In his sermon, Troy Sheppard explores the theme of the cross of the Savior in Psalm 22, highlighting its reflection of the humanity of Christ. He emphasizes that Psalm 22 is a prophetic, Messianic psalm that vividly displays Christ's humanity and suffering on the cross, as well as his prayerful communication with God. Sheppard discusses the significance of Christ's cry of abandonment, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?,' as an expression of deep anguish and separation from God, despite Christ's unwavering faith and trust in God's holiness and faithfulness. Sheppard further interprets Psalm 22 as a demonstration of Christ's enduring faith, even in the face of mockery and suffering, and his contentment in fulfilling his sacrificial mission. The sermon underscores the importance of understanding Christ's dual nature as both fully God and fully man, and the depth of his sacrificial love, which absorbed the wrath of God for humanity's sins.

I'm going to read verses 1-6 to begin and then we'll look at the psalm. The subject that's assigned is the cross of the Savior in Psalm 22. Psalm 22 in verse 1, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not, and in the night season, and I am not silent.

But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in thee, they trusted, and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto thee and were delivered, they trusted in thee and were not confounded. But I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despised of the people. I preach again on the subject, the cross of the Savior in Psalm 22.

Now this psalm is the spirit of Christ in the mouth of his prophet David. In the book of 1st Peter we read in 1st Peter 1 and verse 10, of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you. Searching water in what manner of time the Spirit of Christ, which was in them, did signify when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. Here you find, spoken by David some thousand years before it was fulfilled on Golgotha's Hill, this Psalm, this Psalm 22, it is confirmed to be a Messianic Psalm in the New Testament, both in the book of Matthew, Mark, and also in Hebrew where it is either quoted or alluded to in those passages. And it should be carefully and reverently examined to gain a fuller understanding of the work of our blessed Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

What I notice in this psalm is that this psalm is the voice of the man Christ Jesus. And you know, we do believe the Bible teaches that Jesus Christ is God. He is 100% God, fully God. But at the same time, He is also man. And we say with the writer of the book of Timothy, great is the mystery of godliness, that God was manifested to flesh.

And in this text, you see on display the humanity of Christ, a very vivid display of his humanity. Here we have him speaking as a man before God. And so he says in our text, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Verse 2, oh my God. Over and over again in the psalm you see the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ on this way.

He speaks as a man before God. He speaks as a humble man. In verse 6 it says, but I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despised of the people. The humility of the Lord Jesus Christ stands out in this psalm. He speaks in this psalm as a real man.

For he says in verse 9, But thou art he that took me out of the womb, thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breast. I was cast upon thee from the womb, and thou art my God from my mother's belly." And so we see as I said Christ, the voice of the man Christ Jesus in his humanity, A man before God, a humble man, a real man, and ultimately the crucified man Christ Jesus. In verse 16 it says, for dogs have compassed me, the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet. And then in verse 18, they part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture.

All of these cry out to us that this is really the man Christ Jesus that is speaking. I believe for you to understand this song, for you to understand the meaning behind this song, you must set back and look at Christ and his nature as a man. And so he is the voice of the man Christ Jesus. And then thirdly, it's remarking also in this song that it is a prayer of the man Christ Jesus. This song is a song, it's a song, but it is a prayer.

A lot of the songs of the songs are prayers as well. And this is a prayer that here we see into the heart and the soul of the suffering Savior. In the New Testament when you come to Matthew 27 in verse 46 where Jesus cries out on the cross after that great period of darkness that three hours which I believe he went through the greatest of his sufferings in hell as it were the Bible says there my God as he cries from the cross my God my God why has thou forsaken me? It's interesting as you listen to what Christ says on the cross, there are two times he speaks in a loud voice. This is the first time, and it is at the end of the time period that he's on the cross and he cries out in anguish as he goes through, as he comes out of that time period where I believe the Bible would teach us as we examine it that all the sins of all of God's people were laid on Christ, that he claimed them as his own.

