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Our Lord and God, we pray that
you, Lord, would be glorified above all else. Lord, we are
in awe at your majesty, your wonder, your strength and power,
but also, Lord, your gentleness and your loving kindness towards
your servants, towards your inheritance, towards your sheep, Lord. Send
your Holy Spirit to rest on our hearts that we would have eyes
that can see, ears that can hear, hearts to understand, that we
would delight in you, and that we would give you all praise
and glory as we open up your word. So we ask this now in the
name of your Son, Christ Jesus. Amen. Okay, so as I said, Jesus'
third words from the cross, and borrowing heavily from a Bible
study that my wife did, I'm calling this lesson Christian Behold
Your God. And you'll see why that comes
out here as we continue going through the verse. But I'm gonna
start by saying I've got lots of teaser passages in this. We're
gonna get to the actual words from the cross about midway through.
I am. I am recording. So I said that for the recording. So they will know. So lots of
teaser scriptures, lots of things that I want to kind of whet our
appetite to get us excited to hear what is this crisis gonna
say on the cross? And really put it in a context
where we can understand the magnitude of what he says. Again, just
a few words. This is God we are talking about.
He can put power behind four or five words. So I wanna start
asking a few folks to pull out their Bibles and read this. Jim,
front and center, sir, could you put up Isaiah 40, chapter
10, or excuse me, chapter 40, verse 10. Charles, do you have
your Bible with you, sir? Could you pull up verse 11? So
40, 10, or 40, 11. I'll just have you go 10, 11,
like that. Hunter, you got your Bible? Yes,
sir. Just a few pages over, Isaiah
42. and starting at two, basically to three and a half. So, and
let's see, Keith, sir, do you have your Bible with you? There
we go. All right, so again, Isaiah 42,
starting at three and verse three through four. Everybody got those?
Jerry, you've got yours, sir? I'll have you do the last one.
All right, so Matthew chapter 11 and 28 through 30. Yeah? So as I'm asking these folks
to read these scripture passages, they're just really short little
snippets, I want you to be thinking, what does this reveal to us about
the character of God? Okay? So these are, you know,
pulled out by the author Hamilton here because they illustrate
some things that we kind of take for granted about God. So let's
see, Jim, are you ready, sir? All right. and is recompensed before Him.
So our God is one who's strong, He is mighty, He is powerful,
He exerts His authority over His creation, okay? Pretty common
thing for us to consider when we think about God. Let's see,
Charles, you've got the second, or verse 11 there. Yeah, verse
11, Isaiah 40, 11. He will tend His flock like a
shepherd. He will gather the lambs in His arms. He will carry
them in His bosom and gently lead those that are with Him. So right on the heels of talking
about his majesty, his power, his might, we hear about his
gentleness and his kindness. Scripture's really good about
whenever we see God depicted in his attributes, he doesn't
just anchor it on one thing. Very often he shows the two sides
of a coin or he emphasizes many different attributes of God's
nature. So remember, God is immutable. He does not change. His nature
is what it is. He is and he is faithful and
he is consistent. Let's see, Isaiah 42, who did
I ask without Hunter, you got it? Okay. He is gentle. God is very compassionate to
his weak people. Here he is, he can create the
universe, bigger than we can conceive, with the word of his
power, and yet one little mite of that creation, he still has
compassion for it. This is compassion that we can't
fathom, okay? And then, Keith, you had 30,
or sorry, 42, three, and four. 42, three, and four. Faithfully burning wit, he will
not quench, he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will
not grow faint nor be discouraged till he has established justice
in the earth and the coastland wait for his law. So we see God's
faithfulness there, his consistency. He will do what he says, okay? So we've seen a really brief
picture of God's attributes. We see a picture of God that
really is delightful. If any person I knew had these
traits, I'd wanna be their friend. I would wanna be around them,
okay? So let's see, who had Matthew
11, 28? Jerry, 28 and 30. 282930. Yes, sir. So that's a great verse, one
that many of you may have memorized, and it illustrates for us how
gentle, tender, he's inviting, he is generous, he's compassionate,
he relieves burdens. This is a God who heals the sick,
who comforts the sorrowful, he mends the brokenhearted. Our
God is many, many things. and I wanted to have that as
kind of our foundation to then talk about, well, how do we often
think about God? We know what scripture says about
God. How do we often think about this? So in your mind, consider
these misconceptions. I know I'm guilty of these frequently,
but I wanted to bring up two parables that Christ uses, parables
you'll be very, very familiar with. So we'll start with the
parable of the talents. This is in Matthew 25, and the
verse in particular that I'm calling out is in 24. But you
all are familiar with the parable of the talents. There's a master
who has significant resources and servants that work for him.
