This Could Be the Death of Me

Well, we are especially glad if you are with us at every Fresh Life location or joining us online for the first time. If you've not been with us before, it's an honor to have you. It's a joy. And if you have a way to get to scriptures, this Good Friday, we are going to be in Galatians chapter 2. We will be basing our remarks out of Paul's words to the church at Galatia. Chapter 2, verse 20, Paul says, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I want to preach to you from this message, from this verse, a message that I'm calling, this could be the death of me. This could be the death of me. Have you ever got hurt so bad it surprised you? Like, just the stupidity of it especially? You know what I'm talking about? I was on a plane a while back, and I was sitting in the very back of the plane. And at the last minute, they said, you've been upgraded to comfort plus, which is right just shy of where you want to be when you get an upgrade. But I was grateful until I got to my upgraded seat

and found out it was a middle seat. I had at least an aisle seat in the back. I might not have been able to recline back there. I might have been next to the bathroom, but at least I was in control of my own destiny. I did not, as a card-carrying control freak, like a middle seat. And I almost objected and wanted to like, is it too late to go back? And it was just it was too late. So I sat down. I was right behind first class. And there was a divider that was like hard plastic. I noticed when I sat down, but quickly forgot about it till the middle of the flight when I needed to go to the bathroom, which is why I like an aisle seat, because I drink a lot of coffee. It is what it is. And so I needed to get up to go to the bathroom. And the lady, as I kind of did the thing like pantomiming, I'd like to use the restroom. She didn't, she just, the thing I hate the most, she just went, which is an invitation to crawl over a stranger. And so I did. And then an hour later, needed to go to the bathroom again. I didn't even bother asking her permission this time. I just, I just like ninja crawled. And then I had limbo. And then I stood straight up, fast and hard,

right into that divider. So hard, it shocked me. Like, I hit it so hard. I thought, who hit me with that baseball bat? Like, where is this strange? And then I realized what I had done. And it was like, I was like, I'm contemplating my choices. Do I sit back down? Do I just lie down in the aisle? Do I continue to go to the bathroom? How many fingers am I holding up? Like, I was like, do I need to check for a concussion, right? And it was so embarrassing. I was so flustered that I eventually just walked away sadly. And then went to the bathroom and came back. And she seemed to be completely unfazed by any of this. And so the flight went on. The very end of the plane, when the ding, you were allowed to get up, we both unbuckled our seatbelts. And she turned to me, she said, be careful when you get up. I was like, oh, you saw that back there. She said, I think everybody on the plane saw that back there. This could be the death of me. What a terrible way to die. Not even a good story. You get to heaven, like you're meeting martyrs. How'd you die? I got beaten by a lion in the Colosseum following Christ.

How are you? It was just Delta Comfort, you know, is what happened to me. And I was so sore. Like, I fell in the next morning, my body was sore. You know, my neck was sore. I was like, what happened? I was like, oh, that's right. As goes the head, so goes the body. We are in a series of messages that we have called Killing You Softly. And we're using as our guided tool, diagnostic tool, the church has used, going all the way back to within just a few hundred years of Christ's death, that's basically an aid to sanctification, a sort of checkup, right? Like, the baby gets born, they do this Apgar test. How's the baby doing? How's the baby scoring on the Apgar test, right? This is sort of like a spiritual Apgar test for those who have come to life in Christ. How are you doing in these different ways? And then the seven deadly sins can tell us. how we're doing following Christ. They come from the Latin word caput, caput, which just means head, right? These are seven heads or seven principles. They looked at them originally like the head of a river. The head of a river is where the river comes out of. Everything flows out of when you find the head of the river.

So these are sort of the seven heads of where sin flows out of. Interestingly enough, that same word ended up becoming a word that we use in English, caput, when we talk about something dying. Like the computer went caput, the computer's dead, right? And the words have nothing to do with each other. That word caput actually came from head, and then it turned into a card game. But it actually is beautifully poetic if you think about when we fall into these sins, the end of it is death. The Bible says the way that seems right to a man, the end of it is death. These are deadly sins. They're not more deadly than any other sins, because all sins bring about death. And yet, these ones categorically end up multiplying sin in your life. And this Good Friday, we have saved as our sin to focus on the sin of pride, the sin of pride, or as we're defining it, putting myself above God and others. That's what pride is, biblically speaking. To be a prideful person is to put yourself above God and others, right? Because the Bible talks about what is our goal in life? What should be biblically what we live for? It's to love God, heart, soul, mind, strength, love our neighbor as ourself. But when we put ourself first, that's pride.

