Magnificent Magnet - Eternity Eyes & Legacy Lives

Do you know something about the Garden of Gethsemane I didn't tell you last night?

There's only one time recorded in Jesus' life where he didn't just he always prayed Father.

He always called, he always, when he prayed, he'd say father.

Only one time At the depths of his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, he prayed, My Father.

There's something poignant about that.

My father.

Like he's really easy, remember, I'm your son.

Please do this for me.

It's just even more poignant.

Today we will look at the only time he did not call God Father.

But that's coming up shortly.

Let me take you back.

We saw a tsunami on the screen.

Let me take you back a few years to the awful earthquake and tsunami in Japan that wiped out so many lives and so many communities, whole communities.

Ishinamaki was one of them.

Tsu Takamoto is a believer there, one of the few believers in Japan, and she was walking through what used to be that community.

And all around she saw all these shards of glass and crystal and so on that were there in the tea houses and restaurants and homes that once were there.

And as she saw all these broken pieces, she began to think about the broken women who were there, who were the only survivor of their family, many widows.

Many with nothing left, some who worked in businesses there.

And she began to think about a ministry that had to do with those broken pieces What came of it is a ministry called Nokomus, which is, I am told, Japanese for hope.

And so they began to gather up all these broken pieces and make jewelry out of them.

And they made bracelets and earrings and rings and began to make it available online.

And actually, all those broken pieces did turn to hope, giving these ladies a living, a reason to live And some hope of going on.

Actually, Tsutakamoto summarized it this way.

She said, And each woman, by the way, named her line of Jewry after a loved one who perished in the disaster She said many of them lost their community, their neighbors are all gone, their homes are washed away, they're all living in scattered places across the Shinamaki.

God can take broken pottery and broken women who think that life is over for them and do anything he wants.

We are in the midst of seeing God do amazing things.

So you can take something broken and you can make it into something beautiful.

Or someone broken.

And make them into something beautiful.

We go to the next mountain now.

It would be the mountain right after Gethsemane, and you know where we're going.

And we're going to look at three broken things this morning.

And we're going to see how Jesus is the one who makes broken, the most broken things, including his own life. into something beautiful.

We are climbing a very holy mountain this time.

It is Golgotha.

It is Skull Hill.

We'll go there shortly.

Because there are Three, there are revelations at the cross that we need to see this morning from the view from Golgotha.

Three brokens.

Now there's some things going on around Jesus going to the cross They have left the upper room.

Jesus has predicted that Peter will deny him, as Peter can't believe that.

He's going to die for Jesus.

So the first broken in these hours around the cross is the broken man.

Let's take a look at Mark chapter 14.

You will all fall away, Jesus told them, for it is written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.

But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.

Peter declared, oh, even if I'll fall away, I will not.

Truly I'll tell you, Jesus answered today, yeah, tonight. within hours, before the rooster closed thrice, you will disown me three times.

Peter insisted, even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.

I love this last part.

All the others said the same.

What are you gonna do?

Yeah, yeah.

Us too.

We're in a we're all in two, Jesus.

Yeah, Peter we can't let Peter be the only one who yeah, Jesus, you know we will we will we will all be right there next to him and dying for you.

Well, we know that that prophecy came true.

We're going to look at how that happened so quickly in Peter's life in just a minute.

The question is, how does someone who really loves Jesus?

Does anybody question that Peter loved Jesus?

And later when Jesus would ask him, Do you love me?

He said, You know I love you.

Jesus didn't say, no, I know you don't.

He agreed, I know you do.

He really loved Jesus.

How does a man who really loves Jesus fall so quickly and so big time?

Well, number one, I call it the miscalculation.

The miscalculation.

You know what the miscalculation is that many make?

Overestimating your strength.

We have heard about pastor after pastor after pastor.

It is like an epidemic of pastors falling morally By the way, let me just give you a little profile of the strategy of Satan in your life and especially in the lives of anybody who's got influence.

Early in your life that will be a sin that takes root, a weakness that he exploits.

You don't deal with it.

You bury it.

You serve him.

You do a lot of great things for him that make you feel a whole lot better about this.

And you're on this chain that you don't know you're on, and Satan continues to let out that chain a little bit at a time, a little bit more.

I you know what?

Nobody knows.

And I'm now I'm now I've got a wife and and and I got kids and and and I've got a congregation and I've got influence. and at the point of your maximum influence where it can make the maximum impact and do the maximum damage, he yanks your chain.

You're thinking of somebody probably right now you know of that that happened to Boom, he pulls the chain.

So he can wreck a family, wreck a church, and discredit the name of Jesus to hundreds or thousands of people.

