He Is Pierced

By Bobby Blakey on April 8, 2023

Zechariah 12:10-11

AUDIO

He Is Pierced

By Bobby Blakey on April 8, 2023

Zechariah 12:10-11

Well, I want to welcome all of you to our Good Friday service. Look at everybody here at church on a Friday night at seven o'clock. Hey, if this is your first Good Friday service you've ever been to, will you raise your hand right now? Let's welcome them, everybody. Welcome. So, the goal of being here on Good Friday is that we would remember that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. And the goal is we’ve got to get past the cliche, we’ve got to get past the familiarity, we’ve got to get past the “I already know this.” And we're here to really think about what does it mean that Jesus died for you. And there wasn't just one cross, there were actually three crosses on that Good Friday, because there was a criminal to the right and to the left. And so, Jesus was counted among the transgressors. He was numbered with the sinners. Jesus was a man of sorrows. And people, they were like ashamed of him, they mocked him, they made fun of him. And as much as they mocked him on the day that they killed him, we are here to give Jesus honor and glory for the fact that he died for sinners like us
And so, I want to invite you to open the Bible and turn with me to Luke 23, verse 32. And hopefully you can see your copy of the Scriptures. And I want to read for us the last moments of the life of Jesus, as he gave up his last breath. This is going to start in Luke 23, verse 32. And out of respect for God's word, I'm going to ask if we would all stand up for the public reading of Scripture. This is the Word of God. This is Luke's very carefully arranged account of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, Luke 23:32-46.
“Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. And Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ And they cast lots to divide his garments. And the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, ‘He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!’ The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine and saying, ‘If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!’ There was also an inscription over him, ‘This is the King of the Jews.’ One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, ‘Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!’ But the other rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.’ And he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ And he said to him, ‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.’ It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun's light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!’ And having said this he breathed his last.”
That’s the reading of God's word, please go ahead and have your seat. I hope you can get the flavor there of how they mocked him, and they said, you should save yourself, and they couldn't see that Jesus was up there on the cross to save them, to save us, not to save himself. And so, you can see there towards the beginning when it gets to the place called the Scull in Luke 23:33. It says there they crucified him.
I don't know if you're familiar with this idea of being crucified. Crucified is the verb form of the noun, cross. So, we know what the cross is. Well, what you do is you crucify somebody on a cross, you could translate it, they staked him to the cross, they impaled him to the cross. I mean, this idea of being nailed, hands and feet to the cross, this was actually a fulfillment of an ancient prophecy by King David. I want to put up on the screen here for you. Psalm 22:16, King David wrote this prophecy of Psalm 22 a thousand years before Jesus was nailed on the cross. So here we are, like two thousand years after David wrote this thousand years before. And in his prophecy of Psalm 22, David cries out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” David describes people mocking him with the same words they used to mock Jesus. David even says that they cast lots for his garments. And then David says, “For dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet.” Do you realize that when David wrote that prophecy about hands and feet being pierced, that was hundreds of years before they ever nailed anybody to a cross or crucified anyone? So, David writes in 1000 BC, I don't know when crucifixion exactly comes along, some way halfway through one thousand. And the time of Jesus, they start crucifying people and the Romans have perfected it by the time of Christ. But David has prophesied that Jesus will have his hands and feet nailed, pierced to a cross, before they're even crucifying people. I want you to really think about this. You think, oh, yeah, he died on the cross. Can you imagine your hands and your feet getting nailed to a piece of wood? And, in fact, let's just check this out. Let's bring it out here. We’ve got some hammer, and we got some nails. Thank you very much, Sandra. So, I got one of the nails here. And we're going to do safety first everybody, we got some goggles here. I got one of the nails. This is what we think the nails were like, are about this size. All right. Can you imagine? I don't think we need the safety gloves for the third service. You know, it's Friday night at seven o'clock. Right? So, can you imagine? And I'm going to just try to give you a picture up here of the force that they would have to strike this nail with which to hold you up, to get it into the wood so it would hold you up to the cross.
Could you imagine that getting pounded into your flesh? They pierced his hands and feet. Now I used to think about the agony that Jesus went through. I remember as a young boy watching the Jesus film one time and seeing the pain that went across the face of the guy who was playing Jesus. When it looked to me as a kid like they were nailing his hands and his feet. And as I've thought about this for many years, as I've matured in my faith, I realized that it wasn't really nails that held Jesus to the cross. Like this is Jesus. Jesus can walk on water. Jesus can turn water into wine. They've tried to arrest Jesus many times. They never caught him. They tried to push him off a cliff. He just passed through them. They went to go arrest Jesus and kill him over here. But Jesus suddenly just disappeared. Like it's not just two nails in his hands and a nail in his feet that's keeping Jesus on that cross.
