The Word of Reunion

Sam.

All right. Good morning, church. Good morning. Happy Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week. Some call it Passion Week, the week that we have very clear instructions and words about what Jesus did on each of the days this following week.

Today is the day often called Triumphal Entry, because they cut palm branches and they said hosanna. Hosanna, which means God’s salvation. Son of David, recognizing Jesus as he entered in on the colt of a donkey in fulfillment of the prophecy in Zechariah. And so we celebrate that now, 2,000 years later, the Triumphal Entry. We call it Palm Sunday because of the palm branches.

And what a great day to finish up our series, the Seven Last Words, the last words of Jesus from the Cross. And we’ll be finishing that final word up today. And as we do, I’m just reminded that we’ve worked these last couple weekends raising up food for the hungry in our community. And we’ve done this every Easter season for at least 10 years, maybe longer now. And so yesterday, at both our Wilson campus and our Rocky Mountain campus, we went out and picked up food.

And so if you’re part of that, I would just like to announce to you how appreciated that was by the director of the Hope Station. She said that the pantry was completely empty whenever we reported and that they count on our church to bring food in this time of the year because they always really empty this time of the year. We’re the only ones that come in during the Easter season. People think of it during Christmas and Thanksgiving, those kind of times of the year, but they often forget the hungry at this time of the year. And so I actually have a before and after photo on my Facebook page.

If you would check it out of how empty the pantry was and how full it was when we left. And so we raised about £11,000. We delivered about £11,000 of food to the Hope Station in Wilson. And then we did our first food drive in Rocky Mount this past weekend, and we raised over £2,000 for the Rocky Mount Food Pantry. And so give God a hand about that.

I tell you, we’re excited to be a church that cares about those things, but we’re inspired by our Lord Jesus. Amen. He’s the one who teaches us to give of ourselves. And so, as we consider this last statement today, I would just like to do a quick overview of those seven sayings that we’ve covered, because they hang like a diamond necklace around the neck of the Lord Jesus in perfection. Each jewel perfect in color, clarity, and cut.

The first and the Last, similar in size and symmetry. The first begin with a prayer. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And the final, which we will speak of today, another prayer to the Father. Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

Then in the middle, a prominent, heavier one, terrible in its beauty. Eloi, Eloi lama Sabekthani, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It balances the other three on either side of it as the sins of the whole world fell upon Christ Jesus. And for the first time in all of eternity, he was separated from the Father, so that he called him not Father, but my God. But now we see at the conclusion of the seven sayings that he has accomplished his mission.

As we said last week, it is finished. And now he says, abba, Daddy, take me home. The first three sayings, they hang on one side of the middle prominent one. They all three address the crowd surrounding the cross. One is saying, father, forgive those who are crucifying me.

Another is to the criminal who is to his right hand. And he says, truly, I say unto you, you’ll be with me this day in paradise. And then he speaks a word to his mother, behold your son. And to John, behold your mother. And so these are concerning the humans, the humanity around him, if you will.

But the final three sayings are directed more to the Father. He says, even I thirst. So he can clear his throat and make the final two statements. It is finished. And then, father, Abba, into your hands I commit my spirit.

This final saying is kind of like a child saying, daddy, take me home. Kind of like that. Kind of like that. Daddy, take me home. Come and get me.

Abba, I’m ready for reunion. Ready for reunion with you. You ever go to a family reunion, by the way, y’ all have family reunions. Some of you probably have really organized ones. I meet some of you and they say, yeah, it’s the same weekend every year.

It’s like a holiday tradition. We get together and people from all over the country travel to our family reunions. I kind of envy you in a way. We’ve never been able to pull that off. I guess back in the day when my grandparents were still alive, they could pull it off.

All they had to do is say, we’re getting together. And people, cousins and uncles and aunts would just come from all over the US to be. Because Granny and Papa said we’re having a reunion, they would show up for that. But Granny and Papa, my granny and papa, they’re in heaven now. And then my mom and my uncle and my aunts, they could kind of do it, too.

