What's Behind the Death of Jesus

Tom Shrader teaches on what happened at the cross, explaining that Jesus was not a political prisoner but came specifically to die as a substitute for sinners. He defines three key theological terms - propitiation (satisfying God's wrath), redemption (buying back), and justification (declaring righteous) - to show how Christ's death accomplished salvation completely apart from human works.

“We are saved by God from God for God - God saved you in spite of you, not because of you.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: How to Know

Recorded: April 19, 2007

Duration: 44 min

Themes: salvation, cross, sacrifice, redemption, forgiveness, grace, substitution, atonement, seeking salvation, new believer, doubting faith, questioning doctrine, exploring christianity, needing assurance, struggling with guilt, understanding gospel

Scripture: Luke 22:66, John 10:30, Mark 14:55, John 18:29-33, 1 Peter 2:24, Romans 3:25, Hebrews 2:17, 1 John 2:2, 1 John 4:10, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Proverbs 6, Luke 23, John 19:30-34

Theological Themes: propitiation, justification, redemption, substitutionary atonement, penal substitution, imputation, soteriology, christology

Handout Link

Full Transcript

We are glad that you're with us today, session three. We could not possibly do a series more important than this, and here's the reason why. If you don't get this right, right here, right now, these four weeks, you don't get this right, this is absolutely foundational. Anything else might be helpful to you at one level or another, but it has no eternal value if you don't get this. You got to get this right.

A Quick Summary

So let me do a quick summary. Week one, here's what we talked about. What's the matter with people? We said there's obviously something wrong. What we call mistakes and miscalculations and errors and judgments, God calls sin. God says the wage of sin is death. Death means separation, and our sin has separated us from God and that God must judge sin. We left you the first week in a very difficult place. We left you with the question, is there anything you can do about this situation? The answer is no.

Last week we talked about Jesus and we asked the question, what's so special about Jesus? We had a wonderful 45 minutes of looking at the visit of the angel to Joseph and to Mary to announce that Jesus was coming, that He was here for a purpose, His purpose was to save His people from their sin, that He would be born of a virgin.

We said, what did Jesus do? Here's what Jesus did. He did miracles, signs and wonders. He did extraordinary things that nobody did before and nobody's done since. The deaf could hear and the blind could see and the lame could walk, and when specifically addressed by Jesus, the dead would rise. All of that was done so that we would know that He was who He said He was. That's the whole point of that.

Who Jesus Said He Was

Who did He say He was? He said He was God. Then He said He would die. That's no big prediction. You can predict your death. We're all going to die. But then He predicted His resurrection and then He rose from the dead. Jesus on the cross, we'll look at it today, says "it is finished," and the resurrection is God's amen to Jesus. "It is finished."

We take all these things and we put them in one simple phrase. What's so special about Jesus is that He is God. Here's what we're going to ask today: What was behind this death of Jesus? You got ten questions in front of you and we'll work our way through them.

Why Jesus Was Betrayed and Arrested

Why was Jesus betrayed and arrested and tried? Here's why Jesus was betrayed, very simply. "When it was day," Luke 22:66, "the council of the elders of the people assembled, most of the chief priests and the scribes, and they led them away to their council chambers and they said, 'If you're the Christ, tell us.'" A very similar situation where they came to Him and said, "If you're the Messiah, tell us plainly. Don't let us wait any longer."

He said, "Boys, I've been telling you, you don't get it. Why? Well, you're not my sheep because my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and no one can snatch them out of my hand. No one can snatch them out of the Father's hand. I give them eternal life." Then He went on and then He said, "I," and I think it's John 10:30, "I and the Father are one," and they picked up stones to stone Him.

He said, "Wait a minute, why are you stoning me? I did all sorts of good works. Why are you stoning? What good work did I do?" They said, "Not for any good work, but because you being a man claimed to be God." So when somebody says to you, "Jesus never said He was God," you go ahead and you just march him on to John chapter 10 or to Luke chapter 22.