He takes five talents, gives them to one, two to another,
and then one talent to the last servant. Then he goes away and
says, do well with the talents I've given you, okay? Now, what
does the five do? Well, the one with five, he invests
it, he trades, he makes five more, and when the master comes
back, he says, I've taken your five, I've made five more, and
then he is rewarded. The same with the one who's given
two, he's rewarded. What do we hear about the one
with one? What did he do with that one talent? He buried it,
okay? So let's step back and think
about the master that's giving the talents. What can we see
revealed about the character of the master that gives? He's
generous, he trusts, he gives them responsibility, but then
he also has high expectations of them, that they will do what
he has said, okay? Now let's think about the one
with five and one with two. What is assumed in their thinking
about their master. They love him and they want to
obey him. They want to do what he said. And yet, did he tell
them exactly what to do? No. There is an element of trust
in their master that if things go sideways, there is mercy there. Now, I know that's not explicitly
said, but they go and they do what he said, trusting him ultimately,
okay? So with that kind of groundwork
in place, what does the one with one talent say to his master
when the master comes back? He says, I know you to be a hard
man. That is what he says to his master
and goes on to explain, I know you extract where you've not,
you take seed where you've not sown and so forth. But here's
the point I'm trying to make with this. This servant has a
singular view of his master, okay? The other servants, they
have what I would say is probably a broader view of their master.
Now is God a hard God? Could we say that? He is just. He is unchanging. He has a very
clear line of what holiness is and what it is not. Does that
line change and blur? Absolutely not. So our God, you
could say, in a sense, our God is a hard God. It's not untrue. But I would argue that this is
a fantastic way for an unbeliever to think about God. All they
see is his hardness, and they never see his mercy, his justice,
his love, his kindness, anything else. They don't see him as a
God to appeal to his mercy. They don't see him as a God to
lean upon in their need, to love and delight in his goodness.
This is a hard God, okay? I would say, if an unbeliever
did think of God as hard, they might become a believer, if that
were the case, truly. But see how this servant only
sees his master in one lens, and he does something that is
not what the master desired. So the second parable that I
want to bring to our attention, this is the parable of the prodigal
son. Again, a very, very familiar passage to us. So we're familiar
with how that younger brother takes his inheritance, wants
to leave, he spends it in licentious living, famine comes, and then
he goes back to his father. But so again, let's start with
thinking about how does that younger brother think of his
father, okay? His servants, well, let's back
up even more. He's gonna give me what I ask
him. I want to ask for my inheritance. This father is generous. He loves
me. Even this wayward, foolish son
knows that his father loves him and will be generous with him.
He then takes that, lives licentiously, and when he's in the pigsty,
unable to feed himself, his thought is, my father provides for his
servants. He knows that his father is a
provider. He knows that his father is generous, that even in an
ongoing famine, my father's servants are gonna be fed. They are gonna
be taken care of. He also presumes upon the forgiveness
of his father. He doesn't say, he's never gonna
accept me back. He just throws down whatever
he was feeding to the pigs and goes. Okay, so that is the way
this younger brother, errant though he is, thinks about his
father. Did he disrespect his father?
