The Primary Problem

Before we jump into the kind of bulk of scripture that we're going to look at today, and if you're new to his hands, by the way, welcome.

My name's Justin.

We always teach from Scripture.

We want God's word to open our hearts and minds to things that we can never figure out for ourselves.

There are certain things as people that we can just observe and understand.

There's a lot of things we can observe and understand.

There's other things, though, deeper truths, that I believe only God can reveal to us.

And when we have a life connected to Him, in a relationship with Him through faith in Him, and when we open up Scripture, His Word, and we explore it, He shows us things.

So I'm excited to open up Scripture today.

We've got a lot to cover.

But first, I want us to do like a little mental exercise.

All right.

So I'm going to go through this too, but I want you guys to join me in this because what I'd like us to do is consider for a few moments what the most significant moments of your life have been.

And that's a big thing to ask.

So let's go like micro to macro.

Let's start with your week.

Like, what have been the most significant events in your life this week?

I'm going to, as you're thinking about it, I'm going to share four of mine with you really quick.

And if you if you'd permit me to kind of gush on my kids for a second, is that okay?

Can I be like a dad that gushes about, okay, cool.

Wouldn't it be weird if you're like, boo, no.

Um I'm gonna I'm gonna be that guy that like makes you look at photos and pictures of his kids like you care.

Um, you know, I'm that guy.

So, okay, I had my kids just had like a banner week, a really interesting week.

So start with my son Judah.

He had his first third-grade basketball game yesterday.

I was the coach.

I did not get a technical.

That was great.

Um, you know, going strong so far this year, right?

With a few more games left, but Judah had his first buzzer beater ever, and so I think I've got a little clip here of that.

So there's Judah right there with the ball, crossover, right?

Boom.

That was in the last second of the game.

We were up by seven, so it didn't really matter.

But yeah.

It was a buzzer beater, it didn't determine the game.

We were already winning, but he was still like, that's a buzzer beater.

And I said, technically, it is.

I cannot argue with that.

My oldest son had a really, really big week, kind of a bittersweet week, because he changed schools, and uh he's been at the same school for almost four years, loves it, has great friends, has been a big part of that school, and is like just but had an opportunity to do something a little different, and uh, and and part of it's kind of the school experience he wants, but another part of it has to do with his basketball.

And if you guys don't know, I have a son who plays basketball.

And so uh, two of them, actually, and soon to be three.

Uh, but he got to he got to play with his his new team for the first time, and they're different, they're they're really unique.

And so I'll show you a little clip because Liam, he was awesome.

He was awesome.

This is my favorite moment from his first game.

There's Liam right there, right?

Let's go watch this, watch this steal, whoop, sorry.

Right, come over here, little underhand pass, a little flash, and then you know, why not just you know top it off with with one of those, you know, having some fun.

Liam.

Just like his dad, if his dad was ten times better.

Um, no, he's real special.

So he's with a new team, and you know, they're they're really cool.

He got to sit on the varsity bench.

They have a six foot ten guy, so that's unique.

Makes him look like a baby, but it's all fun.

It's all fun.

So he had a big week.

That was fun.

That's a significant part of our week making that decision.

My daughter Lily, my one girl, uh, she does ballet, but she does ballet to like she's in a ballet conservatory, which I did not know what that meant when my wife signed us up for that.

Means she goes to a school for ballet, she's in it 20 hours a week.

It is nuts, but she loves it, and they have the nutcracker.

So last night, uh, I'll show you my favorite clip.

This is Lily.

All right, right there.

All right, here we go.

That's my girl.

Watch this, watch this.

I don't know anything about ballet, but this is cool, right?

Little one-handed cartwheel, you know, we're spinning and we're spinning and we're spinning, right?

Isn't that fun?

So cute.

Oh, I know, right?

Yeah.

That was a significant part of my week.

Um, on Wednesday, I completely lost consciousness and had to go to the ER and spent the whole day in the hospital, so that was a significant part of my week.

So one of those four will end up being the most significant parts of my week.

I think it's probably gonna be Lily's ballet, um, once all the tests come back.

But all all the point is, y'all think I'm joking.

I'm not.

Um it's fine.

It's all fine.

So a lot of things happen this week.

You know, sometimes you have weeks that are like, wow, this has happened, and that's awesome, that's awesome, that's awesome, that's scary.

That's how life goes sometimes.

But I had a pretty significant week.

I don't know how your week has been, if there's been anything that you would consider significant, but if not, let's just go even further out.

What about this month?

