How Can God Abandon God
Matthew 27:45-46
Intro. My introduction to the sermon is different this morning than how I usually start a sermon. I usually try to start with some humor that leads into the sermon or with a great story that tries to illustrate the main theme of the message.
. I am not going to do that this morning because the scripture that we are going to look at this morning is so hard to understand. How could God abandon God.
. I can’t understand this in my feeble human mind.
. God is love isn’t He?
. How can love abandon someone?
. The 16th century theologian and father of Protestantism Martin Luther took leave of everyone and went off by himself to study and pray and try to understand this very concept. He sat for days pondering this question. Finally, someone heard him say “God forsaking God . . . no one can understand that” and he gave up his quest and went back to his other duties.
. C.H. Spurgeon is considered one of the great preachers of the 19th century preached a sermon on this passage and said, “I think I can understand the words, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" as they are written by David in the 22nd Psalm; but the same words, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" when uttered by Jesus on the cross, I cannot comprehend, so I shall not pretend to be able to explain them.”
. We read in the Bible about the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-31 in how that no matter what we do, God will always welcome us back.
. He will never forsake us.
. I think about my family. My wife and my sons. I can’t imagine them ever doing anything that would cause me to abandon them or forsake them.
. That’s exactly what is going on in our scripture this morning.
. I believe and we believe that Jesus was and is God.
. As Baptists we believe in the Trinity of God. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
. So again ask you how can God abandon God?
. While I certainly don’t consider myself a great theologian or a great preacher.
. If I ever even remotely consider myself a good preacher, my wife humbles me by reminding me that I am competent at best.
. I think that is one of the main jobs of the preachers wife. When we talk to people after the sermon and they tell us how great the sermon was and how our message had spoken directly to their heart . When we get in our vehicle and are on the way home and we tell our wives how the congregation had responded to our message and our head is almost too big to stay in the car with us, she will look at me and say it would have been a better sermon if you had done this and that if anyone that was touched by the sermon it had to be God, not me.
. Pastors wives have a way of keeping us humble.
. I believe though that if we look closely we can answer the question of why God abandoned God. I don’t know how God did this but we can understand why.
. Last week we looked at the three crosses on Calvary and the interaction of Jesus with the other two men that were crucified with Him.
. We looked at the first two sayings from the cross. “Father forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing” and “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”
. Today we look at the third saying.
. Jesus had been beaten, nails driven through His hands and feet He had been crucified at 9am and He had hung on that cross for three hours listening to all the mocking and cursing and scoffing and then at 12:00 something happened. This is where our scripture starts.
. Matthew 27:45-46:
. At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock.46At about three o’clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”
. Why did God abandon God?
. There are at least three reasons why.
. The first is because of us. Because of man. We caused God to abandon Jesus.
. We talked last week about choices and how the three people on the crosses were there because of choices that they made.
. Well God had to abandon himself because of the choice that man made at the beginning of time.
. When we chose to rebel, we set a course that brought Jesus to this exact moment in time.
. We all know the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and the rebellion and curse that they brought on all mankind.
. As I was thinking through this sermon, and mans rebellion I was reminded of the story in the news recently about Josh Powell. The man who killed his two sons and then killed himself by burning the house down around all three of them.
. When I first heard the story I literally cried. I was at home and I had been studying and doing the things pastors do when they can find the time and I took a break and went upstairs for lunch. I turned on the tv and that was the lead story. I sat and cried for these people and then I cried out to God. How can people be so cruel. How can this happen God.
. I realized though that all mankind are capable of doing things that are against what God wants.
. Humanity is capable of all kinds of cruelty and sin isn’t it.
. Thank God that He loves His creation and wants to have a relationship with us. You see, we all deserve to be abandoned by god for our sinfulness but his love for mankind drove him to abandon himself.
. There once was a little three year old girl who had always enjoyed the soft and gentle voice of her father. In her eyes her father was the most loving and kind man in the world. She loved it when he held her in his arms and cradled her. In the eyes of the world, even though her father was very friendly, he was also very scary. He had huge muscles, stood 7’0" tall, and was known as a great warrior throughout the country. The enemies of his country hated this warrior, and one day decided to send a group of five men to try and take his daughter captive while the man was sleeping. However, just when they had gotten into his daughter’s bedroom, the huge father woke up. He came bursting into the bedroom, thoroughly beat the men and killed them, leaving a blood bath right in the daughter’s presence. Throughout this whole ordeal, the little three year old girl huddled in the corner - fearing for her life. When the slaughter was done, the father tenderly walked toward his daughter, but she at first cowered. She had never seen her father like that. She didn’t like it. Neither did he. So he gently talked to his daughter and said to her, “come here, my girl. I didn’t want to do that. But those men were bent on hurting you, and I just couldn’t allow that to happen.” With those gentle words, the girl came running into her father’s arms - and throughout the blood spattered on his face and hands - she found the same father that she had known and loved.
