We have gathered to call upon the name of the Lord, and the joyful solemnity of this privilege should be resting upon our shoulders like a mantle of glory.
How is this possible? We do not want to overcomplicate the answer to the question. Our forms of worship and teaching are in deep sympathy with the tradition of Scottish Presbyterianism, and so we should therefore want our gospel the same way we take our whiskey—straight.
The fact that we are complicated sinners, all tangled up in ourselves, should not make us despair. In fact, it is the only possible basis for a rock-solid confidence—if people as messed up as we have gotten are to be saved, then someone else entirely will have to do it. As the Lord willed it, that someone else was the Lord Jesus, who died as your covenant representative, taking all your sins upon Him, determining in return only that you take His righteousness upon you. This blessed exchange is accomplished through a dual imputation, decreed from the gracious throne of God.
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Your sinful nature, and your particular sins, were all imputed to the Lord Jesus, and this is why He died a wretched death, forsaken by God. His righteousness, His blameless way of life, and His perfect, sinless death, were imputed to you, and this is why you have been declared righteous in the luminosity of His resurrection power.
This blessed exchange is the only reason you can come before God to worship Him now.