2819 Church - CROSS TO COMMISSION | The Message of The Cross | Matthew 27:45-56 | Philip Anthony Mitchell

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

In week 13 of CROSS TO COMMISSION, Pastor Philip Anthony Mitchell taught from Matthew 27:45–56, revealing the darkness of judgment poured out on Christ as He absorbed the full weight of our sin and satisfied the wrath of God.The veil was torn, access to the Father was granted, and the Lamb finished the work.

You see that. If you're a guest, we want to welcome you to 2819 Church to this sacred place, these sacred gatherings, are imperfect. Our body of believers striving for the spread of the gospel and the multiplying of disciples. This is the great commission of the Lord Jesus Christ. And to all of our digital disciples watching live

across the nation and around the world in these final hours of the church age we pray for you you are our family the extensions of the kingdom of God and the extensions of our family 2819 on every continent on the planet wherever you are you represent the work of this great house this growing global family

of end time disciples that God is raising up in this hour And if you're not a follower of Christ, you crept into this room or crept into this chat. We welcome you to this sacred place. We want you to know that you can belong before you believe. And you can be amongst us before you believe. And we pray for you, like many who followed last week, that a moment would come in one of these sacred gatherings. You would feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit, moving you to Christ himself. And you would pivot before time has run out on you.

For tomorrow's promise to no man. And in the day you hear the gospel, harder not your heart. For someone in this room today might be the day of salvation for you. We are near the end of three teaching through the book of Matthew in our final series called Cross to Commission, in which we are studying Matthew 26 to 28 together and landing the plane on this series on Resurrection Sunday.

Our text today is coming from Matthew chapter 27, verses 45 through 56. You're rid of the living God. Have your way. The word that you authored is proclaimed through this weakened earthen vessel. Awakening this hour your sons and daughters of the kingdom across America and around the world. Open our eyes and stir our hearts. and stir our hearts to prayer and to mission.

Let us feel the weight of this text that calls us to remembrance and to action. Touch the heart of the believer and trouble the unbeliever. Asking the mighty and the majestic. In the matchless name of our soon-coming king, the Lord Jesus Christ. And all of God's people said, amen. And amen. And amen. Family this morning as I stand here to proclaim God's word to you,

our nation is in war with adversaries in the Middle East. A war that has stirred opinions from both sides, both those who see this war as prophetic fulfilling biblical prophecy and those who cry hatred against such wars. And right now as I'm talking to you, not only is there a war being fought right now with our nation, but I wonder how many people right now are paying attention to the events that's happening in history, that this war right now is set in place at a time that we are living in the final hours of the church age,

that this war will be remembered amongst events that happened very close to the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, a clock that he put on humanity that is coming down to the end, a clock that began with the text that we approached this morning as a spiritual family. For in our history, there have been very few empires like the empire of Rome, who ruled over a part of the world from India to Africa for some 1,500 years. during that period it is reported in history that Rome executed

and crucified some 300,000 to some 2 million people during its days of its empire and during that time those are nameless faces of men mostly and some women

who have been crucified and have come and gone and for the most part none of us know their names their lives have had no great bearing on history to this day. And all we had was reports of this barbaric form of execution that Rome had perfected that was engineered by man, the most evil form of capital punishment ever designed until 1968 in an archaeological dig when they found a skeleton to give testimony to this barbaric form

of execution. Give me my image. control room. When this ankle bone of a late 20-something year old was found in a dig in Jerusalem, a seven-inch spike through his ankle bone testifying to the barbaric brutality of execution through the capital punishment of crucifixion that Rome has strung up some millions of and millions of people who were executed this way. His name was also found when they found his skeleton, but his name has no bearing on society.

