Two places in your Bible,
John Chapter 19 and Isaiah 53. And we're going to read versus
one through four from John 19, and then we're going
to jump into Isaiah 53 in just a little bit. But here's what we
read in John's gospel. It says, "So then Pilate
took Jesus and scourged him. And the soldiers twisted
a crown of thorns and put it on His head, and
they put on Him a purple robe. And they said, "Hail,
King of the Jews!" And they struck Him
with their hands. Pilate that went out
again and said to them, "Behold, I am bringing
Him out to you, that you may know that
I find no fault in Him." And then in verse
15, "They cried out, "Away with Him, away with Him! Crucify Him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall
I crucify your King?" The chief priest answered,
"We have no king but Caesar!" Then, he delivered Him
to them to be crucified. Then, they took Jesus
and led Him away. And He, bearing
His cross, went out to a place called the
Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha,
where they crucified Him, and to others with
Him, one on either side and Jesus in the center." We're in a series of
messages we've called creed, and we're taking
some time to sort of figure out what the load
bearing walls of Christianity are. If we're calling ourselves
Jesus' followers, we're saying, I believe in Jesus. We're singing that song. This series is trying to
answer the question, what does that mean exactly? Like what do we
believe about Jesus? Because there's a million
words in this Bible, and in order to have a
succinct understanding of what the Christian faith is, we
have something called creeds. And creed is just a Latin
word that means I believe. So when you say creed, you're
actually just saying I believe, and you're just
really articulating what is it that we believe. And out of all of the creeds--
because there are a ton of them-- we're looking at the earliest
version of the creed that really articulates
the Christian faith, and it's known as
the Apostles' Creed. And we encouraged you at the
beginning of the series-- and if you are just
jumping in now, we're super glad to have you. This is week three. Week three of the series. [APPLAUSE] All the
messages you can get on our website,
freshlife.church, and on our YouTube page,
so you can catch up. But we said at
the beginning it'd be cool if you memorized it. Maybe just got your
family together, or your spouse
together-- hey, what? You want to talk about a date? If you're dating somebody? Hey, want to get together and
memorize the Apostles' Creed? I'm telling you,
that is a bedrock of a kicking
relationship right there. But to start us off,
I wanted to recite it. But instead of you
hearing me recite it, I thought it'd be maybe
more impressive to have my daughter come up here. This is Daisy Grace. Come on, let's
hear it for Daisy! [CHEERING] Daisy Grace. Daisy Grace, who is eight,
is going to from memory say the Apostles' Creed. Hi Daisy. Hi. How are you? Good. All right. Go ahead, baby. I believe in God,
the Father almighty creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ,
His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the
power of the Holy Spirit. Born of the Virgin Mary, He
suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died,
and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day, He rose again. He ascended into
heaven, is seated at the right hand of the
Father, and is coming again to judge the living
and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit,
The holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the
body, and life everlasting. Amen. Amen indeed. [CHEERING] Amazing. So good. Come on. Daisy Grace. Nailed it. How sweet is that? All right, so if she can do
it, that's all I'm saying. But, actually, she's like
the smartest in our house, so that's not like
if she can do, it's like she got
it before I had it. But the part we're going
to look at this week in this installment of
the series is right here, suffered under Pontius
Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the dead. And the title of my
message, if you'd like to take notes in
church, is X Marks the Spot. Jot that down. X marks the spot. Do you remember when
Christians were freaking out because people started
calling Christmas Xmas? Do you remember that? That was before they
started freaking out because the world
started calling it like happy holidays
and season's greetings. You know what I'm saying? This was maybe earlier, where
it's like, you know, Xmas. And like I remember
like a lot of Christians really up in arms about that. Maybe you're here. If you are, play cool. Play cool. If that stresses you
out, play it cool. Because Christians
are like, they're trying to delete Christ
from his own birthday! They're trying to get rid
of Christ from Christmas. And, you know, let
me just say this. On the whole subject
of us freaking out about the world
doing certain things, I think that we have,
as Jesus followers, we should have the
relaxed confidence that comes from knowing
that God's in charge. Like the relaxed confidence. Like we shouldn't be
so jittery, you know? Normally, I don't say
