Tonight, before we open Scripture to Isaiah 53 and Galatians chapter 3, I'd have you turn in the back of the Psalter hymnal to page 22. To page 22, we left off together a few months ago with Lord's Day 14, considering in the second section of the Catechism on Redemption, considering the Apostles' Creed, and specifically considering God the Son and our redemption. We had considered who He is, His person. And tonight with Lord's Day 15, we begin to consider his work. And so let's first recite together these three questions and answers of Lord's Day 15 on page 22. Question 37 asks, What do you understand by the word suffered? That during his whole life on earth, but especially at the end, Christ sustained in body and soul the anger of God against the sin of the whole human race. This he did in order that, by his suffering as the only atoning sacrifice, he might set us free, body and soul, from eternal condemnation, and gain for us God's grace, righteousness, and eternal life. Why did he suffer under Pontius Pilate as judge? so that he, though innocent, might be condemned by a civil judge and so free us from the severe judgment of God that was to fall on us. Is it significant that he was crucified instead of dying some other way? Yes. This death convinces me that he shouldered the curse which lay on me since by crucifixion was a curse by God. My apologies. Let's turn together to Isaiah chapter 53. Isaiah chapter 53, and also Galatians chapter 3, reading together there the first 14 verses and considering specifically, in connection with Lord's Day 15, verses 13 and 14 of Galatians chapter 3. Isaiah chapter 53. Hear now the word of God. Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shears is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living. For the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer. And though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied. By his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong. Because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. Galatians chapter 3, beginning at verse 1. O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes, Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you. Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? Have you suffered so much for nothing, if it really was for nothing? Does God give you His Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law or because you believe what you heard? Consider Abraham. He believed God. And it was credited to him as righteousness. Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announce the gospel in advance to Abraham, all nations will be blessed through you. So those who have faith are blessed, along with Abraham, the man of faith. All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written, curse it is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law. Clearly, no one is justified before God by the law, because the righteous will live by faith. The law is not based on faith. On the contrary, the man who does these things will live by them. Now the words of the text, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, Curse it is everyone who is hung on a tree. He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, we all need a little good news. Well, we all like to hear a little good news, don't we? Because good news is something that is pleasant. Good news satisfies us. It may bring hope, joy. Good news is something that often comforts us. Now, when it comes to the word good in our everyday language, we often speak in terms of degrees. Something may be good, something else may be better, and yet something else might be best. Yet we are to think of good tonight in this way, that something that is good answers to its purpose. Something that is good does what it is meant to do. Boys and girls, for example, a good basketball bounces. A good meal satisfies. A good book keeps our interest. And you see, beloved, that's the Gospel. That's the good news of Jesus Christ and His saving love. That good news is life-changing. Jesus Christ answers to the purpose for which He came. He did what He came to do. And beloved, that is the greatest news. There is no degree here when we're talking about the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. It is the greatest news ever. And that is the good news, of course, that we confess in our creeds, especially the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed tonight. But we confess in the Apostles' Creed of the person of Jesus Christ that we believe in Jesus Christ, God's only begotten Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. Yes, we confess those great truths about Jesus Christ, that He is the one who was anointed of God to be our Messiah. He was the one chosen, anointed of God to be our Savior, to be my rescuer and to be my master. He is the one, we confess, who is the God-man and He is the one who came to this earth for you and for me. That's all good. No wonder it's called good news, right? But notice our confession doesn't end there. We continue on to confess then that He suffered under Pontius Pilate. He was crucified. He died and was buried. Wow, that didn't sound so good, does it? For him, it sounds terrible. And we thought it was good news. In some ways, you see, it's so grand and glorious to confess the person of Jesus Christ, to confess His greatness, His majesty, what He came to do. But then when we get to the articles in which we confess what He exactly did, we may not like to talk about His suffering. We might want to rush through those things. And the truth is, beloved, we might not like to think about those articles because those articles