Did he fail to honor him? Did he absolutely dishonor him
by his conduct? Absolutely. And yet how he thought
of his father, was accurate and honoring to him, okay? How does the father think about
this younger son? We know that he delights in him,
he's waited, he's yearned for this moment when the son is gonna
come over the hill and he'll see him and he meets him running,
okay? So we are familiar with how the
younger brother and the father view one another and how appropriate
that is. But let's fast forward to the
older brother. Okay, we often hear about the
older brother, and he's been out in the field, slaving away,
working. He comes back, he hears the sounds
of a party, asks one of the stewards, what is going on? He says, your
father, your brother who was lost is found. He's come back,
and your father's throwing this big party for him. So then, this
older brother goes and confronts his father, and what does he
say to his father? He says, look, these many years
I've slaved for you, and you've never given me a goat to enjoy
with my friends. Okay, so think about the misconceptions
of this older brother. The younger brother, as foolish
as he was, got it right. If I ask dad for something, he's
gonna give it to me. He's generous to me, he loves me. Even if I
ask him for something I shouldn't ask for, he's that kind and merciful
and generous. And so this older brother never
even asked. He doesn't know his father to
be merciful. He also doesn't know his father, think about
this, who was on the front porch, if you will, looking down the
road waiting for that brother to come? It was the father. Who
wasn't standing next to him? The brother, he was not standing
there sharing in the love of his father for that younger brother.
He wasn't, he did not understand the mercy of his father. He did
not understand the love of his father. And it just boggled his
mind that when the brother comes over the hill, dad's gonna be
delighted. He does not understand his father.
He sees his father as a slave master, as a lawgiver, as a judge. Are these ways that we view God? I know I am often in error when
I do that, okay? I'm gonna check the box, I'm
gonna do the right thing, I'm gonna obey God, I come to church
every day, I do the things, we do the steps. This is a message
particularly that strikes for those of us who are you know,
raised as covenant children. We've been in the church maybe
our whole lives or a long part of our lives. We do the thing,
we turn the crank, we come to church, we pray, we maybe do
our devotions, and we're doing it maybe out of duty, we're doing
it maybe out of just this is what my parents taught me, this
is what I've always done. Now not to say that there is
wrong in the faithful diligence, but I know I can often think
of God as just, I gotta do what God says. I don't particularly
want to, but I have to. I don't delight and enjoy the
fact that God has given me laws, rules, guidance, wisdom, that
when I follow it, I can enjoy the providential blessing of
his commands, okay? So we've laid out, kind of in
the first verses that you all read, This is probably an accurate
view of God. We've also read and seen in some
of Christ's parables, this is the way we're often failing in
viewing God. We err and we think of God at
only maybe one of his attributes. Remember, God is immutable. All
of these attributes are true of him. He is never just and
not merciful. He is him. There may be instances
where he applies his justice, but it doesn't change the fact
that he's no longer merciful. The same God that is going to
judge sinners, or I'll put it this way, in the context of here,
the very same God that was pouring out his wrath on Christ, unmitigated,
unthrottled, 100% of the wrath of God, he was still personally,
mercifully praying for the thief right next to him, and for the
people that were nailing those nails into his wrists. God is
all of his attributes at all times. So, here's the question. How do we behold this king of
ours? How do we not see him wrongly?
How do we not see God wrongly? One way that we've done already
is to read His scripture, read His words. Behold Him as He reveals
Himself to us, okay? And we've seen that in Old Testament
and some New Testament passages right here. But I wanna pause
it, and this'll be a big duh moment. Christ is the perfect
representation of God. So here's our last teaser verse
before we get into the actual word from the cross. I'm gonna
read this. This is John. several verses
here. So it's just the beginning of
the book of John, and I'm going to skip around a little bit,
but these are going to be very, very familiar passages to all
of you. This is John chapter 1, starting
in verse 1. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the
beginning with God. All things were made through
Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life
was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it. I'll skip ahead to 14. And
the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His
glory. Glory as of the only Son from
the Father, full of grace and truth. And then just jumping
down to 16. And from His fullness we have
all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through
Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. And here is the
clincher verse. No one has ever seen God, the
only God, who is at the Father's side. He has made him known."
Do you want to know God? Do you want to behold God? Look
at Christ. Again, the errors are just so
rife in my own mind. I often err on the Trinity and
think, oh, well, you've got this God who's Father, and He's kind
of, He's all justice, He's all law. He's kind of cold and hard. And you've got this Jesus who's
pretty awesome. He's a nice guy. Like, I'd imagine the surfer
dude, like, he's just cool, right? Right? I mean, do we see these
depictions in our culture? This is how God is depicted. And the Holy Spirit's kind of
like, yeah, I don't know. I don't know, just floaty, something.
