Finding the "Good" in Good Friday [S3.E2]
Takeaways:
- Sitting in someone else's pain is way more helpful than throwing around advice.
- When we're hurt, we just want someone to be there, not preach at us, right?
- Jesus totally gets our mess and still loves us like crazy; that’s grace in action!
- The cross is like the ultimate rescue mission for the most messed-up among us.
- It's not about how good we are; it's about how good He is for us.
- We all need to remember that God loves us despite our failures, not because of our successes.
Buckle up, because this episode is all about the messy, real, and sometimes uncomfortable truth of sitting with pain. Our trio of misfit pastors—Jean, Byron, and Tullian—are rolling up their sleeves and diving into the nitty-gritty of what it means to be present with those who are suffering. Instead of dishing out advice or trying to play the hero, they emphasize the power of just being there, sharing the load without trying to fix it. They share their own experiences of failure and grace, reminding us that Jesus came to rescue the most messed-up among us. It’s a light-hearted yet serious conversation that blends humor with heartfelt truths about God’s grace and the importance of community in times of struggle. So, whether you’re feeling lost or just want to know how to better support your friends, this episode is a must-listen, packed with wisdom, laughter, and plenty of grace!
Chapters:
Transcript
You're listening to the misfit preachers Talian Chavigian, Jean Larue, and Byron Yan from ProdigalPodcast.com we're plagiarizing Jesus one podcast at a time.
Speaker A:Now here are the misfits.
Speaker B:So, guys, we're tackling the subject matter of Easter and some high points that happen in that episode with Christ, including the Lord's Supper, which we talked about.
Speaker B:The very next high point that happens in that event is the cross itself.
Speaker B:Now, I think we could assume that we know a lot about what's going on in the cross, why the cross was necessary.
Speaker B:But I think it's important to reiterate that and come at it from the perspective of grace, what's happening in that space with the cross of Christ.
Speaker B:So we want to discuss that because that's on the horizon here as well.
Speaker B:So I'll just state the question simply, why the cross?
Speaker B:Why is the cross necessary?
Speaker B:And quite frankly, why do we celebrate it?
Speaker A:Paul says in Romans, the wages of sin is death.
Speaker A:The cross was necessary because we're sinners.
Speaker A:I mean, that's as simply as I can put it.
Speaker A:In fact, the cross is.
Speaker A:Is a loud statement that we are sinners, that all of us are sinners.
Speaker A:So anybody who would want to conclude that they're good with God, that their righteousness is all that it's cracked up to be, and that by doing the right thing and checking the right boxes, they can make themselves right with God.
Speaker A:That essentially justification is by works.
Speaker A:The cross.
Speaker A:I mean, the cross really contradicts that as explicitly as possible.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:From the get go, when mankind sinned, God said, a penalty has entered, and the penalty for the sin of human flesh is the death of human flesh.
Speaker C:There must be atonement made.
Speaker C:Human flesh violated a covenant with God, so human flesh will be cut off from God.
Speaker C:You got to start with the baseline.
Speaker C:So that's there.
Speaker C:You jump through every Old Testament prophet, all the books you skip, right, you jump through all of those, and in every one of them, there's this picture, this bloody loud, difficult sacrifice over and over and over again.
Speaker C:That's casting this shadow forward to Good Friday when the Lamb of God that John so correctly identified goes for the last time to the altar and had to go in human flesh because human flesh was the modality in which the treachery against God was committed.
Speaker C:So you cannot punish bulls and goats for the sins of human flesh, and it had to be perfect flesh.
Speaker C:Therein lies the problem.
Speaker C:There is no one who could have been Sacrificed other than the perfection of the Son of God to be sufficient to atone, to make.
Speaker C:I mean, atonement is payment.
Speaker B:Yeah, don't miss what John said in the.
Speaker B:In particular, that takes away the sins of the world, in contrast to the sacrifice that had to be repeated over and over, the final sacrifice.
