Last night, Good Friday 2020, we had multiple technical difficulties. Here is Pastor Ryan’s sermon manuscript. We hope it helps you reflect on the cross of Christ before we wake up tomorrow morning…
One person washes their hands compulsively to feel some sense of cleanness. One person sits in the shower for 45 minutes after being defiled by another person trying to feel clean. One person drinks to forget their guilt. One person erases any standard in their life so they won’t feel guilt. One person cuts themself to experience relief from their anger and shame. One person tries to re-invent themselves to get away from their shame.
Different actions but what they all are doing is dealing with sin. We all create rituals or processes to address the guilt, defilement, and shame, from our sin and others’ sin against us. You may not think sin is a real thing. But your actions show you functionally think it is real because you try to address it—even if that means ignoring it.
There is a chapter in God’s word which is the center passage of Leviticus and the center passage of the Pentateuch—the first five books of the Bible. It reveals to us God’s ritual, God’s process to address sin. Leviticus 16. We’ll read a few verses, starting in verse 1.
1 The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of two of Aaron’s sons when they approached the presence of the Lord and died. 2 The Lord said to Moses, “Tell your brother Aaron that he may not come whenever he wants into the holy place behind the curtain in front of the mercy seat on the ark or else he will die, because I appear in the cloud above the mercy seat.
12 Then he is to take a firepan full of blazing coals from the altar before the Lord and two handfuls of finely ground fragrant incense, and bring them inside the curtain. 13 He is to put the incense on the fire before the Lord, so that the cloud of incense covers the mercy seat that is over the testimony, or else he will die.
15 “When he slaughters the male goat for the people’s sin offering and brings its blood inside the curtain, he will do the same with its blood as he did with the bull’s blood: He is to sprinkle it against the mercy seat and in front of it. 16 He will make atonement for the most holy place in this way for all their sins because of the Israelites’ impurities and rebellious acts. He will do the same for the tent of meeting that remains among them, because it is surrounded by their impurities.
20 “When he has finished making atonement for the most holy place, the tent of meeting, and the altar, he is to present the live male goat. 21 Aaron will lay both his hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the Israelites’ iniquities and rebellious acts — all their sins. He is to put them on the goat’s head and send it away into the wilderness by the man appointed for the task. 22 The goat will carry all their iniquities into a desolate land, and the man will release it there.
These priestly rituals were done on the most important day of the year for the nation of Israel: The Day of Atonement. Which was so important that it came to be called, “The Day.”
God instituted these rituals to address the people’s sins and to cleanse the temple.
The first sacrifice was for “whatever their sins have been.” This means everything, your darkest secrets that only you know, the ones that you are too ashamed to tell anyone, the embarrassing sins, the recurring sins. Four times, in the context of the second goat, the chapter refers to “all” the Israelites’ transgressions and sins—every last one of them, especially the shameful ones.
What is sin? We need to consider it because some of us think we’re inherently good. Like we were born good or at least born a blank slate. While others only consider sin as something socially unacceptable items like drunk driving or molestation.
So then, what is sin?
Sin is all about self-interest.
Sin is rejecting or ignoring God in the world he created, rebelling against him by living without reference to him, not being or doing what he requires in his law—resulting in our death and the disintegration of all creation. This self-love. This self-glory. This self-reference. This putting ourselves at the center of the cosmos. That is sin. And in sin we are dirty. We are corrupted by sin.
So sin is not just the things we do wrong. It’s that but it’s also that we love the wrong things, our desires are out of control, and we believe the wrong things. We put our attention on things made by God and not on God himself. We obsess over our appearance and people’s thoughts of us. We define ourselves by our production at work. We look at naked people on a screen to feel alive. We feel really puffed up in our good works. We gorge on food to alleviate our frustration and sadness. We believe that we are the center of the world. We use other people for our ends and treat God, if we consider him at all, as our sidekick. The holy and perfect one, God, who needs nothing outside of himself to live and thrive. The one who by the power of his word created all things we treat as a toy or genie or imaginary buddy.
And because of this we’re dirty, guilty, filthy, shamed. And I say dirty because that’s the picture of the sinfulness of our sin. And God’s clean. Perfect. Holy. That’s why Aaron had to do very specific acts and sacrifices to even come into God’s presence in the most holy place. God is not a better version of you. He is perfect. Holy, Eternal, Self-existing, All Powerful, Radiantly glorious, Thoroughly Loving and Spotless. Our sinfulness means we’re dirty.
It’s like spilling coffee all over your white shirt in the morning. Dirty.
What can you do with coffee on a white shirt? You can try to hide it with a huge scarf even though it’s 100 degrees outside, you can freak out and not even try to clean it, you can smear it in with wet paper towels. This is similar to how we deal with our sin. We’re dirty with sin. You’re dirty with sin.
And God’s instituted ritual is death. A goat slaughtered. How does death deal with sin?
First, let’s ponder death itself. Aaron died, your great-grandfather died. You will eventually die. Death is a cold reality of this world. But why? How do you explain death?
Is it a part of a purifying process like reincarnation in Karma?
Is it the gate to the next life? A mere transition like the spiritualist would say.
Is death simply a part of the natural process? You are simply matter, a random collection of atoms and one day you will cease to exist.
If death is simply the natural process then why does it feel so weird? Why does it grate against your soul?