Like this month, what's the most significant thing that's happened to you this month?

Anything major, anything sometimes I know some people that have had some incredible things happen this month.

Just unbelievable things.

Like Matt had his first child.

How awesome is that?

You know, new new parents, that's great.

I also have some friends that have had really difficult, significant things happen to them in this month.

Diagnoses that they didn't want, um, loss and tragedy in their lives.

Sometimes those significant things are great and they're celebrated, and we make little highlight videos and everyone cheers, and sometimes they're just really sad things that we almost have to fight to even talk about.

Let's go further.

How about your year?

Most significant event this year.

What's the most significant thing that's happened to you in the last 12 months?

I'll let you think on that for like five seconds.

What about your life?

Let's just go full scale.

Other than being born, that's a cop-out answer.

Most significant thing in your life.

I can think of a few for me.

One being like my parents decided to switch my school when I was in 10th grade, and uh in part because they were concerned about the kids I was friends with, and they were right on track with that.

That looking back, smart decision, mom and dad.

But first day at my new school, uh, basketball coach wanted me to come and get on a bus and go be with the team before I'd even enrolled and meet everybody, and so I go and there's this girl on the back row of the bus.

Because the the girls' team went with the guys' team, and I was like, who is that girl?

And I just thought she was gorgeous.

And so I flirted with her and she just rejected me very seriously, very intensely.

And uh she three years later, we ended up dating and I got married to her.

So, like, yeah, that was awesome.

That was a pretty significant I I saw her for the first time on the back of a bus, and I was like, she, who is that?

And I went for it, got rejected, but kept going and going and going until eventually, guys, if there's a girl you love and she says no, respect that.

But then, you know, make her say no, like 20, don't do anything weird or illegal.

You know, but just be persistent.

Be like, my when it comes to like romance and the pursuit of my love, my hero is like Pepe Le Pew.

It's just like keep going.

Because eventually, in my experience, she will just run out of steam.

And she'll be like, fine, let's get married.

That's what happened to me.

That was significant.

When I was in fourth grade, we moved to a new house, and our neighbors invited us to church, and we'd never really gone to church.

Uh, I'd been a couple times as a kid, but it was just really boring.

That's all I that's all I remembered.

I had to wear dress pants.

Because back in the day, his hands isn't like that.

If you have dress pants on, great, go for it.

Uh, but you don't have to.

And uh, and the churches I went to as a kid, you had to, and I hated dress pants, and so that's all I knew about church.

And I was really bummed when my parents told me we're gonna go to church.

I was like, ah.

And we went to this church, and it just all clicked for my family, for me, and found Jesus there, got saved, got baptized, you know, the rest is history.

And so I'm really grateful that that neighbor invited us to church.

And I think I've told this story, but funny thing, uh, he got arrested like two days later after he invited us to his church.

He was a firefighter, had been embezzling money from the fire department for years.

Yeah, that's not good.

Went to prison, but I wouldn't be a pastor, or I wouldn't even be a Christian if a criminal hadn't invited me to his church, which is kind of cool.

So, look, God can use any of us, all of us, even if you are currently breaking the law, the Lord can still use you.

So let that be a Christmas inspirational message.

Also, stop, but you know, you can still be used by the Lord.

I don't know what come, what events come to your mind when we think short-term, long-term, most significant things that have ever happened in your life.

But but I'm not just saying this to be cheesy or do some type of uh you know mental game.

What we're gonna talk about today, what we're gonna cover today, I promise you, is the most significant thing that has ever happened to you.

Today, this week, this month, this year, this decade, your entire life.

What we're gonna talk about today, the event we're covering, it is the most significant thing that has ever happened to you.

Now, for some context, all year long we've been going through the book of Matthew and the series we've called Following Jesus.

And if you're here for the first time, it's okay.

Better late than never, number one.

Number two, we always make sure every week stands on its own, so you're you're fine.

We're starting a new series today, the last series actually in our following Jesus study, and it's called Death Defeated.

Death Defeated.

Because now we're at the moment where Jesus is being brought to the cross.

That's where we are today.

Right before Christmas.

Death defeated.

Jesus defeats death.

I want to clarify some things.

He doesn't avoid death.

He doesn't just delay death, he doesn't circumvent death.

Jesus meets death head on.

And it seems like death wins.

But Jesus in turn defeats death.

And he doesn't just defeat it for him, he defeats it for us.

So we're gonna explore that over the next few weeks.

