WEBVTT 00:00:19.760 --> 00:00:31.920 It's fitting, I think, that we are looking at this Sam, not only uh because of the run-up to Easter, but because of the content, we decided to uh to keep the series as uh as is. 00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:44.000 And so we're looking at different uh shadows uh or uh predictions of uh the cross of Jesus, Good Friday, uh in the Old Testament on the run-up to Easter. 00:00:44.079 --> 00:00:51.679 And so can I invite you uh to keep uh Psalm 22 uh open in front of you and in your in your groups? 00:00:51.920 --> 00:00:59.200 And uh why don't I uh pray again uh for us as we look at God's word, Father? 00:00:59.280 --> 00:01:06.879 Uh we come to you in these strange days, uh, knowing that you see us, that you love us, uh that you hear our cries. 00:01:06.959 --> 00:01:14.079 Uh please uh would your Holy Spirit uh meet us now, be at work through the Word. 00:01:14.159 --> 00:01:20.640 Uh we pray to uh to thrill our hearts, to give us hope and courage uh in these uncertain times. 00:01:20.799 --> 00:01:25.680 Help us to see Jesus more clearly and to marvel at what he has done for us. 00:01:25.760 --> 00:01:28.159 We ask it in his precious name. 00:01:28.480 --> 00:01:29.120 Amen. 00:01:30.879 --> 00:01:37.680 I say it's fitting to look at this psalm because it begins with that uh that cry that's picked up in the in the New Testament. 00:01:37.840 --> 00:01:41.519 We'll look at it uh, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 00:01:41.680 --> 00:02:00.879 Uh, because in the midst of uh the isolation and the suffering and the uh the death that we are seeing uh all across the world, particularly in places like China, Italy, Spain, uh, it can feel like God has forsaken his world. 00:02:01.200 --> 00:02:02.640 Or is that just me? 00:02:03.359 --> 00:02:12.159 Um it can feel in the midst of grief that God is nowhere to be found. 00:02:13.599 --> 00:02:13.759 C. 00:02:13.919 --> 00:02:14.000 S. 00:02:14.080 --> 00:02:16.479 Lewis wrote two books on suffering. 00:02:16.879 --> 00:02:27.199 Uh he wrote uh The Problem of Pain, which is a kind of philosophical engagement with the uh the uh objective reality of evil and suffering in the world. 00:02:27.599 --> 00:02:30.639 Uh, but then he wrote another book. 00:02:30.879 --> 00:02:39.439 He wrote a book in the wake of his wife's death, and it's called A Grief Observed. 00:02:39.680 --> 00:02:45.840 One is a very philosophical uh look at things, uh, the other is much more personal. 00:02:46.080 --> 00:02:53.439 I'm gonna read to you a quote from uh from A Grief Observed. 00:02:55.039 --> 00:03:00.000 He writes, Meanwhile, where is God? 00:03:01.120 --> 00:03:03.680 This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. 00:03:03.919 --> 00:03:13.120 When you're happy, so happy that you've no sense of needing him, so happy that you are tempted to feel that his claims upon you are as an interruption. 00:03:13.439 --> 00:03:21.520 If you remember yourself and turn to him with gratitude and praise, you will be, or so it feels, welcome with open open arms. 00:03:21.919 --> 00:03:27.599 But when you try to go to him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, what do you find? 00:03:27.919 --> 00:03:36.159 A door slammed in your face, kind of bolting, double bolting on the inside, and after that, silence. 00:03:37.280 --> 00:03:39.840 It feels like you may as well turn away. 00:03:40.080 --> 00:03:44.639 The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence becomes. 00:03:45.199 --> 00:03:47.759 There are no lights in the windows. 00:03:48.080 --> 00:03:50.400 It might as well be an empty house. 00:03:50.719 --> 00:03:52.879 Was it ever inhabited? 00:03:53.360 --> 00:03:55.199 It seemed so once. 00:03:56.080 --> 00:03:58.960 And that seeming was as strong as this. 00:03:59.280 --> 00:04:00.960 What can this mean? 00:04:01.680 --> 00:04:11.439 Why is he so present a commander in our time of posterity and so very absent a help in our time of trouble? 