Let the Shepherd Lead

Originally Proclaimed: 04/09/20

Intro:

• Back a number of years ago, when I was a youth pastor, our group went on a World Changers Mission Trip to Tallahassee, Florida.
• I had the joy of being assigned to a roofing crew.
  • Even though we were working on a hip roof, and it was at no place more than 15-20 feet off the ground, those few feet closer to the hot Florida sun made a huge difference.
  • We could only work for around an hour before taking a break. I was more thirsty than I had ever been.
• Near the end, out of desperation to finish the roof, I stayed on the roof longer than our normal break and smashed my thumb with a hammer three times in a row before relenting to the unyielding heat.

Hook:

• Have many of us have been humbled?
  • It could be that some of us felt like I did in the Florida heat; humbled by the elements
  • Maybe we faced a test that humbled us several times before passing it.
  • Perhaps we have children whose behavior humbles us, even though we have done our best to discipline them.
• We do not like the word humble because in every situation it puts on display our human frailties and weaknesses.
• Yet there can be nothing more comforting for us than to understand that Jesus, on the cross, displayed just how humble He was willing to be for God’s glory and our good.

Message Points:

• John records for us two sayings missed by the other gospel writers.
  • His proximity to Christ as he endured suffering gave John a unique vantage point to witness every detail of the crucifixion.
  • Do not think of Jesus extremely high in the air.
    • Most Roman crosses were just barely off the ground.
    • In fact the feet of the crucified would likely have been no higher than the majority of our knees.
    • His head would be just high enough that if we extended our arms it would reach to his mouth.
    • His humanity was on display.
  • And this display occurred after six hours on the cross.
    • At this point he has already prayed for the pardon of those who placed him upon the cross.
    • He has offered comfort to those closest.
    • He had felt the anguish of being forsaken but spoke words of assurance.
    • And now after three hours of darkness, Jesus has reached the limits of his earthly frame.
    • Yet, he was not so frail that he did not reflect upon the Scriptures to see if all that God had foretold was complete.
• A.W. Pink records at least seventeen prophecies the Messiah would endure during his passion (94).
  • In this moment, 19:28 tells us Jesus reviewed the Scriptures he knew by heart.
  • Up to this point everything in God’s will to redeem sinners had been finished.
  • But he also knew that one prophecy still needed fulfillment.
  • Psalm 69:21 says “they put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.”
  • Matthew 27:34 tells us that the soldiers first offered Jesus wine mixed with gall before they drove the nails into his hands and feet.
    • Commentators discuss what gall actually was, but Mark 15:23 indicates it was myrrh.
    • Whatever spice it may have been, it had the same purpose to act as a sedative or pain killer. (Carson, Pillar)
    • Jesus is said to have refused this mixture because it would dull his senses and keep him from experiencing the full cup of God’s wrath.
  • At the Cross as Warren Wiersbe relates that Jesus at had three cups offered as drink for him at the cross.
    • First he was offered a cup of charity, in order to relieve and ease his pain. He refused that cup.
    • The only cup Jesus drank wholly from was the cup of our iniquity and God’s wrath. This cup led to his great thirst, but quenched our own thirst.
    • He was also offered the cup of sympathy when he cried “I thirst”. He took but a sip of this cup to moisten his throat in order to fulfill Scripture.
  • Though he refused it at first, in his final weakened state after facing all of God’s wrath foretold in Scripture; Jesus remembers that prophecy.
    • Let this be a lesson to us all. Jesus here has willingly submitted his divinity to his humanity as he bears the sin of the world.
    • Jesus knows that he has two more profound statements to make.
    • He understands that his body, scourged, bleeding, burned under the sun, and dehydrated from hours of torture was near the brink of breaking.
    • He has not been thinking of this thirst as he was in the midst of his spiritual battle; agonizing at being forsaken by God.
    • His thirst building with each minute of the anguish of his soul now must have felt like a flame, burning his throat.
    • Perhaps he even remembered the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16 who asked for Lazarus just to bring him a drop of water.
    • In this frail state, Jesus like we must do, humbly relied upon the Holy Spirit to help him remember, understand, and apply Scripture to his situation.
    • In order to fulfill this last Scripture, which foretold others giving him vinegar to drink, Jesus had to humble himself even further to ask by saying “I thirst.”
• Friends, let that sink in as our first major point for today. In order to fulfill God’s Word, we must be humble. (John 19:28-29).
  • That’s right. Jesus had to be humble to fulfill God’s Word, and so must every person who would receive the living water foretold in John 7:37-38.
  • None of us can fulfill God’s Word without first humbling ourselves to think that God’s Word is more important than our way on any issue.
    • It may be that very thing that keeps some of us from following Jesus today.
    • We may think our way is better than God’s Word.
      • Or we may think that we cannot understand God’s Word.
      • We may even think that our circumstances make it to difficult to fulfill God’s Word.
    • Even though our human frailty rears its ugly head, if Jesus at his weakest, could remember, reflect and apply Scripture to his situation, we have no excuse.
    • There is but one thing that we cannot live without and that friends is the Word of God. After all as Jesus answered Satan at the beginning of his ministry, “Man cannot live by bread alone but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”
  • In this COVID crisis how many times have we been put out by feeling like we have been deprived of something we’re convinced we cannot live without?
    • Friends, are we in more thirsty for the full shelves of our paper product aisle than we are thirsty to please our God?
    • Even though social distancing strains our ability together for worship, to care for one another, or to invite people to church and to Christ; what if God is trying to create in us a greater thirst for serving him as a family of faith?
