Christ’s Death Was No Accident
00:00:00.000 | Welcome back to the podcast.
00:00:06.000 | Today we are going deep, very deep.
00:00:09.560 | Of course, at the center of our faith, we celebrate the cross of Jesus Christ, His horrific
00:00:16.060 | suffering and His death by crucifixion.
00:00:19.960 | Christ bore our sins in His body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness
00:00:27.720 | by His wounds, you have been healed.
00:00:32.040 | That's 1 Peter 2 verse 24.
00:00:35.020 | His death was designed.
00:00:36.760 | It was no accident.
00:00:38.080 | It was no fluke of history.
00:00:40.000 | It was no mere result of mob violence left unchecked.
00:00:45.280 | His death was intentional.
00:00:48.440 | It was divinely intended, intended from the very beginning of time.
00:00:57.640 | This is a somber and significant point to grasp from Acts chapter 4 verses 27 and 28.
00:01:04.760 | This theological point matters when we look at the fallenness of this world, the brokenness
00:01:10.320 | of our lives.
00:01:12.080 | Specifically in this clip, you're going to hear a mention of a massive earthquake that
00:01:16.320 | hit Nepal in the spring of 2015.
00:01:21.480 | That earthquake hit the day before this sermon was preached.
00:01:25.720 | In that disaster, three and a half million people were left homeless and nearly 9,000
00:01:33.600 | lost their lives.
00:01:35.800 | Why?
00:01:37.160 | Why does such a world exist with such deep pain?
00:01:44.120 | Here's Pastor John.
00:01:47.500 | This world exists with its pain, with its sorrow, with its death to make a place for
00:01:55.860 | Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to suffer and die.
00:02:02.060 | If a world like this didn't exist, Jesus would have no place to suffer and die.
00:02:10.500 | If there were no suffering, Jesus couldn't suffer.
00:02:12.540 | If there were no death, Jesus couldn't die.
00:02:16.220 | Put it another way, the reason there is terror is so that Christ could be terrorized.
00:02:22.140 | The reason there is trouble is so that Christ could be troubled.
00:02:26.180 | The reason there is pain is so that Christ could feel pain.
00:02:32.480 | This world became what it is so that the Son of God could enter it and feel all of it.
00:02:43.580 | Therefore, you should never feel that God is somehow out there, distant, far away, toying
00:02:54.220 | with this creation.
00:02:57.140 | He made the horrors to enter the horrors.
00:03:03.540 | Romans 5:8, "God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
00:03:09.220 | for us."
00:03:10.220 | Do you believe?
00:03:11.220 | Let me say it again, "God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ,
00:03:18.940 | his Son, died for us."
00:03:21.660 | He showed his love through the death of his Son.
00:03:24.220 | He showed his love through the death of his Son.
00:03:26.300 | Do you believe that love could be shown another way?
00:03:30.420 | That love could be shown another way.
00:03:32.820 | It couldn't, and he meant for it to be shown.
00:03:38.460 | Listen to these words from Acts chapter 4, "Truly in this city," this is being prayed
00:03:44.300 | by the saints after the death and resurrection of Jesus, "Truly in this city," Jerusalem,
00:03:50.460 | "there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, Herod,
00:03:58.700 | Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles, and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your
00:04:07.780 | plan predestined to take place."
00:04:11.060 | Do you hear what that says?
00:04:14.500 | Herod, who mocked him, put a purple robe on him, scorned him.
00:04:20.820 | Pilate, who expediently washed his hands and said, "I'll find no fault in him, but my job's
00:04:27.300 | at stake, and so kill him, crucify him, put him through the worst tortures imaginable."
00:04:32.340 | The Gentiles, that's the soldiers, they were driving the nails, pushing the sword in the
00:04:36.420 | side.
00:04:37.420 | "Crucify him, Jewish people, crucify him, crucify him."
00:04:40.540 | Those four things, this text says, I'll read it again, "Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles,
00:04:46.740 | and the peoples of Israel were gathered together to do whatever your plan and your hand had
00:04:52.740 | predestined to take place."
00:04:56.220 | Christ did not die by accident.
00:04:59.420 | Oh, just a fluke of history, just a turning of Roman affairs, just a mob violence.
00:05:08.460 | This had been planned since before the foundation of the world.
00:05:13.080 | This is the climax of the reason for existence.
00:05:17.460 | The Son of God bearing all the suffering of the world in order to lift sin from all who
00:05:25.780 | would trust Him, bring them into everlasting reward and joy, exquisitely on a new heavens
00:05:33.140 | and a new earth, glorifying God for His wisdom and grace and love.
00:05:39.860 | That's the reason this world exists the way it exists.