You were never getting away with it.

You were just on his long chain.

So Peter miscalculated his own strength.

I don't think when David stayed away from going to battle, which he should have been in battle, and Christians who are supposed to be in battle and are sitting around are a target for Satan because there will always be a Bathsheba if you're sitting around when you're supposed to be fighting.

I don't but I you just overestimate your strength.

Look at what 1 Corinthians says.

Paul talked about it.

If you think you are standing firm , you're on the edge of the precipice.

Be careful that you don't fall.

I loved it the Cliff Barrows, Billy Graham's music guy and trusted associate for some 50 years.

Dear, dear, dear brother.

Cliff Barrows told 10,000 evangelists in Amsterdam.

I was privileged to be among them.

He said, I know who I am, and he said, every time I go to a hotel, before I even go in the room I literally consecrate everything in that room to Jesus.

The bathroom, the bedroom, the TV, the phone, everything in there.

I dedicate it to Jesus.

It's a man who knows that any of us can fall.

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind.

Who do you think you are that you will not be subjected to it?

Thank God, he says, I will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.

But Peter fell because he miscalculated his own strength.

Now um the next m mistake he made was compromise.

Because um it says um do we have that um Do we have uh 20 uh I don't know if we have that, I think I forgot to give you that verse.

It simply says this.

And Peter went in and sat down.

He went into the place where Jesus was being tried, and he sat down with the soldiers and the rest of the people who were part of this whole thing to bring Jesus down.

His mistake was compromise.

He didn't do anything bad initially.

He just sat down with the wrong people.

You shouldn't be sitting where you are sitting.

Because you cannot take your stand for what's right when you're sitting down with what's wrong.

And he was sitting down with what's wrong He was fitting in.

You say, well that's yeah, I remember when I was a teenager, I remember I had peer pressure back then.

Come on Whatever group you're in, whatever tribe you're in, whatever occupation you're in, whatever you do, there continues to be pressure to give in and to compromise and to do it less than God's way.

But before you give in, you know what you do?

You don't give in.

First you fit in and you end up giving in.

And that's exactly what happened to Peter.

But a better question is, how does um How does a person who loves Jesus and has failed him come back?

That's what I want to know.

Luke 22, 61.

Here is what brought him back.

He's there, he is compromised, he's he's after that bold thing, he literally curses and swears, and I don't even know what he said, but I don't want to know.

He just said I am so I'm just so angry you're even asking me.

I've never heard of this guy, I've never been around this guy, I don't know.

Which interesting is a relative of the guy whose ear got cut off is right there He said, I think you were the surgeon.

Look, the Lord turned.

They're just moving, they're just passing through with Jesus.

The Lord turned and looked.

Straight to Peter.

We don't know what the look was.

It's one of those places in the Bible where.

I guess we're bringing a little sanctified imagination to it.

Maybe I don't know what you think we'd take some ideas, but.

All I know is what the look did.

I don't think it was condemnation.

Might have been disappointment.

Sadness?

All we know is that when the Lord turned and looked straight at Peter, that's when he remembered that the Lord had said this was going to happen.

The rooster had already crowed twice.

You will disown me three times.

And he couldn't stand that.

And the Bible says, well, let's go to the meltdown.

Let's go to the meltdown.

Here's what happens.

This is uh Luke um uh it's actually in Mark 1472.

By the way, Mark was the closest to Peter.

So when you read Mark's gospel, you're getting Peter's perspective on things.

Immediately the rooster crowed, Peter remembered the word, and he broke down.

And wept.

And you look at that in the Greek, and I mean this is a total emotional meltdown for the first time in his life.

This strong, aggressive, assertive, self-confident man is totally broken There is the meltdown, the message puts it this way.

He collapsed in tears.

You know what's interesting?

I'm pretty sure Peter thought this was the night it was over for him.

Everything I said, everything I pledged to Jesus, everything I left my fishing business for.

All those things I've said, it's over.

What's funny is this was the beginning.

He's finally ready to be the rock Jesus said he would be.

The night he was the wreck is the night he started to become the rock.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again.

That poem ended too soon.

Poor egg.

Stupid egg sitting on a wall.

How'd he get there anyway?

I want to add one line to the poem.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

All the king's sources and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again, but the king can.

And there's a lot of humpty-dumpty people who've had great intentions and made great promises to Jesus and are living in disappointment and shame today.

And perhaps some of us who who've got some things in the closet Guys, guys who are still struggling with pornography.

I mean, I don't know what it is, but we have this secret sense of failure And we feel like, man, I could never be much for Jesus.

