The Title

Let's take our Bibles and turn to the Gospel of John, John chapter 19.

John 19 · chapter mention

And uh we've been studying in our uh morning services about the cross and about the crucifixion.

Pastor's been doing a great job of telling us about the truths of the Word of God and concerning the crucifixion of Christ.

Of course, we're just a short short way from Easter, aren't we?

What an exciting time.

Amen.

And so, but I want to preach a message that I've called the title.

The title.

That's quite a title, isn't it?

Anyway, I want to preach something that uh the Lord laid on my heart.

When Pastor asked me several weeks ago if I would cover for this, I said I'd be glad to, and I didn't know where this was going to go then, but the Lord sort of laid on my heart to talk a little bit about the title, that title that was over Jesus' head when he was crucified.

So John chapter 19, and it's always good to sort of start by reading the passage.

John 19 · chapter mention

So let's read together beginning in verse 19.

And Pilate wrote a title.

Some of your translations might say an inscription or something of that nature.

The Greek word is actually the word tiltos, and it may just mean title.

It says, put it on the cross.

And uh it says, and the writing was Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.

The title then read many of the Jews, for the uh the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city, and it was written in Hebrew and in Greek and in Latin.

Then said the chief priest of the Jews to Pilate, Write not the King of the Jews, but that he said, I am King of the Jews.

Pilate answered, What have I what I've written, I have written.

Let's just pray and ask the Lord to bless the message.

Father, we need your help.

Obviously, Lord, we can't do this in our own power.

But I pray that the word of God will go forth and it'll speak to hearts, that there will be someone here that uh if they've never trusted Christ as Savior, this day would be that day when they come to faith in Jesus Christ.

What a transforming moment in their life.

I do pray for each of us that know Christ as Savior, that we might realize how important it is to make you the Lord of our life, the center of all that we are.

Father, we thank you now for our time.

Now bless the teaching and the preaching of the word, for I ask it in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You know, titles have meanings.

If I have a book up here, it's a tremendous book, by the way, called Knowing God by J.I.

Packard.

And if you read that title, that's not money, so don't worry.

Uh that you if you read that title, you would think, well, that book means about knowing God.

You would want to read it if you want to learn to know more about God.

And by the way, it will help you that way.

It's a great book.

Uh I really recommend it.

Here's a book.

It's called Waiting on God.

If you were to sit pick that book up, what would you imagine that book's about?

It's about waiting on God.

You would assume that Andrew Murray in this book would be teaching us how to wait upon God.

What a great need in our life.

I think that that's well worth reading, by the way.

And then I have this book in my library called Dad's Joke.

Dad Jokes, too.

Dad jokes too.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's it's even got a subtitle, Punnier Than Ever.

That's a dad joke in itself, isn't it?

It's real punny.

These are real punny jokes.

But anyway, every every dad uh should have a copy of this.

I won't go through any of those right now.

Uh, but they are silly.

Uh dad jokes are great.

But titles have meaning, don't they?

Well, the title that is over the the over the uh on the cross over Jesus had meaning too.

It had real meaning.

It was a very common practice, in fact, it was almost always done, that over the the uh head of the individual being executed or crucified, they would put a title.

They would take a plaque and put on it the crime that was committed, and that individual would uh uh they would be able to tell that individual was a thief or a murderer or or whatever the case might be.

In fact, that's how Matthew knew that the each each of the individuals on either side of Jesus that they were thieves because there was a title above them and said, these are thieves, these men are thieves or something of that nature.

And so what the title is they have a purpose and have a reason.

And the title over Jesus' head read simply Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.

Well, what in the world does that have as far as meaning for you and I?

Well, I want to share with you three different things that I think are very important, very important, in fact, for us to understand.

And the first thing I want you to see as far as the meaning of the words Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, the title tells us of the humanity of Jesus.

It tells us of the humanity of Jesus.

See, Jesus was a man.

That's a simple fact.

He was a man.

Now we know he was more than just a man.

He was a hundred percent God and a hundred percent man.

He was as much man as he was God, and as much God as he was man.

Don't try to figure it out.

That's just what scripture teaches.

Jesus was the God man.

But he was a man.

He the name Jesus is his earthly name.

It's the name that he took on at his birth.

In fact, that's his birth-given name.

You recall when the angels in uh in Matthew chapter one, uh, the angel came to Joseph and spoke to Joseph and said, Take Mary as your wife, and then he says, And the son that she has, thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.

That was his name, the the name Jesus.

And of course, the name Jesus of Nazareth.

