The Ransom for Many

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Don Filcek; Matthew 27:45-56 The Ransom for Many

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called
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Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in. Welcome to Recast Church.
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I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here. And here at Recast Church, the word
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Bible makes its way into our name through our acronym that forms our name. Most of you know.
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And if you got donuts, you noticed on the sign above that, hopefully, that our core values are there. Replication, community, authenticity, simplicity, and truth.
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And that T for truth is all focused on the self -disclosure of God through his revealed word in all 66 books of the
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Bible. The books of the Bible breathed out by the Holy Spirit to men who were moved along like a sailboat is moved across Lake Michigan, moved along like the wind moves the sailboat across, the
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Spirit revealing those words to his people. So what we take in is the word of God.
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And what we're going to look at this morning is the word of God, what he desires for us to know. And the temptation for me, and I think every
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Bible teacher or pastor, is to use superlatives in introducing their message, right?
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This is the most, the best, the greatest, the whateverest. And it is important, you know, like speaking 101 is to tell you why you should pay attention, right?
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Like, why is this important? Well, it's because it's the word of God, and that should be hopefully clear to you before you ever came here.
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My hunch is that you came here to hear something from God. But anytime that we're looking at any given text, it's important.
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And I risk miscommunication by statements that I can say sometimes up here, like, this is one of the most important passages, or this is one of the toughest passages, or this is one of the most skipped over passages, or whatever it might be.
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Because the truth is, when we come to God's Word, it's all important, it's all tough, and it's all skipped over by someone.
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Someone skips over everything. Our passage this morning is important. Our passage this morning is tough.
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And our passage this morning is skipped over by many, at least in terms of application and what it really, the significance of it.
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I'm going to leave the superlatives up to you in the Holy Spirit this morning. I'm going to let Him work that out in your lives and show you how vital and important this text is.
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But I will tell you that my experience this week, and I'll use some dramatic language, my experience this week with this passage has been a deep dive into blood and fire.
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It is wrath in this text. It is hell in this text. It is love, it is justice, it is grace, it is holiness, it is mercy, it is mystery, it is scandal, and it is redemption.
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It's redemption. It is blood. It is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
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It is the propitiation of the wrath of God, and yes, I'll use some big words, but that just simply means the satisfaction of divine wrath as revealed in Romans chapter 3, verse 25.
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Yes, the word propitiation, the assuaging of the wrath of God. It is in our text substitution.
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He who knew no sin becoming sin on our behalf, that we, that we, people, sinners like us, can become the righteousness of God.
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Well, in introducing this message here, before we come and sing some songs, I want to just point out that Jesus spoke clearly of his purpose in coming to this earth.
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Not many are able to say with any definitive sense what they are made for, and even fewer would be arrogant enough to speak of coming here for a purpose, as if we had a choice in the matter.
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How many of you chose to be born? Go ahead and raise your hand real high. A couple of you. Funny, funny people.
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We know we didn't choose to be born. We didn't select to be here. We didn't sign up for this, and then all of a sudden, boom, we're here.
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What? How did we get here? We all have some sense of purpose. I'm 50 years old now, and I've got some more understanding.
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I've got five decades of understanding of a little bit more of what God has made me for. I've got some sense of purpose, and talents, and gifts, and abilities, and you do too.
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But for me to say something like, I came into the world to preach, well, that would be kind of presumptuous, right?
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Or for someone to say, I came into the world to sing, just to offer my voice to people. Or I came into the world to throw a football.
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It all sounds pretty presumptuous, right? I came into the world for this purpose. But Jesus talks that way, about his vision, his purpose, his mission.
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He knew why he was here, and we're going to see the fulfillment of that in this text. I want to point out that when you think about the life of Jesus, if you just follow him along through the
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Gospels, and we can follow him along, that's great. We've got Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John to help us walk with him over the course of his ministry.
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But when you read the bulk of it, when you read the bulk of the life of Jesus, and the bulk of his ministry, he healed the sick, like significantly healed the sick.
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Like people who were blind, and deaf, and couldn't walk, and he made them walk, and he made them see, and he made them hear.
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He fed the masses without all the work and toil of farming and fishing, just boom, there was bread. Boom, there was fish.
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In the midst of casting out demons, and even raising the dead, we might expect Jesus to say my mission is to ease the burden of the world.
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My mission is to make life easier for my people, to give them food, to give them health, to give them healing, to give them wealth, to give them good things.
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But that's not what Jesus said. Jesus told his followers in Matthew chapter 20, verse 28, earlier in the very book that we're going to be looking at here in just a moment, that we're going to be reading from,
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Matthew 20, 28, the Son of Man came, there's the intention. The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
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We will see in our text, mission accomplished. In our text, he will give his life in the ultimate act of service for all.
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In our text, we will see the ransom paid for many. The fulfillment of the ages.
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I lack words to describe the significance of this text, the significance of this event. What can I say about this text?
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What can I say in introduction? Best? Most? Does that cover it?
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How about highest? Does that get us there? Can superlatives get us up to the real heights of all that this sacrifice means, of all that this sacrifice we're going to read about has accomplished?
