Why Did Jesus Die? The Message and Meaning of the Cross: Luke 23:26-49

We study through books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel, and we do have extra copies.

If you would like one to follow along, raise your hand up real high.

Somebody will drop one off at your row your aisle as well.

You can see up on the screen the QR code.

If you would like the notes and the quotes, and I think there's an online version of the Bible up there somewhere on the church app as well that you can kind of find.

Much thanks and appreciation to those who joined us online last week.

We heard from folks among uh other places.

We heard from folks from Denver, Colorado, Windsor, Ontario, Canada, Plano, Texas, and Jacksonville, Florida.

So all over the country.

So glad those folks could join us sometime this past week for worship or for some of our other resources that are available up on the church website.

Today we'll be looking at the passage in Luke chapter 23, verses 26 through 39.

Luke 23:26–39

You want to turn there in your Bibles or swipe there on your devices.

I love the sound of paper uh turning.

I love the sound of glass squeaking under your finger as you swipe there.

And we will look at uh really the question I think is a good one.

Why did Jesus die?

Uh it uh made John Stott has a book called The Cross of Christ.

His very first chapter, actually, is titled, Why Did Christ Die?

So very similar.

And the idea is that there might be a lot of folk in the world who would ask the question, how is it that that God came to be on a cross or the Son of God came to be on a cross?

And others might ask the question, what does it really matter?

Um some who maybe aren't Christians themselves might just think he's just one more leader, one more tragic figure that that died in uh in history somewhere and and may have been this, you know, maybe started a movement, that sort of thing.

But it's for them, uh they view it as not that significant, not that important.

So we're gonna deal with all of that today as we come to stand at the foot of the cross with Jesus.

Did he die because of the betrayal of Judas?

Did he die because of the political corruption that was going on in the world at the time and in that specific part of the world?

Did he die because of mob injustice?

What is the reason?

Or is there something even deeper than all of that behind it?

And I think as we come to it uh looking at this text anyway, I think you'll see their answer is quite clear from Scripture.

To set the stage for our study, uh, we've come now to the climactic event of the Passover week, um, the cross of Christ, the ultimate Passover Lamb, laying down his life on the cross in atonement for our sin.

And the Bible uh presents us as a historical fact, a historical reality.

And there's much there, live-body detail that you'll see.

And uh so good for us, I think, even those of us who are Bible-believing Christians who who understand what's gone on here and have heard it many, many times, it's so good for me to revisit this.

Uh, and I hope it will be for you as well.

Please allow me, if you will, to lead us in a prayer for illumination.

We'll need the Lord's help as we look at this text.

Holy Spirit, as we study your word today, open our eyes, enlighten our hearts and our minds in the true knowledge of Jesus Christ.

As we consider the cross of Christ today, reveal to us both the ugliness of our sin and the beauty of your grace.

May Christ's finished work on the cross humble us, heal us, and draw us to Jesus.

May we, seeing him pierced, mourn our sin, and at the same time receive and rejoice in the salvation he has won for us there.

We stand at the foot of the cross this day, Lord.

Give us a clearer vision of your truth, a greater faith in your power, and a more confident assurance of your love for us in Jesus' name.

So let me read then the text, if you will, and just a few comments along the way as we look at Luke chapter 23, verses uh 20.

Luke 23 · chapter mention

Yes, so we'll go, yeah, 26 down through 49.

When they had led him away, meaning Jesus, they laid hold of one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming in from the country and placed on him the cross to carry behind Jesus.

This uh little aspect of the road to the cross of Jesus is mentioned in a couple of the Gospels.

And uh Simon is uh is identified as a Cyrenian.

That means he's from the coast, north coast of Africa, what we today would call Libya, actually.

So he's traveled the 800 miles without an airplane, he's traveled the 800 miles without a car, and he has come all the way to Jerusalem, we're told right here.

He has come in from the country, and he is there actually for the Passover feast.

He's a Jewish man, he's come all this way to experience Passover.

And he's gonna get way more than he expected out of this experience.

Um Mark's gospel, he's also uh identified as the father of two sons.

Their names are Rufus and Alexander.

