Rejected King (March 25th, 2018) - Mike Armstrong

All right, let's do this.

Let's get our Bibles open to John's Gospel.

John's Gospel.

It will be in John chapter 19 and even into 20 over the next three messages today, Good Friday and Easter Sunday, of course.

John 19 · chapter mention

And so as uh you're getting uh yourselves all turned there and everything, uh I'll tell you a little thing.

Uh earlier earlier this winter, uh I was on my way, it was my day off.

I was on my way to play uh hockey uh early morning, uh again, just probably a couple of months ago.

And uh let me set the scene up for you a little bit.

It was my day off, like I said, and uh a lot of excitement for me about this.

I love getting up, I love getting out and get going for a skate with the boys and uh and all of that.

And so it was about I don't know, 6.15 in the morning or so.

It had snowed about uh you know, probably two or three inches overnight, and so the plows hadn't been out or anything.

And and uh not to mention that, it was it was not just that, it was it was still coming down.

You know those like heavy kind of snow like really nice snowfall that's coming down, those great big uh flakes.

Again, it's early, it's pitch black, it is crisp, cold, clear, silent, that kind of a morning.

And uh, you know, I had my whole day off ahead of me and and just excited to be able to start uh the day off like this and have a bit of fun.

And so, you know, I'm heading towards the rink.

I jump into my uh car, and as I'm heading there, let me set the scene a little bit more for you.

Now, first of all, I'm um slightly notorious, I think, for driving my vehicles uh far beyond their expiration date.

Okay, let's put it that way.

Okay, and so for me, you know, I was kind of done with this this vehicle, we've since gotten rid of it, but I was done putting any money into this.

So, of course, I still had my summer tires on, right?

And even uh my brakes had you know maybe stopped working optimally.

Okay, let me just put it that way.

Okay, so you sort of see where this is going, right?

And so I'm I'm on some back roads, I'm on my way to the arena and heading up north, and and and I'm heading towards this intersection, okay, kind of a kind of a T intersection.

And I know I've done this so many times, I've got to go up this hill and kind of down this hill now towards a stop sign, and there's like houses on the other side of this road.

And so, in my, you know, as I was driving up, I'm thinking, you know what, the car, you know, is is has has seen better days, all right.

And and I'm heading uh you know up this hill and about to head down.

I should probably hit the brakes now and kind of give myself plenty of time, right?

So I had the right intention.

And uh, as I do this, I realize, nope, like it's just it's not gonna happen.

And so kind of just subconsciously, I think, I you know, I I reach for the e-brake, you know, big mistake.

Because now the car is going sideways, kind of up this hill and down this, you know, down the other side towards a stop sign.

Okay, and what I didn't mention is that I was also simultaneously drinking a smoothie.

Okay?

So as I'm going sideways and like shifting and grabbing the e-brake and turning, I just throw my smoothie like everywhere.

And I don't know if you've ever had a green smoothie or seen one.

They just they just look like vomit, right?

That's what it is.

And so I'm talking smoothie everywhere, all over the windshield, dash instruments, ignition, like all down the front of myself as well, like glasses covered, like can't see, and I'm sliding, okay?

I'm sliding towards this thing, and I just happened, okay, I just happened to kind of stop just in the nick of time.

Just kind of the the rear end of the car was just sort of just into the intersection.

Now, normally I would be responding with less than a favorable reaction to all of this.

Okay, but in the moment I kind of found, I don't know, I just kind of found it funny, and I I think I was just more relieved, okay, that I didn't get sliding into somebody's front yard or hit a tree or something like that.

So I just pulled the car over and I'm out there in the dark snows, falling.

I wasn't really dressed properly, I had like no socks in my shoes, like not prepared, all right?

And I'm like rooting through my hockey bag, I'm grabbing my towel that I'm gonna use for a shower later, and I'm like wiping off the inside of my car and myself.

I mean, it was just I mean, just a gong show.

Now, thankfully, everything turned out just fine, right?

Everything was totally fine.

In this case, it ends up being just maybe kind of a funny story and everything, but but listen, we've all been in situations before in life, you know, where you know, where life comes at you fast.

