Turn, if you will, to 2 Corinthians 5.21. 2 Corinthians 5.21. 2 Corinthians 5.21. This is our main text for the day. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Certain places, if you go there, will deny access to you if you are not dressed properly. In 2010, the widow of a Medal of Honor recipient was denied access for an exclusive tour in the White House. Why? Because her grandson who was with her was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. If you want to visit the home that the President lives in, you need to be dressed appropriately. Visiting the Queen of England, she requires a strict dress code as well. If you receive that invitation to one of our garden tea parties and you're a man, you'll be expected to wear a suit or a uniform or you will not enter. Or, if you're a woman, you'll be expected to wear a dress, a hat, and yes ladies, gloves. It doesn't matter whether you agree or disagree with these requirements for attire. You can even give reasons why you think they're unreasonable. But it is what it is. You can either comply and enter or not attend at all. God's Word tells us that one day there will be a future resurrection and we will all face one who is infinitely greater than any earthly leader. This one is the triune God. The God of the Bible. The Creator of all things. The Holy God. the one to whom you and I will be held accountable for how we live our lives. Friends, we all have an appointment with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. No one will miss the appointment. It's not optional. You can give reasons why for this or for that. why you should or shouldn't be there, but every single person, you, me, we will be at this appointment. The writer of the Hebrews says in 9.27, it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment. Now, it may surprise you, but no one will be admitted into heaven Unless you are dressed properly. We're not talking, obviously, about physical clothes, are we? We're talking about spiritual clothes. Clothes that cover the soul. So, what kind of clothes will God require? Well, the psalmist asked that question. And here's the answer that he gave. Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? And who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart. Who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood and is not sworn deceitfully. Who may approach this holy God? The psalmist tells us three things. First, the requirements of God's law demand that our hands be clean. They must not have been used for stealing. Even the smallest thing that we may have stolen, if it did not belong to us, How does a holy God think of that? That is stealing. Our hands must never have been used to harm someone else. And our hands must not have been used to fulfill fleshly, ungodly desires. Otherwise, they are dirty hands in God's sight. We must have clean hands. Secondly, pure hearts are required. All of our motives and thoughts, all of them, must be pure. There's no room for selfishness. No room for putting me first. No room for idolatry. There's no room in our hearts, no room at all, if we want to gain entrance into heaven for bitterness, unrighteous anger, or any kind of filthiness at all. Well, third, our souls must not have reflected any kind of idolatry. Our souls must have put God first from the get-go. As we live, even now as we worship, as we listen to God's Holy Word, we must be putting God first. Not ourselves. Not our work. Not our success. Not what we're going to eat for lunch. God must be put first. We must have clean hands. We must have a pure heart. And our souls must not have reflected one iota of idolatry. Friends, the clothing that God requires is absolute moral perfection. After Jesus commanded that we must love our enemies. He said this. He said, you are to be perfect. As your heavenly Father is perfect, you are to be perfect. Being a nice person won't cut the mustard. Being a good guy won't do it. Coming to church will not achieve God's approval. Even doing our best or trying to do our best will not achieve God's approval of us. God requires perfection. We will not be allowed to enter into heaven. And God's eternal experience, his eternal blessed presence without absolute moral perfection. Clean hands. A pure heart. And a soul that has not lifted itself up to deceitfulness. Well, then I put the question to you. What kind of clothes are you dressed in? In other words, what kind of spiritual clothes are in your personal wardrobe? What have you done with your hands? What have you thought in your hearts? And what has your soul reflected? You know, it's interesting to ask sinners about these types of things because our perception, if we are truly sinners, is skewed. And we have this tendency, an ungodly tendency to kind of Wait things in our favor. Make excuses. Give rationales. Rationale that will come out in our favor. Will God ask the question before He Himself helps us with the answer? Are your hands dirtied? Are your hearts dirtied? Are your souls dirtied? God answers the question for us. Hear His voice. Through the prophet Isaiah in chapter 64, he says, for all of us have become like one who is unclean. And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment. In other words, God is speaking to us and He is saying, whatever you might consider your best deeds, the ones that make us feel good, the ones that make us feel justified for our existence here on earth, Whatever they are, however many they are, put them next to the purity and holiness of God. And they are just like a filthy garment. Why? Because the Lord sees all. He sees everything. There's not anything that you or I have ever done that He has not seen. He knows the deepest recesses of your heart. He knows your thoughts. He knows your motives. Every single motive, He knows it. It's God's assessment that matters. We're bad by nature. We're not good by nature. We're bad by nature. So God is very gracious to give us his assessment. From the throne of holiness. He does it again in Romans chapter three, verse 10, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none who seeks after God. There is no one who understands Our spiritual clothes, friends, our wardrobe is spotted, stained and torn by sin. And God will never, never lower His standards. His Word tells us what we deserve. Our sin must be bad to deserve everlasting death. The payment for sin is death. The payment for sin is hell. Conscious torment forever and ever and ever and ever. Somebody tried to put eternity into a picture and they visualized an iron globe as big as the sun. And every billion years, a bird comes by and touches with the softness of his wing that globe, that iron globe. When that globe is