The Person of God No.2 Gods Pardon

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, heaven is in my heart. And again. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, heaven is in my heart.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, heaven is in my heart. The kingdom of our God is here. Heaven is in my heart.

The presence of his majesty. Heaven is in my heart. And in his presence joy abounds.

Heaven is in my heart. The light of holiness surrounds. Heaven is in my heart.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, heaven is in my heart. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, heaven is in my heart. His precious life on me he spends.

Heaven is in my heart. To give us life without an end. Heaven is in my heart.

In Christ is all my confidence. Heaven is in my heart. The hope of my inheritance.

Heaven is in my heart. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, heaven is in my heart. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, heaven is in my heart.

The temple of his love is strong. Heaven is in my heart. And Christ is the foundation stone.

Heaven is in my heart. He will rise back to take us home. Heaven is in my heart.

The spirit and the bride say come. Heaven is in my heart. Oh, heaven is in my heart Oh, heaven is in my heart Oh, heaven is in my heart Oh God, most high, almighty King The champion of heaven, Lord of everything You fought, you won, death lost its sting And standing in your victory we sing You have broken the chains that held our captive souls You have broken the chains and used them on your foes All your enemies are bound, they tremble at the sound of your name Jesus, you have broken the chains Has been undone captivity held captive by the risen one And in the name of God's great Son we claim the mighty victory you won You have broken the chains that held my captive souls You have broken the chains and used them on your foes All your enemies are bound, they tremble at the sound of your name Jesus, you have broken the chains You have broken the chains that held my captive souls You have broken the chains and used them on your foes All your enemies are bound, they tremble at the sound of your name Jesus, you have broken the chains Jesus, you have broken the chains Sometimes it's good to be sure that we're clear about things that we claim to believe or sometimes the church can be fairly confused in the way that it gives its notices like one parish which reported the retirement of their vicar after 30 years or so of faithful service the PCC issued the qualification that though the Reverend Shaw was going into retirement the church would be glad to know that he was going to continue to help God in an advisory capacity now we do know what was meant but it's good to perhaps focus on fudged expressions so that we do get some sort of clarity so here's a question that should get an immediate response from people who are regular here at the tab Why did Jesus die? Why did the Lord Jesus die? I'm going to try to answer the question and of course the immediate rejoinder is that he didn't die He was killed I mean it wasn't the voluntary offering of his life in terms of just being surely a martyr though there is a sense in which he had complete control even at the last moment but he didn't deliberately die as a martyr to demonstrate his own greatness nor as a good example nor to evoke our admiration for his selflessness the long and short of it is that he died because there is nothing that you nor I could do to disentangle the problem caused by our sinfulness and for God still to be a holy loving God and to receive us to himself and retain his own integrity you see as I was arguing this morning it's not that easy for God to forgive he can't forgive on the same basis as you and I forgive because well he's not one who has done any wrong I mean I forgive you, you forgive me because well we're less than perfect but here you're dealing with perfection and if God was merely just to push aside your sin as though it was inconsequential then he would be contradicting his own nature he's a holy God a God who has put down a law which is perfect the law is designed for your benefit and for my benefit so you see the greatest problem that confronts God is the problem of how he can still remain a holy loving God and forgive people like you and me well what's the heart of the Christian message? well it's the cross isn't it? the cross I mean you tend to mock gospel, it's a very quick gospel I mean quick to read, it'll take you about half an hour maybe just a little longer but it's not it's not intermittently long, you can comfortably get through it on one session but why is it that half of that gospel is given over to describing the last few days in the life of the Lord Jesus? the answer has to be that what made Jesus particularly special was the way that he died and the explanation that he gave for the death that he was going to have to endure Christianity is a theology of the cross death is something that's occupied the media quite a lot this week not just because of that tragic train accident in Germany but you take Bob Hope rumours of his death have been greatly exaggerated some poor American senator, God bless him, has gone down in history as the man who announced the death of Bob Hope when he was according to his daughter, doing a fine job on an eight-holed golf course in the United States Bob is still alive and well but preoccupying the media in a more serious fashion apart from the gaff of this senator was Mr Fired the father of Dodi the partner of Princess Diana both Dodi and Diana went to their death simultaneously or within a matter of an hour or so of each other and the media has been exploring this Channel 4, BBC 1 I think it was doing a review of the circumstances, trying to work out the implications, the consequences, the causes of that death trying to help the French court presumably in coming to some sort of conclusion interesting isn't it, just how in these last few days so much attention has been directed to the subject of of death and here I find myself this evening