Speaker B:You know, when I think about giving the listener and even myself a new angle at the cross to appreciate and understand what's happening on the cross, I think we typically.
Speaker B:And it's true in part that the real dilemma with regard to the cross was our sin.
Speaker B:And you mentioned that.
Speaker B:And it is true.
Speaker B:That's clearly what this is about on a certain level.
Speaker B:But the story could have ended in Genesis chapter three, and God would have been just in that.
Speaker B:Which means that the real issue being dealt with on the cross is God himself who determined to save and redeem sinners.
Speaker B:And as a result of that, there is an enormous conflict ahead.
Speaker B:How do we reconcile the necessity of God to judge sin and the desire of God and the decree of God and the will of God to love sinners?
Speaker B:I mean, if you, if you read the Bible through this lens of how is this going to happen?
Speaker B:How is this going to be accomplished?
Speaker B:How is God going to be God and righteous and judge and love sinners at the same time?
Speaker B:And Paul addresses this, he's the just and the justifier.
Speaker B:How in the world does that take place in history?
Speaker B:You read the Bible, Christ emerges, offers himself as a sacrifice according to the will and the decree of the Father.
Speaker B:And on the cross, in the person of Christ, the dilemma of God is resolved in that his justice is poured out and his mercy meets it there.
Speaker B:He remains righteous and he remains merciful at the same time towards sinners.
Speaker B:So the complexity of what happened there at the cross is way beyond what we typically imagine.
Speaker B:But mercy and justice meet and God is vindicated on the cross.
Speaker B:And all of creation looks at the Father and says, it's what Paul called a mystery hidden from the foundation of the world.
Speaker B:How in the world is this going to happen?
Speaker B:And Jesus was the answer to that question.
Speaker B:That's the cross.
Speaker A:And I think the thing that the cross shouts so loudly and so clearly that we miss oftentimes in religious circles is that the essence of Christianity is not our transformation, it's Christ's substitution.
Speaker A:Substitution is the name of the game in Christianity.
Speaker A:It's what separates Christianity from every other philosophy, every other world religion.
Speaker A:That it is primarily about substitution.
Speaker A:That Jesus did not come primarily to be an example.
Speaker A:He came primarily to be A substitute that he fulfilled the law that was required, that he died the death of a law breaker.
Speaker A:One of the ways that I often put it is that the.
Speaker A:The lawmaker became a law keeper and died for us, the lawbreakers.
Speaker A:That's what makes us right with God.
Speaker A:God makes us right with God.
Speaker A:We don't make ourselves right with God.
Speaker A:The, the symbol of the Christian faith is not a ladder.
Speaker A:It's a cross.
Speaker A:And I think, if anything, how we can moralize the cross, which we've.
Speaker A:Well, for many, many, many decades and generations, we look at the cross and somehow even there, we make it about us and what we now need to do rather than God and what he's done for us.
Speaker A:I mean, it is such a loud and clear statement that God makes us right with God.
Speaker A:The name of the game in Christianity is substitution, not transformation.
Speaker A:That is relieving to me, and I know it's relieving to a lot of other people, because if I'm really honest, if Christ about my transformation rather than Christ's substitution, I'm in trouble.
Speaker A:I mean, I haven't transformed that much.
Speaker A:And in some areas where I've.
Speaker A:There are some areas in which I may have gotten better over the years, but then there are other areas in which I've gotten worse.
Speaker A:And then there are a lot of areas that have just stayed static the same.
Speaker A:So if this thing is about my climb, my transformation, I'm screwed.
Speaker A:And the cross is God's loudest statement that this isn't about us and what we do for him, it's about him and what he's done for us.
Speaker C:Well, and once and forever put the flag in the ground.
Speaker C:We do not have faith in grace.
Speaker C:We have faith in Jesus.
Speaker C:Jesus's atonement for us is a picture of grace.
Speaker C:And that is the point.
Speaker C:The reason we can say it is okay that you're not okay is because on that Good Friday, Jesus was left to die where I deserve to be.