He was human.

He needed rest, he he got tired, he needed to sleep, just like you and I need to sleep.

He got hungry, like some of you are right now.

And I mean, he he was he was a man.

He he wept.

One of my favorite memory verses is John 11, 35.

It's a hard one.

Jesus wept.

That's it.

That's an easy one to remember.

Uh, you know, humans are the only creature that of God's creation that can weep emotional tears.

No other creature does.

Hebrews 4 at verse 15 says, uh, in every respect he was tempted as we are.

Isn't that something?

Yet without sin.

Every possible way that you and I have suffered a temptation, Jesus understands what you're dealing with.

And two through two truths I think are really important about the humanity of Christ is one is it's essential for salvation.

God could not save you and I unless one person of the Godhead was willing to become a man.

I know that's a theology that's not easily understood, but the truth is that God cannot save apart from the divine law of the shedding of blood.

The Bible says in Hebrews 9 22, almost all things are by the law purged with blood.

Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission.

Well, God is God.

He can't die, he's eternal.

He can't shed blood, he doesn't have blood to shed.

So what does he do?

He does that which is absolutely amazing.

He takes the second person of the Godhead, comes down and takes upon flesh so that he could become man, so he could die for you and I.

Let's take our Bible.

And I want us to look at some verses.

So just turn with me, if you will.

And some of you have your uh your phones or whatever you're looking at.

Just bring it over to this passage.

Well, let's look at Philippians chapter 2 for a moment.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Very familiar passage, but I want to emphasize the humanity of Christ in this passage.

Now, what Paul is actually doing in this passage is giving an illustration to you and I how we ought to live our lives and be willing to make sacrifices for others so that others might have an opportunity to experience their faith in Jesus Christ or our faith in Jesus Christ.

But look what he says in verse number five.

He says, Let this mind be in you, which is also in Christ Jesus.

In other words, you need to think like this.

And then he says, who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God.

Verse 6 is a little confusing, but basically what it's saying is that the second person of the Godhead, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, I should say, the second person of the Godhead, was willing to say, I'll set aside this thing called divine glory, and I will take upon flesh so that I can save mankind.

He says it's not, it's not worth holding on to this thing called divine glory, because the saving of the lost world is more important.

That's an awesome thought when you think about the love of God.

But then he goes in verse number seven, and look what he says.

That's talking about his incarnation, his birth, that that taking upon human flesh.

And being found and fashioned as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

See, the truth is that you and I are saved simply because the fact that Jesus Christ became a man.

If you've trusted Christ as Savior, that salvation was possible because of his humanity.

But there's a second thing I think that's important about his humanity, and that is his humanity makes our relationship with God real.

See, salvation is a permanent relationship.

I said permanent relationship with Almighty God through Jesus Christ.

Now, a relationship is important, and part of a relationship is being able to empathize with other individuals.

Those of us that are married understand how we empathize with each other.

My wife is concerned about me, and often she can feel what I experience.

She feels that hurt.

She feels sometimes the disappointment because I'm disappointed.

That's just part of a relationship of many, many years together.

But take and turn to Hebrews chapter number four for a second.

Hebrews chapter number four.

Now take your Bible and turn there.

Follow with me.

It's good to look at the Word of God.

Hebrews chapter 4.

Hebrews 4 · chapter mention

And notice what it says.

This is an amazing verse talking about Jesus Christ.

And notice what it says, and let's begin reading at verse 14.

14 says this.

Seeing then that we have a great high priest that passes into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our profession.

I mean, the life we have, let's hold on to that.

But see, and look, he was anticipating for the Hebrew Christians some of the trials they would be facing and the difficulties they would be facing.

And he says, For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities.

All of us have infirmities, all of us have weaknesses, all of us go through trials, all of us go through difficulties, all of us find ourselves facing with all kinds of issues from time to time.

It's often been said, if you're not in a storm, you will be in a storm, or you've just passed through a storm.

One of the three are true.

Where our life is a life filled with storms.

And he says we have a high priest that he can be touched with those feelings of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are.

I mentioned that earlier, yet without sin.

Now look at verse 16.

Focus on verse 16.

You got your Bible open?

Look with me.

Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace and help in the time of need.

That's an awesome verse.

I mean, I can boldly now approach God's throne.

No fear at all.

I come in the name of Jesus Christ.

And there I can find grace and help in the time of need.

He's there for me.

He's always there for me.

Because he's a man and because he was a man and is a man, he can experience what you're experiencing and he can understand what you're going through.

