back to index2021-04-02 Passion Week Good Friday
00:00:00.000 |
Okay, well, welcome to our Good Friday service once again. 00:00:15.600 |
And this is actually more and more as I've been walking with Christ. 00:00:22.480 |
Growing up, Easter and Passion Week wasn't that big of a deal. 00:00:26.480 |
It wasn't something that we especially celebrated. 00:00:29.920 |
And what's been interesting is, man, I've grown to appreciate Easter so much, where 00:00:35.880 |
I think it's slowly becoming one of my favorite holidays. 00:00:40.680 |
Which is very strange, you know, because how do you displace Christmas? 00:00:45.360 |
But what I realized is, especially walking through the Passion Week over the last few 00:00:49.200 |
years here at Berean together with all of you, is that we are able to walk the steps 00:00:55.880 |
of Christ, all the way to the cross, and eventually celebrate the resurrection of Christ on Sunday. 00:01:03.040 |
I think it's a holiday that is possibly one of the, like, maybe the freer of distractions 00:01:12.240 |
I think we have an opportunity every year at this time to celebrate something that is 00:01:16.880 |
so strange for the world if we tell them what we're celebrating, the death of the one that 00:01:25.760 |
And tonight, Good Friday, and we've said this many, many times in the past before, 00:01:35.400 |
Why would we call something like this something to be celebrated? 00:01:40.360 |
What are we doing here, gathering together, taking time to think about his death? 00:01:48.040 |
Shouldn't we be people who think about the resurrection? 00:01:51.880 |
Shouldn't we be people who consider that to be the pinnacle of everything? 00:01:56.680 |
What is it about the death that is so important that we would gather here on some random Friday 00:02:02.280 |
night to take a whole week to lead up to this time when Jesus finally is killed? 00:02:12.840 |
We've been going down this path that Jesus walked, to crucifixion. 00:02:20.400 |
We've been saying day after day that every step was intentional, that everything he was 00:02:25.640 |
doing was volitional, that he was making choices and decisions. 00:02:35.000 |
No one had a gun to his head to force him down this path. 00:02:49.880 |
He was the only one in history to have never sinned. 00:02:58.080 |
He was the only person in history to have never sinned. 00:03:25.880 |
This wasn't just a restraint of sin in his life. 00:03:34.260 |
If out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks, then the taming of the tongue isn't 00:03:39.920 |
going to be the thing that changes whether we're sinning or not, right? 00:03:51.760 |
See when we visit that age-old question, and I think it's healthy, it's healthy to think 00:03:56.720 |
about that every once in a while, which is if you're to die tonight, if you came face 00:04:01.920 |
to face with the creator, with the God who made you, regardless of who you are right 00:04:09.360 |
All of us, one day, if we were to die tonight and we came face to face with the God who 00:04:14.880 |
created me, who made me, and he judged you upon a good standard, a righteous standard, 00:04:28.760 |
what would be the only way for you to be allowed entrance into the kingdom of God? 00:04:45.680 |
It's not just the controlling of the tongue, it's the heart. 00:04:50.400 |
It's not just a restraint of sinful activity, it's who you are. 00:05:00.440 |
Meaning this, Jesus alone would be able to fulfill the standard to enter into the kingdom 00:05:09.340 |
There was only one person in all of history ever to be sinless, flawless, and without 00:05:15.380 |
any blame, wholly righteous, and that's Jesus. 00:05:19.980 |
He is then the only one who should be able to enter into the kingdom of God, which leaves 00:05:24.360 |
us at a conundrum, at a very fascinating place. 00:05:42.380 |
The answer is, besides Christ, no one else should be in heaven, right? 00:05:47.780 |
If that is the standard, and Jesus is the only one, then no one should be allowed entrance 00:06:03.100 |
The only way that God could remain a good God, a just God, perfect in his standards, 00:06:11.600 |
and upholding his righteousness, would be an empty heaven. 00:06:30.860 |
The Bible is clear, it says this in Romans chapter 3 verse 10, "There is none righteous, 00:06:46.860 |