Even after Granny and Papa passed away, they could still say, we’re going to have a family reunion. Pretty much everybody would show up. But as one of the cousins, I just don’t have seniority, I guess. We try to get people together, and it’s hard. So I have to settle for my little brood.

I try to get them together. We try to do a family vacation and do things together. Why do we do this, do you think? What’s this whole family reunion thing about? Isn’t it because we want to recapture the feeling of home?

This idea that we could be childlike again, that we could be children and actually go home again? But the truth of the matter is that just as the author Thomas Wolfe said, you can’t go home again. He writes, you can never go home again. That seems to be the human experience. We all go in search of a home.

We look for a place that we could have a home. And nothing seems to fulfill it. You go back to Granny and Papa’s house, where I used to spend so many summers and spend so many times together with them, and the house is still there. My cousin still keeps it kind of like a museum. He lives next door and he keeps it in perfect.

But the problem is, when I go in, I look at it on the outside and I feel the tears coming, like, man, that’s where I had so many wonderful childhood memories. But then I go in and there’s no laughter from my grandfather. There’s no smell of food being cooked in the kitchen of my grandmother. They’re not there. It’s just a house.

It’s not a home. When I go to my mother’s house, the house I grew up in, someone else lives there now. They took the fence down and cut the maple tree down that I put the tree house in. The tree’s gone. It’s not the same.

Do you know what I’m talking about? The hospital I was born in, they turned into a Kroger supermarket.

It’s hard to go home again. Some would say it’s impossible. Yet Jesus cries out from the cross, father, take me home. Like a child, he cries out. And I believe we can learn something about that child’s prayer, that childlike prayer, that prayer of total dependence on the father’s hands, on the Father’s arms.

In the Gospel of Luke, the seventh and last word of Jesus from the cross was a prayer that expressed his total dependence on the Father. The Father still hears. God still hears and answers prayers of total Dependence. How can we. How can we be totally dependent?

How can we express total dependence like this, like Jesus did? Believe. As we look at the text, we’ll find three ways that we can express our total dependence on the Father and finally have a sense of coming home. Are you ready to listen? Let’s look at the text today.

Looking at the book of Luke, chapter 23, verse 44 and following.

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. Having said this, he breathed his last. Now, when the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God, saying, certainly this man was innocent. And all the crowds that assembled for this spectacle when they saw what had taken place returned home beating their breasts.

And all his acquaintances and the women who had followed him from Galilee stood at a distance, watching these things. This is God’s word. Amen. Considering this last statement of Jesus, let’s look at the three ways. Here’s the first.

First way that we can express our total dependence on God. Offer yourself to God in utter surrender. Offer yourself to God in utter surrender. Have you surrendered yet? Have you put up the white flag and said, I’m not God, You’re God, I’m not.

Have you surrendered yet? Let’s unpack a few details about this story. We’ve covered some of these before, but for the sake of reminder, what does he mean by the sixth hour, the ninth hour? What’s he talking about in Luke’s Gospel? In the other Gospels, we see this same designation.

This is Jewish time. They didn’t have timepieces, they had the sun and the placement of the sun in the sky. And so the Jews called the first hour the hour that the sun came up. Makes sense, doesn’t it? So that would be the first hour.

And because Israel is closer to the equator than we are, there was sort of a constancy to this. The sun would come up around 6am, especially during the spring season. Like around 6am was sunrise. So it’s the first hour. And so one gospel says that he was crucified beginning at the third hour.

That would be 9am so six plus three, that’s nine. You following with me? And so then here in this gospel, in the Gospel of Luke, it says, darkness fell over the earth between the sixth and the ninth hour. The sixth hour, 6am plus six. What’s that?

That’s noon. So high noon when the sun is mid sky and at its brightest from that time until three, which would be the ninth hour, there was darkness. Now this is miraculous darkness. This is supernatural darkness. At the peak of the sun’s brightness, it says in verse 45, the sun’s light failed.

This is a total eclipse of the sun. It could not have happened. According to the lunar calendar during that time, naturally there are natural events of the of a solar eclipse. But nature cannot explain this. During this time of the year with the moon in the placement it would have been.

