Good Friday Live Service

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- Those words have resonated for generations

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for a reason.

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It's because they run head first at our deepest fear,

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the one where we end up alone in the dark.

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All of us have it.

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Jesus did. He was fully human when He was here on earth.

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He experienced all of our fears, all of our emotions.

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And yet, oddly enough, it looks like

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at the end of His life, as He's on the Cross,

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our deepest fear is coming true.

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He's in the dark and He's alone.

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Not the dark like twilight or dusk or candlelight.

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Like, total suffocating darkness.

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And from the darkness He shouted. Matthew writes this:

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He says, God, where have you gone?

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Have You left me alone? Where -- Where are You?

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If you've ever felt like God has left you

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when you needed Him most, if you've ever cried out

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in the dark and not heard an answer,

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if you've ever felt like the sin sitting on your shoulders

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was surely enough to drive God away,

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then you've asked the same question.

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Has God abandoned me?

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Is my sin too much?

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Many people say this is exactly what is happening

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in this moment as He's hanging on the Cross

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and shouting into the sky, that at that moment

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all of the sin of humanity is sitting on Him,

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all of your sin, all of my sin, past, present and future,

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all of it together and it was just too much for God.

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It's too disgusting. It was too disturbing.

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It was too disappointing.

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And so many say that God turned His back on His Son

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and left Him alone to die in the dark

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on a skull shaped hill called Golgotha.

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Tonight we're asking a question: Is that what happened?

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Is God the kind of God who gets so disgusted

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by our sin that He leaves us alone in the dark

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to wander around and figure it out for ourselves?

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Is that what God is?

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Is He the Father who turns His back

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on sinful kids like you and me?

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Or is there something else going on in this moment?

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To get that answer we're going to need God to show up

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and speak to each and every one of us.

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Not at a head level tonight,

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but I'm hoping at a heart level.

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I'm hoping that the history of God

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that I'm going to walk you through

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over thousands of years starts up here,

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and then it goes here, and that God changes you

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and that you walk out of this room wherever you are,

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at a site, online, changed, believing

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and seeing His love for you more than ever before.

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That's what we're hoping for. Let's pray.

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God, thank You so much for the image of the Cross.

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That's not just the story.

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That's not just a legend,

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but it's what You proved Your love for us.

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It's the time You said, "Look at the blood." Amen. Amen.

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Well, welcome to Good Friday.

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My name is Kyle, our Lead Pastor.

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Glad to be with you, if we've never met before.

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Tonight is going to be a little bit different.

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For one, I'm not going to tell you

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to try harder on Good Friday.

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I'm not going to try to convince you to believe more.

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I'm not going to make you feel bad.

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I'm not going to force you to be grateful

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because this isn't a night about you fixing your faith.

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This is a night where we look at

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how God's faithfulness fixed you.

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I don't know if you know this,

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but before you were born,

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before you ever took a step,

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before you ever doubted God,

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before you ever sinned,

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before you ever question Him,

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before you ever wondered if He would ever abandon you,

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He proved that He would never do the same.

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He would never leave you. Ever.

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The proof is painted in red.

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There's a trail of blood that weaves back

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through thousands of years of history.

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It's not a messy trail. It's not haphazard.

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It's a carefully woven sacred pattern

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throughout history that shows the heart of God

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pointing in one place, straight to the Cross.

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Over the next hour, we're going to walk

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that trail of blood together

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and end up right back at this moment,

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the moment where God is hanging on the Cross,

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Jesus Himself, and He shouts into the darkness,

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"Has God abandoned me?"

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Like I said, this isn't going to be

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a typical Crossroads weekend experience.

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It's Friday, it's not Sunday, so cut me some slack, okay?

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We're going to do this a little different.

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The main thing here is I'm not going to give you

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a message like I'd give on a Sunday.

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On a Sunday, I'd be weaving in how it relates

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to your life through the whole thing.

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Not going to do that for a reason.

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It's because you and I don't show up in this story

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until the very end.

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So when we get there, we'll get there.

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But until then, it's not really about us.

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It's about God. We don't show up.

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But if there's one thing to take away,

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if you wanted to write down one note,

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one takeaway for the entire night,

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it's that when we don't show up, God does.

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And He proves it in blood. Why blood?

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Sometimes you can read the Bible

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and it reads like an episode of Dexter.