Morally doing more good than evil is not enough, because it's not only what you do, but it's 00:07:08.900 |
We're arrogant, altogether filthy, which leads us to the next obvious conclusion, which comes 00:07:14.980 |
in Romans 3, 23, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." 00:07:30.620 |
In fact, it's not only that we are denied entrance into heaven, but Romans 6, 23, it 00:07:34.980 |
goes further to say, "For the wages of sin is death." 00:07:39.380 |
It's not only that we are not allowed entrance into the kingdom of God, but what that means 00:07:47.220 |
Death would be nice if I was annihilated, but this is eternal death. 00:08:02.060 |
You see, there should have been a sure, swift, and immediate death for all of us. 00:08:10.860 |
There should be no hope of heaven for any of us. 00:08:19.980 |
The problem is there shouldn't be eventual death. 00:08:26.200 |
As soon as we exist, we should be eternally dead. 00:08:43.420 |
There are seven and a half billion people breathing in this world. 00:08:48.260 |
Seven and a half billion hearts that are beating right now. 00:08:54.420 |
This is a problem because if God is good and just, how can we exist? 00:09:05.060 |
There should be no space or opportunity for life because every breath I take as a sinner 00:09:19.620 |
This is the only fair thing, but people continue to walk. 00:09:23.780 |
Our very existence ought to cause us to question God's goodness and justice. 00:09:30.380 |
The fact that any sinner walks around should not make any sense to us. 00:09:37.300 |
Just as if you were to see a raping, murderous, hateful, walking person free for even a single 00:09:45.460 |
day, that should be like, "No, that should not be allowed to happen." 00:09:51.260 |
That any of us are existing, are breathing, are living should be an outrage. 00:09:59.380 |
But God, he keeps saving, he keeps preserving, and the fingerprints of God's grace is found 00:10:12.020 |
Some people see the God of the Old Testament as someone who is judging and wrathful and 00:10:18.340 |
And to you, and sometimes, honestly, sometimes my heart questions. 00:10:26.820 |
So to my own heart, I ask this question, like, "Really?" 00:10:34.060 |
The more I read scripture, the more I come to know who God is. 00:10:36.940 |
Did you know the Old Testament God, I find him to be absurdly gracious, incredibly, incredibly 00:10:53.300 |
Because again, every breath taken by a single human is God's sustaining, intentional gift 00:11:00.780 |
of grace and mercy and love and kindness to us. 00:11:08.980 |
In the Old Testament, I'm going to take us through a few Bible passages here just to 00:11:13.060 |
In the Old Testament, we see that death, though it should have come immediately, doesn't come. 00:11:19.020 |
Look at Genesis 2, verse 16, "The Lord God commanded the man, saying, 'From any tree 00:11:24.020 |
of the garden you may eat freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil 00:11:28.660 |
you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it, you will surely die.'" 00:11:33.020 |
Again, this should leave us with the problem because it says, "In the day that you eat 00:11:52.540 |
That's a big problem to God's goodness and justice and to his word. 00:12:01.340 |
Genesis chapter 3, verse 6, "When the women saw that the tree was good for food," and 00:12:05.020 |
here it is, she's walking up to this tree and to this fruit and says, "And it was a 00:12:09.100 |
delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise. 00:12:12.280 |
She took from its fruit, ate it, and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate it." 00:12:23.880 |
But it says, "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked, 00:12:28.160 |
and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings." 00:12:38.280 |
In Genesis chapter 4, verse 8, Cain, here's what it says, "Cain told Abel his brother," 00:12:42.840 |
I'm sure we all know this story, "and it came about when they were in the field that Cain 00:12:45.560 |
rose up against Abel his brother and killed him." 00:13:04.560 |
And you would think as soon as God sees Cain kill Abel, it's like, "Oh, that's it." 00:13:12.560 |
But it says in verse 15, "And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain so that no one finding him 00:13:24.080 |