It could not have happened. It’s a miraculous event. God turned his back on the cross for those three hours. And Jesus cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He who knew no sin became sin for us.

And so the land was darkened, the earth trembled. And then he calls out, at the conclusion, at the ninth hour, he has said, I thirst. And he has taken the drink of the sour wine. He’s cleared his throat and like a champion, he’s pulled up on the spikes through his hands and stood up on the spikes that are through his feet. And he says, it is finished.

And then he says, father, into your hands I commit my spirit. And then it says, he breathed his last. The Gospel of John says he bowed his head.

This is a miraculous spectacle that’s taking place between the sixth and the ninth hour. And at the conclusion, at the ninth hour, he says, father, I commit my spirit into your hands. He probably says abba rather than what the Greek records. The Greek is the original language of the New Testament. We have our English translation, but the original is in Greek.

But Jesus was from Nazareth and his language that he would have grown up speaking as a Galilean was Aramaic the word pater, where we get paternalistic or paternalism is the Greek word here, pater. But surely Jesus must have said abba, abba as he cries out to the Father. And then he says, to your hands I commit my spirit. Now when we think of the word commit, we tend to think of commitment. But that’s not what this word means.

It has more the idea of the pastor who might be committing the body to the grave like that, like I commit the body, we commit this body to the grave. More like the idea of setting a table, that I’ve placed this on the table, I’ve committed this to the table. So the word commit here is not commitment but more. More like surrender. More like to lay aside like that.

More like to pour out, father, into your hands I entrust, I commit I surrender my life, my spirit. This body has been offered as a sacrifice. It is dying. But I give you my life. Like that right there.

I surrender. This is total and utter surrender. And it’s kind of really unusual that it happens with such clarity and such suddenness. We see no degradation of the intellect or of the commentary from the cross. We see Jesus say this final phrase, and then he bows his head and breathes his last.

Breathed his last. It’s interesting. Father, unto you I commit my spirit. The word spirit is the Greek word pneuma, which is where we get other words like that, right? Like anything to do with air.

And so it doesn’t just mean spirit, it also means breath. Unto you I commit my breath. And then he breathed his last.

Exnuma out. Breathed out exnumos. He breathed out. So unto you I give my breath, my spirit. And then he breathed it out with intent, under his control.

I’m reminded of the book of Genesis, when God first formed man from the dust of the earth. And it says he breathed into him and he became a living soul. But then we have sinned and we have fallen, so we’ve been separated from God. Death is already at work in our bodies. But now Jesus breathes again, so that we might be born again, breathed his last, that we might actually breathe our first breath of the Spirit.

Having received Jesus, do you understand what he’s doing here? He’s breathing his last. That we might breathe our first breath of oneness with the Father. But we must be like him. We must surrender.

Jesus did this. And it surprised the soldiers. It surprised Pilate. It surprised the Sanhedrin. You see, the Sanhedrin were concerned about the law.

They wanted Jesus crucified, but they didn’t want him hanging there on the high and holy day of Passover, the Passover Sabbath. They wanted him down before the sunset. And so they asked Pilate to break his legs and get him off the cross. It’s in John, chapter 19. It was the day of preparation.

Since it was the day of preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, which was called the High Sabbath because of Passover, 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. So on either side, they broke the legs of those. But when they came to Jesus, they saw that he was already dead. And so they did not break his legs.

And one of the soldiers, being Careful to make sure he was really dead. Pierced aside with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water, which was evidence of the nature of how he had died. For these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled. Not one of his bones will be broken because the sacrificial lamb, the passover lamb, it was to be slain, but you were not to break its bones. And so Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of the passover lamb.

Why would they break their legs? It’s because their legs, that was the only way they could breathe. The body would be so torqued outward and so twisted that they couldn’t breathe. And so they had to use the strength in their legs. But if you broke their legs, the shock of it and the fact they could no longer lift their body weight would cause death to come suddenly.

But they did not have to do this to Jesus. Why? Because he breathed his last. Father, I commit my spirit to you. I lay it aside, I give it to you.