00:04:12.719 --> 00:04:15.120 Perhaps it can feel that way, can't it? 00:04:16.079 --> 00:04:21.279 That God is absent in our time of trouble, that God is absent now. 00:04:24.480 --> 00:04:29.759 Sometimes the silence from heaven can be deafening in the midst of our suffering. 00:04:29.920 --> 00:04:36.800 And the real difficulty with that is, is that one of the things that we're finding out is that suffering is inevitable. 00:04:39.439 --> 00:05:04.480 No matter what precautions we take, no matter how well we try to put together a good life, no matter how hard we have worked to be healthy, wealthy, comfortable with friends, with family, successful in our career, something will inevitably come along and shake it or ruin it. 00:05:06.079 --> 00:05:07.519 So what do you do then? 00:05:13.120 --> 00:05:18.319 Suffering is inevitable, but does that mean that it's meaningless? 00:05:18.879 --> 00:05:24.399 Do we live in a world uh where things are simply arbitrary? 00:05:24.639 --> 00:05:28.720 The blind indifference of the universe that is without God. 00:05:31.279 --> 00:05:40.079 I think our modern secular society, and we'll return to this at the very end, our modern secular society tends to see suffering as an interruption. 00:05:40.399 --> 00:05:50.959 You're shut up in your house as an interruption to your life rather than something that is inherently meaningful in and of itself. 00:05:53.439 --> 00:06:00.000 After all of our locking down ends, will we just go back to normal and try and forget all about it? 00:06:00.720 --> 00:06:02.879 Or will it be something that changes us? 00:06:03.600 --> 00:06:08.639 Will it be something that we integrate into our beer? 00:06:12.160 --> 00:06:15.120 These questions are very real right now. 00:06:16.720 --> 00:06:21.360 I'm sure all of us at various points have wondered well, what could possibly be the point of our pen? 00:06:23.600 --> 00:06:35.199 Christianity, I think over and against any other worldview, certainly the secular worldview, is emphatically clear that suffering is not purposeless. 00:06:36.160 --> 00:06:43.759 You see, suffering, if used right, can be like a nail that drives us deeper into the love of God. 00:06:45.199 --> 00:06:54.079 Rather than driving us away from Him, it can drive us towards His fatherly embrace. 00:06:55.680 --> 00:07:04.160 Psalm 22 gives us an insight into the nature of suffering and how to interact with God in the midst of it. 00:07:04.720 --> 00:07:06.800 So we're going to look at it together. 00:07:07.120 --> 00:07:10.879 Keep uh it open on your phone or on your Bible. 00:07:10.959 --> 00:07:12.319 Look at verse 1. 00:07:12.560 --> 00:07:14.720 And note this is a Psalm of David. 00:07:14.879 --> 00:07:15.680 What does David do? 00:07:15.839 --> 00:07:26.079 The first thing that David does, verse 1, is he cries out to God, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 00:07:26.879 --> 00:07:28.879 Why are you so far from saving me? 00:07:29.040 --> 00:07:30.800 And from the words of my groaning. 00:07:30.959 --> 00:07:34.639 Now the question is, how do how are we to understand this cry? 00:07:37.439 --> 00:07:40.480 In one sense, it's a cry of despair. 00:07:41.279 --> 00:07:49.360 He feels like we have all felt at various times the deafening silence that Lois describes in the midst of his suffering. 00:07:49.519 --> 00:07:53.839 He feels genuinely forsaken by God. 00:07:55.839 --> 00:08:01.199 But it is also a cry of faith. 00:08:02.560 --> 00:08:10.079 Because he's not shaking his fist at God, he's not saying, he's not running away. 00:08:10.959 --> 00:08:16.319 That double repeated my God, my God, I think it's a cry of faith. 00:08:16.639 --> 00:08:19.439 He's laying claim to his God. 00:08:19.759 --> 00:08:22.639 My God, my God, where are you? 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:37.759 Even as he suffers, David knows that God is not some distant, disinterested deity, nor is he an impersonal force who just created the world and caused it to uh to wind down. 00:08:37.919 --> 00:08:40.720 And this is just an inevitable byproduct of that. 00:08:40.879 --> 00:08:41.519 No, no, no. 00:08:41.679 --> 00:08:46.799 He's my God, he's relational, he's near to the brokenhearted. 