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Jesus told his followers that he came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
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So in order to see him accomplish that mission, we turn in our Bibles or your devices or your apps to Matthew chapter 27, verses 45 through 56.
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Again, that text is Matthew 27, verses 45, starting in verse 45 through verse 56.
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And recast, this is God's holy and precious word. This is what he desires to communicate to us this morning.
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Let me get that text right, 45, there we go. Let's read together.
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Now, from the sixth hour, there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour,
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Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani, which is my
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God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?
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And some of the bystanders hearing it said, this man is calling to Elijah. And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink.
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But the other said, wait, let's see whether Elijah will come to save him. And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.
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And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom and the earth shook and the rocks were split.
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The tombs also were opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. And coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many when the centurion and those who were with him keeping watch over Jesus saw the earthquake and what took place.
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They were filled with awe and said, truly, this was the son of God. There were also many women there looking on from a distance who had followed
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Jesus from Galilee ministering to him, among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.
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Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship this morning. Father, your love is amazing.
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And just even in my introduction, just words fail me in terms of thanks and gratitude for the sacrifice of your son on our behalf.
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I think to a person here, we know and we can introspect and we can look in our own hearts. I know, Father, before you, you see all.
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You see through me. You know my sins, my failures, my faults, my brokenness, my wrong thinking, my wrong actions and all of it.
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You know what I'm worth. It's not that sacrifice. You didn't look down and see within any of us anything commendable, anything lovely, anything worthy of saving, but for your glory and for your honor, you sent forth your son that you might create a people of worship, that you might create a people of gladness, of redemption, of hope, who will eternally, forever and ever be grateful to you and your son for what you have done for us.
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Father, I pray that the result of our gathering today in the midst of it, we will worship you, but that the result is greater and greater increase in worship to you.
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That this week, we would leave this place with a swing in our step and a delight and a joy and a gladness and an awe and a wonder for what
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Jesus Christ has endured and done for us. Father, as we have an opportunity to sing about that,
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I pray that we would not be unmoved by the words, unmoved by the sacrifice, unmoved by what
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Christ has done, but rather that you would light us up with delight and with gladness.
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Such a privilege to gather together with your people, fellow brothers and sisters redeemed by the blood of Jesus, by this very sacrifice we're studying and looking into this morning.
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And so, Father, I pray that you would unite our souls together and unite our voices and mingle them together in praise to you, in Jesus' name, amen.
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You can go ahead and be seated. I do ask that for your benefit, you make sure your devices or your
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Bible is reopened to Matthew chapter 27, verses 45 through 56, so that you can kind of follow along and see that what we're talking about is coming from God's word.
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I'll refer back to it a few times throughout the message to kind of redirect your attention to God's word because I'm not going to get up and share a bunch of my thoughts and my feelings from this past week or, you know, from some movie clips that I saw, but we're going to just dig into God's word and walk through that.
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So, our outline this morning is going to be pretty simple as far as texts break down. The first is his suffering for us, verses 45 through 50, six verses there, and then the consequences of his suffering, verses 51 through 56, six verses there.
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So it breaks in half here this morning. And so let's start by diving into his suffering, the suffering of Jesus Christ on our behalf.
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Last week we walked through a text to kind of set the stage. We walked through a text that highlighted the mockery and isolation of the son of God leading up to his crucifixion.
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He was mocked by the Romans. He was mocked by random bystanders. He was mocked by the
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Jewish priests and Jewish political leaders, and he was even mocked by the thieves on either side of him who were being crucified for their own crimes.
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And even those guys there in those early hours hanging on the cross mocked
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Jesus. He was crucified sometime around 9 o 'clock in the morning, which is the third hour according to Roman calendar reckoning.
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They would kind of say sun up -ish was around the zero hour, so 6 a .m. as an approximation of sunrise in that area, and that was the start of the counting.
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So when you see these hours mentioned, third hour, sixth hour, things like that. And so when we find out that it was the sixth hour, we expect the brightest part of the day, right?
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That would be, do your math, that's noon, around noon. And it's the time where the sun is at its zenith, but verse 45 tells us that a darkness settled.
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On the whole land, the word that's used there for whole land is the whole land. Some people even go so far as to say, well, maybe this was a global phenomenon that happened at this time, but at least all throughout the recorded areas, darkness settled.
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Now whether it's through, there's all different kinds of reasons why it gets dark, right? We can think of a lot of natural reasons.
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It could be dense cloud cover or an actual supernatural manifestation of darkness. The text doesn't really indicate.
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Obviously the timing is the miracle for the darkness at least. But how many of you have been through a thunderstorm or through circumstances where it was like the, yeah, you've been through a thunderstorm, right?
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How many of you have been through a thunderstorm? But you've been in one that was so intense that the streetlights came on. Like have you been there?
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It's really weird because I had this already written in my notes. I wrote this Wednesday and then yesterday I was on my way to church early in the morning to walk through my sermon and it happened.
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When I got here, the parking lot lights were on still. They should have been shut off. It had already been after dawn and they're photo sensing and the lights came on in the parking lot because it was so dark.