Look at this other prophecy. This is Isaiah 53:5. It says that he was pierced for what, everybody, for what? Our transgressions. See, I had to realize in my life, and I hope you've thought about this before, it wasn't just nails that held him to that tree. It was my sin that held Jesus on that tree. See, the day that Jesus died, he died for me. Like Jesus could have easily gotten down. He could have easily saved himself. But he didn't. Because he was laying his life down. Not just going through the physical pain of getting this nail smacked into you. But he was going through being pierced for our transgressions, being crushed for our iniquities. Jesus got the punishment that you deserve; he died to the death that you deserve for your sin. And by his wounds, the wounds in his hands and feet, you have been healed. You got to see that Jesus was up there on that cross. He was pierced because of your sin. When Jesus died, he died for you. And I want you to see it in John chapter 19, verse 30. Grab your Bible and turn to John 19:30, and let's get a glimpse of the cross from the disciple whom Jesus loved, John's perspective. All right, so John was close enough when Jesus died on the cross. John was close enough that he had a conversation with Jesus. We're going to John 19:30, because we want to see. Do you remember that when John was standing right by the cross, watching Jesus die, Jesus actually said to John, pointing to Mary, there's your mother and then pointing to Mary. Jesus said, there's your son pointing to John, the disciple whom Jesus loved. Jesus, while he's dying on the cross, is telling John, you’ve got to take care of my mom from this point on. And Jesus has other brothers, but he's not asking them to take care of mom. Jesus loves this guy, John, so much, John is so close to Jesus that he's like, John, you take care of my mom, you take care of Mary. So, John is an eyewitness to this, John was close to the cross. And I don't know if you've ever been really close to someone when they died, if you really love somebody, and then they died. I've seen people I've been in the room, when we're at the hospital, and there's you can see the heartbeat, and the line goes flat, and the body grows cold, and the loved ones start all crying. And I've, I've seen people when someone they know and love dies, they will go and just hang on to their body. Because they don't want to come to grips with the reality that they're dead and they're gone, and they're not there.
And so, John, he sees Jesus die, and he doesn't leave because that's Jesus. That's who he loves. That's his Lord. He's like, probably, I can't believe they did this to Jesus. I can't believe Jesus just died like this. And he's there just probably with tears streaming down his face, in agony, wondering what's going to happen next. And he tells us what happened right here in John 19:30-31. It says, “When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, ‘It is finished,’ and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” John was close enough to hear what that final cry was to tell us, it is finished. “Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.” So, the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesu, and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear. And at once there came out blood and water. He who saw it as born witness, his testimony is true. And he knows that he is telling the truth that you also may believe, for these things took place, that the Scripture might be fulfilled: not one of his bones will be broken. And again, another Scripture says, “They will look on him whom they have pierced.” So, John, he heard Jesus cry to tell the sky it is finished. Sometimes they would stamp that on receipts paid in full, but John doesn't go anywhere. He's watching to see what happens next. And the officials, the rulers, they're like, hey, it's Friday, it's getting late, the sun's going down. Like if you know anything, about Friday night to the Jews, that days begin at nighttime for the Jews. And Friday night is the beginning of the Sabbath. And this isn't just any Sabbath. This is the preparation for the feast of the Passover. So hey, it's taking these guys too long to die on these crosses. We’ve got to hurry this up. We’ve got to get these bodies down. We can't do any work. Once the sun goes down, we’ve got to go get ready for the Passover feast. And so, their idea this is how you can speed up the torture of someone suffering and dying on a cross, the way you speed it up is you break their legs. Why would you break somebody's legs when they're dying on a cross? Because people have to lift themselves up to keep breathing. So, your body starts to cave in. If you were up on a cross like that nailed to it, your body starts to cave in on itself. And so sometimes they would even have a little piece of wood where somebody's feet were on the cross, and that person would just push themself up a little bit. And when they push themselves up, they could get a breath. And if you couldn't keep pushing yourself up, you couldn't keep breathing and you would die by asphyxiation, you die because you can't get any more breath, any more air in your lungs. And so, they just go over to this guy on this side. And they just smashed the guy's legs to pieces, so he can't keep lifting himself up and breathe anymore. And then they go over here and they break this guy's legs. Okay, now those guys are going to die real quick. And then they come to Jesus right in the middle and John's here watching this whole horrific scene and they come to Jesus, but Jesus is already dead. And John thinks this is a really big deal. In fact, he thinks this is the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy that not one of his bones will be broken. What is John talking about here? Well, it's actually talking about the Passover feast. Because if you went back to Exodus chapter 12, and if you know that the history of Israel, they had this thing called the Passover, and it was the tenth plague when they were slaves in Egypt, and God was going to deliver them and save them out of Egypt. The tenth plague was that the angel of the Lord was going to come through and kill all the firstborn. But if you had a lamb, then you could take the lamb, and he could live at your house. And then on this certain day, at this certain time, all of Israel, they would go and sacrifice their lamb, they would all go and slit the throat of the lamb all at the same time. And then they would take the blood of this lamb, and they would put the blood over the doorpost. And when the angel of the Lord came to kill all the firstborns, the angel would pass over your house because of the blood of the Lamb. Now, there were certain stipulations. This couldn’t just be any kind of lamb. You couldn't take the lamest lamb out of them all to sacrifice. It had to be spotless, it had to be pure. In fact, it explicitly says that you have to use a lamb where not one of its bones are broken. And so, John, he's trying to get us all to see something. Did you see those guys running around? Because they were in a hurry to get to the Passover feast? Did you see those guys breaking legs because they wanted him to die before the Sabbath? Because they wanted to go prepare for the Passover. Do you see what they missed? It was right there in front of them. The Passover Lamb, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, he was right there. Not one of his bones were broken. I saw the pure, spotless lamb die right in front of me. That's what John wants us to see. Now, John says, and I think we've got a spear here because they didn't break the legs of Jesus. Instead, they stabbed him with a spear. Now, it wasn't this particular spear that we have here. But this is just an example of a spear. And so, they stabbed him with this in his side. So, they went up to his dead body on the cross, and they hit him in the side. And they're like, Okay, I guess that proves that he's really dead. But what John wants you to see, if you were paying attention, Look back at verse 34, But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out” what does it say there, everybody? “Blood and water.” And John thinks this is such a big deal. In the next verse, verse 35, three times he says, I'm telling you the truth. I know, I'm telling you the truth. Like you’ve got to believe me when I tell you this, and you’ve got to believe what I'm telling you, that they stabbed him. When he was dead, they pierced him with the spear, and out of his side, flowed blood and water.
