The Gospel: Cross

Well, if uh if you're just joining us today, or or maybe last week was your first Sunday, we're right in the middle of a series called The Gospel.

The word gospel means good news.

It's the message of Jesus, it's the story that God has really been writing all throughout human history.

And it's a story that we're all part of.

That's the really cool part of it.

God has actually invited all of us, he's invited you to play a part in his story, to be part of what he's doing in this world.

And if you really let that sink in, I think it's it's pretty remarkable.

But it's it's not a very simple story, at least not at first glance.

It's kind of a complicated story, and it's one that's been going on for a long, long time.

I mean, here we are, 2,000 years after Jesus, and so clearly a lot has happened.

And oftentimes we find ourselves in this place where we're we're trying to play catch up.

Maybe we've been following Jesus for years, maybe we're new to the whole God thing, we're trying to figure it out, but but we're trying our best to figure out our place in the story, but we don't quite understand the story, and we just end up confused.

Confusion is not our friend.

It is hard to be aggressive if you're confused.

And so the whole point behind this series is to eliminate that confusion.

Let's just look at the story so that we can understand our role in it.

Let's let's look at the story, let's see what God has done, what God is doing.

Let's understand what's actually happening and how that affects us so that when God shows us what He's got for us, we can say yes.

And we can say yes aggressively and passionately.

So what we've done practically to make this work is we've divided the story of the Bible into eight chapters.

And don't worry if you're just joining us, each one of these kind of stands on its own.

But if you do want to get caught up, you can listen on our website, you can go to our mobile app, download that, it's free, it has all of those there.

You can get caught up in in a matter of moments or you know, hours.

But here's the deal: eight chapters.

We started with creation, and from creation we went to crash, to the moment where it all sort of fell apart.

From crash, we went to covenant.

A covenant is an agreement, it's a relational agreement between two parties, in this case, God and people, the nation of Israel.

From covenant, we get to Christ.

The word Christ means Messiah.

It wasn't Jesus' last name, it's a title, means Messiah.

Jesus was this promised Messiah, a savior.

We talked about that a few weeks ago.

From Christ, we get to cross.

From cross, we go to conquer.

We'll talk about what Jesus conquered when he rose from the dead.

From conquer, we get to creation, but it's a new kind of creation.

And then from creation, we go to covenant, but it's a new kind of covenant.

Those are the chapters.

And uh, and I'll say this at this point.

Today we're on cross, and I think the order of things is important in life.

I think it's important to not only do the right things, but as much as possible, do the right things in the right order.

We've got three kids, and I'll never forget this one moment that happened pretty early in our in our time at the house that we currently live in.

We had only been living there for a few weeks, maybe a month, and Liam was four.

He's seven now, so it's three years ago.

And so we were so excited moving into this house.

This house was like our dream home.

It was it was exactly what we were looking for, and some really crazy things had to happen for us to even be in a place to see it and for it to be available and for us to be able to do it.

It was a it was a super cool thing.

But the icing on the cake for this house was the neighbors.

I remember when we we looked at it, we saw kids' toys in the yard of our neighbor's house, and we were thinking, well, man, maybe those are kids Liam's age.

They kind of look like the toys kids Liam's age would play with, and we're thinking maybe they're grandparents and these kids come every once in a while, but wouldn't it be cool if Liam had friends to play with?

He didn't have that where we lived before.

And wouldn't it be cool if the kids were like good kids and and we enjoyed them being around and they were positive and all this kind of stuff, and we were just we were hoping, and that's what happened.

We move in and we meet this family that lives next to us, and they have kids, Liam's age, really close to his age, two girls, and so Liam started playing with the kids, and then there's other neighbors in the neighborhood, and Liam plays with them, and we're like, this is so cool.

We live on a cul-de-sac, they just play for hours and hours, and it's it's awesome.

And I was so excited for Liam to have that experience.

It's a very normal thing now.

Our our doorbell rings almost all the time.

Uh uh someone knocks at the door and and there's just kids outside playing, it's great, but it was it was so it was so fresh and exciting when it first happened.

The very first time that I heard a knock on our door on a Saturday morning at 10, I was I was kind of perplexed, like, what?

10 o'clock in the morning?

And then it hit me.

Oh, okay, I know what this is.

It's one of the neighbors, and they want to play with Liam.

This hadn't happened yet.

And I'm thinking, what a cool experience for Liam.

The very first time in his life that I'm gonna shout to him, he was in our basement watching TV, I'm gonna shout to him, Liam, your friends want you to come out and play.

And he gets to go, yes, this is awesome.

And so I opened the door, and there's Sam.

At the time, she was a five-year-old girl, and she says, Can Liam come out and play?

And I was like, I bet you he can.

And I yell downstairs to Liam.

I said, Liam, Sam's here, she wants to play, and I just hear him go, All right, I'll be right there.

And then I went back to the kitchen where I was, and I heard Liam's you know, footsteps just racing up the stairs.

