Why Did Jesus Have to Die?

1. 0:00 We need to feel the weight of what happened on that first Friday. We call it Good Friday. We just put quotes around the word good, yeah? So what happened on that horrible Good Friday was how the weight of the world, the sins of the world were taken upon one man who bore our sins to the cross and paid the price that our sins deserve.
2. 0:24 So as you experience this worship service today, again, which would be a different field than what we normally do, and as you leave today, again, we don't want anybody to feel weighed down or guilty. We just want you to feel sobered at the sacrifice that Christ made for us. There will be several readings.
3. 0:40 We'll be singing some mostly traditional old hymns that address the cross itself. So we're glad you're here. I ask that you would join us as we pray and get ready to enter into just an hour of contemplative worship as we focus on the cross of Jesus Christ.
4. 0:58 Where his body was broken and his blood was shed for us. So would you pray with me? Our Lord and our God, we are humbled and we're grateful for all that you've done for us in Christ. And we ask now that you would look upon this, our offering of worship, that would be pleasing in your sight, that would minister grace to all who enter in.
5. 1:20 For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. The first word reading is taken from Luke 23, verses 32 through 38.
6. 1:51 Two others who were criminals were led away to be put to death with him. And when they came to the place they called the skull, there they crucified him and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.
7. 2:14 And Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do. And they cast lots to divide his garments. And the people stood by, watching.
8. 2:33 But the rulers scoffed at him, saying, He saved others, let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his chosen one. Then, the soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine and saying, If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.
9. 3:00 There was also an inscription over him. This is the king of the Jews. We pray a prayer of confession.
10. 3:22 Holy and merciful God, we confess to you and to one another that we have sinned by our own fault, in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have not done.
11. 3:48 We have not loved you with our whole heart and mind and strength. Father, we have not loved you, and we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgotten others.
12. 4:06 We have been forgiven. Have mercy on us, O God. The second word from Luke 23, verses 39 through 43.
13. 4:29 One of the criminals who were hanged, railed at him, saying, Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us. But the other rebuked him, saying, Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds.
14. 4:48 But this man has done nothing wrong. And he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And he said to him, Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. Let's hear the blessed assurance of pardon from Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 5, verses 8 through 11.
15. 5:24 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
16. 5:41 For if when we were enemies, we were once reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we now have received the reconciliation.
17. 6:00 What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul?
18. 6:20 What wondrous love is this, O my soul? What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss To bear the dreadful curse, O my soul, O my soul, to bear the dreadful curse, O my soul?
19. 6:50 To God and to the Lamb I will sing, I will sing. To God and to the Lamb I will sing.
20. 7:07 To God and to the Lamb, who is the great I am. While millions join the theme, I will sing, I will sing.
21. 7:25 While millions join the theme, I will sing. And when from death I'm free, I'll sing on, I'll sing on.
22. 7:42 And when from death I'm free, I'll sing on. And when from death I'm free, I'll sing in joyful beat.
23. 7:58 And through eternity I'll sing on, I'll sing on. And through eternity I'll sing on.
24. 8:14 The third word comes from John 19, 23 through 27.
25. 8:31 When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier, also his tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. So they said to one another, Let us not tear it, but cast lots, for it to see whose it shall be.
26. 8:50 This was to fulfill the scripture which says, They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. So the soldiers did these things, but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.
27. 9:07 When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, Woman, behold your son. Then he said to the disciple, Behold your mother. And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. Oh, sacred head now wounded, With grief and shame weighed down, Now scornfully surrounded, With thorns thine only crown.
28. 9:56 With thorns thine only crown. Oh, sacred head now wounded, Sacred head, what glory, what bliss till now was thine.
29. 10:11 Yet though despised and gory, I joy to call thee mine. What thou, my Lord, hast suffered was all for sinners' gain.
30. 10:42 Mine, mine was the transgression, but thine the deadly pain. Lo, here I fall, my Savior, tis I deserve thy place.
31. 11:12 Look on me with thy favor and grant to me thy grace. What language shall I borrow to thank thee, dearest friend?
32. 11:45 For this thy dying sorrow, thy pity without end.
33. 12:00 Oh, make me thine forever, and should I faint in thee. Lord, let me never, never outlive my love to thee.
34. 12:30 The joy can never be spoken, above all joys beside.
