Good Friday 2019: The Cross - Holy Week

You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

The Bible says all of us have sinned and falling short of the glory of God.

Sin is any failure in our lives of not conforming to the moral and ethical perfection of God as an act or morally, but even actually, most importantly, attitudinally.

Sin is not just an individual act of doing things wrong, but rather an inward attitude of rebellion toward God.

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We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

If you brought your Bible, would you turn to Matthew 27?

I want to read some different aspects of that final day, the journey to the cross from Matthew.

It's interesting how each of the four gospel writers have a little bit of a different angle on the crucifixion, but I've chosen Matthew since we're in Matthew as a church right now, speaking on the kingdom of God revolution.

Verse 33.

So Matthew 27, verse 33.

Matthew 27:33

And when they had come to a place called Golgotha, that is to say, the place of a skull, they gave him sour wine mingled with gall to drink, but when he had tasted it, he would not drink.

Then they crucified him and divided his garments, casting lots, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet.

They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.

Sitting down they kept watch over him there.

And they put up over his head the accusation written against him.

This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.

Verse 45.

Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour, there was darkness over all of the land.

And that's why we've chosen to do an afternoon Good Friday service.

And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, Lama, Sabatani, that is my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Verse 50.

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.

Then behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and the graves were open, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.

And coming out of the graves after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

So when the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and the things that had happened, they feared greatly, saying, Truly, this was the Son of God.

Many women, this day, 2,000 years ago, is the greatest day in human history.

It's the greatest day in human history because at Calvary, and when I use the term Calvary, I mean the area, the hill, where we believe the cross was located.

It's been historically called Calvary.

Everything changed.

A revolution began.

It changed the world.

Just as Satan must have been howling in hell or somewhere on the earth, probably not far from Calvary, somewhere outside the gates there of Jerusalem, howling that he had won, he had just defeated himself, of which he wouldn't know anything about for three more days.

One writer said it best, as Jesus' followers look back on that day in light of what happened soon afterward, they come up with the shocking, scandalous, nonsensical claim that Jesus' death had launched a revolution.

That something that afternoon had changed the world.

Without the cross, we would not have God's love as we've experienced it.

Without the cross, we wouldn't have forgiveness as we learn to experience it.

Without the cross, we would not need a resurrection.

There would be no Easter without the cross.

It is at the cross that God launched the revolution, a kingdom of God revolution that has and is changing the world.

This revolution of God can be summed up in one word, and that's the word atonement.

Atonement is a work of Christ by which He secured our salvation.

Men and women, you can't earn your salvation.

You can never give enough.

Nothing more could he give than his very own life, and he earned our salvation, and we use the word atonement.

The centrality of this theme was so present in the early church that many believe in 1 Corinthians 15 3, what I'm about to read, was an early, if not the most early, creed of the church.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins.

Romans 5, 11 sums it up this way.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

The beauty of atonement at the cross is that the death of Christ dealt with the problem of human sin that separated us from God and then made available to us entrance into his holiness in order that we might have a personal, vital, dynamic, growing relationship with God.

That's why the veil was torn in two.

That's why there was an earthquake.

Well, what was the ultimate cause that led God to send his son to die for you and me?

I believe there's two things.

The first is the justice of God.

The Bible gives us this profound statement.

The Bible says all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Sin is any failure in our lives of not conforming to the moral and ethical perfection of God as an act or morally, but even actually, most importantly, attitudinally.

Sin is not just individual acts of doing things wrong, but rather an inward attitude of rebellion toward God.

As a matter of fact, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7, qualifies sin as that very thing, that it's the attitude of our heart that has broken all moral law.

The wages of sin is death, the scriptures say, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

While Christ in his love came to reconcile us through the perfect life that he lived, through the perfect life that he lived, men and women, he qualified himself ethically and morally to be the perfect sacrifice to give us fellowship and a relationship with God.

One writer says it this way unless we give real content to the wrath of God, which by the way we rarely do, because most churches are afraid to, but he says, unless we give real content to the wrath of God, unless we hold that men really deserve to have God visit upon them the painful consequences of their wrongdoing, we empty God's forgiveness of its meaning.

The justice of God required that God find a way for the penalty of our selfish, sinful attitudes of the heart called sin to be paid so that we might have a relationship with God.

How do you like that word?

I want you guys to talk about that at supper tonight with your kids.

Propitiation.

Most of us can't even spell it, including me.

But Romans 3.25 says that Jesus was the propitiation for our sins.

So what does a big word like that mean that we never use today?

It means he was a sacrifice.

It means that he was propitious.

And what that means is that God, through sending his son at Calvary, looked upon you and I with favor.

Isn't that awesome?

He favored you.

