Deliverance and Destiny - the meaning of the cross explained (1)

[0:00] Well, if you turn with me to Matthew chapter 26 and to the passage that we read, that would be a great help. From the very beginning of the Church of Jesus Christ, the central message of its proclamation has always been scorned by the world.

[0:30] The message that is the very power of God, says Paul, to those who are being saved, is nothing but folly to those who are perishing.

[0:44] That's what Paul wrote from Ephesus in about AD 55, where he was surrounded by Jews and Gentiles both, showing both of those reactions to the message that he preached there.

[1:00] To some it brought glad acceptance of salvation, and to others it just brought total rejection. He was writing to the Church at Corinth, just across the Aegean Sea in Greece.

[1:12] And he summed it up this way in 1 Corinthians 1 verse 23. We preach, he says, Christ crucified. A stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to Gentiles, to Greeks.

[1:28] But to those who are called, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. So we shouldn't be surprised that little has changed.

[1:40] The world, with its own view of human nature, and its scorn of any idea of original sin, or of God's holiness, the world will always find the Bible's message of a just mercy, through atonement for sin.

[1:59] It will always find that message offensive. And we shouldn't be surprised at that, because it's a message that accuses the world of something it doesn't want to own up to.

[2:13] Nor should we be surprised that over the course of history, the Church has imbibed these things from the world, and become confused, and often entirely unbelieving, in this central truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

[2:27] We shouldn't be surprised at that. But we should be alarmed always, when claims are made by those who appear to be evangelical leaders.

[2:41] Claims that we can reject any notion of the cross of Christ as an atonement for sin, and at the same time claim to be orthodox, and evangelical, and biblical.

[2:53] But it does seem that that is the kind of claim that's being made increasingly today, especially, I think, among some influential leaders in what's known as the emerging Church movement.

[3:05] It's very trendy at the moment, it's very influential. We live in an age, don't we, of casting off the stuffiness of old traditions, and it's big in the Church these days.

[3:16] Casting off the ways of the past, and finding new ways of doing the Church, and being the Church. But we've got to be very careful that at the same time, we're not actually casting off the very truth of the Gospel.

[3:30] Because the New Testament itself is very clear, it's very explicit. The message of Christ crucified is the Christian Gospel.

[3:40] There is no other. That was the message that Paul says was declared in fear and trembling in Corinth, but brought about a demonstration of the Spirit's power.

[3:52] It brought death to life. It brought a Church into being. It transformed human lives. And that's why Paul, in his whole letter to the Corinthians, is saying, don't move on from the message of Christ crucified.

[4:07] There is nowhere to move on beyond that great message. To move on from that message is not just a minor change. In fact, it's to totally abandon the Gospel.

[4:21] Because if you do that, there's no Gospel left. There's no good news. Nothing to deal with the reality of real sin against the Holy God, which is the problem the Bible presents as being our greatest predicament as human beings.

[4:37] That's why Paul says to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, I will remind you of that which is of first importance, the Gospel that I preach to you.

[4:50] How Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. That is, for Paul, it was not just the fact of Christ's death alone, but its meaning, its significance, that makes it into a Gospel of good news.

[5:09] Only because Christ died a death for sins. In other words, it dealt with sin. And he further elaborates that description for sins by saying, in accordance with the Scriptures.

[5:25] That is, the prophetic Scriptures of the Old Testament, law and the prophets. It's not just a matter of different theories of atonement that have been thought up by theologians over the history of the Church.

[5:38] Of course, there have been particular theologians who have emphasised particular aspects of the work of Jesus Christ. But above all that, and behind all of that, lies the clear interpretation of the cross of Jesus Christ by the Bible itself.

[5:56] In advance, in the whole of the Old Testament Scriptures, the Law and the Prophets, and then, of course, in total agreement with them, and in elaboration and clarification by the New Testament writers, the Gospel writers, the Apostles.

[6:11] And standing behind all of these, even more importantly, if you like, are the very words and actions of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, as he explains with absolute clarity, no shadow of doubt, the meaning of his own death.

[6:33] And what I want you to see for yourselves this morning, and in fact, all through these passion narratives in Matthew's Gospel, I want you to see Jesus' own clear teaching about what his death really did mean.

[6:48] I want you to see Matthew's clear and unmistakable presentation of it, just as he lays it out for us in these chapters in Matthew 26 and 27. Just as all through Matthew's Gospel, he's been showing us Jesus inaugurating and beginning and securing his kingdom, the kingdom of God, and at the same time, teaching his disciples all about his kingdom, what it means.

