Let's start out in 1 Thessalonians 5. 1 Thessalonians 5. Perhaps you've been here this week already. 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 18 where Paul says, give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." In everything, give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. This is not a surprising text, I don't think, for anybody. At least for this morning, we have spent the past week preparing for and then taking part in Thanksgiving. as we spend time together. Tuesday night, as has already been said this morning, we had a time of testimony where we gave thanks for various things that God has done in our lives. No doubt, as you made your way through the week, you at least reflected, if not, did some more sharing with others on things that you were thankful for, different ways that God has blessed your life over this past year in particular. And so this is a verse that provides a lot of clarity for us when it comes to God's will. And when I say a lot of clarity, I just mean there are so many times where God's will can seem like a mystery to us. We don't know what is it that God would have me to do? How is it that God would have me to respond? Where is it that God would maybe have me to go? One thing we know for sure, this is God's will that cuts through all the confusion and that cuts through all the uncertainty. God's will for your life There's no doubt there are some things that can be uncertain, but even in the midst of those, God's will for your life is that you would give thanks, that you would give thanks. And so oftentimes, as we think about giving thanks, especially this time of year, we think about a lot of different things. we consider, and it's appropriate that we do this, we consider just the vast material blessings that we have. We live in the most wealthy country the world has ever known. We live in luxury year after year. We have, as we go through our year and we think about Finances, oftentimes, there is a lot of disappointment, a lot of complaining, a lot of reactions and responses that we have to economic states and prices going up and so forth and so on. But when we kind of take a 30,000-foot view, we are the most wealthy, comfortable people that perhaps the world has ever known as a whole. And so sometimes whenever we think about Thanksgiving, we think about those kinds of things, and there's nothing wrong with that. But one of the things I would like for us to do this morning is to think about Thanksgiving in light of the one thing that gives us reason to be thankful in all things. And we did a little bit of that this morning, but we're going to keep going. So I think about 2 Corinthians 9-15 where Paul says, thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift. Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift. You don't have to turn there because that's all I'm saying from 2 Corinthians right now. If we've been given Christ Jesus, we've been given what Paul refers to as this unspeakable gift. I can't even describe how fortunate we are, how blessed we are if we've been given this gift. Also, I think about Galatians 6. You don't have to turn here. You're going to be familiar with it. Galatians 6.14 where Paul says, God forbid that I should glory in anything save the cross of Jesus Christ. He says, God forbid that I would boast in anything over and above this. The cross of Christ. And so what I want to think about with you this morning is really the phrase from 2 Corinthians 9. 15. As you and I come off of a week where we've been reflecting on God's goodness to us and we've been reflecting on being thankful in various capacities, I want us to think about this whole statement of thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift. Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift. Now for that, and you can turn here, for that we're going to be thinking about the cross and particularly out of Mark. So let's go to Mark 15. Mark 15. And I'm going to read. It's going to be a little bit of a lengthy reading. I'm going to read verses 16 through 33. So Mark 15 verses 16 through 33. This is where Christ is being led to the cross, and then we'll make it all the way through His crucifixion. It says in Mark 15-16, And the soldiers led him away unto the hall called Praetorium, and they called together the whole band. And they clothed him with purple, and plaited a crown of thorns, and put it about his head, and began to salute him, Hail, King of the Jews! And they smote him on the head with a reed, and did spit upon him, and bowing their knees, worshipped him. And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple from him, and put his own clothes on him, and led him out to crucify him. And they compelled one Simon, a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross. And they bring him unto the place Golgotha, which is interpreted the place of a skull. They gave Him to drink wine mingled with myrrh, but He received it not. And when they had crucified Him, they parted His garments, casting lots upon them, what every man should take. And it was the third hour, and they crucified Him. And the superscription of His accusation was written over the King of the Jews, And with Him they crucified two thieves, the one on His right hand and the other on His left. And the Scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And He was numbered with the transgressors. And they that passed by railed on Him, wagging their