Right?

Everything, you know, everything is going along great, you know, there's excitement in the air, you know, everything is is solid, and then, you know, in a very serious way, all right, everything kind of goes sideways, right?

Our our circumstances can take can take a real turn for the worse, and again, this can happen quite quickly.

Okay, now Passion Week, which we are you know starting right now, I think is an example of this.

It is.

You know, today, of course, is is Palm Sunday, and John mentioned that, and and earlier he read to us from John's Gospel, John chapter 12, which is where you know Jesus, he's making his triumphal entry now into Jerusalem, right?

John 12 · chapter mention

He's he's heading in there, and and and how do the people receive him?

Right, with a lot of excitement, right?

They're they're fired up, they're they're pumped, they're you know, shouts of adoration and and all of that.

They're saying, they're saying, Hosanna, right?

Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king, the king of Israel.

And so they're ready, they're chomping at the bit to crown him king.

Right, and of course, at this point, they're just thinking, you know, from a political, governmental sort of level, they're thinking military might, they're they're thinking that kind of king.

But they're they're like laying down palm branches, he's coming in on you know, on a young donkey on that colt, and you know, he's a he's a hero in their eyes.

Right?

Everything was going along great.

The crowd was very pro-Jesus at this point.

But of course, you and I, as the church, if if you've been a Christ follower for any, you know, any length of time at all, you know, we know that that just seven days later, he would hang lifeless on a cross, right?

Having been tragically rejected and and killed by by his own people.

And so today we're gonna jump into this story here, the story where you know it's it's already taken a turn for the worse.

Right?

Things were going good, but then things went sideways uh in a hurry here.

And so we're gonna be looking at John uh chapter 19.

But hey, listen, in instead of observing this here from the vantage point of, you know, look what these people did to Jesus.

You know, look at you know the awful treatment that they gave him.

All right, we're gonna come at this from the angle of, hey, look what we did.

Look what we did to him.

It's it's our sin that put him there.

We're guilty of rejecting the king every bit as much as they were.

And of course, all of this today to prepare us for what's coming on Good Friday, and and the mourning and and the solemn, you know, heart approach that we have to recognizing his death and then the celebration that is, of course, coming three days after that on Easter Sunday.

So this is where we're going today, and over the next uh couple of services in the next week.

So let's let's kind of just bring this time before the Lord before we get into this, all right?

So why don't you join me as we pray?

Lord, we thank you again.

Lord, this time as we gather as your church this season, Easter, Lord, it is about far more than chocolate and bunnies and all of that.

That's not what it's about.

It's about it's about your death, Lord.

It's about your your resurrection, Lord, is how you went to the cross in our place, a substitutionary death, Lord, so that we didn't have to, the the wrath of God being poured out in full on your innocent, blameless Son, so that we could go free.

Lord, I pray that as we consider these things, Lord, that our hearts would be excited, Lord, that our hearts would be filled with new joy, that our hearts would be filled with new purpose, to love you, to surrender our lives, to go all in for Jesus, Lord.

I pray that you would lead us now through this time as we go through these verses, Lord, this, you know, the most important vent in all of human history, Lord.

That is not overstating it at all.

That's what exact exactly what it is.

And so, God, by your spirit, encourage us today, challenge us today.

We pray all this in Christ's name.

Amen.

Amen.

All right.

Well, here we go.

If you've got uh your outline there, you've got your notes, here it is.

We rejected our king in a sickening display of hatred.

In a sickening display of hatred.

Okay, so understand here that that uh that within just five days Jesus had gone from you know being hailed as king and and hero to you know very much the opposite.

He was betrayed, of course, by by Judas.

He was sold out by him, he was denied by Peter three times, he was completely abandoned by all of his friends, he was falsely accused by the Jewish uh religious leaders.

He he's the subject of Pilate's, you know, farce of a trial.

Okay, and all of that now, it brings us to verse 1 in chapter 19.

So take a look here as we go through this.

It says, then Pilate.

All right, let's stop right there.

Who's Pilate?

All right, who's that guy?

Well, well, he was the Roman governor or prefect of Judea.

