The Cross of Christ

If you could grab a bible on your table and we'll be reading from God's word. We've got a couple of passages to read through tonight. The first 1 is 1 Timothy 2 versus 5 and 6, and then the second 1 is colossians chapter 1 verses 15 to 23. So 1 Timothy chapter 2 verses 5 and 6.

For there is 1 God and 1 mediator between God and mankind, the man Jesus Christ who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time. And the next reading is colossians 1 versus 15 to 23. The son is the image of the invisible god, the firstborn over all creation. For in him, all things were created, things in heaven and on earth visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities All things have been created through him and for him.

He is before all things and in him, all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead so that's in everything he might have the supremacy. For god was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from god, and with enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.

But now, he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you wholly in his sight without blemish and free from accusation. If you continue in your faith, established and firm and do not move from this hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. Now, Chris is gonna come and open that passage up to us. So, yes, we keep those passages open.

I'm not preaching the passage per se. We're doing a series on the cross and we're looking at these various different aspects of the cross of Christ and what Jesus Jesus won at the cross. And the thing that we're looking at tonight is ransom. We're looking at the ransom payment that he he did at the cross. So do keep your fingers in those.

Let's pray before we get stuck into it. Father, please do do help us this evening. Help us as we tackle this big topic. This topic that speaks directly to the core of who we are and of who Christ is and what your your mission is for for humanity. Our men.

So if I were to ask you what is the bible, what would you say? What would be your response? How would you describe what the bible is? I guess some would say well it's God's words, some would say it's scripture, some would say it's full of stories, some may say it's not even true, but whatever you do say about the bible, what I wanna say about it is that really in essence, it's a story. It's a story.

It's a narrative. It has a story that runs through it from start to finish like a golden thread. And it's not some fictional make believe nonsense, but a coherent historical story, told by those who were there at various points throughout history, people that God raised up at different times and said, write these things down so that the truth would be preserved for people like you and I all these years later. And what is this story? Well, it's it's many things.

It's many, many things actually. It's it's a love story in many senses. It's a story of fierce, sacrificial love, but it's also an action story. It's a story of grand adventures and desperate battles. It's a story of good and evil squaring off against each on epic scale.

It's a story of big things, but also of the small insignificant, broken, weak, ordinary things of this world. It's a very human story in many ways of suffering and rejoicing of life and of death. It's the story of us and who we are and it's the story of God and who he is more than anything else. In short, it's the greatest story ever, ever told. It's a story from which all other stories take their cue.

Only reason we have any other stories is because it was all written down in here first. And at its core, at its very core, I wanna say it's a rescue story. It's a story of a rescue mission, of a god who comes into the world and rescues people who have been held hostage. There's a tyrant in this story. There's people who are hostages and there's a rescuer.

And he comes to save the day with a ransom demand that freeze the hostages. That essentially is the bible story. Start to finish. That really is the story that it's telling And it's really what we want every story to ever be. If we could hope for something to be true in our wildest dreams and imagination for something that makes sense of the world that we live in, that makes sense of human history, that makes sense of suffering, and makes sense of this world that we live in with all of its problems, and of our reason for existence, then this is the story we would want.

When you read it, this is the story you would want it to be. It almost sounds too good to be true, but it is on this occasion. This is the truth. It sounds fairly straightforward really, doesn't it? And in 1 sense it is, but there are all sorts of twists and turns in store.

Things are not all as they seem to be along the way. Things don't turn out the way you think they're going to turn out or go the way that you think that they should go. We're in for a few surprises by the time we get to the end. Don't worry, I'm not gonna preach the whole bible to you tonight. It's probably sounding like I'm setting up to do start to finish of the bible.

But in some we are, I'm just gonna paraphrase a lot. So I hope I hope you're along for the ride. And what we're gonna be looking at today, so specifically is this this ransom, this idea of ransom. We read it there in 1 1 Timothy that There is 1 God and 1 mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all people. We're gonna be looking at how people are held hostage and how they're rescued.

And like all great stories, it has the main characters. And in the bible, really, we find the archetypes for any character that's ever been written anywhere. So every time you have a villain, for example, well, guess what? He originates in the bible. There is a villain in the bible from which all other villains take their cue.

