faithlife:sermons

John 19:16-42 I Thirst Introduction: As we’ve been leading up to Jesus death on the Cross we have highlighted two things. First that Jesus is dying not for his own sins, but as a substitute for his people, and the sins of the World. Secondly, we've seen that Jesus is in total control, and that everything is going according to the divine plan to make God’s love known to the world, to redeem mankind, and to win the victory through the cross. Jesus is handed over to the Roman authority, he is crowned, arrayed in purple, pronounced the king of the Jews, and he is now exalted for all to see and the proclamation of his rule goes out in every language known to the world at the time. Jesus is King of the Jews. Jesus is being announced as Israel’s messiah to the whole world. The world at this moment doesn’t know that what it needs, to rescue it from it’s desperate plight, is the Messiah promised by the one God to Israel. But this is what John believed. Israel’s Messiah, after all, will rule from sea to sea, from one end of the world to the other. All nations will pay him honor.(Psalm 72) And it is precisely through his execution that all of this will come to pass. As the King, he is also fulfilling the extraordinary biblical prophecies about the suffering righteous one, in whom the suffering of Israel would come to their height, and through whose tribulation and death evil would be exhausted and the kingdom of God be born on earth..The most popular of these biblical prophecies is probably Psalm 22. Matthew and Mark have Jesus quoting from the first line of this Psalm. Jesus screamed out - “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” as the Psalm continues with it’s awful depiction of suffering of the many horrors it describes is not only the stripping naked of the sufferer but the added indignity of seeing people gamble for his clothes..John describes this scene for us to take us back to Psalm 22 for deep contemplation - Jesus is the fulfillment of prophecy and sacred song. He is the righteous sufferer. He is the true king. He is the one through whose shameful death the weight of Israel’s sin, and behind that the sin of the whole world is being dealt with. The King of the Jews is God’s chosen representative, not merely to rule the world but to redeem it. For all the details that John gives throughout this gospel his description of the crucifixion is minimal. He covers it in one verse. not only that but John’s Jesus is minimal in his words from the cross. Jesus speaks to transfer his responsibility of his mother over to John and then beside that we have his cry of thirst and his cry of completion. Since John is very simple and minimal in his crucifixion scene I want to be also. So we’ll focus on three things this morning. Two being the words of Jesus and the third be final sign of the book of John. 1. I Thirst 1. It’s not surprising that Jesus says that he’s thirsty. Death by crucifixion would bring terrible dehydration to the body as well as suffocation. They say that to die from dehydration your body internally feels like it’s literally on fire. Maybe this is why Jesus is so thirsty? 2. But I’m not certain that this is why Jesus says this. We are told that he said this fulfilling the scriptures so automatically we should be looking for a deeper meaning here. Not only that but we haven’t heard Jesus say one word about his head, his back, his hands, his feet, his face - but all of a sudden the thirst is unbearably painful? 3. The mention of thirst should take us back to the many times that John’s Jesus has given the offer to quench thirst of individuals. There’s the conversation with the woman at the well about living water. Jesus offers it to her, because he has an endless supply of it...In chapter 6 he claims not only to fill people’s hunger but to satisfy their thirst. Again in John 7 he speaks of living water, and that those who came to him would have rivers of it springing up in their lives… 4. What Jesus is saying is that unless God is your source, your Joy, your hope your first love, you are going to continually be thirsty. (the woman at the well) All the other things that you drink from, looking for identity, acceptance, worth, hope and joy will only leave you dissatisfied. All of these are found in God alone, He alone can quench that soul thirst that every human being has. 1. One problem. The scripture makes it clear -We can’t get to God. God is holy, we are evil and sinful. (Remember the I Am declaration in the garden?) We can’t keeps God’s righteous standards, we can’t even keep our own righteous standards. No one can stand before God, no one can approach him, and yet this is what every one of us need, this is the void, the vacuum of our lives…. and now we can begin to understand what Jesus is doing and saying 5. Think about the horror as we get the full impact of what John is saying at the thought of Jesus being thirsty.. Had the living water run out? Has the water of life failed? But this is to show us how Jesus must do what only Jesus can do… He must come to the place of everyone else, the place of thirst, shame and death. Jesus is experiencing