The Cross: The Suffering Of God "“ Part 1 of 2

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That's moodymedia.org forward slash matching, or you can call us at 1-888-218-9337. Today, we begin an awesome look at how far God went to provide redemption for a lost mankind. Stay with us. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, some think electing the right guy will stave off national disaster, but the greater disaster is missing the redemption Jesus offers. Dave, I want to emphasize that electing the best person is very important.

We don't want to downplay that, but as your question indicates and as the introduction mentioned, it is not supremely important. What this world really needs is a fresh look at the cross of Jesus Christ, and that's why I preach these messages. Let me ask you a question. Those of you who listen to this broadcast, especially to those who listen regularly, have you ever considered becoming an endurance partner? That's someone who stands with us regularly with their prayers and their gifts. Well, here's what you do to get some info. Go to RTWOffer.com.

That's RTWOffer.com, and when you're there, you click on the endurance partner button or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Well, let us listen now and remember where our priority should be. God cares about the world. Now there's a statement that is part of evangelical theology. Everyone knows that God cares about the world. But what if you meet a skeptic, somebody who doesn't believe that?

To what are you going to point? You're going to point to nature and say, well, God gives us rain and sun and crops so that we can eat? Well, that's wonderful, but nature also gives us tornadoes and floods and hail storms and earthquakes that devastate and that tear and drought. Can't look at nature and believe that God loves us. You're going to point to other human beings and say, well, we know that God loves the world because we see love in others and therefore there must be love in God.

Well, you and I know that for every person who is generous, there's one who is not generous, somebody who is stingy and greedy and small minded. We read the newspaper and we look at television and we see all of the devastation, the wars, the heartache, the terrible things that have been done by human beings. And nobody can convince me that God is love just because I look at a person or persons. Where do we look when we see love and say, that's it, it's there. There's only one point at which we can do that, and that is the cross. It's the cross. Because it is there at the cross that God overcame our skepticism. It is there that God demonstrated his love toward us finally and completely and unambiguously.

Now we live in a very cynical age, don't we? There are many people who believe that Christianity has failed the world and they think that we have to get a new religion. And some of us struggle because we see that God does not intervene in the heartaches of life and we're tempted to wonder what kind of a God is it in whom we have come to trust.

I agree completely with C.S. Lewis. When he said that his fear is not to wake up some morning and disbelieve in God, that will probably not happen, Lewis says. His greater fear is to wake up and realize that he believes such dreadful things about him. That's our problem. Have not all of us as we have seen the carnage of this world and we've seen the suffering and the injustice sometimes cried out in the depths of our heart, Oh God, you can't really care.

You don't care. We've all said it, have we not? And yet we are commanded to take the cross into the world. And that is the emphasis in this series of messages. What kind of a cross do we set before the world? What do we say to a world who says that I don't matter?

People say, how can we look them in the eye and say, yes, you matter because God cares. Well, today we're going to hopefully see why the cross of Christ is the answer to the inner turmoil of finding a God to whom we really do matter. Now, as we go on this journey, I'm going to begin with some very familiar territory, but as we progress, the territory will become more unfamiliar, I believe. And I want you to be with me all the way.

Don't stop to smell the flowers along the way. Stick with us. First of all, two very familiar passages of scripture, and then I shall ask you to turn to Isaiah chapter 53. In fact, if you wish to, you can turn to Isaiah 53 right now. But two familiar passages. The first is 2 Corinthians 5 19.

Just listen to it. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. And then another. He bore in his own body our sins upon the tree. So I look at Isaiah chapter 53. I see three descriptive words. They are not found in the text, but they are words that describe what is happening here. A passage of scripture which someone says Isaiah wrote as if he were sitting at the very foot of the cross.

And there he sits and he writes about Jesus Christ dying there for us. The first word that I see is the word substitution. Substitution. Now, you know, of course, that the idea of substitution is found throughout the whole Bible. In the early chapters of Genesis, when God killed animals and clothed Adam and Eve, those animals were a substitute. They died so that Adam and Eve would have a covering.

And then you get to Isaac. Abraham was willing to sacrifice him on Mount Moriah. And when he found a ram instead, the scripture says he offered the ram in the place of his son, a type of Jesus Christ who is to come. And we get to the Passover and the lamb that was slain and the blood that was put upon the doorpost of the houses. That lamb was killed in the place of the firstborn. But of course, lambs and rams do not take away sin.

Only God can do that. And so here we have now the language of substitution. I pick it up in verse three. Speaking of Christ, he was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And like one from whom men hid their face, he was despised and we did not esteem him. Surely our griefs he himself bore and our sorrows he carried. Yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But it was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our well-being fell upon him. And by his scourging, we are healed.

He did it for us. Now when God looked around, if we may use human language, and was looking for a substitute for humanity, animals couldn't do it, human beings couldn't do it. God says that he is going to have to do it himself if mankind is to have a qualified substitute.

