The Crucifixion Part 3 - Mark 15:22-39

2:37You come into our fellowship, you sing our songs, you listen to the sermons year after year, and yet you're like that little bird on the outside trying to get in or thinking you're in, coming in, but not quite getting there. You're on the outside looking in. And you live in a state of self-defense. Deception. And I wonder about myself: am I doing all that I am supposed to be doing as a pastor? Am I preaching right? Or is there something in my life that is canceling out my message? Does my life and doctrine agree? This is something that keeps me up at night. There are many of you children. I tell you, one of my concerns about all you children, you grow up in Christian homes and yet you go through life thinking you're a believer, yet you have not really come and embraced the doctrines and really embraced a relationship with Christ.

3:38There are even some of you who have probably filled out a membership, been in the church all your life, filled out a membership application and can articulate the gospel very well and can even tell a story about how you came to Christ or how you became assured of it, and yet you're like that bird that is outside. Thomas Watson said it, What good is it to you in hell if men thought you went to heaven? Think about it. What good is it to any of you if men think you go to heaven when you're really under the wrath of God, the eternal wrath of God? Then there's a second concern for my pastorate: that there will be those among us who grow content with spiritual mediocrity, that you will grow. Content with living in a spiritual quagmire, never really getting out and living in victory, kind of in and out, codependent upon the church and the church members to help you get through your feelings of guilt without truly going to the cross and embracing the forgiveness and then being empowered for a sanctified life in the spirit and kind of being content with this spiritual mediocrity. And as you stand before heaven, as your pastor, those are my greatest concerns: that this body, that those assembled here today, would truly be in the faith, and that you would truly learn to walk a spirit-driven life, filled, controlled by the Spirit of God, and live your days on this earth in victory, walking through life, knowing your Savior, and knowing his goodness, walking with God, and whatever challenges and whatever issues and trials that you go through in life, that you go through it knowing the loving hand of your Father, victorious living. My question is: how can we avoid this tragedy here at Emmanuel? How can we avoid this tragedy where years from now we stand before our Father and there are some who thought they were saved, some were not. Or some who are just spiritually complacent and grew content with it. How do we make sure that doesn't happen here? It's a question I've asked myself a lot, I assure you. Well, the answer that Mark gives us is clearly: have faith in Jesus. Have faith in Jesus as Mark defines the word faith, that you would see in him and take in him every promise that he has made, and that you would go to him, that you would apprehend his promises, that you would believe his promises, that you would apply his promises and put them into effect in your life. Faith in Jesus, faith in his work for us, and faith in who he is. That is what Mark is trying to impress upon his readers, that you would have faith in the person of Christ and that you would have faith in the work of Christ. And our passage this morning is about that. It sums it all up, the person and work of Christ, in just a few verses. Then the question becomes: how does one have faith in Christ? I know I need to have faith in Christ. I see that in Mark. How do I have faith in Christ?

7:15How? I mean, we're a box-checking type of people, right? We want to be able to know how we are to do this. Give me one, two, three list of things to do, and let's go do it. Well, our passage this morning gives us that. And the answer is not. Something we really can readily apprehend at first because it takes a different disposition. The answer in our text is that you must look upon Jesus. Look upon him. Study him.

7:46You never outgrow the cross. You never grow out the revelation that was given on the cross. And the more you look and the more you see Jesus on the cross and understand that the implications that this has for your life, you will be transformed. Because it is into his image that we are being transformed. And so as you look upon Christ, something happens. We're not talking a flippant, casual little look. I'm talking about standing at the feet of the cross and looking upon the King of the universe, the majestic one, the holy one, nailed to the cross. This is his work.

8:31This is his person. So I want us to continue this morning as we're working our way through the crucifixion. We've lingered long. Well, I want us to continue to linger long one more morning, look upon the crucified Jesus with the prayer that he will strengthen our faith in him. As we see him and behold him, that we will be transformed and empowered to live the life that he has called us to live. Well, crucifixion is the climax of the book. We've been years in the book of Mark, and now we're at the very climax, the peak. In a few short weeks, we're going to be done with the book.