Rufus is one of those names I think we need to bring back.

Um so those of you who are considering a child, a son specifically, I think that would go well.

Uh Rufus, let's try that.

Um Rufus, interestingly, is also mentioned later in the New Testament.

And so a lot of Bible commentators are curious as to whether perhaps this Simon of Cyrene, who is the father of Rufus and Alexander, perhaps at some point in the days that follow what just happened, what I just read in this one verse, perhaps it had some kind of impact on him.

Remember, there's a bit of a walk from the old city out to Calvary, out to Galgatha, outside the city walls.

And along the way, walking and watching, as there's a lot of noise, a lot of activity.

Matter of fact, those of us who have been to Israel before have walked this same road, this path.

Um, today in Jerusalem, it's literally booth after booth after booth of people selling everything from luggage to little olive wood ornaments, all kinds of things.

And uh it when the first time I was there, it almost nauseated repulsed me in a certain way, because to me I thought of this, this is going to be like a really sacred to everybody in the whole world spot that the path that Jesus walked to the cross.

Um, and and then later it dawned on me as I was walking it that when Jesus went to the cross, he was dying even for the people, myself included, who are full of arrogance and hubris, and even for the people that disdain what to me would be very meaningful.

He died for all the sins of the world.

And he died for those who rejected him, those who betrayed him.

He died his death was because he loved the world.

He gave his himself to die in our place on the cross.

And so as you walk up that little road, it's just interesting to think of this guy Simon now being sort of, you say he's you see he's brought in.

It's not like he volunteered, I'll carry that.

No.

The Roman soldiers are probably the ones that grabbed him, saw Jesus stumbling, and and see you right here, you know, and made him carry this part of the cross.

Um, and he moves instantly, doesn't he?

From being what we might call a tourist to being sort of foreshadowing what it means to be a disciple.

He's carrying a cross and following Jesus.

And if it's true that he's the same guy who's the dad of Rufus mentioned later, he may be have become a believer as a result of this experience.

And so he carries this cross for Jesus up to the hill, Golgotha, Calvary, as it's called as well.

And they were following him, verse 27, a great multitude of the people.

So there are hundreds?

No, maybe thousands.

This isn't just a regular multitude, it's a great multitude.

I like the adjectival modifier.

It reminds us the street is quite crowded.

There's a lot of people who want to see what's going to happen here.

There's a lot of people who were following Jesus because they loved him and or appreciated his teaching, or that maybe they were healed by him.

There are others there that despise him, those that wanted him to die.

We have already read about this, right?

And so there are a lot of people following.

There's some women there as well, verse 27 tells us they were mourning and lamenting him.

And Jesus, we're told Luke tells us this because Jesus turns in verse 28 and speaks, he speaks to the women, daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.

For behold, the days are coming when they will say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.

Then they will begin to say to the mountains, fall on us, and to the hills, cover us.

And these are quotes from Isaiah and Ho and Hosea, actually.

And what he's really talking about, he says, if the let me finish 31, though, for if they do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it's dry?

He's really talking, he's speaking prophetically here about something he's already talked about before, that the day is coming when Jerusalem is literally going to be leveled.

He spoke of it in other terms.

He said the temple would be destroyed, every stone would be removed and pushed over into the valley, and indeed that happens.

Later in 70 A.D., at the toward the end of the Jewish-Roman War, which went 66 A.D.

to 70 A.D., for the as far as Jerusalem is concerned, and in Jerusalem in Jerusalem in 70 A.D., it was literally burned to the ground, and the temple was totally destroyed, every stone torn apart.

The fire got so hot in the temple area, the gold melted down between the stones, and that's why the Romans were ordered to separate all of those great foundation stones so they could get the gold out and have it as bounty for the war.

A remnant of the Jews fled south to some of you have heard of Masada.

And uh Masada will be taken in 73 A.D.

And so Jesus is saying here that even though I in this moment, yes, I'm suffering, yes, I'm carrying my cross, I have been scourged, I have been whipped, I'm on in his mind, he's on a mission, he knows where he's going and what he's gonna do.

He sees these folks, these folks who are weeping and mourning and grieving, and he knows what's about to happen in a few years' time down the pike.