You could say that it's the over love of yourself. Now, the Bible doesn't say you're not to love yourself. You are, you're to love yourself. But to over love yourself is like overloving food, gluttony. It's like overloving money, a distorted or a perverted love of a good thing that God's given to us that can be used as a tool, as a blessing. But when you over love it, when you love it, you could say too much, it becomes a disordered love because it's sitting on the throne of your heart, which was built to have only one occupant. And his name is not you. His name is not money. His name is not food. So pride, the over love of yourself to make yourself a supreme thing, to make yourself the point, to make yourself the main character, right? It's to live with main character energy, which I think you'll agree is just absolutely what the world revels in. I mean, we live in a world so twisted, the world revels in pride and has pride in pride, right? To have pride in pride, it's selfie culture. It's clout chasing. It's living with your own personal brand always needing to be developed. It's the one upping. It's the constant name dropping. We even, in our world today, have

developed humble ways to brag, the humble brag, right? We're bragging about our own humility. And of course, as I'm describing all of these things, we're all thinking of all the prideful people we know. We're all like, yeah, good thing you're preaching the sermon about time. These prideful people that we're all surrounded by need to hear this talk. Because we live in a world that's so full of vanity that is so easy to see, as long as it's on other people. But listen to me, the more pride we have in ourselves, the easier it is to see it in others. The more you're repulsed by it, the more you probably, like me, struggle with it. And whenever we give in to pride, we are always set up for a fall. We're always set up for a fall. The Bible says God resists the proud, but God gives grace to the humble. How could we not fall if we have God opposing us? Is there anybody you can go toe to toe with God and win? Ask Jericho how that went. Ask Goliath how that went, right? It doesn't go well when you oppose God. He doesn't ever lose. He has no rival. He has no equal. So who are you? Who am I to go up against God?

But whenever we choose pride, we are choosing to oppose God. And that can only have one end, with a TKO of you and me. The Bible says that pride comes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. And that fall can take lots of different forms. But I think what we're seeing with the escalating, skyrocketing anxiety, and depression, and suicidal ideation, and thinking that we see in our culture and our world today is evidence of this fact. We were not built to be. the center of our story. Your soul wasn't built to handle yourself as its own idol, as its own god. When you have yourself as a god, you have a terrible god. You have, like the Hulk said to Loki, puny god. I'm a god. You should cower before me, puny god, and just beat him around like a rag doll. When you are your own god, you have a bad god. So when we choose pride, we're putting ourself into a place of power in our lives that, of course, can't help us when we need it the most. And not for nothing, the skyrocketing anxiety and depression I just talked to you about, they actually, sociologists, can pinpoint when it really hockey-sticked up. Do you know what it was? You probably go, is it 2007 when the iPhone was invented? No.

It was 2010 when the iPhone got a front-facing camera. Oh. Think about it. When all of a sudden, our phones became mirrors. That's when the data jumps up of depression. You have all of a sudden now the perfect storm of Instagram exists, and we can take pictures easily of ourselves. It is easier than ever to be the main character of our own story. I once heard Francis Chan talk about how we used to go to the Grand Canyon and take a picture of the Grand Canyon. And now it's our face at the Grand Canyon. It used to be, look at this thing. Now it's, look, here I am at this thing. We're the center. We're at the forefront. The majestic landscape, it's just a mere detail compared to your face. That now is how we see the world. And how could we not be distraught when we put ourselves as the main character, when we don't have main character power? We shouldn't get that main character energy, guys. Now, of course, when we talk about pride, I'm using, as I even reference all those different illustrations, sort of the main way we think about pride. But pride actually can show up in lots of different forms. Here's three of them.

