Restoration 2021:  Standing in the Gap

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Restoration Ministry

Micheal Goetz

The Cries of the Cross

01 For the World

02 I Thirst

03 Forgive Them

04 My God


Excellent. Thank you, David. Okay. We are going to jump in with speed so that we can get to lunch, right? All right, here we go.

We're going, you know we're gonna go to John because that's where the I thirst comes from, but before we get there, I wanna take you to Psalm 107. 107, 107. These verses help God use to form a world vision, an understanding. Psalm 107 and verse 8. Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and for his wonderful deeds for mankind.

So here's this invitation to worship, to give thanks, to praise God. And then it reads, verse 9, for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things. When I read this, I was in the journey of my collegiate years and the transitions that that brings. And so I'm reading this verse, give thanks for he's satisfied. And I'm literally living out this, It's like a living parable of what this invitation of this verse is.

Michael, keep praising me. I will satisfy your thirst. I will take care of that need inside of you. The thing about thirst, why I think it's such a beautiful comparison with the spiritual element, is that it's an itch, it's a scratch, it's a need that none of us can fill by ourselves. You're thirsty on the inside.

It's not like you can scratch yourself, you've got an itch. It's not like even your finger's hurting, or your toe is hurting, or your knee, and you can hold your knee. You can't do anything about it. You have to go to an external source, a substance, H2O, right, water, and you have to allow it to satisfy your need. All right, so you can immediately jump to all those spiritual connections, right?

Well, here I am. I'm in college. I've just finished high school, and I always had this idea, you know what, if I could just get out of high school and be in college, really kind of, that would be life, right? If you could be in college, you really live in life. This whole high school thing, the restrictions from your parents, restrictions from school, whatever they are, they're really kind of constricting life.

I live under this umbrella of, When I get out of high school, I will be able to live life. So I'm now in college when I read this verse, and I realize, I'm sitting there realizing, it wasn't college that answered my need. It wasn't that that satisfied my desire. What could it be? I'm thinking through, well, I'm in college, but I'm still campus-bound.

I really need a car. So I buy a car. That's the answer. Except it wasn't. Now, this is just a confession of how terribly old I am at that point we were also going to the computer lab or computers but if I could just have a laptop, in college I've got a truck, I need a laptop.

I could have a laptop, it would free me up. If I buy a laptop, My parents bought a laptop. And then I'm drawn back to this verse. He's the 1 that satisfies the thirst. Laptop wasn't it.

College wasn't it. A car wasn't it. What could be it? What could satisfy the itch what could what could spill my need? Fulfill me I Wasn't done on the search yet, so I had to go get a girlfriend.

Had a car in college. Had my laptop. Got a girlfriend. And as exciting and fulfilling as relationships are, it wasn't there. And There came a point of a crossroads with me and God in my high school, in my college years, that I had to come and bow before him in recognition that he would be the only 1 that could really satisfy me.

All right, so in that context, John chapter 19. That's, Of course, Jesus is now on the cross. We started the big picture yesterday with John 3, 16. God did it for me. I'm his cosmos.

John 19. And verse 28. Let's look at these 3 verses. Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, And so that scripture would be fulfilled. Jesus said, I am thirsty.

A jar of wine, a vinegar was there, so they soaked the sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of hyssop plant and lifted it up to Jesus' lips. That whole scenario is something we're gonna talk about later this week. That's crazy. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, it is finished. With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

I've always read, maybe you have fallen into this as well, I've always read this, this I thirst, as if Jesus had been punished and beat so badly that there came a point that he just, he was desperate for some sort of cooling liquid, and so he calls out, I thirst. But think about it, now think about it. Here Jesus says, he says less than 40 English words on the cross. This is the final moment. He's been preparing for this, not for 4 days, not for 4 years, not for 400 years, but for thousands.

He has, this is the moment in which he is going to secure, you read the context, After knowing that everything had been finished, right before he cries out, it is finished, he cries out, I thirst. We've read it as if it's just a superficial, no, he's a little thirsty. No, this was it. Every demon on the planet, I believe, every demon on the planet was there at the cross. For everyone else, it was a temptation-free day.

Because Satan knew all of his eggs were in this basket. So he's concentrated on the cross. He's got everybody there. There, they are ripping Jesus apart on the inside. We've kind of read it like in the midst of that, Jesus realizes he's thirsty and He calls out.

That's the way the little guy at the base of the cross, who ran and got to the pinnacle. That's how he heard it. That's how some of us have heard it. In 1989, I grew up in the era of Joe Montana with the San Francisco 49ers. The 49ers were in the Super Bowl in 1989.

They were 3 points down. They had the ball in their own eight-yard line. They had 92 yards to go with only 3 minutes left in the Super Bowl. Joe Montana, legend football player, turns to his teammate, Harris Barth. They've got 3 minutes left, and they're down.

92 yards to go in the Super Bowl. And Joe Montana turns to his teammate looking into the stands he says isn't that John Candy? Right before calling hike and marching his team down to win the Super Bowl. Almost this flippant like really? Right now?

