How to Recognize True Repentance #1

What was Christ thinking on the cross with the words of Psalm 22 were on his lips and the lips speak that which fills the heart hello I build right that you found the true pulpit with Don green founding pastor of truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Will Don. How should we approach Calvary what you hope listeners will come away with from this message know Christ suffered more than physical pain on the cross.

Somehow he endured the agony of eternal punishment in his soul so that your sins could be forgiven. Can you imagine anything more humbling to your heart. Has there ever been a friend like Jesus who loved you enough to suffer so greatly, so that your sins could be forgiven going to look deeply into the glory of Christ today, as we study on the truth about here's Don green with part one of the cross of Christ here on the true pulpit. The apostle Paul expressed the desire of every true believer in Philippians 3 when he spoke of his desire to know the Lord Jesus Christ.

He said I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ and may be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead Christ suffered for us on the cross. Our salvation came at a great personal cost to him and Psalm 22 introduces us to that cost in a way that perhaps is unique in all of Scripture when you follow it and trace it all the way through Psalm 22 is an uncanny prophecy of the crucifixion of our Lord and it is an immensely important passage of Scripture. Psalm 22 does more than foreshadow the events of the crucifixion. However, this colossal song actually takes us inside the mind of Christ while he was suffering for us and removing sin from our account. As you read this song a song that was written by David.

It does not tell us and experience it does not encapsulate an experience that parallels anything that you see in the life of David elsewhere in Scripture is far too detailed for two direct about its application to Christ, and we believe that David wrote this song perhaps out of some shadow of an experience that he had, but in this Psalm in a particular way. David was riding as a prophet, foretelling things that were yet to come. I'd like you to look at the book of acts chapter 2 for just a moment so that you have a have a sense of that. Acts chapter 2 verse 29 just to have a sense of the of the rule that the author of this song played in the canon of Scripture Peter when he is speaking of David said this in acts chapter 2 verse 29. He said, brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried in his tomb is with us to this day, and so because he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to see one of his descendents on his throne. He looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ that he was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh suffer decay. I call that passage to your attention simply so that you have the the sense the the mindset that David was riding at times not only about his own personal experience, but he was riding as a prophet who is looking into the distant future. Speaking of Christ. Speaking of the sufferings of Christ and the resurrection of Christ, and it's important for us to realize that when we when we step back 3000 years from today and read what David was writing to have a proper sense of perspective on exactly what he was doing and here in song 22. David was writing primarily as a prophet.

Perhaps, in the words that we have read already.

David was somehow speaking of a time of suffering that he had maybe speaking in poetic terms. But what we find as we study this Psalm is that the things that he wrote a thousand years earlier were literally fulfilled in the life of Christ, and particularly in the crucifixion of Christ. It's a spectacular Psalm it's it's a song that for the tenderhearted believers enough to make you weep is enough by far to to humble us in the presence of Christ.

When we realize what it is that he did for us and what it was like for him to suffer on our behalf on the cross.

Charles Spurgeon said about Psalm 22, before us, we have a description both of the darkness and of the glory of the cross. The sufferings of Christ and the glory which shall follow all for grace to draw near and see this great sight.

We should read reverently putting off our shoes from our feet as Moses did at the burning bush. If there be holy ground anywhere in Scripture. It is in this song coming from Spurgeon who wrote the treasury of David on all 150 songs. That's quite a statement to isolate Psalm 22 with such words is that to say if any place in Scripture there is holy ground.

It is here in Psalm 22 and so in saying these things.

I'm just trying to prepare your mind and the develop in you a sense of expectation and a sense of reverence as we approach God's word here today.

The solemn hinges in the middle of what we read in the first 18 verses you you really see a cry of lamentation that reflects what Christ was going through on the cross. In verses 19 to 21. There is a a prayer and then in 22 in verses down through verses 31 you CA and exultation of praise you. You see both the humiliation and the exultation of Christ in this song and were going to break it down and in three basic parts here this evening, realizing that we are primarily looking at what Christ endured for us on the cross of Calvary. So first of all, here in the first 18 verses were going to look at what we are going to call date.

The problem of Christ's suffering. The problem in the sense that that he was he was in trouble he was in distress. There was pressure upon his soul as he went to Calvary, now is the Psalm opens. David is working through some intense feelings of abandonment as enemies are closing in on him and all move back and forth between saying David in Christ because there really just identified here in this Psalm David is just the they figure the forerunner of Christ in the Solomon. Everything about this Psalm is pointing prophetically to Christ soon. Psalm 22 verse one. It opens up and you see a man in distress. You see a man who is suffering in his soul and he cries out in verse one, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning all my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer and by night, but I have no rest. These two verses are describing. Eight.