And he breathed this last. How do we know that he had this under control? He told us. Christ surrendered himself to the Father on our account. John, chapter 10 says, for this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I might take it up again.

No one takes it from me. I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down. I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.

Jesus said, I will lay my life down and I will take it up again. And then he did it. Then he accomplished it. Remember what we read in the Gospel of John? He says, it is finished.

After he had received the sour wine. And then he bowed his head. His head didn’t drop. He bowed his head. He surrendered his spirit, his life to the Father.

Now we too are called to such surrender. We are to surrender our whole lives to the Father. In the Book of Job, it says, surrender your heart to God. Turn to him in prayer and give up your sins, even those you do in secret. Then you won’t be ashamed.

You will be confident and fearless. Have you surrendered? Have you surrendered everything to the Father? Have you put up the white flag? Have you said, father, all that I am, my whole life, I surrender to you.

I commit to you. Have you ever done that? This is what Jesus is praying, but not just for himself, but for all those who would follow him. Have you surrendered? The Book of Romans describes this as an appropriate response to what Christ has done.

It says, I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living Sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Have you given your life to Jesus? Have you surrendered your life? Have you finally said, I’m tired of being God? Besides, control is an illusion.

If you figure that out every time you think you’re in control, you’re not. You might as well say, I surrender. I surrender to the one who actually is in control. Into your hands, Father, I commit my spirit. Surely the early Christians learned this as they studied the words of Jesus and as the spirit that he had poured out, they received.

And so we see the first martyr in the Book of Acts, chapter seven, where Stephen is being stoned to death after he’s preached the Gospel, and he’s being stoned to death. And there’s Saul, whose name was later changed to Paul, the Apostle Paul. He’s there guarding the garments of the ones who peeled off their garments so that they could throw with all their might and kill this young man named Stephen for preaching the Gospel. And he cries out. What does he cry out?

Says, lord Jesus, receive my spirit, Lord Jesus. Where did he learn to say that, do you imagine? Oh, we know where he learned to say that. He learned it from the lips of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He says he looked up and he saw Jesus at the right hand of the Father.

And he looked at him and he says, lord Jesus, receive my spirit. I surrender to you. And then he said one more final thing, one more amazing thing. He cried out as he fell to his knees, lord, do not hold this sin against them. Where did he learn to say that?

He learned it the same place that he learned it from the Lord. He took the first and the last of the seven sayings, and he said, both of them, Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing. Father, I’m coming home. Come and get me.

Just like his Lord. He prayed the same way. And so can we. We can surrender. We can pray the prayer that Jesus prayed.

Have you ever prayed it, Lord Jesus, I surrender. I surrender all, every aspect of my life, every relationship, my finances, my parenting, my marriage, my business, my schoolwork. Put it all out there, right? There it is, Lord. It’s yours.

Have you done that? Why are you holding back? Surrender. This is the first way that we can be totally dependent, express our total dependence on Jesus. Here’s the second.

It’s how we face suffering. Suffering is very revealing about who you’re depending on. The second way is to rely on God as you face suffering. Now, who here has ever suffered? Have you ever suffered?

Have you ever gone through suffering. If you didn’t raise your hand, watch out. Here’s the thing about Christianity. It doesn’t turn a blind eye to suffering. It’s not like Hinduism.

Hinduism says that we’re to exist on a different plane, that it’s all just an illusion anyway. And so suffering doesn’t touch us because we decide that it doesn’t really affect who we truly are. The only problem with that, that is happiness doesn’t touch us either. Love doesn’t touch us because we’re becoming disconnected with reality. Every religion has a way of trying to address suffering, but they all fall terribly short.

Every human philosophy falls short. But Christianity stands head and shoulders alone in addressing suffering. And how does it address suffering? By the loving God of the universe, who made us sent his son Jesus to suffer in our place.

Some say, well, the reason I don’t believe in God is because how could a good God allow suffering? How could he allow an earthquake, a tsunami, a hurricane to come through? And how could he allow little children to be sick and to be hungry? How could he allow, if he’s good, why does he allow suffering? Well, he didn’t plan for suffering.