Now, John thinks this is amazing. And he wants you to see it. And maybe that would make sense to us. If you stab somebody blood is going to flow out, but he's talking about blood and water distinctly. Why is John making such a big deal about this? I mean, first of all, let's just make sure we all understand that the blood of Jesus is precious. It is the spotless and pure blood of Jesus that is shed for our sin. It's the blood that pays for our souls. It's the blood that redeemed us, our sins are washed away by the blood of the Lamb. Can I get an Amen from anybody on that? But the thing here is, it's blood and water. And they're distinct. So, he's acting like this is miraculous. And you're going to have a hard time believing this and you can go on the internet, and you can try to read about the medical explanations of how could blood and water have flowed out of the side of Jesus, when he was pierced with a spear. And you'll read about perhaps there was some liquid that had built up around his heart because of the trauma his body was going through, maybe some liquid had gotten into his lungs. And so maybe the spear when it pierced its side, it kind of punctures, what's going on around his heart or his lungs and some fluid comes out. But John's writing, like water is flowing out of the side of Jesus dead body. Why is that such a big deal to John? Well, you would have to go back again into the history of ancient Israel. And when God delivered his people in that amazing way, and the angel of the Lord passed over, but killed all the firstborn sons of Egypt, but passed over the Israelites, so Pharaoh finally let God's people go, and then God delivers them through the Dead Sea. Once God saves Israel, and they get out in that wilderness, they are just happy and content. And it's like and they lived happily ever after in the wilderness. Isn't that what happens right? Now they're grumbling, they're complaining. They're testing God we don't have any food to eat the food we do have we hate that food and we don't have any water, would be better for us to be back in Egypt, the complaining that they did. And so, God said in Exodus 17, he told Moses, that there would be this rock at this certain place, and God would give them water from the rock. And this is what the Lord says in Exodus 17. He, the Lord says, “I’ll stand in front of the rock. And Moses, you take your staff,” not a spear, but a staff, “and you go, and you strike the rock, and water will flow out of the side of the rock.” So, let's just think about this. I don't know if you've ever thought about this detail if you've ever heard this story before, but surely Moses goes, and he strikes the rock and water comes out and the people don't die in the wilderness. The people live, they're happy for the moment, right? But have you ever thought about how the Lord says, I’ll go, and I’ll stand in front of the rock. So, if Moses comes to strike the rock, but the Lord is in front of the rock, then who is it that Moses is striking the Lord and what flows out of his side, water. And John said, When Jesus died, water flowed out of his side. John was so impacted by seeing water flow out of the side of Jesus, he made living water, the theme of his gospel that he wrote. In fact, John tells us a story about Jesus talking to this woman at the well that no other gospel writer tells us about because this lady came out to draw water in the middle of the day. And Jesus promised to this woman that he could give her a living water, so she would never thirst again. In fact, Jesus told her that she had had five husbands, and the man she was living with now was not her husband. And if she came and stopped looking for love in all the wrong places, and came and believed in Jesus, the Messiah, she would never thirst again. And the woman was so impacted by talking with Jesus, she ran back into the town and left her water jar there and said, Come and tell him to come and see a man who told me everything I ever did.
And so, John believed that Jesus could give us living water, not just that his blood would pay for our sin. And so, we could be forgiven, but also that Jesus had water to give us, living water that would be within our soul, a wellspring of life. In fact, Jesus shouted at a feast of the Jews, in John chapter 7, that everybody who believes in him out of their heart will flow rivers of living water. And what Jesus meant was, he would put his life, his Holy Spirit inside of you. So, John wants you to know that I was there, and they didn't break any of his bones, because he's the Passover lamb, and he shed his blood to pay for your sin, and water flew out flowed out of his side when they pierced him with that spear. I saw blood, and I saw water because Jesus has life for everyone who believes in him. And then he says in John 19:37, and again, another Scripture says, and now he's quoting the prophesy Zechariah 12:10, they will look on him whom they have pierced.
