And Father, as we now come to Your Word, we pray that You would give us ears to hear, that You would give us eyes to see, that by Your grace we may not only understand Your Word, but that it may bear fruit in our lives as we apply it to our lives. O God, we once again remember that Your Word is sufficient, that Your Word is inspired, that Your Word is inerrant, and that it tells us everything that we need to know about ourselves and about You. And so we ask, O Lord, that we would hear our Shepherd's voice today, the Good Shepherd's voice. And we ask that He would feed us with Your Word, nourishing our hearts, strengthening our souls, fortifying our walk with You, and our faith, that our faith would be strengthened and grown. all for the glory of Christ. In His name we pray. Amen. Well, if you have your Bibles, please turn to John 19. We'll be continuing our study of John 19 today, looking at verses 28 and 29. It just so happens, and it's kind of hard to believe, that verse 30 is the verse that we'll be coming to next week for Christmas Day. The verse where Jesus surrenders his spirit and dies is the verse that we'll be coming to next week. And of course, throughout the Christmas season, I've been thinking, I think that's where we're going to land is on Christmas, but I'm not completely sure. But we have to remember that the reason for Christmas is right there. The reason for the incarnation, the reason that Jesus condescended and took on flesh, was so that we could have John 19, verse 30. So, with that said, next week, that's where we'll be. Today, we'll be looking at verses 28 and 29, if you have your Bibles with you, as we continue our study in John's Gospel. One of my favorite hymns that we sing here is, And Can It Be. I don't know about you guys, but do you remember the time last year when we sang it so loud? Maddie had brought my grandson back to the house. he was getting a little restless, and so she brought him back to the house for his nap, and she could hear us singing. Fifty yards back, she could hear us singing that song, In Here We Were So Loud. Now, it's one thing for a congregation of 200 or 300 to sing a song so loud that you can hear it that far outside of the church walls, but it is quite another thing for a church our size to sing that loud. I absolutely love that hymn. I want to make sure that much is established before I go where I'm going here. because maybe you didn't realize that we actually sing a rendition of the song with lyrics that have been altered just slightly. When Charles Wesley wrote the hymn, the second verse went like this. He left his father's throne above, so free, so infinite his grace, emptied himself of all but love. Let's just stop right there, because that's wrong. that is completely, 100%, unequivocally wrong from a theological standpoint. Jesus did not empty himself of all but love. That's a heretical teaching that's known as kenosis or kenotic theory, which teaches that Christ laid aside some or all of his divine attributes in order to take on flesh. Now the Bible tells us that he upholds the universe, that all things are held together in him. If he stopped doing that, do you know what would happen? If he took on flesh and just kind of put that divine attribute aside, do you know what would happen? We wouldn't, he wouldn't have a world to come to. So, no, he did not lay aside his divine attributes when he took on flesh. That teaching is actually derived from Philippians 2, verse 7, which says that Christ emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men. And the Greek word for emptied is kenao, which is why we call the heresy kenosis. But what we need to see in Philippians 2, verse 7, is that the text doesn't tell us what Jesus emptied himself of. And the assumption that canonic doctrine makes is that it must be referring to his divine attributes. The text says no such thing. Scripture says no such thing. And Hebrews tells us that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, which means He doesn't change, which means He keeps doing all the things that He's been doing all along. So no, Jesus did not empty Himself of all but love. He didn't stop being God and doing the things that God does in the incarnation. Instead, he emptied himself in the sense that he left his heavenly throne, emptying himself of, if anything, the comforts and the privileges that he had in heaven, And when he took on flesh, he veiled his glory. He veiled his deity in human flesh. Just like we just sang this morning in Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see, hail the incarnate deity. So just for the record, we sing a revised version of And Can It Be in which the lyrics are changed from emptied himself of all but love to emptied himself to show his love. And that is absolutely true. One of the unique things about Christianity is that our doctrine deals with the identity of one particular person, and that being the Lord Jesus Christ. Being a Christian means believing some very specific things about Jesus that's very unlike any other world religion. You can have, for example, Confucianism without having