"Easter Eggs: The Hidden Stories of Easter" Week 3

In Week 3 of “Easter Eggs — The Hidden Stories of Easter,” Pastor Jake unpacked the moment the temple veil was torn at Jesus’ death. He highlighted how this overlooked detail shows God removing every barrier between Himself and His people. The tearing of the veil signaled open access to His presence for all. It was a powerful reminder that because of Jesus, we can come to God freely and confidently.  Join is this Sunday for the final installment of the series. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Where we're all about equipping God's people to change their world. We're thankful you're here, and we're praying that this message encourages you to love God, love others, and love the world more fervently than before. Now, let's get to it.

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Morning, man at church. He's risen. He is risen.

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I'll tell you, baptisms this morning were really cool. We were seeing people follow Jesus buried in his death and raised in newness of life in the same way that he did when John baptized him. And uh it was cool. We did it right at sunrise. The water wasn't too cold. I know it might have looked like that. The water was actually pretty good. But uh man, Easter is such a special time, and it is such an amazing progression if you look at the entire story and all the text that we have. You know, we we talk a lot about the lead up to it. We talk about all the things that Jesus did, how he trained his disciples, and how he prepared them for what was about to happen. He went to Gethsemane and he prayed in Gethsemane and labored over what was about to happen, how he was betrayed by one of his closest companions, and then turned over to the Romans to be beaten and mocked and crucified, but he rose. Because all that gets us to today, right? All of that, it gets us to today. This is the moment that all Christianity hangs on. Because without the resurrection, there is no Christianity. And so I'm glad that you guys are here with us in the room today. And if you're joining us online, I'm so glad that you're here with us as well. Um I'll tell you, I think for Easter, a lot of times we can miss the beauty of what we celebrate in the routine of the holiday. If we're not careful, we can take for granted just how special it is with all the pageantry and everything that we do. And so this morning, what I want to do is I want to take some time to reflect, and I really want to, I really want to sit in one particular aspect of the text that we've got today. Um, because there's some fine details, and Jesus, man, he did so much on the cross. There's so much work that he did, and I think that we can often we can overlook just how different life would be for us had he not went to the cross, had he not done what he did, how he did it. And so this morning we're gonna we're gonna look at the cross, one of these briefly mentioned points, and it's got huge meaning for us today. We're in a series where we've been going back to different spots in the gospels, and we're pulling out some hidden truths, Easter eggs, if you will. And uh those are usually overlooked or sometimes they're missed because you know you kind of have to piece things together to comprehend what's happening. So we're gonna go through a lot of text today, and I'm gonna piece this together, and I hope what's gonna happen is you're gonna get a deeper revelation of what it is that Jesus did for you. And if if you don't know Jesus, I hope you're gonna understand for the first time maybe just how powerful the events of the cross were and just exactly what it is that he did. We're gonna we're gonna talk about one particular line, all three of the synoptic gospels, that's Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all three of them include it. And you know, there's lots of details that one of them include and the others don't, but all three of them included this detail that we're gonna hit today. Why? It's super, super important. So before we get ahead of ourselves, what I what I do wanna do, because I know we've got a lot of guests in the room. So uh if you're new to church or if you're joining us online and you have never heard about the events of Easter, or maybe you're just curious, uh I don't want to skip too quickly ahead to get to the fine prayer, because we're gonna dig into some really, really deep stuff today. So, so the events of this week, Easter, is is what all of Christianity hangs on. What we believe and and what the Bible teaches, and even what historical records and even other faiths believe parts of is that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, he was conceived by God, he lived on this earth for 30 plus years, he lived blameless before God and blameless before men. That he he fulfilled all the requirements of the law, and then he was turned over, he was betrayed on false charges, he was put to death in the most gruesome way imaginable, and then on Good Friday, just a couple days ago, we marked the anniversary of that. But the good news and the greatest news is that we know that three days later Jesus rose from the dead. Amen? Death couldn't keep him down. The gospel records his resurrection on Sunday morning, and non-Christian historians of his day, they even write about Jesus' resurrection. Did you know that? Josephus even wrote about it, wrote about Jesus who was resurrected. It's amazing. Um, his