Embedded Files
Watch this lesson on YouTube, or listen to it here.
Access the slide deck here.
1) In our last class we talked about how God knows (sees and hears), feels, heals, and is present with us in our suffering. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Jesus’ incarnation and death on the cross.
“No crying he makes” by Shane Scott[1]
1) He references verse 2 of the song, “Away in a Manger”
A) “The cattle are lowing, the Baby awakes,
B) But little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes.”
C) Shane – “This song expects us to believe that stirred awake by the lowing of the cattle, the infant Jesus did not cry…But to say that the baby Jesus didn’t cry to is to stretch the limits of poetic license to the breaking point.”
2) The point of Shane’s article is to emphasize Jesus’ humanity and how he lived, suffered and experienced everything that every other person does.
A) Jn. 1:14 – “The Word became flesh”
B) Matt. 21:18 – He was hungry
C) Jn. 19:28 – He was thirsty
D) Jn. 4:6 – He got tired
E) Mk. 3:5 – He got mad
F) Matt. 9:36 – He felt compassion
G) Mk. 14:33-34 / Lk. 22:40 – He felt “greatly distressed and troubled” (stress / anxiety) / “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.”
H) Matt. 26:47-49 – He felt betrayal
I) Matt. 26:47-49 / Mk. 14:50 – He felt alone
J) Matt. 26:67-68; 27:28-31 – He felt pain and shame
K) He could be beaten, bruised, he could bleed, and he could die.
L) 2 Jn. 7 – The deny the humanity of Jesus is very not ok!
3) The main point of Shane’s article is that Jesus wept (opposed to “no crying he makes”).
A) Heb. 5:7-8
B) Jn. 11:35 – When Lazarus died.
C) Lk. 19:41 – Over Jerusalem.
D) “But the King of Kings courageously chose to live as one of His subjects, to enter the human condition and summon the strength to endure. And precisely because He lived as one of us, and felt what we feel, He cried.”
E) Is. 53:3 – “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief…”
F) “I am glad my Savior cries, because it means He cares. He cares for me when I am stricken with grief. He cares for me when I wander away from Him. He cares for me when I face crisis and distress. And because He cried and because He cares, I can go to him with confidence that as I pray through my tears He hears me and knows exactly what I am going through.”
Practical Lessons
1) Jesus’ cross is the ultimate proof of God’s love (Rom. 5:6-8).
A) Christ died FOR us.
1) Matt. 26:28 - for the forgiveness of sins
2) Mk. 10:45 - ransom for many
3) Rom. 4:25
4) Rom. 5:8 - died for us
5) Rom. 8:32 - did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all
6) 1 Cor. 15:3 - Christ died for our sins
7) 2 Cor. 5:15 - he died for all
8) Gal. 2:20 - gave himself up for me
9) *Gal. 3:13 - becoming a curse for us
10) Eph. 5:2 - gave himself up for us
11) Eph. 5:25 - gave himself up for her
12) 1 Tim. 2:6 - gave himself as a ransom for all
13) *Titus 2:14 - gave himself for us
14) Heb. 2:9 - he might taste death for everyone
15) 1 Pet. 2:21 - Christ also suffered for you
16) 1 Pet. 3:18 - Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous
17) 1 Jn. 3:16 - he laid down his life for us
B) “Yes, we do not know the reason God allows evil and suffering to continue, or why it is so random, but now at least we know what the reason is not. It cannot be that he does not love us. It cannot be that he does not care. He is so committed to our ultimate happiness that he was willing to plunge into the greatest depths of suffering himself. He understands us, he has been there, and he assures us that he has a plan to eventually wipe away every tear. Someone might say, ‘But that’s only half an answer to the question ‘Why?’’ Yes, but it is the half we need."[2]
2) You are never truly alone. Ever.
A) The Hebrew author describes Jesus’ suffering as one of the things that qualifies him to be a priest for us. He can go between us and God because he knows what it’s like to be God, and he knows what it’s like to be us.
1) Heb. 2:18
2) Heb. 4:15-16
B) “Crying out to God in your moment of need is like talking to a dear friend whom you are comfortable talking to because you know that she knows exactly what you are going through. But there is more. God not only understands the broken space that is our current address; he inhabited that space in the person of his Son Jesus. This means that the One to whom you cry has firsthand knowledge of the things you’re dealing with. It is frustrating to every sufferer to share their travail with people who don’t have a clue and can’t relate because they have no firsthand knowledge of what you’re talking about. Jesus is not just a student of our suffering; he became a firsthand participant in it.”[3]
3) Jesus’ cross provides courage to overcome fear.
A) Matt. 10:28 / Lk. 12:4
B) Heb. 13:6 / quoted from Ps. 118:6
C) POINT: If you can see it, then you can be it.
D) “The only truly practical and lasting solution to fear of situations, locations, or people is fear of God. Only fear of someone more powerful than what you are facing and the assurance that this One of scary power has chosen to unleash his power for your benefit has the power to give you courage in the face of something or someone more powerful than you.”[4]
4) The cross provides hope. The world threw everything they had at God, and he still won.
A) “Jesus on his cross towers over the whole scene as Israel in person, as YHWH in person, as the point where the evil of the world does all that it can and where the Creator of the world does all that he can. Jesus suffers the full consequences of evil: evil from the political, social, cultural, personal, moral, religious and spiritual angles all rolled into one; evil in the downward spiral hurtling toward the pit of destruction and despair. And he does so precisely as the act of redemption, of taking that downward fall and exhausting it, so that there may be new creation, new covenant, forgiveness, freedom and hope.”[5]
B) 1 Cor. 15:20ff.
[2] Tim Keller, Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering.
[3] Paul Tripp, Suffering.
[4] Paul Tripp, Suffering.
[5] NT Wright, Evil and the Justice of God.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse