Good morning. If you're new with us and you're a guest, we're thankful you are with us this morning. Our typical practice is that we walk through a book of the Bible. So in the fall, we'll be picking up in Ephesians and we'll go section by section, chapter by chapter. But this summer, because of vacation or solar eclipses, whatever it may be that takes people out of town for a season, for a Sunday, we're going through the Psalms. And we're not going chapter by chapter because they don't really build like that. What we've actually done is we're choosing different kinds of Psalms so that we can see really the richness of the Psalter. We can see how they actually speak to us at different times and in different struggles, how they help us understand who we are and who God is. One of the things that's really been amazing for me is I've been studying, and I hope for us as a church, is that the Psalms are just this unique mirror to the soul. They help us see the kind of struggles that we have in the midst of our difficulties that we typically probably wouldn't be aware of. They're a mirror to the kind of struggle we have internally when there's external problems to then lead us to praise. And it's pretty amazing that God did that for us. Not only is he worthy of worship, as the object of worship, And not only has He come to save us so that we can worship Him, He's actually given us words to lead us into good and proper worship. Well, this morning, we're gonna have even a more amazing insight, I think. Because what we're gonna read this morning isn't necessarily an insight into our soul, it's actually an insight as to what was going on in Christ's mind and heart on the cross. I believe God has given us this amazing text, the prayer of Christ on the cross. James read earlier the events that took place to Christ, and we saw some of, or we heard some of the words of Christ, but here we're actually gonna get into the mind and the prayer of Christ, I believe. The reason I believe that this was taking place is, well first, this is first and foremost Christ's psalm. This is a messianic psalm. This is a psalm that Jesus can pray uniquely. These things never happened to David. It's very similar to Acts 2. When Peter reads Psalm 16, when David says, you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, Peter says, that didn't happen to David. He was looking forward to the Messiah who would be raised from the dead. I believe here again, God used David to give us words that will help us see who Christ would be when he dies. Our text, has three prayers and a praise. The organization of the text is three prayers and a praise. The first prayer is verses one to five. Do not forsake me, deliver me. One to five, do not forsake me, deliver me. Prayer two is I am scorned, be near to me. That's six to 11. I am scorned. Be near to me, six to 11. Final prayer, I am destroyed, save me. I am destroyed, save me, 12 to 21. And then the last half of our psalm is a praise. It's actually the same person who prayed, do not forsake me, deliver me, be near to me. He's not saying I'm going to praise you. and I'm going to lead your people in praise. Now, why I can so boldly say this is Christ's prayer on the cross is that Matthew 27 gives three, or four actually, different allusions or quotations to this very text. Very clearly, the opening verse, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Those are the words of Jesus Christ himself on the cross when he died. So we're gonna be looking at this and we're gonna be contemplating the death of Christ, what was taking place on the cross for us. And there's three things I hope we can walk away with this morning. One, I hope we are encouraged to see that God has had and has fulfilled a perfect plan for our salvation. This psalm was written 1,000 years before Christ died. We can see that God has had a plan. He's promised it, he's fulfilled it, it is perfect. This gives us great encouragement. Secondly, I hope we walk away with real sorrow, with true regret, that as we think about the kind of suffering that Christ suffered, What he went through, we recognize that's because of our sin. That's what our sin deserves. He suffered for our sin. So there's real sorrow for what we have done. Finally, just absolute praise. Praise the God who is near us, who delivers us, who shows his love for us. If you're looking for just one main point for the text this morning, Christ was forsaken so that we can be forgiven. Christ was forsaken so that we can be forgiven. Again, if you're looking at just the structure, there's three prayers and a praise, and that's what we're gonna follow through the text. So prayer one, do not forsake me, deliver me. And if you look at these three prayers, let me just back up for a moment. Look, one and two, that's the complaint. And then he stops, and he says, yet you are holy. There's a break. And this is typical for the Psalms. There's a complaint, and it goes to confidence. There's always a complaint. This is what's going on. This was wrong. And then there's a turn to confidence. You, O God, are holy. You are near. You'll deliver. And each one of these prayers has that pattern. Verses 1 and 2 are the complaint, 3 to 5 is the confidence. Verses 6 to 8 is the complaint, 9 through 11 is the confidence. 