And he's so other-centered to care for them when he is going to the cross to be executed.

It just blows my mind to think that he would pause for a moment and think of others.

And we see this happens even in the seven sayings from the cross.

He's concerned about others even as he himself is dying.

Verse 32.

The two others also were criminals, were being led away to be put to death with him.

And so here, the road to the cross includes the two criminals.

I hadn't really thought about this when I was a kid.

I always heard the story, and the the three crosses were already there up on the mountain.

That's when I heard the story.

There they were on the hillside, and the criminals on either side of Jesus.

But that they also walked up that same road along the way.

They had time to think about what they had done and what he had not done.

And the crowds and hearing those mourning and weeping, others yelling, Still, I'm sure, crucify him.

Let's get him.

And they heard all of that.

So there's time that passes.

There'll be six hours on the cross itself, where they're hanging there, literally struggling for air.

And they'll be thinking about all of this that goes on.

And you'll see what happens here as we go through.

When they came to the place called the skull, um, you've heard of it as Calvary or Golgotha.

Uh, Golgotha is the Aramaic word for the skull, the place of the skull.

Uh, the Latin word is what we end up getting, where we end up getting Calvary.

So they're both the same place.

And if you've been to Israel, again, there's a little commemorative site where there's a first-century tomb.

And we don't know if it's the tomb of Jesus or not, but it is the kind of tomb he would have been buried in.

And just on the other side of that little garden area where that tomb is, it's a big, uh it's a site that a lot of people come to.

Um uh just down below the hill, you can you can see a parking lot, unless it happens to be a busy day.

And in that parking lot will be a lot of bus uh coaches, 48-seat passenger coaches, lots of smelly buses with lots of noise.

And on the hillside, just up across from it, you can actually see what looks indeed like the face of a skull.

Is this the place of the skull?

I don't know for sure.

I just know it looks a lot like a skull to me.

You can look it up yourself later on if you would like to.

But they come to the place called the skull where they crucified him.

There they crucified him.

Four words.

And let me point out this is pretty remarkable.

When you read all four gospel accounts of this, that's pretty much all you're gonna get.

I know some of you, as you've grown up and you've been in churches before, they spend a lot of time on the physicality of crucifixion itself.

And they describe with gory detail, and it is gory, and it was horrific, no question.

But it's interesting to me that the four gospels, all they do is say, there they crucified him.

There's some other things they're gonna tell us, but they don't spend much time on the physicality of the crucifixion of Jesus.

Why is that?

I'd like to suggest that it's because there's something bigger, deeper, more meaningful going on than his physical death.

And we'll see that as we go on through here just a little bit.

So as they come to the place of the skull, there they crucified him and the criminals, one on the right, one on the left.

Jesus was saying, and here's one of the seven sayings of Christ from the cross, and we get these seven sayings from across the four gospel records.

Here's what Jesus is saying.

And by the way, this means he was saying it not just once, but over and over and over again.

He kept saying, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

Again, not thinking about himself, thinking about those who are nailing his hands to the cross, nailing his feet to the cross, those who were mocking him, sneering him, spitting at him.

That's who he's thinking about right now.

Father.

He appeals to his heavenly father, God the Father, forgive them.

They don't even know what they're doing.

Wow.

And they cast lots, Luke said right here, just in the end of verse 34.

And they cast lots, dividing up his garments among themselves, quoting from Psalm 22, well-known messianic psalm.

Again, Luke, a Gentile, knows enough about this religious faith because he's actually researched it quite thoroughly, he tells us, in chapter 1, verses 1 through 4.

And so he reminds us that there is this amazing connection between the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament and this person right there, Jesus, who's dying on the cross on this particular day that Luke is describing it.

The people stood by looking on, verse 35, and even the rulers were sneering at him, saying, He saved others, let him save himself.

If this is the Christ of God, his chosen one.

Three different times in this passage I'm gonna read today, three different times, Jesus will be challenged to save himself.

And while I will argue that he could, it's evident he would not.

Why is that?

Think about that.

That's a good thing to think about, okay?

They're saying, save himself, if this is the Christ, his chosen one.

