Let's go back in there. what it is to be a sent one.
I want us to contemplate how extraordinarily serious it is. It is to go back to our text,
isn't it? The father sends the son, the
sent son sends his servants, and the receiving ones receive
a message sent from God Almighty. by his son and the message that
he sends is his son himself, isn't it? What's the gospel?
The gospel is a declaration of who the Lord Jesus Christ is. The Gospel is a person. So in
declaring the Gospel, we are declaring the character of the
Lord Jesus Christ as He declares Himself to be in the Scriptures,
as the Holy Spirit declares Him to be, as the Cardinal declares
Him to be. God now speaks by His Son. It says in the beginning
of Hebrews, God, who at sundry times in diverse manners spake
in times past unto the fathers, by the prophets hath in these
last days spoken unto us by Son. love the fact that the Lord Jesus
Christ holds this universe in his hands and goes on in Hebrews
to the degree that he can just wrap this universe up and wrap
it around his shoulders like a cloak. He's appointed heir
of all things by whom he made the world. He's the creator and
he upholds all things and it says being who being the brightness
image of his person, upholding all things by the word of his
power, when he had by himself purged our sins. Don't you love that phrase? Isn't
that the most glorious phrase for sinners? When he had by sat down on the right hand of
the Majesty on high. He says down in verse 8, that
under the sun, says God the Father, thy throne, O God. Jesus Christ
is God. To declare the gospel is to declare
the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. A God who rules all things, who
created all things, who sustains all things, a God who cannot
fail, a God whose will is always done. Your will be done. It's a prayer, it's a declaration
of the truth, isn't it? Your will be done on heaven as
it is on earth. Thy throne, O God, is forever
and ever, and the scepter of righteousness is the scepter
of thy kingdom. What it is, what it is for us.
to be the receiving ones of Him. This is the Apostle speaking.
Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, as we have received
mercy, we faint not, but have renounced the hidden things of
dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God
deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves
to every man's conscience in the sight of God. But if our
gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. Second Corinthians
4.3. In whom, The God of this world has blinded
the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious
gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine upon
them. For we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus'
sake. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. We have this treasure in earthen
vessels and you'll see the cracks in the broken old clay pot any
time you want to look and if you want to find more I'll tell
you more of them. To worship him we have a treasure
in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and
not of us. What's involved? What's involved
in receiving? Firstly, we have to receive the
truth of who he is. We have to receive the truth
of what God is doing in this world. We have to be made willing
in the day of His power. God has sent across this world
a strong delusion, 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 11, that all should believe
the lie. The lie in 2 Thessalonians 2 is free will. is the determining factor in
his salvation rather than the will of God. And that is the
lie of Satan. Satan is always in the business
of dethroning the Lord Jesus Christ. Satan is always, all
of his attacks centre on one particular event. This hour that
we And we'll read to the end. That hour when the Lord Jesus
Christ was crucified, he made a public mockery of Satan, the
proudest being in this universe. At the time of his greatest power,
when Satan had eaten Judas and the children of the devil, the
Pharisees, had the one opportunity, Pilate gave the Lord Jesus Christ was the will of those religious
people. We will not have that Jesus reign
over us. We will have a Christ and a God
of our own manufacturing, a God and a Christ who rewards us for
our activities. Satan continually is attacking
the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's why the gathering
of God's people, the gathering of the sent ones, gather around
the sent word of God, because I need to hear again, I need
to hear the gospel. I need to hear a gospel of a successful
saviour. I need to hear a gospel that
declares the two great things about the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ, substitution and satisfaction. I need to hear
a gospel that puts man at the foot of the cross as a mercy
beggar, because every single mercy beggar in the scriptures
came pleading mercy from God, and they received it. I'll be
bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved
Lord, because God has from the beginning, from the beginning
of the world, Charles is new to salvation through sanctification
of the Spirit and belief of the truth. There is no preaching
of the Lord Jesus Christ without preaching him as the elect one.
Again and again and again he speaks of himself in those terms.