He said, "Tell us." And He said, "If I tell you, you won't believe. If I ask you questions, you won't answer. But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God." They all said, "Are you the Son of God then?" He said, and they would get this, they understood it, "Yes I am." They said, "What further need do we have of testimony? We've heard it from His own mouth. We've heard this."

Here's the claim. He claims to be God. Why was He betrayed? Why was He arrested? What's this all about? It's Jesus claims to be God.

The Jewish Leaders' Trial

Why did the Jewish leaders put Jesus on trial? This is interesting. Mark 14:55, "The chief priest and the whole council kept trying to obtain testimony against Jesus to put Him to death. They didn't find any. For many were giving false witness and testimony against Him, yet their testimony was not consistent."

They have a defendant, Jesus. They have a verdict, guilty. They have a sentence, death. They said, "Okay, somebody go get some evidence." They couldn't corroborate the story. The testimony wasn't consistent. They weren't interested in due process. They weren't interested in seeking the truth at all.

Now, eventually they are interested in this whole idea of the truth in the sense that they bring Him to Pilate and Pilate gives Him, in one sense, cut me slack here, a fair trial. I mean that in this sense: Pilate declares Him not guilty.

Before Pilate

They bring Him to Pilate. I am going to ask you to turn there. John 18, verse 29. Let's just look at the story. We'll unpack it a little bit, make some points along the way, make sure we get this. Therefore, Pilate goes out to him and in a sense, now they're bringing Him to Pilate. We're going to find out why in a minute. Pilate begins the civil phase of these proceedings against Jesus. "What's the charge? What's the accusation? What are you accusing Him of?"

They answered and said, "If this man were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered Him to you." Do you see it again? We don't need a charge. So Pilate said, "Well, wait a minute. If He's guilty, then you take Him yourself and you judge Him according to your law." The Jews said, "We can't put anybody to death."

Now, when Rome took over Judah or Judea as an area under Roman law in AD 6, they took away capital jurisdiction. Capital punishment was, in the words of one author, "the most jealously guarded of all attributes in the Roman provincial administration."

They said, "Listen, here's the deal. Now you're getting this clear. We want to kill Him. We want to put Him to death. We're not permitted to put anyone to death." Why was this done? This becomes really important. To fulfill the word which Jesus had spoken, signifying by what kind of death He would be about to die. Old Testament prophecy says the Messiah will be hung on a tree. It's a picture of crucifixion before that form of execution is even invented, 800 years prior to it.

The True Purpose of the Cross

Here's a huge point. Years ago, I had a friend who invited me to have a discussion with his priest. The course of the conversation got to this: Why was Jesus crucified? Now, I'm trying to get to where we're going to go in the lesson today - for our sin. Here's what he said: because He was a radical. The way they dealt with political radicals in that day was to crucify them.

To me, I guess you might in some remote way say, "Okay, we're going to give you a tenth of a point." But we've missed the point of the crucifixion. So then I said to him, "Okay, that aside, what about the resurrection? Why did He rise from the dead?" And he said, "Well, that I don't believe He did. That's a metaphor."

At this point, we're dealing with somebody who isn't a Christian. If you don't believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ, we've established that. If I confess with my mouth Jesus is Lord, believe in my heart God raised Him from the dead, I'll be saved. It seems to me an understanding of this is fundamental to salvation.

Jesus in Perfect Control

Jesus was not some political prisoner who had this plan and was going to usurp Roman authority and His plan went awry and all of a sudden they executed Him. Jesus' intent from the beginning was this very moment. Jesus is not out of control. He's in absolute control. He said this is going to happen.

Jesus could have stopped this at any moment. There's a magnificent moment where Jesus is hanging on the cross and as they walk by, one of them says, "He saved others, but He couldn't save Himself." As I read this story, I'm going, "You know what? I could have handled all of it, but when that guy said that, I think I would have said, 'Come here. I've reached my limit with you.'" But even in that sense, the man spoke truth in the sense that if He saved Himself, He couldn't save us. But Jesus is in total control.

