My Blood for the Remission of Sins - Jesus' Most Outrageous Sayings Part 3

Well, you know, the year was 1497.

That's five years after Columbus sailed the ocean blue. And on the walls of the Santa Maria monastery in Milan, Italy, Leonardo da Vinci painted what is considered today one of the greatest works of art in Western civilization. It's called the Last Supper. That is, it was a depiction of the last meal that Jesus ate with his disciples before he went to the cross. Now we want to talk about the Last Supper today because it was at this meal that Jesus said one of the most outrageous things that anyone has ever said. Remember that we are in a study here, a series, called Jesus's Most Outrageous Sayings. What we're doing is looking at 12 of the most radical things that Jesus ever said while he was here on earth. And we're taking a week on each one of those sayings and we're asking the question, well, what did he mean and so what for our lives?

Now we've already done two of these and you can get the tape or the CD in our bookstore. Today we're ready for outrageous saying number three. And so if you brought a Bible, I'd like to ask you to turn to Matthew chapter 26, the first book in the New Testament, Matthew 26. Here in our main auditorium and you don't have a Bible, reach under the armrest right next to your chair and you'll find the Bible. We're going to be on page 703 in our copy of the Bible, page 703 in our copy, Matthew 26 in your copy. And in his painting, the scene that Leonardo da Vinci was trying to depict for us is found here in Matthew 26 beginning at verse 17.

So let's look at it together. And I'm reading from verse 17. The disciples came to Jesus and asked, Where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover? So the disciples did as Jesus directed them and prepared the Passover. And when evening had come, Jesus was reclining at the table with the 12 disciples.

Now, friends, there's only one problem with Leonardo's painting, and that is it's historically inaccurate. You see, this was a Passover meal. It was a Passover Seder. And we know from Jewish writings at the time of Christ, number one, that people at a Passover Seder did not sit on chairs as in Leonardo's painting. But actually, as the verse in Matthew 26 says, they reclined on the floor, leaning on a pillow with their left elbow and eating with their right hand. We also know, number two, that the table was not long and straight as in Leonardo's painting.

It was actually shaped in a U shape like a horseshoe. Third, we know that Jesus would not have sat at the middle of the table as in the painting, but rather would have sat on the right side of the horseshoe as you're looking at it. And finally, we know that the disciples in Jesus would have been eating unleavened bread, matzo, and not the little things that look like Dunkin' Donuts that are on the table there in Leonardo's painting. It was a good try, though, by Leonardo.

It was a good try. Now, it was here at the Passover meal that Jesus said one of the most outrageous things that He has ever said. Look at verse 28 with me. Then Jesus took the cup, gave thanks, and said, This cup represents My blood, which is shed on behalf of many for the remission of sins.

The word here translated remission literally means for the cancellation of sins, for the release of sins, for the pardon of sins. So what is Jesus really claiming here at the Last Supper? Well, He's claiming that His blood, soon to be shed on the cross, would provide the way for people like you and me to have our sins pardoned, to have our guilt released, and to have the penalty for our sin cancelled in the sight of a holy God. Now, I don't know about you, but I think that's a pretty outrageous thing to claim. And yet that's exactly what Jesus claimed. You say, Well, Lon, I don't understand. How does the blood of Jesus Christ, shed on the cross, create a way for all of this to happen for me?

Well, that's a great question, and so let's answer it. Friends, it's no accident that Jesus said these words in the middle of celebrating the Jewish feast of Passover, because when we understand the events of Passover that happened in Egypt 3,500 years ago, we immediately understand the dynamics of what Jesus said here at the Last Supper. So let's look back at the Passover, back in Egypt when the Israelites, of course, were still slaves, before Moses led them out, and when we look at the events of the Passover, we find three spiritual truths that are being taught there that Jesus refers to at the Last Supper.

