The Cross of Christ

Okay. If you would like to turn in your Bibles you have them with you, if not, then it will come up on the screen. We're going to have 2 readings today. The first 1 from leviticus, chapter 16 verses 20 to 22, and the second reading is 1 John 1 versus 5 2 10.

As I say, they will both come up on the screen. As well. Lividica 16 verse 20. When Aaron has finished making atonement for the most holy place, the tent of meeting and the altar. He shall bring forward the live goat.

He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites, all their sins. And put them on the goat's head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place, and the man shall release it in the wilderness. And then if you turn to 1 John 1, 5 to 10, This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you.

God is light. In him, there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, We lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, We have fellowship with 1 another, and the blood of Jesus, his son purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins He is faithful and just, and will forgive us our sins and purify all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us. So it says the Lord, Ben's going to come and open those passages up to us now. Good evening, everyone. Evening.

Good to see you if you're new or visiting. My name is Ben. I'm a member here at the church. More than a member. I'm a trainee pastor.

Was back in my old self there for a minute. It's good to have you. I'm a little bit nervous actually for some reason. Don't know why. So let me just pray again.

I know Chris just prayed for me, but you can never pray too many times. So let's just ask the Lord for his help. Father, this is such an amazing thing that we're about to look at. And I pray, please, that we get it, keep us from being blind to this wonderful truth. For those of us who have scales in front of our eyes or hard hearts, would you remove those scales, soften our hearts put a new heart within us lord so that we would see and treasure the lord Jesus Christ and what he's done for us on the cross in his name.

Rm. Okay. Let me take you back to a 4 or 5 year old, Ben. A minute ago, I was a couple of years ago, Ben. But now let me take you back to when I was 4 or 5 years old.

My memory is pretty hazy, obviously, from that far back. But I loved preschool, really loved nursery, and I'm pretty sure it was because of all the toys that you got there. Now I had I had loads of toys at home, wasn't neglected in that sort of department. But watching a child encounter and discover a new toy is an amazing thing. Because it doesn't matter how rubbish or simple it is, they come alive, and it's just the most exciting thing for them.

And out of all the toys that I must have come across, and discovered. There's there's 1 that I remember really clearly, and I'll show you a picture of something very similar to it. It was a toy tiger. And I remember how it looked. It was very similar to this.

I remember how it felt in my hands. I remember sort of how hard it was and the tail was a bit bendy and you could move it. And I remember the weight of it in my pocket as well. Now, I loved this toy and it was at nursery, and I was really sad at the end of nursery to put it away back in the toy box. But I would do that and I would go and get it straight away the first time that it was and it's it's a funny thing really.

Because it's not like it transforms into like anything or makes a noise or has any flashing lights. It's just a tiger. But there you go, 4 or 5 year old Ben was obsessed with this this toy. But 1 day at nursery, as I'm playing with it, and the time comes to put it away, I'm suddenly overcome with this desire to keep playing with it. And an idea pops into my head, which is really weird to me, but that's take it home.

And I can keep playing it at home. And I and I suddenly start I remember being quite confused by because this this toy has a place. It's the toy box. And at the end of every day, you put it back in the toy box. You can't really conceive of a world outside of this room where this tiger is.

But at the same time, my heart's racing, my hands are a bit sweaty, and I've put this is very exciting for a 4 or 5 year old bend. This is this is front line stuff, and I put the tiger in my coat pocket. And I think I was so shy by what I just done. I didn't really have the vocabulary. 4 or 5 you can't process what's going on in their mind.

It's like, I shouldn't do that because it belongs to None of that, I just had these sort of these desires and these emotions. Anyway, I knew I had a sense that what I had just done wasn't quite right. Because I didn't want anyone to see or know that it was in my pocket. Anyway, I I got home. I think the whole experience was so shocking for me that I totally forgot about the toy.

Totally forgot about it. And the coat went back on the rack. Fast forward to the next rainy day, the next time I get my coat on. Feel something weighty in my pocket. And I go, I don't know, what is that?

And I put my hand in my pocket. And the moment I feel those 4 legs and that tail that bend slightly in that head. I know exactly what it is. And this mortifying feeling just descends on 4 or 5 year old Ben. Because this isn't where it's supposed to be.

This toy tiger lives and belongs in this toy box and it's not where it's supposed to be and I and the reason it's not where it's meant to be. And I think what I was feeling for the first time in my life was shame. I felt shame because I was guilty of something. And so there was actually no joy in finding it. There was me playing with it in the nursery going, oh, I'll have joy later playing with it at home, but actually discovering it in my pocket, It was no joy.