At any moment, Jesus could have stopped these things. At any moment, He could have said no, but He is in perfect alignment with the Father. The night before He died, He prayed. This is a powerful prayer, and you see the humanity of Christ. Here's what He said as He's sweating blood: "Father, if there's any other way to do it, let's do it. If there's a plan B or C or D or F or Q or Z, do it. If there's any other way." Because He knew that He was about to experience something that He had never experienced and will never experience again. He was for a moment in time be separated from the Father and experience God's wrath rather than God's love.

But He went to the cross. Why? Out of obedience to the Father. This is a big deal and this ought to just weigh on you. And because He loved you - that's why He went. He's in total control. This is not some rebel who had a plan and things went awry.

The Kingdom Not of This World

To fulfill this: verse 33, "Pilate therefore entered the Praetorium and he summoned Jesus. He said, 'Hey, are you King of the Jews?' And He said, 'Are you saying this of your own initiative or do others tell you?' And Pilate said, 'I'm not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and chief priest delivered you up to me.' Jesus said, 'My kingdom's not of this world. If it were, then My servants would be fighting that I am not be delivered to the Jews. But as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.' And Pilate said, 'So you're a king?' Jesus said, 'You say correctly that I'm a king, for I have been born and I have come into this world to bear witness to the truth.'"

There's the dialogue. Jesus is saying, "Am I a king? Yep, but not in the political sense." Not interested about establishing a political or national entity. Not interested in the evil world systems. My kingdom is separate from this. I came that everyone who was of the truth hears My voice.

The Question of Truth

And Pilate said to Him, and we're going to hang on this a little bit: "What is truth?" Every once in a while I get the History Channel and you'll see Gettysburg reenactment. I assume you understand we did not have video cameras at Gettysburg, nor did we have a video camera or audio machine when Pilate said, "What is truth?"

When Pilate said "What is truth," is he saying, "What is truth? I really want to know," or is he saying, "What is truth? Come on." Regardless of how he says it, it's a wonderful question: What is truth? Now the irony of course is that he asked the question of the one who has said, "I am the way, the truth." You want to know what truth is? You're looking at truth. I am truth.

It's a question that we have to ask, and you live at a time where the general consensus is that there really isn't any truth, that there are no absolutes, that if there is truth it's really unknowable, and that truth is relative. Think of how stupid this statement is: somebody would say, "You'll come to them and you'll say, 'You know, my life was all screwed up and I realized I was a mess, but Jesus really turned my life around. Jesus, Christianity, biblical Christianity, faith in Christ, God turned my life around.'" And people will say, "I am so happy that you found something." And what would they say next? "That works for you."

No, no, no, no. It's not a matter of whether it works for me or not. This is not some utilitarian thing. This is not something that's pragmatic. Does it work? Sure it works. But it works because—

It's true. It doesn't matter that it works for me. I didn't find something that works for me. I found the truth. You live at a time where we need to really hang onto this. You need to be able to grasp this, and you all are really bright.

I don't think there's anyone in here from Tucson, right? I've heard that the Tucsonians are trying to get over the border into Mexico, that's how bad it is down there. They're trying to stop them at the border. That's why the National Guard's down there—to keep those Tucsonians in the country. What's interesting is we just started broadcasting on the radio in Tucson, so we got to make sure we don't get this on the air. I assume you all know that I'm kidding about that.

The Problem with Relativistic Thinking

You've got to get this because these are the conversations you have all the time. If you're going out to Chelsea's today for a little happy hour and get a Diet Coke and a little hors d'oeuvre or something, you're talking to people. These are the conversations that you have, and you start to share your faith or share what's going on in your life. Don't people say this to you: "I'm glad you found something that works for you"? That is a stupid statement, and you need to lovingly say, "No, it's not a matter of that. It's a matter of what's true."

Here's the next thing: we have reached a sad point where truth ranks behind sincerity. So people will say not only "something that works for you," but "it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're sincere." There are so many illustrations of this, but think back with me—what was it, six or seven years ago, maybe a little bit longer now—to those guys in San Diego: Heaven's Gate. You remember them? Thirty-nine people.