That's the title the Lord God gives his sons. To receive Christ
and to receive his messengers is to receive the Christ who
elected a people. is to receive the Christ, John
chapter 13, verse 1, where he says, having loved his own which
were in the world, what did he do? Having loved his own which
were in the world, he loved them until the end. To preach the Lord Jesus Christ,
to preach Christ is to preach Him as the Anointed One of the
Father and anointed particularly in union with the people the
Father gave Him. That's exactly what the message
of the cross is, substitution and satisfaction. The Lord Jesus
Christ took my sins, He was made He who knew no sin was made sin
for a particular group of people, and on the cross of Calvary he
bore those sins in his own body. He was made, according to Galatians
3, he was made a curse for us. So this particular night that
we're looking at in John's Gospel, there are four people who die
a curse of death, aren't they? Judas dies a curse of death.
He was hung. Cursed is everyone who is hung
upon a tree. And then between the Lord Jesus
Christ and those two Who makes you to differ from
another? Who made the difference? That
man went to the cross that morning, cursing and swearing about the
Lord Jesus Christ. Didn't he? The only reason he
was being crucified that day and not till after the feast
had finished was because the bloodthirsty Pharisees couldn't
wait to get their hands on the Lord Jesus Christ, so he was
dragged out of prison. When they heard the crowd shouting
outside that prison, what did Barabbas think? This is it. This is it. I'm getting what I deserved.
Someone died in his place. Substitution. Substitution and
satisfaction. God is satisfied to look on his
son and pardon me. To declare a God who died and
failed is to say that his blood was shed by his Father hanging
upon that cross. And the justice of God poured
out God's holy wrath It was a transaction between
the Holy God and the Holy Son on that cross. Every attribute of God the cross, which is why the apostles,
those who have sent once, they sent just with a message, and
it was about the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Paul made
a determination. He went to a city, Corinth, which
was as wicked as this evil world that we live in right now, and
he had a determination there to preach just two things, Jesus
Christ because in Jesus Christ and him
crucified he is preaching the whole counsel of God. And as
a sent one he can say in Acts 20 that he has not failed to
preach the whole counsel of God, therefore he is free of the blood
of all men. Which means that those who do
not preach the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified faithfully
will have to deal with God. I just don't want that to be
happening here at all. But to go back to this crucified
one, every attribute of God, we see in the cross of the Lord
Jesus Christ, every attribute of God in the most glorious describing. We see the Lord Jesus Christ What's the number one attribute
of God? It's not love, love, love. It's
holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. And when holiness
meets sin, as it did in the Lord Jesus Christ on that cross, then
all of the infinite wrath of God was poured out on him. Holy. We see the justice of God. Almighty to crucify His Son? Absolutely, because in the eternal
covenant in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, when the Lord
Jesus Christ was united to those people that we read about in
John 6, when the Father gave them into His hands, and when
they were given into His hands, the Lord Jesus Christ, before
the foundation of the world, says, I am fully responsible
for all of their sins, and I am fully responsible for all of
their righteousness and their holiness before God. And so on
the cross of Calvary there was an act of extraordinary justice
of God. God must punish sin. He must punish it infinitely. He must punish it in such a way
that it justice of God and the sins of
God. We see the absolute sovereignty
of God on the cross. This happened according to the
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. The baby church preached
the absolute sovereignty of God and the absolute election of
God and the absolute union of God. These people, they always
preached it. They didn't ever divert from it. Nothing happens
in this universe outside of God's absolute sovereignty. is completely
and utterly sovereign over all. There's not a thing that wriggles
or thinks in this entire universe over which the Lord Jesus Christ
doesn't say, I did this, I'm responsible. And I'm not saying
for one moment that he's responsible for sin, and I'm not saying for
one moment that he's responsible for any of the evil thoughts
that go on. But the Lord Jesus Christ, in his absolute sovereignty,
man acts according to his will, And so at the cross, we see the
holiness of God, and we see the justice of God. We see the sovereignty
of God. We see the love of God. Having
loved his own in the world, he loved them utterly, is what that
word says. He loved them to the utmost.
