Good Friday 2015: The Cataclysmic Revolutionary Shift - Holy Week

Well good afternoon and welcome to the Road to Good Friday service.

Blessings to you and your family today.

Got uh two brief announcements for you.

As you came in today, you saw our table outside, and there'll be these uh cards that we have.

And if you'd want to fill them out, we're gonna be doing an uh event on sunrise service Sunday morning.

Or anything you're wanting to give to God this year, you would put those on the card and fold them up and put those in the containers supplied.

Um we'll be doing um we'll be giving those to God on Easter Sunday.

And then in addition to that, right next to that is also a pamphlet that's gonna cover uh Saturday.

Uh we have an Easter service tomorrow night here in this room.

And then on the back, uh it covers the details for our sunrise Easter service on the prairie and with those times.

So I'd like to invite you all now uh to stand with me as I open our service with a reading from the Apostle Matthew.

As they were coming out, they found a man of Cyrene named Simon, whom they pressed into service to bear his cross.

And when they came to the place called Galgotha, which means the place of the skull, he gave him wine, gave him wine drink mixed with gall, and after tasting it, he was unwilling to drink.

And when they had crucified him, they divided up his garments among themselves by casting lots, and sitting down they began to keep watch over him here.

And above his head they put the charge against him, which read, This is Jesus, King of the Jews.

At that time, two robbers were crucified with him, one to the right and one to the left.

And those passing by were hurling abuse at him, wagging their heads, and saying, You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself, if you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.

In the same way, the chief priests also, along with the scribes and elders, were mocking him and saying, He saved others, he cannot even save himself.

He is the king of Israel.

Let him come now down from the cross, and we will believe in him.

He trusts in God, let God rescue him now.

If he delights in him, for he said, I am the Son of God.

The robbers who had been crucified with him were also insulting him with the same words.

Now from the sixth hour, darkness fell upon the land until the ninth hour.

About the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, Lama Sabak, Thani.

That is, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And some of those who were standing there, when they heard it, began saying, This man is calling for Elijah.

Immediately one of them ran, and taking a sponge, he filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed and gave it him a drink.

But the rest of them said, Let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.

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

And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth shook, and rocks were split.

The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were now raised.

Heavenly Father, we thank you today for your Son Jesus Christ and the perfect, complete, and victorious work he did on the cross that day.

We invite your spirit here today and bless this time together as we remember and celebrate your sacrifice on this Good Friday.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.

I would like to have all the children that are 11 and under to come up here.

If you're 11 years old or under, you guys come up here.

Right up here, yep.

And y'all can be seated right here.

Don't y'all look so nice.

All right, 11 and under.

If you're 12, you can't come up.

Sorry.

You're now a young adult, so 11 and under, come on up.

And moms, if you need to be up here because you might have a child that takes off, feel free to do that.

Hey guys, how are you?

Do y'all know what today is?

Do you know what it's called?

Good Friday.

Good Friday, yes.

Where did you hear that?

Did you hear that from your parents?

Do y'all know what happened on Good Friday?

Jesus died on the cross.

Jesus died on the cross, that's right.

Why did he die on the cross?

Save us from what?

Yeah, what, buddy?

Save us from sins.

Save us from sins.

Anyone here ever done anything bad?

Raise your hand if you've ever done anything bad.

Okay.

I'm glad I don't have a mic up here.

Someone said they haven't done anything bad, but we won't say which child that was.

I do know that child though.

Um so you've done bad things, right?

We call that sin.

Sin is making mistakes, and and actually sin is missing the mark, missing perfection.

Anybody here perfect?

No, nobody's perfect.

You are awesome.

Oh, you're not?

Okay.

Melody, this is yours.

Ben, this is yours.

Yes.

Yes, Kyle.

Jesus died from the cross too from Easter.

That's right.

He died on the cross and then he came back to us on Easter.

Wow, smart child.

That's wonderful.

I'm going to share with you guys a little story.

Now, it's a made-up story.

