As Easter approaches, we reflect on the death of Christ. Pastor Justin shares about the reality of Jesus' crucifixion and the incredible power it brings us.
Genesis 3:15; Exodus 12:1-13; Deuteronomy 32:8-9; Matthew 28:18; John 12:1, 12:12, 19:16b-18; Romans 5:6, 6:6-7; 1 Corinthians 5:7; Revelation 13:8
https://springhouse.captivate.fm/episode/his-death
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Springhouse Church
14119 Old Nashville Highway
Smyrna TN 37167
CCLI License 2070006
Well, good morning. So glad
Speaker:to be in the house this morning. If you're joining us on livestream, thank you
Speaker:for joining us today. It is it is certainly a
Speaker:a good day. A couple of things,
Speaker:want to encourage you, that we have a midweek
Speaker:gathering, 6 o'clock, pastor Justin on Thursday
Speaker:night, 6 o'clock. Pastor Justin has been doing, a
Speaker:series, about the table and, it's been
Speaker:really rich. And so I want to encourage you if you can make
Speaker:that happen, if your capacity allows for you to be here on Thursday
Speaker:night, come and be a part of that. It's certainly
Speaker:in keeping and in line with, where we are in the
Speaker:season of leading up to Resurrection Sunday.
Speaker:And with that also, on Good Friday, Good Friday this
Speaker:year, we are going to have a worship gathering here from
Speaker:6 to 7. Okay? It will be an hour long. We are going
Speaker:to partake in communion together, and so, you can
Speaker:bring your family. We won't have kids ministry. The kids will join
Speaker:us in here. We will have, I believe we will have a nursery
Speaker:available, but during that gathering, families will will be in here. And we're God
Speaker:pray together, we're gonna worship together, and take communion. And so I encourage
Speaker:you, Good Friday, 6 o'clock to come and be a part
Speaker:of that hour service. And then, of course, we have resurrection
Speaker:Sunday, that's March 31st, And so, we're God celebrate the resurrection of
Speaker:our king because we get to live with him forever. Jesus is alive.
Speaker:And, and so we're excited about that. I'm going to
Speaker:ask you guys to, I'm going to ask you for a favor,
Speaker:okay? Typically visitors who will come on Easter Sunday,
Speaker:there may be some people who will come once or twice in a year, they'll
Speaker:choose that day to come to to church and as you can see, our
Speaker:auditorium is pretty full. If you have the ability to come to
Speaker:the early gathering that day, I would certainly
Speaker:appreciate it to allow there to be room in this gathering for our visitors
Speaker:who come. It is a repeat gathering. You won't miss anything coming
Speaker:to the early gathering. And so if it is within your capacity to come to
Speaker:the early gathering on Easter Sunday and participate then, I would
Speaker:greatly appreciate it so it opens up room for our visitors during
Speaker:this during this during this time. Speaking of Easter, we are
Speaker:into that we are into a series. We're gonna start a 3 week series. We're
Speaker:gonna talk about Jesus' death. We're gonna talk about his burial, and we're
Speaker:gonna talk about his resurrection on Easter Sunday. And today, we're gonna talk about Jesus'
Speaker:death and pastor Justin's going to kick off this new series. Would you welcome pastor
Speaker:Justin?
Speaker:Thank you,
Speaker:Thank you, sirs. Just give you a fair
Speaker:warning. I do not know how long this jacket will make it this morning.
Speaker:It's a little warm. I'm trying. It's green. Right?
Speaker:Olive is a shade of green, so don't even
Speaker:out there. Right? It's the only green I'll wear year
Speaker:round. If you're able to, would you
Speaker:stand with me? We're God go ahead and read our passage for this morning.
Speaker:We'll read it together and then we'll pray and we'll get into the
Speaker:message today. Are we ready?
Speaker:So they took Jesus, and he went out bearing his
Speaker:own cross to the place called the pray of
Speaker:a skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha.
Speaker:There, they crucified him and with him 2
Speaker:others, 1 on either side and Jesus
Speaker:between them. Father, we thank you for this day that you've given us. God, I
Speaker:thank you for the sweet spirit that is in this room today,
Speaker:God. It is heavy and it is beautiful.