It was actually a dirty toyhead, it was a naughty toy now, and I wanted to be as far away from it as possible. I remember panicking and wanting to hide it somewhere, so that no 1 ever and so actually that's a really sad thing, isn't it? Because 4 or 5 year old Ben never got to enjoy it or play with it. And he kind of ruined the toy that I love, damn you, Ben. I took something from where it should be, and it became naughty and wrong.

I felt very dirty I think I must have felt very much like Adam and Eve must have felt in the Garden of Eden. When they took the fruit, when they when they realized what they had done, they hid themselves didn't they? From God? They felt that shame they wanted to hide. Genesis 2 actually makes a point to say that before the fall, Adam and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame.

It says at the end of Genesis chapter 2. They felt no shame. Now why is it telling us that? Well, the implication is that when they realized what they had done, they felt shame. Right.

That's the first story. Let me tell you about another time in my life a few years later. When I was about 7. I was quite a good boy in school. Believe it or not.

Didn't cause too much trouble. Quite enjoyed school actually. 1 1 day a teacher I quite liked paired me with someone in the class who was a bit of a troublemaker, someone who wasn't quite as up to the classwork as I was. And I think it was his idea that pairing us together, I would try and help him a little bit. We're doing a group piece of work And for some reason, the teacher puts me in this kid slightly outside the classroom by all the all the Copigs.

There's a little table out there. I think because there weren't enough table space in the classroom. I can't remember exactly why we're out there. But this me and him, we're working on this group project. We've got these permanent black marker pens, and we're drawing away.

And then suddenly, I look up and he's drawn a little black line on someone's coat. In permanent black marker pen. And again, 7 year old me just hasn't got the vocabulary to understand or process what on earth's going on. Because I'm like, There's no way I would ever conceive of doing something like that. It's just ridiculous.

It's vandalism. I would get like the clip around the ear by my dad. If I'd done anything like that, or even thought about it, but this guy's just giggling. He's looking at him, he's giggling, and he draws a longer 1 on another coat, and he draws an even longer 1 on another coat. And he just starts drawing and there's me paralyzed with just bewilderment like, what the heck is this guy doing?

The teacher walks in spots what he's doing. And freaks out obviously because all these coats have got permanent black marker pen lines on them. And he sends us both to the special office Now, in this school, I think there was a special behavioral teacher who just dealt with the naughty kids. So you only ever saw her with the naughty kids, but here I am now suddenly I find myself in her office with this guy, and she's got she's got like a clipboard and a bit of paper. And and she's asking me so what happened?

And she asks me, she says, what? And I go, I'm just absolutely balling. I'm I'm shaking. I can't even answer. And she's like, what?

What happened? I I was inconsolable. I remember being utterly, utterly, utterly, inconsolable because this guy's actions had brought me to a place that I never wanted to be. You see, that was a shame that I felt in that room. Being questioned by that lady, not because I was guilty, but actually because of a sort of defilement.

The old testament has got this idea that you can become defile by the actions of other people. So you can come into contact or be exposed to something that is is is dirty. And even though you yourself might be pure, you are defiled by this thing because you've come into contact with it. It's it's illustrated quite clearly with leprosy just the skin disease. It was a very physical department.

So if you touched or if you touched by a leper, Even though you weren't sort of let press yourself, you suddenly then became dirty. You were defiled. Even though you weren't guilty of bringing it on yourself, you were defiled. And actually shame can work in the same kind of way. You don't have to be guilty of something.

For someone to smear you or for you to feel shameful or dirtied because of them. So shame, you can feel shame through guilt, and you can feel shame through defilement as well. And actually, shame is a pretty powerful thing, isn't it? Those are just 2 silly examples from my childhood, and I think turned out okay. So 7 year old balling Ben is now an emotionally stable man, hopefully.

But from your own lives, I'm sure you know shame to be a powerful thing. Shane can cause us to hide parts of ourselves. Can't it? It can keep secrets hidden, shame, for years, even from the people that we most trust and love around us. It can be the unspoken elephant in the room shame, can't it?

That you can see, even if no 1 else can see it. Shame isn't easily forgotten. Shame can be debilitating. It can keep us from really connecting with people. It can break relationships down.

