Unexpected Question | Plot Twist - Week 6 | June 21, 2026

Case File 6: Detective's Log

Some questions don't just stop you cold - they shake the whole case wide open. In the final chapter of Plot Twist, Pastor Geoff Eckart takes us to the darkest crime scene in history: the cross. And there, in his greatest moment of suffering, Jesus utters something nobody saw coming - "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

It doesn't add up. Not on the surface. But dig deeper and the evidence points to something written a thousand years earlier - a Psalm so precise in its detail, so uncanny in its parallels, it could only have one author. The clues were there all along. We just had to know where to look.

Then the case takes another turn. It's Father's Day, and every man in the room gets a new assignment. Geoff's father-in-law takes the stand with a piece that'll stop you in your tracks. And when the dust settles, there's a challenge on the table for every man willing to pick it up: eleven ways to become the courageous man God put you here to be.

Two messages. One unforgettable morning.
 
Case Closed.

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Daybreak | June 21, 2026
Plot Twist | Week 6
Unexpected Question | Geoff Eckart

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0:00 – Intro & Father's Day Welcome
4:08 – Week 6 of Plot Twist: Series Overview
6:32 – Jesus on the Cross — Matthew 27
8:00 – Psalm 22 Parallels to the Crucifixion
11:18 – A Song on His Lips: What Jesus' Words Really Mean
12:26 – Father's Day Reflection & Jerry Brecheisen Introduction
14:14 – Jerry Brecheisen Reads "I Am a Grandpa"
17:16 – Prayer Over Fathers
19:47 – 11 Ways to Become a Courageous Man
20:43 – #1: Trust God More Than Yourself
21:17 – #2: Treat Women with Respect
22:15 – #3: Don't Quit Once You Start
24:28 – #4: Be Honest with Someone About Who You Really Are
25:10 – #5: Go to Church Every Week
29:10 – #6: Identify Fear and Refuse to Give In
29:43 – #7: Base Your Life on Choices, Not Feelings
30:32 – #8: Learn from Another Man Who Loves God
31:02 – #9: Work Hard
31:19 – #10: Take Care of Your Body
31:52 – #11: Never Make Excuses
32:43 – Closing Challenge & Prayer

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Scripture Referenced:
Matthew 27.46
Psalm 22.1
Psalm 22.7
Psalm 22.14-15
Psalm 22.16
Psalm 22.17-18
Psalm 22.31
John 19.28
Proverbs 3.5-6


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#DaybreakChurch #GeoffEckart #PlotTwist #Jesus #UnexpectedQuestion #FathersDay #Psalm22 #ChurchOnline

