Charlie Loften: Hello, and welcome to the Grove Church podcast. I'm Charlie Loften, the lead pastor there, and we are so glad that you're joining us. Whether you are a member and you're just catching up on a sermon that you missed or you're someone who's brand new, we are really glad that you are joining us. And if you are new in some way, and I know that a lot of people will do that, we'll listen to sermons first before they visit. I want you to know that we would love to meet you at any point.
You can join us live in our services on Sunday, nine and 10:30 or our streaming service at 10:30. Either way, we would love to be able to get to know you. And regardless of why you are here listening to this sermon today, thank you so much for joining us.
Charlie Loften: Hey, good you're new, I'm Charlie. I'm the lead pastor here and really glad you are worshiping with us. If you are new, I'd love to meet you after the service. Have a gift that we can give you and just thank you for being here and figure out any way that we can help you. We would love to be able to do that.
And so again, thanks for being here and thanks to all of you for being here. And I have one other real quick announcement. We have a family that has been actually a part of The Grove for longer than I have been and have been living in Thailand for twelve years? Twelve years? Anyway, Evan and Emily McCall and all of their kids here, they come about every couple of years.
And so after the service, they're just going to be there in the back. And if you know them, obviously go say hi to them. But if you've never had a chance to meet them, I mean, they've been serving as missionaries there for a really long time, done some incredible things for God there, and would just, they are, they are and always will be a part of our community. So want everyone who has a chance to be able to get to know them. Last week, if you were here, we did one service.
It was holiday weekend, July 5, and our very own youth pastor Spencer was up here and spoke. And I just want to commend him. He did a really great job doing that. I And want to thank you guys too. It's just very obvious that you guys love him and support him well, and you guys are really with him in that, and I just really appreciate it.
We are very fortunate to have him. It'll be a year, I guess, this fall that he's been serving with us here, and very thankful for him. And when we were, when he was talking last week, you know, he talked about the Incarnation, Jesus becoming a man, and basically what he said was like we're having a Christmas sermon. It's a Christmas sermon, Christmas in July is really what he called it. And we are just going to shrink the whole calendar down, and we are going to follow-up Christmas last week with Easter this week.
And so we are going to put it all together. And even though both of those times have their own, not just only holiday, but also their time within the sermon calendar, Teaching Christmas story and themes around Christmas, and then Easter in the spring. We come back to this because in this series, really what we've been talking about is kind of all of these kind of pivotal theological moments all throughout the scripture. We spent four weeks in the Old Testament, and we're going to spend four in the New Testament. And what we've seen in the Old Testament is unfolding.
God was slowly and progressively revealing Himself to you to the world, who He is, who people are, what does it mean to have a relationship with them, how does that work, Learning more about His character. And we see this story kind of progressively unfolding and ultimately coming to its climax with the story of Jesus. We start all the way back in the Garden of Eden, and we learn about a powerful God, a good God, a creative God, and we learn about our own sin and and the consequence that it has and the the shame and the separation that it can bring, but we also see from God, his grace, his restoration. And then Mark in the second week talked to us about Noah and see a lot of those same sort of things. We see judgment and the the consequence of sin, but also the great patience and care and love that God has for us.
Then with the call of Abraham, this desire that God has to have a people and to bless his people and to bless the world through his people. And then the story of Moses at Mount Sinai where God, the presence of God, comes down, and we see the holiness of God. And again, the gathering of His people to be a kingdom of priests. And then Spencer comes in last week and talks about the incarnation. And what we're starting to see here with these stories about Jesus are these things that are done in part in the Old Testament, become fully known in revelation through Jesus.
God comes down, sort of, partially, right, in the story of Mount Sinai, fully immersing himself as a person in the story of the incarnation that Spencer talked about last week. And we're going to be seeing the same thing here today. And again, even though it's going to have a lot of similar themes to an Easter message, I really want us to kind of think about like the really theological and personal significance of what happened when Jesus died on the cross and then came back to life. All of these things that we've been learning about, about sin and its consequences and the goodness and the grace and the provision of God are gonna come to a fulfillment here in Jesus, and we are gonna be in Matthew chapter 27. And picking Matthew specifically, I mean, obviously, all four of the Gospels have the story of the crucifixion and resurrection in it, and Acts talks about it, most of the letters talk about it.
