I’m going to invite you to Matthew chapter 27. That’s where we’re going to be today. We’re going to look at the section of scripture, the end of Matthew starting in verse 45. And then we’re going to jump to one verse in John chapter 19, okay? And I want you to know, today we’re going to conclude our message related to the statements that Jesus makes on the cross. Jesus makes seven statements at the cross. Some of them, the first few statements, three statements, he makes happens towards the beginning of his crucifixion. What we’re going to see today is there’s this moment of silence in Jesus’s crucifixion. And then towards the end when he finally gives his spirit in the hands, He says He gives His spirit to the Father. When he makes that statement, He makes these final four statements towards the end of His crucifixion. So there’s this silence that transpires.
We’re going to focus on just two of these final four statements and I’ll share a little bit why just two of them rather than all four here as we go through this text of scripture. But I want you to next week, we’re going to start a series together on marriage and the family and what God desires in marriage and the family. How all of us, wherever we are in life, whatever position we find ourselves in life, can be an encouragement to people around us based on what they’re going through. I think when we talk about marriage and the family, it doesn’t alienate people in depending on you could be in a different place as it relates to marriage and the family because God’s people are described as a family. Really when you look at the New Testament model, the way that Paul appoints leadership within the church, he expresses the need to see how someone manages a family because that becomes an expression of how they’re going to work in the greater family of God.
We’re all still a family before the Lord, and knowing how to honor one another as brothers and sisters in Christ is important. We’ll start that series next week together throughout the month of May, but we’re going to be here in Matthew Chapter 27. So far together, we’ve seen Jesus make a few statements on the cross, the first time that he makes is directed straight to the father. It says, father, forgive them for the know not what they do. If you think about the seven statements, Jesus makes in the across, interesting thought is three of those statements are directed to the Father, I think still for us to learn from and to experience. and the four of them are directed towards the people around Christ as he goes to the cross. Today, the statements that we’re going to look at, one of them is directed to the Father again, and one of them is for us and relationship to the father.
But these statements of Jesus, first one, he makes Father forgive them, and then he tells the thief, you will be with me in paradise. He tells his mother while he’s hanging on the cross. Behold you will be with… this is your son talking to John the Baptist and Mary his mother. Behold your son. He wants his mother to be taken care of. In Jesus’s Day. It was the responsibility oldest son of the father passed away to care for the family and many believe that Joseph had passed in scripture. He’s really, after Jesus’s birth, you really don’t see much about Joseph except for one other time in scripture. Then he sort of disappears from the pages. Most people believe Joseph, his life ended early. Jesus has taken responsibility in caring for his mother. In Matthew Chapter 27 starting in verse 45, Jesus begins to give another statement from the cross.
There’s been the silence that is a lapsed here. Jesus is near the end and he gives this final statement. I want to put it in this historical context for us to be able to understand this passage. I think when we first answer the question, what happened there and then it helps us to make the proper application to here and now. So if you ever study scripture when you read the Bible, which you should do that, God wrote his word for you to transform your life in him. His word is vital to us. But when you read the pages of scripture in order to glean from it, what God intends, it’s always important to answer the question, what did God mean there? And then because a book of the Bible was always written to a particular people at a particular place on a particular time. What does it mean there and then, but truth is also timeless.
So how does it relate to us in the here and now? When I put this section of scripture in it’s historical context. Let me just read these first couple of verses and I want to explain what’s going on here. It says, now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour, six hour in Jewish time means noon. The day started at 6:00 AM. And so when Jesus went to the cross, it tells us in scripture. He went to third hour and now we’re up to the six hour and darkness and to land in the ninth hour, which is 3:00 PM. I’ll tell you why this is important in just a minute, but about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani. That is my God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?
When you read the Gospel accounts, you’ll see it in Jesus’s life the gospels recorded some things that are similar and some things that are different. Sometimes a couple of gospels record a similar event and another Gospel won’t. When you look at Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and as it relates to the death of Jesus, all three of those gospels record the hours of which Jesus is crucified and the times in which these events take place on the cross. Why?
