Restoration 2021:  Standing in the Gap

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Restoration Ministry

The Cries of the Cross

Micheal Goetz

01 For the World

I did something last summer I've never done before.

I was visiting my wife's family in Michigan, and they had this great idea.

They live right next to a creek, a bit of a river, and they said why don't we go up a ways and drop in and just float down in the canoe and some tubes and stuff like that.

Well, all right, we all pick a place on the map and decided that's where we would drop in.

We're floating down the river and it's now about 3 hours of floating.

And we pull out our phones, our little zip lock bags, right?

Only to find that we are just under halfway there.

The crew and the canoe are starting to get restless, hungry, when is this going to end, when are we going to take it out?

We realized this isn't going to go too bad aboard.

We pull off to the side and we find a bridge area with a little parking lot.

We pull on it, pull the canoe and the tubes up.

And then it's who's going to go try to get back to the car to come get us.

So I volunteered thinking it was no problem.

I would just jog back, flip-flops, on the road.

I am jogging back and I think, well, why not?

Now, let me just explain it in the context.

I'm used to running on the side of roads.

Enjoy might be kind of an overstatement, but we do it.

And we always complain to each other to others, how little people move over for you, and you're running.

And it's this, this kind of ongoing complaint about how people just don't seem to be motivated.

Well, I found out if you stick out your thumb, people drive in the opposite ditch to get around you.

That becomes painfully like, really, you didn't have to do that.

I understand you don't want to pick me up but you didn't have to do that.

So I'm jogging my flip-flops and my swim trunks down this road headed back into town and people are driving around me and I probably ran walked for 45 minutes and was still not close to the town there.

And so ended up, a highway patrolman passed and sent it back and wanted to know what I was doing.

I'm going to jog, hitchhike with my thumb up.

But here's what it came back to me about.

I fear that as part of our community of faith, part of our faith, and you may be at a different place, a whole varying degree of where you're at with your understanding of the love of God.

But it has felt to me that for some of us, we have come to intellectually embrace this idea that this God is love, right?

But then in the practice of it, in our personal life, we take wide, obvious swath around this.

We take wide, obvious, obvious swath around this, like, don't touch it, it's dangerous.

Those who study the numbers say, look, there's a growing in our generations of Gen Z and millennial, there's a growing kind of position, a proud position that I am atheist, I am, I'm atheistic, right?

It's really more of a I don't know what I believe position, but it's under the cover of atheism.

And I would have forced somebody with that worldview to consider other options.

But I'm even more concerned about those that claim to be Christians, those who use the terminology, who claim the title, but lack the impact.

Like they, they, they know that it's there, they acknowledge that it's there.

God is love, and then they live their lives kind of in this, well, don't get too close to it, because it will change.

It will, It will do something to your life.

And so it's kind of this obvious position of staying further away.

It's almost as if the cars that step right past you didn't even see you.

And you can tip, you can complain about them.

But then the people that take these wise swaps, they see, they saw me in my shorts and my thumb up going, I need help.

And so my greater concern is not the growing number or the generation, our friends and family who say, no, I don't even acknowledge that he's there.

I don't want to say that's not my concern.

But my primary concern, what I would like us to consider is those of us who live our lives with 1 foot in and 1 foot out.

This week, So what are we gonna do about it?

This week, I'd like to invite you, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, we are gonna consider a cry from the cross, a different cry.

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

Jesus is before Pilate, and Pilate's trying to engage, and he remains silent.

The Gospel writer Matthew says this was an amazement.

Because they were used to this kind of verbal...

Come on, debate with me right before I bring down the gallows and your punishment.

But then when you think He would remain quiet, so He doesn't speak up then, but then when you think He would remain quiet, He does speak up.

So hanging on the cross, He begins to say these things.

And I fear that here's this great moment in Christian history, here's the most important moment in Christian history.

That we have taken those and read over those with some sort of, okay, that was nice.

And I don't mean to belittle it, because it's no question that he was thirsty when he had been put through.

But to walk away from it as if that's it, that the cry in these final moments of the life of Jesus was nothing more than just a concern for his own well-being.

Here Jesus, when he should have made his argument, he remains quiet.

But then when we think, well, this is when he would be quiet, he begins to speak up.

And could it be that Pilate, while he was anticipating some sort of verbal discourse, an argument, come on, dookie with me verbally.

Jesus saved his arguments for a greater purpose, a greater audience, a greater statement while he hung on the cross.

He makes these cries Within the context of the great controversy and the death of Christ, they are prophetic, they are personal, and they are powerful.

We've read them all as just, well, God was feeling alone, or Jesus was feeling alone, separated from God.

02 I Thirst

We are going to jump in with speed so that we can get to lunch, right?