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There's just blood splattered everywhere,

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and all these people die

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and all these animals get slaughtered.

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There's this bloody mess. Why blood?

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Is it because God's into gore? No. No, it's not.

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It's because blood is the symbol for life, that's why.

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And so God uses blood as almost like a trail marker

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that always, throughout history, points to

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Him hanging on a Cross, dying to save us.

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It's the only way to have eternal life. The only way.

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Now, the night before the Cross,

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the night before He was on this hill,

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Jesus actually climbed up another one

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with a really interesting view.

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That hill was called the Mount of Olives,

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and at its base was a garden.

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It was the Garden of Gethsemane.

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Earlier in the night,

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Jesus had shared a meal with His disciples.

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And at the meal He had taken a cup full of wine

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and He'd hold it up to them.

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And He said, "This is not wine,

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it's my blood shed for you."

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The disciples all looked at Him like, "What are you --

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What are you talking about?

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A cup of blood? That's really odd."

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And then, even stranger, He invited them

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to go to this garden, the Garden of Gethsemane.

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And in the garden He sits down and He starts praying.

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And He asks God to take away the bloody cup.

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Strange.

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Here's the words from Luke 22. Jesus says:

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See, in this moment, as He's praying,

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as He's thinking about this cup of blood,

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as sweat is pouring off Him and big drops

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are hitting the ground like drops of blood.

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In this moment is where you and I

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are going to step onto the trail of blood

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and follow it backwards in history a couple thousand years.

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Now, why did Jesus pick this hill to pray?

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It's kind of odd, actually.

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He was having a meal, like I said, with his disciples.

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They're in a private house, in a private room.

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They go up to a private roof.

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He has a whole conversation with them.

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And then He says let's go pray, and they leave.

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If you wanted a private area,

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if you wanted a scenic view, they already have it.

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Why take the journey to this hill?

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The journey, by the way, that led down

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from the mountain where they were,

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through a valley called the Kidron,

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literally means the valley of the shadow.

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And up the slopes of the Mount of Olives

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to the Garden of Gethsemane.

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Why do it?

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Well, I think it's for the reason you climb any hill.

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It's for the view, which would have been

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very much like what you're looking at right here.

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It would have been a view onto the temple.

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I've had the fortune of being in the same exact spot.

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It's a beautiful place.

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Still to this day, in the Garden of Gethsemane,

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there are these ancient, beautiful olive trees.

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I'll show you a picture right here.

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This is actually me walking up the hill.

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And you can see in the distance,

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that's the dome of the rock

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peeking up over the city walls.

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Now, in Jesus's time, that's pretty much

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exactly where the temple would have been.

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And so if the temple were still standing,

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it was about one and a half times taller

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than the dome of the Rock,

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it would look something like that.

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We're up above the Garden of Gethsemane in this photo.

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And so, if you were sitting on the hillside

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and you were staring at what you would naturally see,

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you would be staring at the temple of God.

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The slope of the hill forms almost this perfect,

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like, stadium-like seating for looking

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and staring at the temple of God.

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Why do that?

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Well, it's because the trail of blood

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that we're looking at circles this hill

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over and over and over and over again.

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And Jesus knew it.

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He knew as He sweated drops like blood,

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as He asked for the bloody cup to be taken from Him,

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as He sat there on the hill staring at the temple,

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He knew what was coming,

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that He would be the last ever sacrifice in this place

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if He stepped onto the trail Himself.

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Now, in this moment, Jesus is wrestling.

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He's in agony. He's crying out to God.

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He's wrestling with this.

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And I think sometimes we can read it

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knowing the end of the story.

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And it feels like this is all a performance from Jesus.

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You know, He's just trying to kind of

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test God a little bit, maybe, I don't know.

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Trying to get some attention from the disciples.

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No, He's in real agony because

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He's really wrestling with whether or not

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He wants to go through with it, which is why He comes here.

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I think Jesus knew the most important thing

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for Him in this moment of decision was remembering

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the trail of blood that He had seen Himself

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over thousands and thousands of years.

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He might have sat down, and the first thing

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He might have imagined might have been this hill,

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as it looked 2000 years earlier,

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before there was a city,

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before there were walls,

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before there was anything here,

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when it was a remote and wild mountain called Moriah.

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Back then, God had sent an old man and his son

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on a trip to this mountain.