this, but, you know, maybe switch from caffeinated
to decaf sometimes. Like I do think sometimes
with Christians, there's this is up in
armsness about everything. Like this sky is falling
because it's season's greetings or happy holidays. I think at the end of the day,
if I read the back of this book correctly, He wins in the end. So, I mean, I think, along
the way, we could just-- [CHEERING] All right, but that's a
whole different sermon on us and culture, but I
remember specifically when I was hearing a lot about that. Can you believe it? And I remember I would post
just on stuff back in the day, like Merry Xmas. And I would get this,
how long do you have? I don't need group therapy
just from anything I post on the internet, but, you
know, you write Merry Xmas, and it's just like this quick,
don't you dare say Xmas. And I don't ever really
respond to haterade, but what I would say if I
did respond to a comment like that is this, that X has
historically been shorthand for Jesus and the cross. So that's what I would say. Xmas actually-- you see,
X is actually a cross. Just so we're both
clear on that. It's two intersecting lines
that cross in the middle. So an X is a cross, but X
has been, throughout history, a shorthand way
to describe Christ because, in Greek, Christ
starts with a letter that looks to us like an X, because
in Greek, if you want to make a ch sound, that's actually a
letter called chi, which looks like an X. So Xmas is
Christmas, and the cross is at the center of it. So maybe it's more
spiritual than any other way to say Merry Christmas. And if you freak out about
happy holidays, holiday means holy day, so like just
chill out for a second. But-- [LAUGHTER] OK, so
all I'm trying to say is X stands for Jesus. X stands for Jesus. But what does X stand for? In math, x stands
for the unknown. X stands for a variable that
you're trying to figure out. It's something they are
trying to understand. So in algebra-- and
I don't have a lot that I could bring to you by way
of illustrations from algebra-- but I can tell you that x
stands for what you're trying to figure out or the unknown. So that's appropriate as we just
kind of begin this conversation about what it means that Christ
was crucified, what it means that Jesus died on the cross. Why? Because X, or the
cross, is simultaneously one of the most recognizable
symbols in the world, right? I mean, a cross is
one of the most-- you know exactly what
that is when you see it. When you see it on a building,
when you see it on a Bible, when you see it on a necklace,
when you see the cross in art, you know exactly what that is. When you see the emoji of the
cross, you know that's a cross. That's a cross. So it's up there with like
the McDonald's logo, probably, and the Apple logo, as
far as like just logos that you see in
life in the world. But at the same time,
it's perhaps one of the most
misunderstood symbols that you could possibly ever
see as to its exact meaning. But it is crucial,
crucial for us if we're Jesus'
followers to have a clear understanding
of what the cross is, of what the cross means. It is crucial that we
understand what the cross is and what the cross means. It is crucial that we
understand what the cross is and what the cross means. What is it? It is-- Crucial. Do you know what the
word crucial comes from? From the cross. The word crux, in
Latin, just means cross, and both our words in
English, crucial and crux, actually speak of the cross. When we say something is
the crux of the matter, like oh yeah, it's
great, great, but what's the crux of the matter? What we're saying is what's
the cross of the matter. When we're talking
about Christianity, what's the crux of the matter? You guessed it. The cross. The cross is the
crux of the matter, meaning if we don't
get the cross, we don't understand
Christianity. If we don't
understand the cross, we don't understand Jesus. If we don't
understand the cross, we misunderstand completely
the nature and scope of what He came to this
earth to accomplish. And it's been said,
oh, He just came to give us some good teachings
and give us His miracles, and what an inspiring example. He wanted us all
to wear a bracelet around that would ask the
question what would Jesus do. No, no. He said it Himself
best when He said, I came to suffer and to give
my life as a ransom for many. The reason Jesus came-- the crux
of the matter-- it's crucial that we understand
what He came for was, well, X marks the spot. That's what He came for. If we're calling ourselves
followers of Jesus, the crux of the matter,
the heart of the issue, at the end of the day,
the irreducible minimum, is the cross. Paul put it this way when he
spoke to the Corinthian church. He said, I just committed among
you not to even know anything except for Christ
and Him crucified. Because he knew
Corinth was a city full of wisdom, and
sophistication, and excess, and the who's who,
and the what's what. And Paul, by the time he was 20,
had the equivalent of two PhDs, just so we're clear. Paul could throw
down if you want to use some big words, right? By the time he
was 20, all right? But when he got to
Corinth, he just recognized that people