Pride can be self-promotion. Pride can be self-righteousness. Maybe the most ugly form of pride is the religious spirit of pride. But it can also become self-pity. Now, when we think about self-promotion, this is, of course, the classic, the narcissist. This is, you know, you probably think this song's about you. You're so vain, right? The self-promotion. That's the stereotype of pride. And then the ugliest form of pride and the most offensive to God would, of course, be the self-righteous pride. The pride of the Pharisee who prayed, I am so glad I get to pray to you, God. And you're so lucky you get to hear me pray. And I do all this. And, lo, did you see my fasting? I did. That was pretty good. Wow. Now that I've, it's like Lockhart in Harry Potter. Magical me. It's like, never did anything but just constantly flexing. And look how white my teeth are. And, right, that's self-righteousness. And God's like, not a big fan, actually. Makes me sick to my stomach, right? But the guy on the other hand who

was, what, on his knees, beat his breast, and said, I can't even lift my eyes to heaven. How could God even hear me? Lord, would you be merciful to me, a sinner? All of a sudden, heaven's like, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. God's like, did you hear that prayer? I like that one. That man went home justified. Why? Because there was no self-righteousness in it. He knew he was broken. OK? But maybe the most sinister form of pride is the self-pity. It's where there's no big look at me. It's, in fact, woe is me. Nobody's seen the troubles that I've seen. Oh, it's just so hard and barely hanging together, right? Insecurity is really just an inverted form of pride. Because the same buckling of tectonic plates that can form a mountain can also form a canyon. And so what they have in common, whether it's I'm so great or I'm so terrible, I don't have any friends, and I don't really know. I've just had it so hard, right? What do they have in common? It's still me, me, me, me, me, me, me. What I have, what I have. What I don't have, what I don't have, right? So the goal, as Rick Warren has said,

and just the classic gold standard quote on what humility actually is, it's not thinking less of yourself. A lot of us think that's humility. If I could just think less of myself. No, no, no, no. It's actually just thinking of yourself less. So I'm not thinking positively about how great I am or how terrible and self-loathing. That self-pity is just an inverted form of pride. The goal is to think of ourselves less. All right, three points, OK? So just three big takeaway ideas that we need to know about pride. First is pride is not just a sin. It is the sin that launches 1,000 others, right? Like the face that could launch 1,000 ships. Pride is the sin that can launch 1,000 other sins. My family and I, we used to live in a condo. And the condo had, in the center of the condo community, a little pool that you could use and the game room and a little theater room. And you had this little. keypad code they gave you, you could get in. So guests of the place, you could let them in. You could get in. But then, you know, anyone just looking for a hot tub couldn't, right, quite frankly. And we had this whole series of events that triggered all the HOA intensity, right,

where apparently teenagers were sending one teenager to jump over the wall. And then they would hit the button and let all their friends in. All they had to do was get one over the wall. Once they got one over the wall, they could bring all their friends in. That's pride. Pride is the sin. The devil wants to jump over the wall of your life. So once the door is open, he can say, hey, coast is clear, and bring all of his friends in. You find in church history the sort of language around pride that showcases it in this way. One person called it the queen of the deadly sins, the queen of the deadly sins. Augustine called it the foundation of all sin. C.S. Lewis referred to pride as the great sin. Gregory the Great, the so-called last bishop of Rome, said that the other of the seven deadly sins are just generals, but pride is the commander-in-chief, the one calling all the shots and deploying all the generals. And then, of course, all the generals get to deploy all of the infantry and all the different units, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so what we have to look at when we think about pride is not just a root, but it's a whole poisonous branch that's capable of sending all these different roots into our lives. In fact, the earliest list you find of the seven deadly sins,

pride's not even on it. Pride's not even on it. Vanity is, which is like a specific version of pride, but the earliest list that you can find of it actually says pride is the branch that leads to all of the other seven deadly sins. And eventually, it was organized in a different way. But what this means is we need to take it very seriously, right, and not sleep on it. And I think, oh, it's not something I struggle with, because even to say such a thing is to indicate it's an issue in your life. Now, think about it this way. Pride has the distinction and the notoriety of being the first sin ever committed, the first sin ever committed. You go Genesis 3? No, Isaiah 14. Before Adam and Eve fell, what happened? Lucifer fell. So how did the devil become the devil? The answer is pride. How are you fallen from heaven, oh, Lucifer? Because he originally was the worship leader of heaven. Pretty good. Oh, son of the morning, how did you get cut down to the ground, you who weaken the nations? Here we go. For you have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.