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:24

All right, here we go. Daybreak. Happy Father's Day to all the men out there. If you're a dad, raise your hand. Let me see where you are. Okay, very cool. All right. I'm so glad you're here. Get bonus points for being here on Father's Day. And, you know, I've learned over 30 years of working with young people that the number one issue that our young people deal with is fatherlessness. I've seen it over and over, and I've talked with so many people, young and old, that have brokenness in that area of your life. And so, dads, those of you that are here, I just want to commend you for being in church on Father's Day. I think it's such a great gift that you're giving to your family and to yourself and to express your faith on a day like today, because today, maybe for you, it might bring up some brokenness. It might bring up some pain. It might bring up the fact that your dad's no longer here. My dad's no longer with us, and I really miss him. And days like today, I think about him, and I think about the fact that I wish I could just see him one more time, maybe hear his voice. Maybe for you, you're missing a dad. Maybe there's a brokenness in your relationship with your father. But it's no coincidence that this is such an issue in our world because the Bible talks about the fact that God is our Father. He's the perfect father. In fact, when Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he began with the words our Father. It's a sign of intimacy. And what we have in our relationship with God is we have the intimate relationship of a son or a daughter with a perfect father. Maybe your father is an example that you wouldn't look to as a good one, but let me tell you that if you can look past that, you can see God as a perfect father to you. And I'm friends with a woman named Karen Covell, and she leads something called the Hollywood Prayer Network. And she has this amazing ministry and network in Hollywood, and she's been there, her and her husband, for over 30 years, and she's been a writer and producer, and and we've been able to connect with a lot of people in the Hollywood network. And she said something once, and there's a panel of people in Hollywood as writers, producers, and actors, and they mentioned something that once I heard about, I could never unsee it. And I want to share it with you on Father's Day because they said if you look at the overwhelming majority of movies and stories that are told through entertainment, and I think they even put a percentage on it, and I can't remember what it was, but it was very high. They said, most every story, when you peel back the layers, is about fathers and relationships with fathers. So the next time you watch a movie or a TV show or read a story, I bet you'll find the same thing. It's been fascinating to observe that since I heard her talk about this because I believe that's a reflection of our need to connect with something beyond ourselves, and that's our Heavenly Father. So, man, I just want to commend you for being here today and thank you for spending this time with us today. And we got a packed house full of people and wafting with the smell of bacon, and I'm distracted by that. I'm just gonna say. And dads, let's take a quick little poll here. There's kind of this continuum between like crispy bacon where you break it and it like shatters, and then there's like the soggy kind. How many of you are crispy bacon people? Raise your hands. Okay, how many people are you soggy bacon people? There's my people right there. Soggy. It's gotta be dripping with grease. You know, it's good for you. That's what I hear. So we're in week six of plot twist. We're gonna bring it home today. And I hope that in the last few weeks, if you've been around daybreak, you've got a different view of Jesus because Jesus is a multi-layered person in Scripture. He's not just this surface-level character that's nice and polite all the time. But Jesus is complex. In fact, what we're gonna talk about today is maybe one of the most perplexing things that he ever says that we see in Scripture. But over the last few weeks, thinking about all the different things that we've talked about, his unexpected anger, the unexpected responses that he's had, all the different ways that Jesus has interacted with people, how he walked away from a crowd, how he didn't offer help to someone who asked, all these different ways that Jesus responded or interacted with people that we just wouldn't be able to comprehend. And what we're gonna talk about today is something that Jesus said that really on the surface is really fascinating and it can raise a lot of questions. It might be even the most confusing thing that Jesus said in Scripture. We're gonna look at it here in a second. It was