Turn with me to Luke chapter
22. It's a long chapter and we're going
to look at two different verses. Specifically. Verse 20. And then verse 42. It's going
to be 22 verses between the two. My hope today is for you to see
something. Not just about the significance
of the crucifixion and the resurrection. But about the power. About what
it means when Paul says that have this mind. Which is yours in Christ Jesus. that he who was equal with God
did not take equality with God, something to be grasped, but
made himself a slave, obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God exalted him. In our day, we hear things like
the cup of wrath, and it makes really no image
on us. It doesn't mark us in any way.
We live in a place where we don't understand how that looks or
feels. We think we can. And artists
through the centuries have tried to paint it. Actors. Have tried to act it. People have tried to write stories.
We've read the Scripture and we try to imagine it. We've dreamt
about it. We've discussed it. Directors
have now made movies about it. And all the attempts to show
the passion of the Christ have been, at best, sorely boring. And worthless. And ridiculous. You can't take an infinite God
in all of his majesty and cram him into three hours and say,
look in there, I got it. You got nothing. You can't come
if they were to take Jesus and put him through a meat grinder,
it wouldn't come close to the anguish. If we were just to say for a
moment, thinking about the cup of the wrath of God, the fury
of God, the anger of God, the justice of God, we would have
to sit and waller in our fear. But we in our culture don't even
fear God that way. Do not fear man, the Scripture
says, but fear He who can cast both body and soul into hell. And, oh, have the pastors of
the day really capitalized upon that? The latter part of the nineteenth
century, when we see the second Great Awakening coming to its
end, hellfire and brimstone and wrath and judgment were mainstay
from the—not even pulpits—from the potholes and stumps. And you can see it today. You
can see that where people would talk to you about the wrath of
God. And it is good to talk about the wrath of God, because out
of God's holiness comes his justice. It is never good to imagine God
to be this omnipotent, majestic, powerful judge that is always
right and true in his judgments, and then to consider him just
letting it go. That's not holy. That's worthless. God is not worthless. Friends,
I stand here today not to tell you to get what I've got. We
need to gather every day to really focus on several aspects of what
the gospel is for us. It is good news. The wrath of
God is good news, friends. It's good news and that God is
holy and just and righteous. If he could come to earth and
live as a human being and be holy and just and righteous and
then willfully and passively, obediently put himself in the
line of the judgment of the father so that we could be forgiven
righteously rather than wickedly. One of the greatest moments I mean, out of all my life, one
of the greatest moments of reflection on the gospel was when I read
a book by R.C. Sproul called The Prince of the
Poison Cup. It's a grandfather telling the
story to his grandson about this king who had a son and this wicked
enemy. And, you know, you know where,
you know, the imagery. How everything was dying. Everyone
was wicked. And the fountain that once gave
life to the people was black and poisoned. And the son of the king begged
them to turn from their wicked ways. And the only way that they
would see life is if he drunk the cup. It's a children's metaphor on
the gospel. When you think about the fullness
of the wrath of God, it's overwhelming. We don't have enough days in
our lifetime to rightly give it its due. We play Christian
We play church, we play faith, we play Bible study, we play
preach. And I'm not making light of what we do, but in comparison
of what we should do, it's such it's infantile. It's. It's it's not vain because it's
true and it's empowered by God, but it should show us that we
are not it. He's it. So I want you to see here. In
this, what we term passion week. There are cups. And Luke, let's look at 17 through
20 and then 41 through 44, and then we'll just point there for
the remainder of our time. And Jesus took a cup. And we
had given when he had given things, he said, take this and divide
it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now
on, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom
of God comes. And he took bread and when he
had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying,
this is my body, which is given for you. Do this and remember
to me. That's the Lord's table that
we have here. We have bread and juice, the wine of baptism. And this is what Jesus instituted
here and it's in all the Gospels and we see it. We see Jesus saying to do it and
he says, take this bread and remember me and remember my body,
which is broken for you, break the bread. And likewise, the cup after they
had eaten, saying this cup that is poured out for you is the