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Anybody up early yesterday and saw the heavy bands of rain coming across and I was like, wow, that's kind of like in my sermon.
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So God just kind of gave me that yesterday, one of those experiences. And I think we have to have in mind that kind of level of darkness that's kind of like, when that happens in the middle of the afternoon and it's like the streetlights come on, how many of you just kind of feel a little skittish inside, like something's coming?
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You just immediately start to feel like, okay, this is not natural. It makes us a little unsettled.
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And we have to have that in mind that Matthew and the other gospel accounts highlight this darkness, shows that it was significant enough to the eyewitnesses to go like, this darkness was eerie.
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And the darkness coincides with the final three hours of the sacrifice of the Son of God and that's with intention.
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Not even with the first three hours that he was hanging on the cross, but with the last three hours, the sinless Lamb of God is taking upon himself the sin of the world in those hours and the world goes dark.
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It may seem strange to include this darkness as part of his suffering, and yet I would suggest to you that this, what we're looking at in this darkness is an outward manifestation of a spiritual act of God and judgment.
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Darkness is a routine symbol of judgment all throughout the Bible. Old Testament and New Testament uses darkness as a symbol of the wrath and the justice of God being applied.
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And in the physical plane, we're seeing a glimpse of the judgment of our sins being placed on the shoulders of the
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Son of God here in these hours. The narrative only tells us events and later, of course, throughout the writings of the
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Apostle Paul and other New Testament writers that are used by the Spirit to shed light on the significance of these events.
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So we're reading narrative, we're reading historical account, we're reading what actually happened by eyewitnesses on the ground, kind of like the report of the news.
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But then how many of you know that a lot of people like to give their opinions about the news? Anybody notice that the majority of news now is opinions?
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It's people telling you what was actually going on or giving you their interpretation. So we look at these as historical accounts.
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And what we can see by this darkness also is that this is more than just merely the death of a dude that's happening here.
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People die every day. The thief on the right, the thief on the left, they're going to die that day too. Was the darkness for them?
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What's going on? And so we have no reason to expect that any one death has more significance than another unless God declares that one death matters more.
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And guess what? God declares that what is happening here this day has more significance. The Old Testament points to a coming sacrifice who would be pierced for our iniquities,
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Old Testament language, crushed for our sins, and through His chastisement, and through His beating, and through His bleeding, we would be healed.
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The death of a Messiah figure is anticipated by many, many, many, many, many Old Testament prophecies.
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They will look upon the one that they have pierced, Zechariah, and then also part of Psalm 22.
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They will gamble for His clothing, He writes in the very same Psalm. This is an intentional darkness to signal that this is not a routine death that we're observing.
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And I imagine that people get shifty here in this context when that darkness descends.
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Oh, something's going on. In darkness, the judgment of God has come to the sun, and the darkness outside is merely a symbol for the darkness of soul that Jesus is enduring in these long, long, long stretched out hours for Him.
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But about the ninth hour, so the darkness starts in the sixth hour, and then about the ninth hour. So we've jumped over three hours here all of a sudden.
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Matthew moves us along quickly compared to John and Luke. Mark and Matthew both move the account very quickly, skip the three hours, and immediately jump to the end.
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Mark's account, Matthew's account, we get only one of the seven things that are uttered by Jesus from the cross.
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He says seven things. They're worth studying. They're worth looking into. They're worth comparing. I'd encourage you to look at Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John's accounts of the crucifixion to even maybe for your own study to collate those seven things.
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That would be a really good thing for you to dive into. What did Jesus say from the cross? I believe everything that He said there was with significant intention and worth our study.
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But around three o 'clock in the afternoon, after He had been on the cross for about six hours, and that's, how can
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I say that with flippancy? After He'd been hung on a cross for six hours, like all that that entails, all that that involves, and Matthew chooses to not get into the details.
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I mentioned before that if God had wanted us to watch it, He would have brought Jesus in at the time of the iPhone, right?
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But instead, He wants eyewitness accounts, and they don't get into the nitty -gritty gruesomeness of this event.
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They rather just say He had been on the cross in somewhere six hours, and then
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Jesus does this. He shouts. And a shout is a shout that has created no end of controversy throughout scholarly works down through the centuries.
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What He shouts is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
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Now at face value, does that sound encouraging? At face value, does that sound like a dude who's trusting in his father?
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How many of you would just say that if you only had somebody say that to you, you'd go, that's a guy in despair.
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That's a person who feels completely and utterly forsaken. He is saying this, by the way, in what is primarily the spoken language of Aramaic, his primary mother tongue.
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Now this language doesn't occur very often in the Bible. We see a few instances of it in the New Testament.
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The word Golgotha that we talked about last week, the hill of the skull, the place where this is happening, that's an
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Aramaic word. The words that he uses here, Eli, Eli, lemma sabachthani, those are actually
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Aramaic words. The majority of the New Testament is recorded for us in what language, does anybody know?
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Greek. The majority of it is recorded, written in Greek. Jesus could, it's pretty clear,
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Jesus could speak Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. Aramaic would have been what he learned from his mom and his household during this time.
