The Crucified King | Alex Gallien | "Apostles' Creed" Part 4

This is week four of a series where we are walking through this thing called the Apostles' Creed.

And for those of you that are new, uh the word, the mantra for our year at Overflow Church is the word remember.

And that's because we are convinced that if the church forgets its past, we might also be in danger of forfeiting our future.

And that's why this entire year we've committed ourselves to remembering the church's history and the practices and the beliefs that have been building Christians into Christians for centuries, and specifically through this series, we're walking line by line through this thing called the Apostles' Creed, which is one of the oldest and most complete summaries of what all Christians have had to believe in order to be a Christian at all since the dawn of Christianity.

This is a creed that was compiled by the early church in order to teach people the gospel, protect it from being distorted, and to pass it down faithfully from one generation to the next.

And over the last three weeks, here are the lines that we've covered in the creed.

Week one was, I believe.

Week two was in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

Week three, I believe in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.

And that means that today, the next line in the creed is the following: He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.

And if you're taking notes, I want to walk through this line of the creed via a sermon that's going to be entitled The Crucified King.

The Crucified King.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.

And before we get into the bulk of today's content, I think we should note that in between last week's line of the creed and this week's line, it's as if we skipped straight from Jesus being born to Jesus dying, which obviously are two very important factors of the Christian faith, but I think we can all agree that another pretty important factor of Christianity is a Jesus' life.

Okay, the 30 years where, of course, he lived as a carpenter or depending on who you ask, a stonemason, kind of worked a normal job.

And then, of course, his three years where he stepped into ministry, where he's announcing the kingdom of God, healing the sick, casting out demons, performing miracles, raising the dead, uh, teaching principles about life and godliness that are still transforming the world.

And while he does all of this, living a totally sinless life, he commits himself to consistently offering unprecedented amounts of mercy towards sinners and rebuking religious hypocrisy in what feels like every other chapter.

And while doing this, he amasses loads of influence and fame and popularity.

Uh Jesus is becoming one of the most well-known people in his time period.

And while his influence grew, so did the tension surrounding him.

As crowds were drawn to him, there was opposition started building up as well, and it all sort of leads to this one final week of his human life.

This one final week in Jerusalem that Christians have historically referred to as Holy Week.

It was the week leading up to Jesus' crucifixion that took place on a Friday and his resurrection that takes place on Easter Sunday morning and Holy Week.

Day one of Holy Week is what we call Palm Sunday.

And that's actually what we're celebrating right now.

In case you didn't know, today is Palm Sunday, and that's the day where Jesus reveals himself as Israel's king, and he does so by fulfilling this prophecy out of Zechariah 9:9 that said that Israel's Messiah would come through the gates of Jerusalem riding on the back of a donkey.

Zechariah 9:9

And he does this.

And I'm not going to read you that verse, but I do want to show you what happens immediately after Jesus makes this declaration and he rides into Jerusalem on the back of this donkey.

You do not have to turn there, you can write it down.

Just follow along.

I'm going to give you an opportunity to open up your Bibles here in just a second.

But for now, just follow along on the screen, write this down.

John 12, 13.

You'll never know how fun it is to collectively see all of you look down and write it down whenever we say a verse.

It's like 80% of you go.

And I think that's so cool.

I think it's cool that you like this stuff.

I think it's cool that you want to know this stuff.

I think most of you probably grew up in backgrounds where you could not have even imagined taking notes during a church service.

Most of you couldn't have imagined staying awake during a church service, much less taking notes during one.

And so seeing your heads go down and take notes to this day, there are very few sites.

The only site I like more than that on a Sunday morning is right before the 9 45 when they open those doors and the giant crowd of one billion people rush in here.

I'm like, this is crazy.

We have a we have people waiting in line to go to church.

Do you know how cool that is?

People waiting in line to go to church is unreal.

All right, that's my rabbit trail for today.

John 12, 13.