new covenant in my blood. And that's why we do what we
do. And we could go to 1 Corinthians and we could look at Paul and
how he really whipped up on those misfit children. But they were
children. And they were unworthily taking
the cup and the bread. They were being greedy. They
were packing a sack lunch, taking a doggy bag. Their hearts weren't
right. They weren't forgiving. They
had animosity and bitterness and frustration and fear and
doubt and worry. And they had differences between
the brethren. And it came to the place where
when people started taking the table at an unworthy man, they
would fall over dead. And it put fear in the first
church. They examined themselves. And that's why we take the Lord's
table, that's why Jesus spoke these words that we would examine
ourselves, for here is the king of glory, the God of all holiness,
the God of all wonder, the God of all worth, the God of all
power who is about to break his own perfect, holy, powerful,
omnipotent, precious, righteous body to pay for the sins of a
wicked, rebellious, sick, diseased, hateful, evil people. And when we take the Lord's table,
this whole sermon is preparation for that. We carefully look and
see if we see the fruit of Christ in us. Specifically, in that
we live and strive for holy things and also that we love each other
with a holy love. Here's the cup that is poured
out for you in the New Covenant. He gives it to the disciples and
they drink of it. And if we kept on going there,
we see that the betrayer drank with them. Who among the twelve were not
a betrayer of God? Who among them were not a betrayer
of Christ? Did they all not flee that same night? Did Peter not
deny Christ? Did Thomas just give up the goat
and forget about it? And all but John left. And when we see after the Ascension,
before the Ascension, we see after the Resurrection, we see
the disciples going back to work. They went back fishing. That's
all they knew to do. Well, after this last meal, there's
some teaching there and then verse forty one. It talks about
how Jesus knows that the hour is here and his time has come
and his heart is in anguish. And he goes and withdrew from
the three, the inner three. He says, come with me and pray.
Keep watch and alert and pray for I'm in anguish. And he went a hundred feet away
and he knelt down and prayed and he prayed, Father, If you
are willing, remove this cup from me. What is the cup? I wish I wish the Lord would
have given us just a full letter by all the apostles that said
the cup of Christ. And it would have taken up, you
know, four times the four or five times It would have taken
up 4000 times the width of this text. Because it elicited every sin. It's ever been committed by the
people of God. The world couldn't hold it. And not just the sin, but the
wrath of holiness upon it. He says, remove this cup for
me, if you're willing. Nevertheless, not my will, but
yours be done. This is the climax. And the willingness and the and
the act of obedience of Christ. This is it. I don't want to drink
the cup of your wrath, father. But I want your will to be done
more than mine. Your will be done. And it appeared
to him an angel from heaven strengthening him in his flesh. And being in
an agony, he prayed more earnestly and his sweat became like drops
of blood falling to the ground. Now I want to think about some
things when it comes to the cup. There are two cups from which
we all drink. There's the cup of death and there's the cup
of life. And there's some general thoughts.
I had a lot and I boiled them down into four. Fault number one, when it comes
to the cup of life and the cup of death, is that there is drinking
that is involved. There's the action of drinking
and that there is only one of two things to drink. Things that
give us life and quench our thirst that sustains us or things that
kill us. It goes to the point of saying
we're either drinking the water of life or the poison of death. Generalization number one, general
idea, general thought number one. Number two, all people drink
something. All people drink something. No matter what, we are drinking
of a cup right now. The question is, which is it?
I don't want to go too crazy and
cause a storm of philosophical debate. But friends, whether
you know it or not, and I'll show you in just a moment, if
you are not drinking the cup of life, Who is Christ? You are
indeed sipping on the cup of grass. And there is a patience and a
temporal sipping that one day will be poured down your throat
for all of eternity, and it will never cease. And you're drinking. What are
you drinking? To the life or death, and everybody's
drinking. Third, there's a physical drink
and there's a spiritual drink. And when Jesus talked about cups
and drinks, the people of his day thought he was talking about
physical drinks. And I'd even like to go to say, I mean, I'm
not going to take away, certainly from the humanity of Christ,
it's vital that he's a human. It's imperative he's the son
of man. For if he was not human, he would not be the lamb. to take away the sins of humanity.