And I want to invite everybody to turn to that prophecy with me. Zechariah 12:10. Okay, so all of that was just the introduction. Now we can get started. All right. This is what we really came here for was to go back to this ancient prophecy that they say we will look upon the one who may have pierced what does that mean? What is that saying? John thinks it's very important. Zechariah is the second to last book in our Old Testament in the English Scriptures here. Zechariah 12:10. John thinks this is so profound, that they pierced his side with a spear and they're looking upon him. And he quotes this prophecy. Now John just quotes a little bit of the prophecy. So let me read you now the prophecy in its fullness. This is Zechariah 12:10-11. Zechariah was a prophet in Israel five hundred years before Jesus. This was written, starting in verse 10, this is God speaking. “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn. On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning for Hadad-rimmon in the plain of Megiddo.” Okay, so just take us a moment to get our head around what was just said, this is like they're going to look on the one that they've pierced. John says, I was there when they pierced him with the spear. And I just want to make that clear. John's saying not just the nails pierced him. It was the spear piercing the side of Jesus that made John quote this prophecy. And so, John is saying, I saw it, but it was prophesied five hundred years beforehand, but the prophecy is about Jews in the future, who live in Jerusalem. When Jesus comes back, they're going to see Jesus, they're going to realize who Jesus is, the Messiah, the Son of God. They're going to realize that they made such a big mistake when they shouted crucify him, and they pierced him and killed him, and the Jewish people at some point in the future, these ones in Jerusalem, they are going to weep and mourn, and well, how could we have killed Jesus? So, this prophecy isn't just about John and the people who were there who saw Jesus get pierced. This is about future people, future Jews, when they see Jesus someday, they're going to see who Jesus really is. And they're going to know that he was crucified on the cross, and they're going to think, why did we ever kill him, and they will mourn over him. So, we hear the people who are looking at Jesus being pierced, is a collective of people. It's not any one individual person. It's these future Jews, representing all of God's people, representing all the Jews. In fact, I want to go so far as to suggest that if you can see that Jesus was pierced for your transgressions, and he was crushed for your iniquities, that you could even look upon the one that was pierced, and you could mourn for him, why did he have to die for my sin. So, this prophesizes a future revival among the people in Jerusalem when Jesus returns, that God's going to put grace upon them, and they're going to cry out for mercy. And they're going to be able to see Jesus for who he really was, and that they made a big mistake when they killed him, and they will mourn over Jesus.
And I'm here to talk to you and I asked you, can you see that Jesus was pierced for you for your sin? And have you ever really mourned? Have you ever really cried? Have you ever really been sad because Jesus had to die for you? And you see that it was your sin that held him. Now, this passage gives us three deep thoughts about this morning, this weeping, this crying over Jesus, that is going to happen when they look on the one whom they have pierced. Let's really think these three different thoughts about the morning here together in verse 10. Start with where it says “so that” in verse 10, look at it with me. And this is something that kind of gets hidden in the English. But it's very clear in the original language of Hebrew that this was written in. Zechariah is the Prophet recording this, God's the one saying this, “so that when they look on”… Who does God say they're going to look on? When they look on? Who does it say? Do you realize that God is saying that his own people of the Jews are going to pierce him? That's what it says in the Hebrew. God’s like someday my own people will come against me and pierce me. And we know that that prophecy is fulfilled when they pierced the spear into the side of Jesus. So, if God's saying, they're going to pierce me, but we know that they pierced Jesus. What is God then saying about Jesus? The Father is saying about the son that they are one, and Jesus is God. And this is how we're supposed to think about this.
This picture of Jesus being pierced with that spear is supposed to show us how messed up our sin really is that we would be in rebellion. God creates us, God gives us life, God sustains us, and then we go and pierce him. And we're supposed to be sorry about that. We're supposed to mourn about that. God's given me everything good I've ever had and, and what have I done? He was pierced for my transgressions. Now it's not just that God says, we pierced him. Look at how it goes on to say there in verse 10. They will look on me on him who may have pierced and then how are we going to mourn? When we realize wow, my sin killed God. My sin is the reason Jesus died on that cross. Well, how are we going to mourn? We're going to mourn, it says, as one mourns for an only child and we bitterly weep as one weeps over a firstborn. So, I don't know what kind of grief you've had, I don't know if you've loved someone, and you've lost them because they've died. But if you haven't had that kind of grief yet, you will in life, and it can be so sad when you lose someone you love. But one of the worst kinds of grief is when a dad or a mom has to watch their kid, particularly their only child, their firstborn, and only when parents watch their kid die, there is a kind of mourning, there is a kind of weeping and wailing, there is a kind of when a dad or a mom is beside themselves, when a dad or a mom would wish that they could have traded places so that their child could live. And they could die instead. Like if you've ever had the joy, if you're a dad, or you’re mom, and you ever had the joy of seeing God bless you with a baby and seeing that baby be born, and you get to bring that baby home from the hospital. I remember when me and Christa brought our only child, our firstborn child, and we brought him home, it was like the honeymoon was back at the Blakey house. It was like, can you believe this? Like, look what God has done? He created this living baby. Look how little those toes are, look how chubby those cheeks are. Like, television and movies did not exist. Look at this kid, right? And if you've known that joy, that's got to be one of the mountaintop experiences, that's got to be one of the best things that you can experience in life. So, to have it go from that high to that low.
