Our community meditation will be from Isaiah 53, verse 11. Isaiah 53, 11. Let's hear God's word. He shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied. By his knowledge, my righteous servant shall justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this word. We thank you for this passage of your word that speaks so clearly about the work of the Lord Jesus. We thank you for him, for him becoming sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God. And we pray that you would open our eyes to understand your word and these truths today. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. In 1735, there was a young minister named John Wesley. He was sailing across the ocean from England to Georgia to be a missionary. And as he was sailing across the ocean, there was a terrible storm. that struck the ship. Waves were crashing on board the ship and people were crying out in terror. They were afraid for their lives. There was a real danger that the ship would sink and everyone in it would drown. Wesley himself was afraid to die, but there was a group of people on board that ship who were not afraid to die. That group of people were a group of Moravian Christians from Central Europe. And while everyone else was frightened and scared, they remained calm. And as the storm raged, they sang hymns and they prayed. They weren't afraid to die. And the reason that they weren't afraid to die is because they knew that they were justified by faith in Christ and that they had peace with God. Isaiah 53 11 explains what it means to be justified, how Jesus justifies. What is justification? The word justify means to declare someone righteous. It's to declare them not guilty. It's the opposite of being declared guilty or condemned. But the Bible says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. It also says that there is none righteous and no not one. And yet Romans 4 says that God justifies the ungodly. But how is that possible? Because how can God be just and yet declare someone to be righteous when they're a sinner? That's a question that Isaiah 53 11 speaks, tells us about. This happens, this is possible because of a double imputation. Imputation is a big word, but it's a very important word in the Bible. So we'll look at it. We'll look at the two imputations that are at the heart of justification. To impute means to reckon or legally count something, and we see that this word is used in the book of Philemon. The apostle Paul wrote that letter to Philemon, who was a leader in the church, and he wrote, he was writing to Philemon to tell him about, Philemon had an escaped slave named Onesimus, and when, in writing that letter, Paul wrote these words in Philemon. If he has wronged you at all, or owes you anything, impute that to my account. Paul is basically saying Philemon, Onesimus has, if he's stolen from you, if he's wronged you, owed you, owes you anything, impute that, charge that to me. I'll be the one that's responsible for paying for the debt. I'll be legally treated as though I were the one who had stolen and owed the money. And that's what imputation is. It's a legal reckoning or accounting. Can think of it also like a bank account where you can debit or credit money to that account. And so in justification, God is able to justify sinners because of two different imputations. The first imputation is that our sins are imputed to Christ. And Isaiah 53 hints at that when it says, my righteous servant will justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Verse 12 says, he was numbered with the transgressors and he bore the sin of many. So Jesus, our sins were imputed, legally credited to him so that he was treated, he was responsible for them, treated as if he himself had sinned and he paid that penalty that they deserved. He bore the sin of many. Just like Paul was liable for Onesimus' wrongdoing, so Jesus became liable for the wrongdoing of his people. Second Corinthians five says this about this imputation. He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. So our sins are imputed to Christ, but there's, that's the first imputation, but there's also a second imputation. And that's that Christ's righteousness is imputed to sinners. Verse 11 calls Jesus the righteous servant. He is the one, the only one, only human who never sinned and was completely righteous. And it's his righteousness that's imputed imputed to us. First Corinthians 1.30 says, of him you are in Christ Jesus who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Romans 4 explains this imputation and it says this. To him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is imputed for righteousness, just as David also described the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin. This double imputation, this imputation is what makes it possible for a sinner to be justified. Because if you believe in Jesus, God does not impute your own sin to you. Rather, he imputed that sin to Jesus, and Jesus bore that penalty for that sin on the cross, and he imputes Jesus' righteousness to you. You can also think of imputation like an exchange of clothes, where we're sinners that are clothed in filthy garments, And yet in imputation, Jesus took those filthy garments on himself when he bore our sins on the cross. And then he gives us a perfectly clean, spotless robes of his righteousness. And it's clothed in that righteousness that God can look at us and we can be justified, declared not guilty and forgiven of sin. And this is the way that God can be both just and the justifier of the one who believes in Jesus. This justification is not on is not on the basis of our works or anything that we do because our works are always imperfect. They can never be, they're always gonna be like those, they're like those dirty garments. But rather that justification is based on receiving by faith Christ's perfect righteousness. So what difference does all this make? Well, Romans 5 tells us what difference this makes, how it affects us. It says, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Justification by faith alone gives peace and joy and hope. And that is why those Moravians had peace, even though when they were faced with death, they could have drowned. John Wesley, at the time, didn't have that peace. He didn't really understand this part of the gospel. But a few years later, through the influence of the Moravians and through reading the book of Romans and hearing it preached, he came to have this peace as well. And Wesley would go on to translate hymns of the Moravians into English. One of those hymns he translated is called Jesus Thy Blood and Righteousness, and it's all about justification. Jesus thy blood and righteousness, my beauty are, my glorious dress, midst flaming worlds in these arrayed, with joy shall I lift up my head. When from the dust of death I rise to claim my mansion in the skies, even then this shall be all my plea. Jesus has lived, has died for me. Today, are you at peace with God? Are you trusting in your own works? Or are you trusting in what Jesus has done? If you are trusting in his blood and his righteousness, then this table is for you. Come to this table and rejoice in what he has done. Let's pray. Oh Lord, we thank you that you have provided a way for sinners to be justified. We thank you for the two imputations, imputing our sins to Christ and imputing his righteousness to sinners so that we can be justified through faith alone in Christ. Lord, we pray that if there are any here who are seeking to trust in their own works or seeking to wear those filthy rags, that they would turn from that and that they would believe in you and receive Jesus' robes of righteousness in what he has done. We pray that you would help us to come to this table in faith, trusting in your blood and righteousness. So we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.