loved big argument, loved to get into a big heady
philosophical debate. He said, I'm not even going to
talk nothing except for Christ and Him crucified because that's
what this thing is all about. It's the old rugged cross. Four things I think that you
need to know about the cross. Number one, it's anchored
to a fixed point in history. When we say the
creed, we actually now say someone's name. We've already said born
of the Virgin Mary, so we talked about a person. We spoke about her
last week, and we maybe cleared up what we think
about Mary scripturally. But now, we need to address
this dude who shows up now. Suffered under--
what's his name? Pontius Pilate. Now this is really a big deal. There's a lot that
could be said, and I've preached
over the years. I was actually looking back
all the different times I've preached about Pilate, and
preached from John's gospel, and preached through-- I spent one time 10 weeks
in a row just preaching about the cross, and,
you know, lots of things can and should be
said about this guy. I mean, you think about
the tragic decision he made to wash his hands
of the decision of Jesus or so he thought. He called for water and,
dramatically, famously, he washed his hands of the
decision about Jesus, not understanding the way
to be forgiven of sins is not with water. It's actually by
the thing he was trying to clean off of his
hands, the blood of Jesus. I'm telling you something there. There is more cleansing power
in one drop of Jesus's blood than all the waters in all
the oceans on all the world. I'm telling you something. [APPLAUSE] Forgiveness doesn't come
from getting rid of Jesus, but embracing Jesus. And so a lot should
be said about Pilate and could be said
about Pilate, but what I want is leave you
with-- because we're talking about foundations
here in the series-- is the fact that by
introducing his name, those who wrote this
creed and the apostles really essentially did is
they preached, and preached, and preach, and preached. And what they preached
was condensed down to this sticky, sticky
statement, the creed, that would be so easy for
even an eight-year-old to walk away with an
understanding of what Christianity at the end
of the day is all about. They were anchoring it
to a specific point, a fixed point in history,
which is distinct from legend, isn't it? When you're making something
up, what do you say? Well, how does every
Star Wars begin? A long time ago in a
galaxy far, far away. If you were making
this up, that's how you would tell
the gospel story. A long time ago in a
country far, far away. That's not how this reads. Under Pontius Pilate. We can figure out
who that dude was. Get on Wikipedia. He lived from 30-- he was the fifth prefect of
Judea from 26 A.D. to 36 A.D. So we know exactly
when he reigned. He was under Tiberius,
the emperor of Rome. And when this was
being preached and when this was being communicated
in the early days, people could go and
check on this stuff. You see what I'm saying? And by specifically saying,
this is when Jesus died, this was happening politically,
here's where it took place, it was a challenge to anybody
who said, I don't believe that. I don't believe in it. They're saying, go look into it. Matter of fact, one time, Paul
was standing before a king, and he was talking about Jesus. And he was talking about
the cross, and he said, you've heard of this stuff. Don't pretend like you haven't. These things were not done
in a corner is how he put it. These things were
not done in a corner. It was done openly and publicly. It was done right over there. So go look into it, dig
into it, and that is to say, our faith invites investigation. We're saying, here's
where it took place. Look into the records. Look into the manuscript
evidence for the New Testament. There are over 5,000, by
the way, from just 70 years after Christ. I mean, look into it. Compare that to the
manuscript evidence for The Iliad and the Odyssey. Look, compare that to
Julius Caesar's Gaelic Wars and the fact that you
have as far as 1,000 years separating the oldest manuscript
from when it was written. With Jesus, it's 70 years, and
we have over 5,000 manuscripts of these documents, the New
Testament, that when compared, they are almost identical
in like 99.5% of issues. And the differences
we do have come down to really spelling, punctuation,
and slips of the pen. So I mean we're
talking about the fact that we have a faith
that you can look into, that holds up to scrutiny. I'm telling you something. We don't have a faith to
be ashamed of and treated like it was some sort of
myth like Paul Bunyan. This is anchored in a
specific point in history. He suffered under who? Pontius Pilate,
the fifth prefect of Judea under the reign of
Emperor Tiberius in the Roman Empire. This is when this happened. This is who was in charge, and
this is how it all went down. That's the first thing
you know about the cross. It was a specific event
that actually happened. Second thing. Jot it down. It was the most shameful and
painful death imaginable. To die in the cross
was to die in the most painful and shameful death
a human could devise. I pastored a church