Now, the main scripture we're gonna cover, and if you have our mobile app, you can always follow along with all the scripture we have in that.

Um today, Matthew 27, verses 27 through 56, but I want to do something a little different.

Matthew 27:27–56

Um I lately I've just been reading huge chunks of scripture every Sunday, and you know, it's it's a lot, and it's pressure-filled, because man, you're like you can lose your place, and that's terrifying.

Uh also, certain sections of scripture, they're just more intense than others.

And so I want to do something a little different.

I have a good friend named Sean, and Sean does like uh really cool voice stuff, and he's actually been bit by bit recording himself doing some some books of the Bible, and he's done a lot of Job, for example, sent those to me.

If you if you know Sean, you've heard his Job stuff, it's really cool.

And I actually asked Sean, I said, Sean, um, instead of me just reading this and just doing my normal thing and and and my normal voice, I think we want to experience this in a little different way today.

Just let it hit us in a different way.

So I asked Sean if he would record Matthew chapter 27, verses 27 through 56.

Matthew 27:27–56

And so he did that.

Um and so what we're gonna do is we'll we'll put the scriptures up on the screen.

But I'd like, can we just bring like the stage lights down?

That'd be awesome.

Bring the lights a little lower in the room, because this is a serious, really serious moment in the life of Jesus.

And I want it, I just want it to hit us, maybe in the way that it should.

Whereas sometimes when we we just go through it, we just read it just kind of like da-da-da-da-da, and then this and this, and then he dies, and all that kind of stuff, it can just sort of pass us by.

But I want this to I want this to hit us maybe the way that it's meant to.

Um and if it doesn't, it's Sean's fault.

Alright, so uh let's bring the lights low and let's listen and follow along with Matthew chapter 27, verses 27 through 56.

Matthew 27:27–56

Let's go.

Matthew chapter 27, verses 27 through 56.

Matthew 27:27–56

Some of the governor's soldiers took Jesus into their headquarters and called out the entire regiment.

They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him.

They wove thorn branches into a crown and put it on his head, and they placed a reed stick in his right hand as a scepter.

Then they knelt before him in mockery and taunted.

Hail, King of the Jews! And they spit on him and grabbed the stick and struck him on the head with it.

When they were finally tired of mocking him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him again.

Then they led him away to be crucified.

Along the way they came across a man named Simon, who was from Cyrene, and the soldiers forced him to carry Jesus' cross.

They went out to a place called Golgotha, which means place of the skull.

The soldiers gave Jesus wine mixed with bitter gall, but when he tasted it, he refused to drink it.

After they had nailed him to the cross, the soldiers gambled for his clothes by throwing dice.

Then they sat around and kept guard as he hung there.

A sign was fastened above Jesus' head, announcing the charge against him.

It read, This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.

Two revolutionaries were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left.

The people passing by shouted abuse, shaking their heads in mockery.

Look at you now! They yelled at him.

You said you were going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days.

Well then, if you are the Son of God, save yourself and come down from the cross.

The leading priests, the teachers of religious law, and the elders also mocked Jesus.

He saved others, they scoffed.

But he can't save himself.

So he is the king of Israel, is he?

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

He trusted God, so let God rescue him now if he wants him.

For he said, I am the Son of God.

Even the revolutionaries who were crucified with him ridiculed him in the same way.

At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o'clock.

At about three o'clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, Eli!

Eli Lema Shabakani, which means, My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

Some of the bystanders misunderstood and thought he was calling for the prophet Elijah.

One of them ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, holding it up to him on a reed stick so he could drink.

But the rest said, Wait! Let's see whether Elijah comes to save him.

Then Jesus shouted out again, and he released his spirit.

At that moment, the curtain in the sanctuary of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

The earth shook, rocks split apart, and tombs opened.

The bodies of many godly men and women who had died were raised from the dead.

They left the cemetery after Jesus' resurrection, went into the holy city of Jerusalem, and appeared to many people.

The Roman officer and the other soldiers at the crucifixion were terrified by the earthquake and all that had happened.

They said, This man truly was the son of God.

And many women who had come from Galilee with Jesus to care for him were watching from a distance.

Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of James and John, the sons of Zebedee.

There you go.

Good job, Sean.

Yeah.

It's a dramatic moment.

And like I said, I've read this so many times and you know, being in church since fourth grade.

And it's just easy to read it and read it through, like, and then he was mocked and he's beaten and he's crucified and killed and he dies.

And even when he cries out, you know, when I first listened to Sean's recording, I was like, ah, you know, the voice when Jesus cries out, it seems a little, I don't know, a weak.

