The Reason.

Introduction

Good morning once again!

It is great to see everyone.

I hope you guys had a great week!

Another week of school down!

Everyone finish all their weekend homework yesterday and free today right?

Because SKY students all do their hw as soon as they get it! Am I right?

Alright where were we.

We are on foundations. Week 4 of 5. Almost at the end of this series.

Quick recap. Even though I always always always skip recap on netflix.

Where did we come from?

We come from an all powerful God who made the universe with his fingers.

He is a personal God who deeply deeply loves us.

2. Why were we even created?

God is community. God desires community. God WANTED to create us and bring us into that community.

3. The fall. What happened to us as humans? Why do we suck sometimes?

Well Adam and Eve ate the fruit, but we all know deep down inside we’re all selfish. We want to be our own gods.

Even if we try to be good and virtuous. There’s parts of us that even do that selfishly.

We can’t be 100% virtuous. Because we turn away from God and on ourselves. This is sin.

4. Today we talk about the reason.

The reason why we are Christians. What everything culminates to.

Jesus Christ on the cross.

Alright let’s pray.

Prayer

Father God, thank you once again. In fact we’re always thankful.

Thankful for you who are. Thankful for your love for us. Thankful for still being with us despite who we are and what we’ve done.

God we come before you today talking about something that I myself still don’t fully understand the implications of.

2000 years ago you came on this earth and died for us.

Little by little help us understand what this means.

Come just capture us with the magnitude of what this means.

We worship you here today learning more of you who are.

Thank you. We love you. We pray all these things in your son Jesus’ most holy name.

Amen.

Intro

Man there’s a lot to unpack.

I’m doing this topic a very big disservice trying to fit this in just one sermon.

But luckily we’ll be going through Mark and we’ll have opportunity to dig in deeper.

As I was thinking of what to cover for today.

So I thought to maybe answer a few questions that come up a lot when it comes to the death of Jesus.

And in doing so, I hope we can understand God’s love a bit more.

And as we dive into the gospels we can do so easier.

So for today.

Did Jesus really even get crucified? Can we trust what’s written here? This document comes from the early church leaders. Surely they just put in what people wanted to hear right? To spread their Jesus cult.

Why did Jesus even have to die?

What does it mean for us?

Did this even happen? Why did it even have to happen? What does it mean for us?

Let’s dig in.

Bible

Turn with me to Matthew chapter 27. Follow along as I read this passage for us.

This is the crucifixion and the death of Jesus according to Matthew.

The Crucifixion

32 As they went out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. They compelled this man to carry his cross.

33 And when they came to a place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull),

34 they offered him wine to drink, mixed with gall, but when he tasted it, he would not drink it.

35 And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots.

36 Then they sat down and kept watch over him there.

37 And over his head they put the charge against him, which read, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.”

38 Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left.

39 And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads

40 and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.”

41 So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying,

42 “He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.

43 He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”

44 And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way.

The Death of Jesus

45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.

46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

47 And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, “This man is calling Elijah.”

48 And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink.

49 But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.”

50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.

51 And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split.

52 The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised,

53 and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

54 When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”

55 There were also many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him,

56 among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.

Amen.

Did this really happen?

I think one of the more natural questions that come up is how can we trust the bible. Or how MUCH can we trust it.

I’m not sure how much detail you guys know about this book.

Honestly when I was in middle school I didn’t really think about it that much.

I thought it was a magical book that maybe fell from heaven.

I told Isaiah, Eunbee and Mindy the other day what I wanted to be when I grew up.

I wasn’t the brightest of the bunch.

I had no idea where the bible came from. I never really thought about it.

I just sort of accepted it.

Not until later in late high school and college did I really start my journey into questioning this piece of document and my beliefs.

And really understanding if this is credible.

Side note. If you ever have questions, please please please let me know. Regarding the bible. Ask me those questions.

I think the biggest tragedy of some church’s is looking down on people who are struggling with their faith.

No it’s okay to have doubts. In fact it’s normal. Just look at all the characters in the bible. All of them are flawed.

Don’t be ashamed. No judgement. It’s something we all struggle with and it’s better to get through them together.

