How to Recognize True Repentance #2

Remember, beloved, remember that Jesus said in John chapter 10, no one takes my life away from me. I lay it down of my own accord.

I do this voluntarily. What kind of man does that? Since or before the coming of Christ to die on the cross for our sins, there has never been a man to compare. The perfect God-man who knew no sin took our punishment so that we might be restored to a right relationship with God. That's what Pastor Don Green will call us to fully realize today on The Truth Pulpit. Hi, I'm Bill Wright and Don is finishing up a message titled The Cross of Christ drawn from Psalm 22. Last time Don told us that the crucifixion could be broken down into three parts.

The first was the problem of our Lord's suffering. Today we'll see prayer and praise added to the picture. So turn to Psalm 22 in your Bible and let's join Don now in The Truth Pulpit. Psalm 22 shows that Christ modeled a persistent trust. Psalm 22 verse 9, he says, yet you are he who brought me forth from the womb. He says, despite this rejection that is going on around me in the way that they sneer at me, I remember who you are, my Father. You are he who brought me forth from the womb. You made me trust when upon my mother's breasts.

Upon you I was cast from birth. You have been my God from my mother's womb. Notice again that he says, this Psalm opened up, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

This wasn't the first time that he'd ever thought that or said that. Here in this verse we see that he was thinking of the Father as my God from the very beginning of his earthly life, the beginning of his incarnation. My God, my God, my God. It's written throughout the Psalm.

In that trust and from that position of trust, there's a spirit of prayer that comes forth in verse 11. Be not far from me, for trouble is near, for there is none to help. Be not far from me expresses the urgency and the sense of the abandonment and the separation. Oh, the sorrow is particularly intense now. Don't be far from me in the midst of my hour of my greatest needs.

I need help now. And he goes on and he describes his enemies like strong animals, using metaphors to describe them like strong animals that were surrounding him for the kill. Verse 12, many bulls have surrounded me. Strong bulls of Baishon have encircled me.

And then we go on and we see they open wide their mouth at me as a ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax.

It is melted within me. His physical strength is dissipating as the hour of death draws near. The intensity of his thirst even is spoken of in this passage. You remember from the Gospel of John, he said from the cross, I thirst. Here's the maker of heaven and earth, the one who separated the heavens from the earth, the one who created the oceans, who controls the skies and controls the rain.

And he says, I'm thirsty. How deep is the humiliation? How deep is the self-sacrifice that would give him over to a suffering like that? Remember, beloved, remember that Jesus said in John chapter 10, no one takes my life away from me. I lay it down of my own accord.

I do this voluntarily. What kind of man does that for those who hate him? Verse 15, my strength is dried up like a potsherd. My tongue cleaves to my jaw and you lay me in the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me. Dogs at that time were not the friendly domesticated animals that we know as dogs today.

They were wild, savage scavengers. So you have these evil, wicked men crucifying him, calling out, mocking him, having spat on him, having crushed the crown of his head with the crown of thorns, mocking him, beating him, blindfolding him. And in a stunning prophecy of the crucifixion in verse 16, this psalm was written centuries before crucifixion was invented as a form of capital punishment. Verse 16, they pierced my hands and my feet.

I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me. They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. Look over at John 19, verse 23. John 19, verse 23. Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, you're seeing the fulfillment of Psalm 22 recorded a thousand years later. A thousand years later, you know, a thousand years for us was like 400 years before Columbus came and discovered the Americas.

That's how long the time passed. That's how profound Scripture is. That's how perfectly God sees the future.

It's how much he controls the future that he can speak, and a thousand years later, his word is fulfilled to perfection in every detail. So much in this psalm. John 19, verse 23. The soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his outer garments and made four parts, a part to every soldier and also the tunic.

Now the tunic was seamless woven in one piece. So they said to one another, these Roman soldiers fulfilling the prophecies without even knowing it, just going about their normal business and yet fulfilling the hand of what God prophesied. So they said to one another, let us not tear it but cast lots for it to decide whose it shall be. This was to fulfill the Scripture.

They divided my outer garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots. Therefore the soldiers did these things. And so the dislocated bones, thirst, the pierced hands and feet, the division of clothing, it all came to pass during the suffering of our Lord. Listen, beloved, what I want you to see is that whatever importance we attach to those things as events in our society, what we're seeing here from Psalm 22 is of of infinitely greater importance, infinitely greater value. It's of much more enduring significance than all of those things and anything else you could throw into the pot with them combined. Because there is no one more important in the universe than Jesus Christ. There is no event in the course of human history more important than his crucifixion, his act of redemption on behalf of sinners. And so shouldn't we as believers in Christ at least for at least for a time just set all of this other stuff aside and give this act of Christ and his sufferings on our behalf the unique prominence and the unique affection that it alone deserves. This puts everything into perspective.

