If you were standing in the middle of a violent thunderstorm, you wouldn't try to dodge the raindrops or yell at the clouds. You would look for shelter. You would look for something strong enough to take the hit for you. Yesterday, we faced the storm of God's justice, the reality that, as "pests" in His garden, we owe a debt we cannot pay. But today, we are going to discover the Shelter. We are going to look at the single greatest miracle in history: a moment where the Gardener didn't just forgive the pest, but actually took the pest's place.

We live in a culture that loves the idea of a loving God but hates the idea of a judging God. We often ask, "If God is so good, why doesn't He just forgive everyone? Why all this talk of wrath and judgment?" But think about that for a moment. If you hired a gardener to care for your prize roses, and he watched a swarm of pests eating them leaf by leaf, would you call him a "good" gardener if he just smiled and let it happen? No. You would fire him. A good gardener protects his garden. And that brings us to a terrifying realization: If God is truly good, He must deal with the pests. And if we are the pests... what does that mean for us?

We have a tendency to categorize people, don't we? We divide the world into "good" people and "bad" people. We look at the person who pays their taxes, volunteers, and speaks politely, and we say, "That is a good person." Then we look at the person whose life is a mess, maybe they are battling addiction, or they’ve made terrible choices, and we think, "That is a bad person." But what if I told you that in the eyes of the Gardener, that distinction doesn't exist? What if the "good" person and the "bad" person are exactly the same distance from the miracle they need? Today, we are going to look at two powerful words that level the playing field for every single one of us.