He brought them so close to his bosom that he says in the Psalms, he says, my mind and iniquities are more than the hairs in my head. And though he was not a savior of iniquity and though he never did any sin on his own, he so claimed our sins that they became his own and so beloved he bore our sin there on the cross. And so in the New Testament we hear recorded for us this prayer just in the first part. Now I personally believe that Christ prayed this whole prayer there on the cross. I believe that there all we hear is the first part of this prayer, but I believe that the whole song is a messianic song.

And here in this song we hear the depths of the groans of our Savior. And I want you to look at Him and listen to what He has to say as He goes forth there on the cross, burying your sin in His body on the tree. In these groans of Christ, in his distress, we learn the importance of prayer in the greatest hours of our distress. Surely no man ever was in distress like this man was. Surely no man felt the grief and the sorrows of this man of sorrows, but listen to him as he cries out in anguish of soul, having been separated from God as creator and judge, Having had communion and now separated.

And this teaches us, as I said, the importance of prayer. In this prayer we have an agonizing cry, we have astonishing confessions, and assuring contentment. You know, beloved, we could learn how to pray if we watch our Savior pray and listen to Him pray. And in His agony, He cries, and then He makes these confessions in His prayers. But in the end of His prayer, He's very content.

You get down to verse 24, And as he closes this prayer out, he's content for he says, for he have not despised nor horde the affliction of the afflicted, neither have he hid his face from him. But when he cried unto him, he heard. He starts out saying, you won't hear, and he ends by saying, you have heard. This teaches us, beloved, that we can have confidence in our great God to hear and answer our prayers. So we want to listen, and I notice in this prayer of Christ and his sufferings on the cross here found in Psalm 22, three things tonight.

First of all you find Christ's cry of agony on the cross. Secondly you have the confessions of faith on the cross and then finally you have the contentment of soul on the cross. These three things are stand out in this text. First of all I want us to notice Christ's cry of agony on the cross. This is the Savior on the cross and this is his agony on the cross.

Christ was in great anguish of soul because he was being judged by God as God. That is God was judging Christ the man, the man Christ Jesus, the perfect man, the sinless man, the holy man, the greatest superman that has ever lived. This man, the man Christ Jesus cries out, Eli, Eli! He cries out, my God, my God! And there is something to note as you study this Psalm in relationship to the New Testament.

And that is on the cross, when Christ was dying on the cross, in the New Testament we find out that there are seven sayings of our Savior. Three of those sayings are prayers. The first he says, Father forgive them for they know not what they do. The last prayer is father into thy hands I command my spirit but here tucked in between those two he doesn't say father he says God and there is there is a distinction that needs to be made is a critical distinction And I believe the reason it is there is because he pleads for us based on his sonship when he says, Father forgive them for they do not know what they do. You know everything, every blessing that we have in Christ is tied to his sonship and our sonship in His Sonship.

And so we are where we are because we're accepted in the beloved. What beloved? The beloved Son, where He says, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. He says that in His baptism. He says that in his transfiguration.

Later in prayer in John 17, he says it again. This is my beloved son. And we're accepted in that son. And so when he prays, Father, forgive them, he's pleading his sonship. And then when he commits his soul, in the very end, he says, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.

Again, the relationship that he has, he pleads his own acceptance based upon his relationship. But this prayer is different. This prayer is a prayer as a man before God. Elohim, the God of creation, the judge of all the earth, the mighty God, all these are in the idea of Elohim. He is the great God, the sovereign God, his creator, and he is praying to God as a man would pray to his creator.

And this is the way we look at this song. It was, beloved, in this song that the man Christ Jesus is dealt with by God as the sovereign judge of the universe. And so as I said, we tread this ground very carefully. You know, it is a great mystery, and we would not want to lead anybody astray in this great mystery. But I believe This is how we have to view this.

He's praying as a man to God. And as a man to God, he says, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And as God, the judge of all the earth, Jesus Christ the man, our surety, our substitute, man for man, life for life, he's giving himself. And so it says in Isaiah 53, we'll come back here, but in Isaiah 53 You read how that the Lord has dealt with as a man. It says in Isaiah 53 which is the servant's prayer, the Lord Jesus Christ he says in the previous chapter behold my servant and this is that servant who had believed our depart and whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He hath no form nor comanness, and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him." That's the Son of Man. You know, When you're reading your Bibles, you need to understand that there is a distinction between the Son of God, which always speaks of Christ's deity, and the Son of Man, which always speaks of His humanity. In Indian Art, Texas says, He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, there it is, a man of sorrows, an acquaint of a grief, and we hid as it were our faces from him, he was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, smitten of the Elohim, God, smitten of God, and afflicted.