You had this guy who's leading the whole thing—he's a nut—and so he's getting these people convinced that a spaceship is going to come and take them to see God. I don't know if you remember this about the guys, but part of you men being prepared for this trip on the spaceship to see God was you needed to be castrated. Now we got women going, "Ooh, that's a real problem." Let me tell you something: as a male part of the population, that's a tough sell. I mean, to come along and say, "Hey, we got this cool thing and you're going to see God," and "Okay, what's the dues? Because I'm willing—what is it, like ten grand to get in?" "No, not exactly. Come on over here," and there's the guy with a hedge trimmer over there. That's how we're going to get in. That's a tough deal.

The Deadly Consequences of Sincerity Without Truth

Now hang with me. If you're a guy, that's a big price to pay, right? Now you're there and he says, "All right, the spaceship is on its way. Here's the deal: you're going to have to drink the Kool-Aid, kill yourself, so the spaceship can come and get you, and then you're going to go see God." Now you all are saying, "Oh, that's stupid and that's dumb." Here's my point: how committed and sincere are these people? Very. I guarantee you haven't got any thirty-nine guys in your church that are willing to castrate themselves and kill themselves to go see God. You're complaining if you don't get a good parking spot. You're whining because the drums are too loud and the guitar is too loud, and you want to talk about commitment.

If sincerity is the issue, these boys are in, right? I mean, let's be honest here. This is a big deal. It's a huge deal. Imagine this: they kill themselves thinking that they will be in a spaceship and see God, and the next conscious thought they have is in hell.

It's the same thing, and it can be easily misunderstood, so the burden's on you to grasp this. It could easily be misunderstood—it shouldn't be—but it's the same thing that's true of those thirty-nine or those nineteen hijackers on 9/11. They're nuts. They're wrong. They're murderers. They're infidels. They're all this stuff. They believe all of it, but you can't question their sincerity.

Truth Matters More Than Sincerity

So when somebody's sitting across from you and they start with "I'm glad you found something that works for you," and you say, "But it's true," and they say, "It doesn't really matter what you believe; it's only that you're sincere," you have to say, "Listen pal, are you nuts? Are you crazy? Do you understand what you're saying? Do you see how that makes no sense?" It desperately matters that you believe the truth.

The other day, a small plane flying into Sedona—I think it came out of Tucson—flying into Sedona, and I think there were some heavy winds lately. Winds have been really bad. We don't know—I never saw a final report—but apparently the winds or something, whatever it is, and the plane crashes and the three people are killed. Tragic. I get all that. But they're trusting the pilot and His expertise and the airplane. They're trusting it to perform a task for which it was not capable. You can't get any more sincere than that. It matters not only sincerity, but it matters that the object that you're trusting is true. You get that? That's real. That's really key.

Jesus says, "I am the truth." The correct question is, "What is true?" It's not "What's true for you?"

Understanding the Cross

What was the crime posted on Jesus' cross? I put a sign over Him when they crucified. Let me explain this to you just a bit. I think most of you understand it. We have kind of a funky view of crucifixion because our view of Christian crucifixion is based on Christ's experience and what we read. So we kind of get the sense that you take a guy, nail Him up there, and then plus or minus three hours He dies. But in reality, crucifixion was designed or could be designed so that person crucified could live for days or weeks.

There'd be a little ledge. I think you understand that. They would take them and they would spread the person out. They'd take their legs, put them in an angle. There'd

be a little seat upon which they could rest. If they didn't get involved, if there weren't other things, external things, the general cause of death on crucifixion was suffocation. So they would rest on this but periodically the weight of the body would drag them forward and they'd have to put pressure on their legs. They'd have to push themselves up to be able to breathe.