disciples, they saw it with their own eyes, they believed it to be true, even to the point where they would confess it and profess it to people, and they were persecuted, they were mocked. Many of his other followers, they were mocked to the point of death. That's how sure they were that the events that we're talking about this morning actually happened. It's amazing. And so, what I'm gonna talk about today is one of the many details that were so significant to the men and women that would die rather than deny the authenticity of the cross. So, in fact, um what we'll see here is that at the cross, it was so powerful that even Jesus' executioners couldn't deny the authenticity of what happened. Even they professed that he must be the Son of God after they saw the events. And so my hope is that if you've already experienced Jesus, today will be a day where you experience him in a new and a deeper way. And if you haven't, I hope today to introduce you to my Savior. If you decide to believe in him, it will be the best decision you ever make, and it will change your life. So we're gonna begin at the end at the cross where Jesus breathes his last breath. We're gonna start in Luke chapter 22 in verse 44. It says, now it was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun's light failed. Okay, so six to nine, when we when we hear that, we might think six to nine during in in our time. That's actually not what it was saying. The sixth hour was actually noon. So this was noon to three o'clock, the sun's light failed. It was dark. Imagine that. These three men are getting crucified, and the lights go out. Darkness over the whole land. It's actually uh Thallus, he's a first century historian, he tried to write it off because he recorded that it happened as well. He tried to write it off as an eclipse. The problem is it was a full moon during that period, so it really doesn't hold water. There was something else that was actually happening. And Luke goes on and records another detail. He says, And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. This isn't a small detail, it's a huge detail. We're gonna we're gonna talk about this more and in just a little bit, you're gonna understand why. Then Jesus, after all this happened, Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. And having said this, he breathed his last. Now, when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, Certainly this man was innocent. Just think for a second about the impact of that. This man, he was a party to the murder of Jesus. He was a part of it. And he has this moment of revelation and conversion. That's how significant everything that was happening in that moment was for him. He saw it all happening. And Pilate, his boss, Pilate had sent Jesus to the cross, had told him, Listen, you're gonna crucify this guy. It was a miscarriage of justice, and this man actually saw it. Matthew, who was an eyewitness to all of it, he actually records a very similar account. He gives us a little bit more details. So, chapter 27, starting in verse 50, it says, And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. He includes this detail as well. It's really important. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. So it's not just a darkness, it's actually an earthquake as well. Lots of lots of amazing things happening here. We actually have an account from another historian in the second century. He wrote about a great darkness and a massive earthquake. Again, these aren't necessarily Christians, these are just historians talking about the things that happened during their time. He talked about a great darkness and an earthquake during the time of Tiberius Caesar. Tiberius Caesar reigned from 17 AD to 37 A.D., and we know that Jesus was crucified between 30 and 33 A.D. So he was ruling during this time. And we have a historical account. And listen, look, look what else happens. This is crazy. The tombs were also opened. Many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. Wow. And coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. You may be like, Jay, okay, this is getting crazy now. You're talking about zombies. This is nuts. This is this is a biblical account. You may think, do you actually believe this? With 100% confidence, I will tell you, yes, I absolutely believe it. I absolutely believe what the word of God says. I absolutely believe that I serve a miracle-working God. In fact, that's what our church believes. We believe that God does the miraculous. Still today, even, he does the miraculous. And listen, we're celebrating a dramatically miraculous event today, aren't we? In fact, man, I don't have time to go back into all the testimonies. If you want, you can go back and listen to some of our messages from previous weeks. God has been doing powerful things in our fellowship. Healings. People having tumors just gone. People who were on their deathbed being healed. Crazy things happening. He still does it today. And see, when when the people in Jesus' time saw these miraculous events, this is what they did. Verse 54, it says, When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, Truly, this was the Son of God. When the miraculous happens, that's what our response is: to worship Jesus. Mark, he also gives us an account and he includes the same interesting point that we're going to camp on. Verse 38 and chapter 15, he says, The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. You know, you get excited about Easter eggs, and