Speaker:God, I pray that your word would penetrate into our hearts
Speaker:and the ways that we have made the cross too small, that you would
Speaker:magnify our view of the cross and the work that you
Speaker:have accomplished therein. Father, I pray that everything
Speaker:I say today would be soon forgotten. But, Holy Spirit,
Speaker:anoint me to preach your words to your people for the
Speaker:advancement of your kingdom, that the name of Jesus would be
Speaker:glorified through the power of the Holy Ghost. It's in Christ's name
Speaker:that I pray. Amen and amen. You guys can be seated.
Speaker:How many of you guys remember Smokey the Bear?
Speaker:Right? Right? Everybody remember Smokey the Bear? If you don't know, you youngins,
Speaker:there was a commercial, pretty tragic and
Speaker:traumatizing when we were younger and,
Speaker:and there was a bear and he was a park ranger and
Speaker:he had a park ranger hat and his name was Smokey, Smokey the Prayer, and
Speaker:Smokey had a catchphrase. Right? What was the catchphrase Smokey had?
Speaker:Only you can prevent forest fires. Do you know how much pressure that is
Speaker:for a 9 year old kid? I'm serious.
Speaker:I thought my whole life that it was up to me
Speaker:to prevent force because that's what Smokey told me. They'd show a tragic story
Speaker:and then he'd come on in the end and he'd point and say only you
Speaker:can prevent forest fires. And that's heavy.
Speaker:I'm serious. I carried that for a long time to realize there ain't no way
Speaker:I was not even there. It had nothing to do with me.
Speaker:But the reason I'm telling you guys this is because for most of
Speaker:my life, this is how I have carried the cross.
Speaker:I have had felt this overwhelming sense
Speaker:of guilt and shame and this
Speaker:heavy weight because my sin is what sent him
Speaker:there. And my whole life I have felt this weight,
Speaker:this pressure that that if it wasn't for me and my
Speaker:sin, then he wouldn't have had to die. And there's
Speaker:hymns and songs and it was my sin that held him there and it was
Speaker:the thought of me and I'm just my whole life. I'm like God, this is
Speaker:this is heavy. And I feel like on my
Speaker:journey over the past, few months years that I've felt the
Speaker:love of God say, son, you've made the cross way too small.
Speaker:You have made the cross way too small.
Speaker:I we will never understand the magnitude of what was accomplished
Speaker:on the cross of Christ, but the love of God is
Speaker:whispered to me over days months years of
Speaker:what exactly has been accomplished on the cross.
Speaker:And every new revelation magnifies
Speaker:its beauty and lessens the burden for me in my
Speaker:life. I know that my sin was
Speaker:responsible, but that's an incomplete and a small
Speaker:and minuscule
Speaker:the accomplishment of the cross.
Speaker:I'm gonna give you guys a disclaimer. I am fully aware that there are many
Speaker:things that I don't know. I don't know what I don't
Speaker:know, but I know that I don't know what I don't know,
Speaker:and therefore, I'm open to God showing me what I don't
Speaker:know. Somebody got that.
Speaker:I know that's that's Southern, but there was one guy was like, I'm tracking.
Speaker:I am tracking you today.
Speaker:So, however, this is an attempt for us to find even more
Speaker:value, even more value
Speaker:in the cross than we already have. So
Speaker:we're gonna start with one thing we do know, the forgiveness and the
Speaker:atonement, since that's what we know.
Speaker:The cross provided the means for our redemption. First
Speaker:Corinthians 57 says this, cleanse out the old leaven
Speaker:that you may be a new lump as you really are unleavened for
Speaker:Christ, our Passover lamb
Speaker:has been sacrificed. Our Passover lamb
Speaker:has been sacrificed. Paul describes
Speaker:Jesus as our Passover lamb. Pastor Kevin, referred to a series
Speaker:that we've been doing on Thursday nights. And I've I shared some of this
Speaker:information with you guys that have been attending. But
Speaker:Paul describes Jesus as our Passover lamb. Where does this come from?
Speaker:This originates in Exodus chapter 12 verses 1 through
Speaker:13. The Israelite people are about to be brought out of slavery
Speaker:from Egypt and God is giving them specific instructions
Speaker:on what's going to happen before the angel of
Speaker:death comes and all of the firstborn of
Speaker:everyone that does not have the blood covering their
Speaker:house will be killed that night. And God gives him specific
Speaker:instructions. He says, matter of fact, look, everything we've done up to this point, I'm
Speaker:changing it. This month is gonna be the 1st month of the new year.