We used to sing that song, What a Friend We Have in Jesus.

All our griefs and sh and uh all our sins and griefs to bear.

What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.

Isn't that true?

His humanity.

But let's go back to our passage in John chapter 19.

John 19 · chapter mention

Go back to our passage and let's notice a second thing.

A second thing.

The title implies the universality of the death of Jesus.

I love this.

Because look what happens.

And we see the providential hand of God working in Pilate's life here.

And I love it because Pilate wasn't a believer.

He didn't care a thing about God.

But God is in control of every aspect of this life and the world around us.

That's why we must not get too worked up about the world events.

God's in charge.

Someway, somehow, he's going to work it out.

And what we've got to learn to do in the midst of these times is live for God's glory in the midst of these difficult times.

Just learn to be what, and God's providentially overseeing everything.

And you scratch your head and say, Well, how can that be?

Because God's God.

You're not going to figure him out ever.

He's God.

But it says that Pilate wrote the title and put it on the cross, and the writings was Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.

The title then read many of the Jews, for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city.

And it was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.

Now I mentioned to you, it was a common practice, that over the head of those criminals there would be a statement or a title declaring why that person was being executed.

But what wasn't common, that wasn't normal, was for it to be put in three different languages.

See, there is a purpose in what's going on here.

God is superseding, superseding in in Pilate's life.

Now we don't know Pilate's personal motivation, but that's immaterial.

I think his personal motivation was he wanted to rub the Jews' face in the fact that Jesus was Jesus of Nazareth was the king of the Jews.

Anybody from Nazareth was looked at upon with despite.

But uh Jesus comes from there, and uh the Jews were embarrassed by that.

In fact, look at they were so irate.

If you look at verse 21, the chief priest goes to Pilate and says, Wait a minute, you need to change that.

Don't write that.

Don't write the king of the Jews, but that he that I am that he said, I am the king of the Jews.

And Pilate, again, the providential hand of God says, What I've written, I've written.

See, he was he I that may be his personal motivation, but there's a deeper, unbeknownst to Pilate, he was declaring a great truth.

That this Jesus of Nazareth and his death on the cross had a universal aspect.

What I mean by that he died for the whole world.

Let's take and turn and look at that for a moment.

That's that that is a key theme throughout the Gospel of John.

John uses the word world some 60 times, 66 times.

And uh, but let's go to John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

Just notice a couple of things with me real quickly here.

John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

And uh notice what he says in verse number 9.

It's just right out of the chute of the of John's gospel.

Look what he begins to teach us.

He says in verse number uh nine, he says, that the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the what?

World.

He was in what world.

That the what was made by him and the what knew him not.

But he came unto his own, and his own received him not.

But as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God.

Do you see the emphasis?

The true light.

He came into the world.

He came to reach and save the world.

That's what he came.

Look, if you will, at verse 29.

Remember when John the Baptist was baptizing, and he was, and then Jesus approached him, and he looks up, and the Bible says that the next day, John seeing Jesus, this is verse 29 of chapter 1, coming unto him, and he said, Behold, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of what?

The world.

See, Jesus came and he has a universality of his death.

He the scripture over and over again makes reference to that.

Go to chapter 3.

We're very familiar with this portion of scripture.

He's talking to Nicodemus.

There he is as he talks to Nicodemus.

He says, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but the world through him might be saved.

Can you get any clearer than that?

Oh, wow.

John's theme over and over again talks about the universality of the death of Christ and the universality of the Savior as a savior for the whole world.

Let's go to another passage real quickly.

This is a key passage.

Turn to 1 John.

Again, John's writing.

This is his little epistle of 1 John.

But turn there, if you will.

I want you to see.

We'll find it here, 1 John, and then go to chapter 2.

I'll give you a second to find that.

It's not a real large book.

It only has, I think, five chapters.

But look what it says.

I love what it says in verse 2.

I mean chapter 2, verses 1 and 2.

My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not.

If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

That in itself is a glorious truth.

The man Jesus is standing for you and I.

And he is the propitiation.

You know, that's a big term, and I I love the term.

We we sort of shy away from these theological terms.

We shouldn't.

We should just teach them so that people understand them.

Propitiation simply means to appease, to appease the wrath.

He was appeasing the wrath of God there.

He is our propitiation for our sins.

Now look how John puts it.

Watch your Bible closely here.

John says it's for our sins.

Who's he referring to?

All the believers that he's writing to.

John Jesus died.