I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farther sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the most high. And God said, you will be brought down to Sheol to the lowest depths of the pit, because pride always comes before a fall, and the haughty spirit before destruction. So this is the so-called five I wills of Satan. It's how he turned into Satan. And he's been tempting us to follow in his footsteps ever since. Why? Because misery loves company. You ever been at a pool party, and sense you're about to be thrown in the pool? First desire is, don't get thrown in the pool. Hold onto a fence, hold onto a chair, whatever you got to do. But at a certain point, you realize, I'm going in this pool. Now your tactic changes. I'm grabbing hold of every sucker I can. Old ladies, little babies, it don't matter. If I'm going in, you're going in with me, right? And that's the devil. That's everything you need to know about the devil. He's read the back of the book, ladies and gentlemen. He knows he gets thrown into the lake of fire at the end of the day. What's his problem?

He's just a punk and wants to bring in as many people as he can with him on the way down. So he's trying to get us tripped up with the same exact sin that turned him into Satan. So out of pride flows all the others. In fact, some have postulated that it's impossible to commit any sin until you first commit pride. So out of pride, you would lift yourself up to disobey God when it comes to money, or disobey God when it comes to sex, or disobey God. Why would we say, well, I should do whatever I want with my sexuality. I should do whatever I want when it comes to this. Because we're lifting up ourselves, and we're ignoring God who said, here's what I want you to do. And we're not saying, thy will be done. What are we saying? We're saying, my will be done. In other words, I will be like God. I get to call my shots, which is why humility is saying, God, whatever you say is what goes. So you say, well, what do I do if I'm ever reading the Bible, and I disagree? Change your mind. You're wrong. God's right, and his way is better, and he's trying to keep you from self-destruction. And quite frankly, if Jesus didn't die and rise from the dead, none of what he says matters. But because he did die and rise from the dead,

everything that he says matters. And so he's trying to keep us out of hell. I'm saying assume positive intent to the one who's trying to keep you out of hell. And when he tells you to do something, and you don't like it, and you disagree with it, and it messes with you in some weird way, don't choose the prideful response, because out of that sin will flow 1,000 others. Second takeaway truth this Good Friday. Pride kills, but so does the cross. Pride kills, but so does the cross. Now again, like we said, death is the problem when it comes to sin. These are the seven deadly sins. They might kill you softly in how they want to show up in your life, but their end game is death. And that is the case with all sin. For the wages of sin is death. So how do you spell pride? You can spell it like this, preoccupation with self, rebellion, insistence on having it your own way, disobedience, and entitlement. These things in our lives, they lead us towards death. Living this way disconnects you from the life of God, disconnects you from what He wants to flow through your spiritual arteries and veins and capillaries, cuts you off from becoming who you are meant to be. And so what was God's solution?

God's solution to this pride that brought death into our hearts was His own. His response to pride was to send Jesus to shoulder our pain, our rejection, our isolation, our disgrace, and then ultimately to be executed on a Roman cross 2,000 years ago. Death was the problem, so death was His solution. It was for pride that Jesus hung on the cross. And only when we acknowledge that humbly can we enter into the life that flows out of that. Because listen to me very carefully, the cross is not a compliment. It is a horrific insult. It is God saying, you are so terrifically screwed up that the only way you can be rescued is if I allow my own son to be butchered. I have an only son. And as I contemplate the cost to the Father, it appalls me to think that God would have to go through such atrocity for me to be saved. Tim Keller put it this way, you are so bad that Jesus had to die. But you are so loved that Jesus was glad to die. But it is our pride that unleashed death. And so the only way for that to be remedied was for there to be death. And we have to acknowledge, that was me. I put in there. I did. That was me.