00:08:48.320 --> 00:08:58.000 And so one of the first things that I think that we can learn from this cry is that we should come to God in our grief and our pain. 00:08:58.799 --> 00:09:02.480 That oftentimes the worst thing you can do is run away from him. 00:09:03.919 --> 00:09:09.919 God loves to be held to his promises. 00:09:11.759 --> 00:09:19.039 When he says that he will never leave us or forsake us, one of the things that he wants us to do is to run and to lay claim to that. 00:09:19.919 --> 00:09:24.960 To come to God in our grief and pain, in our isolation and loneliness. 00:09:25.120 --> 00:09:27.519 And can I encourage you not to wait? 00:09:29.440 --> 00:09:33.919 As an old hymn says, an old hymn called Come Ye Sinners. 00:09:34.000 --> 00:09:39.919 It's a one of the verses reads, Come ye weary, heavy laden, lost and ruined by the fall. 00:09:40.159 --> 00:09:45.600 If you tarry, if you wait, if you tarry till you're better, you will never come at all. 00:09:47.360 --> 00:09:51.039 We cry out to God in the midst of our suffering. 00:09:52.320 --> 00:10:04.639 The second thing that David does, looking on down the Psalm, from verse 3 onwards, is that he looks back to God's past saving acts. 00:10:04.879 --> 00:10:11.679 He looks back to objective reality and history to how God has acted, and he uses that to give him courage now. 00:10:13.039 --> 00:10:17.039 You are holy, verse 3, and thrown in the praises of Israel. 00:10:17.200 --> 00:10:21.600 In you our fathers trusted, they trusted, and you delivered them. 00:10:21.919 --> 00:10:27.759 So you they cried and were rescued, in you they trusted and were not put to shame. 00:10:28.080 --> 00:10:33.840 He looks back at God's past faithfulness, what God has done. 00:10:34.080 --> 00:10:40.559 He sees that other people were delivered, his forebears, his fathers, they were not put to shame. 00:10:43.519 --> 00:10:54.000 How often do we see the hand of God and the rescue and sustaining of God in hindsight? 00:10:56.159 --> 00:10:58.720 Where it's hard sometimes to see it in the moment. 00:11:00.320 --> 00:11:02.240 We see it as we look back. 00:11:04.480 --> 00:11:09.919 Many of us, I'm sure, will look back on these days and say, I can see God at work there now. 00:11:10.159 --> 00:11:11.360 I couldn't at the time. 00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:12.960 But I can. 00:11:15.840 --> 00:11:18.960 David draws strength from God's work in the past. 00:11:21.200 --> 00:11:24.879 Suffering has a tendency, doesn't it, to cloud our field of vision. 00:11:25.519 --> 00:11:34.240 If we come obsessed at the moment about making sure that we have enough time stuff, make sure we have enough toilet roll right now, we lose perspective. 00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:37.519 Suffering does that. 00:11:37.759 --> 00:11:39.679 It clouds our field of vision. 00:11:40.399 --> 00:11:44.320 We need the scriptures to to widen that horizon again. 00:11:45.360 --> 00:11:48.159 Help us to see the character of God. 00:11:48.399 --> 00:11:50.639 Where is God in Psalm 22? 00:11:52.159 --> 00:11:53.600 He's enthroned. 00:11:54.320 --> 00:11:57.519 He's enthroned on the praises of Israel. 00:12:00.639 --> 00:12:05.519 He is still seated on his throne, he has not bolted the door and walked away. 00:12:09.919 --> 00:12:13.279 Sam gets worse. 00:12:16.159 --> 00:12:25.840 David again goes from looking at God to looking at his circumstances and sees that he is despised by men. 00:12:26.240 --> 00:12:32.639 Verse six, but I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. 00:12:32.879 --> 00:12:39.600 All who see me mock me, they make mouths at me, they wag their heads. 00:12:39.919 --> 00:12:41.519 He trusts in the Lord. 00:12:41.759 --> 00:12:46.720 Let him deliver him, let him rescue him, for he delights in him. 00:12:49.200 --> 00:12:52.159 Red and understood in a sarcastic tone. 00:12:55.519 --> 00:13:03.519 The suffering that David is writing about here is not just circumstance, it's made worse by the people. 00:13:04.799 --> 00:13:05.840 You ever find that? 00:13:06.000 --> 00:13:09.440 You're in a difficult time, and actually the people make it worse. 