That's why when they come along, remember? They're coming along and they're trying to confirm that Jesus is dead. They come to Him, He's dead, but they break the legs of the criminals that were crucified with Him. Why? Legs are broken, they can't push up, they suffocate. Well, as long as they were giving you food and water, you could hang there for a long time. And depending upon how they wanted you to die, the birds would come and begin to pick away at your eyes and the body and the dogs. If you're low enough, the animals could come and begin to eat you.

But the whole point of a sign was not only was it punitive, it was a deterrent. So they put, here's why we're crucifying him. So imagine you're in Gila Bend and you're trying to get up to Phoenix or Tempe and you're coming through and all of a sudden it's a long walk and you get to Maricopa and you see your first chariot. There's a chariot. You see these guys, they're wheeling into the Circle K and they're leaving their chariot out and the key's in the chariot and you're going, you know what? That's better than walking. I think I'll take one of these. And then you see a guy hanging there with a sign over him that says, Bob, chariot thief. And you go, oh my gosh, I better go to Chapman Chariot because I'm not going to steal one of these things because this is what they do to you. That's the crime. That's the crimes that were posted.

The Substitutionary Atonement

Now we get to the gut of the issue. Whose place did Jesus take on the cross? And was all the sin paid for by Jesus on the cross? 1 Peter 2:24 said, He bore our sins in His body on the cross. Why? That we might die to sin and live to righteousness. For by His wounds you were healed.

I can almost guarantee you that if you turn on what is identified as Christian television today, somewhere in the course of the day, you will hear somebody say, you know, I know there's somebody out there. There's somebody who's sick. And I want you to know that by His wounds you were healed. It's biblical. Do you see the context here? He's not talking about your aching back. He's talking about your gross sin. That's what's healed.

Now the e-ticket ride. Now if you are new to this or newer, you're going to want to do a little writing here because we're going to identify some things for you. Here's what we are talking about. We're talking about, and my intent here is not to lose you at all because you can grasp this. I've got so much faith in you. We're talking about the substitutionary atonement. Substitutionary meaning Jesus dies in your place. Atonement – He is making atonement for your sin. Substitutionary atonement – that's what we mean on the cross.

Three Key Words: Propitiation

Three words, three key words you've got to get. Here's the first one. I'll give you the toughest one first. Here's the first one. Propitiation. How's it spelled? P-R-O-P-I-T-I-A-T-I-O-N. Four times we'll see the word in the New Testament. Romans 3:25, Hebrews 2:17, 1 John 2:2, 1 John 4:10. And it means to satisfy wrath or in this case to satisfy the wrath of God.

So 1 John 4:10. In this is love. Not that we love God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sin. Here you go. Really big. These are huge things that you all just need to think about and think about and think about and think about and you want to think about them every day for the rest of your life.

We are saved by God. This is really important. We are saved by God from God. We're saved by God from God for God. I'm saved by God. He did it. He did it all. Our whole purpose in life is to glorify God. One of the marvelous ways that God has glorified is in our salvation because it's entirely of Him and nothing of us. Your salvation had nothing to do with you. God saved you in spite of you, not because of you.

I'm saved by God but we seldom put this together. I'm saved by God from God. Jesus satisfies God's wrath.

God's Love and God's Wrath

God's angry because God is a God of love. They say, you know what, I want some crab cakes. So I head over to Z. Tejas over at Fashion Square and I'm waiting because I'm there at an inappropriate time, meaning they're full and I'm waiting and I'm talking to people and I said, now what are you doing? I said, I'm a man of God. And I'll say, what do you think about God?

And they'll say, well, here's what I think about God. I think God is a God of what? Love, which is absolutely true. But if all I talk about is God's love, I have edited God because God is a God of love and because God loves, He must hate. He loves righteousness, holiness, purity. He hates sin. So Proverbs 6 would say, God would say this, 6, 7 things that I hate. God is a God of love. God judges sin and He must judge sin. Wage of sin is death.

The Necessity of the Cross

I had a small group once that broke up over this issue. Here was the issue. Could God have forgiven man without the cross? Could God have just said, or was this the only way? So there was one group and here's what they said. God's God. If God wanted to say, I forgive, because the debt was owed against Him. If God wanted to say, I can forgive, He's God. He can do whatever He wants to do.