12 to 18 is the complaint, 19 to 21 is the confidence. Now let's look at this first complaint. Why have you forsaken me? Now this language is actually found in other Psalms. And it's not a messianic psalm necessarily. There are many psalms that say, how long, O Lord? Will you forget me? God, have you left me? Where are you, God? We're gonna hear one of these psalms next week. And what happens in those psalms is that it's a mirror of the soul. The psalmist is crying out. He feels like God has left him, but as God leads him through the prayer, he then realizes, no, you have always been near to me. You are my Savior. You're my Redeemer. I'll praise you. Then they go from feeling like God has forsaken them to realizing, no, God is very near to them. That's not the case in this prayer. Jesus Christ was truly forsaken. He was left by his Father. This is the one time God left the one he loved, and it was devastating. As you heard earlier from Matthew 27, the cry that begins our psalm was on the lips of Christ at the climactic moment of his death. It was pre-written. for him to pray when he was dying. So let's just meditate upon this for a moment. What is going on when Christ cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? We believe that there is one God, there's one nature in three persons. This is the doctrine of the Trinity. Father, the Son, and the Spirit are one God. We may not understand it, but we've received it because that's who God has said He is. And here we see very clearly there's a Father and a Son, and there's a relationship. The Father has forsaken the Son. Now we need to back out from this one moment of temporary forsaking. See, God the Father and God the Son, they've always existed. They have an eternal relationship. They have a forever love that they forever enjoyed with one another. The father and the son have always enjoyed a perfect love. But at this one moment, that relationship changes temporarily. Instead of the warm embrace that he's always enjoyed from the father, he's shut off. Instead of the commitment to give himself over to the Father in love, he's given wrath and just anger. Instead of enjoying and delighting in the glory of the Father, God's glory consumes him because he's treated like a sinner. Now, I'm gonna back out one more time, and I wanna say there's three significant events in the history of history, not just our history. God always existed, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and then he created something else. Heavens and earth. That's the first most significant moment. God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, they always existed, then they created heavens and earth. The third most significant moment is when the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, they're gonna bring about a new heavens and a new earth. They're gonna renew what they created that was destroyed by our sin. So it's the first and the third, the first and the last. The second significant moment in the history of all things is right here. There's this huge change. It wasn't just the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit, now there's something else existing. No, a change takes place within God Himself when the Father turns and pours out His wrath on the Son for our sin. And that's why He can bring about a new heavens and a new earth. A change has taken place temporarily with the Son who is the most beloved of the Father. Perfectly beloved. receives wrath that he does not deserve. The father forsakes the son. Why would he do this? Even just for the moment of doing this or the temporary moment of forsaking, why would he do it? It's because of us. Because we have forsaken God. We rebelled against Him. We rejected Him. We were created for His worship. We decided we worship everything else. We decided we would love everything that's not worthy of love instead of loving the one true God. I'm sorry this has to be so frank, but the best illustration of our sinful life is that it's as if we're living giving God the middle finger for our entire life. We don't care. We despise you, we reject you. That's how we live our life apart from Christ. That's our sin. That's why the Son was forsaken. All of our sin was counted towards Christ. He was treated as if He, we were being, He was treated as if a sinner being condemned for everything we've done. See, he was perfect in every way. He was righteous. And when he cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? On our behalf, he takes our sin so that we can be forgiven. This is a horrible moment to think about, but it's for us. Christ represents us on the cross when he's forsaken. He takes our misery so that we can receive mercy. He takes our restlessness so that we can receive rest. You see, if we're really honest with ourselves and our rebellion against God, we're restless. We are restless. We're restless because we lack the stability and the purpose and the clarity. We long for a love that's just beyond our grips. We're restless because we're unsatisfied, but we keep consuming the sin that leaves us more and more unsatisfied. We're restless because we realize there's something missing. This is why Christ came to be forsaken. To take away our sins so that we could actually enjoy rest instead of the rebellion we have. Christ came to give us rest. Rest from worrying, are we good enough for God? God says, no, you're not. But Christ came to take away your sin and he declares you forgiven and righteous. Rest from seeking satisfaction, all the things we know we're not fulfilling. Rest from a pursuit of glory that's fleeting. Rest from wanting to know, am I loved? Rest from knowing that from the clarity of what God has done, he loves you. He did not even keep his son back from you. Christ quotes verse one. Why did you forsake me? That's the complaint. And he's crying out as the one who he knows he's coming to save us, but this moment of affliction that he's never experienced before leads him to cry out. But let's also look at the confidence. Yet you are holy. Enthroned to the praises of Israel in you our fathers trusted they trusted and you delivered them This is like that sum of remembrance in the midst of his despair He's remembering all that God has said all that he's done. He's the deliverer To you they cried and were rescued and you they trusted and were not put to shame Here we see in the momentary separation of the son and the father In the midst of the anguish, he goes back and he remembers, you