I was responsible for it. It was my pride. The result of pride is judgment and wrath poured out against Jesus as He hung on the cross. And the Bible says, God laid on Him the iniquities of us all. GK Chesterton was once asked, would you please write it? He was a prolific author, writer, theologian. Would you please write an essay on what's wrong with the world? We all know there's a lot wrong with the world, right? Right now, if I passed the mic around and said, what's wrong with you, it would be a lot of different thoughts. What's wrong with the world is them over there. What's wrong with the world is this over here. You know what he wrote back? He wrote back one word, me. What's wrong with the world? I'm in it, and I'm flawed, and I'm broken, and I hurt people, and I'm damaging to my own self. I mean, someone once described sin as the suicidal action of the self against itself. Sin is its own punishment. You understand that? To sin is to get a little bit of pleasure, but then you get the hook in your mouth. Of course, the devil has to put a little bit of tasty stuff on the hook. And so we harm ourselves. What's wrong with the world is me, and that's why Jesus had to die. And it brings about death, and so the only solution

for that death is death. And that's why, third point, the cure or cures for our pride are his cries from the cross. The only way that we can be saved from the incessant pride that wants to show up in our lives as we even do things for God and somehow we make it about ourselves, the only way we can be saved from the pride that wants us in the pit of self-pity or in the trap of self-promotion is listening carefully, because faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. And if the cross is the remedy, the rescue mission, if the cross is indeed. the solution to the problem that, ironically, is the same thing. Death is a problem, so death is the solution. What a wild world we live in. It's an upside-down kingdom. The Bible says that Jesus destroyed death by dying. That usually doesn't work well. You have an enemy in a battlefield. You're like, I'm going to get you. How? I'm going to let you kill me. Ah. Well, if you've got the ability to come back from the grave, I guess it works. And Jesus, in fact, did, having done nothing wrong, the magic worked backwards. The deep magic worked backwards.

The stone table's cracked in half. He had never committed sin, so him being put to death on behalf of the sin of others, God raised him from the dead. So pride kills, but so does the cross. And as we listen to him hang on the cross, he's speaking to us. And he's giving to us the cure for pride, because the cross is the greatest demonstration of humility that could ever exist. Do you fathom that? There's no greater act of humiliation you could find ever in history, in literature, in the world, than what he did as he hung there. And so you have in the cross, almost like a Christopher Nolan movie, it's the consequence of sin, but also its solution and the only cure that exists. And Jesus, in classic fashion, opened his mouth seven times as he hung on the cross. He hung from 9 AM till 3 PM. At noon, it became black. He gave up the ghost at 3 o'clock. But before then, he had spoken seven times. The first is in Luke chapter 23, where he said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do. Who is this man who can die begging for God to forgive those who hurt him and put him there? Asking for God to forgive those who pounded the spikes into his wrists, who drove the whip across his back, who beat the crown of thorns upon his head, who spit upon his face, who tore the beard off his cheek.

And yet he felt not fury. That's what I would feel, fury. He felt compassion. He knew that they were much worse off than him, if you can believe that. And so his prayer, prayer of humiliation, not the prayer of pride. Pride would have unleashed, rightly, 12 legions of angels. He said, Father, please send your angels to protect, to heal, to bless. Draw them to yourself. Forgive them, Father. And do you know he is praying not just for the Romans and for the Pharisees and for Pilate? He was praying, beloved, for you. And he was praying for me, for it was your sin and my sin that sent him on that mission. Can you think about the power to incinerate, but choosing to intercede instead? This is the way of Jesus, the way of suffering, the way of glory. This is the kingdom. Every one of these has a little cure. That particular prayer is the cure for self-absorption, to be absorbed in oneself. He should have been absorbed in his pain, but he wasn't. He was thinking about others. There is then, in John 19, the second prayer. The prayer is, woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother.

He asked for John to look in on his mama when he was gone. Such a good son that he was hanging on the cross, but not too busy to take care of his mama. Have you heard the expression, I could do that with one arm tied behind my back? He had both arms tied behind his back. And he was still doing what we oftentimes neglect, and that is showing love to the people in our world, the people in our lives, the people right in front of us. Jesus is teaching us the cure for self-importance. If anybody is too important to show love and deal with, I can't be dealing with Mary, John, no, no. He was more focused on how they were doing at the cross than on how he was doing. Jesus was saying, I'm never too busy to do what love requires, because I love God the most. And I love people more than I love myself. This is true blessing. This is the solution for the persuasive anxiety from living with a selfie constantly being taken. The third prayer was Luke 23. Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. This is words that Jesus spoke to a man dying next to him, who even just minutes ago had been making fun of Jesus. But then he started to realize, oh, shoot, oh, shoot, I'm about to die. Where am I going? Where am I going? And he's listening to Jesus pray for forgiveness.