There was a family here at our church where they kind of had that experience just recently; they were just here at the last service. I don't know if you've heard about them, but it's Bubba and Marissa Davidson and they're a part of our church family. They're in one of our fellowship groups. And God blessed them with their only child, their firstborn, a sweet little baby girl named Harlow. And they took Harlow home from Long Beach Memorial on a Wednesday. And they were having that first time parent experience they were having one of those highest of highs, and by Friday, in a panic, they had to take Harlow back to the hospital. And by the time they got there Harlow was blue and nobody knew what was going on with their sweet baby girl. In fact, their baby girl had to be rushed into the an ICU, had to be intubated, had to be on help to even breathe. And the doctor started coming in from all over and the doctors are trying to figure out what's going on with this baby. We haven't seen anything like this. Doctors, a big group of doctors, nobody who's ever experienced a case like this. Is this a genetic thing? Is this a metabolic condition? And they're sending out labs all over America for days, they can't figure out what's going on with Harlow. And then this diagnosis finally comes in that it is like a genetic and metabolic condition. It's like a one in 76,000 chance that this could happen to this baby. And it feels very grim. It feels like Harlow’s life is hanging by a thread. And that these brand new parents are going to watch their only child, their firstborn, die. And when I heard about this, me and Brad Comstock, our Compass Connect director, we went over there to Long Beach Memorial to talk to Bubba and Marissa. And when we were talking to them in the hospital, it was like you could feel the weight that was on their shoulders, like their baby's life is on the line. And we tried to encourage them, and we tried to pray for them. And in fact, we got we were like, You know what? They're like, we're going to come to our fellowship group tonight. And we're like, awesome, we'll get everybody there. So, the whole fellowship group shows up, and they invite all their family and friends and we got in like a big massive circle right over here in this room on a Wednesday night. And when it's just a room full of people begging God, Father in heaven, please, will you spare baby Harlow’s life. Father in heaven, you give life, you sustain life. And no matter what is going on, you can keep baby Harlow alive. Will you please do that? Will you please spare her life? And we are just praying to God a whole room of people just pouring out their hearts on behalf of this sweet little baby, on behalf of Bubba and Marissa, her parents, and the next day, the very next day at Long Beach Memorial, they get brought into this meeting with a bunch of doctors. And the implication in this meeting is they're kind of being encouraged. They're kind of being guided, they're kind of being pushed towards maybe you should just pull the plug on your baby now. And so, they call me and Brad here at the church and we're having this phone call conversation. And I'm here to tell you that Bubba and Marissa, they did not pull the plug on baby Harlow. And I'm here to tell you that baby Harlow started responding to various stimuli. Baby Harlow started to smile. Even the baby Harlow started to breathe on her own, and without the need of any help. In fact, baby Harlow had a surgery yesterday. And Lord willing, she might go home to be with her parents, Bubba and Marissa this very Tuesday, everybody. So that's something we can all pray for. Prayer requests everybody. Will you join us in praying for baby Harlow? And will you pray on behalf of our friends, Bubba and Marissa who are just here, I hope we will all continue to pray for them. And they've had great faith through this trial. And as we pray that Harlow can go home and be with her dad and mom, and they can all praise God, they're together, let us rejoice that God spared Harlow’s life. And let us also take it to heart that God did not spare the life of his only Son. And God did not spare the life of his firstborn. See, when it says that we should mourn as if we're an only child that we should mourn as if for a firstborn, that's exactly how the Father felt on the day his son died. The Father so loved the world that he gave his one and only son. And so, when Jesus died, we should mourn for him like a father would mourn if he lost his one and only son. Because that's exactly what happened.