His name did nothing in history. Nobody talks about his name. Nobody celebrates his name. He is unimportant in the annals of history. However, there was a man that was crucified during the temper of Rome. there was a man who was executed during the time of Rome who because of that man all of society split around of his life into years BC before Christ

and years AD and new dominion Latin for in the year of our Lord there was one man that Rome did execute that had a great effect on history that man who we come to in the text between where we are right now in history and where we come to in the text, the most important event in human history is what we approach right now in the text. The event that started the time clock that is counting backwards right now, the time clock that is soon to come to an end.

How Christ was arrested, tried, condemned to death, how he was abused and abandoned and led out to be executed by Roman soldiers, how he was helped by a man named Simon who helped him carry that cross to the top of Galgotha and how four soldiers nailed the body of Christ to a wooden crossbeam and hung up the Lord on a crossbeam and left him there to die between two criminals in the first century AD, spikes through the wrists and spikes through the ankle bone. And then what we come to in our text is the fulfillment of the most important event in human history. As Christ hung on that cross between two criminals, Matthew writes in Matthew chapter 27 and verse 45.

Now, from the sixth hour, there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. Mark, Matthew now punctuates the time in which Christ was hanging on the cross. He leaves out a detail that Mark would give us, that Mark writes that Christ was crucified at the third hour of the beginning of the Jewish time clock, which means Christ was crucified at 9 a.m. And then Matthew says from the 6th hour, darkness came over all of the land until the 9th hour. So when we put together Mark's account with Matthew's account, we understand that at 9 o'clock, Christ is hung up on the cross. And Jesus hangs in the light for three, four hours. While he's hanging in the light for three hours, the Lord will see.

speak from the cross. From the cross, the Lord will ask for forgiveness for the men who persecuted him and the men who nailed him to that cross, demonstrating for you and I the Christian ethic of forgiveness in its highest extreme, reminding you and I that we have no right to hold anybody in our heart. So nobody has done anything to you to the level of crucifixion in which you have the right to hold anybody in their heart from abuse to rape from molestation to betrayal Christ has demonstrated for you

and I that your heart can never be an apartment for anybody. We must evict everybody from our heart so when we look upon the cross we have no right to hold people in unforgiveness. In those first three hours while Jesus hung in the light

he also looks down at his mother and he says to his mother Mother, behold your son. And he says to John, John, behold your mother. Demonstrating for us the power of biblical community. The future of the beauty in the church he was about to form, reminding us that all of us need people in our lives.

We all need comfort. We all need community. Nobody will make it to the end by ourselves. And on the cross, he looks over to a repentant criminal. And he says, today you will be with me. paradise reminding us of the Christian theology that for the one who is in Christ to die in Christ is to be present with the Lord giving us a theology that our life goes beyond death and that we have hope beyond this life and not even a funeral can rob the believer of the

hope that has been promised to us in the Lord Jesus Christ and then at 12 noon Matthew tells us that an ominous darkness comes over the land of Palestine. Christ goes silent and the sky above him goes black as God supernaturally sends on the land a darkness that covered all of Palestine. This was not an eclipse. This was not a sandstorm. This was God Almighty turning out the lights of the sun. using creation to grieve over the creator who had now been hanging on that cross for three hours

and now blackness comes over the land. In the Old Testament testifies I feel the spirit of his miraculous power over the elements of nature when he prophesized to a prophet named Amos 700 years before Christ was crucified when he says through a prophet named Amos in Amos chapter 8 of verse 9 and on that day speaking of what was coming 700 years later declares who the lord god i will make the sun go down at noon biblical prophecy being fulfilled not found in the Quran not found in the pearl of great price not found in any religious book I just keep showing you how hundreds of prophecies in the Old Testament have come to pass accurately in the era in which we live. God prophesied 700 years before the day we are exposed in our text.