It's like everywhere you go, but picking Matthew specifically, because it is more than any of the other gospels, let's just say a very Jewish gospel. You can tell that the audience of this is people who have been living and experiencing kind of Old Testament reality. There are a lot of references that he makes to this what Jesus did fulfills this Old Testament scripture, and this had to happen because of this Old Testament scripture, and you just see a lot of connections. It's really written to helping Jewish Christians understand how things have changed now that Jesus has come, and for also for people who are Jewish and maybe maybe not sure quite sure who Jesus is yet, to see how He has fulfilled all of what's predicted and said about Him in the Old Testament. And so as we are seeing kind of these theological themes build throughout the Old Testament, I feel like Matthew is probably our best author to help us understand kind of how this moment in particular, how this moment in particular really brings fulfillment and completion to all the things that God has been doing up until this point.
So Matthew chapter 27, we'll start in verse 45. From noon until three in the afternoon, darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, Eli, Eli, which means, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? When some of those standing there heard this, they said, he's calling Elijah. Immediately, one of them ran and got a sponge.
He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. The rest said, now leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to save him. So I'm assuming a little bit. I'm assuming a measure of familiarity with the story.
So what has happened here is that Jesus has already been arrested. He's been arrested in in the dead of night with this kind of this secret plot that some of the religious leaders had, and they had these kind of farce shams of a trial between Pontius Pilate and Herod and going back and forth, he's been punished several times. I think they're just saying, hey, can we just punish him and move on? But the crowd began to just kind of emerge to kind of demand His execution. And so finally, He is sentenced to death by crucifixion, and now He has been on the cross here for a few hours.
And there is this moment that is recorded here that is when we really stop to understand it is one of the most gut wrenching kind of stories in all of scripture. Because what happens here, and it's really cool the way that Matthew tells it, right, the New Testament is written in Greek, but none of them really spoke Greek. You read Greek. It was just kind of the it was the common language at that time for the, you know, for this kingdom that had conquered them, but it's what they spoke. He spoke they spoke Aramaic.
And so as Matthew was telling this, he doesn't just translate what Jesus says into Greek. He doesn't just say in Greek, my God, my God, why have forsaken me? He puts it he puts it in the heart language of Jesus. And so when you read it, you kind of pause. You pause and are like you you're meant to hear him say it.
Obviously, there's a connection between them mistaking what he said, Eli, Eli, my God, mistaking that for him saying Elijah, but I think again, what Matthew is trying to do is to help us catch the emotion of this, where Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is quoting this verse. It's a verse from Psalm chapter 22. Essentially, God, where have you gone? And Jesus is feeling this deep heaviness. And there's something incredibly sad about it.
I mean, He's obviously just he's just going through it. It's been a rough forty eight hours or so for him. But there's also something deeply significant, powerful, and theological that's going on here that just kind of shows even more the weight and pressure of what Jesus is feeling in this moment. And we'll say it this way, that Jesus took Jesus took the weight of our sin. He is feeling a burden in this moment that he's never felt before.
All the way back to, again, the story of the fall, alright, after creation. Immediately after Adam and Eve sinned, it said they begin to immediately feel shame and begin to hide, to cover themselves, running from God. And and and and they've and and and they can just and they can feel it. You see the judgment in in Noah. You see it all throughout the scriptures.
You see it in the Old Testament, and there's laws and the way that what has to be done in order to make things right. You see it in Adam and Eve. God like, in order for me to be able to kind of get back into relationship with you, He sacrifices a couple of animals and creates skins coverings for them. The Old Testament law is just full of this sacrifice and this sacrifice. You can just imagine what God is trying to do, putting a picture in their head of like, there is a real weight and consequence to sin and this and and requires sacrifice.
And the more that you see this, the more that you experience it, the more that you feel it. And again, you don't need those illustrations. Adam and Eve felt it immediately, and we've all felt it, the weight, the burden that comes from our sin. Jesus had never experienced that before. As Spencer talked about last week, he came down here as a man and experienced normal human things, the emotions, hunger, being tired, all of these different things, but had never sinned, never experienced it.
And in this moment, after reflecting on what this is, and Paul's talking about it, and two thousand years of Christian reflection, we understand that it is at this moment that the burden of all of our sin, Jesus feels it for the first time. Our sin has been placed on him, and he cries out. He's experiencing for the first time anything close to relational separation from God the father because of the weight of the sin that he's feeling. And Jesus takes that from us and puts it on himself. Now
Charlie Loften: there's a
Charlie Loften: lot of different ways over the years and even today that I try to explain this, really kind of the theological power of really what's happening here, but I'm going be honest, my favorite context and way to explain this is when I'm talking to kids and they're wanting to get baptized. I love that moment. It's a little bit awkward, not for me. I love hanging out with kids and their parents. Kids are awesome, but it's a lot, right?
