Love conquered grief by death. The Atonement of Christ is the essence of justice and love. He decided to save us. He purposed in Himself to give His Son for the wrath triggered by our sin. He suffered pain — physically and psychologically. He was abandoned. All justice is done, was satisfied by His Son. (Isaiah 53:1-11; Matthew 26:38-39; Luke 24:25-26)

Speaker(s): Pastor Thomas Schaller
Sermon # 11670
11:00 AM on 4/28/2019

P. Schaller

So glad to be here today. Praise God. Praise God, Amen. Thank you God. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord.

P. Gary Groenewold and myself get on a plane in about 7 hours and fly to India. We do a conference in Mumbai and then in the beginning of next week, we go to Bangalore. Then we come back home in nine days.

We are preaching about Jesus Christ, our Savior, God. The one that changed our lives, atoned for our sin and suffered tremendously and rose from the dead, ascended and sits at the right hand of the Father. Our Savior who sent the Holy Spirit into our hearts so we can cry Abba. What’s Abba mean? Father, daddy. We cry Abba, Father because we are regenerated. Now we have this whole world God has given us in God’s reality where we are translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his dear Son. God is faithful who has called us into the fellowship of his dear Son. We want to speak about this this morning in some specific sense referring to Mt. 26 when Jesus said these powerful words in verses 38-39. He had 11 total, and he took three and went further and had them there and went a stone’s throw away, little further.

When we go on our trip to Israel, you can see that area where this happened in the garden called Gethsemane. The olive trees, the rock, perhaps that rock where he prayed and this is what he said.

vs. 38-39. If it be possible, I’m looking for a way out. Could you cancel it, change it? Is it at all possible this cup of this mission, this ministry I’m in right now, this purpose that I came into the world, if it could pass from me? How could he pray that when his whole life was geared for this moment? How could he say, Father, if this is possible? Because he’s human and beginning to suffer and take on the reality of what he is facing. The physical suffering will be overwhelming and psychological suffering and abandonment from his Father. If it’s possible, take this cup from me but nevertheless not as I will, but as you will. Humility is obedience to God. It’s so important in life. Christ was humble.

It’s described in Php. 2 and Hebrews 5. We are going to speak about this this morning.

Christ knew in the Scriptures we read in Ps. 16, Ps. 22 and Is. 53, he knew he was coming for this. He said it with the gospels. The Son of Man would be delivered up and crucified and three days later raised. Go tell Herod that fox I do this and this and on the third day I will be raised. He knew it but however he is a human being. He is God. We taught that and we speak about the Trinity. It’s clearly in the Scriptures. The Father demanded justice. God demanded justice.

Luke 24:25-26, after his resurrection he says in vs. 25, he’s not in pain. He’s raised from the dead. He’s not approaching the suffering; he is beyond it. He meets two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things? It was necessary that Christ would suffer these things but he did pray Father, if it is possible, take this cup from me but not my will. That’s how weak he was but he was obedient because he is humble.

I want to make one point about the subject of humility and pride. “Pride is the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began.” This is C. S. Lewis writing a devotional. I think it’s a profound statement. You don’t meet people who say hardly ever that my problem is I’m proud. Even in the church, we don’t always hear that. It’s more she is the problem, my boss is the problem, my money is the problem, the state of Maryland is the problem, the government is the problem, the president is the problem, my education is the problem. Wait a minute. Humility. God gives grace to the humble and resists the proud. It might be that’s why my world is the way it is. I can’t see the reality that God has made. I only see my world and my life. We understand this. When we are suffering, we do say could you take this cup from me. It might be in the same principle if Jesus is humble he is going to do the important thing. He’s going to be exalted by his Father and become our Savior.

This is a good lesson for us blinded by our circumstances and troubles and ourselves. The Holy Spirit wants to teach us something and show us there is an amazing ministry of God to you and me. This is not my primary message. I want to make this, preface this and speak about it.

When I come back from India, I have been thinking about it a lot. I’ve been reading about people in our history. Fred Douglass is one. He found humility as a way of life. He was a slave in the eastern shore, of Maryland. He got away and got educated and learned to read. He became an orator and God was with him as a voice for the anti-slavery movement in the United States. It was an evil thing. It took a humble man to find the gift of God and ministry of God to have an effect. Evil things in our country need to be addressed by humble people. God gives grace to the humble. Jesus is humble in Gethsemane and is facing the most difficult thing you can imagine. One of the evils in our world is abortion. Fifty million babies. Fifty million children who never went to first grade. They never had their first birthday party. They never had a balloon. They never found a lizard in the garden. Fifty million. They never grew up in a family. They never went to the WMCA and learned to swim. They never got a job or went on in their life. They never had a family or became a mom or dad or a grandparent. Fifty million murdered before they got into this world and we look the other way. We can’t. We weep. We counsel. If you have been part of that, you are forgiven. I’m not interested in condemning people, but I’m interested in talking about the sins we have as a people. I am one of them. I’m sinful and a proud man. Pride blinds us. Jesus is not blinded. He is however a nobody.