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That's pretty well documented. So this is not the Hebrew of the Old Testament that he speaks here, nor is it the common
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Greek in which the majority of the New Testament is written. But here in verse 46, it's retained for readers in Aramaic so that we know that he said it in that language.
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And that's translated for us then into Greek. I believe the reason for this is two purposes.
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I don't think he did anything without intention. Verse Jesus here, really, honestly, I believe, he's in real and genuine torment.
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And what comes out of you when you're in real, genuine torment, usually, you might be able to speak some, how many of you can speak a little bit of a foreign language, at least a little bit?
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That's not going to come out of you in the moment of grief, right? That's not going to be what's pushed out of you.
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It's going to be your mother tongue. It's going to be English if that's your first language. He's feeling the weight of this judgment.
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He is not an unfeeling robot. And in this moment of torment, his mother tongue is what rolls out.
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So I think that's significant to take in. But second, I believe, he says it in Aramaic as a way of communicating with those who will understand it.
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There is a limited number of people there at the foot of the cross who are going to get this, those who are devout raised
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Jews, those who were there before and around the time that the Romans moved in, and those who are still trying to keep their identity.
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So he says it in Aramaic to speak to those who will get it, and if he says it, here's another way to look at it. If he says it in Hebrew or he says it in Greek, more people will get the reference.
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More people are going to understand what he's saying. So why say it in Aramaic while everything else that he cries from the cross is recorded for us directly in Greek and discerned without confusion?
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Nobody ever confuses any of the other statements that he says. This one produces confusion at the foot of the cross.
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It's obvious that some people don't get the reference. Some people aren't getting it. And it's because he wants certain people to get the reference.
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He wants certain people to understand. You see, I don't read into, I want to be clear,
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I'm going to set a little bit of caveat at the front end of this, and you'll see why in a minute. I don't read into his torment or his torture here on the cross that it produced within him a lack of control.
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Let me explain because I think it's important for what I believe the shout itself means. I have a little bit of a different take on what he's saying when he says, my
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God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And I want to point out it will never be my purpose to downgrade the pain and suffering that Jesus endured here in these moments facing his father's wrath for all of our sins.
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But some scholars would judge my line of reasoning, I'm not alone in this line of reasoning, but some would judge this line of reasoning to be an attempt to downplay his suffering.
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They think I'm affording Jesus too much self -control in these moments here hanging on the cross, and some have criticized the position that I hold by making him out to be as if I'm making him out to be an automaton, some kind of a robot who is offering a
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Bible study from the cross. I don't think that. I don't agree with this, but I do believe that he's intentional.
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I do believe that everything that's uttered from the cross was intentional on behalf of the second person of the
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Trinity, God in flesh, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior who is paying the price for us. I believe it's with intention that he says this, and I believe it's with intention the way he says it.
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Now, remember that he is also in this exact same context there hanging on the cross, able to care for his own mother by giving her to the care of the
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Apostle John. That's one of the other things that he utters. He's suffering these great torments, and he's able to care for others.
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He's able to forgive those who are torturing him with a father forgive them for they know not what they do.
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That's a man who is possessed of his faculties while suffering gravely at the same time.
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So here's why I feel a pressure to make all of that clear, that I do believe that he's suffering greatly, but I also believe that he's exercising self -control, being intentional, and it's simply this.
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This cry, I do not believe, is the cry of the eternal Son of God cast aside and ignored in this moment.
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I don't believe for a second that this is a cry of the despair that we might think or hear with our ears when we hear this.
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My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you not looking at me? Why are you not paying attention to me?
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I don't think that's what he's saying, and I have good reason for that. As if he shouted, and his heavenly
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Father can't hear. Not at all. Psalm 139 is emphatic that there is nowhere that you can go that God is not there.
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Some people have ginned up some idea that God can't look upon sin. Have you ever heard that? He was carrying the sins of the world, so God doesn't look on sin, so he can't look on the
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Son at this point. Hogwash, he sees you when you're sinning. Did you know that?
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It's not like God is like, oh, I didn't see that because I wasn't paying attention, because I can't look on sin.
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Not at all. Satan himself in the book of Job comes into the presence of God and says, where have you been?
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I've been around the world checking things out, and have you considered my servant Job? They have a dialogue like the guy who started sin, like the
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OG sinner is in the presence of God in that text. You think
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God can't look at Jesus while he's suffering for the sins of the world? No, I would say, like I said last week, the exact opposite, that God is looking upon the
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Son pouring all the wrath and white hot justice that we deserved there in that place.
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So what does he mean? Then you have to deal with this reckon with this statement, right? What is going on here? A lot of that wasn't in my notes.
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We are not seeing in this moment some kind of, this is vital, we're not seeing some kind of cosmic separation of the eternal
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Father and the eternal Son, as if the Father has his earplugs saying, can't hear you, can't hear you, na -na -na, can't hear you.
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The Father isn't doing that to the Son in this moment. But here I believe, here
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I believe, and I believe this firmly, church, I believe he is referencing, with intention, with intention,
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Psalm 22. Now he is intentionally drawing a certain group of people at the foot of the cross to a specific song that they could sing by heart.
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Those who spoke Aramaic were those who were raised in the synagogue. They were raised in the temple worship.