The Son of God will have to pay the penalty so that that penalty will be sufficient. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. An author by the name of Canfield wrote, God proposed to direct against his very own self in the person of his son the full weight of the righteous wrath which we deserved. You see, God became both a judge and the substitute. He condemned us, he pointed out our sin, and then he paid for the sin that he brought to our attention. That's the heart of the gospel. He bore our sins in his own body on the tree. Now isn't it true that just a week or two ago, there was a woman who threw herself over the body of her son as the car was coming toward her and she was killed and the son lived?

That's substitution. Jehovah bade his sword awake, O Christ, it woke against thee. Thy open bosom was its ward, it braved the storm. For me, Christ took the hit that belongs to us. And that's the essence of the gospel. Yesterday, coming back from St. Louis on an airplane, God put me next to a woman who needed to hear this. Had a wonderful talk about her life, but it soon drifted to Christ. And she said, how can you be so sure that if this plane goes down, you're going to be in heaven? Where does the assurance lie? She was a good woman.

I told her lovingly that she was a good woman, but not good enough for God. That she needed to trust Christ. Where is the assurance? I said it is the deep, settled conviction that when Jesus died on the cross, he did everything that God will ever demand of me. And that there is nothing that God will demand that Christ has not already done on my behalf, and I have embraced that as my own.

Now that is assurance. It's the language of substitution. There's a second descriptive word for Isaiah 53, and that is the word submission. Speaking of Christ, it says in verse 7, he was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so he did not open his mouth. Now when the Bible says that Jesus went to his death like a lamb, don't think that this means that Jesus was as weak as a lamb.

No, no, no, he had all kinds of options that he didn't take. But it was the symbol of submission. He submitted to the will of the Father, and he submitted therefore to the violence and to the injustice and to the cruelty of man, and allowed himself to be nailed to the cross without so much as really a whimper.

He did not try to get out of the cross on which he knew he must die. But now we come to a, what shall we say, a misrepresentation that many of us are easily guilty of. It is easy for us to think that it was Christ's idea to redeem humanity, and a benevolent Lord Jesus convinced God the Father that if he, that is to say Christ, were to die, then the Father could be appeased, and a reluctant Father said, all right, if you want to die for these people, fine.

I will accept your sacrifice. It's easy to fall into that error, and to think that somehow God was not involved in this. All that he did is he took all of his anger against us, and he directed it toward Christ, and he was appeased, but he was not really a part of the loving process.

It's easy to think that, but that's wrong, that's wrong. Do you realize that the Bible repeatedly says it is because of God's loving kindness toward us that we are redeemed? The most famous verse, John 3.16, For God so loved the world that he gave, God was not simply the recipient of Jesus Christ's sacrifice, though he was that, he was a part of the love that drew salvation's plan.

John Stott put it very succinctly. He said the Father did not lay on the Son an ordeal he was reluctant to bear, nor did the Son extract from the Father as salvation he was reluctant to bestow. Think about this. The Trinity was united at creation, wasn't it? If the Trinity was united with one will and one voice and one purpose at creation, how much more so in something much more grand, namely, redemption? The entire Godhead was involved. The will of the Father and the will of the Son coincided in the perfect self-sacrifice of love.

God loved the world. There is the language here of submission, but it is a mutual submission to accomplish the task of redemption. There's a third word, and that is, of course, the word suffering. I won't reread any of these passages, and unfortunately we don't have time to go through the entire chapter, but clearly it is a story of suffering. Jesus Christ suffered. He bore our griefs. He was stricken. He was smitten of God, yes, and afflicted. It pleased the Lord to bruise him. Clearly, Christ suffered. Now I want to ask you a question. Did God the Father suffer?

Did he or did he not? You know, throughout the centuries, theologians have debated this, and they have come up with the impassibility of God. Not impossibility, but impassibility. Don't you like it the way theologians, they love big words so that you and I can come along and try to figure out what it is that they mean.

But there's an idea there. The word impassible means that he is unaffected either by pleasure or pain. And they argue that based on the immutability of God, the fact that the Lord does not change, that therefore he cannot be subject to the pushes and pulls of emotions like we as human beings, and therefore God is beyond all of the pleasures and the pains of this world. And actually that error, and it is an error, has led to the idea that somehow Jesus is compassionate, but the Father isn't.

Well, let me ask you a question today. Is the Father compassionate? Or is the Father passive and detached, unaffected by our humanness and our dilemma? There is a passage, and there are many passages, but let me read simply one to you.

Now listen, this is God the Father, this is Jehovah speaking, and you answer whether or not God is a God of deep pathos and emotion. How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I surrender you, O Israel? How can I make you like Adama?