And on that day declares God, I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. 700 years, he fulfills that prophecy. When at 12 o'clock in the afternoon, as the Lamb of God is strung out on the cross, God turns off the light of the sun. Blackness comes over the land. The people standing there watching Christ bleed out are confused that in the middle of the day when the sun should be at its highest, it is completely black over Palestine. There must be fear.

and some of their hearts that it is black over Palestine. God now not only using creation to grieve the dying creator, but now God also using creation to speak from the cross. Why? Because all throughout the Old Testament, darkness is synonymous with judgment. And if you read from Isaiah and multiple prophets, you will see that when Darkness shows up in the Old Testament. Judgment shows up in the Old Testament.

And now God is speaking from the cross, not only using creation to grieve the Creator, but now God is speaking a message from the cross that he's using that blackness to send a message to all humanity, that judgment now was coming upon humanity. But judgment of what? Judgment of the thing you and I love and play around with so much. sin.

And from the cross, God declares judgment upon sin. Judgment upon all works of iniquity. That from the cross, God declares his hatred for

sin. That what Christ is feeling and what God is doing, he is using that blackness to speak to mankind, his judgment on sin, that he's now laying upon the back of his son upon the cross. And there is Christ hanging now in darkness. And as Christ is hanging in darkness, he is silent

because what's happening right now is Christ now is becoming sin. For you and I. He's so overwhelmed by what's happening. He can't even speak that for almost three hours he says nothing. As the Father now makes the son sin for you. you and me. The Apostle Paul in the future would write about this moment in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 20 when he says, therefore, you and I are ambassadors for Christ. You should represent him. God making his appeal through us. Why? We implore you on behalf of Christ. Why? Be reconciled to God.

Stop playing with God. Be sold out to God. Be sold out to God. God. Stop running from God. Why? What did he do? For our sake, he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. So on the cross, in the second three hours of pitch blackness, the Father now is laying upon the sun the sins of all humanity past, present, future. And right there in that moment, Christ now is absorbing sin. Christ now becomes sin as he's hanging on the cross. Christ would now feel the pain of becoming sin. He will feel the pain of absorbing the sin of men. What Christ was feeling was worse than the nails, was worse than his beating, was worse than his scourging, was worse than his mocking, was worse than the crown of thorns.

The worst thing Christ felt on that day was absorbing all your sin debt and mind. The man who had never known sin, the man who had never committed sin. Now, in this moment, he not only absorbs sin, he becomes sin. Now, I know for you and I in our sinful nature, who played with sin and love sin and unholy in nature, we don't understand the significance of this moment. It only takes those of us who have grown in maturity, who hate our sinful nature, who be frustrated with our own mistakes.

Man, I can barely bear my own flesh, let alone trying to bear the sins of all humanity. Every man, woman, and child for all eternity trying to bear their sins. Man, we can't even conceive the weight of what Jesus felt in that moment. But the evidence that the Lord was feeling the pain of becoming sin is what happens next in verse 46 that at about the ninth hour that is three hours later Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying Eli Eli Lamar Sabakanai

that is being interpreted in our English language my God my God why have you forsaken me Jesus, I feel the spirit of God. The Lord now shouts at the top of his lungs. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me about the abandonment of the father? Because now God, who the scripture says in Hebech cannot look upon sin, he now has to turn his back on the son. And now the father and the son Who had been in perfect fellowship for the endless ages of eternity

For the first and only time now their fellowship has been broken Why? Because the God is so holy he cannot look upon sin So now in some hard to understand theological situation God turns his back on the sun. And what the sun feels is a momentarily abandonment from the Father.

Now for the first time there is a breach between Jesus and the Father and now Christ feels for the first time what we are born into separation from God. And because he feels that separation from God, he now cries out

in the blackness from that cross. My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? So first he cries this out because he's feeling the separation from his father. But he also cries this out because in his wisdom, he's preaching from the cross. Jews are standing all around him who knows the Old Testament. And Jesus shouts from the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He is actually from the cross preaching his own identity upon the cross.

For those who mark him and did not know he was the son of God, he quotes to them the first verse of Psalm 22, which was a Mazionic Psalm that prophesied about the death of the Messiah, the son of God. So as he shouts, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? What those Jews would have heard and remembered was Psalm 22, verse 1. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me?