He propitiated uh uh our he was a propitiation for our sins before the Father.

He he dealt with the wrath of God for our sins, but it doesn't end there, does it?

The Holy Spirit, and uh it divinely uh leading John, look at the next statement.

He says, uh, not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

John makes a distinction.

Here's us that are saved, the born again.

And and and Jesus died for us that are born again, but he also died for those of the whole world.

Salvation is there for the whole world.

Now, that doesn't mean the whole world's gonna turn to Christ.

We understand that, and that's a different issue altogether.

But I wanted you to notice when Jesus is that title was placed over his head, and it says, Jesus of Nazareth, uh the king of the Jews, and then very plainly it's given to the Hebrew and the Greek and the Latin, and he's the he is the savior for the Jewish people, he's the savior for the Roman people, which would be Latin language, he's the savior for the Grecian world, he's the savior for the whole world.

That's what they were saying.

The title has meaning, and we need to understand that.

Let's go back and look at one last thing.

I got my preaching glasses on, so I can't see the clock.

Uh amen.

In other words, hurry up.

My uh my granddaughter's not here, she's not feeling well.

She usually plays the piano, I miss her.

And uh last time I preached, she says, I like your preaching, Papa.

It's short.

And uh, okay.

Well, we got a little more to go here, but not much.

Notice again the third thing that we learned from the title is the title declares the sovereignty of Jesus.

Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.

Now, again, as I mentioned earlier, that infuriated the religious leaders.

Don't say he said the king of the Jews.

Say that I said, make it that he declared that.

No, the fact is that it didn't change, and in the providential hand of God, it wasn't going to change because the declaration was true.

He was the king of the Jews.

But notice again the three languages, he was also the king of the Hebrews, and he was the king of the the Romans, he was the king of the Grecians, he was the king of the world, and he is Lord of all.

And I want to emphasize this for a few moments.

We had a great Sunday school class.

If you're not going to Sunday school, you ought to come, and you ought to come to our Sunday school class.

There's a little divine disagreement here.

We had a great Sunday school class.

See, Jesus Christ is truly the Lord of all.

Now we don't always treat him like that, and he didn't come like that.

He came as a humble birth.

He was born in a stable.

He grew up doing manual labor.

He was a hardworking man.

He didn't enter his public ministry until he was the age of about 30.

And so he was not always appeared as even right now.

She visited the United States.

She visited America and uh and uh she uh was celebrating, they were celebrating the 400th anniversary of Jamestown.

So she came from Britain and came over here and she brought with her 4,000 pounds of luggage.

4,000 pounds.

Men, the next time your wife wants to take an extra suitcase, you ought to praise God.

She also brought four outfits for every day.

That's part of the luggage, obviously.

She was gonna change her outfit every day, four different times throughout the day.

Don't ask me why.

She had 40 pints of plasma.

That it dawned on me.

She's changing clothes 40 times.

She's probably exhausted.

She probably needs a shot of plasma to get through the next day.

Had two uh had her own hairdresser, two valets, and the cost of her visit cost 20 million dollars.

Now, Jesus, he came humbly, but my friends, Jesus is coming back and he's coming back as the Lord.

In fact, in Revelation, we read these words, and he has on a name written on his robe and on his thigh, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

He is gonna come as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, because he is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

And unbeknownst to Pilate, Jesus was the sovereign over all the earth, and he writes those words, he says, to the Hebrew and to the Greek, uh to the to the Greek and to the Latin, and he and he writes those words, and he doesn't even know why he's writing them, but he's writing them to tell the world that here is the Lord of all, and he's worthy of our allegiance, he's worthy of our praise, he's worthy to be bowed to.

There's a verse in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 14.

2 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

This is what it says.

For the love of Christ controls us.

The King James says constrains us.

Paul is writing these words.

That's not my love for Christ, that's Christ's love for me.

And Paul understood how much Jesus loved him and it controlled him, it constrained him.

And he goes on to write, because we have concluded this, that one has died for all, therefore all have died.

And he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

Do you get that statement?

Those that are alive no longer to live for themselves.

We're to make Jesus the Lord of our life, the center of our life, this the key element in our life.

Jesus Christ should be central in every area of our life.

How does that look?

How does that pan out?

Well, let's go to Colossians.

We saw this in Sunday school.

I didn't plan using this verse, but it's a great verse.

That's how God works.

Colossians.

Colossians chapter number four, I believe.

If not, I'll find it.

Chapter 3.

Colossians chapter 3.

Colossians 3 · chapter mention

I want to read this to you.

