Famous Last Words: Week 2

Today we are in our second week of our famous word series. Let me

tell you something. This is an extremely challenging scripture today, but it's also

one of those scriptures that gives us like an insight. Maybe the curtain has

drawn back a little bit on the mysteries of God. And so I pray

today that you are deeply challenged but also deeply comforted at the same time.

Can we pray, let's pray God, we just come to you now and

we want your word to grab a hold of our heart. Help us to

hear from you, help us to draw near to you. In Jesus' name.

Amen, I hope you don't mind today if I just start out with

probably one of my top five to ten favorite memories from my childhood, and

it involves my papa, my mother's father. Now, he was at our

house almost every day of my childhood. My family had a ceramic business,

and with that ceramic business, we had a warehouse on our property, and

so Papa was there five days a week, and then we would have these

festivals on the weekends that we would travel to. And of course, so

Papa was a part of my life and so he had a huge influence on

my life. He was a godly man. He was also old fashioned,

okay. He hauled bluegrass music in Jesus Holy Trinity. That was it for

him. And he was a stern man, a man of God. But

he was also one of those who loved to give lectures, and he was

just bound and determined that my brother and I were going to grow up to

be good men and very hard working men. Now, as a child,

I just didn't know where I stood with him, because he didn't use words

of flattery at all. It was more of if he's gonna speak to you

as almost always instruction or warning. Well, I started to work out pretty

heavily in high school, and it got to the where I needed Papal to

pick me up from the gym every day take me home. And so we

got into this routine for a while. And it was Wednesday night, so

Wednesday night's church night at my home congregation, and so we went to his

house to wait on Mammal to finish getting her hair done and all this other

stuff. And so Papo and I were hanging out downstairs and I was watching

a boys to Men documentary. I think about how old I am now,

Okay, So that was actually relevant back then, and it felt a little

bit uncomfortable because I'd only you know, Papal came downstairs. I said,

you want me to change a channel? Because I'd only seen him ever watch

he Haw and WWF wrestling, so I didn't know if he was comfortable,

and so he said to me, he is, no, I'm just enjoying

watching you enjoy this. That weirded me out, like what is going on

with Papal here? And then ma'am all yelled, boys, it's time to

go. We went upstairs, we got to the fourier, and then my

grandfather grabbed a hold of each one of my shoulders and he said to me,

he said, you know I love you and I'm proud of you.

Because I hope you know that right that I love you and I'm proud of

you. Let me tell you something. I felt, acceptance in love just

wash over me. I mean, it was like one of those moments in

my life that I will never ever forget about. The next day, I

was coming home from school and I opened up my front door, and as

I opened up the front door, I could hear the phone ringing in the

kitchen. So I had to go to the kitchen to get the phone off

the wall. You all remember when phones were on the walls, and I

grab a hold of it is grandma, and Mamma's crying and I'm trying to

make out her words, and finally I interpret what she's saying, and what

she's saying is that she came home that day and Papal had died of a

massive heart attack. So the first thought I had was, oh my gosh,

Pappal's dead. But then immediately after that, I was so thankful that

he grabbed a hold of me the night before and told me I love you

and I'm proud of you. Over the years, I can't tell you the

countless times I've thought about that moment, and I praise God for those that

gift the gift of those last words. Last word is gonna have a huge

impact on us. And here's what we're doing in this series. We're looking

at the impact famous of the famous words, the last words of Christ on

the cross. Now this week, I'm gonna be very honest right now.

Okay, it's a bit confusing, Okay, it offers more confusion than clarity.

And I think that if we were really humble and honest about life and

this world all that's going on. I think we would be honest and say

that it's more confusing than clear about what's going on. Have you ever felt

like asking God, God, why, God, can you just break down

for me, what's going on in this world? What's going on in my

life? Because I don't understand it? For example, for years I went

back to these moments where I had two pastors who invested a lot in me.

