Sermon Tone Analysis

*Acts 20:28 \\ **28 *Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

·     These words are still echoing in my heart along with the calendar season that we are in

·     I am deeply moved by the last seven words of this verse, that says; “which he obtained with his own blood.”

The church of God, you and I people, were obtained by the shedding of Jesus’ blood 

·     How often do you hear this and it has no real impact on you.

What Jesus did for you.

Jesus paid the price for your sins.

How often do you stop, really stop everything, and meditate on what this is saying?

·     You and I live in a sterile world today where death or the shedding of blood is humane and made to appear as calm, clean, and compassionate as possible.

·     And when we see what we call gore we feel that it is either movie making or game production

·     Even the war that is going on and all of the suffering and blood shed many approach with a passive demeanor.

·     But the righteous one died so that you could live.

The one who knew no sin became sin, in a concentrated way, in order to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

·     For the fourth time this year you are about to complete a command from Scripture, you will participate in the Lord’s Supper that Jesus said to do this in remembrance of Him.

·     What do you remember about Jesus, especially during this time of year?

·     Go back and review your conversion experience, your own repentance and faith in Jesus as Lord and Saviour

·     That He took on your sins, all of them past, present and future, and He died for you – Can we say Amen to that?

·     But New Hope, I can’t allow you to stay there in your remembrance because we are told and taught that our Lord suffered and died

·     And you know my brothers and sisters when God do something, He does it in a perfect way and it is done to the fullest, that means, not only did he die for all of your sins, he also suffered completely for every single one of them!

·     King David says in Psalm 37:25, “I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken.

That may be so for everyone else who walks this earth, except Jesus, the Righteous One, for on the day that he gave his life for others, well;

·     Open your Bibles to Matthew 27:46 and listen to these words that the Lord said;

*Matthew 27:46*  And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

·     This is one of the most frightening passages in all of Scripture, to be forsaken by God, and yet it is the most blessed passages in all of Scripture.

·     It is one of the darkest passages in the entire Bible and yet by it, light is available to the elect of God!

·     We see the wrath of God here like no other place and at the same time we see a love that is beyond our understanding!

\\ ·     Again know this, brothers and sisters, your God does nothing half way, what He does is complete and perfect.

Jesus, we sing, paid it all and He gave His all.

His suffering and his death, like his conception, like his birth, and like his life, was like no other human or nothing else on this earth.

·     Some of us cry at sad movies and that’s Hollywood.

Some of us hate to see animals suffer and that is good human compassion.

We are moved by crime and other news.

Where were you when 9-11 hit will stay with us for awhile?

·     But all of these, multiplied by millions, still pale in comparison to what Jesus went through on the cross at Calvary.  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

·     Have you ever stopped and pondered this question of Jesus?

Being forsaken by God!

·     This is one of the most frightening passages in all of Scripture, I pray that no one that I know or will know will ever have to utter these words.

·     Forsaken, the word spells tragedy and no good will

o       Remember New Orleans after the Katrina it was a forsaken city

o       There are countries and people in Africa, for example, who are forsaken resulting in what we would call genocide.

o       A forsaken neighborhood becomes the slums

o       Forsaken children become juvenile delinquents

o       A forsaken marriage leads to trouble and then divorce or separation

\\ ·     Jesus was forsaken by his disciples, forsaken by his people and forsaken even by the Romans and didn’t say a mumbling word, but he cries with a loud voice not about any of that, his cry is “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

·     You know that sin separates you from God but your prayer ought to be Lord please do not forsake us! (Cast me not away from your presence, O Lord, and take not your Holy Spirit from me)

·     Many times we humans focus on the physical suffering of Jesus and forget that Jesus ask the Father to move the cup, while he was in the garden praying, alone.

·     That cup, that spiritual cup, contained the sins of the world but it also contained the hiding of God’s face from him which is the result of becoming sin.

Sin poured on him so that grace would be poured on you!