How do they even know the time of day? It just seems like an inconsequential point, right? I mean you’re going to the crucifixion of Jesus, the one that you think is the messiah. He’s been tortured, he’s been beaten, and it’s all of a sudden these gospel writers like, hold on a second time I got to… I’m going to check my smartphone here and see what time this is. I want this to be accurate. Is that really important to this passage of scripture I mean? Why, all three gospels identifying this as significant? Well, I think when you see in scripture what God is painting a picture of for us, it tremendously amplifies this event relating to Jesus going to the cross. If you remember the night Jesus was betrayed, He was talking to his disciples about his betrayal. Peter, so confident about this. Lord, I’m never going to turn my back on you. And Jesus says to Peter this very night before the rooster crows, you have a denied me three times.
Interesting thing about recognizing that is a if you study Jewish history, Jews are a little… there’s a little debate we’ll say in Jewish history, they’re torn over an issue. As it relates to the rooster. In Jewish history, there was certain animals that were clean and unclean and introduced into Jewish history was the chicken. The Jews began to debate as to whether or not the chicken was seen as a clean or unclean animal. That debate was never really settled. But during the time of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls, in order to satisfy some, they wrote a law that said chickens weren’t allowed in Jerusalem. In fact, especially during the time of Passover, there was ritualistic cleansing that had to happen in the homes. I mean, these people had these laws that they had to observe and if there’s any point in their lives or observing these cleansing walls, it is in Jerusalem, especially it is during Passover celebration.
But when you hear the statement made from Jesus that the rooster would crow and Peter had denied Jesus, how does that work with Jewish customs relates to laws written in Dead Sea Scrolls for the Jewish people’s in the city of Jerusalem, especially during the time of Passover? Well during Jesus’s Day, there was also another, another person I should say that was referred to as the rooster. He was the temple cryer and he had a particular job at the temple that when events were transpiring during the temple, he would let Jerusalem know, and he would let drizzle know by blowing this horn in the wee hours of the morning. When the priest would arrive to the temple to begin to carry out the functions of the day, the rooster would crow. The priest was in the building when they would make sacrifices on the cross.
The reason they knew the hour of which Jesus was on the cross was because the crier would cry. The activities were taking place in the temple. No one had to stop in those moments and look at their watch. They were familiar with these times of day. It happened every day, 9:00 AM every day in the temple. The priest was there making a sacrifice. When Jesus was nailed to the cross, the third hour, the cry went out and the nail went down. Well, what’s interesting about when Jesus gives up his life, which is the ninth hour at the end of his life, when he gives the spirit to the father, on this particular day it was Passover.
And a 3:00 PM. It wasn’t only the time that they made the sacrifice, it was also when they initiated the sacrifice for Passover lamb. Could you imagine that moment as John gives the pronouncement, the beginning of John, that when Jesus shows up at the rivers of the Jordan to be baptized, he says, behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And now when Jesus goes to the cross at the 9:00 AM in the morning, they hear the cry from the temple and all of a sudden it’s Jesus being pierced. And then at 3:00 PM when the Passover celebration commences at the sacrifice in the temple. They hear the cry and Jesus gives up the ghost and the temple shakes and the veil is torn.
Could you imagine being there in those moments? What in the world did we just do? The lamb of God taking the sins of the world. To me, it’s an incredible thought to consider. I think it’s why these gospels record the hours very, particularly for us to see that when Jesus dies on the cross, it is no accident. That God had declared this from the beginning, and that God was in control even in the darkest of moments, to the very moment the Passover lamb was to be slain and Jesus giving up his life for us. This is incredible. This moment described for us a about the noon hour is written as darkness in history. This ominous, quiet, dark moment. You think Jesus goes to the cross. He pronounces these statements that we’ve looked at together and then there’s really just silence as darkness, creeps in and people are just in this cloud of darkness says as Jesus takes on the sins of the world and then he gives these final crying words.
Historically, if you study these moments on the cross, and I’ve often wondered how dark was it just over Jerusalem or how far do this darkness, was it the whole world that experienced this darkness, historians have actually uncovered a first century document, second century document, third century document of individuals that have written about this day. Journaling historians that have written about this day a man and the first century named Falice was a Greek historian, 52 AD and a Greek historian, 137 AD. Afrikanas, a Christian in the third century 212 AD all writing about this moment in the history and how people have reflected on this moment and as a far away as Africa.