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They were raised with these songs. So he's quoting the title of Psalm 22 with force, with pain, and with intention.
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The title of Psalm 22 during this era where he says it. Do you know what the title of the song was?
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My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That's the name of the song. That's what, if you wanted people to turn over in your song book to this song, you would say turn over to my
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God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Many in the crowd had said that title themselves at many times.
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They had sung those lines many times without a shred of assumption that God had indeed forsaken them.
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Not everybody who says this title is forsaken by God. Matthew 22, well what's that about?
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Why would he from the cross be in suffering and in pain referencing that song?
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Well Psalm 22 is an expansive song about the suffering that the
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Messiah would endure. It's crazy. This song was written by King David 900 to 1 ,000 years before Jesus was even born.
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And it predicts with precision the things that Jesus would endure there in those moments. It's unlikely, by the way, that David even understood fully the significance of everything that was revealed to him in writing these songs.
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But David obviously wrote it in a time of personal duress and Jesus now enlists it from the cross to express three things.
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There are three reasons Jesus is saying this. The first is straightforward that he is indeed in that depth of suffering.
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The Psalm has themes and some pretty dark themes. Themes of abandonment, a theme of mocking and scorn and torture by evil people.
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Being surrounded, being pierced, being lifted high. The Psalm is appropriate to his plight in the moment in which he utters the title.
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And so he shouts its title to those who he wants to have recognize it.
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In other words, those at the foot of the cross who know, know. If they know, they know.
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The second reason that he says this is he's living the content of this song. And all
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Jews within earshot heard something as clear as if I shouted, Amazing grace, how sweet the sound!
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And many of you could finish the song. Go ahead and raise your hand if you think you could probably finish the next line at least. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that you know it.
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If you know, you know. And you can carry it forward. And so could they. When he says, my
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God, my God, why have you forsaken me? They can sing the next part and they could keep it going. And as they do so in their brains and in their minds, they go, oh, wait a minute.
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That and this. That and this. They are seeing the one before them fulfilling the very prophecies of that song.
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He is currently embodying that ancient song that they had all learned to sing together. Lastly, and maybe most tentatively, and I just caution that because I'm not the only one.
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And as I study and as I look at these things, obviously I say that there are some scholars who disagree with this. And you're free to disagree with me on this.
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And if you want to and you want to have a conversation, you go, no, I think he was completely and utterly forsaken by God. And he was in despair.
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And he was right at the end of himself. I would love to have a conversation with you about that. But what
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I think is happening here is I believe he's taking courage from this. And that sounds strange in the phrase that he uses.
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But he's given the title of a song. But rather than a literal forsakenness, he is referencing a psalm that starts in despair.
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How many of you would agree? Like the words, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Pretty deep despair, right? But David's psalm starts in the pit of despair.
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And it starts in darkness. And it concludes with these eerie and amazing words.
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And I say eerie because I have all kinds of evidence that Jesus meant them to focus on this.
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And the most important is the way that the psalm ends. He concludes with these amazing words in Psalm 22, verses 29 through 31.
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This is how the whole song ends. All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship. Before him shall bow all those who go down to the dust.
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Before him, the one who this is about, the one who this song is about. Before him, all who go down to the dust.
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What does it mean to go down to the dust? Die, all those who die will bow to this one.
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Even the one who could not, even the one speaking of the one, the one that the song is about, who could not keep himself alive.
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Jesus, to save us, could not both stay alive and save us. Going on with the quote, posterity shall serve him.
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Generations, others who come after, will serve this one. And it shall be told of the
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Lord to the coming generation. They shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn.
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That, here's the closing eerie five word close to the song. That he has done it.
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He has done it. That's how the song, he refers to that song from the cross and says, and here's the end of it.
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Everybody who started that song and carries it through to the end goes, what?
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He has done it. This very song concludes, with all will bow to him.
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Even those who have died will bow to him. It concludes with generations serving him and declaring his righteousness.
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People yet unborn will serve this one. Yay, that's us. That's us.
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And the very last words of the song, he has done it.
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And according to John, are you ready for this? This gives me chills thinking about it. The very next words of Christ according to the gospel of John is, it is done.
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It's done. He references the song that concludes, he has done it.
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The next words, and it's done. It is finished.
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Paid in full. Praise God. He did it.
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He did it for us. Paid in full. It's done. Down through the ages there have been no end to debates over why in the world he says, my
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God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He is pointing them to the fulfillment of all of these
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Old Testament prophecies that guide to the one who will be served for eternity.
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Down through the ages, there are debates, but those debates begin at the foot of the cross in real time.
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According to verse 47, the word Eli and Elia, Eli or Eloi, two different ways to say it, in the
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Aramaic language are really close to the Hebrew word for Elijah, Elia. They don't have a hard J, so Yahweh, not
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Jehovah. Elia, not Elijah. And so between labored breath, it's likely that in speaking
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Aramaic, some at the foot of the cross who only spoke Hebrew go, well, that's awful close. Because if he's taking a breath, a labored breath, he's been hanging there for six hours, he's crucified, he's being asphyxiated, he can't breathe well.