heads and saying, Ah, thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in three days, save thyself and come down from the cross. Likewise also, the chief priest, mocking, said among themselves with the scribes, he saved others, himself he cannot save. Let Christ, the King of Israel, descend now from the cross that we may see and believe. And they that were crucified with Him reviled Him. And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour." I just want to stop there. We have here the account of the crucifixion of Christ. I realize we didn't go all the way through. We have the account. We have some details here that Mark gives us about the events immediately before and during his crucifixion. Whenever we say thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift, what we just got finished reading is what is commonly referred to as the passion of Christ. It's out of Acts 1-3. It just literally means the sufferings of Christ. The sufferings of Christ. We read in the gospel accounts, and as you would go on and read in the epistles, you could go back and read in the Old Testament, and it would all bear witness to this reality. This is the most significant event in human history. When we think about the passion or the sufferings of Christ, As we meditate on these things, we can't help but be thankful. There's really a mixture of thoughts. At one level, we're horrified whenever we recognize and realize what all Christ endured on our behalf. But on the other side, we are made to be thankful. So I want to do two things. I want to kind of describe a little bit of a description of what it was that Christ endured, this unspeakable gift that we've been given. And then I want to give some reasons based on that, that you and I ought to be both perpetually and eternally thankful to God for the gift that He's given us in Christ. So this is something that we say often, but it's just true. If we're not careful, the most important thing, the most significant thing, can become the most mundane thing. We can think about Christ crucified, and we've heard that phrase. Perhaps we've read the accounts, and we can miss what we ought to be seeing. It is a wonderful thing to be able to recognize God's providence in our lives. It's a wonderful thing to be able to recognize God's material blessings in our lives. But aside from the cross of Christ, all of those other things either don't exist at all or are meaningless, vain. So let's think about the context of this passage. Just think about what it was that Christ endured, His passion, His suffering on our behalf. So, we know by the time we get to verse 16 in Mark 15, we know that Christ was physically exhausted. Before we get past verse 16, verse 15 says, Pilate, willing to content the people when they said, release Barabbas, he delivered Jesus when he had scourged Him to be crucified. So, Jesus had been up all night leading up to this part of the gospel. They had arrested Him in Gethsemane. They took Him in to this mock trial. As they did this, they beat Him, they abused Him. They just kind of had fun with Him. It was a band of soldiers, Roman military men. They had fun as they abused Christ throughout the night. We just read that He was scourged. Most of you know what that means. It's just another way of referring to the fact that He was severely beaten. Most of the time when someone was scourged, they would begin by beating them with a club or a stick of some sort, some kind of a blunt object. The recipient of the scourging would have their hands tied to some sort of a post, something that would keep them from being able to get away and move. And multiple soldiers would take turns, blow after blow after blow after blow. After a little bit, they would replace those sticks or blunt objects with what we typically think about when we think about a scourge. It would be a whip. It would be a leather whip that had, a lot of times they talk about a cat of nine tails. Perhaps it was nine. I don't know that it was as sophisticated as always being the same. but there would be a lot of different strands on this whip. There would be chunks of bone, stone, glass, sharp objects that were meant to inflict excruciating pain and tear the flesh from the body of the individual who was being whipped. And so he had been scourged By the time Jesus makes it to verse 15, and really to verse 16, after the scourging had taken place, His body would have been going in and out of shock. He would have been having muscle spasms that caused Him to shake, convulse involuntarily, Part of the reason for this scourging was to make death faster when it came to crucifixion. Crucifixion was a slow, torturous way to die. So one of the things that they would do to, number one, inflict much more pain, and number two, make death come about more quickly, is that they would scourge the victim. So Jesus had been beaten. Probably most of at least large chunks of flesh had been ripped from his back. And then we read that. Verse 17, they clothed him with purple. This fabric that they placed over him over a back that had just been torn to pieces. And then they took that off of Him and they put another garment on Him. You can imagine the pain there. As Jesus is taken further, He's mocked. He's beaten some more. He's given a crown of thorns. These thorns would have probably been around two inches long. And they press those things into His head. After this, Christ was forced to carry a cross or