once, and in that church, there was a Brazilian
sandalwood guitar type wood that was in a cross
that was on the platform. And at one point, we were
moving things around, and some people were saying,
could we do this to the stage? Could we do this
to the environment? And they said, oh no, no, no. The people who gave that
cross, they are big givers. And if you get that cross,
they are going to leave. Everyone's going to be mad. You will have so
many problems if you move that cross because
it was this piece of art. It was attached
to someone's gift, and it was this
beautiful, precious thing. And they were talking
about how hard it was to get people's
hands on the wood that was purchased for that. I got a whole
sermon on that too, but let me just say
this about the cross. It wasn't a beautiful
piece of art. It was an exotic wood
imported from Brazil. When we're talking
about the cross, we're talking about
a way to put someone to death that was as barbaric
as any you could possibly conceive of. It was originally invented
by the Persians around 400 B.C. or so, but it was
perfected by the Romans. When I say perfected, I mean
they had a lot of practice. By the time Jesus Christ
was ministering in Israel, it's estimated that around
Judea no less than 30,000 people had been put to
death by crucifixion. Just in one fell swoop when
Jesus was a little boy, Herod the Great died. And at the time
that he died, there was a big rebellion that
sprang up in Galilee. And to quench the
rebellion underfoot, they crucified 2000 people just
in Galilee, and that lines up historically during
the time period when Jesus, Mary,
and Joseph would've been coming back from Egypt. So you can imagine them coming
back with this little dude from Egypt to grow
up in Nazareth, and some 2,000 people
on crosses dead or dying all over the place. One person said
it's no exaggeration at all to say that Jesus Christ
lived his entire childhood and life under the
shadow of the cross. It wasn't some isolated thing. That's what they did for Jesus. They cooked it up just for him. It was a way that Rome sent
the message, we're in charge. You see, Israel was
an occupied country, and they kept the peace by
making an example of anybody who defied Rome in any way. But it was against the law for
a Roman citizen to be crucified. It was considered beneath
any Roman citizen, so it was what would
happen to slaves and what would happen to rebels. And it was meant
to cause a person to die in the slowest possible,
most shameful public ridicule type of way imaginable. And, of course,
it involved nails through the hands and
nail through the feet, and it was always preceded
by whipping, or as it's been called to be lashed with
the Roman flagellum, which was a whip that had
leather lashes 18, 24 inches long with bits
of bone, bits of glass, or a little pieces of
nails embedded in the ends. And they would rake it across
the back over and over again, causing sometimes internal
organs to be exposed, sometimes eyes
would be gouged out, sometimes just the
act of being whipped would actually take
the person's life, and so they would endure that. But then nailed
to the cross, they would be raised up in the air. And then began the slow
death by suffocation. You see, when all your
weight's on those injuries, you can't breathe properly
unless you push yourself up, which means standing on the
nail that's between your feet. And so you'd have to go now
slide your way up the cross. Now, remember your
back is torn apart, and it's on this rough wood
that last week someone died on, right? This wasn't some-- like they
didn't throw the cross away and get a new one. They would, with a
crowbar, pry out the nail, and the next person,
while likely still stained with the blood of the previous
person, is now being used. And so you have this person. It could last for days,
days, going up and down, and they always chose to crucify
in the most conspicuous places because they wanted as
many people as possible to have to see it, to set the
maximum fear, the tone of fear. If you mess with Rome, this is
what's going to happen to you. And that's why Jesus's cross-- they would always put the
crime on the top of the cross-- and Jesus's, we're told, was
in three different languages, right? It's like when you
go to Disneyland. They're saying the
instructions in Spanish. A lot of people are listening
to the instructions. So you have at a thoroughfare
where major roads go by the crucified person
hanging on to dear life as he just suffered
there to breathe and just people are
coming and going. Someone said it
would be like seeing in between a Starbucks and
a Safeway someone hanging from a noose
struggling to breathe. That's what Jesus endured. This specific point
in history in the most shameful and painful death
imaginable is what he endured. Third thing you
know about the cross is that Jesus's cross
was vicarious, voluntary, and victorious. Vicarious-- jot that down-- voluntary, and
thirdly, victorious. What does vicarious mean? It means in place
of someone else. We would talk about a parent
maybe living vicariously through their child as they
