If you'd like to turn to Matthew 27. Father, we come to your word this morning to read astounding words. And I ask that as we do that, that you would help us to understand the significance of those words to us. Grant us ears to hear and eyes that see and hearts that believe what you have said. And we submit ourselves to your word because it is yours. And we thank you for it in Jesus' name, amen. In a profound act of divine intervention, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God to be a substitute for sinners whom God had chosen before creation. Our sinful acts of sin and rebellion, deserving only eternal condemnation, were met with unparalleled mercy. That's the gospel. The details matter, but that's the gospel. In the death of Jesus on the cross, a profound exchange took place. In a very brief moment of time, three hours or so, Jesus took the eternal condemnation reserved for his elect, and I'm sorry, the father took the eternal condemnation reserved for his elect and poured it out on his son, holy and beloved. And he took the eternal love and favor reserved for his son and poured it out on his elect, who were unworthy and undeserving and guilty. Zooming in a little bit more, first about the wrath of God, God's wrath of God against elect sinners was poured out upon Jesus on the cross. Jesus was a man, holy and righteous, but he was also God in human flesh, Yahweh in human flesh. He could die and he did die for our sins, and because he's God in human flesh, he was able to bear God's eternal condemnation without being destroyed. And when Jesus cried out at the end, John says in John 19, it is finished, he meant that his work of atonement had been perfectly and completely accomplished. It was done. God's eternal wrath against the elect had been satisfied. Now, God's wrath was never sporadic or intermittent. It was constant and unchanging. One of David's Psalms says, God is a righteous God who is angry with the wicked every day. He has anger, he is indignant every day. Those who are condemned to hell will eternally suffer God's wrath and it will not change, it will not diminish. But the wrath that was poured against the elect, he poured out on his son. Every charge against the elect was laid upon Jesus. Every crime, every sin, Every single last accusation that could be made against his elect was poured out upon Jesus on his cross. Nothing was left unresolved. Nothing. And so I can say this to you, if your faith is in Jesus Christ, then if we said that your sins were written in a book, and they were, if we said that your sins were written in a book with precision, line by line, then not only was every sin on every line cast on Jesus and answered and satisfied in him, the book itself was destroyed. Colossians 3 says that he nailed the certificate of debt to the tree. It wasn't just what it said. but the certificate itself was nailed, which means God has taken away your sins and he has destroyed his means of recording anymore. Putting it in human terms. He satisfied your debt and then he closed your account. And nothing was held back. He didn't reserve a handful of sins just in case he changed his mind later. And at the same time, now to speak of his eternal love and favor, his eternal love and favor toward Jesus, his son, were poured out on elect sinners. And it was poured out in the same measure as his wrath. It was poured out in fullness. without change. All the love and favor God the Father had toward his son has been poured out on you. All of it. The Father took the righteousness of his son and credited it to you as though you had lived his life. Every blessed deed, every godly prayer, every act of generosity, every good thing, all of it was credited to you as though you had lived that life. And just as the wrath of God is never sporadic or intermittent, God's love and favor toward his son was never sporadic or intermittent. It was constant. It was unchanging. It's eternal. We know the idea of eternal life. Even people who are not Christians know the idea of eternal life. They know that we talk about eternal life. But have you ever considered, I really hadn't, have you ever considered the fact that eternal life means eternal love and eternal favor? That's why it's life. It's not just existence in some kind of neutral sense. It's existence within the love and favor of God. So as Jesus died on the cross, the father turned and poured out that love and favor he had for his son on his people. He didn't decide to love them for a moment, he loved them eternally. He didn't decide to favor them once, he favored them for eternity. If we said that Jesus' righteous deeds were written in a book, and I know you would say it's the gospels, but John says if the world could not hold the books, and he's speaking with a little bit of exaggeration there because Jesus had a finite life on earth, but if everything was written about Jesus, then God took that book, he duplicated it, and he wrote your name on the cover as though you had lived that life. We know that there is no escaping hell. Those sentenced there, those condemned to eternal judgment will never escape. That's why it's eternal judgment. By the same token, there is no escaping life. There is no escaping eternal life. There is no escaping the favor of God. To be granted eternal life means to be granted eternal favor and eternal love. It cannot be lost. It cannot be diminished. That's why it's eternal. And this is why the elect are certain to be saved. God poured out the fullness of his wrath on his son against his people. And then he poured out, in that same moment of time, the fullness of his favor and love on his people. I'd never really considered that before. I'd never really considered that before. When did God pour out his wrath? Well, when Jesus was on the cross. When did he pour out his love and his favor? Well, he gives it to us in dribs and drabs as we go. No, no, it was all in a single exchange, a single