They had a huge impact in her church, a huge impact in her

community. But both of them died relatively young of cancer. And I'm still

to this day I think back, I don't get it. I don't see

the point. I'm just being honest. It just doesn't make sense to me.

One of the kids that I was closest to in my youth group,

Dusty, he stepped out of a vehicle when evening, just slipped, hit

his head on the back of the gravel and just died instantly. Our youth

group was devastated. I think about him a lot. I still don't get

it. I've asked God plenty of times, can you help me understand this.

I just don't see the point in this. And I think if we

were honest today. There's a lot in life that we were just like God,

I just don't get it. I don't understand what's going on, Like

why is there so much pain in this world? Why is there so much

divorce? Abuse? Why do we have so many wars? We have multiple

wars going on in our world today, and we just don't understand why all

this pain and all this heartache? Have you ever asked this question? Why

does some prayers get answered while other prayers seem to get ignored. We have

so many questions, but we don't have clean answers. And if you ever

felt like Jesus, have you ever felt like Jesus did on the cross and

you just want to shout out, my God, my God? Why?

Now think about this for a moment. Jesus Christ, the Savior of the

world, he actually asked the question God, why. If if Jesus can

ask why, I think it's okay if we ask why sometimes, okay.

And so here's what we're gonna do with humility. We're gonna look at these

famous last words of Jesus today and we're gonna jump over to Matthew twenty seven

and let us look at this starting with verse forty five. It says here,

from noon until three in the afternoon, darkness came over all the land.

Now doesn't this sound pretty at first? Doesn't it sound like a poetic

start to a drama scene. And it's just like, oh, the darkness

came of the world for three hours. It just sounds like somebody setting a

scene. But here's the reality. This is not dramatic or poetic writing.

This is somebody reporting matter of fact throughout history. This has been confirmed.

We have origin one of our early church fathers who speaks of some Roman historians

who wrote in their letters about that day where three hours of darkness was all

over the land. Matter of fact. Ponscious Pila, who was a part

of the trials of Jesus Christ, writes a letter to the Emperor Tiberius,

and he's assuming that Tiberius knows about that darkness during that time from twelve to

three that day that covered the land. The people who study the stars and

the sun and the moon, they've looked back on that day and they said,

well, it's not an eclipse. The sun and the moon were too

far away. And so when we look back at the Gospels and the scriptures,

it actually does it give us an answer why there was darkness all over

the earth that day. But if you were a Jew and you're around that

day, you probably had a good insight what was going on. See,

the rabbis, the teachers of the Jews for centuries had been teaching that they

if we were ever to see a day where darkness covered the land, it

would be a sign of God's judgment on the people for committing some heinous sin.

So when there was darkness over the land that day from twelve to three,

the Jews who'd have been around, they would have known that God was

giving a big object lesson and he was pointing to the to the greatest sin

that mankind had ever committed, crucifying the Christ. So what we see here,

in this darkest moment on our earth, Christ utters the darkest words of

his ministry. Let's continue on the verse forty six. It says about three

in the afternoon, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, Eli elbakthani,

which means, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? Well, first

of all, I just want to let you guys know this is not a

well liked verse. I you know, I enjoyed looking at other people's tattoos.

I don't have tattoos, but I like tattoos. Here's one tattoo I've

never seen on somebody's arm. Why God, Oh, why have you forsaken

me? I've been to a ton of Christian conventions and Christian bookstores. I've

ever seen a shirt that says, my God, My God, why have

you forsaken me? It's just not a popular thing. And matter of fact,

there's a couple of reasons why people don't like this. Number One,

it's hard to understand because we're like this, something happened with God and Jesus.

What's going on with the trinity? This is mysterious, We still understand

it. Secondly, we don't like the idea of thinking about God abandoning Jesus

for a moment. It just doesn't make God look good in this passes see.