It's not a true story, but it's to help you understand maybe a little bit about what happened at Good Friday and even why Jesus died on the cross for us.

But I'm Pastor Steve, right?

And I'm a dad, and I'm a husband, and I'm, in one sense, I'm your friend.

I'm your friend.

But let's imagine that I'm also a judge.

Who would like to be a volunteer of a bad person?

Like I need a criminal here.

A really bad criminal.

How about you, buddy?

Okay, I know this one.

Mathon's a criminal, and we are going to imagine that Mathon has done something really bad, and he is guilty of a bad thing.

But we're not going to say what it is.

But all of us are guilty of something, right?

Something we've done wrong.

Okay.

So I am a judge now.

So in one sense, I'm your friend, Mathon.

But in the other sense, I am a judge.

Well, that's right.

I'm not your friend now, I'm a judge.

So hope there's no lawyers or judges out there that feel bad about this illustration, but I think it's pretty good.

So now I was your friend.

I still am your friend, but now I'm a judge, and my responsibilities have changed.

So I'm not only just your friend and that I love you, Matthew, but also I have a law to keep.

So I have a law to enforce.

And you, are you guilty of this?

Are you guilty of being a sinner?

Yes.

Okay, so you are guilty.

So the penalty for that sin is$1,000.

If you could just pay that back to me right now, you'll be innocent and set free.

And if not, we're gonna send you to prison.

So could you pay that, please?

There's nothing in your hand, Matthew.

You don't have any money.

I need$1,000, right?

Now.

You don't have it?

Uh-uh.

Do any of you guys have a thousand bucks?

Anybody just can't got some money on them or anything?

No?

Okay.

What are we gonna do?

You're broke.

Yes.

You're guilty, man.

You you go to prison unless you can come up with a thousand bucks.

You don't have it?

All right.

Anyone have it?

Nobody has it?

Okay.

Well, let's see what we can do here.

So I'm gonna take my robe off, and I'm gonna be not a judge anymore.

I'm gonna be your friend again.

And guess what I've got here?

What is this?

No, it's not a journal.

A checkbook, yes.

And I'm gonna write a check for a thousand bucks, and I've signed it.

I'm signing it with my pen.

And I'm gonna give it to you.

Will you hold it?

It's to the state of Colorado, and I just thought it was very appropriate to write a check since we'll all be doing that by April 15th.

So I'm a judge again.

You are guilty.

So I need a thousand dollars.

You have a thousand dollars.

You're forgiven.

You're set free.

You don't have to go to prison.

You don't have to pay the penalty for your sin.

And children, that's what Jesus did.

See, God the Father came and he became like us.

And all of us like Mathen have been sinners.

We've we've all done bad things.

And he came and he paid the penalty for us.

And if we accept that, if we accept what he did on the cross, it's like kind of like this check.

He comes with his blood and his love and his forgiveness, and he sets you free.

And you don't have to go to hell.

You don't have to go to prison.

It's a lot more than that, isn't it?

Amen.

So that's what Jesus did at Good Friday.

He came and paid the penalty so that you could be set free and you don't have to go to prison.

Let's pray.

For Good Friday.

Thank you that it truly is the worst but the best day that the world has ever known.

Thank you for these precious saints.

May God your richness and your grace and your love and your forgiveness be felt in their lives even as they grow older.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

All right, you can go back to your seats.

Let me make a little clarification on the card that Ryan was talking about.

What we've, if you were not here the last couple weeks, on that card, what we're encouraging you to do is write down something that you want to dedicate, commit, give to the Lord at Easter.

And what we're doing is we're taking a basket.

There's a basket out there near the giving box.

And if you've got something that you're committing to the Lord, or something that maybe is even addiction you want to be broken free of, or maybe it's even a positive thing of giving time to the Lord in a fresh new way, you're gonna write that on the card and then put it in that basket.

And that what we're gonna do in dedication is at the sunrise service on Sunday morning, we're gonna take those baskets and we're gonna just dump it in this massive bonfire that we're having.