As Jesus entered in, it says, They took palm branches.

This is where we get the term palm Sunday, and they went out to meet him, shouting, Hosanna, which means save us or savior.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Blessed is the king of Israel.

Now, if you didn't fully understand the lyrics to song three, and you were like, What are we saying right here?

We weren't speaking in tongues.

We were echoing Israel.

We were saying Hosanna, because that's what they said on Palm Sunday, the very first time around.

And literally, they're so when they say Hosanna as Jesus is entering into the city, they're saying, God save us, or this is God's Savior.

They're acknowledging Jesus as the Savior and as the King of Israel.

And in ancient time periods, palm branches were oftentimes symbols of military victory.

And so when the people go out and they welcome Jesus with palm branches, they are assuming that he is going to be Israel's king in a way where he's going to show up in Jerusalem and overthrow the Roman government and put Israel back on top.

And while Jesus is most certainly Israel's Messiah, he did not ride into Jerusalem as Israel's king and savior who would overthrow their political oppressors, but rather he rode into Jerusalem as the king and savior of all humanity who would overthrow the power of Satan and sin itself.

But Israel doesn't really understand this.

And just a few days later, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, these religious leaders at Israel who hated Jesus because of how intensely he rebukes them on what seems like such a consistent basis, they have now convinced all these same people who are praising Jesus and saying Hosanna on Palm Sunday.

By the time Friday gets here, these religious leaders have convinced all these same people that Jesus is a heretic and he needs to be crucified by their Roman enemies.

And so when we get to Thursday night, we've got the iconic scene of the Last Supper.

Jesus and his disciples are in the upper room.

They're sitting around a table, he's talking, sharing his last moments with them.

He's washing their feet, he's teaching them some final principles about the kingdom of God.

He institutes the sacrament of communion for the first time.

And after that, he leaves and brings a couple of his disciples with him to go spend some time praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.

And while he's there, Judas, one of his disciples, betrays him.

And Jesus, under the cover of night, so as to not alert the crowd, he's arrested by the leading Jewish authorities.

And the first thing that happens is he goes through this initial round of questions with one of the high priests named Annas.

And then he goes through another round of questions through the high priest Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, who was kind of like the governing body of the people of Israel at this time period.

And while he's there being questioned by Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, they begin to accuse him of blasphemy.

And by the time it's said and done, he is condemned for being a heretic and for being blasphemous.

And all the while, his disciples are nowhere to be found.

They've all scattered, they've all run away.

They flee.

Peter has gone as far as to deny even knowing him at all.

Judas is in the process of taking his own life.

And by daybreak, I mean, really early in the morning on Friday, these Jewish leaders have now turned Jesus over to the Roman governor Pilate because they don't have the authority to perform an execution, because they're under Roman occupation.

And so it's Pilate's job.

And this is where we get to the line, the first section of the creed that we're covering today, which is that Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate.

And if you're taking notes, maybe this is a good time to just write that section down as the heading.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate.

And as we talk about this, the first thing that we're going to do is read to you what's probably the most boring verse in the entire New Testament, or so you thought, after today.

So again, I don't want you to turn here.

Just write it down.

I'll let you turn uh in just a second.

This is Luke chapter 3.

Luke 3 · chapter mention

Luke 3, verses 1 and 2.

Luke 3:1

Luke 3, 1 and 2, it says, It was now the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, the Roman Emperor.

Pontius Pilate was the governor over Judea.

Herod Antipas was the ruler over Galilee.

His brother Philip was the ruler over Icheria and Trachonidas.

And Lysanius was the ruler over Abilene.

Annas and Caiaphas were the high priests.

And at this time, a message from God came to John the Baptist of Zechariah, who is living in the wilderness.

Now, originally, this verse is technically there to set up the story of John the Baptist, Jesus' prophet cousin, who comes on the scene a few years before Jesus to prepare Israel for Jesus' earthly ministry.

