For our scripture reading this morning from the Old Testament, I would invite your attention to Isaiah 53. I'll be reading from the New King James Version. It is printed on the back of your bulletin for your convenience. Isaiah 53. Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness and when we see him there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected by men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and we hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised and we did not esteem him. Surely he has borne our griefs. and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted, but he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare his generation? For he was cut off from the land of the living. For the transgressions of my people he was stricken, and they made his grave with the wicked. but with the rich at his death, because he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He has put him to grief. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. 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. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bore the sin of many, and he made intercession for the transgressors." Let's come before our God in prayer. You are our steadfast and merciful Father. Hallowed be your name. You make covenants and you keep them for you cannot lie and you do not change. Lord this morning remember your loving kindness your faithfulness. Hear our prayers. You have said that your house shall be called a house of prayer and you have said that where two or three are gathered in your name you are in our midst. So hear our prayers this morning faithful and loving Father. We pray that you would build up and strengthen your people here today. Increase our faith, preserve us, never let us be confounded. Keep our path steady, our eyes and footsteps firm. May we live as a people of hope, that others may see us and know that we have a faithful God who keeps promises, that others may see that we have a Father in heaven, a God of beauty and wisdom, and bless your name. And so fill us with your spirit. Shine the light of your word upon our hearts and cleanse us from hidden sin. And forgive us, Father. Wash us clean by the blood of the Lamb. Remove our sins from us. We remember that you hear prayer. You have given us our daily bread as you have promised. We have prayed for rain and you have given us rain. We pray that you would bless us and fill our mouths with good things as you always have. You have not forsaken us. You have healed our diseases as you have promised. You have provided for us as you have promised. You've opened the windows of heaven. You have given us corn and wine and oil. And we thank you. Thank you for beauty and for music, for feast days and friends. Thank you for families and shelter and home. And Lord God, we pray that you would remember mercy. We pray that you would comfort the lonely. Strengthen the weak. Establish the fearful and downhearted. Bring the wandering back home. Forgive and restore those who are straying. Deliver us from the cunning of the evil one and heal those who are sick. Provide our needs. Guide our steps over the next few weeks and lead us to green pastures. We pray that you would bless Maggie and give her healing. Bless Scott and heal his body. We thank you, Father, for our children and for our children's children. We pray that you would bless the young ones here today. Give them wisdom while they are young. Draw their hearts to you in their tender years. Set their feet firmly on solid ground that in the whirlwind of life they might serve the God who is. And as your word is preached this morning, we pray that you would give boldness and faithfulness to your ministers. Tear down false shepherds and those who hate your word. We pray that you would guard your sheep and not let them become prey to the wolves. We pray that your word would comfort, reprove, encourage, and strengthen your people today. Guide my lips and give us ears to hear and to understand. We commit our way to you. Direct our steps. Give us our portion, for you know what is best. When we are afraid, teach us to trust in you, that we might be faithful servants of our Lord Jesus. And let's pray together. And let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. Amen. My text this morning is in Galatians chapter 3. It's been a meditation much on my heart this past week, and I pray that this sermon might be edifying to you. Galatians 3, I'll read verses 10 through 14. For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse. For it is written, cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for the just shall live by faith. Yet the law is not a faith, but the man who does them shall live by them. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus. that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." There is much here which would fill many sermons and many books. The fact is, what we need to understand is that the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God that spoke to Moses from the burning bush, the God that thundered from Mount Sinai, the God that appeared to Isaiah high and lifted up, is the same God who became flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary and suffered and died for our sins. That one true eternal God is revealed in three persons, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. There is only one will in God. The will of the Father, the will of the Son, and the will of the Spirit are all one. Scripture never speaks of the wills of God, only the will of God. And this is important for us to remember because one of the caricatures thrown against Christianity is that God the Father punished God the Son on the cross for the sins of the world. And that is not accurate, as we will see. There is no division in the will. There is no authority and submission in God for there are not multiple wills. There's only one will. And so the fact is the same God who gave the law from Mount Sinai is the God who took the curse of that