It puts everything into context. And for the believing heart we see this is where the supremacy of my affections lie. I don't like the other stuff and I enjoy certain things in life but it's all secondary to the magnificence of this suffering servant, to the purity of this innocent lamb slain for sinners like me and like you, to the caring oversight of this shepherd who was slain for his sheep.

Kind of takes your breath away doesn't it? So we've seen the the problem of Christ's suffering here in these first 18 verses and now we're going to pivot into our second point prayer in Christ's suffering. The prayer in Christ's suffering in this desperate condition in which he found himself. Christ prays. David penned this and Christ modeled it later on as we'll see briefly. So this prayer comes in the midst of all of this mocking of his enemies.

This prayer comes. But you, oh Lord, they're counting, he can count his bones, they're dividing his garments, his last earthly possession is a matter of a dice game to pagan soldiers. The eternal Son of God. I can't get over this. I can't get over the fact that we're describing what happened to the eternal holy eternal Son of God.

I can't get over it. How does he respond in the midst of that utter rejection and abandonment? Verse 19, he's still manifesting an unconditional trust in his father. He says, but you, oh Lord, be not far off. Oh you, my help, hasten to my assistance. Deliver my soul from the sword, my only life from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion's mouth, from the horns of the wild oxen.

You answer me. And so in the midst of this, he's declaring his trust in God and calling upon him and saying, answer me. And this prayer marks a decisive turning point in the psalm. Beforehand, in the first 18 verses, you see an alternation between his cries of trust and a description of the suffering. Here in verses 19 through 21, as one commentator says, the alternate cries and prayers give way to praise and to a broadening of God's perfect rule. Notice here in these three verses that in the midst of the suffering, there is a complete unbroken confidence. As he calls for help, he calls him on the name of the covenant name, the promise-keeping name of Yahweh and says, hasten to my assistance.

In verse 21 he says, from the horns of the wild oxen, you answer me. There's a spirit of confidence that God will hear his prayer, God has heard his prayer, and he will not abandon him forever to the suffering, despite all external appearances to the contrary. What's he doing here except committing himself over to the care of God and saying, you're the only one who can help me here. You remember praying to like that in times in your own experience where things were utterly impossible and you finally turned to God humbled and in your own in the fullness of your heart saying, you're the only one who can help me here, God. I remember a time or two like that, I'm sure you do too, if you've been a Christian for any length of time. And out of the depth of sorrow and the sense that there is no human help to be had here and perhaps people stronger than you had the authority and the upper hand over you and you just cried out to God in an expression of trust. Well, Christ mirrored this on the cross.

We happened to comment on this first last time. When did Christ manifest this during the crucifixion? Luke 23 46, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. He hands himself over to God in a complete act of trust and then he breathed his last. He had gone through the separation and now the time for his earthly life to end had come and even in that most desperate moment from a human perspective he says, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. Father, I'm confident that you will answer me.

And what comes from that? Well, the contrast in mood in in verses 22 to 31 are astounding. It's overwhelming just to see the contrast of what flows from this because having seen the problem of Christ's suffering and the prayer in Christ's suffering, now in the third part of this psalm we're going to see the praise from Christ's suffering.

This is this is a total redirection of of mood and tone and intent in what follows. And what you see in this in this final section of the psalm is you see an ever expanding circle of worship and praise given to the God who granted deliverance to his Son. What we're about to see here is that the Lord who suffered in isolation, that suffering gave over to praise that echoes into the future still today, that echoes in ever expanding circles of peoples, and that that singularly great act of trust was honored by God in a way that brings glory to him and also to his Christ.

The suffering yielded over to triumph of incalculable proportions and unspeakable suffering gave way to to an infinite degree of praise. Our Father honored our Savior's suffering, honored his trust in ways that we're going to see now. Verses 22 and 23 flowing from this trust is a commitment to praise. I will tell of your name to my brethren in the midst of the assembly I will praise you. Now look how the circle starts to expand it was individual I will praise you and then and then he calls other God fearers around you who fear the Lord praise him. All you descendants of Jacob glorify him and stand in awe of him all you descendants of Israel. In Christ, in Christ we have a brother who has brought us to the glory of God. Look over at Hebrews 2 and see how the New Testament applies these verses to what we have just read. The application that the writer of Hebrews makes Hebrews chapter 2 verses 10 through 12 recognizing the glory of Christ. And in verse 22 from Psalm 22 he'd said I will tell of your name to my brethren now in verse 10 of Hebrews chapter 2.