And he says, no, if you'll be broken by your sin, let me look into your eyes, and if we could see Jesus look at us when we talk like we talk or look at what we're looking at or listen to what we're listening to or being or treating people as we're treating people or doing business as we've been doing business.

We're counting our money like we've been counting our money, whatever it is.

If we could see the look in his eyes, we would realize what Peter realized.

He wasn't breaking some rules.

He was breaking his Savior's heart.

Sin is breaking Jesus' heart.

And he saw in Jesus' eyes what he was doing to Jesus.

When you know what your sin does to Jesus, you say, I can't do this anymore.

And he was broken.

Here's the good news for anyone who's ever failed the Savior.

Wait a minute.

Is there any other kind of people in this room?

It's not failure that determines your future usefulness.

It's your response to the failure.

What are you going to do?

Now that you've broken the promises, the great things you were going to do be Acts 3. 19 says this.

Repent.

That's what Peter did that night.

Turn to God, and your sins will be wiped out.

And this whole refreshing new wind is going to blow through your life.

The times of refreshing will come from the Lord Boldness is born from brokenness.

Do you know how I know that?

Because within weeks of this moment of abysmal failure The man who couldn't tell a 12-year-old girl he knew Jesus is standing on a street corner in Jerusalem to crowds of people who were yelling, crucify him a few weeks ago about Jesus, saying, this one who you crucified is your Lord and Savior.

And they cried out in repentance and said, what do we need to do, Peter?

And he invited them to Christ and 3,000 people.

There's nowhere that records that Jesus had 3,000 people come to him to be come to know him.

But Peter did. 3,000 converts in that that day from all over the then known world, because they were there for the Pentecost festival.

Brokenness became boldness.

Only Jesus can do that.

Greatest thing God can do for you.

Bring you to a point where you are broken.

Because when you're broken, he can put you together like you were supposed to be.

And there ain't no you left It's all him, and that's where heroes are born.

One author wrote recently, by embracing our brokenness, we don't come to Christ's feet occasionally.

We stay at his feet continuously.

The beauty of brokenness.

Another broken Around the cross is the broken bread, which we will in a few minutes Again, celebrate as our brothers and sisters have for 2,000 years.

Let's take just a moment to think about the broken bread.

Luke 22, 14 through 20.

Let me tell you the verse right before this.

It says that Peter and John had gone to prepare the Passover.

Here's what that meant.

Get the picture a little bit.

Realize that People that come from literally all over the then known world to the center of of the Jewish religion to the to the temple to Jerusalem.

They were camped out over all the hills.

They had little white tents.

If you went there, you would see If you came over the hill and came down from the mount or from atop the Mount of Olives, come down that long trail that goes to Gethsemane and then through the Kidron Valley and up to the Temple Mount.

What you would see is this incredible white dome temple, and you'd see smoke rising up from it, and that smoke was from the altar of atonement, where they had they they had prepared the sacrificed lambs, and then they would be burned on that altar, and that smoke, that holy that smoke that was truly holy smoke, would be rising from the temple as you came over the over the hill.

And so what it says they prepared the Passover, what we don't get in the Bible, what you get it from the history, is that what that meant was that they brought The lamb that was going to be what would be eaten at the Passover Seder dinner over which Jesus Himself would preside.

It's the only time that Jesus actually presided over a Passover Seder meal.

The interesting thing would be this.

Well, first let me complete the picture.

So Peter and John would bring the sacrificial lamb that they had, the spotless lamb.

And that lamb's throat would be cut, the blood would be drained into a golden bowl, and that would be taken to the altar to atone for sin.

The lamb would be prepared, gutted in a sense , and parts of it would be burned, the rest of that lamb would be brought back. probably on their shoulders on a on a stave.

So Peter and John now are leaving the Temple Mount, going back down into the city, with a lamb between them.

That has been sacrificed for sin.

If you could see the picture, you would probably see hundreds of people coming down from the Temple Mount With their lamb to atone for their sin.

And coming down off the Mount of Olives, you might see ten guys.

That would be the other disciples.

Well, probably only nine at this point No, there's still ten.

That's right.

Judas is still there.

You'd see ten guys coming down from the Mount of Olives, and they're going to rendezvous at the how at the place that the disciples that Jesus had already for them to prepare for the Passover.

First Corinthians says, Christ is our Passover sacrificed for us.

Isaiah would prophesy 700 years before that night, that he will be led like a lamb and slaughtered.

So they bring the lamb in to be part of what will be the last lamb that ever needed to be sacrificed.

Perhaps others would after that.

But this was the final sacrifice, for God's lamb would serve the Passover meal.

In the midst of all of this, we're going to talk more about this tomorrow morning, the disciples start arguing over who's going to be the greatest.

