Good Friday at Engedi

In church, you'd say, amen, amen, amen. Why don't you go ahead and take a seat? Well, good evening, everyone. I wanna welcome you to our Good Friday experience. My name is Jordan. I serve as one of the pastors here, and really it's my privilege to welcome you, whether you are checking us out for the first time tonight or maybe you call this home. And I want you to know we got our friends joining us online as well, our online friends and our GR campus. So grateful to have you guys with us. And today we are honoring the day God died. And so the tone of tonight is gonna be a little different than maybe what you regularly hear preached. There's gonna be less joking, less stories, and more of just a reverence towards the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as we remember the reality of what he experienced for us. And so if you have your Bibles, why don't you turn on over to John chapter 18, and we're gonna begin verse one. Setting the scene before Jesus heads to the cross, he is speaking with his disciples, and he tells them of what's to come. They don't believe it. And so then he goes and leaves. In verse one in John 18, it says that when he had finished praying,

Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley. And on the other side, there was a garden, and he and his disciples went into it. Now Judas, who betrayed him, knew the place because Jesus had often met there with his disciples. So Judas came to the garden, guiding a detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and the Pharisees, and they were carrying torches, lanterns, and weapons. Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and asked them, who is it that you want? Jesus of Nazareth, they replied. I am he, Jesus said. And Judas, the traitor, was standing there with him. And when Jesus said, I am he, they drew back and fell to the ground. Now I want to draw your attention to the first verse here because Jesus crosses over the Kidron Valley. And this is meaningful to us because the Kidron Valley sat in between Jerusalem and the temple in the Mount of Olives, which is where the garden is, the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus goes to pray. And in this time, it's during the Feast of the Passover, and so the priests at these temples would kill thousands of lambs, and their blood would pour out from the temple into the drainage sewer system that went down to this valley and to this river.

And so a very real picture is taking place here of what is being poured down this valley, leading its way to this garden. And this isn't the only time Kidron Valley is mentioned. It's mentioned in 2 Samuel chapter 15, where King David is fleeing for his life, running from his son Absalom, who has betrayed him, and they're seeking to overthrow him. And yet, unlike David, Jesus is not running away from danger, he is walking towards it. And unlike David, Jesus experiences a greater betrayal from his friend Judas. And as Jesus crosses this Kidron Valley to this garden, where he knows he is gonna be handed over, and he hands himself over to the betrayer, he sees the blood of these lambs on this path through the drainage system and river, and he steps over it, becoming the lamb of God who will be slain for our sins. And so as he sees this blood, he is envisioning already the blood he himself is going to shed. And now Jesus is not running away to this garden because he's just simply too afraid to face what's gonna happen. He goes there because he knows that's the spot where everybody knows he would be. He goes there because he knows that's where the disciples saw him often pray. So he is not fleeing from danger.

He is like a king advancing to war. He is like a soldier ready for battle to face what has been echoed in prophecy long ago. And we see continued in John 18, 11, the scene unfolds, and Peter doesn't like that Jesus hands himself over, and so he cuts off the ear of one of the guards and tries to stop. And Jesus says this in verse 11. Jesus commands Peter, put your sword away. Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me? The cup the Father has given me. Shall I not drink it, he says. What does he mean this cup that the Father has given him? Jesus uses this metaphor of the cup in drinking to describe the great suffering he is going to experience under the wrath of God for sins. And in the Old Testament, this cup is told about quite a bit as an expression of God pouring out his wrath towards evil and corruption and wrongdoing. We see in Psalm 75, verse eight. For a cup is in the hand of the Lord and the wine foams. It is well mixed and he pours out of this certainly all the wicked of the earth must drink. and drink its dregs. Then the prophet Jeremiah says in chapter 25 verse 15, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says to me, take this cup of the wine of wrath from my hand and give it to all the nations to whom I send you and to drink from it. And again, the prophet Isaiah in chapter 51 verse 17