Speaker C:So now I am set free from the weight and the penalty of my sin.
Speaker C:Because there is an objective reality that happened in the judicial court of God, the just who said, I can no longer hold Jean Larue accountable for sins that were paid for in the blood of the perfect Son of God.
Speaker C:That is why we love grace.
Speaker C:Not because we love the word grace.
Speaker C:Grace.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And I mean, the fact that Jesus fulfilled all of God's perfect conditions means that our relationship to God can now be perfectly unconditional.
Speaker A:That God does not count our sins against us because he counted our sins against Christ.
Speaker A:That's the ministry of reconciliation that Paul is referring to.
Speaker A:It's God first and foremost, reconciling us to himself by what he has done, what he was determined to do before the foundation world, and not by anything we do.
Speaker B:You know, I've listened to these sorts of conversations before on various podcasts and people having these discussions.
Speaker B:And when I'm hearing these things explained, which are really just elementary things that we forget because we put so many layers on top of what all of these things mean.
Speaker B:But at the end of the day, what we're talking about is what you're describing in a, in a justification that is given to us by faith, by Jesus works a condemnation that he took on himself.
Speaker B:When I hear this, and I get right back to the root of the gospel, that it's not about my accomplishment, it's about Christ's accomplishment on my behalf that I received through faith.
Speaker B:It has such a liberating effect on so many levels.
Speaker B:And even I'm listening to you guys go back and forth on this.
Speaker B:So many fears are dissolved that are at the root of my life and all of my struggles.
Speaker B:Which takes me back to this message that I am completely known in all of my sin and darkness and struggles, that God sent his son to die on my behalf and I am completely and unconditionally loved, is the most liberating message on the planet.
Speaker B:You mentioned Jesus example a minute ago, that a lot of people moralize it and want to follow it.
Speaker B:Jay Gresham Machen in his book Christianity and Liberalism, who is the Presbyterian guy theologian out there.
Speaker B:He said, no, I'm very thankful for the example of Jesus that knowing that if I try to follow it, it will kill me.
Speaker B:What it makes me thankful for is the life and the death resurrection of Jesus.
Speaker B:We were discussing at another time, John, that Jesus didn't come to this planet as a full grown adult.
Speaker B:He was born in humility, lived a life for 33 years, and then all these events we're talking about took place.
Speaker B:So why the life?
Speaker B:Well, the life was what John and he, when he was talking to John the Baptist and wanted to be baptized.
Speaker B:John says, I'm not doing that.
Speaker B:Jesus says, allowed at this time that all righteousness might be fulfilled.
Speaker B:And then Jesus lived a perfect life, became a perfect sacrifice, was raised from the dead and all of that is mine.
Speaker B:When Jesus looks on me or when God looks on me, he sees the perfection of Jesus.
Speaker B:And materially, temporally, that's not true legally by faith, absolutely true.
Speaker B:When Romans 8:1 says there's no condemnation.
Speaker B:The truth underneath that is that the work of Christ was so satisfying to the Father that through Christ, Christ made it impossible for the Father to condemn me and not contradict his own righteousness.
Speaker C:That's exactly, that's how well said.
Speaker B:That's how fixed it is.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Not, not to get passionate.
Speaker B:You're in spittle range here.
Speaker B:But that's the reality of the cross.
Speaker B:And I'm so thankful for you guys to, to bring out these angles and perspective on it.
Speaker B:And it's, it's such a simple thing to reiterate, but we get so far from it and people get drugged down into their own meritocracy here.
Speaker B:And as we said at another place, pastors have such the capacity to create a meritocracy within the walls of grace here.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And it is impossible to do that with the cross.
Speaker B:It's impossible.
Speaker A:So how would you guys respond to this statement?
Speaker A:Technically speaking, we're not saved apart from the law.
Speaker A:We are saved in Christ who perfectly kept the law on our behalf.
Speaker A:And I think that's, for me, that's an important distinction to make because it gives credence to the necessity of him having to live those 33 years before he went to the cross.