at least a rough horizontal beam of a cross on His scourged back until He just couldn't do it anymore. And you can imagine, you have your back laid open with a whip, and then you have a rough cut heavy piece of lumber that you're called to carry. We know that at some point he couldn't carry it any longer. That's why they got Simon to carry it the rest of the way for him. Once he got to the place that he would be crucified, they would take his hands or his wrists and his feet and they would drive nails through His limbs to attach Him to the cross. While He hung there, He would continue to be mocked. He would continue to be made fun of. And then finally, the Father forsakes Him and He endures the wrath of God for every sin that every one of His people had or would ever commit. I don't know what you typically think about when you think about the cross, but just in some sort of a chronological, semi-detailed list, this is what it is. It's a man who has been beaten and shredded to the point that he can't control his body And then he's strapped to a piece of wood that he must carry until he collapses, and then he's nailed to the cross. And he's lifted up to die a slow, slow death, naturally speaking. We know that Christ dies fairly quickly as it relates to the normal timeline. We said this is the most significant event in human history, one of the things that we see at the cross, you say, well, this is kind of. Kind of brutal stuff to think about. Well, one of the things that we ought to be thankful for, one of the things that should make us thankful is that when we look to the cross, we see that God himself turns the tables on the sacrificial system. OK, for years, thousands of years, People had been sacrificing their prized possessions to Him. And at the cross, He brings His most prized possession to the altar. And He sacrifices His Son on our behalf. Now, I know that you know this, but I don't think we can emphasize this enough. Outside of this one sacrifice, We're hopeless. We're hopeless. There is no reason for joy. There's no reason to expect anything good. This is a suffering unlike any suffering. that you and I would know anything about. And it's not because no one has experienced the kind of physical suffering that Christ experienced. He experienced excruciating physical suffering. As we go through that and we try to describe that and think about that, it's more than we can really get our minds wrapped around. It's hard to think about it without cringing at the thought. But as bad as all that is, it is a drop in the bucket compared to what it meant for the Son of God to endure the full wrath of the Father as He turned His back on His Son and Christ absorbed the payment that you and I should have paid. Absorbed the punishment that you and I should have endured. Now here's another reality. The sufferings that Christ endured, you know this, but it's worth being reminded. These were voluntarily endured to deliver us from the wrath of God. We said this last week, but we ought to say it again just to make sure you remember. Christ is not the victim on the cross. He's the victor. We see what happens here and we see what He endures. But if the only thing we can think about is poor Jesus, we miss the point entirely. Jesus went to the cross willingly. Jesus went to the cross as one who would conquer death and the grave. Jesus went to the cross as one who would secure the salvation of His people. And so as we see Christ on the cross, we think about passages like John 10, where we see this is a voluntary thing. John 10, in verse 17, Jesus says, "'Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I laid down My life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of My Father.'" Jesus makes it clear. I've received this commandment from My Father. Again, as we think about everything that's taking place here, this is something that was orchestrated. This was something that Christ realized that He came into the world to do. And this is something that while Acts 3 makes very, very clear that these men by wicked hands took the Son of God and killed Him, It also makes it very, very clear that this was ordained by God, that this was the unfolding of the determinant counsel of God as Christ hangs there and as Christ becomes the victor over sin and death. So as we think about this, and as we think about Christ's voluntary atoning word, we should stand in amazement that the God of heaven and earth would send His only Son to die for us, to stand in our place, and to endure the wrath of God on our behalf. " You see, again, as we think about gratitude, as we think about thanksgiving, things that ought to stir our hearts to give thanks to God, we'll probably, I think, look at this in a second, but 1 John 3, hold what manner of love? Or John 3.16, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Or Romans 5. Romans 5. Verse 6, For when we were yet without strength, In due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth His love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him, For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life, and not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement." See how this goes. He starts out by talking about the fact that when we were without strength, when we were sinners, Christ died for us. And then when it ends, at least where we ended in verse 11, since we have been saved, since we have received this blessing, we also joy in