But I think it's fair to say there's actually a lot more happening with this verse than most of us realize.

Okay, and this is what I mean.

When you read this, oh, it's so important, and most of you have never been told this.

When Luke names real leaders and real kings and real rulers and real time periods and real people in real places, he's doing something specific.

He's placing Jesus' story right in the middle of documented, verifiable history.

He's trying to make the point.

This is not a myth.

This is not legend.

This isn't a metaphor.

This isn't something we made up to feel better about ourselves.

This guy really existed, and all this stuff really happened.

And if you don't believe me, go check the records.

And for the last 2,000 years, you want to know what people have been doing?

They've been checking the records and they've been trying to verify this history.

And you want to know what every single person has figured out over the last 2,000 years when they do this?

The life, the death, and even the resurrection of Jesus is the single most verifiable event in all of ancient history.

When you compare the historical evidence for Jesus and the New Testament writings against other historical events and figures that no one questions, the gap between them is staggering.

For example, the New Testament alone is supported by over 5,800 Greek manuscripts, 10,000 Latin manuscripts, and 20,000 manuscripts across all languages, some of them that date back to just within decades of the original stories and the original events.

Meanwhile, the writings of Julius Caesar, which we consider reliable and very and verifiable history, they only exist in ten manuscripts.

The Gallic Wars exist in ten manuscripts, the earliest of which is and was written a thousand years after all that happened.

And then you remember William Shakespeare?

We consider him to be a historical figure of which no one doubts.

Did you know we don't have a single copy of any of his original plays?

Not a single copy.

And those that we do have are so far removed from his original plays, they have notable differences across the board.

And yet, when it comes to our New Testament, the documents within the Bible and the life of Jesus, we have loads of early manuscripts that were written by eyewitnesses and preserved with remarkable consistency, not across 10 sources, but across thousands upon thousands of sources.

So here's the irony.

Even though Jesus somehow gets presented as a myth and as a legend and as a folklore, the evidence that we have for the life, the death, and even the resurrection of Jesus is stronger than the evidence we have that Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, and William Shakespeare even existed.

How cool is that, dude?

This means that when you're reading about the story of Jesus, you're not reading a myth.

You're not reading about this thing that they just made up.

You are reading documented, verifiable history.

You are reading the most provable history in all of ancient history.

Throw out your McGraw Hill textbooks and just know this right here is the most reliable historical source that we have for all of antiquity.

You're not going to teach you that stuff in college, do they?

You know, you know what this is called?

It's called the study of apologetics.

And some of our nerds who really enjoyed Kent Kelso's small group uh last session at the early part of this year, this is some of what you guys learned.

And if you want all those stats, I'm not gonna slow down and repeat any of them.

You're gonna have to go back.

Look at the sermon on YouTube because we gotta keep going with this particular sermon.

Because at this point, all of the history that we just talked about, it's about to hit its most intense moment.

Jesus has been delivered over to Pontius Pilate, and the climate in Jerusalem is starting to get really hot.

Because now that Jesus is with Pilate, the problem is that even though Pilate finds Jesus guilty of literally nothing, and if you read the story, he seems to be shaken up and disturbed by Jesus' presence at all.

The crowd, which Pilate, like all good politicians, wants to please and wants to like him, the crowd is growing restless because the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Sanahedron and the religious leaders have spewed all sorts of propaganda to this crowd, and they have convinced this crowd that not only is Jesus not a good guy, but he's a bad guy.

He's a heretic.

He's blasphemed to God, and he doesn't just need to be stoned.

No, he needs to be crucified.

We need the Romans to take care of this for us.

And this is where we pick up, and this is where you can turn your Bibles.

I want you to open up to Matthew 27.

I'll give you a second to get there.

Matthew 27, and we're going to begin in verse number 24.

I couldn't be any happier that this particular sermon falls on a fifth Sunday.

I love the opportunity to be able to talk through this with our kids in the room.