mentioned that we've got the next series coming up, I Want Greener Grass, and we've got these amazing growth guides. I hope that you can pick one up today. These the readings start tomorrow, and get yourself one and get through the summer. And I brought up all of them, but I love the fact that our kids will be learning the same thing. We're gonna be learning about all the things that we desire in life. What we need more than anything, when we're always looking around in the world, is we need wisdom. We're gonna be talking about wisdom and what that looks like and how we live our life with wisdom. It seems like there's a real need for that today in the world, so that's where we're going. So today, what we're gonna look at is Jesus on the cross. And I want to tell you that I'm gonna do something different today. I got a little plot twist of my own for you. You're gonna hear two messages. Are you ready? In a short amount of time. We're only gonna be here for the next hour and a half or so, so we'll make this brief. So Jesus is experiencing the crucifixion, and he's on the cross, and we hear in Matthew 27 a description where it says this about three in the afternoon, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, Eli, Eli, lemme Sabacthani, which means, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Wow. Those are some very poignant words that Jesus expresses on the cross, maybe his time of greatest pain and greatest need, that he all of a sudden asked this question that might be shocking to consider the ramifications of what Jesus is expressing here in saying to God his Father, why have you forsaken me? Why would Jesus say something like this? It doesn't really seem to make sense. But what we find is these words are actually a quote from something written about a thousand years earlier by David, who is the king of Israel, who was a writer and an artist himself, and as king, he led the people of God, and he wrote these words in Psalm 22. It's a direct quote, but I want to show you very quickly the amazing parallels in Psalm 22 between the crucifixion of Jesus and what David wrote a thousand years earlier. That would be like us writing something today, and then it would be parallel to something that would happen in the year 3026. Kind of crazy to think about. But let me take you through these parallels. Here's the first one. Jesus quotes, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? This is how the Psalm begins. So we see that parallel. It's a pretty obvious one. Let's look at the second one. He was mocked by the crowd. Where Psalm 22 says, All who see me mock me, they hurl insults. We see this fulfillment in Matthew 27. Let's look at the next one. The public shame and humiliation that Jesus experienced was mentioned in Psalm 22. Again, another parallel. Let's go to the next one. Let's look at number four. The physical suffering, Psalm 22 says, I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint. This is what would happen to someone's physical body when they are crucified. Let's look at the next one, number five. Extreme thirst. Psalm 22 says, My mouth is dried up and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. And Jesus fulfilled this in Luke or in John 19 when he says, I'm thirsty. He experienced the same things here. Let's look at the next one. The piercing of his hands and feet. It literally says in Psalm 22, they pierced my hands and feet. And we know that when Jesus was crucified, this exact thing happened in a literal way to him. Let's look at the next one. He was surrounded by enemies. And we see this with the fulfillment of the Roman soldiers, the religious leaders, the crowd that was mocking him on the day of his death. Let's look at the next one. His visible bones, it says, all my bones are on display. People stare and they gloat over me. This is exactly what happened to Jesus on the cross. It's kind of amazing to think that there's so many parallels. Look at the next one. They were casting lots for his clothing. It says, they divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garments. This exact thing happened when the Roman soldiers took Jesus' robe, they couldn't be separated, and they literally rode dice to see who would take this away as a souvenir of this awful moment. Let's look at the next one. The deliverance that would lead to worldwide worship. Mentioned there in Psalm 22 and fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus. Let's look at the next one. The nations being brought to worship God, mentioned in Psalm 22, fulfilled in the life of Jesus. And one more. When Jesus said, it is finished. This Psalm doesn't end with defeat. It ends on a victorious note when it says that the Lord has done it. And Jesus fulfilled this when he said, It is finished on the cross. Now here's what's