God. through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received the atonement." Well, you know, we've talked a lot in the Psalms about different synonyms for thanksgiving. Rejoicing, praising, blessing. extolling, magnifying, all these are not exactly the same words, but they are in the same ballpark. They are synonymous in the sense that they're just slightly different aspects of the same thing. And so as we think about our joy, as we think about our gratitude, Brothers and sisters, if you have been made a partaker of the atonement of Jesus Christ, you have everything you need to be eternally grateful to God. So as we consider that, What I would like to do is give seven reasons why the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ is the basis for perpetual and eternal thanksgivings for every believer. So that if you had nothing but this, you have reason to be perpetually ongoing. It doesn't stop. and eternally thankful for what you have received in Christ. Number one. All this again is based on the cross. The substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ. is the basis by which the Holy Spirit reveals Christ to his people. The substitutionary atonement is the basis. By which the Holy Spirit reveals Christ to his people. Now think about that. As it relates to you can turn here if you like, but I'm going to be flipping to several places. Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53. In verse 1. Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? Who's believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? You see, the reality is God must reveal Himself. You can't just know Him on your own. And unless God reveals Himself, brothers and sisters, we are left in darkness. And God has to have a reason for revealing Himself to us. And the basis of God's revelation, that is, God giving us eyes to see and ears to hear, is the atoning work of Jesus Christ. What is it that God reveals about Himself He reveals His holiness. He reveals our inability. And then He reveals the righteousness of Christ for us and in us by faith. Let me ask you something. Has God revealed His holiness to you? Has God revealed your inability to you? That is, the reality that in light of God's holiness, you cannot stand. There is no way for you to have peace with God because God is not like us. He is completely separate. And then has God revealed to you that the only hope that you have for any kind of standing with Him is through the atoning work of His Son, Jesus Christ. "If you know that, you didn't just come up with that. And if you know that, it's not because you're smarter than other people. If you know that, it's because the arm of the Lord has been revealed to you, and you ought to give thanks for it. Jesus tells Peter, In Matthew 16, whenever He says, who do men say that I am? Who do you say that I am? Peter says, you're the Christ, you're the Son of the living God. And you remember Jesus' response, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, Peter, but my Father who is in heaven. Again, Peter didn't just come up with this. No one revealed it except for God Himself. or 1 Corinthians 2. This is perhaps the most common passage we go to when we think about this reality. 1 Corinthians 2, 12 through 14. Now, we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God, which things we also speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. but the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." Again, this is just another way of saying that God must reveal Himself to us. How does He do that? He gives us His Spirit. And the Spirit of God that comes from God speaks the things of God and He gives us eyes to see and ears to hear and the ability to discern spiritual realities. What I mean by that, discerning spiritual realities, you want to know why the cross of Christ is not foolishness to you? Because you've been given the ability to discern spiritual things. That's why. We could preach about the sinfulness of sin and we could preach about your desperate condition And the world thinks that's silly. And you used to think it was silly. But based on the atoning work of Jesus Christ, Christ said, I'm going to send the Comforter and He's going to testify of Me. He's going to lead you into all truth. Brothers and sisters, it has been revealed to you what Christ has done. And this is a basis for thanksgiving. Number two, we think about the substitutionary atonement and how this is a basis for being eternally thankful. Christ allowed Himself to be sentenced unjustly and given over into the hands of wicked men so that we would be set free from every charge on the day of judgment and be presented faultless before God with exceeding joy." So that's a long way of just saying Christ allowed Himself to be sentenced unjustly so that you could stand just before the Father. Think about it. You know yourself. You know all the secret sins that nobody else knows about you. And you also know that one day. Every man, woman and child will stand before the living God completely exposed, nothing hidden. and because of the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ, as you stand before God completely exposed, the verdict will be not guilty. There will not be a single blemish to be pointed out. Look in Jeremiah 31. Jeremiah 31. In verse 33, He says, "'But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." This is that reality that we have to come back to again and again and again and again when it comes to our justification, and that is, brothers and sisters, your standing before God has absolutely nothing to do with you and everything to do with Christ. As you stand before Him, you do not stand before Him in your own works, in your own sanctification. You do not stand before Him in your own righteousness. You stand before God clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And when He looks at you, He remembers your sin no more. It doesn't mean that He's forgotten all about it. It means it's been dealt with. There's nothing left to charge. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21, He who knew no sin became sin for us, so that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Brothers and sisters, do you know that this morning, if you are looking to the atoning work of Jesus Christ as your only hope, then you stand before God right now, spotless. There's not a sin that could be drummed up. It comes back to the old phrase we used to use it a good bit. If you stand in the righteousness of Christ today, you can rest assured God is not mad at you because of your sin. God is not holding your sin against you. God is not punishing you because of some sin. God has placed all of that on His Son, Jesus Christ, and you have been set free from the penalty of sin. And brothers and sisters, if that's the case, we have reason to give thanks. Number three. We read the passage there in Mark, and I'm not going to go back and read it, but whenever we read all the events that took place. Jesus was insulted and he was made a laughingstock by the Roman soldiers so that we would receive glory, honor and eternal life through the atonement of Christ. Think of it. Jesus being mocked, being made fun of, even up until really right before He dies, right before He lays down His life, so that you and I might receive glory. Look in 1 John 3. 1 John 3. In 1 John 3, the first two verses, Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. You see, this indescribable glory awaits every blood-bought child of God. He says we know that whenever He appears, we shall be like Him. But we don't know exactly what that means, John says. I don't know how to describe it. I don't know that there's words in the human language on this side of the Second Coming to be able to explain what it is that we will be John says there's an indescribable glory that awaits God's people. And that indescribable glory is directly tied to the humiliation, the death, and the atoning work of Jesus Christ. Romans 8 says it this way, Romans 8, verse 18, for I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Now, notice what he doesn't say. He doesn't say that the sufferings of this present world are not worthy to be compared to the glory that will be revealed to us. It's the glory that's going to be revealed in us. You realize that if you are one of God's new creations in Christ, you're a glorious word. It does not yet appear what you shall be, but it will one day. And all of this because Christ was willing to humble himself, take upon himself the form of a servant and die the death of the cross. So Jesus was insulted, made a laughing stock that we might receive glory. Number four, this is close to what we said earlier. Jesus was stripped of His garments and crucified naked before His enemies so that we would not stand in shame or naked before God, but be clothed in the perfect righteousness of Christ. Isaiah 61. Isaiah 61. In verse 10, it says, "...I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God, for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation. He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels." He said, I'm going to rejoice in this reality that the Lord has given me. He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, with a robe of righteousness. Again, as we think about this whole business of our standing before God, This is something that we have received from Him. It's nothing that we've mustered up in and of ourselves. It's nothing that we have done in and of ourselves. It's something that has been given to us. You think about the imagery there. God has clothed you, covered you with something. And that is the garments of righteousness. Did you know that in Christ, as you stand before God, even today, you couldn't be any more righteous than you are right now in Him. Now, there's a practical standpoint by which we're growing in sanctification, progressive sanctification, as the Holy Spirit is transforming us and making us more and more like Christ. But as it stands before God, it doesn't matter, practically speaking, how much you grow in progressive sanctification, your righteousness before Him doesn't get any better than what it is right now. You are as righteous as you will ever be because positionally you've been given the righteousness of Christ and clothed with His righteousness. It's the same thing that Revelation talks about I'm not going to turn there, but in Revelation 19, 7-8, when it talks about the bride of Christ who is clothed in the righteousness of Christ. Brothers and sisters, any day of the week, any month of the year, as we think about the atoning work of Christ and the fact that we've been clothed in His righteousness, it ought to stir a thankful heart. There may be plenty of things in this world that we don't have. There may be plenty of things in our lives that we wish we had. But if you have been given the righteousness of Christ, you have all that you will ever eternally need. Number five. Christ died the shameful and humiliating death of crucifixion, which was reserved for the worst of criminals. Christ endured this so that we who were born under the curse of sin and were children of wrath by nature would be counted blessed for Christ's sake. Christ died the shameful, humiliating death that you and I should have died. Look in Galatians 3. Galatians 3. In verse 13, it says, "...Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree, that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." So Christ who hangs on a tree hangs as a cursed criminal so that you and I might receive the blessings of Abraham. There's twofold. In some ways, saying the same thing in different ways. The first aspect of this is Christ became sin for us and absorbed the curse that should have fallen on us. And the flip side of the coin is that because of that, no longer are we seen as children of wrath. but we are children of God who have received all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Because of His willingness to die a shameful, humiliating death, we become blessed, blessed among all men. Number six, as the people mock Jesus as He's dying, They label him an imposter who is unable to save himself as he hangs there in that condition. In our last hours, because of what Christ has done for us, we have been given a strong consolation so that we might have a strong assurance knowing who we've believed. and who is walking with us as we go through the valley of the shadow of death. You know, we have this promise in Scripture that we will never be left or forsaken by God. And that didn't just happen. That was purchased for us. That was secured for us. And because of that, brothers and sisters, in life and in death, according to 2 Thessalonians 2, 16-17, we have been given a strong consolation in Christ. That is, we've been given access to mighty, strong comfort in what He has done for us. There's another mention of this consolation in Hebrews 6. You can turn there. Hebrews 6-17. It says, "...wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath." that by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope that is set before us." So, two things that he says. Two immutable things. That is, two unchanging things that we've been given in Christ that give us a strong consolation. That is a strong comfort. Number one, these immutable things that are mentioned, number one is His immutable counsel. His immutable counsel, you see that in verse 17. The immutability of His counsel, that is His purpose or His will. God's purposes never change. God's will never changes. And the purposes that God had in Christ before the foundation of the world stand sure and steady. And because of that, you can have a strong comfort. You can face death with hope. You can face life with hope. And then number two, the immutability or the unchanging nature of His oath, His covenant. The covenant that He made with Himself before the world began. The covenant of salvation whereby God loved a people and He chose a people and He predestined a people and He atoned for a people and He sanctified a people and He glorified a people. This doesn't change. And because of that, brothers and sisters, we can have a strong consolation in Christ. And then number seven, our last one. Jesus, who had enjoyed fellowship with God the Father from all eternity on the cross, was forsaken by Him so that we who by nature have always been God's enemies would be reconciled back to Him, restoring the fellowship that was lost in the garden. So the Father, as we just mentioned, The Father turns His back on the Son so that you and I might be reconciled back to Him forever. Think about that in relation to Romans 8. We go here fairly often. Romans 8. Verse 35. from the love of Christ. Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I'm persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." As you look at the cross, you see the basis of your fellowship with God. What is it that could separate us from the love of God? Paul covers all the bases, doesn't he? Nothing. Why? Because if God was willing to give His own Son, what in the world would He withhold from His people? And the answer is nothing. God's fellowship has been completely restored. It is eternally secure so that as you and I walk through life and as we make our way through death on into glory, We do that with confidence that we will never, ever, ever have to question the security of our fellowship and our relationship with God the Father. And so, thanks be to God for this unspeakable gift that you and I have been given through the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, we do thank You for the cross. We do thank You, Lord, for all that it means. We've only really scratched the surface this morning. There's so many things we could say. And yet, Father, we have to confess that these things so often can just be normal to us. They can just be mundane. We can think about them without being moved. We can think about them without our hearts being stirred to thankfulness and to joy. And so, Father, we pray that you would open our eyes, that we may see these things as we ought. And we pray that as we think about in this season of the year, naturally speaking, the things that we are thankful for, that the cross of Christ would be front and center and that we would be made to rejoice in these things in Jesus name. Amen.