He's listening to Jesus take care of his mom. He's going, who dies like this? Who dies with hope? Who dies with peace? And then he's starting to think the same thing a lot of us are thinking, how can I live like that? How could I die like that? Then he reads, there's a sign above Jesus' head. And the sign said, this is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. And this man starts to think to himself, oh my gosh, if he's a king, he's got a kingdom. If he's got a kingdom, maybe he's got a place for me. How could he possibly accept me? I was just mocking him. I've lived a life of crime. I deserve what I'm dealing with here. But he thought it's worth a shot. And you know what he said to Jesus? He said, could you please remember me, listen to me, when you enter your kingdom? This is the cure for self-exaltation. He chose, in asking Jesus for a place in his kingdom, to not exalt himself, but to humble himself. You're a king. I want a place in your kingdom. Pride wants us all building our own little kingdoms. How much can I accumulate? How much can I possess? How much can I conquer?

It wants us sitting on a little throne of our own making. But the dying thief received grace. How? Like my friend Alistair Begg said so well, by going to the guy on the middle cross. How did he get to heaven? He didn't do anything. He never got baptized. He never read the Bible. He's this guy's the worst. He goes, I don't know. I just gave my life to the guy on the middle cross. And so can you, and so can I, if we choose to abandon self-exaltation and choose the better way, the way of humility? Entrance into God's kingdom is only supplied by those who are willing to go low. You cannot get there standing tall, riding high in your saddle. You cannot get there when you're too big for your britches. You've got to bow low, or you can't come at all. The next prayer is the prayer that Jesus prayed in John, Mark 15, when he said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? This is what theologians refer to as the crucifixion within the crucifixion. Up until this point, it had been physical anguish, emotional anguish. But many theologians, myself included, believe this is the moment when God the Father laid

on him the iniquities of us all, and then had to turn his face away, and for the first time ever in eternity, the perfect, unbroken relationship, the dance of the Trinity became disrupted as they were divided, and the Father and the Son were cut off from one another. As he personally dealt with what would amount to an infinity of torment for each of us individually, disconnected from the Father in hell, dealing with it as payment due to us, right? He did nothing, and yet was disrupted voluntarily from his Father's life. And he cried out in anguish, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? This is, believe it or not, the cure for the victim mentality, that we can never play the victim. We can never play the part that pride wants to twist us into of poor me, poor me. I can't believe how hard I've had it, when other people have had it so good. No one understands. The part we like to play that, God, you've abandoned me. Where are you? Why this suffering? And we turn our back on God because of some difficulty. We can never say that again, when we look at the cross and actually see what it looks like to have been abandoned by God, that Jesus Christ, who never sinned, was made to be sin for us. He became a worm and no man, a wretch on the cross.

The worst, most vile, most unspeakable creature guzzling down the cup of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God, poured out against all unrighteousness, and Christ drank it to the dregs. And on the spot, the father, so repulsed, had to turn his face from him. And Jesus' involuntary reaction was to cry out, why have you forsaken me? He was forsaken and abandoned by the father in that moment. So we never will be, never can be, can never be separated from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. So we can never pridefully cross our arms and say, why did you allow this to happen and not allow that to happen? All we can ever say is, I can't believe you allowed this to happen. And so your love will never be disrupted from me. And so that I have permission to believe that every pain I face in this world has a purpose, that all suffering plays. If you could redeem this, if you could turn the blackest, darkest, most despicable deed ever perpetrated into something we call good, then I don't have the gall to ever think that anything I could face could be beyond the paler reach of God, using it for glory. This is the cure to humbly realize I am not a victim. I am more than a conqueror through Christ Jesus, who loved me and gave himself for me. And it tells me I don't have to understand what's