Confucius. You can have Islam without having Muhammad. You can have Buddhism without having a Buddha, because these are all philosophical world religions. But without Jesus Christ, who was true God and true man, you cannot have Christianity. And we believe some very specific things about Jesus for that reason. For example, we believe that He was born of a virgin. Does that matter? That absolutely matters. That's a non-negotiable doctrine because it's the only way to explain how or why Jesus could have a human nature without having a sin nature. We believe that Jesus was resurrected from the dead on the third day. Again, that's non-negotiable. We affirm that Jesus is truly God and truly man. Again, non-negotiable. The person who doesn't believe these things isn't a Christian. You see, we tend to get the part about Jesus being fully God right, by the way. We tend to be pretty good about that and to place a huge emphasis on the fact that Jesus was fully God. And that is important. We don't want to underscore that or we don't want to minimize that in any way. But we also need to remember that He was also truly man. that he had a human nature just like we have. He possessed not only the divine nature, but he possessed human nature. Now if you did a quick rundown of all the teachings that have been declared heretical throughout history, what you'll find is that almost every single one of them has to do with denying or adding too much emphasis to part of Jesus' identity as being true God and true man. You'll find that almost all of them have to deal with His nature. And you've got to know that by denying His deity, that is just as heretical as denying His humanity. We affirm both His deity and humanity. He is the one and only God-man. Fully God. Fully man. True God. True man. And so today as we continue in our study of John's Gospel, we'll continue studying John's account of the crucifixion of Christ. And what we'll see in the verses that we look at today is that Jesus' humanity is on full display in these verses. John only records three of the seven things that Jesus said from the cross. We've seen that He said to Mary and John respectively, Behold your son and behold your mother. The second thing that John said that he records for us in our passage today is, I am thirsty, or I thirst, depending on what translation you have. When you put together all the Gospel accounts, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, when you put them together, you see that this comes, this moment when Jesus says, I am thirsty, comes after about six hours of Jesus' suffering on the cross. And so the end is in sight. There is, however, one more prophecy for Jesus to fulfill before giving up His Spirit. So the point of this passage, the point of our message today, is that Jesus condescended, taking on flesh, in order that He may enter into our suffering, so that by His suffering we might be delivered from the curse of sin. Jesus knew what it meant to suffer. And a lot of people have a lot of trouble with that. That if Jesus was fully God, how could He suffer? How could God suffer? The idea that God should suffer, for most people, is unimaginable. Why would God suffer? Why should God suffer? And yet the Bible is clear that in Christ, He did indeed experience suffering. From the moment that He was born, He suffered. I mean, think about it. The God of the universe, you would think, if He's going to orchestrate His whole birth and everything, that He's going to want to be born in a warm place, right? Or in a sanitary facility, right? Wouldn't you think that? If you were planning your birth, isn't that what you'd want? Instead, He's born into a cold manger. We know that that's where He was born, even though He was the King of all creation. He experienced hunger throughout his life. He experienced fatigue. He experienced sadness throughout the course of his life on earth. And as we'll see in our text today, in his dying moments, he experienced thirst. So let's look at verses 28 and 29. John writes this, and after this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill the scripture, said, I am thirsty. A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the sour wine upon a branch of hyssop and brought it up to his mouth. Now it is just vitally important with this much, that in the incarnation, when God, the second person of the Trinity, took on flesh, Jesus never ceased to be fully God. And yet He was also fully man, true man, true God. No less human than you or I, and yet fully God. Here's what our Confession of Faith, the 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith, says about it in chapter 8, paragraph 2. They write, The Son of God, the second person in the Holy Trinity, being very and eternal God, the brightness of the Father's glory, of one substance and equal with Him who made the world, who upholds and governs all things He has made, did, when the fullness of time was complete, take upon Him man's nature, with all the essential properties and common infirmities of it, yet without sin. Jesus' humanity is reflected, is revealed here on the cross in this moment