He runs out the door, he shuts the door, and I hear them all playing.

A few minutes later, I hear some commotion, and I can tell there's an adult that's trying to get Liam's attention, and it's it's Sam's dad.

And I look outside and and I see Liam and he's playing with Sam and they're having a good time.

There's just one problem.

Liam is not wearing pants.

He has no pants on.

Okay?

I'm pretty sure I've told this story before, but it's been a long time.

He's wearing no pants.

And the dad across the street is trying to, you know, let Liam know hey, you need to go in your house and you need to put some pants on before you come play with my daughter.

That's like something that as a father of a girl I support fully.

Okay?

And uh, I remember we were so nervous that Liam would be embarrassed because we walked out there and we like got his attention, and I'm like, oh, I don't want to embarrass him in front of his friends, and I'm like, Liam, come over here.

Like, you're not wearing pants.

You gotta put pants on.

And I'm I'm worried that he's gonna start to cry and realize just how embarrassing this is.

He's just in his underwear and a shirt, you know, it's like Donald Duck or something.

And so he uh he just he just stands up though and he looks at all the girls.

They're out in the they're playing on in the cul-de-sac and he just goes, Hey guys, I'll be back in a second, not wearing any pants, at this point, goes in the house.

And I told Liam, I said, Son, this is it's okay.

This is really my fault as a father.

I have failed you because I never told you this before.

But one of the first things you should do every day is put pants on.

Like, think about all the things you like to do in life, pretty much all of them require you wearing pants.

And so from now on, when you get up, just put some pants on.

And then and then you're ready for the day.

Pants first.

That is the proper order of things.

Pants are one of the first things that happens in the day.

And I will say, since that time, he's been killing it.

He has pants on almost every time I see him.

Almost every time.

It's great.

It's great.

The order of things matters.

And so it kind of bugs me that here we are the Sunday after Easter, and we're talking about the cross.

Because I don't know if you know the order of the story, but you probably know it at least from a basic level, and maybe you're here going, I'm I'm no biblical scholar, but I'm pretty sure that Jesus died on the cross before he rose from the dead.

Because you cannot rise from the dead until you die.

And so, yes, last Sunday was Easter.

And yes, we're talking about the cross, we're out of order, but it's okay.

We're gonna we're gonna make this work.

Think of today as like a flashback.

You know when you watch a movie and something happens, then it flashes back, and you have to piece that together in your mind and it's confusing and you're annoyed.

That's today.

That's this moment.

How exciting.

We're talking about the cross.

The cross of Jesus.

The cross is one of the most pivotal moments in human history.

In fact, I would say with conviction that I believe the cross is the most important moment that has ever happened in the history of our world.

And even if you're someone that doesn't believe in Jesus from like a divinity standpoint, you don't think that he's the Son of God, the Messiah, you think he's just a great teacher, a cool dude, you can't deny the impact that the cross has had on human history.

I mean, it's really interesting to think about just the symbol of the cross, right?

A cross was a method of execution that the Romans used, it was their go-to way of executing people, and it was as brutal a form of execution that has ever existed.

Executing someone on a cross had two main objectives.

Number one, maximize pain and suffering.

It was to be as painful as possible and to be as drawn out as possible.

It was not a quick and easy thing.

Number two, it was to maximize humiliation.

You were on display for everyone to look at and to laugh at and to mock.

It's this brutal, brutal, inhumane form of execution, and yet Jesus is so powerful that the cross today is a symbol of love and forgiveness and mercy and kindness.

That's the transformative power of Jesus.

And it's so interesting to think about the fact that Jesus, the Son of God, who had all the power in the world, who could have done things however he wanted to do things, allowed himself to die on a cross.

I mean, really, really think about that for a second.

If you read the story of Jesus and you believe it, you believe that Jesus is who he says he is, you believe the story is about Jesus, it becomes pretty clear that Jesus did not get captured and killed.

Jesus allowed himself to be captured.

He allowed himself to be killed.

In fact, if you if you read the story of Jesus being arrested, I don't have scripture to put up on the screen for this.

This wasn't part of the plan, but it's one of my favorite stories.

Because number one, the Bible says that Jesus saw the soldiers coming to arrest him, and he stood up and walked toward them.

I love that.

He didn't hide, he didn't run, he walked toward them.

And then there's this moment where they ask, Are you him?

Are you Jesus?

Are you the Messiah?

And he says, Yes, I am.

And apparently there's so much power in his voice that the soldiers like fall.

Their knees like go out from under them and they fall down, and it's this reminder where Jesus is saying, Look, I'm gonna go with you.

But let's be clear.

I'm going with you.

You're not you're not taking me.

You don't have to, I'm not gonna fight you.

But but his power was immense, it was incredible.

I mean, he healed diseases and he spoke to storms, and storms stopped, and he raised people from the dead.

And so this man has has so much power, there's there's something so special about him, and yet he allows himself to die with the most brutal, intense death.

He really could have died as a human being.

I mean, it's it's it's crazy.