going on in order to obey. If you want a God who's small enough for your brain, he will be too small for your sin. And it is the height of arrogance to presume that you, in your four decades on this planet, could understand the infinite mind of the eternal and omnipotent God, the omniscient God, the God who has no end, who has no beginning, who has no rival, who has no to think that you are going to stand in judgment of him. Instead, to humbly say, I don't know. I can't imagine. Why did you abandon your son? But why would you do that for me? Why would Jesus voluntarily, for the joy set before him, endure the cross, despising its shame? I don't know why, God, but I'm yours. I don't know why, God, but I'm yours. And if you'll have me, I'm yours. I want to play a part in your kingdom. If you'll have me in your family, I want to be your son. I want to be your I don't know and I don't need to know. I'm just here to obey. I'm here to worship. I'm here to say, your will be done. And then Jesus, in John 19, said, I thirst. He's the river and fountain of life. What's he doing thirsty? He spoke Niagara Falls into existence and knows where the real head of the Nile comes from.

And he thirsts? He's the one who caused water to bubble up from the rock in the desert and can walk on the sea like it's dry land. Yet voluntarily, for me, a raging, burning thirst is tearing its way through his system. He could have said the word and been hydrated with a camelback from on high. And yet he voluntarily chose to not be controlled by his earthly appetites. So when we say the temptation was too much, I had to give in. I just had to do it. I just I have to live for my son. I have to live for my desire. We are arrogantly saying, Jesus, you don't know what you're talking about. You can't help me. You can't be enough for me. But instead, humbly, we can choose to see this as the cure for being controlled by appetite. Jesus' thirst is the cure for us living our lives, bowing our knee to the tyrants of our desires. And then he said, this is the sixth prayer from the cross, John 19.30, it is finished. Tetelestai, you know what this is? This is freedom from shame, freedom from self-flagellation, freedom from the false narrative we tell ourselves, God may have forgiven me, but I can't forgive me, which is literally the most arrogant thing you could say. It sounds so dressed up in humility.

But it's you saying, whatever God's decided, it's not the last word. What I have decided is the last word. But to walk in freedom from shame, and to say, if he said it's finished, it is finished. If he said I'm free, I'm free. If he said I'm innocent, I'm innocent. If he slammed the gavel down and said, Tetelestai, paid in full, I can't even see their sin anymore. It's hidden behind my back. So for you to still walk around, I can't believe what I did. I can't believe who I used to be. I can't believe I'm so, oh, I just, I got to beat myself up. I got to punish myself. I just, I could never really serve God. Because you don't know what I've done is to say, his word's not the last word. But whom the Son sets free is free indeed. And to live a life of Tetelestai, to live a life just saying, he slammed the gavel down and say, he can't see my sin anymore. He can't see my shame anymore. That's not who I am anymore. It's the end of all that. Pride drives us to cling to our old sins because it gives us permission to still live at a low level instead of at the high level he's calling us to in change and freedom and liberty. Listen to me. It's realizing my sin on this earth.

can never overcome the bounds of his forgiveness. Not if I had 1,000 lifetimes to sin, could I ever sin so much that it couldn't have been forgiven or fixed by the love of God. And when you get that, it doesn't make you want to sin more. It gives you the power to sin less. And then lastly, Jesus, right before he gave up his spirit, you realize that? Gave up his spirit. No one takes my life from me. I lay it down. So right before he gave up his spirit, and it surprised everyone, how is he dead so quick? Because he said it was dead. He said it was over. He said it was finished. There was no more to do. So what did he do? He spoke one last prayer. It comes from the book of Psalms. Second time in this section, he's quoted from the Psalms, by the way. Psalm 22 was, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He now quotes another psalm and says this. Into your hands, Father, I commit my spirit. What do we have here? The cure, I believe, for self-reliance. That makes us want to do it ourselves, handle it ourselves, be enough ourselves.

