Forsaken | Grave Robber | Week 3

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign church. We are thrilled you decided to listen to our teaching on your favorite podcast app. If you made a decision to follow Christ today, would you let us know by visiting? Yes.newlife gillette.com Here is this week's teaching. Well, good morning. Hey, I am excited to speak to you today. It is Palm Sunday. It's a good day. We're going to be in Mark chapter 15. If you got a Bible, open up there. If you got it on your phone, on the app, that is great as well. But while you're turning there, I want to say good morning to our friends at Church 307. To our friends watching at the prison and at the jail, we are going to have some fun today. So mark chapter 15, we're going to start reading in verse 33 and we're just going to jump in. And if you're excited to jump into the Word this morning, would you say, let's get it? All right. We're going to need that energy in just a minute. All right. Okay. Oh, you lost it already. We're going to need that energy in just a minute, right? Hey. All right. At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And at three in the afternoon, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, eloi, Eloi lama sabachthani. I don't know how to pronounce that. Which means, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? When some of those standing near heard this, they said, listen, he's calling Elijah. Someone ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar and put it on a staff and offered it to Jesus to drink. Now leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to take him down. He said. With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. Would you pray with me? Jesus, we love you. Today we are here for you. Over the next few minutes and everything that we do, we ask that it is your name that's lifted up anything. That's just my ideas. Let us notice that so we can let those go, we can put em aside. But if there's anything over the next few minutes that's faithful to who you are, consistent with your word planted deeply in our hearts. Jesus, we are here for you and we wanna become like you. In Jesus name, Amen. All right. Now you might've noticed that I am not alone here on the stage. That's because we are going to play a game this morning. Are you guys excited about a game? Seven of you are excited about this game. All right. I'm going to need more energy than that. All right. This game partially because it's just time we should do something fun. That's why we're doing this. This game is kind of a fill in the blank. I have asked the bands to learn five certified earworm songs. These are songs that you have heard on the radio and in restaurants. You know these songs. You at least know some of them. I guarantee you, pretty much everybody in the room will at least know a couple of them. Some of you are going to know all of them. And here's how this is going to work. The band is going to play the intro. These songs all have famous, recognizable intros, but they are going to stop playing right when the lyrics come in. And I need you to sing out those lyrics like you are alone in the car driving to Sioux Falls from here. All right? Just like. And listen, it's going to be awkward if you don't do that, because it's just going to be me up here, and nobody wants that. All right? So can you do it? All right. Are you excited? Yes. All right, where are we starting at, guys? All right, let's do it. Some of y'all almost came in early. I know it. Just a small town girl Living in a lonely world she took a midnight train Going anywhere Yes. You did it. Give yourselves a hand. That was awesome. All right, now this next song, everybody knows. Don't stop believing. This next song, some of you aren't going to want to admit that you know, but this is church, and you can't lie. So I need you. I need you to sing it, even if you don't want anybody to know you know it. All right. Yo, vip, let's kick it. Ice. Ice, baby. Ice. Ice, baby. All right, stop, collaborate and listen. Ice is back with a brand new invention Something grabs a hold of me tightly Flows like a harpoon Daily and nightly Will it ever stop? Yo, I don't know. Turn out the lights and I'll go to the extreme Rock a mic like a vandal Light up a stage and wax a chump like a candle Dance Rush the speakers that broom I'm feeling your brain like. I gotta. I gotta stop. I have to stop. It's too much. It's too much. Vanilla Ice is not what you want to be good at. He had one song. All right, now, some of you did not listen to hip hop in the 90s, and that's okay. But this next one, I think you'll know. You might have gotten married to this song. You might have had your first dance to this song. You might have fallen in love to this song, you guys. You got it. Well, I went down to the Grundy county auction and I saw something I just had to have My mind told me I should proceed with caution My heart said, go ahead and make a bid on that. And I said, hey, pretty lady, won't you give me a sign? I do anything to make your mind on mine I'd do your bidding and be at your beck and call. All right, some of you guys got it. All right, now this next one, this next one, for those of you who grew up in youth group, this was a song that you had your friends download on Limewire and put onto a CD for you so your parents didn't know you knew it. So here we go. Let's do it. Yo, yo. Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity to seize anything you ever wanted in one moment, Would you capture it or just let it slip? Yo, yo. His palms are sweaty Knees weak arms are heavy there's vomit on his sweater already mom's spaghetti he's nervous but on the surface he looks calm and ready to drop bombs but he keeps on forgetting what he wrote down the whole crowd goes so loud he opens his mouth but the words won't come out Choking now Everybody's choking now Clocks run out Time's up over blow Snap back to reality up there goes gravity up there goes rap Gravity choked won't have any I lose it there that's all I got that's also. I can't do any more of that song without getting fired. So if you. If you have questions or concerned about singing Eminem on a Sunday morning, My name is Grant Austin G. Austin, New Life, Gillette.com. that's where you can email. All right, now this next one. Nobody knows the words because nobody can understand what Chad Kroger sings, But everybody knows the melody. So I need you guys to do your best. We got the words up on the screen to sing along. All right. [00:07:48] Speaker B: Never made it As a wise man I couldn't cut it As a poor man stealing Tired of living like a blind man I'm sick of sour that sense of feeling and this is how you remind me this is how you remind me of what I really am this is how you remind me of what I really am it's not like you say sorry I was waiting on a different story this time I'm mistaken forehand I knew a heart worth breaking and I' been wrong I've been down to the bottom of every bottle these my words in my head scream Are we having fun Yet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:08:49] Speaker A: No, no. [00:08:51] Speaker B: Y. [00:08:58] Speaker A: Can you guys thank the band so that I can catch my breath? Then also, Brad Kroger over there. They. They did not know what they were signing up for when they volunteered for New Life Worship, but they did it anyway. They're awesome. Hey, here's. Here's why we're doing this. This silly, admittedly a little bit irreverent introduction. It's not only because it's fun. I mean, it's a little bit because it's fun. It's not only because it's fun. We've talked about this before. Scripture is self referencing. Scripture assumes that the people who read it or heard it are familiar with the stories, ideas, and songs that came before. And you and I both know that there is nothing that buries itself in your mind like a song. I mean, there can be a song you haven't heard in 20 years, but it comes on at the restaurant. You're like, everybody be quiet. I know what that song is. Right? You haven't thought of in sync in 10 years. But if I say bye, bye, bye, you're doing the dance, right? Those songs, they bury themselves in your mind. You don't even know that you know them. And this moment that we just read about, Jesus is on the cross in his dying moments, and he says this confusing thing. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But what he did, and what everyone, all of the Jewish people who are standing around the cross would have recognized, is that Jesus was referencing a song. They would have heard it. A song they had heard their entire lives, they'd heard since they were a kid. And they would have been able to fill in the blanks. They would know what comes next. Jesus was referencing the book of Psalms, chapter 22. Starting in verse one, it says this. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? Now, the thing is, knowing that Jesus is referencing a song doesn't make this story any easier to digest. It doesn't make the story any less troubling. Now, what would help is if this were a victory song. It would help if this were Eye of the Tiger. You know what I mean? If this were. If this were the moment in the Marvel movie where the music changes and, you know, the hero is about to come in and the story is going to be okay, that would be great. If this were a victory song. I don't know if you've noticed this or not. But we, as humans, don't like ambiguity. We don't like the middle of the story. Have you ever opened up IMDb while you're watching a show to see how many episodes and actors in? So you know if you can get attached to a character or not? Want to know who dies? Some of you don't. My wife hates it when I do that, but I got to know who I'm going to get attached to. We don't like ambiguity. We don't like to not know how the story ends. We don't like that middle part. We like for stories to resolve. That's the same basic feeling that will cause us to not even bring it up. So we don't have to fight to ignore the feelings and pretend like they're not there. Because if we can pretend like they're not there, we don't have to deal with them. It's the general feeling that'll cause us to work late instead of