go to study abroad for a year, or go on some epic trip,
or accomplish something. You know, in a good way,
I'm living through you in this experience. When we talk about
the cross, we're literally talking about Jesus
doing something on our behalf. We get to vicariously
live through him because on that cross he
vicariously experienced something on behalf of us. in fact, Corinthians
puts it this way. On the cross, God made Him, who
knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the
righteousness of God in Him. Our sins that we've all
committed, they all have, what the Bible describes, as the
wages of sin, which is death, deadness on the inside. And that deadness that
separation from God is what Jesus was experiencing
on the cross, which is why the physical
pain, as bad as it was, the physical as horrific
as it was for Him to be going up and down
the cross for hours in mind numbing pain. That paled in comparison to what
He was actually experiencing that caused Him to cry
out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? By the way, the only time
in Jesus' entire life He didn't call God the Father. He called him God. He always called Him my
father, my father, my father. But on that day, He called the
Father God, showing distance, showing separation. Why? Because He was
experiencing what it's like to be separated from God. Someone said He experienced
hell on our behalf on that day at that moment
for each one of us because hell is
not just a place. Really, at its essence, hell
is being separated from God, cut off from God, to whom to
know is to know life eternal. So in that moment, what
He recoiled against, what caused it to be worse
than sweating drops of blood, and having his back whipped,
and nails put into his hands was being separated from God. And He did that for you. And He did that for me. It was vicarious. He was treated like
we deserved to be treated so that we
could be treated like He deserves to be treated. That's what it means
to be a substitute. It should be me, and
it should be you, but He paid a price He
didn't owe because we owed a debt we couldn't pay. It was vicarious. But it was voluntary too. You see, no one
made Him do this. In fact, as He died
on the cross that day, there were people jeering at the
bottom who were shouting out, if you are the Christ, if you
really are God's anointed, then come down, and
we'll believe you, completely misunderstanding
that the reason He stayed up was because He was the Christ. He could have come
down at any moment. In fact, in His earthly life
as he spoke about the cross, that was one of the themes
that came up again, and again, and again, that He was doing
this with no gun at His head. He was doing this because of a
reason, a very specific reason, that we'll talk
about in a moment. But in John 15 put it this way. He said in John
10, rather, not 15. 10. "No one takes my life from me. I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and
I have power to take it again." Listen to me friend. It wasn't nails that
held Jesus to the cross. It was love, love for
you and love for me. [APPLAUSE] So it was vicarious. He did this not for
any sin He committed. He did this for
sin we committed. It was voluntary, but
lastly, it was victorious. He accomplished something. It was a transaction
that was made. It was a debt that was paid. It was a victory that
was won on that day. And we're told that
specifically again and again throughout the Bible
that on this day, there was a great victory. On this day, there was
a great celebration. On this day, what the enemy
thought he accomplished was turned around and used
to accomplish something else. Now, to understand that, you
have to understand a little bit about the history. You see, this was the same place
geographically that Abraham-- and the great test of Abraham's
faith, where he was told, offer your son up to me. And when he was willing to do
so, God stopped him and said, you don't need to
offer your son up. It was a test. He said, God will provide
Himself as a sacrifice. And on the same
exact mountain, where Abraham didn't need to offer
up his son, God was showing, I'm willing to give my son. I'm willing to give myself. We're willing to do what
Abraham would not be able to do, and that is to
provide this payment, to provide this restoration, to
provide this way of salvation, this way of escape. So there was a
fulfillment of that. But, then, historically
as well, we know that David, when he
took the city of Jerusalem and made it the
capital of the nation, he brought with him--
this is a little bit gory, so hang on for the ride. It is not what they're
teaching in Sunday school. He brought with him the head
of Goliath the Philistine that he had removed
from his shoulders way back long ago
in 1 Samuel 16. He kept it, and legend
says he buried it at the same exact spot where
Jesus Christ died on the cross. You have to understand. It's symbolic, but
it's also appropriate because at the
cross, Jesus Christ cut the devil's head
off with his own sword, just like David did. Because David killed
Goliath with a slingshot, but he cut Goliath's head
off with Goliath's own sword because there was no sword