beautiful. In Jesus' time of greatest need, he had a song on his lips and in his heart. That Jesus, when he was going through the greatest pain of his life, he was reciting the words of Scripture. He was reciting a song. And that's such a great roadmap for us. That in our times of greatest need, we have a song on our lips and within our heart given to us by God. That's why it's so important to have a steady diet of Scripture. Because Jesus in this moment, he was relating the truth of Scripture in that moment of his greatest need. See that question on the surface, why have you forsaken me? Was Jesus recognizing the fulfillment of Scripture, but the truth of what it meant for him in that moment? God understands our times of greatest need and greatest pain. You know, on Father's Day, I am so blessed and honored to, even though I've lost my own biological father, I inherited one when I got married, and he is a wonderful man and worthy of great honor and respect. His name's Jerry Breckge, and some of you know him. He and his wife Carol, they attend our church, and I'm so grateful for them. He has had such a profound influence on my life. One of the things about Jerry is that he is a writer. He's written many, many books, too many for me to even remember. And he's a great wordsmith and poet and artist himself. He's a wonderful, incredible, gifted musician. He's traveled the country and performed in front of tens of thousands of people growing up on the road with his parents. And he wrote something that we felt, me and Ariana felt was so powerful on Father's Day that I'm going to invite him to come out here with me. And I want you to welcome him as he reads to us today. Jerry, I'm so grateful for you as an adopted dad and adopted son, so to speak. The influence that you've had in my life, on our daughters. And this man just a few months ago graduated into a very elite club when he became a great grandfather to Levi, and I'm so grateful.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Now I guess we are grandpas-in-law. And um that little boy named Levi changed everything in our lives. I am a grandpa. I didn't ask to be one. God just blessed me that way. He knew a little boy or girl would need a big neck to wrap their little arms around. So he gave me a hidden strength and an obvious affection. God knew a little boy or girl would need a guard to watch them cross a busy street. So he gave me a heart that learned from its fears how to trust. He knew a little boy or girl would need a friend to whisper a gentle no. So he gave me a spirit firm enough to will, but tender enough to wait. He knew a little boy or girl would need a teacher to share lessons about life and living. So he gave me a mind ready to store facts, scatter wisdom, and model character. He knew a little boy or girl would need a judge to score their very first efforts. So he gave me ears to listen, eyes to envision them, and hands to applaud. He knew a little boy or girl would need an advocate to take their smallest cause to the highest court. So he gave me knees agile enough to kneel before their God and yet sturdy enough to stand against their enemy. He knew a little boy or girl would need a guide to point them to the shores of eternity with the sticks of time. So he gave me a soul that wrestles until it rests in the divine. He knew a little boy or girl would need two hearts and four arms to wrap them in an unbroken circle of love. So he gave me a friend who pledged forever to be a wife and suddenly became a grandma. I am a grandpa. I didn't ask to be to be one. Now I'd like to have all the fathers here to stand. Obviously, the father's here to stand, if you would please. And I want to just say a word of prayer over you. And I'm at the age now where I have to write everything down because my rememberer doesn't remember much. Let's pray. Father in heaven, in the name of your only Son Jesus, we honor you as our Father above all who are honored on this day. And in the name of your Son, we ask you to fill the hearts and minds of these fathers with a fresh promise of wisdom and strength and anointing for the times like these. Thank you for our earthly fathers, on earth or in heaven. Thank you for their love. Thank you for their example. Thank you for their sacrifice, their teaching, and their protection. Father, we acknowledge that as fathers, both our failures and success in leading our children along a path, we sometimes have stumbled on ourselves. But thank you on behalf of these dear men for your amazing grace that has been the source that never has and never will fail. In your honor and in recognition of these dear men, we pray in the name of your Son, your only Son, Jesus, our Savior and our Master.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Amen. God bless you. You may be sleeping.