It can make us think we're not worthy of the love of God or of other people. We start viewing ourselves as damaged goods. I'm not worthy of this love that you show me. Can even keep us in the dark spiritually. So we might walk in the light most of the time, but then we keep this 1 part of our lives hidden and in the dark and in the shadows reserved.

So we can hide our shape. Now look, there is an incredibly useful function about shame. You might not know. It's not just a redundant evolutionary accident like some people say, you know, you should just ignore it. Like stop feeling guilty.

Why are you feeling guilty? Stop feeling guilty. You're just feeling guilty because of like years of evolution that make you feel guilty, but stop feeling guilty and just enjoy yourself. Do what you like. Or people say things like just get over it, and time will heal you.

Stop feeling shamed, just let time heal you. But actually, I'm gonna say that shame is a little bit like a pain receptor for our souls. So when you touch something hot, your your hand will touch something hot and suddenly your nerves are firing signals to your brain saying, ouch, ouch, hot bad. Don't do that. And shame is us recognizing spiritually when we've done harm to ourselves or when harm has been done to us.

I actually think it's God's design in us. To tell us something's wrong. It's a warning system. The lights come on. I think the trouble is we often don't know what to do or where to go about our shame.

When we feel shame, the warning lights come on and we just panic and hide like Adam and Eve in the garden who hid covered themselves and like me, with the toy tiger, I panicked. So I just wanted to hide the tiger. And over time, undealt with shame that's gonna eat us up, it's gonna hold us back, and it's gonna keep parts of our lives in the dark. Little do we know that the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ is the place that our shame is urging us to go to. The emergency lights of our soul are lit up like a runway.

To point us, to lead us to the cross, which is the place where we can deal with our shame. That's the joy of of this this preaching series we're doing at the moment looking at the cross. This is the answer to our greatest problem. Paul actually uses shame in this way. He he he points to it like an escape light.

He says, among Corinthians, I say this to shame you. Just before that, he says something and says, I don't say this to shame you but to warn you. Then he says something else and he says, but this, I say to shame you. Yeah? Because you're clearly not feeling the error of your ways here.

I'm gonna shame you so that you see that the emergency sprinklers need to come on here. The emergency lights need to show up here. You need to see that you're in danger and that you're in error, and you need to go to the cross of Christ for salvation. Because on the cross, not only is our guilt and sin paid for by Jesus, that's propitiation. That's another big word that you're looking at next week.

But actually, more than that, the fruit of propitiation is this wonderful word that we're looking at tonight, expiation. The fruit of propitiation, the fruit of what Jesus has done on the cross for us, is expiation. And all of that is just a long introduction to get us here. And expiation is this amazing doctrine I'm really excited to talk about tonight, which is where our defilement and our shame, whether self inflicted and we're guilty of it, or whether it's smeared on us, imposed on us, expiation is where it's removed from within us. It's expelled from us.

It's extracted from us. It's exported away from us. It's expiated. The word expiation is Latin. It's a translation of the Greek word, but the Latin where we get expiation from literally means out It means out.

And then the pieation bit comes from the word pious. So the translation is literally out pious. And pious means good holy faithful pure. So you are made good, holy faithful pure by taking out your sin. You are out pious by Jesus on the cross.

That's what it means. The removal of that shame, that dirtiness, that defilement. That's what's going on. And I tell you what, I would have given you anything as a kid to have known that when I felt that tiger in my hand. To have known that there's an alternative to running and hiding this But actually Jesus has outpised me on the cross.

Now, there's a brilliant picture to help us understand this and get this more in our heads There's a wonderful picture of expiation in the old testament, and it's from the reading we have in Noviticus chapter 16. So if you have that open, keep keep that open. We'll be looking at that. And it concerns the day of atonement. Now the day of atonement, if you haven't heard of it, was the most special day in the Israelite calendar.

Okay? This is a big deal. And it was like Christmas. So, you know, happens once, you look forward to it. It's the big day of the year.

Because if you look at verse 30 and 31, it says, on this day, the day of atonement, Atonement will be made for you to cleanse you, then before the lord, you'll be clean from all your sins. So this was the day in the year where the Israelites are made clean before the Lord, which is what they desperately need, and they are at 1 with him again. Where we get the word atoned at 1 with the lord. And as I said, this day only happened once a year, in the Israelite calendar. And that was to foreshadow how Christ's stay of atonement only needs to happen once.