in the hand of David. And so it is when
we talk about what Jesus has done, the Bible
says, through death, He destroyed the one who
had the power of death. That is the devil. You see, as He hung
there on the cross, the devil thought He
had defeated Jesus. Turns out, that was
actually the weapon that Jesus came to
defeat the devil with. He crushed the
head of the devil. He defeated the one who
all our lives has had power over us, who talked
us into sinning, and then condemned
us for our sin. So it was vicarious,
it was voluntary, but it was victorious. And that victory,
that celebration, that ring out through the
corridors of heaven and hell alike the moment that Jesus
Christ died with the thundering words, it is finished. And the Bible says
that there was a celebration over the
enemy, a celebration over the dark one,
who thought he won the moment Jesus Christ left. And that took place when
Jesus descended to the dead. Now, that phrase
means two things. It means, number one, that Jesus
died all the way because it actually means descended to
Sheol, as the Old Testament would refer to it, or as the
New Testament would call Hades, which is as distinct as distinct
from Gehenna, which is what always Jesus talked about as
the part of the afterlife that involves suffering. Gehenna would be what you
and I would describe as hell. In the New Testament
before Christ died, hell was just what they said
as all of the afterlife. But there were two compartments
in hell before Christ died. There was where the righteous
who believed in Jesus went and the unrighteous went. And Jesus Christ,
the Bible says, when he died he
descended to the dead, meaning he died all the way. It means he wasn't Princess
Bride talk of mostly dead. He left his body. So descended to the dead
means he died all the way, leaving his body, and his spirit
went to where dead people go, the afterlife. But then, the Bible
actually tells us Jesus promised to the
thief on the cross, today, you'll be with me in paradise. And there was a
promised bringing of those who from
the Old Testament to the beginning, who
believed in God, who believed through faith, just like we
are, because no one in history has ever been saved
except by faith in Jesus. But they were saved
on credit because he hadn't made-- it was layaway. You see what I'm saying? He hadn't made the
payment yet, so Him coming to the afterlife
and sort of plundering the grave in that way was Him
getting the souls of all those who believed in God's promises
all through the Old Testament and bringing them
with Him to paradise, which is where the
thief on the cross showed up just a minute ago just
as all the buses were arriving from Sheol. Hello, somebody. And the thief just shows up. He had just seen Jesus die
and now welcome into paradise, and the Bible says for everyone
who believes in Christ today and dies absent from the
body, present with the Lord in a place called Paradise. Why? Because of the victory that
was accomplished at the cross. Now, X. We began
with X. The cross. X is a symbol for the cross. It's a symbol for
Jesus, but X is also a symbol for the unknown
and for the thing we're trying to figure out. And that's why we spent the
last 15 or so minutes trying to get our heads theologically
around the cross. What does it mean? What are the implications of it? So those two things
should frame what has represented our time together. It's the unknown,
and it's Jesus. We need to make it our goal
to understand who Jesus is and what the cross is all about. But if we are
pirates, an X would be the thing on
the treasure map we would use to mark where
the treasure's at. And I believe that that's
essentially accurate as well. That because of what Jesus
accomplished on our behalf, because of what Jesus did
in the spiritual realm, because of His perfect, sinless
life and the payment that He made on the cross
for you and for me, the X is, in fact, the place,
where the treasure's at. X marks the spot. All the things you're
looking for in life, all the things in
life that you're making your little dotted lines
going around trying to find, the things you're
looking for, the things you don't understand-- I'm telling you, they're at the
X. They're at the rugged cross. X marks the spot. What you're looking for,
hungry for, searching for, X marks the spot. But if you go to the
X, it's only good if someone put some
treasure there. An, I'm telling you something. If you go to the cross,
if you go to this gospel message, Christ and Him
crucified, I'm going to you, you're going to find what
was left for you there. You're going to find
that treasure buried for you by Jesus. Three quick things that
I think that Christ put into this treasure that's
there standing under the cross. Number one, forgiveness. That's the obvious one. Someone said one
time, forgiveness is our greatest need because
guilt is our biggest problem, and all of us have
a guilty conscience. All of us have done
things that are wrong. And in the cross, we find
not just forgiveness. We find so much more than that. We find forgiveness,
yes, in that we're pardoned for our sin,
but the gospel message of substitution and