go home to an argument. It's the feeling that will cause us to reach for a bottle or a chemical so we don't have to feel the things we're feeling to drown them out. Basically the same feeling that will cause us to pack an elk out of the mountains on our back before we talk about our feelings. We don't like that ambiguity. We don't like that middle ground where we don't know what's coming in the story. There's actually no better illustration of this than the week we're in right now in the church calendar. We're in Holy Week. A lot of you, you heard this story that we just read, Mark 15, the crucifixion, and you already know how the story ends. You know that Easter is coming and resurrection. And with Easter, there's Easter bunnies and pastel colors and lunch with the family and all of the fun things. And you're reading the Crucifixion through the lens of the Resurrection. In order to avoid the trouble of the crucifixion, we want to skip ahead. That's actually why Easter Sunday is always much better attended than Good Friday. Because the cross is hard to look at. It's uncomfortable. It's troubling. The author John Steinbeck, in his novel east of Eden, he wrote these words, if the story troubles us, it must be that we find the trouble in ourselves. That's what's troubling about the cross. Jesus, the Savior, he's the one who's not supposed to get forsaken. He's the one who's not supposed to doubt or be afraid. He's the one we're supposed to be counting on. He's not supposed to experience these things. But when we look at the cross, what we see is our savior on our cross. Not singing his song, singing our song. He's expressing the fear we feel, the isolation we feel. That's actually why the people watching him said, oh, he must be calling for Elijah. That must be what he's doing. He's calling for Elijah. Because at this time in Jewish history and culture, in the folklore of the people, it had become kind of a legend that if you were innocent, that you would cry out for Elijah to be sent to you, that Elijah was the rescuer of the innocent people. So when someone was in trouble, if they were innocent, they would say, oh, call Elijah or ask God to send Elijah. See, the people listening to Jesus heard what he said and they said, oh, I know that song. That's familiar to me. He's desperate. See, this song isn't Eye of the Tiger. It's not All I Do is win. It's something a lot more like Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel. You remember that one? Hello Darkness, my old friend. Or maybe Diamonds and Gasoline by Turnpike. It's a desperation song. It's an I don't know what to do and I don't know how this story is going to end song. If you've ever had your friend tell you they're pregnant and you've been trying for five years, it's that kind of song. It's the kind of feeling of, you know, marriage is in the years. Wasn't supposed to. Wasn't supposed to be like this. It's that walking away from the doctor with a life changing diagnosis and you can't imagine how it's going to go back to normal kind of feeling. It's that I was clean for six months and God was supposed to help me. He was supposed to help me with this. But here I am again doing the thing I promised I would never do. It's that kind of song. It's desperation. It's is rescue ever going to come? And I can't imagine how it would come if it did. It's our song. It's a song we are familiar with. Now, some of you, you're familiar with Psalm 22 and you're thinking, CJ, haven't you read the rest of Psalm 22? There's worship at the end. The song changes and it starts, it turns to worship. I think you're misrepresenting this. And you're right, the song does turn to worship about two thirds of the way through. The author, probably David of Psalm 22, shifts his focus to worship, and here's how the song progresses. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from my cries? Why are you so far from saving me? Then he says, my body is withering away. I'm dying. My. My hands are pierced or shriveled. And then he says, my enemies surround me like lions or like dogs. I'm surrounded, I'm dying, I'm helpless. And yes, he does shift his perspective to worship, but this is important. He doesn't worship for what God has done. He starts worshiping for what he hopes God will do. He says things like, God, I'm going to praise you because you do not forsake the innocent. What he's saying is, I know in the past you have not forsaken other innocent people. So I'm going to praise you right now. Even though I'm surrounded, even though I'm desperate, even though the pain is too much for me to even imagine how to bear, I'm going to worship you not for what you did, but for what I'm hoping you will do. It's worship in the midst of the pain. It's not. This is not a wink and a nod to the audience that everything's going to be okay. This is not a foreshadowing of everything being fine in the end where we can leave our tension and our frustration halfway through the movie because we know where it's going. That's not what this is. This is the psalmist saying, I don't know where rescue is coming from, but I know it came