as clearly as it ever is in the Scriptures in this moment in which He thirsted. In fact, when He said, I am thirsty, or I thirst, again depending on your translation, that was probably the greatest understatement of all time if you think about it. To say that he was thirsty was not even close to how thirsty he really would have been. Think about it this way. When prisoners were scourged, and Jesus was scourged that morning, they would bleed profusely, draining all these life-sustaining liquids from the body very quickly. Well, how does the body replenish those things? The body gets thirsty. And you need a drink. And that was probably seven or eight hours prior to this moment on the cross when Jesus says the words, I am thirsty. And now adding the fact that Jesus has been hanging on a cross, bleeding profusely under the heat of the sun. All the trauma that he had suffered up to this point would have almost undoubtedly caused him to have a dangerously high fever as his body fought to survive. Maybe you know what it's like to be thirsty, just in a common way. Usually, you wake up feeling kind of thirsty. Maybe you've played a soccer game, or you've run a long-distance race, and you know what it's like to have thirst after those things. I once ran in a 10K race in which the first half of the race was completely downhill, and the second part of the race was completely uphill. And as I ran that race, it was in the deep south. where the temperatures were pretty high. And let me tell you, the humidity there was unbelievably high. You think I was thirsty when I was done? Oh, I was parched. Let me tell you, I was drenched in perspiration. Of course I was thirsty. But the thirst that I felt even after that was nothing. It was absolutely minuscule in comparison to what Jesus experienced on the cross. He would have been way, way past the point of just dehydration. See, in the ancient world, this was a scary thought. The thought that you would die of thirst was a reality for them. In the ancient world, water was a precious commodity. I mean, we agree that it is today, too. It's still a precious commodity. But at the same time, you and I must confess that we don't know what it's like to not know where you're going to get your next glass of clean, drinkable water. We have so much clean, drinkable water in our country, we actually fill our toilets with it. It's kind of crazy when you think about it that way, but it's true. We have as much clean, drinkable water as we want, virtually whenever we want it. And for that reason, we don't have the same level of appreciation for it that someone who lives in a place where clean, drinkable water is scarce, would have for it. We don't have the same level of appreciation that somebody in Israel in the first century, if we're going to understand the significance of Jesus saying, I am thirsty, and what that would have meant to a first century audience. Jesus knew what it was like to be absolutely desperate for water. Listen again to Psalm 22. We saw a few studies back how the crucifixion aligns with Psalm 22, which again describes Jesus' thoughts while He was on the cross, and how it describes Jesus' thirst. In verses 14 and 15 of Psalm 22, it says this, it says, and all my bones are out of joint, my heart is like wax, it is melted within me, my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws, and you lay me in the dust of death." That's a depiction of some serious, serious thirst. For Jesus to say, I am thirsty, is clearly putting it mildly, to say the least. But what's profound about this is that God should thirst at all. Being thirsty to the point of death is one of the worst ways imaginable to suffer. And people in the first century knew it. Because if they went too far away from their source of water, they were in a lot of trouble. But look up all the things that happen to a person as they become dehydrated and as they slip into the zone where they're dehydrated enough to die. If you want to look that up, it is insane what happens to a person when they die of dehydration. And if it's unthinkable that any man should have to suffer this way, how much more unthinkable is it that God incarnate should suffer this way? After all, angels never thirst. The day is coming when we won't thirst anymore. Revelation 7, v. 16-17 says, They will hunger no longer, nor thirst any more. Nor will the sun beat down on them, nor any heat, for the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd and will guide them to springs of the water of life. So the day is coming when we won't have to thirst anymore. Why would God have to thirst? See, in order for Him to bring us to that place where there will be springs of living water, Jesus Himself had to thirst. Just like you and I can at times. And it's in Christ's thirsting, in His suffering, that we actually find a lot of answers to our questions which relate to the reality of the existence of suffering and pain and evil in our world. And maybe more importantly, what does the Bible say about how we're supposed to deal with suffering? Christ's suffering and the words that He speaks in His