says you who have drunk from the Lord's hand the cup of his anger, the chalice of staggering, you have drunk it to the dregs. And what is being seen here when Jesus quotes about this cup is this cup was the punishment of God's righteous judgment and divine justice against sin. It is the punishment against sin. It is God's divine wrath and righteous judgment and justice against evil and wrongdoing. Now, why does he speak of it as a cup? Because in the ancient times, a cup was a way that they were to perfectly precisely measure things that would be given to others. And so from eternity's depths, divine justice and holiness and wisdom fashioned together this cup to meet corruption and evil and sin with equal force and equal punishment and measure. God himself, perfection himself, the father himself fashions this cup to weigh every ingredient that sin needed to be responded to, to count every moment that needed to experience a penalty for, measured each and every drop so that pure holiness and justice could come against the depth of evil that this world has experienced and done. And now I think many of us, we're fans of justice because if somebody does something wrong to you, would you not want justice on behalf of that wrongdoing? Any good parent or any good judge knows this. If you are to hurt somebody they love, justice ought to be done.

You don't just say, oh, it's no big deal. That's fine, don't worry. No, justice, love demands justice be expressed, that every wrongdoing be made right. And what's so interesting about this is the type of wrongdoing that has been done and to whom. We understand how punishments work because say you were to slap a stranger, you're gonna get in trouble. You're gonna get a physical assault charge. But you slap a judge, that punishment's even more severe. You lie to your friend, oh, it might hurt the relationship, but if you lie under oath, that's a felony and you are serving prison time. And so the punishment is as serious as the God we sin against is great. The punishment is as terrible as the God it rebels against is glorious. And so what I'm trying to describe to you is that sin against an infinite God demands and requires justice against infinite cosmic treason. The justice must equal against the corruption that's been put against it. And so we all want justice, but the thing is, this cup has our name on it. This cup has each and every one of our names on it, and mine too. It has our names on it because we have sinned against a holy God.

And our sins demand justice. We have lied and deceived. We have caused violence and brought anger out of our hearts towards the image bearers and children of God the Lord loves and died for. We have objectified people with our lust. We have sought out greed and opportunities for our own selfish gain. We have arrogance and self-righteousness. We have done perverse and corrupt things. We have shameful secrets people don't know about. We have things we have done in our minds and in our thoughts and with our words. We have done evil things with our actions, both big and small, and every single one of them demands justice because God is holy. And because God is both love and just, this cup can't just disappear. It must be drunk. It must be received in full. And yet God can't just remove it and cause it to disappear because that would be a contradiction of his just nature. And so who can receive this cup, this cup of infinite wrath and punishment against sin that has been done against an infinite almighty God? None but God alone in Christ Jesus. None but Jesus Christ. God does not overlook this sin and this cup in order to contradict his nature.

No, no, no, he chooses in himself to perform the impossibility we can't. The cup of God's wrath is not removed. It is received by Jesus Christ himself. The cup is received by Jesus. And that's what I want to talk about the remainder of our time because we are used to the image of the cross, The cross is this physical picture of a spiritual reality that a cup was being poured out and a cup was being drunk on our behalf from Jesus. And I wanna open up your hearts and minds to what was experienced in this cup. Jesus was not drinking from this cup like our children do medicine when they're sick. Our kids were just sick just the other week and I tell you what, if they acted like I was giving them the worst thing they could ever drink, oh, it's horrible, it tastes like bubble gum, you know, oh, it's so bad. That's not what Jesus is drinking. He is drinking and receiving, personally receiving God's holy opposition against the sins of all mankind. All of mankind's sins are converged together as shoreless as eternity onto the man Jesus Christ, the God-man Jesus. And scripture records in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21, that he who knew no sin, Jesus Christ, became sin for us. And so Jesus becomes a sin offering on our behalf

