Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

Special thanks to NewSpring Church for the video portion used in this week's message

Do you know how much He loves you? Can you wrap your mind around the love that Jesus has for you? I know that a lot of you have heard it so much that it sounds cliché. Jesus loves you. You see it on bumper stickers and Christian t-shirts. It’s almost become a joke to you.

Today, I hope you experience His love in such a palpable way that you realize that it is no joke. It’s not a religious cliché. Sure, there will always be religious people who proclaim His love in corny ways. But there is nothing corny or hokey or religious about this truth: Jesus loves you. He loves you intensely. He loves you deeply. And He loves you right where you are. That’s why He died for you. That’s why the cross happened. Because He desperately and recklessly loves you.

This is the last message in our seven-week series called Death By Love. For the past couple of months, we’ve been digging deep into the seven statements that Jesus made while He was on the cross. And it has been the most powerful series our church has ever experienced. Not because I’m that good, but because God is that good. God has come in and absolutely blown us up. Lives have been changed. Eternities have been changed during this series.

Today in week #7, we’re moving on to the very last words that Jesus spoke from the cross in Luke 23.

Luke 23, starting in verse 44. “It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last. (Luke 23:44-46, NIV)

You can sum up Jesus’ last statement from the cross in one word: trust.

That’s what we’re talking about today, and God is going to rock our world. Let’s pray for that.

Our family recently went on vacation in Tennessee. On the way back home, our car broke down in central Kentucky. I saw a sign for a repair shop, so I called the number and they towed our car to the shop. He assured me that they would have the car fixed in a few hours.

After 3-4 hours, he called me and said it would be more like 3-4 days. That was frustrating, but I had no idea it was just beginning. Everyday, I would talk to this mechanic and he would bump the finish date back a few more days. It got the point where it was so ridiculous that I didn’t know whether to blow my stack or just throw up my hands and laugh.

To tell you how bad it was, we just got our car back on Friday. A full three weeks after we took it to this shop. The repair that would take 3 hours ended up taking three weeks.

During this process, every time I talked to the guy, he had a new excuse about why it wasn’t done yet. When we started out, I trusted him. But every time I heard an excuse, I trusted him a little less. By the end of the process, I didn’t trust a word that he said. He had let me down too many times.

A lot of us feel that way toward God. God has let me down so many times that I can’t trust Him anymore.

Today is for you. Bring your doubts. Bring your questions. Bring your hesitations. Bring your pain. God isn’t afraid of any of it. And if you allow Him to do it, God is going to do a work in your life today.

I want to pull a couple of key truths out of these verses that tell us Jesus’ last words from the cross. His last words were all about trust. He said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”

These words were originally spoken in Greek. Literally, the Greek says, “Into the hands of You I commit the spirit of me.” In other words, “God, I’m putting everything I have in your hands. I trust you that much.”

Now, Jesus’ circumstances didn’t make Him trust God. In fact, everything He had been experiencing should have pulled Him in the other direction. The pain, the rejection, the torture, the agony of the cross…none of that said, “Wow, this should really make you trust God more.”

But trust isn’t based on your circumstances. Trust is rooted in the truth that God supersedes your circumstances. God is bigger than your circumstances. That’s where trust begins.

It starts right here. I trust that God is good even when life isn’t. That’s when trust kicks in.

Personally, I’ll tell you that my family has really been under the gun lately. Every time it seems like we’re going to get back up, we get knocked to the mat again. It’s wearing us out. Some of it is small stuff. Some of it is bigger stuff. But when you add it all together, it is a pretty heavy load.

I’m not here to whine or complain. Just being honest with you. If you think pastors have it made because God always does exactly what we want Him to do, you are very, very wrong.

Those are the moments when trust is tough, isn’t it? It’s hard to trust God when everything feels like it’s flying apart, and a lot of you are there right now.

It’s not easy to trust God when things are tough. How can I trust God when He’s allowing me to go through all this stuff?

Again, take a look at Jesus. In Luke 9, the Bible says, “As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” (Luke 9:51, NIV)

This verse is the turning point in Jesus’ life. He has traveled around from town to town, teaching and healing all kinds of people. But now, He turns toward Jerusalem, knowing what was going to happen there. He already knew about His arrest. His trial on a bunch of trumped up charges. The beatings. The mocking. The crown of thorns. The nails. The cross. This verse is the beginning of Jesus’ death march…and He knows it.

He knew about it all ahead of time. And He still resolutely and purposefully started toward Jerusalem.