35. 12:48 When in thy body broken, I thought with safety high.
36. 13:04 O Lord of life, desiring thy glory now to see. Beside thy cross expiring, I breathe my soul to thee.
37. 13:35 The fourth word is from Mark chapter 15, verses 34, 33 and 34.
38. 13:54 And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eloai, Eloai, lama sabachthani, which means, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
39. 14:17 My God, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
40. 14:51 Why are you so far from saving me? Why are you so far from saving me? From the world, I don't cry for thee.
41. 15:11 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? My God, why I cry my day with no fear? And where I am, I fly.
42. 15:28 Dogs encompass me With concrete visions My hands are feeling closed I can count my thoughts Under me they glow They cast blood for my garments And clothing and divine among them But you, O Lord, do not be far Oh you, my hell Come quick to find me You lift your eyes above your soul My precious light from the dark From the mouth of the lion You wrestled me from the horns of a fox And you, O Lord, do not be far Oh, let us pray God bless you God bless you God bless you You, O Lord, do not be far Oh, let us pray God bless you God bless you The fifth word comes from the book of John, chapter 19, verses 28 and 29.
43. 18:25 Amen After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said to fulfill scripture, I thirst First, a jar full of sour wine stood there So they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth Garrison Keillor is a name probably not too many of you are familiar with A marvelous storyteller and he's made a living for many years on the radio He's created a fictional world he calls Lake Wobegon, Minnesota It's based pretty closely on his own growing up in a small town in Minnesota called Anoka He's a professing Christian and he talks about when his family, when he was a child and his family would gather for Thanksgiving dinners And they'd go around the table sharing their blessings of the past year And he says, Uncle John would usually be asked to give the prayer And when his Uncle John began to pray, he said they all started to squirm because they knew Uncle John would have to mention the cross of Christ And when he did, he would start to cry And sure enough, Uncle John began to pray, mentioned the cross of Christ and began to cry And in his own words Thank you Thank you Thank you Healer says, all of us knew Jesus died on the cross for us as well, but Uncle John had never gotten over it.
44. 20:06 This service today is to remind us that we must never get over the cross of Christ. We must never get to a point where we as professing Christians say, well, yeah, but that was 2,000 years ago.
45. 20:25 Well, yeah, but that wouldn't happen today. Yeah, but that doesn't have anything to do with me today. The message of Good Friday is the cross has everything to do with us today, right now, right here, and every day.
46. 20:42 That's the message of Good Friday. The Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, what Christians call the Older Testament anyway, the Law and the Prophets, they're all fulfilled in Christ. For those of you who might be new to us or maybe new to church, maybe it's the first time you've been in a church or first time in a long time, maybe you don't know much about the Bible.
47. 21:04 Let me give you the secret decoder key for how you understand the Bible. It's a big book, and it's got 66 individual books that sometimes can be hard to grasp, the meaning is, but here's how you understand the Bible.
48. 21:19 The Hebrew Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament or the Older Testament, all point ahead to the coming of the Messiah. The four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, they all point at his earthly incarnation, at his life here from Bethlehem to the cross, to the resurrection, to the ascension.
49. 21:40 The four Gospels describe his first incarnation, his life here for those 33 or so years, roughly 2,000 years ago. The book of Acts and all what we call the epistles or the letters of Paul and John and Peter and so forth, they all point back at his incarnation, his earthly life.
50. 22:02 They all point back at his first coming and ahead to his second coming. But all the Bible points to Jesus. He is how you understand the Scriptures because he is the key. The Scriptures, we say, have a Christocentric focus.
51. 22:21 Today, I want us to focus in on, there are at least 48 major messianic prophecies in the Old Testament, prophecies written hundreds to thousands of years before Jesus was born, the point ahead to his incarnation.
52. 22:36 Today, I want us to spend a little bit of time looking at one of the clearest and, to me, the most compelling of all those, and that is from Isaiah chapter 53. These words were written down anywhere from 650 to 700 years before Jesus was born.
53. 22:53 Now, we're going to put Isaiah 53, verses 1 through 13, up on the screen here in a moment, but let me give you some backdrop before that. This is the prophet Isaiah, and he's writing, again, 650 to 700 years before Jesus was born.