9:12Well, we began looking in verse 22. You remember, Mark does a great job of breaking this thing up into the time on the clock. There was the pre-dawn hours to 9 a.m. The trial, the spotless lamb, when he was arrested. Then they brought him to Gogotha in verse 22. They brought him to the place called Gogotha, which is translated place of a skull. They tried to give him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And then from 9 a.m. to noon, Jesus bore the humiliation, the rejection, the scorn, the ridicule, and the insult of sinful man.

9:55And amazingly, heaven is silent through all of this. Let's just read through that in verse 24. And they crucified him and divided up his garments among themselves, casting lots for them to decide what each man should take. It was the third hour when they crucified him. The inscription of the charge against him read, The King of the Jews. They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left. And the scripture was fulfilled, which says, and he was numbered with the transgressors. Those passing by were hurling abuse at him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ha, you who are going to destroy the temple. Temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross. In the same way, the chief priests also, along with the scribes, were mocking him among themselves and saying, He saved others, he cannot save himself. Let this Christ, the king of Israel, now come down from the cross so that we may see and believe. And then in verse 32, he goes on, those who were crucified with him were also insulting him. Then the next period of time on the clock is from 12 noon to 3 o'clock. 12 noon to 3 o'clock. And this is the judgment of heaven. You can read it in verse 33. When the sixth hour came, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour. Now, this was not a natural phenomenon like a solar eclipse. It wouldn't happen on Passover with the full moon. It's not a dust storm, not a heavy cloud color. It's a supernatural event. It's a supernatural darkness that is associated throughout Scripture with the judgment of God. It's the manifestation of God's presence to judge. Spent a lot of time looking at that. And keep in mind, we're in the imagery of the Passover. Passover is going on. Passover lambs have been sacrificed throughout history, up until this moment. And they all pointed to the one perfect Passover lamb that would come. And John the Baptist spoke of him. And during these three hours, it's impossible for us to fully get our minds around what happened. Scripture's silent in terms of what all took place within the Godhead and what kind of separation took place. But we do know that what took place was that Jesus bore God's eternal wrath for every single person that he calls. Every single person, every follower of Christ, true follower of Christ, he bears in his body, takes on the full wrath for sinful mankind, eternities of wrath. And he does so in those three hours. Then at 3 p.m., which is where we want to pick up today and continue going and look at the death of the Passover Lamb, look at the death of God's Son. So let's pick it up in verse 34.

13:04At the ninth hour, that would be 3 p.m. on the nose. There are a bunch of events that take place at 3 p.m. and shortly thereafter. At the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabakhthani, which is translated, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? When some of the bystanders heard it, they began saying, Behold, he is calling for Elijah. Someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave him a drink, saying, Let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down. And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. When the centurion, who was standing right in front of him, saw the way he breathed his last, he said, Truly, this man was the Son of God.

13:56Three events take place in these verses. There's the cry, the curtain, and the confession. And we'll look at each one of them. The ninth hour, 3 p.m. This is one of the times for Jewish prayer. This is when the evening sacrifice was being made. And what would happen is the sacrifice, we're pretty far removed from what was taking place. We're kind of in a different culture or different era. It's hard to picture the temple and the whole sacrificial system, but what would take place is that these lambs will be brought in on Passover. And let me tell you, Josephus reports that just 36 years after this event, in AD 66, there were 255,000 lambs slaughtered in the temple. Get your mind around that. And Josephus calculates that 2.5 million were present in Jerusalem. So the numbers probably aren't too far different 30 years prior to that. Point. Is at 3 p.m. This was the hour of the sacrifice. And what would happen is the tens of thousands of lambs would be slaughtered. And when you look at the temple, I mean, it is a monument of blood. Over and over, I mean, the blood would run out of the temple and into the stream there between the Mount of Olives and the Temple Mount.

