The Lamb Of God Sacrificed [Good Friday] // Gavin Victor

Tonight we remember, tonight we reflect, we remember a real man, we're not just

singing to a ceiling, we're not just thinking about a story, we're remembering a

real man. And like the psalm said that we beholden remember the man who was

poured out like water for us, whose bones were out of joint, who was mocked,

pierced and killed for us. But why? Why death? Why a sacrifice? Sin. Sin demands

a sacrifice. In offering it needs to be justified, it needs to be reconciled.

Roman 6 says that the wages of sin is death. So wherever there is sin there has

to be death. It requires a payment. God is holy and just and sin is a debt

against him that needs to be paid. And so God, because he loves his people,

provided away for him in his holiness, in his perfection to dwell among a broken

and sinful people, which is where we get the law. It's where the Old Testament,

the sacrifices, the offerings, the day of atonement, God has always wanted to be

with his people. But there was a cost because of sin. And as Hebrews 9 says,

in fact the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood and

without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. Sin had a cost that

needed to be paid for. And in the book of Leviticus we get five major offerings

that the people of God needed to offer to God two of them dealing with guilt and

one, two of them with guilt and shame. But the process was always the same. The

people of God would sin. There would need to be something to cover that. So an

animal would be sacrificed, a ram, a lamb, a goat without deflect, without blemish.

It would be slaughtered, sacrificed, and there would be a reconciliation between God

and man. Every time there was sin an animal would be killed. And in Leviticus 16 you

see something of a yearly tradition for the people of God. The day of atonement.

And to atonement for something atonement was to make something right. It was to

reconcile it to God. It was to it was a covering for sin. And so every year the

high priest would go to the tabernacle, to the temple, and he would make atonement.

He would reconcile the people of God back to their creator. And it would be

through two goats, one as a sin offering, and one as a scapegoat. So one goat

would be the payment for sin, and the other would remove the sins from the

people and from the camp. And so in verse 20 it says, when Aaron has finished

making atonement for the holy place, the tent of meeting in the altar that is

done by the first goat, the sin, the sin sacrifice. He shall bring forward the

live goat. He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over

all of the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites, all of their sins, and put

them on the goat's head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the

care of someone appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their

sins to a remote place, and the man shall release it in the wilderness. Every

year this would atonement for the sins of the people of Israel. This was the way

that God would dwell with his people that he would deal with the issue of sin

that we are born into, the issue of our sin nature. But it wasn't just the killing

of an animal that made atonement. And the next chapter in Leviticus 17, it says

that the life of a creature is in the blood, and I've given it to you to make

atonement for yourselves on the altar. It is the blood that makes atonement for

one's life. It's not the ritual, it's not the killing of an animal, but it is

the blood. It is the life found in the blood that makes atonement for sin. It's

the blood that pays the price for sin, the death requirement of sin. But the

issue is the system was incomplete. It wasn't the fullness of what God had

intended. They covered sin, but it didn't deal with the issue of sin. It was

still every day, unintentional sin. People would sin, they would have to go

make an offering. They would have to sacrifice an animal every year. They would

have to do the day of atonement. It didn't deal with sin. The issue of sin that

we all have, and Hebrews 10, 4, it says that it is impossible for the blood of

bulls and goats to take away sins. God never actually wanted our sacrifices of an

animal. It was a temporary solution so that he could be with his people. It's

something that these routine repetitive sacrifices, they couldn't accomplish

that fully. It couldn't pay the debt that sin required. There had to be a better

way. The system in Hebrews 10, it says that the law was only a shadow of things

to come. It was not the fullness so for 1500 years. The people of God, every day,

every week, every year would make sacrifices and offerings to the Lord to deal

with the repetitive issue of sin in their life. 1500 years, they're never

attaining the fullness of freedom from sin. Because the blood of bulls and

goats couldn't do it. They were never intended to cover for humanity's sin. We

needed an ultimate sacrifice. We needed someone, someone, we needed something

perfect. We needed a perfect lamb. We needed something that could just cover our

sin but defeat it. That could actually free us from the debt of sin in our

lives because we were dead in our sins. We are dead in our sins. There is no hope.

We are marked by sin. It is the nature of man. It's what we're born into. We are

powerless against sin in our own flesh. Our sacrifices cannot free us from sin.

We were destined for death. That was the ruling death. But enter Jesus. Isaiah 53

with nothing of appearance for to attract us to him. He grew up. He was a real man.

Lived a real life. The one who John the Baptist called the Lamb of God, this

perfect man, fully human, innocent, blameless, lived a life without sin. He had

friends. He ate meals. He went to weddings. He was alive and active. He was a real

man, loving for people innocent and pure above all else, undeserving of wrath.