Divine judgment from the Creator, from the righteous Judge of all the earth, comes down upon the Lord Jesus Christ here on the cross. Because of this, because of this judgment, he has a great anguish of soul. The man Christ Jesus was in anguish because he was forsaken by God. Now we cannot understand this beloved, we cannot, and praise God we don't have to ever experience it the Lord make the part from us first for a season he may hide his face from us but nobody who is in Christ will ever be forsaken by God forsaken to his justice and forsaken to his judgment and having his mercies and graces are completely removed from him but Christ did this man the man Christ Jesus this man did the man Christ Jesus was forsaken by God on the cross. He was agonizing over the laugh of the gracious presence and fellowship that he had enjoyed with God.

He was not saying in our text, we go to our text it says in Psalm 22 in verse 1 my God my God why has thou forsaken me now wrap your mind around that beloved is take some deep thought thinking I'm not gotten there yet But I believe that this is a little portion of it. He was not saying, why me? He was not saying why me, because he understands why. You get down just a little bit down to verse 3, it says, but thou art holy. He understands why.

Our blessed Lord Jesus Christ was not confused when he was on the cross. And he's not playing the blame game as some would play with God when he says why me. He understands why. Because God is holy and sin must be dealt with. But here Christ, I believe, is despising the shame of the cross.

He is agonizing over the break of fellowship with God as God. Here, beloved, there's perfect fellowship with the man Christ Jesus and God. And as God, there is a break in that fellowship because of sin. And he agonizes over this. He is not saying it's not fair or it's wrong, but he is feeling forsaken.

He's experiencing the forsaking hand of God. So on the cross, the perfect, sinless, spotless man, Christ Jesus, felt the sorrows and the anguish of being abandoned by the gracious presence of God. The gracious presence of God was with the Lord Jesus Christ as he grew in stature. The gracious presence of God was given to Jesus without measure throughout his life. It was manifested at his baptism.

It was manifested at the temptation. It was manifested at the transfiguration. It was manifested in his miracles. But for this time, he's forsaken, abandoned to the wrath of God. It is a wonder, beloved, that he goes from grace to wrath.

What a wonder. In Zechariah, we read of this in Zechariah 13 and verse 7. The sword of divine justice is brought out and the shepherd is smitten. The sword of divine justice is hot and heavy and ready, and it must execute justice and judgment. The sinless one must pay the sins of his people.

In Zechariah 13, verse 7, it says, awake, O sword. See, the sword had been asleep. The sword had been awake for this time, and the time had come. All the time of history is it surrounds this time and it says away oh sword against my shepherd against the man how you like how the scripture is the man but notice this that is my fellow. So there you have deity and humanity joined because fellow means someone that's like.

See, God is not a man, but God became a man. And this man, the man Christ Jesus, is a fellow with Jehovah. And so here the divine sword of justice comes out against the man Christ Jesus. The man Christ Jesus is thrust through. And so he experiences the wrath of God.

And so it is a cry of agony because of that. Secondly, Christ not only had a cry of agony, but you'll notice Christ's confession of faith on the cross. This confession, this prayer, this cry, this song that our Blessed Lord sung, what a sad song he sung on the cross. He was full of faith. In spite of sorrow, in spite of grief, in spite of the anguish of judgment, he still trusted God.

He is the perfect man. You see beloved, in our life we have lapses of faith doesn't mean that we lose all faith because we have the faith of Christ but our faith does not exercise there are times we don't believe what God says. Everybody in this building if you're saved there are times in your life when you just don't believe the Word of God. Now I can go down the list and we could poke around and prod a little bit and find out that it's true, but we're just leaving it at that. But our blessed Lord in His humanity always had a faith that was fixed on Jehovah God.