Truth number one is that God is a God of justice, and He demands a penalty for sin. You know, the Egyptians had disregarded God. They had resisted Him and disobeyed Him when He said, Let My people go. God had been very patient with them, but His patience had run out, and now here in the Passover, He is about to exact a terrible penalty for their sinful rebellion. Exodus chapter 11, verse 1, Now the Lord said to Moses, I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt.

About midnight I will go through Egypt, and every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh who sits on the throne to the firstborn son of the slave girl and her hand mill. Friends, the first thing that we need to understand is that God is the same today as He was back there in Egypt. He is still a God of justice who judges sin and the people who do it. Now the second spiritual truth we learned from the Passover is that God is also a God of mercy, because as such, God made a way of deliverance from this penalty back there in Egypt, and this truth is still also valid today.

God is still a God of mercy who offers a way out of this judgment for sin to you, to me, and to every person alive on this earth. And the third spiritual truth that we learned in the Passover is that God's way of deliverance is based always on a blood covering. Exodus chapter 12, listen, Each man, God said, is to take a lamb. You are to slaughter that lamb at twilight, then you shall take its blood and put it on the sides and top of the door frame of your house. Verse 12 of that chapter, And on that same night I will pass through Egypt, and I will strike down every firstborn. But this blood will be a sign on the houses that you are in, and when I see the blood, I will, here comes the name of the feast, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I execute judgment on Egypt. You see, the Passover lamb, the blood of the Passover lamb on the doorpost of those houses served as a covering.

It served as a protective shield, if you will, against the judgment of God, against this tenth plague in Egypt. And remember what God's promise was. God's promise was when I see you hiding behind the blood, not when I see that you're Israelites or when I see that you're synagogue members or that you've been bar mitzvahed or that you're trying hard to be good people. God's deliverance that night in Egypt had nothing to do with race, creed, nationality or education. It had nothing to do with good works, religious activity, socio-economic standing or keeping the Ten Commandments, which, oh, by the way, weren't even written yet.

But if they had have been written, it wouldn't have had a thing to do with that. The issue simply is who was covered by the blood of the Passover lamb? Who was hiding behind the blood of the Passover lamb? Now, do we all see that? Do we all see that? Do I need to go back and say all that again? No. Good. Okay.

Because I don't have enough time. We all understand that. Now, how does all that relate to Jesus and what He said at the Last Supper? Well, the New Testament says, 1 Corinthians 5 verse 7, that Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed for us. And what the Bible is telling us is that when we, as sinful human beings today, take refuge behind Jesus Christ's blood, just as those Hebrews hid behind the blood of the Passover lamb that night in Egypt so long ago, the Bible says that we are protected from God's judgment against our sin in the same way that those Hebrews were protected, except that now the blood that we're talking about is not the blood of some literal physical Passover lamb, but it is the blood of the ultimate Passover lamb, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And this is what Jesus was talking about at the Last Supper. This is why John the Baptist pointed to him and said, Behold, the Passover lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

You say, Lon, are you sure you're not reading too much into this? You know, I mean, all this blood thing sounds a little gruesome to me. Friends, the blood of Jesus is not gruesome. The blood of Jesus is wonderful.

And let me tell you why. Because the Bible says, 1 John 1 7, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. The Bible says, Hebrews 9, verse 12, by His own blood, He, Jesus, obtained eternal redemption for us. The Bible says, 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 18, for you were not redeemed from your worthless way of life with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. The Bible says, Colossians 1, verse 14, in Jesus Christ, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. Revelation chapter 5, verse 9, calls Jesus the one who loved us and has redeemed us to God by His blood. Romans chapter 5, verse 9, we have been justified, the Bible says, by Jesus' blood. Romans chapter 3, verse 25, says we get atonement for our sins through faith in, reliance on Jesus' blood.