You know, Jerusalem and the Jews were under uh Roman governance there, all right?

And so the Jewish leaders, they had brought Jesus, okay, he'd already been sold out by by Judas at this point and turned over to Caiaphas, the high priest.

And so they had brought Jesus to Pilate because they wanted to see him put to death under Roman law.

All right, for what?

For claiming to be God.

Okay, that that's what they wanted.

And so they were done with Jesus, and they've been looking for an opportunity to kill him multiple times, and now they're like, okay, we got our chance, we got our opportunity, we're going for it.

And so Pilate, he interrogates him and he wants to find out what is this, you know, what is this all about?

And and in all of it, though, he doesn't really want any part of it.

And so he tries to pass him off to Herod Antipas, and we, you know, learn about that in Luke's gospel in chapter 23.

And so, you know, Herod, he just kind of makes a big joke out of the entire thing and kind of humiliates Jesus and ends up sending him back to Pilate and all of that.

And, you know, Pilate kind of finds himself in this you know, sort of political mess, kind of between a rock and and a hard place here.

And again, he's just trying to kind of remove himself from this situation.

He doesn't want Jesus' blood on his hands, but but at the same time, he doesn't want to, you know, offend the Jews.

Some of the relationship there was kind of tense and and difficult, and he didn't want to, you know, potentially spark a riot there and have this huge issue on his hands.

Okay, so this is the scene that's been developing here all through John 18 and now in chapter 19.

All right, keep going, verse 1 again.

Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him.

Okay, flogged him.

Now we've talked about this a number of times already at Easter, uh, what flogging is all about.

Flogging uh was a miserable and awful and very cruel form of punishment where they would uh strip the person down and they would whip them.

But it wasn't one of those, you know, kind of seemingly innocent or maybe harmless little tiny whips.

It had multiple ends, it had, you know, bits of you know glass and bone tied to that, and they would they would whip the person, and you can just imagine the damage that that causes as the person would then pull back on all of that.

Now, under Jewish law, you were you know you were only allowed to flog somebody uh up to 40 times.

And so the Jews actually practiced flogging uh only up to 39 times just so that they wouldn't by you know by accident go over all of that.

Now, do you think the Roman soldiers cared at all about Jewish law when it came to how many times they would flog?

No, of course not.

And so they would just oftentimes go on and on and on until in many cases the Roman soldiers would just, they would just give up because they were so tired.

Or again, in in other situations and cases, until the person uh just simply succumbed to their injuries and died.

And so this is what was happening here.

And so Pilate agrees to have Jesus flogged, and what he's doing here is he's hoping that this will satisfy the bloodlust of these of these Jewish religious leaders.

Unfortunately, okay, he severely underestimates the hatred, the depth of the hatred that these Jews had uh for Jesus, as we'll see this as we go.

Okay, now take a look at verse two.

It says, And the soldiers the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and they put it on his head and and arrayed him in a purple robe.

They came up to him saying, Hail, King of the Jews, and struck him with their hands.

Okay, so the soldiers, on top of the flogging, if that wasn't enough, they decided to have a little fun at Jesus' expense.

Of course, fun in a very sick and twisted way, by abusing Jesus even more physically and verbally.

And so they outfit him with kind of this mock royal robe, right, uh, to signify that he's a king, and they jam this crown of thorns down on his head.

You can imagine the excruciating pain that that would have caused.

They're insulting him, they're they're beating him, they're mocking him, they're they're spitting on them.

We find that out from Matthew chapter 27.

Matthew 27 · chapter mention

They're doing this in front of everyone.

It's this public spectacle, and the whole idea is to just humiliate and and be incredibly cruel to Jesus.

Now, these verses, I mean, they obviously show us, you know, the abuse that Jesus himself suffered at the hands of these Roman soldiers and Pilate.

Okay, but all through the rest of this passage, and you're gonna be seeing it here, just how you know that the you know, just the obscene level of loathing and hatred spewed at Jesus by these uh these Jewish leaders as well.

Okay, by this mob that had gathered, okay?

It's nothing short of sickening.

It's gross in its in its brutality.