He'd just be God being whipped on for no reason. Had to be human that suffered
under the wrath of God. For God to forgive humans for
their wickedness. Drinking is physical, like in
John 4. He says, may I have a drink? And
the woman was perplexed, for she was a Samaritan and she knew
that Samaritans and Jews had no acquaintance. She says, why
is it that you would you ask me for a drink? He says, if you
knew who it was. Who was asking and the gift of
God. You would ask him for a drink and he would give you living
water and she looks at him and she looks around and she says,
you have nothing to draw it with. How are you going to get it out
of the way? She crushed is the way. The cups that we're talking about,
though we will drink a physical cup later. It comes from the
spiritual cup that Christ gave. And from the spiritual cup that
Christ drank. And finally, will seem a little
redundant, fourthly, some general thoughts, but it's not redundant. I want to remind us that we are
drinking. Now. And I said that in number
two, but what I meant there is that all people drink. But number
four, we're all drinking now. Which is it? Well, in Luke 22
20, this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in
my blood and a lot needs to be said there. But for the sake
of where the Lord has helped me to to see this for this resurrection
remembrance, I want you to see a few things. The cup of Christ
reminds us of what he has done. The cup of Christ reminds us
of who he is. The cup of Christ reminds us
of who God is and what holiness looks like and the reason that
God must be vengeful and angry against him. The cup of Christ reminds us
of what Christ was about to do. He says, remember, this is my
blood, which is poured out for you, a new covenant which is
given to you. Hebrews nine says, but when Christ
appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come,
then through the greater and more perfect tent. See, Christ
and His blood is the one that actually is surely effective.
The bloods of goats and lambs and the bloods of doves and flour. If you could afford an animal,
you could put flour. You could give flour as a sacrifice. So
even the law, it wasn't legalistic. It's not what you require of
God. But you require justice and righteousness. Christ is the mercy seed. And
He intercedes as a high priest. He finished the work of redemption,
and He stands as He continues the work of redemption before
the day of judgment, when we are glorified before Him. In
1 John 5, it says that this is He who came by water and blood,
Jesus Christ, not by the water only, but by the water and the
blood. Paul writes in Ephesians 2.13, But now, in Christ Jesus,
you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood
of Christ. So we could spend days going
through Scripture and talking about the effectiveness of what
the blood of Christ has done. The priestly blood. The sacrificial
blood. The redemptive blood. Paul writes
to the Corinthians saying, the cup of blessing that we bless,
is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread
that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? This is my cup. So Jesus talks
about this cup in verse 20 and in verse 42, he talks about another
cup. Here's a physical cup that he's
telling the disciples to drink. Referring to a spiritual cup
that he's saying that it will be his blood, not in their cup,
but that it will help them remember the cup of his blood being poured
out. And the cup of his blood being poured out, this cup of
this new covenant, was indeed surely given because of the cup
of the wrath of God poured into Jesus. Verse 22, I mean 42, Father,
if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not
my will, but yours be done. This cup from which Jesus would
drink only makes the cup that we drink a remembrance, a worthy
remembrance. If Christ did not drink the cup
of the wrath of the father, the cup that we drink is just another
drink down the hatch. The living water that we say
we have is nothing but a figment of our imagination. Christ had
to drink the wrath of God. Remember. The blood of a martyr
is powerless, it's worthless. In redemption, Jesus is not a
martyr. Jesus didn't lose his life on
mission, it was his mission. A martyr dies interrupting their
mission. A martyr is taken out of their
mission and taken away early, so we say. Jesus was born to
go to the cross. It was his mission. He was finishing
the work that he was sent to do by drinking the wrath of God. There is no remission of sin
without the shedding of blood. So remember, all people are drinking. John 3. I've heard it a thousand times
this week. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son,
that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal
life. It is true. The reason God sent Christ is
because he has love for his people. God loves his people. We were once dead in our trespasses,
but because of the rich mercy, love, kindness, the love with
which the Father has loved us, we have mercy. We have grace. We have life, Ephesians 2. So, yes, for God to not send
a son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that
the world might be saved through the son, whoever believes in
him is not condemned. Friends, whoever does not believe
is condemned already. And if you're not a. Grammatician. New word. You might not see this, but whoever
believes, that's a present active tense. Whoever is now believing
in Him is not condemned now, but whoever is not believing
in Him now is condemned already right now. That's what the Bible
says in John 3. If you are not believing on the
Son, you are drinking the wrath of God sip by drip. And one day it will be poured
out fully if you do not believe. Whoever does not believe is condemned
already because he has not believed in the name of the only son of
God. See, we're drinking when we do not believe the sips of
what is to come. It's sort of like maybe not even
the sips. Maybe we're holding the cup and we're just licking
the condensation off of it. But one day it will be given
to us. But not for us who are in Christ. There's not even a
cup for us. There's not a judgment for us.