Christ's atonement for us only needs to happen once. The sacrifice was conducted by the high priest alone. No 1 else was to do it, so they weren't sort of assistance going in behind the curtain with him. It was just him and that's to foreshadow how Christ, who's our great high priest and Christ alone is the 1 who atones for us in. And the great high priest was to go in and remove his normal quite ornamental robes and put on these very basic sort of sacrificial linen clothes.

And that was to foreshadow Christ's state of humiliation, Christ in glory, wearing the most beautiful robe, and he takes it off and becomes a man and puts on a very basic humble linen cloth, and also the burial linen cloth. We've got foreshadowed there. So look, this day, the day of atonement was a day to teach us all about what Christ is gonna do on the cross. That's the day of atonement. And on the day of atonement, there are 2 goats.

That take center stage. 1 is sacrificed which takes the people's payment of their sin. Penalty of sin is death, this first go takes the payment, achieving propitiation, is what we're looking at next week, and the other go is to be kept alive. So look at verse 20 again of Lovesch chapter 16. When Aaron had finished making atonement for the holy place, the tent of meeting in the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat.

This is the second goat. The first one's killed. Now the second 1 comes. He used to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and all the rebellion of the Israelites, all their sins, and put them on the goat's head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task.

The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place, and the man shall release it into the wilderness. Now, I wanna say this is a really beautiful picture that God gives us. He gave it to them, but he's also given us it today. Because the sin has been atoned for in the first goat. Okay?

But where has it gone? Where has the sin gone? Can God still see it? Yeah? Fair enough, Jesus might have died and paid for my sin, but where has it gone?

Where is that sin now? Can God ever change his mind and be reminded of his sin? And be like, oh, yeah, actually, let me get out of my old filing cabinet and look through your sin because I'm angry at you now. So, oh, yes, here you go. Here's your stack of sins that you did all those years ago.

Is there any trace left of my sin in my heart? Is there a stain in me that can't be washed out? Those are questions that you might have. But look, with this goat, the live goat for the Israelites, There's a direct non stop train all the way out of God's sight that he can never see again. And you can chuck everything on this train that you like, and it's never gonna come back.

We recently hired a skip to empty the shed back here. I don't know if you've ever seen inside the shed. But if you've ever watched those, like, TV programs about hoarders, it comes pretty close to than the nightmare scenarios like that. Now we This skip that we hired was huge. It was 1 of the biggest skips I've ever seen.

Genuinely, but we filled it in about 15 minutes. We just chucked everything on it. And actually, the driver, he didn't say much. I don't think he spoke spoke much English, but he was realizing that we had more stuff than he could fit on. And sort of more sort of looked more and more anxious.

Eventually, without telling us, just went and got into the van, and started lifting the skit back onto the lorry, because these guys aren't gonna stop. They're just gonna pile it up and up and up and up. And Dean was still chucking stuff as it was being lifted up, Saffron was there throwing things onto it as it was going up. It was absolutely brilliant. There was a limit on that lorry.

But on this goat, yeah? On this second live goat, there's no limit to the sins that can be confessed over it, is a bottomless skip this goat. So all the sins are confessed. Look at verse 21. It's really emphasized it.

It's all the wickedness and rebellion. All their sins. Yeah. Everything. Get it all out.

It's, you know, in fact, if you don't get it out, it's not gonna go. This is this is a direct 1 way train. Gotta get it out now, otherwise it's not gonna go. I actually thought if we hold up a skip to church, and invited our friends and said, yeah, we've got a skip coming to church. You wanna come to church?

You gotta come to church, but we've got skip so you can bring stuff you don't want and chuck it in, some of our friends might come to that because if everyone's got stuff they want to get rid of. But then we don't tell them it's a real skip. We say it's an emotional skip. Or spiritual skip. Yeah?

And be like, you can chuck all your spiritual stuff in there. I think they'd be pretty disappointed. But look, we've all got stuff hidden away, haven't we? We've all got a shed full of stuff that we want to get rid of, physically, but also in our own hearts as well. I wager all of us here, have got things hidden in the dark places of our hearts that we would be glad to get rid of.

Well, God's people in this time, they get the joy of watching this goat, this skip goat, with all of their shame and all of their defilement, all the things they have done, and all the things people have done to them, all of their wickedness, all of their stains, all of their filth, all of it, that brings shame on them, they get to watch on this go and then this go trots out of town and they get to wave it goodbye and never see it again. Yeah? But out of town isn't far enough according to God. It's not just outside of the town gate, so you can see it, and you can wake up 1 morning, oh, the sin's not on me anymore, but I can see it pointing at Nathan. I'm not meant to put pointing at you.