From the words of my groaning. And what we have here in this Psalm is the theological thing called the law of double reference. Where a person is writing by inspiration of the spirit, but also prophesied about something that was coming in the future. David writing this Psalm by the Spirit, not realizing he's actually writing about the future crucifixion of the Son of God. So as Christ is saying, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The people at the bottom should have remembered this Psalm. And immediately they should have known, oh my God, the person we just strung up was the promised Messiah, the promised son of God. They should have remember other verses like verse 6 through 8.

But I am a worm and not a man. scorned by mankind and despised by people. All who see me mock me. They make mouths at me. They wagged their heads. He trusts in His Lord. Let him deliver him. Let him rescue him, for he delights in him.

They should have seen verse 14 through 15. I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted within my breast. my strength is dried up like a pot's hurt and my tongue sticks to my jaws you lay me in the dust of the earth they should remember verse 18 and they divided my garments among them and for my clothing they cast lots and so Jesus is preaching from the cross identifying himself as the Messiah and those who

any common sense would have heard that I immediately know this was the son of God. But I want to draw your attention to the word my. Not only is Jesus saying, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Because he feels separation. Watch. Not only is he preaching from the cross his identity. But the word my is very important that even in him feeling abandoned, he still puts ownership in front of God. He didn't say, God, God, why have you abandoned me?

But my God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Showing us the Christian ethic of what it feels like to be in a jam or to be in a season when God feels distant from you or when you feel like he's not answering your prayers or not moving on behalf, but does not rob himself of the confession that he is still watch in fellowship with him, that he has watched this word, trust in the person who has turned his back that even when this is over, I will be resurrected and restored back to fellowship with my God. This is a reminder for you and I that in those seasons when you're going through hardship and trials and difficulty,

and all of us have felt what it felt like to feel like the Lord is far from me. The Lord is not answering my prayers. The Lord has allowed me to go through too much trials and tribulation, yet I do not allow my emotions to override my theology. that although I may be in pain and will be in pain, I will not be forsaken. This is you feeling like the Lord is not listening to me. But in your theology, remember, but he has not abandoned me. So he cries out, my God, my God, demonstrating trust in the one who right now he cannot feel.

verse 47 some of the bystanders hearing it said this man is calling for Elijah and one of them at once ran and took a sponge and filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed and gave it him to drink but the other said wait let us see whether or not Elijah will come to save him

the word my God my God in Hebrew sounds very same close to the word Elijah in Hebrew. Elijah was a prophet who God raptured up who never died. A guy that God took from earth and brought him to heaven, a man who never saw physical death. These bystanders are still mocking the Lord. They are listening to him cry, Eli, Eli, and thinking he's crying for Elijah. And then they say, well, let us wait to see whether or not Elijah will come from heaven. In their mind, Jesus is in a situation. He cannot escape. They think that he is hanging on the cross. because of nails, but he's hanging there because of love, absorbing the sin debt of your and mind. They misinterpret what he was saying. And because they misinterpret what he's saying from the cross, they respond to his words wrong. Family, this happens all the time in your life and mind, where we hear the word of God preach to us. And we misinterpret what God is saying, or we misinterpret what we are reading.

And as a result of that, we close our heart to the revelation that we should be getting in that moment. That what should be happening is they should have heard what he was saying and remember Psalm 22, that what I'm saying to is whenever the word is being preached to you with fidelity and with integrity and theological clarity, that is an opportunity for you to repent. It's an opportunity for you to be changed. It's an opportunity for you to be challenged. It's the opportunity for you to be corrected, to be inspired, to be encouraged, to be coached, to be led back to the word, to be strengthened, to be renewed, to be guided, to be led, to be lifted, to be healed. That there are things that the Holy Spirit intends what happened in your life when we hear the word of God preach to us correctly.