Speaker:Starting in this month, this is gonna be the 1st month of the new year.
Speaker:And what I want you guys to do is on the 10th day of this
Speaker:month, I want you to take a lamb, a perfect spotless
Speaker:lamb, and bring it into your household and keep it there for the week. Then
Speaker:for the whole week, what you're going to do is inspect this
Speaker:lamb for spots and blemishes. And then on
Speaker:the 14th day of the month at sundown, you're going to
Speaker:slaughter the lamb and you and your family are going to take the blood of
Speaker:the lamb and you're gonna sprinkle it on your posts and the angel of the
Speaker:Lord will see the blood and passah or
Speaker:pass over. Passah
Speaker:is the Hebrew worship means to spare or protect it
Speaker:was not that the angel of the Lord just skipped over the house it
Speaker:spared that house. Passover was to
Speaker:passah, spare or protect.
Speaker:John chapter 12 verse 1 tells us that Jesus
Speaker:arrived in Bethany 6 days before Passover
Speaker:on 9th day of the month. And then John theater 12 verse
Speaker:12 tells us the the next pray, that
Speaker:was the word that he used, the next pray, which would have been the 10th
Speaker:day of the month that Jesus on a donkey
Speaker:rode into Jerusalem, which was the center of the house of
Speaker:worship for the Israelite people. The lamb of God
Speaker:brought in to his house on the 10th day.
Speaker:And for the rest of the week, all they did was try to find
Speaker:faults in Jesus. They was asking him, like, tricky questions. They were trying
Speaker:to trip him up. They were inspecting the lamb for blemishes
Speaker:and spots. And then on 14th day,
Speaker:the Friday, the lamb of God, the Passover lamb
Speaker:was slain on the cross at the same time that the
Speaker:priests were taking lambs and slaughtering them for the
Speaker:people. The true Passover lamb was being
Speaker:slain at the same time that those Passover lambs were being
Speaker:slain right before sundown.
Speaker:Revelation 138, John describes Jesus this way.
Speaker:And all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose names has not been
Speaker:written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the lamb
Speaker:who was slain. I don't particularly like the way the e f ESV says it,
Speaker:but if you didn't catch that in all that language, Jesus is the
Speaker:lamb who was slain before the foundation
Speaker:of the world.
Speaker:That's hard for me to get my head around. That's hard for me to
Speaker:get my head around that before the world was created, the Spirit
Speaker:had some type of conversation. We're gonna
Speaker:make a world, we're gonna make man, and they're gonna mess this
Speaker:up big time.
Speaker:But I know what we'll do. I know what we'll do. I know what we'll
Speaker:do. Jesus said, matter of fact, I'll go and be slain for
Speaker:them. I'll go in their place
Speaker:and be slain for them and but that's not really good enough. God's
Speaker:like, you know what? I love the way Graham Cook describes it. He says, no.
Speaker:We can't just forgive them. We're gonna have to kill them.
Speaker:We're gonna have to kill them, And then what we'll do then what
Speaker:we'll do is we'll we'll we'll we'll tell them that if you if you
Speaker:die with him, that will will submerge you in theater.
Speaker:And when you come out, that'll be called being born again.
Speaker:We'll kill them too and then they'll be born again. And Holy Spirit, it'll be
Speaker:then your job to reveal them everything that Jesus had done for them and empower
Speaker:them. Before the foundation of the world, this
Speaker:had already been established. You know what that tells us? Redemption
Speaker:is in his nature.
Speaker:Redemption is in his nature.
Speaker:We can see this in his interaction before Pilate with
Speaker:Barabbas. If you're not familiar with the
Speaker:story, before Jesus goes to the
Speaker:cross, they're standing before Pilate and it was their
Speaker:custom that on a holy pray, they would let somebody go free,
Speaker:a prisoner go free and so they bring out Jesus
Speaker:and they bring out Barabbas and Barabbas is a bad guy.
Speaker:Barabbas murders people,
Speaker:murders people. He's a
Speaker:rebel. He leads insurrections against the government.