imputation of our sin to Christ and of his righteousness to us and everything that that means. And that brings us to our passage today. It's somewhat of a lengthy passage for me. See what God did for us in Jesus didn't happen in a vacuum. It didn't happen on paper. It happened in history. There was a place. It happened at a certain time of day. There was weather that day, whatever it was, we don't know. There were people, there were men who took Jesus and abused him and mocked him and crucified him. It happened in history. And so this imputation of our sins to Jesus and the imputation of his righteousness to us and the love and favor that comes with it is not simply a judicial decision God has made. It is a historical act that was carried out at a time and at a place. It's not theoretical. It's not hypothetical. God may as well have carved his favor and love for us into the very granite of existence. And if I haven't given you enough to ponder already, think about this. His grace and love for you will survive the very universe. All the elements will burn with the fervent heat, but nothing will diminish his love and grace toward his people. The sermon title this morning comes from Isaiah 53, which Adam read, Jesus was despised and forsaken of men. And we see this prophetic word, all of Isaiah 53 is prophetic. It's all fulfilled there in Jesus. We see it worked out in our passage. Starting then at verse 27, when the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the praetorium, they gathered the whole Roman cohort around him. That could have been as many as 600 men or so. And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him. And after twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and a reed in his right hand. And they knelt down before him and mocked him, saying, hail, king of the Jews. And they spat on him and took the reed and began to beat him on the head. When they had mocked him, they took the scarlet robe off him and put his own garments back on him and led him away to crucify him. And as they were coming out, they found a mount of Cyrene named Simon, whom they pressed into service to bear his cross. When they came to a place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull, they gave him wine to drink mixed with gull. And after tasting it, he did not want to drink. And when they had crucified him, they divided up his garments among themselves by casting lots. And sitting down, they began to keep watch over him there. And above his head, they put up the charge against him, which read, this is Jesus, the King of the Jews." So we begin with Jesus being despised and forsaken by the Romans. Every last act conveyed contempt toward him and mockery. They mocked his claim to be the king of Israel. They mocked his dignity. They treated him as a nothing, as a cipher, as someone who deserved nothing good, but only the worst of everything. He didn't deserve any consideration at all. They didn't force Simon of Cyrene to carry his cross out of pity, but out of necessity. Jesus had been awake for 24 hours or more. The last we read of him eating or drinking was at least 12 hours before. He has been beaten by the Jews with their fists. He was scourged. He was beaten by the Romans and suffered other indignities from them. He simply doesn't have the strength to carry it, and the Romans aren't about to. So they grabbed a man named Simon, a Jewish pilgrim from Cyrene, which is North Africa. It's northern Libya, to carry it for him. By the way, another of the gospels named Simon's sons, Alexander and Rufus, as though the readers of the gospel would know who they were. So evidently they became Christians. Before they crucified Jesus, they tried to give him wine mixed with gall, which would have worked as a sedative, but he refused it. He refused to drink it. They didn't do this out of any pity. They did this because they wanted him a little bit compliant, a little subdued. They're trying to medicate him enough that when it came to actually stretch him out and nail him, he wouldn't resist. Burning with thirst. Desperate. He refused the sedative. He refused anything that would have relieved his suffering for your sake the tiniest bit. He took it as it was. There is no relief in hell. And Jesus refused any relief as he died for us. They stripped him naked, as they did any time they crucified someone. They crucified him and had so little respect for him that they divided up his clothes to sell, probably. They had no use for them. But they could go down to the market later that day, perhaps, and sell his robe and his garments for a few pennies. And they occupied themselves by gambling at the foot of the cross. Another gospel says they're there for the duration, not to protect him, but to make sure nobody rescues him. And as a last indignity, they put a sign above his head that says, this is Jesus, king of the Jews. They're amused by the idea that a royal figure, a king, could be stripped naked and made an object of shame and suffering. Jesus was also despised and forsaken by the Jews. Verse 38 says, at the same time, two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left, and those passing by were blaspheming him, shaking their heads and saying, you who are going to destroy the sanctuary and rebuild it in three days, save yourself. If you're the son of God, come down from the cross. In the same way, the chief priests also, along with the scribes and elders, were mocking him and saying, he saved others, he cannot save himself. He is the king of Israel, let him now come down from the cross and we will believe in him. He trusts in God, let God rescue him now, if he delights in him, for he said, I am the son of God. And the robbers who had been crucified with him were also insulting him with the same words. So the contempt continues. Jesus is crucified between two robbers, two violent murderous men like Barabbas. It's the same word used to describe Barabbas. They're