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The old man, his name was Abraham and his son was Isaac.

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At this time Abraham was very, very old,

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130 years old, to be exact.

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Isaac was much younger, 30, in the prime of his life.

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He was strong. He was vibrant.

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But God sent them to this mountain

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as a test of their faith.

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Genesis 22 picks up the story like this:

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So Abraham does.

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He gets Isaac. He gets him servants.

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They chop a bunch of wood together.

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And they start walking to the mountain.

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And as they get there, Isaac is looking around.

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He's like, "I know I got the wood.

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That's great, I got that.

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I see my dad is carrying fire.

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I see that my dad has a knife.

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But you know what I don't see?

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I don't see a lamb to put on top of the wood

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to offer as a sacrifice."

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And so he actually stops his dad and he says,

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"Dad, where is the lamb?"

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Abraham's response is recorded in verse eight. He says:

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Abraham builds the altar. He stacks the wood on top.

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He gets everything ready.

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And then he says to Isaac, "Come here, son.

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Put your hands behind your back."

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And he takes a piece of rope,

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and he tied his hands up,

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and then he bound him around.

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And he said, "Son, I need you to actually hop up there."

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Abraham's old, 130.

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"Son, I'm going to need you to put yourself on the wood."

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And amazingly, he could have won.

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He could have pushed back. He could have said no.

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But Isaac instead climbed onto the wood.

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And Abraham raises his hand.

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He's got a knife in it.

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And just as he's about to come down

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and kill his son Isaac, a voice shouts out

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and says this. Genesis 22:11:

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See, in the moment where God's people needed a sacrifice,

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when God said, "I need something from you,"

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God showed up the very beginning

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and provided the sacrifice Himself.

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Not just any, not just any old animal,

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but a powerful ram caught with its head in thorns.

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You know, for Jesus, this is more than just a story

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passed down to Him from parents or grandparents

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or teachers or whatever.

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This was a memory.

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Remember, Jesus is God.

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He's the one who sent the ram all those years ago.

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In that moment, on that day 2000 years ago,

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when it's a wild mountain and it's a ram

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caught with its head in the thorns,

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Jesus knew He'd have a choice coming:

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Would He be like the ram or would He run?

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It's a trail of blood staring Him in the face.

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God showed He would provide the blood to cover His people.

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The trail of blood continued from that moment. Continued on.

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The night Jesus prayed on the mountain

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it was the annual sacrifice.

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And so if you could see beyond these walls,

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beyond the temple, to the city beyond,

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you'd see it jammed full of people, full of families.

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The Law of Moses commanded that every single household,

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every year celebrate the Passover.

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The Passover was remembering the time

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when God rescued His people from Egypt.

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They were all slaves,

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and they had been for a very long time.

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And they started to call out to God

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from the darkness of their slavery,

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with their bonds tying them down,

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they started to shout at God, "Where are You?

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Where did You go? Have You just abandoned us here?"

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And then God answered, Exodus 3:

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And then he gave them instructions,

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so that the angel of death that He was sending

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to strong arm Pharaoh into letting His people go,

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would pass over, Passover, their house,

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and not strike their sons down.

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God's instructions for that night

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were very simple and very bloody.

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Genesis 12, God says:

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God says, take a lamb, cut it apart, take the blood.

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And then I want you to paint your doorway with it.

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And that will be a sign to you and to me

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that I've decided not to demand a price from you

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to get you out of your bonds, but I'll pay the price.

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See, as the trail of blood goes on, God says,

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"Not only will I provide the sacrifice,

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but I'll pay the price to get you out of bondage."

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The Trail of Blood continued for 1300 years

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from that moment to the moment

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where Jesus is praying on the mountain,

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every Jewish family had celebrated Passover

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every year by slaughtering a one year old male lamb

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and painting their doorways red.

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As He sat in the mountain staring at the temple,

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the place of sacrifice, Jesus knew

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where the trail of blood would lead Him

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if He stepped onto it, to be the final Passover lamb,

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the one who doesn't block the door from death,

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but the one who opens it to life, if He stepped onto it.

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If he did, Jesus knew He'd be the final lamb.

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There had been so many before Him,

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so many lambs before Him.

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Because of this temple which is there

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because 300 years after that first Passover,

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the Israelites crowned a new king.

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His name was David.

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He was something of a folk hero.