Speaker:He tried to overthrow the government. Him
Speaker:and a whole bunch of other people, and they bring this guy out and they
Speaker:put him here and then they bring Jesus, son of God, who's never
Speaker:done anything wrong, Perfect spotless
Speaker:lamb and they bring him out and you know what Pilate says. Pray. Who do
Speaker:you want? Who do you want? And what do they
Speaker:say? What did they say?
Speaker:Give us Barabbas. He said, who do
Speaker:you want, Barabbas? Yes. Give us Barabbas.
Speaker:And Jesus is there silent because he
Speaker:knew what God knew. And I love the way that Judah Smith says it. He
Speaker:says that God knew, Jesus knew that
Speaker:God had to treat Jesus like Barabbas so he
Speaker:could treat Barabbas like Jesus.
Speaker:Even his name, Bar means son,
Speaker:Abba means father, the son of the father for the
Speaker:son of the father.
Speaker:It's it's in his nature.
Speaker:Redemption is in his nature. He
Speaker:Why? Because he was a substitutionary Passover
Speaker:lamb slain before he even decided to make the
Speaker:world. That's his character. That's who he is.
Speaker:Our redemption, the forgiveness of sin, our
Speaker:atonement is found in the cross.
Speaker:Calvary is also the fulfillment of God's promise to the serpent. Yeah.
Speaker:He made a promise to the serpent in Genesis 315. So get
Speaker:this. I will put enmity between you and the woman and
Speaker:between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head
Speaker:and you shall bruise his heel. This is God's promise to
Speaker:the serpent. This is referred to as a seed war. This is a
Speaker:millennia Holy battle
Speaker:garden.
Speaker:Man was created to have dominion on the earth.
Speaker:It was a birthright that god gave his people. Be
Speaker:fruitful, multiply, subdue the earth.
Speaker:Reign over it, rule over it. I want you to do a little thought exercise
Speaker:with me for a second. Think of something that has
Speaker:been created and then given a purpose.
Speaker:Name one thing that has ever been created that was created and
Speaker:then given purpose. You can't do
Speaker:it, can you? You can't do it. Why?
Speaker:Because nothing is created without purpose. You are created
Speaker:for a purpose. Nothing is created and
Speaker:then given a purpose. So how much more so
Speaker:mankind created for a purpose?
Speaker:We are created to be God's regents on the
Speaker:earth, representatives of the heavenly kingdom
Speaker:here on this earth. We we so detach
Speaker:the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of earth, and we and we
Speaker:and we say things like, well, that's just a supernatural. He has set things
Speaker:in order here on Earth the same way they are
Speaker:in heaven. Why did Jesus pray? Your will hear the way it is up
Speaker:there. What where do we even get these concepts
Speaker:of kingdom? We don't just come up with these on our own.
Speaker:God has set this in motion
Speaker:and the authority and dominion of mankind has been usurped by
Speaker:the enemy or given away throughout history. We have
Speaker:given away the authority that God has given us. And according
Speaker:to Deuteronomy chapter 32 verses 8 and 9, look at this. It says, when the
Speaker:most high gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind,
Speaker:he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of
Speaker:God. But the lord's portion is his people,
Speaker:Jacob his allotted heritage.
Speaker:What does this mean? Growing up, my mom used to tell me, well,
Speaker:the Jews were God's chosen people. And I'm like, well, flip them a
Speaker:fish. Lucky them. Right? How'd they get that?
Speaker:Right? Have you you've heard that Jews were are God's
Speaker:chosen people. Well, where did that come from? This is where it came from. God
Speaker:divided the nations up and he took Israel as himself. Have you
Speaker:read passages in the New Testament theatre seem like, well, that was
Speaker:kinda harsh for Jesus to say that, but we don't understand it
Speaker:Where the Syrophoenician woman is coming to Jesus for something, he said, Look, it's not
Speaker:my time to come to you yet. I'm here for the Jews right now. And
Speaker:she's like, Well, even dogs get crumbs from the master's table. And he's
Speaker:like, I love your tenacity, lady. He did that's
Speaker:Justin speak, man. It's a little bit cleaner than that if you go read
Speaker:it, but that's the gist of it. It's all throughout the New
Speaker:Testament. You can see it, and Jesus is like, it's not my time for that
Speaker:yet. It's not my time for that yet. And I'm like, what is he talking
Speaker:about here? Why? Because God had come for the nation of Israel
Speaker:first. Why? Because those were his allotted people.