and stands before the Father with full exposure, full reception of what must be done that was meant for you and I. So Jesus experiences from this moment in the garden all the way to the cross when he gives up his spirit, the full wrath of God against sin, the experience of emotional pain, psychological pain, mental, spiritual, all that weight came crashing down on him. Everything that was meant to comfort him would be withdrawn and everything that could distress him would be thrown upon him. So let's talk about it. The cup was physical pain poured out on Christ's body. There was a real physical pain that Jesus experienced through this cup when he was going to the cross. First Peter, chapter two, verse 24, says it like this. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree. Later then in chapter four, verse one, Peter continues, since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, in his body. Now Jesus didn't experience the suffering as just a little beat up. It wasn't just him getting roughed up. This was a torture of the severest kind. These Roman guards knew how to torture people. They were known for their executions, known for the way they could make people suffer and just linger on the edge of death and not die, but just stay there and experience that pain

over and over and over again. Beaten all night, he is left sleepless, his beard ripped from his face, spit on and mocked. And then they go and they flog him and they scourge him with the Roman flagrum, the flagellum. Now we have a picture of what this looks like. It was a whip, a leather whip with little metal hooks that would grab onto the skin, sink in and rip open so you could see flesh and bone. And they would do this what they known as 40 times and minus one, so they'd go 39 because they know if they did this 40 times, it would kill you. So they'd get you right up to the edge of death. And they did this to Jesus, whipped him over and over again. And the psalmist prophesies that this would happen. Psalm 129 verse three, he says, "'My back is covered with cuts "'as if a farmer had plowed long trenches.'" As if that wasn't enough, they then fashion a crown of thorns on Jesus's head. Now this crown of thorns isn't what we typically see as this little ring. No, it was like a helmet of thorns. We have a picture of that as well. A helmet of thorns that was pushed down on his entire skull and face. And there would be over 50 puncture marks that would go into his face and forehead and skull. And the scriptures record that they would beat him

with rods and fists while this thing was on his head to mock him as a king. As if that wasn't enough, he then was forced to carry a heavy wooden cross, about 100 pounds the beam was, on his back that was already scorched. And so the wood would be splintering into his back and into his open wounds as he's carrying this thing. And they continue to beat him as he's carrying this thing about a mile up that hill near Golgotha. Under this severe duress and pain, his body would then experience a stress-induced fever. He would have a burning inside. Come on, you know how we are. We are babies when we get sick with just a little cough. We take work off. We're babies when we get hungry, we just blow a lid. But Jesus is experiencing a stress-induced fever here and he's not even on the cross yet. And yet he endures it. And then we get to the cross itself. And I know in your minds we have a picture of how Jesus was crucified. But how the Romans did it, the nails would not go through the middle of the hands and the middle of the feet. They would actually go through the wrists and through the heel bones. And the people that would be put on the cross would be twisted like so, hanging there.

Because the nails needed to go through the strong parts in between the bones so the people wouldn't slip off. the cross so they could hang there longer to suffer longer. And these nails were specifically placed in those two points because that's where the median nerve is. And the median nerve, when it is striked, it would bring a burning, excruciating pain over and over again as his body weight would be hanging on the cross, pulling down, then suffocating and having to push himself up through those wounds just to gain another breath only to fill more fluid into his lungs as he's suffocating on that cross. The Romans were professionals at suffering. Beaten so bad, Isaiah the prophet records in chapter 52 verse 14 that he was marred beyond that of a man and of his form beyond the sons of mankind, meaning you couldn't even recognize it was Jesus while he was on that cross, how beaten he looked, couldn't even see his face anymore. And yet in all this he doesn't resist, in all this he doesn't curse, in all this he doesn't seek revenge or call upon a legion of angels to come down, in all this he endures with a joy set before him knowing that in enduring it we are going to be able to receive salvation and life that he offers. He endures all of this with a great love in his heart and the scriptures record that as he is getting beat he pleads and intercedes for you and I saying, Father forgive them for they know not what they do. And if Jesus can plead that and pray that and speak that over us in the worst experience pain, what kind of blessing does he speak now seated on the throne for you and I? What kind of love and affirmation does he have for you? You who insult him thinking you don't deserve his love, he already poured it out on Calvary to show you and to prove it and demonstrate it. What great love our Lord has for us.