probably partners with Barabbas in his crimes. They didn't crucify him a respectful distance away. They crucified him next to a busy road in between two thieves as though he is the boss. Those passing by blasphemed him, people who just came by to see for themselves what was happening. And there's a wonderful irony here. They called his attention back to the start of his ministry. He'd cleared the temple. The Jews said, what's your authority for doing this? He says in John chapter two, verses 19 to 21, Jesus answered them, destroy the sanctuary. And in three days, I'll raise it up. The Jews said it took 46 years to build this sanctuary, and in three days will you raise it up? But he was speaking about the sanctuary of his body. They're mocking him for saying that, but the third day has not yet come. They're still in the process of destroying the sanctuary of his body. The chief priests and scribes and the elders weren't passing by. They were there for the duration, perhaps. And they treat him as a mortal enemy. They take a sick, depraved delight in his suffering and death. They said he saved others. He can't save himself. He didn't want to save himself. He didn't come to save himself. He came to lay down his life as a ransom for others. They said, he's the king of Israel. Let him come down now from the cross and we will believe in him. They wouldn't have believed in him. He could have come down. With just a thought, with just the will to do so, Jesus could have simply stepped down. They wouldn't have knelt. They wouldn't have sung his praises. They would have howled with rage and called on the Romans to run him through where he stood. He trusts in God, they said, let God rescue him. If he delights in him, he said, he's the son of God. Well, Jesus did trust in God. That's why he's on the cross. The father didn't say to Jesus, I have a plan. I'm gonna send you down. You're gonna become a man. You're gonna live a holy, pure, sinless life. And then I am going to arrange for you to be crucified. And then after you die, we'll figure something out. He knew exactly what was happening. He did trust in the father. And the father did delight in him, partly because he was dying on the cross. John 10, 17, Jesus says, for this reason, the father loves me because I lay down my life. It was beyond their comprehension that what Jesus was doing on the cross was delightful to the father. that it was an act of obedience and faith on Jesus' part, and then it was done for the sake of love. They simply could not comprehend that. They wouldn't have believed it if one of the gospel writers had shown up, if Paul had gone back 20 years in time and told them while it was happening, this is what he's doing, they never would have believed it. Most astoundingly to me, even the robbers who were crucified with him are mocking him. Crucifixion is one of the most agonizing ways somebody can die. It's brutal. It takes a long time. They're suffering the very same physical torments that Jesus is suffering. They're fighting for every breath. They're groaning with every move because of their pierced flesh. They're blinded with pain, but they find the strength to hurl insults at him. I've told the story before about my best friend in high school, Mike. After we graduated over a year or two, we just kind of drifted. I got married and we moved apart. I tried to find him a number of times, and finally in 2010, after Sarah and Elliot got married, I found him. He was living in the D.C. area, and we had a planned trip, a trip planned, Linda and I and Kevin and Grace, to go to D.C. for a week or two. So when we were there, he and I got together for a day. He looked pretty rough. He'd had kidney cancer, and he was recovering from that. But we caught up, and it was just kind of cool to be with each other. We both kind of were like we were in high school, just 30 years down the road. The next year, I had a long motorcycle trip, and circumstances took me back through the area. And so I called him kind of at the last minute. And he was living with his sister. The cancer had come back. And so I went to see him. And he was just yellow. There was a point that evening when he fell and I caught him and just held him up. And I'm getting ready to share the gospel with him and his sister and her daughter come in and a friend come in for dinner and there just wasn't time. So I thought, well, on the return trip, I was heading to Boston to pick Linda up. On the return trip, we'll stop. And about the day she landed in Boston, a heat wave hit. the whole East Coast and South, and every place from New York South was at 100 degrees. And if you've ever ridden a motorcycle, 90 degrees is lovely, 100 degrees is like riding in an air fryer. So we came back a different way. A few weeks later I got a call saying that he'd gone in the hospital the day after I was there and he was terminal. And so the next day I got on a plane and I was out there for four or five days. And I texted Linda the second to the last day and said, I'm heading in to share Christ with him. Please pray. He's in terrible pain. He's on all kinds of meds. He hasn't been out of his bed for anything for weeks. And as soon as I started, he said, do you still believe all that? And I said, I do. I believe it with all my heart. And he found the strength to go on the attack. And I started trying to change the subject. It was just obvious this is not happening. And finally, after about 30 minutes, he wore himself out. Now, the blessing and God's sense of humor. His nurse came in, and she said, are you family? And I said, no, friend from high school. And she knew that he was from California, and she said, oh, from California? And I said, yeah, but now I live in Nebraska. Oh, what do you do in Nebraska? I'm a pastor. And she said, oh, I go to Mark Dever's church. Well, Mark Dever is just a great guy in Capitol Hill Baptist Church. And she gave me her testimony over the bed, and