But the thing I think that that we need to be really careful of here, as we are you know, 2,000 years removed from this situation, as you know, we're observing them again, far from this.

We've got to really be really careful and and keep in mind that we're really no different than this than this mob, than these soldiers, or even than these, these Jewish leaders.

See, again, for us, it's pretty easy to read this and and and be stirred up with you know a sense of uh of sadness and and and and anger even and indignation because of the you know what took place here at the hands of these sinful men.

You know, and and we feel it and and we hate that.

Okay, but listen, listen, we're just as guilty.

Okay, we're just as guilty.

Our display uh of hatred that we have shown to Jesus Christ in our lives is is really no less sickening.

It isn't.

Okay, just think about your own testimony.

All right, think about your life before you got saved.

Okay, just just picture that as as we're going along here, and you know, all the times that that you rejected Jesus Christ before finally surrendering to him as your king by his grace.

You know, I was thinking about that for myself this week, and you know, all of the countless examples of uh of pride and and and so much arrogance and and and self-righteousness and all of it, and you know, the the the different ways that I treated people sometimes was was brutal, and and you know, just the the lack of of concern and and care that I had really for any of Christ's commands.

I didn't care about those things.

Right?

Endless hours of pursuing my own agenda, my own pleasure, my own broken, faulty, warped desires.

Right?

Some of it certainly, you know, other people saw and other people were definitely hurt by and on the receiving end of.

But listen, much of it though, done done in this kind of awful, slimy sort of of attempt to actually conceal it and make myself appear as though I was better than I actually was, that I had it all together.

Awful.

Right, awful.

And listen, of course, you've got all of your own examples.

And hopefully it doesn't take a whole lot of thinking to realize, yeah, I was, you know, I rejected the king too.

Okay, but then, okay, on top of all of that, and this is where we start to kind of turn the knife a little bit, and it starts to hurt us that much more, okay, just think about the times you've rejected Christ since getting saved.

The after your salvation.

Again, the countless examples of going against his holy commands.

Right?

Uh, you know, refusing to heed his warnings, to not step into sin.

You know, all of the times that we have in our pride, you know, stubbornly resisted his will and and and going in the direction that he wanted to take us.

You know, the laundry list of moments where you know we've given into temptation or or slandered somebody in the image of God or or been just bitter and and ungrateful, and our attitude is just sour and and not in a good place.

Maybe it's it's times that we've spent our money foolishly and we've got ourselves into trouble, or it's all the angry outbursts.

Listen, all of the idolatry.

Just think about the you know, all the different ways that you have said, Jesus, you know, I see that you're great, I'm thankful for my salvation, I thank you that I'm gonna be escaping hell and punishment in an eternal sense, but you know what?

I'm gonna look to these other things to bring me pleasure, to bring me hope, to bring me meaning and fun and joy in life.

All of that idolatry, what is that?

All of it ultimately is a rejection of Christ as King and Lord of all.

Okay?

It's a heart-level revolt against our king.

That's what it is.

It's disdain for him and his ways.

I mean, if you think about it, it's in its own way.

It's really a sickening display of hatred.

And you might be thinking, well, hold on a sec, Pastor, that sounds a little bit harsh, is it?

Is it?

If if Christ is as awesome as he is and he has saved us from sin, how revolting is it that we would not give everything over to him?

Right?

It's it's it's bad.

It's not a good scene.

Right?

We hate the fickleness of the people in the gospels, right?

The people that are like, Hosanna! And then the people that are just like booing him as he heads down the road towards suffering and dying.

Right?

People who loved him one second, hated him the next.

We're repulsed by it.

We're repulsed by the cruelty, the mockery, the actions of people at the scene.

But are we aware that at the end of the day we're just as responsible?

Right?

We too have rejected the king.

We've done it.

And in many ways, and this is the the most sad thing, in many ways we continue to, right, as people who should know better, as people who are you know considered his own.

Allow that to kind of sink in.

Allow that to weigh on you a little bit.

Allow that to weigh on you maybe a lot, and humble you as we kind of continue here.

Let's get to the next thing.

Okay, we rejected our king, though he was completely innocent.