Sorry. It's all on Nathan. It's not just outside of the town gates. God wants to show us just how far he's taking us in and shame away. It's taken not just out of town, but to a remote place.

Look at verse 22. It says the goat will carry on itself all of their sins to a remote place Yeah, remote, nowhere near Kingston, nowhere near. Maybe somewhere near Chestington. That's pretty remote. Not even that, a little bit further on.

You'd never come across this goat again even if you tried looking for it. It's in a remote place. It's nowhere near the town. And if you bumped into it, you would certainly never associate the sins of the people with this goat. But actually, even a remote place is not far enough, according to God.

Even once they're in a remote place, the man who was scorched because there's a man who scorched this goat out of town by the way, in case you notice that. This man knows where that goat is because he's taken it out to a remote place. So he knows where it is. But look at verse 22 again, the goat will carry on its all the sins to a remote place, and the man shall release it into the wilderness. So only when this man is in a remote place, out of sight of everyone, out of sight of the town, miles away from the people, only then does he undo the rope around the scopes neck?

Give it a slap on the bum and and sort of scare it off so it runs away into the wilderness. And, you know, at first he might give it a gentle tap on the bum, and then it sort of hops and skips a little bit, and then starts to eat some grass. He's like, no. Go away. Go away.

Go away. Further. It's like, oh, okay. And it frolics a little bit over there. Remember, this is the this is the live goat.

His mate just got so he's happy. And he's starting to bound around. And he's like, no, go away further. He lobs something at this goat, and it goes a bit further away. He's like, lobs something else, and then it really flies away.

And he's watching this goat. It's just a little goat, jumping around really happily on on the hill. And then it finds something and it's chewing or something over there, and he yells, and it runs away a little bit further. And then it gets a little bit smaller. He's watching.

He's watching. He's getting smaller and smaller. It's just a little sort of dot. And then, oh, hang on. There's a couple of dots.

I'm not really sure which 1 it is. And then I can't see the dots anymore. And then eventually, he's watching, he's watching, he's watching, And then all we can see is wilderness. Here's the wind, Here's the birds, but he can't see the goat. It's gone.

And so at that moment, he runs back to the town and he gets to the town gate and he announces joyfully, it's gone. It's gone, I cannot see it anymore. And then, the relief from the people who lobbed all of their sort of sins and their filthiness on this skip go, are joyful, and they celebrate, and they're so happy, and there's actually a celebration, festival tabernacles that happens after this announcement. It's gone and they celebrate for a whole 7 days, they celebrate because their sins their wickedness, their shame, everything that was a stain on them, it's all gone forever. They cannot see it anymore.

I'd love to have been there, to have seen this whole sort of ceremony happen. But I wanna say, look, that man who runs back and that ceremony of releasing the goat into the wilderness and that announcement of saying, it's gone That is God's way of communicating to us, that because of the death of Jesus, because of the cross, he cannot see our sin anymore. Look at these verses here, Isaiah 43 verse 25, I, even I am he who blocks out your transgressions for my own sake and remembers your sins no more. God. Yes.

Even God, the Almighty 1. Remembers your sins no more. He cannot see them. Psalm 103. As far as the yeast is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from You can't calculate the distance from east to west.

Is this east? Is that west? No. That's east. That's west.

No. That's further east. That's further west. Yeah? It's incalculable.

You cannot calculate it. God, this so far removed your sins, you cannot calculate how far away they are from you anymore. Mica 7 verse 19. He will again have compassion on us. He will vanquish our iniquities.

You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. So you can barely see a few meters into the sea, can you? Let alone the miles and miles of dark depths that they go to. Well, so far has God put your sins. And so far away, he cannot even see them.

So that man is as if God declaring at the cross, running back from the wilderness, and he's saying, I cannot see your sins anymore. It's finished. I can't see that blemish or that stain on you anymore. I can't see that sin that you committed with your hands. Yeah, you know that sin?

That you committed this last week with your own hands, I can't see it anymore. That way that you were treated shamefully, and you were defiled by that person. I cannot see it anymore. Every hidden and shameful thing that you have done is taken out, and it's removed, and it's released into the wilderness. And then, leviticus chapter 16 verse 30 in your bibles.