then I gave her my testimony over the bed. So Mike got to hear the gospel anyway twice. And he passed away a few weeks later, a couple weeks later. These men are dying and they found the strength to mock. Matthew doesn't tell us the whole story. I think Matthew's focus is on showing Jesus complete and utter isolation. But Luke tells us more about these men. He says, one of the criminals hanging there was blaspheming him, saying, are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us. But the other answered. So this is after the initial mockery, I think. The other answered in rebuking him said, do you not even fear God, seeing that you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for what we have done. But this man has done nothing wrong. And he was saying, which means he didn't say it once, he was saying repeatedly, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Jesus, remember me. Jesus, don't forget about me. My mom did that. the last hours as she prayed, she just cried out to the Lord Jesus for hours. And he said to him, truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. No baptism, no confirmation, no catechism, no every eye closed, every head bowed, no walking the aisle, no slipping the hand up and down, It's literally Romans 10 illustrated. All who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. He was despised by the Romans. He was despised by the Jews. And the truth is he was despised and forsaken by Yahweh. He was despised and forsaken by his father. Now from the sixth hour, darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, that is my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? from Psalm 22 one. And some of those who were standing there when they heard it began saying, this man is calling for Elijah. And immediately one of them ran and taking a sponge, he filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed and gave it to him, gave him a drink. But the rest of them were saying, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him. This last week, there was a solar eclipse. If you're right in the middle of that eclipse track, as it came across the southwestern United States up toward Newfoundland, if you're right in the middle, depending on where you were, you would get about three and a half minutes of pretty much complete darkness. This is three hours. This is not a solar eclipse. This is not a natural phenomenon. No explanation is given for how the darkness fell. I think creation itself, it's shutting its eyes to the father turning his back on his son. and forsaking his son under the burden of our sin. His father treated him as we had been treated. We just don't comprehend that. But we were also forsaken and despised. When Jesus died on the cross, he died in the place of sinners. It's the grand exchange, this double imputation. God made him who knew no sin, Jesus, to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Now, Jesus didn't become sinful. He became the emblem of sin. His nature never changed. But he took the guilt on his shoulders. Every sin on him was laid. The wrath of God against sinners was poured on the sinless one. And during that time of suffering, the father forsook the son. Not the father Yahweh forsook the son Yahweh. God can't be divided. It's Jesus in his humanity who is utterly cut off. Don't think to yourself, well it was only three hours. He suffered in those three hours the eternal wrath of God, the fullness of God's wrath that would take us an eternity to satisfy. He had to be a man to die in the place of human beings and he had to be God to endure it. And then the atonement was complete. Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. Now, Matthew doesn't record his words, but Luke and John do. So in Luke, Jesus crying out with a loud voice said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. Having said this, he breathed his last. John writes, therefore, when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, it is finished, and bowing his head, he gave up his spirit. I think John chronologically comes first. They gave him the sour wine. He said, now it's finished. Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. These aren't contradictions. The gospel writers don't claim to record everything. They simply recorded what they recorded. But there are three things to see. First, notice the change in address. Jesus first says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But then with the cry, it is finished, comes the restoration. And now Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit. Second, The three words John gives, it is finished, is just one work in Greek, tetelestai, it's in the perfect tense, which means that Jesus' atoning work was completely accomplished with eternal ramifications. He won't be sacrificed over and over and over and over again. What he did was perfect. and the effect of it lasts for all eternity. So Jesus didn't say, Father, I did all that I could, and boy, I sure hope it's enough. And he didn't say, well, I did my part, now it's up to sinners to get their part right. He did it all. The atonement was finished. And finally, I want you to notice that Jesus gave up his spirit. He yielded up his spirit. He's God and man. As a man, he could die, and he did die. And as God, he could maintain his human life throughout the entire atonement so that it didn't end abruptly. But he could also yielded up his life when he was ready. No power in the universe could end his life until he was ready. And no power in the universe could extend his life when he yielded it up. We've covered a vast amount of ground. in a short time. This could have been 10 weeks, but it's not. So I just want to emphasize one point for you. God made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. 