Hope you're able to stay with me here. Says for it was fitting for him for whom are all things and through whom are all things in bringing many sons to glory to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings for both he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one father for which reason he meaning Christ is not ashamed to call them brethren. Unbelievable.

This is just incredible. Saying I will proclaim your name to my brethren in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise and again I will put my trust in him. The outcome of the sufferings of Christ, the intention to which he was submitting himself to those sufferings was so that he could gather together a people, gather together those that the father had chosen before the beginning of time and to save them so completely and so utterly that he would rightly, gladly, unashamedly call people like you and me who now believe in him brothers. This one who transcended in his humanity this perfect man who suffered on our behalf our sins drove him as it were to the cross that one now gladly calls us brothers gladly receives us as intimate family and because of that we praise his father we praise the name of our Lord Jesus we are captivated by the glory and the love and the grace and the mercy that has been shown to us in our sins and we love him with all our hearts we worship him from the depths of our being let goods and kindred go this mortal life also nothing will take us away from that supreme affection of our heart that we reserve alone for the Lord Jesus after what he has done. You know why Christ can call us brethren? It's because his father did not abandon him at the cross just like Jesus knew he would do Jesus knew that he would not abandon him even though he was giving over his life and entering into death he knew that the father would not abandon him he knew that the father had not despised him as all those around him had done verse 24 of Psalm 22 you who fear the Lord praise him why verse 24 for he is not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted nor has he hidden his face from him but when he cried to him for help he heard oh that's so sweet and precious the father having just poured out the wrath that should have been on us onto his son because he loves us and wanted to wanted to redeem us and as he's pouring out wrath undeserved wrath on his son that it might be spared to us in the midst of that the son continues to trust him and commit his spirit over to him well when the wrath was spent the father heard that cry for help and was faithful to rush to answer what do we do we worship this great god of mercy we honor him we recognize that he is both the object and even the source of our praise verse 25 from you comes my praise in the great assembly i shall pay my vows before those who fear him verse 26 who will share in that verse 26 the afflicted will eat and be satisfied those those poor ones those poor in spirit those that the world despises they'll share in the joy they'll they'll they'll share in the feast who else will share in it those who seek him will praise the lord oh let your heart live forever and so the it's expanded he said i will i will tell your name you who fear the lord oh israel and jacob you come and join in in the great assembly and it expands still further the greatness of this psalm transcends the suffering and the prophecies of christ to look to the fulfillment of the fruit that it brings all the ends of the earth verse 27 will remember and turn to the lord and all the families of the nations will worship before you verse 28 for the kingdom is the lord's and he rules over the nations it's not just the afflicted though all the prosperous of the earth will eat and worship look at verses 30 and 31 posterity will serve him it will be told of the lord to the coming generation they will come and will declare his righteousness to a people who will be born that he has performed it look at the end of verse 31 they will hear that he has performed it that echoes again what christ said on the cross it is finished it has been done it is accomplished john 1930 and so the son of god was alone with our sin guilt and punishment and in that forsaken epical moment in time what was he doing he did that for the redemption of the sinful human race and what do we say in response oh how praise be to this god praise be to this christ let the story never cease past generations told us past generations delivered the story to us today and what will we do we will tell others who will go forth and tell still others yet to be born about this glory that this christ who was once abandoned is now the solitary hope and praise of sinners the solitary hope and praise of nations a poignant message of self-sacrifice and ultimate love all displayed by jesus christ on calvary we pray you'll reflect on today's lesson all through this year pastor don green has more powerful words from scripture next time and we hope you'll join us then on the truth pulpit well don this radio broadcast is indeed a valuable tool to help increase biblical understanding but we have other great tools available too don't we we want to do everything we can to help you receive god's word into your life there's a lot of resources available for you to take advantage of on our website all of my weekly sermons are available for easy access via our podcast and there are also free study guides for some messages to help you or your church group study god's word on your own you can find all of those things when you go to the place that bill's going to point you to right now just visit us at the truth pulpit.com for address and service information there you'll also find a link to don's facebook page you can also download don's messages to hear again at your convenience that's the truth pulpit.com i'm bill wright inviting you back next time when don green presents more from the truth pulpit