15:28It was a bloody, bloody mess. And they would sacrifice these animals. They would cut these animals. And there is a special order and way. And they would just mangle these creatures. And then they'd bring them up to the altar, drop them up there, and they would burn. And then at that time, as the sacrifice was being given, the people would pray. The priests would go into the holy place, and they would offer up incense. It was the hour of prayer. This is the events that would be taking place just a stone's throw away from where Jesus was crucified, or a little farther than a stone's throw, but close. And at the end of those three hours, there's this cry at the time of the evening sacrifice, at the time when those tens of thousands of lambs would start being slayed. There's this cry, Eloi, Eloi, Lama, Sabachnai. My God, my God. God, why have you forsaken me? And this is the only time in Scripture that Jesus refers to God as God and not God as Father. A separation has taken place. And the word forsaken is a strong expression of abandonment. And it's not abandonment as we looked at last time in the sense of God's just absence. No, God is still present, but he's not present to comfort. He's present there to judge. He is present in wrath, but not present to comfort. And this is a picture of hell. There's no comforting presence of God. It's just over. It's wrath without relief, wrath without comfort, wrath without compassion, and wrath without mercy.

17:17And throughout the whole crucifixion, throughout the whole ordeal, Jesus is silent. And yet, when you come to this point, he cries. When at that point, when he is taken in his life, in his body, in his soul, the full weight and wrath of the almighty God, he yells. Well, at 3 p.m., we come to the end of the punishment of sin. As we see this man upon the cross, we also see the measure of true greatness, true greatness. Remember, if you flip back a few pages to Mark chapter 10, you remember there's the disciples, there's James and John in verse 35, they're all come before Jesus and say, Jesus, we want you to do something for us. Why don't you let one of us sit at your right and one of us sit at your left? And Jesus goes on in verse 42, and he calls them to himself, with his disciples, and he says to them, You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them, but it is not this way among you. But whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. This is the work of Christ. The capacity that he had, he poured out for his people, for the benefit of his people, not being served, but as the one who's going to be the ultimate servant of all. And he comes and he pays the ransom that only he could pay. Not the ransom to Satan theory. Okay, you guys, get that heresy out of your mind. Satan wasn't the one who had to be paid off, okay? It was God who had to be paid off. It was God's eternal wrath. There had to be a satisfaction for God's wrath. And there is only one individual in all of creation who was above creation. Only one individual on the The whole scene that could take the wrath, and it was the Son of God, the Son of God.

19:37And he stepped in, and he took that wrath. It's as if the Creator God had set all of his sights and all of his holy wrath upon me as a sinful piece of human flesh, and I needed a deliverer, somebody to ransom me from that holy wrath of the holy God. And in comes Jesus and steps in. He says, I take it. Son of God. He paid the price, paid the ransom. And that's exactly what he said he came to do. I came to pay that ransom. I came to step in the middle and absorb in my body all the full fury of God.

20:20That's the mark of true greatness, a commitment to serve. Second mark of true greatness was his commitment to the new covenant. His commitment to the new covenant. Mark 14, 23, just turn over there. As you go through, Jesus is there, and he had taken the cup and had given thanks. He gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And he said to them, This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. He loved the new covenant. He loved the new covenant so much that he is willing to do that with his own blood, that he himself.

21:00Would ratify the covenant in his own blood because he loved what it accomplished. He loved what it did. He didn't do this for the old covenant at Sinai. God didn't step down and shed his own blood for that covenant, but he does for this one because it is a new covenant, a better covenant, built upon better promises, built upon a better sacrifice. It is sure. And brothers and sisters, if he loves this new covenant, how much more should we love this covenant? This is the mark of the true greatness in the world. Those who love the new covenant, cut in Christ's blood, how much more he poured his life out for it. How much more should we pay attention and make sure that we're in this covenant and that we lay our lives down in communicating the news of this covenant? There's also a third measure of true greatness as all these verses and marks coalesce here at the cross. Remember in Mark 14, 36, you see the will of the Father. True greatness is measured by his willingness to serve, his commitment to the new covenant. But true greatness is also measured by his commitment to the will of the Father. You remember, there he was in Gethsemane 14, 36. He was saying, To the Father, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will.

22:42When you get down to know what God is doing in your life, that is, if you're truly born again, born of Him, if you have cried out to Him in faith and you are really in the faith, you know what He's doing to you? He is causing you to love the will of God more than anything else in your life. That is the mark of true greatness. Loving the will of God, even if it means being crucified naked on a cross.