The one who chose to become like us, who in being very nature God decided to

empty himself of divine right and be made in human likeness, God and flesh,

fully divine, fully human. See, the sacrifice required a perfect life, life for

life. So could he be the one? Think you're waiting 1500 years, your father, your

father's father, waiting for 1500 years. Could this actually be the Lamb, the Lamb of

God? Could he really be the fullness of the law? Because if he was the fullness of

the law, this perfect sacrifice, this Lamb of God had to pay a cost. And it

would cost him everything. That for sin to finally be eradicated for the grip of

sin and humanity to be broken, the Lamb of God would have to die a death that he

does not deserve. He would die at the hands of those that he loved, of those

that he came to save. He knew the road ahead of him was going to be unbelievably

difficult. And so we see him praying in a garden, in such anguish that sweat

drops from him like blood. We see the humanity of Jesus in a moment crying out

a son to its father, father, please, if there's any other way, take this cup from

me. Let it pass. If you are willing, he knew the cost that was required of the

perfect Lamb that he would have to die. And that moment was drawing all the more

near. And so he prayed more earnestly. And he pleaded with the father, but with

resolve and his answer, he said, Father, not my will, but yours. He knew that

there was one way for the curse of sin to be broken. There was no way around it.

There had to be a sacrifice. He willingly chose death. Because without the shedding of

blood, there is no forgiveness. And so with a kiss of the one who betrayed him for 30

coins, Jesus has taken into custody by the religious leaders. And while being wrongfully

questioned, accused, beaten, mocked, one of his own is again betraying him. Peter forsaking

Jesus denying him as Jesus is getting escorted away wrongfully. Jesus abandoned in his time

of greatest need. The men who were guarding Jesus began to mock him, began to beat him,

unprompted. Besides their own sin and hate and their own depravity and their own mind,

they insulted him, they blindfolded him, and they hit him demanding prophesy. Tell us

who hits you. They made a mockery and a game out of one man, out of an innocent Lamb,

and it goes on for hours. The innocent man in a place he doesn't belong. Jesus,

beaten, weak, tired, is dragged before Pilate who finds no basis of a charge against him.

Innocent of all crimes, he cannot find a reason that these people are so filled with hate towards

one man. And so he's dragged to Herod and like a lamb before its shearers, he is silent.

And in the silence and in the gentleness of Jesus, we see the hate of humanity again. Herod,

the soldiers, the religious leaders mocking him, accusing him ruthlessly, ridiculing him,

dressing him in robes to mock his so-called kingship, not knowing they were in the presence of

the true king of heaven. A crowd gathers, and we've seen it before. Hosanna blessed is he who comes

in the name of the Lord only this time. They're not celebrating the entry of a king. They're

celebrating wickedness, the condemning of an innocent man celebrating the release of a murderer.

Pilate asks the people, what then shall I do with Jesus who's called the Messiah?

And in their deceit, in their brokenness, in their blindness, they shout out, crucify him.

Louder and louder, the crowd shouts, crucify him. Crucify him. Crucify him.

Innocent Jesus sitting as a crowd demands for his death for no reason.

On trial for wrongs that he didn't commit, desiring to be reconciled to the very people

that are shouting, crucify him. Jesus was punished according to our sin, by our sin.

This is the result of sin. This is the death result. This is the payment that was required

because of sin. It's the sin in others. It was the sin in the Roman soldiers that left permanent

marks on the innocent Lamb of God. This is the injustice. This is what makes it unfair,

that it was our punishment for sins that he bore. Jesus is innocent, lived a perfect life without

blemish, without fault. We are the broken ones. We are sinful. And yet it was our punishment that

he bore time and time again. Each hit, each strike, each mockery that was made, it was their sins

that were marking Jesus. Our scapegoat, the sins in the wickedness of Israel cast on one man.

It was our sin that he would become, it says that he who knew no sin became sin on our behalf.

And it marked him forever, but he willingly gave himself up so that we would be pardoned.

That our legal indebtedness to sin would be pardoned.

They would have mocked him. They demanded his death. They would have tied him naked to a pole.

And the Roman soldiers would whip his bare body, the whip pulling and dragging shards of rock,

metal, bones through his flesh ripping him to pieces, torn for us. It would expose bone.

It would expose organs no part of his body would have been left unmarked by the sin of humanity.

The Roman soldiers would put a purple robe on his bleeding body, weaving together a crown of thorns

that would encapsulate his whole head and they would drive it into his skull again and again.

Laughing, mocking one man, laughing at the pain and despair of one innocent man.

Laughing as blood spilled across Roman ground, laughing as he stayed silent and crumbled beneath him.

Hail, the king of the Jews, they shouted as they spit on him, as they mocked him.

That is the consequence of sin.

We see the external effect of an internal issue.

The internal effects the ways that sin destroys humanity, that it separates us from God,

that it marks us and destroys us and crushes us is now externally visible on one innocent man.

Who knew no sin.

And in his own clothes beaten, bruised, weak, crushed, they placed upon him the cross.

And they lead him out of the city gates to be crucified, the most excruciating, painful death.

Jesus, our perfect scapegoat, bearing the weight of sin on his broken, beaten, bruised,

bloodied back, it's the sin that he carries outside the city.

