His Final Words - Holy Week

Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Holt.

I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.

Embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.

Today be encouraged with a word from my guest speaker.

Welcome to the Born for War podcast.

On this somber day in history, our human history, humanity, and we recognize Christianity is the only religion in the world that at the center of its faith is the complete humiliation, pain, suffering, and death of its own God.

The cross, the core of Christianity is Calvary.

And the cross, complete vulnerability and transparency, drenched in blood-soaked love of our Savior.

I'm fascinated today.

I'm drawn to images of the cross.

They pull me in.

And I find myself finding a cross in the landscape of everyday life.

My eye can't be helped but be drawn to them.

And I can't help but notice them everywhere I look.

If you're willing to transfix your gaze to the cross, the poignant words of Thomas Dubai come into acute focus.

When we look at the passion and the crucifixion of our Lord of glory, we witness a consummate splendor in monstrous horror.

When you allow yourself to come into alignment with the cross and gaze upon it, to take it fully in, you cannot help but be unraveled by the opulence, magnitude, and sacrifice of his blood-soaked love for you.

It isn't the object of the cross itself, but rather its significance is that this is the object, the altar, the device which Christ chose to shed his blood to atone and ransom us for our sins.

In 2 Corinthians, Paul writes in 521, For He made him who knew no sin to become sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.

There's nothing but the blood of Christ that will make us whole, cleansed, and fully redeemed to live a life full of life.

Jesus' blood is eternal.

His blood ran down for us all, staining the cross, washing our sins away, marking us as his children.

The transaction at Calvary between Jesus and our sin was the greatest transfer of wealth the world has ever known, before or since.

See, Christ completely redeems us by paying for our debt, a debt of death himself, and then invites us to share in his eternal kingdom that's full of riches, inheritance, with him as sons and daughters.

He makes that exchange, and that's the transfer that happens.

We're invited to the opulence of his beloved creation.

We get to transfer our debt into enjoying his eternal wealth.

In Roman culture, it was considered impolite.

It was actually crude and derogatory to bring up the term crucifixion, to talk about a cross.

Being in esteemed crowds and social elite parties, it was profane.

It was looked down upon.

Today, as sons and daughters of God, we adorn our churches with the crucifix and display it on jewelry.

This would have been absolutely unheard of in Roman times.

See, God's kingdom does not operate on the same narrative of humanity.

It never has and it never will.

The Romans were experts in death, and the cross is a torture device, the most efficient of its kind that the world has ever known.

The Romans perfected the process to extract the most pain with the cross, taking its victims right to the breaking point of human tolerance with this particular device.

What I'd like to do today is as we reflect to the cross, let's examine the final words of Jesus in his six-hour battle on the cross.

Some of the most important words a person may speak come at the end of their life.

Come close, draw near.

Some of you think about some of your passing of some of your beloved relatives.

You gather around their bed.

Their final moments are in reach.

And the words that they're going to utter next are sometimes whispered, and we all draw close.

What is this stoic, valiant father or mother of the faith that's lived a life of righteousness going to share with us, to pass on, to carry us, to take us into those next moments after they have left us?

If you want to know what's inside a man, impale him to a tree.

Pierce the man, and the facade disappears.

There are no pretenses on a cross.

Put nail in the man's hands and feet, and what's ever inside of him will most assuredly spill out.

The Roman soldiers were seasoned executioners, and they had watched it happen every time.

Pierce a man, and the real person comes out.

Matthew 12, 34 says, Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

When they pierced Jesus, his soul was laid bare, and the stuff inside his heart came tumbling out of his mouth.

The cross revealed what rumbles in the heart of God that day.

And I kind of want to paint a backdrop for all of us right now because I'm not going to pretend that there are things that you carried with you into church today, into this sanctuary.

There's trials that you're all facing.

Could it be that we might all find encouragement?

A playbook from God as we face our own trials, as we look at the final words of Jesus on the cross, and we transfix those across our own trials today in our lives.

News that we've gotten this week, this month, this year, things that have followed us in from 2023 into this year.

And now we find ourselves on Good Friday reflecting on the cross of Christ, and his words should bring us comfort as we can apply those meanings to the trials in our own lives.

When the Romans punctured Jesus, here's what came out.