law on the cross. Only the second person of the Trinity became flesh. But the crucifixion of Christ was the work of the undivided Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In His flesh, Jesus submitted to the Father. But according to His divine nature, the will of the Father, the will of the Son, and the will of the Holy Spirit are one. We will never fathom the Trinity. But it is important for us to get right what the scripture reveals to us. Otherwise, our salvation is characterized as divine child abuse, which has caused all sorts of problems in the church. It is not true that the Father punished the Son for man's sin. The truth is that God took upon Himself the wrath of God against the sin of the whole human race in the person of the Son. When Jesus said, Your will and not Mine be done, He is speaking according to His human nature, for He had both the human will and the divine will. That being said, the Lord God who revealed Himself to the patriarchs and prophets is the God of all power and might and dominion. He spoke and it was done. He does as he pleases. He submits to no one. He created the world out of nothing with simply his word. God by his son through the spirit created and upholds all things continually by the word of his power. And this almighty power, according to Paul, is known by every human being, for we all have the inborn sense of the eternal power and Godhead of Almighty God. In every religious system in the world, the blessings of God will come about by God exercising His power. That makes sense to our natural sensibilities. We are oftentimes overcome by powerlessness and futility. And we say to ourselves, if only we had a champion, a king to come over the hill at the last minute, the Millennium Falcon to fly in at the exact right time with phasers blasting and save the day. We all long for justice. We desire justice. And on the earth, that can only be done by power. Somebody stronger has to make the evildoers quit doing evil. The king says, here's the law. Here's the punishments if you break the law. Here are the rewards if you keep the law. It's the only kind of justice the world knows. It is woven into our DNA and woven into our creation. A just king punishes evildoers and rewards righteousness. But there's even more to this dynamic of power and justice. There's power in human society, in nature, in the laws of nature, in the universe, in everything around us. In society, a person who is lawless, unkind, who steals, who doesn't keep his word. If he has no money, he will find himself generally without friends and without society and the world. A person who believes that gravity is a hoax and acts on that will find himself with many broken bones. And if you spend your whole life eating Cheetos on a beanbag chair in your parents' basement, you will be poor, friendless, and miserable. That's what the book of Proverbs is about. Although Solomon didn't know Cheetos, he probably should have. There's the laws in the universe. Those laws are relentless, powerful. impersonal, there's justice in enforcing the laws and nature enforces the laws. You play with lions, you're going to get hurt. You play with snakes, you're going to get hurt. It's woven into our DNA. We take those things woven into nature and we apply them to God. And we say in our hearts that if people do bad things, God will punish them. If people do good things, God will bless them. But then we look around the world. Proverbs speaks about that natural justice, but Proverbs isn't the only book in the Bible. There's also Job, the inexplicable things that happen, the things that can't be explained, the horrible injustice that's in the world, pain and suffering and misery and death. The history of the world is that there are oppressors and there are people who are unjustly oppressed. The goal of every kingdom of the world is to amass enough power so that the right people are the oppressors and the wrong people are the oppressed. With every kingdom of the world, there is them and there's us. We should be the ones with power and them should be the ones at the bottom. As the Pharisees said, they're the sinners. They don't know the law. They deserve everything that comes on them. This natural law that I've been talking about, Paul calls those under the works of the law. Other versions say those who rely on the works of the law. And there's a lot of debate in theological circles about which law Paul is referring to. Is it ceremonial law? Is it the Ten Commandments? Paul tells us what kind of law he's talking about. It's anything that says if you do this, you'll be blessed. If you do this right, you'll live. It's woven into all of us. Every man born of Adam, all of us are subject to inflexible laws of justice, retribution, punishment, and reward. We are all under powers that are stronger than we are, and all of us naturally rely on the works of the law. The power of God is with those who offer the right sacrifice correctly, who hold the right opinions. As we've seen in the book of Luke, the ones who wear the long robes and are greeted in the marketplace and have the best place in the synagogues, they're the ones obviously blessed by God. They're the ones with the right opinions. And we live like this even though we know better. We see the homeless, dirty outcast and we wonder what he did that caused him to end up there. We see the police beating a man and we say to ourselves, well, if a man had complied, the power of the state would have rewarded him instead of punished him. We long for justice. We rely on the works of the law. Thus we divide the world up between the ones who live, the ones who are blessed, the ones who are happy, and the others, the sinners who don't know the law. And we say to ourselves, one day when God comes, he's going to agree with our assessment. He will execute justice on the them. and He will take us to heavenly glory. That was what the world was longing for when God became flesh and walked among us. The world saw His power. Psalms describes Jehovah