I have no other explanation other than this is grace. 00:13:30.160 |
In Genesis chapter 6, verse 5, it says, "And the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was 00:13:36.240 |
This word "great," you have to use your exaggerated mind. 00:13:40.400 |
There's just rampant wickedness in the world. 00:13:46.840 |
And that every intent of the thoughts of his heart, can you go any deeper? 00:13:52.400 |
Every intent of the thoughts of his heart, there's so much, you see that? 00:13:56.240 |
Intent, thoughts, heart, it's going deeper and deeper, and it says that that was only 00:14:03.160 |
That means without end, innumerable, and abundant. 00:14:08.360 |
"And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart. 00:14:13.080 |
Then the Lord said, 'I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, 00:14:17.080 |
from man to animals, to creeping things, and to birds of the sky, for I am sorry that I 00:14:21.480 |
Now look at the intentional God at work here to preserve and be gracious to people. 00:14:26.680 |
In chapter 8 verse 1, "But God remembered," and I would love for us not to have Noah here 00:14:38.040 |
I would like to say, let's focus on those first three words, "But God remembered." 00:14:44.640 |
God remembered Noah and all the beasts and the cattle. 00:14:47.000 |
Noah is counted with the beasts and the cattle. 00:15:02.560 |
God caused the wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided. 00:15:07.480 |
Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed. 00:15:11.440 |
There's an active person in this, and that's God. 00:15:13.480 |
He closed it, and the rain from the sky was restrained. 00:15:17.400 |
God restrained it, and the water receded steadily from the earth. 00:15:20.760 |
And at the end of 150 days, the water decreased. 00:15:23.760 |
In the seventh month, on the 17th day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountains of 00:15:28.640 |
The water decreased steadily until the 10th month. 00:15:31.020 |
In the 10th month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains became visible. 00:15:35.040 |
I have no other explanation than this is called grace. 00:15:43.520 |
God could have smote ... I forgot the past tense. 00:16:03.160 |
In the patriarchs, when you read the stories of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph, 00:16:08.200 |
when you look at the story of Israel in the wilderness with Moses and Joshua, when you 00:16:13.600 |
see the story of Israel during the time of judges, these are all the different stories 00:16:17.640 |
that Pastor Peter has been taking us through, through the book of Hebrews and the hall of 00:16:21.840 |
When we see all these people, you can't help when you read the Old Testament to see the 00:16:25.360 |
sinfulness and the wickedness, even in what we would consider the best of us. 00:16:34.160 |
In the best king, in the best judge, in the best patriarch, it is just rampant evil in 00:16:41.920 |
And what you see is God's grace over and over and over and over again. 00:16:58.180 |
You get through a certain part of the Old Testament, you want to tear your hair out. 00:17:23.600 |
Look at the kings that are supposed to be the type of Christ. 00:17:29.560 |
Even one we would consider perhaps the best, Hezekiah. 00:17:33.360 |
You see at the end of his life, in the final 15 years of his life, which by the way, Hezekiah 00:17:39.840 |
when he gets diseased and then he cries out to God and he's in turmoil because he doesn't 00:17:50.200 |
And in that last 15 years that he was extended, he goes on to sin. 00:17:57.080 |
And he is the one who opens up Judah to Babylon. 00:18:03.040 |
And during those last 15 years of God's extended grace in his life, he fathers Manasseh, who 00:18:15.520 |
God is the one just saving and preserving and saving and preserving. 00:18:20.320 |
Every page of the Old Testament is grace upon grace upon grace upon grace. 00:18:25.280 |
The prophets come about and there's just warnings all over, right? 00:18:31.080 |
What God is going to do to you if you do not turn? 00:18:33.920 |
You look at it and you can see like, man, God is grumpy. 00:18:49.160 |
Why do you warn your kids that if you continue down the path you're going, you are going 00:18:58.360 |
Because you want them to stop and you want them to be good, right? 00:19:07.440 |
