Famous Last Words: My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me? - Keith Roberson

Man, have y'all been loving some sunshine? It's been amazing.

I like winter, but at some point in time, the dreary and darkness just kind of, it gets to you.

So when you get a little bit of sunlight, it's kind of amazing.

Some warmth, it's fun. Vaughn, I remember this idea of darkness.

There was a, we were, our family was watching a scientific show.

It was kind of this fun scientific show.

And they were trying to give scientific explanations to regular phenomena,

things that happen in life.

And one of the things that they wanted to talk about was the experience of being

frightened or darkness.

Darkness and and so what they did is they they painted a

man as a gargoyle and then he

went on a little perch and this

they did this experiment that how people would

react to this painted gargoyle man

that somehow when as they were walking by he came alive and what they would

do and for as we're watching this show together as a family for the next 15

minutes we are cracking up up watching this little gargoyle man scare these

people and the reactions that people have.

And I mean, the people are like, they're jumped back and like one guy like lunges

and it's like, it's amazing the different expressions that people had as they're getting scared.

I'm sure you've seen this before on Instagram or whatever, these kinds of things.

So anyway, it's fun. We're enjoying this as a family and then time for bed.

It's time for kids to go to bed and look at my youngest daughter her and say,

hey, sweetheart, time for you to go upstairs and go to the bathroom,

brush your teeth and get your PJs on, get ready.

And she's like, nope, not.

She's looking up those stairs. It's dark and going, no.

And because this phenomena, like, I don't know what's in the darkness up there.

And I don't think there's a gargoyle in our house, but I'm not going up there.

So we did bedtime all together at that moment just to make sure we could get through all the things.

We experience frightful things in this life, darkness.

We all do. We all have moments of fear and disappointment, pain,

hardship, and darkness.

It is a part of the human experience.

We've all had dark days of our lives, certainly worse than being scared by a little gargoyle man.

We've had moments where you just didn't know what to do next.

You ever been there? You just didn't know what to do. You felt like really lost.

Like, I don't know what the right next step is. If you've ever been there before,

you've had moments where you're facing fears or doubts or worries that you have no control over,

and they're like staring you in the face.

I've had these moments. Or you're dealing with insecurities,

Inabilities that you have where you don't feel like you can overcome or even

a sense of just being alone,

And these are dark things you feel paralyzed or even locked from some of those

experiences So you've had moments maybe even where darkness was thrust upon

you and you didn't ask for it at all or someone hurt you or took advantage of you or abused you or.

Neglected you Or even abandoned you these

are real experiences that all

humans have and doesn't really matter how

bright the sun is shining outside we can

feel really taken aback by those experiences doesn't

matter really how many people you could be even in a big crowd like today and

still feel very alone darkness is a real thing and at times i think it feels

like it could swallow you up and i think it doesn't matter what what dark moments we have faced.

This is true for all of humanity that we all know when those moments come,

what we're really desperate for is just a ray of hope.

That's what we want. When you're walking through the valley,

if you will, and it's shadowy and you don't know the way forward,

what you're looking for is like, is there something hopeful around the corner?

Founder is there an opportunity to break out of this because that's what i want

i don't want to stay i don't want to have to be stuck in this moment.

This is the moment that we're looking at here in this text this morning,

where Jesus is fully understanding of the darkness.

Matthew chapter 27, we're looking at these final moments with Jesus on the cross

Matthew 27 · chapter mention

and these things that he spoke so that we can better understand what's happening

and what it means for our lives.

We're looking at this. And Matthew chapter 27, we'll just do verse 45.

Matthew 27 · chapter mention

If you got your Bibles there, you can look. Verse 45, if you didn't have a Bible,

there should be one under the chair in front of you.

Now from the sixth hour, there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. It's a long time.

About the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying,

saying, Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani.

It's Aramaic. That is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And some of the bystanders hearing it said, this man is calling Elijah.

So we'll just stop here. So there it is on the cross and Jesus utters this question

that I think we all would wrestle to fully understand because it feels earth

shattering for this moment,

for the one who is seemingly the most sure, right?

Who walks in this life in such authority, all through the gospels, the story of Jesus.

He's always walking with authority.

He always knows the perfect and right thing to say for every moment.

