Jesus Crucified, Died, and..

We are focused this morning on what is really, to be foremost, in the way we, what we proclaim and what we think about as Christians, that is the crucifixion, the cross of Jesus Christ. It'd be interesting if we could count how many crosses would be present right now on our persons and among us. Right? So especially if we could maybe figure out if that's one cross or three somehow, and maybe that multiplies. But we wear the cross. We have the cross on our person. We use it as decoration on church buildings, and we put it at the grave. And I just want to say, if someone from before the crucifixion of Christ were to come, if a Roman soldier were to come and see the cross everywhere, it'd be very confusing. See, the cross and the way the Romans used it and the way they intended it, it was a symbol of shame, pain, and torture. Someone from that culture would look just confused as to how the cross is something that we prominently display as now one of the greatest significant symbols of hope and forgiveness and peace. A noose in our culture might be the closest thing we have. You know, an instrument of death and torture and shame, if it were celebrated and tattooed on persons and hung, you know, as a decoration. The same way with a cross. What we see here, because of what Christ did on the cross, there's a transvaluation. There's a change in how we value something. That symbol that once represented nothing but death and embarrassment. The cross was used for the most vile of criminals to punish them publicly. Now it's something we celebrate. Actually look at this more specifically in the sovereignty of God. What man intended for evil, God used for good. That instrument of death that man invented for the evil of punishment, God has used for good. This morning we're meditating on Good Friday. We call this Good Friday because it's the day that our Lord died to be forsaken for our forgiveness. We're, we're, we're, we're meditating specifically on the crucifixion and the death of Christ. We're coming to the, the end of His life as He walked on earth. And it's important that we really meditate on the cross because it reveals three specific things. This is not the outline of the sermon, but, but this is why the cross is so important. The cross shows us the depth of our sin. If we want to think about what sin looks like, sin is being punished on the cross. How much we reject God, we mock God, what our sin deserves. Our sin is demonstrated on the cross most clearly. The second thing the cross shows us is God's holy, righteous judgment. We see what sin deserves. It deserves forsakenness. It deserves wrath. We see our sin. We see God's judgment. We see what our sin deserves. And third, we have to see all these three things together. We see God's love. He did not withhold his own Son to save us from our sin. So if we're gonna think about something as Christians, if you, as a, not a Christian, there's something for you to think about. Today's the day that you really wanna be here. Welcome. We're gonna think about our sin, and with the righteousness of God, He does judge sin. We all want a God that judges sin, not just our, we just don't want Him to judge ours. But when we actually are honest with ourselves, our sin deserves to be punished. And we see God's love in that the Father punishes His own Son for us. If you are new with us, we're walking through the Gospel of Mark. If you want to take a pew Bible, please take that one in front of you. Follow along with us. I'm in Mark chapter 15. That's the first number there in front of the colon. That's the chapter. We're beginning in verse 21. And to kind of catch us up, Christ has been ministering for three years, publicly teaching, healing, in confrontations with the religious leaders of the day. He's come into Jerusalem this very last week. We call it Holy Week. There's been more confrontations, and the religious leaders, they've gotten people to falsely testify. The religious leaders, they've accused Jesus. They've beaten Him. And then they finally got enough evidence, they think, to hand him over to the Roman governor. There's one thing Romans do well, and it's punish people. So the Jewish leaders themselves could not crucify Christ. They have to hand him over to Pontius Pilate. And really what we see here is he's been denied by all of his disciples. Peter being the lead disciple who denies. We see him rejected by his own people. We see him being beaten by the Roman government, saying he himself was put in power. We see him rejected by the religious leaders. And last week we saw Pilate. He was, he understood something's off here. This man, okay, he claims to be the king of the Jews. We're not gonna be threatened by that as Rome. But he sees there's something wrong with the chief priests and their accusations. But still, The people demand crucify. He pleases the people. It actually mentions very quickly he was scorched. If we want to think about what Jesus has gone up through at this point, he's, he's alone. He's suffering. He's been beaten by a whip with nine ropes on it. And in those ropes are glass and bone. His back has been torn to shreds at this point. On top of that, the Roman soldiers have punched him, mocked him, put a crown of thorns on him. This is a physically, emotionally exhausting day that Jesus has suffered alone. And here we come to his crucifixion. I mean, think about it. This is the Apostles' Creed. He suffered under Pontius Pilate. He has been beaten and falsely accused and mocked with a crown of thorns. He was crucified, died, buried. You have to