Is this absolutely disgusting and perversely amusing that Jesus is about ready to sacrifice his life and you're arguing with who's going to be the assistant Messiah?

And at that dinner will be announced that one of them will sell him out.

One of the guys that has been their brothers in ministry for the past three years is going to sell me out.

So there's a lot of ugly in the room at the first communion.

Jesus introduces the most profoundly holy thing that he could.

By the way, back in the temple, as they were offering the sacrifices, you would hear chanting.

From the Levites.

Because they were reading Psalm 116 to 118.

And they would read one line, and then the Levites would, every other, every other line, they would go, hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

They called it the halal.

Those three Psalms together are called the Halal.

So they've been going hallelujah.

But when they got to the last Psalm, Psalm 118.

Instead of just doing that, every other line they would go, quoting Psalm 118, blessed be The one who comes in the name of the Lord.

Does that ring a bell?

Where did we hear that before?

Palm Sunday.

Isn't it ironic that they are singing, blessed be the name, the Messiah who will come to save us?

As the very people who are leading this are about to arrange for his death.

It's just quite a scene.

Well It said in Luke 22, verse 7.

Let's take a look at this.

These words.

Luke 22, verse 7 It talks about the fact that as they went to Jerusalem, the Passover lamb, the words of Scripture are, the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed.

Well, we're talking about more than just another one of the thousands of lambs that have been sacrificed.

Beginning on Mount Moriah.

When Abraham brought his son, there we go.

The Passover lamb had to be sacrificed.

Go back to Mount Moriah.

By the way.

The cross will be on the same mountain where Abraham brought his son a couple thousand years before.

It will be on another part of Mount Moriah.

And he Abraham will be asked to bring his only son, and God says, no, I will spare your son.

And the words of Genesis are, and God provided a lamb That was prophetic two millennia before this happened on the cross.

God says, I do the lamb that needs to be sacrificed.

And then going to Egypt long ago, long ago Egypt.

Blood on the doorpost.

The angel of death will pass over if you where the Passover comes from, if you put the Passover, the blood of that lamb on the doorpost.

Putting your faith in that blu the blood, the shed blood for the sacrifice of your sins to protect you from the angel of death.

So we go from Mount Moriah, a lamb had to be, yes, there had to be a lamb.

Yes, we go to we go to to Egypt.

Yes, there had to be a lamb.

We go to John, John introducing Jesus.

The introduction of the Messiah.

Ladies and gentlemen.

Here by the Jordan River.

It's my pleasure to introduce King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Son of God.

Nope.

Behold, God has a lamb.

There he is.

He will carry away the sin of the world as you carry a lamb on your shoulders It's Passover.

He will carry on his shoulders the sins of billions of people.

He will carry it away.

Yes, the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed.

And the final sacrifice is at Gogotha.

And so in that upper room I can just tell you it's been all about the Lamb for thousands of years.

And by the way, it's all about the Lamb forever.

Did you know that?

Revelation chapter 5.

Look at what they talk about in heaven.

I looked and heard the voice of many angels. numbering thousands upon thousands, ten thousand times.

I think I added this up.

I think I ran out of zeros, but I think it's a hundred million angels, any one of whom could incinerate Branson in a moment.

A hundred million angels encircled the throne, the living creatures, the elders.

In a loud voice they were saying, What's the name of Jesus in heaven Worthy is the Lamb.

Every time you sing a song with worthy as a lamb in it, you are joining the chorus of a hundred million angels in heaven.

Worthy , they can't get over what happened to him.

The only thing he brought back from earth was a nail prince in his hands and feet and a spear wound in his side.

That's what he brought back.

They know who he is.

They know him as the Prince of Glory.

They never get over the fact that the Prince of Glory became the Lamb of God on the altar.

He is worthy to receive everything we can give, all our wealth, all our power, all our wisdom, all our strength, all our honor and glory and praise.

After Karen 's homegoing, you know I kept a journal.

I wrote this one month after in my journal.

I heard a song today about the multitudes before the throne, singing, worthy is the lamb who was slain.

And suddenly I pictured my Karen worshiping the Lamb with him right there.

Mind blowing.

Brought tears, but great joy Oh, that will be glory for me, when by his grace I shall look on his face, and that will be glory for me.

So why does he do this?

Why does he break the bread and do the cup?

Well he says very simply, do this to remember me.

Do you know why we have to keep doing it?

Because we forget the cross.

And the farther we get from the cross, the more vulnerable we are to leave God's ways.

We need I love the fact that Jesus did physical things.

You get baptized as a physical symbol of something otherwise just kind of a floating idea.