And what's really interesting is that it seems like this was the plan all along.

It really does.

In fact, in Matthew chapter 20, verse 28, the Bible says this is Jesus talking, 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.

Matthew 20:28

Jesus came to give his life as a ransom, to die in order to pay a price.

And when Jesus would talk about dying, his friends, his disciples would correct him.

Jesus loved to talk in metaphors and illustrations, and that's what they thought was going on.

He's using death and dying as a metaphor, as an illustration, and they're like, Jesus, don't use that one.

That makes us really uncomfortable.

We don't like it.

Don't don't be talking about dying.

That's confusing because you know you're the Messiah, you're a conqueror, you're gonna change things, you're gonna, you're gonna do some things, and you really can't do that if you're dead.

And so please stop talking about this whole death thing all the time.

And Jesus would just correct his disciples in that moment and say, look, quit it.

You don't understand what I'm doing, you don't understand what I'm all about.

I didn't come here to be served, I came here to serve.

I didn't come here to take life, I came here to bring life and to give my life.

But it was so hard for that to compute for them.

Because they're not like us, they're not on the other side of Jesus' death.

They don't they don't see how it all worked out.

They couldn't imagine Jesus, the Messiah, dying, especially being killed on a cross.

But Jesus time and time again says, no, this is the plan.

And it's not plan B or C or D or somewhere else way down the line.

It's the plan.

It's apparently the way that God decided to do things.

This is this is God's chosen path.

This isn't God backed into a corner.

This isn't Jesus going, ah, I'm out of options.

This is this is God.

This is Jesus going, this is the way, this is how we want to do this.

I want to come, I want to die.

I want to die in intense death for people.

But why?

Like, why did why did he have to die?

Surely God could have looked at the whole situation, this whole issue that he's trying to solve, and and the issue really is a restored relationship with us.

That there was something in us that just couldn't connect with God, there's something in us that struggles to connect with him and be in a right relationship with him, and that has to be solved somehow, and so God looks down, he says, How I'm gonna fix this, and and surely he has options.

I look at most of the problems in my life and I see at least a few options.

Why does Jesus dying have to be the option?

Why is it the best option?

Well, to understand that, we've got to understand a really, really churchy word called uh called atonement.

It's a word we've probably all heard, atonement.

It's a real fun word, you know?

If I said, hey, we're doing an eight-week-long study on atonement, no one would come.

No one would be here.

You'd all go somewhere else, and that's okay, because that doesn't sound like an enjoyable experience.

Atonement, let's talk about that, right?

We try really hard at his hands not to use churchy words too much.

We don't want you to have to learn a new language to experience this and be part of this, where you come in and go, oh, I don't know what any of this stuff means.

Might as well be a foreign language.

And we do our best to avoid a lot of that religious language that's just kind of what's normal in church, but that doesn't mean there aren't still these words that kind of only exist in a context with God, and we can't sidestep these concepts because if we do, we just miss the picture, and so we actually have to define some terms from time to time, and one of those terms is atonement.

We can't understand what Jesus did for us if we don't understand this biblical concept called atonement.

So, as we've been going through this series, we've been showing videos from a group called the Bible Project, and I've been plugging the Bible Project almost as if they've paid me to sponsor them, which they have not.

Uh I'm just really excited about this group.

They basically take very big concepts, they have a video for every book in the Bible, in fact, they have multiple videos for most of the books in the Bible, and they just lay it out in a way that is so clear and understandable, and in a few minutes you go from going, yeah, I sort of get that.

I get that in a very hazy way, to going, okay, makes sense.

And I think that's really, really powerful when the Bible comes to life for us.

And so I want to show a video by the Bible Project on atonement, and then we're gonna come back together and pick it up from there.

Sound good?

Okay, so watch this, and then uh I'll be back in a second.

We all long for the world to be good, for people to live in peace, act with love and justice, but there's a problem.

Something compels us humans to constantly wreak havoc and destruction instead.

And we call this evil.

And from the Bible's point of view, evil ruins things in at least two ways.

There's a direct effect of our evil, like when someone steals from another person, they've created injustice.

Yeah, therefore, you know, they owe something to make it right.

But there's another indirect effect of evil, because they've also ruined the environment of the relationship, creating a lack of trust, there's emotional damage.

It's like vandalism, and they need to make that right too.

Now, many people believe, hey, God is good, he should be the one to just get rid of all the evil in the world.

But let's be honest.

I mean, the evil that I see everywhere out there, it's the same evil that's inside of me.

We have all contributed, and we keep doing it.

And so this kind of puts us in a bind.

If God's gonna rid the world of evil, he'll have to get rid of us.

And this is what's so remarkable about the story of the Bible.

This God is so good that not only is he going to rid the world of evil, he's gonna do it without destroying humanity.

So, how is he gonna do that?

Well, early in the story of the Bible, we're introduced to this practice of animal sacrifice, which I know it seems weird to us, but for the Israelites, it was a very powerful symbol of God's justice and of his grace.