are holy. You're worthy of all praise. You're the deliverer. I'm going to trust you. I'm going to put my trust in you because of the shame and the guilt that I'm experiencing. I'm going to trust your plan. It's good. Brothers and sisters, we see the gospel of God right here in verses one to five. Christ was forsaken so that we can be forgiven. that love that God has always experienced internally, the Father and the Son, that broke momentarily so that we would always enjoy the love of the Father and the Son. Let's continue as we think about the next prayer. So first, there's a change in God temporarily. The Father and the Son That love is lost momentarily, but regained in a moment. Now we see the second prayer, I am scorned, be near to me. Listen to how Jesus is praying about how he's despised in verses 68. I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. All who see me mock me. They make mouths at me. They wag their heads. This is what they're saying in their mockery. He trusts in the Lord, let him deliver him. Let him rescue him, for he delights in him. Think about that last line there. Jesus has just comforted himself in verse 4. They trusted you. You delivered them. I'm going to trust you. And then the very next complaint, the very next prayer is meditating upon the fact that he's being mocked for the faith he had in God. He's consoling himself. You are the God who can be trusted to deliver. And then they're mocking that very same faith. Now to really experience, this is what Jesus is meditating upon on the cross, verses six to eight, I believe. But let's go to Matthew 27 and let's look back at the mockery. A part of the text we didn't read, I'll read for you. Verse 30. And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his clothes on him and led him away to crucify him. We can look in the bulletin on page 5, Matthew 27, or look in your own copy of scripture, Pew Bible, page 834. We see the people of God mocking and spitting upon and beating and stripping down Jesus. Let's go to verse 37. And over his head they put the charge against him This is Jesus, the king of the Jews. Now that's put up there in a mocking fashion. That's one of the most true declarations that takes place on the cross. What they meant for mockery is a true declaration. He is the king of the Jews. Look at what the passerbys do. Just average Joe citizen, verse 39. Those who pass by derided him, wagging their heads. You destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself. You're the son of God, come down. You're claiming to be the son of God, you come down and show how mighty you are. Again, mocking that faith, that status he has. Verse 41, the religious leaders join in. So also the chief priests and the scribes, the elders mocked him. He saved others, he cannot save himself. He's a king of Israel. Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe him. Listen. Does this verse 43 sound familiar? He trusts in God. Let God deliver him now if he desires him, for he said, I'm the Son of God. That's a partial paraphrase of Psalm 22, the very mockery in verse 8. the chief priest, the scribes, they're supposed to be the scholarly authorities on God's Word. They're supposed to be studying God's Word, waiting for what He promised so that when He comes, they recognize it, and instead, they join in the mockery rather than the praise. That's terrifying. This one says he's a son of God. Let him save himself, his fellow the robbers, say, next to him. What's actually amazing in this entire sequence of events in Matthew 27, if you go all the way down to verse 54, after the earthquakes, after there's trembling, and the veil is torn in two, the Roman centurion, he declares, truly this was the Son of God. That should have been the lips of the scribes and the chief priests. So the last section focuses on the Eternal Son being forsaken by the Father. This section is equally weighty because Jesus, the Son of God, He's the Creator. We're thinking now about how God the Creator is being treated by His creation. It's first of all just amazing as we think about this, that God Himself came down. He descended to His creation. He chose to love us. He came down. And there wasn't a glorious, great revival because He came down. He wasn't given gold. He wasn't, no, He was given gold by kings. He wasn't given this great reception by His own people though. No. His own disciples, his best friends disowned him at the time of his greatest need. He was falsely accused, he's beaten, mocked, spat upon. It's amazing. God knew what was going to happen when he came down. The mouths created to praise him mocked him. The hands created to be lifted up in prayer beat him. Yet he came anyway. This was written 1,000 years before the cross. God knew this was going to happen to him and he came anyway. And if we think about this, what Christ experienced in this mockery and beating, this is our sin. Or rather, this is just a simple sliver of a taste of what our sin is like. This is the sin he came to save them from. The beating. We can look at this and say, I would never do that. No, this is our sin. When we reject God, we tell him he's not worthy of worship, he's not worthy of praise, he's not worthy of obedience. This represents our sin and it shows us how great a salvation we receive. He saves even those who scoff at him. Look at the turn in confidence. Yet you are who took me from the womb. You made me trust you at my mother's breast. He's not going to lose the faith. He can recount what has happened in the past. On you I was cast at my birth, and from my mother's womb you have been my God. And so he prays in the midst of being forsaken, in the midst of being mocked, be not far from me, for trouble is near me, and there is no other help. He's remembering, he's recounting, there is no one else who can help me. I don't know, I feel your wrath rather than your love. I'm