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He had defeated the enemy of Israel,

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this giant nine feet tall called Goliath.

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When he became king, he moved the capital city,

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captured a new one, called it Jerusalem.

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It was on a hill right next to the hill

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where thousands of years earlier

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Abraham had walked Isaac to the top

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and offered him as a sacrifice, Mount Moriah.

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Now David had a dream in his heart.

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His dream was to build a temple for God.

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Up until that point, the history the people of Israel,

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God had lived in a traveling tent.

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And for David, that just wasn't good enough.

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He looked at his palace full of gold and cedar

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and all the things that he had, and in his heart

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he said, "I've got to build God a better house than I have."

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So he got everything together.

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He got all the materials.

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And he left them to his son.

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His son Solomon built the temple,

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not in any random spot, but exactly, precisely

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in the same place where Abraham offered up Isaac,

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the same place.

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Now the temple is hard for us to imagine.

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What was it like? Hard for us to imagine

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with our 21st century mindsets on.

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It was a bloody place.

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But in our lives we don't really have

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the bloody places that they would have had.

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We don't buy our meat whole and alive.

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We buy it cut up, prepackaged, vacuum sealed.

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There's no blood when we go get meat.

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In our religious services

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there's not usually animal sacrifices here.

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If you're brand new, don't worry. Not usually.

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So why? Why was there so much blood?

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What was happening in this place?

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Well, it's because the way the sacrifices worked,

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it wasn't that you got an animal

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and then you hired somebody else to kill it.

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The Law of Moses said that you yourself,

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the person offering the lamb,

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had to be the one to drive the knife into it,

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kill it, skin it, chop it into pieces.

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And then the priest would come along

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and they'd take the blood and

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they'd throw it against the sides of the altar.

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They would take all of the pieces, they'd put it on top.

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They'd light it on fire as a burnt offering to God.

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The burnt offering was the one

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that was most often dealing with sin and the people.

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And here again, God gave a very specific instruction

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about what kind of animal was acceptable

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in a burnt offering.

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Leviticus 23:12 says:

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Why no females? I don't know.

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Boys, we get to pee standing up.

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Maybe this is God balancing the scales,

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I don't know, but only males.

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And not just male, a one year old male.

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Why? Well, something we do know,

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something that's more clear is that

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the burnt offering was not a random time of the day.

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It took place at the same time every day,

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not any hour, but the ninth hour.

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If that sounds familiar, it's because the ninth hour

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is the exact time that Jesus was hanging on the Cross,

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darkness had closed in.

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He's hanging there and He screams out,

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"God, have You abandoned Me?"

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Jesus knew as He sat on this hill, praying

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and thinking and weighing the choice in His mind,

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He knew there was a clock ticking.

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And that clock was ticking down

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to the ninth hour one day later,

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if He stepped onto the trail, if.

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Like I said, the temple is a bloody place.

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Imagine Jesus staring at the temple.

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He knows every lamb that's been sacrificed,

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and there have been many.

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In fact, if you add up all of the sacrifices

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mentioned in the Old Testament,

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there's about five different major kinds.

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There's also yearly festivals,

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things like Passover that happen.

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And if you add up all the lambs sacrificed

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over the active years of the temple,

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a conservative estimate of how many lambs

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had been killed on this hill is about 100 million.

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It's staggering. Staggering.

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But Jesus, as He sits there staring at the hill,

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knowing the number precisely, knew something important.

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Whether it was 100 million or 200 million,

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it didn't matter, because it wasn't enough,

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it never would be.

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A billion, 100 billion. It didn't matter.

00:27:59

There was only one lamb who could ever

00:28:01

fully pay the cost of sin, and it was Him.

00:28:06

He knew it was His turn.

00:28:08

He knew that He was born to be the Lamb of God,

00:28:11

to be slain.

00:28:14

He knew exactly what that meant, the Lamb of God.

00:28:17

Now, maybe you've been in church for a while.

00:28:19

Maybe you've heard that phrase before.

00:28:21

Maybe you're brand new tonight,

00:28:22

this is your first time ever here.

00:28:23

And you hear that word, and whatever it is,

00:28:25

I'll bet we have the same picture.

00:28:27

Close your eyes and imagine a lamb, the Lamb of God.

