Well, good morning, my friends, and welcome to the Heritage Hour. I’m Mark Gonzalez, your pastoral encourager here in Southwest Florida, and I’m so delighted to be with you on air, online, and in media ministry for gosh 35 years now.

So thank you for sitting with me at the feet of the Lord to listen for His heart to touch our hearts. Well, if you’ve been with us for the last six weeks, you know we have covered the first part of a series I’m calling Passion Week Portraits of God. And back the first couple of broadcasts, we covered Palm Sunday where we saw Jesus as our humble king, celebrated king, rejected king and anguished king. We covered Monday where the anguished Savior cleanses the temple.

We covered Tuesday. And the portrait I see there is how he’s our thorough teacher.

Because he was talking to the disciples and sharing with them parables and insights, woes and blessings, prophecies and promises. Oh man, that was powerful. And then we covered what I call Woeful Wednesday.

Because that’s when Judas Iscariot sold out the Lord Jesus Christ, making a deal with the religious leaders that they could take him down. And that is a picture of the Lord as our betrayed Messiah. And then the last four broadcasts, we’ve covered what we now call Maundy Thursday.

So much happened on Thursday in the portraits that come up. Mostly we’ve been getting this through John 12, now John 13, and some of Luke 22, where we see the Lord as our Lord’s Supper. And you know that very well. the bread and the cup, his body and blood, our call and hope. We saw him as our foot-washing Messiah with this stunning act of humble service and God-style leadership.

And then we saw him as our betrayed lover as Judas actually betrays him. He’s betrayed by friends. And man, you know, we deal with that, don’t we? Dealing with that pain.

Wow. Well, then we saw him in John 14 as our comforting betrothed and that’s a fascinating unfolding of how the lord was just showing his disciples how much he loved them how he was covenanted with him and he would comfort them in more ways they could possibly imagine when he says let not your heart be troubled believe in god believe also in me trust in god trust also in me oh i hope you go and look at that one too wonderful time He our comforting betrothed John 15 showed us how he is our fruitful vine where he explaining his ways how we can abide in him to bear much fruit. Oh, fascinating stuff. And then we saw him as our eternal joy in the rest of that passage.

How we’re in these temporary trials, but we have his internalized presence and an everlasting joy. they can start today, even in the midst of the most difficult circumstances. Last time we moved to John chapter 17, we saw two portraits in that broadcast. He is our priestly intercessor. John 17 is the classic high priestly prayer.

He is our priestly intercessor, praying for himself, praying for his disciples, and then for all believers. And when he was praying for all believers in chapter 17 verses 20 through 26, we see this portrait, how he is our loving oneness and how it’s in our oneness, our union with him that so many transformational things and transcendent things happen.

So that brings us today to Good Friday in broadcast number seven out of 10. And as I’ve been really pouring over this, there are so many portraits that emerged. And the way that I’m going to do this is I’m going to share under the umbrella of this portrait. He is our ultimate sacrifice.

I’m actually going to give you five more, more specific and detailed titles of this sacrifice that explains the significance of what happened on that Good Friday as the Lord did his incredible epic work on the cross. And if you have your Bibles, let me invite you to start with me over in John 18 and 19, and then we’ll go to 1 Peter 2 and Philippians 2 and Colossians 1 to see how the Lord indeed is our ultimate sacrifice. And as you’re making your way over to John 18, just a reminder that all these are archives on my website at markpg.org and it’s called helping you hear God there’s all kinds of tools on that landing page to help you hear God but click on portraits the box that says portrait excuse me broadcasts and then on the next page that’s where you click on portraits of God and then you have the list of all of these 27 message 27 minute messages and broadcasts where you can just savor the portraits of the Lord God Now let go before the Lord as is our custom to ask him to speak And remember that website is at markpg.org. Well, Lord, thank you for the privilege of coming to sit at your feet.