Right? Like, wrong! Wrong! We have one God. We have one God, three persons.
We need to say that that is beyond our ability to wrap our heads
around. We're gonna do our best, we're gonna follow scripture,
we're gonna obey what scripture says, and we're gonna assent
to the things that scripture says about the Trinity. But let's
not err in thinking that there is separation between the persons
of God, okay? When we look at Christ dying
on a tree, And what he says, we are looking at God, and we
are hearing from God the Father, okay? God the Son, God the Holy
Spirit. There is no distinction there. So finally, we get to our word
of Christ from the cross. So this is John chapter 19, and
we'll read 25 through 27. All right, John chapter 19, verses
25 through 27. But, so this is just after the
garments have been divided by the soldiers, and the horror
of this crucifixion is continuing, okay? But, standing by the cross
of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary, the
wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and
the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said this to his mother,
Woman, behold your son, Then he said to the disciple, behold
your mother. And from that hour, the disciple
took her to his own home. So again, this is a passage we're
very familiar with. We've heard it again and again
as we've read the crucifixion account. I'm not sure about any
of you all, but I grew up going to a Roman Catholic high school,
and that was interesting as a OPC kid growing up and saying, man,
I don't know if I understand this. This is one of their proof
texts that they have for the honor that they give to Mary,
that they errantly give to Mary. And he's saying, wow, this is
why they call Mary mother. is because she, they interpret
that she is the mother of the whole church. And so there's
a great many errors that come from this. But I want to point
out that I think what Christ is saying here is much simpler
and much more profound than to say, hey, there's this really
special woman that you need to use as your co-redemptrix, your
mediatrix between the church and God, right? Jesus, yeah,
he's the mediator. I get that scripture says that.
But really, you need a mediator kind of between you and Jesus,
like a mediator's mediator. That is not what's being said
here, okay? What is being said here, I think,
is far more delightful and far more profound, because we are
seeing not Mary in the spotlight, not John, the disciple that Christ
loved, in the spotlight. We are seeing God and his nature
and his character in the spotlight. And if we can come away from
this with our hearts unmoved, then we've not been listening.
Okay? We need to be paying attention
to what our Lord is saying right here. So, some of the first things,
to put a little context to this, He is, you know, on the surface,
He is saying to John, I need you to care for my mother. And
saying to his mother, There you go, John is the one that I want
to be in charge of you. So you might kind of ask the
question, why John? Scripture doesn't explicitly answer that
question. But where were the rest of the
disciples? They weren't there. Where were the rest of Jesus'
brothers? They weren't there. So it kind of begs the question,
who else would he be in charge of? give his mother to for her
provision, right? In that world, she would have
been in a hard spot to not have a son to provide for her, to
love her, to make sure she was not taken advantage of as a widow
and as a, you know, now a mother who's lost her son in an ignominious
way, right? The law is after her son and
has killed him. Things are not gonna go well
for Mary. So on the surface, we can see that he is providing
for her and for her needs, her physical needs in the here and
now on earth. And he's calling on John to do
that. So what are some things that this teaches us about Jesus?
He's a provider. He cares for his sheep. We pray
that for God to give us our daily bread. Logan said this in training,
do we expect manna to fall out of the sky? God uses means. He makes it clear that he uses
means. Why did I get the job that I have? Why did I have the
job I had before that? Why are any of your jobs been
provided or taken away? Well, because God said, you need
this, or maybe you don't need this. Maybe you need to be unemployed
right now, because you need the humbling more than you need the
bread. God provides for his people, and he uses means to do it. So
he is saying, John, guess what, buddy? You're the means. Right
now, you're the means, and I'm making it clear to you. In the
same way that he says to a parent, this little helpless infant,
you are the means. I am providing for that child,
and it's through you. So he's saying that to John. Christ had, at previous times
in his ministry, kind of minimized the role of family ties or biological
ties. And so there's a passage here
in Mark that really highlights this. Jesus is teaching to kind
of a congregation of his disciples that are around him, and Mary
and his brothers are outside of the congregation trying to
get in to talk to him. We don't know what about, but
they're trying to reach him. So the disciples kind of, I guess,
telephone, they're passing the message forward. Hey Jesus, your
mother and your brothers are outside, they'd like to see you.