Die to the old you and uh rise up to the new you.

Uh with this, literally, when Jesus broke that la that that loaf and said, This is my body.

This is my body right here, guys, this is my body This is my blood, it's shed for you.

There's a physicalness as a it's it's touchable, it's real And when we take the, when we drink that cup, we are in essence personalizing, we're internalizing, we're making his sacrifice ours again.

It's an incredible symbol.

We need to remember the cross because we get mixed up and messed up and confused when we get away from the cross.

So he says, do this.

Do you know why?

Here's what we tend to forget.

How great his love is, how awful our sin is.

How valuable we are, and how much we can trust him When you stand at the cross, you remember how great his love is.

You look at what he had to do to pay for it, you say, I see how awful my sin is.

But you see the price he paid for you and you realize again how valuable you are.

And you realize anyone who loved you enough to die for you is never going to do you wrong You may not like some things that has happened in your life, but you go to the cross to get the right idea of how he feels about you.

You cannot stand at that cross and say, you know what?

My sin is okay.

Really?

Stand at the cross and try to say that.

You cannot stand at the cross and say nobody loves me.

You can't say that at that cross.

You can't stand at that cross and say I'm worthless.

I don't matter.

Stand there and try to say that.

You can't stand at that cross and just say, Lord, I I don't know, I don't like what you just did.

I don't understand that.

I don't know if I can trust you.

Good luck trying to say that at the cross.

That's why we need to come back to the broken bread.

And now, most important of all, the broken son of God.

Let's look at the unspeakable treatment of the Prince of Glory for just a minute You know about it, but let's do this again.

Mark 14, real quickly, Mark 14.

They began to spit at him.

They blindfolded him, struck him with fists, said, Prophesy.

And the guards took him and beat him.

And you know, you've seen it, you've heard about it.

The lashes with the whip, with the bone, and the metal in it that rip open the back.

Many people died during the scourging.

Never made it out of the scourging Because of the massive blood loss.

Back whipped open.

My savior a punching bag.

For a bunch of profane soldiers.

Matthew 27, 27 to 31.

The governor's soldiers took Jesus into the praetorium, gathered the whole company of soldiers around him.

Stripped him, put a scarlet robe on him, twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head.

Put a staff in his right hand.

They knelt in front of him and mocked him.

Hail, king of the Jews, they said.

They spit on him, took the staff, struck him on the head again and again.

After they had mocked him, they took off the robe, put his clothes on him, and led him away to crucify him.

I have stood on the place where it happened.

It's in the basement of a church, but once you get out down there, you see these massive stone like rectangles.

The pieces of stone are huge.

Several of us could stand on one of them.

And there are still scratch marks in some of those stones.

From where they would it look like a tic-tac-toe board or something like that.

But it was all part of the game of the king.

Where they would take a prisoner and make a king out of him.

And they love this because Jesus said he was a king.

One day they will know he was king.

And they will bow down again.

But it'll be very different then.

And they put one of these on them Gotta be careful how I pick this up.

I just want you to imagine this jammed into your head.

You know how we bleed from the head so easily Imagine one thorn in your finger.

Imagine all those thorns jammed into your head.

You're King, Jesus, yeah, you're a king.

It's the kind of crown you deserve.

The one who spent all eternity hearing angels sing about him, mocked with a crown of thorns.

The result of the torture, Isaiah tells us.

His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being.

And his form, marred beyond human likeness.

I doubt you would have recognized your Jesus, even if you'd spent the past three years with him.

He literally was beyond recognition.

And now We find out why that happened.

You say, poor Jesus.

John 19. 10 and 11.

Pilate says, do you refuse to speak to me?

Well, don't you realize that I have power to free you or crucify you?

Jesus answered, you'd have no power.

If it weren't given to you from above, therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.

Jesus said, you're not doing this to me.

I'm letting you do this.

This is the amazing thing.

I'm letting people spit on me.

I am the Son, as the holy, high Son of God, part of the Trinity.

I am letting, I am letting people spit on me.

I am letting people strip me.

I am letting people Scourge me and beat me.

This is my choice.

This is a choice of love.

He said, no man can take my life from me.

I lay it down of myself.

Now we go to Skull Hill.

And as your notes say, what happens on Skull Hill reveals for all the world, for all time, the issue that all eternity depends on.

Let's go to that account, Justin, in Luke chapter uh 20 uh 23.

Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed.

When they came to the place called the Skull , And by the way, uh if Skull Hill is what uh some of the Christians believe in the in Israel, uh the place I visited, it doesn't look like a skull.

You got sunken like eye holes, eye sockets of a skull and like a broken nose.

