 --> 00:37:37.039 and he not only walks with you, he stands in heaven above, 00:37:37.039 --> 00:37:43.360 representing you. He is for you. 00:37:45.840 --> 00:37:47.279 He is for you. 00:37:49.759 --> 00:37:52.079 And it's as this truth grips us 00:37:55.039 --> 00:37:57.599 that we have a safe place intellectually, 00:37:58.559 --> 00:38:01.599 theologically, spiritually, and emotionally 00:38:01.599 --> 00:38:06.559 to look at things in our lives that are wrong. 00:38:08.719 --> 00:38:13.599 We look at them with our advocate, who is the propitiator. 00:38:15.199 --> 00:38:20.319 And it gives us a secure place to never believe the lie of tyrants, 00:38:20.960 --> 00:38:24.559 that moral indifference is a sign of moral superiority, 00:38:24.559 --> 00:38:27.599 but to stand against evil. 00:38:30.400 --> 00:38:31.759 It provides that place. 00:38:35.119 --> 00:38:37.279 And the devil is called an accuser. 00:38:38.079 --> 00:38:44.320 And some of us labor under voices in our head of constant accusation. 00:38:44.320 --> 00:38:51.680 And I want you today to memorize, but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, 00:38:51.680 --> 00:38:57.600 Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sin. 00:38:58.720 --> 00:38:59.440 Let's stand. 00:38:59.440 --> 00:39:13.440 Father, we thank you for Jesus. 00:39:13.440 --> 00:39:15.599 We thank you for what he did for us on the cross. 00:39:16.240 --> 00:39:21.840 We thank you that there is not any accusation that could be ever made against us of wrongdoing 00:39:21.840 --> 00:39:24.400 that he does not know the truth about. 00:39:24.400 --> 00:39:28.079 And when those accusations are true, he paid the price, 00:39:28.079 --> 00:39:31.119 he paid the penalty that I deserved all out of love. 00:39:32.079 --> 00:39:35.199 And we give you thanks and praise that not only in that, 00:39:35.199 --> 00:39:38.960 but in his tasting of all there is to taste of death and in his resurrection, 00:39:38.960 --> 00:39:43.279 he has made a full satisfaction, full propitiation, 00:39:43.279 --> 00:39:46.400 a full making right for the wrong that we have done. 00:39:46.400 --> 00:39:50.960 And he has done this all out of his love for us and mercy for us. 00:39:50.960 --> 00:39:54.480 We thank and praise you that he walks with us, that he's with us, 00:39:54.480 --> 00:39:57.679 that when we put our faith and trust in him, he is for us, 00:39:59.199 --> 00:40:05.039 that he argues for that which is our best at all times, that he does not accuse us to despair, 00:40:05.039 --> 00:40:10.639 but urges us for that which is our best on this side of the grave and on into eternity. 00:40:11.119 --> 00:40:14.000 Father, we give you thanks and praise for these profound truths, 00:40:14.000 --> 00:40:17.280 and we ask that you bring them home deeply into our hearts. 00:40:17.280 --> 00:40:22.159 And we ask this in the name of Jesus, your son and our savior, and all God's people said, 00:40:22.880 --> 00:40:24.880 Amen.