What A Savior

Thank you, Brother Paul, and good evening everyone, I am glad that you all could be here. We have heard two excellent messages this evening as we reflect on what Christ did for us all those years ago on this night.

My main focus will be just before the trial and crucifixion of Christ. I want to talk about Jesus’ high priestly prayer. It is in this prayer that he shows that he had not only his disciples in mind while heading to the cross. He had you and me and all those that would believe in Him on his mind as well.

So please turn in your Bible’s this evening to John chapter 17 and we will start in verse seven.

John 17:7–21 ESV

7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. 20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

Let us pray.

I am praying for them Jesus says in verse nine. I am praying for them, not for the whole world. Jesus here is thinking of His sheep and His sheep alone. He is praying for the elect of God. Those who would believe in His name.

And what a comforting prayer this is to those of us who now know the whole story and see the events that transpired. But, as I mentioned earlier, Jesus was thinking about you and me at the cross as well. He said in verse 20, I’m not only asking for these, but those that would believe through their word.

That is those who would believe in his word given through the disciples and apostles written to us in the Bible.

How comforting it is to know exactly what Christ was meditating on with the Father as he got ready for his passion. For his death, his crucifixion. His punishment in our place.

We have a God and Savior who cares about us in the most intimate ways. There is nothing held back with him.

He knew his hour had come. He knew he was about to die. And he was not worried about the pain he was going to suffer. He was not worried about the torture, the mockery, the shame and humiliation, the pain that he would endure on the cross. He was concerning himself with you and me. What a savior!

It would be in the following moments of this high priestly prayer that they would head out to Gethsemane. That Garden where Judas would betray him. Where Simon Peter would attack the high priest’s servant and Jesus would perform yet another miracle by healing his ear.

He was completely selfless. He was God. He did not have to do any of this. He could have let us die in our sin and spend eternity in Hell. That would be justice. But that is not what He did. No church. He made a way for His elect to be saved. He showed mercy and compassion. Grace greater than all our sin as the old hymn says.

We all know the story. Jesus would go through several different trials over the next few hours. From the Jewish leaders to Roman leaders and there and back again.

He was flogged. He was beaten, bruised, cut, torn. A cat of nine tails is what the whip was called. It would have shards of bone and metal tied into the leather straps so it would rip the flesh off of the person’s back. It was brutal. It was excruciating.

The soldiers mocked him, forced that crown of thorns on his head and putting on him a robe saying, “Hail the King of the Jews” and then they beat him some more.

And, of course, he knew what the outcome would be. He knew it could only end one way. They sentenced him to death. Crucify Him! Crucify Him! They yelled.

And so they crucified him. The place of the skull. Golgotha. Calvary. They crucified him fulfilling every prophecy about the Messiah’s earthly ministry and what must happen and be accomplished.

And this had to be endured because of you and because of me. It was our sin, our shame, our punishment that he endured on that cross. It wasn’t his, he was perfect. He was sinless, he was God. And he took our punishment in our place!

Isaiah 53:4–7 ESV

4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

It was our place, our punishment that he took. What a Savior! What a God that we serve here tonight on Good Friday 2020.

And in our passage tonight, he did it all for our sake. For the love of His children, the ones that the Father had given to Him.

Friends, when we think about that, when we think about the fact that Jesus prayed for you and he prayed for me on that night when his torture would begin, knowing full well the wickedness that would be inside of all of us in our lifetime, knowing every sin that we would ever commit against him, he prayed for us to the Father. He prayed that the Father would keep us. He prayed that we would be guarded, that we would be sanctified in the truth. That we would be consecrated to him. Set apart. So that the world would know of his love for us. What a savior!

Tonight, as we close, brother Paul will be coming back in a minute after I pray but I want us to think about something. I want us to reflect on what Christ did for us on that Friday. I want us to think about how that is often so taken for granted. I know I do. I don’t give enough reverence to Christ who endured all of that for me. I don’t love Him as I should and I think if we are honest with ourselves, none of us do.

In recent days we have heard a lot about recommitting to doing things to beat the health crisis that we are in. But tonight, as Christians, I want us to hear a different call. We need to recommit to living lives that are worthy of what Christ did for us on that cross. Lives that our worthy of fulfilling the prayer that Christ prayed in John 17.

Let’s recommit tonight church. Let’s recommit to Christ and His sacrifice tonight.

Let us pray.