the ultimate thirst Jesus Christ is experiencing the everlasting burnings of God - "Who can stand before his indignation?Who can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire.” - Nahum 1:6 6. Jesus is experiencing Gods burning wrath…. “He is being”, as the prophet Isaiah described, “cut off for the sins of his people.” Remember that substitution language in the garden? -Me for them. Well hear we see it. This is what all of us deserve, to be cut off from God and to feel the everlasting burnings, and yet Jesus takes our place. Jesus is being separated from God, the fountain of living waters, so that we can have the fountain of living waters. He’s paying for our sins. He lost the favor and love of the Father which is what we deserve, so that we could have the favor and love of the Father, which is what only he deserved. 1. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” -2 Corinthians 5:21 2. It is Finished 1. Now comes the moment, when Jesus is utterly weak, helpless, completely paralyzed, pinned to the tree and he says, “I did it!” “Tetelesti!” This is an interesting word, because it is a word that means, “paid in full.” This is what ancient peoples would right on a bill when it was paid. Just like we do in accounting. 2. But what was paid in full? 1. “For Christ also suffered[a] once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,” - 1 Peter 3:18 2. The work of redemption is done, the work for our salvation is accomplished. You don’t have to lift a finger. 3. The Water and the Blood 1. Look at what happens next.. “Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. 32 So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him. 33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 34 But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. 35 He who saw it has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth—that you also may believe. 36 For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken.” 37 And again another Scripture says, “They will look on him whom they have pierced.” 1. First Jesus says that he’s thirsty, then he says it is finished, bows his head and gives up his spirit, and the very next thing we see is blood and water flowing from the side of Jesus. 1. What is going on here? Well, first we know that it means that Jesus is truly dead. He didn’t swoon on the cross as many say he did. He actually truly did die. A professional Roman executioner made sure of it by thrusting a spear into his side, and out flowed blood and water. 2. John quotes from Zechariah 12:10, showing that Jesus’ piercing was in fulfillment of prophecy, “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.” And when you read on to the end of this section it says, “On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.” 1. The flowing blood and water from Jesus side is the sign that atonement for sin has been made. Jesus thirsted, he endured the everlasting burnings for us, he was stripped for us, it is finished - paid in full and now blood and living water flows from the side of Jesus for our cleansing and renewal. The message is, come wash, be clean, and be filled with the living water. 2. As the hymn says, “Let the water and blood from thy wounded side which flowed, be of sin the double cure - save from wrath and make me pure.” Conclusion: Jesus suffered for you, it is finished. He bore all of your sin, all of my sin on the cross, there is nothing you or I can do to add to it. In fact, to add to it would only be to take away from it. It is finished. These are words we need to hear again and again. It is finished, our redemption is accomplished. Our shame, our inability to measure up has been filled up by Christ. You can’t receive Jesus’ salvation and then add to it. Each of us are tempted in so many ways to add to it, maybe not purposefully or even knowingly. But we do it through beating ourselves up or through trying to prove ourselves….every time you’re criticized you your devastated beat yourself up. You can’t forgive yourself.things you did in your past you are still living in the guilt and condemnation of that. Jesus says to you, I was beaten up, I paid for your sins. Is that not enough? It is finished. How dare you hate yourself and loathe yourself if you are a Christian, don’t you know what Christ has done for you? Now the self provers so proud of your accomplishments, they give you a sense of worth and identity.. stop trying to prove yourself to God and to others. You never will. You’ll never be able to keep up the charade. God knows everything about you and still loves you, you are accepted as you are, and any attempt/works to make yourself more lovely by your human accomplishments only takes away from what Christ has done. “Not the labor of my hands, can fulfill thy laws demands. Could my zeal no respite no, could my tears forever flow, all of sin could not atone, thou must save and thou alone.” As the hymn says - Come ye weary, heavy laden, Lost and ruined by the fall; If you tarry till you're better, You will never come at all. Let not conscience make you linger, Nor of fitness fondly dream; All the fitness He requires Is to feel your need of Him.