He was completely innocent.

And we pick it up in verse 4 again, take a look at this.

It says, Pilate went out again, and he said to them, See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find what does it say there?

No guilt in him.

Okay, no guilt in him.

Okay, so Jesus came out, it says, wearing the crown of thorns and and the purple robe.

And Pilate said to them, Behold the man.

Okay, now just picture the sight that Jesus must have been at this point.

Endured the flogging, endured the beating and the humiliation.

He's got the robe on, he's got the crown of thorns on.

He he was beaten and broken from a human standpoint, right?

He really was.

It was it was just a sad scene.

All right.

And what is he what is Pilate doing?

He's trying to show them, he's saying, Behold the man, he's trying to show them, like, listen, this guy poses no threat to you.

This guy is not deserving of death.

But of course, the crowd refuses to listen.

Look at verse six it says when the chief priest and the officers saw him, they Cried out, crucify him, crucify him.

Pilate said to them, Take him yourselves and crucify him.

Of course, knowing that they wouldn't, because that wasn't permittable under Jewish law.

And then he reiterates here, for I find no guilt in him.

Okay, now I'm not so sure that Pilate saw Jesus as sinless.

Okay, pretty sure that that's not the case.

Okay, but he certainly saw that at the very least, Jesus did not deserve the death that they wanted to subject him to.

Now, the Bible is certainly clear and consistent in its teaching that Jesus was perfectly sinless.

He was completely, thoroughly, in every way possible, innocent.

He was blameless, never, ever sinned.

No hint of wrongdoing.

I mean, just listen to these verses as I read them.

1 Peter 2, 22.

He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.

Hebrews 4.15.

For we do not have a high priest, that's Jesus, who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who is in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Okay, 1 John 3, 5.

You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.

Okay, Jesus flat out did not deserve a shred of the treatment that he got here.

He didn't deserve any of it.

He didn't deserve it then.

He certainly doesn't deserve it now in our sin and in our rejection.

Okay, so you know, as as you and I, as Christ followers, as we're reading this and we're thinking about this, and and and maybe it's been a year since you've looked at this passage and you're kind of absorbing it again for the first time in a long time, and we're considering the you know the innocence and and the blamelessness of Jesus Christ here, the Messiah, you know, in light of all the different ways that we tend to reject him on a on a daily basis.

Okay, let's really allow his innocence to lead us to a new way of life.

Okay, a new way of living.

We've got two ways that we can do that.

This will be up on the screen for you.

Here's the first one: immediate and thorough repentance when we do sin.

Okay, immediate and thorough repentance.

You know, as we are struck by the sinless Christ, as we are struck by his innocence there, there should be a desire on our part to get our sin cleaned up and cleared out as soon as possible.

Right?

Why would we let that kind of build up and do more damage to us and grieve the sinless Christ?

Why would we do that?

Our sin in light of Jesus' blamelessness here should cause us to cringe.

Like we're we're doing this to him, we're grieving him.

And so listen, we should be dealing with issues and problems and sin as they come up in our life.

Okay, not letting these, again, we've said before, like these long laundry lists of sin going by and and and I'm not dealing with it properly.

And you know, it's kind of these this half-baked lip service kind of repentance that we often do.

Right?

Where I kind of know in my head that, yeah, what I've done isn't right, and so I'll kind of go through the motions in my repentance with the Lord.

Okay, but from a heart level, I'm I'm not really changed.

I I don't really care at the end of the day.

Okay, don't let it go on and on and on and allow this all to build up.

Let's get after it quickly.

Let's be thorough about our repentance.

Let's see this clearly, let's see this biblically.

Here's the second thing: greater urgency and conviction to obey him.

Greater urgency and conviction to obey him.

Why?

Why?

Well, he is worthy, right?

He is worthy.

His commands are perfect.

He is perfect.

He's innocent, right?

There's just flat out no room for lukewarmness or or mediocrity in the you know in the Christian life.

This this sort of mail-it-in attitude and approach that we can often have in our faith.

Again, we would there should be none of that.

Right?

We should be passionate about following the Lord.