in the past, so I am going to worship you right now. Have you ever been in church and you sang a song about victory? You're never going to let. You're never going to let me down when it feels like your life is falling apart. Psalm 22 worshiping for what you hope comes. You ever been praying maybe for somebody else that God would provide for their needs? You ever heard someone read a psalm or read a passage of Scripture about God never forsaking the innocent and always providing for the needs of the righteous. And you're in church singing that song and praying that prayer even though you know the lights get shut off on Friday? That's Psalm 22. You ever been praying that God would heal someone else's marriage when yours is on the rocks and you cannot imagine it getting better? You Ever been praying that God would heal somebody else? You ever been singing songs about healing while you're sick and the healing hasn't come yet? Psalm 22. It's familiar. This is why the cross is so troubling. But this is why we can't fast forward the story. This is why we miss the cross. We miss the value of the resurrection entirely. If we skip past the cross is because when we look at Jesus on the cross, what we see is him taking our punishment onto our cross and with it our sin and our shame. And this is important. Jesus did not take the idea of your sin. He took the experience of your sin. Jesus wasn't on the cross because crying out because he didn't know the answer to the story. He was experiencing the shame and fear that comes from being separated from God. He was crying out because we don't know the end of the story. He was singing our song. He wasn't on the cross expressing his isolation because he was separate from God, but rather he was feeling the extreme experience of being separate from God because he took our sin and our shame upon himself to our cross so that he could give us his life in exchange. It's our song. Our God is on our cross singing our song because he lived our story. That's why in the Book of Hebrews, we are told that we do not have a high priest who cannot empathize with our struggles, with our temptations. Why? Because he was on our cross. He lived our life. He faced our suffering, and he didn't face the idea of it. He faced the experience of it. He knows what it's like. And some of you, you're here this morning. And the only thing that you need today is to know that if Jesus can on the cross express the pain and the doubt and the fear that you feel, then you can too. You felt your entire life that following Jesus means you have to pretend like things are fine even when they're not. You have to pretend like you have faith even when you're horrified. You have to pray and convince God that you're confident even when you're not. But I want to tell you, if we can look at the cross of our salvation and sing God sing, see God, sing our song, then we can sing it too, with no shame. Some of you think that come as you are means new Christians or non Christians can come as you are. But if you've been following Jesus for 20 years and it feels like your prayers are bouncing off the ceiling, Jesus felt that too. Welcome to the club. He's our Savior singing our song, our sin, our cross, the experience of it. And if he can say it, so can we. Some of you, what you needed to know today is something I've come to believe deeply over the last few years, is that two things can be true at the same time. We don't like that. We want either life to be good and God to be good. We. If life is bad, we don't think God can be good. We don't think two competing things can be true at the same time. But when you look at the cross, what you see is that life can be bad and God can be good, and both of those things can be true. And it's not intellectual dishonesty to worship in the middle of your pain when the rescue hasn't come yet. It's intellectual dishonesty to pretend like the pain is not here while you worship. It is actually an act of defiance against the defining characteristic of the pain. When you are saying, when you're worshiping in the midst of your suffering, you're not saying it doesn't exist. You're saying it doesn't define me. That was my Savior on my cross. Two things can be true at the same time. Life can be hard and God can be good. Jesus felt it, so so can you. Some of you, that's the only thing you needed today. There are others of you. You're here today and you're saying, cj, why in the world would you ask me to find hope in a myth? You're reading a book written by a bunch of dead guys about an impossible story. CJ have you seen the world? You want me to believe that just because God felt it, it's going to be okay? There's no evidence for that. Have you seen how painful? Have you seen war? Have you seen what we do to each other? Have you seen a kid get cancer? CJ you want me to believe in God? You want me to believe in that myth? You came here today saying, maybe I'll give it a try, or maybe because somebody drags me, or maybe because what you've already done, what you've always done. The theologian and philosopher G.K. chesterton, in his book Orthodoxy, he