this is our Easter egg for today. You get excited about Easter eggs because of what's inside the egg. Right? When you open it up and you unpack it, usually there's a prize or maybe some money. That would be nice. We always had a lot of change. Easter was when I got tons of change from my grandparents. And so this one line, we see it repeated three times in the gospel records. So there's gotta be something good. God planted it here for us to find it. So I want to open it up. I want to dig into it. And listen, we're gonna do some, we're gonna do some deep work today. So I hope you guys are ready. We're gonna get into some Leviticus, some Genesis. So so buckle up. So what's the significance of this specific line? What's the importance of the curtain being ripped? Why do Matthew and Mark go on to specify from top to bottom that the veil was ripped? We even sang about it in a couple songs today. A lot of times we say things and they're they're they have deep, deep meaning, but we don't actually comprehend just how powerful it is, the reality that we're singing about. See, the veil, it was a barrier. It was a physical means of separating everyone, even the priests, in the in the Jewish tradition, from something called the most holy place. I'll explain more what that means here in a minute. And so when you think about what this veil, what this curtain was, it's not like drapes that you have in your house, okay? We got a little picture of it here. This is a massive curtain. All right? It's at least 30 feet wide by 30 feet high. There's no seam down the middle. It was at least four inches thick. Okay, so these are heavy drapes. Some some uh scholars suggest that it would be three times that thick, like 12 inches thick. And there wasn't just one veil, there was actually two veils. This is some really, really heavy drapes. Okay? And and the only way to get into this most holy place, you couldn't go through the veil. You actually had to go around it. The priest would skirt around it, he would go in between the two veils, and he would kind of serpentine himself through the two veils, and then he would go back around the other side of the wall and get into the most holy place. And he actually would only do it one time a year because behind it was the only place that God ordained that his presence would dwell among men. Not even the most high priest had access. Nobody had direct access except on one day. You ever have a room in your house when you were a kid growing up that mom and dad were like, you can't go in that room? But we have our garages like that now, it's because it's a mess. So my kids are not allowed in it, and it actually makes them want to go into it even more because it's so messy. Um, but you know, like you get this, right? You've got you've got different areas that are protected and secured. I know we got a lot of military and and government folks in here. You've got skiffs that you go in, and only certain people with certain privileges, certain tickets can go behind those doors. And you've got the first class seating on an airplane, or if you go to Vegas, I've been to Vegas, High Rollers Lounge. Don't judge me, I'll explain. Right? When you go to Vegas, only special people can get into the high rollers lounge. I went there, I was working for the DOD, I was I was going to investigate which hotel would be the best one for us to have a conference at. And so this lady who was the sales rep really wanted me to have a really good experience while I was there. So she gave me this black diamond card. It was awesome. Okay? So uh I got to go to Paris, Planet Hollywood, Caesars Palace, there were a whole bunch of other ones. I checked out all the conference rooms and all these all these hotels, and of course, like she fed me just ridiculous food. There was a 72-ounce tomahawk steak that I mean, couldn't even eat a third of it. It was massive, but I I got to get uh valet parking at every single one of the casinos. I got to go into every single one of the high rollers lounges, just show my black card, and I walk right in. Um, there was even at Caesar's Palace, they had this spa. It was like a Roman bath spa. It was so cool. Like I called them and said that I was, I asked if I could come. I was like, I got a black diamond card. And so they're like, yeah, sure. So I come down. They knew it was me when I walked down the hall. They're like, Mr. Johnson, your robe and your slippers are waiting for you. It was nuts. I felt so privileged to be able to go behind those doors and experience what was there. And also sometimes you have barriers for things that are dangerous, right? So if you go out to Wuhan, hopefully they got some barriers there, don't they? Right? They're closing in while they're doing some virus testing. You don't want any of that to get out. And so sometimes you protect things because it's sacred. Other times you protect it because it could be dangerous. And actually, the veil did both. It did both. It was a privileged place to be, and it also could be a very, very dangerous place to be. Listen, the veil, it wasn't decorative, it wasn't just a garnish, it was a barrier, and it was put in place by God. So, so what's happening in this line that we've talked about? The veil was torn from top to bottom. And everything happening at the cross, listen, it only makes sense if you understand two agreements or contracts that the Hebrew people had in place thousands of years before Jesus. All right? So we're we're gonna get into