Jesus’ Crucifixion The Day the Kingdom Revolution BEGAN - Holy Week

Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.

I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.

Today, embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.

Welcome to the Born for War podcast.

Good Friday really had an impact on me as a kid.

And for you young people here, I pray that it will for you too.

And none of the stuff with the Saturians, we know Lutherans don't do that kind of stuff.

Okay.

They don't do that kind of stuff.

But we're going to conclude with a part at the end, the very, very end, that was part of my dad's service that he would do.

And you've been a part of, many of you have been a part of my Good Friday services, our Good Friday services for many, many years, because we started doing them very early on with Mountain Springs when we were still just in a storefront.

So you know what that part is.

And I would just say, this is this is part of that tradition, and I I really revere this, is that when we end today, when the service is over, and it'll be obvious from a centurion when the service is over, it ask you to just stand and leave in silence.

And then you can talk in the lobby.

But do you understand what we're trying to do here?

I feel as though in evangelicalism, especially in the West, sometimes we lose the power and the agony of Calvary.

It's just kind of glossed over.

We talk about it to get people to heaven.

And it's sort of this quick fix, believe in Jesus, go to heaven.

That's what the cross is about.

I actually believe it's a lot more than that.

And I'll talk about that here in a moment.

But that's why we do what we do.

I think it's always important not to do what we do, but not explain the why.

And so the why is because I don't believe that was a joyful day.

And I don't believe the disciples even understood what was going on.

I think they were actually very confused.

I think the confusion continued into the book of Acts, as I referenced last Sunday on Palm Sunday, the fact that these guys who've been with him for three and a half years, almost 24-7, seen the miracles, heard every teaching that he gave, still are confused about the kingdom of God and their own understanding of nationalism as Jews.

So it took time.

That's why the early Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, it took them a little time before they started writing about it because they were still processing what Calvary meant and what the resurrection meant in their lives.

And we should be okay with that.

Some of you here are grappling with Jesus.

You're grappling with the cross.

Maybe you've been a Christian since you were a young kid, or you grew up in a Christian home, or you went to church.

But it doesn't mean anything yet.

And you're here because somebody invited you, or it's a tradition that you have.

That's okay.

That's good to recognize that.

But then let us enter into maybe a little bit of what they felt at that time and the darkness that must have swept over them as they realized that all their hopes and dreams were gone.

Yes, he had talked about dying and rising again.

But it's obvious from the way Matthew and Mark especially wrote, they did not get it.

They did not understand what was going on.

So here we are now looking back, and we have a vantage point of not only the writings, but the results of something that happened that day.

N.T.

Wright is a scholar that I don't completely agree with everything that he writes, but I like a lot of what he writes.

And he wrote a book on the crucifixion.

Really had an impact on my life in the last couple years.

And I want to open with this quote from N.T.

Wright on the crucifixion.

Quote, as Jesus' followers looked back on that day of the crucifixion, in light of what happened soon afterward, they came up with the shocking, scandalous, nonsensical claim that his death had launched a revolution.

That something had happened that afternoon that changed the world.

That by six o'clock, on that dark day, the world was somehow a different place.

What a statement.

A new and shocking window had been opened to the world that had not been there just a few hours before.

The one true God had come down in the form of a human being and shed his blood, as John had said, as the Lamb of God, to take away the sins of the world.

That's nonsensical.

That's scandalous.

No religion reveres a man who's been killed as a criminal.

But there was a new rescue operation in play.

The most gruesome death known to men at that time had become the most glorious day the world would ever know.

The kingdom of God had come.

Without the cross, there is no ongoing kingdom of God on earth.

Without the cross, there is no power over Satan, principalities, and powers, and the demonic.

Without the cross, all the nations of the world have no hope.

Without the cross, there's no forgiveness of sins.

Now listen to what I'm going to say next.

The kingdom of God was established at the cross and inaugurated through the resurrection.

Let me say that again.

The kingdom of God was established at the cross and inaugurated through the resurrection.

In a real sense, the death of Christ on the cross, being accused of being a king, that the Father has now established the Son as a king over all principalities and powers because he died on the cross.

So Jesus came proclaiming the kingdom of God, but his royal mission led him to the gruesome death on a Roman cross.

From an earthly perspective, it certainly appeared that the cross represented the failure of Christ's kingdom mission.

But the scriptures, however, show us that the cross is not a stumbling stone to the kingdom of God, but it's the cornerstone that builds the kingdom of God on earth.

So turn in your Bibles to Matthew 27.

And what we're going to note in Matthew 27 is the references and the accusations, actually, of Christ proclaiming to be, and then being mocked for being a king, the king of the Jews.

So I'm going to pick it up at verse 27.

So Matthew 27, 27.

Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the praetorium and gathered the whole garrison around him.

And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him.