This is the American, I can just pull myself up. I'm big enough. I'm strong enough. I can just work it out. No, no, listen, Jesus didn't. Why would you try? He said, Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit. Some people think this was a prayer Mary would have taught him as a little boy. And he would have prayed it every day of his life. She had no idea back then. She was getting him ready to die. Into your hands, I commit my spirit. Into your hands, I commit my spirit. Into your hands, Father, I commit my spirit. If you say it enough times, one day it'll be true. Say it enough times, and one day it'll actually happen. Father, today, I commit my spirit into your hands, my life into your hands, my choice into your hands. I'm not relying on myself, God. To do ministry, I'm not relying. To be a husband, I'm not relying. To serve my kids, I'm not relying on myself. I don't have what it takes in this world to overcome temptations and trials. So Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit. My life is in His hands. My problems are in His hands. My struggles are in His hands. Do you understand?

Everything in your life that you allow will be in His hands if you just, why would you walk around with it on your shoulders? He's got bigger shoulders. Your life can be in His hands too. And we can hold this life with a light touch because our security is in the Father. And then you've got to go back to this top of Him and start all over again, right? Why? Because Paul said in Philippians chapter 3, verse 10, I want to know Him. I want to know the power of His resurrection. And I want to know the fellowship of His sufferings being conformed to His death, being conformed, conformed. I want to be patterned after. How did He die? He died not as someone who was self-absorbed. He died not as someone who was self-exalted, not someone self-important, not as someone who was a victim, not as someone who was driven by his appetites, not as someone living a life of shame or self-reliance. Those things were crucified with Christ. And so we don't have to live a day longer in those things because we're not that which we used to be. Yes. Do you see what I'm saying? I'm saying this Good Friday could be the death of you. It could be the death of you. You don't have to be alive to sin anymore.

You don't have to be alive to flesh anymore. You don't have to be alive to wrath anymore. You don't have to be alive to shame anymore. That doesn't have to be who you are anymore. This could be the death of you. Have you ever met someone who has your birthday and, oh, that's my birthday, too. That's my birthday, too. You talk about Good Friday, we do it wrong. We talk, oh, that's the day that we remember Jesus died. Oh, no, no, no, no. That's your death day, too. That's your death day, too. I have been crucified with Christ. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who died and gave Himself for me. It's my death day. It's your death day, because we're dead to sin, and we're dead to hell, and we're dead to the devil, and we're alive in Christ, and we're alive for service, and we're alive for good works, and we're alive for light, and we're alive forever. This could be the death of me. Because what happens to the head happens to the body. And Christ is the head of the church, and we are His body. So He died to sin as the head, so we as the body would never have to. He experienced hell, so you could experience heaven. God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for you,

so that we could be the righteousness of God in Him. When God looked at Jesus on the cross, He saw all your sins, so when God looks at you, He can't even see any. He only sees the righteousness of God. You're like, oh, I'm such a bad sinner. Like, I don't know what you're talking about. You seem just like, oh, Jesus. That's all I see. That's all I see. That's all he chooses to see. I'm done. We're over. That's my whole sermon. That's my whole sermon. That's what God gave me for you this Good Friday. But when was man made? When was man made? When was man made? Man was made on day six, Friday. And God made man on day six and said, it's good. And then we ruined it. We spoiled it, didn't we? We messed that up real bad. So God sent Jesus to redeem it. And Jesus died on Friday. And God says, it's good. It's good. It's Good Friday. It's good, once again. It's good to be human.

It's good to be related to God. It's good to be alive. It's good to worship. It's good to praise him. Come on, Friday's good. It's not bad anymore. It's a good Friday. God, we worship you this Friday because you made us good. You made it good. You're making it good. You're taking it and working it for good. You're taking all the bad and all the hard. You're going to work it for good. God, we can trust it into your hands because it's going to be glorious when it's done. You're making it good. You're making all things new. So do it now. Do it now, God. Do it in your church, God. If you're here and you need to trust Jesus for salvation, you need to do it quick because, listen to me, you are on a bullet train towards the grave. You are on a bullet train towards hell. And only Christ, who stepped in front of that bullet for you, could save you. But you've got to be in Christ, so get in Christ. What are you waiting for? With heads bowed and eyes closed, if you need to get in Christ, if you

need to give your life to Jesus, to be saved and set free, headed to heaven, I'm going to pray with you. I want you to pray this every location, church, online, wherever you are, pray this with me. Church, pray it with us. Say, dear God, I am messed up, and that's not good. But you died and rose to make it good. So I give my life to you. Pray this in Jesus' name.