So remember, I'm a contributor to the evil that's in the world, I should be removed.

But God is allowing this animal's life to be a substitute, it's symbolically dying in my place.

The biblical word for this is atonement, which means to cover over someone's dead.

But there's a second part to this ritual.

Remember, evil also causes this relational vandalism.

And in the Bible, this idea is described as polluting or defiling the land and making it unclean.

So the priests would symbolically wash away the vandalism by sprinkling the animal's blood in different parts of the temple.

So the animal's blood is cleaning things?

Well, remember, this is a symbol, and it's a symbol that we're not used to.

The blood represents life.

And the sprinkling of the blood is this representation of how God is cleaning away these indirect consequences of evil in their community.

In the Bible, this process is called purification.

And so the temple and the land now become a clean space where God and his people can live together in peace.

So this ritual makes things right between Israel and God.

And more than that, the Israelites experience God's love and his grace through these symbols.

And by being forgiven, ideally, this would compel them to become people of love and grace too.

Right, that's the ideal, but it wasn't always happening.

Right.

So the prophet Isaiah, for example, he talks a lot about this.

He opens his book by saying that the continual sacrifices of the Israelites had become meaningless.

Because they were also allowing great evil in their midst, ignoring the poor and the oppressed, even the Israelite kings were distorting justice.

But Isaiah looked forward to a day when a new king from the line of David would come and deal with evil, but in a surprising way.

The king would become a servant, and not just serve, but also suffer and die for the evil committed by his own people, and his life would be offered as a sacrifice.

This is the promise Jesus believed he was fulfilling.

He's the king of Israel, suffering and dying on the cross.

In fact, Jesus himself used Isaiah's words when he said that he came to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.

And that word ransom refers to a sacrifice of atonement.

And so all over the New Testament, we hear about how Jesus' death was an atoning sacrifice for us.

It covered the debt that humans owe God for contributing to all of the evil and death in his world.

But the New Testament authors also talk about Jesus' death as providing purification.

And so we hear about Jesus' blood as a symbol of his life, having this ability to wash away the vandalism that evil has caused in us and around us, so we can now live at peace with God.

So that's the meaning behind Jesus' death.

But there's more to the story.

Yeah, the New Testament makes this powerful claim that Jesus' death was not final.

He rose from the dead.

And so he's the sacrifice who broke the power of death and evil, which means that he lives on to offer his life to anyone who will accept it.

He is the perfect sacrifice to which all the previous sacrifices were pointing all along.

I love that stuff.

I just get excited about it.

All their uh ooh, that was loud.

All of uh all their videos, by the way, are linked on our mobile app if you have that.

And in the message part of the mobile app, we'll put all those videos if you ever want to watch those later.

I just I get excited about the Bible clicking.

I don't know.

Maybe it's just me.

Uh apparently it is, but I do very, very much.

So so Jesus died as an atonement.

That's what the cross was, an atoning sacrifice.

And really what you see in the first part of the Bible, the Old Testament, the part of the Bible that's before Jesus shows up, is God constantly reminding us that sin is actually really serious.

Sin's kind of an ugly word in our culture today, and that's mainly the church's fault over history.

The church has used sin like this ugly word, an accusatory word.

You're a sinner, you're a sinner.

But in Jesus' time, the word sin was not an ugly word.

Everyone would have said, Yeah, I'm a sinner.

In other words, yeah, I'm not perfect.

I've got flaws, I've got issues.

And the challenge is always for us to figure out how serious our issues actually are.

And we tend to do that as people in a very comparative way, right?

So I'll look at my issues and I'll be like, yeah, that's not good, that's not good.

But I don't have to look that hard to find someone that I can at least, for a moment, feel like, well, I mean, at least I'm not that guy, right?

At least I'm not them.

And I could also compare myself to people better than me and go, I mean, I'm not them, but who is?

Like, come on.

And when we get in this whole comparative mindset, we get we get way off track.

What we all always tend to do is minimize our issues.

Minimize sin and say, yeah, I mean, yeah, I have this stuff, I have selfishness in me, I have, you know, I have things where where I just care more about myself than others, or or I care about what's right for me, even if it's maybe not right, period, but you know, everyone does.

How serious can the problem be?

And God tells us in Scripture, it's very serious, actually.

Very serious.

In fact, the Bible tells us God over and over again that sin has a steep price.

Sin has a steep price.

Romans 6 23 says, the wages of sin is death.

The wages of sin is death.

But the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

And we might look at that and be like, Death, death.

God, I don't know if you know how life works, but death.

Is pretty much the most maximum consequence you can be given on earth.

Like, if death is the consequence, if death is the wages, how can I afford that?

I can't, like, I can't give more than my life.

That's it.

And the wages of sin is death, and that doesn't make sense to us.

Sometimes we might look at that and go, God, it shouldn't be as big of a deal as it is.

But when you really step back and look at it, the reality is sin leads to death in every sense of the word.