of the work of Jesus Christ remind us of the truth of ourselves. These articles remind us that He is not the anointed of God. He is not the Savior. He is not my rescuer because I deserved Him. Because there was something worthy about me that made it worthwhile for Him to come. But the truth is, beloved, these things that we confess about His work remind us of what we deserved. they remind us of what was coming to us and you see that is why his suffering is good news for you and me because of what he accomplished it's not only what he gave us which is grand and glorious but also what he rescued us from and how he did it in this passage in this text paul reminds the the galatian believers of this good news christ redeemed us from the curse of the law that's great by becoming a curse for us. Uh-oh. For it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit. You see, beloved, Paul's words there answer the question how something can be both so bad and terrible and at the same time be so good, so grand, and so glorious. And the Galatian believers, we need to understand, needed this reminder. They needed, as it were, to be brought back to the very basics of the gospel. They had received and believed Paul's good news when he had first preached it. But there were now those among them who were preaching a different gospel. There were those among them who were changing that good news to something less than this good news, to something more like, what we might call it, simply favorable news. something that might, may or may not be good for you. They were changing it to news that simply said, well, Jesus Christ came to help you out. Yet, you see, we need to do our part. We need to obey the works of the law. We need to observe the ceremonies and sacrifice and circumcision and all those things. We need to obey in order to do our part. And Paul comes again and says, no, no, no. Have you forgotten? You see, he set the stage at the very beginning in chapter 1, verse 4. he says that the Lord Jesus Christ gave Himself for our sins to rescue us. He set the stage of their need and your need and my need from the very beginning, and he tells why this was necessary for Christ to do this when he says in chapter 3, verse 10, all who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written, Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written into the book of the law. Christ came for our sin. Not one of us kept the word of the law. We have all sinned, he says in another place. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And therefore, he is saying, all are under the curse of sin. All bear the marks of Adam's sin. And all are sinful in themselves by nature. And this resulted in slavery to Satan and sin. It resulted in alienation, separation from God. It resulted in His wrath against us. It resulted in the fact that we are condemned by nature because of sin to eternal death and hell. That's the curse of sin. It resulted in a helplessness and a hopelessness to fix the situation by ourselves. But the good news, beloved, is that in God's plan of redemption, which was according to His will, Paul says in chapter 1, verse 4, that good news is that in God's plan of redemption, He determined to do something about it. He determined to do something about that curse that you and I were under. He determined to do it for His glory. He determined to save some, a church for His own, and to do it His way. He determined to do for us that which we cannot do for ourselves. Boys and girls, it's a little bit like tying your shoelaces. When you're young and you first start wearing a pair of shoes with shoelaces, you can't tie those laces, no matter how hard you try. And you depend completely upon mom or dad or one of your older siblings to tie those laces for you so that you won't trip over them as you're walking along. That's kind of how it is here, that we cannot tie the shoelaces of salvation. Now, of course, the illustration breaks down in the fact that you do learn to tie your shoes as you grow, but as people, as mankind, as sinners, we can never, ever learn to tie those laces of our salvation. We need God to tie them for us so that we will not fall into danger. We can't make God happy with us. And, beloved, this good news of God's plan of redemption was promised throughout Old Testament redemptive history. It was announced in the garden. It was illustrated, as it were, in the exodus of Israel out of Egypt. And it was clearly prophesied, as we know, in Isaiah chapter 53. Maybe you notice as we read Isaiah chapter 53 and then Galatians 3, verses 13 and 14, that we could say that that text is a beautiful and a clear summary, general summary of the specifics of Isaiah chapter 53. Beloved, the good news is that God sent His Son to take what was ours, which was terrible, and to make it His own. And in turn, He gave us what was His, which is glorious, and He gave it to you and me as our very own. The good news of redemption and salvation is good news, beloved, not only because of what he accomplished, that is awesome, but also because of how he accomplished it. Apart from the how, there would be no what. And the how is this, Christ suffered our curse. That's what Paul teaches here. Christ suffered our curse, sin's curse, that is, against us. And he suffered our curse, first of all, throughout his earthly life. He suffered it in his earthly death, and he suffered it for our eternal life. Christ suffered our curse, first of all, throughout his earthly life. Paul begins again, verse 13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. Now, when Paul says that he did this by becoming a curse for us, very