And so that warning, how many of you parents have said like, I don't want to do this? 00:19:15.720 |
I feel that almost every time when I spank my kids. 00:19:42.400 |
See the wrath stuff should make complete sense. 00:19:49.480 |
In the Old Testament, the wrath stuff should be like, yeah. 00:20:01.320 |
It should honestly make you question his goodness. 00:20:05.440 |
It should honestly make you question his justice. 00:20:09.520 |
Did you know that every breath you and I take is a demonstration of God's grace? 00:20:21.000 |
We ought to be wiped out, but God stays true in his loving kindness and his steadfast love. 00:20:26.080 |
Because we were born into the world as sinners and rebellious, there is no way the holy creator 00:20:34.480 |
And so the question is still, how does this work? 00:20:49.480 |
At heart, we are adulterers and we are murderers. 00:21:05.160 |
We are all susceptible to the evils that we see around us. 00:21:10.160 |
And it should invoke an immediate eternal death sentence in our lives. 00:21:17.980 |
If you pause to look around this room, if you pause to go outside and look around at 00:21:22.880 |
this world, even with all the chaos going on, if you're looking at reality, all you 00:21:27.480 |
see all over the place, God's fingerprints of grace everywhere. 00:21:36.720 |
Seven and a half billion examples of God's grace. 00:21:48.360 |
In Exodus 34, 6, we'll go through just a number of passages here that describes who 00:21:54.060 |
Then the Lord, this is when he goes in front of Moses and he goes past. 00:22:01.460 |
It's like this voice comes out as the presence of God, the very sight of God passes by Moses. 00:22:08.460 |
And then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed. 00:22:15.020 |
He could have chosen so many different ways to describe who he was. 00:22:21.580 |
But in this specific time, as he's passing by Moses, he chooses to describe a very particular 00:22:28.500 |
portion or a particular attribute of who he is. 00:22:32.940 |
Because he could have easily have said, you know, the thrice holy thing. 00:22:36.980 |
He could have easily have said, I am a wrathful and good and just God. 00:22:40.740 |
I mean, he could have said a lot of things, but instead he chooses to say as he passes 00:22:44.740 |
by this creature, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness 00:22:53.420 |
Because Moses should have died in his presence. 00:23:02.860 |
Psalm 86, 5, "For you, Lord, are good and ready to forgive and abundant in loving kindness 00:23:15.660 |
He prayed to the Lord and said, "Please, Lord, was not this what I said while I was still 00:23:23.380 |
It says, "Therefore, in order to forestall this, I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that 00:23:28.540 |
you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness 00:23:34.740 |
Nehemiah chapter 9 verse 31, "Nevertheless, in your great compassion, you did not make 00:23:40.340 |
an end of them or forsake them, for you are a gracious and compassionate God." 00:23:44.380 |
To conclude, Numbers chapter 14 verse 18 says, "The Lord is slow to anger and abundant in 00:23:48.900 |
loving kindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression." 00:24:09.220 |
Visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children to the third and the fourth generations. 00:24:19.020 |
Have we become so entitled that we live our lives and we complain and we question God's 00:24:35.140 |
Don't we understand that our comprehension of his love for us, it can't happen. 00:24:56.260 |
And it should actually cause us to want to say, "This isn't fair, that you would let 00:25:14.880 |
With all this talk of God's grace and compassion as we saw at the end of Numbers there, God's 00:25:30.220 |
So it says this in Romans 2, verse 5, "But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant 00:25:35.980 |
heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the 00:25:38.900 |
righteous judgment of God, who will render to," can I highlight this, "each person." 00:25:45.980 |
That means it includes every single person that has ever been born. 00:25:51.140 |
Every person in this room I'm talking to, to you and to me, he will render to each person 00:25:58.540 |