I mean, they know who I am. Maybe I've had a couple of conversations with them, but we never it's not like we're having lunch. Hey, nine year old, you want to have lunch? I'm not trying to have lunch with me, right? It's awkward.
The parents are there, the pastor is there, and now he's asking me questions. It's a really difficult, tense environment. And again, I think also the parents feel a little bit of tension, because they're like, I don't know, they feel like they've presented a baptism candidate for me. He's like, will pastor approve of my child? Like, I don't know what kind of theological weight I'm expecting to come from a kid, right?
A kid just wants to follow Jesus and is can explain it the best that he can, so it ends up being a good conversation, right? But there comes this moment where I'm like, hey, you know, you've probably heard this, you've been coming to church for a while, they say this, Jesus died for your sins, right? Yeah, he's heard, yeah, yeah. Jesus died on the cross for your sins, yeah, yeah, yeah. I ask him, like, what does that mean?
What does that mean? We say it a lot. It's a church phrase. We repeat it over and over again. What does it really mean?
And typically what will happen is they will just reframe the words. It means died on the cross. Okay, what does that mean? Like for sins? But what does it mean Jesus died for the sins on the cross?
Okay, yes. But what does mean? Right? And you can see their little brain working. Again, I'm not expecting graduate level seminary theological reflection from a nine year old.
I'm just not, right? And so it gives me a good opportunity. But actually my favorite moment in all of this is not what is happening with the kid, but it's what's happening with the parent right here. Because you can see kind of the color drain from their face a little bit, because they're afraid they're next. Oh, well, you don't really understand it?
I'm sure your dad can explain it to us. They're not looking to get called on the spot for that either. Because it's actually a really deep theological concept that I think we have some intuitive understanding of, but is difficult to explain. So there's a thing that I'll say to these kids, where I was like, hey, what's in your family? What's like the biggest crime?
What's the one thing everybody knows that you're not supposed to do? And it all gets great little insight here into the home, right? Like what are the number one things? Ceiling, lying, back talking, being sneaky, all sorts of things. Okay, okay, all right.
So let's just say that your brother did that. What's the punishment? Like what is the punishment in your house? And then you get all sorts of different answers to this as far as like what is the biggest punishment that is given to the biggest crime? So get to I set the scenario here.
Okay, so your brother, he does this. Parents, furious. Even the chill one. Right? Even the chill parent is upset.
Right? And they're coming in, they're like, and because of this, now you have to have this punishment. And you hear all of that, and you go to your mom and dad, and you say, even though I wasn't involved, I don't wanna see my brother get punished. Punish me instead. And I say, would you do that for your brother?
And here's the thing. Here's the part I don't like. This is the only time a kid will lie to me. 75% of the time, okay, because I I think they just think I'm it's like a trick question. It's really not a trick question.
It's actually a very straightforward question. Would you do that for your brother? Yes. Like, no, you think that's what you're supposed to say. Like, you really wouldn't, right?
You would be kind of standing over to the side kind of laughing a little bit, wouldn't you? And they kind of look at their parent like trying to get permission and be like, yeah, mean, you're not I mean, you might you're actually a little bit like like your brother getting punished. You would never do that. And the Bible talks about this, that it would be an extraordinary person that would take a punishment for someone else. And but this is exactly what Jesus has done.
It says that Jesus, he he demonstrates his love for us, and that while we were sinners, he died for us. There is something that we deserved that he took for himself. He took the weight and the burden and the consequence of our sin, and he put it on himself. And then in the aftermath of what happens here, there's some really powerful symbols of things that kind of happen around the death of Jesus that that Matthew, in particular, wants to bring some highlight to. And we see here verse 50.
And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up a spirit. At that moment, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split, and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They they came out of the tombs and after Jesus' resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.
When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified and exclaimed, surely, surely he was the Son of God. So there's a couple of things that happened here. Right? And one of them's one of them's kinda simple, and one of them is kinda crazy. And I'm asking you for a second to push the crazy one away for just a second, right?
We're going talk about where it says the curtain has got torn into you, the part where it seems to imply that there was some sort of zombie situation. We're just going to put zombies aside from we'll come back. Any zombie enthusiasts there, dead people walking around, we'll come back to it. Right? But for right now, let's just talk about this other thing, that the curtain in the temple has been torn into two.