Isaiah 53, by the way, when you are born again, you cannot be indifferent to the things of God. When you are born again, you are hungry because living things are hungry. You by nature when you are born again want to find God and know God and trust God. It’s like a baby brought home from the hospital, and the mother is sleeping and the father, and the baby cries. The milk is released in the breast of the mother by the cry of the baby. The connection between the baby and mother is amazing. Same with our birth. When we are born again, we have this hunger, this longing, this relationship with God given to us by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit clearly as possible have written this book teaching us that the Father sent the Son.

The son came on a mission and bore our sin in Isaiah 53. Let’s look at this together. I know maybe you came to church to have a light time and a laugh and be encouraged. This will build you up because it’s the word of God. It’s our counselor and teacher. In our church, we have high priority for learning this book. You don’t care really about listening to me as much as you care about this book. This is not a theater. This is the Holy Spirit teaching us and leading us.

We need a pastor teacher in Eph 4:11. We need someone to bring out of the Bible what it is saying and emphasize it and guide us in it.

Isaiah 53:2, he was not a superhero. What are the names of some super heroes? Iron Man, Super Man, Bat Man. Who are the super heroes? How about Jesus? We know yes he is the ultimate but in this world, in this life, who was he? A tender plant. A root out of dry ground. The religious world of Israel. Hard religion, dry ground, the Taliban in Pakistan, Afghanistan, murderous, judgmental, legalistic, self-righteous hard ground. But Christ is a child, tender plant, wise, kind, full of life, touching people. When we see him, he has no form or comeliness. In a crowd, you couldn’t pick him out. He wasn’t a Hollywood movie star. When we see him, there is no beauty we would desire him. He’s not so handsome, not so tall, and not so great. He’s a normal person. When they tried to catch him, they needed someone to identify him. Judas said I can turn him over to you. I know who he is. You could be mistaken and arrest the wrong one. He will be the one I kiss. You can’t tell by looking.

Is. 53:3 ever see a homeless person living in their filth on the road side, psychologically troubled and sick? Despised and rejected. This is what will happen to Jesus Christ. The ultimate human being is rejected and despised. He’s a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. This reality that I am talking about, pride and my problems in life, this reality I live in grieves him. In his world, sin is not in his world. The Father is in his world, the Spirit. He has no hatred, jealousy, anger or revenge. He is not small minded or selfish. He is love. He is acquainted with the grief. He understands the craziness of our lives. He sees our pain. He sees Judas Iscariot betraying him. He knows Lazarus is dead and his family is heartbroken. These are his friends but acquainted with the grief. He goes to bed seeing it and knowing it. We can hardly understand what it meant. A perfect man living in an imperfect world every day and watching the suffering of people constantly. A perfect man who knows what heaven is life, God is like and he is acquainted with grief. God can endure it because love is patient. Love bears all thing, endures all things, and hopes all things. Love can stay here. Love is acquainted with the grief but doesn’t compromise with it. It doesn’t agree with it but heartbroken by the pain and sorrow the sin has produced in life.

vs. 3. I wonder why? Sometimes I hide my face from people. I do. Sometimes I hide my face. I don’t want to face it. I hide my face from things that I don’t want to face. I don’t want to look at it. I think that’s why some don’t come to church. They hide their face from the face of God, from the face of the brethren, the Bible. They don’t want to face it. This pride will keep me away from him. I will hide my face from him. This application I don’t want to deal with it. Go away from me. I don’t need that right now. I don’t want it. Men love darkness more than light. Men will lie and lie and don’t come to the truth. They can’t handle it. You are born again and you love it. You want to walk in the light. You want God to minister to you, guide and lead you in a way different from the ways of men. You want God to lead you in the world of his reality, his righteousness.

vs. 3-4. Atonement means, in one way of saying it, a covering, the blood covering and the essence of it is justice and then love. Justice and love. This is what it means. The Father is perfect and cannot behold sin.