To those who by perseverance and doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal 00:26:02.100 |
life, but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, 00:26:06.500 |
wrath, and indignation, there will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does 00:26:10.860 |
evil of the Jew first and also of the Greek." 00:26:14.480 |
What that means is there's nothing that a single person will ever get away with. 00:26:20.160 |
Talk about all the evil that we see in the world right now. 00:26:22.920 |
Right now we have some man-made righteousness just going everywhere, right? 00:26:27.260 |
But talk about all the evil going on in the world we see, there is no single person that 00:26:37.580 |
That's why one day we die, come before our Maker, our Creator, and we will have to give 00:26:48.980 |
Our standard of human justice pales in comparison to what is being stored for unbelieving people. 00:26:55.700 |
But this is not just for them because we are no better. 00:26:58.660 |
Every human is going to have to account for this. 00:27:00.480 |
In 2 Corinthians 5, verse 10 it says, "For we must all appear before the judgment seat 00:27:04.780 |
of Christ so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds." 00:27:08.280 |
That means you will get what you deserve in the body according to what he has done, whether 00:27:22.420 |
What does it look like if I get paid for, if I get just recompense? 00:27:27.500 |
I think the closest that we can get to a picture of it is found in the book of Revelation. 00:27:35.980 |
A picture of God's wrath made clear if you look at Revelation. 00:27:39.940 |
There are seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls, and I'm just going to describe these 00:27:45.620 |
In the seals you see war and bloodshed, famine, plagues which wipe out a quarter of the world's 00:27:51.340 |
population, martyrdom, huge earthquakes, blackened sun, red moons, stars that fall to earth. 00:27:59.120 |
Many cry out in the middle of this wrath that they want to die. 00:28:09.660 |
Just hail and fire and death, darkening of the sun and moon. 00:28:19.260 |
There are torturing demonic locust plagues, all which kill a third. 00:28:26.380 |
I mean all of this stuff together kills a third of plant life, a majority of the earth's 00:28:30.380 |
aquatic life, ultimately a third of humanity. 00:28:36.140 |
The bowls come, painful sores, blisters on all humanity. 00:28:41.780 |
Death of every living thing in the sea, every single living thing in the sea, death. 00:28:52.220 |
An army that marches across the world and another massive earthquake that precedes a 00:29:02.500 |
That's not a bedtime story I'm giving to my kids. 00:29:07.900 |
I think that this is the closest I can imagine God's wrath. 00:29:17.260 |
But what we see in Revelation is not even a speck on the tip of an iceberg of what God's 00:29:32.340 |
Like all this stuff, it doesn't even scratch the surface of how deep this goes, of what 00:29:39.140 |
we deserve in God's wrath, and how furious he is against sin. 00:29:49.560 |
We have such a skewed view of sin and the Bible paints it accurately. 00:29:58.620 |
When we think of hell, what you see in Revelation is like people will dream of that. 00:30:09.660 |
How great that would be compared to the fury of hell. 00:30:18.940 |
The fact that we're walking around the way we are and the fact that not every single 00:30:23.300 |
one of us are in hell right now, experiencing that, is God's grace. 00:30:42.340 |
The wrath of God is coming, but what that means is today I can't help but see my life 00:30:50.980 |
and your life and the fact that we exist here in this world as it is now as God's grace. 00:31:01.940 |
When His wrath comes, when the day of judgment comes, there will be no hiding. 00:31:17.940 |
There won't be any more desiring or having this opportunity to come to the Lord. 00:31:34.380 |
It is a guarantee that every sin will be repaid in full without a single drop overlooked. 00:31:51.060 |
And it says that in Amos chapter 9 verse 1 through 4, "I saw the Lord standing beside 00:31:55.260 |
the altar and He said, 'Smite the capitals so that the thresholds will shake and break 00:32:01.100 |
Then I will slay the rest of them with a sword. 00:32:03.220 |
They will not have a fugitive who will flee or a refugee who will escape. 00:32:06.740 |