But Jesus was in pain.

He was struggling.

It's an incredible moment.

There's a lot of angles that we could look at this through.

I mean, literally, we could spend, well, people have spent a couple thousand years talking about this moment.

There's no end to what we could talk about.

But we could look at it from a prophecy standpoint.

And the fact that what happened to Jesus on the cross was not some plan gone wrong.

It wasn't Jesus' failure.

It wasn't Jesus not accounting for the way things would go and things taking a turn for the worse.

This is exactly what was supposed to happen.

This is exactly what the Father planned to happen.

For example, we can look at uh Psalm chapter 22.

Psalms 22 · chapter mention

Every time I think of the cross, this comes to my mind.

This is the first verse of Psalm 22.

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

This, by the way, was written a thousand years before Jesus.

That's interesting, right?

Another interesting thing is that in the Jewish culture, the name of the Psalm was always the first line of the Psalm.

We have given them these numbers years afterward just to help us reference things.

But no one in Jesus' day would have been, ah, Psalm 22.

The name of that psalm, that song that King David had written, would have been, My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

And anyone who knew their scripture would have instantly understood, oh, Jesus isn't just talking to the Father, he's quoting scripture.

Listen to some other things in Psalm chapter 22.

Psalms 22 · chapter mention

This is crazy.

Again, written a thousand years before Jesus.

Everyone who sees me mocks me.

They sneer and shake their heads, saying, Is this the one who relies on the Lord?

Then let the Lord save him.

If the Lord loves him so much, let the Lord rescue him.

Psalm 22, 14, my life is poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.

My heart is like wax melting within me.

When you were crucified, the way you were hung on the cross, your bones would absolutely be pulled out of joint.

And when Jesus died, they pierced his side and water poured out from his side, which indicates that on the cross his heart gave.

That was written a thousand years before Jesus.

Verse 18, they divide my garments among themselves and throw dice for my clothing.

Psalm 22, 16.

They've pierced my hands and feet.

Now here's what's really crazy.

When David wrote this crucifixion hadn't been invented yet.

And to this day, if what David wrote a thousand years before Jesus was just about some experience that David had, we have no idea what he would be talking about, piercing your hands and feet.

That's not a thing that existed when that was written, but that's because it's about Jesus.

And if you're sitting there and you're watching Jesus on the cross and you knew your scriptures and he says, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And you knew all those verses, and you're looking around, being like, Oh my goodness.

It's about him.

It gives me chills.

So we can talk about the cross from this prophetic standpoint.

We can look at it theologically and say, hey, how do we understand the cross?

There are all these different sorts of theories, these ways to look at what happened on the cross and try to make sense of it.

These are often called theories of atonement.

If you're like a theology person, if you're not, it's interesting.

It can be kind of boring, but not if you really love Jesus, like it gets interesting, for example.

One of the major theories of atonement, theories of the cross, atonement meaning basically making things right between us and God.

Usually some type of sacrifice in ancient cultures, right?

Some sacrifice has to be made for God to be appeased.

So one of those theories is called the ransom theory.

And we have scriptures that support this.

For example, we could look at Jesus' own words in Mark chapter 10, verse 45, for even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Mark 10:45

There have been all kinds of theories and thoughts about what that means.

There are other scriptures that mention it as a ransom, and the ransom theory of atonement essentially says that we had to pay a ransom, and Jesus did this on our behalf to Satan.

That because of our sin, and because if you even go back all the way to the Garden of Eden, if you know that story, like instead of obeying the one who created us, instead of obeying God, we actually obeyed the serpent.

We did what he said, and so we actually like are under his authority, essentially.

And so the only way that we could be freed is if someone comes along and pays a ransom to the evil one to free us.

And that's kind of the gist of the ransom theory.

I'm going over this like really broad stroke.

There's other theories.

There's the theory of penal substitution, and this idea is that a debt was owed, but it was owed to God, not to Satan.

This would come from a scripture maybe like uh 1 John chapter 2, and I'm going to read from the New American Standard Version because it uses a very specific word.

1 John 2 · chapter mention

Uh, he himself is the propitiation of our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

That word propitiation essentially means like someone having to appease a God, is kind of the ancient language for it.

So the idea with penal substitution is that, hey, yeah, we have, because of sin and all the stuff that we've done, we owe God some type of debt.

That God looks at us and he's like, sorry, we can't have a relationship because of all your junk.

And so Jesus comes along and he takes our place and he dies as a sacrifice in our place.