He can’t look at it, Hab 1:13. He can’t look at iniquity or sin. He is God and requires justice. We have that all around us. We don’t talk about sin but we say it this way. In the bank when I go to get in line and someone cuts in front of me, I say I was here first. We don’t call it sin. We say where is justice? The rules are we have a line and you can get in the line or give him mercy and say go ahead. The point is there is an issue here. I gave you part of my banana. Could you give me some of your orange? No. But I gave you some of my banana? Your wife forsakes you and made vows to you and disappears. What are you saying? It’s not right. The woman that loved me left me with my best friend who stole my wife. Or my husband abandoned me and left me with five kids and no money and I never hear from him again. Thank you very much. Where is justice? Justice is everywhere. It’s national and international. It’s in politics. Don’t tell me sin is outdated and old fashioned. People talk about sin every day but don’t use the word. You hurt me. You offended me. You lied to me. You betrayed me. The human heart is filled with sin and God is saying I’m a just God and there must be something done because I can’t save anybody.

The angels fell and they go to hell. Jude 9. In one way, if you could use your imagination a little bit, man fell and man should go to hell, too. Angels fell from heaven and they go to hell. Some of them are in chains in hell today. Some of them are so powerful, we don’t know why they are in chains but it might be they are so powerful he had to put them in chains in hell. The world wouldn’t be like it is now if they are lose. The other demons – fallen angels are demons – and Satan is roaming about in this world and causing enormous pain and trouble. No power over him without Christ. Christ is the answer not only against the devil. There is no reason why anyone in the human race should go to heaven. No reason. The fallen angels go to hell and same with man.

Man has done similarly. He has sinned and it would be easy for God to say they go to hell also. That’s it. I’ll do another thing and whatever he will do in his wisdom. In his wisdom, he decided to save us. He decided in his mind and nobody knows why. What was in his mind? We know he purposed in himself. I’d like to leave it at that. He purposed in himself in his wisdom to give his Son. That’s it. We could stop here. We don’t need more explanation. God purposed in himself, in his wisdom and it would be glorifying him. He isn’t doing it to be glorified. He’s infinitely glorified with or without us. You can’t do anything against him, Prov 21:18. No contest with God. No ground, no ground for any argument with the Almighty God. He is right, period. He is Almighty, period. What do you or I, a little creature, have to say to God Almighty? What do we know? We should know I would go to hell except his justice was satisfied, expiated, propitiated. His justice was satisfied by his Son. We get to see it visible there on the cross.

When he’s hanging between heaven and earth with arms stretched out, he is saying I take the sins of the world and this is in Is. 53:4-8. He is going to be destroyed, cut off.

Four things about Jesus’ death on the cross.

1) Physical suffering. We saw the passion play by Mel Gibson. You can imagine it, the amount of suffering he endured. One doctor wrote this paragraph, “Adequate exhalation required lifting the body by pushing up on the feet and by flexing the elbows.” So to breathe out. You could breathe in but not out. However, this maneuver would place the entire weight of the body on the tarsals.” It would produce searing pain. Flexing of the elbows would cause rotation of the wrists. Iron nails could cause pain along the damaged median nerves. Muscle cramps…of the outstretched arms would add to the discomfort. As a result, the respiratory effort would become agonizing and tiring and lead eventually to asphyxia.” You suffocate.

2) Psychological suffering. Have you ever sinned and felt bad? All of us. I’m guilty. What if that guilt I feel when I sin is put on him and every person’s sin, the sins of the whole world is put on him. I feel bad when I sin and I’m a sinner. How will he feel when he is not a sinner and takes that feeling, that sin, the effect of the sin upon himself? How heavy would it be to take one man’s sins of all his life and multiply it by billions? They estimate between 50 billion and 100 billion have lived since Adam and Eve and how many millions or billions of sins one person has committed. What number is that? If that is coming on him in Gethsemane. How you feel bad in your worst case. You lie in bed with your sin and crawl into a fetal position or stare at the wall or bury your head in a pillow. One man’s sin. The Father is pleased to bruise him. He prayed take this cup from me because he started to feel what this reality would be. He would take the sins of the world on him. There is no answer from heaven. Only the Son of God going like a lamb to the next step and Caiaphas’ house and Pilate in the morning and then on the cross. He is quiet because he is humble, obedient.