Some of your parents need to listen real closely because what we're about to go over is gonna be a real shock to some of your kids.

They ain't never heard it before.

They've heard the story of Noah's Ark, and they ain't heard the story of the crucifixion.

They're gonna have some questions.

So you better take some notes.

Matthew 27, we're starting verse 24.

It says Pilate saw that he wasn't getting anywhere and that a riot was developing, so he sent for a bowl of water and he washed his hands before the crowd, saying, I'm innocent of this man's blood.

The responsibility is yours.

And all the people yelled back, yeah, we'll take responsibility for his death.

We and our children.

And so Pilate released Barabbas to them, which is a story for another day.

It's a great one.

And he ordered Jesus to be flogged with a lead-tipped whip and then turned over to the Roman soldiers to be crucified.

To be flogged.

If you're taking notes, that's probably the word you write down.

Some of you may not even want to take notes.

You may just want to sit here and digest what we're about to talk about.

To be flogged was a brutal Roman punishment that was designed to bring a man to the edge of death before the cross ever even got here, before he ever experienced the cross.

What would happen if they would take a whip, it was just big enough to fit in your hand, and it had nine strands of leather attached to it, and embedded within these strands of leather were pieces of stone and lead and metal and rock and even fragments of bone.

And they would take the whip, and when they hit someone with it, those fragments would dig into a person's skin and then rip their flesh away, sometimes exposing muscle, tissue, and even bone, but leaving a person's back lacerated to the point of being totally unrecognizable.

And this wasn't like a normal practice for Jews.

Jews were allowed to whip people, they actually had their own floggings.

But if you read in Deuteronomy, they weren't allowed to whip people more than 40 times.

In fact, they never actually whipped people more than 39 times just in case they lost count.

They didn't want to disobey God and disobey his law.

And their whippings were not meant to be torturous and they weren't meant to be deadly.

They were meant to be punishment for the sake of long-term survival.

This was not the case for a Roman flogging or a Roman scourging.

They didn't have any limits.

You just kept on going until the soldiers got tired, until their shoulders and their forearms were weak and heavy from all the whipping.

They just continued going.

And if someone even survived this process, which oftentimes they didn't, if someone did, they were barely alive, they were barely breathing, they were barely able to stand, much less carry across to the execution side.

If you've never watched the movie, Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ, I would consider it a piece of somewhat sacred art.

And uh obviously there's gonna be theatrical elements in there that aren't precisely in line with the scriptures, but like if you've never seen that and you want like a good picture and reminder of what's actually happening here, if you saw it like 25 years ago or whenever it came out in the theaters, this week might be a good time to refresh yourself and to watch it leading up to Easter.

But all that said, the idea of what Jesus went through when it says he suffered under Pontius Pilate, it doesn't stop with the whipping.

All right, let's continue reading in Matthew 27.

Let's start in verse 27.

It says, Some of the governor's soldiers took Jesus into their headquarters and called out the entire regiment.

They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, they wove thorn branches into a crown and put it on his head, and they placed a reed stick in his right hand as a scepter.

Then they knelt before him in mockery and they taunted, Hail, king of the Jews! And they spit on him, and they grabbed a stick and struck him on the head with it.

So, not only do the Roman soldiers humiliate Jesus by stripping him naked before whipping him, then they dress him as a fake king and they offer him this sarcastic worship, after which they decide they find a thornbush and they grab a branch out of that and they weave it into a circular pattern so as to make this crown of sorts, and they don't place the crown on his head, they shove it down into his skull, obviously, which would cause blood to run down his face and would cause agonizing pain.

Then they spit in his face and they take the reed that they put in his hand and they hit him in the face with it, and all the while the king of the universe just sits there and takes it as people watch.

Some of those people celebrating as the heretic gets his due reward for his blasphemy, and other people probably nauseated at the sight of their friend, their teacher, their brother, and their son being publicly tortured to the point of being unrecognizable.