Speaker:The accomplishment of the cross is that Jesus reclaimed all
Speaker:authority that man had abdicated and gave it back to us as
Speaker:regents. Matthew 28 18, I love this.
Speaker:I love what Jesus says here. Jesus came and said to
Speaker:them now this is after the death, burial, and resurrection. And
Speaker:look at what Jesus says. What is that first quotation?
Speaker:All authority in heaven and
Speaker:on earth has been given to me.
Speaker:All authority in heaven on earth has been given to
Speaker:me. Go therefore and make disciples of
Speaker:all nations, baptizing them in the
Speaker:name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching
Speaker:them to observe all I have commanded you and behold I am
Speaker:with you always even through the end of the
Speaker:age. Jesus accomplished on the cross
Speaker:the reclamation of the authority that we had abdicated and that had
Speaker:been you served. And what did he do? He gave it back to us now
Speaker:empowered by the Holy Spirit for us to go and
Speaker:be regents and ambassadors of the kingdom in the earth.
Speaker:You gave up the authority I gave you. I'll come get it back,
Speaker:and I will give it back to you, but now I'm sending you
Speaker:with my spirit. And now the gospel is
Speaker:available to who? All nations
Speaker:that happened at the cross. I read a verse this past
Speaker:Thursday where Jesus said, and this used to mess me up.
Speaker:He said, hey, you'll do greater things than
Speaker:me. Have you read that passage? You'll do
Speaker:greater things than me, and I'm like, God is
Speaker:that possible Until you realize that Jesus was 1
Speaker:man in one place at one time
Speaker:and now and now he has given us
Speaker:the promised Holy Spirit. And now you get to be a regent at
Speaker:your job and you get to be at your job and you get to be
Speaker:where you're at on vacation and and where you go grocery shop at, and the
Speaker:places that you interact. And now we are doing greater things because
Speaker:the spirit has been multiplied and magnified and the gospel of
Speaker:Jesus Christ is preached to all nations.
Speaker:And he accomplished it at the cross. What we
Speaker:had given up, he took back for us.
Speaker:The way in which he died was one of the most brutal deaths in the
Speaker:history of the planet. The Romans had perfected crucifixion.
Speaker:They spent about 500 years perfecting their craft.
Speaker:Crucifixion was not just a way to die. It was a method
Speaker:of torture, and it was a statement to all would
Speaker:be opposition to Rome.
Speaker:Imagine we let out a service here, and we all get out, and
Speaker:we go down here on San Ridley and right in front of First Watch, There's
Speaker:3 men hanging bleeding naked
Speaker:on crosses in the side of the road and a sign that
Speaker:says, this is what they did. Do you think you would be doing the same
Speaker:things to mess around and find out like that? You probably would not.
Speaker:Right? You would not and that was the point. That was the
Speaker:point. Anybody that's God come and defy
Speaker:the Roman rule like this, this is what'll happen to you. This
Speaker:is exactly what will happen to you.
Speaker:It was a method of torture. It was a particularly
Speaker:cruel and unusual form of disposing
Speaker:people. Disposing people,
Speaker:says Jeremy Ward, head of the physiology department at King's College in
Speaker:London. Each aspect of the death on the cross had its
Speaker:particular ghastliness, some less accurately depicted
Speaker:by artists than others, the discovery of the bones of a crucified
Speaker:man now in a museum in Israel point to the fact that the feet
Speaker:were likely not stacked on the front of the cross. In
Speaker:the remains, the nail goes through the heel leading to the conclusion that
Speaker:the crucified were more likely nailed with their ankles
Speaker:on either side of the cross mass. Can you
Speaker:imagine that? This it's not this
Speaker:picture we see here. Most likely, your feet are on both
Speaker:sides of the pillar, and there's a nail through both
Speaker:ankles. So so the only thing
Speaker:to support you is your ligaments and your tissue
Speaker:resting against that nail. It's not like they said, well, let's put him a
Speaker:little foot rest up there to stand on. No. They probably
Speaker:laid him down, nailed it through, and then slid it up and
Speaker:let it drop into place.