remember, this is not the end of the story. On the third day, he rises again, and that's what we think about next week. Our sermon outline is simply, he's crucified, Jesus is crucified, and Jesus died. Jesus is crucified, and Jesus died. Verses 21 to 32, Jesus crucified. The physical torture has been heavy thus far. Many people don't even survive the scourging. They die there. But no one can kill Christ. He has not yet given over his own breath. And notice here, verse 21, they've led him out to be crucified, verse 20, verse 21, and they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. We can see that physical beating and exhaustion taking its toll. They've asked somebody else to carry his cross. Romans rarely had any empathy for somebody, but Jesus could not even physically carry his cross apparently. And so they asked this man who's just an innocent bystander. He's there, present. He's come in from the country. He's there. Cyrene is a part of northern Africa. But if you've been with us, Mark rarely gives you a whole lot of background or detail. This is an amazing amount of information about this figure who simply carries Jesus' cross for him. He's from northern Africa. And more specifically, he's the father of Alexander and Rufus. Now, this is all hypothetical. This is all just a possibility. But we do have to ask, why would Mark include this? Mark is in Rome with Peter, we believe, writing this. He has Rome in mind. And one clue that might help us understand why he would include this, in Romans 15, Paul mentions a disciple named Rufus. Rufus might be a well-known Christian in Rome. Mark might be highlighting, as he's talking to the eyewitness Peter, knowing the church of Rome, the man who carried the cross. Well, that's Rufus' dad. You know him. He's a well-to-do, prominent leader within the Christian church. That's a possibility. It doesn't make any sense why Mark would go into such detail unless there's something else to it such as that. We see here that Mark begins to give us very clear, detailed time. He mentions it's the third hour. Mark has been very clear on what day things happened. The triumphal entry was last. Saturday, last week, and we would just follow the days as they go by, when the Lord's Supper was. But here the time gets more focused. He gets into the hour, verse 25. The hour. Now leading up to this, they offered him mixed wine. That could be a fulfillment of Psalm 69 21 that mentions that they're going to offer the Messiah wine mixed with myrrh. They crucified him, divided his garments. That, again, is actually fulfilling a prophecy, Psalm 22. If you wanna meditate on the cross, Psalm 22, I believe, is Christ's own words on the cross. We're gonna see it echoed throughout. But one of the prophecies there in Psalm 22 is that they divided his lots. Here's just something to think about if you're not a Christian, or if you are a Christian. Roman soldiers don't know Psalm 22. Roman soldiers did not know that it was going to be, that it was already promised that the onlookers were going to divide the lots of the Messiah dying on the cross. The Roman soldiers unknowingly and unwillingly fulfilled the very will of God by dividing his garments among themselves selfishly. Here at the crucifixion. Now, they've crucified him. Crucifixion is taking a man, putting him on a wooden cross. Typically there's two beams. There's the pole and the beam, which is pieces of wood. And they would nail each hand, and they would nail the feet with one nail. So there's three nails. And that's excruciatingly painful, but we understand what's supposed to happen here is that as the victim, as the criminal on the cross gets weaker and weaker, they suffocate. They lose capacity to breathe as the lungs fill up with liquid and blood. And the idea is you're supposed to be able to keep pulling yourself up on these nails to breathe. Now picture what Christ has gone through. His back is just one big open wound, and he's supposed to be pulling up on the nails in his hands, using his back against the wood of the cross so that he can breathe. Death comes by suffocation. This is an extremely cruel, shameful way to put someone to death. This is why they broke the legs. They couldn't pull up anymore. They would suffocate. We see that he's not only going through the physical pain, and what's interesting is Mark barely mentions the physical pain. He was scorched, one simple statement. He was crucified, one simple statement. What Mark focuses on is how those who are with him deny him. And those who were around him deride him. Mark wants to spend most of his attention showing how he's a suffering servant who's being rejected by the people he came to save. They crucified him, divided his garments, verse 24, casting lots for them to decide what should take, which one should take it. Verse 25, it was the third hour when they crucified him. That's 9 a.m. It's 9 a.m. when they nail him to the cross. And the inscription of the charge against him reads, the King of the Jews. Now, if you were here the last week, this was what Pilate asked, are you really the King of the Jews? Jesus said, yes. Yes, I am. This is a mockery, though, because everyone has rejected him as the king. This is the charge against him, and it's meant to be a mockery, but it is the most true statement made on this day. And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his left and one on his right. He's numbered among the wicked. Verse 29. And those who passed by derided Him, wagging their heads, saying, Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself. Come down from the cross. So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked Him to one another, saying, He saved others. He cannot save Himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe. Those who crucified, those who were crucified with him, also revive him, revile him. There's three different kinds of people here. There's the crowd mocking him. You said you're gonna tear down the temple, save yourself. Even the criminals next to him who are suffering for their own sins are reviling him. Interesting here is the leaders. Notice what they say. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe." Now, I don't think they really want to see that they can believe. I think they're mocking Him. They, you know, demonstrate for us. Show us the sign so that if you're really King, show it to everybody. Paul says elsewhere that Jews demand a sign. There is something that there's a wanting to see. I want to pause here and just think about this request that they want to see Jesus come off the cross before they believe. We can think about doubting Thomas here. Remember all the disciples, they've seen Christ, and they've gone and they've told Thomas, and he said, I can't believe that. I'm going to have to see it for myself. And Jesus, in John chapter 20, shows up. He appears. The door's locked. All of a sudden Jesus, the risen, appears and he approaches Thomas. See the hands? See the holes where the nails were? If you want to, you can use your finger to touch. Here I am, the risen Savior. And Thomas, not having to touch, just seeing Him there, declares, my Lord and my God. He confesses, you are the risen Savior, my Lord and my God. Now this is instructive for us, because Jesus responds by saying, blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed. That's us in this day. We do not get that privileged position of being in that upper room where Jesus appears miraculously risen. He has now ascended and he sent his Holy Spirit down to give us eyes. This is why it's important we recognize all of our faith is built upon the eyewitness accounts and even more so God recording for us what happened, why it happened, and how it happened. We, we believe. Because God has told us his own son has died for our sin and has risen. Believe and be blessed is what Jesus is teaching to, to Thomas and to us. So we see there that, that there's a, there's a mockery all around. Jesus is, is, is hearing this. And, and, and this is the harder thing to embrace. If we really want to think about this passage and our role here, we, we should, we should hear our own scoffing voice. If we're going to think about where we are in this scene, Christ is dying for us, as we ourselves would be there scoffing, deriding. I said before, we see the very nature of our own sin, and it's just this outright rejection. The creature denying its Creator. The creature trying to murder its Creator. The creature reviling. Those He came to save are mocking. This is what a rebellion looks like to God. This is what a rebellion is against God. If you want to think about how I look to God, this is it. If you're not a Christian, there's really no neutral observation deck. We're either submitting to God, believing Him, and trusting Him, obeying Him, and seeking to love Him. Or we're doing our own thing, and it looks like this. Deriding. And mocking. Christian, I believe there's an opportunity to be corrected even now, and to be purified in the way we live, because Christ is the Lord on the cross. He's at the right hand of the Father. With all authority, and power. He's demonstrated perfect love on the cross. He's now the right hand of the Father with all authority. And think about how much we worry. How often we live in frustration. How much we complain, knowing that He who has died for us is at the highest position of all authority, that the entire world is under Him and under His authority. how much we, we live in anxiety and frustration. We grumble, and it's like the reviling on the cross. We're not trusting Him where He is, and in the situations in life that He's put us. So there we see Christ crucified. He's going through, amidst physical suffering, but again, what Mark is emphasizing is that ... how others are treating Him. Next is the death of Christ. Jesus dies, verses 33 through 41. Jesus dies. And I want to walk through, we're going to spend most of our time here. There's four specific events surrounding Jesus' death. So underneath Jesus died, there's four specific events. First, there's darkness. They crucified him on the sixth hour 9 a.m., verse 33, again, Mark is giving us very specific, detailed time frames. And when the sixth hour had come, that's noon, sun is at its highest point, noon, there was darkness. At the highest point of the sun shining on the day, all of a sudden, darkness covers the whole land. until the ninth hour. From noon until 3 p.m., there's nothing but darkness. Now as we're going to go through these other events that we'll get to in a moment, what's interesting about those events is there's other interpretations of those events in Scripture. All right, so there's an event and there's an interpretation. By God's grace, the events of Christ's death has interpretation. We've seen it in Isaiah 53. There's already an interpretation prescribed for us about what Christ was doing in Isaiah 53. We're gonna look back from Paul and others and we're gonna see how he applies the event to the cross so we understand what's happening. There's actually no interpretation as to why there's darkness though. So as I've wrestled with this, as I've thought about it, I'm going to list some ways