It's actually uncanny. There's never been anyone in human history who has been so perfect,

knowing exactly, you read this story in John chapter eight, when the woman who's

caught in adultery is thrown down in front of Jesus And they're going, we know what the law is.

It's time to stone this woman. Jesus, what do you say?

Trying to entrap him. And he just says, okay, then whoever doesn't have sin,

you be the first one. Go for it.

Just the perfect thing, the right thing, the right moment to say.

And everyone has to drop their rocks because they know they're broken too.

Jesus always knows the right thing to say. So when he says, my God,

my God, why have you forsaken me?

It might cause you to step back. What's going on here?

Because you look around and you go, did he not know that this was coming?

Well, that's not it. Certainly, he's been telling his disciples the whole time this moment is coming.

He knows fully that this hour is going to happen in his life.

Why is he asking about his own peril here? Is he actually like, is he losing faith?

Well, no. What we know is that he says in Matthew chapter 12,

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

John chapter 2, he says, hey, I'm going to tear this thing down and rebuild

John 2 · chapter mention

it in three days. He knows what's happening in three days. He's fully aware.

He's been telling the truth the whole time. He knows what's happening.

So it becomes confusing. People were actually even like, what is he saying?

Because he says, Eli, is he saying Eliah? Is he calling for Elijah?

That's what his name was.

Because there was a general understanding in Jewish culture that because Elijah

went and was taken up into heaven, that at some point in time,

he might come back and rescue those who were righteous?

There was this picture and idea. So is he calling on Elijah to kind of come

and help him out? What's happening here?

And what we're going to get to see is Jesus isn't flippantly speaking.

There's something deep within him that's coming out of him.

I don't know if you've ever been in a moment where like you got really pressed

and something came out of you.

And sometimes it's a fight or flight, right? Thing.

I don't know if you've ever been there there before, but you get pressed.

And then all of a sudden you're like, I didn't know that was in me.

Excuse me. You know, or just, I'm not, I'm sorry about that.

Or like how I just responded there.

Come on. If you've ever been pressed before, Jesus is being pressed in this moment.

And what's coming out of him is amazing.

Quoting, because what Jesus actually doing is quoting scripture.

So he's being pressed and what's coming out of him is the word of God,

which is amazing because he is the word of God.

And so he's quoting the 22nd Psalm to express what's in his heart in this moment.

Psalm 22, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? This is verbatim.

Why are you so far from saving me from the words of my groaning?

Oh my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer. And by night, but I find no rest.

He's dug in deep into this well that's in him because the weight of darkness,

that we've all known is sitting upon him when you and i look at the injustice

of the cross when we look at how wrong how broken even evil if you will this

moment is to crucify someone who who is perfect.

We see and we think about the physical torment that's happening.

We feel the crown of thorns that's upon his head and these nails that have now

pierced his body and hole in his side and the 39 lashes with bone and rock across

his back as he's pressed against the cross.

We feel the weight

of his feet where he's pressing up

to try to get air and you feel the

weight of this injustice and yet these things are nothing compared to the weight

of what's sitting on him in this moment that's the real darkness though painful

is not what's happening to him physically what Jesus is declaring,

quoting this text, is this suffering that's happening that you can't see with

your eyes. It's this darkness of rejection.

It's this darkness of the judgment of the Father against my sin and your sin

and our collective brokenness that is upon Him in this hour.

Therefore, Paul summarizes perfectly what's happening in this hour.

In 2 Corinthians 5, for our sake.

He, the Father, made him, Jesus, to be sin, who knew no sin,

so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Now, here it is, son of God, perfect spotless one has become sin.

And it's pressing on him. And this is the dark moment in which we see Jesus

experiencing the punishment that we deserved, that I deserve.

Not just the physical or the emotional, but this is the spiritual separation from his father.

If you can imagine this father, son, and spirit who who have lived together

in perfect union from eternity past, who've had perfect intimacy.

Nothing has foiled. Nothing is ever stolen from this perfect connection and

intimacy for all eternity past. Can't even get your mind around it.

And here at this moment, for the first time ever, judged and separated.

And this moment, he's feeling what we all experience,

pain and struggle and failure and doubts and questions and the aloneness of

what sin has done to our lives.

We know what it's like when life is hard and broken, right? When life doesn't come easy. easy.

We have those everyday challenges, but then we have those stark moments, those broken moments.