There wasn't a judgment with our name on it that Christ went
ahead and just sort of got out of the way. There wasn't a deed
to our death that Christ paid off. There was a debt to God
and His holiness that Christ secured before the world began,
and He maintained it by covenant until the day He stood on the
cross. That's the gospel. Saved, in a sense, because something
we did was saved because of what God has done. The cup of God's
wrath was surely upon us, but God in his lovingkind has sent
his Son to take it away from us. There is no place for us
in condemnation, Romans 8.1, when we are in Christ. But if we're not in Christ, there
is nothing but expectation of judgment. Wrath. The wrath of
the Father. And friends, there is no escape
except the Son of God. Let's look at the wrath of God.
The wrath of God is not a popular thing to discuss, but it's a
necessary thing to discuss. It's what Easter is all about.
It's what Christmas is all about. It's what the Bible is all about.
The wrath of God is given to a wicked humanity. But God saves
through the sun. Why would we need saving if there
was no judgment? Why would we need redemption
if we weren't lost? Why would we need? Why would we need forgiveness
if we weren't guilty? And if God's just so benevolent
that he just let it go, he's not just he had to suffer. Jesus had to suffer so that the
righteousness of God would be upheld in the forgiveness of
the wicked. Romans 3, 21 to the end. For the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and all unrighteousness of men,
who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Paul, Romans
1, 18. Let no one deceive you with empty words, Paul says to
the Ephesians. For because of these things,
the wrath of God comes on the sons of disobedience. Colossians
3. On account of these, the wrath
of God is coming. There's a listing of sins. Since, therefore, we
have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be
saved by him from the wrath of God." Romans 5, 9. It's not just
an Old Testament God. You want to see the judgment
of God? You want to see the anger of God? You want to see the holiness
of God? Look at the cross of Calvary,
where the perfect Lamb, the righteous Son, the Holy and Anointed One,
with no sin ever in His mouth or in His heart or in His mind,
He took sin upon Himself. And the father crushed him. Friends, the wrath of God is
coming, and it is real. And it is poured out on sinners,
and it is right. And it is just. God cannot forgive
committed sins. God cannot let sinners go without
paying the penalty of sin. But Christ has paid the penalty. Christ drank the cup of the wrath
of God, he drank it all and there's no more for us. Vessels of mercy. Do not receive
God's judgment. But God's judgment had to go
somewhere. I'm going to I'm going to open a door here that nobody
probably has ever been in this room. I'm going to personalize the
judgment of God. Toward Christ. We are vessels of mercy, but
God's wrath had to be put somewhere. So the wrath of God has been
placed on the son and the father is saying to the son, take this
cup. You're holy. I love you without
measure. I give you the spirit without
measure. But the father loves the son, the son loves the father.
And I'm pleased this is my son in
whom I am well pleased, but he hands his son the cup of wrath
and says, you hold this. And when I tell you, you drink
it. As a matter of fact, I'm going to put you into the hands
of sinners to whom it is owed, and I'm going to let them put
you there. And then I'm going to pour this down your throat. Imagine when Jesus entered Jerusalem
and those multitudes of people waved palm trees and branches
at Him. Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna! Here's our King! And Jesus did
not ride in on a stallion. He rode in on a mule. Like a pauper. And they waved
him in as their king anyway. And just a few days later, they
yelled, crucify him! Hosanna! Crucify him! What happened? How do you get greeted as a king
and then killed like a criminal in the same week? Jesus was about to experience
public rejection. We'd rather have Barabbas! A
convicted, guilty murderer who puts our community at risk. Let him go. Because even Rome
knew you couldn't just kill somebody for nothing. He's got to pay
for somebody's crimes. What criminal are we going to
let go for him to die for? Tibus Veratus, the murderer. Didn't you just call him your
king? Crucified. No king of ours. Public rejection. False accusations. False witness. Defaming the glory of His name
and the testimony that He had been given of the Father. They
spat in the face of God, their Creator. And they mocked Him.
The horrors of the preparation for crucifixion. The trials.
The humiliation. The nudity. The mockery. The
crown of thorns. The whippings. The beatings.
The Scriptures say that He was unrecognizable as a human being. And then he had to take this
cup, which involved the cross itself. Crucifixion. The word excruciating means out
of the cross, which is the word that we use in our language to
refer to the most intense pain that cannot be described in any
relative way. Because crucifixion by cross
is one of the heinous, most heinous things ever devised in humanity.