And instead of us getting punished for our sin, he takes that punishment upon himself.

That's that way of looking at it.

There's a really popular, uh, long-standing theory of atonement called Christus Victor.

It's about Jesus defeating something on the cross, that it's not just that he stood in our place or he paid a ransom to Satan or to God, whatever, but he actually like, he did something, he changed things on the cross.

We can look at Hebrews chapter 2, verses 14 and 15.

Hebrews 2:14

It says, Because God's children are human beings, made of flesh and blood, the Son also became flesh and blood, for only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death, past tense, had it.

Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying.

That Jesus defeated death on the cross.

He defeated it.

And obviously I believe that, because I wouldn't have called this series Death Defeated if I didn't.

But he defeated death and he defeated the power of sin and all of that.

And we could talk forever about what that even means, but that happened on the cross.

There are other theories that are a little bit lesser.

There's one just called like moral influence theory, which is that Jesus just sort of set a good example for us.

Like he did something crazy, extravagant to show us what a human being can do.

And you can look at scriptures where Jesus, for example, says in John 15, there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends, and some would say that, you know, he didn't need to die for us.

A lot of people who have this theory would just have a hard time with the idea of a God who is just and demands any type of payment for sin, however you'd like to look at it.

And so Jesus just sort of showed us his love on the cross.

It was just this crazy act of love.

People for centuries have been trying to understand the cross is such a big deal, it's such a huge moment that for centuries people have looked at it, followers of Jesus have looked at it, really smart, really intelligent, really well-read, followers of Jesus, and said, I need to make sense of this, I want to understand it.

And so, is it a ransom or is it a propitiation or is it him defeating death, or is it him studying an influence?

And I think maybe the answer is yes.

Like, sure.

All of that.

And sure, there's nuances and some are gonna contradict each other's whatever.

Sometimes I think we try so hard to understand God perfectly that we miss the fact that like some things about God are just too big to understand perfectly.

And stop trying to analyze it to a point of ridiculousness and just receive it and recognize that from every angle you want to look at it, it's incredible.

As an act of love, it's incredible.

As a as a ransom paid to whoever, it's incredible.

Right?

As victory over death itself, it's incredible.

The cross and what Jesus did on the cross has redefined human history.

Even if you're a skeptic and you look at the scriptures that we we listened to and when we read, and you're like, oh, this whole like earths, earthquakes, and all this crazy stuff, and people rose from the dead, and that we could talk for hours about the curtain being torn in half and what that means.

It means access to God in a new way, it's all kinds of stuff we could talk about.

You could look at that skeptically go, I don't know if that really happened, but here's what I can tell you.

When I wasn't there, uh but that moment changed everything.

History like hangs on that moment.

And and in the Roman Empire, uh, the number of people crucified was high.

It was a large number.

And we don't really talk about any of those crucifixions.

The Roman Empire crucified thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people, and none of us can really tell you the names of any of those people.

They were really good at executing people.

That was one of their their gifts.

They were so good at it.

Efficient.

There's only one crucifixion that we talk about, it's the crucifixion of Jesus.

And from that moment on, even though, and I mentioned this a few weeks ago, even though Jesus lived in the in a time of people like people like Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Caesar Augustus, the first emperor of Rome, like this who's who in human history of the most important people, it's this crucified carpenter from a nowhere town in Israel that stands above all those people and comes out of that era of history as the one that everyone talks about.

Something happened on the cross and afterwards that was undeniable, it wouldn't be forgotten, it wouldn't fade into obscurity.

It changed history.

The cross is a pivotal, like it's a pivot moment in history.

And what I want us to understand today is, yeah, there's there's prophecies about it.

That's so cool, and there's theories and all kinds of ways to think about it that helps us sort of make sense of it, and that's important and interesting.

But what I said at the beginning, I meant my hope today is that we understand that the cross is something that happened to each of us.

That what Jesus did on the cross is the most significant thing that has ever happened to you.

Not just to him, not just to history, but to you.

Whatever moments popped into your mind, moments from recent times, moments from your life, whatever it might be, that you would say, that was so significant.

I promise you, none of it was more significant than what happened to you on the cross.

And let me explain what I mean by that, and I'm sure most of you are tracking.

Um, I can think of a couple times in my life where the cross hit me in a really personal way.

One, I was in high school, and I was really just dealing with guilt, a lot of guilt and shame.