Though they dig into Sheol, from there will My hand take them. 00:32:09.860 |
And though they ascend to heaven, from there will I bring them down. 00:32:13.660 |
Though they hide on the summit of Carmel, I will search them out and take them from 00:32:18.220 |
And though they conceal themselves from My sight on the floor of the sea, and from there 00:32:22.540 |
I will command the serpent and it will bite them. 00:32:24.980 |
And though they go into captivity before the enemies, from there I will command the sword 00:32:29.820 |
And I will set My eyes against them for evil and not for good. 00:32:33.280 |
And this is going to be our reality for all humanity that encounters God's wrath in 00:32:40.840 |
That they will want to hide but there will be no hiding and this will be for eternity." 00:32:52.880 |
And just like in the Old Testament where we're wondering why the next chapters keep going, 00:32:57.080 |
what we have to do is question why, if I encounter an unbeliever here in this world, why his 00:33:04.520 |
And then in the Old Testament, if it was because of God's grace, then I can't help 00:33:07.640 |
but look at his life and realize that this is God's grace in his life. 00:33:12.080 |
And then when I ask the question of God, why do you let him continue? 00:33:15.480 |
It's because he desires none to perish and for all to come to repentance. 00:33:18.560 |
Then when I see this unbelieving person, then I need to understand and know that God desires 00:33:22.900 |
for this person not to perish and to come to repentance. 00:33:28.980 |
And so as we sit here on Good Friday, a week where Jesus intentionally marches to the cross, 00:33:35.480 |
where we see this great intersection of God's grace and His wrath, of His fury and His love 00:33:46.440 |
When we see the great intersection of it, that we understand that God is not just partly 00:33:54.600 |
It's not like He has 50% this, He has 50% that. 00:34:02.880 |
And what we see at the cross is where we see it, where we marvel, where we stand dumbstruck 00:34:15.480 |
What we see at the cross brings us to a place where it's hard to make sense of any of it. 00:34:21.720 |
And literally, the cross leaves us at a place where the only possible thing is worship. 00:34:30.920 |
It leaves us in awe and wonder and amazement because all of this stored judgment that all 00:34:42.080 |
humanity is meant to pay for, all humanity will one day meet as God pours out judgment 00:34:51.240 |
This is a crazy thing because the possibility of people continuing in God's grace is because 00:35:06.580 |
Because God's judgment and wrath for anyone who would place their faith in Him would in 00:35:14.960 |
full, not a single drop unaccounted for, be pressed onto Jesus Christ. 00:35:25.760 |
This is what Jesus was every day this week, every day of His life, walking towards intentionally. 00:35:41.120 |
Jesus knew this and we're gonna just end this time. 00:35:45.800 |
It's gonna be a little bit lengthy so don't take that cue to say we're almost done. 00:35:54.360 |
And this is where you need to do some work for me in imagining this. 00:36:05.760 |
Matthew 26, 38, "My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death. 00:36:12.120 |
My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not as I will but as you 00:36:17.680 |
My Father, if this cannot pass away until I drink it, unless I drink it, your will be 00:36:33.040 |
And so what we see this night is Judas completing his betrayal of Jesus on this Friday, kissing 00:36:37.560 |
Jesus on the cheek as a sign to the mob of people wielding swords and clubs, directly 00:36:42.520 |
sent from the chief priests who have been trying to trap Him and elders who had sent 00:36:47.600 |
And Peter tries to stop them and he pulls out his sword and he strikes the ear of the 00:36:52.760 |
Now how brave of Peter to go after the slave, you know? 00:37:01.320 |
But Jesus didn't need Peter to rescue Him because He was walking this path. 00:37:04.880 |
Jesus says, in a single word, snap of the fingers, 12 legions of angels, let's do the 00:37:11.120 |
math, at least 72,000 angels would be at His beckoning to descend and to rescue and it 00:37:18.920 |
would be a wrathful massacre, giving people just recompense. 00:37:28.520 |