How can I treat you like Zebabium? My heart is turned over within me. All my compassions are kindled. I will not execute my fierce anger. I will not destroy Ephraim again, for I am God and not a man, the Holy One who is in your midst, and I will not come in my wrath. Does God have emotion? He is a being with deep emotion. Far from being untouched by the human dilemma, he is one who not only knows what we are going through, but he is keenly aware of pain, having endured it himself. You say, well, does not this impinge on the sovereignty of God? I mean, is God the victim of emotions just like we are?

The answer is no. Here's the difference. You see, you and I are subject to emotions because of circumstances that we cannot control. God is not a jilted lover. He's not someone who wishes he wouldn't have to endure pain, but things kind of got out of control, and what is he to do? He has to endure it as best he can. No, God is one who has voluntarily and willingly chosen to suffer.

It was a choice. He did not have to. He had the option of creating a whole bunch of other worlds, worlds in which there was no sin, worlds in which there was no fall, but he chose this particular world because he said, I voluntarily choose suffering, and that's why he remains God. He remains God completely. He remains God because it was the consent of the Godhead to suffer. Let us just simply say boldly that when you see Christ on the cross, you see God on the cross. Jesus said, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. Is it true to say that God died for man? P.T. Forsythe said, God dying for man, I am not afraid of that phrase.

In fact, I cannot do without it. Unthinkable. The Son would suffer on the cross, and the Father not suffer. Of course, it's very important to emphasize that even though God died on the cross, that Jesus Christ was not God the Father.

It's the mystery of the Trinity that we must try to understand. Well, even as you are listening to these messages, I want to ask you a question. Do you rejoice in the fact that the ministry of running to win goes around the world? We're in 50 different countries in seven different languages.

Why? Well, our motivation, of course, is to get the gospel as far as we possibly can, but we are doing it because of people just like you. Would you consider becoming an endurance partner? That's someone who stands with us regularly with their prayers and their gifts. Of course, you say, Pastor Lutzer, I need some info. So here's what you do. Go to rtwofferer.com. That's rtwofferer.com.

When you're there, you click on the endurance partner button, or if you prefer, you can pick up the phone right now and call 1-888-218-9337. Thanks in advance for helping us. Thank you so much for your prayers. It's time again for another chance for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life.

The consequences of sin can be heartbreaking, and today Homer from North Carolina tells us this story. I need reconciliation with my wife who hasn't talked with me for three years. For five years, she witnessed to me and prayed for me continuously. It wasn't until I was arrested for a sex crime that I repented of my sins and had to confess to her that I had been unfaithful to our marriage. The Lord answered her prayers for my salvation, but not in the way she planned it. Although I'm now in prison, I'm growing in the Lord, and my heart belongs to Him.

She hasn't divorced me, but we have no communication. If I had not come to prison, I would never have come to Christ, but would have stayed on the path to hell. I want to be reconciled to her so we can grow in the Lord together. So now I'm the one praying for her, as she did for me for so many years. Well Dave, isn't it interesting that no matter how many questions we answer, everyone is unique, everyone is different. And here we have one that is very puzzling because on the one hand we see the grace of God in saving this man, and at the same time we see the ravages of sin.

So Homer, a couple of comments. First of all, I want you to continue to keep demonstrating to your wife that as a believer you are truthful, loving, and deeply repentant. You have to keep that up. Secondly, you have to spend some time in your wife's shoes. She's been deeply wounded. I mean, during these years, as you yourself confessed, you were being untrue to her, and that has just ravaged her faith and her trust in you.

So understand that. I'm glad that she hasn't divorced you yet because I think there is still hope for your marriage. But I think it is very important that you seek some counsel for yourself and from her. Even though you are in prison, maybe you can get in touch with her pastor or a friend who can speak to her. This pastor or friend can say things to her that she might not want to hear from you. And she needs to understand the depth of your own repentance and genuine transformation in God's presence. And remember this, Homer, even though we can't control the response of others, and there is no guarantee of how your wife will ever proceed or respond, it's important that your own actions be honoring before the Lord no matter what. You know, I think of Proverbs. I think it's chapter 21, verse 3 that tells us, do what is right and just and acceptable to the Lord.

In fact, it says that to do that is better than sacrifice. God bless you, brother. I pray that your wife and you will be reconciled. Thank you, Dr. Lutzer. If you'd like to hear your question answered, go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click there on Ask Pastor Lutzer. Or you can call us with your question at 1-888-218-9337.

That's 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Outside of Jerusalem one day, Jesus the Messiah died. Then, as now, people passed by, not realizing the eternal consequences of what was happening on that cruel Roman cross. Next time on Running to Win, we'll turn again to Isaiah chapter 53, that great prophecy of a suffering servant. We'll explore again the wonder of that supreme sacrifice and why its implications mean much more for our lives today than who wins in the upcoming elections. Running to Win is all about helping you understand God's roadmap for your race of life. This is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.