Then before the Lord, you will be clean from all your sins. So because of the cross, when Christ looks at you, When he looks at you, he sees his perfect bride dressed in white. You are not damaged goods to him. You are not a disappointment to him. You have no blemish or stain or spot or wrinkle in the eyes of the Almighty.

Your sin and your shame is as hopelessly gone as that go in the wilderness. Never to come back. God cannot see it anymore. Now, Imagine this. I want you to imagine this.

Imagine a young man or woman on on the day of atonement who stands by and they watch this whole goat ceremony happen. Yeah? They watched the first goat, be taken in and killed. And then there's the second goat that they watch that's brought out, and all the sins are confessed on it, and it's their turn to confess their sin to the high priest to lay on it. And they confess a few sins.

Oh, I did this. Oh, I failed to do that. Oh, I thought this. But there's 1 thing in their heart that they keep back themselves. For fear that it will not be accepted.

For fear that the high priest will say, hang on a minute, what? That can't go on the go. Sorry. You'll have to keep that yourself. And so they keep it back.

But then it's another person's turn and this other person confesses something very similar to what they've just kept secret. And they notice it's been accepted without without any repulsion from the high priest, without any judgment. Actually, the high priest received it with joy to take it away from that person. Imagine what that person feels as they watch the go go away. With all the sins on it, except that 1 that they held back.

And when that man runs back from the wilderness and says, I cannot see it anymore, Everyone celebrates, but this young person can still see that sin or that stain in their heart. Imagine that person's resolve next year, the next day of atonement, to gladly confess. I wanna be at the front of the queue. Yeah? I wanna fess that first to get it out of me, and they joyfully confess it, and then they joyfully watch it go out, and it's never seen again.

What I wanna say, friends, we don't have to wait another year to confess our sins. Before God. We don't actually even have to wait another moment, 1 John, 1 verse 8 and 9 says, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. So if we say, sorry, high priests, I have no sins to confess. Yeah?

You're deceived. Sorry. We'll have a 5 minute conversation about it afterwards if you like. I'm pretty sure I've got to show you that you have some sins that you need to confess. We have sin, but verse 9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

So if we confess no matter what it is, you don't have to be embarrassed when it comes to God. You don't have to be ashamed when it comes to God. If you confess you confess with confidence in the cross, Jesus expedates this sin from us. He takes it out from within us and he cleanses us from our own righteousness. Don't watch the goat be led away from you at the end of your life without having confessed everything.

On top of it. Jesus, our great high priest, doesn't withdraw or scowl or cringe at the things that you bring to him. He gladly bears it all away so that he can no longer see it. God has made a way for you to become pious, good, clean, holy, perfect. And he's not just made a way available.

He's desperate that you do it. He's desperate that you do it. He's gladly paid the price of your sin. He's joyfully taken the sins on himself in Jesus. He's like the man who excitedly announces He's removed from them for you, and you've taken them away.

You have been outpist by Jesus, who was your expiation on the cross. So I wanna say to you, why not confess? The things that we have in our hearts, why wouldn't we confess them? You will find to your surprise, maybe, that Jesus stands ready to take those away from you and forgive you. And cleanse you from all unrighteousness.

Now, I'm going to just finish with 2 quick questions to ask you. 2 quick questions. First of all, how do you see yourself, therefore, and how do you see each other? Those are the 2 questions. So first of all, how do you see yourself?

Because as Christians, like I said, the 5 minute conversation afterwards, if you need to have it, we don't believe that we no longer sin. We believe that we're sinful, and we're we're sinners. We don't believe sins no longer matter because of what God's done for us. It's not like, oh, yeah, here's a skip mate. Just do what you like, and then when you're done, chuck it on the skip.

Yeah, we don't believe that as Christians. Rather we acknowledge humbly that we're wretched sinners, and that is to our shame. But we also believe that we have been clean and that our sin and our shame no longer on us. It exists. It matters.

It does, but it has been taken away from us. It has been paid for. And so now we wear fine white, pure, clean robes before God. Now, this is a hard equation to balance for some people. They struggle with this, and you might slide more to 1 side than the other.

This is the equation in Romans chapter 7, On 1 side, what a wretched man I am, who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death, on the other side, thanks be to God. Who delivers me through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Now I spoke to someone recently who struggled with this equation. They get to verse 24, and they can't get to the 25 bit, because they're so so they so believe in verse 24. I am a Richard man, and they are.