The hostage taker. He's the bad guy, if you like. You have the victims or the people in the court in the middle of this, the hostages, and you have the hero. The hero from which all other heroes take their cue, but they're just pale limitations. The rescuer who just comes in to save the day.

Sounds like a very familiar lineup, doesn't it? And as I say it's just because every story that's ever been written is just a carbon copy of this 1, a pale imitation. So let's look at our characters. That's chiefly we're gonna be doing. We're gonna be looking at the different players in this story and we're gonna be telling it through them.

What are they about? Who are they? What are their aims? What are they trying do? How does this all work?

What is the point of all of this? And the first person that we are gonna be looking at, the first person we meet And I'm sorry to have to preach, so I don't really want to give him any airtime, but it's the tyrant. In the bible, we meet him as Satan. Who is he? Well, we hear about him in Revelation 12 that he's called Satan, he's called the Great Dragon.

The devil, the ancient serpent. He goes by all these names, and we know from Genesis that he's well, he's just a created being. He's not a god. He's not God. He's created, but that he turned aside from God and he leads creation astray with him.

We also hear in ephesians that he is the prince of this world. So in ephesians, we hear as for you, you were dead, in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the prince of the kingdom of the air that's talking about him. The spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. So, he's a spirit at work in disobedience in the world, he's weaving disobedience in. He's been given control of this place for a time.

And what is he like? Well, Jesus tells us, Jesus gives us the best character of this of this tyrant, Jesus says he was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth. For there is no truth in him, When he lies, he speaks his native language for he is a liar and the father of lies. The lies in this world come from him. They originate with him.

It all comes out of this assess pit of a character. So what you need to know is that the ruler of this world, the tyrant, the 1 to whom this world's handed over is at his core a liar and a murderer and is fundamentally opposed to God and to humans and to all that is true and good. How does he hold us hostage though? Well, in a sense doesn't. In a sense, he doesn't actually really.

What he does is this. This is how he works and you need to know this because this is really important for everything we're about to learn about the rescue mission that's gonna follow. How does he work? Well, he does this. He's an accuser.

He accuses us Before God, day and night, he's a constant accuser. He tricked he deceives and then he accuses. He's like the kid in the playground that gets you to do something and then goes running to the teacher. And so look what they did and tries to get them in trouble. I mean, that's a silly, that's a silly example.

He's like the prosecution in a courtroom delving into every minute detail of you. Every single wrong thing you've ever done, ever thought, ever said, and he dredges them up constantly day and night before God, demanding that God judge and condemn. That's what he's doing right now. To everyone in this room, he's at work right now, accused us, accusing us, accusing us. He knows what we've done, and he wants God to know what we've done, and he wants God to judge and condemn.

And what does he accuse us against? What's his basis for these accusations? Well, his basis is God's law, he accuses us against God's law because he knows that the panel for treason is death. He knows that if you turn away from the life giving creator, then you are only left with death and destruction. And so he's constantly at work to lead people astray and then to present them to God as law breakers who deserve death.

That's essentially that's his entire game plan for humanity. That is what he does. That is how he works. He perceives, tempts and then condemns. And the interesting thing that is actually if you notice, he doesn't really have any power.

He just piggybacks off of God's law. That's what he does. He piggybacks off of God's law to try and use that against God's creation. So that is how he works, and that's I didn't really want to give him too much airtime. Let's move on.

Let's look at the next characters. Humans humanity, us. This is us. This is us in this room. And really, the first thing that I want to say about us is that the Bible is not optimistic when it comes to us.

That's You find this all the way through the bible. You do not find that we're good people. You do not hear that in the bible. You find that the bible is not optimistic about humanity. It isn't.

Humanity was was the pinnacle. Really of God's creation. The crowning glory, if you like. In the beginning, we we, you know, we're different from the animals. We're different from the other created things.

We're the only thing that God said, let us create mankind in our image. He created us for a life of relationship, for a life knowing him, for us to enjoy him, and for him to enjoy us. And because of that, we've become the number 1 target of the evil 1 ever since. In fact, his first ever recorded action to lie to humanity. You know how the story goes in Genesis.

He deceives Eve and then tricks her to doing the 1 and only thing that God told her not to do and Adam. And Adam does nothing about it. He falls, Adam follows, Adam should have stopped it, didn't do anything. Neither of them did what they were supposed to do. They both fell.