this vicarious atonement is so much bigger than that. I've spent all week long just
absolutely blown away preparing for this and just
really hoping that God will explode over your heart
like it has in my heart. You have to understand,
when we talk about Jesus hanging on the cross
and paying for all of our sins, that's only half of
the substitution. You see, because He was willing
to stand before God like you should, you now get to stand
before God like He does. So what that means is-- like
in a soldier vocabulary, this isn't just like
you're no longer going to stand at a court martial
for crimes that you committed. You've been pardoned
of those things. But now, you're going to get the
Congressional Medal of Honor. That's a better
description of it. You're not just
not going to answer for your charges, your sins that
you've committed before God, but you also are going to
stand before God and go, I'm not going to be
a faced with charges. That's great! God's like, yeah, but
come to the medal ceremony because I'm going to give
you the Congressional Medal of Honor. You're like, I
didn't do nothing. That's all right because all I
see on you is what Jesus did. All I see on you is the
righteousness of Jesus. [APPLAUSE] So forgiveness, but so
much more than forgiveness. There's also wholeness. Wholeness. We get to be made whole
as we were created to be bearing the image of
God, stewards over creation, not worshipping created things,
but worshipping the creator God and having a part in the
universe that makes sense with the design
that God gave to it. This is what the
cross speaks of when it speaks of God through
the cross reconciling all things to Himself. You see, our plan the
gospel to get us to heaven is true, but not enough because
that's just part of the story. Where the Bible ends is back
on this planet, back here in bodies living forever
on this planet restored to the perfection of
Eden without anything that sin brought to the table. And our parts now
in the story is to be a part of God releasing
that glory back into the world as He originally put it. In fact, Colossians
1:20 puts it this way. "And by the blood of his cross,
everything and heaven and Earth is brought back to himself-- back to its original intent,
restored to innocence again!" And through the cross,
we have the assignment that God has given to us
of helping other people see the beauty and the
majesty of Jesus and His love for each of them. 2 Corinthians says, "God put
the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the
world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us
the task of telling everyone what he is doing." When you wake up tomorrow, what
God wants to be on your heart as you work, and as
you live, and as you play, as you do
business, in everything you do to see it being
a part of the assignment that you could help
other people understand the power and the love
of God in their life. So what is the cross? It's vicarious,
voluntary, and victorious. It's where the treasure's at. X marks the spot. And then, lastly,
fourth point, it was predicted ahead
of time specifically. And this is really
important, and we keep coming back to this because
it is so important and so satisfying, I think,
intellectually for those who have
doubts and to understand why do we believe these things. A big part of it is
because of the way the Old Testament
prophecies ring true in the life and ministry
of Jesus Christ. For example, Isaiah
53 tells us this, speaking before Jesus ever
showed up on this earth. It's been called the greatest
Old Testament description of Our Lord's death. "He was despised and rejected-- a man of sorrows acquainted
with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him
and looked the other way. He was despised,
and we did not care. Yet it was our
weakness he carried. It was our sorrows
that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles
were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced
for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. Beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so
we could be healed. All of us, like sheep,
have strayed away. We have left God's
plans to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on
him the iniquities of us all, the sins of us all. He was oppressed
and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led like a
lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent
before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. Unjustly condemned,
he was led away. No one cared that he
died without descendants, that his life was cut
short in midstream. But he was struck down for
the rebellion of my people. He had done no wrong and
had never deceived anyone, but he was buried
like a criminal. He was put in a
rich man's grave, but it was the Lord's good
plan to crush him and cause him grief. Yet when his life is
made in offering for sin, he will have many descendants. He will enjoy a long life,
and the Lord's good plan will prosper in his hands. When he sees all that is
accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied. And because of his experience,
my righteous servant will make it possible for