When they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and a reed in his right hand, and they bowed the knee before him, and they mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews.

And they spat on him, and they took the reed and they struck him on the head.

And when they had mocked him, they took the robe off of him, put his own clothes on him, and led him away to be crucified.

Now as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name.

Him they compelled to bear his cross, and when they had come to a place called Golgotha, that is to say, the place of a skull, they gave him sour wine mingled with gall to drink, and when he had tasted it, he would not drink.

Verse 35.

Then they crucified him and divided his garments, casting lots, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet.

They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.

Sitting down, they kept watch over him there, and they put up over his head the accusation written against him.

This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.

When two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and the other on the left, and those who passed by blasphemed him, wagging their heads and saying, You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself.

If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.

How ironic.

Likewise the chief priests, also mocking with the scribes and elders, said, He saved others, himself he cannot say.

If he is the king of Israel, let him now come down from the cross and we will believe him.

He trusted in God.

Let him deliver now, if he will have him, for he said, I am the Son of God.

Even the robbers who were crucified with him reviled him with the same thing.

Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour, there was darkness over all the land.

And about the ninth hour, that'd be around 3 p.m., Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli Eli, Lama Sabbatani, that is my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Some of those who stood there when they heard that said, This man is calling for Elijah.

Immediately one of them ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed, and offered it to him to drink.

The rest said, Let him alone, let us see if Elijah will come to save him.

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.

Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earthquaked, and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.

And coming out of the graves after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

So when the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and the things that had happened, they feared greatly, saying, Truly, this was the Son of God.

Father, I ask you, through the work and the power of your Holy Spirit, that Father God, you would minister to your saints here in this room today.

That Father God, the reality and the power and the love that's a part of the cross, the love of Christ would be shed into our hearts today.

Lord, I pray that your spirit would minister to those in this room that carry shame, pain, confusion, anger, bitterness.

You would go to them today, Lord, with your forgiveness and your grace and the vulnerability of you going to the cross.

And it would become a reality in us in a new, definitive way.

Oh Lord, come with your power, come and minister to us in the name of Jesus.

Jesus reveals his kingship, men and women, not by coming down from the cross to save himself, but staying on the cross to save us.

The cross is the greatest display of Christ's reign as power controlled by love.

Jesus is king on the cross, forgiving sin, defeating evil, and establishing God's kingdom on the earth as it is in heaven.

The cross is the apex of his kingdom mission, the splendor of his royal power shining out through being broken and suffering for us.

The cross is the crowning achievement of Christ's kingdom mission.

Now turn to the right in your Bibles to Colossians 2.

So just turn to your right.

So here's my message today.

How did the cross start a kingdom of God revolution?

How does the cross start a kingdom of God revolution?

So up to this point, men and women, Jesus has been preaching the kingdom.

That's the central message of Christ.

On Passion Week, Holy Week, he makes a transition.

So before Palm Sunday, when Christ enters with all the celebration that came with that, before that, he had said, as he did his healing ministry, don't tell anybody.

Tap it down.

But when he came on Palm Sunday, which is just a few days hence, when he came, he wanted to go viral.

So he allowed the people to worship him, to throw down their clothes and their palm branches.

He came in as a king, a king of peace, the prince of peace on a donkey.

He wanted everybody to know.

He also makes a transition in his teaching.

He starts speaking of the Holy Spirit.

He starts speaking that when he leaves, the Holy Spirit is going to come.

John 14, 15, 16, and 17.

He's talking about the so he makes this transition from just the kingdom to now the kingdom is going to come through the Holy Spirit that's going to be given to us.

Well, here's what, here's what Paul wrote to the Christians in Colossi, verse 13, he says, and you being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh.

He starts with that.

Every one of us in this room, we're dead in our sins, dead in our trespasses, dead in our shame, dead in our hangups, dead in our addictions.

And some of us here today still are.

It's the human problem of sin.

And so that shame, as Martin Luther said, is the bondage of the will.

In other words, our will is under the bondage of sin and under the weight of sin.

And now Paul gives us a glimpse into the purpose of the cross when he says this.

He says, first, you being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he has made now alive together with him, having forgiven you all your trespasses.

So here's my first point today.

There is, men and women, no other way to be forgiven of your sins but through the cross of Christ.

Without the cross, we have no resurrection.

Without the cross, we have no hope.

Without the cross, we have no new life.

Without the cross, we have no forgiveness of sins.

If people understood that they're forgiven of their sin, really understood it in their heart, not in just their head.

Because a lot of people, especially in Christian religion, know it intellectually.

But I'm talking about in their heart, they knew I'm forgiven.

I'm forgiven for the way I treated my family.

I'm forgiven for the lies that I've told and the graft that I've been a part of and the embezzlement that I've allowed in my life.

Half of the people that are in our hospitals right now would walk out healed.