We're going, you know we're gonna go to John because that's where the I thirst comes from, but before we get there, I wanna take you to Psalm 107.

These verses help God use to form a world vision, an understanding.

Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and for his wonderful deeds for mankind.

So here's this invitation to worship, to give thanks, to praise God.

And then it reads, verse 9, for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.

When I read this, I was in the journey of my collegiate years and the transitions that that brings.

And so I'm reading this verse, give thanks for he's satisfied.

And I'm literally living out this, It's like a living parable of what this invitation of this verse is.

I will take care of that need inside of you.

The thing about thirst, why I think it's such a beautiful comparison with the spiritual element, is that it's an itch, it's a scratch, it's a need that none of us can fill by ourselves.

It's not like you can scratch yourself, you've got an itch.

It's not like even your finger's hurting, or your toe is hurting, or your knee, and you can hold your knee.

You have to go to an external source, a substance, H2O, right, water, and you have to allow it to satisfy your need.

All right, so you can immediately jump to all those spiritual connections, right?

I've just finished high school, and I always had this idea, you know what, if I could just get out of high school and be in college, really kind of, that would be life, right?

If you could be in college, you really live in life.

This whole high school thing, the restrictions from your parents, restrictions from school, whatever they are, they're really kind of constricting life.

I live under this umbrella of, When I get out of high school, I will be able to live life.

So I'm now in college when I read this verse, and I realize, I'm sitting there realizing, it wasn't college that answered my need.

I'm thinking through, well, I'm in college, but I'm still campus-bound.

Now, this is just a confession of how terribly old I am at that point we were also going to the computer lab or computers but if I could just have a laptop, in college I've got a truck, I need a laptop.

I could have a laptop, it would free me up.

If I buy a laptop, My parents bought a laptop.

What could satisfy the itch what could what could spill my need?

Fulfill me I Wasn't done on the search yet, so I had to go get a girlfriend.

And as exciting and fulfilling as relationships are, it wasn't there.

And There came a point of a crossroads with me and God in my high school, in my college years, that I had to come and bow before him in recognition that he would be the only 1 that could really satisfy me.

All right, so in that context, John chapter 19.

That's, Of course, Jesus is now on the cross.

We started the big picture yesterday with John 3, 16.

Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, And so that scripture would be fulfilled.

A jar of wine, a vinegar was there, so they soaked the sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of hyssop plant and lifted it up to Jesus' lips.

That whole scenario is something we're gonna talk about later this week.

When he had received the drink, Jesus said, it is finished.

With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

I've always read, maybe you have fallen into this as well, I've always read this, this I thirst, as if Jesus had been punished and beat so badly that there came a point that he just, he was desperate for some sort of cooling liquid, and so he calls out, I thirst.

Here Jesus says, he says less than 40 English words on the cross.

He's been preparing for this, not for 4 days, not for 4 years, not for 400 years, but for thousands.

He has, this is the moment in which he is going to secure, you read the context, After knowing that everything had been finished, right before he cries out, it is finished, he cries out, I thirst.

We've read it as if it's just a superficial, no, he's a little thirsty.

Every demon on the planet, I believe, every demon on the planet was there at the cross.

For everyone else, it was a temptation-free day.

Because Satan knew all of his eggs were in this basket.

There, they are ripping Jesus apart on the inside.

We've kind of read it like in the midst of that, Jesus realizes he's thirsty and He calls out.

That's the way the little guy at the base of the cross, who ran and got to the pinnacle.

In 1989, I grew up in the era of Joe Montana with the San Francisco 49ers.

The 49ers were in the Super Bowl in 1989.

They had the ball in their own eight-yard line.

They had 92 yards to go with only 3 minutes left in the Super Bowl.

Joe Montana, legend football player, turns to his teammate, Harris Barth.

They've got 3 minutes left, and they're down.

And Joe Montana turns to his teammate looking into the stands he says isn't that John Candy?

Right before calling hike and marching his team down to win the Super Bowl.

03 Forgive Them

Our gracious Father in Heaven, we come to you at a difficult time in this country and in this world's history.

With all that's going on, it's sometimes difficult to see the anchors, to understand your purpose for each of our lives.

And yet, truly, at this institution and in our own lives, we recognize the stability that you provide, the surety you give each of us, that you are in control, that This is your world, your children.

So we seek a special blessing this morning, Father, as we gather here to worship you, to spend time together.

May your presence be felt for each 1 of us in the meeting here and as we follow afterwards.

Thank you for each 1 here that's spending time with us and those online streaming and others that are listening.

Be with us in the days, months, and years ahead, we pray.

And with that prayer, we are off and running.

Lewis is the 1 that threw us this line that just makes so much sense.

Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea.

Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have something to forgive.

Until you have something to forgive and then it's a lineup of of what the person should do or what they shouldn't do to earn your forgiveness.