23:10He shows us by vivid example what taking up your cross and following Him means. Look at Mark 8:8:34. And He summoned the crowd with His disciples and said to them, If anyone wishes to come after me, He must deny himself and take up His cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save His life will lose it, but whoever loses His life for My sake in the Gospels will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? He goes on to say, For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. You want to know what loving the will of God looks like? Look at Christ.

24:00I don't want to go through this cross, but not what I will, Father. I want to do what you will. And that's what Christ is doing in us. That is what the work of the Holy Spirit is doing in us, to conform us into the image of God, to be truly great. And what is truly great? To be a true servant, to be committed to the new covenant, to love the new covenant, cut in his blood, and to be committed to the will of the Father. And that's why daily, we are to die daily. That's the image. To die daily, take up the cross. That's just an expression of loving the will of the Father more than your own, to whatever extreme. And he is to be trusted in that category. It's a lot better. You're being conformed into a new Adam. The old Adam thought he could do better. He lived in a perfect environment there, perfect place. And he thought, you know what? I can judge between. I know what's good and what's evil, and I can figure out what's better, and I can make the decisions on my own.

25:05But the new Adam says, no, God is to be trusted. No matter what, even when you don't fully grasp the whole picture, he is to be trusted. Well, as he yells out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He hearkens to Psalm 22. Psalm 22, why don't you turn? There. I know I'm having you turn to a lot. That's why I got to know where these things are, right? Psalm 22. Look at these words right at the very first out of the gate. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

25:46The psalmist in Psalm 22 is in some kind of seemingly hopeless situation, but this Psalm is alluded to 15 times, or quoted or alluded to 15 times. In fact, many in the early church called this the fifth gospel because there is such a picture of Christ on the cross that Jesus so identified with what was taking place in Psalm 22. He says this, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning. Oh my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I have no rest. You ever wondered where God went? Let me tell you, Christ understands. As he was feeling that pain and abandonment upon the cross, he understood. God, where are you? He understood. But then he goes from the pits of despair to the heights of praise in this psalm. It's an incredible psalm. We don't have time to unpack it all, of course. But you can see what he does in verse 3: Yet you are holy, you are enthroned upon the praises of Israel. In you, our fathers trusted. They trusted, and you delivered them. In other words, Even though my despair is so great, yet they trusted in you. You have historically proven your trustworthiness, and so I will trust in you. He says, But I am a worm in verse 6. All who see me sneer at me. They separate with their lips. They wag their heads, saying, Commit yourself to the Lord. Let him deliver him. Let him rescue him, because he delights in him. The very same thing that they were saying to him upon the cross says in verse 11, Be not far from me, for trouble is near, for there is none to help. He turns from his cry of despair to a prayer request. There is none to help me. Many bulls have surrounded me. Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me. They open wide their mouth at me as a ravening and roaring lion. I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a dry piece of clay. My tongue cleaves to my jaws, and you lay me in the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me. A band of evildoers has encompassed me. They pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones. They look and stare at me. They divide my garments among them, and my clothing they cast lots. But you, O God, be not far off. And then something happens in verse 22, 21, actually. You answer me. From the horns of the wild oxen, you answer me. Something shouts. Shifts in the Psalm. I will tell of your name to my brethren. In the midst of the assembly, I will praise you. And this whole psalm takes a different turn. He's gone from the pits of despair to the heights of praise. He says, from you, in verse 25, my praise in the great assembly, I shall pay my vows before those who hear me. All the ends of the earth, verse 27, will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will worship you.