00:05:45.060 | In my church, I still affectionately call it my church.
00:05:50.260 | I've been the pastor for two years.
00:05:53.620 | I feel I love her.
00:05:59.540 | There were a thousand young women, there were about 5,000 folks, and a lot of young people
00:06:09.140 | like here, right?
00:06:11.060 | And we grew up together, guys there for 33 years, and young people would come.
00:06:15.340 | And when you have a lot of young people together, they tend to fall in love and they get married
00:06:19.260 | and they have babies, and those babies die more than you would like.
00:06:27.020 | And some of them are born with profound disabilities, like Michael, thinking of Michael.
00:06:34.020 | And you got moms, therefore, who've just lost their babies or have now, their whole lives
00:06:40.580 | changed because they will be caring for this child until they're dead.
00:06:46.380 | And I just want to bear witness to you young people.
00:06:50.220 | I would welcome you to come to this church and interview any of them, like Patty, who
00:06:56.940 | you can't interview because she died of breast cancer.
00:07:00.620 | The first crisis was that Eric, her one-year-old, died in her arms.
00:07:04.140 | And I went to the hospital, she's sitting there holding Eric, he looks like he's made
00:07:08.980 | out of ivory, dead, sitting in his mother's arms.
00:07:14.540 | She just looks at me.
00:07:17.500 | And then I buried her about 15 years later, four kids, young kids, and she dies.
00:07:25.580 | It was a horrible death, in fact.
00:07:28.620 | Patty was a rock.
00:07:30.060 | Patty believed every word of what I said.
00:07:33.620 | With her bald head and her cap, she made a video about 15 minutes, 13 minutes, we showed
00:07:38.860 | it at a service, telling the people to trust God before she died.
00:07:46.940 | So I'm inviting you, work through this.
00:07:51.060 | If it sounds problematical, God could shake this city, not just Nepal.
00:07:59.740 | Half these buildings could go down at 10 a.m. on Monday morning and 100,000 people be dead.
00:08:07.340 | Do you have a vision of God that would be able to handle that?
00:08:13.100 | That's my question, which might be easier to handle than if one of your children died
00:08:18.780 | or if you had a child with a profound disability.
00:08:21.540 | I am inviting you to embrace Jesus Christ as the one for whom, through whom, and to
00:08:31.540 | whom all things exist.
00:08:34.420 | And He came to share this suffering.
00:08:36.900 | He came to bear this pain.
00:08:39.440 | He came to taste every test and every temptation that we have known, take it to the cross,
00:08:45.660 | die in our place so that by faith alone we could have all our sins forgiven, have eternal
00:08:51.660 | life and have a destiny on a new heavens and a new earth where that curse will finally
00:08:58.500 | be lifted.
00:08:59.500 | The sobering connection between the death of Christ and the suffering of the world and
00:09:05.220 | our display of treasuring Christ above all things.
00:09:08.840 | This was taken from John Piper's sermon, "The Pain of the World and the Purposes of God,"
00:09:13.220 | preached on April 26, 2015, the day after the major earthquake that hit Nepal.
00:09:20.700 | If you have remaining questions about this episode, that's understandable, certainly
00:09:24.020 | understandable.
00:09:25.020 | These are deep topics and it reminds me of a key theological point that Paul gives us
00:09:28.540 | in Romans 9.22 we should mix in here.
00:09:31.700 | And it just so happens to be the most asked about text in all of the Bible, in all of
00:09:36.060 | our listener emails, Romans 9.22.
00:09:38.300 | I mentioned that this summer in APJ 1827.
00:09:42.460 | But Romans 9.22 comes to the forefront in three other important episodes that you might
00:09:46.580 | want to check out.
00:09:48.220 | If God is so happy, why did He create the non-elect?
00:09:52.220 | That's APJ 547.
00:09:54.300 | Don't miss that one, 547.
00:09:55.900 | Also how is God glorified in those who reject Him?
00:09:59.540 | Another really important episode, that's APJ 1215.
00:10:02.980 | And see also why does God choose some and not others, that's APJ 1320.
00:10:07.860 | So if this episode today raises questions, you might want to press into Romans 9.22 and
00:10:12.580 | check out APJs 547, 1215, and 1320.
00:10:19.460 | While shifting topics now, do you have skills in your church?
00:10:23.500 | Like you're a mechanic or a carpenter or a doctor or a lawyer or a photographer and you
00:10:28.820 | feel like other Christians around you are using your skills unwilling to pay for them?
00:10:35.420 | Well that's the topic of next time.
00:10:37.220 | I'm your host Tony Reiki.
00:10:38.540 | We are rejoined in studio with Pastor John on Friday for that.
00:10:42.100 | We'll see you then.
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