And finally, there are many more, but one more that I'll just point out to you. Revelation 7, verse 14 says that the people who are in heaven are those who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb. You see, folks, every Old Testament Jewish feast was intended by God to be symbolic. It was intended by God to teach us some facet regarding the life and the work of the Messiah, and Passover was designed to teach us about God's plan of salvation, God's plan of deliverance. Salvation is simply a matter of abandoning every other remedy imaginable to pay for our sin before a holy God and hiding instead behind the blood of Jesus Christ like the Hebrews hid behind the blood of the Passover lamb 3500 years ago with the confidence that God's promise is as good today as it was 3500 years ago.

And what was his promise? When I see you hiding behind the blood, I will pass over you in judgment. I will not exact the penalty for sin from you that my justice demands I exact from everybody else who is not hiding behind the blood. That's the lesson of Passover, and that's what Jesus was talking about at the Last Supper. Now, that's as far as we want to go in our passage because it's time for us to ask our most important question, and we all know what that is.

True? Okay. Are you ready? Okay. Nice and loud here. Come on now.

One, two, three. So what? Ah, yeah. Say, Lon, so what? Say, that's great. Good preaching, man.

Way to go. But what difference does that make in my life? Well, let's talk about that. Well, there are some words in life that I would call life-altering words.

Let me give you a couple of them. Marriage, that's a life-altering word. Pregnant, life-altering word. Homeowner, life-altering word. Boot camp, life-altering word there. Retirement. Scholarship, we parents love that life-altering word.

Now, I've got one more that I want to share with you. This is a spiritually as well as humanly life-altering word, and it was a word that was actually used in one of the verses that I read to you about the blood of Jesus Christ. It's a word that represents the culmination, the zenith of everything that Jesus Christ came to earth to do for you and me. The word is the word justified.

Listen, I'm going to go back and repeat the verse. Romans 5, 9 says that, To those of us who believed in Jesus, we have now been justified by Jesus' blood, and having been justified by His blood, we shall be delivered from God's wrath against sin through Him. Romans 3, 24 says, As followers of Christ, we are justified freely by faith in His blood.

Now, what exactly does it mean that as believers in Jesus Christ, we are justified? If you're going to appreciate this life-altering word, we've got to make sure we all know what it means. Well, the word justified comes from a Greek word, the word justification, that is a legal word. It is a forensic word. It is a courtroom word, if you will. And the word literally means to be acquitted. It literally means to be pronounced not guilty.

It literally means to be regarded by the legal system as innocent. And in this legal imagery that this word conjures up, God is the judge. You and I are the defendants on trial for every wrong thing we've ever said, done, or thought. And God's justice has us dead to rights. However, when we offer to God as our defense, not our good works, not our religious activity, not our trying to keep the Ten Commandments, not our being a nice person, but when we offer to God as our defense, the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross for our wrongdoing, God bangs His heavenly gavel and says, You now are justified. He grants us the legal status of being acquitted, the legal status of being not guilty, the legal status of being absolved, pardoned, and righteous in His sight. Now, friends, the truth is we are not righteous. We are not not guilty. But Almighty God legally declares us not guilty anyway.

He legally declares us justified anyway, all because we've taken refuge behind the blood of Jesus Christ and He refuses to see through the blood of Jesus Christ legally to see what we really are. That's the beauty of the blood covering. How many of you guys, you know, I used to rush home from school when I was younger and flip on the television in elementary school to watch one of my very favorite programs every day after school, Superman. I loved Superman. Now, I used to watch the old Superman, if you remember the old Superman. His name was Christopher, was George Reeves.

There he is. Now, some of you remember the new Superman, Christopher Reeves. But it doesn't matter which Superman you remember. You'll know that Superman had X-ray vision. He was also faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings with a simple bound. You remember Superman? And he had X-ray vision. There was only one thing that Superman's X-ray vision could not see through.

What was it? Kryptonite. No, no, it wasn't kryptonite. No. Kryptonite's what killed him. You all need to brush up on your Superman trivia out there. No, it was lead.