    • In the late 1990s Matt Redmon’s church in Waterford England was merely going through the motions when it came to worshipping as a church.  (https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/back-to-the-heart-of-worship)
      • The pastor of the church according to Redman decided to get rid of the sound system, the band, and any distraction to real worship.
      • He chose to strip away everything that was not the heart of worship and challenge the congregation to become participants not consumers.
      • A consumer does not have to be humble. They can be demanding.
      • A participant must come with humility, offering him or herself to God.
      • As people gathered for several weeks without any aids to their worship, they realized through their a cappella singing that the heart of worship is a heart humble before God and ready to receive His Word.
      • Anything, even good things that distract us from humbly receiving God’s Word must be cleared away.
      • God can use this COVID crisis to create in us humble hearts of Worship.
  • But some of us may hear about  obeying God and think haven’t I suffered enough?
    • “I’ve already been humbled by my circumstances, how could anyone ask for me to be humbled more.”
  • • Friends Jesus knows the pain and suffering of our lives and yet he still humbled himself to accomplish God’s Word.
    • He is not like a doctor who does not know pain.
    • Psalm 22:14-15 tells us  he suffered greatly and still humbled himself yet more.
    • His cry of “I thirst” and the response of the soldiers to offer him the common cheap sour wine in the bucket beside him tells us that Jesus understands our sufferings by experience.
  • As has been said, “Meet the thirsty Christ at the cross and your soul will never go thirsty again” (Phillip Ryken quoted in Lutzer, 95).
  • Reflect on Jesus offer of pardon, comfort, and assurance from the cross. And now, according to the Scriptures humble yourself
• Naturally then for us to finish God’s will we must also be humble. This is our second point this morning (19:30).
  • Jesus’ sixth saying from the cross relates the truth that “it is finished”.
  • This word is one in the Greek but three in English.
    • While there certainly is an element of victory to this saying, we should be careful not to misconstrue what Jesus is saying.
    • Τετελεσται would have been the word that a slave or servant would come to tell a master after a task had been completed.
    • Τετελεσται would be the word written on a release order from a debtor’s prison when the debt had been paid.
    • Whatever victory there is in this saying, it comes because of the humble service our Savior willingly fulfilled before God on our behalf.
      • Jesus was humbly submitting his work to His Father for His approval.
      • Jesus was humbly requesting confirmation that the debt of mankind had been paid.
  • Friends, we may think that we can make our own way. Or that our works are enough to earn God’s favor. But we would be wrong.
    • It is like the story of a Christian farmer and his friend the carpenter. (Pink, 126)
      • The farmer had for years witnessed to his friend the carpenter, telling him that Christ had finished all the work necessary for him to be saved all he had to do was believe.
      • The carpenter insisted that he had to do something to earn his salvation. He took pride in his work and built everything so that it was precise and lasting.
      • With every project the carpenter built, he believed he thought was doing a little more good to earn his way to heaven.
      • So the farmer had the idea one day to order an ornate fence gate as the entrance to his home.
      • When the carpenter arrived to install the fence he noticed that his friend the farmer had an axe in his hand.
      • Once the gate was install, the farmer raised the axe to the carpenter’s dismay.
      • The carpenter asked “what are you doing?” The farmer said, “I’m just going to add a few more cuts to your work.” as he began to hack away.
      • The carpenter cried out, “It’s finished, it doesn’t need anything else. You’re ruining my work.”
      • At that the farmer turned to him and said, “friend, that is exactly what you are doing by trying to add to the finished work of Christ.”
    • Friends, it is good news that we can humble ourselves and still trust in the finished work of Christ.
      • Just think Christian parent whose children have strayed from the faith; regardless of our parenting efforts, Christ’s finished work to save us is finished.
      • Believer who has given in to the temptation to take one more drink, or pop that extra pill, or look at that pornographic website again, our failures do not negate Christ’s finished work to save us.
      • Even as we seek to live for Jesus out of our loving desire to please him; our works will not add to the finished work of Christ nor can our works keep us from humbly receiving the finished work of Christ.
    • As a church we show our humility when we proclaim  the finished work of Christ as the only thing necessary or sufficient for friends, relatives, neighbors, and coworkers to be converted and saved.
      • Church we must ask ourselves do we act like we are more confident in our church activities or on the finished work of Christ?
      • Are we inviting people to humble themselves and trust Christ’s finished work or come and enjoy all our church has to offer?
      • The truth is that we will never be able to offer people a church or a Christ that does not demand our humility.
    • Church let us humbly believe that the most important change we all need to make is to proclaim and enjoy the finished work of Christ!
    • And believer our most important change is to humbly trust Christ’s finished work,
      • Not the works we think add to our salvation
      • Nor the works that we think keep us from God and salvation.
      • If Jesus, bearing the whole weight of the world’s sin still humbly cried out to God, what keeps us from doing the same?

Conclusion:

• So how do we apply this message to our lives today?
  • First, let us humble ourselves in order to fulfill the word of God.
    • God’s Word is a plan of salvation intended to teach us that living in sin for our self leads to death and separation.
    • It was written to assure us that if we would repent and turn to God, He would forgive, cleanse, and grant to us eternal life.
  • Second, let us humble ourselves and receive the finished work of God in Christ.
    • By faith in Christ’s ability to obey God and pay our sin debt are we saved.
    • We are not saved by our works. We are saved by his finished work.
    • All that we do in life after our salvation is meant not to earn or add to our salvation, but to enjoy the fellowship Christ purchased for us at the cross.
  • So friends, will we humble ourselves before Christ today?