as walking on the sea. Jesus walked on the sea. God fed the multitudes in the wilderness with manna. Jesus fed them bread and fish. He healed the blind and the lame and the deaf, just as Isaiah said he would. But then there were things they couldn't get past. He touched the untouchable lepers. He spoke with women. He ate with sinners. I mean, not the romantic sinners that we sing about all dressed up on Sunday morning, but real, actual, live sinners. Jesus ate with them. That should have made Him unclean, outcast. How can He possibly be God? How can He be a prophet when He associates with sinners? Doesn't He understand the law? Doesn't He get how justice is supposed to work? When they saw His power, they cheered Him as the Son of David. When He entered Jerusalem, In triumph they sang praises. His closest disciples the last week of his life were still talking about sitting on his right hand when he comes in glory. I believe that the first one that figured out the scandal of the cross was Judas Iscariot and he wanted nothing to do with it. Jesus being God did not lift up his voice in the streets. He didn't come in power. He didn't call lightning down from heaven. He didn't breathe fire and brimstone on his enemies. For if he came to enforce justice according to the law, there would be no one left. As he said to Nicodemus, the world is already condemned. I didn't come to condemn the world. Or as Paul says, all who are under the law are under its curse. All we have to do is look around and see the curse. It's everywhere. Well known to reform people is the wrath and curse of God against the sin of the whole human race. But this involves so much more than we usually imagine. The curse of the law is so much broader and deeper than an abstract thing you read about in theology books. What's the curse of the law? Look to the cross. Powerlessness, hopelessness, sickness, misery, alienation, shame, degradation, death. We see the filth and rot and mud of this world from the destruction of the environment to the injustice of the robber barons to the cruelty and hatred of the powerful against the powerless. The oppressors oppress, and then when the power shifts and the oppressed become the powerful, the oppressed oppress the former oppressors. Desmond Tutu worked for many years for justice in South Africa, and he was immensely concerned that those who were formerly oppressed under apartheid, when they got power, would turn around and oppress those that had oppressed them. He saw correctly the curse of the law. injustice, illness, death, misery for all under the law or under the curse. The greatest part of the curse is its powerlessness. I'm sorry, the greatest part of the curse is its power. We under the curse are powerless. We're slaves just like Israel were slaves in Egypt. There's nothing anyone can do about it. You can't break free from it. You can't escape the ugliness of sin because you carry it in your own heart. You can't amass enough wealth or have enough wisdom. It's a big mistake to think that sin is simply a series of misdeeds that people do. In the scripture, sin is a power that we cannot escape from. What we see are the symptoms of sin. fornication, adultery, homosexuality, theft, idolatry, murder, hatred, strife. But those are the results of sin. Sin itself is a power that we cannot break free of. It's an incurable cancer, an incurable wound, and there is no balm that can cure it. He who commits sin is the servant of sin, Jesus said. We're slaves to a power we can't do anything about. That's the curse of the law. It's a power that crushes and destroys us, pounds us down, resulting in shame and fear and pain and death. And so imagine this, knowing that God, the judge of the whole world, sees and exposes all of our thoughts and all of our words and all of our actions, and that nothing is hidden from his sight. How eager does that make you to meet Him? That's the curse of the law. It drives us into hiding. It exposes our nakedness. It crushes us with injustice and pain and degradation and unimaginable shame. And God responds to the curse of the law with compassion. And that's something we can never fathom. such love that he became flesh and walked among us, born under the curse of the law." And when we read the Gospels, we see that everywhere Jesus went, he took the curse upon himself. He touched the leper. The leper became clean. He touched the blindness, he touched the illness, he touched the homeless and the lonely and the sinner and brought it all to himself. Surely he has borne, has carried our griefs and our sorrows. And then the last week of his life, that Thursday night after the last supper when he goes out to the garden, the soldiers of the temple came to arrest him. They asked, Are you Jesus of Nazareth? And he said, I am. And they all fell over backwards because they couldn't stand in the presence of his glory. Then they got up and asked again, and this time he went with them. They tied him up. They dragged him to the house of the high priest. He was slandered. He was outcast. He was beaten, he was spat on, he was ridiculed at the house of the high priest all night long. The next morning he was taken to Pontius Pilate. This is actually worked into the creed that the whole Christian church has been saying for 2,000 years. He suffered under Pontius Pilate. This is crucial to our faith and I hope that I can express it correctly this morning. Pilate was the judge. Pilate knew that Jesus was innocent of all charges. He sat on his judgment throne and he said he's innocent of all charges. And then for reasons of his own, he sentenced him to be crucified anyway. He who created the heavens and the earth, he who speaks, I am, and the world falls on its face, unable to stand in his presence. goes like a lamb to the slaughter, and he doesn't even open his mouth. The Gospels don't spend any time on the details of crucifixion because everyone in the Roman Empire had seen it. There's nothing in our modern imagination or sensibilities to even compare. We