But here's what we have to understand. A complex question often requires a

complex answer. So here's what we're gonna do. We're just gonna look at

it. We're gonna dig in, and we're gonna talk about it, and

we're gonna talk about a couple of different things that are happening here when Christ

cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

So the first thing we have to do is from the time that Jesus was

on the cross, we have to journey back one thousand years to a man

named David, and David had been annointed king. David had had this big

victory over the Goliath the Giant, He had won some awards, and he

basically was a celebrity in Israel. But then King Saul became jealous and tried

to kill him. So now David is on the run. Matter of fact,

this is one of the most messed up scriptures in the Bible. He

actually had a run to another kingdom. But he knew when he came to

this other kingdom that if the king saw David show up at the front door,

he knew how popular David was and that people were following David, that

he might think that David was going to try to attack and take over his

kingdom. So David to make sure that the other king did not see him

as a threat. We see in scripture he acted like he was a madman.

He acted like he was crazy, banging his head against the wall,

foaming from his mouth, spitting, and he just acted like he was insane.

So the other king was like, oh, my gosh, David's lost

his mind. Bring him in here, let's give him sanctuary. So David's

brought in and he's given sanctuary. And it's in this darkest moment of his

life life where he's away from his home, his family, his friends,

everything that means something to him. It's in this darkest moment of his life

that he pins these words that will later become Psalm twenty two. And it

begins by the words, My God, My God, why have you forsaken

me? Now here's what David doesn't know. David writes out this the song

the Psalm, crying out to God. But here's what he doesn't know.

That the Holy Spirit of God is working through David. And here's what's going

on. He's put in all these predictions or we call them prophecies, that

will be fulfilled by the Messiah someday. So David's writing in this dark moment.

But what David, and through the Holy Spirit, something is happening here

where Psalm twenty two turns into a messimic Psalm. So that throughout the rest

of Israel's history. They look at Psalm twenty two and they say, when

we see these things fulfilled, we will know that that points to the Messiah.

And what do we see here and Psalm twenty two check it out.

This is amazing here Psalm twenty two that prophesies that Jesus would be rejected by

the people, that they would make fun of him. Well, let's look

at Psalm twenty two, verse six. But I am a worm and not

a man, scorn by everyone, despised by the people. And then check

this out. We see this in the last moments of Christ's life. They

mocked him, they hurled insults at him, shaking their heads. And then

remember that part in scripture where they said, hey, if you could save

yourself, you know, save yourself. And they say, he who trusts

the Lord, let the Lord rescue him. So we actually see these prophecies

fulfilled, but pointed out a thousand years later. Then we see another prophecy

that he would be surrounded by criminals verse sixteen. Dogs surround me, a

pack of villains encircle me. Then there's the prophecy. Check us out.

How does someone prophesy this that his hands and his feet would be pierced with

nils. What does it say here verse sixteen, They pierced my hands in

my feet. And then they prophesied that his clothes will be gambled away,

and we see this at the cross verse eighteen, they divide my clothes among

them and cast lots from my garment. Now here's my favorite one, and

it comes at the very end of Psalm twenty two, My favorite prophecy because

it's talking about you and me, and it's talking about the impact of that

day on us. And it says this future generations will be told about the

Lord and we have been and they will proclaim his righteousness, which we have

declaring to the people yet unborn, talking about you and me. He has

done it. He has done it. So this Psalm of pain becomes a

Messianic psalm, and it was literally written one thousand years before it. Now

here's this other angle you have to understand. Knowingly, do we have this

Psalm twenty two, which is a Messianic psalm, But we have to understand

the rabbi angle. A good rabbi, a teacher would often when he was

teaching his disciples, he would often say the first line of a psalm or

a chapter, and then the disciples would go, ah, we know what

you're talking about. And then later on, when they're alone, they will

go back and read that psalm. So you can imagine the disciples of Jesus

here, my God, my God, why are you forsaking me? And

they would go, Okay, later on, I'm gonna go check this out.

So they go to check it out later and they're like, oh,

my gosh. They said that his clothes were gonna be gabled a weigh.