Hours and hours of pain. hours and hours of agony. But
all of that public humiliation, false witness, defamation, preparation,
whips, beatings, false accusations, false trials, the cross itself,
the pain of the cross, the suffering of the cross and the death in
the flesh was still nothing. Because those those those men,
those thieves beside him, experienced death on the cross, along with
millions of other people. The judgment of God wasn't seen
in the death on the cross, though it was partially there. There
was a judgment that took place. There was a suffering that took
place on that cross that no one could see but Christ. And we long as Christians to
hear the day when we hear our Savior Jesus said, well done,
my good and faithful servant, enter into my rest, come to me. We look forward to the day where
we see Christ face to face, and then our faith will be sight,
and we will be made like Him. We long for the days of glorification,
and here on this cross is the God of all gods, the King of
all kings, the Lord of all lords, became a Lamb by His own design,
by the will of His own plan, that He might suffer not just
in the world by the hands of those whom He was about to redeem,
but by the Father. Oh my God, my God, why have you
forsaken me? Is that just suffering the flesh?
No, it's not suffering the flesh. This is my Son. Listen to Him. And now the Father turns His
back and doesn't look upon Christ. And He pours judgment out on
Him. He pours wrath on sinlessness
because this sinless one had become wickedness, the object
of judgment, having never been guilty of any of it. God pours his judgment on liars,
and Jesus is the truth. God pours his judgment on murderers,
and Jesus is the life. God pours his wrath on adulterers,
and Jesus is the better bribery. He is the faithful son, the obedient
worshiper. God pours his wrath on disobedience,
and Jesus starved his flesh for the sake of obedience. God pours
his wrath on idolaters, and Jesus prays and worships only the Father. God pours his wrath on the workers
of iniquity. They mocked Jesus. They said,
come down if you're a king. Get out there and save yourself.
You say you're God. Come down. Save yourself, loser. But he hung there willingly,
passively for the sake of God's righteousness, for the sake of
the faith of God's elect so that he could ransom all who believe.
And then the wrath of God was poured. Consider these statements,
looking to Jesus, the founder and perfect of our faith, Hebrews
12. Who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross,
despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne
of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against
himself so that you may not grow weary or faint hearted in your
struggle against sin. You have not yet resisted to
the point of shedding your blood. Christ will say to the wicked,
depart from me, I never knew you. The father said to the son,
depart from me, you wicked son of man. God said to Christ that day,
you're guilty before me. You disgust me. You are vile
and evil. And I turn my back against you
and I cannot see you. And my judgment, I pour onto
you, for you are unworthy. God said to the Son, you're a
blasphemer. You use my name in vain. You're
a self-glorifying fame lover. You hate me and you despise me
and you will feel my wrath. God the Father said to the Son,
you are a liar and all that comes out of your mouth is lies. Never
have you said the truth, for your tongue is the tongue of
asps. Your heart is cold and dead and
you are worthless. And I turn my back upon you,
and you are guilty. God the Father said, you are
self-righteous. You've paved your own way to
heaven. You have mistaken your own glory for mine, and for that
you are guilty. He says, oh, you son of man,
not my son. You are no more. You are the
son of man. You are a thief. You steal food
and you steal money and you steal glory and power that belongs
to me and it is not yours. Oh, you son of man, you are wicked
and despised. You are a disobedient child who
never, ever honors his father and mother. You insult them and
you insult me, the creator of it all. You are a sexually lustful
adulterer. You have slept with everything
but me. You go after all the lust of
your flesh. You are guilty. You are immoral
sexually. Jesus, you are a sexual immoral
person. You are a false teacher. You
have never spoke truth. You hate the brethren. You lust
after adultery. You stir division. And by your
own Confession, you're self-condemned. You are selfish, Jesus. You're a drunkard. You are a
coveter. You love the flesh and you fulfill
it at every cost. You have worshipped the creature
rather than the Creator, and you have given up your flesh
to do what is not natural among men. You are joyless. When you
find no peace in my glory, you hate me and you mock me and you
spurn my majesty. You speak my name in vain. Your
heart is empty. Your voice is worthless. You
are a snake, a pig, a dog, You are the son of Satan, the worker
of iniquity. You are unforgiving. You are
untrusting. You are unmerciful. You worry
and you doubt and you fear men rather than me. You are unmerciful. You are unforgiving. You cut
and you destroy. You do not build. You do not
preach truth. You are worthless in your ways
of evil. You are a whore, O son of man,
and you have corrupted the nations. And my judgment will be set upon
you in such a way that the fullness of my wrath will be satisfied
against you. You, son of man, are wicked and
you are going to drink my fury. That's the judgment of the Father.