Verse 36, the soldiers mocked him, coming up to him, offering him sour wine, and saying, If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.

There it is again.

Now, this was also an inscription above him, verse 38 says, This is the king of the Jews.

In John's Gospel, chapter 19, we're told that it's Pilate that had that inscription written in three different languages and posted, uh, he instructed them to post that above Jesus on the top of the cross, written in Hebrew, in Greek, and in Latin.

So in that day, those are the three predominant languages on the ground.

This is being done in a very public way.

Pilate and the Romans want everyone to know that whoever asserts themselves to be a king of some kind that is not the Roman Emperor receives this kind of punishment.

So remember, for the Jews, Jesus, the thing they're most angry about is what they considered him to be doing was blaspheming.

And at the same time, we know, because Pilate's already told us, that they were actually envious of Jesus.

So they're envious.

They also think they got him on blasphemy, the religious leaders.

But the Romans, see, from their angle, looking at Jesus, looking at the cross and the idea of what are we going to do with this guy, Jesus, they're concerned about a riot, insurrection, sedition.

And so they're trying to squash any of that kind of thing.

And they post this sign above Jesus and say, This is what happens if you think you can overthrow the Roman government.

One of the criminals, verse 39, uh, who were hanged there, was hurling abuse at Jesus, saying, You are you not the Christ?

Save yourself and us.

There's the third time.

Jesus has been challenged to save himself, but he would not.

And the other answered, rebuking him.

So the one criminal now, after who knows how many hours, they're on the cross for six hours.

Could this have been nine, ten, eleven, maybe?

In the morning, a couple of hours?

The criminals watching the people around the cross as they some sneer and mock Jesus, others weep and mourn Jesus.

Both of the criminals have heard Jesus say, Father, forgive them.

They know not what they do.

By this time in Luke's gospel.

Perhaps something is changed in one of the two minds, one of the two men's hearts, right?

And so as they yell, uh as the one yells, save yourself and us, the other one answers, Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?

And we indeed justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.

I've lost count of the number of times people have been declaring Jesus innocent.

We know three times that Pilate declares Jesus innocent.

Herod declared Jesus innocent and sent him back to Pilate.

Pilate's wife, in another gospel account, says, have nothing to do with that innocent man.

And now one of the criminals has actually connected the dots and figured out that while he and his other criminal buddy were on the cross because they deserved to be there, the man on the middle cross did not deserve to be there.

And he says back at this other guy who seems to be just filled with the same kind of hatred he sees down there, he says back to him, Don't you even fear God?

We deserve to be here.

He doesn't deserve to be here, he says to that fellow.

And then he was saying, verse 22, Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom.

And here blooms the flower of faith in a very chaotic, brutal, uh you know, horrible scene.

But here is this sort of turn that you see in this man.

And here's what Jesus says to him Truly I say to you today, you shall be with me in paradise.

That's just amazing.

Again, Jesus not thinking about himself, Jesus responding to this person, seeing this little tiny blossom of faith in his heart, in his mind.

And he says to him, he gives him this promise of paradise that that that his very infantile.

Faith.

I mean, remember, the guy has not gone to Sunday school.

The guy has not gone to church.

He has not tithed.

He hasn't had time to listen to the village chapel podcasts.

He's had no understanding whatsoever of the doctrine of justification by faith.

He has not memorized the Westminster Catechism.

On and on I could go.

He's got none of that.

He hasn't been, I'm going to step on some toes here, water baptized.

Okay?

And yet Jesus says to him today, you're going to be with me in paradise.

Wow.

That's amazing.

It was now about the sixth hour.

And in the Jewish way of reckoning the clock, for Jews, the day began at sunrise.

So let's call it 6 a.m.

And if this is the sixth hour, it is about 12 noon.

But notice what happens at 12 noon when the sun should be right overhead, right?

Verse 44, Luke says, and darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour.

So this wasn't an eclipse of this wasn't an eclipse of the sun.

That doesn't last three hours.

Something strange has happened here.

Something remarkable.

Something extraordinary has happened at this particular moment.

And it lasts three hours.

The sun being obscured.

The veil of the temple was torn into.