You follow it in your Bible, got your Bible open, are you looking at it?

Colossians chapter 3, verse 1.

Colossians 3:1

If ye then be risen with Christ, and in the Greek it means if ye then be risen with Christ, and you are.

Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

What are you seeking?

You seeking the wealth of the world?

Are you seeking popularity or fame or or just uh whatever else, uh well material things?

He says, seek those things, uh seek uh let me get it right.

Seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

Set your affections on things above, not on things of the earth.

Wow, that's a tall order.

But wait, that's what's making Jesus Lord in your life is all about.

For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ.

When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye appear with him in glory.

Amen.

But it goes on to say, now Paul gets really specific, mortified, in other words, put to death, therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanliness, inordinate or lustful, inordinate affections just means lustful affections, evil concupiousness, and it goes on to covetousness, which is idolatry, for which things sake the wrath of God cometh upon the children of disobedience.

Oh, he's saying those are sins that you need to literally put dead because Jesus is the Lord of your life.

You're not going to have part in that anymore.

But watch what he goes on to say in verse 7, in which ye also walked sometime when ye lived in them.

And but now, but now, verse 8, but now ye also put off these.

And look what he says: anger and wrath and malice and blasphemy, uh, filthy communication out of your mouth.

Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds, and you have put on the new man, which is renewed in the knowledge after the image of him that created him.

But I want you to focus in verse 8.

Jesus is going to be the Lord of your life.

And if he's going to be the Lord of your life, you're going to have to express that through different ways.

And one is that you're going to control your anger, you're going to set that aside.

Wrath.

Oh, filthy.

Those are all words.

I am so convinced that one of the greatest needs in our church and in every church is that we learn to watch our words.

The Bible says, let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearer.

Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth.

Jesus wants to be the Lord of your life.

He is Lord.

I want you to understand that.

He just wants you to honor him and glorify him as the Lord.

You know, when I was a young preacher and I used to listen to various preachers come to our school and they would preach, and oh, so many powerful messages I heard as a young man.

But they always had neat illustrations.

And I don't have any neat illustrations, nothing's happened to me.

And I said, Well, I'll tell you what, I began to look and say, where can I get some neat illustrations?

And I came across this book.

It was in our our um school uh bookstore, and it was called Knight's Master Book of New Illustrations.

Knight's Master Book of New Illustrations.

Now I don't know how new the illustrations was.

It was published in 1956.

That was when I was born.

But in there, there is a story that caught my attention about making Jesus Lord.

It's a story about a man by the name of Jay Alexander Clark.

Jay Alexander Clark was a missionary to the Congo.

He'd been there many years, and he was coming back to Britain to share a little bit about his ministry, try to raise some interest in coming to Africa.

And he would close his messages often by telling a story that happened to him personally.

How that one time he was out making his way to another village to share the gospel with those people, and he came upon a man that had been mauled by a lion, a lioness.

The man was almost dead.

I mean, he was he was near death.

And and James Alexander Clark got men to help him, and they packed him, picked him up, and managed to carry him to his little hut where he stayed.

And for several weeks, even a month or more, he kept, he nursed that man back to health, and the man became strong and able to move.

And so the man was able to go back to his own village, and so he did.

It's about three months later, after that African man went to the village, that he came back.

And behind him, he stood before the door of Alexander Clark's door, and he looked at him and he says, Mr.

Clark, everything that I have is yours.

Because there's a law in our village and a law in our in our forest.

That the redeemed belong to the redeemer.

And now the man had behind him there were several several cattle, about three or four uh head of cattle.

There were some goats.

There was a donkey, and on the donkey there were these cages with chickens in it.

And he stood there before Mr.

Clark and said, Everything I have is yours.

And then he looked and turned to his family and he says, My children are all yours.

And all six of my wives are yours.

And Alexander Clark, whoa, don't think I want six wives.

But the man says, Everything I have belongs to you.

And Alexander Clark convinced him to go back to his village and tell them about the Jesus that saved him.

But the point I want you to understand what an example of making Christ Lord of your life.

Think about what you have, everything you have, all that's yours.

And we have so much in this country.

But friends, it's not yours, it belongs to the Lord.

And the question is this morning, and I want to end with simply this.

Are you living for God's glory?

Jesus is Lord, folks.

Jesus is Lord.

Are you living for his glory?

The redeemed belong to the Redeemer.

If you're here and you've received Christ as your Savior, every person in this room, you belong to God.

Does he have you?

Are you glorifying him?