clearly, very specifically, he is pointing to Christ's crucifixion. That's what he had spoken about in chapter 2. He brought it up again in verse 1 of chapter 3, Before your very eyes, Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified, and now he comes back to the crucifixion. But there is a sense, I believe, beloved, in which Christ suffered the curse of sin in general, in his earthly life. Question 37 asks again, What do you understand by the word suffered? And it begins that during his whole life on earth. But especially at the end, But during His whole life on earth, Christ sustained in body and soul the anger of God against the sin of the whole human race. Christ suffered that curse of sin throughout His earthly life, for example, in His humble appearance. Boys and girls, you know that Jesus is God. You know that as the Son of God, He was with the Father from eternity. There was never a time when He was not. We confess that in the Nicene Creed tonight. God of God, light of light, begotten not made. And we know that there was never a time when He was not. He was always with His Father in the glory of heaven, but He gave up His glory. And Paul says in Philippians 2 that He did not selfishly hang on to His divine glory in the sense that He didn't bother to stay there in heaven, but He humbled Himself. He came to this earth and He covered His divine glory for a time with human flesh. And He came in the likeness of sinful man with the limitations of the flesh. Notice again what Isaiah says in chapter 2. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him. That was part of the limitations of His flesh, I suppose, that He wasn't attractive. Our society puts so much weight on good looks and having a nice figure and those kinds of things today, but Isaiah says that's not what He had. He didn't look like anything special in that sense either. And as well, He had the limitations of the flesh, including he experienced hunger and thirst and fatigue. He got tired. He had to sleep. He experienced physical pain. And in addition, in the likeness of sinful man, as he walked this earth, beloved, he was surrounded by sickness and death and wickedness and demon possession. And he was surrounded by a man kind with a severely deformed image of God. We might say, well, so, so are we. The effects of the curse of sin were all around him. And maybe, like me, you had never thought about it this way before, but His experience in the midst of a sinful and wicked world was indeed different than ours is, even as confessing Christians. Our experience includes the fact, sadly, that sometimes we accept it. Sometimes we accommodate to it. We participate in it at times. And sadly, we are often not bothered by it because we have become so numb to it, but not so with Him. Our Lord Jesus Christ, God Himself, come in human flesh as He walked this earth. The sinful and wicked world was an attack against the very fiber of His divine and righteous being every moment of every day that He walked this earth. But He also suffered the curse of sin throughout His earthly life by facing temptation. And you might think automatically of His temptation in the wilderness by Satan, and that's indeed true. But I believe there were other instances that we read about in the Bible that really were temptations to Christ in some way. For example, John the Baptist, at Christ's baptism, John the Baptist first, in essence, says, you don't need baptism for sin. I should be baptized by you. And indeed, Satan said, you don't need to suffer to gain glory. Worship me. I'll give you everything. Peter said, you shall never die. The high priest Caiaphas asked, are you the Son of God or not? And it's very possible that some of our Lord's followers were there and they heard that question being asked and they might have thought to themselves, oh, please say no this one time. Say no, otherwise you will be put to death. Do you see where this is going, beloved? Pilate asked him, are you the king of the Jews? You see, all of these, whether they were intentional or not, and we know that Satan's was indeed intentional, but all of them were temptations for Christ to escape the cross. Temptations for him to escape suffering sin's curse. But he didn't take the way of escape for any of them. He suffered the curse of sin throughout his earthly life also as he endured hatred and rejection. Again, Isaiah said that would happen. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not. And we remember the scribes and the Pharisees, they hated him. To them, this Jesus was ruining their position. He was a threat to their program. And He even was a threat to their reputation with Rome, they thought. And the Jews rejected them when they cried out, Give us Barabbas. We'll take this murderer over here. But as for him, crucify him. And yes, beloved, we too sometimes endure hatred and rejection. But most likely, we do not have people trying to actively put us to death. We have never faced hatred and rejection as our Lord did. He suffered our curse throughout His earthly life. And all the while, He suffered that curse of sin. He was earning the right to specifically suffer our curse. You see, He said to John the Baptist that He came to fulfill all righteousness. He offered that perfect obedience to the law of God that Adam failed to give, that you and I continually fail to give. He suffered for sin to be sure, but not for personal sinfulness. He was without that. But all the days that He walked this earth with the effects of sin pressing in upon Him, He was perfectly obedient and He earned the right to give His life as a ransom for many, as the one and only