It's our sin that made him unrecognizable to man.

That's not metaphor. He's been beaten for 12, 16 hours.

He is unrecognizable by man.

And he gets to the hill and the nails are driven into his wrists, into his ankles,

each pounding of the nails pinning our savior to the most agonizing death imaginable.

His clothes stripped from him and gambled away this public execution, the shame of the cross.

People walking by condemning this innocent man for no reason.

If you're really the Messiah's do something, save yourself,

sneering, mocking the title that was engraved above him, Jesus, King of the Jews.

And at any moment, Jesus could have called down the angel armies

and gotten down and he could have destroyed the hill that he was crucified on.

But it wouldn't have accomplished the purpose for which he was sent.

He knew what had to happen. And so in his humanity and his divinity, he knew that he had to die.

It was our sin that put him on the cross. But it was his love and desire for deliverance and

reconciliation for us, the people who hung him there that kept him on the cross.

And so for three agonizingly long hours, he was on the cross, fighting for every breath,

struggling to lift himself up because he's been beaten and marred beyond belief,

just to fill his lungs a little bit. Just to fill his lungs so that when the time came,

Jesus could cry out, Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit. It's finished. His last words

and he breathed his last dead. The Lamb of God slaughtered on a cross for all to see, despised,

rejected, shamed. We need to see him. We need to see that that we may know not just the grief of

a man dying, but that we would know the weight of our sin and the price that it cost him.

We should be grieved over sin, not grieved just to be grieved or to feel an emotion,

or because it's good Friday, but because there was a real man who died 2,000 years ago because of

our sin, our sin, the sins of the past, the present, and the future. And we need to understand

the reality that you deserved to be in Jesus's place. You deserved to be beaten, mocked,

crushed, and destroyed, and killed for your sin. It is your sin and you were indebted to it.

So Jesus breathed his last for all to see. And for some of us in the room, we know how the story

ends. We know that Sunday is coming, but what if you didn't? What if you were the disciple John

who leaned up against the chest of Jesus the night before at Passover, feeling his chest rise

and fall and you're sitting at the foot of the cross, watching him struggle for every breath?

What if you didn't know what was coming next? This man that you trusted, that you loved,

is dead. So where's hope? Where is faith? Where is comfort? This was not the end that we believed.

This was not the end that we thought was going to happen. Jesus, our warrior king hung on a cross

defeated by sin. Our pure and innocent Lamb of God, this supposed Savior slaughtered his body

laid in a tomb. Silence.

What are we taking communion in a moment? And the elements are going to pass throughout the rose,

and we will have a contemplative song for us to sit, but I don't want us to just remember.

Communion, this meal that we partake in is so much more than just remembrance.

Something changes when we behold this Jesus. When we see the broken bread that he says is his body

broken, when we think of his body torn apart for our healing, when we see his blood splattered on

the Roman walls so that we might be cleansed. Innocent blood. And so when we behold this, things

actually change. And so the elements are going to pass, but I want to invite you to not take them.

But as you hold the bread, or we have gluten-free options in the communion thing, so you can take,

but as you hold the wafer, as you hold the bread, think of Jesus. The innocent Lamb of God,

crushed, broken, killed. And as you look at the blood, think of the blood, the beating that he endured,

the blood that was poured out for your sake, the payment of our sins in one meal.

To remember his humanity. And so we don't stir up these emotions just to feel something because we

should, but as we behold him, things change. And so the staff is going to begin to pass, and I invite

you to behold and to meditate on the broken body of our innocent Lamb.

And he shall bring forward the live goat. He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat

and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites. All their sins

and put them on the goat's head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness. The goat will

carry on itself all their sins to a remote place. And so Jesus also suffered outside the

city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us then go to him outside the camp.

And Pilate took Jesus and had him flagged. The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and

put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe and went up to him again, again saying,

Hail, King of the Jews. And they slapped him in the face. So the soldiers took charge of Jesus

carrying his own cross. He went out to the place of the skull which in Aramaic is called Golgotha.

There they crucified him with two others one on each side in Jesus in the middle. You can take the body.

Later, knowing that everything had now been finished so that the scripture would be fulfilled,

Jesus said, I'm thirsty. A jar of wine vinegar was there and so they soaked a sponge in it.

Put the sponge on a stalk of the hissed plant and lifted it to Jesus's lips.

When he had received the drink, Jesus said it is finished.

With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. Now it was the day of preparation.

And the next day it was to be a special Sabbath because the Jewish leaders did not want the bodies

left on the crosses. During the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies

taken down. The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified

with Jesus and those are the other. But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead,

they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus's side with a spear,

bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. You can take this blood.

Taking Jesus's body, the two of them wrapped it with the spices and strips of linen.

This was in accordance with the Jewish burial customs. At the place where Jesus was crucified,

there was a garden. And in the garden, a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid.

Because it was the Jewish day of preparation and since the tomb was nearby,

they laid Jesus there.