So could God make a square circle? Well, obviously not. Contradiction, God doesn't live in that world. But can God do everything? Well, we know God can't do everything. We know He can't sin, for example. But could God just say, you know what, Adam, I don't know what you were thinking, but you know what, I want to call off, in the old roller derby terms, I want to call off the jam.

to stop this thing. I forgive you all." Could God have said that?

So there was one group in the small group, there was a subset that said yes. There was the other side, my side, the correct side, that said no. There was no other way. If there was another way, there wouldn't have been the cross. Something had to pay the debt. And man's incapable of paying that debt. No human or human life or human endeavor or human sacrifice could ever pay that debt. That's why God had to become man so that He could live the perfect life and die to pay the debt that none of us could pay, but we all owed. Isn't that incredible? And when He pays that debt, it's propitiation.

Three Key Terms: Redemption

Here's a second word, redemption. It means to loosen or to buy back. So when I was a young man, actually a young boy, really, my mom shopped at a store that gave her S&H green stamps. And so here's what my mom would do. Because we didn't have a ton of money, and so my dad kind of had this deal with my mom, I guess. I'm making this part of the story up because it seems like it went this way. That whatever you want to do with these S&H green stamps, that's your business, that's for you. Because I'm not going to give you any money. So you go get whatever you think you need.

So my mom saw, she'd get the catalog, and she would lust after the items in the S&H green stamp catalog. And she saw this hair dryer. Remember these ladies? There was like this box, and then there'd be this cord, and then you put this bag on your head, right? You remember that? So my mom saw this and said, "I want one of those." And we had to have however many S&H green stamps it took.

So we got those S&H green stamps, and then one day, the four of us boys and my mom went down to Rockingham Road to the S&H Green Stamp Redemption Center, and we redeemed from the corporate conglomerate giant killer S&H green stamps, we redeemed the hair dryer. We loosened it from their possession. You might use a pawn shop. We bought it back.

Justification

And then here's the third term, justification, judicial word, to declare righteous. God declares a sinful person righteous. It's an act of God. He forgives us.

Now, if we were to draw this, let me see if I can explain this. You got your paper, get a little triangle going, give yourself a little room to write on that. And at the top write God, on the left write Jesus, and on the right you go ahead and put in your name if you're a follower of Christ. And what we just described from Jesus to the Father or Jesus to God is propitiation. From the Father to you is justification. And from Jesus to you is redemption.

So from Jesus to the Father is propitiation, from the Father to you is justification, from Jesus to you is redemption. Here's the deal: there's no arrow flowing from you. God does it all. He bore your sin in the cross. He paid the price for your sin. "For by one offering He has perfected for all times those who are sanctified." He is your propitiation.

What Happened to Jesus on the Cross

What happened to Jesus when He was on the cross? 2 Corinthians 5:21: "God made Him, Jesus, who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God."

I want to acknowledge something here and then explain. We got about six or seven minutes. If you're here and you're skeptical or you don't, you're not a follower of Christ, can I acknowledge to you I can see where this sounds goofy? It's pretty extraordinary, but it's true.

What happened in the cross is that Jesus was separated from God in the sense that at a moment in time God thrust upon Jesus all the penalty for all the sin of every man, woman, boy, girl that would ever believe. So when Jesus on the cross "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" In that moment, in that context, what is taking place is this divine transaction where the guilt of your sin is thrust on Christ. And in exchange for this, this is pretty good deal by the way, you know I was talking to somebody the other day in the midst of a real estate deal and he said it's not quite to the point yet where it's a good deal for both of us. Let me tell you, this is a good deal for you. You trade your sin and receive His righteousness.

The True Agony of the Cross

When we talk about the agony of the cross, don't get the picture of the beating and the crown of thorns and the crucifixion. Don't think that there were lots of people who died equally, maybe even more physically agonizing deaths than Jesus. That's not the agony of the cross. The agony of the cross is that God in a sense cut me slack, turns His back on the Son and allows Him to experience and endure all the wrath that's due.