In Luke 23, 34, then Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

As he was pierced, forgiveness leaked from Jesus.

As the soldiers pierced his hands and feet, he is exonerating them of their actions in that moment.

He's exonerating the priests around him at that moment.

When they cut him, he bled forgiveness.

In Luke 23, 39 through 43, the second saying of Jesus comes out of the cross.

Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed him, saying, If you are the Christ, save yourself and us.

But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation?

And we are indeed justly here, for we receive the due reward for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.

And then he looked to Jesus and said, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

And Jesus said to him, Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.

The second saying of Jesus gives promise.

One of the thieves being crucified with Jesus had the faith to believe in his heart, and then confess with his mouth that Jesus was the king, as the sign above him read, and that he would come into his kingdom.

Because of his faith, Jesus extended an amazing promise that he would join Christ in paradise that very day.

Even in intense suffering, Jesus was still full of promise.

The first three come in that first hour.

Many believe that this is actually literal, that his mom had borne witness to the point that she could no longer handle what was happening.

And at that point, John actually took Jesus' mother to his home, that she might not remain till the very end.

She'd been there at his flogging, at his trial, and now as he hung, naked and exposed, bare for all humanity, she could take no more, and Jesus in his compassion.

His third statement is compassion for his mother.

He's full of it.

And while enduring unfathomable pain, he gives instruction to John to care for his mother.

Oftentimes in scenes and war movies, you see a soldier dying, he's breathing his last, he's just taking a mortal wound.

And there's many war movies that depict this scene where that soldier in that moment is asking for his mom.

He needs the comfort of his mother in that moment.

But our king and our savior in that moment wasn't asking for his mother's care.

Rather, he was seeking out care and provision for her.

When they pierced Jesus, he could not help but bleed compassion.

It was full of him.

It spilled out.

Now there's a silence between the first and the sixth hour where Jesus goes quiet on the cross and he just endures.

There's nothing recorded of him that's said verbally.

He's doing the work, he's on the cross, and he's going through what he's called to do.

But in Matthew 27, 46, we come to the fourth expression of Jesus.

And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, Lama, Sabactatani.

And that is, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Having been made sin and cursed for our iniquity, Jesus is forsaken by God his Father.

In his darkest hour, Jesus longed for the presence of Abba, but he was alone.

The first time in the Trinity's history, before then, and since, Jesus was separated from his Father.

And we pull on that for a minute because there's often times where we feel alone, but he affirms and reassures us that we have never been alone.

We never are alone.

We never will be alone.

Before he finally departs, his disciples, he reassures them that he will be with them even till the end of the age.

He is with us even to the end of the age.

He can make that promise, he can say that to his sons and daughters, because he took that.

He felt the separation and then assured us that we never would have to feel that.

Even though he was forsaken, Jesus cries out, My God, my God.

In that moment, he is crying out and saying, You are my God.

Even though I am abandoned, even though I'm alone, you are my God.

It was loyalty.

While being tested by total isolation from the Father, his wounds leaked loyalty.

We come to the fifth expression of Christ in John 19, 28 through 29.

After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, said, I thirst.

Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there, and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and they put it to his mouth.

Clearly, he was tremendously physically thirsty.

But Jesus is speaking of more than just that physical thirst in this moment.

He's speaking of a spiritual one as well.

He was doing more than just fulfilling prophecy here, as the scriptures have written.

As his body was drained of its fluids, his craving was for the presence of his Father.

The fifth thing that is spoken from his piercing was his desire for God.

He had longing.

When we feel dry, when we feel parched, when we feel anemic from God's kingdom and we thirst for his presence, we too should take an example of Christ and utter out our thirst, our desire for God's Holy Spirit to come and nourish and bring oil and sweet aroma to us in that moment of pain, in that moment of trial.

The sixth saying on the cross from Christ comes in John 19, 30.

So when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, It is finished.

And bowing his head, he gave up his spirit.

Jesus utters this sixth saying, affirming that the work needed by the cross has been completed, and the total payment for sin was made in full.

He was confident that his father had now finished what he had started.

In his impalement, Jesus' blood leaked his confidence in God's plan.

Jesus has confidence.