They had everything. God put everything under them. God gave them control of the whole place He handed over the keys if you like. So it's yours. Enjoy it.

I've made it for you, and they go and do the 1 thing. That he says, don't do. Well, what was it? What was that thing that was so tempting that they allowed themselves to be tricked in that way? There's 1 line that Satan uses, you will be like him.

You will be like God. Knowing good from evil. Then you won't need him anymore, will you? You won't need him anymore. You can run the show.

You can decide what's right and wrong. You can you can set the boundaries. You can be in control. That's the big emptation. That's what they fell for.

That's the lie. And so they break the 1 command they've given and in doing they caused the downfall of all humanity. Yes, they were tricked, but they allowed themselves to be tricked. They wanted what was on offer and so they took it. It was tempting and they had it.

And in doing so, they break God's law. He only gave him 1. All they had to not do. Just 1 and yet they didn't. They couldn't.

They wanted so thing else. They sell their birthright and they introduce death into the world because the penalty for treason is death. Says so in Genesis too. And ever since the world we live in and the people in it have been under a curse that's Ass 3. Ever since that time, we have been essentially in a situation in which we're cut off from God, slaves to sin, and that ultimately ends in our deaths.

And so what we really need to get into here is the mechanics of sin and death. It's a pretty gloomy isn't it? But that's what we that's what we need to understand here. We need to get to grips with this. We need to know what what is sin and death about?

How does that work together? Why why does sin need death as punishment? Why is it so serious that we must die because we sin? Well, let's look. In Romans, Paul's writing to the church in Rome, the apostle, Paul, and he says, therefore, just as sin entered the world through 1 man and death through sin.

And in this way, death came to all people because all sinned. You're saying that because people sinned in the first sin, instance, it passes on. It passes through. It's handed down through the generations to us today, all the way through. And also then in the very chapter for the wages of sin is death.

Paul understands from the beginning that when God says in Genesis 2, that treason is punishable by death, he means it. Sin must be punished, treason again the creator must be dealt with. It has to be dealt with because to leave it un dealt with means, well, what for God? Exactly, that he doesn't care about purity and holiness and what's right and restoration. Sin has to be dealt with but the penalty is death.

The way Paul talks about it here is at like humans earn it, that's what humans do. This is the work of humanity actually in many ways. For the wages of sin is death, it's like a pay slip. In fact, actually, really when you think about it, this is the main work of our lives. People are working very, very hard to get paid.

We're working every single day at it. It's like the main project of our lifetime. Every single day, I wake up and I go to work and I do a bit more sin. And I find maybe new and inventive ways of doing it. Maybe I've seen it a different way to the way I did yesterday.

It's the theme of our lives is the recurring theme. And at the end of our efforts, what we receive, we we get paid. We will get paid. And the payment you receive is death. And it doesn't just end there as if that's not bad enough, because you will live on after death, but the question is just where Where?

Will it be an eternal life in heaven with God? Everything set right restored. Sin paid for, sin dealt with. Is that where you're gonna live on? Or will it be in a place that Jesus described as an eternity of weeping and gnashing of teeth separated, put aside, put out, a place of agony, a place of suffering.

Is that where it's gonna be? Because those there's only 2 options here. You don't get to choose a third. It's it's 1 or the other. Either sin dealt with or sin not dealt with, and people throughout history have been making these choices to rebel against God to become law breakers, traitors, to go their own way ever since.

I was I was I was I don't know why I was looking at the humanist society. I was looking at the humanist society. In their opening statement, I think is essentially, it's a really good summary of sin, which is considering they're called the human society, and this is humanity's main job. I think it's fairly apt. On their on their website, they say this, they say humanists are people who shape their own lives in the here and now.

Because we believe it's the only life we have. We make sense of the world through logic, reason, and evidence, and seek always to treat those around us with warmth, understanding and respect. Unless you're religious because they have a disclaimer that says non religious people really not well. Before that. So they don't really treat everyone anyway.

It's different different matter. They shape their own lives. They make their own choice they decide, they believe there's no life after this life. They make sense of the world through human efforts not through God. The depressing truth about humanity really in the end is that actually we are willing hostages.

We're the ones that put ourselves into bondage and we're quite happy there in many ways. All the while that we're there, our ransom demand is growing and growing and growing because remember what Satan is doing. He is accusing and accusing and accusing day and night, he stands before the father, accusing you, accusing you. Know what you did. I know what you thought.