Even in our own lives, I have had sin in my life, selfishness, that has led to the death of trust between me and other people.

I've experienced sin leading to the death of joy in my life.

I've experienced sin leading to the death of freedom in like a very practical sense as a kid.

If I would sin against my parents, if I would do things they told me not to do, I would lose privileges.

My freedom would go away.

It would die.

Sin kills, it erodes.

It's like a cancer.

And you have to deal with something that's aggressive in an aggressive manner.

So sin has a steep price, but the wages of it being death means that it's out of our price range.

We can't cover that.

We can't afford to pay the debt.

If we were to do it, we'd have nothing left.

And even if my life could cover my sin, what about the sin of my children and my family?

Like I can't afford to pay this price.

And God knows that.

And that's why in the Old Testament, He's creating this idea of sacrifice.

And He's having the Israelites year in and year out sacrifice sheep.

Poor sheep.

Can we just take a moment?

And I don't know, feel bad for sheep?

Because they really get they get the bad end of the stick when it comes to that deal.

But whatever.

So they're taking years and years and years of these sacrifices.

It's sheep, and these sheep are dying as a substitute, but it's all very, very bleak.

And it's all very depressing.

And it's just a yearly reminder of sin.

And someone's gotta pay the price.

There's no such thing as free lunch, right?

Everyone has to pay eventually, someone's paying the bill.

And the problem is, is those the sacrifices were great as a reminder that sin is serious, it has a steep price, but they weren't that effective.

It wasn't like it was moving the needle.

It wasn't like the sacrifices were changing the way people were living their lives.

It's kind of like if you just make the minimum payment on a debt.

If you owe a debt to a credit card company and it has interest, and every month they send you the bill and you just pay the minimum payment, it's never gonna get paid off.

The minimum payment does nothing.

It just does nothing.

It doesn't even put a dent in the actual debt, and that's what those sacrifices were.

They were just the minimum payment.

Eventually, someone's gotta come along and just wipe the debt away.

Someone's gotta pay it off.

That's our only hope.

And that's where Jesus comes in.

Because Jesus shows up and he pays the debt in full, pays it, gone.

And only Jesus could do that.

Number one, only Jesus lived life in such a way that he didn't owe a debt to sin himself.

He had no sin.

So he's good there.

But he's the Son of God, he's divine, so he has infinite power and infinite love and infinite goodness.

He's got enough in the bank, so to speak, to pay off the balance.

This seemingly infinite balance of sin.

And Jesus did that on the cross.

That is what happened on the cross.

There we go.

Okay?

And, you know, it's it's interesting because for us, for us, we've heard this before.

And maybe you're maybe you're not even a Jesus follower, but you're just here and you're you're thinking about this.

You're probably familiar with most of these basic concepts because it's very much penetrated our culture.

But what we have a challenge to do is to let it resonate in our hearts.

It's very easy for us to see the cross as a historical event.

It's very easy for us to see the cross through these sort of theological lenses and go, yes, I it's good.

He died for me, he died for my sins, I get that.

But it becomes difficult for us because of our exposure, because of how many times we've heard the story to let it penetrate and actually realize what that means for you and for me.

In Galatians 2.20, Paul says, I have been crucified with Christ.

Paul was this leader in the early church.

He said, My old self died with Christ.

And he makes the cross a very personal moment in his life.

And he reminds us all that the cross, if you put your faith in Jesus, the cross is not just something that happened to Jesus, it's something that happened to you.

The cross is something that happened to you.

In fact, it's an event so significant in your life that if someone were to come up to you and say, hey, tell me about the most the most impactful moments in your life.

Like your birth should be pretty high up there, I think.

That was a big moment.

The cross should be right up there as well.

To actually see the cross as a personal moment in your life because it affects you.

The cross has changed your life forever, even if you've never realized it before.

I want to look at something that Jesus said on the cross.

John chapter 19, verse 28.

John 19:28

Jesus knew that his mission was now finished, and to fulfill Scripture, he said, I'm thirsty.

This is a reference to Psalm 22.

If you ever have a chance to read Psalm 22, it takes like five minutes.

It was written a thousand years before Jesus, and it's all about the cross.

It's crazy.

It's so cool.

He said, I'm thirsty.

A jar of sour wine was sitting there, so they soaked a sponge in it.

They put it on a hyssop branch and held it up to his lips.

And when Jesus had tasted it, he said, It is finished.

And then he bowed his head and he gave up his spirit.

So on the cross, the very last words that come out of Jesus' mouth are the words, It is finished.

It's finished.

It's done.

Something's been accomplished.

Something's been taken care of.

Do you have any unfinished business in your life today?

Anyone have any unfinished business at all?

Any tasks that need to be completed?

Wow.

Okay, because I was about to say, if you don't, we've got a laundry list of stuff that we need to get done here at the church.

And I would love for you to stay after, and we can talk about all the stuff that needs done.

It's gonna be so fun.

Of course, none of us are here today going, like, you know what I need?

A bigger to-do list.