Alright?

So the question is how can we trust what’s written here. Can we believe that Jesus was crucified and the details around that?

These books were written by people, but we believe is inspired by the Holy Spirit. By God.

Some people think, well maybe they lied about Jesus dying on the cross so they can make this Jesus cult. For their own benefit.

How can we trust what the CHURCH leaders wrote. Conflict of interest right?

I want you guys to pretend with me for a second that we are the early church leaders and we’re trying to promote this new religion right?

Like a start-up.

Well what would we write?

Well, you have to realize that society back in the day was heavily based on shame.

Nowadays everyone puts their life on tiktok or instagram. Even if they do something embarrassing.

Not so much back in the day they hide their shame.

One of the biggest atrocities at the time in the Roman empire was crucifixion.

Today we revere the cross. We wear it on our necklaces. Some people have it on their earrings. right because of what Jesus did for us as Christians.

But back then not so much. Crucifixion is something you don’t really publicize. Especially for your hero.

Even the latin root word crux was a curse word.

Why would you want your hero to die of crucifixion? It’s embarrassing. Much better to die heroically don’t you think? Maybe die fighting heroically.

If I wanted to make the best story possible to convince people at the time to join my religion. I would maybe leave some of these details out.

Even if we go back a chapter to the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus says God is there any other way out of this?

We see Jesus being human and asking God he can get out of it.

I probably would’ve left this part out. Just keep him silent. Why even record this part.

Even on the cross as we just read. God why have you forsaken me? Why have you left me? Why have you abandoned me?

The hero crying out in desperation. Not a good look.

Even after Jesus’ death, the first people to witness the Resurrection were women.

Okay nothing against women right.

But back in the day they were very low in the social ladder. It’s just the way society was back then. They had no credibility.

Why have the first eye witnesses be women? Much harder to convince people.

See if you think the gospels were doctored for the benefit of the church leaders, we don’t see much evidence of it.

In fact Jesus’ PR office would probably be upset.

I bet the early church leaders really had a long talk about including these things in.

But they still included them in all the gospels.

Why?

Maybe because it’s true.

Because if they really wanted to make things ideal. They wouldn’t have included the things they did.

Probably the biggest controversies after Jesus died was whether you need to be circumcised or not.

Should we do it? Should we not do it? The Jews were very big on tradition and culture. It was a divisive topic.

If I was a church leader why not just throw in a line from Jesus saying something about it. But Jesus said nothing about it in the gospels.

They included things in the gospels despite it being bad for them.

And I could go on and on right?

If you look at all the early church leaders and the disciples. If you just read about them in the bible.

Sometimes I read the gospels and I’m like. Dang the disciples are pretty dumb.

Peter turns his back on Jesus. They fight over who’s going to be Jesus’ right hand man.

They’re clueless, they’re jerks, they have no idea what’s going on.

If I were them I would’ve maybe changed a few words make myself look better right? Oh I knew what was gonna happen the entire time.

No what we have are 4 historical accounts of what took place.

There was no reason to lie. They knew Jesus was the real deal. They wanted to preserve what happened, exactly as it happened.

If you’re still not convinced. Let’s talk.

But you’ll be up against even secular historians and even documents from the enemies of the early church that also verify the gospels.

What we read here is historically accurate and we can trust that the events did happen.

Why did this have to happen?

Now this leads us to the next question. Why did this even need to happen?

Have you guys ever thought about that?

Why couldn’t God just you know.. forgive us?

He’s God he can do anything.

Just snap a finger and done.

Why go through the trouble?

Why go through the unbearable spiritual and emotional pain that Jesus went through.

Here’s why.

Have you ever been wronged by somebody? I mean really wronged. Betrayed. Hurt. Had a big injustice done to you.

I’m sure you have to some extent in a lot of different ways.

What you notice is that there’s this very strong sense that it can’t just be ignored. Something needs to happen.

You need to figure out a solution for it. You can’t just sweep it under the rug.

And you’ll realize that there’s only really 2 options.

(1) You can make them pay. You can make them suffer. Because it’s what they deserve right?

We feel better because justice has been served. They got the right amount of punishment for what they’ve done.