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If he takes a breath with every word, how many of you think that Elia, Eli, could sound like Elia? Make sense?
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So the crowds at the foot of the cross are a little confused, they're like, oh, darkness, weird stuff going on, the atmosphere feels weird, we're primed for something to happen.
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And so somebody, somebody in the crowd, and it's unclear who, they offer a drink in verse 48. And it's likely most people lean towards it being a
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Jew rather than a Roman, who's permitted under these very strange circumstances of darkness, and he shouts.
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And they're permitted to offer him a little bit of the aksos, that's the Greek word, aksos, it's a word for cheap wine.
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It's different than the mocking bitter vinegar that he was offered last week, when they get to the hill, or they get to the place,
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I said hill, and we don't even know if it's a hill. But when they get to Golgotha, they go to crucify him, and they offer him this mocking wine to satiate, and it's just vinegar with bitter herbs in it, and it's nasty, and it's meant to be a dig.
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But here they offer him something that's different, it's, I think, cheap boxed wine. It was what was in the canteens of the soldiers, so it would have been readily available and accessible there at the foot of the cross, and they offer him that.
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It's likely that rather than this being a mockery of him, like the offer last time, somebody's trying to get in his good graces, because they're like, something different's going on.
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They're starting to make connections, and they're like, I want to be on his side. Whoever this is, is actually trying to serve the
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Lord. Whoever it is that actually takes this reed, and dips it in some wine, and offers it to him, is actually doing well.
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But someone in the crowd tried to calm the helper down, get out of the way, get out of the way, wait a minute, he's calling for Elijah, maybe he's coming.
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Maybe Elijah's going to show up. The crowds have been primed for something unique. The darkness has settled, and three hours of darkness, and they're like, man, something's eerie here.
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Maybe there's going to be a miracle. But Jesus then cries out, according to the other gospel accounts, again harmonizing these, he cries out, it's done, it's finished, that's what comes next.
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And now, in our text, Matthew records his final shout, in verse 50. And again, he's not the only one who records this.
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But he doesn't tell us what the content is, he just says, Jesus, at the very end, shouted out. While Luke does tell us what he said.
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Luke, in 23, 46, records, then Jesus calling out with a loud voice, the very end says, what?
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Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit. That doesn't sound like a man who thought himself to be abandoned by God in his death, does it?
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I don't believe that he felt, or thought himself abandoned by God, but rather was referring to that song.
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And here, still in unity with his father, who together they had decided that he would become the sacrifice for our sins, he commits his spirit.
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And the text tells us, in very strange Greek, it's not super helpful for you to kind of get down to Greek and stuff like that.
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But it says, in a very strange phrase, he yielded up his spirit. And all four gospel accounts use strange terminology for his death.
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You see, the problem is, or the unique thing is, there's a perfectly good and routine Greek phrase for, he died.
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And how many of you would just guess that we have all kinds of documents, and all kinds of papyri, and all kinds of carvings that say, he died?
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Tons. Tons of ancient Greek that date to around this same time. So that we can just see that there's almost an anonymity,
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I mean, what's the word I was looking for? They all consistently agree. Here we go, I'll porky pig the thing.
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They all, unanimous, there's the word I was looking for, unanimously agree. They are all together on that.
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And instead, all of them use a word of active volition on the part of Jesus.
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Kind of like, the reason I came to the world, I might even just say more passively, the reason I was born.
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I wouldn't even say like, well I chose to die on this day, but no, he died on this day.
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But he gave up his spirit, it's active. He is shown to be in control of his gift to the very end.
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And all four gospel writers almost invent a term for death to say, over the top, he chose to go when he chose to go.
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He gave himself for us. He suffered gravely, he suffered deeply. Physically, emotionally, spiritually, and he did this for us.
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The apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5 21, for our sake, for our sake, let that sink in church, for our sake, he made
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Jesus, him, to be sin, who knew no sin.
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So that in him, we might become the righteousness of God. For our sake, this event has something to do with us.
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He's doing it for us. Peter says in 1 Peter 3 18, for Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous.
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That he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but being made alive in the spirit.
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He suffered and died to reconcile sinful men and women. To bring them back together again with his holy and righteous heavenly father.
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To provide reconciliation for the rift that sin caused between us and our
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God, our creator. And that leads to the second movement in the text. The first is his suffering, the second is the consequences of his suffering.
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We see that in verses 51 through 56. And right off the bat in verse 51, we get this phrase that can be overlooked.
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It kind of ends up being a little bit more filler as we read it. And behold, and behold in verse 51.
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And behold, I like to translate that. And if I was writing a new English translation,
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I would make it check this out. Because that's the force of it, with an exclamation point. It do in the
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Greek language is like, you're not going to believe this. Behold! You know, we don't talk that way, right?
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When you see a really cute cat video, do you say to your family, behold! No, you say, check this out, man, this is cute.
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Like, check it out. That's the nature of it. It's a word that's like an emphatic, you gotta see this.
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You gotta see what happens at the point of his death. Because it's radical church. It's amazing what happens here.