And that was just the physical pain, let's move on, the cup wasn't just physical, the cup was psychological agony, crushing pressure in his mind. When Jesus consented to drink, he consented to receiving the removal of all comforts. He was used to the Father's great felt joy and delight and eternal love over him and yet as he would become a sin offering, the felt loving presence of the Father would be removed. And just a few hours ago I was hanging out with my son in the living room and we were batting a balloon around and he dove and hit the corner of his head onto the couch and he started crying and immediately when I saw my son crying, I ran over to him, I hugged him and comforted him and I said, it's okay, Vail, I love you, dad's here, it's okay. And yet in this moment as Jesus has these agonizing cries through the pain and suffering he's going through, the Father can't comfort him for he must be a sin offering. All comfort must be removed. No angel to encourage him, no friend to watch, all abandon him. He is utterly alone. And this agonizing pain started in the garden when he was praying for us. He was praying even over the disciples who are sleeping against him and he asked them to pray. He's praying so much so that a rare medical phenomenon takes place called hematohidrosis which means the blood vessels in your forehead begin to burst and you sweat blood under the extreme duress you're under. The gospel writer in Luke, Luke chapter 22 records this, that Jesus' sweat drops the blood, the duress is under him in such a great way he's agonizing inside, inside his mind is being crushed under the weight already. And Jesus tells his disciples of this great pain in Matthew 26, 38. He said to them, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. He's talking about this inner anguish he has that it's as if he's about to die and he stays in that place from the garden all the way to the cross. His mind being assailed and he's, he's in just complete aloneness in this. Nobody has experienced the suffering Jesus has in this way. The prophet Isaiah even talks about this in Isaiah 63 verse 3. It's a prophecy saying of Jesus speaking, I have trodden the winepress alone,

that wrath of God's fury alone, and from the people no one was with me. None can understand and comprehend that great suffering Jesus went through. And on top of all this, the devil assails him with the greatest threats he can bring. Those whispering lies that, oh, they're not going to receive this, it won't work. The great despair that you are completely alone. You're doing this in vain. The doubts that, why are you even attempting this? It's not going to work. The devil throws and hurls every little bit of insult and mockery at Jesus. Everything he can to stop him, the waves of pressure on his mind that, who, you Jesus, you think you alone can carry all the sins of mankind and do it with perfect love and holiness all the way through? He begins to try to tempt him to doubt this work and to turn aside. And yet Jesus endures it all with perfect. Perfect obedience. He endures the mocking of Him as the true King. He endures their rejection of His pure and perfect love given to them. He endures the spitting and the mockery and the stripping of His clothes as He's exposed naked before them. He endures the mistreating of His very own dignity. He endures it all with a love in His mind that doesn't change. His love is fixated on them. He didn't do this for people like you and I and for them because we showed promise and potential. He did it when we deserved punishment. That's when He stepped in. And so, why would you think He doesn't want to give you His love now? He did it when you were at your worst and now that you call yourself a child of God, He wants to stop and pull the love away? No, He loves you even more.

And He convinced you of it here by His obedience to the cross. What great love Jesus shows. And yet, this still isn't even the worst. For the cup had a profound mystery of suffering still that the gospel writers are quiet on. Not all of Jesus' pain was visible in public and knowable. There were some sufferings that were shrouded to our knowledge. We see this in Matthew chapter 27 verses 45 through 46. It says, Now the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And it's silent from then on. Not because there was less to tell, but because we can't endure to hear what He is experiencing in this God-forsaken darkness. And this is a creation miracle, by the way, because during the Passover, the sun would be on the opposite side of the moon. Solar eclipses happen when the sun moves in front of the moon. And so, what is happening is creation is preaching to you and I that Jesus is doing something utterly impossible that we ourselves can't accomplish. It's almost as if creation itself cannot witness this God-forsaken transaction between the Father and Son as He becomes the sin of all mankind. As Jesus steps into our God-forsaken darkness, what great love He shows us. This peak moment of suffering as the shadow of judgment falls upon Jesus, how you and I would respond under great suffering as we'd say, Look at what I'm suffering for you, don't you see? You're not going to receive it, you're not going to give me any recognition. Don't you know how hard I've had to work, how much I've had to endure, how much I've had to sacrifice, don't you see? We would love to get a repayment back, some kind of recognition back.