I know what you said and I'm telling God. I'm telling God and God must punish. That's what he does. And he demands death. He demands it.

This might surprise some of you, but I've only just read the chronicles of Narnia. All these years, I'm 35 years old and I've just read the It's actually Garens. Thank mate. This is your oh, is it? Okay.

Fine. It's falling apart by the way. You need a new 1. I think I think it was like this when you gave it to me, but And you're missing the magician's nephew. I haven't I haven't read that 1 yet.

This is a conversation that that's had between the witch and Aslan. The witch is obviously the villain aslan is the Jesus character in this. And this is what the witch says about Edmond, if you know anything about it. She says, you have a traitor there, Azan, said the witch. Of course, everyone present you what she meant.

She meant Edmund. Edmond had got past thinking about himself after all he'd been through and after the talk he'd had with Azlan that morning. He just went on looking at Azlan. It didn't seem to matter what the witch said. Well, Sid As then.

His offense was not against you after all. Have you forgotten the deep magic asked the witch Let us say I have forgotten it. Answer aslan gravely. Tell us of this deep magic. Tell you, said the witch, her voice growing suddenly shriller.

Tell you what is written on that very tablet of stone which stands stands beside us. Tell you what is written in letters deep as a spear is long in the fire stone on the Secret Hill, tell you what is engraved on the sector of the emperor beyond the sea. You at least know the man which the emperor put into Narnia at the very beginning. You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that every treachery, I have a right to a kill. And so continued the witch.

That human creature is mine. His life is forfeit to me. His blood is my property Well, of course, she's actually wrong, isn't it? Life belongs to Azlan. And of course, it's the same in the bible.

Our lives don't belong Satan, they belong to Christ. It's against him that we sin. It's against him that we incur a debt. It's against his law that we fall short. And this is the truly terrifying prospect.

I think is that the Bible tells us that God will judge us according to what we've done. He will judge us according to what we've done. Hebrews 9 27 says it's appointed for a man to die once and after that, comes my judgement. Romans 2 says this will take place on the day when God judges people's secrets. If you're gonna sake, even my secrets, even the things I thought were safe, even the things I thought were hidden.

I didn't think anyone knew about that. Yeah. Those things, they're gonna be judged as well. Well, I don't know about you guys, but that puts the fear of God into me. That really the fear of God into me and rightly so.

Because according to everything that we've looked at and read, according to everything that's in in this book, I am a traitor. I am. I'm a traitor. I'm a law breaker. And I'm gonna pay with my life.

For my treachery. And then I'm gonna be judged. And I am without a shadow of a doubt gonna be found guilty and there is nothing that I can do about that. And then I'll be condemned. Left behind in the place where there's only wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I'm sorry heavy, but we have to go to these places to understand. Look, I am stuck. I'm hostage to my own sin. Unless someone from outside can come in and rescue me. That is what I need.

I need someone to rescue me. I can't get out myself. I'm not going to escape this prison I've built. Well, thankfully the Bible does not end on that note. It does it far from ends on that note, and it gives way more time to this next bit than anything else because into the scene, steps are our hero, our rescuer, and he is of course none other than Jesus.

Into this hostage situation God sends his very best, his 1 and only son. The best thing he's got at his proposal, he puts into this world. And yet, things don't play out quite the way that you think they're gonna do they. Let me ask you, what would you expect a successful rescue mission to look like? It's just a picture in your head.

There's a hostage situation, and there's a rescue mission that's gonna be mounted. What would you expect of that rescue mission. In my mind, there's swap teams lining up on all the doors. You've got snipers surrounding the building. The hell to the circling overhead.

Guys are rappelling down. They're laying the charges on the doors and they are gonna go in in force. They're gonna wipe out the bad guys that are in there, they're gonna rescue all the hostages. Got the Iranian embassy seat actually. That's what Yeah.

Anyway. So when God sends his son to free hostages. We kind of expect him to arrive from heaven with legions of angels at his back. And just absolutely wipe the floor and establish a new world order, crushing Satan, throwing down all his powers and authorities and and just wiping the slate clean, liberating all of his people from tyranny forever. That's what you what you'd kind of expect, isn't it?

