Speaking of hearing, go with me to Calvary. You'll recognize these references. They took Jesus and he went out bearing his own cross to the place that is called the place of a skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. When they had crucified him they divided His garments among them by casting lots. Then they sat down and kept watch over Him there, and over His head they put the charge against him which read, This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.

Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left, and those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads. It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, until the sun's light failed, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus calling with a loud voice said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. And having said this, he breathed his last." What just happened? We know the story.

If you went there with me and you watched you you would have seen it just as it was laid out here but what just happened a better question might be what did God just accomplish Well to answer that question we have to answer another question which is who is the man hanging on the cross? Who is this Jesus? Well the scriptures are clear that the one hanging on the cross is the very same one who hung the stars. He was born in the city of David, but he was before Abraham. He was born to Mary, and yet he is the only begotten Son of God.

There was no room for him in the inn, and the heavens were filled with the angels who attended his birth. He was baptized by his cousin John in the Jordan River, and yet he walked on top of the Sea of Galilee. He once said to a Samaritan woman, give me a drink and then later he said to the Jews, if anyone thirsts let him come to me and drink. He never had a place to lay his head and yet the heaven of heavens cannot contain him. In other words, the one on the cross just outside of Jerusalem is the Lord God of heaven and earth.

He is Immanuel, which means God with us. The Bible says he is the image of the invisible God. By him all things were created. He is before all things and in Him all things hold together. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature and yet He became flesh and dwelt among us.

He was born in the likeness of men and his mama called his name Jesus because he would save his people from their sins. The Bible says, it gives us really terse statements like this, God sent forth his son born of a woman. And we just read, we just read right past it. In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily to summarize a confessional statement the Son of God Who upholds and governs all things took upon himself man's nature so that two whole Perfect and distinct natures were inseparably joined together in one person without conversion, composition, or confusion." You say, I don't understand. That's great.

The Bible doesn't tell you to understand. It says to worship and to door. And yet we've come to Calvary. So here is this one hanging on a Roman crucifix. As Calvin said, what is more contemptible than a cross.

We wear it as jewelry. Here He hangs on the cross. What's happening? What did God just accomplish? What is happening as the God-man suffers and dies on the cross?

Well there are many things among them. I want you to consider that God is executing judgment on the sins of his people. The cross was an act of judgment. In other words, if we were there that day watching Jesus and we heard him yield up his Spirit to his Father, we would have just observed God executing judgment on the sins of his people. The sins of God's people are being punished as it says in Isaiah 53, 6.

The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. It was the will of the Lord or it pleased the Lord or it made God happy It was his desire to crush him Laid our sins on him. He crushed him He judged our sins God lays on Jesus Christ who we just confirmed the eternal Son of God in human flesh. He lays on him the sins of his people and then he crushes him in our place. He crushes him instead of us.

And so listen, if you are a Christian all of your sins received their judgment that day, in that moment. Done! So when you read in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, when you read of the cross, you are reading about what we could call a historic court decision, a precedent that was established in the historic case, God-the-sins. And the matter was settled. These sins and the matter was settled.

All of our sins punished. They received their due reward. The Bible says that God put forward His Son as a propitiation by His blood. That is, He took God's wrath upon Him in His death as His life was poured out. God was in the cross reconciling the world to himself not counting their trespasses against them.

Why? Because he counted them against his son. He counted our sins against his son. So let me ask this. If that's the case, why are we, why are you so slow to take your sins to Him?

Whenever you're reading the Scriptures and the Lord convicts you of sin and maybe in that moment your conscience is pricked but you say well I got to finish the chapter I'll come back. Why? You and I are miserable Messiahs even if it's just three to five minutes. We can't make up for our sins. Why are we so slow?

This weekend a lot of you are gonna hear things about glorifying God and enjoying him forever and really some of the application that we take away from that is I have not glorified God the way I should I've not enjoyed him the way that I should and you're gonna take notes and write down write these things down and you might think well well I'll deal with that when I get home after the weekend. No, you're a miserable Christ even for a weekend. Go to him quickly. Run to him. This is why he came.

It is to pay for sins. He's already made a reckoning. He's already made the reconciliation. It's like walking into a store where everything is free all you got to do is show the clerk on your way out I've sinned but it's been paid for come quickly to Christ as as Thomas Wilcox said in in a in a book of a choice drop of honey he uses this phrase to un-Christ Christ. In other words what did he come to do?

He came to lay down his life as an atonement for sins to pay for sins so that we could be reconciled to God so that if you are if you in your mind think well I need to be slow in going back to God or maybe I need to Sit in some guilt for a few more minutes or days or or maybe I need to get some other things settled first And then I'll go to God what you are doing is you are saying I think I would make a better Christ for a few more minutes you un-Christ him you're taking him off of his place as the one who welcomes us to the Father why are we so slow it doesn't make any sense they've already been paid for it's you in human flesh that we sin and so it's in human flesh that the Son of God hangs on the cross. Our congregation is going through 1st Corinthians and we are in chapter 1. So I wonder have you ever seen the wisdom of the cross? Only the Creator can save sinners, but only a creature can die. The creature is the one who deserves death, but only the Creator can satisfy divine justice.

God comes up with this... This contrivance of infinite wisdom. The Son of God would take on flesh and hang on the cross in the place of sinners, to live and die in the place of sinners. Infinite wisdom. Through the cross God completely topples all human wisdom and ingenuity.

We could not come up with anything. We've got nothing else to offer. God does this. He blesses through cursing. He gives us life by crushing.

The rock of refuge is made a rock of stumbling. God is humiliated so that man can be glorified and in this God is glorified and we are humbled. In the most accursed and barbaric way of torture and death known to man, God demonstrates every perfect excellency of his nature. He's righteous and yet he's compassionate. He's holy and yet he's merciful.

He's just and yet he is the justifier of everyone who has faith in Jesus Christ. God solved all the difficulties, met all of the demands of his perfect character, punished sins, destroyed the works of the devil, saved his people, glorified his son in the cross. He did all of that in one act. John Owen said, the depths of divine wisdom in this glorious work are hid from the eyes of all living." In other words, we can't fathom it. And what does it say about God?

God personally contrived this plan which would baffle and confound and mystify and captivate the minds of theologians in every generation and yet by it he would save sinners. God came up with this plan. I didn't make this up. Calvin didn't make this up. God did.

In eternity think of God contriving a way for man's redemption. And so then what is the application? Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord. Thank you.