Confidence in front of a crowd that was grotesquely interested in this kind of mutilation and death, observing in abject horror, Jesus has the ability to reflect confidence in his Father and the plan that he had been here to do and what he had been put here to complete for him and us.

And the final saying that comes from Christ, we find in Luke 23, 46.

And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, he said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

And having said this, he breathed his last.

Jesus' seventh and final statement was a message of surrender.

He surrendered the destiny of his spirit to his father's providence.

His journey to the Father in paradise had a detour into hell first.

He would not just be spring-loaded into the heavenly realms.

Jesus' relinquishment meant that he trusted his father completely and totally, even if it meant going to hell.

His surrender was stunning and complete.

Can we in those moments, as his sons and daughters, hold fast to the example that he sets, to completely trust God's plan, to give ourselves completely to the surrender of our own trials, of our own crucifixion?

I want to challenge us today with a different thought and something that's in the backdrop and some of these stories we've certainly heard before around Easter week.

But as I challenge us to consider and reflect and contemplate Christ's sayings on the cross, some of his final words that he leaves with us, it was more than just soldiers that day at Galgotha who did not know what they were doing.

Reflecting back to his first statement of forgiveness and exonerating that.

They didn't need forgiveness of their sins, but rather their actions, their obedience, and their contribution to the glory and splendor of Calvary.

They did not know what they were doing.

First, let's examine Mary of Bethany.

We know her as the sister of Martha and the sister of Lazarus.

While hosting a celebration meal for Jesus as a huge thank you for raising her brother Lazarus just a few weeks prior from the dead.

Mary takes the contents of probably her most treasured and valuable possession and she empties it entirely over Jesus, over her Lord.

She is doing this as an act of devotion, as an act of love, expressing, in the only way that she knows how, to give her most treasured, valued possession to the King of Glory, to her the captain of her salvation.

But what she did not know, that what was really going on, was that she was creating a memorial in which she would be honored for all time.

Her act was so significant as she was preparing Jesus for his execution in less than a week's time.

He would be impaled to a cross and killed.

And it would happen the day before the Sabbath and close to sunset.

There would not be enough time to properly prepare and apply the customary spices to the body that was tradition for the Jewish burial.

Mary did not know that Jesus would be rushed to his death and that she was coming beforehand to anoint his body for burial.

She thought it was an act of worship, but really we could see God's hand orchestrating the proper processes that were leading Jesus to Calvary.

In John 12, he says, Jesus says this over Mary, she has kept this for the day of my burial.

She had no way of knowing that that was going to be in less than a week's time.

She did not know what she was doing.

We come to Simon of Serene.

He's in town, he's a pilgrim.

It was customary, this is the Passover weekend, and he's coming in town to be a part of that.

A lot of pilgrims made their journey to Jerusalem for the Passover.

And we see him enter the story, the day of the cross.

Simon is pulled from his family and crowd by Roman soldiers to carry the upper beam for Jesus.

He didn't know what he was doing either.

He could not have imagined that he was carrying the cross that we would be seeing about 2,000 years later.

He didn't know that the beam he carried on his shoulder would serve as the lightning rod for God's wrath against sin.

He probably thought he was saving Jesus from a burden Jesus could not carry.

But what he didn't know was actually happening was that Jesus was saving him from a burden he couldn't carry.

His own sin.

Joseph's load was heavy.

And as he's laboring up the hill, he thinks that he's lightened the load of the man in front of him as they ascend the hill.

But what he didn't realize was that the man in front of him was carrying the weight of a much heavier load.

He was wearing and bearing the sin of the world on him.

He carried our sins, and even more than that, he became sin.

See the thing, the only sin at Galgoth of that day was on Jesus.

While carrying the plank, Simon was assisting the champion of heaven as he labored to save our planet.

For he who made him knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ.

And lastly, we come to the third character on the scene that day.

Joseph of Baramathea.

He's a final example of this message of someone who did not know what they were doing that day.

See, Joseph was a prominent member of the Sanhedrin, served in the Supreme Court for the Jewish community.

However, he did not align with the court's decision for Jesus' execution and crucifixion.

In private, he was actually a secret follower of Jesus Christ.

And after Jesus had expired, we know Joseph went before Pilate with a petition for the possession and burial of the body of Jesus.