54. 23:08 And before we get to the main passage for today, Isaiah writes this, Behold, my servant will prosper. He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted. Just as many were astonished at you, my people, this is God speaking.
55. 23:24 So his appearance was marred more than any man. And his form more than the sons of man. Thus, he will sprinkle many nations. Perhaps we should translate that better. He will startle many nations.
56. 23:40 Kings will shut their mouths on account of him. For what had not been told them, they will see. And what they had not heard, they will understand. And then we begin in chapter 53. Who has believed our message?
57. 24:21 He was despised, and we did not esteem him. Surely our griefs he himself bore, and our sorrows he carried. Yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions.
58. 24:40 He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
59. 24:59 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted. Yet he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before it shears. So he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
60. 25:15 And as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due? His grave was assigned with wicked men, yet he was with a rich man in his death, because he had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in his mouth.
61. 25:36 But the Lord was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief. If he would render himself as a guilt offering, he will see his offspring, he will prolong his days, and the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
62. 25:52 As a result of the anguish of his soul, he will see it and be satisfied. By his knowledge, the righteous one, my servant will justify the many as he will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will allot him a portion with the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life for the many and interceded for the transgressors.
63. 26:20 Would you pray with me? Our Lord and our God, I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts will be acceptable in your sight, for you are our rock and our redeemer. In Jesus' name, amen.
64. 26:37 In many ways, the entire book of Isaiah, and there's 66 chapters in Isaiah, so outside of the Psalms, Isaiah is the longest book in the Old Testament. In many ways, the book of Isaiah has all been leading up to pointing to this, the song of the suffering servant, his humiliation and exaltation, his sacrifice and our salvation, his pain and our peace.
65. 27:04 His suffering was individualized and intensely personal. His redemption, on the other hand, is global and readily available to anyone and everyone who wants it. So today I want us to see the perfect suffering servant will offer the perfect sacrifice, will become the perfect substitute, and accomplish the perfect salvation.
66. 27:33 Let me say that again. The perfect suffering servant will offer the perfect sacrifice, He will become the perfect substitute, and accomplish the perfect salvation. We're going to walk through these verses slowly, one at a time.
67. 27:49 Who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? The implied answer is no one. John Calvin, in his commentary, paraphrases it this way, nobody will believe these things. Right after the resurrection of Lazarus, which Jesus accomplished just before this Good Friday, right after the resurrection of Lazarus in the town of Bethany, and the anointing of His feet by Martha, by Mary, rather, Martha's sister, in the triumphal entry, John, in his gospel, writes this, But though He had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him, this was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet when he spoke, Lord, who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
68. 28:34 Verse 2, He's just the son of a carpenter from a little backwater town called Nazareth.
69. 28:53 Nazareth at that time probably had two to maybe three hundred people in it. Houses were nondescript, little one-story hovels. Today, we have tool sheds that are nicer than these houses. This is where Jesus is from.
70. 29:09 It's a town of no repute, no account. So who's going to take a son of a common laborer from Nazareth very seriously? So, verse 3, He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and like one from whom men hide their faces.
71. 29:25 He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Not that He was only sad and depressed all the time. You can't read the Gospels and come away with that picture of Him. But that He took upon Himself all of our sorrows, all of our pains, all of our griefs.
72. 29:43 There is nothing that you nor I have experienced that is foreign to Jesus in His incarnation. He experienced all the sadnesses, all the sorrows, all the wounds, all the injuries that any of us could ever experience.
73. 29:59 And more. So he doesn't speak to the human condition as an outsider. He was and is one of us. And that we hide our faces from him and esteem him not is not an endowment on him, but rather on us and our inability to recognize who he truly is.
74. 30:23 Verse 4, surely our griefs he himself bore and our sorrows he carried. Yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. Leviticus 16 is another high point in the Old Testament. It's much too long to read.
75. 30:38 It is the description of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. I encourage you to read it. Today would be a great day to read Leviticus 16, but let me just describe in brief what happens. At this point in the history of the Old Testament people, our old covenant forebears of Israel, they don't have the temple yet.
76. 30:56 They have a tabernacle. It's basically a huge tent that travels with the people of Israel as they go throughout the wilderness and they're 40 years wandering. And in this tabernacle, there is an inner sanctum, a holy of holies, where the Ark of the Covenant resides.