2 Corinthians 5.21. Our sin was imputed to Christ, and he suffered God's wrath as though he had lived our lives. His righteousness was imputed to us, and we received God's favor as though we had lived Jesus' life. I learn every single time I study. Every single time. And I had a realization this week that I've never had before. I've known my whole Christian life that the wrath of God was poured out on Jesus, that he died, that he said it was finished. I've known all of that. I can't remember as a Christian when, oh, that's how that worked. But I was never sure about the favor side. I was never sure about the blessing side. Jesus suffered under the burden of my sins at a point in history 2,000 years ago. God's favor is just being dribbled out to me. as I go, and I realized that at the same moment God was pouring out his wrath on his son, he was pouring out his love and favor on me. Even though it would be 2,000 years before history brought me into the picture. And it became effective in my life by the power of his spirit. And because of that, it couldn't not become effective. Peter said, you are bought with a price. When? When Jesus died. You're paid for. Your sins are done. God's wrath was satisfied. He will never be wrathful with you again, ever. He didn't keep back a couple of sins just in case. And God's love and favor has been poured out upon you. He can't love you more. He can't show you more favor. He will never view you again with anything but love and favor if your faith is in him. And some of you who are like me, you're thinking, but I still sin. And that's true, so do I, so does every Christian. If I can just be blunt, you know me how much I hate to be blunt. If I can just be blunt, you need to get over yourself. Your sins are not so special that Jesus couldn't take them. You're just not that evil. Totally depraved, but not so evil that Jesus couldn't die for you. Your sin is not so great that Jesus was not able to bear it on the cross, or that the Father couldn't forgive it when Jesus died. Your weakness and your lack of sanctification are not so great that the love and grace of the Father, the mercy and favor of the Father that have been fully poured out upon you are all diminished by your lack of sanctification. In fact, you are where you are today in Christ because God poured out his love and favor on you 2,000 years ago. There's only two things that keep us from experiencing and delighting in the love of God. The first is bad teaching. The whole history of bad Christian teaching is that there's something left for you to do, there's something God is waiting for you to do, and he's maintaining kind of a cautious cynicism about who you are. It's just not true. all sorts of different religious points of views, all which fall into either Synergism or Arminianism or Roman Catholicism, perhaps, or Eastern Orthodox, some Orthodox branch. They all basically go to the point of saying, there's a thing you must do. And God is just passively waiting. He might be angrily waiting. He might be wistfully waiting, but he's just passively waiting for you to do the thing. And it turns out that as much as God is God, you're even more of a God because you're the one in charge of your salvation. You're the one who can loose his love for you. It's nonsense. Some people have been victims of bad teaching. But all of us are victims of our emotions. All of us. We don't feel loved. We know who we are. We know how much we should have grown. We know the regrets that we have because of the way that we've lived and the things we've said and the things that we've done. We know those things. They're very close to us all the time. If I was me, I wouldn't love me. I am me, and I don't love me. If I was God, I wouldn't love me. Let me put it that way. It's a good thing I'm not God. And the truth is, we give our emotions preference. God says in his word, I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have made you mine. I have adopted you and put my spirit in you so that you can call me Abba Father. And we say, yeah, but I feel like you don't love me. And then we believe that that feeling is what's true, which means we're either deifying our feelings or we're subjecting God to them. It's just not true. We fight a truth battle against the devil, who's the liar, but we find a faith battle really against our own emotions. The hardest exercise of faith is against our own emotions. I just don't feel right with God. I just don't feel like he loves me. I don't feel safe with him. I don't feel complete. But only what God says in his word can be taken as it is without reservation. And the hard act of faith for us is to say, I trust God over my own emotions. I give thanks that John was a man like all of us. James says Elijah was a man like any of us. John was a man like any of us. John says in 1 John, beloved, when your heart condemns you, God's greater than your heart. See, I need that all the time. I need that all the time. Here's the final word. We were once despised and forsaken because of our sin, but Jesus was loved and favored. Jesus took our place and became despised and forsaken so that we could be loved and favored. And then when he rose from the dead, in fact, when he said it is finished, the love and favor of God was poured out on him and we've been joined to him. And our life with the father is assured as the son's life with the father. Lord Jesus, we give you thanks. We thank you for your kindness to us. We thank you for the sacrifice of your life for us. Every single one of us fights an emotional weight, emotional deception. Emotions can be such wonderful things, but they're lousy indicators of truth. Would you help us to believe your word over what we feel. Would you help us to believe what you have said in your word in simplicity over our convoluted opinions of ourselves? This is the big fight for us, Lord, as to whether we live in peace and joy, contentment and delight in you, or whether we live our lives in pointless fear, I ask that you would persuade us of the truth of your word. We thank you, Jesus, in your precious name, amen.