00:28:32

You probably imagine a very small animal,

00:28:35

maybe held in the arms of a loving shepherd,

00:28:38

tiny, white, fluffy wool, innocent, vulnerable, weak.

00:28:44

The Lamb of God.

00:28:46

Now, if that's what you're imagining,

00:28:49

I need to tell you that you're off.

00:28:52

Because, remember,

00:28:53

the sacrifices weren't about any lamb.

00:28:56

It was a one year old male.

00:29:00

Do you know what a one year old male sheep looks like?

00:29:03

This.

00:29:05

It actually goes by another name. It's called a ram.

00:29:09

A one year old male sheep is a fully grown

00:29:12

in the prime of life powerful, unstoppable force.

00:29:18

This is Jesus as He's sitting on the mountain.

00:29:22

He's not the innocent Lamb of God.

00:29:24

He's not the helpless one.

00:29:26

He's the Ram of God, unstoppable and strong and determined,

00:29:31

which is the only way He was able to do what He did next.

00:29:37

He stood up, He finished His prayer,

00:29:40

and He stepped onto the trail of blood.

00:29:45

The name of names, The King of kings,

00:29:48

The Lord of lords,

00:29:50

The One who created the heavens and the earth\

00:29:53

with just a word stepped onto the trail

00:29:57

and did what no one else had the strength to do:

00:30:01

stick His head in the thorns for you.

00:30:07

Now, at that exact moment, as He's standing up,

00:30:10

as He's finishing His prayers.

00:30:12

As He's calling his disciples back to Him.

00:30:13

They had all abandoned Him by the way.

00:30:15

They had fallen asleep as He was praying.

00:30:17

He calls back to them at the exact moment

00:30:20

Judas shows up to betray Him.

00:30:23

He's quickly arrested.

00:30:25

He's hauled off to Caiaphas, the high priest.

00:30:27

He's held in prison overnight.

00:30:29

He's beaten. He's punched.

00:30:31

The next morning He's brought in front of Pilate,

00:30:34

because the Jewish leaders,

00:30:35

they had no ability to kill Him,

00:30:37

and that's the only thing they wanted.

00:30:38

The only thing they wanted was His blood.

00:30:42

And so they bring him to Pilate and they demand His death.

00:30:45

Pilate interviews Him.

00:30:47

He asks Him questions, some in public, some in private.

00:30:50

And he just can't figure it out. '

00:30:52

He says, 'This guy seems fine.

00:30:55

What are you guys talking about?"

00:30:57

But he fears a riot from the people.

00:30:59

And so in the end, he says, "Fine, fine,

00:31:03

I'll kill Him for you,

00:31:04

but I'm going to wash my hands of His blood."

00:31:08

This is the words that Matthew writes, Matthew 27:

00:31:24

And then he commanded his own soldiers to take Him away.

00:31:29

See, Pilate didn't know something important,

00:31:32

it's that the water would never work.

00:31:33

The only thing that could ever wash

00:31:35

the blood of Jesus off his hands is the blood of Jesus,

00:31:39

That the man He was sending to die.

00:31:42

After this, He was stripped down

00:31:46

and stuck onto a stone pillar, chained.

00:31:51

Now, the Romans were experts at torture.

00:31:53

They weren't -- They weren't amateurs.

00:31:55

And what they got out was a whip.

00:31:58

Not just any whip, but one with metal spikes

00:32:02

hanging off the edges so that every time they hit Him,

00:32:06

His skin would rip apart.

00:32:10

If that brutality wasn't enough,

00:32:12

they decided they would mock Him too.

00:32:14

They got out a robe of scarlet,

00:32:16

something you would put on a king because

00:32:18

they knew this claim that He was the King of Kings

00:32:21

or something like that as they mocked Him.

00:32:22

And they said, "Let's dress You like a king."

00:32:24

And they put a scarlet robe around His shoulders.

00:32:27

And then they had fashioned a crown of thorns,

00:32:31

and they jammed it onto His head.

00:32:37

After that they led Him through the streets.

00:32:40

He was so weak from the whole brutality of it,

00:32:42

He was so just beaten down

00:32:45

He couldn't even carry the Cross.

00:32:46

They get another guy.

00:32:47

They walk over to a small hill called Golgotha.

00:32:53

When they get there, they laid Him down on the wood.

00:32:58

The One with the power to get up.

00:33:01

See, they thought He was weak.