So we're giving that to the Lord, a symbolic way of kind of rededicating and recommitting ourselves and things to the Lord here this uh this Easter.

So we are here Easter.

Our Easter is tomorrow night, and our Easter sunrise service is Sunday morning at the bright and beautiful hour of 6 a.m.

So no pressure, men, but this is really where we separate the men from the boys.

And uh no, if you can come, that would be great.

Many of you get my blog, so you've read my perspective on Good Friday, and I'm calling it Dangerous Friday.

That the most dangerous man who ever lived, who proclaimed the most dangerous message ever given, which established the most dangerous movement the world has ever known, died on this day, 33 AD.

All of our calendars are changed.

All of the armies that have ever fought, all the different nations that have ever been established can't come close to the movement and the work that Jesus Christ did starting at Good Friday.

That's why we join, and don't miss this, but we join millions around the world that are establishing, living, and celebrating Good Friday in all kinds of different ways.

I mean, there are guys that have they have the bells and they have the smells and they have the incense.

Some have high church services, some are low church, some are in beautiful cathedrals, and others are in thatched-roofed churches.

From Papua New Guinea to New York City, Good Friday is being celebrated.

Every major newspaper, every major magazine, Newsweek and Time will once again, once a year, come out with another skeptic's report on who is Jesus and still keep asking the question that everybody already has an answer for, at least at least a fifth of the world, if not a quarter of the world, believes that Jesus Christ was our Lord and our Savior.

But it all began on Good Friday.

And church, don't miss this that we wouldn't have Easter if we didn't have Good Friday.

And we wouldn't have a movement if we didn't have Good Friday.

And we wouldn't have our sins forgiven if we hadn't had Good Friday.

The most horrible day in the history of the world is the greatest day in the history of the world and the most dangerous day that has ever happened.

Everything changed.

There was a cataclysmic shift, ecologically, spiritually, and religiously and socially, like the world has never known.

On that particular day.

I believe there was literally an Adam and an Eve.

As great as that is, there's a great deluge.

More and more the archaeologists are discovering that there was some kind of a great flood that occurred.

We know about the Exodus, and there's more proof positive all the time of the findings, even in the last ten years, of wheels and spokes and chariots that would indicate some kind of a catastrophic event with the Egyptians chasing after the Israelites in the great Exodus.

And we know of some of the great wonders of the world, like the pyramids, and we have the pyramids today, and two great temples, which were the great wonders of the world, Solomon's temple and then Herod's temple.

But nothing, whether it be the Romans or the Greek civilization or the great philosophers of Athens compare to Good Friday.

And it's cataclysmic in so many ways.

A cataclysmic revolutionary shift.

That this man, Jesus Christ, changed a view of humankind that seems normal and natural to us today, but philosophically and socially, religiously, and economically radically changed the face of the globe, that all men are created equal.

That whether you're black or you're white or whatever your color might be, that you're equal in God's eyes.

That no matter what your gender is, you're equal in God's eyes.

And there's no sealing on your potential.

Because Jesus came to break the power of our selfishness and our sinfulness, our lack of potential through the power of what he did at Good Friday.

It's a dangerous day.

It's a day where if we had the opportunity to look into the fourth dimension that was happening there, the demons and the satanic powers were glib and celebrating in their sadistic way the death of the Son of God.

Boy, were they in for a surprise.

A cataclysmic shift and a new revolutionary order was begun on that day.

If you have your Bibles, look at Matthew 27 again.

Look at Matthew chapter 27.

Matthew 27 · chapter mention

And instead of reading the whole story again, I want to start at the death of Christ.

So look at verse 50.

Matthew 27, verse 50.

Matthew 27:50

And Jesus cried out again.

So he's already cried out.

And if you if you combine all the different gospel accounts, he said several things.

In our Matthew account, he has cried out with in some mystical sense, some mysterious sense, he felt separated from his father.

But in verse 50, we read, and Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.

So Jesus yields up, some translations, the King James version says he gave up the ghost.

He yielded up his spirit, he yielded up his heart.