One man has compassion. He runs out to give Jesus a drink. the rest continued to mock him while he's dying. In the next verse, one of the most important verses in all the scripture. Verse 50. And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. Now Matthew does not record what Jesus said that last time. What John did, John recorded what Jesus said in that last moment of his life. It is finished.

It's what Jesus cried out from the cross. It is finished. In this moment, as Christ hung on the cross, his last words was, it is finished. He had accomplished a mission for which he was sent. For he said of his own life that he came to die to make a way of escape for humanity who could not deal with their sin debt for themselves. And in this moment, Christ yells to all humanity, it is finished. The full debt of sin and has satisfied the wrath of God towards humanity. The old covenant has been satisfied. The sacrificial system has been satisfied.

The fulfillment of the law has been satisfied. I have Finish the work that I have been given. And now mankind has the opportunity to receive righteousness. So that when they die, they can be justified before Holy God. That without this moment, no person can be justified before God. No person is headed to heaven. You said, but fast a wait. What about the Old Testament saints?

Man, they was the same recipients of great. just like we are right now. Because you and I live in time. God does not live in time. It's why God says Jesus was the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. So that although this was coming in time, those in the Old Testament who placed their faith in God, he credited to them.

The grace of the cross in AD 33 was credited back retroactively to anybody they placed their faith in God. That's why we know Abraham is in glory and David is in glory and Ruth is in glory and Esther is in glory. And that's why the scripture said David or Abraham believed God and it was credited to him. And now in the first century in verse 50 the greatest event in human history has taken place. the event that set off the clock that we are on right now, the death of the Lamb of God, that made a wave of escape from hell for you and I

and created an opportunity for you to be seen as righteous before God. Without this death, no pardon for you and I. And I just want you to peep in the text that says, after he cried out, he gave up. His spirit, meaning nobody took his life. That when the gospel writers write about the death of Jesus, they don't write about his death like your death and mine. They write about his death with a theology of voluntariness to say that the Lord was not, his life was not taken from him.

But when he saw you and when he saw me, he laid his life down. See, you got to peep all the details in the text. Anybody else being executed like this would have been exhausted by this time. But Matthew tells us in detail he cried out with a loud voice to show us that he still had the strength to keep hanging there if he wanted to. But when he was ready, he was ready. Finish absorbing sin that the father sent him to do. He said it is finished now into the truth. your hands, Lord, to deal with your sin debt. Price for your sin and fall.

Said, now I'm finished. I took care of Philip. I took care of James. I took care of Milton. I took care of Ronda. I took care of God. I took care of my children. Now into your hands, Lord. I commit my spirit. He stayed alive long enough to make sure that when you die, you would remain alive. He stayed alive long enough to make sure that my body would not remain in a grave forever. He stayed alive long enough to take care of what your good behavior, your church attendance, your morality could never take care of. And let's finish the text. And then with the last three hours, the last bit of time when Christ said it is finished and he gave up his spirit. Now God from heaven unleashes.

apocalyptic events on the earth to make sure the whole world knows that you just crucified my son I'm going to make sure that my son is spoken for through the power

of the natural order verse 51 after the death of Christ and Matthew said behold that is pay attention the curtain of the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom. And the earth shook.

Box were split. And the tombs were open. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep. Oh my God! Was raised from the dead. And coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, they went into the holy city of Jerusalem. and appeared to many immediately after Christ died.

In the temple, pay attention. There was a massive curtain, ornate, impossible to rip with hands. It separated the holiest place in the temple from every place else. And once a year, a priest would have to go behind that curtain to make a temporary atonement for the sins of man. that curtain represent the separation of God from human beings. Oh my God. So God now, and the death of Christ takes his finger and he rips the curtain from the top all the way down to the bottom.

Fly into all humanity, no longer would my presence dwell away from you. Now all people have access directly to me. Sin has access. The repentant sinner has access. That's why the unknown writer P. Brooker says, we should approach his throne. How? Bowly. Because now, because of the death of Christ, you and I, watch the word.