We should be resolute in our obedience.

There should be conviction driving from our hearts because the Lord has captured us.

Right?

Christ was innocent and he obeyed his father perfectly.

And so we're to be imitators of Christ.

We're to go after that.

We're to obey as well.

Now, are we gonna do that perfectly?

Of course not.

We're sinful.

We're all in this kind of gritty, grimy process of called sanctification, where we're learning how to grow and we're gonna make mistakes, and the Lord, by his grace, through his Holy Spirit, is transforming our hearts and giving us the desires to follow him and the actual power to be able to live like Jesus Christ.

Right?

He is doing that.

But as we sin and as we stumble and as we make mistakes and we fall apart, and listen, we all do it.

Let's make sure that we're bringing these things to the Lord immediately.

We're repenting.

There's urgency, there's conviction to obey him in these things.

Our innocence, I think, really kind of spurs that in us.

Alright, here's the next thing.

Okay, we rejected our king, but it didn't catch God off guard at all.

Look at verse 7.

Okay, verse 7 says this the Jews answered him, so they're answering Pilate.

We have a law, and according to that law, he ought to die, because he has made himself the Son of God.

Alright, so they declare their intentions clearly, right?

When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid, it says.

Okay, so the Jews, again, they were accusing him of blasphemy.

Let's be clear on that.

And according to Jewish law, they're likely referring to Leviticus 24, verse 16.

Leviticus 24:16

Okay, blasphemy, it brought death.

Now here's the thing, it brought death by stoning.

Okay?

Now the challenge here is that the Jews were, of course, also under Roman law.

They were under Roman law, which would be, which would forbid, obviously, just allowing their citizens to administer capital punishment however they felt, right?

Kind of makes sense.

Okay, and so here's the thing though.

It's not like that had necessarily stopped the Jews before.

Right?

Because what what comes to mind for us when we think about stoning?

Well, we think about Stephen.

I think about Stephen.

They were they weren't too worried about the Romans uh at that point.

Okay, so why not do it now with Jesus?

Why not do this more quietly?

Well, the difference here is that they were just about to celebrate the Passover.

We're gonna get into the Passover a bit more later.

All right?

But the Passover was this celebration uh every year that that brought more and more Jews into Jerusalem to celebrate.

All right?

Which of course required more Roman soldiers to kind of police the scene and keep the peace.

Not to mention, listen, the Jews are trying their best at this point to not get their hands dirty because they don't want to in any way be defiled so that they can participate in Passover, which is happening real quick here.

And so you kind of see, or as you can kind of understand the context, there's just a lot going on.

Right?

A lot going on from a Jewish standpoint.

Now, with Pilate, okay, he's got his own issues.

Okay, it says that Pilate there was even more afraid.

What's that all about?

Well, likely, likely because of what his wife had told him.

Okay, his wife had told him back in Matthew 27, verse 19, and records it for us there.

Matthew 27:19

She she'd had a dream, right?

She'd had a dream about Jesus, and she'd warned her husband Pilate.

She's like, don't have anything to do with this guy.

Have nothing to do with him.

So Pilate, okay, being Roman was was probably extremely superstitious.

He didn't want to have or harm uh you know a potentially heavenly or godlike being in any way.

He's like, I just don't want a part uh of all of this.

And so he's he's got fear now.

Okay?

Now keep going here, verse 9.

It says he he entered his headquarters again.

Okay, so so you kind of see what's happening here.

He's going out to the Jews outside, and he's going back in to talk to Jesus.

He kind of keeps going back and forth.

And one of the things going on as well is that the Jews, according to Law, cannot go into the home of a Gentile.

This is this is Pilate's place, or else they would be defiled before Passover.

And so he's already, they've already kind of offended him by this, and he knows what's going on.

So he's annoyed at them, they're annoyed at him as their Roman leader and all of that.

So again, the whole scene is pretty tense.

Okay, and so he goes in, he entered into his headquarters again and said to Jesus, Where are you from?

You know, understand he's not inquiring about Jesus' earthly hometown.

He knows that he's Galilean.

Okay, rather he's wondering like what what realm, you know, or you know, world are you potentially from here?