wrote these words after reading Mark 15, after reading this moment where Jesus sings our song. This is a long quote, but we're going to read it all. It's worth it. He, being Jesus, passed in some superhuman manner through our human horror of pessimism. When the world shook and the sun was wiped out of heaven, it was not at the crucifixion but at the cry from the cross, the cry which confessed that God was forsaken of God. And now let the revolutionists choose a creed from all the creeds and a God from all the gods of the world, carefully weighing all the gods of inevitable recurrence and of unalterable power. The strong and mighty gods, they will not find another God who has himself been in revolt. Nay, the matter grows too difficult for human speech. But let the atheists themselves choose a God. They will find only one divinity who ever uttered their isolation, only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist. Some of you, you're here today and you came in saying, you know what? Maybe God loves some people. I'm sure that this works for some people. It just doesn't work for me. You came in here today saying, oh, no, I've got. I've got evidence, I've prayed and no one's answered my prayers. My life has fallen apart and no one intervened on my behalf. So maybe your God, maybe your God works for you, but he doesn't work for me. Maybe your God answers your maybe I'm the only one. I must not be chosen or must not be elect, or I must not be loved. Or maybe you're thinking, no, my sins, my. All of you guys have pretty normal sins, but I've got different ones and God won't forgive my sins. My sins are too much. That must be why he must love other people. He can't love me. And you're thinking, there's not a chance in the world that I would follow that I would follow that God. He has been leaving me alone for my entire life. And if that's how you came in today, I want to offer that maybe you have finally found your God. Because where can you find another God who himself had his prayers go unanswered? Where can you find another God who himself cried out on the cross what it feels like to have your prayers bounce off the ceiling. If you dial back the story just a few chapters, you find Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, so stressed and anxious about what's coming that he's sweating drops of blood, which science has proven is possible under great emotional duress. He's so stressed that he's crying out to God, let there be a different way, anything but this. And his prayers bounce off the ceiling. From everything we can tell, God does not take the cup from him. If you feel like you're the only one who has suffered and you're the only one Whose prayers go unanswered. And you're the only one that's left alone. I want you to know you have found your God. Because there is one who himself was left alone, who himself was left to suffer. He knows what it's like. If you can bow your knee to a king, you can bow your knee to one who knows. He will not command you to do something irreasonable. Why? Because he knows. He knows what it's like. Some of you, you're here today and you're thinking. You came in here saying there's. This is a myth. This is ridiculous. Have you seen the world? Have you seen the pain? How could a God let that happen? Or you're looking at your own life and you're saying, you want me to believe in a God. But look what happened to me. Look what happened. Look at the injustice. Look at what they did. There's no God. If you came here today saying there couldn't be a God, look at the world. I want to say, I think maybe. I think maybe you have found your God. I think maybe you found your king. Because there's only one king, then it also happened to him. There's only one king. When you look at the world and you say, look at the violence that he can say, I know. It happened to me. I suffered it too. When you look at the world and say it's unjust. When you look at the world, like the book of Ecclesiastes and you say, why are the. Why are the evil getting rich and the poor suffering? Jesus says, I experienced it too. I know what it's like. If there's one God you can believe in, I think it's Jesus. Because he's the only God who. For a moment, it seemed like he knew what it was like to be alone in the universe with no one to cry out to and no one to listen, he's the only one who has ever uttered our isolation. He's the only God who for a moment, himself seemed like an atheist. Maybe you're here today and you're thinking, cj, why would I trust another corrupt religious institution trying to tell me what to do with my money, trying to tell me what to do with my time, my resources. I've seen it. I've seen the news stories. They're all over. They're everywhere. It's all corrupt. People moralizing, trying to force their expectations on other people to get their way. People mongering for power to try to control the weakness. Why in the world would I ever bow my knee you look at governments and power and what you see is power mongering and corruption and people trying to profit off of the weak and people trying to keep one another down