Verse 45.

Now, does that seem like a strange thing to add into the list of the little sort of, you know, climate description things that Luke has recorded here?

Why is it that he's talking about the sun being blotted out and it's dark and it's three hours long?

And, you know, and I think it's in Matthew's gospel, there's an earthquake, and a lot of strange things start happening.

And Luke and the other gospels include the idea that this temple curtain was torn into.

As a matter of fact, in Matthew and Mark, I believe it is both, I think we get the description that it was torn into this detail from the top to the bottom.

Let me tell you that the curtain in the temple that separated the holy place from the Holy of Holies, this is no small little curtain.

This is not, this is not you.

And when I was a kid, I you know, I used to watch that pro wrestler guy that used to and he ripped his t-shirt off like that, you know?

And I actually tried to do that as a little guy.

And I couldn't do it.

I tried really hard.

I was a scrawny little kid, but I'm gonna and it just didn't budge, you know, it never budged.

But this curtain was 80 feet tall.

We know that from the Old Testament, and about a handbreadth deep, the fabric, let's call it six inches deep.

And it was torn in two in this moment when Jesus dies, from top to bottom, not from bottom to top.

If a man were gonna try to tear it in two, which he couldn't because it's too deep and too big, they would not do it from top to bottom, they'd do it from the bottom up.

How do they get up there?

Who's torn this curtain?

If not God Himself.

And saying something quite pronounced and unequivocal, the curtain that separated us from God, the presence of God in the Holy of Holies, has now been torn open because Christ has paid the price for our sins.

The ultimate Passover Lamb, once and for all, paid in the price for our sins.

Verse 46.

Jesus crying out with a loud voice, Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.

And having said this, he breathed his last.

Now from John 19, we also know that somewhere in the mix of his last few words is this single Greek word to telesti, which translates into three English words.

So it is finished.

Not I am finished, but it is finished.

And Christ at this particular point is declaring victory on the cross.

He has completed his mission of laying down his life for the sins of the world, and he breathed his last verse 47 through 49 quickly and we'll move.

Now, when the centurion, this is a Gentile centurion, who's probably the captain of the executioner's guard, saw what had happened, he began praising God, saying, Certainly this man was innocent.

Another declaration of Jesus being innocent.

And all the multitude, and by the way, if you if you do read Matthew's account in chapter 27, he also says, Surely this man was the Son of God.

He's literally, one more time, another person's faith coming to life right there at the cross.

His chief executioner coming to faith in Jesus.

And all the multitudes who came together, verse 48 says, for this spectacle, when they observed what had happened, they began to return to the city.

And it says an interesting thing here, beating their breasts like this.

And for ancient Jews, you have to understand, this isn't just, you know, this isn't just I'm trying to get some air out of my chest or something.

It's not that.

This is the way they expressed remorse.

Remorse for what?

Remorse because maybe some of them had been yelling just a few hours earlier, crucify him, crucify him, crucify him.

Some of them had sneered at him, maybe some of them.

And maybe for some of them, over the six-hour period of time that he hung on the cross, maybe during that period of time, something dawned on them.

Perhaps the Holy Spirit moved on them.

And for just when you turn, see, when you first turn to the Lord, there's this recognition of your own sin.

And so for them, it would look like this.

No, no, we got it wrong.

We we didn't do this right, perhaps.

I don't know.

All his acquaintances, his friends, those who had been some of his perhaps uh more distant disciples, that sort of thing, who knows?

And the women who accompanied him from Galilee, okay, now we're now we're talking Mary, the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, now we're talking Mary of Bethany as well, come from just a couple miles outside of Jerusalem itself.

All of them, when they accompanied him, they were standing at a distance.

And the point of the verse is this seeing these things.

See?

In other words, eye witnesses to what happened.

Really, really important for us to keep that in mind as we consider the cross of Christ.

All right.

So uh, what do we learn here?

Well, first of all, uh, over lunch, you're welcome to read the parallel accounts.

You'll pick up some other details if you like.

And so those are on the screen or in your home group if you would like to.

Uh, feel free to take those parallel accounts and read those.

I think the question about why did Jesus die leads to who was responsible for the death of Jesus?