00:13:11.600 --> 00:13:15.279 Look at how they make him feel like a worm. 00:13:15.519 --> 00:13:17.600 I'm a worm and not a man. 00:13:19.279 --> 00:13:23.440 Suffering tends to have a dehumanizing effect on us. 00:13:24.159 --> 00:13:26.720 It can make us feel less inhuman. 00:13:27.279 --> 00:13:32.080 And it's compounded by by him having his faith marked. 00:13:35.200 --> 00:13:36.399 He trusts in God. 00:13:36.639 --> 00:13:37.759 Let God deliver him. 00:13:42.399 --> 00:13:42.879 Why? 00:13:43.120 --> 00:13:45.120 Why do they mock his faith? 00:13:46.559 --> 00:13:50.639 Because his faith is the last thing that gives him strength, stability. 00:13:51.440 --> 00:13:58.879 And so it's the focus of their abuse, trying to undermine his faith and his confidence in God. 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:01.679 But what does David do? 00:14:02.159 --> 00:14:21.279 David recognizes that he is despised by men, verses uh 6, 7, 8, and meets that with a realization or with a reaffirmation, might be a best better way to put it, that he is loved by God. 00:14:21.679 --> 00:14:23.279 Verse 9, look at it with me. 00:14:23.440 --> 00:14:25.759 Yet you, do you see how the Psalms moved? 00:14:25.919 --> 00:14:27.360 So why have you forsaken me? 00:14:27.519 --> 00:14:29.360 You're the one enthroned in the praise of Israel. 00:14:29.440 --> 00:14:30.639 I'm a worm and automatic. 00:14:30.799 --> 00:14:40.879 He's constantly moving between uh the pain and grief of his circumstances and uh and crying out to God in faith and acknowledging who God is. 00:14:40.960 --> 00:14:59.600 And isn't that so isn't that so human that the pain that we experience often comes in waves, and we pick ourselves up again, and we think, no, we can do that, you know, no, we can do this, God can do this through us, we acknowledge who he is, but then something else kind of knocks us back. 00:14:59.919 --> 00:15:09.360 But again, David, in a sense, meets their accusations with the intimacy and love of God. 00:15:09.519 --> 00:15:13.120 He might be despised by men, but he's loved by the God of the universe. 00:15:13.279 --> 00:15:19.840 Verse 9, yet you are he who took me from the womb. 00:15:21.440 --> 00:15:24.960 You made me trust at my mother's breasts. 00:15:26.000 --> 00:15:31.360 On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother's womb. 00:15:31.679 --> 00:15:33.279 You have been my God. 00:15:34.559 --> 00:15:40.879 Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there was no one to help. 00:15:43.279 --> 00:15:47.200 You feel the intimacy between David and God here. 00:15:52.399 --> 00:15:57.039 He recognizes that he is loved and he has been loved over his life. 00:15:59.919 --> 00:16:05.039 Can you, Christian, look back over your life and seeing the Lord's care for you? 00:16:09.039 --> 00:16:13.279 Can that give you courage in these difficult days? 00:16:19.679 --> 00:16:22.799 He moves again to his circumstances. 00:16:25.519 --> 00:16:30.399 From verse twelve onwards down to verse 18. 00:16:31.679 --> 00:16:36.320 It's like the psalm, it's like the psalm is going in this kind of downward spiral. 00:16:38.080 --> 00:16:40.159 Things are getting worse and worse and worse. 00:16:40.240 --> 00:16:47.360 Things are getting more and more graphic in terms of what is happening to this sufferer. 00:16:48.799 --> 00:16:50.080 They're profound. 00:16:51.039 --> 00:16:52.879 He finds himself surrounded. 00:16:53.200 --> 00:16:54.240 Verse 12. 00:16:54.480 --> 00:16:56.240 Many bulls encompass me. 00:16:56.399 --> 00:17:01.600 Strong bulls at Bashan, just a place where really strong bulls came from. 00:17:01.919 --> 00:17:08.319 But it's to show that he is facing um daunting foes. 00:17:09.680 --> 00:17:13.279 These bulls surrounding me. 00:17:13.519 --> 00:17:18.400 He finds himself weak and poured out like water. 00:17:18.880 --> 00:17:23.440 His heart is melting like wax, like a like a candle melting down. 00:17:23.599 --> 00:17:27.279 That's how that's how strong his his heart feels right now. 00:17:27.519 --> 00:17:28.240 Not very. 00:17:29.359 --> 00:17:32.079 His strength is is dried up. 00:17:32.799 --> 00:17:34.960 Dried up like a like a like a pots hard. 00:17:35.039 --> 00:17:40.480 That's just a uh a broken shard of of pottery that's uh that holds no water. 