When the father treated Jesus in the way that you deserved, so that you would never get what you deserve. That's how much the father loved you. Like a father mourning over his only child, his firstborn. But there's a third way that it teaches us to mourn. And not just that we've that we pierced God, not just that it was God's one and only Son, his firstborn. But look at verse 11. I don't know if you've ever really thought about this before. It says, on that day, the mourning in Jerusalem, when people realize that Jesus was pierced for them that they had pierced Jesus. They are going to mourn in Jerusalem. “The morning will be as great as the mourning for Hadad-rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. I wonder Have you ever read that verse before? Do you have any idea what that even means that we just read right there? It's a plain of Megiddo. Does that just go right over your head like some flyover verse, I have no idea what's going on in the plain of Megiddo? Because the Jewish people that would have read this in the day of Zechariah, or to the Jewish people that would know their history that would look upon Jesus, but one they have pierced in the future in the plain of Megiddo, we're going to mourn like they mourned at the plain of Megiddo. That's like record level mourning. That's like one of the great moments of crying and weeping and wailing in all the history of Israel. And there's been many sad moments. But perhaps one of the worst moments was what happened at the plain of Megiddo sea. And it's saying that this kind of mourning, you’ve got to go back to the history of Israel, you’ve got to go back to a God giving us all these different kings of Israel. I don't know if you've ever read the history of ancient Israel. But there were many different kings, starting with Saul and David and Solomon. And then if you read through the history of the kings, it'll say about most of them, this king was evil, this king was not a good king, and he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. And every once in a while. It will say this king was good. He did what was right in the sight of the Lord. He had a heart for God like his father, King David. But there were only a few good kings, and the whole history of Israel and one of the good kings, in fact, the last good king that reigned in Jerusalem in Judah, the last good king was King Josiah, and he was the king that they had been waiting for. And he was the boy king, if you know the story of Josiah, he became king when he was eight years old. And I believe he reigned for thirty-one years. And King Josiah, he decided that he was going to lead the people of Israel back to God. And so, he started tearing down the idols, and he started leading the people towards a great revival. And King Josiah decided that he wanted to make their whole nation about God again. And so, he said, we're going to rebuild the temple and we're going to get some of our best workers in there, and I'm going to pay for everything. So, make sure these guys have their money. We’ve got to make the worship of God awesome again. We’ve got to bring the glory of God back to the temple. And so, Josiah, he's starting some reforms. He's starting to say, hey, we’ve got to be God's people. And when they go to the temple and they start doing all this work, they find a book and they bring King Josiah. “King Josiah. When we were in the temple, we found a book.” And this book that they found had been lost and needed to be rediscovered. And what they found was the law of Moses, the first five books of the Bible, they didn't even have it in Israel anymore. That's how bad it got. And then one day they find it in a temple, and they're like Josiah, you're not going to believe this. We have got to read this to you. And they read to King Josiah the law of Moses, all that God commanded of his people. And when they read it to Josiah, he tears his clothes and whoa, because we're not doing what God told us to do. And we're doing a whole bunch of things that God told us not to do. And so, King Josiah, the good king, he unites the entire nation together; he gets all the dads, all the moms, every kid who can pay attention, they get them all there together, and they read the book of the law to everybody, and they explain what Moses wrote down to everybody. And the people are like, oh, we're busted before God, because God told us curses would come upon us if we did this. And that's exactly what we're doing. And God said, we'd be blessed. If we do this. We're not doing any of that. And so, they all start to change their ways. It's like, can you imagine a whole country coming together to turn around to turn to God, it's a time of great revival they had at the time of King Josiah. And the days of Jerusalem and Judah, they had the greatest feast of the Passover ever celebrated on planet earth. You can read about it in 2 Chronicles chapter 35, that King Josiah when he hears about the Passover feast, and how God delivered them out of Egypt, and how they put the blood over the door, and they were all delivered, because the Lord saved them. We're going to have such a feast to remember how God saved us. And so, he just starts giving away lambs to everybody. You get a lamb, you get a lamb, you get a lamb. You can't afford a lamb? You get a lamb, everybody gets one, he gives away out of his own money, he gives away thousands of lambs, tens of thousands of lambs. And the priests, they're just getting going thousands of lambs, three thousand bulls; they're sacrificing late into the night, and all of Israel comes together on the same day at the same time. They all slit the throat of the lamb. They all put the blood over the doorposts, and they all praise God for saving us. That's what happened in the days of King Josiah. And then one day shortly after that, King Josiah decided to ride out to battle. And he rode out to a battle that you didn't need to fight, but he was there anyways. And it just so happened that an archer in that battle pulled back his bow, and he released an arrow, and that arrow, it found a target right there in the body of King Josiah and he fell slain in the plain of Megiddo, the good king that we've been waiting for all of our lives. The king who could finally turn us to God, the guy who showed us the way, the truth, and the life, our king, our king is dead. That's how the people mourned in the plain of Megiddo like they just lost their leader, their captain, their king. And anybody who writes sad songs, anybody in the history of Israel from that point on who writes songs of lament the prophet Jeremiah, the best of the singers, whoever wrote songs if they wrote a sad song, they sure wrote one of them about everybody's beloved king, King Josiah, and how he died in the plain of Megiddo. Do you see what it's saying here and the prophecy to see what it's saying to you? Though great victory has been won for you, there was a spiritual war taking place where Satan had us deceived into sin, and we are all going to die in our sins. And then in one glorious moment, in one glorious hour on a Good Friday, Jesus, he wins the triumph over sin. He defeats death through death and surprise to Satan and the demons. Jesus wins a victory by dying and paying for all of our sin. And now because Jesus died on that cross, because he was pierced for your transgressions, you can now be forgiven for all of your sins. You had a debt that you were never ever going to repay no matter how hard you tried. No matter how many good things you did, you could never repay the debt you owe to God because of your sin. And Jesus shouts to tell the sky, “It is finished,” paid in full, and now you've got victory. Now you've been saved from your sin. Now you can live a new life, you can go to heaven when you die. You can be with Jesus forever. And here you are having a Good Friday and I’ve just got to ask you, are you just one of those Christians who's in it for the benefits? Are you just like, hey, I'm forgiven. It's all good. Now I can go do whatever I want, or do you ever look back? Do you ever look back at the cross and do you ever mourn that for you to have the victory, the one who was leading you into battle, your captain, your king Jesus? He was slain. The only way that you get to go around feeling forgiven and not condemned and not ever, like you're going to be punished or judged. The reason you get to feel that way is because you're killing the one good king we've been waiting for. He died in your place like do you ever more like they did for King Josiah in the plain of Megiddo. Do you ever think what kind of a king dies for his people? What kind of a king dies for the worst things we've done, the worst things that we've said, the worst things that we've thought in our hearts. And we should be dying, we should be judged, we should be punished.