I had some sin issues in my life, and you know, kind of that pattern of like, I'm gonna, God, I'm gonna get past this, I'm gonna beat this, and help me do it, and then I'd go strong for a little while, and then I'd fail again, and I'd feel miserable and like a failure, and just all kinds.

And I sort of guilt is easy for me.

So um I remember praying one day and praying in a really intense, like, I'm sorry, God, I'm sorry, God, I'm a failure, I'm a failure, forgive me, all this kind of stuff.

And sometimes I don't know if you've ever had this experience where a thought pops in your mind and it's just like too smart for your brain.

Does that happen to anybody else?

Okay.

Or you're like, that's not me.

Because I know the thoughts I have, and they're not that smart.

Like, I know the sound of my own brain.

I live with that.

It's very annoying.

But this was different.

And I'm going through all this stress, and I'm going through all this grief, and it just hits me like in my head, this clear thought your sin is not the primary factor in your relationship with God.

The death of Jesus is the primary factor in your relationship with God.

Like the thing that defines my relationship with God more than anything else is not my behavior, it's not my track record, it's not my resume, it's not my my good and my bad, and how those things mix together.

Jesus' death on the cross and all that it encompassed, right?

Ransom and victory and propitiation, all of it, whatever words you want to use to try to figure that out, that death, that sacrifice, plays a bigger role in how the Lord sees me, how God the Father sees me than any of my stuff, the good or the bad.

And in that moment, I'm sitting there as a high school kid, like that's the biggest factor.

And I gotta put my faith in that and thank the Lord for that so that when I fail, instead of it just being like, I'm a failure, I'm horrible, I'm a wreck, like, sure.

Uh but Jesus has made a way for me that in the midst of my failure and my struggles and my shortcomings, I can have a reconciled relationship with God, and I can be a child of God, and I didn't earn that, I didn't win that.

That was a gift given to me through the cross.

You know, I I mentioned I'm not gonna like go into this.

Uh, you know, I had an interesting week this week, and so on Wednesday I did have this moment where I just lost consciousness, and it's never happened to me before.

Interesting.

Um woke back up, and Megan drove me to the ER, and I just didn't feel like myself.

And we're driving, and uh, you know, I'm just praying.

And all I could think of to pray was just thank you.

And not thank you that I was, you know, back up.

Um but I just kept just praying and thanking Jesus for all that he's done for me.

And it's this recognition that even if I was in a scenario where the worst you know that we can imagine happening was happening, that pales into comparison, pales in comparison to what what Jesus has done and the eternity that that secures.

And that I don't have to, just like we said, to be freed from the fear of death, I don't have to be afraid.

I don't now have to keep telling myself that, but I don't have to be afraid, I don't have to be worried, I don't have to be, because Jesus has already accomplished the most important thing, and that's that's where I want us to sort of land today.

Um we're actually going kind of fast today.

You might be out early.

I can milk it, I can stretch it out.

Um I'll pray one of those long prayers, like, oh God, glorious, wonderful, just like adjective prayers.

I know people that do that.

They're like, we get it, he's great.

All right.

Uh okay.

Here's how I'm gonna try to land the plane.

What Jesus did on the cross is the most significant event that's ever happened in your life because it changed your life in ways that nothing else could.

And here's why it changed your life in ways that nothing else could.

Because what Jesus did on the cross solved the primary problem that all of us face.

The primary problem.

We spend a lot of time in our lives addressing problems that are not the primary problem.

That's most of our days.

That's most of life.

We're dealing with stuff, we're dealing with whatever comes our way, and big or small, it's yeah, gotta deal with it, but it's not the primary issue.

There's this one mental picture that always pops in my head when I think of something like this, and it hit me really hard last night, actually.

Um if you have kids that are, you know, kids, they they've grown up in a very different world than we grew up with, like just having access to the internet and and YouTube and social media and all that kind of stuff.

They just they see everything very differently, and one of the things that is different is how they like even laugh at things, what they think is funny, what they think is comedy.

So, like for me, I anyone love comedy like you're a I enjoy comedy, like legit.

You can raise your hand in church if you like comedy.

Yeah, cool.

Some of you guys have no fun.

Wow, you're like, I hate laughing.

So good for you.

No, I love comedy, and what comedy means to me is like sitting down and watching a comedian for like a 45-minute period of time telling jokes.

A lot of times it's like a whole long thing, and and jokes early on will pay off later on, you know.

My kids have they can't do that.

They've they're just not, they're they can't.

Because they've been trained to laugh at things that last three seconds.

Like everything that they laugh, it's just the shortest thing.