suffering, they may not give us all the answers, but at the very least, they will point us in the right direction. James Montgomery Boyce notes in his commentary that, quote, there have been four major historical approaches to the problem of suffering apart from the biblical approach, end quote. The first is a heretical teaching called Docetism, then came Stoicism, then came Hedonism, then came Existentialism. We'll look at each of these and see how they compare to what the scriptures say about the problem of suffering. So the first major philosophical attempt to approach the problem of suffering and evil is called Docetism. Docetism was born from the same Greek philosophy that gave us Gnosticism and essentially teaches that what is spiritual is good and what is material is bad or evil. That's what the Gnostics of the first century believed as well. But the Docetists took this so far as to say that whatever is spiritual is actually more real than what is material. And they even brought that to the point where they denied the reality of material. Arguing that the material things which were inherently evil, were just an illusion. And so their attempt at explaining it is just to say suffering and evil is just an illusion. That's the way it dealt with the reality of pain and suffering. In this system, evil and suffering aren't real. They're just an illusion. Now this approach clearly isn't supported by scripture at all. I think we, I hope we can all agree on that much. The Bible affirms that suffering is very real, that evil is not an illusion, that it is very real. If they weren't real, if suffering and evil weren't real, if they were just an illusion, why would God promise to restore all things in the end? Why would He send the second Person of the Trinity to take on flesh and to die in order to redeem those who were ruined by the evil that took place in the fall? Further, Docetism would have us believe that the suffering that Jesus endured on the cross wasn't real. That His thirst, indeed, was not real. When you take it to its logical conclusion. No, contrary to what Docetism teaches, suffering and evil are very real. An illusion is something that doesn't align with reality. And the cross was very real. It really did happen. The reality of suffering is all too real. The second major philosophical movement that tried to give an answer for the problem of suffering and evil and pain in the world is a philosophical system called Stoicism. It's kind of making a comeback in our time. It was founded in the third century BC and acknowledged the reality of suffering and evil just like it accepted the reality of goodness. But there's a fatalistic aspect of stoicism. That is, it basically teaches that yes, suffering is real, goodness is real, and there's nothing that you can do to stop yourself from running into suffering. So since there's nothing that you can do to control it or to cause it to either start or to stop, the idea of stoicism was that you just focus on what you can control. That is, you just focus on you. You focus on how you respond to it, how it affects you. Now there's some truth to that. That's not necessarily bad advice. That's not necessarily an unbiblical idea. Focusing on how it affects you personally since you can't control everything. But as we're about to see it goes way outside the boundaries of what the Bible permits. Stoicism would also have us believe that the best way to respond to either good or bad, suffering or comfort, is to repress any and all emotions that are caused by them. What's odd is that they'll say that Stoicism is a joyous way of life, and I actually got that quote from a website that was promoting Stoicism, which means that there is something that you can do to improve your life. So it's sort of self-defeating a little bit, But again, the Bible doesn't support this approach to answering the problem of suffering and evil in the world. We aren't to repress our emotions, even though we should not be led by our emotions. Rather, God made us to be emotional people. Let me ask you this, if somebody is grieving, what does Scripture instruct us to do? To grieve with them. Grieve with those who are grieving. When somebody is rejoicing, what are we supposed to do? Rejoice with them. Right. When Lazarus died, what did Jesus do? He wept. He grieved. Right. With those who were grieving. Psalm 119 verse 111 tells us, I have inherited your testimonies forever. They are the joy of my heart. Oh, there's a way to find some joy. Paul tells us, Rejoice in the Lord. Always, and again, I'll say it, rejoice. These are instructions on how to increase a particular positive emotion within us. That being joy. It's an emotion. Now aside from the fact that Stoicism completely gets the doctrine of God wrong, it affirms a very pantheistic view of God in which God is in everything. And despite the fact that Stoicism is making a little bit of a comeback right now, its response to the reality of evil and suffering certainly isn't supported by Scripture. The third major philosophical movement that tried to address the problem of suffering and evil is what we call