That’s trust. Trusting God even though you know that bad things are coming. Trusting Him when the road isn’t easy. Trusting Him when you have to go through a crucifixion before you see a resurrection.

Let’s go back and look at our text from Luke 23 again. “It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last. (Luke 23:44-46, NIV)

Did you notice that it was dark when Jesus said this? Not only was it dark, but the darkness was completely unexpected. Nobody expects the sun to stop shining at noon. Nobody expects darkness in the middle of the day. It’s completely unexpected.

This wasn’t some predictable weather occurrence. It wasn’t something that a meteorologist could explain. The Bible simply says that the sun stopped shining. It was total unexpected darkness.

Some of you are in a completely unexpected time of darkness. You didn’t see it coming. There was no way you could anticipate this, but the sun has gone out for you. You are living in a time of completely unexpected darkness in your life.

But it was in this darkness that Jesus reiterated His complete trust in His Father. Even though He had endured the cross…even though He was in the darkest point of His entire life…He trusted His Father.

I don’t know what your darkness is, but I know that unexpected dark times have the power to knock us clean off of our feet. And even though it’s incredibly hard, those are also the times when trust is the most crucial. Those are the make-or-break times in our lives.

Last year, I saw this video that was made by NewSpring Church in Anderson, South Carolina. The video features a guy named Zac Smith. And Zac can say this better than I can.

Zac died almost one year ago, in May of 2010. But his story is not dead and will never be dead, because his story is one of complete and total trust. Trust in a very dark time that came from out of nowhere.

And here’s the thing that we see in his story. Trust doesn’t mean that we get to choose the outcome. It means that we trust God, whatever the outcome.

Some of you are in unexpected darkness right now. And your trust is wavering. I can’t tell you how it’s going to work out. That would be presumptuous. And it would be wrong.

But I can tell you this. God is good and you can put it in His hands. The initial outcome might not be what you hoped. But the eternal outcome will blow your mind.

The question is, “Can I trust God in the dark times? Can I trust Him when the sun stops shining? Can I trust that God can see when I can’t? Can I trust that God is good even when life isn’t?”

Here’s why the answer is “yes.” In 2 Corinthians 4, the Bible says, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18, NIV)

Can I trust that God is good even when life isn’t? Yes, because something much better is on the way. The Bible calls our problems in this life “light and momentary troubles.” Now, they don’t feel light or momentary right now. Right now, they feel heavy and it feels like they will never end. But in eternity, they won’t even be a blip on the radar screen anymore because we will see Jesus face to face. We’ll see the one that gave everything for us. And in that one moment, anything we walked through in this life will be worth it.

So we hang on. We persevere. We push through, because we know that it will all be worth it.

It will be worth it because the end isn’t the end. That’s the other truth that I want to pull out of our text today. I trust that, with God, the end isn’t the end.

Think about our scene from the cross. Jesus said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” And then He died.

Most of us see this scene as the end. If it were a movie, the credits would roll, people would grab their empty popcorn buckets and head for the door.

But when God is part of the equation, the end is never the end. This wasn’t the end for Jesus, because three days later, He got up out of that tomb.

If you feel like you’re facing the end, you need to own this truth. When you put your full-blown, unreserved trust in God, the end is never the end. Even if you’re in a season of crucifixion, when God is part of the equation, you can know that the season of resurrection is coming.

Jesus fully trusted that the end isn’t the end. That’s why He was so confident in His trust as He died.

Go back and look at the scene again. I bet there is a detail that you missed. In Luke 23, the Bible says, “Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.” (Luke 23:46, NIV)

Did you notice that Jesus shouted His last words from the cross? He didn’t go out with a whisper or whimper. It wasn’t something He mumbled under His last, dying breath.

Jesus mustered every ounce of strength He had left to shout, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”

It was a shout of confidence. It was a shout of victory. It was a shout of complete, unreserved trust in God.

And I think we need to be people who learn to shout a little more. When you start getting beat down in your life, you need to get a little loud. Turn up the volume. Yell. Shout it out.

When you start getting attacked in your life, start yelling at Satan, “Is that all you’ve got? My God is bigger than you. He is stronger than you. He has already whipped your butt and now we’re just filling in the blanks until you are condemned to hell and I am welcomed into heaven. You ain’t got nothing on me!”

That’s how Jesus went out. That’s what the last moment on the cross looked like. It was loud. It was confident. In fact, it was so confident that you could say it was arrogant.