Right again, superstition is probably working overtime here.

Okay, it says there though, keep going, that Jesus gave him no answer.

Why?

Well, probably because back in chapter 18, he already told him that he was not from this world.

Okay, and so Pilate said to him, keep going, he says, You will not speak to me?

Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?

And Jesus answered him, You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above.

Therefore, he who delivered me to you has the greater sin.

And he's referring, I think, to the sin of Caiaphas, the high priest and and the Jewish leaders here who had, you know, given him over to the Romans here and rejected him ultimately, you know, as their as their king and the son of God.

Okay, but you notice how Jesus just tells Pilate plainly.

He's like, any authority that you have over me is is given to you by who?

By God.

Right?

It's given to him by God.

I mean, isn't that amazing?

Isn't that then incredible that he says that?

You just see that the sovereignty of God in this entire scene that's playing it out.

No, hey, we just talked about the sovereignty of God last Sunday, didn't we?

And the fact that God is in is in control and and nothing catches him off guard.

And and I mean, that's a pretty incredible, incredible thing to see happening right here in this passage.

You know, that this trial, the rejection, the cruelty, none of it surprised the Lord.

None of it did, whatsoever.

You know, sure, from a from a human standpoint, I mean, imagine being there.

Imagine watching this whole scene, you know, play itself out.

It, you know, it certainly would have looked like Christ's fate rested in Pilate's hands.

It would have looked like Jesus' luck just kind of run out.

Like, man, you had a good run.

You know, and and you know, they've they've they've tried to kill you, and you've you know managed to escape all of that a number of times, but your time's up, Jesus.

You're in the hands of the government now.

Look out, there's power.

Make no mistake.

The Lord was calling all the shots.

All the shots.

Okay?

Remember that.

Remember that, not just as you read this, though that's incredibly important.

Remember that as you're considering your own life.

Remember that as everything just feels like it is a tire fire.

Nothing is working out.

Why is this happening to me?

Why the why the illness?

Why the why the job disaster?

Why why the financial ruin?

Why why the relational discord?

Why the lack of peace about anything?

Lord, what could possibly be happening in all of this?

Lord, are you in control?

What is the answer?

A resounding yes.

Right?

He is.

Anchor yourself to that.

Anchor yourself.

You see examples of this all through the scripture, and we see it in a massive and huge way right here in the Easter story.

Jesus is in control.

Nothing catches the Lord off guard.

He is using it to his glory, he is using it to shape you.

He's using it in ways that you maybe not probably can't even see right now.

Trust him.

Trust him.

He is never caught off guard at all.

Entrust your life to him.

Yes, we as his creation, we rejected the king.

Right?

We've done it.

But God used this atrocity to accomplish his purpose.

Right?

He uses it to accomplish his promises and fulfill all of it.

And all of this is really leading us to the last thing here.

Take a look.

We rejected our king and he let himself be led away to slaughter.

Okay, verse 12.

Verse 12, look at that.

It says, From then on, Pilate sought to release him.

Okay, but the Jews cried out, If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend.

Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.

Okay, and so you see the Jews here, they're just turning the screws on Pilate.

They realize that they've got him against the ropes.

It is like full court press.

We are getting our own way.

This is manipulation at its best.

Okay, so it says there.

So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the Stone Pavement and in Aramaic Gabbatha.

Now it was the day of preparation of the Passover.

Okay, that's important.

Bookmark that in your mind.

We're gonna come back to it.

It says that it was about the sixth hour, so roughly noon, somewhere in there.

And he said to the Jews, I mean, so again, just picture how long this now, this trial has been going on, and the torture and all of it.

It all started weird hours in the morning.

Okay, it says he said to the Jews, Behold your king.

They cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him.

Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your king?

And the chief priest answered in one final cold-hearted declaration, we have no king but Caesar.

And so he delivered him over to them to be crucified.

Now, as we, you know, for us, as we kind of read this passage and and these verses, and you know, as we know how it all works out, we can almost choke on the irony that's taking place all the way through this, can't we?

It's wild.

I mean, they they mock, they torture, you know, they ultimately crucify Jesus for claiming to be king.