He is the perfect man. That's why we need Him as our Savior. He's the man whose faith we need. That's why the Bible speaks about us having the faith of Christ. Not only faith in Christ, but the faith of Christ.

And there is a distinction to be made there. In Christ's faith is in full view here. And throughout this song you find the faith of the man Christ Jesus. It's a constant faith and a strong faith, a covenant of faith, a faith that does not weary and a faith that does not give up. For he says in our song these things about our blessed Lord.

He says here first of all, my God. He starts out in his very agony he says, this is still my God. In all of my grief and all of my suffering, having gone through hell, he says, my God. He still claims him as his God. Oh my beloved, you see faith in this.

God's judgment, though severe, was no reason for the man Christ Jesus to stop trusting God. And Here's a lesson for you, dear beloved one. No matter what God's doing in your life, no matter where you are with Him tonight, there's no reason to stop trusting in God. You can say, my God. You might stand in astonishment and say, Why have you abandoned me?

Of course, he's not really abandoned you. Not like he did our blessed Lord. But you might pray, you might even have some questions for God tonight. But you should never abandon him because he is God. And Job, Job 13, 15, I will not go there, but we need to have this kind of faith when the heavy hand of God is resting on us.

Where he says, though he slay me, He's taken my precious children. I have nothing. My health is gone. And then he cries out in faith, for though he's slaving, yet will I trust him. This is the confession of faith on the cross.

You see beloved, he claims God is his own. Secondly, in this thought, he trusts in the holiness of God. Listen beloved, there is a blessedness in the holiness of God that we can only know the blessedness of the holiness of God. Holiness is good, it's right, it's what we need for our lives because God is holy and we need God for our lives. In this he trusted in God's holiness.

He says in verse 3 again, but thou art holy. Oh I'm going through this great valley, the shadow of death, I'm going through death and in death, I'm going to die on the cross, I'm going to experience death. Thou art holy. I know you're going to do right. I know you have done right.

You will do right. You're always right. And So he trusted the holiness of God. He believed that the judge of all the earth would do right. He encourages himself in faith, he encourages himself in the faithfulness of God.

Notice verse 4. Our fathers trusted in thee, they trusted, and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto thee and were delivered, they trusted in thee and were not confounded. You know beloved, God has never failed in any promise that he's ever given. And here you find the Lord Jesus Christ believing this and confessing this in the hour of his agony.

He encourages himself in the faithfulness of God. Oh beloved, we need to encourage ourselves in the faithfulness. God is faithful. We are not faithful. And we may doubt his faithfulness but he cannot be denied he is faithful, always faithful.

Then you'll notice here in faith he confesses his enduring faith in God. It's interesting that in verse 7 he begins to confess himself. He says, but I'm a worm in no man. And then he says, and despised of the people, as He looks down from the cross and he thinks about who he is as a man. He says, I am a worm and no man.

You see Christ as the man, the perfect man, finds no worth in himself. He finds worth in God. And then he looks upon the crowd and he listens to them mock him. Oh, he said he was the Christ, and he's really the Christ that come down from the cross and save yourself. They wag the head.

This isn't really the one. He's not who he said he was. He's the one that opened the blind eyes of people and raised the dead and morphed them. They didn't believe that. But in spite of that, notice what he says in verse 7, all they that see me laugh, to scorn, they shoot out the lip, they shake their head, say, he trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him, let him deliver him, see he delighteth in him.

But thou art He. They talk about me thus, but thou art He that took me out of the womb. Thou just make me hope when I was upon my mother's breast. I was cast upon me from the womb. Thou art my God.

Amen. You see, he makes a confession of his enduring faith. No matter what they were saying, no matter what the crowd said, no matter what they did, he still had faith in God. The man Christ Jesus, the man Christ Jesus had enduring faith and he confessed that. He reaffirms his faith in God.

And then you also see He confessed by faith that he would endure the judgment of God. In verse 22 you find him going to the valley of the shadow of death and him coming out and saying that he would live to praise God among his brethren. In verse 22 it says, I will, that's faith. On the cross, bleeding, dying, suffering, you're going to do what, when? You're on the cross, you're dying on the cross, you have no hope.