some of this. There was, first off, there was the Levitical Covenant. It was a contract that the Hebrew people were living under. It ordered all of their daily life. There were hundreds of laws that they lived under. In fact, um, some of you, you you might remember the Charlton Heston movie where he's got the two scrolls, you know, and he's um he's coming down off the mountain, like Moses with the tablets. That's that's actually where the Levitical law starts. That's where it begins. Okay? And so um it ordered everyday life. It laid out this agreement, this arrangement between God and his people on how they were to behave, what was permitted, what was prohibited, and what were the punishments if you did something that was prohibited as well. So this is a really, really important contract. All the terms were a big deal. The only payment, this is the difficult part, the only payment, if you mess up on this contract, blood. Blood. Sin, any any error, any straying from the law that God put in place requires blood to pay off that. Sin is always paid for by life. Always, every time. The other thing that is unique about this Levitical covenant is that the priests were the gatekeepers. So the Hebrew people, they had 12 tribes. There was one specific tribe called the Levites, hence the Levitical law, the Levites, and the Levites actually had a specific family inside their massive tribe of hundreds of thousands of people, that those people actually were the only ones that were able to go into the most holy place. So the priests took care of this. So, so so any kind of connection to God went through them. If you were someone who wasn't in that tribe, you don't get access. If you were someone who wasn't a Hebrew, definitely no access. If you were someone who had a deformity, guess what? No access. All kinds of crazy conditions. And listen, they had to be on the outskirts. And when I say outskirts, there was a whole temple system with barriers and walls and gates set up to keep people from getting into the presence of God. It was to limit access. And it wasn't just to create exclusivity, it was actually for protection as well, because you know, God's presence would not abide immoral or unholy behavior. If you got into his presence and you weren't clean, dead immediately. If you get behind that veil and you haven't sacrificed or done the right things or done the right steps, you're done. So God's manifest presence, it was only accessible inside this tabernacle, inside the most holy place. I think we've got a picture of it. And it's protected by this veil. This veil could only be breached, that's okay. It could only be breached one time a year. It was on the day of atonement. It was the tenth day of their calendar year, it's roughly the middle of September. They would go inside the most holy place and they would make a sacrifice. And the high priest would go in and he would make atonement for the entire nation of Israel. That's the only time someone could experience God's presence. In fact, what he would do is he would make an annual payment for all of the debts of the country. And so this wasn't the only contract. I said there's two contracts we got to understand. So we've got the Levitical contract or covenant. That's just what covenant or testament means. We have the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, the New Testament, the New Covenant. So there was another one that they were under as well. It's called the Abrahamic covenant from guess who? Abraham, right? And so there's this guy, Abraham. He shows up in Genesis chapter 12. You guys still with me? Okay, cool. I know we're getting into deep stuff, but this will make so much more sense when you talk about the cross, when you talk about the veil, when you talk about all this, if you understand these things, it will make so much more sense. So this guy named Abraham, he shows up in Genesis 12. He's really prominent. In fact, he's he's very prominent for the whole world, even Judaism, Islam, and Christianity all still consider Abraham to be kind of the initiation point for all of us. And then we we sort of branch off. All right. Um he's told that he's gonna inherit land. God signs a contract, he kind of makes an agreement with him and says that look, the entire earth is gonna be blessed through you. We get to Genesis 15, and Abraham starts to wonder it is God really gonna do this? Because it's taken a while. It's not happening. You ever get to that point where you think like God told you he was gonna do something you believe you heard and You start to think like maybe I didn't hear God. Maybe that's not what he said. Maybe God doesn't actually care about me. Maybe I messed things up. Maybe, maybe he just decided I'm not worthy anymore. Abraham's kind of in that spot. And so what God does is God draws up a contract for him. And he doesn't draw it up in the way that you and I would understand. They didn't have paper or parchment, they were going to write it on. God draws it up in the way that they would do it in their time. And it's super weird, and most people miss this. So I'm going to explain it to you. Genesis chapter 15, starting in verse 9, God said to him, Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. So think about this. We've got Abraham, he intuitively knows what to do with these pieces. Notice, God doesn't tell him what to do with these, does he? He just says, bring me these. And so Abraham knows to cut them up and separate them into this aisle where there's