He would be granted this request.

Joseph would go to the cross, he would take the body down from the cross, wash it, wrap it, lay it in a tomb.

Joseph carefully removed the thorns.

He freed the body from the nails on the cross, at which point he caught the full weight of Christ on his shoulders.

As a priest, and high up, he knew full well the law.

Passover, the celebration, going into the temple.

I wonder if this was his thought in those moments.

By handling this corpse, I am now ceremonially unclean.

And I won't be able to enter the temple or celebrate this Sabbath because I've had the blood of a dead man on me.

He was certainly most caked by the blood soaked body of Jesus.

Here's what he didn't know he was being smeared with the cleansing, healing blood of the new covenant.

Joseph thought he was being defiled.

But what was really happening was that he was being.

Being soiled by the blood that was washing away the sins of the world.

Complete restoration and healing.

I wonder if he would have ever washed those clothes had he realized and understood what he was doing.

God chooses the derogatory object of the cross as the altar upon which Christ is going to atone and spill his blood to purchase our freedom from eternal death.

For those of us who call him Abba, the cross is a symbol of the deepest love we have ever known.

The cross has become precious to me.

Because this is where Jesus, my Savior, the captain of my salvation, takes the absolute worst of me and climbs up onto it and takes it all upon himself.

This is his offer for all of us.

If we would just relent, if we would just give it to him.

The cross is a symbol as I think about it in my mind's eye and I go there.

And why I'm so captured and captivated by it.

Because it's become a symbol of a rope that's been thrown down to the bottom of a filthy pit that I'm sitting in.

And it's allowed me to tether myself, my arms, my legs, everything in my physical being.

And I intertwine with that rope.

And it's what pulled me back up.

It pulled me into life.

It was the total rescue that only God could give a depraved, broken sinner like myself.

And his rescue is complete.

The rescue was complete because I was willing to put myself, my sin, my shame, and all the broken pieces of myself on the cross with Jesus and leave all of it in the pit.

And that's the promise of the cross for all of us.

See, the reality is the cross, it leaves your trash in the pit and it pulls you back to life.

The cross is an anchor today.

Wherever I find it, on my necklace, I see the reflection in the mirror, on a building, in our sanctuary, just coming in sometimes and just sitting before the cross and reflecting.

It's not just Easter for me.

It's not just this Friday.

It's every time I look in the mirror and I can look back and I can love the guy in the mirror because Jesus loved me first.

And from that place, I can spill that love to my family, to you.

That's what Jesus wants for all of us.

To look at the opulence and magnificence and the magnitude of the love of the cross and what he spilled there for all of us, that we would be filled so that we would spill onto others.

And the revolution started at the cross.

I see it hanging in the rear view of my wife's car.

It's the reminder that it was intended to be a gruesome symbol of torture and death, but has been transformed into so much more in my life and into yours.

It's now a symbol of hope and faith and love and eternity.

Something that was derogatory, that wasn't spoken about in polite circles, is now adorned.

Rock stars who don't even know what they're doing, they wear it.

They have it at their shows, and it's like they don't even know what it means.

But it's become such an anchor and a symbol for us to grab hold of.

As we move into Resurrection Sunday, I challenge you, church.

I invite you.

Consider the cross this weekend and how Jesus' spoken words during his most intense moments of pain and suffering can inspire and carry you through your own trials.

Can you find the hope, promise, forgiveness, love, and surrender in his words?

His words are there to comfort us today, church.

To anchor to eternally soaked in his healing, cleansing blood.

Jesus, the wonderful counselor, is speaking to you in this trial you face.

He's coaching you from the other side of the cross.

He's already been there.

He's come through.

He's bled and left it all there.

Can you anchor to the things and the hopes and the promises that he carried with him through?

As we finish, I'd like to invite you all to stand with me.

I'm gonna close with a final passage, but I would just like to encourage all of us in respect and in observance.

When we finish the service, I would just ask you to exit quietly.

And we invite you all back for Resurrection Sunday, where we celebrate the completion of the work of the cross and what God does beyond that.

Luke 23, 44 through verse 46.

Now it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.

Then the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in two.

And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and he said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

It is finished.

Truly, this man was the son of God.