spotless and perfect sacrifice, the only one, the only atoning sacrifice, as the catechism says. Pleasing and acceptable to God. Paul says in another place that our sufferings, the things that you and I might have to face and do face, that they're not common to man. There's nothing new under the sun. We might think we're alone when we face hardship and difficulty, but someone else has suffered pretty much in the same way. But the suffering that Jesus Christ endured in his earthly life was uncommon to man. It was unique to him, and it qualified him to suffer our curse in the second place, in his earthly death. And he suffered our curse in his earthly death as the sinless one well again we know that we know that full well but what is fascinating really beloved is that this was something that was declared by pilot question 38 asks again why did he suffer under pontius pilot as judge so that he though innocent might be condemned by a civil judge and so free us from the severe judgment of god that was to fall on us those who brought him to pilot to them pilot said i find no fault in him you want him put to death he hasn't done anything deserving of death he hasn't done anything deserving of a slap on the hand i find no fault in him pilate was an instrument in the hands of god god gave this declaration by a sinful man one who himself was under sin's curse and that declaration was that this one who was about to take that curse upon himself was innocent he was undeserving he was completely opposite of what that curse was all about and this declaration loud and clear that lives on in the inspired word of god said jesus christ did not die for his own sin he did not need salvation and therefore he did it for others and as he as he suffered his earthly death as a sinless one beloved we need to understand that god's anger was not against jesus god's anger was not against his son with whom he was always well pleased. Never did Jesus stop being the object of God's love, yet at the same time that he was the object of God's love, and this is the paradox, he also became the object of the Father's wrath and punishment that was against us for our sin. And the amazing thing, beloved, is that this was part of God's plan. God had planned this from eternity. Isaiah says in verse 10, yet it was the lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer and though the lord makes his life a guilt offering he will see his offspring and prolong his days and the will of the lord will prosper in his hand and again paul makes it clear in chapter 1 verse 4 that jesus gave himself for our sin to rescue us according to the will of our god and father it was according to the plan of god god the father carried out His anger that was toward us. He carried it out against our only Helper as the Lord laid on Him, pressed down upon Him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah says it clearly, doesn't he? Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows. Yet we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him and afflicted, but He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. Beloved, Paul says Christ became a curse for us. He says in another place that he who knew no sin was made to be sin for us. Now that may be a little bit hard to understand, especially for some of the boys and girls, that Christ became a curse, that Christ was made to be sin. How do we understand that? Well, maybe it would help us to think about justification, our justification in the sight of God because of Jesus' work. The catechism beautifully tells us, explains justification this way, that the justified believer is seen by God just as if I had never sinned nor had ever been a sinner. Now, this might help us with regard to Jesus in this way. Jesus was made to be just as if He had committed all our sin. Just as if He had committed all our sin. And in His crucifixion and death, therefore, everything was made His, that sin made ours except for sinfulness. And He came to stand in that relationship with God that is the result of sin, that curse, alienation, separation from God. He was the object of God's wrath. He was condemned to eternal death and hell. And, beloved, all of that was sealed with a visible sign as Christ suffered our curse in his earthly death by crucifixion. You see, it had to be crucifixion. Question 39, is it significant that he was crucified instead of dying some other way? Yes. This death convinces me that he shouldered the curse which lay on me since death by crucifixion was a curse by God. This death convinces me. We are to be convinced because this is the Word of God. The cross and crucifixion was a sign of God's curse. Paul quotes Deuteronomy 21-23 here when he says in verse 13, For it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. Now at the end of Deuteronomy chapter 27, we come to the end of, you remember, the Mount of Curses, Mount Evil, and the Mount of Blessings, Mount Gerizim. in which the curses are spelled out for disobedience and the blessings are spelled out for obedience. And verse 26 of chapter 27 says, Cursed is the man who does not uphold the words of this law by carrying them out. And all the people said, Amen. Cursed is the man who does not uphold the words of this law. And they had already been told what the sign of that curse was. Hanging on a tree. And now Moses is talking there in Deuteronomy 21. He's referring to the executed criminal, one who had maybe been stoned to death, whose body then was displayed on a post or a stake until sundown to show to all who would pass by God's divine rejection against that man because of his lawlessness. Now, of course, those