hedonism. We should all be familiar with hedonism. It is rampant in a place like Seattle. It is rampant across our country, across the world. Hedonism basically acknowledges the reality of suffering and pleasure, good and evil, but it proposes that the answer to suffering is to fill your life with so much pleasure that you don't even realize that there's any suffering in your life. And so therefore, your awareness of suffering is minimized or overshadowed by all the pleasure that you are pursuing in life. The answer, according to hedonism, is to do everything that we can to fill our lives with whatever makes us happy. So hopefully you see the problem with that view right off the bat. There's a huge problem with doing everything that we can to fill our lives with pleasure. The biggest problem is that man, by virtue of his fallen nature, the greatest pleasure to be found is in knowing God. And yet hedonism would say, oh no, no, we're talking about things like eating and drinking and being merry, you know, things like that. No, the last thing the natural man wants is to know and be known by God. So, instantly we see that there is a problem. What if a person finds pleasure in stealing? What if a person finds pleasure in murdering? What if a person finds pleasure in lying? And the truth is that the unregenerate man is completely capable of finding pleasure in all of these things, and those are the things that he will pursue. Because the natural man loves his sin. He hates the light. And He loves the darkness. Now we should find joy in the things of God. But even when a person becomes a Christian, it's far too easy for us to find pleasure in things that dishonor God. To find joy and pleasure in sinful activities. Jesus said this in Matthew 16, verse 24, He said, If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. Denial of self must be seen as central to what it means to live as a Christian. But denial of self is also antithetical to hedonism. The flesh loves a philosophy like hedonism and is naturally inclined toward it. But Galatians 5, verse 24 says this, it says, those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. So we don't pursue the things that our flesh would lust and long for. We pursue the things of the Spirit. Hedonism is not the answer, friends. Hedonism is never the answer because sinning is never the answer. Self-denial, taking up our cross daily, following after Jesus, there's your answer. There's your answer right there. The fourth philosophical movement that sought to address the existence of suffering and evil is existentialism. If you've heard of Nietzsche, he's a famous existentialist. Existentialism was basically a response to the confidence that the people had gained in the Enlightenment period in human reason. In the Enlightenment period, they were trying to prove everything empirically. That's how we know something, is if we can observe it, and test it, and measure it, and feel it, and smell it, all these things. But in the 19th century, German philosopher Immanuel Kant argued that the structure of human existence is created by our perception of things. by our minds, in other words. He argued that the reality of the world around us is independent and distinct from how we actually perceive it or think we know it. For example, it would say, well, you can Measure your shoe, and you can smell your shoe, and you can feel your shoe, and all these things, but you can't actually know your shoe, because your mind is internal, and your shoe is external. So, you might think that you know something about your shoe, but somebody else might see it completely differently. What you see as a black shoe, somebody else might see as a very dark gray shoe, or things like that. This is where we get the idea that all truth is relative. It's Immanuel Kant's fault. Existentialism took this philosophy and applied it to life, concluding that life is absolutely, ultimately meaningless. That what you do, who you are, really, in the long term, doesn't matter. Life is only what you make of it, and thus the best thing to do is just laugh at how stupid life is, laugh at the absurdity of it, and just press on, pretending that life is filled with meaning, even though you know it's not. Ernest Hemingway and Albert Camus found so much despair in this philosophy that they committed suicide because of how deeply they embraced this philosophy. I have a good friend who once embraced this philosophical system and once attempted to do the same. Praise be to God that he didn't succeed and that Jesus changed his life in the most radical way. But in response to a philosophical system like existentialism, We have to say that from a biblical perspective, suffering is not meaningless. Life is not meaningless. In fact, a universe, in a universe that's governed by God, where God is sovereign over all things and ordains all things that come to pass, how can anything, how can anything at all be ultimately, in the ultimate sense, how can it be meaningless if God is sovereign and causing all things to work together for His glory and for the good of His people? If that's true, that