We've all had them, those moments where things seem lost or things seem insurmountable

or things feel like they're too much.

And we've all been there. You might even find yourself today like,

I'm in a spot where I feel so lost.

We just feel like Jesus crying out, why, my God, why have you you forsaken.

I don't know if you've ever been there before.

Like I feel alone here. I'm walking through things and the answers don't seem to be there.

And I've been in this for a while and nothing seems to be changing.

You ever been there before?

And you're saying, oh my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer.

And by night, but I find no rest. And that is real.

God is so real. Thank Thank God for the Bible being just straight real, right?

It's easy to do the paint the church face, but golly, this is just as real as it gets.

This is like real human experience.

And Jesus is quoting this text on purpose because he knows what's next.

He's telling us something in the darkness.

He's not just calling attention to his own feelings, but he's going beyond by

faith because he knows the rest of Psalm 22.

He knows the rest of it because he knows there's hope on the horizon.

That one thing that all of us are desperate for, for hope on the horizon.

Because look at verse three, yet.

Everybody say yet. Yet. Dang. Get this word in your vocabulary.

Yet. Yet you are holy and throned on the praises of Israel.

Now that is real.

I'm praying. I feel abandoned. I'm crying out. and you don't seem to be there yet, yet.

I'm abandoned yet. This might be the most important word in your and my vocabulary, yet.

There is a faith that exists that is greater than the darkness, period.

There is a faith that is greater than the darkness, period.

This is what Jesus is there for, to carry darkness and to be able to say yet.

Yet, Psalm 139, if I say, surely the darkness shall cover me and the light about

me be night, even the darkness is not dark to you.

The night is as bright as the day for darkness is as light.

Dang. I added that. That's not in the Bible, but I put that in there.

But it feels like, I don't know, whatever Selah, that might just being dang.

I don't know, but it just, it feels like.

Meaning, if my faith is floundering and I'm wrestling with the darkness and

in the pain and the disappointment, it does not hinder the might of my God.

And that is something to live for.

That is actually something to go like, oh my gosh, I can live in this life.

I've got joy. I have meaning and purpose. I have hope in front of me always when you have Jesus.

You have hope always when you have Jesus.

And this is why this thing is so much, this is so important because we're not

talking about a religion where we do a system in order to try to somehow gain

favor with God so that we can make it to the end.

No, we have the God of the universe who's done it all for us and says,

now live out of the hope that I've already accomplished for you.

And so our our fears and our doubts and the darkness in front of us is actually the open invitation.

For faith to rise up and believe God more than what the world says in front of us.

So that any doubts or fears that you might be carrying, anything that's in front

of you that feels daunting, anything, any mountain in front of you,

like, I don't know where to go. I don't know what to do. I don't know how we're going to get there.

And the journey behind me was tough. And I'm looking in front of you ever been,

if you've ever been in that place, Jesus isn't like, Hey, where's your faith?

Get yourself together. He's not condemning. He's saying, come.

I know what that darkness feels like hung on me on the cross.

So I know what that feels like. Come with me. He meets us in it. He meets us in it.

You might even feel condemned by folks in the church.

And you've gone through dark moments and you felt hurt or like your faith was floundering.

And God sees fears and doubts as this place for faith to begin to shine, for light to shine.

And he's just saying, hold on, because the yet is there for everyone.

And the yet's not based on our circumstances. The yet is based on the King.

Psalm 30 says, sorrow may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning.

Dang, y'all should preach. Get up here. Let's do this.

Sorrow may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning.

And so the question is this, what do we do when we find ourselves in the dark moments?

That's the question. Okay. All right, Lord, what do we do? What do we do?

That's the question we we get to ask ourselves, how do I get to the morning?

And so I think the scripture actually is the best answer to that question.

It gives us so many just rock solid things.

So we get to go, okay, well, what do we do here, Lord? And so number one is,

okay, we're going to acknowledge my God is in control, even in the darkness.

My God is in control, even in the darkness. us.

So we're going to allow the word to revive our hearts.

All right. That's how we do it. This is Jesus on the cross here.

Feels like maybe things have gone off the rails. I guarantee you,

if you're the disciples, you're Jesus's mom.

You're watching him upon the cross. You feel like things have gone off the rails.

It is, this is not gone the way that we thought it was going to go.