Because many of us carry the burden of our sin.

We carry that burden in it, and we wake up in the morning and it gnaws at our heart because we're sinners, because we've done things that are so hideous to us that we're here today because that cross took care of that sin.

If you'll only believe, if you'll only believe it's true.

With your heart, not just your head.

Of course, it can start in your head.

That's a great place to start.

The hardest thing to get people to do in this whole world is to think.

So I'm a big believer in thinkers.

But in the area of forgiveness, it's not just a thinking problem, it's a heart problem.

And that's why in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7, Jesus continually said, Look, all of you who are so religious, because most were Jews out there listening to him, you've been told this by the Pharisees.

You've been told that.

You see, love like that comes from the forgiveness of sins.

Love like that comes from understanding that your dirty, dirty laundry of your life has been taken through a cleaning process, and you now wear the garments that are white as snow.

Believe it.

Believe it with your heart.

And when you don't believe it, surrender that.

Lord, I have so much trouble believing that.

I'm okay for a while, but then it comes back.

The guilt comes back, and the shame comes back.

And you've heard me say this, you that are part of the road, I say it all the time, that the key to breaking the power of shame is vulnerability.

Well, let me tell you, on Golgotha at the skull, that day the most vulnerable thing happened.

We were stripped naked, bloodied, all dignity taken away, went to the cross through Jesus Christ.

So when you feel that burden of guilt, look to the cross.

Look to the cross.

That's where it starts.

Now in two days, we'll celebrate the resurrection because the cross is the beginning of the resurrection.

The cross is the beginning of the revolution.

The cross is the starting point for changing our lives and changing the world.

Healing comes when we know that we're forgiven.

Number two, our verse says this, verse 14.

Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us, he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

So first, the cross made us alive in Christ through forgiveness of our sins.

Secondly, the cross wipes out religious barriers to faith.

Some of us are long on religion and short on faith.

Faith is so hard.

Faith is so hard.

It's just tough.

Religion is so much easier.

Just tell me, have your kids ever said, just tell me what to do?

Just tell me what I need to do to not get another spank or whatever.

You know, that's why we like those teachers in our schools.

My favorite teacher was Mrs.

Milton in fifth grade and Mrs.

Ellington in eighth grade.

They told us what to do.

It was very clear and it was very strict.

I don't know if teachers do this.

I don't know how many school teachers we have in here, but Mrs.

Ellington came in and she and she just first day instructed us.

You will be in your seat, you will have your notebook open.

I still remember this.

I mean, it's a long time ago, guys.

You will have your notebook open and you'll have your pencil sharpened and in the pencil slot before the bell rings.

It only took like three or four very foolish people to instruct all 31 of us in the class that she meant business.

And it wasn't me.

There's two ways to learn something.

One is the one-knock method, one is the two-knock method, and for some of you it's probably a three-knock method.

The first knock is where you hammer your head on the overhang.

The two-knock method is when you watch the next person in front of you knock their forehead on the overhang.

The three-knock method is when you learn to duck.

So I let them do what they did, but that's religion.

Religion tells you what to do.

If you do this, you're good.

You're you satisfy the conditions.

You're on the team.

And under that Jewish law, it was super, super duper clear and strong.

And Paul, who wrote Colossians, got it.

He called himself a Pharisee of Pharisees.

He was the MVP for religion in Jerusalem.

He had studied under Gamalael.

He had been at the Harvard of Judaism under the great teacher Gamala.

He did it right.

He did it the way it was supposed to be done.

And he said it wasn't good enough.

N.

T.

Wright, in his book on the revolution and on the cross, the great Oxford professor, said, what religion did at that time is it heaped up.

It heaped up the sins.

And for those that were sensitive, you continually realize that you couldn't do it.

You couldn't do it.

But at the appropriate time and the fullness of God's timing, Christ came.

Paul said in Galatians 2.19, Through the law, I died to the law, so that I might live to God.

And so some of you in this room have some scriptings that have been written about you by your parents, or by a boyfriend, or by a girlfriend, or a coach, or being bullied at school, and there's these inscriptions that you're a loser, that you're ugly, that you're short, that you're too tall, whatever.

Can you imagine?

Going to school today, you're always too something.

And then you compare yourself with others, and you're always found lacking.

That's the same thing he's saying here.

These handwritings of requirements that are against you, contrary to you, they've been nailed to the cross.

Christ died for that.

And he has set you free.

Verse 15.

Having disarmed principalities and powers, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.

Thirdly, the cross triumphs over all powers, all the spirits that rule over the earth, visible and invisible.

Paul is speaking of visible rulers.

We have Roman centurions in character here.

They represent the government, they represent all the rulers of all time.

That time Herod and a Caesar in Rome and Herod and Pontius Pilate and Caiaphas, both political and religious rulers.