We cause suffering through sin because sin brings suffering. It brings it every time. But he didn’t leave us that way. He didn’t leave us that way. He came and said, let me enter into this suffering.

Let me suffer in your place so that I can provide a rescue for you. And so we still face suffering because there’s still sin in this world, but we don’t have to face it without meaning. And meaning changes everything. If we know that suffering has a beginning, a midpoint and an end, it gives us a sense that I can go through this, because at some point I’ll be able to say, it is finished. And at some point I’ll be able to say, father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

There’s a reason for suffering.

It has a work that it will do in us. Now as we look at the text, we see that Jesus is saying, into your hands, I commit my spirit. We focused on how it was commit, but now he says, it’s your hands. Can you just imagine that he now sees, spiritually sees the Father again? He recognizes the power of the Father and he goes, I’ve poured it out, Lord.

I’ve crossed the finish line. Can you imagine the Olympic runner or maybe the one in the triathlon? You’ve seen these on TV or on videos where they’ve poured out so much that they collapse across the finish line. They come in first place. But they fall across the finish line and someone has to help them up.

Well, here’s the father. He’s waiting on the other side of the finish line for the Lord Jesus. And he comes across the finish line. He goes, father, that’s all I got. And then the Father, I’ve suffered.

I’ve poured it out into your hands.

One commentator pointed out that perhaps Jesus had been raised by his parents to pray. That little prayer, little Jewish boys and girls might have prayed Psalm 31:5 as they were growing up. Maybe they all prayed. Into your hand I commit my spirit. You have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.

Before they laid their heads down on their pillows at night. Well, that’s how Jesus does before he bows his head and goes to sleep. Abba, Abba, I commit my spirit to you. It was a spectacle. Luke says what the people had seen a spectacle.

The Greek word is theorion. It’s where we get the word theater. And how appropriate that we would all be in a former theater this morning as we consider the cross. It was like a theater. It was like a spectacle.

And the people had seen the way he died and the way he suffered and the way he spoke. No one ever spoke as this man. Even the hardened centurion said this man was innocent. And John reports that he said this man truly was the Son of God. This was the hardened centurion who said this.

The people who had been saying, crucify him left beating their breasts in anguish and. And fearful perhaps of what was going to happen to them now, because they had taken part in this thing. The earthquake that trembled, the curtain that was rent, the darkened, sudden solar eclipse, all of this combined caused them to beat their breasts. And then even those it says that were acquaintances, even the women who had followed him from Galilee, they stood and they bore witness. He suffered.

No one suffered as he has. Perhaps there have been worse tortures that evil humanity has invented. But no one can fully understand what it would be like to give up an eternal relationship, to have all of the sins fall upon you, to have the full wrath of God. We don’t understand the cross. We can only peer in between the curtain for a moment, and then it’s too horrific to even to consider what he suffered.

Why did he suffer? That he might relieve our suffering, that he might save us from death and sin? It says in the book of Hebrews, describing what Jesus has done. What we do see is Jesus, who for a little while was given a position a little lower than the angels. That refers to the psalm that says man is a little lower than the angels.

And because he suffered death for us, he is now crowned with glory and honor. Yes, by God’s grace, Jesus tasted death for everyone. God, for whom and through whom everything was made, chose to bring many children into glory. It was only right that he should make Jesus, through his suffering, a perfect leader fit to bring them into their salvation. Now see, Jesus, he came down from the highest place, right?

He came down, he climbed down that ladder of love and he emptied himself and became a man, becoming even a servant, even obedient unto death, even the curse of a cross. And therefore God has raised him up to the highest place so that every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. He was already at a high place. But because of his obedient suffering, he’s been raised to a higher place.

Suffering is his badge, his red badge of courage. It’s what he has done for us. Do you realize that Jesus is still in human form? He has chosen to remain. He’s in the resurrected body, the glorified body.

But we know from Thomas witness from the Gospel of John that the scars still remain in his hands. They still remain on his side and in his feet. When we see him, we’ll see the badge of his courage and of his suffering. The marks are still there. He’s engraved his love for us in his hands.