I love this word. Have access. Sinful man from Queens, New York. I have access to a holy God who now allows me to come into his presence through a whisper and prayer. through a whisper and prayer because blood made it possible for me to go in there. Then can we see prayer

as a chore and not as a joy and a liberty that any place, any time, anywhere, in any posture savior. Shook the whole earth

when Christ died that people in Jerusalem, would have known this was not some ordinary man and people on the other side of the world would have felt something that's happened in the year AD 33 he shook the entire globe and he will shake it again when Christ returns in glory and power to set up his kingdom in Jerusalem he will shake the earth again when the stars fall from heaven. And then he says, because of a massive earthquake, tombs that stayed above ground, shattered on Friday. Then there's a period in the text, which means it happened on Friday.

The period points is then two days later to Sunday, when Matthew said then after Jesus is raised, those bodies came out of those tombs. And they walked into the city. knocked on the door of family members. I was once dead. Someway, somehow, I am alive. God testifying in the cross, it's power to deal with death

and the hope of the resurrection that was coming after that, a hope for you and me. So why there's no need to fear death. Because if we are in Christ, we will not sleep. Nor would our body see decay. They will mourn at my funeral while I'm walking the streets of gold.

So we fear who? For what? It's the power of the cross. It is the message of the cross. And when the centaurian, the boss of those who have persecuted Christ, those who were with him keeping watch over Jesus saw the earthquake, And what had taken place, they were filled with awe. And even the ones who nailed him to that cross testified of his identity.

Truly, this was the son of God that I don't have to fight to prove my identity to nobody. The Lord knows how to vindicate all his children. Make all the videos about me you want. We see in the end, the Lord knows how to vindicate all his children. children all his real prophets all his true servants we'll see you in the end and see who was real and who was fake and there was also many women there looking on from a distance who had followed Jesus from galilee ministering to him among whom were mary magdalen who he cast seven demons out of and mary the mother of james and joseph and the mother of the

The sons of Zevety, James and John. While men abandoned him, women stayed close to him. They were faithful. They were devoted. They were dedicated. And I say to all my women, this is what Jesus wants of you. And I say to all my men, these are the women we should honor. That we should love.

love them for their devotion and not just only try to abuse them with infatuation. That where we see godly women like this, honor them. And there is the message of the cross. There is right here the message of the cross that in the cross, God speaks, should have to the cross. And when we see it on top of a steeple or swinging from somebody's neck or tattooed on. somebody's arm wherever we see the cross it should give us a hatred for sin a hatred for the thing that put christ there and it should speak to us a type of hope for the future that whenever i see the cross i see the image of god's love for me and for all humanity that when i see the cross i see

the thing i must despise sin and when i see the cross i see the hope of my future resurrection. And when I see the cross, I see the one who absorbed my sin debt. That the only response to the cross is the life fully surrendered. Any other response is unacceptable. So, Father, in the name of the one you hung up on the cross, in the name of Yahshua, the king, I pray God, the unbeliever listening to me right now would throw themselves down. down at the foot of the cross and cry out for mercy and for the forgiveness of their sins, lest they die and be separated from you in judgment for all of their life for the endless ages of eternity. And Father God, I pray for the son and daughter under the sound of

my voice that we would look upon God, the cross. And from that place we would begin to hate the sin in our own hearts, the sin, the sin. of our own mouths, the sin of our own thoughts, the sin of our own lives. And from the cross, we would have hope for our future. And from the cross, we will be compelled to live for the one who fully absorbed our sin debt. The one who died in the dark. That we may live in the light. May our eyes, our hearts, and our lives be burned by the message.

by the message of the cross and we never be the same. I ask in the mighty and the majestic and the matchless name of our soon coming king. The Lord Jesus Christ, if you're thankful for what Jesus did on the cross, somebody take the roof off this place and give him praise. Amen.