a space in between them. God ends up reciting to Abraham what the terms of this agreement are going to be. Again, this is going to make sense here in a second. He tells them, listen, you're going to live here for a while, your people are going to move, there's going to be all this really crazy great stuff that happens to you. Some of it's going to be rough, but it's eventually going to bless the entire earth. And then in verse 17, we see what God does is He He walks out the conditions of it if somebody defaults on the contract. This is how it worked. Verse 17, it says, When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces, walking down that aisle, just passing. On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abraham. That's what actually sealed the contract, that action right there. You might say, What in the world is happening? This makes no sense at all. So this was an understood kind of contract in the ancient world. In fact, the Hebrew word, which I'm not going to say because I'm going to mess it up and sound really silly online, it actually means to cut a covenant, if you were to say it. So animals were split, and the parties, both the parties, most of the time, would walk through the carcasses and they would say, If I break this contract, if I violate this, may this be done to me. May I be torn in pieces. May my body be broken. So usually both parties would walk through. Sometimes kings would even do this, and both kings would walk through, or the lesser of the two kings would walk through. What happens here is completely the opposite, though. Both parties don't go through. In fact, what you see is only one party goes through. And it's not the lesser, it's the greater. Abram doesn't walk through the pieces. God's presence, the the the the representation of God's presence passes through the pieces. And so what what God is in effect saying is this is crazy. He's saying, if I fail on this promise that I gave you, I'll pay. And then he's saying, if you fail, I'll pay as well. God is saying, I'll cover both sides of this contract. It's a crazy deal. It's a crazy deal. And listen, God brings all the collateral. You know what Abram had to bring? Abram, verse 6 of that same chapter, Genesis 15, verse 6, it says, and he believed the Lord. And he counted it to him as righteousness. Belief. That's it. That's all it took from Abram. He just had to believe, and God said, I will take both sides of this contract on myself. So you got one covenant where God says, I'm going to take both sides, and another one where man keeps failing, keeps having to pay. And so watch what Jesus does on the cross here. So cool. So there's two ways you get to the end of the contract, right? You either default on the contract and incur all the penalties, or you pay it off and the debt goes away, right? You fulfill the contract. At the cross, Jesus did both. Jesus did both. He bore the punishment for all our violations of the contract, and he fulfilled the law perfectly for his entire life. He fulfilled all of the contracts. So he paid ours for us. And all that we have to do in response to that is believe. That's our requirement, is we believe in him. And he pays all of our debts. Because every single one of us have sinned. That's a fact. If you don't believe you sinned, you're mistaken. But I think we're all, if we're honest, we know that we make mistakes. We've had evil thoughts, we've done evil things. We missed the mark. And Jesus is willing to pay for all of those. Because those sins aren't just against our brothers, our sisters, our families. Those sins are actually against God. What we see is actually Jesus does something else that's so cool in this whole narrative of the passion. And just a little bit, we're going to take communion. And this this communion that we're going to take, it's not just a ritual, this is actually a reenactment, similar to what God did with Abram. Just like the two of them did together. Luke chapter 22, verse 17. It says this. It says, He took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he said, Take this and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. And he took the bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And likewise the cup, after they'd eaten, saying, This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. Jesus didn't just fulfill the old contract and pay it off. What he did was he signed a new contract in his blood. He signed a new covenant, a new testament for you and for me, and he takes it all on himself. There is nothing required of you and I. It's literally eternal life versus death that he's gonna pay for you and for me. And so what he's telling us to do here every time we do communion is he's telling us, take out the contract and just read it again. You ever do that with old contracts? I don't. But Jesus, Jesus is telling us when we do communion, I want you to remember the terms of this contract. He brings all the collateral, all we bring is belief. As he fulfills this, he put he puts the last stroke of the pen to the contract on the cross. His side gets pierced, blood and water pours out, his precious blood spilled for you and me, the contract gets ratified in his blood. The old one's finished. This separation between God and man at that moment is finished. And what we have is a torn veil at that moment. The veil is ripped. It's not it's not cut, it's not a clean cut. It says it was torn, and it was torn from top to bottom. The veil, it represented separation, it