This feels dark. This feels sad. They all flee.

They all leave. We knock on Peter, but they all left. John's the only one hanging

around. They're all gone.

They're putting sour wine in his face and taunting him. This feels like it's gone off the rails.

But Jesus knows Psalm 22. He knows what's going on.

Verse seven, if you want to flip, you can go to Psalm 22 if you want.

We're going to go through a couple of these, but it says, all who see me mock me.

They make mouths at me. They wag their heads.

What's his response? wants, he trusts in the Lord. Let him deliver him. Let him rescue him. Why?

For he delights in him. Boom.

Water bottle drop. So good. That was just Holy Spirit moment.

Boom. I'm going to put this is in the middle.

Verse 16, 18, that same text there, it's going to say exactly what they're doing.

They're going to mock him. They're going to sell. They're going to cast lots.

I can gamble cast lots over his clothes.

He's going to have pierced hands and pierced feet. There's a thousand.

This is written a thousand years before Jesus comes on the scene.

God was calling the shot shot from the beginning. Hear this.

Nothing about the darkness surprises God. You and I tend to feel toxic shame

when we're going through dark moments because we've failed. We've fallen short.

We don't know where to go. We don't know what to do. We feel the frailty and

the humanity that we have, and God's not standing back going,

oh my gosh, you've gotten yourself into a pickle. What are we going to do now?

God's going, I know about the darkness. Come running to me. I have the answer for you.

I'm in control here. There's nothing about this moment that is bigger than me. I know. I know.

God was intricately, a thousand years before, intricately orchestrating the

darkest moment in all of human history.

He is not surprised by what you're walking through.

So he's well aware.

So there's an invitation.

Come, tell me, see me. I'm in control.

You don't have to fret. I know this is hard. I know this is dark, but I know.

So it's time for us to talk to him about it. and let's acknowledge,

God, you are in control, and I trust you.

And when we talk to him about it, not only, God, are you in control,

but we can acknowledge, God, you're not only just in control,

but you're working for my good.

Here's the promise. Again, we just go back to the Word.

Not only are you aware of what's going on, but in this somehow,

I don't know if you've ever been there before. You're like, how could this be good?

And yet it is. That's the promise. Psalm 22, go back to verse four.

In you our fathers trusted, they trusted, and you delivered them.

To you they cried and were rescued. In you they trusted and were not put to shame.

This is what's in Psalm 22.

This is what Jesus is crying out on the cross. It's the weight of what he's

experiencing and feeling, but knowing there's hope. This is Romans 8, 28.

We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those

who are called according to his purpose.

So what scripture is great about is that we don't whitewash things.

Meaning the Bible doesn't say that God makes bad things magically not bad.

Bad things are bad. Dark is dark.

It doesn't pretend like dark things aren't dark. What he says is in the darkness,

I will, I am working for your good.

Through the struggles, through the questions, through the hardships,

relationships through the not understanding, through the pain,

I'm working for your good.

I remember the, I remember a moment, I could, I could, I have 50 moments of

like, ah, I remember in college just being like so broken and just feeling lost.

And I don't know, I felt the call to ministry.

It's kind of like, I feel like I'm kind of strayed from the faith and I'm, I feel broken.

I'm not you know, I just feel distant from the lord. I feel like I don't know,

If i'm supposed to keep going on.

I just don't know. I felt really I don't know if you ever felt really dead in

your faith and just had moments like I don't know.

I've blown it I'm, not sure what i'm supposed to do I don't know where to go feel.

I mean just feel really broken and just Just by the grace of god had a couple

of buddies that were just willing, able to just go, just speak the truth.

Hey, Keith, God's got so much for you. Well, it didn't feel like it.

Yeah, but you don't have to worry about that.

God sees you. He got a calling on your life. I don't know. I don't believe it today.

And then the next day, and the next day, and at some point in time,

by the grace of God, he breaks through.

And this is what it means to hold on to just keep your eyes on him This is what

it means to say my god. Why have you forsaken me and to say yet?

Because god's ready to break through when you're down you are never out because God is faithful.

He's working for our good in the hardest moments And when we get to do that,

then we get to acknowledge listen God will give us his victory.

God will give us his victory I don't know how it's gonna look.

I the truth is I couldn't promise you even for two seconds that this life That

you get promised everything is easy and happy and hunky-dory I'm,

pretty sure nobody says that anymore.