SPEAKER_02 19:55

Let's talk for a minute. We got a few minutes left. We're going to make the most of it. You thought you were getting out early, but you're not. I want to talk to all the men here for just a few minutes. And I want to talk about what I believe are ways for you to become a courageous man. Because we need courageous men in this world. You know, we live in a world that maybe is a little confused on what it means to be a man or what it means to be a father, what it means to be a husband. And scripture is so clear that for us, men, we have a role in this world. We have a role to play. And it's time for us to play it. You know, as I look around the world, I see the effect of fatherlessness. And what I see is I see men growing up without anyone maybe to show them the truth about what our place is in the world. And so let me share with you quickly 11 ways to become a courageous man. The first one is to trust God more than you trust yourself. Proverbs 3, 5 and 6 says, Trust the Lord with all your heart, lean not in your own understanding, and all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Men? It's easy to put our trust in ourselves, but a courageous man is willing, especially in times of doubt or confusion, to trust God more than you trust yourself. Here's another one. Treat women with respect. This is a problem in our world today. Men don't know how to treat women. I often tell young men that are picking up a girl for a date. This applies to some of you younger guys. Don't be a schmuck and sit in the driveway and text her and tell her you're there. Walk up to the door, knock on the door, and bring her to your car. Alright? Yes, I said schmuck from the stage, it's okay because that's what guys are when they don't treat women with respect. Right, ladies? So treat a woman with respect. You know, I make it a rule in my life, wherever I am, even walking into my Or a grocery store. Let a woman walk in before you guys. It's a reminder for you that even if it's a stranger, you should be treating women with respect. It's important. Alright, here's the next one. Don't quit once you start. There's a lot of quitters in the world. My dad raised me in a way where he said, son, if you're gonna start something, I'm not gonna let you quit. So I tried out for a lot of different sports. I was a soccer player for a season or two. I figured out there was a lot of running in that, and I didn't really like that, so that didn't last very long. I was a swimmer for a few years, and our swim practice was at 5:30 in the morning. That just didn't really agree with my biological rhythm, so I didn't last more than two or three years doing that. I played basketball, I played baseball. But I always wanted to play football. Now I know I look like a football player and I loved watching football as a kid, so I'm like, I wanted to play football, and I just begged my dad, I want to play football. And so we signed up for a league, and I went out and played, and I remember he picked me up for like the third day of practice, and it I just must look like a hot mess because when I get in the car, my dad said, How's it going? And I just got beaten to a pulp for the last two hours, and I said, eh, not too good. And he said, Uh, you sure you still want to play football? And I knew what the rule was, so I didn't even ask, but he said, Do you want to get out of this? And I said, Actually, I do. And that's the only thing he ever let me quit. It's probably for my own uh health reasons. But men, let me just encourage you: if you start something, finish it. My dad had this saying, nothing worth having comes easy. And you know, there's things that you might begin, and then it gets really difficult. And when I meet successful people, I usually ask them how they got to where they are. And here's what I found: there's a common denominator. They just refuse to give up. If you refuse to quit, often you're the last man standing, and that's what success looks like. Because you're there. So let me just encourage you, men, when it gets tough, keep going. Here's another one. Be honest with someone about who you really are. Here's what I know is that there are many people in our world that they're never truly honest with someone else about the pain, the struggles, the heartache, the things they're wrestling with, the questions they're asking, the things they're trying to figure out or overcome. But there's something really healing about being honest with someone. And men, it's, I think, especially and inherently a little bit more difficult for us to put our trust in someone else. But let me just encourage you to find someone in your life that you can be honest with. Here's another one. Go to church every week. When I talk to young men, this is my number one piece of spiritual advice to them because this is the thing I've noticed that is the common denominator for every single person. I've been around a while, and I've seen a lot of people just be completely on fire for their faith and then walk away. And I want to tell you the common denominator, and it's it's present in every single instance that I've ever known out of thousands of people, it all begins the same way. It begins with them not regularly being in church. Now you may think that sounds really legalistic. You may think that sounds really old-fashioned. And I know in our world today where travel is easy and there's so many options, and dads, let me tell you, you'll be tested on this one because your families will want to be elsewhere. Your kids will be signed up for sports. I was raised going to church. At 11 o'clock every Sunday morning, I'd been in church my whole life. Now we had three daughters, and we raised them, and they were athletes, and they all played sports, and they were really into that, and we loved that, and we supported that, we encouraged that. And one of our daughters signed up for a volleyball league. And when we signed up, they said to us, they said, Now you're gonna either be playing on Saturday or Sunday. And we said, Well, which one is it? Because it'll depend on whether or not we're gonna get engaged in this league. And they said, Well, you don't know until you sign up, and then it'll just be scheduled later. So we signed up, and lo and behold, the games were on Sundays. And so I remember being here in Grand Rapids in West Michigan, and I remember it being a Sunday