So I'll show you an example.

The first time I ever saw my oldest son laugh out loud, could not stop laughing.

He was like, I I think he was 10 or so, and he just he's rolling on the floor and he can't stop.

Was was this video?

We're gonna bring this up, this video right here.

It's like roadwork ahead.

Yeah, I sure hope it does.

That's it.

That's it.

This guy says, Road work ahead.

Yeah, I sure hope it does.

And my son falls down and he's like, It's because the road works.

Like it's he like he got it.

Like it says road work, the road works, like it road work, and he just couldn't.

And I'm sitting there like, you know, I've sat down and I've tried to like have him watch comedians that I grew up watching.

I tried to make him watch an entire Sinbad comedy special one time for those of you from the 90s, and like it was hysterical.

And I look at him, he's like, just does that, whatever.

And then he laughs at that, like, all right.

I mean, it's funny, but it's not that funny.

Uh the one in the last couple weeks that my kids have just been watching on repeat, and they laugh really hard every time, and it's it's amazing because they've been doing this for two weeks and it's driven me nuts, and I'm like, it's not that funny.

And then it just hit me last night, like, oh God, you use the coolest things.

Okay, this is this is the one that they think is the best right now.

Go for it.

Oh, look at that.

You found it.

I found it.

That means we can fix your car.

Yeah.

That's it.

They've watched that like 500 times.

That means we can fix your car.

But y'all hit me last night.

That that is there's something there.

Because how much of my life am I fixing what is clearly not the primary problem?

Right?

Like, hey, here's part of your bumper.

The car is upside down.

Let's start there.

But that's how we live life.

We're always trying to deal with with some issues, some problem, and oftentimes in our minds, it is the primary problem.

It's everything.

It might be some situation with our our kids, some situation with at home, with with our spouse, right?

With school, you know, your love life, your finances, your job, your health.

And as important as it might be, it's not the primary problem.

Like the primary problem is death.

That's the we can just own that.

That's the big thing.

The primary problem is death.

Because you can get your finances just absolutely nailed in order.

In fact, just a uh a week ago or two weeks ago, we read this scripture of Jesus saying that there's this man and he has so much stuff that he has to build a separate barn to house all of his stuff and all of his wealth, and he's like, now I can just chill, and then he dies.

Like immediately.

Because that's not the that's not the most important thing.

What good is that when you're when you're dead?

Death is the primary problem.

Like even if even if you get some diagnosis, and it's it's hard.

I have a couple of really close friends dealing with that right now, and and and uh you know, tests and all that kind of stuff, and it's that stuff's hard.

But even that's not the primary problem.

It's related to it, but even even if you you you do the treatments and you like it goes well.

Cool.

That's death delayed, that's not death defeated.

I think about Lazarus all the time.

If you know the story of Lazarus, Jesus is friend, he dies, he's in a tomb, Jesus comes days later, raises him back to life.

And then Lazarus died again later on.

We don't know that story.

What would that have been like for Lazarus?

Strange, right?

I mean, even the people that Jesus healed, that's why, by the way, God heals.

He does, he heals people.

There's so many people I know have experienced that where the Lord just heals people, and even doctors don't have an answer for why.

Like, wow, you're just you're better.

But even that's temporary.

That's why it's important that we don't become obsessed as Christians with healing.

Healing's great, it's cool, but it sometimes we get like obsessed with it.

And it's like that's you're you're you're going off the rails a little bit because you're not focusing on the primary problem.

That's all temporary.

God could heal me today of something, I'm still gonna die.

Guaranteed.

That's the primary problem.

And we know it.

Everything sort of heads toward death, and here we are, it's you're like Justin, it's December.

Christmas is right around the corner.

I know.

But that's why the cross is the most significant thing that has ever happened to you.

Because death was defeated on your behalf.

Jesus, all the death stuff, sin and how that leads to death and corruption and all that, and the fact that we're separated from God, and however you want to make sense of that, whether it's a thing that exists like a barrier, or we separate ourselves from God because we're whatever.

All the theological stuff, yeah, yeah, death, the death stuff is inescapable, it is unavoidable.

And before Jesus, it was undefeatable, if that's a word.

But Jesus defeated death on the cross.

And so, there we go.

That was fun.

We had an amen from way over there, and we had a clap from way over there, and it all met in the middle.

That was a neat experience.

Went teamwork, you, teamwork, you guys, good stuff.

So, I don't know what you're going through today.