And that's how we've read Jesus on the cross, praying out, I thirst. Right now, Jesus? You're about to secure our eternity. Okay, and you're thirsty. It's the way we might have heard it.

It's the way the little guy at the bottom of the cross might have heard it, but it's not the way the devil heard it, and I don't believe it's the way John heard it. John himself, just chapters before, in chapter 7, recorded Jesus crying out on the last day of the Feast of the Tabernacles during the water ceremony. A ceremony strategically or organized, implemented by God to communicate this message of satisfaction and solution only coming from Him. So John records Jesus standing up and crying out with a loud voice. This is important.

He cries out. He says, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scriptures have said, out of his heart will flow rivers of water. The devil knew what Jesus had said. The devil knows everything Jesus has said.

John knew that. That's why John in chapter 19 says, wait a minute, Jesus just said he's thirsty? He's the 1 that during the Feast of Tabernacles and the water ceremony, he's the 1 that said he was the solution for our thirst? What really happened in John 19 was that the life giver, the perfect life giver, had for the first time in his eternal existence now felt a need. The unfulfillment, something deep in his soul as it were.

He felt while on the cross what we feel, this emptiness, this need for some sort, an itch we can't scratch. He feels it. It's the very thing that he came to satisfy. The life giver meant to give us the filling life. I have come to give you life and life more abundantly.

That's the life giver, but the life giver is now hanging on the cross and he is now dying. The life, just hear the irony. The life giver, the very fountain of life. He did not inherit life, he was not created. He is now experiencing death, The separation of life for the first time in eternity.

And on the cross, Jesus feels what we feel. What's caused it? It's sin. And that's why Jesus hanging on the cross experiences this deep need in his soul. I'm thirsty.

I need that living water. He is there in place of me. The call that he extended during the Feast of Tabernacles is a call that he's kept extending. Are you thirsty? Is there something deep in your soul that you, an itch you can't scratch, a satisfaction you can't provide for?

Wherever you go and whatever you have It's the chase that we all are on if I just have a better if I just have more if I just can change this if it just more different. The constant search of satisfaction. It doesn't matter if you're poor or rich. We're on this hunt, this search. I wanna be fulfilled.

I wanna be satisfied. And so we try to fill it with relationship with things. Hey, give me a laptop. Okay now give me a better laptop Except today. It's now give me a phone.

Give me a better phone. Oh If only I had the upgrade My life would be satisfied. We chase these phones as if Just the next 1 will finally be the answer. Jesus is, as Psalm declared prophetically, no, no, Praise God, only, only Him, because He's the 1. He's the only 1 that will satisfy your thirst.

The question you have of, there's something more to life, there's something here, that's what Jesus is talking about. I am the satisfaction to that question. So the invitation goes out and it keeps going out. The cry from that temple steps, I will satisfy your thirst. He keeps crying it out.

He keeps crying it out as loud as he can. Our homes and our classrooms and our hearts. And check it out. He never stops crying it out. Revelation chapter 21.

Now who wrote Revelation? John. The very 1 who's tracked with us so far. John 7 and then John 19. Hey guys, there's something here.

Jesus is offering us this water that satisfies the craving, the need inside of our hearts. He's offering that. And then he points to the cross. Look, He knows that feeling because He took on that feeling. It's the Isaiah prophecy.

He bore our griefs. He knows our sorrows. He's been there. John sees Jesus on the cross crying out, I thirst and recognizes that as much more than just a superficial, I need a little H2O. No, that's a prophetic cry.

I am now carrying your emptiness. You don't have to be empty anymore. I'm carrying your emptiness right here on the cross. That void, that bladder, dissatisfaction, unfulfillment, whatever, I've got it. John says he never stops extending this invitation.

Revelation 21, verse 5. That he who sat on the throne, I love this, Says, behold, I make all things new. And he said to me, write these words, for these are true and faithful. Verse 6, he said to me, it is done. Heard that cry from the cross as well.

I am the alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give of the fountain of water of life freely to him who thirsts. Do you hear the cry of the cross? It's not for Jesus at all. It's not for his part, mouth or throat.

It's not at all about that. Jesus is hanging on the cross moments from securing our eternal salvation and forever giving an answer to the great controversy. He's moments away from that. He's not concerned with himself, he never has been. For 4, 000 years he's been prepared to hang on that cross for me, for you.

And so the invitation, Jesus extends in John 7, and then it's repeated through the ages, echoed down through the corridors of time. And in Revelation, John records that Jesus is still offering the invitation. God, let me be your fulfillment, Let me be that water of life. I'll pour it into you. It's a fountain.

I'll pour it into you and I'll pour it into you free. Don't keep buying. Don't keep searching for the right relationship. Oh, it creeps its ugly ugly head up all the time Michael Michael if you just if you just had if you Every commercial is bent on convincing me that if only, then I'd be happy. I'd be fulfilled.