That's right. He couldn't see through lead. And friends, what the Bible is telling us is that when it comes to our sin, God may have X-ray vision, but the blood of Jesus Christ is like heavenly lead. You understand what we're saying? And when we hide behind the blood of Jesus Christ, God doesn't see through that to see our sins anymore, which is why He can pronounce us righteous in His sight, why He can pronounce us justified in His sight. And friends, once the judge of heaven bangs his gavel and declares you not guilty in His sight, there is not one force in the universe that can change that decree, not even the devil himself. Romans chapter 8 verse 33, Paul says, Who will bring any legal charges against us? It is God who justifies. There's our word. And when He does, Paul says, no one can condemn. This is why Hebrews 10 says, and this is the covenant, this is the legal agreement I will make with you, God says, when you trust Christ, your sins and your wrongdoings, I will remember no more. And friends, there's not a person in the universe that can change God's mind and make Him remember them legally anymore. You know, about two years before I came to McLean Bible Church as your pastor, so about 27 years ago, I was sitting one morning in Montgomery County Traffic Court.

I was an invited guest, if you understand what I'm saying. And so as I was sitting there waiting for my turn, I was watching with interest all the cases that were going on in front of me, and there was a very interesting case. A man got up and the judge said to him, Now you're accused of doing 75 miles an hour in the Mormon temple loop of the beltway. How do you plead? And he said, I plead explanation, your honor.

I didn't know that was a plea. But the judge said, all right, so what do you have to say for yourself? He said, well, judge, you know, I was coming through that curvy section of the beltway there, and there was a fellow in the lane next to me who kept drifting over into my lane and almost forcing me off the road. He said, I beat the horn at him once, twice.

He didn't change. He was whirving all over everywhere. So he said, what I did is as soon as I got the opportunity, I mashed the accelerator to the floor and flew by him to get in front of him for my own safety. And right at that moment, we came flying around the curb, and there was the cop with the radar.

And he said, I tried to explain to him what was really going on, but he wasn't able to see it because we were on the other side of the curb when it was all happening. But, judge, I'm an innocent man. And I sat there and thought, that's a nice try, fella.

Nice try, fella. There's no way in the world he's going to believe that. Do you know that judge sat there for a minute and after he did, went, boom, hit his gavel and said, all charges dismissed. I find you not guilty. Friends, I about choked on my summons sitting there. I'm like, oh, my gosh, I cannot believe that. I would bet you my retirement fund that guy was guilty as sin of speeding through the beltway there. But you know what? He walked by the clerk, by the bailiff, by the guard, and out the door, scot-free.

Why? Because when a judge declares you not guilty, then as far as the legal system is concerned, you are not guilty regardless of what the real truth may be. You are not guilty in the eyes of the legal system of America. And this is exactly the same as the jurisprudence of heaven. It operates the same way when Almighty God declares us justified, when Almighty God declares us not guilty because we're hiding behind the blood of Christ, then, folks, it doesn't really matter what the real truth is. What matters is that the God of heaven pronounced us not guilty, pardoned, and that will never change forever, period, period, period. And this is what Jesus meant when he said at the last supper, this is my blood, which is shed on behalf of many for the remission, for the cancellation, for the pardoning of sins.

This is what he was talking about. Now, if you're here today and you've never trusted Jesus in a real and personal way, you know what? We want you to be part of the many that Jesus refers to in this verse.

We want you to join that group of the many. And the way you do that is very simple. You simply give up every other remedy that you're depending on to cover your sin in the sight of a holy God. You reject your good works, your religious activity, you're trying to be a nice person, and instead you take the covering that God provided for you, which is the blood of Jesus shed on the cross, that becomes your only defense in the eyes of a holy God. And I got great news for you. Not only is that your only defense, but, friends, it's the only defense you need because it works.

It's the way God made to do this. And if you're here today and you've never trusted the blood of Jesus to be your covering between you and a holy God and His judgment, then, friends, I'm saying to you, what are you waiting for? What are you waiting for? It's free and it's yours if you want it.