morning, and I remember it being 11 o'clock, and I remember sitting in a gym watching my daughter play volleyball, and I remember looking down at my watch and seeing that it was 11 o'clock. And I thought to myself, what am I doing here? What kind of example am I setting for my family to not be in church when I'm sitting here watching her play sports? Now I love to watch her play sports. But when we got in the car that day, I made an announcement. And I said, we'll never ever do this again. We'll finish out this season, but we're never going to compromise our faith for sports. I know that's a dilemma that many of our families face. And some of you are like, Jeff, I'm here. And I know, and I'm glad you're here. But for those of you with children, be careful. The example of going to church is much more important than you realize. You're setting a trajectory for your family. Many of you know this. I've shared it before. But out of the three daughters, two are married so far, I got one more to get rid of, and then we'll be good. But when these young men wanted to talk to me and have the pop the question to me first, my regular place is Marge's Donuts on 28th Street. So if you ever see me there in a very intense conversation with a young man, you'll know what's going on. And Marge's Donuts on a Saturday morning. We're sitting at Marge's Donuts one after the other, and I said to them, if you will promise me that you will go to church every week, simple as that. Make me that promise, you can marry my daughter. Because I understand how important it is. It's the closest thing I can think of to guaranteeing that faith will continue in our family, which is very important to me. And I know for a lot of you men it is too. Do not compromise on this one, men. No matter what happens, you're gonna wake up and your kids are gonna go, I don't want to go, or you're gonna be tired, and then you miss one day, and then you're gone the next week, and then pretty soon it's a month, and you haven't been in church, and it happens that fast. I've seen it. Make a commitment to be here. It's so important. I've said enough about that one. Let's go to the next one. Identify fear and refuse to give in to it. Men, fear is real. We can't say that we're not afraid because there are things that we fear. You might feel failure, you might fear financial instability, you might fear the fact that maybe you're not the best father that you want to be. But let me say to you, to be a man of courage, you need to identify whatever that fear is in your life and refuse to give into it. Here's the next one. Base your life on your choices, not your feelings. Your feelings will come and go, your feelings will go up and down. We make decisions often, and we live in a society, more and more, it seems like, that's just basing our decisions and our life on our feelings. Base them on the choices that you make. For example, I'm gonna go to church every week. When you make that choice and you wake up and you don't feel like going, you've already made the choice. It overcomes your feelings. Another one, learn from another man who loves God. This man that was just on the stage has been an incredible example to me, and I've been blessed to have many people in my life. I'm in a mentoring relationship right now with a man that had a great influence on my life as a younger man, and then we lost touch for a few decades, but we've reconnected, and I meet with him once a month, and I'm so grateful for the influence that he has in my life. Men, you're gonna have to find this. It's not gonna come to you. I can't think of an instance where someone came up to me and said, Hey, I want to invest in your life. You gotta go find it, but find someone that you want to learn from and listen to what they have to say. Next one, work hard. Work hard. There's not a lot of hard workers out there, it seems like. I talked to a lot of people in management and they go, Man, I cannot find people that want to work. Show up. Work. Work hard. It's important. Next one, take care of your body and look your best. Men take care of yourselves. Your body's a temple of the Holy Spirit. You should be taking care of it. It doesn't matter what age you are, never give up on yourself. Invest in yourself. Make sure that you're taking care of yourself, what you eat, how much you sleep, taking a day off and a Sabbath, like the Bible says we should do. But take care of yourself so that you're looking your best. One more. Never make excuses. This is an easy one. I found as a young man, I found myself in a habit of making excuses. I would be late or forget to do something, and I would come up with a reason that was kind of a half-truth. And here's what I found. I found that when people would make excuses to me, I find myself just seeing right through it. Oh, I got caught in traffic, or this happened, or this came up. It always seemed to kind of happen to the same people. And I realized when I look through my own eyes, I don't want to be that guy. Men, don't make excuses. If you sleep in, if you forget, if you didn't do it, just say it. Because if you say it, you'll be respected and you'll be less likely to forget or to sleep in or not do it the next time. It's time for us as men to be courageous. It's time for us as men to be examples of faith. It's time for us as men to be and to fulfill the role that God gave you in your world to be the man of God that you're meant to be. I want to tell you that as my father-in-law was praying, and as I was praying, I looked across our room today, and to see the amount of fathers and men here today is so inspiring to me. And I want you to go out and I want you to be the courageous man that God wants you to be. So I want everyone here in the house to stand with me. Now, see, you just got two sermons. Didn't feel so bad, did it? Better than the dentist. Let me pray for you. Father, thank you. Thank you for our gathering today. First of all, God, we thank you for what we see in Scripture about Jesus. We thank you for the song in his heart on the cross. We thank you for what we've learned. Help us to be more like Jesus. For each father, for each man, God, help them to be the man that you called them to be in this world. And may this church be filled and blessed with men courageous enough to follow you at all costs. In Jesus' name. Amen. So great to be with you. We will see you next week.