Speaker:Both sides of the mast. Both sides of the
Speaker:mast.
Speaker:Ward says some artist interpretations have been especially accurate. The
Speaker:classic position of the hands in paintings is that they are clenched.
Speaker:A neurologist suggested that the church was due to the fact that if the median
Speaker:nerve was struck, it would cause neuropathy,
Speaker:which controls the thumb and finger so they would indeed clench in a particular
Speaker:way as that would have been contributed to death, but it would not have been
Speaker:nice. As far as a nail goes through your hand,
Speaker:it causes nerve damage, and you can't control the
Speaker:way your fist will church up. So now
Speaker:you don't have anything to grab onto. There's there's
Speaker:nothing to grab onto anyway, and there's nothing to really support
Speaker:your weight except the nail that's through both ankles and a
Speaker:beam of wood. Your arms were usually positioned
Speaker:higher than your torso.
Speaker:Said that he is said to have expired after 6 hours
Speaker:on a Friday. In addition to the positioning of the cross, Ward says that
Speaker:the length of survival also depended on the health of the individual
Speaker:being crucified and on the severity of their treatment beforehand. They
Speaker:routinely whipped them and had them carry at least part of
Speaker:their cross to the side of the execution. I mean, we we quote this
Speaker:verse, and by Christ's stripes, we are healed. And we have no idea what
Speaker:those stripes actually were. The Romans were
Speaker:brutal. There were some instances that the man being
Speaker:crucified never made it to the cross.
Speaker:Never made it to the cross. They would take
Speaker:them and they would strip them down. They would strip them down and
Speaker:they would tie them to a block. And they had this
Speaker:crazy thing with pieces of leather hanging off of it
Speaker:with glass and metal or whatever that they could inflict pain
Speaker:with, and they
Speaker:whipped him. I tried to
Speaker:cut my 2 fingertips off the other pray.
Speaker:Didn't particularly like that, but if you've ever hit your finger
Speaker:on something or or it's like if you get hurt, now your body says, hey,
Speaker:touch everything with that. Right?
Speaker:So you imagine you get hit one
Speaker:time with this brutal device
Speaker:and it just lands wherever it lands
Speaker:on your back flesh bone muscle tissue
Speaker:ligaments anything and then the only way to get it out is for them to
Speaker:snatch it and everything goes flying with it and that would have
Speaker:been enough but they go right back to the same spot he'd been hit
Speaker:in. Some of these criminals hung on this
Speaker:cross for days and Jesus died within 6 hours. Why?
Speaker:Because they were killing him on the way.
Speaker:39 times they hit this man
Speaker:over and over and over and over and
Speaker:over and over and over and over and over and over
Speaker:and over and over and over and over and over and over and
Speaker:over and over and over and over and over and
Speaker:over and over and over and over and over and
Speaker:over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over
Speaker:and over. They hit him.
Speaker:39 times.
Speaker:And then they said, get up And they put they they put a
Speaker:robe on him. And if you've ever put a band aid on something
Speaker:that's hurt, right? They put a robe on him and then it
Speaker:stuck to whatever was wet, whatever tissue was there
Speaker:long enough where they could spit on him and and put the crown on him
Speaker:and humiliate him. And then when it was time to carry the cross, they snatched
Speaker:it off and ripped open whatever wound was there.
Speaker:Can you see why 9 year old me is like, God this is heavy. My
Speaker:sin did this. He's like, it's bigger than you.
Speaker:It's bigger than just that son, don't make the cross this small.
Speaker:I didn't do all this just to have you have a small view of the
Speaker:cross.
Speaker:Then they then they put his they were ordered to carry parts of their
Speaker:cross. And so he had to carry his cross and I
Speaker:love the way the gospels, I love the way God understands
Speaker:us because they brought somebody along
Speaker:to help him carry it. I read
Speaker:passages that say, pick up your cross and follow me and some
Speaker:days, oh my God, I can't do this. I wanna quit.
Speaker:Now I realize he sent somebody to help me carry it.
Speaker:He sent someone to help bear the burden. If he did it for his son,
Speaker:why wouldn't he do it for me? He did do it for
Speaker:me because he did it to his son. The son
Speaker:of the father for the son of the father.
