Good Friday 2017

So we're here to contemplate Good Friday.

And I I I know what you I know what you could have been doing.

You know what you could have been doing.

You could have been shoving hot dogs and uh beer and soda into your bellies at the Braves game.

I'm aware of that, so you know I'm I'm really impressed, very impressed with you.

Um because this is not always, like I said, as I greeted you guys, this is not always the most attractive thing to do, to come to a Good Friday service and contemplate the sacrifice of Jesus.

Uh to come to Easter Sunday with brunch and uh you know floral dresses, you know, that that's just the more celebratory thing to do.

And yet we're here.

You're here, you're here, and I'm here.

And so why would we do this?

Why would any of us do this?

Why are you here?

Well, because uh we can't do any of this ourselves.

That's why.

That's why you're here to contemplate the cross.

You're here to contemplate the cross because you can't do it yourself.

And I've been trying, I don't know about you.

Like I said, I have all my self-salvation projects, and I've been trying and trying and trying to justify myself before God with my righteousness and my spiritual record and everything I like to hold up to Him every day because I love to hold it up to Him or to you or somebody to be impressed by me.

I love to do that, and I love to have my salvation projects in all those, you know, power, prestige, and position and all of those things, or anything that I produce, just anything that I produce.

Right?

And yet none of that justifies us.

None of it.

And so we come to contemplate the cross because we need the cross.

That's what this is about.

That there's nothing, there's nothing I can do and nothing you can do to earn love and earn mercy.

And we need mercy.

I need mercy.

I need God's mercy to me because I'm not perfect.

And this is the most freeing thing we can hear and remember is to realize that we need the cross and that we're not perfect.

This is unbelievably freeing because I don't want to pay for it.

And I've been trying and it doesn't work.

The more I try, the more bound I am.

And so to be free from that by the cross, that's incredible to contemplate, to contemplate all of my sin has been put upon him and his righteousness has been put upon me, the more I contemplate that and live in that deep love and that, now I'm free.

I'm free when I'm able to abide in that.

See, love and mercy that is given to us is always sacrificial, it's always sacrificial.

Whether it's from your from your mama or your daddy or your grandmama, I mean, if you've ever experienced love and mercy given to you, there was sacrifice by somebody to give it.

And so the ultimate act, the ultimate act of loving you perfectly, perfectly, no matter what you do, no matter what you do, is the ultimate act of sacrifice.

So I'd like to, in just in the next few minutes, read through Isaiah 53.

It's printed out on that sheet of paper you have.

I'm not going to read it all at one time, read a few verses, make a few comments.

Uh, but mostly I want just, I just want to read this.

I'm make a few comments along the way, but I want this passage, this prophecy about Jesus, why he came, and what he did for us.

I just want it to be read.

I want it to be read over you, and I want it to sink into us, into our hearts.

So Isaiah 53, 1 through 3.

Who has believed what he has heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

For he, this is Jesus, for Jesus, he grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of the dry ground.

He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

So maybe you're here and you're wondering, like, where's God in my grief?

Like this thing happened and I was left out and I was let down and I was hurt and I was wounded, and and maybe you're even scared to go there, to go to go to that place, but you're not quite sure if you're allowed to.

Like, am I allowed to be that weak?

Like as a Christian, am I allowed to be weak, or am I supposed to always have my act together?

And you're allowed to be weak.

That's the good news.

I mean, Jesus himself, God himself goes into grieving.

God himself is acquainted, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.

And so if you're wondering, where's God in your grief?

Where's God?

Now, I don't I I can't answer why the world works the way it does and why all different stuff happens.

I can't answer all of that.

But I can answer one thing.

Where's God in your grief?

With you.

I can answer that.

Now I don't know if you always feel it.

I don't know when you'll feel it while you're in your grief.

I can't answer that.

But I know he knows grief.

He's not scared of grief, he's not scared of you grieving.

Doesn't threaten him.

It doesn't threaten him.

He knows grief.

I mean, think about the cross.

God himself, incarnate God, the face of God for us to see.

In the ultimate act of us seeing him is one of grieving, of sadness.

God, Father, why have you forsaken me?

Verse 4, surely he has borne our griefs, he takes them from us and carried our sorrows.

Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions.

So we've done all this, we forget him.

And this is the storyline of history, this is our storyline.

We're inward bend, we love to self-save.

We don't think we need God, we forget him, we come back, forget him, come back.

I mean, this is my story, your story, everybody's story.

And even in that, he was pierced for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities.

Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

So, what does that mean?

I mean, you've been around, maybe you've heard that verse.

What does that mean?

I think it means peace is possible because it's by his wounds and not our wounds.

That's why peace is possible.

If it's by my wounds, there's no peace.

I have to keep producing something.

That's not peaceful.

But because it's by his wounds, the cross is sufficient.

It's enough.

And peace only comes by living in that sufficiency for us.

Verse 6.

All we like sheep have gone astray.

We have turned everyone to his own way.

Everyone.

Me, you, your sweet, holy grandmother.

I mean that grandmother, her too.

All of us have gone astray.

If you don't think it, just get to know somebody better.

You'll see it eventually.