being beaten and mocked, but I'm going to trust in you alone because you alone can help. As we think about this sin against Christ, we should contemplate our own sin and what it caused for us. Let's go to the third prayer. I am destroyed, save me. Now notice here the complaint section is much longer and it begins with a very deadly and dangerous scene. Many bulls encompass me. Their mouths are wide open. They're like the roaring lion. What's happening here is he's being surrounded and he's in great danger. And then we actually have the inner contemplation. How does this make Christ feel inside? I'm poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It's melted. My strength is dried up. My tongue sticks to my jaws. There's no hope. There's no strength. He's empty. In the midst of what these evil men are doing that he's described as bulls and lions, he's drained. Why? Because they've encircled him. Look at verse 6. Now they're the dog that encompassed him. The evildoers, they've encircled him. And then look. They have pierced my hands and feet. Psalm 22 pictures the cross before the cross existed. Crucifying criminals did not exist at the time of Psalm 22 being written. But here in God's providence, in his sovereignty, he's already foreseeing how Christ would die in a way that does not yet exist. Now let's think about the nature of the execution, having his hands and his feet pierced. This is the most torturous way you could die. This is one of the most torturous ways you could die, and it was reserved for the greatest criminals. They would take a nail and they would put it in each hand on the cross. Sometimes it would just be one pull, but here we have a cross. One nail for each hand, one nail for both feet. And that's excruciating enough, having the pierced skin and nerve and blood and muscle and tendon. It's enough to be hanging there. But really, the primary torture of the cross, of crucifixion, is the difficulty to breathe. Because as you're hanging there, you keep slouching down and you feel like you're going to suffocate. And that feeling of suffocation causes you to then push up off of the nail in your feet and pull up on the nails in your hands. It's excruciatingly painful. And then you get tired and you drop back down, but then you feel like you're going to suffocate again. And so you pull yourself back up. And you just die of exhaustion from constantly feeling like you're going to suffocate and not having the strength to pull up on the nails on your hands and push up off the nails on your feet. You can see now why he felt like, I'm poured out like water. My bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, it's melted. in the midst of all this. I count my bones, they stare and gloat over me, he sees he's dying. And then verse 18, this is another allusion that is quoted or referenced in Matthew 27. They divide my garments among them. The Roman centurions who have probably no idea about Psalm 22, they're actually fulfilling a promise of God in the rebellion. This was all designed by God. Now look at the confidence. But you. Again, he makes the same prayer. Oh Lord, be not far off. You are my help. Come quickly to my aid. Deliver my soul from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog. Save me from the mouth of the lion. And then the great declaration that ends the prayers. You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen. You have rescued me. We've seen Christ cry out, I'm forsaken by my Father. I'm being beaten and mocked by the men I created for my worship, the men I've come to save. I've now been brought forth through a state of being murdered to save those who are murdering me. Each prayer, he cries out to God, and then he assures himself that God is trustworthy. Our response to this psalm is one we can only lament. The true sorrow, because our sin caused this to have to happen to our Savior in order for us to be saved. Christ goes through this forsakenness. Christ goes through this mockery. Christ goes through this pain and suffering. so that our sin could be washed away, that our sin could be forgiven. If you're not a Christian this morning, this is a very important moment for you because as you look and hear Christ crying out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I want you to hear something in that for all of eternity, if you reject Christ, you're going to be crying out, God, why did I forsake you? It's going to be obvious that God was worthy of all worship. It's going to be obvious how great your sin has been, and it's going to be obvious that your wrath is righteous. For all of eternity, you'll be crying out. Unless today you actually cry out, I want the forgiveness of Christ. This is how you're forgiven. You look and you see that God has planned this salvation for you. You have sinned, you haven't worshiped as you ought, and as you look to Christ, you see he was the perfectly righteous man deserving of love. He was the son of God who was perfectly loved by the Father, and yet he was treated like a sinner. Our sin was put on him, and he took our wrath so that we don't have to have wrath. He gives us his righteous standing so that when we come to God, we get to know him as a loving father. You have to believe that Jesus Christ came to die on the cross for your sins so that you can be forgiven. And that's the only way you can be forgiven. You have to believe that he rose again to give you new life, that he rescues you from yourself, your sin. Christian, this changes everything for us. First, how we approach God. We cry out, we praise you for forgiving us. We praise you that we get to enjoy this incredible reconciliation. We praise you for such a costly salvation to Jesus Christ and the Father. We look to him in our despair and we ask, how are you letting this happen to me, God? And we remember, he doesn't withhold anything from us that's good. He didn't