Jesus in silence as darkness hangs over, and then he gives the statement verse 46. The ninth hour, Jesus cries out with a loud voice. This word here literally means that Jesus shouts or he screams this toward heaven. Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani. My God my God, why have you forsaken me? This word forsaken means abandoned. Certainly, maybe as a downplay of what abandonment means. It’s lonely. There are times in life you can probably relate to the thought of what it means to be lonely or abandoned, and there’s times in life where you’re lonely because you choose to be. Those are great moments, like as a parent, sometimes I put my kids in time out. You know, you’re like, go sit in the chair. Timeout. Right? I’m thinking, man, if someone would just do that to me, I’ll have to be quiet and I’ll talk to anyone and no one could talk to me. Yeah, that would be the greatest. You know this. There’s times where you’re lonely, where you choose to, right? Then there are times where you’re learning who you don’t want to be.
Jesus in this moments are abandoned. You think in relationship to the father. From the beginning of Genesis, you see Father, son, and spirit and perfect community, and then there’s separation. There’s also wrath. The reason God turns his back on Jesus is because Jesus takes sin upon him and the father can look upon this sin. Theologians can’t completely conceive of how this looks, but somehow at this point in history, perfect harmony in the trinity of God from the beginning and now separation. And Jesus is under the wrath. Tells us in Isaiah 53 verse 5, the chastisement of our peace was upon him.
When you think about the consequences of sin in the Bible, it tells us the wages of sin is death. And in our minds, we often think about death. They’re like, you’re not living on earth anymore. And we see this earth as this great place where like you know, it’s such a horrific thing and death is a bad thing. But when the Bible talks about death, it’s, it’s so much more than just leaving earth. The ultimate consequence of death isn’t just leaving this earth. It’s complete separation from God. The reason that’s so significant is because God doesn’t just give life. God is life. In his life there is grace in love for all of eternity into think you, created for that purpose. Now separated from that. That is hell.
What makes hell, hell isn’t location. It’s separation. What I’m saying about Jesus and his moments and saying, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Is that in this punishment for sin, Jesus is literally experiencing hell on earth. And so you see within the expression of this statement why after this quietness and this darkness, Jesus isn’t just saying this, he’s screaming this from the depths of his soul.
1st Peter chapter 2 verse 24 it says, he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross. Listen to this so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness. There’s a flip and death here, right? Before the wages of sin for us was death before God. Now in Jesus who bears our sins on the cross, it says that we might die to sin. So our separation is from sin so that we can live to righteousness, that when God looks up on us, he sees the goodness of Jesus and then it gives this phrase first Peter two 24 the last statement here, by his wounds, you have been healed. Jesus become sin so that we could become Christ and be welcomed to God’s presence. Absolute relational unity with the father and now Jesus experiences separation and here’s what it’s saying to us. Jesus was abandoned so that you would never be alone.
In fact, when Paul or whoever wrote Hebrews says this in Hebrews 13. He says, make sure that your character is free from the love of money. I’ll talk about that in a minute. Being content with what you have for he himself has said, I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you so that we can confidently say the Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid. What will men do to me? Why did Jesus go through such anguish? Why this forsakenness on the cross would he endured? It’s so that you could live in this promise of Hebrews 13:5. I will never leave you nor forsake you.
The beauty of the cross for us becomes the living in this truth. Now, I know as people we struggle with loneliness. We struggle with loneliness for different reasons. I can’t pretend to give you every solution to come through the feelings of loneliness that we go through. But I can say this, there are feelings of loneliness and there is the truth of loneliness and sometimes we may feel lonely, but God gives us the truth of his statement, of his presence. So in the midst of those feelings, we can speak the promises of God in our lives. Sometimes we feel lonely because we may be the only one around. But the truth in Hebrews 13 is saying is in Jesus, you are never left alone.
Sometimes we can feel lonely in life because we want to belong. Hebrews 13:5 it’s telling us in Jesus because of what Jesus has done, you always belong. Sometimes we feel lonely because we want to be loved, because of what Jesus has done. In Jesus, we are unconditionally. Sometimes we feel lonely because we don’t feel worthy. But in Jesus you have tremendous worth because God has given it all for you. He’s demonstrated the worth of who you are because the value of Christ is placed on your life, and sometimes in life we feel unimportant. Because of Jesus you have significant and tremendous important because the life of God has been given for you. When God sees you, he sees Christ. Dead to sin, alive to righteousness. The statement that Jesus speaks of this forsakenness is for you. These thoughts are the truth of God’s presence. Don’t necessarily make the feeling of loneliness go away, but it gives you the truth to speak towards it.