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We see three things expressly dealt with in the narrative of this text. The rest of the
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New Testament is going to spell out with a lot more clarity, the significance of the cross. All of the apostles' writings and what
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Paul has to say about it, emphasizing the value and the benefit and the blessing of the cross and what it means applied to our lives.
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But as I said at the beginning, the narrative itself gives clues to the significance of these events.
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So there are three things that Matthew wants you to check out this morning. First, we see that through his suffering, we have a new and living way of access to the
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Father through the Son. And in the narrative, it's done in a radical way. This is demonstrated by the tearing of the temple curtain in two from top to bottom.
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Now, it requires a little bit of knowledge of the Old Testament system, and that would be kind of helpful for us here.
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But for brevity's sake, let me summarize that a couple thousand years of Jewish history was taken up by saying that God instituted a very bloody means of atoning for sins.
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Lambs, goats, bulls, rams, pigeons, wheat, wine, and fortunately some incense to take care of the smells were all burned before the
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Lord, first in a portable tent called the tabernacle, as people wandered through the desert and the wilderness, and then under King Solomon in a more permanent temple in Jerusalem.
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And the worship of God was full of decorum and rules, and it was all about access and not access.
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Only the chief priest was allowed to enter through the curtain into the most holy place, from the holy place to the most holy place, in the temple on one day of the year, the
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Day of Atonement, to bring into that place a blood sacrifice, into the very presence of the holiness of God.
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And here at the death of Jesus, there was a great earthquake. And the very heavy and dense curtain is torn in two, from top to bottom, between the holy place and the most holy place.
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The entire Old Testament covenant, the entire Old Covenant was about limited access to God due to the curse of sin.
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But here, the most clear symbol of that limited access was torn from top to bottom.
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God opened wide access to Him through the death of His Son, because our sins now have a permanent sacrifice, a once -for -all sacrifice.
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His death fulfilled that entire sacrificial system, and His death makes an open pathway to direct access to the
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Father through a better and permanent sacrifice of Christ, the
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Son of God. That's all found in verse 51. But in verse 52 and 53, we see the second thing, and that is that death quite literally breaks the grave.
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It breaks the power of the grave. Some graves that day in that earthquake were literally broken open that day.
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I think this is much like the miracles of Jesus while He was here. You need to understand that these are not permanent resurrections.
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You see, some during the life of Jesus were healed of blindness, and some were delivered from literal illnesses during this life, only to obviously succumb to further injury sometime subsequent to that and go die just like everybody else does.
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Bit of a bummer that some of them had to die twice. But they were not permanent healings, but a taste of His power in a kingdom that is yet to come.
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And these broken graves and resurrections here in these two verses are a foretaste of what the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ mean in narrative form.
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The grave and death are broken, and resurrection is now shared because of these historical happenings on this day.
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Now, it's clear that in His narrative, Matthew records for us the significance of His death and resurrection as having a more far -reaching impact than just His body and His grave, but we see that this has a wider impact foreshadowed by the broken graves and localized resurrections that happened over the course of that weekend a couple thousand years ago.
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Lastly, we see the third implication of the death of Jesus here in the text. He calls people to trust
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Him. This began with the thieves on the cross in the other accounts, with one of the thieves actually, over the course of that darkness, over the course of a few hours, going from mocking to going like, oh, there's something going on here, all the way to the point of trusting in Jesus, and Jesus saying, today you will be with me in paradise.
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But Matthew reserves the zinger for the end of his account and doesn't record that conversation with the thieves, but rather just goes straight to the end where the centurion, who was quite likely the highest -ranking
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Roman official responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus, and he has taken in the words of Jesus here on the cross, he likely observed his tenderness toward his mother, his kindness to the thief, his prayer for forgiveness, and not just some generic prayer of forgiveness, but Jesus literally saying,
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Father, forgive them. Guess who's one of them? The centurion and his soldiers.
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The centurion and his soldiers have also heard his cry of, it is finished, and the commitment of his spirit to his father.
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He has seen the uncanny timing of the darkness. He has now felt the earthquake coinciding with his very last breath, and even this man, who likely had a hand in the mocking torture of Jesus Christ just hours before, makes a radical statement of faith along with other soldiers with him, and he says this, truly, truly, like bedrock of assurance, this was the
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Son of God. I have no question. Truly. Emphasis.
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There's no doubt in my mind that this is the Son of God. Who does the death of Christ atone for?
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Who can be rescued from sin by this sacrifice that he makes? Anyone, anyone, anyone who acknowledges
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Jesus as Lord. The thief on the cross merely expresses trust that Jesus was indeed a king who could rescue him, and Jesus agreed to it.
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And here, the captain in charge of crucifying the very Son of God says,
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I believe. Where do you think he is? Can he be redeemed? Can the one who slayed our
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Lord be redeemed? If he can be rescued, any of us can. I hope you take hope in that.
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I have no reason to assume that Matthew has recorded a fake conversion here for us. I'll leave that up to God, but anyone who acknowledges that Jesus is the
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Son of God or king or Messiah or rightful master, however, whatever words you want to use, here he says
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Son of God, or however you term it, and believes that he is in control and would trust him to be saved will be saved.
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So let me summarize what Matthew's narrative seeks to drive home here at the end of the crucifixion account and the death of Christ.
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Immediately at the moment he dies, the gospel is enacted. Immediately, references to the gospel begin.
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Matthew records events showing a new open access to the Father, reconciliation. There's nothing less than the reconciliation between humanity and God.
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He shows us the defeat of death by the broken open graves, the resurrection of many as a foretaste of the resurrection to come.
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And that occurs throughout the city. And then he highlights the necessity of faith demonstrated by the centurion and his boys.
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All within a few short narrative verses, Matthew is telling a historical account for sure.
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These things happened. And yet he expertly composes the narrative in a way that highlights the good news.
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Highlights the gospel. Right at the point that Jesus has yielded up his spirit.
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There is a way to be made right with the Father. There is eternal life available. The grave does not kit the final word, church.
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And it comes through faith in Jesus as the very Son of God who paid for us.
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And there observing these things from a distance are several women who traveled with Jesus ministering to him. I love that they're included here.
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They're going to show up pretty prominent in Easter. How many of you are looking forward to Easter this year? There's been a lot of darkness, been a lot of Matthew, been a lot of going through the hard night here.
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The crucifixion, the betrayals, the denials, all of those things. But Easter is coming.
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And there are women there who are observing from afar.
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And the grief and pain in this scene must have been excruciating for those who loved him. But the great paradox of life is that by his wounds we are healed.
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In his cross we boast, said the Apostle Paul. So we rejoice this morning and we should rejoice throughout this week and we should rejoice throughout our lives that he endured the darkness for us.
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We rejoice in the Lamb of God who was slain from the foundations of the earth. Is he worthy, church?
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We sang it earlier. Is he worthy? He is. So let's come to these communion tables and participate if you've acknowledged
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Jesus Christ as the Son of God and if you've asked him to rescue you. If you're at peace and unity with your brothers and sisters in Christ here then let's allow this to be a time of deep, deep gratitude.
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We've just walked through what he endured for us in this text so that by faith in him we might receive the righteousness of God.
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I want to point out, and I kind of hear you shifting, I kind of see you gearing up to get up and get in the aisles and stuff, but let me just say a couple of things about communion real quick.
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Mixed emotions seem right as we come to this each week. Mixed emotions seem right as we think about and contemplate
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Good Friday coming up in a couple of weeks. I am simultaneously... Here's a little testimony of me and those communion tables.
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I am simultaneously at my lowest and at my highest when I come to those tables.
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Lowest because I'm there reflecting on what the very Son of God had to do to rescue me from my own sinful mess.
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How many can relate to that? Like low? Super low. He had to do that for me.
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How many of you would like to just think you could pull yourself up by your bootstraps and just solve it yourself? But you can't.
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And that's what these tables represent. Everybody who gets up and goes into these aisles and goes to that table is testifying,
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I'm not a good person. I'm not here because I've got it all together.
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I'm here because he put it all together. At the lowest, because the
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Son of God had to die to rescue us. At my highest, at our highest church, because there he defined love for us.
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There he poured out love unimaginable on me and on you and on all of his people.
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I think it's thoroughly appropriate. Maybe it strikes you in different ways on different Sundays, but it's appropriate to weep.
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It'd be okay if you blew some snot bubbles this morning just thinking about what he did for you. It's appropriate to shout for joy.
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Not going to offend anybody in this room if you take a whoop as you take that cracker and that juice and go, whoo!
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He did it. And it's totally appropriate to do both at the same time.
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With snot bubbles say, whoop! Because we reflect on both the great, great, great love poured out on us while we were yet scum, while we were yet the worst, while we were the dregs, while we were sinners, rebels, enemies against him.
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He did everything that we read in this text fully knowing all of our crap and crud.
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All of it! And he did it for us. Let's take in the mystery of life this morning.
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The remembering his death together. Let's pray. Father, I thank you.
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Thank you, thank you. Thanks seems like such a flimsy word. So deeply grateful for what you've done for me.
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I pray that this will be a time of reflecting on what we deserve. A time of loosening our hands from any kind of self -righteousness.
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A time of letting go of any of our sense of our accomplishments, our awesomeness, what a great bargain you got in dying for us.
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Father, I pray that all of that would be shed. All of that would go away in the light of the great sacrifice of your son on our behalf.
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I pray that the cross would fill our vision, both for love and for our unworthiness, and that that would mingle together in a rejoicing this week.
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That we go out from here, having been moved from the place of despair and hopelessness in our own sins, to a place of being redeemed and deeply loved.
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And that that would light us up with joy, that worship would result. Not just songs, but a life of worship.
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A life of living for Jesus, because he has loved us so deeply, loved us so well. I pray that obedience flows from hearts that are transformed and changed by the great love given.
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And that even that obedience would merely just be worship, merely just gladness, merely flow out of anything for you, and what you've done for us.
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Thank you for communion, thank you for the fellowship, thank you for the unity we have together, that many are about to get up and go into these aisles and go back to the tables and take that cracker to remember your body broken for us, and take that cup to remember your blood shed, and reflect together on what you have done for us.