Jesus never spiritually died, but he physically died, and he gave that up to the Father, and he entered hell.

We say that in our creeds.

Jesus entered hell.

He didn't go to hell to be punished for sin, for Jesus never sinned.

But he took on our sin and he entered into hell, and something happened down there.

Now we know the story of Lazarus and the rich man, which gives us an insight into paradise and this great gulf that separates those in prison, those separated, and from paradise.

And I believe that at that point when Jesus gave up the ghost, when he gave up his spirit, when he yielded to the Father, the sin of all of us and all of humankind, past, present, and future, were laid upon him.

He took that penalty and he went into Hades.

He went into this Hades hell area and it was reconstituted at that point.

And he came and there was some kind of a confrontation.

There was some kind of a confrontation in which Jesus came to announce that those who had been captive were now captive to him, and they are now set free.

There was a cataclysmic shift, and in some way, shape, or form, Revelation gives us an insight.

He took the keys of sin and death that Satan had, and he took them back, and the prison doors were open, and there was literally a cataclysmic shift in the fourth dimension that impacted our three-dimensional world.

Look what it says next.

Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

Not from bottom to top.

No human could have torn the veil of the temple.

The veil of the temple was sixty by thirty feet.

Separating the Holy of Holies from the holy place.

The priest was the only one who could enter there.

Like the size of a wall here, four inches thick.

The veil was ripped from top to bottom.

In the temple.

Consider one of the seventh great wonders of the world.

The temple of Herod.

It had been in construction for 50 years.

We're in Mark 13 right now in our regular study at the road.

We're in the last days event where Jesus is speaking of what it will be like in the latter days, and it's called the Olivet Discourse.

And he's up on the Olivet and he's giving us seven signs of the coming of the Lord in the last days, and he's looking out at this splendid temple.

Herod's temple.

The gold was so refined and so beautiful laid out on the walls of the temple of Herod that they said you could see when the sun was setting, you could see the gold shining from 50 miles away.

On the seven wonders of the world.

And here, as Jesus yields up his spirit, there is a cataclysmic shift in the fourth dimension that now comes and impedes upon the three-dimensional world.

And God rips the temple, gang.

God rips the temple.

And that temple curtain is ripped.

And there's now access, don't miss the symbol, don't miss the point.

There's now access to intimacy with God.

And not through a priest.

You don't need a priest, you don't need an intercessor.

We now have an intercessor.

We have a bridge.

And it's Jesus.

We can have intimacy with the Father.

There's no longer the barrier because of our sin.

But rather there's an entrance because our sins are forgiven.

God ripped the curtain of the temple to open up intimacy and relationship with him.

And the earthquake.

There was a physical cataclysmic shift that affected the ecology of the earth.

The geologics of the earth were impacted by the spiritual cataclysmic shift of Christ lifting up his spirit and dying.

The Bible says, for the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope.

Because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

For we know that the whole creation groans and labors, listen, with birth pangs together until now.

We just looked at this last week.

That Jesus, in predicting the coming of the Lord, when he will come on a white steed, when he will come with an army on white horses.

For all of you wonder, are there animals in heaven?

There's at least white horses, we know that.

He's going to come back to the Mount of Olives.

And he says, the signs of the Lord and upon the earth are like birth pangs.

They're like labor upon the earth.

So you see what's happening here is that as we even see in the 20th and 21st century, this huge influx, this huge rise in earthquakes across the globe.

In a sense, this is the first birth pang of the coming of the Lord through the death of Christ.

And there's this ecological, there's this geological shift that affects the globe.

It actually affects the earth, and there's an earthquake.

The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars.

Yes, the Lord splinters the cedars of Lebanon.

The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness.

The Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

God comes, the voice of the Lord.

Remember the law of Moses at Mount Sinai.

As the law was given, there was an earthquake, and there was thunder and there was lightning.

And now we believe there was a solar eclipse, and there's darkness upon the face of the globe, and there's an earthquake, the cataclysmic shift of the death of Christ at Good Friday.