That's what I need.

We all have unfinished business.

I'm just thinking about all the things I've got to get done in my life right now.

It's so, so much.

And I feel like I create new things to do faster than I finish the things I need to get done.

This summer I have to clear out our storage rooms in our basement.

When we moved into this house, one of the things that we were blown away with was the storage space.

Two huge rooms in our basement for storage.

And we were like, wow, we're never gonna use all this storage space.

We were even thinking about what we would turn those rooms into one day.

Three years later, both are jam-packed, completely full.

And I don't think Megan's in the room right now.

Megan, are you here?

Great.

It's all her stuff.

Okay.

Maybe, maybe 1% of it is mine.

But it's all either her stuff or stuff that the kids grew out of, and she was like, let's keep it.

You know, because one day our kids will grow up and we'll just build a giant pile of their clothes and lay on it and go, remember when they can fit in these clothes or something?

I don't know.

It's weird to me.

It's so weird.

She will look at things and go, should we give this away?

Should we throw it?

She's like, I don't, I don't know.

Let's just put it in the storage room.

We'll decide that later.

And it drives me nuts because if I open the door to our storage room in our basement, I just, it's, it's overwhelming to me.

And I get panicked and I just shut the door.

That's all I do.

Every once in a while, she'll be like, hey, I'm missing something.

I think it's in the storage room.

Would you mind finding it?

And I'm like, oh, I don't think you understand what you're asking me to do.

It's nuts.

And this summer I'm supposed to go through our storage rooms.

And I don't want to do that.

I don't, I can't, I can't even handle the idea of opening those doors and starting to wade through the stuff because I know what's gonna happen.

I'm gonna pull it out and be like, what do you want to do with this?

She's like, ah, I just, I don't know.

And can we just set it aside and we'll move it to a different room somewhere in our house?

And that's all that's gonna happen.

Megan, you're not in here, are you?

Are we good?

Okay.

We're gonna put the nine o'clock message on the podcast, and this didn't happen.

This didn't happen.

All right, just be clear.

This didn't happen.

She's gonna find out.

But it's all good.

I bought Liam a basketball goal a few weeks ago.

We we have a basketball goal, but you know, sometimes you need two.

And uh, you know, full we want to have a full court game every once in a while.

You know, we'll figure that out.

But no, no, a friend called me up and he had a friend that was moving, and this friend has like a really nice in-ground goal, like a really nice goal, and he was selling it dirt cheap, and we just have a fine goal, but it's it's not like it's not like a real goal with a glass backboard and all that.

And so uh so he called me up, said, Hey, do you want this?

And I'm like, yes.

And so we went and we bought it, we brought it to my house, and I didn't, I've never put a goal in the ground.

I've never had to install one of those, and I thought, this can't be that hard.

And I start reading the instructions, and I have to dig a four foot deep hole, four feet deep, and it's gotta be like big enough for me to stand in, and I have to fill that with concrete and put stuff down in that, and I'm sitting there going, I've never done this before.

How hard can this be?

And my father-in-law gave me this thing called a post hole digger.

I don't know if you've ever seen one of these, but it basically looks like it's the equivalent of me taking like a cup from our house and just digging out one cup at a time.

And I'm thinking, how long is it gonna take for me to go four feet deep?

I bet there's at least a few rocks in there or something.

I I guess it's not gonna be easy.

I know that much, and I gotta figure out when I'm gonna do that now so we can put the goal in.

Right now, it's just laying in our driveway, just a basketball goal, you know, unfinished business.

And that's just the stuff at home.

I've got so much unfinished business at work, I've got so much random stuff I've got to get done.

I have to get a passport.

I'm not fleeing the country.

There's no, there's no like nothing going on.

I'm just I'm leaving the country for a few days later this year, and I have to get a passport.

I haven't had to do that before, and I don't even know.

I'm just not looking forward to that.

It's just unfinished business.

Wouldn't it be nice?

Wouldn't it be nice if something in your life was finished?

And actually finished, not like finished for a while, because that's how most of our stuff is.

We finish it and then it just happens again.

We finish it and it becomes unfinished.

Every week I write a message.

Every week.

And I don't just wing this, believe it or not.

This is actually practiced.

I know.

Crazy.

Not rehearsed, it's practiced.

There's a difference, and I can go on and on about the difference, but I'm not going to because I respect your time.

But I write a message from scratch every week, and then I cross it off my to-do list.

Message written, message given, and I go home, and tonight I'll just be like, ah, it's done, and then tomorrow I'm like, crap, I gotta think of another message.

God help me, God help me.

And the whole rest of the week is like, God, please, please, please, I need a message.

I need a message.

I was up last night at midnight.

It took me, I had to write this message three times.

It was frustrating.

Can you tell?

Okay?

You're sitting there going, it's not one of his best ones, I'll say that.

Well, I'm right there with you.

This was a frustrating week.

And I'm so relieved for it today to be done, and that way I can panic tomorrow as I think about the next one.