When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals, one on his right, the other on his left.

Jesus said, Father, forgive them.

They do not know what they're doing.

They divide up his clothes by casting lots.

The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him.

They said, he saved others.

Let him save himself.

He's God's Messiah, the chosen one.

By the way, I love that old gospel song.

He could have called 10,000 angels to destroy the world and set him free.

But he died alone.

For you and me.

Soldiers came up, mocked him, offered him wine vinegar, which was kind of a sedative, and said, if you are the king of the Jews, save yourself There was a written notice above him which read, this is the king of the Jews.

One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him.

Aren't you the Messiah?

Save yourself, oh yeah, and us.

But the other criminal rebuked him.

Don't you fear God, he said, since you are under the same sentence?

We are punished justly, for we're getting what our deeds deserve, but this man has done nothing wrong.

And by the way, because your lungs are all filling up with fluid, it wouldn't have been doing it like I'm doing it.

These guys would be gasping to talk.

Then he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

Jesus answered him, truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.

It was about noon.

Darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.

For the sun stopped shining, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two Jesus called out with a loud voice, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

When he had said this, he breathed his last.

The revelations at the cross, first of all, is the monster of sin.

If you want to know what sin looks like, Look at the emaciated, unrecognizable, brutalized, butchered son of God.

That's what my sin looks like.

Look at what it took to pay for your sin.

Compressed into six hours literally compressed into six hours the weight of all the wounds, all the wrongs of every human who has ever lived Fall on the Son of God as he experiences the hell that Ron Hutchcraft deserves Literally on those hours, going through my hell and yours and billions.

Every rape, every act of abuse, every hurtful word ever spoken, every act of pride, every act of anger, every act of lust.

Every act of selfishness, every murder, every holocaust The Lamb of God is carrying away the sins of the world.

Mel Gibson 's head is ups and downs and his problems.

But I believe God was on him when he made the Passion of the Christ.

Had to be rated R, not for gratuitous violence.

Because it just what happened to Jesus was horrible, even to Portray.

Just a minute, I'll tell you the one thing he couldn't show.

But while the movie was being filmed, they got to the point where the Roman soldier, his gloved hand, is driving spike in the the wrist of Jesus and Gibson shouted, stop, stop You walked up, so give me that glove.

Give me that mallet.

And you put it on his hand and held the hammer in his hand The hand you see in the movie.

It's his hand driving the nails.

Because he realized, he said, I know it was my sin he was dying for.

It was my hand nailing him to the cross.

This is the price it takes to pay for our sin.

Jesus, the sinless Son of God, hangs between two sinners.

How appropriate?

Literally, he shares the shame of all sinners.

The world goes dark.

At the point where the darkness of hell is now enveloping the Holy Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, the world goes dark around him.

I think maybe God didn't want everybody looking at him at a time like this.

You know what no movie could show?

For all the things that Hollywood can do to try to portray.

The suffering of Jesus.

They can't show the worst of it.

Matthew 27, 45 and 46 From noon until three in the afternoon, darkness came over all the land.

About three in the afternoon, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, Eli, Eli Lama, Sabactanai, which means By the way, no father.

The only time he didn't call God father.

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

For at that moment, the Father turns his back on his son, as his son takes my hell in his soul.

Anybody who thinks they could possibly get to God without Jesus Please look, when Jesus was carrying my sin, God had to turn his back on whoever had my sin.

If I still have my sin, it has not been forgiven, how do I think I have any hope?

And so at that moment , Jesus is the loneliest man in the history of the human race.

He literally, for God, his father, has had to turn his back because he carries my sin.

He literally is alone in the universe.

There has never been a moment interrupting the relationship between God the Father and God the Son.

But Jesus hangs on the cross alone in the universe.

The horror of sin for all the world to see.

Amazing love.

How can it be that thou, my God, would die for me.

You know what else the cross shows us is the magnet of God's love.

John 12 Jesus said, as he was ending windows last week, when I'm lifted up, he was talking about the cross from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.

He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.

Malcolm Mugridge was an atheist.

He was the probably the most popular columnist for many years in England.

And uh it stunned everybody when he came to Christ.

And uh he people were like, wow, and the Malcolm Mugbridge would be like whoever, some of the guys who have been the very prominent atheists of our day, would be like suddenly they come to Jesus.

Listen to what he said.

It is the cross that called me inexorably to Christ I have been in many cultures, had the privilege to preach Jesus on every continent but Antarctica, like I told the people on the bus.

Penguins probably don't need Jesus.

So I uh but a and I will tell you this.

I have been I've seen it on reservations.