having run out of time this morning picking up on the death of our Lord Jesus Christ and its implications I was fortunate because I was brought up in a Christian home and I'm not attempting to be pious but to be honest in saying that the cross has always been very significant in my life I sometimes think about the cross and close my eyes and try to see the print of nails, the crown of thorns and Jesus crucified for me there cannot be many weeks in my life over these last 50 years or so when I haven't taken communion communion has never lost its freshness in fact sometimes I don't find it that easy to hold a bread and wine and get out the words of our Lord as he speaks through his word to us today, this is my body broken for me this cup represents my blood poured out for me see the cross is very crucial in fact the word crucial stems from the word cross the English language has been made that much more expressive by the word cross cross crucial, something that is absolutely essential the Bible does teach that the death of the Lord Jesus was essential, but why? I mean I can or you can, let's bring you in on this you can forgive without making all this fuss, can't you? I mean it's not that hard what is it if someone's cheated you for you to forgive them why is it so difficult for for God? why is the cross so central? you see we're evangelicals that means to say that we do believe the Bible to be the inspired authoritative word of God the evangelicals believe that the heart of the gospel is the explanation of what happened on that cross so in one sense if the cross of the Lord Jesus or something of its implications are not worked through in a Christian service, then it's questionable as to why you really gathered together all roads lead to London on a map you can get to London from the most distant part of the United Kingdom so it is in the Bible, the Old Testament and the New Testament all roads lead back to the cross Abraham anticipates it in the possible sacrifice of Isaac Moses is there giving instructions to the Israelites in the slaughter of an animal the anticipation of what's going to happen Jesus Christ comes on earth, he is the Lamb of God and there's a sense in which he was slain before time began the implications of his death they go backwards as well as forwards now what I'm teaching is not something new you know this from history, you can be a secularist and grasp this Jesus' life and death bisects history I do hope that Mr Blair and his government recognize that when we do celebrate the turn of the millennium or into the next millennium that actually we're celebrating we're celebrating the life of Jesus Christ his life and his death Malcolm Muggeridge was a man who I mentioned some while ago I've always been very fascinated with and prior to his death was so grateful to have some opportunity to talk to him now Muggeridge was brought up in, well not exactly the same situation as me, but I suppose with the same sort of political philosophy, he was brought up as a socialist as a supporter of the Labour Party but that part of the party that was more agnostic than Christian, because the Labour Party historically actually does go back to its Christian roots it was Keir Hardie who was won to the Lord by the preaching of DL Moody and Moody said to impact Scotland and England and to make a real impression it would be good if he did something about the living conditions of people in our country but that by way of an aside Muggeridge says that despite the fact that his beginnings in life his early recall were not positively Christian he nonetheless had some attraction to the cross and this is how he describes it in typical language of this man who has such a gift of vocabulary I would catch a glimpse of a cross, not necessarily a crucifix maybe two pieces of wood accidentally nailed together on a telegraph pole for instance and suddenly my heart would stand still in an instinctive, intuitive way I understood that something more important, more tumultuous more passionate was at issue than our good causes, however admirable they might be it was I know an obsessive interest I might fasten bits of wood together myself or doodle it this symbol which was considered to be derisory my home was yet also the focus of inconceivable hopes and desires fifty years sped by and he's now towards the end of his life as I remember this a sense of my own failure lies upon me, I should have worn it over my heart carried it, a precious standard never to be wrested out of my hands, even though I fell still born aloft, it should have been my cult my uniform, my language, my life I shall have no excuse I can't say I didn't know I knew from the beginning and turned away what's Muggery saying? well he's saying that the death of our Lord Jesus was of such tremendous importance, it should have affected his life from its earliest days the death of Jesus on the cross was not accidental quite frankly, having read all that you can get, at least a good sample of all that comes through on the media in regard to the untimely death of Diana I'm still of the conclusion that it was accidental and that if it's to be worked out in terms of human responsibility then it does look as though the driver had had more to drink than he should have done I can't believe that there was any theory hatched by the French secret service or the British counterpart to take Diana out it would be nonsense but this obsession that Fayyad the father has, which is understandable in some degree because he lost his son was reviewing the evidence is it seems to me a legitimate obsession, if that's not too strong a word for you and for me to have in regard to the death of Jesus Christ because it wasn't an accident he was handed over three times you get the Greek verb handed over used in the text, it's interesting Judas handed him over to the chief priest the chief priest handed him over to the soldiers to Pilate, and Pilate handed him over to the soldiers it wasn't an accident he was deliberately done to death and yet because I'm getting a little bit of an insight as to why Jesus died, I can't really