It's just unfinished business.

I want something in my life to be done.

Just to be done.

And so, how incredible is it to think about the fact that Jesus tells us that the most important thing in your life, a right relationship with God.

You and God being being good.

It's finished.

It's been done.

Right?

Again, it's one of those things that we we get excited about when we really let it sink in, but it's it's so hard to live that out.

It's hard for me to live my life in such a way that communicates to God, I know that it's finished, I know that we're good.

I had a pastor when I was in college that spent a lot of time investing in me and some other guys.

His name was Roy, Loveroy, and uh Roy once told me he recognized some things about me that I didn't recognize about myself.

Something he called performance orientation.

Anyone else here understand that?

You're a performance-oriented person.

What that means is you believe in your mind, you don't think this consciously, but you believe that you're always auditioning for life.

Essentially, that you you're always having to prove to yourself and the world around you that you're good enough.

And so every day of your life is like you building a resume, and and and you're only as good as your most recent performance.

And so you just have to perform, perform, perform, perform.

And that's how I was wired, that's how I kind of grew up.

I just have to do better and better and better, and what I did yesterday isn't good enough, and if I did great, I felt good.

If I did okay, I felt terrible.

Performance orientation.

And I did that with God.

I was always trying to perform and impress God and show God how sorry I really was for my mistakes, and and I was always trying to make things up to God.

And Roy told me one day, pretty intense.

He said, You know what you ought to do, Justin?

And I'm like, What?

I didn't realize it was a setup.

He said, You ought to build a time machine.

That's when I knew.

Okay.

He's not being serious.

He said, You ought to build a time machine.

Go back in time to when Jesus died on the cross.

And why don't you go up to the cross and look up at Jesus and say, hey, I appreciate what you're trying to do.

But why don't you get off there and let me get on up there?

Because I'll I'll deal with this.

And I was like, what?

Seems kind of dumb and rude.

And I think that's, I think you may have just offended God with that illustration.

I don't know.

Doesn't seem right, but but it sunk in.

And I realized what he was trying to tell me.

What he was trying to tell me was, you live your life as if Jesus' death isn't good enough for you.

You live your life as if Jesus' death was a nice gesture, a good start, but not enough to actually cover and deal with your junk.

You believe somewhere deep down inside that you still have to make up for it, that you still have to perform in such a way that convinces God, oh, okay, now I'm convinced.

Now we're okay.

And because I did that, my relationship with God was very, very frustrating.

It was like God was calling me to do things in life.

God was saying, hey, you know, do this, pursue this, you know, get something done.

And it's almost like God and I are right here, and and He's like, hey, go over there and do what I'm asking you to do.

And I'm like, okay, I'll do that.

And I took a few steps and I'm like, God, are we are we okay?

Are we good?

You ever you ever do that with people in your life, by the way?

Relationships?

I do that with Megan all the time.

Drives her nuts.

I'll just sense that something's off.

And I've been married long enough to know I've probably done something.

On any given day, I've done something or I've not done something, I've said something, or I haven't said something, and I'll just sense it and I'll be like, are we good?

And she'll be like, yeah, we're fine.

I'm like, okay, okay.

And then, you know, a few seconds later, I'm like, I know you said we're good, but I just, is there something between us?

And she's like, no, there's starting to be, but not right now, you know?

And I'll say, fine, but then I just can't shake it.

And hours will go by, and I'll just be next to her on the couch and be like, are you sure that we're okay?

There's nothing between us, and and she's like, Are you- Do you need to confess something to me?

And I'm like, no, I just I can't.

For some reason, I'm I'm having a hard time believing that we're okay.

Well, I get like that with God.

And I'm trying to do what God's asked me to do, but every few feet, I'm just like, God, I just I just feel like something's wrong.

I feel like something's between us.

And he's like, we're good.

Oh, okay, cool.

I'm gonna go do what you told me to do.

I'm gonna go live my life like you want me to.

But you know, as I think about it, I just feel like that's how I live my life with God most days.

And it's it's needless.

Because Jesus said it's finished.

It's done.

It's done.

I mean, we can look at scripture, and it's just everywhere.

2 Corinthians 5.21, for God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

Is there anything in there that seems like it's circumstantial or shaky?

No, it's resolute, it's certain.

1 Peter 2.24, he personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right.

By his wounds you are healed.

There's nothing there that communicates that it's unfinished, that there's work left to be done.

Hebrews 12, 1 and 2, therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up, and let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.

We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith.

Think about that.

It doesn't say Jesus who initiates our faith.

He's the one that gets the ball rolling, but you're the one that's got to finish it.

The word in the Bible, perfect, if you see that, as you read your Bible, it means complete.

Doesn't mean no flaws, it means complete.

So it says that Jesus both initiates our faith and he completes our faith.

He does it all.

It's finished, okay?

So practically, practically speaking, what do we do with that?

And here's the reality of it.

I think sometimes in in church culture, especially kind of modern church culture, we try so hard to make everything practical.