Oh, I can’t wait to unfold this next series of portraits of the incredible work you did on good friday lord so i pray you’ll help me uh share it in a way that it can just touch us where we need to be touched today and encourage us and even transform us as we walk out what we’re hearing through your love letters to us today oh thank you lord we love you lord we pray this in the powerful name of the lord jesus christ by his precious cleansing and healing transforming empowering and forgiving blood amen amen and amen well all right my friends well in john chapter 18 and 19 we see his account of the crucifixion the roads of the crucifixion and so many things are in here i mean this is worth a series in and of itself but let me just give you a brief overview of the actual events we’ll walk through that together here in these two chapters But then we’re going to be going to other portions of Scripture to see the significance of what the Lord’s work on the cross was all about in a way that I hope will be memorable and impactful and easy to share with others. so I’m saying that the portrait that came to my heart is that he is our ultimate sacrifice the ultimate sacrifice and this was planned before the foundation of the world and the Godhead this was all unfolding so as we pick it up in John chapter 18 we see how after Jesus had said these things he went out with his disciples across the Kidron Valley where there was a garden and he and his disciples went into it and this is where Judas portrays him with a kiss this is where Simon Peter in verse 10 takes out a sword and and strikes the high priest’s ear and a high priest’s slave or servant’s ear and cuts it off and Jesus says in verse 11 wait wait wait sheathed your sword, am I not to drink the cup the Father has given me? You see, Jesus knew this is exactly what had been planned, his work on the cross. He’s arrested then by verse 12, taken to Annas, who was the father of Caiaphas who was the high priest that year And Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it was advantageous that one man should die for the people And that’s exactly what it says in verses 13 and 14. Verses 15 and following are the account of Peter denying Jesus three times, just as he predicted.

That’s another great message in and of itself. then we see Jesus before Annas in verses 19 and following and then he goes before Caiaphas and then he goes before Pilate and this is intriguing verse 28 how they took Jesus from Caiaphas to the governor’s headquarters and when he was there Pilate didn’t want to have anything to do with this he was just so exasperated with these Jews and all this religious stuff and And so we have this incredible discourse going on between them.

Some of the highlights, to me, are unfolding as this goes on. And the first thing was about whether he’s a king or not, right? Verse 33, Pilate went back to the headquarters.

Someone, Jesus said, so are you the king of the Jews? And Jesus answered, are you asking this on your own or have others told you about me? And then he goes on to say, my kingdom is not of this world. said Jesus, if my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight, i.e. just like Peter tried to do and I called him off.

But he goes on to say, if my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I wouldn’t be handed over to the Jews as it is. My kingdom does not have its origin here. so you are a king then Pilate asked well you say that I’m a king I was born for this I have come into the world for this to testify to the truth and everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice and Pilate says oh what is the truth and you can just see the exasperation in fact so much so that as the story continues to unfold there’s three times beginning in verse, let’s see, 38, where he says to the Jews, he said, look, I find no grounds for charging him. And then he says it again in chapter 19, verse 4, after having him flogged, trying to appease this rabble, this religious rabble, he has him flogged, takes him back and says, look, I’m bringing him out to you to let you know I find no grounds for charging him.

But they keep saying, crucify him, crucifying. And then in verse 6, he says again, I find no grounds for charging him. And he’s getting so frustrated. Then he goes to Jesus and he says, don’t you know that I have authority to release you and the authority to crucify you?

And listen to this in verse 11, my friends. Jesus said, you would have no authority over me at all. Jesus answered him if it hadn’t been given you from above. What?

I mean, this is going way over Pilate’s head. he’s a pawn in this whole thing and the big picture of this thing but he is still going whoa and it says here that from that moment on verse 12 Pilate made every effort to release him but the Jews shouted if you release this man you are not Caesar’s friend anyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar and that was it it went over the edge so finally he says here is your king at the end of verse 14 and they shouted take him away take him away crucify him and Pilate said should I crucify your king we have no king but Caesar the chief priest answered so then because of then he handed him over to be crucified wow that is worthy too of another couple of messages but we’ll let it hang there because the crucifixion does unfold because God’s purposes are being accomplished and Jesus was fully aware which means with all of this happening and then what’s about to happen how they torture him how they put a crown of thorns on his head how they flog him how they spit on him how they slap him around how they nail him to a cross though he is totally innocent and how he dies on that cross to the point where finally after his death Joseph of arimathea and nicodemus together take the body and they put it in a garden place where there was a new tomb and he is sealed up jesus here’s the first of our sub point portraits he is our ultimate sacrifice but more specifically he was our voluntary sacrifice he voluntarily allowed all of this to unfold. Listen, he could have called down legions of angels at any time, at any point along the way to say, forget this. This is nonsense. These people are foolish.