in which this could be interpreted. They all might be wrong, they all might be right. But I wanted to think through what was happening here on the cross, possibly with the darkness. One option is God could be de-creating right now. This has happened before. The flood was God de-creating. It was a day when God said, let the, the, the waters part and let there be land. When you think about the flood, what God is doing in the judgment there, by, by, by covering the whole earth in water again, He's, He's de-creating. He's, He's reversing creation to start over again. And that might be what God's doing here because with the first declaration, let it be light. He's covering the earth in darkness. could be significant because Jesus Christ is the new man, the beginning of a new humanity. God takes away the light as a, as a new beginning of his new creation. Second option. This could just be a way in which creation is mourning. And if Romans 8, that creation grieves and longs for that new creation, where sin is no longer tainted, and the world is not in a fallen state, This could be a way. The same way the rocks will cry out if we don't, the creation here sees a creator being murdered on a cross. It's a way of demonstrating grief. Another option. The true light of the world is being crucified. The sun is not the true light of the world. Revelation makes it very clear, in the new heavens, new earth, there's no sun. The sun is a placeholder for the Son of God, who's going to be the true light of the world. And here, maybe in protest at the sun, S-U-N, is in protest, demonstrating you're killing the true light. The light that has come to shine, to give real life. He is being crucified. And so there's darkness. This could be an act of judgment. Remember those religious leaders, the chief priest, come down so we might see. No, there's darkness. There's no more seeing. You've rejected my son. You've spat in his face. You've mocked him. You had the opportunity to believe. Now there's no more light. There is no more seeing. My will is now done. That is a terrifying option. We think about this. Three hours of darkness from noon to 3 p.m. That has to be the eeriest, scariest three hours in the history of the world. You could gather the greatest producers and directors all together, and there's no way a movie could be created that could capture the eerie, frightening, absolute terrifying three hours that this is. The sun is at the highest point. It's supposed to be. But yet here we are at this scene in just darkness. It's terrifying. It really should have the onlookers thinking about who is there on the cross and what they're saying. So the first event is there's darkness. I believe there is a sign for three hours. And then in the darkness, again, in the ninth hour, Jesus speaks. Now there's seven sayings that Jesus has, we have recorded throughout all the Gospels of Christ and the cross, but this is the only one that Mark records. Jesus presents him as the sheep who did not speak. So for here we have this one declaration. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Mark is very selective here. And what Jesus says, the words that come out of his lips, it should surprise us and startle us if we've been paying attention through Mark, because Jesus never calls upon God as my God. How does Jesus normally refer to God? Father. It was a little while ago. My Father, not my will, but your be done. We know from the other Gospels. He says, Father, forgive them for they don't know what they're doing. When Jesus speaks to God, we're going to see this in a moment, He is the true Son of the true Father, and He regularly refers to God as Father. The intimate, personal, loving reference. Here He's calling Him God. I believe we see Jesus beginning to fill the full effects of embracing our humanity and more importantly our sin. He isn't feeling that forever eternal love that he's always enjoyed. Now he's starting to feel the separation that sin brings. He who knew no sin became sin for us. He's starting to feel the full effects of that. That perfect uniting love of God that he's always enjoyed is now being separated. He's always been in perfect relationship and in perfect union. And now the mission of God The Father and the Son together is causing that to break. The Son takes on our sin and the consequences of it. We can look back to Adam and Eve in the garden. What was the consequence of Adam and Eve sinning? They're cast out of God's presence. They're actually banned from that intimate, perfect presence they used to have. In the same way here, the Son, who had even a greater relationship with the Father, has God Himself the Son. He fills that break. We see the judgment of God. We see the effects and the consequences of our sin. We see the true love of God and what the cost is to God to bring us back to Him. He sends His own Son to become like us in every way, yet without sin, so that He pays the price for our sin. Jesus declares, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Crying out because that relationship is now broken. But what we really see here is Christ the reconciler. Christ the reconciler. He is renewing our relationship with God by taking our sin, paying its penalty, so that we can now know God, not as the God who would judge us. We now get to call Him Father. Because the Son has not only given us His own righteousness, but His own Sonship. Christ is forsaken because that is the only way we can be forgiven and brought back into the presence of God. As I think about Christ's forsakenness, I want us to realize there's two clear applications that are derived from Romans 8. The first is, there's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. If we are united with Christ, there is no other debt that we're going to have to pay for our sin. There's no additional judgment. Christ's sacrifice was perfect, final, complete. When we're declared righteous, not guilty in Christ, there's no other judgment. God has forgiven us. It's final. Be encouraged. If you're in Christ, there's no condemnation. The second promise we see from Romans 8, which is actually a little more specific here, there's no separation. There is no separation from the love of God for those who are in Christ Jesus. If you want to, to just meditate upon the full beauty of, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? What Christ did there, there's now no separation. Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus. God welcomes you in love. He never rejects you in love. Let me be very clear. If we're accepted and welcomed by faith in Christ, there's no rejection. You can't send yourself out of that relationship. Let me be very clear here. You can send yourself out of enjoying that relationship. Romans 8 is also very clear. There's two ways to live. There's the way of the flesh, which is opposed to God. There's the way of the Christ, which follows His Spirit. chapter 8, verse 3, by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. If you feel the weight of guilt and condemnation as a believer, if you feel like Christ is somehow separate from you, and you're not rejoicing in that love, don't question the power of the cross. ask, is there, is there sin in my life that's keeping me from enjoying His perfect love? The truth is there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. There's no separation for those who are in Christ. In Christ we're united with Him in all the blessings of. The third event. We see darkness covering the earth. We see Christ declaring, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Let's keep reading. And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, Behold, he is calling Elijah. Someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave it to him to drink, saying, Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come and take him down. Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. He's dead. He gave up his own life. Very important. It was not taken from him. He has given up his own life, and the next event is one of the consequences of Christ, dying on, of Christ, dying on the cross for us. The third event. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. It's very important we recognize this. Top to bottom. It's a perfect tear. Completely torn apart. Now, we need to do some background here, because most of us have never been in a temple or worshipped in a temple as designed, and probably shouldn't. God designed worship in the Old Testament with a temple. If we're thinking about the temple and just using this building as an illustration, we'd have the Holy of Holies behind this door, and it only opens one time a year, and only one person can go in. And then there's the area of the priest, one particular tribe, only the males, and then there's the rest of the Israelite males, and there's a core of the Gentiles, the women, and if you hear here, there's layers, and with each layer, there's curtains and boundaries, and it's terrifying. You're afraid of going beyond where you would want to go. You're terrified that the holiness of God would consume you if you go too close. If there's two words that really summarize Old Testament worship, it's distance and fear. And that's God's design. And it was good. Mount Sinai, when God's coming down to speak to Moses, they had to put a wall around the mountain, and they're terrified to go near, lest the glory of God and the power of God consume them. If you think about the structure, it's all about distance and fear that God pre-designed in the temple. And when Christ died, those curtains meant to keep distance and fear real, they're torn in two so that we're welcomed in. New Testament worship is not designed to be one of distance or fear. It's of drawing near with joy. Let me just walk through here, because last week we, we walked through Jesus as a king. It's important to recognize Jesus as the priest. There's three offices of Christ. He's prophet, priest, and king. Last week we looked at the whole history of the king promise of fulfillment. I want to do this very quickly, the theme of priest. Because here, with a temple being torn, we see Christ the priest fully. The first priest in Scripture, I believe, is Adam. Adam represents all of creation to God. If you go and look at the commands to a priest in Leviticus, there's two basic commands. Keep and work. Those are the exact same commands Adam has in the garden. Keep it and work it. What did Adam do in the garden? He saw God face to face. The garden is a temple. And Adam is the priest who gets to see God and rejoice in God and know God, receive God's instruction, and know how to keep the garden. There's an ambassadorship there. And what happened when Adam failed and was a unfaithful priest? He was cast out. We can see the temple of the garden. Abraham is the next great example of a priest. After waiting decades for a son who God promised, after trying to fulfill God's own promise in his own way, he finally received his son at an age where Paul describes him as almost as good as dead. finally has his son, the promised son, his loved son, and what does God tell Abraham to do with that son in Genesis 22? Sacrifice him. Abraham puts his son