Okay?

We just gotta we gotta boil it all down to the practical, we gotta reduce the Bible down to life hacks or something like that, that we forget that what is spiritual is practical.

Because you are spiritual.

You have a spirit.

That's what makes you who you are.

Your spirit will far outlive your body.

You have a spirit.

And so in terms of practicality, if your spirit is right, it tends to affect every part of your life in a good way.

It affects your job, it affects your relationships with your family, with your friends, it affects your studies, if you're a student, it affects it all.

But if your spirit is off, and we've all experienced this, right?

If your spirit's just off, then everything else can be going well, but you just don't feel it.

So what is spiritual is as practical as anything.

And what God is is telling you is that practically and spiritually, it's done.

If you have put your faith in Jesus, he's good with you.

It doesn't matter how yesterday went, it doesn't matter how you've performed this week or this month or this year or this decade.

It doesn't matter what the people around you think, it doesn't matter how good of a husband your wife thinks you are, it doesn't matter how good of a wife your husband thinks you are, it doesn't matter how good of a child your parents think you are, it doesn't matter how good of a parent your kids think you are, when it comes to you and God, take everything else aside, put everything else out of the out of the picture, make it in the periphery between you and him, you're good.

He looks at you and he says, We're good.

And yes, you do have a lot of unfinished business in this world.

You have unfinished business in your relationships, you have unfinished business in your business, you have unfinished business everywhere, but there's no unfinished business between me and you.

That's what God says if you've given your life to Jesus, if you've committed your life to him.

He says, Look, I need you to know this.

I'm good with you.

All your mistakes, it's it's dealt with, it's paid for, not paid in part.

There wasn't a down payment placed on your life by Jesus, it was paid in full and it is finished, and you're good.

So breathe and rest in that and enjoy the fact that God loves you and nothing can change it.

You can't mess this up.

It's the only thing in life you can't mess up.

That's awesome.

That's beautiful, that's powerful.

It's finished.

Some of you were thinking, when is he gonna be finished?

Like right now.

No one clapped.

Cool.

Um I was just gauging you.

If people clapped, I was really gonna be done, but since you didn't, I got like five more points.

No, I'm joking.

We're gonna finish with a song like we always do.

It's our thing, and then we'll take a moment to do hands in the pile.

That's where we we remember that we are on a team.

This church, we're a team, and we have a mission.

And the mission is not to gather on Sundays, the mission is to leave here and make sure that if there's one person in this community that doesn't know the love of Jesus, that we love them in such a way that they experience it.

That's that's what we do.

And if you're here this morning and you've never experienced the love of Jesus, then I'm just I'm hoping that today's the last day that you can say that about your life.

Because he loves you so much.

And he wants to finish it all.

He wants to take it all.

He wants to do something you can never do yourself, pay a price you can't afford to pay.

But the song we're gonna sing is really purposeful.

It's called At the Cross.

And today's all about the cross.

It's all about what Jesus did for us, what he finished, what he completed.

And there's something about us as people that we just have this very hard time remembering things like that.

It's very easy for us to forget what God has actually done for us, to forget how faithful he is.

And even though he's finished it, even though he's perfected it, sometimes we've got to kind of come to the cross all over again.

Just to be reminded of where we stand, just to be reminded of what he did.

So maybe you're here today, and maybe you've never come to the cross, you've never had that moment in your life where you have recognized okay, this is not just some historical event.

This is something that's happening in my life.

Jesus is dying for me.

And I I'm gonna accept the sacrifice.

I'm gonna accept what he's giving me.

And maybe you've been a Christian for a long time, but maybe it's just been a while since you've come to the cross.

And you've allowed yourself to start building up this performance-oriented view of God, and you're you're listing out all your failures, and you feel like there's something between you and God, you don't know what is, and all it is is a lie from Satan.

Because there's nothing between you and God.

The cross covered it, it's done.

And you need to come to the cross right now, so to speak.

You need to kind of bring yourself to Jesus and be reminded of what he did, what he went through, and why he did, and the reason why is you.

So we're gonna pray and we're gonna, as a family, come to the cross and accept the mercy and accept the grace, and accept the love, and accept the forgiveness, and accept the power that comes from having something in our lives truly finished.

Pray with me.

Jesus, we love you.

Thank you for being the finisher of our faith.

Thank you, Jesus, for doing more than just getting us started.

Lord, you you take it all.

You take all of our guilt, you take all of our shame, you take all of our hurt, you take all the pain, you take all the regret, you take all the sin, you take all the junk, and you take it and you deal with it, and you deal with it in its entirety.

And Lord, when we give it to you, when we look to you on the cross and say, Jesus, I take this, you accept it.

And you deal with it.

And you look us in the eye and you say, It's done.

It's finished.

I love you.

Help us accept that love.

Help us receive that love.

Help us be changed by that love, Lord, and prepare our hearts to walk out of here and bring that love with us everywhere we go this week.

And we ask this in your name, Jesus.

Amen.