You get this? If you've been around this and you got all this and you can slice and dice it and you got all the terms, my suspicion would be at this point you've probably lost the weight and the reality and the humanity of this. You deserve what Christ got. Every sinner and every sin will be paid for in one of two ways and only one of two ways: either by Jesus and the cross or by that sinner. And at that point it's called paid in full. Or by that sinner separated from God for all eternity and payment never made in full. That's what happened to the cross.

Did Jesus Really Die?

Our ninth question, it may sound odd to you, but it is this: did Jesus really die? And I'll let you look at that passage from Luke 23 and also maybe direct you to John 19:30-34 back in there. And what happens is Jesus hanging in the cross, coming on a Sabbath and wanting to take the bodies, get the bodies from the cross, not wanting to hang there. Jesus dies and along comes the professional executioner to confirm that Jesus is dead. This guy has seen hundreds of people die, criminals aren't dead, break their legs, they suffocate. They come to Jesus, they say He's dead. That's their professional assessment.

And then as if to confirm it, they shove a spear up into His side penetrating into the heart, and out comes blood and water separated. Now I'm not a forensic expert, I don't know anything about any of this stuff. I only know what I read or what they tell me is that when blood and

The Reality of Jesus' Death

Water came out separate. What that signifies is the heart has ceased to pump in the body is indeed dead. Jesus is dead. Why do we spend a second on this? Because you still have goofballs who are walking around saying Jesus never died on the cross. He went into a coma, went into the tomb, and then was resuscitated.

Honestly, if you want to talk about faith, that takes a boatload of faith. He's in a coma, they take Him down, they wrap Him up, they put Him in the tomb. He somehow brings Himself out of this, shakes Himself loose, and then gets up and moves a 2,000-pound rock. That takes some faith to me—much more than to believe this is God.

Jesus Accomplished His Purpose

Here's the last question, and it's absolutely appropriate: Did Jesus accomplish His purpose on earth? Jesus prayed to the Father the night before He died, "I've done all that You sent Me to do." Jesus came—remember we saw last week—the angel says to Joseph, "Mary's gonna have this child. You name Him Jesus. Why? Because He'll save His people from their sin."

Did He accomplish it? When He said on the cross, "It is finished," what He meant was, "I have completed the task that I was assigned to do." Was the sacrifice acceptable to God? That's the resurrection.

The Reality of Who Jesus Is

Let's take three, four, or five minutes here just to apply what's the reality of this. The reality of this is Jesus is who He said He was. If some guy said, "I'm gonna die and rise from the dead," and he did it, wouldn't that make you go, "Hmm"?

I was at a funeral years ago for an 83-year-old man. There was his 80-year-old wife. They'd been married 63 years. They met in kindergarten. She had oxygen, she was very sick, her heart was absolutely ripped out of her. She loved this guy so much—63 years. Yeah, kind of bond, you know. She's wondering, "How am I gonna live a day without him? He's everything to me humanly."

Wouldn't you love to love like that and be loved like that? In a conversation, I'm talking to her about it and she's trying to figure out how she's going to get through life. Her friends and children—you know you're old when your kids are on Social Security—I always find a silver lining in every funeral situation: "Don't worry, Mom, you know, when I get my cataracts fixed, I'll drive you to the doctor," that type of thing.

She said, "You know what? I miss him. I miss him so much. I don't know how I'm gonna live, but I would not want him back for one minute because I know where he is. There's so much better than being here with me." Wishful thinking? Thoughts of an old woman who doesn't have enough oxygen to get to her brain to think? No, it's the reality. That's what God does in a life. God brings joy. Joy is happiness in the midst of spiritual realities we see around us in spite of circumstances.