00:33:03

They thought He was beaten, but the Ram of God

00:33:06

allowed nails to be driven through His hands

00:33:09

and through His feet

00:33:11

for the very people who put them there.

00:33:16

He hung on that Cross for three hours

00:33:18

until at exactly the ninth hour of the day,

00:33:22

He cried out, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?"

00:33:30

The trail of blood leads us back to this moment,

00:33:33

the one that we started with,

00:33:35

the one where God's shouting our own question

00:33:38

into the dark when He hung on the tree.

00:33:43

So is God the kind of God who abandons His people?

00:33:48

Is He the kind of God who lacks the strength

00:33:52

and the stomach for sinful people? No.

00:33:57

See, when Jesus shouts into the darkness,

00:33:59

He's not shouting randomly; He's quoting scripture.

00:34:04

Psalm 22:1 says: My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?

00:34:13

Why are You so far from saving me?

00:34:16

So far from my cries of anguish."

00:34:20

See, Jesus is expressing our cry

00:34:24

so that we would follow His Word to the answer.

00:34:27

He said, "I hope the trail of blood is enough.

00:34:30

I hope you see how much I love You."

00:34:32

But in case it's not, just keep reading

00:34:35

because a few verses later it says this:

00:34:57

You're just one chapter after this is maybe

00:34:59

the most famous psalm in the entire Bible.

00:35:01

And it starts with the words: the Lord is my shepherd,

00:35:06

Psalm 23, and in verse four it says:

00:35:20

This is where you and I enter the story.

00:35:22

This is the moment where we show up.

00:35:25

Because if you've ever felt like God has abandoned you,

00:35:28

God has an answer. He says I haven't.

00:35:32

I haven't gone anywhere. I'm right here.

00:35:35

I've been with you in your worst moment.

00:35:38

I was with you when you doubted Me.

00:35:40

I was with you when you rejected Me.

00:35:42

I was with you when you were too busy for Me.

00:35:45

I was with you when you ignored Me.

00:35:46

I was with you when you were too apathetic to engage Me.

00:35:49

I was with you when you accused Me.

00:35:51

I was with you when you tried to run away from Me.

00:35:54

Because I'm the Good Shepherd.

00:35:56

I don't leave my sheep.

00:35:58

I'm like the one who had 99, and they were all good.

00:36:01

And they were behaving. They were doing the right stuff.

00:36:03

And then there was this one squirrely sheep,

00:36:06

and they wandered away. They abandoned me.

00:36:10

But I didn't let them run.

00:36:11

I ran after them and I found them.

00:36:14

That's the shepherd you have named Jesus.

00:36:19

He has never left you, and He never will.

00:36:29

If there's anybody in the Bible

00:36:31

who had a reason to feel like maybe their sin

00:36:33

was so bad that God would leave them,

00:36:36

it was probably David.

00:36:38

The guy who wanted to buy the hill

00:36:40

and build the temple for God.

00:36:42

He had messed up so many times in so many horrible ways,

00:36:45

and yet God was continually faithful to him.

00:36:48

It blew his mind so much that he penned these words.

00:36:52

Psalm 139 says"

00:37:31

See, there's a trail of blood

00:37:35

that God has painted for thousands

00:37:38

and thousands of years to prove this one point:

00:37:44

There is no way you can run away from Him

00:37:49

because He's stronger than your sin.

00:37:51

He's mightier than your rebellion.

00:37:53

He's more powerful than your doubts.

00:37:55

He's the Ram of God who put His head

00:37:58

into the thorns of death and broke it. It's over.

00:38:04

He's for you. He is for you.'

00:38:09

When you got in the room tonight,

00:38:11

you got a little piece of paper, a little card.

00:38:14

I want you to get that out right now.

00:38:16

And the pen that came with it.

00:38:20

At Crossroads we're a place where we don't like

00:38:23

to pretend and be do religious stuff.

00:38:26

So no one needs to pretend tonight.

00:38:28

I know in your life you've had moments

00:38:32

where you've done something and you've wondered,

00:38:35

is this it? Is this when God abandons me?

00:38:40

Is this when God gives up on me?

00:38:42

Is this when God says, "You know, I forgave you

00:38:44

so many times, but now, man, You really pushed me too far"?

00:38:47

Is this it?

00:38:50

I want you to think about the sin in your life

00:38:55

that makes you wonder if God might abandon you.