·     The spiritual suffering, the absence of a relationship that had existed in eternity, an unbroken communion, the Father and the Son being one with the Holy Spirit is now broken and no earthly suffering could compare or come close to this heavenly suffering that Jesus is going through – my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

·     Here we have the only time that Jesus could not call Him Father but must call Him, my God! 

·     And yet as frightening as this passage is we know that God forsook his Son so that He will not forsake us.

Jesus suffered spiritually so that we will not have to suffer spiritually and

·     Even with these words of grief comes a full manifestation of divine love and for those of you who may miss this there is an awesome display of the inflexible justice of God.

·     In a few moments when you are engaged in the Lord’s Supper, remember that God the Father forsook God the Son, so that He will not leave you not forsake you.

·     Do this in remembrance of what Jesus did for you

·     His Father became his God so that our God would become our Father

·     Hear Jesus’ words again ‘do this in remembrance of me!’

 

·     This is one of the darkest passage in the entire Bible.

·     Verse 45 says that from the sixth hour which is 12 noon until the ninth hour (3pm) there was darkness over the entire land.

·     There was midnight at mid day!

·     Some want to call it an eclipse of the sun and the moon but researcher say that’s not possible because during that time the sun and the moon were at their greatest distance from each other

·     But also during that same time our sins are on Jesus and God turns his face from him.

Jesus becomes sin darkness and light can not dwell together.

The sun turns away and the earth quakes.

·     God is holy completely.

And so holy is God that he will not look upon sin, He hates sin and when his son is concentrated sin, God will not look at him nor will he allow his sun to shine on him.

The Lamb of God is taking away the sin of the world!

Be He is taking your sins and the sins of that offender who believes

\\ ·     This should not be so strange to us, because so holy is God that man cannot look upon Him and live.

o       When Abraham stood before him, he cried, “I am but dust and ashes” (Gen.

18:27)

o       With just a vision, Isaiah exclaimed, “Woe is me!

For I am undone for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts”

o       And it is because Jesus the Saviour was bearing our sins that the thrice holy God would not look on him, turned his face and forsook him

·     This forsaking and this darkness went for three hours

·     Three hours that’s like eternity times three!

·     We thus see the wrath of God here like no other from the beginning of time to the end of time Jesus took on every sin of every elect and endured the wrath of God that had been held back until this day

·     My God, my God why have you forsaken me?

·     The wages of sin is death, not only physical death but spiritual also.

It is not only the separation of the soul and spirit from the body but also the separation of the soul and the spirit from God and that my brother and sister is hell!

·     On the cross Jesus was receiving the wages due his people.

He had taken our place the just for the unjust.

And for that three hour period Jesus received the perfect wrath of God for the sins of the elect.

·     This separation and this agony for the second person of the Holy Trinity is a picture of the horror of eternal hell

·     This was not a whisper but an agonizing cry in a state of darkness; my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

·     Too often, as I said earlier we focus on the physical suffering of Jesus and as great as it was, it was nothing compared to the spiritual suffering.

·     To break an eternal relationship of love and fellowship was nothing short of pure agony

·     Being God in flesh and hating sin but becoming sin in concentrated form was nothing short of pure suffering

·     You and I have issues dealing with one or two sins in ourselves and in others.

For Jesus to take all of my sins, the guilt and the filth of each sin in total for every single elected person who lived, who are living now and who will live in the future is beyond our understanding and our comprehension.

·     And knowing that God hates sin, just one, and Jesus has literally millions of various sins of omission, commission, of thoughts, of words and of deeds, I pray that we have a better understanding of the nature of his suffering

·     And why, What is the answer to his question my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

o       So that the elect will never be forsaken

o       So that the elect will not face condemnation

o       So that the elect have access to the light

o       And so that the elect will realize that God so love us that we just can not comprehend it

·     Jesus endured God’s wrath until it was completed and when it was completed Jesus said “it is finished”

·     And before Jesus gave up his spirit, the relationship with his Father had been reestablished listen

 

\\ *Luke 23:46 \\ **46 *Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!”

And having said this he breathed his last.

ESV \\ \\