The Scripture says Christ’s example of obedience through suffering and that of previous saints works to inspire us. In Hebrews 12 it speaks of this great cloud of witnesses. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, all those who have run the race before us following Jesus, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and the perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or faint hearted. Now look, I’m not saying you should go looking for suffering.

Pastors say we should go out there and try to suffer. No, it’s not. No. He hated it. Look at that Hebrews passage.

Closely. He endured it. He despised it. He did it for the joy. He did it for the finish line.

He didn’t do it for the race. He didn’t do it for the shame. He didn’t do it for the suffering. He came and took your Place. He said, tag me in.

I substitute father. I will die in their place. I’ll take their sin, their shame, their suffering, so they don’t have to, so they can have my life, so they can have my righteousness, so they can have my relationship with you. So don’t waste the pain. When you go through some time of suffering, don’t waste the pain.

Don’t take that class over again like, Lord, I want to learn what you want me to learn right now. I depend on you. Don’t waste the pain. Call out to God. Rely on his love and spirit to produce spiritual fruit in you.

The Bible says you can rejoice in suffering. Look at Romans. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings. It doesn’t say we rejoice because of our sufferings. Notice it doesn’t say that.

Doesn’t say, woo hoo. I’m so happy I’m suffering. That’s not what it says. I rejoice in spite of my sufferings. Why?

Knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame. Because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. In other words, here’s what suffering will do if we’ll let it. If we’ll rely on Jesus through suffering, looking to the cross, looking for the joy of the goal line on the other side, if we’ll allow it, and we go through suffering.

It crucifies the old nature. It crucifies the old you because you’re full of you.

My mom used to tell me that when I was growing up, if I was being a bad boy during the day, she’d go, gary Wayne, you are full of yourself today. You ever have somebody say that to you? Maybe they said you were full of something else. But she said, I’m full. You’re full of yourself.

He did say that. I can’t believe he did, but he did say that.

And so my mama, she knew how to get you unful of yourself. She helped you empty yourself out. She would, you know, help you with that. I was listening to a comedian earlier this week who said when he grew up, they didn’t have timeout, they had knockout.

And I laughed pretty hard at that because I remembered that’s how I grew up. He said, the way we had time out is you had knockout and then you woke up from a timeout. My mama would help me get over myself. And suffering will do that. If you’ll allow it, you’ll finally get over yourself and you’ll depend on God and you’ll find a new place.

I’m not saying suffering doesn’t come because suffering does come. But I am saying this, that he shares in our sufferings and he knows how we feel. There’s no pain, no grief, no betrayal. There’s a betrayal that he hasn’t felt. And he says, I join you in this and I take your place so that there’s an end to your suffering.

Oh, yes, friends, there’s an end to it.

I know the mother of my children who bore three children. She labored for the goal line.

If that suffering would have come on a woman, just imagine, ladies, and no one had told you that there was a goal line. That would have been more than you could bear, I would imagine. I don’t know why they call it labor. It looked like suffering to me. So my wife suffered three times for three babies.

Some of you have suffered more, labored. But you do it for the love. Don’t you do it for the goal line. There’s an end in sight. Some of you have labored longer than others.

Tim Keller talks about this idea of suffering and how God enters into it with us in his book entitled the Reason for Belief in an Age of Skepticism. He writes, if we embrace the Christian teaching that Jesus is God and that he went to the cross, then we have deep consolation and strength to face the brutal realities of life on earth. We can know that God is truly Emmanuel, God with us even in our worst sufferings. Friends, the world is full of suffering. But we do not suffer alone.

We that have received Jesus, and we that have his spirit, that he has poured out that we might be filled. Suffering for us has been lowered from what it would have been. It has been reduced in not just quality, but quantity, so that there’s an end to it. You’re going to get through this, friend. There’s life on the other side.

The suffering is only for a season. And then we cry out, lord, come and get me. And then here’s the third way. We’ve talked about surrender. We’ve talked about suffering.

Now we’ll talk about what it means to be adopted into his family, to have sonship. We can cry out to God in childlike sonship. More on that in just a moment to explain the choice of that word. But cry out. That’s how Jesus spoke.