But not Jesus. He conceals the worst of it from our sight. How the lamp of heaven masks Himself in darkness, so we wouldn't see the dreaded horror of what God-forsakenness looks like. As to shield our eyes from that sight that would completely undo us as we see hell experienced upon our Lord and Savior on the cross. What great love He has for you and I. And if Jesus Himself in His weakest and worst moment on the cross can darken the sun with His loving power, what not can't He do with His loving power now that He has risen on the throne for you and I in our lives? What great power our Lord Jesus possesses. What great love He has for you and I, always shielding us and protecting us from the worst. Thanks, Jesus. Stood where we stood. Took what we couldn't bear so we could receive what we could never earn. And by drinking this cup, Jesus becomes the provision for our impossible need. Thanks, Lord. By drinking this cup in full to the last drop, He becomes the provision for your impossible need that you yourself cannot do. We see this fulfilled in John 19, 28-30. It says, later, knowing that everything had now been finished as Jesus is on the cross, and so the scriptures would be fulfilled, Jesus said, I thirst. And a jar of sour vinegar wine was there, so they soaked the sponge in it and put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant and they lifted it up to Jesus' lips.

And when He had received the drink, Jesus said, It is finished. And with that, He bowed His head and gave up His spirit. Now, when Jesus sang here, I thirst, He is doing more than just expressing that He is physically thirsty. He's doing some really beautiful and powerful things, first and foremost, as He's fulfilling scripture found in Psalm 69, where it would talk about how the prophet would say, I thirst, and they would give Him a sour wine to drink. So, He's fulfilling scripture to show you that at the very end of it all, He truly is the victorious Messiah that would suffer for our sins. But not only so, that it also reveals the evil corruption we all have that we think, oh, if somebody... really was in the worst, worst state. Surely, my goodness, out of my own heart, I would love and care for them. But in the very last seconds and moments of Jesus's life, that jar of sour vinegar wine that was given to him was not given to soothe him. It was a cruel joke to mock him. For it was acidic and dehydrating. As it would go to his lips, it would burn and it would sting and it would be the final felt experience he would have with mankind before he looks to his father to give up his spirit. The cruelty of humanity to not even show any pity, no mercy, but mockery, even in his last seconds. A picture of our hearts. And he said, I thirst, revealing a spiritual reality that we all have.

We're thirsty. We are longing. We are longing for the life that only he can give. He said, I thirst in our place. It's the cry of humanity. It's the cry of our hearts. We want more. We need more. What we have is not enough. We never have contentment. We never have true peace. We never really have. We arrive and then there's more we still need. We never have it. We're thirsty. We have a God-sized hole in our heart that only he can truly fill. We are thirsty. And thirst is a poor man's cry. He's taking in this moment our sinful poverty. He is not poor, but he became poor for us. He took upon our poverty in this moment so he can in return give his abundance of love and life. He's a fountain of eternal life that pours over unto you and I. He says, I thirst in our place to show us how poor we really are, that you could gain everything in this life you've ever wanted, and yet if you don't have Christ,

you're still poorer for it. I thirst. And then he cries, it is finished. He proclaims it. He proclaims it. He proclaims this victorious statement that he's won the battle against sin. He's won the battle against the devil. He's won the battle against death. He's won the battle against the divine punishment that looms over each and every one of our lives, that he defeated it once and for all. Come on, he is right now declaring that he drinks for victory. He drinks for victory for you and I, that he drank condemnation dry for you and I, and now you get to receive of a new cup from him that is given from his very own body and his poor blood. You get to drink from a new cup. You get to drink of his living water, and this living water, when you drink it, you never thirst again, and it wells up into eternal life in Jesus Christ. He drank condemnation dry so we could have the living water in him. At the cross, Jesus took our full punishment so we could be fully received into his presence. He did all the work for you. Now you can have relationship with God, be healed in your heart, transformed and forgiven,