[7:20] Well, that's exactly what we see in the passion story. What we have here in Matthew chapter 26, on the eve of Jesus' death, is his determination that his death will be explained.

[7:37] Explained as a death for sin and explained as a death in accordance with the Scriptures. There's too much in this chapter, even what we've read for one day.

[7:49] We're going to have to come back to it next week. But I want you to see, particularly today, that what Jesus is saying here is that his death is a prophesied, a promised, sacrificial death.

[8:01] It's a death that brings about redemption, deliverance of his people according to the Scriptures. It's all about deliverance into destiny.

[8:16] Verses 17 to 19, on their own, never mind the rest of the account of the Lord's Supper, they're plain as a pike stuff, aren't they? I'm sure you saw that just when we read them. Whatever else Jesus wanted to be absolutely clear to his disciples and to the whole world, whatever else he wanted to be clear, this he wanted to be absolutely clear.

[8:41] The connection between his death and the Passover. These two things are totally, intimately connected together in Jesus' mind.

[8:52] Look back to verse 1 of the chapter. It's very, very clear. The Passover is coming, says Jesus, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified. Clearly these two events are inseparable in Jesus' mind.

[9:06] And verses 17 to 19 tell about the preparation for this Passover. Now, interestingly, Matthew leaves out an awful lot of the detail that you find in Mark's account about going to the city and finding the man and going on the donkey and all the rest of it.

[9:23] Matthew leaves out all of that detail, I think, to make explicit and even more clear the main point, the main thrust of what he's interested in, that word Passover. You see it, it's there in three verses, one after the other, verses 17, 18 and 19.

[9:39] Where are we to prepare the Passover? Verse 17. I will keep the Passover. Verse 18. They prepared the Passover. Verse 19.

[9:51] Can't miss it, can you? And more than that, Jesus says in verse 18, I will keep the Passover because my time is here.

[10:02] The moment of destiny is upon us and therefore I will keep, I must keep the Passover. We know from verse 16 that Judas is already out to betray him.

[10:15] But as we saw last time, Jesus is in control of the timetable. He's going to determine exactly when his death is going to be. Do you remember the leaders wanted it not in the middle of the feast lest it cause uproar.

[10:27] But in verse 2, Jesus said, two days time and I'll be crucified right in the midst of the slaughtering of the Passover lambs. And he's determined that he will have this meal with his disciples before he chooses to be betrayed.

[10:47] And the reason is so that he can explain to them and for all of us afterwards, explain to them exactly what his death really does mean in terms of this greatest feast of the Old Testament, the Passover.

[11:06] And that's why we read in verses 26 to 29 of Jesus using this meal, this last supper with his followers on the eve of his great work of deliverance to explain and interpret that deliverance.

[11:20] just as the first Passover was eaten on the eve of the great deliverance under Moses to explain and to bear witness to the significance of the Exodus from Egypt.

[11:34] And in doing this, Jesus is making it abundantly clear that he saw himself and he saw his approaching death as being the fulfillment, the greater ultimate reality of everything that the Passover signified.

[11:50] It's as if in verse 1 he's saying the ultimate Passover is coming because my hour is at hand. So if we're going to understand what Jesus is saying we need to remind ourselves of what the Passover actually did signify.

[12:07] It signified and it explained the great event of the Old Testament, the Exodus, where God rescued his people out of the bondage of Egypt and into the promised land and by which God constituted Israel as his redeemed people, as the people who were in covenant with him, his covenant people.

[12:30] He did it, of course, through a visitation of judgment on his enemies as the angel of death visited Egypt and destroyed every firstborn in the land, every single one except for those whose houses have been protected by the blood of the Passover lamb.

[12:50] So at the very heart of this deliverance from Egypt during the Exodus was the sacrificial blood. It was the blood on the doorposts and the lintels that saved from the angel of death.

[13:02] Nothing else saved from the judgment of God. You weren't saved just because you were an Israelite. Only if you took shelter under the blood of the lamb.

[13:15] And the Passover, more than any other of the events in the history of Israel, the Passover speaks of every aspect of deliverance, of atonement, of sacrifice.

[13:28] All of these things, of course, are teased out and explained in great detail in all sorts of ways in the books of Leviticus and partly in Exodus, where you have all the different web of complex ceremonies and offerings and Passovers and so on, but all of these things are actually encapsulated in the Passover.