They said that his hands and feet were gonna be pierced. They said they

were wanna hurl insults, they were gonna mock him. He's gonna be in

between criminals. And so, all of a sudden, as the disciples go

back and reread Psalm twenty two, they learned a couple of things. One

that Jesus, and only Jesus, fulfilled the prophecies that only them Messiah could

fulfill. So it confirmed to them in their spirit that Jesus was a true

Messiah. Secondly, it also gave them comfort to know Jesus knew this pain

and suffering coming, he knew it was his destiny and he did it anyways.

So on one hand, we have this famous saying, and we have

this famous Messianic psalm that that points to Jesus as the Messiah who was prophesied.

All right, now, let's talk about what's going on. On the

other hand, it's not as fine. Okay. On the other hand,

let's just be honest here. This part is a mystery to us. It

shows that Jesus is in deep pain. He's experienced in darkness. He took

on the sins of the world. He's beaten, he's betrayed, he's in

agony, and for the very first time in his whole existence, all of

eternity, for the very first time, he does not experience the presence of

God. He feels the loss of a relationship. He feels the pain of

that loss, which is, by the way, which is very mysterious to

me, and it must have been overwhelming to him. The best way that

I can to help you understand this is as a pastor, I have been

called to people's houses right after they suffer a sudden loss of someone that they're

deeply close to. Maybe their spouse died, their child died, their grandchild

died, or someone that they're a best friend died. And when someone experiences

a huge loss and it's sudden, oftentimes something happens to us. Okay,

it's like the wires in our brains become crossed. We just can't handle that

moment. We're so overwhelmed that we just can't put correct thoughts together. And

often a doctor is called to give these people tranquilizers or some other sedatives just

so they can make it through the next few days, because the loss of

someone so close can be so overwhelming that the human mind has a hard time

understanding what's going on. Well, imagine an eternal relationship. For the first

time in all of eternity, Jesus does not sense the presence of God.

And now let me tell you something. And this blows me away. Did

you know that this is the only time in scripture that Jesus does not call

God his father. He feels the loss of that relationship. That's why he

says my God, my God, not father my father. So Jesus in

this moment, he feels a bandon, he feels forsaken, and he's a

complete despair. And by the way, this is a mystery to us.

And we've got to Remember that Jesus is one hundred percent divine, he's a

hundred percent human, but this is his most human moment, and he cries

out for his God because he does not sense the presence of his father,

and so Jesus cries out, my God, my God. Why? Now

let me just turn the page for a moment. Ask you a question.

Have you ever had that experience where you're like, my God, my God,

why? Why? What's going on here? Lord? I don't get

it. You're confused, it doesn't seem fair. Your life's been blown up.

You just don't understand what's going on. You're like, why, God,

why? Let me tell you. If you've been around Christians for a

long time, very well meaning Christians and well meaning pastors, I don't know

if you know this, but we got all the answers, and because we

have all the answers, we will often answer very complex questions with very simple

answers. So our life is blown up, and you're gonna hear one of

three answers that are very that are given by people who mean. Well.

First of all, you're gonna hear maybe that it's your fault. Okay,

Well, if you hadn't done this and this wouldn't happen, or if you

hadn't had the sin in your life and this would happen. A second thing,

that won't mean. People will say, well, it's it's Satan's fault,

and it is true that the enemy does come to attack us. And

then you also hear it's God's will. But when you're in the middle of

a situation that you don't understand, you're like, is it A B,

C or is it B and C? Is at a combination of one and

three? Is it part God's fault? It's Satan's fault, And it's so

confusing when you're in the middle of one of those moments in your life.

In two thousand and seven, my church plant was canceled by the church planting

organization because of a lack of funds. I was devastated. It rocked my

world, and I heard all three of those explanations by well meaning people for

why the church plant was canceled. The first person, which I'll never forget

what they said because I got their face, Well, they're pictures on my

dartboard. They said to me, maybe there's a hidden sin in your life,

so therefore you know God is protecting a church from a future hurt because

of the secret sin in your life. I'm like, what, okay.