They don’t get it. I don’t want to mess with them.

But he didn’t. He let every one of the things that we just walked through happen voluntarily He didn call down those angels He allowed every blow every nail every spear every injustice Up until the epic finish. Oh, my friends, it was a voluntary sacrifice. He is our ultimate sacrifice.

When you think about the hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of animals that have been sacrificed throughout the Old Testament era. and even up to the New Testament era as a foreshadowed picture of the lamb who would be slain, the ultimate sacrifice, the once and for all sacrifice. This is the ultimate sacrifice where no more animals would need to be slain after this because the real sacrifice planned from the foundation of the world unfolded. And the Lord Jesus voluntarily sacrificed himself because he loved us. It was his way of fulfilling all righteousness.

It was his way of becoming an atonement or a covering for our sin, which brings us to the second portrait under the ultimate sacrifice. Not only was he our voluntary sacrifice, he was our substitute sacrifice. sacrifice. He was fulfilling all justice, all righteousness. He was an unblemished lamb.

He was a sinless man who was taking on our sin and taking our penalty that needed to be satisfied. For those of you that want your theological references, that’s called, this is where the wrath of the Lord is satisfied. We have that happening here. We have salvation that’s being provided.

We have the price being paid, the propitiation, satisfying the wrath of God, redemption, paying the price that needed to be paid. All of that taking place because he is our substitute sacrifice, the substitutionary atonement or covering of sin. Wow. Powerful.

Unbelievable. Well, that’s one dimension of it, incredible dimension of it, to be sure, justice being satisfied, the wrath of God being satisfied, and those of us who come into covenant with Jesus Christ, when you covenant with somebody, all that they have all that they are becomes yours And all that you are and all that you have becomes theirs We do that in our wedding ceremonies That exactly what happening It an earthly picture of the covenant we have with Christ. And when we enter that covenant, we get all that he has, including his atoning blood, his substitute sacrifice, his paying the price for our sin that makes us righteous, makes us clean, makes us sanctified, justified in the eyes of Almighty God, that we can live with the Lord forever and ever. Amen.

As we saw in John 14, I go and prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you as my betrothed in covenant, I will bring you to myself of where I am, there you may be also. Wow. Unbelievable.

But it goes deeper than that because once you are in covenant, once you’re married, saved, born again, a child of God, all those metaphors are throughout scripture.

Because you have become one with the ultimate sacrifice, the voluntary sacrifice and the substitute sacrifice, who is Jesus Christ, we discover that he is also our healing sacrifice. He is our healing sacrifice. Let me take you over to 1 Peter chapter 2. And I’m going to let the scripture itself do a lot of the talking as we show you these portraits of how he’s our healing sacrifice, our humble sacrifice, and our transcendent sacrifice in the rest of this particular message.

And over in 1 Peter chapter 2, I want to pick it up in verse 18 where it says this, Household slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the cruel.

Now this sets up how significant Jesus’ work on the cross is, by the way. For it brings favor if, because of conscience toward God, someone endures grief from suffering unjustly.

Sound familiar? That’s what Jesus did. We see the scripture talks about us getting to share in the sufferings of Christ. Let’s keep reading.

For what credit is there if you endure when you sin and are beaten?

But when you do good and suffer. What? Yeah, there’s sometimes you will do good and suffer. You know, the old saying, you know, don’t kick a gift course in the mouth.

Well, we get kicked in the mouth when we do good sometimes. That’s just real life. do not be dismayed look at this when you do good and suffer if you endure it brings favor with God For you were called to this because Christ also suffered for you leaving you an example so that you should follow in his steps Did you get that? When we come to be part of the family of God and covenant with the Lord Jesus Christ, we will share in his blessings. We will share in salvation, but we’ll also share in his sufferings. and we were called to this.