[13:48] There's sacrifice there, the lamb. There's deliverance. There's atonement, the lamb in the place of the firstborn. There's the protection from God's anger, from his judgment.

[14:01] All of these things are things that were achieved by the blood of the Passover sacrifice. But remember that the deliverance from Egypt was only actually part of the story.

[14:13] It wasn't just the deliverance from, but it was a deliverance into, and a deliverance for. Just help us to see this if you turn back with me to Exodus, to Exodus chapter 6 and verses 6 to 8.

[14:29] I do think it's just worth looking there because really this encapsulates in a nutshell the whole of the meaning of the Exodus. Say to the people of Israel, says God, Exodus 6, verse 6, I am the Lord.

[14:48] And I'm going to do four things. Do you see these four promises? First of all, verse 6, to bring them out from under the burden of the Egyptians, the old life.

[15:00] And then second, I will deliver you from slavery to them. And third, I will redeem them with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.

[15:14] That is, he will deliver them out of the tyranny of the masters of the old life. But not just those things. Do you see the fourth thing? Verse 7, I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

[15:35] I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham. You see, the blood of the Passover speaks not just of the deliverance that saves from the past, but it also speaks of the blood of the covenant that delivers into the future.

[15:55] it's the shed blood that saves God's people from the wrath and the judgment of the destroyer, and delivers them into freedom, and it's the shed blood that seals God's covenant purpose, and makes the new covenant with God's people.

[16:15] The shed blood is there at the very beginning of the story of the Exodus, and right through to the end. That's why in Exodus chapter 12, you don't need to look at this now, but when the explanation is being given of the Passover, the emphasis is all on the blood.

[16:29] Dip the blood in the hyssop, and put it on the doorposts. And when the Lord sees the blood, he will pass over. And when your children say, what does this mean?

[16:42] You're to say, it's the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover. The emphasis is on the saving power of the shed blood. But that's not the end of the Exodus story, is it?

[16:55] It's not the end of the blood either. When God's people are taken out of Egypt and reached Sinai, God says to them, I've delivered you, I've borne you out on eagles' wings.

[17:09] Now, therefore, if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, you will be my treasured possession. And God gives them the Decalogue and the explanation there.

[17:21] It's in Exodus 20 to 23, the book of the covenant. And after that, they confirm the covenant in Exodus chapter 24. God says, you must take blood.

[17:34] And the blood is sprinkled first on the altar to bind God in his covenant. And then the blood is sprinkled on the people to bind them in the covenant. Moses says, Exodus 24, verse 8, behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord made with you in accordance with all his words.

[17:57] The blood of the Passover, the blood of the covenant. Now, the Passover was a real deliverance and the blood of the covenant was a real promise of fellowship with God and his people forever.

[18:14] But you know it wasn't the end of the story. You know that from reading the Old Testament the story of Israel was one of grumbling and rebellion and apostasy all the way through.

[18:27] You know that God's promises of ultimate redemption for his people, for their ultimate destiny, when they actually would be a people who are holy and pure and just and right, just like their God.

[18:40] You know that all of that was going to require something far, far more decisive and even just the great deliverance from the bondage of Egypt. That was going to call for a great ultimate deliverance from the far greater problem, the bondage of sin, the bondage of death.

[19:02] It was going to call for a multi-dimensional deliverance, just like the Passover spoke of, from the burden of the old life, the guilt of sin, from the bondage of the old life, from the power of sin and death to hold human beings, from the tyrant masters of the old life, the personality of sin, the devil himself who holds his people in bondage.

[19:32] Deliverance out of all of that into a new covenant intimacy of real and lasting fellowship with God, unbroken by death, something that would last forever with sin and guilt and death itself taken away forever.

[19:53] Now all God's faithful people from the earliest times knew that. Moses himself spoke of a day long in the future when God would at last step in to deal with sin forever, to circumcise the hearts of sinful people as he put it, so that they would love the Lord their God with all their heart and all their soul and all their mind and all their strength forever.

[20:17] The prophets again and again spoke of that coming day, Isaiah, of God's servant who would himself be a covenant for the people, bearing the sins of many.

[20:31] Just read Isaiah chapter 53. Or Jeremiah in the famous passage in Jeremiah chapter 31 where God promises a new covenant. When at last all that the old covenant, the covenant made with Moses through the Passover and at Sinai, when all that that could not achieve would make real.

[20:54] When at last decisively and once and for all the root problem would be dealt with as God said, I will forgive their iniquity. I will remember their sins no more.