who looked upon him could not see with their physical eye, they could not see God's curse on that one's spirit. They could not see that one's alienation from God in his soul. They could not see God's anger poured out upon that one. Boys and girls, just like a cast is a sign of a broken bone, you can't see the broken bone, by x-rays you can, but not with your eye, you can't see the broken bone, but the cast is a sign of it. In the same way, the cross is a sign of the curse of sin. And that cross, as well as a sign of rejection, that the one suspended between heaven and earth finds no home in either place. When our Lord Jesus Christ was suspended between heaven and earth, beloved, not dead already, but very much alive in order to die, that was a sign of his rejection by earth, even as he endured the insults that were hurled at him. But at the same time, it was a sign of rejection by heaven. His crucifixion was evidence that he had come under the curse of God against sin, not his own. And he gave expression to that when he cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Yet while all of that terrible stuff was happening to him, beloved, that very same cross became the one and only instrument of salvation. Now that's good news. It became the instrument of salvation as he suffered the curse of sin, as he was punished for it. Again, the people who were there that day, visibly, they saw his physical suffering. But what was invisible was the torment of God's hatred for and wrath against sin, mine and yours. Why is this good news? Well, very simply because of what Paul calls the foolishness of the cross, the gospel of the cross. You see, that foolishness of the cross answers that same question again, how something can be both so bad and terrible, at the same time be so good. And the answer is this, that the curse of God against our sin becomes the greatest blessing of God in Jesus Christ as Christ suffered our curse in the third place for our eternal life. And he did that, beloved, through that great exchange. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. Then Paul goes on, he redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit. You see, Jesus Christ substituted Himself in our place completely. He completely moved us out of the way and took up our place. And He took what was rightfully ours and was against us. He faced it. He dealt with it as His very own. With the result of securing our redemption. The second half of answer 37 says again that He suffered in order that by His suffering as the only atoning sacrifice, He might set us free, body and soul, from eternal condemnation. That's what He took away from us and gained for us. God's grace, righteousness, and eternal life. What a drastic turnaround. What a complete difference that is. He paid the price with His priceless, precious blood and bought you and me out of the slave market of Satan and sin. That's redemption here. We were in bondage to Satan and sin. We were in prison, as it were. He bought us out from there. He paid the price. And therefore, He rescued you and me from the sentence of condemnation. He rescued you and me from the punishment of eternal death and hell, which He endured never to be sold back again. Do you get that? Never to be sold back again. Beloved, this is one sale that truly is final. We never have to worry about being sold back again but instead we belong forever as servants of jesus christ and paul makes it clear that there are two things involved in this securing of our redemption first of all we receive the blessing of abraham that blessing promised to abraham in genesis 22 verse 18 which he quotes in verse 8 that all nations of the earth will be blessed through abraham and i believe that most likely this is referring to justification by faith that's what he's been talking about abraham was justified by faith not by works we're justified by faith not by works of the law and he tells us again why in verse 10 all who rely on observing the law are under a curse for it is written curse it is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law the law can only bring a curse when it's broken but it cannot restore to life it has no good news attached to it but instead in christ jesus we are justified our sins are removed and forgiven forever and christ's righteousness his perfect righteousness is given to us as our very own and think about it god accepts it far from deserving it god accepts it but there's another part as paul makes clear along with receiving the blessing of abraham we receive the promise of the spirit the holy spirit is the object of the promise. And that Spirit is also received by faith, as he makes clear in verse 2. Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law? The expected answer is no. Or by believing what you heard? And I believe that Paul here is most likely referring now to sanctification. That which flows from justification. That sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, which is also the work of God's grace. God's grace doesn't end for you and me simply by declaring as righteous, but God's grace continues to be poured out on you and me by the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. We are released from the prison of sin and Satan, but we are still polluted with that sin. And the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit is the work of God's grace cleansing us, purifying us more and more from that pollution of sin and making us more holy. And through that sanctifying work, beloved, Sanctifying our hearts and our minds and our words and our actions, our desires. Through this, the Galatian believers and all believers