00:17:43.279 --> 00:17:45.680 My tongue sticks to my jaws. 00:17:51.039 --> 00:18:05.200 But because he is doing this thing of looking back and forth, this looking back at uh at who God is and what God has done, again the tone shifts. 00:18:05.599 --> 00:18:10.640 Again, the tone changes uh in verses uh 19 onwards. 00:18:10.880 --> 00:18:24.000 Verses 11 and 18 kind of form the if you think of this psalm kind of as a as a V shape, uh verses 1 through to 18 were going down, down, down, down, down, right? 00:18:24.319 --> 00:18:28.160 And verses 11 to 18 are right down here in the pit. 00:18:28.640 --> 00:18:49.839 And in 19 the psalm changes, and the tone of the psalm changes, and it begins to you begin to see glimmers of hope and goodness and joy again through to the end of the psalm, and it changes with again a calling on God. 00:18:50.079 --> 00:18:58.160 But you, O Lord, be not far off, or you, my help, come quickly to my aid. 00:18:59.519 --> 00:19:12.880 And he begins to see a time when this suffering will not always be true, in the same way that we need to keep to remember, like we'll not always be locked down like this, we'll not always uh not be able to meet. 00:19:13.039 --> 00:19:18.480 We will gather together again, we will uh get through this. 00:19:18.720 --> 00:19:26.079 Similarly, the Sama sees a time when when the suffering and the pain that he's currently going through will cease. 00:19:31.680 --> 00:19:38.160 And so he says, verse 22 I will tell of your name to my brothers in the midst of the congregation. 00:19:38.319 --> 00:19:39.440 I will praise you. 00:19:39.680 --> 00:19:41.359 You who fear the Lord, praise him. 00:19:41.519 --> 00:19:45.119 He's like calling other people to join in praise of God. 00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:48.880 And don't we need that sort of hope? 00:19:49.279 --> 00:19:51.440 Because we wonder, will this ever end? 00:19:51.759 --> 00:19:55.119 Will our suffering even outside of these days, will it ever end? 00:19:55.279 --> 00:19:57.920 Will I always feel like this? 00:20:00.160 --> 00:20:02.720 And the answer of Christianity is no. 00:20:03.519 --> 00:20:28.160 One of the ways that Christianity sits in in distinction from every other worldview, is that other worldviews want you to sit in the midst of life's joys, foreseeing on coming sorrow and wishing that it would slow down and hoping that it would never come or maybe pass you by. 00:20:28.319 --> 00:20:44.960 But what Christianity does, Christianity empowers the Christian, the believer in Jesus, to sit in the midst of life's sufferings and taste oncoming joy, to taste oncoming hope, and to continue to persevere in the midst of it. 00:20:45.039 --> 00:20:45.920 Do you see? 00:20:51.759 --> 00:20:53.759 How is all of this possible? 00:20:55.519 --> 00:21:00.240 How are we able to interact with our suffering like that? 00:21:02.880 --> 00:21:11.200 The answer is because Psalm twenty-two isn't ultimately or primarily about us. 00:21:13.839 --> 00:21:27.680 Yes, we can learn things about how to suffer, but the power to suffer like this comes when we realize that we are not the sufferer of Psalm 22. 00:21:32.480 --> 00:21:42.240 Imagine that you've uh been digging through a box of uh class photographs and you've come across one from uh a long time ago. 00:21:42.400 --> 00:21:54.319 Perhaps you had hair uh at that time, perhaps you had uh uh straightened blonde tips as I did, and you pull out that that class photo, and what's the first thing that you do? 00:21:54.559 --> 00:21:59.759 Well, the first thing that you do is you look to see yourself in it, you look to find where you are. 00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:01.599 In that photo. 00:22:01.920 --> 00:22:04.160 And we can come to the Bible like that. 00:22:07.279 --> 00:22:10.480 But Psalm 22 isn't ultimately about us, is it? 00:22:11.359 --> 00:22:20.160 You see, Psalm 22 is really a kind of prophecy of the cross, of what Jesus went through. 