[21:06] now that was the promise of God, that was the promise of a sacrificial death for sins to free from sins forever.

[21:18] And the very night before his death, Jesus declares in word and in action with absolute clarity, this day has come.

[21:30] My time has come and I will keep the Passover. Passover. This is the Passover, this is the deliverance, that everything else was just a shadow in history.

[21:43] Verse 28, this is my blood of the covenant, that all that blood in the time of Moses only prophesied and spoke forward of.

[21:56] This is the blood that really does at last achieve forgiveness of sins. this is the blood that seals the everlasting covenant of grace and forgiveness, that new covenant that the prophets promised that will never ever be broken.

[22:14] You see, it's a long prophesied death, it's a sacrificial death, it's the Passover, it's the great Exodus that fulfills everything that the law and the prophets spoke about.

[22:28] Remember, that's one of Matthew's great themes, we've seen it all through his gospel, the continuation of the one great story of God right from the beginning, but also the climax, the crowning glory of that story in Jesus Christ.

[22:43] I've not come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them, says Jesus, and everything they promise. All the prophets, do you remember he said, all the prophets and the law prophesied until John the Baptist, but since then the kingdom itself has been at last advancing.

[23:08] If our children are to ask, what does this supper mean? Well, we're to say it is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, where he passed over our sins once and for all because of the blood of his covenant poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins because, as Paul says, writing to the Corinthians, Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been slain for us.

[23:38] That is in our place as our substitute, the blood of the Lamb for the blood of the heirs, the firstborn, the heirs of God.

[23:50] Do you remember, in every single household there was a dead body, either it was a son, or it was the dead body of the sacrificed Lamb.

[24:04] And so it is in the great Passover, in God's ultimate judgment on sin, where Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. His death is a Passover sacrifice.

[24:16] It's a death that works, redemption, deliverance. A death that delivers out of the bondage of the past and into a destiny for the future, a destiny of fellowship with God himself forever.

[24:30] For everyone who receives from him that deliverance. It's not, it's not that Jesus' death just sets an example of what the extent of love really looks like, that we're to emulate.

[24:48] That's what the preacher on the radio and the service said this morning. that's impossible to think, impossible to think, if we take seriously the cross as it's explained by the scriptures themselves.

[25:03] It is a Passover. It is a deliverance that God actually works for his people by providing a way out, a shelter from judgment, only by the blood of the Passover lamb.

[25:20] It's all of God, it's all from God. But of course it must be believed, it must be appropriated, it must be made your own, it must be received.

[25:32] That great liberation from bondage and into the destiny of the children of God, it only comes through embracing Jesus Christ and his cross.

[25:43] It only comes through believing and trusting in the way of deliverance. Jesus says, drink this cup, all of you. God's deliverance isn't automatic, it's not something that just comes by accident of birth or even just by knowing about Jesus.

[26:01] It comes as we receive the offer of his grace, drink this cup. That's the way it was at the first Passover as we were saying to the children.

[26:12] Moses preached the gospel of good news, the way of redemption to his people through the blood of the Passover lamb. But the people had to respond. It's when I see the blood, I shall pass over.

[26:29] So it's true to say that if any Israelite was presumptuous, if they just said, well, I'll be okay. God will never actually judge any of us like that.

[26:39] God's a God of love. You don't have to bother with all that stuff about sacrifice. If any did say that, they awoke the next morning to the death of their beloved firstborn son.

[26:56] God is love. And he does freely give the good news of salvation. But you have to respond. You have to embrace Jesus Christ.

[27:07] You have to drink his cup. not to do that or to do anything else. It's to heap scorn upon the precious blood of the Passover sacrifice. It's to despise it.

[27:19] It's to trample it underfoot. But when you do respond, you see all the good news that it promises is true.

[27:31] It's gloriously true. He is a great redeemer. He delivers into a glorious destiny. A destiny that's forever and ever without end. Now there's a lot more we need to say about this chapter.

[27:45] We'll have to come back to it next week. But I want to leave you today with this clear message. That Christ's death is the great Passover. It's the true Passover.

[27:58] I want us to grasp what that means for you and me if you drink the cup and trust in Jesus Christ. First of all, it means that all who have received the forgiveness that Jesus Christ offers, all who will eat and drink, all who will seek him as the bread of life and as the cup of salvation, it means a real and a decisive deliverance.

[28:22] A deliverance from all the bondage of this world. It's a coming out of bondage forever. It's coming home from the far country.