We see back in history, one angel wipes out 185,000 of Sennacherib's army in a single 00:37:36.760 |
You have 72,000 angels and a snap of His fingers to come and do what is right. 00:37:48.320 |
And then Jesus walks before this human, Caiaphas, and this human council. 00:37:56.680 |
Peter keeps his distance, this human keeps his distance and denies Jesus three times. 00:38:02.200 |
And these humans, chief priests, and the whole council, they attempt to find false testimony 00:38:10.600 |
But there's none available because He lived His life perfectly. 00:38:17.160 |
Even though many false witnesses come forward, they are not believed because He lived unbelievably 00:38:22.700 |
above reproach, but they find a way to get at Jesus and cry, "Blasphemy." 00:38:30.280 |
And then Matthew 26, 67, these humans, imagine Jesus here, what He's doing to take the sins 00:38:39.200 |
of the world, where He's marching towards so that I might not experience that. 00:38:45.360 |
These humans come and they spat in His face and beat Him with their fists and others slapped 00:39:04.400 |
And what we see here, you know these days we see a popular thing where people say, "Don't 00:39:09.320 |
look away from the atrocities that you see in this world. 00:39:21.240 |
But I'd like to apply it here, asking us all this Good Friday to look at the reality. 00:39:32.840 |
We can't look away at the fact that what Jesus is doing here and walking towards this, it's 00:39:45.020 |
Don't ever look away at what Jesus was doing here. 00:39:47.620 |
Jesus is continuing to willingly, intentionally walk to the very point which He would absorb 00:39:54.440 |
And everything that's happening to Jesus up to this point is still nothing compared to 00:40:04.180 |
And they deliver Him to Pilate, another human. 00:40:07.800 |
And he asked Jesus, "Are you the King of the Jews?" 00:40:09.800 |
Upon which Jesus responds, "It is as you say." 00:40:12.020 |
And they enter into the custom of allowing one prisoner to be freed by popular consent. 00:40:16.200 |
And so a notorious prisoner by the name of Barabbas is the one they scream for to free 00:40:23.680 |
The noted killer, the insurrectionist, to free Him and the innocent Christ, the Son 00:40:27.880 |
of God, to be brutally tortured and murdered on the cross. 00:40:31.220 |
And so they take Jesus into the praetorium and gather the whole Roman cohort now. 00:40:44.200 |
And they twist together a crown of thorns and they place it on His head and they jam 00:41:02.820 |
And they crucify Jesus on that cross next to two robbers. 00:41:08.820 |
And even there Jesus takes time to speak words of comfort to one of them. 00:41:14.540 |
Now let me read the rest of the count in Matthew, verse 45, as we see the final breath of our 00:41:23.340 |
Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. 00:41:26.700 |
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? 00:41:32.220 |
That is my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" 00:41:35.780 |
And some of those who were standing there when they heard it began saying, "This man 00:41:41.460 |
Immediately one of them ran and taking a sponge he filled it with sour wine and put it on 00:41:47.900 |
But the rest of them said, "Let us see whether Elijah will come to save him." 00:41:53.140 |
And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up His Spirit. 00:42:24.700 |
This is not like a little hiatus in His existence. 00:42:40.540 |
And so in verse 51 it says, "And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top 00:42:45.420 |
to bottom and the earth shook and the rocks were split. 00:42:49.380 |
The tombs were opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. 00:42:53.700 |
And coming out of the tombs after His resurrection, they entered the holy city and appeared to 00:42:57.900 |
And now the centurion and those who were with him keeping guard over Jesus, when they saw 00:43:01.600 |
the earthquake and the things that were happening, became very frightened and said, 'Truly this 00:43:08.780 |
What we are witnessing here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. 00:43:14.220 |
In 2 Corinthians 5 verse 21 it says, "God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our 00:43:19.500 |
behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." 00:43:26.180 |