gone, eternity is just beginning. Our sin deserves torment. Our sin deserves eternal punishment. We're bad by nature. God is gracious to tell us so. God will not lower his standards. I will. You'll see the weakness in my character. You're my friends. We've been together for quite some time now. But God will never lower His standards. A parable that Jesus gave in Matthew 22 disturbs some people because they think that God is being way too harsh. Remember, a parable is an earthly story to teach us a heavenly meaning. In Matthew 22, Jesus tells a parable of some wedding guests. He tells of a king who is hosting a wedding feast for his son, and he sends his servant out on the highway to invite people to the wedding. Says, go invite people to my son's wedding. We're going to have a feast. We're going to celebrate together. And the people were gathered in and later the king came in to look over the dinner guests. And he saw a man who was not dressed in wedding clothes. And he said to him, friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes? And the man was speechless. And the king told his servants, bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the outer darkness, in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Why would Jesus make such a big deal about the way this man was dressed for the wedding? I actually had a man who was very disturbed by this. He went on tilt when he thought about this. How could God treat a man in this way? Well, what would we do? We would probably say, it's okay. Stay around. At the very most, we would say, leave. Or we might say, you know, I've got some clothes upstairs. It's not the physical clothes that the parable is about. It's about spiritual clothes. It's about the danger of coming to the judgment in the last day, not dressed properly and only wearing the presumed good works of your life. It's coming into the presence of a holy God, thinking that trying to be good, or close good enough, and trying to do your best, and meeting certain made up requirements for what is really good in this life. Looking right. Saying the right thing. Coming to church. Whatever it is, it's coming into God's holy presence like that. It's being baptized and thinking that that baptism is all I need. It's having a really good family. And if I have a really good family, And my children are obedient. And we have devotions. That that will be enough for God to accept me. That's all He'll need. It's coming into God's holy presence, thinking those kinds of things. And many, many others on the last day in the judgment. Matthew chapter 7 presents awful words which many will hear on the last day of the judgment. Those words are similar to what the host of the wedding said to the man who was not dressed properly. They will hear these words. Depart from me. I never knew you. Matthew chapter 7 tells us that there is going to be some that are in utter shock at the judgment. But it also gives us the reasons why they were in utter shock. They were putting their trust in their own works. They were putting their trust and their faith in their life, how they were living their life, thinking that they were achieving God's goodness. They were doing some of the things that we see in our culture today, our church culture, our evangelical culture, broadly speaking. But Lord, I did miracles. I prophesied in your names. I cast out demons. They were deceived and they were doing what they thought was the work of the Lord. But it was all self-exaltation. We have a tendency to exalt ourselves. So anyone who will be in utter shock at the judgment will be in utter shock because they thought that the things that they did in this life would find approval to God. And on that basis, they would be let into the eternal kingdom. And yet, All along they were covered by the filth of sin. Their garments were nothing but filthy. Our only hope is to change our garment. Our only hope is to change our outfit. Our only hope is a Savior who will dress us properly. Are you looking to this Savior? He alone can make things right. There is not one thing that you can do except to acknowledge your sinfulness and embrace His work of redemption by faith. Remember our text. 2 Corinthians 5.21 He, God the Father, made Him Christ. who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." Friends, it's Jesus first. It's Jesus last. Everything is yes in Jesus. There is hope in Jesus. Eternal life is found in Him. He is light. And there is no darkness in Him. His hands are clean. His heart is pure. His soul has not lifted itself up in deceitfulness. He is the only one who has ever lived who has satisfied God's righteous requirements. He's the only one who has kept the law. He's the only true Jew. He is Israel. And something marvelous happened when He was being crucified Theologians call it the grand transfer. And 2 Corinthians 5.17 is teaching it to us. He made Him to be sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Listen to the grand transfer. Our sin was transferred to His account. The sinless Son of God had a ledger. It represented the account of every aspect of His being and every aspect of His life. And it was perfect sinlessness. And on that ledger, our sin, everything that our hands have done, everything that our hearts have sinfully thought, Everything about the deceitfulness of our souls was placed on His ledger. And the grand transfer not only went from our sin to His ledger, but from Him to our ledger. He represented us. He gave us a ledger that was filled with obedience Clean hands. A pure heart. A pure soul. The grand transfer. In His humility on the cross, He became sin for us. There's nothing left to do to gain God's approval. We can't do it. He did it all. Salvation is received through faith alone. Now that's good news. That's good news for the squirming sinner whom the Holy Spirit is speaking to. Turn your eyes upon Jesus and embrace Him by faith alone. He died for your sin, but that's only half your salvation. He credits to your account His obedience and the grand transfer. My sin to Him and His obedience to me. And received through faith alone. That's the good news of the Gospel. Once you see your sin for what it is, and you see Jesus for who He is, you receive Him by faith, there is no turning back, because His salvation and forgiveness is complete. And He embraces us as His children. And we will one day stand before that judgment dressed in His righteousness and in His righteousness alone. Is God not infinitely loving? Is He not the embodiment of grace? We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Now is the day of salvation. Turn to Jesus, God's son. And receive everything that he accomplished and benefit by it now and forevermore.