[28:34] everything that God promised Israel in that great Passover deliverance from Egypt, everything that they were promised and received is prophetic of what God promised, not just for Israelites, but for many, Jew and Gentile, for all who will receive Jesus Christ as Savior.

[28:55] First of all, there is deliverance from the burden of the old life, from the guilt of sin before God. Every spot and stain in your life, everything that you're ashamed of, everything you should be ashamed of, whether you are or not, every shortcoming is left behind.

[29:19] It's left behind in a world that you have left behind forever. There's deliverance from the slavery of the old life, from the power of sin as your master in control of your life.

[29:33] Your inability to be free from slavery to sin, just as the addict can't ever be free from the pusher that supplies the drugs. That's broken forever in the deliverance of Jesus, the Passover.

[29:49] There's deliverance from the tyranny of the master of this world, the devil himself, who would accuse you day and night for your sin, who would bring you to despair, who would torment you, he's defeated.

[30:04] Just as at the time of the Exodus, God said to his people, Pharaoh and the Egyptian masters, you will never see again. So it is in this Exodus, this Passover, Paul says, he disarmed rulers and powers and put them to shame, triumphing over them in his cross.

[30:24] And what a joy to the tender-hearted Christian surely that must be. If you are sometimes gripped and crippled by sin and by the accusations that come into your life, how can you be a follower of God when this is what you are like?

[30:43] You need to call to mind the Passover. Our accuser, the accuser of the brethren, says Revelation 12, is cast down. How? Defeated by the blood of the Lamb.

[30:57] Jesus, the Passover. All of that is what Christ's death as the Passover Lamb means for you. As Paul put it in Colossians 1, he's delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son in whom we have redemption.

[31:20] The forgiveness of sins. That's what Jesus offers to the world. That's what Jesus offers to you. Drink of this cup, all of you. It's my blood of the covenant poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

[31:38] That may be that you're not a Christian believer. Maybe you think that all this talk of Passover and sacrifice and forgiveness only through blood.

[31:50] Maybe you think that's all foolish. But if that is you, just let me ask you this question. Have you ever forgiven anyone anything?

[32:03] I don't mean trivialities. I mean something real and substantial. Maybe the betrayal of our close friend. Maybe the betrayal, the unfaithfulness of a spouse.

[32:17] Maybe something else. Have you ever forgiven something of that magnitude? If you have, let me ask you this.

[32:29] Was it easy? Did it cost you nothing? I don't think so. Maybe it was so costly that you've actually never yet been able to forgive.

[32:42] forgive. That's the reality of our world. That's why we live in a world of such fractured relationships. Because forgiveness is so costly. And God's forgiveness is not phony.

[32:56] It's real. And that's why it's so costly. So costly to God himself. The person of his own son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

[33:08] Christ. So if you think all that talk about sacrifice and forgiveness is foolish, just think about that. Think about your relationship to God.

[33:21] And ask yourself, could it really be put right that cheaply? But maybe you're not a Christian this morning, and yet you do know that you need forgiveness.

[33:34] That you need, that you long for liberation from bondage to sin. Maybe you do know that your life's in a mess. That you do need deliverance.

[33:48] And friend, what you need to grasp is what you know to be true. You can't get that for yourself, can you? It's right that you feel helpless.

[34:01] You can't get that for yourself. But you can get that from Jesus. He offers that to you. Total deliverance from the bondage of the past forever.

[34:14] That's what he offers in that cup, the good news of the gospel. It's a cup he holds out to many, even today, even to you, if that's you. That's why Matthew wrote this, so that you could understand it.

[34:33] But you know, even if you are a Christian believer, even if you've been a believer a long time, you need that message too, don't you? You need it again and again, just as the Israelites had to repeat the Passover again and again, year by year.

[34:46] You need it to remind you of the wonderful truth that the past is behind you. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, it's gone forever. It really and truly is. that's why we need this gospel word again and again.

[35:01] That's why we keep the feast of the Last Supper, not just once a year, once a month. Because it speaks to us. It's a visible word. It's a word of deliverance that was achieved once on that day at Calvary, but is effective forever.

[35:20] It points us back to rejoice in the deliverance in that bondage for sin once and for all and forever. So that's the first thing the Passover means for you, deliverance from all the past forever.

[35:39] But there's a second thing. The Passover also points forward, doesn't it? Remember that fourth promise commemorated by the fourth Passover cup? There were four cups in the Passover, the cup that Jesus blessed was probably the third one in the feast.

[35:56] But that fourth cup commemorated that last promise, I will take you to be my people and I will be your God and I will bring you into the land, a promise that I swore to Abraham.