What does that mean? Well, we're talking about this a few weeks ago when when God makes this covenant with Moses and the people at Mount Sinai. He said, I'm gonna make you a kingdom of priests. And God comes down to the mountain, and he says, I want you you can approach the mountain. I'm gonna make you a kingdom of priests, which means now you are going to have access to me like a priest would.
He does all of this, but it's almost. Right? The he he's come all the way down, but also says, but you can't touch put your foot dude, you can't even touch this mountain at all. Not even one toe. If you do, you'll die.
You're a priest and you have access, but but and then goes through all of these laws about all of these things that you have to do in order to maintain your place in this new people of God. And so as such, when they constructed this temple, there's all these different places. There's a courtyard that if you were a non Jewish person, but were following God, you could be in this courtyard. But you had to be part of the Jewish community to go inside this part. But then there was a spot even deeper into the temple where only the priests could go.
And then there was this one spot. It was called the Holy Of Holies, or we would just call the holiest place, That only once a year, one designated person, one person designated as a high priest could go in there, and there are all of these kind of barriers and limits keeping you from full access to the presence of God. And there's something very significant and symbolic here. When this earthquake happens after Jesus died, I'm sure there were all sorts of things that were torn down, split, and broken, and all these things. But one in particular that Matthew wants us to understand is that this this veil, this this this curtain that separated the the restricted access places was torn down.
And we'll say it this way. Not only did he take the weight of our sin, Jesus removed all the obstacles. There are now no obstacles. There are no barriers to prevent you from having full access to God. The weight of your sin has been taken on by Jesus.
All the burdens that you feel that feel like, I'm not quite good enough. I'm not quite holy enough. There is a barrier between me and God. Symbolically, God rips this curtain in two so that you would know that we now have full access, no longer limited access, no longer watching it from a distance, no longer having to kind of do some things to kind of maintain it, full unlimited access to everything good that God is offering. My wife and I, we both kind of inherited travel bugs from our parents.
Like, but we were my parents were big road trippers driving everywhere, and Heidi's parents, they love to travel. They traveled the whole world. And now as Heidi and I have gotten older, we've we've really kind of taken this, and we really love to travel too. And I and I hate this. I know that so many people in our church are significantly younger than us, and you have little kids, and you just can't do it anymore.
And so even though it's gonna come across maybe to you as a brag, I'm sorry, we had little kids once too. We never weren't able to go anywhere. And if you ever had a vacation, you had to go to grandparents' house, right? You had to do that, which you're like, at least we don't have any money because we've got all these kids, and at least at grandparents' house, somebody else can take the kid, right? We've lived all of that, but we are on the other side of it.
So just bear with me, right? So you're at these airports, right? And you're having to go to your gate. And in your gate, very often, there's 50 seats and 70 people. But when you're walking there, like you're walking past and you see these lounges, like this credit card company has a lounge, and this airline has a lounge, all these fancy they look very fancy.
And you're like, I wonder what goes on in there. I'm having to catch a slice of sbarro and just go and hang out with a whole bunch of people in a really crowded space. That looks pretty cool. Several years ago, maybe it's probably fifteen, twenty years ago, we were traveling to a church conference, and there was a friend with us, and he had access. And he says to us, hey, if you would like, I can get two guests in with me, and we can go into the lounge together.
And I'm telling you, I mean, it's not don't build it up too much if you've never been into one of these things. I mean, it's not some like royal palace or anything, but the food is free, and there's bathrooms really close by, and the chairs are nice and softer, and there are more chairs than people, which is just great. It was just great place, but we only got there because he had, he could bring in a guest. But now, all due respect to Dave Ramsey and all the financial people who says you shouldn't do this, try to play the little points game that you can do with these credit cards. Where if you get the credit card and the introductory thing, and if you do this and you get all these points, and then you can, you know, for spend this, you get all this and travel.
We're doing a little bit of that. Now here's the thing, Almost all of these travel cards, we've been doing this for a few years. Know what all these travel cards have? Do you know? Do you know?
Lounge access. And so now, doesn't really matter what airport we're in. Look at these people at Whataburger. We're just going to just go on, and we're going to go to the lounge. I'm telling you, it's great.
It's like you can just kind of spread out, we just really enjoy it to the point to where our adult daughters are like, man, can we get companion cards? Like, what can we do? We're all like, we're really all just kind of hooked on this now because it just provides a level of peace and comfort and relaxation when you have access to this. Not limited access, not if I'm lucky and fortunate enough and this person is there, I can have it. And it's not something that I have to watch from a distance.