Speaker A:I did not come to abolish the law, he says in Matthew.
Speaker A:I came to fulfill it.
Speaker A:To dot every I and cross every.
Speaker C:T.
Speaker C:It has to.
Speaker C:I mean, we are saved by works, just not our own.
Speaker A:That's right.
Speaker C:The end.
Speaker C:Hard stop.
Speaker C:Right, Right.
Speaker C:That's the truth.
Speaker C:And I remember saying one time opposing the question that I got a lot of these cross eyed looks like, what kind of sicko comes up with this question?
Speaker C:And my question was, why weren't Christmas and Easter on the same day?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker C:Why not?
Speaker C:Was the blood of baby Jesus not pure?
Speaker C:Was he not totally righteous?
Speaker C:Was he not the Son of God?
Speaker C:If we all we needed was a perfect sacrificial lamb who was willing, then the consciousness of God in the person of Christ, the child would have been a sufficient atonement.
Speaker C:Herod had already sent out the goons.
Speaker C:The swords were drawn.
Speaker C:Why not baby Jesus?
Speaker C:And the answer is exactly what you just said.
Speaker C:The law must be kept.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, to be fulfilled.
Speaker C:It's the lepers, right?
Speaker C:Go show yourself to the priest.
Speaker C:Jesus didn't even waver on others keeping the law.
Speaker C:He was like, nope.
Speaker C:I still, it will still be upheld.
Speaker C:So the 33 years that he lived was to keep the law.
Speaker C:That was, what is the, what is the righteousness that God requires that we must be as holy as he is holy.
Speaker C:Leviticus 19:2.
Speaker C:I can't do it.
Speaker C:So he did it for me.
Speaker B:If you push it even further, a second member of the Trinity taking on human form, there was no need for him to come take on human form, take the law on himself and obey it.
Speaker B:There was no need for him to do that, to improve his standing before the Father.
Speaker B:The only reason he did that was for me and you and those who would believe.
Speaker B:His entire mission was to fulfill that space and those acts and that work.
Speaker B:So when you begin to think about the cross and the righteousness of Christ leading up to the cross, the perfect sacrifice of Christ, there's, you know, the technical term is double imputation.
Speaker B:Sorry for multi syllabic word.
Speaker B:But he my deserved condemnation on that cross, that's me dying in Christ.
Speaker B:Perfect righteousness accepted on that cross.
Speaker B:In that sacrifice, that righteousness is mine by faith.
Speaker B:Both things took place there.
Speaker B:I mean, it's mind boggling.
Speaker A:It's what Athanasius called the glorious exchange.
Speaker B:Incredible.
Speaker A:All of my sin is imputed to him.
Speaker A:All of his righteousness is imputed to me.
Speaker A:Probably the best, the best way that I've come up to illustrate this, come up with to illustrate this is imagine, John, you're $40 million in debt.
Speaker A:There's no way in hell you're going to be able in your lifetime to pay this back.
Speaker A:It's affecting your marriage, it's affecting your kids.
Speaker A:You know that your kids are going to take on your debt after you're gone.
Speaker A:And probably given the size of your debt, your grandkids and maybe even your great grandkids, that some of your bad decision making financially has cost generations of your family an opportunity to get ahead.
Speaker A:And you're not sleeping at night.
Speaker A:You're.
Speaker A:I mean, this is, this is the dark cloud over your entire life.
Speaker A:And you make an appointment at the bank to go try to negotiate a lower interest rate on some loans.
Speaker A:And the bank president meets you in the lobby and says, Sean, you're never going to believe this, but some guy who wants to remain anonymous walked in here this morning and paid your debt in full.
Speaker A:You are no longer in debt.
Speaker A:You are a debt free man.
Speaker A:That $30 million that you owe that you were never going to be able to pay back in your lifetime, gone, Wiped clean.
Speaker A:And you're thinking, okay, am I on Candid Camera?
Speaker A:This is a joke.