77. 31:12 And on top of the Ark of the Covenant, there's a mercy seat. And this is where God Almighty meets with his people. But no one is allowed to go in there ever upon penalty of death, except one person, one time a year, the high priest of Israel, beginning with Aaron, Moses' brother.
78. 31:32 He is allowed to go into the tabernacle, into the inner sanctum, into the holy of holies, to the Ark of the Covenant and the mercy seat of God. If you've seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, they actually do a pretty good job of depicting what that looked like.
79. 31:47 And Aaron is allowed to go in there one time for a year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, to make atonement for the sins of the people of Israel. There's a number of sacrifices involved. I won't bore you or gross you out by all the blood that is shed, but it's an incredibly bloody sacrifice on the part of the high priest.
80. 32:11 But one particular part of the sacrifice is particularly germane to what we're doing today. The high priest is to take two goats and to bring them in to the inner sanctum with him. One of those goats, he is to symbolically transfer all the sins of the people of Israel onto that goat and then sacrifice that goat and shed his blood on the altar, paying for the sins of the people.
81. 32:39 For those of you who are a little bit theologically advanced, this is called propitiation. Propitiation is payment for the sins of the people. And then the high priest takes that other goat, places his hands on his head, and symbolically transfers the sins of the people of Israel onto it.
82. 32:59 And then he sends that goat out into the wilderness. The Hebrew word is azazel. We translate it scapegoat. That's where the word comes from. He is the scapegoat, that other goat.
83. 33:17 And he sent it out into the wilderness, outside the walls of the city, outside the camp of the Israelites. So he bears their sins away. This is what the theologians would call expiation. The first goat pays for the sins of the people. That's propitiation.
84. 33:32 The second goat pays, takes the sins of the people and bears them away outside the camp. That's expiation. And now the sins of the people are symbolically atoned for. But this has to be repeated every year, year after year after year. Until Good Friday.
85. 33:49 And then you'll note that Jesus is sacrificed for the sins of the people, shedding his own blood, his payment for the sins of his people. And notice he is crucified on a horrible, bloody place called Golgotha, the place with a skull, outside the walls of the city, outside the camp, symbolically bearing away their sins.
86. 34:16 He is our Azazel. He is our sacrificial animal. He is our Yom Kippur, our Day of Atonement, on that Good Friday, which also happens to be the day of the Passover. Those to come together and converge on Jesus of Nazareth, that horrible, bloody, incredible day, Good Friday of the year we call 33 A.D.
87. 34:42 He makes our sins and our burdens his own. Not just takes them on himself, he becomes our sins for us. Verse 5, But he was pierced for our transgressions.
88. 34:58 He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. I want you to know that crucifixion would not be invented until about 150 years after Isaiah writes these words.
89. 35:13 So for him to be prophesying somewhere around 650 to 700 years before Jesus is born, that the suffering servant would be pierced. And by his wounds, some translations say his stripes, the scourging, we are healed.
90. 35:34 Isaiah is describing in astonishing detail the inhuman cruelty of Roman means of execution, the scourge and the cross. His punishment that brought us peace, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him.
91. 35:55 Peace is a Hebrew word you all know, shalom. And this shalom is not just the absence of conflict, it is peace in the fullest extent, the most robust sense of the word, peace between God and between man. for the day that we see shalom the world over.
92. 36:16 Amen? Romans 5.1, Rick read from later on in Romans 5. Let me read to you the first verse of Romans 5.1. The Hebrew scholar Saul, the Pharisee named Saul, who by this point is called Paul, says, Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
93. 36:36 You want peace? With God? I'm here to tell you there's one place to find it, one way to find it, and that's through Jesus Christ. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
94. 36:52 Sheep are not the rocket scientists of the animal kingdom. My forebears are farmers, and I've been around sheep just enough to know that you get dumb just hanging around them, okay? They're not smart animals. So when we're called the sheep of God's pasture, I sometimes wish, God, couldn't you maybe upgrade us a little bit?
95. 37:11 Something a little more noble? Maybe German shepherds, something. We're the sheep of his pasture. It's not just, it's not just, just wayward. It's not just wrong. It's not just rebellious to wander away from the shepherd. It's stupid.
