Good Friday Sermon

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good evening it's good to be here and to be back in home away from home whenever you're with other believers you're at home and we know that the fellowship that we have in Christ is an eternal fellowship and so I'm just so thankful to be back here wish my family could be here don't worry about Caleb he's really proud about this black cast that he gets to wear everywhere and show it off but we are so glad to be serving
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Christ in my home in India especially on a day like this when we remember him who changed our lives changed history in the best way possible through identifying with us and dying for us there's there's no other message we have and yet there are people in the world that that don't know
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Christ and many of them are our loved ones and dear ones and I live in India where and I see a lot of Indians out there you guys are connected to India where there's the majority 95 % maybe more that don't know
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Christ many of them have never heard of Christ and so we are just laboring by God's grace through the cross like Paul said we have nothing else to declare except Christ and him crucified that sounds strange that we would preach a crucified
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Lord but there is all our hope and we do that in in the nation of India one of the ways in which we do that has been to train pastors and I know you know about our work and so I want to spend a lot of time talking about it but we want to train pastors
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Indian pastors to be sent out and start churches that are the vehicles through which
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Christ is seen and heard around the country we've been there for 12 years now in the pastoral training seminary and we just had our ninth graduation in February 23rd and as professors you know there are three professors
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I'm one of them my dad is another we were weeping as we prayed for these men and sent them out because we were just realizing the great work that God was doing there it wasn't our work it was his work in sending these men out and just thinking about as these nine men they were nine men that graduated went out there's a total of 37 soldiers that Jesus has called to work in and minister in churches and the real work starts after they leave our seminary in and do something useful for Christ in the church and just to give you an example
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I was visiting one of our students this last year his name is Dinesh he's actually a surgeon dr.
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Dinesh and he lives near Varanasi which is kind of a Hindu Center Hindu capital we had a chance to go to the the
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Ganga River which according to Hindus is a source of purification it's connected to a
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Hindu goddess and they put a lot of their dead bodies in that water in fact they try as much as possible because that's a direct in their mythology road to heaven and you're there at the
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Ganga and you can smell the stench I don't want to gross anyone out but making a point here of deadness and we were sitting there with our
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Hindu guide and I turned to him and I said how can you smell this and look at this water and say that this makes you clean and we were just passing by and he showed us some pilgrims that were going in the water and dipping themselves and gargling this this filthy water and trying to get clean and he said look at them are they falling sick well that's a sign right there that this water is clean and it's just it's blindness without without Christ I mean we're we're blind we seek futile things to purify us and Dinesh has planted a church there and he is working there with his wife and his kids and that's a pinpoint of light and I had a chance to be with him and there were a hundred people there at his fellowship and he's preaching
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Christ and him crucified and God can take those people from darkness and from damnation and put them in a place of life and that makes me tremble you know because that's that's all we're here in this life for amen there's only two reasons
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Jesus I mean there's only two reasons why why we are here on this earth and that is to worship
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Christ and share the gospel and sharing the gospel is just one thing we can do here that we can't do better in heaven and so that's something that I know you are laboring with us and working with us in prayer especially and so keep doing that because there's a real feeling of inadequacy especially when you look at the overwhelming number of people that need to hear
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Jesus we've sent 37 men out we need to send several hundred more so keep praying as we do this work for Christ and this evening
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I wanted to focus again on the cross what a glorious thing to talk about the cross of Jesus Christ the root of all our hope and all our joy we look at a bloody cross and we can be energized by it not because we see defeat there but because we see victory there we see the fulfillment of all the hopes and longings of the
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Old Testament and all the the life that that God promised to us in what
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Jesus did in his life and then particularly in those six hours on the cross and I think we need to be reminded of that because you know sometimes we can we can look at the cross and get depressed and scriptures doesn't allow us to do that passages that speak about the cross are passages that are overwhelmingly passages of joy and that seems weird it is foolishness in a sense to the world and therefore
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I think we need to to to saturate ourselves in in what the victory of the cross means more and more especially as we think about our own lives and how we may live for Christ and how we may even speak of Christ you can't speak of Christ without what he's done on the cross and Colossians I want you to turn there this evening is a passage that does just that it speaks of the cross but it speaks of the joy the hope the victory and the reconciliation that we can have in what
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Christ has done there Colossians 1 21 to 23 is the passage
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I want you to look at this evening as we think about Good Friday and there's nothing special about this day but just about the truth that the
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Son of God became man took our sin and crushed it forever forever so that we could live through him this is how
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Paul says it he says it this way let me read the passage Colossians 1 21 through 23 and although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind engaged in evil deeds yet he has now reconciled you in his fleshly body through death and this is the key idea in this passage let me say it again because we love this he has now reconciled you in his fleshly body through death in order to present you before him holy and blameless and beyond reproach verse 23 if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven you get a sense that Paul's excited about this and of which
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I Paul was made a minister the book of Colossians is just enthralling to us isn't it because it it takes us in a in a never -ending way to just the glories and the sufficiencies of Jesus Christ and I want you to definitely have that in mind as we look at this passage