So we make them suffer. And we’ll feel like okay something was done about it.

(2) We can forgive them. Which means we DON’T make them suffer right? We let them off the hook. We show compassion and love instead of wishing they get what’s coming to them.

Forgiveness is hard. If you experienced forgiving someone who really wronged you. You know that it’s extremely painful.

It’s excruciating. It’s painful to forgive.

They deserve to be punished. Deserve justice. But instead we show compassion and eventually we get peace, but we suffer instead.

Forgiveness is self-suffering.

When we forgive, we don’t let the people who should suffer suffer, so instead we suffer.

When Jesus asked God hey is there any other way? There’s gotta be a different way we can do this.

No there was no other way.

Either we suffer. Or Jesus forgives and he suffers.

All the wrongdoings in human history. All the pure selfishness in every person that’s ever walked the earth. Abandoning God and instead pursuing ourselves.

All this can’t just be swept under the rug and ignored.

It needs to be addressed.

Either we suffer. Or Jesus carries the weight of all of this and suffers.

Just the fact that we deserve punishment, but we get away clean.

Jesus takes the entirety of that punishment himself instead.

This is what he showed on the cross.

What does this mean to me?

Now what does all this mean to us?

What does this mean to me.

Well I’m not going to get in too much detail, because you’re going to find that everywhere.

In sermons, in the songs we sing, in bible studies, in the lives of our brothers and sisters, leaders and teachers.

Jesus died for us.

This is and should be huge. It should be a big deal. The question is how much of a big deal is it for you?

I pray that for each one of you. This fact will utterly change your life. Change the way you live.

I’m leaving this one as bit of a cliffhanger, because even I myself am still learning.

Through the rest of the year and years to come, the rest of our lives.

Jesus died for me. What does that mean for me? This is the question we’ll be pursuing and understanding more and more.

You AP world historians. 13th century the black plague decimated roughly half the entire earth’s population.

Imagine the entire worlds population just cut in half.

Everyone fled the city and isolated away from people in fear. And rightfully so.

Well almost everyone.

As people were running away from the epicenters. There were people who were going straight towards it. To take care of those that were suffering.

See they saw life differently. Everyone was just in fear. But they had hope.

They understood what it meant when Jesus died for them. They saw the bigger picture.

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m excited to take this journey we have together to explore this more.

Through sermons, bible studies, discussions.

Through retreats, activities, and sharing our lives.

Let’s be a youth group who strives to understand what this means to us personally.

Conclusion

Let me end with this story for today while we’re on the topic of forgiveness.

Foundations right it’s about understanding God’s love more.

We’ll never be able to fully understand it because of just how infinite it is.

But here’s just a glimpse of how much God loves us. Always like to end in these right?

There’s a video I’ll post on discord later if you guys want to watch.

It’s about a serial killer in a court room who killed 40 something people.

All the families of the victims are there at the sentencing and sharing how much they hate him and it’s very dramatic right.

One father, his daughter was killed, comes up. And he said it’s not easy to do, but God says we should forgive.

He tells the killer Gary Ridway you are forgiven.

The killer wasn’t swayed by any of the other people telling him what a piece of crap he was.

Because he probably thinks he deserves it. He expects it.

But he starts crying. He didn’t expect to be forgiven. He didn’t think he deserved it.

Man just imagine how hard it was for this father to forgive this man who took his daughters life. Absolutely excruciating.

I’m a pastor and I don’t know if I could do the same honestly. Man what a guy.

Amazing amazing stuff right? Probably the hardest thing I’ve seen a man do.

But the mindblowing thing is.. God’s love doesn’t stop there..

God forgives. But God also reconciles.

He goes a step further.

He could just forgive us. Great. We gucci. We cool. See ya later.

But God wants to reconcile. He wants to restore our relationship to what it used to be.

It’s like if this father not only forgives the killer which was agonizing I bet.

But he also wants to be friends with the serial killer. Grab a beer visiting the prison.

Doesn’t make any sense right?

This is how much God loves us.

He forgives. He also wants to to be our friend afterwards.

We’ll talk about this more next week.

More cliff hangers.