Does anybody remember what Jesus says in response to that? Who
are my mother and brothers? Now, we don't want to errantly
say that Christ doesn't care about family ties. There's a
commandment about this. It makes it pretty clear. Scripture
is abundantly clear that he has provided the family, as the covenant
means, providing for the growth of children, providing for the
elderly, providing for the raising and the fear and the admonition
of the Lord. The biological family is a big deal to God. But what
I want to say is rather than lowering the value of the earthly
family, Christ is trying to emphasize and elevate the nature of the
spiritual family, your ties to God's people, okay? Because the
way he responds when they say, who are my mother and my brothers?
Does anybody remember this response? Whoever does the will of God,
these are my mother and brothers and sisters, okay? What a sweet
delight. I love my biological family,
and the best thing I can imagine for them is that they also be
my spiritual family. I mean, what a sweet delight.
I have four kids and I yearn to say, you know, I am raising
them as covenant children. They are Christians. I am going
to act on them as they are Christians. Not as though they are Christians.
I almost said it that way. They are Christians. They are
in God's covenant family. And yet there's an element in
which they may choose folly, foolishness. Let's get the words
out right. They may, and it may be that
that's God's providence, that's how he brings them back, I don't
know. But my hope is that my biological relationships, I am
also sharing a spiritual relationship with them. Part of why God commands
us not to be unequally yoked. What if you were to miss out
on the biggest part of your life with this person with whom you
share so much, right? God is consistent in his encouragements
there. So Jesus' kind of minimization
of those natural family ties, we shouldn't take that to eliminate
our responsibilities to them or to use that as an excuse not
to. And some immediate evidence to that is the fact that right
here, Jesus is obeying the fifth commandment. He is honoring his
mother by commending her to John and commanding John, commissioning
him, to responsibility over her. He is loving her and obeying
that fifth commandment. To the end, Christ is actively
dying. because he's falsely accused,
right? But he knows he's actively dying for the sins of his elect.
He knows why he's dying. He knows why. God is pouring
out the very wrath that he has stored up. The cup is being drunk
in full, right as we speak. And is Christ saying, whatever,
I might as well be disobedient. I'm being punished for it. He
or he is obedient to the end. To the end. He is obeying the
fifth commandment and he is honoring his mother. So this is kind of what we see on
that superficial level. He's caring for his mother and
he's caring for John by commissioning him. I mean, as a guy, I know
this. Sometimes if somebody says, hey, do your thing, I'm lost. Right? What is John thinking?
He's the only one there in front of the cross. The rest of the
disciples scattered, fear to gone. John's there. What is he
thinking? He is fearful. I've had so many
hopes that this was the Savior. We thought he was the Messiah.
John is in turmoil, I would imagine. Christ gives him a command. You
don't know what's happening, big picture. Just do the next
step. We used to say, closest alligator
to the canoe. Like, I'm not gonna worry about the alligators over
there, man, I'm worried about the one right here, okay? God says, you focus
on caring for this woman. Let's just let it be there. And
John has his commission and move forward. Is that not a microcosm
of the Christian life? We often do not know where things
are going, but God's word will sometimes make clear the next
step. What should I do? I'm gonna be faithful in the
mundane things right now. Right now, I know the next step.
I don't know the second or the third or the fourth, but I know
what God has commanded me to do right now, and that's to be
faithful in my marriage. Get up and go to church in the
morning. Discipline my children. Obey the commandments. God makes
clear what those next steps are, and he, today's worries are enough
for today, right? We need to not be putting ourselves
on the throne and thinking, I need to know how the whole weave of
history's gonna work out. No, I don't have the capacity
for that. What a mercy it is that God says to his servants,
take care of her. Just do that. Let me take care
of all of redemptive history. and you just take care of Mary. I know that she is my commission.
I am commissioned in covenant to her to protect and to love
and honor my wife. She has a responsibility to me.
We have a responsibility to our children and to our parents.
We know what the Ten Commandments say. We have our marching orders.
We don't have the end answer, but we know our marching orders.