But actually, in Christ, this is not an eitheror, This is a balanced equation. Yeah? If you like equations, if you like mass. And the way you do it is by inserting the cross right in the middle of it. So the wretched man equals the expiated man through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Do you see that? And the Israelites rejoiced because they could see this through that goat. They knew that God had taken their sin away because the coat had gone into the wilderness. And that is a foreshadow of what God has done to us through Jesus Christ. So that's the first thing.

How do you see yourself? Do you struggle with that equation? Or do you see that? Second question I want to ask is how do you see each other? And I ask this because Satan is the accuser, and he holds our sins against us.

Now when we come across a brother or sister in the church who has sinned, maybe even against us, or they've been defiled by something in their life or someone, are we going to join Satan and hold it against them and accuse them of it? Or are we going to follow Christ and see them in their white robes? You, if you believe in Christ, are just a wash right now in front of me of white robes. Now, this doesn't mean that we are stupid, and we allow people to make the same mistakes. We put safeguarding measures where they have to be, actually, on the day of atonement, you couldn't turn to your neighbor and go, well, you're pretty disgusting, mate.

After you've literally just seen the goat take that disgusting thing away. It would be madness to hold against them what you've just seen being taken away, wouldn't it? I recently heard the story of a man who discovered I read the story, sorry, of a man who discovered his wife had been keeping a historic she'll sin from him. And she was afraid that he would look at her differently, value her less if she told him. But 1 evening he finds out about it.

And without saying anything, he leaves the house and the woman is terrified. But actually, this man has gone to a shop and he's gone to buy a perfect, clean, white nightgown. He comes back and he presents this to her, and he asked her to put it on. And then through joyful tears, he declares this is how I see you now. Because of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Isn't that what we have to do with each other? If God cannot see it anymore, then why on earth should we see it ourselves? First 25, thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Jesus, is our expiation. He makes us pious by taking away our sin so that even he can't see it anymore.

1, you take 30 seconds now, just to think about some of these things. And then Chris is going to come up and lead us in some prayers. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and we'll forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness, let's pray. Father God, we we thank you that you you are a lover. You are patient.

You you are a rescuer. You are a God of salvation. You are a God who cares about what holy and what's pure and what's clean and what's righteous you care about truth, you care about perfection, you care about all these things so much, and yet we go in the other direction, and we defile, and we we put ourselves first. We we satisfy our own desires. We follow our hearts.

We ignore your words of love and correction. We we scorn and mock your rebuke. We don't want to be told. We want to tell. We want to decide.

We want to replace you with us. Father, you know every heart in this room, you know every life, you know every history, you know every hair on our heads, you know each and every single 1 of us in this room better than we know ourselves better than we ever will know ourselves. You know what we've done. You know what you know what we will do. You know who we are deep down, There is nothing to hide, there is nothing that we have ever done that is hidden from your sight.

And yet, we still try to hide it. Father, we We feel shame and we feel guilt. And so we try and hide the things that we've done. And thank you so much for what we've just heard because we've heard that there is a scapegoat. And that scapegoat's name is Jesus Christ.

And he comes to this earth and lives a life of perfection, He upholds you. He does everything right. He is right in your eyes. And so he becomes the scapegoat. And goes to the cross in our place.

And he disappears from sight. There is a time in history where you look at him and you go, he is not right. Because he looks like us, because he's taken on our stuff. Father, everything that we've heard tonight is to is to encourage us to take our sin. To take our burden and place it there firmly at the foot of that cross.

Father, we pray that that that there's nothing we would leave behind. You know all of it anyway. Help us not to cling onto it. Help us not to hide it. Help us not to be so ashamed.

There is nothing that you will turn away from the foot of the cross. That is why you sent your son the Lord Jesus Christ to die so that we can be right so that you can look at us and go, they're right in my eyes. Because you see him, because your scapegoat's taken it all away. Never to be seen again. Father, we we don't deserve this.

But we thank and praise you so much that you give it anyway. Please help us to live lives in the light of this, worthy of this. Please help us every step of the way. Please help us to keep coming back to the foot of that cross. If there's any here who who haven't done that ever before, as Ben was saying, there is there is no reason we don't have to wait a year.

We don't have to wait for some day of atonement to come. The day of atonement happened 2000 years ago, and we live in the the the shadow of that cross and we can do it at any time. We can do it right now. We can do it when we get home. But why would we wait in the face of such good news?

Father, please help us to do this, all of us in your name, amen.