place the responsibility solely on the shoulders of Judas if he was treacherous, will I have been treacherous too in my life neither can I put the responsibility on Pontius Pilate even though I think he was a quizling in some respects I mean by that he wanted to run with the Jews and with the Romans and you get a sense of distaste when you think of Pilate's personality, but then how often have you and I had a split mind double-minded people, unstable in all our ways and as for the priests or the Roman soldiers you can't really blame the Roman soldiers they were doing their duty in some respects but the more that you sift the evidence concerning the death of Jesus you come to the incredible conclusion that unlike that Belgian who courageously dropped onto the track our Lord was to some measure responsible for his own death at the human level he was a handed over but you are dealing with someone who is more than human, he is God and he allows himself to be handed over to be dealt with in such a wretched fashion that there never was in those days a fiercer, more horrific way to rob a fellow of life than crucifixion Diana and Dodi's death I'm pretty sure at the human level was accidental though it too was wrapped in the sovereignty of God maybe the Lord was saying something to our world, certainly to the British nation maybe to the royal family to ourselves in that disaster but the Lord Jesus and his death it was no accident not accidental Christ died for us that's what the Bible says Christ died for us that he might bring us to God that's a supplement of biblical teaching Paul puts it bluntly, Christ died for our sins so there's a sense that I handed him over I did the dirty on him for my sin for your sin he died deliberately so that this God and Father who is so fearful, so majestic, so holy might through Jesus become accessible to us for that's how I see the cross God making himself accessible through the Lord because it's an uncomfortable thing to be in the presence of God with your sin still intact that's why the Bible uses a charged language our God is a consuming fire now the problem with the Bible well not the problem, the challenge of the Bible is to get the balance and the problem with evangelicals is that sometimes we go so quickly past the cross we forget the awful agony through which Jesus went and the heartache that the Father had in sending the Son and the grieving of the Holy Spirit in bringing about this plan of redemption which was not I repeat was not accidental neither is it implausible Dodified's life was such a waste really was I'm not too sure of his age, I guess mid-thirties, maybe forty such a waste and Diana's too in some in some degree and these German folk who died smashed on a train have you ever realized that your life too is precariously dangled, it's but a thread it could break, I'm not being frightening I'm just being realistic if your life suddenly terminated what would you have to show for it the tremendous hour of death how would you cope with it your final moments of consciousness what will go through your mind this again is not fear-mongering on my part it's being realistic, it's being fair, it's being true to the office of anyone who occupies this pulpit Our beloved Lord is only in his thirties thirty-two, thirty-three his death was not a waste and the idea that his death had some value is far from being implausible fits in with the whole of the Old Testament teaching in terms of us being right with God I believe that when Jesus took the Passover meal with the disciples, it was probably Thursday because there were so many pilgrims in Jerusalem that sometimes Passover was held on the Thursday and sometimes on the Friday and he came from Galilee and the possibility is according to Jewish tradition that the Galileans held it on the Thursday now you see the importance of that in a moment at least the possibilities of that in a moment when our Lord Jesus takes the Passover meal, he takes this cup and he takes some bread, but he takes the bread first and he says of the bread, this is my body and he says of the Passover cup, this is my blood now isn't it interesting that that's the very language of the Passover leader, the man, the male the father in the household he will say, this is the bread of affliction which our forefathers had to eat as they came out of Egypt Jesus modeled his sayings on the Passover meal and if I'm right that Jesus celebrated the Passover with the disciples on the Thursday he is done to death on the Friday the time when the rest of Judaism is remembering the bread of affliction our Lord is on the cross and his body is being afflicted his blood is being shed and all that the Passover typified is now coming to its consummation in our Lord Jesus, this great deliverance this great salvation, possible not only for the Jew but for the world Jesus' understanding of his death the biblical teaching of his death it was not accidental and it is not implausible that from the death of our Lord Jesus there should be some remarkable blessings which leads me to my third point it was not inconsequential what I mean by that is you can't play fast and loose with the death of Jesus you see, it's not just a historical event that has some interest like some of the great historical wars battles or actions you remember when Raleigh takes off his coat so that the Queen can walk across we all are aware of that chivalry of Nelson putting the telescope to his blind eye all these things are interesting part of British historic heritage so to speak but the cross, it's not at that level it's supremely important it has tremendous consequence you see, if this is God's way of making himself accessible if this is God's only way of making himself accessible then the cross is not only central to Christianity it should be central to you central to your life, central to your convictions central to the way that you make your decisions it's only through the cross that you can enter into a relationship with God and the cross asks you the question not just why Jesus died but who's to blame it was I that shed the sacred blood