Was it Judas, the one who betrayed him?

Um, presumably, we we don't really know exactly what motivated him.

We know he's a thief, but there's also suggestions that he had political aspirations, that he wanted Jesus to literally overthrow the oppressive Roman government.

And he wanted that kind of Jesus, wanted a Jesus that he could get money from somehow and exploit the whole thing for money, or political agenda.

We still have people like that today that try to co-op Jesus for their political agenda, whatever it might be, on all kinds of different sides.

Um that's interesting, but I don't think that's it.

Religious leaders, they were envious of Jesus.

Their blind hatred had led them to this place where they had murder on their minds.

They're, of course, incensed at his disdain for their traditions, that the way that they worked out their Sabbath, you know, playing it out.

Um, but they also thought he committed blasphemy by claiming to be the son of God, by claiming to be the Christ.

And we've studied this recently in the last couple of weeks.

He was very bold and very clear about that.

Um and so if he was lying, if he wasn't the son of God, he would be guilty of blasphemy.

If he is the son of God, if he is God's Christ and Messiah, he's not guilty of blasphemy at all.

And they've got that quite wrong.

Who is responsible for the death of Jesus?

Fickle crowds yelling in their mob mentality, crucify him, crucify him.

Or perhaps it's a divine conspiracy.

And you'll notice on the screen and on the slide, I didn't put a question mark there because, spoiler alert, that's what I think it is.

It's what I believe the Bible teaches it is.

As a matter of fact, from beginning to end.

The New Testament, especially, is unequivocal, that this was indeed a divine conspiracy on the part of the Trinitarian God.

So if we ask the question, who is responsible for the death of Christ?

Watch what God arranged before the world was ever even created.

Men in the room, men.

Will you read with me?

Just as he chose us in him, that we would be holy and blameless before him.

In love, he predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will, before the foundation of the world.

Do you understand?

This was God's plan that Jesus would come and lay down his life to purchase your salvation and mine and to offer salvation to the entire world, including the people that are driving nails into his hands, including the people that trumped up the political charges against him, which he was not guilty of at all.

And so before the foundation of the world, ladies, show the men how to read aloud.

Ready?

Who has saved us?

And called us the Holy Paul, not according to our works, but according to his umbrella, which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.

You see, this was this was in God's mind from all eternity.

See?

This wasn't a oops in the first century.

Oh man, the bad guys won, they snuck in, the devil got one over Jesus.

No, that's not any, it's not that at all.

It's not that.

Before the foundations of the world, from all eternity, and let's all read this one together from 1 Peter, one of the closest disciples of Jesus, knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb, unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.

For he was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you.

Isn't that amazing?

So three different times.

We're told this was in God's mind before he even created the physical universe.

You were in his mind and in his heart before he even created the physical universe.

All right.

So what do we gain from this passage?

I think we see the predictions of the cross, the people near the cross, the paradox of the cross, and the power of the cross as well.

The predictions are clear, and we've read them before.

Isaiah 53 is quoted over and over and over again throughout the four gospels.

It's all about the suffering servant, the Messiah who comes, God's anointed one who comes to die and lay down his life.

Psalms 22 is also one of the predictions of the cross.

We read from that as it was quoted right here in Luke chapter 23.

Luke 23 · chapter mention

And then turn back with me in your Bible, if you will, just a few pages back to Luke chapter 9.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

Look at what Jesus himself even said as we talk, if we're in the category of predictions of the cross.

Look at Luke chapter 9, if you have your Bibles, verse 22.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

Here's Jesus talking to, um, right after the feeding of the 5,000, talking to his disciples, and he said this the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised up on the third day.

Now there are four things, essentially the gospel, all in that one little verse.

All of those four things.

And the word must is really important there.

It applies to each phrase.

He must be rejected by the elders and the chief priests.

He must suffer many things.

He must be killed.

And hallelujah, somebody say amen.

He must be raised again.

So before the cross, Jesus knows all four of those things, is trying to tell his disciples about it along the way.

Now we can look back and see who among us knows the date of when we're going to die, the way we're going to die, and if we're going to rise again.