That ringing in our hearts and in our minds.

We're going this time to to the doctor's account in the gospel of Luke Luke chapter 23 is where we're going.

And we're going to just start in verse 26.

I want you to read along as we journey here.

As the soldiers led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on His way from the country and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus a large number of people now in verse 27 followed him including women who had mourned and wailed for him verse 28 now Jesus turned and said to him Daughters of Jerusalem do not weep Red letters, right?

Weep for yourselves and for your children.

For the time will come when you will say, blessed are the childless woman, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed.

Then they will say to the mountains, Fall on us into the hills, cover us.

For if people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?" Jesus is giving a sermon on his way to the cross.

When they do these things, when the tree is green, what will happen when it's dry is a riddle about judgment.

It's really a passionate plea from Jesus to realize what is happening.

And so Jesus is pleading, please realize this is an important moment.

This is a moment of decision, of judgment.

Can't you just imagine if there's any sermon that you want to hear from Jesus, it's the 1 that he gives his very last, the 1 on the way to the cross.

And so It's exciting to have Luke just unpacking this and recording this for us.

Jesus is coming in for the appeal and then Dr.

Luke says, oh, there are 2 other men, both criminals.

They were led with him to be executed excuse me I was in the middle of listening to Jesus's sermon and now and now you want to tell me about 2 thieves?

Like, whoa, Jesus is appealing to the hearts.

This is a moment in which you must make a decision.

You wanna just grab Luke's attention and say, no, no, no, no, no, tell us if Jesus said anything else.

Don't get distracted, don't, don't, don't.

Luke says, when they came to a place called the Skull, they crucified him there along with the criminals, 1 on his right and the other on his left.

And Then Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

We don't know if that earlier little sermonette, the appeal that Jesus was making on his way to the cross, we don't know if that was the last thing he said.

But at that moment, Luke gets distracted to tell us where the thieves are.

Because Luke is going after an operative point, and so Luke has to say, hey guys, I've got to tell you exactly where the thieves are.

They were with him, and they were crucified there, 1 on his right and the other on his left.

Do you know why that's important to Luke?

Because he wants us to know exactly who could hear Jesus.

1 was on his right so he could hear, the other was on his left so he could hear.

Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do." Both thieves heard Jesus.

They heard Him extend forgiveness to His murders, to those who were holding him on the cross.

Luke's very interested in this because he's about to make a point.

There was a notice written above him which read, this is the king of the Jews, 1 of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him.

What's the last thing that these thieves heard Jesus say?

That's the last words they heard Jesus say.

04 My God

I don't know if it's okay to say that, if you can have a favorite cry from the cross.

But of all the cries, this 1 is my favorite.

On May 1st, 2003, 30 miles off the coast of San Diego on the USS Abraham Lincoln.

George Bush, President Bush, became the first sitting president to land on an aircraft carrier in a fixed-wing aircraft.

He landed there and a few hours later he does that famous presentation where the banner is unveiled and it reads to the world, mission accomplished.

Arguing that there was the end of major combat in the operation, the Iraq war.

Our critics were quick and fast to respond that that there that banner was misleading and it wasn't the end of the mission hadn't been accomplished that there were more lives that were lost There were more casualties and more investment and thousands and thousands and hundreds of thousands of more dollars invested.

You can't declare victory before it happens.

To some, it felt like the football player that celebrates the touchdown before crossing the end zone line, that the ball ends up getting stripped away.

It's this, ah, you can't celebrate until you cross the finish line.

But in this cry, I believe Jesus was celebrating victory.

Now of all the cries, of all the different things that Jesus says on the cross, Father forgive them, or even to John, this is your mother, or even the climactic cry, it is finished.

And instead, he takes his time, he's very concentrated on 1 cry.

If Matthew was the only gospel, we would only know that Jesus said 1 thing while on the cross.

Darkness, thick darkness, pressed atop that small little knoll.

Verse 45, noon until 03:00 in the afternoon, darkness was over all the land.

Verse 46, and about 3 in the afternoon, Jesus cried out with a loud voice.

Now whenever you hear loud voice, it's a cue that this is not just for a few people at the foot of the cross, this is for the world over.

Eli, Eli lama sabachthani, which is translated, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Now, that's the cry Jesus, it's the only cry Matthew records, it's the cry Jesus gives.

The context here, just so we can see why maybe Matthew only recorded this, he's writing, Matthew is writing to primarily a Christian Jew audience.

So he is taking the Jewish mindset and he's walking them through why Jesus was the Christ and what confidence a Jew can have in the Christian faith.

And so he leaves off all the other quotes, all the other cries, and he spends 4 verses discussing this 1, particularly the response.

He seems very interested in the response of this cry.

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The Cries of the Cross

04 My God

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