This is a tremendous mercy from God that he gives us those and
we can rest in them rather than trying to be bigger than our
britches. So we talked about kind of the superficial level
in which John's commissioned for Mary, Mary is told, rely
on John, he's your guy, okay? But, and I want to emphasize
that this is not clearly said in scripture, but it's kind of,
the question is there, when Jesus says, woman, behold your son,
who is he talking about? The next sentence would imply
the context is, hey, look at John. But you can't help but
wonder, is there a double meaning to this? Woman, interesting he
doesn't say mom. He doesn't say Mary. It's not
a term that lacks endearment. He has referred to her as woman
before. Does anybody remember the? Wedding of Canaan, woman,
right? Because was she asking for Jesus,
her son, to go get an urn of wine? She was saying, God, God, Could you turn this water, like
we need to do something. She didn't say water to wine,
but she's like, you can do anything. Can you do this? She was not
talking to God. And so Jesus, her son, did not
answer. Woman, my time has not yet come,
okay? We gotta remember that while
Mary was the mother of God, It is appropriate to say that. Well,
she was the mother of Jesus, yet he was her Lord. This is
the God who had been in the beginning. He was the word, incarnate, in
flesh. Okay, here he is speaking to
her as God. Woman, behold your son. This is the Mary who had been
visited by an angel. who had been overshadowed by
the Holy Spirit, who knew full well the non-natural nature of
her conception. She knew. There may have been
people in the crowd doubting, saying, I'm faithful, I'm faithful,
I'm faithful. She knew she wasn't. She's storing these things up
in her heart. She was the one there when John
leaped in Elizabeth's womb. She spoke the Magnificat when
the Holy Spirit descended on her. She watched her child not
disobey. And then she watched her subsequent
children just be urchins, like, I mean, rascals, right? This
woman knew that He was different. There was no doubt in her mind.
Woman, behold your Son. And so what I want to encourage
you is, Christian, behold your God. This is who we are looking
at. Do you want to know what God
is like? There He is, dying for you and
for me on a cross, bearing the very fire of hell on him. There can be no worse treatment
than what he experienced. I could go to the cross in an
hour, right? Someone could crucify me and
my suffering would not even begin to approach what Christ suffered. As awful as that earthly suffering
was, the wrath of His Father poured out, drunk the cup to
the dregs. That pain and suffering just
overshadows anything that we can fathom. This is the Son who
is on the cross, who is dying for us, while we were yet sinners. Behold your God! This is who
we worship, and he is worthy of worship. He's not just a nice
guy that had a bunch of nice sayings and said, oh, do to people
as you'd have them do to you, you know, good morals, you know,
like secularism, like God, Jesus was a good person. That is not
who we worship. We don't worship a good guy.
We worship a God who is vastly beyond our ability to comprehend.
He is powerful and needs nothing. He needs nothing from us. And
yet, purely because of His love for us, the mites, these little
bits of chemicals that He created in the first place, He loved
us enough to bear the burden of our sin and inequity. This
is the God that we worship. Christian, behold your God. Look
at Him. And you are seeing a God worth
worshiping. This is who we see on the cross. So a few words of application.
We see Christ in His moment of grief and agony. loving his mother,
loving his disciple. We can extend that loving his
church, giving us this picture of him and of his nature. This
is the fruit, or this is the means that the Holy Spirit uses
to enliven our hearts. When we read these words and
we think about what God is saying about himself, this is the stuff
that he uses to say, wow, my God is great. We are going into
worship. My God is great. I am delighted
to be here to worship Him. This is not a check in the box,
Sunday morning complete. Sunday morning complete. I can't
wait for Sunday evening. Let's be worshiping this God
the whole day. I want to be with Him. You know,
forget the golden gates and forget the golden cobblestones. I wanna
be with the God who's there. I don't, yeah, it'll be awesome
to not be sick and have infirmities fixed and have all these broken,
fallen things about my body, no longer as I'm in a glorified
body. But forget that, I wanna be with
Christ. The guy that did this for me,
I want him. And he said, come, that God is
worthy of our worship. So as a word of application,
obey God's commands. That seems so simple. But does
he delight in sacrifice? He delights in obedience. As
a parent, I get that so much more. My kids will give me little
gifts and trinkets right as they disobey and I'm like, you're
trying to buy me off. You are trying to buy me off. I want
your obedience. I delight in your obedience because
why do I give you rules? Is it capricious so I can say
they obey me? I'm in charge, I'm the big man. I love them,
don't stick the fork in the socket. When we, disobedience to the
laws of God is sticking a fork in a socket. Our world tries
to flip it on its head and says, what a cruel God that wouldn't
let you engage in all sorts of licentious behavior. What a cruel
God who wouldn't even let you enjoy yourself. No, God doesn't
let us stick a fork in the outlet. Obey our God. He loves us enough
to give us the commandments. Love the brotherhood. love one
another. We are going to be known by how
we love each other. We want the world out there to
say, I don't, I mean, I don't know what to think about church
and organized religion. And I got wronged when I was
a child and I didn't, but man, I want to be with those people.