And then another person said, Satan was so scared that so many people would

come to Christ that he had to stop this church plant. Think about both

those answers. Think about that one. It's my fault cause I have some

secret sinner. Oh you're so holy and God's gonna do such a great thing.

And then the other one was God's will. This is God's will.

You just gotta trust God. And let me tell you something. My fault,

Satan's fault, God's will. But let me tell you something. When

you're in the midst of cancer, when you're in a miss of pain,

when you're in the midst of a job loss, when you're in the midst

of your mayor's falling apart, when you're in the midst of all this struct

your life, you don't care. You just want help. And sometimes we're

just confusing. And by the way, there's sometimes you're just not gonna get

a good answer. It's a true story told by Hey, an er doctor

in Kentucky, and the er doctor tells this story about a man who came

in and he had been in a minor wreck, but he had all these

burns across his neck, and the doctor couldn't understand why there was all these

burns across his neck. And so the guy said to him, well,

my wife and I we just got some of those dog collars that you zap

and it'll shock the dog. So we decided to check it out. So

I put the dog collar on my neck, and I got my pickup and

I drove away. And I told my wife that once I get over the

heill, I'm gonna honk my horn. When she hears me honk my horn.

That and we want to see how powerful it is or how far away

it works. So he gets over the hill and all of a sudden he

hanks his horn and his wife zaps it. It zaps him so hard that

he screams out and that he almost loses consciousness. Okay, and at this

moment he serves over into the other lane. Well, car season comings,

so gets what that car does? That car hanks. The wife goes,

well, apparently he didn't hear it. She's absent. Again, he swerves

back over, and all of a sudden he swerves it from another car,

so that car hanks. So they zap him again, and then he honks

for her her to stop it, and it just goes on and on and

on again. Now, was that his fault, his wife's fault? The

Satan do that because Satan didn't like that. Dude? Did God want to

teach him something? It's just confusing. It's confusing. So let's get back

to Jesus, who saves all, even those who check dog collars on their

own neck. I want you to think about the life of Jesus for a

moment. Okay, When Jesus was born, the first thing that happened was

they put a death warrant out on him. Herod wanted him killed. When

Jesus was an adult started his ministry. It says that he was a prophet

without honor in his own town. The men from his own town try to

push him over a cliff and kill him. They called him a drunkard,

They called him a glutton, They called him a sinner. They called him

a man who was demon possessed. They said that he hung out of all

the wrong people. Then they lied about him. He went on a trial.

They beat him, they tortured him, they put him on the cross.

But here's one thing. We notice all through all of jesus life,

which I wanted to help you see, that Jesus' life was pretty tough.

It was not an awesome life. He never complained. And the first time

that we see something that resembles a complaint is here on the cross, when

he became sin for us and his world became dark and God withdrew his presence

from him. And then Jesus says, my God, my God, why.

And here's what I want to remind you today. See, it's very

easy to have faith when the sun is shining. Man, when you got

a great job, a great wife, a great family, great home,

it's easy to praise God. But man, it's another story to have real

faith when the darkness sets in on our world. It's a whole other story.

One of my favorite stories of deep faith comes from the Old Testament.

We got these three guys named Shadrack Mee Shack and had been to go,

and we have this king called Nebucannezer, now Keen. Nebucannezzer was full of

himself, and so he built this ninety foot tall idol made out of gold.