Speaker A:This is a sick joke.
Speaker A:Why are you messing with me like this?
Speaker A:And the guy assures you, no, this is.
Speaker A:It is.
Speaker A:He shows you some paperwork and says, dude, it's done.
Speaker A:You're getting ready to do backflips home, all the way home to tell Valerie and to tell your family.
Speaker A:And before you can get out the door, the bank president says, stop.
Speaker A:That's not it.
Speaker A:Not only did this guy pay off your $30 million debt, he deposited $100 million into your account so that even if your spending habits never change, you can never, ever go into debt again.
Speaker A:That's the gospel.
Speaker B:Spending habits is probably the most important phrase in that whole thing.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker B:It doesn't depend upon your spending habits.
Speaker B:You're never gonna run out of money.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker C:And that's.
Speaker A:And that is.
Speaker A:I mean, that's the gospel.
Speaker A:It's not just that my debt has been paid.
Speaker A:It's that a deposit has been made.
Speaker A:And that that deposit that has been made is the perfect fulfillment of every jot and tittle of the law.
Speaker A:That perfect law keeping is now deposited into our account so that when God relates to us, he relates to us no differently than he relates to his Son.
Speaker B:It's so, so powerful.
Speaker B:You know, do you.
Speaker B:You know how people, when they go to read the Bible, they look at the Old Testament and they say, that's a God of wrath and a God of judgment in there.
Speaker B:And that's why I like the New Testament.
Speaker B:Huge misunderstanding.
Speaker B:The greatest demonstration of the pouring out of the wrath of God on sin happens in the New Testament that completely eclipses anything that happened before, which was just shadows and that wrath was outpoured on the cross.
Speaker B:There's more wrath to go around in the New Testament on the cross than the entire biblical landscape.
Speaker B:And all of that was to satisfy what was necessary for God to bring me to himself.
Speaker C:Well, and I'll say this, there are people listening who go, good Friday, Good Friday.
Speaker C:The death of Jesus.
Speaker C:Good Friday.
Speaker C:Because their account, the debt that they have accumulated is so unmanageable that they think, there's no way I can pay it.
Speaker C:And herein lies Good Friday.
Speaker C:It's the exchange.
Speaker C:Jesus has entered the courtroom on your behalf.
Speaker C:And I had a professor in seminary who said he was describing us.
Speaker C:And it was one of the few days that I have no notes from that day, none.
Speaker C:Because I just listened.
Speaker C:And he said on the cross, Jesus cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Speaker C:And he asked the question, he said, have you ever seen a baby in a crib when a door gets slammed in a house?
Speaker C:He said, the arms go up, the legs go in the air, and the child screams because they're free falling.
Speaker C:He said on the cross, Jesus free fell from the face of the Father and said, why am I forsaken?
Speaker C:And he did that for you.
Speaker C:Your sins are not too big.
Speaker C:They are not too great.
Speaker C:They are not too often, they are not too regular.
Speaker C:Jesus died on your behalf.
Speaker C:That is why we call it Good Friday.
Speaker A:And this isn't just theology talk.
Speaker A:This is the basis of a free life right here, right now.
Speaker A:This is the only solution to the guilt and the shame and the regret that we all sometimes feel because of our failures, because of our secrets, because of our struggles.
Speaker A:This is the liberating power that sets us free from being so weighed down by our lack of performance for God and others.
Speaker A:If people really knew who I was, they wouldn't love me.
Speaker A:God really knows who you are and he loves you anyway.
Speaker A:He knows more about you than you know about yourself.
Speaker A:And the whole reason he even can love you as unconditionally as he loves his son is because of his son.
Speaker C:Done.
Speaker B:Perfect.
Speaker B:Thanks guys.
Speaker B:Like I said, just in hearing it, what you just reiterated about all of my fears, all of my struggles, how that gets dissolved in this reality in a moment, is so true and it's so powerful.
Speaker B:I know that'll be the effect on people that hear this.
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