00:22:20.319 --> 00:22:24.400 You see, I don't even think that David is the sufferer of Psalm 22. 00:22:24.880 --> 00:22:27.519 I think he is writing better than he knows. 00:22:27.759 --> 00:22:29.920 I think he is writing of another. 00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:36.160 Because let me show you how Psalm 22 parallels with Good Friday. 00:22:36.880 --> 00:22:40.480 I'm picking up from Matthew 27. 00:22:40.880 --> 00:22:45.039 I'm going to give you the verses and where they where they parallel, right? 00:22:45.519 --> 00:22:52.559 And so you may want to have one finger in Matthew 27 and be flipping back and forward, but I'm going to show them to you now. 00:22:53.599 --> 00:23:00.000 Verse 1 of Psalm 22 begins, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 00:23:00.319 --> 00:23:06.240 And in verse 46, if you're looking along with me, verse 46 of Matthew 27, we read this. 00:23:06.400 --> 00:23:13.440 And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, saying, Eile, Eli, Lama Sabacthani. 00:23:14.160 --> 00:23:17.839 That is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 00:23:18.240 --> 00:23:19.519 He takes that. 00:23:20.640 --> 00:23:28.480 That cry of forsakenness, but also that cry of faith, that cry of hope onto his own lips. 00:23:28.720 --> 00:23:29.680 But there's more. 00:23:30.079 --> 00:23:37.680 Verse 7 of 72, all who see me mock me, they make mouths. 00:23:51.039 --> 00:24:00.720 Verse 39 of Matthew 27, we read, Those who pass by derided him, wagging their heads. 00:24:03.440 --> 00:24:10.240 Verse 8 of Psalm 22, he trusted the Lord, let him deliver him, let him rescue him, for he delights in him. 00:24:11.680 --> 00:24:17.200 Verse 43, how dreadful it is that the religious leaders and the Pharisees take this on their own lips. 00:24:17.359 --> 00:24:24.799 Verse 43, he trusts in God, let God deliver him if he desires him, for he said, I am the Son of God. 00:24:26.480 --> 00:24:32.720 Verse 16 of Psalm 22 even says that they have pierced my hands and feet. 00:24:32.880 --> 00:24:40.480 Now remember, this is this is written a thousand years before the coming of Jesus. 00:24:40.799 --> 00:24:49.039 This is written before the rise of the Assyrians who developed crucifixion, which pierced hands and feet. 00:24:49.440 --> 00:24:52.000 And yet David writes verse 16. 00:24:54.400 --> 00:24:58.319 Verse 18, this will be the final one of the parallels, final one. 00:24:58.480 --> 00:25:04.880 Verse 18 of our psalm twenty-two, they divide my garments among them, and for my clothes they cast lots. 00:25:05.519 --> 00:25:09.119 Verse 35 of Matthew 27. 00:25:09.759 --> 00:25:17.359 And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots. 00:25:31.519 --> 00:25:34.720 It brings us to the foot of the cross of the Lord Jesus. 00:25:37.119 --> 00:25:40.720 We see that He is the forsaken one. 00:25:42.240 --> 00:25:47.440 He is the one who is surrounded, the one who is mocked, despised. 00:25:49.680 --> 00:26:03.119 He is the one who cries out in faith, who even trusts, even in the midst of the deafening silence from heaven, continues to trust in his God. 00:26:06.160 --> 00:26:07.119 But why? 00:26:09.119 --> 00:26:13.920 Why was Jesus forsaken by God, his father? 00:26:16.240 --> 00:26:18.720 The answer is simple. 00:26:20.559 --> 00:26:24.480 Jesus cried, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 00:26:25.279 --> 00:26:27.440 So that you might never have to. 00:26:31.920 --> 00:26:34.640 He was forsaken by his father. 00:26:36.240 --> 00:26:39.200 So that you could be welcomed into his fatherly care. 00:26:42.079 --> 00:26:43.279 Sins forgiven. 00:26:44.079 --> 00:26:45.440 Heart restored. 00:26:47.680 --> 00:26:52.400 See, Jesus lost all of his glory so that we could be clothed in it. 00:26:53.920 --> 00:26:58.720 He was shut out so that we could gain access. 