and made new because of what Jesus Christ has done for you. You will not be saved through your own shed tears. It was only through his shed blood. You're not saved by what you feel like you are, what you do. It is only by what he felt and did on the cross that saves you, and you receive it by faith. You drink it by faith. Freely given for you and I. And I don't know where you stand right now before the Father, but with every head bowed and eyes closed, I wanna offer up this opportunity to you. If there's anybody in here under the sound of my voice or watching us online, joining us on stream, and you would say, I don't know what that experience would be like when I stand before God the Father, but I wanna be confident today and know that I can stand righteous before him as a child of God whom he loves. And you can because God the Father sent his son Jesus Christ to die for your sins so you could experience his life that he died for. And if you're here and you wanna receive that, and there is no good work you can do, no special phrase you can say, it is simply a receiving by faith his grace that he freely gives to you even now in this moment. He is here now by his spirit, offering himself to you just as he did on the cross

with arms wide open. He doesn't judge you any longer. The judgment fell upon him. He says, come home to me. Come home to me. Let me love you and transform you on the inside. I mean, make my home in you. And if that's you, if you'd say, I wanna receive the life of Jesus Christ, I wanna surrender to him, I wanna follow him. All I want you to do is just through an act of surrender, lift up your hand and say, yeah, that's me. I surrender to Jesus Christ tonight. Lord, I surrender to you. Lift it up boldly and proudly and let heaven know, Father, I surrender to you. Thank you for sending your son Jesus for me. I surrender to you. I receive your love. Though I don't know you, I love you. You deserve it. You gave it. Thanks, Lord. Thanks, Lord. Thanks, Jesus, for the way you receive us as children of God through your shed blood for us on the cross. Forgive us of our sins and make us brand new in your name. We declare you are our Lord and Savior. And from this day forward, we follow you. And staying in the same place of worship and adoration, would you grab your communion elements? I think it'd be awesome if we celebrated the Lord's Supper together in response to what he's done. So would you open up the the bread and the Gospel Luke writes in Luke chapter 22 verse 19 through 20 says that

Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, he took bread. He gave thanks and he broke it. And he gave it to them saying, this is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Gave thanks as he broke this bread, knowing he was about to give his very own real body for us. So we could be the body of Christ here and now. We could be united with him, made one with him. It doesn't matter how broken you are, Jesus was broken for you so you could be made whole. He did the impossible work. All you got to do is receive. And before you take this bread, I just ask under the prompting of the Spirit, if you're seated next to a family member, a friend or spouse, and you know you have an offense with them that you need to apologize for, I'd ask on behalf of our Lord's love that you would say, I'm sorry. Would you forgive me even now? Before you take this bread, would we not take it in an unworthy manner? Would we extend the grace and the apology we need as the body of Christ to one another? If there's any in this room, I want to give you that opportunity now. Thanks Lord for the way you forgave us. Help us to forgive the way you forgive too. Help us to be bold at saying I'm sorry. Would you take the bread? And in the same way he took the cup, after supper, he took the cup, saying this cup is a new covenant in my blood which is poured out for you. No longer do we got a drink from this cup. We got a new cup we get to drink from. And it's through his shed blood that we can drink from it, that you can be forgiven, made new and transformed. That the wrath has been satisfied and now we can find our true satisfaction in you, Jesus. And so Lord, whatever ways we have convinced ourselves to be unworthy of your loving grace and forgiveness and power and transformation, God, would this cup convince us otherwise? Would we be reminded in this moment of your great love, your blood that's been poured out for us? And we drink it with joy, calling ourself yours. Would you take the cup? And in one last moment, would you just close your eyes in honor of the Lord, even lifting holy hands under him as an act of surrender and worship, and just begin to thank him. Thank you, Jesus, that you took the cup for me. Thank you, Jesus, that you loved me enough that you'd go to the cross on Calvary, take upon my

sins and the wrath and punishment I deserved. Died the death I should have deserved, and now I can experience your life, your love, and your eternal presence forevermore. In Jesus Christ's name, amen.