And that is what he's achieved. And in a sense, that is what he's achieved, but just not the way we expected him to do It's a surprise the way that he goes about it. A real surprise, actually. Because he doesn't come in power. In the end, he comes in weakness as a human baby.

He's completely closed. Born on a stable floor, helpless. He doesn't form some mighty empire and fight against the rulers of the world, he picks 12 fishermen and other low life characters that he comes across and tells them to walk around with him, come and see what I do. Come be my disciples. Let me show you.

He doesn't use violence, he he he loves and he heals and he teaches and he disciples people. He does stand up to the religious leaders of the day, who are leading people astray with their with their incorrect teaching. And he opposes them fiercely, but as great as all that is, none of that actually solves the hostage situation that's going on. Because the problem in the end is that there is only 1 way to deal with human sin. There is only 1 way to deal with human sin.

It requires death as a payment. That is God's decree. Because you have sinned, you will die and after death face judgment And so that's what Jesus comes to do. He comes to die. It's hard to imagine, isn't it?

The rescuer in a hostage situation walking to the door and they win because they get shot. It doesn't seem to make sense and yet that that's in a way that's what he does. I mean, that's a bit of a silly thing with me to say, but in a way that's what happens, isn't it? He comes and he dies. He dies on a cross for goodness sake.

But what does that achieve? He just gets executed by the Romans. He's not even really done anything. He just walked around in Galile for a bit. He healed people.

Right. He did he did some amazing teaching, and then he just gets he just gets snuffed out. What sort of a rescue mission is this? Well, we are told that This is what he was gonna do. And Paul writes about it, he says there is 1 God and there is 1 mediator between God and mankind the man quest Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all people.

He puts his life up as the ransom payment and that was the plan all along. Even if we didn't realize it. Even if we didn't think it was gonna play out that way, that was the plan. And who is Jesus paying a ransom to? I mean, he certainly he doesn't owe us anything thing.

He certainly doesn't o satan anything, and that only leaves 1 person that he owes a ransom to. And that's God. Because Aslan's after all, it wasn't against you that he's committed treason. We commit treason against God. It's to God that the ransom payment must go And that is the stunning thing.

God is the wronged party. God is the 1 who who deserves to have the payment go to him and yet, he's the 1 that pays it. He's the 1 that pays it, and he pays it with the life of his son, with the very best thing he's got. If that that that doesn't make your heart jump. I really don't know what will.

The God of all creation pays for his enemies released by sending his own son to die. Paul goes on to write in Romans, look, he made him who sorry, in Corinthians. He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God. This is why Jesus' death is in acceptable payment. You might you might turn around and say, well, what is the death of 1 person?

What how does that stack up against billions of of people who have done wrong, how can 1 man pay? Well, because he knew no sin, to be sin for us. And so only he can do it. He's the only 1 that can do that. He's the only human to have ever walked the earth who never sinned, and therefore, his perfect and blameless, and therefore, never had to die.

We never had to die. He didn't have to go through it. He didn't have to do that, but he does. Because he knows he's the only 1 who can. And he does it willingly because he loves us and knows it's the only way for us to be reunited with God.

It's that only way for God to bias back, for God to be glorified in this mass rescue of humanity. That's the astonishing thing and what a high cost. What a high cost that was. That's why we read the colossians passage at the start because you get in that colossians passage, this view of Jesus and who he really is, not just this son of a carpenter walking around in Galile. Not just this sort of nobody who was executed on a cross by the Roman 2000 years ago.

The son is the image of the invisible God we read in colossians. He's the first born over all creation. He's the 1 that died for you. He's the 1 that died for you. For in him, all things created things in heaven, things on earth, visible and invisible, where the thrones or powers or rulers or authorities all things have been created through him and for him.

He's before all things. In him all things hold together. He's holding the whole show together. Everything's holding together because of him. He died for you.

He died for the things you did. You should die. I should die, but he dies because he knows that our desk actually won't accomplish it. Our desk can't actually make the payment to release from judgment. We can't pay for us in.

We just can't do it. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him and through him to reconcile to himself all things. Where the things on earth or things in heaven by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. This is what he achieves at the cross. He makes a payment.

He makes a payment for the sin of the world. And in doing so, we can hept. We can say thank you Jesus. We can say thank you father. For sending your son to do what I could not for rescuing me from the pit.

You're dragging me out giving me a new lease of life here. There's a few applications as we finish. What do you do in the light of that? That's the question. What do you do in the light of such a rescue?