I nailed him to the tree I crucified the Christ of God I joined the mockery of all that shouting multitude I feel that I am one and in that din of voices rude I recognize my own around the cross the throng I see mocking the sufferers grown yet still my voice it seems to me as if I mocked alone when Jesus was born it was night and there was great illumination an unnatural illumination the heavens were filled with glory the angels sang the song of the annunciation when Jesus died it was twelve o'clock through to three o'clock in the afternoon and there is an uncanny darkness light when he's born darkness as he dies darkness in scripture is typical of sin typical of foulness and wrong when Jesus was in Gethsemane he sweated great drops of blood because he was afraid of death that couldn't be the case Jesus was on the level of Socrates he wasn't afraid to die he just took the hemlock for Jesus it wasn't just the martyr's death your sin and my sin would mysteriously be credited to him and what has never been known in time or eternity would take place God would participate in human sinfulness and so the hymn writer gets the point when he says we may not know we cannot tell what pain he had to bear Gethsemane was a cameo for Calvary and here at the cross though it's noon it's darkness well might the sun in darkness hide and shut its glories in when God the mighty maker died for man the creature's sin what happened at high noon what happened in the darkness a man pushed the linkage a cross the wrath of God directed toward you and me is deflected and taken in its intensity into the Lord Jesus so that out of the cry out of the darkness comes that cry of even greater blackness my God why have you forsaken me that's what it cost the Lord Jesus to gain your salvation that's how God now becomes accessible to you he wasn't before your sin would always prevent you from knowing him Sinai Moses in the name of God said to the Hebrews stand back you can't come up here it's a dangerous place to be but on the cross Jesus says come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly of heart and you will find rest for your soul what does Jesus offer for the cross he offers pardon pardon for you pardon for me a reprieve a new life fellowship with his father do you know it have you said Lord Jesus there is my sin I believe that you took it upon yourself to make me free I confess you as my Lord introduce me to your father fill me with the Holy Spirit and may I live a life in union with you entering into the blessings of being a Christian conscience shouldn't stop you lack of achievement shouldn't prevent you all you need is a recognition of your need and Jesus the Lord will do the rest God handles forgiveness in this most extraordinary fashion by allowing his son to become man and taking upon himself the wrong that we have done in order that our relationship with God might be reestablished now and forever let's pray Father we're grateful so many of us here for our Lord Jesus we thank you that he didn't die in vain his life was not squandered he wasn't driven at breakneck speed by some crazy impulse he wasn't inebriated he even refused drugs he went to the cross with mental clarity fully aware of what he was going to do we praise you that his death was accepted by him in such a courageous fashion we thank you that his death pays the penalty for our sins we recognize our complicity in his death but we thank you that in the aftermath of his death and resurrection we are enriched and introduced into the family circle of God so receive our heartful thanks and receive perhaps some for the first time into your everlasting kingdom as they confess what Jesus the Christ has done Amen It wasn't so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin you let the world, which doesn't know the first thing about living, tell you how to live you filled your lungs with polluted unbelief and then exhaled disobedience we all did it all of us doing what we felt like doing when we felt like doing it all of us in the same boat it's a wonder God didn't lose his temper and do away with a whole lot of us instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love he embraced us he took our sin dead lives and made us alive in Christ he did this all on his own with no help from us then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in the company of Jesus our Messiah now God has us where he wants us with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us saving is all his idea all his work all we do is trust him enough to let him do it it's God's gift from start to finish we don't play the major role if we did, we'd probably go around bragging and saying it was all our own thing now, we neither make nor save ourselves God does both the making and saving he creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does the good work he has gotten ready for us to do work we had better be doing my Lord, what love is this that pays so dearly my Lord my Lord what love is this that pays so dearly a guilty one may go free may stand free and so they watch him die despised rejected but love the blood he shed flowed for me amazing love son of God his love of Christ river son of God if he died my Lord in the awe I should have worn it over my heart carried it to precious standard never to be wrested out of my hands even though I fell I should still have borne it aloft it should have been my cult, my uniform my language, my life I shall have no excuse I can't say I didn't know I knew from the beginning and turned away the lament of a brilliant man who wasted many years for many of us here, our years are not like my grudges were many of you are young people here are the emblems of the cross the death of our Lord Jesus the bread and the wine don't just eat them and drink them take them as something to hold to your heart to cling to throughout all your life your standard, your boast the thing that controls and conditions everything else the cross of our Lord Jesus by whom not only is the world crucified to you but God is made accessible my sin oh the bliss of this glory I sing I sing I sing