Death feels so strange because it’s foreign to this world. It was not a part of God’s original design. God weaved this world together with life. With the absence of death. He did not create death on the second day or the fourth of the sixth. Death grates your soul because it’s alien to God’s created order.
The God of the Bible tells us death is a reality because of sin.
Death is the payment for humanity’s sin. Your paycheck, your direct deposit for sinning and being a sinner is death. “The wages of sin is death” declares Romans 6:23.
Christianity teaches that BECAUSE God is just and loving there is a penalty for sin.
I know some of you wrestle with this idea. You believe that a loving Father can’t be a judging Father. If he’s loving and perfect then he should forgive and accept everyone. He shouldn’t get angry or give a penalty for sin. He should look past everything and love everyone. We import our culture’s definition of love—condone. We think to love someone is to tolerate and condone everything they do.
The truth is all truly loving persons are sometimes filled with wrath. And it’s not despite their love but because of their love that they are filled with that wrath. If you love a person and you see someone ruining them—or they are ruining themselves, you get angry. You are against it.
In her book Hope Has Its Reasons Rebecca Pippert states,
"Think how we feel when we see someone we love ravaged by unwise actions or relationships. Do we respond with benign tolerance as we might toward strangers? Far from it…. Anger isn’t the opposite of love. Hate is, and the final form of hate is indifference…. God’s wrath is not a cranky explosion, but his settled opposition to the cancer…which is eating out the insides of the human race he loves with his whole being.”
The Bible says that God’s wrath flows from his love and delight in his creation. He is angry at evil and injustice because it is destroying his creation’s peace and integrity.
God has wrath for your sin because he loves his creation. He loves his glory. He loves his Son. He loves mankind. He loves you. So anything that is against or ruining those he is against. Your sin deserves a loving God’s wrath.
And that’s why we’re looking at Leviticus 16. God’s answer is the only true answer that deals with your sin and allows you to be in his gracious presence.
Consider the two goats.
The first goat was sacrificed as a sin offering to God on behalf of the people. The second goat was presented alive before God, where the priest confessed all the sins of the people, with his two hands symbolically placed them on the goat’s head, and then sent it out to the desert as a “scapegoat,” taking the sins of the people with it. The first goat dies for sin. He deals with God’s wrath. This is called propitiation—the wrath of God is diverted from the people to the goat. The second goat carries all their sin. He deals with shame and guilt. This is called expiation. He achieves purity and cleanliness for the people by carrying their sin away. Removing their dirt.
We call Good Friday Good because God tells us in his word Jesus fulfills both of these goats by carrying our sin outside of the city of Jerusalem and dying for the penalty of our sin.
Isaiah 53:5–6:
5 But he was pierced because of our rebellion,
crushed because of our iniquities;
punishment for our peace was on him,
and we are healed by his wounds.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
Hebrews 7:26-28:
26 For this is the kind of high priest we need: holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. 27 [Jesus] doesn’t need to offer sacrifices every day, as high priests do — first for their own sins, then for those of the people. He did this once for all time when he offered himself. 28 For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak, but the promise of the oath, which came after the law, appoints a Son, who has been perfected forever.
Hebrews 9:22-28
22 According to the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. 23 Therefore, it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves to be purified with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with hands but into heaven itself, so that he might now appear in the presence of God for us. 25 He did not do this to offer himself many times, as the high priest enters the sanctuary yearly with the blood of another. 26 Otherwise, he would have had to suffer many times since the foundation of the world. But now he has appeared one time, at the end of the ages, for the removal of sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for people to die once — and after this, judgment — 28 so also Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
The only way to be clean. The only way to miss the wrath of God raining down on you is for a substitute to take your place. It’s your death and the judgement you deserve on you or on someone else. And God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit’s plan before time began was for the Son to be crushed on your behalf. It pleased the Father to crush the Son. And it pleased the Son to be the sacrifice. Our substitute.
When Jesus says he will lay down his life it shouldn’t be thought of as suicide but as taking a bullet for someone. You are being shot at and Jesus steps in front of you. The wrath of God is going to rain on you but Jesus stands above you and is rained on while you are clean and dry. Jesus is your propitiation! He diverts God’s wrath away from you and to himself. And he carries your sin outside of the city to make you the new temple of God clean. Jesus is your expiation!
If your sin is against an infinite God then only God can deal with your sin. You can’t pay that penalty. Your selfishness and rebellion and pride are so big that only God can pay the price.
Minimizing your sin won’t deal with it.
Trying to pay for your sin won’t bring you into God’s presence.
Ignoring your sin won’t make you clean.
Re-inventing yourself won’t rid you of guilt and shame.
Only Jesus, the God-man, can die for your sin and carry it away. Look at the crucified Savior! Behold the lamb of God who was slain!
Right now, how will you deal with your sin and death? Either on your own efforts or put your faith in Jesus as your substitute. Either you will try to find forgiveness and freedom by working for it in some form or fashion or you will trust Jesus has done the work on your behalf. Either you will try to pay for your debt or you will believe that your debt has been paid when Jesus cried on the cross, “It is finished!”?
In his goodness and love he died in your place, taking on the wrath of God you deserved, bearing your sin and suffering and shame and dirrt, that you might know Him. That you might love him. That you might be forgiven and washed clean of all your sin. That you might no longer fear death. That you might be reconciled to God, your loving Father.
The purpose of his death is good. Good news for you. He suffered for you. Died in your place. Believe it. It’s Good Friday!