And the first 1 is, well, you have purpose and value in life. Surely, you have purpose and value in life. In 1 Corinthians, we read this for you were bought at a price. You were bought back at a price and it was a high price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's.

So how do we glorify God in our our our body and spirit? I mean, we belong to him now and that's a great thing. But how do we do we then live? How do we glorify? What do we do in the light of that information?

Well, 1 way is to take up the fight against sin in our lives. That verse in Corinthians is actually said in the context of fighting sin, specifically sexual sin, but you can apply it broadly across Allson. Knowing who Jesus is and what he's done for us surely, surely produces that response, doesn't it? It's like, you know, you don't wanna be the smoker who's had their lungs replaced because they're about to die and then they carry on smoking and need their lungs replaced a year later. We're not freed from sin to go on sinning wantonly.

That's not what this is about. We're 1 application surely is that we wanna now fight sin in our lives, where we see it, where we know it, where it crops up, we've now got this ability to identify that and go for it. If someone gives their life to save yours. You don't wanna misuse it, do you? You don't misuse that lease of life you've been given.

Surely not. Second thing is we're free from accusation. So we read this in in colossians 1 as well, but now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death and presented you wholly in his sight without blemish and free from accusation. We're free from the accused This is brilliant news because the 1 that was accusing us day and night constantly, his main tactic, his only it really. It's been disarmed.

He's got nothing left, free from accusation. So we've we've switched we've switched from from having an accuser working day and night to having an advocate defending us day and night. Every accusation that Satan lifts up, Jesus just goes, no, I died for that. Yeah, but no, no, no, I died for that. Yeah.

But you know what they did. No. No. No. No.

No. I died for that. There is nothing you've got that I didn't die for. Nothing you can say against my people because I died for them, and I never sinned. You've got nothing on me and so you've got nothing on them.

And that freedom from the power of sin It means that surely we can be merciful and gracious people to those around us, doesn't it? Knowing secret depths from which we've been saved, and we all know, we all know in our own hearts. We all know that. Knowing those secret depths from which we've been saved, we know that we are no better than anybody else around us. That's what a Christian is really.

Christians don't think they're better than anybody else. They know they're worse than everybody else. And so surely that wants you to reach out to people and which leads us onto our third application, having been bought at such a price, tell them Tell them, tell people countless countless times. Jesus met people in the bible and did amazing things to rescue them. Think of the man who was possessed by a legion of demons.

And then he was in his right mind. What's he going do? He goes off and tells everybody about it. How could you not? It's amazing.

His disciples finally under standing what Jesus did at the cross. They spend the rest of their lives, telling, telling, telling, they die telling. Paul, told everyone dies telling. Christians throughout the ages have spent the rest of their lives telling Everyone who will listen, that God paid their ransom, and now they're free, they're free to live for him. They've been saved by Jesus.

Because he came and died in their place. The Safran was telling us, Iranian Christians are dying right now for that truth because they know that Jesus died to set them free from a lie and they're willing to die for that. What greater use could we possibly have for the rest of our lives than to tell people the good news. Now, is good news. Is it not?

That is good news. And there's people out there that desperately need to know that. And that leads us onto our final and last application. I'll wrap up here. Do you accept his ransom payment?

If you're sat here in rumor, maybe you you haven't accepted Jesus as lord. If you're not a follower of his here tonight, then well, I think you know what that means. I'm not sure I really have to spell it out. But it means you haven't accepted the ransom, which means the payment lies on your shoulders. And that is a payment you cannot make.

So if you're not a follower of Jesus, then in a sense here tonight, he offers that ransom payment to you again. He says here, I've paid it. Will you accept it? Let me pray. Father we do.

We do thank you that you you don't just leave us to our own devices, you had every right to just leave us here. You had every right to just abandon us to wipe us from the face of the earth, us who rebel who rebel time and time again. And yet you don't. You send your son into this mess and he pays with his life. Father, we thank you for that truth.

We thank you for that gospel good news. It's such a simple message and yet so powerful and yet just hits us again and again and again. Father, please help it to hit us afresh tonight, give us that that desire to to take this message out give us that thankful heart and that graciousness, that that gratefulness for for for the price we've been bought at is so high. Our lives are valuable. Help us to use them as you would on them.