But we're going free on this Good Friday. We know that we've been forgiven. We could walk to the end of the pier tonight and look to the bottom of the sea. And we'll never see our sin again because we've been washed as white as snow. And if the Son has set you free, you are free indeed. And I'm just asking you, are you just off living your happy life? Or do you ever look at the cross and think, my King, he died for me. That's what it says we're supposed to mourn like we had one ruler that we could finally believe in. And he died. And he had to do it for me. I'm the reason. So, you can either mourn for Jesus now, or you will mourn for Jesus later.
Revelation 1:7, it also quotes Zechariah 12:10. And you'll see it right up here on the screen. It says, “Behold,” like, this is something you're going to see, “behold, Jesus is coming with the clouds. The King is coming and he's coming soon. And every eye will see him. Yes, even those who pierced him, even those future Jews, those inhabitants of Jerusalem. There's going to be grace, they're going to cry out for mercy. They're going to mourn, but not just them. Look at “all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so, amen.” See, there are two types, everybody's going to mourn about Jesus dying on the cross. There are two types. One is the kind we're here to do today, where we see that Jesus died for us by faith through the Scripture, and we mourn over Jesus dying for us. We mourn because we've been forgiven much, and therefore, we love Jesus much. And we do want to live for Jesus as our King, because how could we not live for Jesus when he died on the cross for me. But see, there's another kind of mourning that's coming. And when the world sees Jesus, the King riding out of heaven on a white horse coming on the clouds, they will mourn, not because they're sorry for Jesus, but they're sorry for themselves. Because when Jesus comes back, he's not coming to die, and to save from sin. He's coming so that people will die as they're judged. So, everybody's going to mourn about Jesus. I want you to mourn like the prophecy says, when you look on him whom you have pierced, and you would mourn, like you pierced God, like God had to give his one and only Son to pay for you and like you had a king that you could have followed into the battle. And he actually won the battle, he won an amazing victory. But he fell, and you would mourn like they did in the plain of Megiddo. See, I'm here to ask you that when Jesus died, because there was a day that Jesus died and on the day that Jesus died, I'm here to ask you, what did he die for? And the answer is not just my sins. No, I mean, like, specifically, what are the sins that you did that pierced Jesus? He was pierced for our transgressions. He was held up there by your sins. Let's not just say Jesus died for sin. Let's think it through. What are the specific sins that you have thought, that you have said, that you have done? What is it that you did that killed Jesus? Can you see it? Can you mourn over it? Is there lust in your heart? Do you realize that Jesus says that even somebody who gives one look of lustful intent, one inappropriate look, that person is worthy of the fires of hell? Like someone should be judged over one look of lust? Is that a sin of yours that Jesus died for? What about anger? People don't treat you the way that you like, so you rage at them. So, you get mad at them. Not everybody's treating you the way you think you deserve. So now you're going to give them something that they deserve; you respond to evil with evil. Jesus says, you call somebody a fool. You hate somebody that's worthy of judgment. Did Jesus have to die for your anger? What about hatred in your heart? What about what if there's somebody right now on planet earth you don't even want to talk to that person and it's not because they don't want to talk to you, it's not because they're avoiding you. It's because in your own heart, you want nothing to do with them, because you're still upset about what happened and you haven't forgiven them for what happened. Is that bitterness and resentment, something that pierced Jesus to the cross? What about sexual immorality? I mean, God gives you life, God gives you your body. Have you used your body in a way that God told you not to? Have you committed sexual immorality, or maybe it's just that you put myself first, you're not living to love God with all your heart, you're not living to love others as more important than yourself, to love your neighbor as yourself. You're just living for me, me, me. And I'm looking out for number one. I'm asking you, what are the sins that you did? When Jesus died on the day that he died, what did he die for? Let's get specific. And let's go before Jesus. And let's say, Jesus, I want to thank you for dying for this sin. Because as we remember what we've done, and what he was pierced for our transgressions, when we realize how much we've been forgiven. Those who are forgiven much love much.
And so, if you just want to have another Good Friday, where you say, yeah, he died for my sins. And you don't want to really think through what that means. That I don't think you're really going to go love Jesus very much. But if you want to realize that the only thing keeping him to that cross was your transgressions, where have you crossed the line. And wherever you crossed the line, that's what he was pierced for. And this is a time that you can say thank you to Jesus; this is a time that you can look on him as your God, as the one and only Son of the Father, your King. And you could say to him, Jesus, I'm so thankful that I have life. I'm so sorry that it cost you yours. Thank you, Jesus, for dying for a wretched sinner.
As we're going to take Communion right now to remember the death of our Lord Jesus now, Communion, and hopefully you've got it there, somewhere, hopefully it was there on your seat, when you came in. You don't need to open it quite yet. But that Communion right there, that represents the body and the blood of Jesus. And so, this is for all my brothers and sisters, all of us who have believed in Jesus, we have had our eyes open, to see that we needed Jesus to die on the cross for our sins, and we've trusted in him. This is a day for us to remember, and to thank Jesus for being pierced for our transgressions, to think through what those transgressions are, to thank him for saving us from them. And to realize that we have been forgiven because Jesus paid it. And he paid it in full.
