Shownotes
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.
Scriptures Referenced
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
About Springhouse
If you’re looking for a church in Smyrna, TN that is focused on Loving Big, Living Truth, and Healthy Family, we’d love to connect with you. We are home to a vibrant children’s ministry, powerful middle school and youth ministries, and incredible ministries for men and women of all ages. Our local and global outreaches include partnerships with missionaries in the US and abroad, Isaiah 117 House, local retirement communities, and more.
Additionally, we are home to Springhouse Theatre, an award-winning theatre in the Nashville area. Through the theatre, we serve both the greater Nashville theatre community, and thousands of patrons each year, and we are expanding our vision to impact the culture through the arts into additional mediums and through an expanding network of relationships.
We would love it if you would consider joining us in person for one of our Sunday gatherings.
Additional Resources
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Gathering Times
- Sundays, 9:00 AM
- Sundays, 10:30 AM
- Thursdays, 6:00 PM
Contact Info
Springhouse Church
14119 Old Nashville Highway
Smyrna TN 37167
CCLI License 2070006
Transcripts
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.