And too many of us, this is what we're doing. We're watching Jesus. We're watching we're watching from a distance what it would look like. Oh, I would imagine that would be really nice to have a relationship with God. Or you feel like maybe you have limited access.
Well, I mean, I come to church, and when I'm at church, and because I'm with the Jesus grants you full access. There are no obstacles hindering you between having a relationship with God. There are none anymore. And all the work that needs to be done has been done in this moment. Jesus did all the work.
And it breaks my heart when people say, well, I've I've done this, and I've done this, and I got and I've gotta do this first, and I've gotta and and all these things that you think that you have to do or have to undo, and then maybe if I do all these things right, then maybe God will accept you. All that work has been done here. All the barriers have been torn. All that is left now is to receive it, to take it. I I the access has been grant.
I just need I need to claim it. But that's not the only thing that happens here. It does say this, the tombs broke open, the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out after Jesus' resurrection and went into the holy city. Again, some some significance symbol here.
And while there are parts of this story that are difficult to fully understand and put your mind around, what Matthew is trying to communicate is actually pretty simple. Not only did Jesus' death remove all the obstacles, but Jesus has also conquered death. In that moment, the tombs broke open. And then it says when he came back to life after the resurrection, it says that these people were walking around. Again, I don't think it was zombies.
I don't think it was zombies. Don't don't please don't walk away from here. Pastor said there are zombies in the Bible. Pastor half joked and sort of said that, but he did not mean it. It's probably something pretty similar what happened in this moment this mountain where Jesus and a couple of his disciples and Elijah and Moses appeared to them.
It was probably something like that. That it was reanimated corpses. But again, this happens, and Matthew tells us about it to help us understand something. Death has been conquered. Death is no longer something to fear.
There's a verse, I think it puts us very nicely in first Corinthians 15, where Paul says, the last enemy to be destroyed is death. Some of you might think that is a Harry Potter quote. It is they got it from here. It's from the Bible. And g and Paul's talking about this moment, but not only this moment, the moment to come.
This enemy has been conquered. Death no longer has the hold that it once did, and the tombs broke open. And it says after his resurrection, people began to see holy people walking around. God has demonstrated to the world his power over death. And this this and this this enemy, it has been conquered, but it has not yet been eliminated.
This is what Paul says. The last enemy that is gonna be destroyed is death, and that is what we hope for. Jesus has already demonstrated his power, but death is still coming. It's still coming. But we know because of what Jesus has done that Jesus is more powerful, and death is not the end.
And we hopefully wait for the day when it has been destroyed. The burden of your sin has been taken away. All the obstacles have been removed, and death has been conquered. All that is left is for you to claim what has been offered to you. And this is kind of the last thing that I'll tell the kids.
So you know, it's your birthday, you get a present from your dad. Mom gets you the best present ever. Mom and dad will be like, man, cost me $50 so I'm going need you to pay me back. It's not like that. Clean your room first, and then I'll give you your birthday presents.
No, a birthday gift is a gift, and that gift is yours, and the only thing that is holding you back from making it yours is you're taking it, opening it, making it yours. All the obstacles removed. All the burdens taken away. Fear of death conquered. All that is left for us is to claim it.
And if you have been walking past not having taken full access, today's your day. Claim it. Make it yours. And let us, all of us, all of us, worship and celebrate the fact that the barriers are gone, the burden is taken away, and the last enemy will be destroyed. Let me pray.
God, we're so thankful for your son, for the life that he lived, but even deeper, the death that he died in his resurrection, the forgiveness that we have, the healing that we have, if it was death, and the life that we have through his resurrection. God, I pray that we would no longer just sit on the outside, that we would not sit around wondering, are we good enough? Wondering what we have to do, But that we would trust in the work that your son has already done. And God, let us not leave here with anybody who has not yet claimed their access to life with you through your Son, and it's in his name that we pray, amen.
Charlie Loften: Thanks again for joining us on our sermon podcast, and you can learn more about us at grovechurch.org. If you go to the grovechurch.org/connect, there's a form you could fill out. Just let us know
Charlie Loften: that you've been listening.
Charlie Loften: And if you wanna dig deeper on some of these topics that we cover in our sermon podcast or just another issues of dealing culture or theology, those kinds of things, you can check out our cultivate podcast. It's on the same feed, however you found this particular podcast. So again, this is Charlie, the lead pastor at The Grove, and thank you so much for joining us.