God is doing that, then there's nothing that's meaningless. God has a purpose in all things. God has many purposes in even our suffering, including the way that suffering has away the thorns of this world. Just serve as a reminder that this world is not our home. And praise be to God for that. What kind of lunatic would want this world to be their home? Suffering speaks to the natural man's numbed, deadened conscience. And when a man who has continually suppressed the truth about God in his own unrighteousness stands before God one day, he will give an account for silencing and hardening and searing his conscience, rather than acknowledging the fact that his conscience tells him that he was created to long for a place where there would be no suffering. In glory, there will be no more suffering. Because there will be no more sin. And this is where Jesus' suffering, as He thirsted, beyond our ability to comprehend, as He thirsted, points us in the right direction for answers. Because it reminds us that if there was no sin, there would be no suffering. There would be no thirst. In the beginning, God created everything good. In fact, He said it was very good. And there was no suffering to be found anywhere throughout all of the created order. It was only when sin entered into creation through Adam's transgression that suffering entered into creation. Now, of course, We see that there's a connection between sin and suffering, but we need to remember that Jesus, He wasn't suffering for His own sin. Because He had no sin. Though He was true man, He did not have Adam's fallen nature. As true man and true God, He upheld all the demands of God's perfect holy law. So He never once sinned. He was always, always, always walking within the Father's will. Why then should He have suffered? Why then should He endure this incredible thirst? Not because He sinned, but because He loved. What Jesus' suffering reminds us of, therefore, is that suffering can be redeemed. When I say that, I mean that suffering can create opportunities for more goodness than there would be if suffering didn't exist. Think about Joseph and his brothers. Did he suffer? Oh yeah. Did God bring some good out of it? A greater good than would have been there if Joseph hadn't suffered. So that is to say that Jesus's thirst reminds us that suffering can be redeemed. Just as Jesus entered into our suffering out of love, we are commanded to love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves. And suffering actually offers us unique opportunities to love, serve, and share the Gospel. When our neighbor is hungry, we can redeem that suffering by feeding them and by talking with them about the Gospel. When they're thirsty, we can redeem that suffering by giving them fresh, drinkable water and sharing the Gospel with them. Orphans and widows who are helpless in this dog-eat-dog world, we are instructed to care for them and to visit them. These are all good deeds that we're supposed to do that do what? They glorify Christ. They point people to Christ. They show the goodness of God. All of these things are ways to imitate Christ who entered into our suffering and gave His life so that we would be saved from the penalty and the power of sin and will one day be removed from the presence of it. He's already taken care of the penalty of sin. And we've been removed from the power of sin. And one day, we'll be free from the presence of sin. Jesus' thirst was a physical thirst, yes, but it was symbolic of the spiritual thirst that humanity had endured as a result of sin entering into the world. It's symbolic of Jesus taking the consequences of the curse of sin all upon Himself in order that we may be freed from the consequences of the curse. Because His death is the means by which God opened the floodgates of rivers of living waters for all who believe in Jesus to drink from. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water, Jesus said back in chapter 7, verse 38. And so here, as Jesus is nailed to a cross and says He's thirsty, what we see is that the water of life had drained Himself dry in the fires of the Father's wrath as it was poured out upon Him as He stood in the place of all who would savingly believe in Him. And He did this because that was the Father's will, and He did this out of His deep, deep love for ruined, hell-bound sinners just like you and me. When John tells us that Jesus knew that all things had already been accomplished, it tells us that Jesus was conscious. He was coherent. He was still very awake, very aware. He remained alert of the things that He went to the cross to accomplish. He had made the once and for all sacrifice for sin, providing what was necessary for the salvation of the souls of men and women just like you and me. And it was only at this point when he says, I am thirsty. And it's a good thing that he did. The fact that Jesus said this is actually important. John tells us that Jesus said this, why? To fulfill the Scripture. To fulfill the Scripture. And is that not exactly what Jesus came to do? And had to do? It definitely was. Now, we know that Jesus had been