I have seen it in poor communities.

I've seen it in African American communities.

I've seen it in Africa.

I've seen it in Haiti.

I've se There isn't much that gets everybody's attention.

I have to throw out illustrations.

My humor barely works in America, let alone in another country.

But yet, everywhere I've ever gone.

Even with insanely rowdy teenage audiences that no one could control, including me.

When I get to the cross, it is quiet.

A holy hush falls over a crowd.

When you talk about the death of Jesus for them, it crosses every culture.

Jesus said it would draw all kinds of people to me and it is true.

So do what is your message?

Take people up Skull Hill And say that was for you, man.

That was for you.

That is, there's a magnet in that old hunk of wood It is the cross that is the great magnet.

It is exactly what Charles Spurgeon said.

He called it God's magnificent magnet.

I was um this amazing story, um, true story, after the communists took over Cambodia and slaughtered one million of their own people.

They were going to the northern uh there was a missionary now after the communists were no longer in power, a missionary went to the northern coast, northern border of Am Cambodia, went into this remote village, and this lady came running up to him.

Now No, as far as I knew, nobody Christian had ever been there.

And she ran up, she grabbed both of his hands, she said, we have been waiting 20 years for you And he said, Why why?

And the people of the village all gathered around.

He said, Tell me why.

She said, when when the Cameroos came.

They rounded up the entire village, brought us to the center of the village, had to start digging holes to dig our own graves.

We knew we would be slaughtered and we would be in those graves in a matter of minutes.

And as they are digging, They start crying.

I mean you've got a village screaming out to whoever whatever spirits they worshipped, their ancestor spirits, some to Buddha.

And all of a sudden one old grandmother, perhaps the oldest lady in the village, starts to pray to one she called the God who hung on the cross.

This is what they told the missionary when he arrived.

They all began to s now thinking that if there was a God who hung on the cross, he might understand how we are feeling right now.

And then it was suddenly quiet.

And they turned to face their executioners, only to see that they had all disappeared into the jungle.

And the little old lady, somewhere, that grandmother, had heard a story somewhere when she was a little girl of this god.

And so when that lady greeted the missionary, she said, we've been waiting for 20 years to learn about the God who hung on a cross That's your Jesus.

The God who hung on a cross.

And you know what happens with that message?

His love changes the hardest hearts.

We're not going to take time to look at the verse, but you already saw about the thief.

Do you know that thief who asked him to remember him?

We didn't read the gospel account that said he was one of the mockers.

Actually, another gospel account says that it wasn't just one of them mocked.

The thief over here mocked him too.

He was saying, hey, if you're the Son of God, come down.

But he's listening to Jesus.

He's watching him.

He hears him say, Father, forgive them about his crucifiers.

He can't believe it.

And his hard heart, his crime-hardened, sin-hardened, pain-hardened heart, opens up to this Jesus and says, you're my only hope, remember me.

And the only guy we're sure is going to be in heaven, only guy I think Jesus we for sure is that you're gonna be there is that thief And then it says in Mark that the centurion, the lead executioner of Jesus, the man in charge of the crucifixion detail, probably about 20 guys.

It says that he said it says when he saw how he died, he said, truly.

This was a son of God.

I know who I just killed.

This is a son of God.

Why did he what changed his hard heart?

I mean a guy whose job is executing guys?

That's a hard heart.

What softened his heart when he saw how he died?

He'd heard men curse on a cross, swear on a cross, scream in pain He never heard the word forgive from a cross.

You know some hard hearts?

The one thing you have that will soften their heart if anything will, is for them to understand what happened on that cross for them.

That is the ultimate heart softener.

My friend Bobby is uh Dr.

Gonna be with him when we leave here.

He's on our board, Native American pastor.

His tribe that he's from, and Laney comes from this reservation, is perhaps the most Jesus-resistant we've ever seen.

They will literally come and cover the ears of the little kids so they won't hear the name of Jesus.

They have what they call faith keepers who stand stood there during the invitation, and they are there and they are staring down everybody like you had better not come forward.

They're like they're like the uh uh Gestapo, spiritual Gestapo.

But somehow Bobby was able to convince a few of them to go see Passion of the Christ with him.

They walked out of the theater and they simply said to him , Now we know why you follow him.

Yeah.

That's why we follow him Follow him.

The enormity of his love so on display.

We're not going to get to all of this, but I look the mirror at the cross, you've got the scriptures.

All I know it's very interesting that the whole world was at the cross that day.

Did you know it?

There were the mockers.

Everybody you know is one of these categories about Jesus.

The mockers, the watchers, the arrogant and powerful.

The oblivious, the guy's gambling for his robe, the self-righteous?