Hebrews 13:5 says something interesting before he gives us this promise, though I will never leave you nor forsake you. He says in the beginning, make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have for God has said, I will never leave you for or forsake you. Interesting thought. Usually when you get to the end of a book of the Bible, a lot of times what the writers will do is they’ll start peppering thoughts of how to live out Christ. And sometimes the thoughts seem disconnected like right here. All of a sudden he’s connecting this thought of money with forsaking. How does that work, right? But you know when, when you feel lonely or empty in life, our tendency as people is to try to fill our lives with things that may only temporarily satisfy like money, right?
It doesn’t just have to end there, but this is the illustration that the author uses. We could use money, popularity, looks, jobs, performance, whatever, and the tendency in our lives when we feel lonely as rather than fill our soul with the truth of God is to look for things in this world, and what ends up happening in our lives. Unfortunately, is we end up loving things more than Jesus, but these things never love you in return. So here’s the reality is. Money will let you die for it. I mean, you will sacrifice everything but money will never die for you. Popularity. You can sacrifice everything for popularity. You can die for it to be the top. It won’t die for you.
Your job give everything for your job. You can give your complete self. You can die. Live a life of sacrifice for. Your job won’t die for you. Jesus dies for you. Jesus loves you. This thought of he will never leave you nor forsake you. That word forsaken should just take us back to the thought of the cross. He’s forsaken so that we can belong. He never leaves you. If look for the rest of this passage of Matthew. I think the thought we could ask ourselves, Dennis, how do I know that Jesus will be there for me? When you look at God making this promise, he’ll never forsake me up. You know I believe that’s true for other people. Say a lot of good people, but, but what about me? And then Matthew continues to share this story. Look at this. He goes on and says, “And some of those were standing there when they heard it begins saying, this man is calling up before Elijah.
Immediately one of them ran and taking a sponge. He filled it with sour wine and put it up on a reading, gave him a drink. But the rest of them said, let us see whether Elijah will come and save him, and Jesus cried out with a loud voice and he yielded up his spirit. Look what happens verse 51 and behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom and the earth shook and the rocks were split. The significance of top to bottom are important here, but what Matthew is doing is Matthew has written to a Jewish audience.
Now, you see a lot of quotes in Matthew throughout the Old Testament so that we could immediately tie what’s happening in the life of Jesus and the gospel of Matthew to the promises of the Old Testament. When you read the rest of the gospels, when it comes to the end of Jesus’s life, that Gospel authors choose to highlight something different in really each of the Gospels. The gospel of John does something a little unique here because John is not so much projecting his story to the Jewish audience, but he’s projecting his story to the broader audience of the world, and this veil being torn in Matthew Chapter 27 this is significant, and the Jewish mind, the temple is where God’s presence was. It’s the only place really God’s presence was permanently to be.
Now the veil is torn. If you were to go back in a Jewish old testament, read the Tanakh, you would get to read. If you read the book of Ezra and Nehemiah, something significant happens in Ezra and Nehemiah. In Jewish history, they went on this thing called the Babylonian captivity. They were conquered by the Babylonians. They were carried away, and then they were allowed to come back to Jerusalem after a few decades and they were able to rebuild the temple. But one of the things that’s interesting happens in the book of Ezra and Nehemiah is that some of the people remembered what it was like to live in Jerusalem during the days that temple. And some people did, and they were born in captivity. Well, the ones that didn’t, went back with joy and they rebuilt the temple, but the ones that remembered interesting than Ezra, Nehemiah, as they wept. They wept because they remembered the glory that was, and they knew God’s glory wasn’t there the way that it was when they went into captivity.
When you read Ezra and Nehemiah, the crazy part about that book here are these, this group of people going back to Jerusalem to restore it. But the book ends a law. And the reason that does that is because it wants to build within us in anticipation that something better still to come. But the presence of God was never in that simple again. After the Babylonian captivity, it was gone. Then when you get to the New Testament, John the Baptist parents at the temple, his father gets him in the temple and all of a sudden he comes out and he can’t speak. We find out in the Gospels God’s presence met him there. For the first time, God speaks again.