No, the cry from the cross is 1 who took that emptiness, took that, and is now offering to fill where I can't reach. I was flying, I was living in Philadelphia and I was flying to Indianapolis to do a youth conference. And so I, I'm in my, I land, I think it was less than an hour, maybe 45 minutes before I was supposed to be at a hotel to speak. Super tight. So I was dressed ready to go up front.

I'd stayed up late the night before, was weary, and I get in the plane. I made a practice. I always got a cup of ginger ale. So the flight attendant came by and handed out ginger ale. I was in the window seat.

And I'm holding my ginger ale. And I doze off. And then there's that thing. You know that thing that happens when you doze off? The thing that's embarrassing?

You try to play it off, you're scratching your neck, or you're really just kind of looking around. You know that involuntary jerk that happens with your hands or your head or your stump? It happens when you're sitting in class or church, hand goes up. Don't act like you don't know because it happens to everyone. And it's the funniest thing to watch.

It's not funny to have it happen. Sitting there in the plane, and I don't know how long I was in Never Neverland but at some point I realized that I did that. I think my arms just moved. I thought nothing of it until there was a very gentle cooling sensation in my lap. I looked down, and the entire contents of my cup is now in my lap.

It's like a little, just a little pool. I do what every sane person would do. I stand up, which takes what was in my lap into my seat. I'm in the window seat. Of course, the overheads there and the guy sitting next to me is he's now awake.

I can't sit back down because it's not a little puddle is there and I'm kind of bumping my head. I've just woken up so it's really 1 of those moments where you're just like, well, we get some attention of a flight attendant and they start bustling up and down the aisle. I become the guy that an entire plane is thankful that they're not sitting next to you. I'm standing there, I can't sit back down. It's not like today where you don't have other emphases, you just move around.

I'm stuck. Everybody else is looking at the guy sitting next to me going, oh, man, I'm sorry. You got stuff. There's everything. All these stuff.

And I want to get on the public address system and just let everybody know, I'm a pretty normal guy. I hold down a job. I own a car, buy a house. And this is the first time this has happened to me because everybody is thinking, there's that guy. They get some towels and some napkins and pad my seat a couple of inches and I'm forced to sit back down and buckle up A seat that's got like a diaper on it.

You know? And I realized, I realized that I'm that guy. I don't get to look sideways, I'm the 1. I'm the 1 that everybody's looking at. Everybody's thankful.

I say, mm-hmm. They're exchanging knowing glances. But I'm that 1. I'm not the 1 on the flight into Indianapolis. Why was it there?

I'm that 1 in need of Jesus. It's not everybody else. It's not all the public. Praise God, the world, the world needs, they're thirsty out there, they're hopeless and helpless and lost, and they need the water of life. I'm the 1.

I'm the 1 that's hopeless and helpless and thirsty. I'm the 1 that needs the water of life. And there's 2 things that happen. 1, that we read this superficially, and it's just Jesus, he needs a little water. Or 2, that we say, wow, that's powerful.

He's the solution, He's the water of life. On the cross, He took my bully and is now offering something fulfilling, something satisfying to me. But then we read it as if it's everybody else, or the people we serve, or the people that are in class with us, or the people that we are related to. It's everybody else. It's the world.

What I'd like to invite you to do Is read it the way it was meant to be read. When Jesus cried out, I thirst, he was talking to me, he was talking to you. He said, I'm thirsty. I'm taking I'm taking that need from you. I'm bearing your burden now.

I want you to now take my water. I want you to take my satisfaction. Let me fill you. And it's fitting. It's fitting that he would use water.

2 parts hydrogen, 1 part oxygen. Hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe. Oxygen, the most abundant element on this planet. H2O is offered in absolute abundance. I've got enough for everyone, he says.

But I'm talking to you today. I'm talking to you. I'm talking to you, not the world. For God so loved the cosmos, but when he said that, he was speaking to 1 man. You mean the world to me.

And the water that I'm offering is just for you. Come on, you can buy another car, you can get another phone, upgrade your iPad. Those are all fine, but they're not going to scratch the edge. They're not going to do it. You can chase it, go into debt if you need to.

Psalm 107 in verse 9 says, "'For he, for God alone, the life-giver, "'the fountain is the 1 that satisfies our thirsty souls. So why not? Why not hear that cry from the cross is 1 for you. Father in heaven, Thank you. Thank you for sending Jesus for loving me, making me your causes.

I let it be that I would hear it the way you meant to cry at Jesus. You cried it for me. For every other me in this planet on this planet. Absolutely. But today you cried it for me.

I will be your water. I will be the fountain that fills you. I'll give it to you freely. I'll give it to you abundantly. I will fill you.

I will satisfy you. I will be everything for you. Just let me be that water for you. Be accepted, Jesus. Amen.

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Series

The Cries of the Cross

02 I Thirst

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Other Teachings in Series

01 For the World

23m

02 I Thirst

26m

03 Forgive Them

22m

04 My God

23m

Sound Doctrine