29:03Christ, at the moment of his death, cries out, quoting this psalm. It takes us down a whole, I mean, we don't know what all he had in mind as he was quoting it, but the psalm ends on a high note as the nations turned to him. And the very next thing you see in the text, a Gentile centurion turns. This is his work. This is his work. Look at the response. Let's go back to Mark. Look at Mark 35, verse 35. When some of the bystanders heard it, they began saying, Behold, he is calling for Elijah. Someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave him a drink, saying, Let us see whether Elijah will come and take him down. The bystanders there were probably Jewish, since they were certainly. Mindful of the prophecies of the coming of Elijah, and either they misunderstood what Jesus said or they purposely twisted his words, LOI, LOI, mistaking it for Elijah or continuing the mockery. Either way, they're continuing to mock him. The idea is, let's give him a drink and let's see if Elijah is really going to come. Okay, now we've got him here. Let's give him something to drink. We certainly wouldn't want him to die before Elijah got here, type thing. Let's keep him alive. This is a classic picture of just puny man standing in the face of eternity, challenging God. God, let's see what you can do. Let's see you. Well, in verse 37, he utters the final cry, megalas phone.

30:48Megaphone, right? That's where we get it. And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. He breathed his last. Death took place on the cross. Point of it, it's profound theological depth. But we have a God who understands misery and what it is like to feel distance and estrangement from God on our behalf. In fact, Garland writes about, read you this quote about from a guy named Garland who writes about a Jewish skeptic survived the Holocaust. He said, after the horrors of the Holocaust, a Jewish Skeptic said that the only God he could believe in was one who knows firsthand what it is like to be a Jewish child buried alive and knows what it is like to be a Jewish mother watching her child die.

31:44Well, guess what? Jesus knows what it's like to be a Jewish child buried alive. He also knows what it's like to stand there and watch his mother watch him die. He's experienced the depths of it. He has. Well, that's the cry. Now I want you to see the curtain. Look at verse 38. And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The temple, this veil, separated the holy place from the holy of holies. That the second or the interior portion of the taber of the temple was kept in total darkness, that no one was permitted to enter it except the high priest, and that only once a year. And it was separated by this veil, beautiful veil, tall veil. What took place? Well, it was a supernatural event. And that's what Mark is communicating.

32:39What does tearing of a veil represent? If you just think about it, it does two things. First of all, it destroys something, right? The destruction of something. And second, and then it reveals something or something behind. So, in the sense that Mark is picturing it destroyed Saul. It put an end to the temple order, an end to the Old Testament covenant, an end to the sacrificial system, an end to the high priesthood, that there'd be somebody that would have to mediate or go between. It was the end of an era. And if you think about it, from the first Passover in 1445 BC until 30 AD, animals sacrificed constantly. And then on that day, on that Friday, in April, AD 30, the whole thing was brought to an end. No more legitimate sacrifices would ever be made.

33:34It ended it. But it also, the tearing of a veil, removes something. It removes the shroud of mystery. It revealed to us what God is like. He's a God of justice, God of mercy, God who loves his creation, a God who is mighty in power, but we do not have to run from him like Adam did in the garden because of his sin. We can run to him because the barrier between a separation has been removed, and that way has been made through the sacrifice of his son, precisely at 3 o'clock. I mean, that would have messed up all their Passover celebration for sure. What are you going to do now? The temple's torn.

34:28Well, the torn veil symbol. The end of the old and the removal of the veil. So, if you're going to have to move, if you're going to move from the outside to the inside, you're going to need to exercise faith. Faith. You do not need to wait until there's more truth given to you. You just need to act upon the truth that has already been revealed to you. Believe. That's the work. Do you really believe that Christ has accomplished the total work of salvation for his people? Paid the total price for his people? If so, go to him. Go to him.

35:14But his work cannot be fully understood apart from his person. So we looked at the cry, we've looked at the curtain, now I want to look at the confession. When the centurion, who was standing right in front of him, saw the way he breathed his last, he said, Truly, this man was the Son of God. Now, a centurion would be someone of a lower rank, a lower-ranking officer. He's probably promoted through the ranks, kind of a man who had seen conflict, seen it all, kind of a rough and tough sort of person.