00:38:59

And I want you to write it down.

00:39:01

I'm going to give you a minute

00:39:02

or so to think about that right now.

00:40:23

- I don't know what you wrote on your paper.

00:40:25

Maybe you're still thinking about it.

00:40:26

That's okay. We're not done yet.

00:40:29

I wrote one word. Not a -- not a sin in my life.

00:40:34

Not a giant one from my past,

00:40:37

though I have those for sure.

00:40:39

Things I regret, things that were horrible.

00:40:42

The word that I wrote

00:40:44

and the sin that makes me feel sometimes

00:40:46

like maybe God's going to give up on me

00:40:49

is the stuff I still do.

00:40:53

So I just want the word still.

00:40:55

The way that I still get too angry.

00:40:58

The way that I'm still too judgmental.

00:41:00

The way that I'm still too quick to anger

00:41:02

and too slow to forgive.

00:41:04

The way that I still have a problem

00:41:06

just loving the people around me,

00:41:08

even the people closest to me and sacrificing for them.

00:41:11

Still, still I'm broken.

00:41:15

Still I don't get it.

00:41:18

Still I don't follow well all the time.

00:41:22

But God's answer is painted in blood.

00:41:26

It doesn't matter. Never leave you.

00:41:28

Never have, never will.

00:41:31

That's the message of the Cross.

00:41:35

We're going to spend the next 20 minutes or so

00:41:37

just worshiping together, sing some songs.

00:41:41

At any time during those 20 minutes,

00:41:44

if it would be meaningful to you,

00:41:47

I want you to come forward with your piece of paper

00:41:50

and nail it to one of these wooden beams

00:41:53

representing the Cross down here.

00:41:55

Because this thing, this fear, died on the Cross with Jesus.

00:42:00

You don't have to worry anymore.

00:42:02

And if it would help you to come forward

00:42:04

and nail it down here, you're welcome to do that.

00:42:06

At all of our sites, you can come down.

00:42:08

If you're online, if you're online,

00:42:10

I encourage you to write it down on a piece of paper

00:42:13

and just burn it as a way of saying

00:42:15

it's the burnt offering.

00:42:17

It's been dealt with. It's been taken care of.

00:42:21

Anytime you want to do that, you're welcome to.

00:42:23

Why don't we stand together as we do that and we sing.

00:51:30

- Just think about these words.

00:51:33

Your sin has made you think that

00:51:36

He'll let you down or turn His back on you.

00:51:40

But these words to our Savior

00:51:43

the Cross is the greatest sign

00:51:45

that our God never lets us down.

00:51:47

He never lets us go.

00:51:50

No matter where you've gone or where you've been,

00:51:53

this is true for you.

00:53:40

- You may be wondering why is the Cross

00:53:44

the only thing white in this whole room?

00:53:48

Everything else is covered in blood,

00:53:51

and yet, this thing's still squeaky clean.

00:53:54

Why is that?

00:53:56

It's because the trail of blood ends here

00:54:00

at the foot of the Cross.

00:54:08

Isaiah, put it this way in Isaiah 1:18, he said:

00:54:27

You know, when God looks at you, He doesn't see this stuff.

00:54:30

When He looks at your life

00:54:31

and when He considers how you're doing,

00:54:33

and He thinks about whether He's going

00:54:34

to be with you or not be with you,

00:54:36

He doesn't look at any of this.

00:54:37

He looks at this and He sees His Son and He says,

00:54:41

"I love you, and I'm so proud of you."

00:54:44

This is why we call it Good Friday.

00:54:49

It's a Good Friday.

00:54:56

Why don't we keep singing, Justin?

01:02:14

- When Friday ended,

01:02:17

Jesus didn't stay hanging on the Cross.

01:02:21

Instead, His body was taken down and placed in a tomb.

01:02:25

Matthew records it this way.

01:02:28

When it was evening, there came a rich man

01:02:31

from Arimathea named Joseph,

01:02:34

who was also a disciple of Jesus.

01:02:36

He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

01:02:40

Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him.

01:02:42

And Joseph took the body

01:02:44

and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud,

01:02:47

and laid it in his own new tomb,

01:02:50

which he had cut in the rock.

01:02:52

And he rolled a great stone

01:02:54

to the entrance of the tomb and went away.

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