And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

And then it gets poetic, telling the story of the cross.

He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth.

Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shears is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

By oppression and judgment he was taken away.

And as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.

And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.

I mean, even from even from the cross, Father, forgive them.

They don't know what they're doing.

Even from the cross, I mean, this act of incarnate God as vulnerable as can be.

I mean, if you want to know how we should view God, the vulnerability of the cross.

So it's a transaction.

There's some transaction here, our sin upon him, his righteousness to us, that's incredible.

But there's a vulnerability here for us to see, for us to understand God.

And he doesn't know, Father, forgive them.

Verse 10, yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him.

He has put him to grief.

When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days, the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied.

By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.

And so all of that, and then we get verse twelve, therefore, all of that, therefore, therefore, I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong.

We're going to come back to that and make a couple comments about that.

Because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors, yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors.

So by the end of this chapter, we need by the end of this chapter, we need this word, therefore.

It's like, whoa, this is getting heavier and heavier and heavier and heavier.

Therefore, because of all of that, here's the deal.

Because of all of that, there's two things that are mentioned there in verse 12.

Number the first part, God will divide him a portion with the many, or God will divide him a portion with the great.

That's to say this: Jesus is the glorious Savior.

There will be none other.

You don't need another one.

Okay?

He's that great.

He is supremacy in the universe, and this supremacy in the universe is also our source of love.

And that's the second part.

Listen to this.

He shall divide the spoil.

That's the reward, the good stuff.

He shall divide it with the strong.

Now, that I don't love that word there.

You know, I started looking at some different other words, different translations.

Maybe you've got your Bible with you, you're looking at it.

Sometimes some translations use the word numerous.

He shall divide the spoil with the numerous, with the many.

So none of this feels like a victory parade.

Like, all right, so if you remember last Sunday, we had a Palm Sunday.

He comes marching into Jerusalem, he's on a donkey.

That's humiliating.

Now he's beaten, he's betrayed, he's abused, he's spit on, he's put on a cross, he dies.

None of this looks like a victory parade.

But it is.

This is the picture of verse 12 is of Jesus returning from a great conquest.

This is the imagery here.

He's gone out, he has a he's had a great conquest, and the victory was his.

And then he shares the spoil with you.

That's the picture.

So what is this new life?

What's the new life that's created on the backside of the cross because of the cross?

What is this new life?

What's the spoil?

Well, I think it's living, learning to live in that deep love that is given to us.

That we are forgiven, that we are relieved of our salvation projects, and that we are forever loved.

And it's never in question because of the cross planted in history.

So, my brothers and sisters, by his stripes, you are healed.

By his wounds, you are made whole.

Now we're not serving communion like we usually do every single time we have a service here.

And the church has traditionally had a period of silence as part of a Good Friday service.

Scares some of you because you have kids with you, right?

Scaring you to death right now.

You're like, how long's that gonna be?

Because I'm already worried about that.

And you know what?

Scares some of the rest of us because you're like, don't know what I might see if I get quiet enough.

Right?

Just play another podcast, another song, another TV show, turn the radio on.

If you get silent, not like silent and you're scrolling, that doesn't count, right?

Like that doesn't count.

You're not that's not silence, okay?

Just because you're not talking or there's not noise.

I'm talking silent, nothing, nothing.

You're doing nothing, you're saying nothing, nothing.

You go, well, what should I be doing?

Nothing.

That's what you should be doing.

Nothing.

And that's the point.

The point is to do completely quiet, to contemplate your life and the cross.

You go, what if I start thinking?

You will start thinking of stuff.

We should be doing this every day.

This is contemplative Christianity that we should be doing every day.

And you go, well, man, stuff starts to pop up, stuff I don't want to see.

I know, I know.

That's the point.

That stuff's already there.

It's already there.

It's already doing stuff in your life, whether you want to admit it or not.

So just go ahead and let it up.

Let it up and let's start dealing with it.

And let the silence, just sit in the silence and contemplate your life, and you'll remember some stuff.

You'll go like, I didn't know that.

What?

And what?

I was 12 and what?

I didn't remember that, or I was 19, I did that.

What?

And you remember that, it's fine.

You can remember that.

You remember the cross.

You remember how sufficient the cross is for you.

And that you just do nothing, as much nothing as possible.

And the reason why is because you're remembering in your silence.

You're remembering you can do nothing and you are fully forgiven.

You can do nothing and you are fully loved.

That's what silence gives you.

It gives you that you are remembering that.

Because you're doing nothing.

I'm doing nothing.

I don't have to jump to Bible study, I don't have to jump to something.

I can just do nothing.

And even in this nothingness, I am fully forgiven and fully loved because Jesus, God Himself, hung on a cross for me.

And so I'm gonna lead us into a period of silence.

It's gonna be 20 minutes long.

No, it's not gonna be 20 minutes long.

Just a few minutes of silence.

Um, and then Sam will lead us in a few more songs.

God, as we come before you in a few moments of silence, uh help us to recognize that which is in our hearts and bring before you.

Help us to grieve that which needs to be grieved, celebrate that which needs to be celebrated, and help us to contemplate your goodness to us on the cross.