And the graves were open.

This is a weird one.

The graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.

And coming out of the graves after his resurrection, and don't miss this, because Jesus is the first fruits of our resurrection.

So this happened after his resurrection, but the graves are open.

They went into the holy city and appeared to many.

How would you like that?

You wonder if you know Uncle Bob said, I want my inheritance back.

I mean, that would be weird, right?

I mean, you you know, he's been dead for five or six years, he's been dead for 20 or 30 years, and he's back.

Uncle Bob's back.

Who did he give his clothes to?

I always went around to hear that.

Was he old?

Were they old?

Were they younger now?

There's a cataclysmic shift.

So there's a cataclysmic shift as Jesus yields himself up to the Lord.

There's a spiritual, religious, cataclysmic shift, and the veil is ripped, the 60 by 30 foot four-inch veil is ripped from top to bottom, giving us, for the first time in the history of humankind, access into intimacy with Christ.

There is this seismic shift of the earth, the crust of the earth, and there's an earthquake.

And now, what is this?

Is it not that beginning of the army?

The little army.

There was a little army that day.

They came out of the graves on Sunday, on the first day of the week.

They came forth.

And there's been this shift, and the graves have been opened, and I don't know what it was like.

It doesn't really say, but it's almost like they came by and they saw when that earthquake occurred, tombs have been shifted.

Maybe tomb uh stones had been moved away, but they don't see anybody yet.

But they've got to be wondering what happened to Bob.

But, church, that's what's going to happen to us.

There's a day coming.

The Lord tarries, we will, the 100% mortality rate.

We will die.

But we won't die.

And we'll enter into this place of the resurrection of Christ.

And so there's this unlocking of the doors.

And here's what I think happened is that Christ came, and in some sense, he came into Hades and He took the keys of sin and death away from the enemy, from Satan, and there was a powerful release, and Old Testament saints of old were set free as a type of what's going to happen in the latter days.

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.

So centurions were in charge of between 80 and 100 men.

These are the best of the best.

These are the elite, the most elite fighting force the world knew at that time.

These are the most brave, courageous men.

Centurions led from the front.

They were on the right flank of a century formation.

The mortality rate among centurions was extremely high because of battle, because of fighting.

These are the best of the best.

These are warriors.

I just find it fascinating that our gospel accounts speak of a centurion seeing the cataclysmic shift that occurred.

Maybe there's people even screaming, coming out of the temple right now.

There's been an earthquake, there's been a shaking, and he says, This man truly is the Son of God.

A first disciple of the Great Commission with the death of Christ.

Christ can melt the most hardened heart.

The centurion.

Believe in your heart.

And he begins that cataclysmic shift in your life.

He wants to come and he wants to break that hardened heart.

He wants to set you free.

That's the message of Good Friday, and it's a dangerous day.

Don't listen.

Don't follow Christ if you want an easy life.

Don't follow Christ if you want to follow the crowd.

Don't follow Christ if you don't want an earthquake.

Don't follow Christ if you want to stay right where you're at.

But if you're sick of where you're at, if you're tired of being tired, if you're frustrated with life in this cycle of endless addiction and brokenness and inability to walk in power, come to Jesus.

Because when we come to Jesus, he comes within, and this is the message of the torn veil, that it's not religion anymore.

It's not sacrifices anymore.

It's not an outward, inward religion.

It's an inward, outward relationship that comes through knowing him.

Let's stand.

As we go into worship, I want to invite you to close your eyes and enter into this dangerous Friday.

Enter into this dangerous man who preached a dangerous message that built a dangerous movement.

And that is why we're here today.

Because of what he did on Good Friday.

So, Father, in the name of your Son Jesus Christ, our friend, our lover, our warrior, we bless you, we worship you, thank you for who you are.

And we celebrate that at Good Friday you died and you went to hell, and that on the third day you rose again and brought to us a new cataclysmic way, revolutionary perspective of how to live through the power of your Holy Spirit.

Amen.