many to be counted righteous, for he will bear all their sins. I will give him the honors
of a victorious soldier because he exposed
himself to death. He was counted among the rebels. He bore the sins of many
and interceded for rebels." And this detailed
description that is like reading John's
gospel all over again was written 700 years
before Jesus was born. And yet, every
meticulous detail-- buried in the grave
of a rich person, surrounded by criminals-- again, and again, and
again, and again, and again, 700 years before Christ. Go to Jerusalem. You can go to the museum, and
you can see with your own eyes a copy of Isaiah's gospel
from 150 years before Christ was born. 150 years. Now, you only have to
make a bet two minutes before the fight starts, all
right, to be right, to win. And you can literally--
there is this scroll so old. It's not a copy of
a scroll that old. There's this scroll 150
years before Christ was born. It was found in 1947 by
two shepherds somewhere near the Dead Sea. They were throwing rocks. One of them went into a cave,
broke a piece of pottery. They went inside and found all
these long scrolls rolled up. They started playing with
it like it was a stick, and they were using
it like a cane until someone realized
what they had. It has been called
one of the greatest archaeological
discoveries of our time. And it's literally in
a museum right now. 150 years before Christ,
a copy of a book-- oh and by the way, when they
compared it to the copies that we were using at the time,
copies of copies of copies, it was almost
identical in every way. They say like 99 point something
percent, the same as the one. The Bible that you
have has an Isaiah that's the same as the one
that was in Jesus' Bible, and it's the same as the
one that Isiah wrote. And it's been
verified by historical find after historical find. But the point is, this thing
that we're celebrating, God called his moves
out ahead of time, and you can have
confidence in believing. And you should
look into it if you have more questions about that. Now, how is this week preparing
for this message about God the Father, who loved the world
so much that He sent His son? And those two are
both a part of this. Let's not have the
idea that God's this angry vengeful God who
just wanted to fry us all and send us all to hell. But someone was like,
no, dad, they're awesome. I promise. No, I'll die for them. Just-- that's not the picture. And anybody who's ever held
their own child in their arms understands that. This cost God just as much. This cost the
father just as much, maybe you could argue
more pain that this was their plan from the
beginning of the world. That God loved you so
much He was willing to see His son suffer like this. That the son loved you so much
that He went through with this. It was the love of the Father
and the Son working together at the cross that day through
the agency of the Holy Spirit. All of God loving you so
much, this was what happened. As I was prepping this message,
I was sitting by a fire, and I was writing this talk. And I opened up my
phone just for a minute, and I saw like many
of you saw this week this video from
Tennessee of this father who came home from war
to surprise his son. He was 10 months overseas, a
staff sergeant in the army. His son was at a
Taekwondo practice and sparring with
the instructor. And part of the practice
was to blindfold the son and have him spar
with the instructor without his use of
sight, and it was all prearranged at a certain
point for the sparring partner to step out. Son has no idea his
dad's come home from war, and the dad's going
to step in and begin sparring with his own son. And this-- I'm literally
writing this message-- God the Father loves you,
and this is what I see. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] [GRUNTING] - Come on, Shib. Come on! Is that all we got? - Daddy? [GASPING AND CHEERING] [SON CRYING] [END PLAYBACK] LEVI LUSKO: Give me a second. I felt like for someone today
God wants you to understand, and all your objections, and
all the reasons why you're unwilling to give your heart
to God, and all your objections to Jesus, and the suffering
you've experienced, and you're fighting
because you're angry about these injustices. You don't understand, and these
things that have happened, and these hard things
you've been through. And I feel like what God
just wanted you to understand is you're fighting
against your father. So here's why you
should go to the cross-- to get treasure. And here's why Jesus was
willing to go to the cross-- because you are His treasure. Thank you so much. I hope that was a blessing
to you on your faith journey. If you live in any of our
areas where we have churches-- all over Montana or in Salt
Lake City, Portland, Oregon, or Jackson Hole, Wyoming-- we sure would love to see
you in person at Fresh Life Church, where there are
amazing small groups and programs for kids,
and God's doing so much in our students' lives as well. You can also click the
freshlife.church website, and then hit the give button
if you want to give and support this ministry financially. Well, God bless you and
have an incredible day.