00:26:59.599 --> 00:27:02.640 He was bound so that we could be free. 00:27:02.960 --> 00:27:06.400 He was cast out so that we could come near. 00:27:08.160 --> 00:27:20.880 And Jesus took away the only kind of suffering that could really destroy us being cast away from the presence of God, experiencing his judgment and wrath against our self-love, our sin. 00:27:21.680 --> 00:27:24.400 That is the only thing that can separate us from God. 00:27:25.519 --> 00:27:31.279 Neither the suffering that we go through personally nor what we are experiencing globally right now. 00:27:34.880 --> 00:27:39.359 And that for the Christian changes everything. 00:27:55.119 --> 00:27:58.640 He says it is good news for the poor. 00:28:07.279 --> 00:28:09.359 May your hearts live forever. 00:28:09.759 --> 00:28:14.640 The afflicted, those who are hungry, it's good news for them. 00:28:14.960 --> 00:28:19.039 That's why he's calling everyone to come and join in praise of this. 00:28:19.119 --> 00:28:22.319 It's not just good news for the poor, it's good news for the rich. 00:28:31.759 --> 00:28:40.160 Verse 29 the prosperous of the earth shall eat and worship. 00:28:40.400 --> 00:28:51.599 Before him they shall bow, all who go down to the dust, every human being, whether great or lowly, rich or poor. 00:28:54.400 --> 00:28:55.680 This is for them. 00:28:57.039 --> 00:29:03.200 It is even good news for those who have not come into the world yet. 00:29:03.519 --> 00:29:07.759 It is good news for those yet unborn. 00:29:08.720 --> 00:29:10.000 Verse 31. 00:29:11.759 --> 00:29:20.000 They shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it. 00:29:29.680 --> 00:29:37.200 Just a note as we conclude is that you can post questions into the chat window. 00:29:37.359 --> 00:29:39.839 I'll be concluding in the next couple of minutes. 00:29:40.400 --> 00:29:52.079 Post them into the chat window now or over the next couple of minutes, and then I'll interact with any questions that people may have before I pray and we conclude. 00:29:52.799 --> 00:30:01.759 But what this shows us, and what confidence this gives us, is what it shows us is that God is for us in Christ. 00:30:02.480 --> 00:30:16.799 That at the at the moment of humanity's deepest need, at the moment of humanity's greatest darkness, God did not look away. 00:30:17.519 --> 00:30:20.480 God did not abandon humanity. 00:30:20.720 --> 00:30:28.880 Because you see, in a sense, all of humanity is caught up in the man Christ Jesus as he hangs suspended between earth and heaven. 00:30:29.359 --> 00:30:30.319 And what do we see? 00:30:30.480 --> 00:30:31.519 What do we read? 00:30:31.839 --> 00:30:33.359 Verse 24. 00:30:33.839 --> 00:30:37.680 He has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted. 00:30:37.920 --> 00:30:40.640 He has not hidden his face from him. 00:30:41.039 --> 00:30:43.440 He has heard when he cried to him. 00:30:43.680 --> 00:30:51.119 At the moment of humanity's greatest sorrow and suffering, God was there. 00:30:52.559 --> 00:30:54.079 And he is here now. 00:30:58.400 --> 00:31:00.160 He did not look away. 00:31:00.720 --> 00:31:05.519 He did not cut us off because he did not cut off the Lord Jesus. 00:31:07.920 --> 00:31:15.359 It's not such that there was some rupture in the Trinity, God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that the Son ceased to exist for a moment. 00:31:15.519 --> 00:31:16.240 No, no, no. 00:31:18.160 --> 00:31:24.880 Jesus, while truly forsaken in the sense that he was not rescued, was still regarded by his Father. 00:31:27.839 --> 00:31:37.200 God has met us in our darkest hour with the salvation that comes from the cross of Christ at Calvary. 00:31:38.640 --> 00:31:40.480 And this is what we look to. 00:31:41.359 --> 00:31:58.559 David, as he was writing, is looking back to most likely the Exodus, that great event in Israel's history where they are saved from the curse of death, that death of the firstborn, because of the blood of the sacrificial lamb that was sacrificed on that first Passover. 00:31:58.799 --> 00:32:03.519 That God rescued a people from slavery in Egypt and brought them to himself. 00:32:03.920 --> 00:32:05.359 That's what David looked back to. 00:32:05.440 --> 00:32:11.440 But for the Christian, we look back not to that event, but to what that event points to. 00:32:12.880 --> 00:32:21.279 We look rather to the cross where Jesus, our sacrificial lamb, what is it that John says? 00:32:21.440 --> 00:32:28.160 John the Baptist, when he sees Jesus for the first time, says, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. 