96. 37:26 Because without the shepherd, you're, you're defenseless. You're open to any and all prey that want to get at you, and they do, they do. We have to acknowledge that, though, or we'll never, ever know our need for the shepherd.
97. 37:44 By ourselves, we're lost and scattered. In him, we are found and gathered together, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. The Lord has caused him, his cross, to be the point, to be the focal point, that vertical bar and that horizontal bar that are the focus of eternity where peace was brokered between God and man, between man and man.
98. 38:11 It all comes together at the cross of Christ where the sins of the world are poured out on the man, and the wrath of God is poured out on the man. The sins of the world are poured out on God, and the wrath of God is poured out on the man, and it meets there at the cross of Christ on the perfect, spotless lamb of God.
99. 38:29 Alec Motyer, in his commentary on this passage, says, each sin of every sinner would be like a separate wound in the heart of this man of sorrows. Thus, he was indeed smitten of God and afflicted.
100. 38:45 The perfect suffering servant offers the perfect sacrifice becomes a perfect substitute and accomplishes the perfect salvation. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth like a lamb that is led to slaughter, like the sheep that is silent before his shearers, so he did not open his mouth.
101. 39:07 Understand that when he was on trial, this mockery of a trial before the Jewish authorities of Sanhedrin, and then again before Pilate, he didn't have to be convicted. If he had spoken up for himself, he could have simply said, none of that is true and they can't prove it.
102. 39:25 Because the witnesses couldn't agree and Sanhedrin would have had to let him go. He stood before Pilate and Pilate said, don't you have anything to say in your own defense? Jesus didn't say anything other than, my kingdom is not of this world.
103. 39:43 The only authority you have is given to you by my Father. If he had pleaded his case, Pilate might have had him scored, but he could have walked away. Now, Jesus is God and man, but don't kid yourself. In his humanity, you know No, he had to be strongly tempted to say, enough.
104. 40:05 I'm not going to suffer anymore for these sinful people. He had to be tempted to do that, but he didn't. He saw it through. Thank God he saw it through, or we'd all go to hell.
105. 40:20 No, Jesus of Nazareth stayed and saw it through. He drank the cup his father poured out for him. By oppression and judgment, he was taken away. And as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due?
106. 40:41 You can read that because of the rebellion of my people, he was stricken. His generation, his offspring, that's his people. That's those who by faith belong to him. And if you know Jesus today, that's you. That's me.
107. 40:56 We're his generation. And he has lived to see us become part of his people. The stroke, well, that's his punishment. His grave was assigned with wicked men, yet he was with a rich man in his death.
108. 41:13 Because he'd done no violence, nor was there any deceit in his mouth, a crucified man would be considered a common criminal, the lowest of the low. We're told in Deuteronomy 21, verse 23, and in Galatians 3, 13, that anyone who's hung from a tree is cursed.
109. 41:33 So crucified men, and unfortunately, at this day and time in the Roman Empire, there were thousands of them, probably 10,000 of them. So when they were crucified, and after they died, their bodies would be taken down off the cross. And what kind of tool would you use to take the nails out of a wooden cross through the dead and broken body of a man, his wrists, his feet, but after their bodies would be taken down, they would simply be thrown into a common grave and left for the wild animals to scavenge.
110. 42:15 But Jesus wasn't. Because a rich man, a Pharisee by the name of Nicodemus, had come to him by night and said, I'm with him. And another one by the name of Joseph of Arimathea came and said, I want his body.
111. 42:30 He can be buried in my tomb. He was with a rich man in his death. Because he had done no violence, when Isaiah says violence there, he means external sins, external sins.
112. 42:46 For those of you who find words interesting and etymologies interesting, the word violence in Hebrew is Hamas. In Arabic, that word means zeal.
113. 43:01 Zeal for violence. He had done no external violence, nor was there any deceit in his mouth. There was no internal sin either. He was, again, the spotless Lamb of God.
114. 43:19 But the Lord was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief. If he would render himself as a guilt offering, he will see his offspring. He will prolong his days, and the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
115. 43:35 We stray like sheep, but we come back as children. As a result of the anguish of his soul, he will see it and be satisfied. By his knowledge, the righteous one, my servant, will justify the many as he will bear their iniquities.