That’s part of it. In this world, you will have tribulation. You will be treated unfairly. You will suffer for doing what is good.

You’re called to this because Christ also suffered for you and it’s part of that shared suffering that bonds us all the more closely with him. And it goes on to say in verse 22 that he did not commit sin and no deceit was found in his mouth. And when reviled, he did not revile in return. When suffering, he did not threaten but committed himself to the one who judges justly.

In other words, God’s got this. He’s got the big picture in mind. There’s an epic thing unfolding and we will have temporary suffering, temporary tribulation on this earth, but mixed into that will also be blessing like we cannot imagine. And of course, ultimately, we’ll be with him forever.

In verse 24, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree so that having died to sins, we might live for righteousness by his stripes or by his wounding you have been healed for you were like sheep going astray but now have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls wow my friends the work on the cross was a healing work on the cross he heals your spirit which was dead he actually resurrects your spirit that’s ultimate healing right there he resurrected your dead spirit. You were born with, you know, sin that passed down from Adam and Eve, original sin, but it’s made alive. Your spirit is made alive, totally healed, but he heals you spiritually. He heals your soul and he heals your body.

But those are incremental and those are incidental while we’re on this earth. And the Lord chooses what’s more important to be healed. Your mind, will, and emotions at any given season of your life or your body. He does it all, but ultimately it’ll all be healed.

And that’s what it means by his stripes, by his woundings on the cross, you were healed because he enabled you to have your sins covered, to become one with him, to be with him forever and ever. And in that you will have ultimate healing and even incremental healing while still on this earth. Wow. Unbelievable.

I have a whole series on but that’s for another time.

But not only was he our ultimate sacrifice, voluntary sacrifice, substitute sacrifice, and healing sacrifice, but he was also our humble sacrifice. Let me take you over to Philippians. And if you’re a note taker, jot this down, Philippians chapter 2. And we’ll pick it up there in verses 1 and following.

It says, If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation of love, any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by thinking the same way, having the same love, sharing the same feelings, focusing on one goal. do nothing out of rivalry or conceit but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves by the way there’s so much rivalry and conceit self-interest and selfishness in this world isn’t there i mean it’s just wrapping in our culture he says don’t don’t do that but in humility consider others more important than yourselves speak truth but don do it pugnaciously don do it in a way that vicious and angry it the kindness of the lord that leads to repentance it the truth with kindness that leads to repentance scripture tells us about all the time verse four everyone should look not only for his own interests but also for the interests of others make your own attitude that was of christ jesus who existing in the form of god did not consider equality with god as something to be grasped for his own advantage instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a slave or servant taking on the likeness of men and when he had come as a man in his external form he humbled himself becoming obedient to the point of death, even to death on a cross. And for this reason God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father Oh I love that Another great series right there He humbled himself He was our humble sacrifice and we should live in oneness with him so that that kind of humility will come out reflexively as we grow in the grace and the knowledge of Lord Jesus Christ and grow into his image. Well, we also have another portrait that’s unfolding here. Not only how he is our ultimate sacrifice, voluntary sacrifice, substitute sacrifice, healing sacrifice, and humble sacrifice, I end up with this one.

He is our transcendent sacrifice. Colossians chapter one a couple of pages over gives it to us with this way this is amazing he says he is this is verse 15 he’s the image christ is the image of the invisible god the firstborn over all creation because by him everything was created in heaven and on earth the visible and the invisible verse 17 he’s before all things and by him all things hold together he’s also head of the church he’s the beginning the firstborn from the dead so that he might have first place in everything For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him and through him to reconcile everything to himself by making peace through the blood of the cross there it is our transcendent sacrifice blood spilled on the cross for ours. And it goes on that in this, verse 26, the mystery hidden for the ages and generations is now revealed to his saints. God wanted to make known to those among the Gentiles the glorious wealth of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

All made possible by his ultimate sacrifice on the cross for us, my friends. That’s just a quick overview of the depth of what took place that day, that Good Friday on the cross. And it’s ours to receive. Thank you, Lord.

Well, I’m Mark Gonzalez and I hope you check out my website at markpg.org. Until next time, falling in love with Jesus, our ultimate sacrifice.