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Jesus is all we need there's no one who is greater than him and in him you can be satisfied and Paul has just been sort of taking us to the the throne room where Christ is and been showing us this even in verses 15 and following and I can't preach on it but I just have to talk about it because that's the context that he is great over all of the physical creation and it is sustained and held together because of his greatness and his person and then in an even greater way
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I would say spiritually he is great and sufficient over the spiritual creation that is us his bride the church which cannot live and cannot be sustained through him and you're just going amen hallelujah
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Christ you are supreme you are great and then he makes this this application of Christ's greatness that I would have never made you know
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I would have said okay if if Christ is great over creation and over the church then let's just worship him and let's just sing songs and and let's you know do something esoteric but he says
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I want to apply that that that greatness to to what
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God applies it to I want to apply the power of Christ to what God applies it to and I want to apply that to the cross that's where the power of Christ is applied and to what is accomplished through the cross the greatest demonstration of Jesus's greatness and power in this context is the cross it's pretty amazing it should shock you you know because you can only embrace this through the
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Holy Spirit and as Paul talks about this
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I want to show you not just the context before but even the context after he talks about how the cross is a is a cross of reconciliation it brings the impossible to bear upon human history that is enemies of God become friends of God in the cross this happens it's the reconciliation of of warring parties that should never be together and then you look at at verse 24 and this is why
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I say you know the cross and communion and when we remember the cross shouldn't just be depressing but it should be joy because you look at what
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Paul says after he says Christ is great and that's seen most vividly in the cross and then he makes this application in verse 24 and he says now this weak man is filled with joy
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I rejoice he even says it in my suffering he says because I'm a
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Christian and because I'm serving Christ my body is beaten my soul is beaten and I am filled with energy specifically joy right the joy of the
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Lord is my strength because of the cross do you see why Good Friday is is so central to who we are we can't live without it in other words what what
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Paul is saying is the reconciling power of the cross in this passage is a source of ceaseless joy to the
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Christian the reconciling power of the cross is a source of ceaseless joy to the
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Christian why do I say ceaseless joy because the tense even in verse 24 is a ongoing tense that just never ends
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Paul says I just can't stop leaping because of what Christ has done through the cross and and why is that again because as I said very carefully it's the reconciling power of the cross it's not just the sufferings of the cross that we look at but we look at the reconciliation that took place through that suffering and that sounds like a big word and I would just say it's the fact that Jesus has made us friends with God we have not just a relationship of salvation but a relationship that is closer than in a sense any other description of relationships we are actually the friends of God and in the
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Bible friendship is the word that means somebody that offers benefit to someone in need that's why we love the cross you know
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I I remember this this vivid picture of friendship when I was just I just moved to go up and go as kind of a jungle state a jungle town in India it's very tropical and I was driving my car up on a hill and the roads are very very narrow and I didn't see in the brush there was this huge ditch and I fell in the ditch two of my wheels were spinning in the air and I just remember being there and just thinking
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I'm in the middle of nowhere what am I going to do and then six of my seminary students came by and they said and in India they always respect you even though I look like this young guy they said sir do you need help and I said yeah
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I do and and literally these six guys they said you get in the car they got underneath my car and you know this is an
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Indian crane if you will they sat and they lifted me out of that ditch and I drove away and that's what friendship is you know it's to see somebody who is desperate and in need and come to their aid that's the cross and that's why
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Paul is filled with joy now let me talk about how this works there's two provisions that we find in this passage of reconciliation a friendship that come from the cross that can give us joy even tonight as we think about what has done 2 ,000 years ago there's two provisions of reconciliation that we find in this passage and the first is found in verses 21 and 22 and you can see this this amazing contrast between 21 that is who we were and then 22 that is who we have become because of the reconciliation of the cross and I would say and I would summarize it in this way verse 21 is us being focused and I'm gonna explain this just on ourselves and that's why we were so lost and destroyed and verse 22 is us being focused on Christ and him alone and the first provision is this that he has given us a delight he has given us a delight through the cross in his will and in his pleasure
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Jesus has changed us from being consumed by ourselves through the cross and he has given us a soul delight and a soul appetite for him and his will and his pleasure you know this is the reason why we suffer if you will this is the reason why this world is so cursed is because we're consumed and we're delighted in ourselves and this is the reason if you will why
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Christians have great joy is because Jesus has taken us and liberated us from that amazing obsession with ourselves and he has given us an obsession with himself and no matter what happens because of that because he never changes you have joy and if you're saved you know this right but let's think about it just briefly what we were before the cross and that is we were obsessed with ourselves verse 21 it says this and although you were formally and it's great to realize that this is you know just a past gone reality but we need to remember it just so we we love the cross more this is who
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I would be if it weren't for what Christ has done on Calvary you were formerly what alienated you were formerly hostile in mind and you were formally engaged in evil deeds and I would say it this way our obsession with our ourselves was that we were dead we were darkened and we were destructive that's who we were before Christ intervened we were dead in this sense that we were aliens and this is this idea of being completely separate and without an ability to relate to to who to God to your
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Creator and I can see a lot of different ethnicities here so you understand what the word alien means and I remember when
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I first came to the United States and just for me this was my personal experience
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I'd never been on a plane I'd never been outside of the country you know I was fresh off the boat and so I got to college and I remember this big black guy coming right at me and I wasn't used to that you know people just strangers just walking straight up to you and I thought he was gonna you know beat me or something and then he came up to me and he said what's up dude and and this is what
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I did I looked up and then he fell down and started laughing at me and I said what did
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I do wrong and he said I was just saying hello you know you what you're looking at the sky for and it took me about six months before I could understand you know this language that seemed to be
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English but you know it wasn't because I was an alien but in a greater way that's how we were before the cross we couldn't understand a thing
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God was saying right somebody could even bring scripture to you and you wouldn't understand it you would hate it you would run away from it you couldn't understand that you were a sinner that your righteous acts are are full of pride and they're dead and filthy before God you couldn't understand anything
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God was saying you couldn't love him you couldn't understand that you owed all to him life and breath and all things you were an alien to the very one who had given you everything and that's called deadness in the
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Bible to be separated from the one who made you it's praise
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God we're on this side right that he's changed that but not only were we dead but because we were dead we were darkened because you're not connected to the
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Creator who made this world and knows how it runs your mind is just stupid that's what it says you were darkened you kept you know even though you had eyes it was like there was no lights on and you were kept constantly banging in a wall spiritually speaking with your marriage with your kids with your family you were darkened in your mind and some of you know what that's like and you're saying get to the next verse you know it's important I grew up in a in a
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Christian home and I was a hypocrite my dad was a pastor and I hated ministry and I fought against it and I want to tell you the whole story but I'm saved today because of the grace of God you know it doesn't matter how much light you have you could be dead and drunk on the street or you could be a pastor's kid you need
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I think almost I needed more grace than a drug addict you know in terms of God showing me how self -righteous
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I was and God saved me I don't know what mess you came from if darkness but he saved you and the only reason you're here is because of the cross not only were we we darkened but we were darkened we were dead we were separate from God therefore we were stupid and darkened and we were also destructive just everything you do hurts people when you don't love
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Christ and you love yourself you're destructive and and your selfishness makes you want to just kill other people so you can be first right we call that the rat race we call that you know marital conflict and in the end it's all because of this because we're so self -consumed and that's why
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Christian marriages by God's grace can be more hopeful because God can cause a husband to die to himself and I'm trying to do that so that you can love your wife right you learn that from where from the cross we were destructive this word destructive and it shocked me when
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I was studying it is actually a word that is used for leprosaurs in Revelation 16 and verse 2 that's how
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God sees it and that's how when you see it you really understand Lord I was just decaying and I was causing my wife to decay and my kids to decay and my neighbors to decay and people at my job to just die because of how selfish
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I was I was full of rottenness you know
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I was reading recently in Luke chapter 5 and verse 12 of a man that came to Jesus and he was a leper and Luke was a doctor and Luke said he was covered with leprosy probably that's a medical diagnosis saying he was just full of pus and sores and he was gonna die in a few days maybe he was not supposed to be with normal people
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I'm sure the disciples were thinking of how they could get rid of him and before they could do that in Luke 5 12 he puts his face on the ground he's eaten the dirt and he he's not even looking at Christ and he says
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Lord if you are willing heal me and the next verse just makes me weep because this is the kind of Christ we have this is what the cross is he reached out in Luke chapter 5 verse 13 and the
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Greek is very strong it says he didn't just talk to him but he grasped him and he grasped him strongly he held him and he he he held his decay and he held his sores in his hands
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I think that's a pre picture of what he did on the cross
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I am willing be clean and instantly all those sores went away and the man was whole and that man was me and you and that's the next verse he's given us when you realize what you had before you know through scripture you can't help but just being overjoyed with what
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Jesus gave you in exchange verse 23 he's given you a delight now not in yourself anymore but in him and you have become now through the reckoning this is what friendship is this is what happened on the cross through the reconciliation of the cross the
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Bible teaches us that in those six hours that Jesus suffered he suffered not because of any sin of his own because he was sinless he was a son of God and the only thing therefore that was on him and the reason for his suffering was me and you and he sat on that cross and he he hung on that cross for six hours experiencing the hell that first 21 deserved so much so as Pradeep read he said my god my god there was never a time in Jesus's life except for that time where he didn't call
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God father and somehow in some divine mysterious way he couldn't say
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God was his father in that moment as he was forsaken leprosy that sin that God put on her what the
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Bible teaches us also that in that cross his righteousness was then made available to us look at verse 23 sorry verse 22
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I'm jumping ahead he has now reconciled you in his fleshly body and completely identifying with us like with that leprous man on that cross and he has done this what does it say not in order to just you know do something abstract but in order to do something really real to give you an obsession with him now to make you what there's three ways in which we're decadent and sinful and there's three exact ways in which we've been changed holy blameless and without reproach just quickly for our deadness and our separation from God he makes us alive now that's holy you know what does it mean to be holy does it mean to just you know be pious and holy holy holy you know just be be weird no