Then when you get to the book of John, John pins the story of the temple and a very different way. Because the Jews know the presence of what God’s Temple was, was no more after the Babylonian captivity. So when you get to John Chapter one when John Introduces Jesus in John Chapter One verse 14 it tells us this, that Jesus tabernacled, which is another word for the temple expression on the temple, God’s presence now with his people. Jesus is that tabernacle. And when you get to John Chapter two what happens in Jesus’s life? He comes before people and he says, destroy the temple and in three days I will rebuild it. Now rather than identifying a building, Jesus is now identifying himself as the presence of God, the temple, the place that you go to meet with God. Jesus even says, he who’d seen me has seen the father because the presence of the father is in him.
He is the expression of God. He is God in the flesh. In fact, Jesus got so bold as to say in John Chapter Seven there was a celebration that the Jews would partake of and a ceremony where at the very end of the ceremony they would pour out water as an offering before God in the middle of the ceremony in the temple. Jesus stands before all of the people. He says, “I am the living water.” And the very next chapter in, in John Chapter eight there was a part of the temple ritual, which they would take torches and they would go outside of the temple walls and they would light up the outside of these walls. And Jesus goes in the middle of this ritual and he says, I am the light of the world. Jesus identifies himself.
So when the Jewish mind in these moments, it’s crystal clear what’s happening here. That Jesus throughout his ministry has identified himself as the presence of the temple because God’s glory hasn’t been dwelling there. When Jesus is finally giving up his spirit in these moments, when it is finished, the veil is torn symbolizing to the people, that the presence of God, isn’t there? Oh Man, we’ve killed God’s presence. John 19:30 John reflects in this moment just a little different than just talking about the tearing of the temple veil. He’s Penn throughout his gospel. Jesus’s identity, right. Tabernacled, destroy the temple, living light of the world. Jesus in John Chapter 19 verse 13 is on the Cross. He says this, “I’ve received the sour wine. He said, it is finished.” And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit and can you imagine this moments?
The temple crier, the rooster crowing for the Passover celebration before that can be completed. The ground shake and the veil is torn, not from bottom to top. Man could potentially do that, but this veil was so thick it was mere almost impossible to even consider inches thick, but it’s torn from top to bottom, from heavens, from the heavens to the earth. God’s presence isn’t there. This would be a wake up call, right? Where you’re sitting around thinking, what did we just,. God’s presence is gone.
A Pentecost is about to happen right? Now, God’s presence will dwell on his people, but I kept thinking these ambiguous moments between the crucifixion of Jesus and pedagogues, you’re thinking, well, what are we going to do? God’s presence was with us and we got rid of the Lord. How are we live our lives on when it makes this statement, Jesus says, interesting phrase here. This phrase, it is finished, knows when Jesus makes this statement, it is finished. What he isn’t saying is I am finished rather it, what is it?
This word is to tell us that in Jesus’s original languages to tell us that. This phrase to tell us that it’s an interesting word. It’s a phrase that was really spoken in two common areas. When a general would go to battle and he would return from battle, he would walk through the city if he was victorious and what would he would pronounce in that Victor was to tell us that it is finished. Battle is won. We are victorious to tell us, stop. And then this phrase was also used in the market. If you go to the marketplace and you’d buy something, you’d receive a receipt stamped on that receipt to tell a that paid in full.
Well, Jesus is declaring of our lives, isn’t that he has finished but it is finished. And what is finished as a payment for your life? He has won the victory overseeing Satan and death and he has paid in full. This phrase it is finished as a fulfillment of the picture throughout the Bible. The Old Testament tells us and proclaims the coming of Jesus that he will bless all nations and even establishes a system of worship and then that system will point to him and we just looked at one of those expressions and being the temple where he says, “I’m the living water, the light of the world. The lamb of God destroyed the temple.” In three days I’ll rebuild it and Hebrews it goes back and illustrates these examples. Jesus talks about the sacrifices in the temple in Hebrews 10 as a shadow, Jesus says at the end of Hebrews chapter eight the very last verse, it tells us that he obliterates the Old Testament law in order to introduce to us a new because he pays it in full and now we belong to him.
We think about the phrase it is finished then. We often think about God rescuing us from something which he did, paid in full. However, he did more than that when he said it is finished. He also rescued you for something. When you think about this phrase it is finished. It’s not simply about you get to go to heaven, but it’s now a place of belonging and you seen this some both phrases. Now you’re not ever forsaken. God’s presence is always with you. God didn’t just save you then for something. He also made this payment from something else that made this payment for something. But if the Gospel is just about saving you from something, the moment you trusted in Jesus, God would have taken you out of this world.