spare his own son. His love is great. We look to Him and we praise Him. This changes everything about us and how we approach sin. We don't see it as something we're going to enjoy. We see it as something that we regret. It caused our Savior great suffering. We look at our sin and we don't see something that's worth tasting. No, it's something we hate. It's something we've gotta put off. We've gotta put to death. We have to stop enjoying the delight of sin. We have to realize what it does. It's destructive. We don't enjoy it for a moment. No, we kill it because it's killing us. She created us a longing to put to sin to death. Finally something that it changes is the way we approach one another. And this actually leads us into our second half of the psalm. Verses 22 to 31. Here we see the same author, the same speaker, who was crying out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Now, verse 22, I will tell of your name to my brothers. In the midst of the congregation, I will pray with you. Something significant happened between 21 and 22. What was it? Something significant happened between verses 21 and 22. What was it? The resurrection! He who died for our sin was risen again and restored to the right hand of the Father and now he leads us to worship in a different way. He came and he stood in the midst of his brothers and he said, I will praise you This second half is really broken up into two different sections. One speaks to how Jesus leads his people in praise, verses 22 to 25. And then there's a description of the people themselves, the congregation, that's 26 to 31. Let's focus on Christ and his risen nature, his risen state, and how he now leads his people to praise. The most significant thing is verse 22. I will tell your name to my brothers. That's new. That's new for us. The Old Testament, they didn't call God father like we call God father. And they didn't call each other brothers like we call each other brothers. See, this is what's actually so amazing about the eternal father temporarily forsaking the eternal son. He did that so that He could forever call us His own children. The Son shares the love that He enjoys with the Father with us because He was forsaken on our behalf. It's incredible. We now get to be called brothers of Jesus Christ. We get to enjoy His righteousness. We get to enjoy the loving relationship He has with His eternal Father. That's better than what we've ever had before. We're now a family bound together and knit because of the call of God and the blood of Christ. And what does this family do? They praise God. They glorify God. They stand in awe of Him. Look at verse 24. For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but he has heard when he cried to him. Now as those who believe in Christ, those who are his brothers who are praising him, we know that in the midst of affliction, we get to cry out, Father. And here's what's so sweet if we are in Christ. The Father's ear is already bent down, longing to hear from us so that when we cry out, Father, He doesn't hide His face from us, but He hears us. He hears us. He was able to save us. He's able to care for us. He hears us as His own children. And then notice how this section's summed up. It's very similar to verse 22. From you comes my praise in the congregation. My vows are performed before those who fear him. But here comes a summary or description, verse 26 to 31, of what this congregation is. The afflicted, they're satisfied. The congregation is made up of all kinds of different people, and everyone unites in worship. Look at verse 26. Those who are afflicted, they seek satisfaction, and they find it. They seek true healing and God gives it to them. Now something that is promised us is not that we won't go through suffering. It's actually a pretty clear warning in the New Testament throughout it that you should expect suffering. What God promises you is that I will never forsake you. or leave you in suffering. I will always be with you. My love is steadfast. We can be assured that He always cares for those who are in affliction, and they will be satisfied. Something that's actually incredible about this passage is that verse 22, it's quoted in Hebrews 2. There, the author of Hebrews is trying to encourage the believers to remain steadfast, to persevere in trial. And one of the key arguments is you have a priest who can sympathize with you. He has been tempted in every way. He's suffered in every way. He not only can help you because he's greatly powerful, but he came and he experienced all the things you've experienced so that he can sympathize with you. Because Christ suffered, he's so greatly able to help us. Now let's look at this congregation. Verse 27, all the ends of the earth. That sounds very much like Acts 1, right? When Christ came, he sent the gospel out to all the ends of the earth. And all the families of the nations, they shall worship before you. For kingship belongs to the Lord. He rules over the nations. So we see a diversity of families of the different peoples, the different nations. And then we also see verse 29, the prosperous and the poor. One of the ways we experience rebellion is that mankind, we hate one another. That's one of the ways we actually see our rebellion against God is the kind of anger and hatred we have towards one another. And here the beautiful picture that is painted from Jesus Christ is that there's going to be a people one day that's made up of all these different kinds of people that actually are united together in love and worship. King Jesus. He's going to come back. And He's going to execute perfect justice. Righteous wrath. And He's going to gather His people. And there will be no more affliction. There will be no more suffering. There will simply be a loving worship together. Of all different kinds of people. Rich, poor, old, young. All different kinds of