Now, it wasn’t a sinful arrogance. Jesus never sinned. But His trust in God was so complete that He lived and He died with a holy arrogance. And we need to recapture that holy arrogance in our lives.

One thing that people have told me about our church is that we have an edge to us. There is a swagger in how we do things. And not everybody likes that. But we have not and we will never apologize for it.

We walk with a swagger. We have an edge. We have an attitude. We do.

People have told me that I have a swagger when I preach. That I seem arrogant.

I am. I am arrogant that my God can do whatever my God wants to do. I am arrogant that impossible isn’t even a word in His vocabulary. I am arrogant that my God raised Jesus from the dead and He has now unleashed that very same power in our lives and in our church. I am arrogant that there is nothing in your life that God cannot handle. And I am arrogant that there is nothing you have done in your life that can diminish God’s love for you. There is nothing you have done that diminishes what God wants to do in your life.

I am arrogant. Our church is arrogant. We serve God with a swagger because we are that confident in His character, His love, His grace, and His power.

That’s why there is an edge to our gatherings. That’s why we’re different. Maybe you’ve been to a church where their worship service feels a lot more like a funeral. It honestly feels like they get together to preach their own funeral every single week.

That is never going to be us. Why would our services feel like a funeral when our God is alive? That’s why we celebrate and get excited. That’s why our services get loud. (Some people say a little too loud, but that’s ok.) And that’s why I preach the truth as hard and straight and direct as I can. Because we have an arrogant confidence in our God. We trust Him that much.

But that’s not just how we have church. That’s got to be how we live our lives. With a confident, holy arrogance.

Do you believe that God is good even when life isn’t? Do you believe that God is bigger than your problems? Do you believe that God supersedes your circumstances?

Do you believe what the Bible says in Romans 8? “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:37-39, NIV)

Do you believe that nothing can separate you from the love of God? People may reject you, but God never will. Health may fail you, but God never will.

Your circumstances may say, “It’s over. This is the end. There is nothing left for you.” But the love of God says differently. The love of God says that the end is never the end.

When Jesus made his shout of confidence and trust in God, He died. We all know that death is the end, right? Not when my God enters the equation. When my God comes on the scene, the end is never the end.

In Luke 24, the Bible says, “On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!” (Luke 24:1-6a, NIV)

The cross wasn’t the end. Death wasn’t the end. That’s why Jesus died shouting. That’s why He didn’t slip into death all meek and mild. He went out shouting because He knew that the end isn’t the end.

When God comes on the scene, He changes everything. The end is not the end.

You may be in a season of crucifixion right now. Things may be really dark and it feels like there is no way out. It feels like the end. When you decide to trust God, you have the promise that the end is never the end. After the crucifixion, there is resurrection.

That’s our God. That is who He is. That is what His power and His love can do.

And we want you to know Him. We want you to meet Him. We want you to be changed by Him. We want you to trust Him.

We’re going to give you the opportunity today to put your trust in Jesus today. I’m telling you, anything else is going to let you down. It’s going to disappoint you. It’s going to set you up for a fall.

Jesus promises something different. It’s not predictable. It’s not easy and safe. And it’s not a promise that there won’t be tough times. Jesus is not security against life's storms, but He is perfect security in them.

That’s His promise. His promise is that the end is never the end. We know that because He is alive today.

Every religion on the planet has a leader who is dead. Mohammed – dead. Buddha – dead. Joseph Smith – dead. Confucius – dead. Brigham Young – dead.

You want to know who’s not dead? Jesus. Jesus is alive. Jesus is the one who says that the end is never the end. And Jesus is the one that is calling you today.

He is alive, and He is calling you to life. He’s calling you to life beyond past pain and disappointment. He’s calling you to life beyond the rejection and hurt you’ve experienced. He’s calling you to life beyond the sin that hangs over your head all the time. He’s calling you to life that will last for all eternity in the very presence of God.

Don’t wallow in the excuses of, “You don’t know who I am. You don’t know what I’ve done. Church is no place for me. I’m too screwed up. I’m too much of a mess to have anything to do with God.”

The mess is not the end of your story. Jesus is the end of your story. And your sin doesn’t scare Him. Your flaws and your failures don’t scare Him. He died for your sins. He paid the price for your sins. He gave His life so that there would be no end to your life.

That’s the victory that He won for you by His death on the cross and by His resurrection from the dead. The victory is His. And because of that, the victory is yours.

Mike Edmisten

Tags: cross, Death By Love, Jesus, Luke 23, resurrection, suffering, victory,