[36:11] He's delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved son. Jesus' Passover delivers us into his kingdom.

[36:23] It delivers us to be his people forever and forever. Do you see verse 29? Jesus is talking in verse 29 not about the past but about the future.

[36:36] It's the fourth Passover cup. It was called the Hallel Cup, the Praise God Cup, commemorated fellowship with God himself, intimacy with God himself in the very place that he dwells.

[36:51] And Jesus says we're not going to drink that fourth cup tonight because the cup you have drunk, the cup of forgiveness in my blood, my death is going to actually, really and truly bring you into that kingdom where you're going to truly drink that cup forever and ever in fellowship with God.

[37:09] It's not going to be a symbol anymore, it's going to be a reality. that's what it's all about. Passover is not just about undoing the past, it's about a recreation of a relationship with God in the new creation, in the new world that Jesus talks about in his father's kingdom, a world that sin has been banished from, a world which death has been banished from.

[37:37] And that's the deepest wonder of the Passover sacrifice of Christ for us. Actually and truly brings us into the promised land forever.

[37:50] Christ suffered once the righteous for the unrighteous to bring us to God, to bring us into the father's house, to the place where we drink at his table.

[38:03] The death of Jesus is a coming home to glory, it's a coming home to God, it's a discovery of our true destiny, what we were made for. And what God made men and women and boys and girls for will at last be realized through this Passover, through the new covenant in Jesus' blood.

[38:26] At last I shall be their God and they shall be my people. They shall all know me from the least to the greatest, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more.

[38:38] Jesus' death as a Passover sacrifice doesn't just deliver us from our own personal past, our sins, our failures. It doesn't just give us a fresh start in this life, although it does all of those things.

[38:53] They're wonderful in themselves. But it's far, far more than that. It's a deliverance from this whole world's bondage to decay and to death.

[39:06] death. That's our greatest enemy. It's the grave that robs you of the things that are most precious to you, isn't it? It's the grave that destroys our deepest loves and relationships.

[39:17] It's the grave that takes away our loved ones. It's the grave that brings separation. Jesus' Passover sacrifice brings us into the promised land, the kingdom of God, where there shall be no more death.

[39:36] only fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ, being at home in the Father's house. Yes, we have to wait for that cup when Jesus comes again in the glory of heaven, but it's assured now.

[39:55] It's assured now for everyone who has drunk the cup that he offers, the cup of forgiveness in his blood. that's what Jesus means us to understand by his death.

[40:08] It's a Passover sacrifice. Not just a symbol of love, it's his work of redeeming love. It's a work that delivers us forever out of the bondage of sin and of death and into a glorious destiny, a new world, the glory of the Father's kingdom.

[40:28] God, that's why it's good news. Isn't that a word for a world that's weary? For human beings who are struggling?

[40:43] Maybe you are facing up to your mortality this morning. Maybe you know that there are things in your body that are growing even now. They're going to take you to the grave soon.

[40:53] Maybe you're watching one of your loved ones nearing the end of their earthly life. Maybe you've gone through the dark shadow of death just recently.

[41:11] Jesus Christ's death, the cup of forgiveness that he offers to his people guarantees deliverance into a destiny from which death will be expelled forever.

[41:31] Significantly, you see, the very last verse, 30, that the Passover ended with singing a hymn. Almost certainly that was the psalm that we began our service with this morning, the end of the Hallel Psalms, Psalm 118.

[41:47] And we just end by reading some of the words to you that they would have sung that night. I shall not die, but I shall live and recount the deeds of the Lord.

[42:00] The Lord has disciplined me severely, but he has not given me over to death. Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord.

[42:11] This is the gate of the Lord. The righteous shall enter through it. I thank you that you have answered me and become my salvation. salvation. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

[42:25] This is the Lord's doing. It is marvellous in our eyes. This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. This is the day the Lord has made.

[42:41] Let us rejoice. My time is at hand. I will keep the Passover, says Jesus. That's what the cross of Jesus means for many, many, many, for all who will drink the cup of the new covenant in his blood.

[43:02] The gates of heaven are open wide and we may enter through them and praise the Lord and come home and drink at the table of the Father and the Son because his death is a Passover.

[43:20] It's the Passover that delivers us from bondage and brings us into the destiny of belonging in the Father's house forever.

[43:34] the Lord. Well, let's join the disciples by singing Hallel and Hallelujah as we sing number 676 to end our service this morning.