A sense of alienation, a sense of abandonment and it's not a lack of faith that is speaking here and that's very important for us to see this is faith speaking in the depth of of unspeakable sorrow. You see the faith by the personal pronoun, my God, my God, my God, and so he speaking to God speaking to the mighty one and claiming him as his own, but he's finding that his experiences different from that which one would expect from belonging to a most holy and high gracious God. There was something about his experience that was due almost disorienting.

Something about his experience that that led to a sense of separation from the God that he knew was there.

And as the song is written.

Enemies are closing in. Christ himself spoke these words in Aramaic from the cross look over Matthew 27 verse 45.

Remember that is were studying the Psalm were entering into the very mind of Christ were not just reading a Bible story about facts that occurred back when this is this is profoundly spiritual. It is profoundly deep. We are entering into the into the mind of the eternal son of God, as he was hanging on the cross, that is, that is the very thing that we are doing as we look at this passage of Scripture in Matthew 27 verse 45, describing the time of the crucifixion now, from the sixth hour, which was approximately 12 o'clock noon in the reckoning of our time now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. This is the time in which Christ was particularly receiving the impress of the wrath of God on his soul for our sins as he as he hung on that cross as a substitute for sinners like you and me. What did he say at the conclusion of all of that darkness and all of that separation and all of that alienation. Verse 46 about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli Lamas boxed on a that is my God, my God, why have you forsaken me. He's at the end of that three hour.

Andy he feels the weight of the judgment that he's been enduring what does that say about the mind of Christ. What does it say about what he was going through as he hung on that cross look. Let me pause for a moment and just say the Psalm 22's a good corrective force.

It's a good dose of medicine for us because even as even as as serious Bible believing Christ loving Christians words were so familiar with the cross that we forget what it was like for Christ and we can we can easily speak the Christ died on the cross for my sins, and that just kinda rolls off our tongue with with a little bit too much ease with with a little bit of a lack of reverence.

Some time not taking into account what it meant for Christ. We don't want to be that way we want to be like Paul and say I want to know the fellowship of his sufferings you say to yourself I love Christ so much that I want to enter into and to whatever extent I can. I want to enter into the fellowship of his sufferings.

I want to know what that was like I want to identify with him. I want to be united with him in Scripture pulls back the curtain a little bit and lets us see here what was Christ thinking on the cross, the words of Psalm 22 were on his lips and the lips speak that which fills the heart.

There's been some commentators believe that Christ may be had and recited the entire song while he suffered on the cross. There's no scriptural evidence of the habit. Psalm 22 is so woven around the crucifixion that that you see the, the emphasis the Scripture places on it about 15 times. Psalm 22 is quoted in fulfillment of messianic expectations is Christ hung on that cross giving himself over for your sins and for mine.

Somehow Jesus felt incalculable immense pain resulting from separation from his father as he bore the punishment for our sins. There was a pain.

There was a sense of abandonment. There was a sense of alienation.

This this God that he had been essentially he had shared absence with from before time began this father whom he loved and who live who loved him as well. In a in the bonds of of and an eternal counsel of God that we cannot begin to comprehend in a love that Christ play supreme value on and the father that he love the father that he prayed to while here on earth. The father that he obeyed implicitly. The father that he would serve with every drop of his blood now somehow in a way that we don't pretend to be able to explain how does how does the Trinity separated a time like that. How does the father turn away from his own son. There's no words to describe that, but there's enough for us to to see that the Christ felt this sense of separation from his father and it pained him to an eternal death that we cannot begin to plumb Psalm 22 was especially appropriate on his lips. It's not just that he experienced pain and end the that the spiritual anguish of soul that came from bearing our sins. When you read through Psalm 22. The Psalm worries, he's he's recognizing his enemies, but he's not is not asking for vengeance upon them is not is not praying imprecatory Psalms over them. Even though he was suffering unjustly as he was there in the midst of profound suffering brought on through the human hands of wicked men. There was no sense of retaliation against them.

How how holy house sacred.