This is everybody we know The loyal, the women who and John who will not leave?

The hard-hearted lost guy, thief on the other cross.

The lost ones who are found, the thief who comes to Christ, and the one who carries Jesus cross.

The fact is the world God so loved was assembled on Skull Hill, and we can each take our place at his cross.

When Rembrandt painted the crucifixion, somebody said, That looks like you in the corner.

He said, it is me.

I was there that day.

Were you there when I crucified my Lord?

He was dying for me One last thing about the cross is it really shows up the meaninglessness of religion.

Three words demonstrated the impotence of every religion on this planet Whether it's Buddhist or Baptist or Catholic or congregational or Jewish or Moslem or indigenous None of them can do it.

None of them have any power to get us to God.

Because of three words.

One word in Aramaic, Tatalastai, it is finished.

Everything that could possibly be done that needed to be done is done in this moment.

It is done.

Not I am finished, it is finished.

They found an accountant's office that they dug up archaeologically from Jesus' time.

And they found slates.

These were their files on their on their accounts And they found one stack of slates here and one stack over here and this stack over here.

I had one word on the top, Tatalisty, paid in full.

Done.

We owe nothing anymore.

Jesus said, everything that could be done for human sin is done.

And these verses that you see, let's just bring up one of them, Justin, Hebrews 9, verse 12.

He entered the most holy place once for all.

Once for all.

The other references you have say the same thing.

Once.

For everybody.

Once.

For everybody.

Once.

For everybody.

Once.

For everybody.

There's nothing you can add to it.

There's nothing we can add.

All the world's religions are impotent to make us right with God, to give us eternal life.

All the world's systems to please God can't.

They all fail.

The curtain is torn.

The bill is paid.

When the Berlin Wall came down, 50,000 people chanted, the wall is gone, the wall is gone, the wall is gone.

That's what happened at Calvary.

The wall is gone Paid in full once for all of us The Lamb of God has now carried away the sin of the world.

So standing on Skull Hill, we see in our Savior an accelerant for living a life that truly matters.

Live redemptively.

In the words of David Platt, every saved person this side of heaven owes the gospel to every lost person, this side of hell.

The call from Calvary is to live for what he died for.

Look at 2 Corinthians For Christ's love compels us.

I cannot know about this love and not tell you I am compelled by this love.

Greater than my fear of what will happen if I tell you about Jesus is the love of Christ that is is is compelling, pushing me from every side to tell you.

And so in 2 Corinthians 5, 18 to 20, to tell of his love, God has given us this task of reconciling people to him.

God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, but he gave us the wonderful message that God and man can come together, the wall is gone, the sin bill is paid.

So we are Christ's ambassadors And God actually making his appeal through us, by the way, if we don't make the appeal, then they don't hear it And the tsunami comes and carries them away, and we saw it coming.

We speak for Christ when we plead with you.

Come back to God.

In light of the price that Jesus paid for every person's sin, is there any greater tragedy?

then someone he died for, doing all this for, would live and die and never know he did.

Never know he did.

We all know someone who doesn't know he died for them.

And he's committed to us that message Mark is uh ex-marine.

I guess once a marine, always a marine.

He's asked to speak.

He became very successful in business, became and still is an inspirational speaker, goes back to marine bases and speaks for them.

And here's what he says as he gets near the end of his talk.

He says, you know as Marines, we never leave one behind.

We always go back for our own.

He said, that's why I'm here, men and women.

I am here, because I'm coming back for my own Because someone has died to set us free.

And he goes on to tell about his Jesus.

Please.

Go back for your own.

Don't leave anybody behind.

Jesus, keep me near the cross.

There, precious fountain.

Free to all.

A healing stream.

Flows from Calvary's Mountain.

It is finished.

And you will be with me in paradise.

That's pretty.

Lord, no human voice is worthy to try to even begin to describe your cross.

No movie could portray the hell you went through when your father turned your back on you.

So you would never have to turn your back on us.

May our the epicenter of every choice we make?

be centered on the cross.

For there we know what our sin is, how ugly it is, and there we know how much you love us.

And now, Lord, may we live redemptively.

As you died redemptively.

For some reason, you didn't give this message to angels or write it on the clouds.

You're literally depending completely on us. to deliver your message.

May you bring to mind now that person or persons in our world who have lived every day of their life without a savior.

And do not know the unspeakable love of Jesus for them.

They haven't been told yet.

We will tell them soon.

We cannot let them die lost.

Not without a chance to live.

Thanks be to God for your unspeakable gift.

And we pray in the love and the power in the name of Jesus.

Remembering your cross.

Amen.