are then to see the foolishness of seeking salvation through obedience to the law. It's foolishness. But instead, in Christ, because of a reconciled relationship with God in Christ, God's people enjoy a right relationship to the law as a means by which to offer God thankful obedience. You see, God's people no longer need to be terrified of the law of God. When you think that you have to keep that law in order to be saved, there's only one conclusion you can come to, and that is terror, that I can never do it. But in Christ Jesus, God's people never need to be terrified of the law of God instead, but instead are filled with delight for the law of God. And in that law, they see the character of God's holiness. In that law, they see what God calls us to be in Christ Jesus, to desire, even as we pray, Thy will be done. Boys and girls and young people, Christ suffered our curse. He was crucified. Now this is nothing new, I trust, to you. You've heard it all before. And we consider this especially one time each year on that day we call Good Friday. So why is it that we teach you this stuff over and over and over again? Why do your parents teach you this stuff at home? I mean, aside from it being the Word of God. Why do we teach you this stuff in church? If you attend the Christian school, why do they teach you this stuff there? It's because you are sinners like me. It's because you need a Savior like me, as I do. And it's because there is only one Savior for you and me. And you see, beloved, we need a constant reminder of this. We are short-sighted. We have short attention spans. Our memories are short. And the world is continually bombarding us with other messages that are completely opposite of this. We need this constant reminder. Boys and girls, when you were young, and maybe you still do, maybe you had a favorite story, and every time your mom or dad said, do you want to read some books to you? You came with your stack, and that favorite one was on top. And you couldn't get enough of it, and you even had it memorized. You could say it. Our kids did. We could say it with them. They could say the words. May this true story of Jesus Christ and His suffering and what He accomplished for you and me, may this be our favorite story because He lives, He rose again, He reigns today. May it be a favorite story even as we sometimes sing, I love to tell the story of Jesus and His love. It seems each time I tell it more wonderfully sweet. We need this constant reminder because Satan through the world is constantly trying to tell us, you're not so bad. You're really quite good. Don't worry. Be happy. You don't need a Savior. You can do it yourself. But He only wants to keep us in slavery to Him and to sin, but only Jesus Christ took the place of His people and sets us free from the curse of sin forever. We still struggle with sin. I trust there's not one here in this room tonight that would deny that fact, that we still struggle with sin in this life, that pollution is still there. We give in to temptation. We disobey God's law. We commit murder and adultery in our heart. We put our confidence in something before God and therefore become idolaters all over again. We fail to do what Paul called Titus to do, as we were reminded this morning, to make the Word attractive to the world. We continue to fall short. We struggle. And the world sees that, and the world may indeed judge our public and our visible sin and might even say to you or me, you call yourself a Christian? Right. And indeed, God hates sin In the preparatory form for the Lord's Supper, we were reminded that the wrath of God was so great against our sin and guilt that He punished it in His own beloved Son with the bitter and shameful death of the cross. And we were reminded this morning in the form for the Lord's Supper that He became a curse for us. Why? To fill us with His blessing. There's that exchange again. And He humbled Himself on the cross to hell's deep agony that God might never forsake us. What a blessing. That's why we may have confidence, humble confidence, even when we are convicted of our sin because God sees us as righteous in Christ Jesus. He will not hold our sin against us ever because He has held it against Christ. Instead, He promises that whoever humbles themselves and confesses their sins, I will forgive. Christ suffered our curse. Christ crucified, beloved. This is good news. This is the greatest news. You know, we're all going to die, aren't we, unless Jesus Christ comes first. And it could be in a variety of manners for any one of us. And maybe like me, you have said selfishly, I hope the Lord takes me quickly because I don't want to suffer. This morning we were reminded of Reverend Eric Fenema, whom indeed the Lord did take quickly. And we are reminded of other loved ones who have been given terminal diagnoses, as it were, whom the Lord will appear to take slowly. When it comes down to it, the manner of our death won't matter, will it? but the manner of Christ's did matter because he suffered our curse. He removed it forever. And his suffering and crucifixion and death, crowned with his resurrection, brings us the comfort in our life and death that we will be with him. Oh, Christian, what is your greatest joy? May it be this, that the bliss of the glorious thought, that glorious thought that Christ shed his own blood for my soul, that the bliss of that glorious thought is that my sin, not in part, but the whole, all of it, is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more because Jesus Christ bore it all for me. He is victorious and we with Him. Now that's good news. Praise the Lord. Amen.