The Stakes of Salvation

A couple of years ago, Susan had a pass that declared her to be a chaplain at the hospital. She and I had long theological discussions over her being a chaplain, but we accepted the fact that it gave her the ability to go and visit women at the hospital. She came home one day really shook up and she said, "I was just with a lady who's gonna die. She's gonna die and she knows it. I said to her, 'Are you afraid to die?' She said no. I said why, and she said, 'I don't know.' Susan said, 'Do you think you're going to heaven?' She said yes. Susan said why, and she said, 'I've been a good person.'"

Susan made three trips to the hospital in 24 hours to try to take this wonderful old woman, with her kids and her grandkids all around saying, "Nana has been so wonderful," to try to say to this old woman, "You aren't good in God's sight. You're a sinner in God's sight. You need a Savior just as much as this nutcase at Virginia Tech needed a Savior."

That's the stakes here. Remember when we started this series, I said we have got to get to a point where we see God as He really is—we're only going to get that from the scripture—and see ourselves as we really are. That's how God sees this: You desperately need a Savior. Christ came and died.

Two Groups of People

You've got basically two groups of people who are listening to this. Some of you hear these things and know it, and some of you hear these things and don't know it.

To those of you who would say, "I've got all this figured out," here's what you need to do, and here's how I know you need to do it, because I've got to do it every day: You've got to preach the gospel to yourself every day. Every day you have to hear this again and again and again to be reminded of who you are, to be reminded of what Christ did, and to be reminded that apart from Him you can do nothing, but with Him in you, extraordinary things happen.

God's Daily Presence and Power

I fear that guys like me have so turned the Bible into theology that we've lost some of the reality of it. Here's what Jesus said: "If you abide in Me and I abide in you, ask whatever you want and I'll do it." Now we know from scripture—because we immediately got to go in and say, "Well, there's all sorts of qualifiers here." I've got all the qualifiers. But I think God does things.

Here's what happened this morning. This morning at 4:22 I woke up. No big deal. But I rolled over—now you're going to go, "You've got to be kidding me." I rolled over. When I looked at the clock, you know what I didn't see? I didn't see the dot that said the alarm was on. Perhaps God woke me up without an alarm so I would be a person of integrity who said He was going to be here at 7 and got here.

When I think of God doing these big things, I'm thinking like, "Do something really big. Grow an arm. Turn water into wine." My suspicion is God's doing these things all day around us and we don't even get it. We don't even understand it. Is that a stupid illustration? Maybe. All I know is God is a big God and I need to be reminded of that every day. I can't do anything of any significance. That's what Jesus said.

Apart from me, you can't do anything. And He's talking about spiritual things. You can't do anything of any spiritual value apart from me. Not a thing. You can't even start a spiritual work. You might plan and do something but it's all utterly of you. And if you can plan it, it doesn't mean we don't plan.

I was just with a guy yesterday who's a pastor of a church who's in the middle of his 10-year plan and it's all turned to crap. His 10-year plan turned to crap. I said, you know what's kind of cool is now God's probably going to do something really significant because if your 10-year plan worked, we'd sit there at the end of 10 years and you'd go, what a plan, what a plan. Now, if it works, we're going to go, what a God, what a God because your plan sucks and God is extraordinary.

Finding Meaning in Our Worthlessness

Isn't that unbelievable? And I need to hear that every day. I have no problem saying this. I'm a totally worthless, puke, sinner who deserves nothing and He forgives me in spite of me, not because of me and I bask in that love. He loves me that much and therefore I love Him and because I love Him, my life now has meaning and purpose. It has no meaning and purpose apart from Him.

So when you look around and you're going, this whole generation's screwed up. Well, sure they are. You told them that they came from nowhere. They're an accident. They evolved. First, it was goo and then to the zoo and now it's you, that whole mindset. So they evolved. So they came from nothing and they're going to nothing and now in the middle, you're trying to put meaning around it. Why? What would be any sort of meaning other than what would make me happy?

Jesus died so that people like you and me can come in repentance and faith and be delivered. Next week, we'll talk about that. We'll talk about how you can know the Creator God of the universe.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for this truth. Apply it to our hearts.