It was ninety feet tall by nine feet wide. And he makes a

decree to the whole nation bow down and worship this idol, and everyone's doing

that. But then he comes to Shadrack, me Shack and had been to

go, and the said, we're not gonna do that because we serve the

one True God. We're not gonna bow down to this false idol. And

so nepicanaders like, oh, yeah you will. If you don't do this,

I'm gonna throw you into a fiery first. Now, remember, I

wanna remind us again. Check this out. It's easy to have faith when

you're safe and secure. These three Hebrew children said, no, we're not

going to bow down to you, and then they said, our God will

rescue us. But then something happens, and I don't know if it was

shadrackne Shak or have been to go, but one of them says something that

might be the most faith filled scripture in all of God's word. Let's look

at it. Look into this mighty king, they say. But even if

he doesn't rescue us, we want you to know, your Majesty, that

we're not going to serve your gods or worship the image of gold that you

have set up, because we serve the one True God. Now that's deep

faith. Can I just transition a thought just for a moment as we go

to kind of land the plane here in the next few moments. Today,

here's what I noticed when I'm in despair, when I'm going through a rough

time and my world's rocked. Here's what I've noticed over time. I've noticed

that in those moments, I tend to only see life and my problems through

my own perspective. I only see things through my own eyes, and a

lot of times it's not until it's a couple of years away from this trial

that I look back and with God's wisdom and twenty twenty high sight, do

I say, Oh, that's the other side of the story. See,

when we are going through some rough times, we tend to only see our

side of the story. Let's look at this right here, in the middle

of pain. You got to remind yourself that, man, you only see

your part of the story. But you have to understand something today that there's

God's part of the story. There's God's perspective, and the Bible says that

His ways are higher than our ways. Okay, now, the best way

I can try to help you understand this is thinking back to when I had

my little precious Caitlin. We called her KK when she was young. She's

eighteen now, but I remember when we took her for her first shot and

it was a big day for Gena and I and we got the little baby.

We're taking her into the doctor's room and she's all happy. We're tickling

her belly and it's all a good day. And then all of a sudden,

the doctor comes in and all of a sudden, Kaitlyn, there's no

sound. She just goes and then guess what happened next? W And now

Mom and I we're about ready to cry, and we're just like you know,

we're emotionally tore up. And Caitlyn is screaming and crying, and I

swear that she said, my daddy, my daddy, Why has that forsaken

me? But here's what I wanted to do. I wanted to explain to

this child that brain was just developing, for had just developed for a few

months. I wanted to explain to her that Daddy knows best and this is

for her own good. But there's no way that she could have understood that.

All she knows is the pain allen in life, all we know are.

All we feel is the pain, and we don't understand what God is

doing behind the scenes. See, there's always another side of the story now.

And what's interesting is often God does not give us the full answer and

scripture about why this happened or this happened. But actually when it comes to

the crucifixion of Christ and this dark moment, God actually does give us an

explanation. He gives us two explanations, why this moment of my God,

My God, why have you forsaken? He gives us two explanations of what's

going on in this moment? Number one, the two reasons that Jesus felt

the loss of God's presence. Number one, Jesus took on the sin of

the world, past, present, and future. So why didn't feel like

God left him? Here's what I needed you to understand. God hates sin.

When God encounters sin, God must judge sin because He is holy and

righteous. At this moment on the cross, Jesus experienced the judgment of sin

on the cross. See, Jesus became sint, murder, idolatry, rape,

He became jealousy in me line and so Jesus took on all the sin

of all humanity, and instead of experiencing the presence of God in this moment

when he cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken

me? Jesus was experiencing the judgment of God upon his sins that were our

sins that he took on for us. Number two, Jesus experienced the pain

and agony of the cross so that we could be forgiven. One Peter says,

as he bore, he himself bore our sins and his body on the

cross so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness. By his

wounds, you have been healed. So today we could go to God and

we could say, God, why did Jesus say, my God, my

God, why have you forsaken him? And God would look at you and

say, the answer is you. The answer is you. He took upon

your sins so that we can be in relationship. In seminary, one of

my professors, as we close today, shared a story that he felt like

would best illustrate the three characters in this scenario, the son, the father,