And that doesn't touch you. And Jesus drank it. He drank
it. Every bit of it. He drank it. He drank the wrath of God. The
hate of God. The justice of God. And he was sinless. You ever thought about it that
way? When you hear the term substitutionary atonement, friends, it's not
just he died. He was found. guilty of my sin
and judged though he was innocent. He took my sin and gave me his
righteousness. You see why Romans 1 is so clear? The wrath of God comes down from
heaven. against unbelief, wickedness
and unrighteousness on all men who by their unrighteousness
suppress the truth. The truth is that Jesus Christ
is God, and the truth is that Jesus Christ has drank the full,
eternal wrath for your sin, Church. This is the cup of wrath. And
it doesn't touch it. You can't put that in picture.
You can't put it in words. Jesus drank it and his blood
is spilled so that we could drink life instead of wrath. Jesus became the drink for the
thirst of God's holiness and justice. He's poured out and
God is satisfied, giving mercy to those who cannot suffer for
themselves. Jesus dies. He pays our debt and he is raised
to life. He is vindicated. He gives living water. He is
living water. He is the bread of life. He is
the blood and the body that is broken and spilled is life for
all who trust in him. Propitiation means that God is
satisfied with judgment. There is no work of man that
comes to God and meets Him in any place. For the work of the
Son of Man, the Son of God, has completed it. Jesus offers the drink of life.
Do you see Him as true? Do you see this as something
that you desire, not just to taste? Not just to sip, not just
to have a swallow, but to drink forever. Do you see Christ as
God's grace for you? Do you see him as your hope and
treasure? Jesus, when he was raised to
life, is vindicated. The world mocked and said, see,
I knew he was a criminal. I knew he was a liar. I knew
he was guilty. And now he walks among men. And now Jesus, not only is he
vindicated because he's been raised to life, but is seated
at the right hand of the father in the place of honor. The glory
that he had before he was incarnated. And he's going to ultimately
also be vindicated because he is the judge. He's drank the
wrath of God, and now he's going to pour it out. The kings of the earth and the
great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful and everyone
slaving free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks
of the mountains, calling to the mountains and the rocks,
fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on
the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day
of the wrath has come and who can stand Revelation six? We
see this lowly, worthless Donkey riding king who was crucified,
coming in on a mule, coming in on a burrow. And when we see
him again, he's going to be coming on a stallion as a king. And
I looked and behold, I saw a white horse. The one sitting on it
is called Faithful and True. And in righteousness, he judges
and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of
fire and on his head are many diadems. And he has the name
written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in the
robe dipped in blood, and the name of which he is called is
the word of God. And the armies of heaven arrayed
in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses.
With his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down
the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will
tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. And on his robe On his star,
he has the name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Revelation
19. Friends, you're drinking. You're
drinking the wrath to come, you're drinking the living water, who
is Jesus Christ, the King who is alive and he knows everything
about you. Which is it? Friends, escaping judgment is
not salvation. Salvation comes and we break
knowing that we deserve the judgment, and in some sense, we think that
maybe God should still give it to us, but in his mercy, he doesn't
because Christ is paid and there's nothing else for us. We cannot
be given what does not exist, and the judgment of God against
his church is already gone. And that's what Easter is all
about. It's what the judgment on the
Christ was all about. That's what the resurrection
has accomplished for you. It's not just a narrative in
history, it's an absolute supernatural reality that affects us. And then we believe in him as
our eternal hope. Fear causes us to run. But faith
causes us to rejoice. So as we take the cup and the
bread today, we remember this. We look back on this, we look
back on that time when. When there was no hope in sight
and the hope was to come, now it's come and we look back on
that work. And we rejoice. But we guard our hearts. We strive
for righteousness. We hold fast our confession and
the hope who is Jesus Christ. And there is none who waver and
fall away, though we may trip in the journey. Christ is faithful
to hold us when we're faithful. So I don't think there's any
better way to culminate our resurrection celebration and to remember the
death and burial and resurrection of Christ, who suffered the fullness
of God's wrath for us.