have turned the cross into a work of art. We wear them around our necks. We've tried to make the godlessness of the cross into something beautiful and artistic, but it can't be done. There was nothing beautiful or godly about a cross. It wasn't just that Jesus died. It wasn't just that He was executed. It was that He was crucified. Crucifixion was designed to be as painful, as slow, as degrading, and as shameful as possible. It wasn't done in private. It wasn't hidden away in a corner. It was done on the highways. It was done right on the corner of Colusa 99 for everyone to see. The point was the message that this thing hanging here is worse than an insect, a beast worthy only of degradation and shame and pain and death. This thing has forfeited the right to exist, forfeited a right to dignity. First, the condemned was stretched out on a pillar naked and beaten to shreds with a Roman scourge. And then they were taken outside the city on the highway and nailed to an ugly, brutal post to die slowly with all their filth and ugliness and shame exposed for the world to see. Modern art puts a convenient loincloth over the crucified victim. The Romans did no such thing. Everyone passing by was expected to take part in the torture and ridicule and they did. It was the death of a slave. to be hung naked, bleeding, and torn to shreds with a face so marred as to be unrecognizable. To Rome, the person on the cross was no longer a person, simply an object to be tortured and mocked for fun. And so it was a punishment reserved for slaves. It was so hideous that no one talked about it in polite society. It's so hideous that it's not even talked about in the church, even though it's the heart of our faith. To a Jew, hanging on a cross meant that God himself had turned his back. For the scripture says, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. We think we can imagine it, but we can't. We have moved here in America the concept of death to something behind closed doors of hospitals. We don't talk about it. If executions take place we make them as dignified as we can and they aren't public. So we can't imagine the horror. Crucifixion was only done to the powerless, the slave, the poorest of the poor, the outcast. To be crucified was to be considered the worst of the worst, and not even that. It was to be utterly powerless, without dignity, naked, bleeding, and dying in front of your friends and family, who are now mocking and ridiculing you as an outcast." In other words, God made him to be sin for us. Nothing revealed God's view of sin to the whole world more fittingly than the horror and hopelessness and power of a Roman cross. He knew no sin, that is, he never committed any sin in thought, word, or deed. He was perfectly righteous before God. He was the son in whom the father was well pleased. But the cross held him powerless, stripped, naked, dying as the wrath of God was poured out upon him. He who pronounced woe to the Pharisees took that woe upon himself. He who pronounced judgment on Israel, thundering from Sinai, took that upon himself. He who told Adam, the day you eat the fruit, you will surely die, took it upon himself. He who said the ground will now bring forth thorns, took them upon himself. He took upon himself the power and ugliness and shame of sin, and then he put it to death. He took the filth and ugliness and disgusting power of sin and became that, that he might put it to death. He took the greatest injustice that's ever been perpetrated upon himself so that, as our catechism says, we might know. that He took the curse that lay upon us, that we might know it so that we will come out of the bushes and stand before God. And when that message was preached, the whole world was scandalized. God on a cross? The Bible says the cross was scandalous and foolishness to both Jews and Gentiles, or we would say to both the religious and the irreligious. For the first century in Rome, the cross was not a religious object. It was a filthy, stinking, godless, depraved act of torture. It was the ultimate in being an outcast, absolutely unthinkable that God would hang on a cross. That would be a powerless God, an outcast God. What good is that? The cross was everything about the curse in one thing. the thorns, the degradation, the shame, the powerlessness, the thousand deaths in one. On the cross, God becomes the lowest slave, the worst of the worst, the scum of the earth, the foreskin of the world. God on a cross is a contradiction. And yet on the cross, the wisdom of God showed itself wiser than the foolishness of men. Without the cross, there is no reconciliation. We all know what shame and disgrace is. We all know what it means to be driven away, unwelcome. We all have imposter syndrome. We all fear that one day we will be exposed for who we are and we'll be driven out in shame. Many of us know what it means to be driven out of churches, driven out of society. Our worst fear is that God thinks of us the same way that our oppressors think of us. This is nothing new. Paul wrote the epistle of Galatians to Christians who were afraid of being caught out as unclean. Judaizers came along and said, okay, well, we can fix that. If you just become circumcised, then you'll be acceptable. The Gentiles knew they weren't Jewish. They were tired of eating alone outside the camp. Maybe we should get circumcised to fit in. And Paul says, you forgot that you worship God on a cross. The God we serve and the blessings that we seek can't ever come by the law. Under the law is the curse of the law. It was the curse of the law that nailed Jesus to the cross. The curse of the law is the injustice, the cruelty, the hatred of the world, the pain and the sickness of death. This is what you want to go back to? Paul is telling the Galatians. You think you're going to get circumcised and that's going to end your shame, but where will you stop? He who tries to do that by the law must keep the whole law. And the only one who can take shame away is the one who took it all upon himself and put it to death on the cross. He was forsaken so that we might be welcomed at the marriage supper of the Lamb. He was brutalized that we might have peace with God. He died that we might live. The author of Hebrews also speaks to an outcast suffering church. When the Hebrew Christians confessed Christ They were driven out of the synagogues. The Jews asked, how can you worship Jesus? First, he's a man. Second, he died on a cross. God on a cross is a contradiction. It's a ridiculous faith. You're worshiping a God that can't even protect himself from a cross? To the Jew, God is the law giver. How can God be under the curse of the law? It's a contradiction. The writer of Hebrews says this, "'We have an altar, from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burned outside the camp. Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore let us go to Him outside the camp. bearing his reproach. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come." Here's the figure in the Old Covenant. It was still going on when the book of Hebrews was written. You would go to Jerusalem, you'd bring your animal sacrifice, your lamb or your bull or whatever you have, and you would offer it as a whole burnt offering before God on the altar, the priest would offer it. And then you would cut up the meat, and after the meat was roasted on the altar, you would eat the meat, fellowshipping together with the food from the altar, signifying that you had peace with God and fellowship with one another. And then that animal and all the stinking guts and fur and whatever was left on the animal. I don't think lambs have fur. Whatever that was, all the stuff that was left was taken outside the camp to the garbage dump and lit on fire. The Hebrew Christians had been excommunicated from the temple. They couldn't partake in that altar, because they confessed Christ. They were no longer allowed to eat anything that had been sacrificed on the altar. They were tired of being outcasts, and they were thinking about going back to Judaism, for the offense of the cross was too much. If they returned to Judaism, then perhaps the shame of being an outcast would stop. So let's go back to the rules where everything makes sense, the orderly lifestyle, the clear do's and the clear don'ts, which really meant going back to the curse of the law. Because how can you worship a God who was crucified outside the city as the most despicable, unclean thing? Do you see the connection? The animal sacrifices pointed to it continually. We read about Solomon offering his tens of thousands of sacrifices in Jerusalem. And you go, what a wonderful religious revival. Can you imagine the stench? Those of you who have tried to butcher one chicken, just imagine the stench of 50,000 lambs. We have an altar that those who serve the temple have no right to eat from. That altar is the cross, the broken body and shed blood of Christ, which is food and drink for our souls. He's the sin bearer of the world. And the writer to Hebrews is saying, you Hebrew Christians, where do you think that altar is? It's outside the camp. bear the reproach, bear the insult, go outside the camp to join your husband and your head. That's where the marriage supper of the Lamb is. It's outside the camp of the law. The camp of the law is under the curse of the law. The city of man always devolves into ruin. The sin bearer is outside the camp. He's outside the camp with the sinners, and the publicans, and the tax collectors, and the homeless, and the oppressed, and the weak, and the victims of injustice as well as the brokenhearted, rich, and influential, all those who are not ashamed to bear the reproach of Christ. The fact is the church in 21st century America has become very impressed with being inside the camp. being the ones invited to the prayer breakfasts and the ones invited to the conferences and the ones invited to the White House. We like being the ones in control, the ones in power. And for way too long we have oppressed and crushed the weak, the minorities, the indigenous, the women, the children, to hold on to that power inside the camp. Even if it destroys us. Because that city is being destroyed. That altar is being torn down. It's under the curse of the law. Everything that says, do this and live, is being torn down outside the camp. The sacrifice has taken it all away. The curse of the law fell on Him who has made sin for us in all its ugliness, degradation, and power. And He put it to death. And so now, whatever shame we carry, whatever reproach we carry, whatever we fear, we are justified in the sight of God. We're clean, dressed, healthy, alive, whole. We who are afraid to stand before God can now see what God will do to bring us to Himself. And therefore, we can approach without fear, because He who became a curse for us tells us we can stand before Him without fear. He became a curse for us that we might receive the blessing and be called a friend of God, resting in His arms forever, complete, totally at peace, Nothing left to complete, no fear, no shame, no hiding in the bushes, standing without shame and without fear before the judge and Lord of the whole earth. That's the inheritance of Abraham that's come upon us because God himself took the curse of the law on himself. So let's join him, even if we have to go outside the camp to do it. Let's bear that reproach. We're citizens of a greater kingdom, citizens of a greater city. We serve a greater king. He broke and conquered the greatest power of all, the power of sin. So let's lift up the head for the marriage supper of the Lamb awaits us. And no one who is dressed in his robes will ever be cast out. Amen. Let us pray. Our gracious God and Father, we don't even have the words to express our awe and love for you for what you have done for us. We pray that you would fill us with your spirit so that we might lift up the head and walk with beauty, walk with wisdom. so that people might know we serve a God who redeems and reconciles at great cost. In Jesus' name, amen.