Speaker:By the time they got there to the side of the execution,
Speaker:they were already pretty traumatized and had probably lost a
Speaker:major amount of blood. For some,
Speaker:it could be a day or more and how they were treated once installed on
Speaker:the cross had a significant effect as well. You have to maintain the
Speaker:weight of the body on the legs so that the weight of the arms isn't
Speaker:too much so that you can breathe properly.
Speaker:As he hung there, he would slowly suffocate.
Speaker:His body would slink down so church, and the only way to
Speaker:get a good breath was to pick himself back up against the
Speaker:nails. It's torture.
Speaker:It's brutal. They were making a
Speaker:statement and this is what the Jews asked for. Give
Speaker:us Barabbas
Speaker:They They didn't know what he would accomplish.
Speaker:Gradually, the exhaustion gets worse and worse, and you can't keep the weight
Speaker:up as warden. It is known that the guards would break the legs
Speaker:in order to hasten death sometimes. So was the case with those
Speaker:on either side of Jesus according to the gospels.
:6 says, for
:while we were still weak at the right
:time Christ died for the ungodly. Do you think it's
:any coincidence that he came when he
:came? Pray out to me, I would say, can I be
:poisoned and and die in my sleep? Or it
:could have been an electric chair in 2019. Or it could have
:been a lethal injection, or he could have been killed,
:when they were trying to wipe out all of the babies. But instead, he comes
:at the point in history where the most brutal way to
:die is the way to die. Do you think that's coincidence? He
:just so happened on a Roman cross? No. He said, I'll take the most
:amount of pain for the most amount of time if that's
:what it takes. Why? Because he was the lamb who was slain before
:the foundation of the world. Redemption is in his
:nature.
:This is the death we should have died. This
:is the death we should have died. And as a matter of fact,
:it is the death that we died.
:We need to understand that we were so corrupted in our
:flesh. Mankind had been so corrupted
:in our flesh that we could not just be forgiven, we
:had to be crucified.
:We had to be crucified. Romans
:6:6 to 7 says, we know that our old
:self our old self
:was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be
:brought to nothing so that we would no longer be
:enslaved to sin for one who has died has
:been set free from sin. Galatians 2:20
:says, I have been crucified with Christ.
:Nevertheless, I live yet not I, but Christ lives in me. The
:life that I live now, I live by faith in the son of God who
:loved me and gave himself for me. That should be our life verse
:every single day of the week. I have been crucified with
:Christ. Literally, I died with him.
:Jesus did not just die for us, he died as us.
:He did not just die for us, he died as
:us. The accomplishment of the cross
:places us in a present future life instead of a
:past present reality. Our old nature has been
:killed and our past has been redeemed. I love
:I love so much that Jesus' very first miracle
:was turning water into wine. And you know why I love it so
:much? Wine takes time. Right?
:You don't just put the pray. I still hadn't figured out how that works, by
:the way. I said, I told y'all that's I God need a little
:bit more time. I just now realized that. I don't know how to thresh or
:press grapes yet, but I'll get there. Wine
:takes time. Am I right? There's a fermentation
:process, but look at what Jesus did. He gave the
:water a past it never had.
:I don't know if I'm even talking to anybody today.
:He gave the water a pass it never had.
:The the cross gives us
:a present future reality instead of this
:present past mentality that we're always walking in.
:We're always looking back, oh, I did this and I'm so this, and our mind
:is back here when we have been crucified with him. That means
:all that is dead too. Now, I am responsible
:to live a present future life. I
:am presently wonderful
:because of the cross. I love the way Graham Cook says it.
:I'm not everything I'm supposed to be yet, but when he
:died, I died.
:When he died, I died.
:Most of us has Spirit our entire lives living past,
:present and not present
:future. The work of the cross,
:the gospel of Jesus is not about improving your life
:or learning to be kind to your neighbor. The
:gospel is not, I used to do drugs, and now I don't.
:The gospel is not, I used to be mean to my wife, and
:now I'm kind to her. That's you can find that any
:other place. You can find that in other
:religions. You can find that at AA meetings. You can find that in a number
:of places in the world. And I'll and the world will tell you, you can
:sometimes you can even find that in yourself. You've all known
:people that have gotten sober or got older and and stopped being
:so mean and crass. That's not what the
:gospel is about. The gospel was about and the cross was
:restoring mankind back to the family of God.
