Forsaken?

The Assignment: To convince someone that God did not forsake Jesus on the cross.

Since I went to the trouble of putting this together, I thought that I would post it here too. It is a compilation of Scripture regarding the reconciliation that was accomplished through Christ’s death on the cross.

I’m not sure the person I prepared this for is persuadable, but, you never know.

(Headings and underlines were added.)

The Plan From the Beginning

John 1:¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Ephesians 1:^3-10 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,  having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.  In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him.

II Tim. 1:^9-10 who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began, but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

The Relationship of the Father and the Son

John 10:³⁰ I and My Father are one.”

John 14:¹⁰ Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.

John 5:¹⁹ Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.

John 10:^37-38 If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.”

John 8:²⁹ And He who sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him.

John 11:^41-42 And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me.”

Fulfillment of the Plan

Matthew 26:^53-54 Or do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels? How then could the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen thus?”

John 12:^27-28 “Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name.”

John 16:³² Indeed the hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.

John 18:¹¹ So Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into the sheath. Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given Me?”

John 13:³ Jesus knew that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God,

John 14:³⁰ I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me. ³¹ But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, so I do.

John 10:^17-18 “Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.”

Philippians 2:⁸ And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

Lament and Deliverance

Matthew 27:⁴⁶ And 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?” (Jesus was quoting Psalm 22 which the people would have recognized as a psalm of lament and deliverance.)

Psalm 22:^1,24 My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Nor has He hidden His face from Him; But when He cried to Him, He heard.

Luke 23:⁴⁶ And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, “Father, ‘into Your hands I commit My spirit.’” Having said this, He breathed His last.

I Peter 3:^18-19 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison.

Reconciliation

II Cor. 5:¹⁹ that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

Ephesians 2:¹⁶ and that He might reconcile them to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.

Col. 1:²¹ And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight.

Now I pray that this person will see the beauty of what the Scripture says. 

The Show Must Go On

Thanks for all the great commentary on the last post.

My point in posting was about the message being communicated. Why, if you have the opportunity every Sunday to tell people about the love of God, would you choose instead to tell them that they are bad?

I meant to get back to that post, but I had to finish my taxes first.

Over the weekend, I discovered that the sermon I mentioned isn’t original to our local church. Here is a link to the original message. At least I am assuming this is the original.

In this version, the good news is

You are a bad person.

instead of

We are bad people.

(It is between 21:00 and 22:00 in the video.)

It makes me sad that this message was broadcast via satellite to many locations and thousands of people. Apparently this message was also presented by other pastors in many parts of the country earlier in 2009.

The local version I first watched was mostly verbatim to the link I’ve included here, including the ad lib parts. If it were a written paper, it wouldn’t pass turnitin.com.

It seems ironic to take a message about moralism and black-and-white truth and pass it off as your own. I’m just sayin. I know there’s a lot of pressure to perform every week, but what is the point of faking it?

This image from Bill seems appropriate here, via kinnontv.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.

The Sermon I Missed

Last Sunday evening a few of my friends were talking about what a great sermon they heard that morning, so I thought I would check out the message online.

Here is an excerpt of the message that was preached to about 1,000 people in 3 services.

This is what the Bible says about us.
This is so key to finding truth.
This is so key to our spiritual lives, our eternal lives.

We are bad people.

Just to clarify, this isn’t a random excerpt. This was the main point. We are bad people was displayed boldly on the video screen with the word bad underlined. And this isn’t some fundamentalist sect, this is mainstream evangelicalism.

I understand the gravity of sin and the fact that we are capable of incredible evil. Sin distorts our ability to know God, and in our unbelief and alienation, we act out of selfish, impure, and sometimes evil motives. I also understand that we are not saved, redeemed, or justified by our own goodness; that apart from the saving grace of Jesus, there is nothing we can do to rescue ourselves.

Do you really think the core of God’s message to us is that we are bad people?

This is what I see in Scripture:

• I am a child of God
• I am a friend of Jesus.
• My old self was crucified with Christ.
• I am not condemned by God.
• I have been set free from the law of sin and death.
• I am a new creature in Christ.
• I have become the righteousness of God in Christ.
• I am chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.
• I am redeemed and forgiven by the grace of Christ.
• Because of God’s mercy and love, I have been made alive with Christ.
• I am seated in the heavenly places with Christ.
• I am God’s workmanship created for good works.
• I have been brought near to God by the blood of Christ.
• My life is hidden with Christ in God.
• God loves me and has chosen me.

Does this mean that I think I am good? No, it means I know my value and worth are based in the love of my Creator. His love both exposes and heals the brokenness in my life. Our message to the world is that they are reconciled to God, they are already loved and embraced by the Father. That is the truth.

Truth matters.