God’s got a purpose and in fact, in 1st Corinthians chapter six verse 20 he says it like this for you have been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body. In fact, if you were to backup one verse before this, it says this, you are the temple of God and then being the temple of God, he then explains that it’s not just from something before something it says you have been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body, meaning God owns you. Now, for some people, that’s scary. We don’t want to be owned by anything, right?
I am my man and I will make my choices and nothing’s going to control me. But the reality is all of us are driven by something. ‘Cause all of us worship something with our lives. It’s impossible not to, but true freedom isn’t freedom until you live for the purpose of what you’re created. I think I’ve used this illustration before guys, but listen, a fish placed on land is never free. He’s not free until he’s in the water, right? A monkey in the ocean isn’t free. He’s not free to leaves in the trees.
A train can run it to just all day long, but until it’s on the tracks, it’s not experiencing the reason for which it was created. The same is true for you and the loneliness of our soul. We can sell our souls to things it does not belong to, but your soul was created to belong and the purpose for which it was called to belongs to God. And it’s not until Jesus made this payment for your life and allowing you to belong to him that you could ever be free. When Jesus makes this statement, it is finished. God has finally given you the freedom for which to live and the question for our lives and isn’t just see what we’ve been saved from, but what we’ve been rescued for. You think about the purpose of the church as it starts from the beginning, that God from the beginning has been on a rescue mission for souls because souls are in sin and then sin is death. God has been pursuing us.
In the midst of the story the rescuer rescues and then he calls those that have been rescued to join him on the rescue mission and that is the church. What did God rescue me for? They were asking, God what am I rescued four. and we think about that, we give them the idea of God’s will when we talk about God’s will, what does God rescue me for? I don’t think you have to be specific with your answer and somebody we think about God’s will, what he rescues for. We try to think of specific places, specific time specific people and I think God can lead us in those directions. However, when we think in terms of what does Jesus save me for, I think the Bible speaks in terms of what kind of person does he call me to be and what kind of abilities and gifts does he call me to share.
People in places can be worked out later, but the Bible always starts with the content of your heart. What kind of person does God call me to be character, right? I want to be careful in saying this because what I’m not saying this morning is patting on the head and just say, go be good. God’s not interested in just you being good. God’s interested in you being godly, belonging to him and the type of character God desires in your life doesn’t happen by you being good. It happens by you surrendering your life to the king who bought you with a surprise.
Then glorifying him with your life. Well, when we asked the question, what does God rescue me for? The answer… question we need to answer this. What kind of person has god called me to be in character? You know, you think in our culture today, we’re primarily attracted to leaders with charisma and some competency, right? Like their talents. Like we look to leaders that got, have some charisma and some competency like their talents. We looked to leaders that has some charisma and some competency.
If you have competency and and charisma, without character there is an implosion waiting. Charisma makes a great first impression, but character makes a lasting impression. What did God rescue me for? What kind of person does God call you to be? Who are you and the depth of your heart and the easy times and the hard times block comes out. God bought you with a price. Glorify God in your body. Not only do we ask what kind of person has God called me to be, but then we answered the question, what has God called me to share?
I think we discovered this as people as we simply spend time with the one who called us, we spend time with Jesus. Acts 4:13 it says, they were astonished about the disciples because they took note that these men had been with Jesus. They had something to impart to the world around them because they possess Christ in their lives and they had spent time with Jesus.
We’ve been bought with a price. When the content of your character is rooted in Jesus and your life is filled up by Christ, it doesn’t matter where you are or where you go. You’re always imparting the life of Christ through Christ. We think about the significance of the cross for us today. For us as individuals, the thought of Jesus being forsaking allows us to walk in the promise, the presence of God wherever we go, because we understand in the midst of that promise that we’re never forsaken. At the same time God declared it is finished and that moment there’s not just a rescuing of our soul from condemnation, but a transferring of our life to live for something even greater.
Not just from something before something. The Cross isn’t just an event that happened. The cross is a moment that calls us to live on mission. God desires to do something through your life. The resurrection of Jesus, because of this continues to happen every day of our life. That we could live in that declaration. By the way we surrender ourselves to what God has called us for, that Jesus has given his life for us, that you have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God with your body.