What we see on this way to the cross is Jesus in Isaiah 53 verse 4-7. 00:43:31.180 |
"Surely our griefs He Himself bore and our sorrows He carried, yet we ourselves esteemed 00:43:44.300 |
He was pierced through for our transgression. 00:43:48.860 |
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him and by His scourging we are healed. 00:43:55.700 |
Each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all 00:44:02.180 |
He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth. 00:44:05.660 |
Like a lamb that is led to slaughter and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, 00:44:11.860 |
So on Good Friday when we think of Jesus walking to the cross, we have to remember what was 00:44:20.180 |
That the only innocent one to walk the earth was marching with His crucifix to hang on 00:44:25.260 |
a tree, but He would not just die for our sins and just do whatever for like, "Oh, 00:44:34.220 |
He was taking upon Himself the very sin of every person who had placed their faith in 00:44:41.320 |
Every single one of us will die in the flesh, but we will, every single one of us, awaken 00:44:46.900 |
to a spiritual reality before the judgment of God. 00:44:49.900 |
And regardless of the opinions of every individual, this truthful and certain reality waits every 00:44:55.320 |
single one of us that we will indeed kneel before the Creator and wrath is what each 00:45:05.300 |
And if you have not placed your faith in the only one who is able to take upon the full 00:45:09.180 |
brunt of the wrath of God which is found on this Good Friday, you stand naked and exposed 00:45:20.460 |
You have nothing to hide behind, no more place of grace, and it's coming. 00:45:27.660 |
You have to mark my words here, it's coming for you. 00:45:34.460 |
But if you place your faith in Him, at that place when you come before judgment and you're 00:45:44.700 |
kneeling before the Creator and He is about to explode on you, if you place your faith 00:45:51.700 |
in Christ, you will find a Savior who stands before you and God. 00:45:59.300 |
You will be literally staring up at the back of your Savior, the one who took the full 00:46:07.020 |
brunt of it, the one who stood as a propitiation for your sin, to appease the fury and goodness 00:46:18.820 |
He will stand between you and God and He has taken every blow. 00:46:26.580 |
Jesus willingly takes that for you if you place your faith in Him. 00:46:37.660 |
To conclude, let me read from Hebrews chapter 2 verse 9. 00:46:42.340 |
"But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely Jesus, 00:46:47.820 |
because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace 00:46:55.460 |
"For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and through whom are all things, 00:47:03.400 |
in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings. 00:47:10.540 |
For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father, for which 00:47:14.300 |
reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren." 00:47:22.260 |
Would you take a moment here to bow your heads with me and on this Good Friday, make this 00:47:28.220 |
If you're a believer, we need to again remember what He did on that cross and experienced 00:47:47.340 |
If our hearts have been far, if our hearts have been cold, if the gospel has become stale, 00:47:54.980 |
let's take this time tonight again to consider our Savior. 00:48:02.660 |
This is also going to be a time where we partake in communion together and we can meditate 00:48:12.220 |
and concentrate and think upon the blood that was shed for us, upon the body that was broken 00:48:17.820 |
for us, that we can now partake in Jesus Christ Himself. 00:48:25.180 |
Would you use this time to examine yourself and to meditate on the body of Christ broken 00:48:30.780 |
for you and the blood of Christ shed for you. 00:48:35.020 |
And this communion is a time for baptized believers if you are to participate, so please 00:48:40.460 |
refrain from participating in it if you are not a baptized believer and simply observe. 00:48:46.860 |
But all of us now for the next few minutes, we will give you this opportunity to pray 00:48:57.060 |
After praying, I'll come back up and I'm going to read for us from 1 Corinthians 11 00:49:01.780 |
and we'll take up the communion together so you can wait for further instruction there.