I'm, sorry. I said hunky-dory. I don't know. It's not even an expression anymore.

I have no promise of that at all. But what God does have is decisive final promise.

Whatever darkness and pain you have experienced in this life,

it will be redeemed forever, forever.

Those hardships you face, we've had some. And we've had to lean on those promises many times.

Our family, many occasions.

Am I going to experience victory? The answer is yes. Yes.

I don't like the circumstance now, but I trust.

Psalm 22 verse 27, all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the

Psalms 22:27

Lord and all the families of the nations shall worship before you for kingship

belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations,

meaning he is decisively victorious forever.

And he's got that for you and me.

So we're being called to hold on. So the psalm starts with, my God,

my God, why have you forsaken me?

And it finishes with, all the earth is going to see you are the king forever. forever.

That is the spectrum of the human experience in Christ.

Darkness is real. Let me hear that. I want you to hear this.

Darkness is incredibly dark.

Those who do not have Jesus, because this life is as good as it gets.

Well, you're apart from Jesus. You do not have Jesus. This life is as good as it gets.

So when you experience darkness, you're dog paddling, trying to stay above water.

When you are in Christ, this life is as bad as it will ever be.

You're here for one hour, and then you've got an eternity of redemption,

of every broken thing being restored.

Every hurt, every wound, every abuse,

every pain, every doubt, every fear, everything you have ever walked through,

every dark moment you have chosen to step into,

every dark moment that was perpetrated against you will be fully and decisively

redeemed forever. forever.

So you and I will live in the fullness of all that he accomplished.

He sat in that dark hour on that cross so you and I could be free this morning.

So we lean on him. We come and we just say, okay, God, I'm going to give you darkness.

And here's the pain and here's the sorrow and here's my shame and here's my

guilt and here's my aloneness and here's sadness and here's my anger and here's all of it.

And we bring it to him with authenticity like David did a thousand years before Jesus showed up.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? God's not afraid of that question.

He's ready for it. He's actually asking us, can we ask that question with him

and bring that kind of authenticity to this relationship with God and see what he will do.

He redeems and restores. Our life is a testament to it and your lives are too,

for all of us who've called. I'm gonna ask our team to come up.

So we just have a moment. We just gotta have some space here to just be with

the Lord. You guys stand with me.

Put your Bibles away and just have a few minutes. And we're going to do something

just courageous, which is to say, hey, Lord, here's what's in front of me.

And I want to be honest with you. You might not be in an earth shattering moment.

You might be in a really painful moment. Doesn't really matter where you're at right now.

We just get to be real and authentic with the Lord.

Music.

And would you just offer to the Lord,

everything that feels like it's pushing back against you? Maybe you feel alone.

Maybe you're not sure where to go next.

Maybe you feel really disappointed about how things have worked out over the

last, in the past months or years even.

Maybe you have some real worries and fears for your family or your children or for yourself.

Maybe you've got some colossal failures that have just been scratching at you, maybe your whole life.

Music.

Psalmist, like Jesus on the cross, would you bring that authentically before

the Lord and offer it to him?

I'm not going to ask you to say it out loud. I'm not going to ask you to come

forward. I'm just asking you to very really and authentically just offer to

the Lord what's in front of you.

Music.

And let's acknowledge god you are in control would you release control first

so we do i release control i open my hands if it's helpful for you to do that open your hands,

i'm releasing you're in control not me you're in control not me here are my

fears here are my doubts. Here are my worries.

Here's my sadness, my loneliness, whatever it is, my shame, my guilt.

I'm handing it over. You're in control.

And you're working for my good. I see you, Jesus. You're working for my good

right now. Believe it, even just in your own heart.

Would you tell her, I believe you're working for my good in this.

I don't see it. I may not understand it, but I'm just believing right now. You're working for me.

You see me. I'm not alone.

You hung on that cross for our good.

So you will not abandon us.

So I'm handing it over. You work for my good. You're working for my good. You're tenderizing my.

Music.

And now just receive victory,

you're decisive in the wind nothing can trump you nothing can come over you

nothing sits above you you.

Every hurt and pain will be atoned for and redeemed and restored.

So I'm trusting you. I receive victory. I receive what you have to offer to me.

My hands are open to receive God.