It says in verse 46, with a loud voice, he said, father, he cried it out so that all present would hear him. He cried it out like a child crying out for his daddy, with a loud voice. The Greek is phone megale. It’s where we get the word megaphone. He cried it out that all might hear was a loud outcry, a great sound.

And then he cried out, father, here we hear the cry of the Son who for a moment had lost sight of his father. But now he catches a glimpse of him again. He goes, abba. He sees him again and he cries out and he goes, I’ve done it. Come and get me.

I wanted to know what it sounded like in the Aramaic because we have the Greek and we have the English, so. But I didn’t know what it sounded like in the Aramaic. I knew it must be Abba. You see, Jesus spoke Aramaic. It was the language of the Galileans.

He would have spoken Aramaic. So I found a Aramaic translation of the New Testament. It’s called the Syriac Bachita. And it says this. When we come to Luke, chapter 46 or chapter 23, verse 46, it says, Abba.

Abba. Abba. Daddy, come and get me. I pour out my breath. I pour out my spirit.

This is the exclamation of the child crying out to the Father in the deep end of the swimming pool. Daddy, I’m about to jump. Catch me. And before, if you were in my shoes. My kids trusted me so much, I didn’t get turned around quick enough sometimes.

And then they didn’t trust me so much the second time, like, daddy, here I come. Wait a minute. I’m not there yet. That was my son, Jonathan. He was wearing a Pampers.

Have you ever seen what happens to a Pampers when you jump in a swimming pool? It’s not a pretty sight.

But when I could get turned around in time, I would look at them and I would say, jump. Daddy will catch you. Jump.

The Father’s arms are waiting. Jump. He’ll catch you. What happened to that childlike faith that we all once had, where we would leap into what the Father’s joy would call us to? It’s like the child’s bedtime prayer, in a way.

This last saying of Jesus, now lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to. Parents are often afraid to teach that prayer. In our modern generation.

We don’t want them to be afraid of death, and so we tell them nothing about it. We figure that’s the best way to teach them, just ignore it. But our forebears taught them that every little sleep is like a little death. For that Little moment for six, seven, eight hours. There’s no way you’re in control.

God, I’m going to sleep now. If anything happens, take care of me. That’s what that prayer means. It’s just like that prayer. That’s what Jesus is saying.

I’m going to sleep now. I’m bowing my head, Father, Abba, take care of this. And then the curtain was torn in two so that access to the Father that the Son had, we now all have. We can all call him Abba, Father. We can all experience oneness with the Father.

Galatians speaks of this adoption. It says, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you’re sons, God has sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, abba, Father, so you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God. Why sons?

Because he’s the Son. And whether you’re a man or a woman, a son or a daughter, you all get equal share to the firstborn son. Whatever Christ has, you have. He took what you used to have, and he’s given you what he has. Life, righteousness, access to the Father.

It’s all yours now. Everything that belongs to Jesus is now yours. So we can pray and we can say, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. It all belongs to us now. How do we access this?

Luke says this. This is Jesus speaking. He says, truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. Are you ready to be like a child, like a little child and say, abba, here’s my whole life.

I want to be your son. I want to be your child. I want to be your daughter. I want to be a child of God. Like that.

Like that. Oh, come on now. I’m an adult, Pastor. Come on. This whole Christianity thing is kind of a childlike thing.

Isn’t. Sure is. It? Sure is. He wants you to release control.

You see, here’s what sin is. Here’s the definition of sin. I will do it my way, I will do it myself. That’s the attitude called sin. Rather than saying, I will do it the Father’s way, I will do what he says, I will obey Him, I will follow him.

That’s an attitude of righteousness. In his book Death on a Friday Afternoon, Richard John Neuhaus writes this about those who have trouble with Childlike dependence. He says there is an objection that such prayer is infantilizing a regression to the dependencies of childhood. Grownups, it is said, do not need the crutch of a parent figure to lean on good for them. And then he speaks of Jesus, the child who was utterly faithful, and his utter dependence was not given a crutch to lean on, but a cross to die on.