citizens. All different colors of skin. This is what Christ is going to do when he comes back. This is a picture of what heaven is going to look like, that great congregation we all long for. What we need to see here is very important and powerful for us as we think about who we are as a church. All believers are united in the power of the gospel. We're united not because of the blood that runs through our veins. We're united because the blood of Christ has covered our sin. We're united not because of our common interests or our personal preferences. We're united simply because Jesus said, I'm going to save you and you and you, and now you're a family. We're committed not because we look like each other, but because Christ said, I saved you so that you could look more like me. We're all being renewed in the image of Christ. This is the sad reality that we kind of just have to come to face. These are opportunities to repent here and now. We have discrimination among ages. We make our generational preferences more important than the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's not what Christ died for. That's why we have sorrow for our sin. We have discrimination according to class. Poor and rich letting what the world says we're worth get in the way of what Christ says we're worth. We have discrimination among nations and peoples. We go from suspicion to fear to anger when we see somebody who's different. That's not what Christ died for. This is what Christ says. I have saved all different kinds of people because I chose to love them, and now you must move toward one another in love. The stranger that Christ purchased with his own blood is meant to be a call to us to love them proactively. We can't just wait for the kind of worship we're longing for here. Well, wouldn't we love to be part of a church that looks like verses 22 to 31? When Jesus is the orchestrator of all worship, they're present with us. That's what we long for, and that's what we should start seeking to do together. Well, we're supposed to be practicing this kind of worship now. We're supposed to be trying to figure out how can we be more focused on the kind of worship that is described here and throughout all scripture. We can't just wait for it, we should be practicing it. Diverse congregation. It's the fruit of, I think, two things. It's the fruit of seeing how big God is in his salvation and seeing how dangerous our sin is. If we want to be the kind of church that actually looks like what Christ is leading here in worship, we actually have to realize that God is great in salvation. And our sin is destructive. I hear a lot of Christians, and I as a Christian, I want to figure out how could we as Christians help shape our culture and country in the midst of this divisive racism and hatred and anger of all kinds. I ask myself that regularly. I hear conversations happening regularly. And I believe that the way God wants us to lead is by being a people united, joyfully rejoicing in the one Savior, Jesus Christ. Setting aside all differences, setting aside all conflict. But here's the thing, I think most of the people in our culture, they've heard of church. And they've heard the sad reality, we're just a bunch of people who argue over things that they think are silly. They see us, not any better. Conflicts, destroy. That's the problem. We let our little squabbles overcome the opportunity to declare the one true Savior. See, our problem is we think our little conflicts are bigger than the gospel. We think our little problems are more important than praising God, seeking unity and reconciliation and forgiveness. One thing I wanna challenge us for with church from this passage is praying for revival. Praying for revival. Revival takes place when we say, I'm not going to make my sin matter as much as I have been, and I'm going to seek to understand and see God as a greater savior. I'm going to seek a greater picture of God's power of salvation in light of how sinful I am, and make sure that I don't make my little things bigger than God. Here's how we do that. We meditate on the cross. As we have this morning, go back and read Matthew 27. Go back and read Psalm 22. Go back and read over the words, when I survey the wondrous cross. Meditate upon the cross. And whenever we see what takes place there with the great suffering of Christ, in light of the things that we think are so important that we want to complain about, we see how silly or small they are. We realize apart from Christ, we're sinners condemned. Forsaken. But in Christ, we're saints, forgiven, reconciled, resting the beloved of God. We have to realize that our sin caused the great suffering of Christ. We have to realize that our sin causes great suffering of others. What we do here is we look to Christ, we seek his forgiveness, and we seek to proclaim that great forgiveness by living according to his way. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that you did not spare your own son. That while we were sinners, Christ came and died for us. Forgive us for our sin that even though we know we are sinners confessing Christ to be our Savior, we continue to hold on to our sin. We continue to pretend that we can enjoy it and we can control it and forgive us. Help us to truly see our sin in light of the cross. Help us to truly see one another in light of the cross. Help us to truly be proclaimers united together under the banner of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Thank you for being a God that we can cry out to as Father and know that you hear us. Thank you that in the midst of our trials we can cry out to you, Father, and know that you care for us and that you bring about peace and reconciliation. Help us to trust you. Help us to live according to your way and long for this kind of worship that you've designed for us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.