I don't know what has happened to you this week, this month, this year, in your life, what significant events, fun, exciting, scary, whatever they might be.

I had like a real weird mix of all of that this week.

But what I do know and believe with every fiber of my being is that nothing has ever happened to you more important, more significant, than Jesus' death on the cross.

Because that happened to you.

Your death was defeated.

And now, like it says in Hebrews, I'm gonna read Hebrews chapter 2 again, the last part, verse 15.

Hebrews 2 · chapter mention

Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying.

We don't have to be afraid, we don't have to worry, we don't have to be consumed with anxiety and stress about all the what-ifs, because the primary problem has been solved.

If your faith is in Jesus, the primary problem has been solved, that death will not defeat you, just like death did not defeat him, and you have life, an abundant life, and more life, an eternal life to look forward to because Jesus defeated death.

That's done.

And the peace that that should bring us now, like when all the other stuff happens, when all the other stressful things happen, we ought to be able to go, hey, whew, well, um, at least death's been defeated.

You know what I mean?

It's just that normally in life we we take that for granted or we don't think about it, it seems like it's far away, and so all the other stuff that happens rises to this level in our minds that it's like primary and it's everything and it consumes us and we're stressed out and we're worried and we're all these other things.

But but man, if we would actually see things for the way they are, it's like our car is right side up.

You know?

And so what if there's a little thing that fell off of it?

Oh, it's all right, it's not a big deal.

Because Jesus has defeated death, and he defeated it for us.

So we don't have to live in fear, we don't have to live as slaves to the what if.

Because we don't have a God who just avoided death or delayed death, we have a God who went through it and experienced it, and as we're going to see in the next few weeks and really explore, defeated it, not just for him, but for us.

With that said, let's take Lord's Supper.

I'm just gonna share some of you guys.

I'm a little bit of an open book.

I don't know if you know that about me, if you've gone to his hands too long.

Uh ever since Wednesday, whenever I like when I passed out, uh the number of times I get tempted to fake passing out, and Megan made me promise not to, and I'm not.

I've told her I will never do that to you.

Um but like I don't know why, but about ten times a day ever since then, I just think this thought pops me like, wouldn't it be funny?

And it just popped in my head as I was opening this.

And I didn't do it, and I did not do it.

Why it would have been funny, and really mean.

So, okay, alright.

Oh man, pray for me.

What we hold in our hands right now is really sacred.

I mean, in some ways, it's just a little piece of bread and it's a cup of juice and it's mass-produced at some factory somewhere and ships to us and a million other churches.

Um but this now, this is sacred.

Because this is everything we're talking about.

You know, Jesus died for you, either in your place, or on your behalf, or whatever the language that we have to try to make sense of it all, it doesn't really matter.

He died for you.

Like death wasn't even part of his world.

Like he existed before anything and everything, and he became a person.

He submitted himself to humanity and to flesh and to our weaknesses and our limitations.

And as Philippians chapter 2 says, submitted himself even to death.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Death had no claim over Jesus, no power over Jesus.

Jesus had no sin, he's not weak, he's not mortal, but he submitted himself to death.

So that death's unbeaten streak could end, and that Jesus could establish once and for all who really has the power, who has the final say.

That's why Paul was able to write and to actually reference Scripture elsewhere.

Oh death, where is your victory?

Oh death, where is your sting?

Like, it's gone.

Because the primary problem has been solved.

That we all still have to face that, but it's been dealt with.

It's been dealt with, it's already been dealt with, and because of that, we have life, all of that through what Jesus did on the cross.

With that said, let's pray.

Jesus, we thank you for this bread.

This is your body broken on the cross, offered up as a as a sacrifice, offered up as a ransom, offered up as a as a means to atone for our sin.

But also, Lord, as a moment of victory, where you took on death.

And death and Satan thought in that moment, I'm sure, that they had won, but little could they have known that you would overcome death itself with your life.

And you've now given that life to us.

Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you, Jesus.

Let's take this bread.

Thank you, Lord, for this cup, for this juice.

This is your blood poured out on our behalf.

Precious, holy, blameless, pure, but given to cover us, to wash us, and to cleanse us, and to show us that you will spare no expense when it comes to your love for us.

Help us take refuge in that.

Lord, help us find our relief and our peace in that, that no matter what's going on in our lives, how big it might feel, how serious it might seem, that we're all living, we're all living a life that's just headed toward more life because you have already defeated the primary problem.

You've defeated death.

And now we can enjoy life no matter what comes our way.

Thank you, Jesus.

Let's take the juice.