:He restored us back into the family of
:God, a place we could not go
:before the cross. We are
:all of Adam, and therefore, we all have the same problem.
:And Jesus is the solution for the problem.
:Jesus said in John 14, I am
:the way, the truth, and the life. That phrase, I am, is the
:exact same phrase that he used later when he when they asked,
:are are you Jesus? He says, I'm him. It's the same phrase. It's
:in Exodus when they said, who are we gonna say send us? And God said,
:I am. Jesus reveals that he is God and he
:is the way, the truth, and the life. He is the only way to have
:a relationship with the father, and he did it through the means
:of the cross.
:From the beginning, all God has wanted is a
:family with us included in
:it. And everything that has happened
:along the way has separated us from that,
:separated us from that.
:And there have been things that have been good enough
:over the centuries, Atonement,
:sacrifices, but it was never good enough.
:None of it was ever good enough.
:So god said, I'll do it myself.
:Every other religion, you have to find your way to God.
:But in Christianity, God says, I'll find my way to you.
:I'll find my way to you.
:If the focus is healing and life change and active service,
:then the gospel's not any different. But when we
:understand that Jesus is restoring us back into the family of God, then we have
:a relationship with the father through the Holy Spirit. So how
:much more precious is the blood of Jesus
:when I know that I can be relieved of
:that overwhelming feeling I've carried my whole life
:and I can walk free understanding that it
:was bigger than that. It's so much bigger than I can
:understand. I'll never get it. I don't even know if I'll get it when I
:cross over Jordan. But for now, the cross has become
:even more powerful when I see exactly what Jesus has done in my
:place. He has given me back the authority that
:I abdicated. He's restored me back into a relationship with the
:father. He has empowered me with the Holy Spirit
:for spiritual warfare. And that spiritual warfare is making
:disciples of all nations, telling of the gospel
:that Jesus came and died in my pray. And when he died, I
:died. And now I'm restored back into relationship with the father.
:How precious is the blood of Jesus? Worship team, you come out, and I'll pick
:my jacket up. How
:precious is the blood of Jesus to you? How
:small have we made the cross?
:The blood of Jesus will never lose its power to love.
:It will never lose its power to forgive. It will never lose its power
:to restore. It will never lose its power to a point. It
:will never lose its power to redeem. It will
:never lose its power to redeem.
:It will never lose its power to transcend our thinking.
:It will never lose its power to accomplish everything
:that God has set out to do. He could have gotten to a to b,
:a 1000000 different ways and this is the way he chose to do it.
:This is the way he chose to do it.
:How precious is the blood? It's for this reason I
:shout. When y'all see me acting stupid down
:here.
:When you see me with my earbuds in singing and you don't wanna hear
:it. When
:you see me on my face. When you see me
:crying in that corner. When you see me praying over another brother.
:This is why. It's
:always been Jesus. It's always going to be Jesus. It's
:never gonna stop being Jesus. And the power of his
:death and the beauty of his resurrection.
:Forgotten the power of the cross and the work that God has accomplished.
:But now, in this season, in this
:moment, at this time in history, I repent and I
:look to the beauty of the cross, and I see the blood that was shed,
:and I understand that this is bigger than me. God
:is restoring all of mankind back into his family.
:And we when he died we died with him. And I don't have
:to live back here. I don't have to carry that weight.
:This is the reason we shout. This is the reason we celebrate.
:This is the reason we proclaim his death until he comes
:again. This is the reason why
:we worship. So stand with me.
:If you made the cross too small,
:this is a moment for you too As we
:worship our risen king. See, he's not dead anymore.
:He's not dead. Come on.
:Because if he if he just died, then what good
:was that? But when he rose, I rose too.
:So we celebrate that this morning. That
:he didn't die, and it was brutal and beautiful.
:That was horrible and holy.
:But when he died, we died and now we live in newness of
:life as sons and daughters of the risen king king, and for that reason we
:worship. If you need to pray with somebody this morning for any need, I'm
:gonna ask brothers and sisters to come down here, and you can come down here
:and pray. But I just I would just like for us to just worship this
:king. How precious is the blood?
:It will never lose its power and I I get to
:celebrate with you for all of eternity.
:Let's worship.