represented exclusivity, it represented religion, it represented legalism, constant and repetitive payments to get right with God, and God said, Enough, I'm done with this. This old system is not gonna last anymore. Jesus paid both contracts. In fact, he is the one that ripped the veil. That's why it's so significant that they include even that little detail. They say, it was ripped top to bottom. Nobody climbed up 30 feet and grabbed that thing that's four to twelve inches thick and ripped it. There's no way that happened. God was the one who did it. God decided that this is over. There's a new covenant now in my blood. You couldn't do it, I couldn't do it. Jesus was the only one who could do that, who could rip the veil in two. And see, because he did this, we never have to go back to the way that things were before. Even even the priests, this is so interesting. Um, I love history when we dig into these scriptures. So this is so neat. Um, the Hebrew priests, they had this whole system of laws and rules and everything that they that they wrote, they put together, you know, inspired by God, and then they added a bunch of stuff to it. And so um they tried to preserve their temple system after this happened. They don't record that the veil was ripped, okay? So they have a Talmud, it's like just a step below the scriptures for them. What they do record in their Talmud is for 40 years that you can actually backdate to when Jesus was crucified, for 40 years, very strange things start happening. Again, these are just historical Hebrew writings, okay? Um, some of the things, the doors to the temple just keep going open. They keep blowing open. Uh the menorah, you've seen that on Hanukkah, the the candles, right? The menorah keeps going out. Um they would do things, they would they would cast lots, and and on the Day of Atonement specifically, they would cast lots, and usually the lot that got, it was basically like dice, they would roll dice. Usually the the dice that came up in the right hand was the lot for God. It stopped happening. They would even do this thing. They had they had the two goats, one they would send into the wilderness, and one they would they would sacrifice, and they would tie a scarlet yarn around the goat's neck, and they and what they would see often they recorded what happened was that scarlet yarn would turn bleach white. And so what they said was this is a sign that God is actually accepting the atonement, this sacrifice we do on the day of atonement, and and if it didn't turn white, then that meant that there was still lingering sin that hadn't been addressed or atoned for. That stopped happening after Jesus' death and resurrection. They record it. Okay? So interesting. In fact, even the Roman historian Josephus, he was he records different things like this that happened. And so so, whether those accounts are accurate or not, it doesn't really, it's not really central to our faith. It's just really interesting. But but here's what it does show. Even the Hebrews knew after Jesus' death something was off. Something had changed. In fact, what you see is after that 40 years, the temple is destroyed. It's flattened, it hadn't been built again. That whole system, Jesus dismantled with the work that he did on the cross by his death, burial, and resurrection. So, so the thing is, it didn't just change for them, it changed for us, and it made big, big, big changes for us. So, what's changed for us? I'm gonna give us just a few things here that I think are really important for us to understand. The first thing is this if you're not a Jew, you weren't written into the contract before. Now, you are. The salvation that Jesus offers, the the sanctification, that righteousness, that that right standing before God that we can have wasn't just for a specific race or ethnicity of people. It was for all people. I'm gonna tell you, that's a reason to rejoice on Easter, amen? Second thing, no more middleman. Praise God, right? Praise God. You don't have to depend on a priest to get into God's presence. Yeah. In fact, this is that I'm gonna I'm gonna shake some of you up here a little bit. What the word says, what Peter tells us is that you're all supposed to be priests. First Peter 2, verse 9. But you, he's talking about you guys, are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people before, because it was only for the Jews, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you've received mercy. Y'all, that's good news. So, so you may say, like, so so does that mean you're you're our priest, Pastor Jake? No, I'm actually not. We're all priests. You know what my job is? My job is to equip you to be good priests. My job is to help you go out and be a priest to your family, to be a priest to the the servicemen and women that are right next to you, the people that are in your work, the people that are in your school, your neighborhoods. That's what my job is is to equip you. Third thing. The veil, it didn't just tear. Jesus actually was the veil. Jesus was the veil. We see this in Hebrews. You might hear that and say, like, what? That sounds weird. Listen, Jesus was and is still the gateway to the presence of God. That good stuff that's behind the veil, that only one guy gets to go in on the tenth day of the Jewish calendar year, Jesus is the thing that gets you into that spot. Hebrews 10 says this therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh. And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with