I will. I will arise. That's what he's saying here. I will declare thy name unto my brethren. In the midst of the congregation I will praise thee that blessed resurrected Lord died on the cross and three days later revealing himself to that little assembly of his he says he praises God in that he declares his name The Bible says in Romans 1 that he's declared by the resurrection to be the son of God.

Declared. So you'll notice the Savior's agony. Notice his agony here as he confesses faith. Though forsaken, he was not forsaken. Though not heard, he was heard.

Listen to the contrast here, Psalm 22 and verse 1, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring? Oh my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not, and in the night season I am not silent. Now contrast that with me. Get down to verse 22.

I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the congregation I praise thee ye that fear the Lord praise him all you the seat of Jacob glorify him and fear him all you seed of Israel for he has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted neither has he in his face from him I thought he did his face from him. But when he cried, I think he had been heard. I thought he didn't hear him. The old skeptic comes along and says, there's a contradiction right there in the Bible. You don't need to blame the Bible because it's full of contradictions.

No, listen, beloved, he wasn't hurt, but he was hurt. Divine wrath says, I will not hear. Divine wrath says, I will kill you. Then we find our blessed Lord coming up from the grave. And he is heard.

When you get over to the book of Hebrews, Hebrews 5, the Bible says that he prayed strong crying and tears and was heard in that he feared. Let's read that. You see what the Lord was doing is he had faith that he would endure God's judgment. Our blessed Lord had a righteousness that could endure God's judgment there's not a man woman or child in this building tonight in this county here in Georgia the whole state of Georgia the whole United States of America throughout the whole world there's no man woman or child that could sustain the wrath of God You can't stand up to the wrath of God, but this man could because he had a holiness that God demanded. He had a holy life, a perfect life.

He's the holy man, that Holy Child Jesus. In the book of Hebrews 5, we read this in verse 5. So also Christ glorified not himself to be made a high priest, but he that said unto him, Thou art my son, today have I begotten thee. That's the resurrection. Whatever else it is, it's the resurrection.

That's a psalm, by the way. It is the most quoted psalm in the New Testament. And he saith also in another place, Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, and who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplication with strong crying and tears unto him, that was able to save him from death and was heard in that he figured was Jesus saved from death yet did he die yes it's very careful in the scriptures didn't say he was saved from dying. He said he was saved from death. He was delivered from it.

That's what the word from means, to come out of. He was delivered. He was delivered out of death. Amen. Praise the Lord.

He was so because of the great Savior that he is. He had a righteousness that could absorb the wrath of God. Psalm 22, back in our text, it says, for he had not despised. They may despise me. They may not believe my righteousness is the kind of righteousness that's needed.

But he that is God, the God of Israel, the God of Jacob, for he had not despised nor bore the affliction of the afflicted, Neither had he hid his face from him, but when he cried unto him, he heard. Hey, I like it here. It's spoken as if it's already done. That's what faith does. See, faith speaks things as if they're already done, because they believe the Word of God, and in so believing the Word of God, faith is embraced as if it's already accomplished, because it is accomplished by God.

And then finally, Christ's contentment of soul on the cross. He is content that his work is accomplished, and he calls for the praise of others. Beloved, when you're content, it induces other people to praise. Our Blessed Lord is the example of blessed contentment there on the cross bleed and suffering and die he is the picture of contentment he cries out in his head He cries out in his finish. With a loud voice he just finished and he gives up the ghost.

It is his contentment that God is pleased with his work, though others think or other estimate the work of Christ to be little worth, God values it very highly. So he cries, it's finished. And his final contentment's there where it says in verse 27 all the ends of the world shall remember and turn in the Lord and all the kindreds of the nation shall worship before thee for the kingdom is the Lord's and he is the governor among the nations And I like how he closes out in verse 31, they shall come and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born that he hath done. Contempt on the cross, from agony to faith to contempt. That's our blessed Savior on the cross.

I pray that you could trust Him tonight. Amen. You need a righteousness that this man has. That righteousness is on display here. This perfect man.

May you find in him the things that you need tonight for the glory of God's sake. Glory be on the stage. Amen. Get work done. Amen.