and us. And some of you might have heard this story, but

let me just share the story that might give you some perspective on this today

the story of a father who dearly loved his son and his wife. And

the father had a great job. He was a drawbridge operator, so when

the ships went by, he would bring the bridge up. When the trains

went over, he would put it down. And it was a job that

called for precision and accuracy. But one day his eight year old seven says,

Dad, I want to come to work with you. So came to

work there having a great day, and he's having a great day. Of

a son did about thirteen or fourteen of these different moments here where he put

the drawbridge down, and then finally he sees a train coming, and a

train is coming with hundreds of passengers on the train, and he looks around

and he can't find his son anywhere. He calls for a son and yells

for his son. But then finally, as a train is approaching, he

sees his son, and his son has put himself in a spot by just

wandering around right where the lever and the gears and all that stuff. If

he were to put the drawbridge down would crush his son's body. And that

split second he had to make a decision, do I save my son's life

or hundreds of lives. So in that split second he decided to save hundreds

of lives. And when he started to put the drawbridge down, and then

it started to come upon his son. He could see his son looking at

him like why, Dad, why, And then he heard his kids scream.

And because of this, the father could not bear to look. He

could not bear to look at what was happening to his son. The drawbridge

went all the way down, and the next thing, you know, all

the passengers went across very safely, and they were fine. And as the

father looked at those two he had just said, and they had no idea

what had just happened. They have no idea about the sacrifice that that was

just given on their behalf. He looks inside and some of the men are

smoking big cigars, and the women are, you know, having their tea,

and some people are playing poker, and a lot of people are just

having a good old time reading newspapers and join life. And here it is

the father is looking in all these lives that have been saved, but I

have no idea about the sacrifice that he just made. I think that,

in many many ways explains what was going on in this last scene. The

father saw what he was putting the son through. The son was taken upon

the pain and the father could not look. But the point is it was

to save all the passengers on their way through life. And who does the

passengers represent? You and me? You and me. So today, as

we close, I just want to recap a couple of things that we have

learned today. Number One, sometimes when we're in a midst of pain,

we only see our side of his story. But it's really important and as

followers of Christ, that we have the faith to see God's side or to

understand that God does have his side of the story. And here's what you

need to know about our God. He is a good, good father.

He is a merciful father. He is a loving father. He is a

god who whatever pain and hurt you have on this side of ettorney, he

will make it right on the other side of attorney. Our God is faithful

and he is good, and we have to trust that our Daddy, our

God, knows best. The other thing we learned today in this tragic scripture,

God takes sin seriously. Jesus took care of that sin, and it

was because it was for the purpose of you and I being able to have

communion and a relationship of God, our Father. So here's what we're gonna

do today. Can you please grab out your communion. If you don't have

one, please raise your hand. The ushers will be more happy to get

to you pretty quickly. We got a couple of people over here, got

some people down here who need some. Keep your hand up until you get

one. And here's what we're going to do today. First of all,

you might be wondering why we do communion. The reason we do communion is

because the night that Jesus was betrayed, he looked at his disciples and he

gave them an illustration. So he broke some bread. He said, this

bread represents my body that's going to be broken for you. And then he

poured a glass of wine, says, this represents my blood that has poured

out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sin. And so when

we take communion, we go before the Lord and we remember his sacrifice.

But in order to remember his sacrifice, we must remember r o sin and

ask forgiveness. So communion is an opportunity to go before God, but it's

also an opportunity to ask for forgiveness. So that's what we're going to do.

First of all, today, let's go before the Lord right now and

let us ask him for forgiveness. The second thing we're going to do today.

There's some of you in this room. You're in the middle of it,

and it's confusing, it's hard, and I want you just to take

some time now to ask God to help you see his side of the story,

or at least ask God to help you trust in his goodness and that

he does have a sigh to the story that you're going through right now.

So go ahead and lift up your burdens to the Lord. And now let

us take communion together. Let us take the bread which represents the body of

Christ broken for us, and now let us partake and the juice that represents

the wine which represents the blood of Christ. Amen.