Please read the note below from Pastor Woodhouse regarding his sermon:

Our readings for this last Sunday before Holy Week remind us of just how great a difference there is between the way salvation worked in the minds of the Jews of Jesus’ day and the plan that we watch Jesus fulfill as He draws nearer to Good Friday and the cross. For the Jews of the Old Testament and the Pharisees who taught during Jesus’ earthly ministry, righteousness might be declared for those who followed precise and demanding rules regarding animal sacrifice for the atonement of sins, and who followed as well as they possibly could their understanding of God’s Laws and the traditions that had been built around those Laws. Who knows, but perhaps God would show mercy to those who genuinely tried to show their righteousness through their obedience?

But as Isaiah prophesied much earlier, God is doing something entirely different in sending His only Son to be our Sacrifice. Jesus the Christ leads the life of perfect obedience that we could not. He atones for our sins by offering the sacrifice of His own body and blood. It is His work and not ours that rescues us from our sins, and gives us a far greater confidence in our salvation than we could ever accomplish through our own efforts. Behold the new thing Jesus is doing!