They love each other. They have each other over for
meals. Like they walk up and they say,
how you doing? And they don't just say, good.
They say, I'm struggling right now. Wow, who talks like that?
We're gonna be known by how we love each other. So love the
brotherhood. This is one of the commandments,
but honor our father and mother. A few months ago, I was convicted
that I had not honored my father a decade or so before. And it
was a big deal, had to do with my parents' divorce, and I was
angry, and I just lashed out against my dad. And then I was
flying with this captain who was also divorced, and we'd get
talking, and he was telling me about the grief in his heart
with his estranged son. He's saying, I wronged my son,
and now I am trying to make that relationship right. Call your
dad! And this man, I don't know, I got to the hotel and I called
my dad because I felt convicted that I had dishonored him. Now,
I didn't see any fruit from that. I did not. I have yet to see
fruit from that. But I obeyed God and I'm letting
him be in charge of redemptive history. And I'm just gonna obey
what he says as best I can. And lastly, I want you all to
think, remember that you have been bought for a price. Jesus
is actively dying for Mary's sins. She was not without sin,
by the way, just to make that point clear. She was of natural
origin, just like us. He was dying for John. He was
dying for that thief that was next to him. He was dying for
the centurion, very likely. He was dying for untold hundreds
in that crowd, the thousands that were gonna come at Pentecost,
the thousands more that were gonna be added to the number
in the years that followed. He was dying for those people. He died for you. He died for
me. He did not die to open a way
He did not die and open a door and then say, if you want to,
go on in. He died that you might be his
and he bought you. That moment you were his, done,
it is finished. You were bought with a price.
Praise the God who bought you and live in delight and excitement
that this is the life you get to live. Not a life that is wandering
and lost, but a life that is spent obeying and delighting
in your God who loves you and looking forward to the great
hope that is to come in Christ's kingdom when he comes down and
brings heaven to earth. What sweet excitement and delight
that puts life in context. So, just kind of to close, and
Mikhail shared this phrase with me, you become what you behold. How do we do these things? How
do we obey God's commandments? Is God just a lawgiver that we
have to check the box? How do we actually obey God's
commandments? Do we set our eyes on the text
and memorize them and say, I gotta do this, gotta do that, gotta
do that, gotta do that, gotta do that? What about the young ruler who said,
yeah, I've done all these things. It wasn't about doing all the
things. Sell everything and follow me. Oh, and he went away discouraged. Set your eyes on Christ. Behold
him. Look on him. and the obedience
to his commands that comes, that will happen. The love for your
brothers and sisters in Christ, that will happen. When you look
on Calvary and you say, how can I not love my brothers and sisters?
How can I not love and care for the lost and dying world that's
out there? When I look on what Christ has done for me, and that
yet while I was a sinner, he died for me, that inflames our
hearts for compassion for those outside of the church. How could
we not when we set our eyes on Christ? So you become what you
behold, delight in Christ, look on Him, consider what He has
done, and the rest falls into place. God's means work. Enjoy the sacraments. Enjoy His
means of grace. Enjoy the public. worship of
God, enjoy the fellowship of the saints, pray without ceasing,
delight in one another, delight in God above all else. This is
what we can do. And I
Jesus' third words from the cross
Series Words from the Cross
| Sermon ID | 51225181315988 |
| Duration | 43:16 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday School |
| Bible Text | John 19:25-27 |
| Language | English |
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