And I hope you'll reach out today and grab it because I can't think of a single reason why you wouldn't. Well, let's conclude. Job 14, verse 1. Man born of woman is a few days, Job says, and full of trouble.

Now, I don't know about you, but that verse definitely applies to me. I got trouble. I got trouble today with my eyes. I've got trouble with my back. I've got trouble with my left knee.

I've got two canker sores in my mouth and I've got a stiff neck. I got trouble with my computer printer. I got trouble with my washing machine. I got trouble with my toilet downstairs. And I have a tree last week that fell over into my neighbor's yard and did damage and I've got to pay for all of that. I got trouble. Maybe you got trouble.

Maybe you don't have the same trouble as I got, but I guarantee you, you got trouble because Job says that's the way life is. Friends, I got to tell you, though, with everything else that can go wrong in life, with all the trouble that we can have in life, as a follower of Jesus Christ, it is wonderful to know that there is one thing in this life I will never have trouble with. There is one thing in this life that will never, ever fail me and that is the blood covering that Jesus provided for me by His death on the cross.

No matter what else happens, that will always be right, that will always be operative and there will never be a problem with that whatsoever. This is one thing I can always fall back on when everything else around me seems to be crumbling. As the Bible says, it is an anchor for the soul and as followers of Christ, I'm here to challenge you and me to use it that way, to go back to that, to sort back to that when trouble is going on in our life and be able to say, well, you know what, everything else may be falling apart, but there's one piece of good news I've still got and that is the blood covering of Jesus is still working for me today. And you know, friends, when all the dust clears in heaven, that's the only thing that's really going to matter anyway is that the blood covering worked for you and me. I love the hymn by William Coltman.

Here's what he said. He said, will there be two throngs in heaven standing at the throne of God, one arrayed in their own merits, one washed in precious blood? Will there be two songs in heaven ringing through the realms above, one to boast man's virtues, one to praise redeeming love? Nay, he said, one throng, one song, one voice in endless strain shall bless God who gave His Son for sinners, Christ our only righteousness.

Jesus shed His blood on the cross, my friends, to provide a righteous covering for you and me in the sight of Almighty God through which the justice of God agrees not to see, which results in God pronouncing us justified, not guilty, acquitted and innocent in His holy sight. Now it don't get no better than that. It just don't get no better than that. And I'm here to challenge you to let that be an anchor for your soul when everything else is going wrong. Learn to sort back to it and say, well, Lord, you know what? I've still got the blood of Jesus and it's still covering me today just like it always has.

And you know what? I can rejoice even if things aren't going good because I got one thing that will never let me down. Justify. And remember what Paul said.

When we are justified, there is no one, no one who can bring a charge judicially against God's people. What a wonderful thing the blood of the Lord Jesus did for us. And I hope today you'll understand now why Jesus said this is my blood and it's going to bring remission, cancellation of sin in the sight of God for you.

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, thank You so much for what You did for us on the cross. I'm sure we don't appreciate even a tiny part of it, God, really, but the little bit we do appreciate overwhelms us. That You would go to the cross to do something for us we could never do for ourselves.

Provide a way for us to be right, not guilty and acquitted in the sight of a holy God. That You would love us that much. That You would be willing to pay that cost for us. That Your mercy for us runs that deep.

Well, Lord, it's a staggering thought. And I'm here today on behalf of all of us in the room to say we thank You for doing that for us, Lord. We thank You that even though we're not really righteous, we're not really not guilty, that You've made a way for us to have that standing in the courtroom of heaven. And, Lord, may we show You our appreciation by our love, our devotion, our loyalty, and our service to Jesus Christ in our lives down here.

Father, the Bible tells us we love You because You first loved us and demonstrated that love on the cross. Thank You, God, so much for Your mercy. May we revel in it today. May it be an anchor for our soul. And we pray this in Jesus' name. That's what God's people said. Amen. .