This is what Paul says, the Son of God loved me and gave himself
for me. He was crucified. Listen to what
he says. This is the apostolic testimony of what happened at
the cross. These are the sent ones words, aren't they? He says,
I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in
the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself to me. That's the love of God revealed
in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every attribute, you
think of any attribute you possibly can of God and you will find
that they shine in the most glorious way at the cross. At the cross. And we have the Lord's Supper. We have the Lord's Supper in
our services. And we are declaring a covenant,
a covenant in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're declaring
a promise-making, promise-keeping covenant where God the Father
gave these people and the Lord Jesus Christ died for them. The
glorious thing in declaring the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ
is that now Every attribute of God comes
to my defence. God cannot send anyone that the
Lord Jesus Christ died to, to hell, because it will offend
His justice and His holiness and His sovereignty and His love.
Everyone that Jesus Christ shed His blood for is saved. They will be saved. They must
be saved. God's holiness demands their
salvation. God's omnipotence ensures that
every little tiny thing that happens in their life or happens
in anyone else's life around them in this world will only
lead them. It'll wash them again and again
and again through the waves of this world and wash them up onto
the rock of the Lord Jesus Christ. We proclaim his death. That's
what we're doing, aren't we? We show His death till He come. For as often as you eat this
bread and you drink this cup, do you show the Lord's death?
We are declaring all of those things and we would love to declare
a whole lot more about Him because that's what this book is about.
This book is a hymn book. It's all about the Lord Jesus
Christ. Every story, every picture in all of this Bible goes, There's
a direct road from every event and every picture straight to
the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. We show the Lord's death till
he comes. He took this cup that night and
he said, this cup is the New Testament, it's the new covenant.
ministers, or, bar none, declare the eternal covenant in the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 3 says God made
them to be ministers of God. That's what they're ministering
to. It's like tablewares. They're handing around this and
telling people, this is the blood of that covenant, the blood of
the everlasting covenant. It's a covenant that is powerful,
a covenant in the blood of His Son, a covenant that saves, a
covenant that keeps safe. It's the, now the God of peace
that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd
of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant.
All of God's servants throughout time will always preach that. They always did. The Old Testament
servants of God preach that. The New Testament servants of
God preach that all the time. All the time. The great shepherd
of the street, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
listen to what he goes on to say in Hebrews 13.21. Don't you love that? See, this
blood is not ineffectual blood. When He shed His blood, God Almighty
put His Son to death, and God Almighty died, and God Almighty,
the Holy Spirit, takes the things of the Lord Jesus Christ, which
I've just been talking about, and He reveals them to you. I need to hear the gospel. I
need to hear a gospel. tries, and a God who leaves it
up to me, I'm gone, I'm sorry, I know enough of the deceitfulness
and wickedness of my heart and I can only see through so that
I need a God who does all the same, completely, all the way
through. I need a God who saves me from
the foundation of the world. I need a God who saves me on
the cross. I need a God who comes into this world now and saves
me. I need a God who saves me and keeps me saved. And that's
exactly the God that we're talking about. And when we have the Lord's
Supper, John might come and get a minute, but when we eat and
drink, we're eating and drinking. It's an offensive message to
the world. It's scandalous to the world.
But to the child of God, it's a glorious, glorious message. As often as you eat this bread
and drink this cup and you show him the Lord's death to his country,
we show him it again, aren't we? And when I meet with you,
I want to hear about him again. And if I have opportunity to
talk to you, I want to hear about him again. Tell me about what
happened at the cross, again and again and again. Tell me
how my savior took my sins and bore them in his own body and
then tell me how they're gone. Tell me how God can't remember
them anymore because they don't exist. That's what it is to be
justified. Tell them how he's cast them behind his back. Tell
me how they were removed as far from us as the east is from the
west. Tell me again. That's what God's received. The
ones that receive the message, find the message of the Lord
Jesus Christ delightful. Let's go and get the Lord's Supper. We can show His death to be come.
Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup
of the Lord unworthy. What's it to be unworthy? It's
to deny the things that Always it is, isn't it, to take
away from the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ and put the work
of salvation in the hands of men. Let a man examine himself
and say, let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup,
for he that eateth unworthily drinketh damnation, eateth in
the condemnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. What's to drink worthily?