Well, of course, if you're a Christian, you know that what Jesus has accomplished himself and has he has planned for you.

In rolling away the stone from his grave, he also can roll away the stone from your grave and your tomb.

Who will you trust to do that for you?

I'm going with a guy that actually knew this all in advance, that had this planned way before history ever started.

I'm going with him.

I'm trusting him with my eternity.

And I hope you will too.

I think it's a beautiful thing.

The predictions of the cross, the people near the cross.

You have Simon who was swept up into service.

You have the multitude of the sorrowful, you have the sneering scoffers.

Look at the people all around and let it speak to you.

The two thieves, let that speak to you.

The one who represents one way of responding to Jesus, the other who represents a completely different way of responding to Jesus.

Let that speak to you.

The people near the cross are rich in story and meaning as well.

And those who become seemingly become saved in the moment.

I would put Simon in that category.

I put the centurion in that category.

I would put the second thief on the cross in that category.

And look at what Jesus is doing, even as he's dying.

People are actually coming to life in a beautiful way.

So the people near the cross, the paradox of the cross, three different times.

Save yourself.

Let him save himself.

And you know what?

He would not do that.

Why?

Because if he saved himself, he would not save you.

If he saved himself and went down from the cross, he would not save me.

And he wouldn't be able to save us because he saved himself.

That's the selfless savior.

That's the kind of God the God of the Bible is.

Who wouldn't want that?

That's the kind of God we worship.

It's just amazing to me the paradox of the cross and the power of the cross, of course.

It's because of who died on that cross that it's completely other than every other death that has ever happened.

You see?

It's because he, God himself, substituted himself in place for Barabbas, but also Jim and also you, took my place, took your place on the cross, paid the price for our sins, satisfied the wrath of God.

What's God mad about?

What's God wrathful about?

He has a settled outrage at everything evil.

Again, that's the kind of God I want to worship.

Who has a settled, you know, he's against everything that's evil.

Yes, that's the kind of God I want to worship and trust and hope in.

And he did all of that for you and for me.

Jesus said in Mark chapter 10, verse 45, also in Matthew 20, 28, the Son of Man, his favorite self-reference title that he uses all the time.

Mark 10:45

The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, to give his life a ransom for many.

Now, a lot of times we blow right past that, but what is this word ransom about?

What is a ransom?

It's something that's paid to free someone.

Do you see?

That's what Jesus did for you and for me.

He ransomed.

He gave himself so that we could go free.

For while, uh, but God demonstrates his love.

This is so beautiful from Romans, of course, the Apostle Paul demonstrates his own love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for you.

In other words, it's not, he doesn't, Jesus doesn't do that for you once you get your life together.

Once you get your theology together and you got it all sorted out.

No.

He wants you, right now, your fearful self, your angry self.

He wants your broken self.

He wants your rebellious self.

He wants you.

His arms are open wide.

He's not shaming.

He is opening his arms like this, and he wants you to look at him on the cross and see how much he loves you and how much he wants to save you.

If while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

There's the paradox and the power of the cross all at work.

I love the way uh Keller says this about the cross.

He says, the gospel is that I'm so sinful that Jesus had to die for me.

Yet I'm so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me.

This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time.

I can't feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone.

So, brothers and sisters, friends who are here, believers or not unbelievers, you can rest in the love of this God.

This God knows when he came, he knew he had to die for you because you're a sinner.

Your sin is ugly.

My sin is ugly.

But he was glad to die for you.

Why?

Because he loved you.

He loved sinners.

He came into a world of lost sinners to die in our place to express his love to us.

Packer says it similarly.

Redeeming love and retributive justice joined hands, so to speak, at Calvary.

For their God showed himself to be just and the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus.

Yeah.

Beautiful.

So beautifully said.

And I'll close with this in a very powerful summary statement about the cross of Christ from his book called The Cross of Christ.

John Stott really shows how the cross weaves together so many of the attributes of God.

Let me look up here, if you will, just look at the screen and look at this.

When we look at the cross, we see the justice, love, wisdom, and power of God.