116. 43:56 He'll see the result of his work, of his labor, of his sufferings, of his pain. He'll see the result, the reward of his sacrifice, and he'll be satisfied with what he's accomplished. Because Jesus, and only Jesus of everyone who ever lived, could do exactly what needed to be done.
117. 44:15 He could offer up the perfect righteousness we could never accomplish. And he could take it in himself, the sins of the world, that only the spotless Lamb of God could take. And he would justify the many. Not all. Not all.
118. 44:32 Not everyone is part of his people. But all who want to be, can be. And an offer goes out this day as well. Now, the perfect suffering servant will offer the perfect sacrifice, become the perfect substitute, and accomplish the perfect salvation.
119. 44:52 Therefore, I will allot him a portion with the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong. Because he poured out himself to death and was numbered with the transgressors, thieves on both sides of him. Because he was numbered with the transgressors, yet he himself bore the sin of many and interceded for the transgressors.
120. 45:16 Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing. The righteous suffering servant receives as his proper spoils all those for whom he died, those he came to save. He was and always will be the King of kings and the Lord of lords.
121. 45:33 No one takes his life from him. He lays it down of his own volition. He takes my sin. I get his righteousness. The Apostle Paul will put it this way in 2 Corinthians 5.21. He that is God the Father made him that is God the Son.
122. 45:51 He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf. That we might become the righteousness of God in Christ. He takes our sin. Then we get his righteousness. That's what happened on the cross of Christ on that first, what we call good Friday.
123. 46:12 Alan Walker is an Australian pastor. He was driving home one day to some of the gorgeous rolling hills of Australia and he happened to notice a hawk circling overhead. He rounded another curve and he saw a herd of sheep.
124. 46:29 And one little sheep off from the rest of the herd by itself. And then he saw the hawk swoop down and attack that solitary sheep. So he pulled his car over on the side of the road, parked as quickly as he could, ran out there, scared the hawk away.
125. 46:46 And when he went to help the sheep, he rolled it over and found it was dead. But to his surprise, he saw underneath that sheep, a newborn lamb, still alive, sheltered by the body of his mother, covered in the blood of his mother, who gave her life that he might live.
126. 47:12 We are sheltered by the broken body of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We are covered by his blood. He gave his life that we might live. Would you pray with me? I'm going to give you a prayer of Clement of Rome from the first century.
127. 47:32 We beg you, Lord, to help and defend us, deliver the oppressed, pity the insignificant, raise the fallen, show yourself to the needy, heal the sick, bring back those of your people who have gone astray, feed the hungry, lift up the weak, take off the prisoners' chains.
128. 47:53 May every nation come to know that you alone are God, that Jesus Christ is your son, that we are the sheep of your hand, the people of your pasture. In Jesus' name, amen. The sixth word for today comes from John 19, verse 30.
129. 48:24 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, it is finished. And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. How deep the Father's love for us How deep the Father's love for us How vast beyond all measure That he would give his only Son To make a wretch his treasure How great the pain of searing loss The Father turns his face away As wounds which mar the chosen one Bring many sons to glory Behold the man upon a cross My sin upon his shoulders Ashamed I hear my mocking Praise God The Father's love for us The Father's love for us To make a wretch his treasure voice call out among the scoffers it was my sin that held him there until it was accomplished his dying breath has brought me life I know that it is finished I will not boast in anything no gifts no power no wisdom but I will boast in Jesus Christ his death and resurrection why should I gain from his reward I cannot give an answer but this I know with all my heart his wounds have paid my ransom but this I know with all my heart his wounds have paid my ransom this is the seventh word from Luke 23 44-46 it was now about the sixth hour and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour while the sun light faded and the curtain of the temple was torn into two then Jesus calling out in a loud voice said father into your hands I commit my spirit and having said this he breathed his last as we conclude the service today what we'd like to ask you to do is as you leave if you can bring these lights down over me now that would be good as you leave we'd ask you just to leave in silence once you get outside of course you're going to want to get caught up with each other if you would leave as quietly as you possibly can and again the point of today isn't to make anyone feel guilty but it's to make us appreciate the weight of the sacrifice that Jesus made for us on that cross with that would you stand and receive the Lord's benediction and then we'll be dismissed and now may the God of peace who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead that great shepherd of the sheep our Lord Jesus equip you with everything good for doing his will and may he work in us that which is pleasing in his sight in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit Amen Amen

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