Whenever we see God’s wrath come crashing down, it is a scary sight. It’s scary to see him thunder and hail - pestilence - boils - and hardening a man’s heart. It’s even scarier to see the wrath of God come down on His only Son on the cross - to see the blood come pouring out of his hands - his feet nailed together - gasping for breath - and finally crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
. Gods wrath had come down upon man through Jesus.
. Through Himself
. God abandoned God for mankind’s salvation.
. Next scripture teaches us that God abandoned God because of His promises.
. God promised salvation for all through the blood and agony of a Savior.
. A messiah who would save the people from their sins.
. Lets look at this promise in Is.53
. Who has believed our message?
To whom has the LORD revealed his powerful arm?
2My servant grew up in the LORD’s presence like a tender green shoot,
like a root in dry ground.
There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance,
nothing to attract us to him.
3He was despised and rejected—
a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
He was despised, and we did not care.
4Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for his own sins!
5But he was pierced for our irebellion,
crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.
6All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the LORD laid on him
the sins of us all.
7He was oppressed and treated harshly,
yet he never said a word.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
And as a sheep is silent before the shearers,
he did not open his mouth.
8Unjustly condemned,
he was led away.
No one cared that he died without descendants,
that his life was cut short in midstream.
But he was struck down
for the rebellion of my people.
9He had done no wrong
and had never deceived anyone.
But he was buried like a criminal;
he was put in a rich man’s grave.
10But it was the LORD’s good plan to crush him
and cause him grief.
Yet when his life is made an offering for sin,
he will have many jdescendants.
He will enjoy a long life,
and the LORD’s good plan will prosper in his hands.
11When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish,
he will be satisfied.
And because of his experience,
my righteous kservant will make it possible
for many to be counted righteous,
for he will bear all their sins.
12I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier,
because he exposed himself to death.
He was counted among the rebels.
He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.
. Through the prophet Isaiah and many other prophets God had promised a savior who would take on the sins of mankind and therefore allow man to escape the punishment.
. Look at verses 4-6 again:
4Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for his own sins!
5But he was pierced for our irebellion,
crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.
6All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the LORD laid on him
the sins of us all.
.It was our sins that He carried to the cross
. He was pierced for our rebellion/ transgressions as the K J says.
. When they took that sword and reached up and pierced his side to insure that he would be dead before sunset, that was done for us.
. That’s what we deserve but Jesus took our sin upon Him and suffered through all of this.
. He was beaten so that we could be whole
. He was whipped so that we could be healed
. Look at the last part of verse 6; Yet the LORD laid on him
the sins of us all.
. No wonder He was in agony, all the sins of the world were laid upon Him at that moment.
. What anguish He must have felt.
. Look at verse 11 again: 11When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish,
he will be satisfied.
And because of his experience,
my righteous kservant will make it possible
for many to be counted righteous,
for he will bear all their sins.
. This satisfied Gods wrath for mans rebellion made it possible for you and I to be counted righteous.
. God abandoned God because of His promises that He made to us.
. Lastly God abandoned God because of the separation that sin causes between God and man.
. I spent a considerable amount of time on this third point this morning because of the difficulty of understanding the statement My God My God Why Have You Abandoned Me.
. I read many sermons by men of God who I believe are very competent preachers.
. I read commentaries on the subject of God abandoning God and how God can or cannot look at sin.
. Scholars disagree on exactly what Jesus was feeling at the time.
. All I know for sure that even through the scriptures as you read this, you sense the agony and heartbreak that is in Jesus’ words.
. What I want to call attention to this morning is the change in the way Jesus addresses God.
. In all instances where I can find in scripture Jesus addressing God the Father He calls him Father.
. Even here on the cross He says Father forgive them. He doesn’t say God forgive.
. There is some type of disconnect here because Jesus cries out my God my God, not my father my father.
. I believe that at that moment when all the sin of the world was on our Savior, in his Humanity , He felt the abandonment, the separation from God that all men would have felt had He not taken their sins upon Himself.
. He felt the abandonment that many will still feel when they stand before God and are eternally separated from God in a place we call Hell.
. This abandonment will be self imposed because of their rebellion and refusal to accept Jesus as the substitute for their sin.
. Yes in His humanity Jesus felt the anguish that all men will feel when they are held accountable for their sins and he experienced this feeling of abandonment and cried out to God.
. Why have you abandoned me.
. Friends, can you say this morning that you will never have this cry of abandonment.
. Have you accepted what Jesus did on this cross for you.
Invitation
*** To my Christian brothers and sisters, thank you for taking the time to read this sermon. I ask that you take another second and score this for me. I am always open to feedback so that I can continue to grow in the proclamation of God’s word.
May God bless you as you continue to strive to walk worthy of His calling.
Sources:
The Holy Bible, NLT
Why Have You Forsaken Me, Brian Black
Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me, David Swenson