thinking about Psalm 22 as He hung on the cross, but John wants us to know that He was thinking about some other prophecies as well, and He was aware of some other prophecies as well. And one messianic prophecy remained from Psalm 69, verse 21, which says, They also gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. Mark 15.23 tells us that the Roman guards had already offered him gall as a means of alleviating his pain. But he hadn't been given vinegar to drink. Not yet. Now, if God says that something's going to happen, you guys know it's going to happen, right? We know that, right? We're on the same page here. If God says that something's going to happen, there's no way it's not going to happen, right? Because God can't lie. And so Jesus saw to it that this last prophecy would be fulfilled. And His work of redemption would be completed. The response of the Roman guards to Jesus saying, I am thirsty, was to put a sponge full of sour wine, vinegar, upon a branch of hyssop, and to put that in Jesus' mouth. Do you think that vinegar was going to alleviate Jesus's thirst at this point? No way. Absolutely not. In fact, if anything, it would have been absolutely torturous. It just would have been exponentially torturous. All it did was increase his suffering. And perhaps in a very real sense, maybe this should remind us that the world offers no solutions and no comfort to any of life's deeper issues, such as suffering. If you turn to the world for answers, be prepared to get a mouthful of vinegar. It won't cure your suffering. The world's answers make everything worse. But in all of this, what we see is that God is sovereign. God is sovereign and Christ is triumphant. Little did those soldiers who mockingly gave Jesus vinegar realize that they were actually doing exactly what God said they were going to do. Charles Spurgeon once said that the sufferings of hell will be, quote, the deprivation of every form of comfort, end quote. And that, friends, the deprivation of any sort of comfort, every form of comfort, is exactly what you and I deserve as a wage for our sin. God would not have been unjust in the slightest degree to have left us to such a ruined end. What amazing grace that He would not only not allow us to endure the suffering that we deserve, but that He would take the suffering that we do deserve upon Himself in our place. Friends, this should change everything in life for you. When you really wrap your mind around what is taking place here, this changes everything. So live your life with this at the forefront of your mind, that if Jesus hadn't suffered, you would have. And I would have. That if Jesus hadn't thirsted, the offer of living waters to quench our spiritual thirst would never have been fulfilled. That if Jesus had not thirsted, there would be a gulf so great between us and God that no one could cross it, and we would just be begging for even a drop of water to alleviate our suffering for one second, and none would be available for all of eternity. And yet, Jesus condescended, which is to say he stepped down from his throne in heaven and he took on human flesh in order that he may enter into our suffering so that by his bearing the curse of sin we might be delivered from the curse of sin. He took upon himself every ounce of wrath that was due to anyone who believes in Him, so that all who savingly believe on Him would be delivered from the penalty of sin, the power of sin, and one day from the presence of sin. This world has no solutions. All this world does is scratch your back on the broad road that leads to destruction. But Jesus, Jesus showed us a better way and He told us what it is. It's the gospel. We need to stand in His righteousness before God and at the cross. That's what happened. He took our sin upon Himself, cleansing us of our sin. And in exchange, He took His perfect righteousness. He had never once transgressed the law. He took that and He applied it. He imputed it to us. So that when we stand before God, He sees Christ's perfect righteousness. And it's all of grace. Beautiful, beautiful grace. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank You for Your Word. Thank You for the reminder that Christ suffered in our place. That while we deserved to be parched and thirsty in hell. He took that upon Himself so that we could stand before You in His perfect righteousness. Lord, teach us to live in light of the reality of this amazing gift of salvation You have given us. Help us to see how sufficient Christ is Help us to see how Your Word gives us answers for difficult questions like, why is there suffering in the world? And when will it end? We thank You, Lord, that You are sovereign over all things. And we pray that in moments when we suffer, that we remember that Christ suffered as well, and that it's never in vain. Help us to remember that one day, One day we'll see the purpose for any and all suffering. And we'll even thank you for it. Until that day, give us the grace to endure suffering. Give us the grace to endure all the evil in the world that we see around us. Give us the grace to walk and to believe in Christ.