00:32:28.400 --> 00:32:33.920 He is the one who bleeds for us that the curse might pass over you and I. 00:32:34.079 --> 00:32:50.799 And so when we're fearful, when we lack faith and confidence and trust, and when it's shaken, and when our whole world begins to rock because of the suffering that we are going through, we look back to the cross of Christ and we see that God does not abandon those he loves. 00:32:51.039 --> 00:32:56.559 He does not abandon those who trust him, who put their faith in him. 00:32:56.960 --> 00:32:59.440 He is with them always. 00:33:04.160 --> 00:33:20.960 It is no accident in God's sovereign goodness that we are as a world experiencing this during a time during the time of Lent on the run up to Easter. 00:33:22.400 --> 00:33:28.400 As we remember what God has done for us in Christ and draw courage from it. 00:33:44.880 --> 00:33:46.880 For Jesus, what was that? 00:33:47.039 --> 00:33:49.359 Well, for Jesus it was his resurrection. 00:33:49.680 --> 00:33:53.680 His bodily, physical resurrection in history from the dead. 00:33:54.799 --> 00:33:58.640 You see, the resurrection is Christianity's great sign. 00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:06.000 That all that Jesus said of himself and all that Jesus came to accomplish was true. 00:34:08.239 --> 00:34:13.519 And this matters so much in our cultural moment. 00:34:15.119 --> 00:34:23.039 Because I said right at the start that people in our world, people in the secular West, tend to see suffering as an interruption. 00:34:25.599 --> 00:34:34.159 You see, secular society, our West, tends to place its hope in the here and now. 00:34:34.719 --> 00:34:44.239 People derive their security from the things around them, from their job, their finances, their health, the health of their loved ones. 00:34:44.800 --> 00:34:50.880 And now, all across the world, those things are being shaken. 00:34:51.119 --> 00:34:56.239 Those things are crumbling, and suffering is taking them away from many people. 00:34:56.400 --> 00:34:59.519 And so people are feeling left adrift. 00:35:00.400 --> 00:35:07.440 When those things that you rely on go, the most natural response is fear and hopelessness. 00:35:09.199 --> 00:35:18.320 The suffering of Jesus and his resurrection from the dead means that there is hope in this world that suffering cannot destroy. 00:35:21.679 --> 00:35:48.960 Because he suffered to bring us into the family of God and rose to demonstrate that that was true, that that actually happened, and that by faith we can be part of that family, that we can have a hope that endures this season, that endures this world, that allows wave upon wave of suffering to break over our back, and we get to move forward with hope because it cannot be taken away, because it's not joined to circumstance. 00:35:53.199 --> 00:36:04.239 It is joined rather to the one who is risen, the one who is enthroned in heaven, the one who loved us and gave himself for us. 00:36:06.480 --> 00:36:32.800 So, brothers and sisters, can I encourage you not to be fearful in these difficult days, but to rejoice again, to have hope, to take this time to renew yourself spiritually to grow in faith and trust and love. 00:36:38.400 --> 00:36:42.079 And then you can post any questions that you may have. 00:36:42.480 --> 00:36:43.920 Let me pray for us. 00:36:48.079 --> 00:37:00.800 Our Father, I thank you that at just the right time you sent the Lord Jesus to suffer in our place. 00:37:04.239 --> 00:37:08.239 In order that he might restore our humanity. 00:37:28.880 --> 00:37:35.599 Stir our affections for Jesus in these difficult days. 00:37:37.440 --> 00:37:48.960 Give us perspective, lift our gaze, that we might see the beauty of what you have done. 00:37:58.880 --> 00:38:06.719 We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you loved us in this way and that you have given yourself for us. 00:38:08.400 --> 00:38:10.480 We praise you this morning. 00:38:12.480 --> 00:38:14.559 For your great name's sake. 00:38:15.199 --> 00:38:15.840 Amen.