Now, at the same time, I want to ask our Compass Connect team to come forward, because this would be hypocrisy. This is what you don't want to do on Good Friday, that little juice there and that little wafer, they are symbols of the blood that flowed out of the side of Jesus and the body, the lamb, that not one of his bones were broken, the sacrifice, that God poured out his wrath on Jesus. And Jesus took that wrath for you. Now, it would be wrong to drink that little cup, and to eat that wafer knowing that you are still living in those sins that Jesus died for. Let's make this very clear. Jesus died for your sins. So, you don't have to keep living in them. Can I get an Amen from anybody on that? So, if you know now you might have sin as a brother and sister in Christ, you might have sin that you're convicted of. I mean, we might talk about Jesus getting pierced for your sin, and the Lord might pierce your heart with sin in your life. And you might need to confess that sin. But if you know that you've never really looked at Jesus as the one that was pierced for you, you've never really trusted in him as the one who could pay your debt.
If you know that you're convicted, because you're still doing those same old sins, that's still the way you live your life, you don't need to remember through the elements of Communion; you need to get saved by Jesus today. And so that's why the Compass Connect team is here. Because after I'm done praying, they're going to go walk out to the back, and these people are here, and they are ready to talk with you. They're ready to answer any questions you may have. They are here to help you really turn from that sin and really trust in Jesus so that you would repent and believe in this good news that Jesus died for sinners like us and rose again, that's what we're going to celebrate on Sunday. All right, so we want to help you not keep living in your sin. How sad it would be to come here, and to think about the blood and the water flowing out of the side of Jesus when he was pierced, and then to go home from here, and keep living in that sin that Jesus already died for. That's not a Good Friday right there. So, if that's you, if I'm talking about you, these people would love to talk to you. And we've been praying for you, and I'm happy to report that in our services already, we've already had people profess faith in Jesus Christ here today. We've already had people say, I don't want to keep living in that sin. And I believe he did die for me. And I am going to look on him, and I'm going to believe in him. And that could be you. So, let me pray. And then we're going to have absolute silence in this room. And it's just a time for you to talk to Jesus. It's just a time for you to say thank you. And if you need help from somebody else, to start talking with Jesus, follow the Compass Connect out in the back. Let me pray.
Father, Father, we just are thankful that we can look upon the one that we have pierced, that we could see how we've sinned against you. And we could see how you gave your one and only Son. So, Father, we want to mourn for our king who died so that we could have this victory of forgiveness, and grace, and mercy. So, I pray for my brothers and sisters, that this would be a time that we could thank Jesus who was pierced for our transgressions. And as we think through our transgressions, and how much we have been forgiven, I pray that our love would overflow, and that we would leave here more ready to love Jesus than we ever have been in our life. But Father, I also come to you on behalf of those who are still in their sins, and I pray that you would open their eyes so they could see that Jesus was pierced. And that they could see he was pierced for their transgressions. And I pray that they would cry out to you for mercy that they would not get what they deserve, but that they would see that Jesus got what they deserved. And that by looking to Jesus, you would grant them repentance, leading to eternal life. So, Father, if there's somebody who knows they need Jesus to save them from their sin tonight, they pray they will go talk to somebody from Compass Connect right now. So, we commit this time, up to you right now. And we come before you to say thank you for Jesus. On the night before he died for us on the cross, at the Last Supper, Jesus taught us exactly how he wants to be remembered. And he took the bread, and he passed it among his disciples, and he said, “Take this, and eat, this is my body, Do this in remembrance of me.” So, if you can get out that way, for this is the sacrifice of the King Jesus, who laid down his life as the Lamb of God, to pay for your sin. Let's do this in remembrance of Jesus together. And then Jesus passed around the cup. And he said, “This is my blood of the new covenant, drink this in remembrance of me.” And as often as we drink this cup, we proclaim our Lord's death, until he comes. Let's do this in remembrance of Jesus who was pierced for us. Father in heaven, we thank you for this time that we could gather together to look upon the one that we have pierced. And we know that someday we're going to see Jesus, and he's going to wipe away all of our tears. But I pray that on this day, we would mourn over him. And we would be so thankful, so overwhelmed with love and gratitude that we have been forgiven and all of our sin has been paid for, and we get to leave here saved and freed. But I pray that we would look back and see our King fallen in the plain of Megiddo, and that we would mourn over the good King, who laid down his life for his people. And that we would grow in our love and devotion to our Lord, Jesus. And Father, I just want to come to you right now, at this last service on this Friday night, and I just want to pray for that person that's here that's convicted right now, they’re pierced to the heart about their sin, but they didn't want to walk out there and talk to anybody. And I just pray that during this next song, that they would be willing to go and talk to someone and open up and be honest, and that they would be able to see Jesus. Father, please, we ask that you would open eyes, that many people would be able to see him there on the cross, and they would believe and they would be saved, that they would have living water for their soul. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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