Paul says, disarmed.

Disarmed principalities and powers.

He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them, and invisible rulers.

When he speaks here of principalities and powers, he's speaking of rulers over nations.

He's speaking of, I don't want to use the word demon, but they're spirits in the fourth dimension that rule over nations.

In Daniel chapter 10, we see a prince of Persia.

Daniel 10 · chapter mention

We see a prince of Greece.

There's a prince over America.

There is a principality and power over America ruling in Washington, D.C.

Working behind the scenes for millennia, working there.

There's spirits over Colorado.

There's spirits in Denver.

There's a spirit over Colorado Springs.

Paul says at the cross, Christ disarmed these principalities and powers, and he made a public spectacle of them.

Now this is interesting because what he's alluding to is the idea of a conquering king coming back from war with all of the slaves and all of the rulers and all of the commanders that he fought against, and they're chained up, and he's carrying them in, and they're all there on the wagons, and they're and they're being dragged along by the horses, and all the crowd is there.

He made a public spectacle of them.

He's saying that Christ is now the ruling king.

And this is what the visible rulers and the invisible rulers fear the most is that the church would finally start to understand this stuff.

Because if the church started to get it, oh my goodness, little revivals in Asbury would turn into revolutions that would rock the world.

This is why the communist regimes of the past, the first thing they do is they ban Bibles and they ban worship.

Because they don't fear military powers after they've taken over.

They fear the people who believe in a different king.

This is why Bibles were banned in America in 1962.

Because there's power when young people actually start to read this book, pray to the God of this book, believe what's in it, and are willing to stand with a new kind of spiritual backbone because they believe the cross and the power that comes through the Holy Spirit from the cross.

Very interesting.

Jesus, in speaking to the Pharisees, the top religious leaders in Israel, about casting out demons, he said this if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.

Or how can one enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man?

And then he will plunder his house.

Matthew 12, 28 and 29.

At the cross, Jesus is plundering the strong man.

At the cross, God the Father is delivering the rulers and the powers in the fourth dimension over to Christ.

Paul explains in Galatians 1, 4, he gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from the present evil age according to the will of our God and our Father.

So Jesus, who is stripped naked, Jesus, who's made a public spectacle, according to Scripture, has stripped Satan naked and has made his principalities and powers a spectacle.

So church.

If you believe in Christ, you have the power of the cross and the resurrection living in you.

And no principality and no power and no demon from hell should stand in your way of becoming the man and the woman that you're called to be.

You can triumph over that.

You need to know your authority and your power in him.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, A king who dies on the cross must be the king of a rather strange kingdom.

Strange kingdom indeed.

For while the kingdoms of this world are built by force, the kingdom of God is founded on grace.

It's a cross-shaped kingdom.

It's a kingdom where actually we embrace suffering, we don't run from it.

Because it was Christ who said, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

So this kingdom, this kingdom at Calvary, is us growing in sanctification to understand that we have to actually deny ourselves, take up the kingdom cross, and face suffering.

For it's in facing suffering with the cross-shaped kingdom that we actually triumph over the enemy.

Martin Luther King Jr.

said, Christianity has always insisted that the cross we bear precedes the crown we wear.

The cross and the crown is at the center of our message.

The cross is the greatest revolutionary message known to humankind.

Because of the cross, we're forgiven of our sins.

Because of the cross, we're no longer under the law.

Because of the cross, the powers are robbed of their power.

And because of the cross, you are a royal priesthood.

Kings and priests of the coming kingdom on earth.

Revelation 5.

And you have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God, and we shall reign on the earth.

1 Peter 2 9.

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

That's who you are.

And when you walk out of this room, hold your head up.

Puff out your chest.

Go to the stores and the restaurants and the place you go.

You're a king and a priest.

You come as a loving king, not a prideful one, but you come as a loving king and priest.

And when the devil harasses you, tell that thing to leave.

Tell it to get out of your life.

I'm a priest of the Most High God.

I am a king.

I am a queen.

And I proclaim through my life the coming kingdom of God.

The kingdom has come.

The kingdom is here.

Wherever you go, you bring the kingdom.

That's why we pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

It's here.

It's not complete, but it's here.

It's the already, but the not yet.

But it's the already.

So believe it.

Walk in it.

Grow in confidence.

Your sins are forgiven.

You have a new hope.

You have new life.

You have a purpose for living, and you have the love bubbling up within you that only could come through the Spirit of God made known through Jesus Christ at Calvary.

The revolution started on a lonely hill outside of Jerusalem.

The kingdom of God revolution began as Jesus expired his life.

The kingdom of God revolution began with death and suffering.

The book is closed.

The chapter of death is over.

The king has died.

Thank you for listening to the Born for War podcast.

We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.

To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steve Holtonline.org.

God bless.