35:50Mark's narrative wants to make it very clear that the reason he made this confession, truly this man was a son of God, was a direct result. Result of how Jesus died. Look back at it. When the centurion, who was standing right in front of him, that is right in front of the cross, when he saw the way he breathed his last, he said, Truly, this man was a son of God. The way he breathed his last. I mean, this centurion no doubt had been in charge of a lot of executions. He had seen people die before. And there is something about Christ's death that impacted him, that opened his eyes to see who he was. And if you think about it, this guy had probably seen it all. He probably was involved in the arrest. He had probably seen the trials, both of the Sanhedrin and certainly before Pilate. He saw the mocking. He saw the scourging. He saw the insults. He saw it all. And he probably heard him say, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they're doing. He probably also heard Jesus say to the other robber being crucified with him, Today you will be with me in paradise. He probably saw it all. And then when he hears Jesus cry with that loud voice, that mega voice, something clicked within him. And he confesses, You are the Son of God.

37:27And his confession is really. Really, the high point of Mark's gospel. Mark chapter 1 begins the whole gospel, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as if Mark has two things he wants to communicate: Jesus is the Christ, and Jesus is the Son of God. And he takes us to the narrative, to two major confessions: the confession of Peter, you are the Christ, and the confession of the centurion, you are the Son of God. And only upon then, only at that point, can the work of Christ and who He is really be understood. It had to occur in the death of Christ.

38:10Remember, the demons had acknowledged Jesus as the Son of God. The voice from heaven at his baptism had acknowledged Jesus as the Son of God. In fact, Jesus Himself in Mark 14:61, remember when he was being tried? The high priest was questioning him and said to him, Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One? And Jesus says, It is. Yes, I am. And you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven.

38:42So, what the Jewish leaders called blasphemy and what the disciples have not yet grasped, the centurion gets. Think about it. Why? He was watching, he was gazing, he was looking upon the cross. And this is a man who had no previous connection with Jesus, or certainly there's no record of it. And he was not a disciple. He was in charge of the crucifixion, and yet he gets it. The highest confession in Mark. He takes all of his readers to this point. You need to know who this is on the cross. It's God himself.

39:24And he gets it. The centurion gets it in the most unlikely context, in the context of apparent defeat and death, death and defeat. Totally upside down of how we would think about it. And this is why he had to go to the cross. The idea of a suffering Messiah makes no sense to anybody until you start seeing it is through this that the power of faith is released in a person's life. The centurion answers the question raised by the disciples in chapter 4. You remember while they were out there being blown and tossed on the sea, and Jesus gets up and he calms the sea, and the disciples become very afraid, and they say to one another, Who is this that even the wind and the sea obey him? The centurion tells you, it's the Son of God. That's who it is. This is Jesus, is not just somebody with a special connection with God, but he is God the Son. He is not just Christ, he is the head and the ruler. Of humanity. Yes, that is who he is. And all are going to see him as such. But he is also God himself, Emmanuel, God with us.

40:43You see, it's God Himself who opened up heaven's doors for us. And through faith and belief in His work and His person, we are transformed. We are instantly transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. We are no longer a bird on the outside, but a believer on the inside. It's a lesson about faith here. The centurion is the very opposite of the onlookers. See, they want a demonstration of power. They want a demonstration. They want God to prove himself on their terms. But that's the opposite of faith.

41:31The centurion looks. He also stands in contrast to the familiarity of the disciples. They had walked with Christ all this time, hadn't made this connection. So, brothers and sisters, you need to be concerned about any inclination in your heart that says, God needs to prove himself to me. You need to believe what he's already revealed and go to him on that basis. He is revealed sufficient. Information for you to go to Him. And also beware of familiarity to such a degree that Jesus just becomes another thing you do or place you go.

42:16Heaven's door cannot be opened any wider today. The invitation is for all to come. Jesus to save you, but also to empower you to live a life of carrying your cross and following hard after Him. So I hope you never will be a people content with living outside the very center and blessing of Christ and whatever that means. I hope you never grow content with half-hearted fellowship with God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I just confess my utter inadequacy to be able to articulate all that is here in this passage and all the significance of the cross and its deep theological implications and practical implications upon our lives. Father, we just, as we stand here today, we see that you are the one who opened heaven's door, that you're the one who removed the veil, that you are the one pursuing us. And Father, I just pray that for everybody in here, that we will become a people who will stop and pay attention.

43:30And look and call upon your name, for you are ready to save in Jesus' name.