And to those whom he calls brothers and sisters, he says, take up your cross, not a crutch, your cross, and follow me. Pretending to be a grown up would be easier. One might well be advised to keep it up were it not for the truth that the darkness we feared as a child is real. The darkness we feared is but a slight premonition of the darkness from which he cried. And we with him.

Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. So writes Newhouse.

Stop pretending like you’re a grown up. You’re not.

We all bow our heads down at night to lay our heads on our pillows. We’re all children. We’re all in need of a father. We’re all looking for home. We’re all looking for a place we could call home.

Christ has opened up the way. And when he came and when he. When he said, father, take me home, he wasn’t just saying, father, take me home, he was saying, father, take all those I’m bringing with me home. Father, unto your hands I commend my spirit. And by the way, I’ve invited some people along with me.

I remember when my son Stephen first went to college and he finally started missing his mommy and his daddy. He was so happy to be away, but then suddenly he was missing home. And he called home and he said, mom, could you make some of that honey chicken? I’m starving for some honey chicken. Which was something he always liked.

And so she said, sure, honey, I’ll make. He goes, I’m going to bring a couple of friends. He brought the holy hoard. He brought people. He brought people.

And they were hungry people. He brought many of them. And they had all of our food. Like locusts, they descended on our house until the food was gone, and then they went their way.

You’re laughing, but if you’ve had college students, you know what I’m talking about. They’re starving. They come home and they eat all you have, and they bring friends. They bring people with them. Jesus did the same thing to his Father, and he’s still doing it.

Father, I commend my spirit to you. Come and take me home. And by the way, I’m bringing people. Newhouse again writes about this imaginary scene that you might join us as we consider on the cross. The wounded Word is returning from his mission, bringing with him the totality of all that love assumed in the lead.

A thief who believed and hath believed comes with him, followed by a ragtag band of tax collectors and sinners and victims of history beyond numbering victims who only now know the sacrifice of which their sacrifice was part. Choirs of angels and cherubim and seraphim come out to meet the Lord Jesus, to welcome home the Son of God. But they stand aghast at the battered, tattered company he brings with him. And then Jesus says, they are all mine. They are my brothers and sisters.

They are the ones I went to seek and to save. I’m taking them to the Father. I’m taking them home.

This is what he prayed. Take me home and all those I’ve purchased with me. It reminds me of a song.

Every week I’ve been reminded of a song. You say, I can’t help it. I grew up on these songs. Softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling, Calling for you and for me. See on the portals he’s waiting and watching.

Watching for you and for me. Come home, Come home, you who are weary, come home.

Earnestly, tenderly Jesus is calling. Do you hear him calling, O sinner, Come home.

Let’s pray. Lord, thank you for what you did for us.

Now, Father, we want to join in the Son’s Prayer. We want to join. We want to say, Father, into youo hands, I commit my life, I commit my spirit. How can we do that? Friends, if that’s you, friend, if that’s you this morning, right now, here’s how you could just pray it like this, just saying along with Jesus, thank youk that yout died on the cross for me, Jesus, that yout died for my sins, that yout were raised from the grave.

Three days later, I believe it.

Come and live in me and forgive me of my sin and make me a believer. Make me a Christian.

Forgive me and help me to be a child of God, a son of God. I want to be a Christ follower this morning. I want to say yes. Like a little child. I just want to say yes.

I surrender. Come into my life. Make me the person youn want me to be. Others are here, and you’ve prayed and you’ve received Jesus as your Lord and Savior. But would you think about your surrender right now?

Would you think about those places that you’ve yet to wave the white flag and turn control over to Jesus, where are you still trying to be in control? Where are you worried and anxious over a detail? And you’ve yet to say, Father, into your hands, Father, into your hands, I give this. Where have you yet to do that? Holy Spirit, speak to us.

We want to repent of those places that we’ve tried to be in control. And then who is suffering today? Who is hurting? Who is in need of a savior that knows? Would you turn your suffering over to him?

Would you rely on him and saying, lord, get me through this? Do in me what you’d have done? I am yours, Father, into your hands.

We lift all this up now as your children, in Christ’s name, Amen.