on the horse. They travel. Abraham tells his traveling companions, stop here. My son and I will go alone. The son gets off at the bottom of the mountain. His father puts the wood on him. He carries the torch. His son Isaac looks at his dad. Dad, I see everything we need for the sacrifice except the lamb. Don't worry, son. God will provide. They get to the top of the mountain. Abraham obeys God. After failing to follow God over and over again, he knows he can trust God. The book of Hebrews tells us he knew that God could even raise his own son from the dead. And so he bounds his son on the sacrificial, to be the sacrifice. Pulls back the knife, seeing his son confused and frightened, knowing God can do what God wants to do and what God wants to do is good. As he draws back the knife, he hears the voice of God. Abraham. And he provides the sacrifice. What's interesting there, God says to Abraham the exact words, I see now you did not withhold your own son from me. Romans 8, 32. God, who did not withhold his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not graciously give us all things? There's a, there's a, there's a clear picture there that Paul is pointing back to. Abraham did not withhold his own son, but God said no, I'm going to give a sacrifice substitute. Someone is going to die in the place of your son, just as Christ is dying in the place of all people who believe in him. God has not withhold his own son. We fast forward to the Passover. We looked at this a few weeks ago in the Lord's Supper. The last plague to free Israel from Egypt, they sacrificed a lamb, a ram, and they put the blood of the doorpost, and the judgment of God passed over each house, that life, that blood being a Passover substitute. Then after they leave Egypt, They cross the Red Sea. After they complain and complain and complain, God is still faithful. God calls Moses up to the mountain, Mount Sinai, and He gives them instruction. Here's the temple structure. Here's how people can come in. Here's how close people can get. Here's the very nature of worship. It is meant to demonstrate the holiness and power of God to God's people. There's one priest, once a year, who's going to make the sacrifice to the atonement of sin. It's very limited, perfect, close presence. And the whole design of this sacrificial system of one priest sacrificing one lamb year after year, Hebrews tells us to show us that whole system was meant to demonstrate how unsuccessful it was. Different priest every year. Another lamb every year. The lamb, after lamb, after lamb, is to actually show it was ineffective. It allowed those sins to be passed over, but it did not wash away. That's why this sacrifice that we see Christ making on the cross, when He says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He has provided the perfect sacrifice, the once for all sacrifice, for those who believe in Him. Sin is washed away. Sin is far, as far from you as the East is from the West, because the perfect priest, Jesus Christ, has gone to the perfect Holy of Holies, the actual presence of God, and provided the perfect sacrifice, his own perfect life for yours. That's why he counts us righteous. We sang of this just a little while ago in the song, It Is Finished. That's one of the sayings of Jesus on the cross. Fulfilled are all the types and shadows. That, that temple structure, that, that priest structure, those sacrifices, they're all types and shadows, all pointing to the true priest and the true sacrifice that truly takes away sin. As I keep thinking about priesthood, I, I want us to think about something else that's happening there at Mount Sinai. It's pretty incredible. It's very instructive for us. All right, so this picture, most, all of Israel is down at the bottom of the mountain, fearful. They see the lightning, they see the thunder, they're terrified. They know God is talking to Moses. And after a little while, they get impatient. They get tired of waiting. While God is giving Israel instruction for how to worship Him, They become impatient and frustrated with God and decide to start creating their own worship. They take the gold that God gave them from Egypt and they fashion it into a golden calf. And they give that golden calf credit for everything God had just done. That is a terrifying response to what a great salvation God had just given Israel. And I believe, I know, because Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10, that is meant to be a warning for us. How quick we are to abandon the God who saves us. How quick we are to become impatient. How quick we are to try to figure out how we can do things better. We have received such an invitation not to worship God in trembling fear, Not to worship God from a distance, but to enter boldly, as Hebrews says. To enter with great confidence. Not because of who we are or what we've accomplished, but enter it with confidence because of what Christ has done, the once and for all sacrifice. I encourage you, enter today. Boldly. In prayer. In song. In obedience. Not sheepishly. Not lazily. Not haphazardly. Intentionally say, I want to worship Christ. Christ, bring me into your presence so I know you and your love. And know how to enjoy you. The final event we see here in the death Verse 38, and the curtain temple was torn in two, symbolizing we are now all welcomed in to enter into his presence boldly, not with fear, not with distance. Verse 39, and when the centurion who stood facing him saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, he comes to the conclusion, truly, This was, this man was the son of God. Now, if you'll turn with me back to the beginning of Mark. Mark chapter one. Mark opens with a bold declaration. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God. Mark is telling us he's beginning a gospel, that is the good news. He's a herald of good news in this declaration of who Jesus is and what he's done. Jesus, that is Yahweh saves. That's what the name means. Christ, the Anointed One. And we see this title. The Son of God. What's interesting about this thesis statement is that if you were an academic grader for this as a paper, you would say he did not fulfill his thesis up until this point. We have not seen anything really about the Son of God. He keeps referring to himself as the Son of Man. No one, up to this point with the Centurion, has said anything. The reference of Son of God has been off the lips of every human being so far. So Mark can make a climactic point to the Romans that he's writing to and where he's writing from. The Centurion. The Roman officer there present. He's the one who's overseen everything. He may not have put the nails in Jesus' hands and feet, but he's the one responsible to make sure it happened. He's the one who has authority on scene to make sure this happens right. He's a Greek. He's not a Jewish man. He's a soldier working under Pontius Pilate. And on his lips, God, the Father, gave the confession that concludes the book properly. I want to say this has got to be the work of the Father. In the same way when Peter confesses, you're the Christ, Jesus says, you're right, flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father did from heaven. The same way we have to conclude the centurion didn't just figure things out, but the Jewish people didn't. God has revealed, this is my son. in a non-Jewish man of Roman authority who was overseeing the very death of Christ, he comes to the conclusion God has given to him, this is God's true Son. That this is not just an innocent man, this is God's own Son. We believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, He's the Son of God, and we are monotheists. There's one God who is Father, Son, and Spirit. Yes, God is greater, is greater than anything we can think of. He's greater than our own categories. If you, it's okay to not be able to wrap your head around God. It's actually not okay if you think you have. There's one God, and He's Father, Son, and Spirit. And we see this conclusion. This is the Son of God. The one who created all, and He was just crucified by His own creation. We see a dramatic ending to Mark's gospel. Finally, someone confesses who Jesus is in the fullness of his deity, and it's a Roman soldier. I'm going to look at the burial next week. I want to give one final application for Christ's death and resurrection. It comes from Romans 6. There are three basic commands we see in Romans 6. The first is that we are to know that we have died with Christ. When Christ died, we are ... He is dying on our behalf, and we have faith with Him. We are united with Him in His death and resurrection. There is a truth to the fact that we are now with Christ in His death, resurrection. He has defeated sin. He has defeated death. He has defeated Satan. We can now walk in a newness of life knowing that slavery to sin has ended. The first thing is we have to know he's died. And that we are united with him. The second one is where it really gets hard. Paul says, consider yourself dead. Consider yourself crucified with Christ. There is a regular recalculation that's to take place. Every time we're tempted, there's a recalculation. No, I do not have to obey that temptation. I have died with Christ. I am no longer a slave to those passions of the flesh. No, I'm not condemned in my self-guilt and self-torture. No, Christ has paid the penalty. I have been declared not guilty. I consider myself in light of the cross. That regular, and I say regular, Sometimes second by second, minute by minute. Recalculation. Letting the, the death of Christ and His work change the way I think and feel, act and talk. The third is present yourselves. That's Romans 6, 12 to 3. It takes practice. We can't keep practicing sin Pretending we know we've died with Christ. Trying to recalculate our lives and our minds with Christ. It takes practice. Learning how to serve and yield ourselves to His obedience. As we conclude, I want us to see Christ has reconciled us to God. Because He was forsaken, we are forgiven. Christ has invited us in to, to praise Him with great joy and confidence. The temple has been torn in two. We are now welcomed into the presence of God because of what He has done. And we get to know Him as a son of God. One of the great, one of the great consequences of that we get to now call God Father. Will you pray with me? Father, we come before You. We thank You, Lord, for these events. We thank You, Lord, for the detailed eyewitness account to feel the, the weight of the darkness. To recognize the sacrifice in Christ being forsaken for us. To see how you are now bringing us into your worship with confidence in Christ. And to know you love us. And call us your own children, so that we can call you Father. Give us great confidence in what Christ accomplished on the cross. Help us, Lord, to meditate upon it regularly. Help us, Lord, to make it known amongst ourselves and to others. Help us, Lord, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2, too. First and foremost, above all things, no matter what the mess is, the cross is what we must know. Help us, Lord, to know it and to make it known. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.