3) Abandonment. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why? Because the Father cannot look on sin and all the sin of the world has gone on the Son of God. The Father can’t look now for this period of time. How long? Jesus knew this is something I believe and you can read about it and study it on your own. I love this thought. If I bore my sins and paid for my sins, how long would I have to pay? If I pay for my own sin, how long? Forever. Eternal payment. It couldn’t work. I could never pay for my sin because I’m a sinner. How could I as a sinner pay for my sin? How could that which is broken fix itself? How could that which is dirty with my dirt clean up myself? I had some tar on my hands and tried to clean myself. I got the tar all over. A sinner can’t stop sinning and a sinner can’t clean himself. What payment would be qualified to meet the justice of God but the Son of God? The Son of God was 29 years a perfect young man growing up in the family. That perfect life qualified him to be the Lamb of God that would die on the cross. How long does he suffer on the cross? A period of time and it’s over. There’s nothing added. It’s paid. It’s finished. There is no more payment. The Son of God satisfied the justice of God. The Son of God died on the cross and suffered for so many hours. It was enough to satisfy God. He also has it in his mind that if you have forsaken me, I don’t believe you won’t forsake me forever. Only for a period of time. I’m on the cross and it will be enough to satisfy you. You will be satisfied with my offering. Ps 40:7 a body you have prepared for me. Sacrifices of bulls and goats you don’t desire but a body, written in the volume of the book. It is written of me you have prepared me a body, the body of the Son of God. The blood of Christ, the perfect blood has propitiated God, the wrath of God.

4) The wrath of God was poured on Jesus. Heb. 2:17 he paid, the wrath of God was poured on the Son of God. Is. 53:8-9, one thief on this side and the other. With the rich was Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb. vs. 9-10. It pleased the Lord to bruise him. You could say to God the Father, it pleased you? When he said this cup pass from me, it pleased you to say no? You will drink of this cup and bear the sins of the world. It pleased you your Son will suffer physically, psychologically, be abandoned and your wrath would go on the Son of God? What a message that is. It pleased you. It did. Because I knew that would only be a period of time. My obedient Son and his offering would justify you. You would be my people forever. He would get a people for himself, a bride for himself. I knew this blood would be satisfying to me. What I am, who I am and this would be my love is extended, my grace is given forever. Look at this picture. What did Jesus say? Did he say I have to keep paying for the sin? He’s in the first hours, the second hour of his suffering, probably six hours. On the cross at 9, darkness at noon, the wrath is on the Son of God. How long will this be but I know in Ps. 22 it will come to an end. I know what you promised to David in 2 Sam 7. I know it has an end. He said, I thirst. They put some vinegar on his mouth. Some Bible teachers say why did he want the vinegar? So he could say these words, “it is finished.” It’s over. I paid for the sins of the world. I’m done. I did it. My Father did it. The Holy Spirit kept me on the cross.

Heb. 9:14 crucified by the Holy Spirit. It means it wasn’t the nails that kept him on the cross. It was the Holy Spirit. How much more would the blood of Christ through the Spirit purge your conscience from dead works? Through the eternal Spirit he was offered up, by the Holy Spirit. You cannot take my life from me. I will lay it down. There was a moment at the end of his suffering it was clear to him from the Father and the Holy Spirit, it is finished. It’s done. It’s done. The sins you committed yesterday you didn’t pay for them. You confess them. They are forgiven and gone because Christ paid for our sins. This is a big subject and very important for finished work Christians to understand, for Christians period.

One hour earlier, he couldn’t say, it is finished. It wasn’t finished. There was a moment and he knew. It is finished. It’s done. It’s finished. It’s over. You don’t pay. You never did anyway. All our efforts in religion is foolishness and emptiness. There is no way by any means to take our sins away except the blood of Jesus. It means our lives now we are translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son. The Spirit of God dwelling in us will speak grace to us. If we humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, the Holy Spirit will bear witness to us and we will know. We will grow in it. Growing in it.

vs. 10-11. God the Father is satisfied. He will see his Son and say, that’s it. I’m satisfied. I gave Christ. There he is. It’s over and done. I’m satisfied.

We say but God I have sinned. God will say yes you have. Do you want to face me? Do you want to walk in the light and live in faith? Just admit it. There is no condemnation. You are free. Walk by faith in me. I will teach you not to sin. I will teach you a better way. I will teach you my mind and heart. Titus 2:10. I will teach you from faith to faith.

Rom 1:17, glory to glory, Ps. 84. I am the way and the answer for you. Walk in my reality. I am glorified by your life of faith.

We walk by faith. This is our new life. Grow in it. Don’t cower from it. Don’t withdraw. Don’t live in your small world without Christ.

God will lead you, guide you, lift you up and he will teach you. Jesus Christ is everything. He is enough for everything in between. He is enough for us. He is.

Please enjoy these sermon notes from the messages preached at Greater Grace Church in Baltimore. These notes are provided to aid in your study and understanding of the Word. Note that these notes do not represent complete, word-for-word transcriptions. Also, they may contain omissions as well as some errors in spelling and structure, etc., as we attempt to provide them as soon as possible. Our hope is that these notes serve as a way to help you search and connect with messages on related subjects and passages. Thank you for your interest in the ministry of Greater Grace.