And they're, again, all of it, right?

The irony, of course, what?

That he was the king.

Right?

He was God himself coming for us, right?

And further irony is found in verse 14.

I said we would come come back to that, where it says that this was the day of the preparation of the Passover.

Okay, you know, what was the what was the Passover all about?

Okay, the Passover, of course, was you know, them, the people, celebrating and looking back on and praising the Lord, thanking the Lord for his salvation from the Egyptians.

Okay, you know, so you think about you think about Moses, and you remember the the plagues over Egypt and Pharaoh and all of that, and the final one was what?

The angel of death, and the angel of death sweeps through Egypt, killing the firstborn male in every family.

And so what does God lead Moses and the people to do, though, if they want to be saved?

To put lamb's blood above their doorpost.

And if they did this, it was it was an act of it was an act of faith and trust in the Lord.

It was it was God passing over them.

You got that, and and uh, and a lamb died in the place of the firstborn male in every family.

Okay, so the Passover was God's, was seen as God's uh judgment of sin and of course his salvation.

And so when we read here in verse 14 that this was the the preparation of the Passover, okay, we understand this as this was this was the time that they would begin to start sacrificing Passover lambs in Jerusalem as they got ready for this.

Okay, all of that, listen, it should be a signal to us as we're reading this, and we know where this is all going, with Jesus' death and his resurrection.

Okay, it should be a signal for us that Christ, who's referenced in the scriptures as the perfect, sinless Lamb of God, he is the final sacrifice, okay?

He is the Lamb who would be slain.

He is the means by which God would judge sin and save us from God's wrath once and for all through his blood poured out for us on the cross.

Listen, we rejected Christ.

But like the Passover lambs, he allowed himself to be led away and be slaughtered for you and I.

Okay, this voluntary act of love.

In all of that, we find forgiveness, right?

We're set free from the punishment that you and I deserved.

Saved.

That's what it's about.

Listen, do you understand?

Okay, do you do you understand that that what we are talking about today, in this moment, as we unpack these scriptures, what we grieve, we'll be grieving in five days' time on Good Friday, and then celebrating, you know, three days later on Easter Sunday in the resurrection, all of it.

That is God's salvation for you.

That is what that is.

Jesus went to the cross so that you would not have to suffer his wrath.

Christ's death was substitutionary.

God looked at him and he poured it all out for all sin all at once, so that you and I, if we would believe that, if we would trust in that one awesome, shocking act of love, if we would just come clean about our sin and just and just admit it and ask Christ to be our Savior, we would have our have our sins forgiven.

We would go free.

And we would know God personally.

And so, hey, can I can I challenge you this morning?

Can I encourage you?

Listen, allow me to plead with you.

If you have not done that, turn to Christ today.

Stop rejecting the king.

Stop being oblivious to your sin and what that does to your relationship with God, your creator.

It ruins it.

Stop acting like, you know, well, if I'm just a good person, maybe that, you know, will be enough to allow me into heaven someday.

That's not the way it works.

Our sin has thoroughly, completely, totally corrupted us spiritually.

There is no hope of us somehow fixing that so that God approves of us.

That's why Christ went to the cross.

Would you understand that today?

Would you heed the Holy Spirit?

Maybe he maybe you sense him kind of prodding you here in this in this moment.

He's stirring you up in your heart to bowing your knees spiritually and just giving your life over to him.

Would you do that today?

We've got people in our church and they'll be up here after the service, and they wanna they want to pray with you.

They want to hear about this.

I would love to hear about this.

You can do it right now.

You don't have to wait for all of them.

Would you maybe talk to the person that you came with today?

Listen, there is nothing more important than this.

I've said this before, but when I was eight years old, I gave my life to the Lord.

I recognized, listen, my sin separates me from Christ.

I need him as an eight-year-old boy.

I I grasped that.

I remember driving home from church.

I I had told my parents, my dad said, Listen, there is no greater decision that you will ever make in your life than that.

And it's absolutely true.

And so would you do it?

Would you respond now?

Receive the king.

Worship the king.

He's not just a king, he is yours.