and you say no, I'm not going to bow my knee to anyone. It's all corrupt. I know what you guys do in the back room. First off, I have felt that. But if that's you, I think maybe you have found one king. If you say I don't bow my knee to anyone, I think maybe you have found a king you can bow your knee to. Because do you know who the one king is that suffered every ounce of the hypocrisy and moralizing that they send him to the cross to con out of control and out of self defense, that he felt the entire weight of the corruption? There's only one king that it was hypocrisy that sent him to the cross. There's only one king that it was someone else's legalism and moralizing that killed him. It was only one king that the entire corrupt system of the empire of the world, the Roman Empire, put him on a cross. That's what they did to rebel and shameful criminals. They came down on him like a boot on a cockroach. There's only one king who has defeated the empires of the world by experiencing everything that they can dish out and offering forgiveness instead. If there is one king you can bow your knee to, it's a king who has been there. If there's one king that you can obey his commands, it's a king that you know because he knows what it's like to be oppressed, because he knows what it's like for them to be corrupt and controlling, that he won't do it to you. Why? Because he's been there. If there's one king you can bow your knee to, it's King Jesus. Yes, the church is full of hypocrites. We're both here. The church is full of hypocrites. Jesus isn't. That's why he came. If there's one king you can bow your knee to today, it's King Jesus. I think maybe you found your God. Maybe you're here today and the only thing you needed was to know that it's okay to be yourself and church. Maybe you're here today and you're thinking if that is what Jesus is actually like, if a little bit of what you said is true, then I could give that a try. I want to tell you there is only one king who will let you give It a try. I've studied. I read the belief systems of the world. There's only one in which God says, taste and see that the Lord is good, not blindly follow. And I'll show you later. He sings our song on our cross. So today, if you're here and you're ready to say, I could give that a try, there's a card in the seat back in front of you. It's a next steps card. And we're not doing that so that we can tweet out numbers. Nobody here gets a bonus because someone gets saved a new life. We believe that following Jesus is a community activity and we want to walk you through. We want to walk with you. As you begin. You make the most important decision of your life. We want to celebrate with you. We want to walk with you. We want to help you overcome the obstacles if Jesus wound up on a cross. Following Jesus is not a guarantee of an easy life. It's just a meaningful, significant what you were created for eternal life, which is better than easy. We want to walk with you. Fill out that card. Drop it in the box on the wall on your way out, or we're going to have. During this song, we're going to have prayer partners at the prayer wall. Take it to one of them. If you're here today and you just need to say, you know what, I'm finally ready to admit that I'm not okay. You're finally ready to say it out loud and admit it, and you want someone to pray with you, then go over to the prayer wall. We would love to pray with you, but if you're here today and you want to fill out that card or you want to go to nextsteps.church307.com online, if that's you, and, and you're saying, I don't even. I want. I want to try this, but I don't even know how. I don't even know where I would start. I'm going to be standing right here at the 5 and 5 wall. There is literally nothing I would rather do than talk to you about what it means to accept and receive the forgiveness and mercy of Jesus. The invitation is here. There are no magic words. There's no magic prayer to pray. There's no special words that get you in. You just admit that you have sinned. He paid for it, and he is your king. You could give him your life. That's what it is. We're going to close in worship. And as we do, if you need to pray with someone, please I'm not trying to scare you. We are not promised tomorrow. That's just. That's just the reality of life. The invitation has been open since the first breath you took. And it will be available until the last. Your king, your God is inviting you today. Our king on our cross, singing our song so that we could have his life for eternity. Let's pray. Jesus, you are good and your love endures forever. And we trust you. And we now, as we worship, we proclaim that life doesn't have to be good for you to be good. Then I don't have to be okay. To worship you and to praise you that you meet us exactly where we are. No matter where we are. We praise you for that. Jesus, you are the only God who has sang our song and lived our life so that we could have yours. And we will give you every ounce of glory, an ounce of praise. Because there is a king who knows and understands. Jesus, we love you. Amen.