the pure water, just like what we did earlier this morning at sunrise. Those five people that followed Jesus in water baptism. Some of you are here today and you don't have a clean conscience, and you really would want to be sprinkled with the blood of Jesus, to have his atonement, his sacrifice, pay for the sins that you've committed for your whole life. You you want to have a clean conscience. You want to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and not feel shame and not worry. What's gonna happen? What's gonna happen if today is my day to meet my Maker? Am I ready for that? Fourth thing. God's presence is not in a room anymore, it's not in a box. His presence is actually in you. That's what Jesus tells us. He says, the Holy Spirit will come and take up residence inside us. Listen, the veil, the veil didn't tear, so you could just visit God on Sundays, or maybe one Sunday every few Sundays. That's not that's not why he did all this work. That's not why he ripped it. And he ripped it so so so you could get in. Man, you have access to him all day, every day, all night, every night. His presence is right here. In fact, in in our we call this the worship center, we don't call it the sanctuary here. In fact, I I correct people every once in a while, like, hey, this isn't the sanctuary. You know why? This is the sanctuary. This is where the Holy Spirit dwells. It's where He resides. He's right here, He's with me all day, every day. He's always there. I don't have to ask priests to go in there for me. I don't have to ask permission. So the question for us as we close is do you live like the veil is still there? Are you maybe living that way? Like I gotta get access to somebody else. I'm not a priest. There's no way. No way God wants me to be a priest. See, there are terms that God put in this contract, there are terms that Jesus put in the contract. There are two that really matter. The first one is this, and it's one to celebrate. It's the last point. The debt's paid. The debt is fully paid. Whatever you've done, the debt is paid. Y'all, that's something to celebrate about because our sin has been covered by the work of Jesus on the cross. Colossians 2, 13 and 14 says this, and you who were dead in your trespasses. You were like those people that came out of the tomb. You were dead. Your body's cold, you're dead in your trespasses, and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses. He he forgave him, he wiped it off by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. He this he set aside, nailing it to the cross. Come on, somebody, that is good news. I mean, there there is no contract, no debt that you and I could could think of. Any any metaphor or analogy I could give you is just so weak compared to this. Because the terms of this contract are eternal and they are final. Jesus paid it all. The debt is done. And listen, the second condition of this contract, super cool. All you have to do is believe. That's it. The word says, if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved. He's like, Yeah, those are the terms. Can you do that? And so today, as we close, I'm just gonna give us a chance to pray. And I believe that some people they want to sign that contract today. Like, I think that's a deal I want to get on board with. I like I like the terms. So we're gonna pray. And what I'd love for you to do is I'd love for everybody in here just to bow their heads. I'm gonna pray for us, and then I'm gonna ask you to make some confessions before God. Lord, I thank you. I thank you for these people, God. I thank you for the work that you did on the cross, Lord. The powerful, powerful work of the cross, Jesus. Thank you that you tore the veil in two, that you created a way for us to be in relationship with you, God. You fulfilled both contracts, Lord, and you signed a new one in your blood, Lord. And and God, I'm so grateful that I'm written into that, God. And I bring nothing to the table. But I believe in you, Lord. I believe in you, God. Help me walk in your presence. Help the people in this room, God, every single one of us, God, may we walk in such a way that we recognize the veil has been ripped from top to bottom. You want to have a relationship with us, you want us to walk in a fullness of your presence. Listen, if you're here today, with every head bowed still, just one more minute here. If you want access to that contract, what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna lead you in a short prayer. And man, if you're a believer, I want you to be praying for the people in here who haven't done this yet. I'm gonna give you a chance to confess with your mouth that you do believe. And so we're all gonna say this prayer together. This is all it takes. Pray this with me, man of church. Say, Jesus, I need you. I repent of my failures and flaws, and I surrender to you now. I know you lived, you died, and you rose again. All with us in mind. Come into my heart, save me, forgive me, and lead me in Jesus' name and his authority.

SPEAKER_00 43:47

Thank you for listening to the Mana Church Stafford Podcast. If you would like to connect with us, you can find us on the web at manastafford.church or download the manna church app to listen to our new episodes as they become available. Make sure to subscribe to our podcast. We would also love to meet you in person. If you are local, our services take place each Sunday at 10 a.m. We pray you have an amazing week and we'll see you next time.