He favored the prostitute.

He favored the tax collector.

He favored the thief.

He favored the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

He favored the religious people and the irreligious people.

Propitius, propitiation, favor.

Favoring us in spite of our sin and in spite of our rebellion and in spite of our attitudes.

That's what happened at Calvary.

The justice of God was appeased.

Jesus, in living a sinless, perfect life, became the perfect Lamb of God that had been prophetically pronounced all through the Old Testament, through the sacrifices at the temple.

The perfect Lamb of God, his righteous blood shed at Calvary.

So first, men and women, the justice of God was appeased.

No other religion in the world, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Taoism, no other religion of the world has any ability historically or even in reality today to appease sin.

Only in Christianity do we have a Savior that came at Calvary 2,000 years ago and by the favor of God fulfilled the justice of God in giving us a personal entrance into him.

And that's why that 16-inch thick curtain over the temple was ripped, not from the bottom to the top.

No man could have done it, but from the top to the bottom, enabling all of us to enter from the holy place into the holy of holies with God.

So secondly, secondly, what happened at the cross on Good Friday is the love of God.

Not just the justice of God, but the love of God was fulfilled.

The cross, the death of Christ is the supreme revelation of the love of God.

Nothing in all of the world can compare.

It was the love of God that accomplished the atonement of the wrath of God through the justice of God.

They gave us a personal relationship with God.

None of the writers of the New Testament, it's very interesting, none of the writers of the New Testament, though they do give a few lines in their writings to the historicity, 1 Corinthians 15 being the most noteworthy, the historicity of the cross, did not care about the historical evidence, nor the historicity as it related to the circumstances of the death of Jesus when we look at all the writings of the New Testament.

What they were interested in and what they taught and what they believed and what brought the revelation and the revolution of God was the love of God.

That's what they saw.

Through the most heinous and horrendous and scandalous execution known to men at that time, the crucifixion, the Roman cross, it was the love of God.

The Bible said God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.

The Bible says God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Jesus says, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

The Bible says God did not spare his own son, but gave him up for all of us.

Paul, who more than any other New Testament writer understood the atonement, said, The life I now live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave his life for me.

God was adopting you and me into a family, a kingdom family, a new adoption by which we would turn from our sinful ways and enter into the grace of God called the adoption of God, by which we could now say, Abba Father.

We could now have an intimate relationship with our Heavenly Father, by which we could say, Dad, I love you and you love me.

A relationship which Jesus prophesied, the very first things that he said, as he came forth to begin his public ministry, as he talked about the love of God, the Father said to him, My beloved son, my beloved son, in whom I'm well pleased.

Church, the Lord would say to you today, You're my beloved son.

You're my beloved daughter.

I sent my son to Calvary because you are my beloved son and my beloved daughter.

And I want to adopt you into my family because of my love.

In Romans 3.25, we read Christ is a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of his blood to be received by faith.

Religion, even Christian religion, can't save you.

The church cannot save you.

This church did not die for your sins.

This preacher can't save you.

Mere mental assent to the proclamation that Christ died on the cross and rose again on the third day won't save us.

The Bible says it must be received by faith.

And not the kind of blind faith that you read about or hear about from some of our professors and our and our scientists that want to poke fun at Christianity.

No, our faith is grounded solidly in historical and biblical and biological fact.

You walked in today and you saw these beautiful flowers out there, the tulips and the flowers.

And every one of those seeds, the very seeds that made those beautiful flowers had to die.

Those seeds die and then they're planted and a beautiful plant comes forth.

Everything about our biology, everything about our science speaks of life, death, and resurrection.

And Christ, the first fruits of our own resurrection, came forth and died on the cross at Calvary, but it has to be received by faith.

Again, not blind faith, but trust.

Trusting in what Christ did.

Trusting in what happened with the atonement at the cross.

Trusting the power of God to forgive us of our sins and to give us new life.

Personal faith, not our parents' faith, not our past religious faith, not whether we were baptized, confirmed, or went through a catechism class.

But you, each one of you, young people, old people, wherever you are in your journey in life, have to personally surrender your life, your heart to Christ.

That's faith.

So the justice of God and the love of God kissed on Good Friday.

It's the best Friday.

It's the greatest Friday.

Everything in your life as you now live it is because of what happened 2,000 years ago on that rugged cross.

Psalm 8520, we read, Mercy and truth have met together, righteousness and peace have kissed.

At Calvary on a hill outside of Jerusalem, as Jesus allowed himself to be nailed to a splintered, rugged Roman cross, the love of God and the justice of God kissed, you can experience that too.

It's yours for the asking.

You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

We hope you have been blessed by today's message.

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Thanks again for tuning in today, and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.