It is not easy to decide which is the most luminously revealed, whether the justice of God in judging sin, or the love of God in bearing the judgment in our place, or the wisdom of God in perfectly combining the two, or the power of God in saving those who believe.

For the cross is equally an act and therefore a demonstration of God's justice, love, wisdom, and power.

This is such good news.

How will you respond to this good news?

Some of you are out there thinking, and I know people like this.

I talk to them all the time.

They say, I just don't think God would forgive me.

I don't think he could.

I've said no to him so many times, I've turned my back on him so many times, I've ignored him, I've blasphemed him, I've done all of those kinds of things.

Let me remind you, look at who Jesus died for that day.

He died for the religious leaders who hated him, he died for Judas who betrayed him, he died for Peter who denied him, the disciples who abandoned him, the crowds were fickle against him.

Pilate, who tried to wash his hands.

Jesus loved the whole world, and the offer of salvation is universal.

It doesn't matter what you've done, the offer is universal.

The only thing that matters now is how do you respond to the offer?

It's an invitation, folks.

It He doesn't just do it willy-nilly and turn on your little heart light like this, but you're called to repent and believe.

That's what Jesus wants you to do, and that's what he wants me to do too.

Trust him.

It's about his finished work on the cross, not about me balancing out some kind of moral skills and being a good little boy.

Christopher Watkin in his book Biblical Critical Theory, excellent work.

A difficult read, but the uh the climbs, the views are so good the climb is worth it.

The love that sent Christ to the cross is not drawn out of God from the outside, but it overflows him, so to speak, from the inside.

God loves us because God is love, not because of our qualities and not in the abstract, and that's so true.

So if you come to the cross to believe and trust and hope in Jesus, is that what the cross means to you?

It's probably the most recognized symbol in the entire world.

I would argue that it is.

I mean, think of all the people that wear one, you know?

And and if you wear one, awesome, it's great.

I'm not I'm not this one right here that's on our little wall.

We we we found this at the flea market downtown.

Uh a guy who had uh some little ones he was selling, and we just asked, You got anything big?

We're looking for something for the front of our church.

And this toothless old guy at a flea market, you know, went around back behind his little trailer that he had and brought out that.

He said, Will this do?

Because we said we want to hang it on the church, in the front of the church.

He said, Will this do?

And I said, Oh, we were all the four of us over there were just completely hushed.

It's both, isn't it?

It's ugly, but it's beautiful, isn't it?

It's ugly because of how brutal it was for him that day, but it's so beautiful for what he accomplished that day, and the grace that so uh adorned the cross for us.

Go to the cross and know the love of God.

One of my favorite Bible teachers over the years has been Steve Brown.

Um, and he he writes about this.

This is the problem with most of us very reason we don't love one another, we wear masks, we're dishonest.

Isn't at the cross we only got saved.

We didn't stay around to get loved.

Don't let that be you.

He says, when you get saved, don't leave.

Stay there until you've gotten loved as well.

It's at the Christ's cross where we find that kind of love.

It's the intersection of his love, his justice, his wisdom, and his power.

And we're gonna come say thank you for the cross in just a moment.

Before we do, I wonder if uh you would for just do it for me if if that's all I can get you to do it for.

But I would like for us to revisit, for all of you who are believers and Christians, and those of you watching online who are believers and Christians, I would like for us to revisit the day, the moment when we prayed to acknowledge Jesus as our Lord and Savior.

And if you're here today and you're not a Christian, this is the kind of prayer you could use if you were interested in what Jesus has put on offer on the cross.

This is the kind of prayer you might say.

Would you stand with me and we'll just read this aloud if you if you would do that for me together?

It's just two simple slides, okay?

It goes like this.

Dear God, I confess that I am a sinner and that I have turned away from you.

I admit that I have gone my own way and have broken your holy law.

I now turn away from my sin and turn back to you for grace and mercy.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for dying in my place on the cross and paying the price for my sin once and for all.

Holy Spirit, make me new, wash me clean by your amazing grace, and cause me to be born again.

From this day forward, I want to follow Jesus and live in union with Christ.

Renew my mind, transform my heart, and redirect my desires.

Give me the faith, the will, and the courage to walk in your ways all the days of my life.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.