He was house self unless he was as as he hung on the cross he prayed father forgive them for they don't know what they're doing, he took care of his mother looked at the looked at the at John and said, behold, your mother, woman, behold, your son, he took care of his mother while he was while they were hanging there. He turned to the thief on the cross and said today you will be with me in paradise. In the midst of this unspeakable anguish. This this incredible suffering. You see Christ calling out for his father missing that sense of fellowship or having earlier been looking out for the needs of the humans all around. What kind of what what kind of magnificent solar we looking into when we consider the nature of Christ wears any parallel in human history of a man that perfect at that great that selfless, who suffered so much.

Though he was innocent of any wrongdoing of his own. No wonder Isaiah could say in Isaiah 53 verse seven that he was like a lamb led to slaughter.

He was silent before the shearers as he interceded for sinners. He did not protest against the suffering.

It's what he was sent from heaven to do as much as we can into the the very soul of Christ as he was hanging on the cross for us. We see an innocent man suffering to a degree that we will never understand. We see a selfless, generous, gracious man looking out for those who were gathered around his cross some of his enemies. His family a new friend that would what that would that day be with him in paradise. You see why Spurgeon called it holy ground were talking about the central focus of the redemption of the human race, and we see what the God man was like as he brought that redemption to pass and he did it alone. He was alone. He was alone only with your sin and mine in the punishment that it wired alone with our sin alone, as it were, with the that the vitriolic hatred of his enemies mocking him in enjoying the spectacle of his seeming loss and what did he do in that time. Look at verse three says, yet you are holy OU who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel and you are father's trusted they trusted and you delivered them to you. They cried out and were delivered in you they trusted and were not disappointed in the midst of his suffering. He recalled the holiness of God. He acknowledged that God had delivered his people in the past, perhaps as we read Scripture we remember the accounts of God delivering Noah delivering Abraham delivering Joseph delivering Moses in the midst of all of their unjust suffering brought the nation of Israel out of Egypt and through those events manifested the fact that that when God's people trust him. Their trust was never in vain. It was never he never failed that their trust he never disappointed them. Scripture says that he who believes in him will not be disappointed.

Christ lays hold of that on the cross and it renews his trust in his father and consciously vindicates the holiness and character of the father even as he is suffering alone on as he's laying this out in the in the gentle, generous, gracious nature of his spirit in the perfection of his holy heart as he is in a most pure and simple. Simple meaning undivided in a most undivided way, trusting in his father. What is the response of the men that are around him.

They treated him like a warm look at verses six through eight. He says, but I am a worm and not a man, a reproach of men and despised by the people, all who see me sneer at me.

They separate with the lip they wagged the head saying commit yourself to the Lord, let him deliver him. Let him rescue him because he delights in him there, mocking him at the cross.

And so Jesus in his innocence alone with our sin, as if that weren't enough, he was hated he was unwanted he was mocked as he hung as it were between earth and heaven on our behalf.

He was trusting in God like no one ever did before or after. And yet in the midst of the purity of his trust, his enemies taunted him look at Matthew 27 where we see this passage played out in the literal life of Christ on the cross. This this is enough to make you ashamed of sharing humanity with these people. Matthew 27. Let's look at verse 38 just to set the context for you at that time. Matthew 27 verse 38.

At that time, two robbers were crucified with him one on the right and one on the left. Perhaps the most degraded display of sinful humanity ever recorded in the history of time we see in verse 39 and those passing by were hurling abuse at him, wagging their heads and saying you who are going to destroy this temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself.

If you are the son of God, come down from the cross in the same way the chief priests also along with the scribes and elders were mocking him and saying he saved others, he cannot save himself. He is the king of Israel, let him come down down from the cross and we will believe in him, he trusting God. Let God rescue him now if he delights in them for. He said I am the son of God. The picture of the wagging of the head and the separating of the lives it's as though they were pulling their lips apart and sticking their tongues out at him. So degraded was there mocking there is like they were school kid sticking their tongues out separating their lives somehow wagging their head in a way that was the ultimate in utter derision against the holy son of God as pastor Don green stated earlier, the crucifixion of Christ can be understood and broken down in three parts. So far we've looked at the problem of our Lord suffering but there are two other words that also start with the P and Don will get to those next time on the truth pulpit. Don't miss a moment and does here in studio with a special invitation for you friend if you don't have a church home and you live near Cincinnati. Why not visit us soon. Truth community church. We have a lot of gracious people that I know would make you feel welcome and you'd enjoy the same Bible teaching the hero in our program. Also, let me tell you that if you ever stranded at home and unable to attend your own church join us on our live stream everything you need to connect with our church can be found at our website. Here's Bill with all you need to know. Just visit us at the truth. Pulpit.com for address and service information there.

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