But many of you are also aware that the story of Jesus doesn't stop with the fact that he suffered under Pontius Pilate.

The story doesn't stop there, neither does the creed.

It says he did suffer under Pontius Pilate, but then it also says he was crucified, he died, and was buried.

So let's pick back up with a story in Matthew 27, verse 31.

Matthew 27:31

When they were finally tired of mocking him, they took off the rope, put his own clothes back on, and then they led him away to be crucified.

Now, crucifixion is one of the most brutal forms of execution that was ever devised.

The Romans didn't invent crucifixion, but they perfected it, and they did so to make a public statement every time.

When someone was crucified, they, which we'll talk about this here in a moment, but they were hung on the cross, and those crosses were typically stationed along really busy roads and entrances leading into cities because the Romans wanted people to see those people hanging on the cross, and they wanted to make the declaration that this is the reward for anyone who defies Rome.

You know those propaganda pieces about how Roman, like when the Romans were ruling the world, there was peace in the world.

This was their idea of peace.

It was if you defy us, we're going to do this to you.

And this is what's happening to Jesus.

So he's flogged and to the point of obviously barely even being alive at that point.

Then he's made to carry this incredibly heavy wooden T-shaped beam to the site of the execution.

When they get to the execution site, whether it's Jesus or another victim, they would take their right hand and nail it to one side of the beam, their left hand nail it to the other side of the beam, and then they would take their feet and shove nails through their feet and put the human body up on that beam.

Didn't stop there though.

They would then take the beam with the human body hanging on it, and they would hoist it up for everyone to see and look at.

And this is what's happening to Jesus.

Alongside all this, though, Pilate gets real creative.

He decides to put a sign over Jesus' head that says, uh, this is Jesus, King of the Jews.

And Pilate doesn't do this because he believes that Jesus is the Messiah.

Again, he does it to incite terror in the hearts of any Jewish person who decided that they were going to.

Note themselves as king.

He says, Okay, you want to be a king?

You want to lead a rebellion?

This is what happens to rebels.

They get crucified, and Rome will crush them every time.

So Jesus is hanging there on the cross, suffering with a sign above his head that says, This is Jesus, King of the Jews.

And all the while he's still getting mocked.

He's getting mocked by passerbys, he's getting mocked by religious leaders.

He's even getting mocked by the two criminals that are being crucified on his right and his left, and they're all saying the same thing.

They're all challenging him that if he really is the son of God, take yourself off the cross, defeat these Roman enemies, prove yourself as the Son of God.

Obviously, you know the story.

It says, at about three o'clock, and mind you, this was after essentially darkness covers the land for like three hours, which is again a documented, verifiable fact of history.

Uh, this actually happened.

There was an eclipse that took place at this moment.

At three o'clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, Eli, Eli, Lama Sabactini, which means, My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

Why have you forsaken me?

And we're not going to get into it today, but when he says this, he's quoting the psalm.

He doesn't actually believe that God has abandoned him.

He's quoting the psalm about the suffering servant, and he's saying, This is me.

I am this person, and this is what's been prophesied about me all these years ago.

Let's skip to verse 50.

Then Jesus shouted out again, and he released his spirit.

At that moment, the curtain in the sanctuary of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

The earth shook, and rocks split apart.

I want you to skip to verse 57.

As evening approached, Joseph, a rich man from Arimathea, who had become a follower of Jesus, went to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body, and Pilate issued an order to release it to him.

Joseph took the body and he wrapped it in a long sheet of clean linen cloth.

He placed it in his own new tomb, which had been carved out of the rock, and then he rolled a great stone across the entrance of that tomb and he left because Jesus died.

This isn't a metaphor, it wasn't a spiritual death.

In fact, it's important for you to know, it wasn't a spiritual death.

God didn't die in the sense of what you think death is.

Jesus' spirit did not die, but his human self most certainly died.

In fact, to make sure of it, we didn't read this, but to make sure of it, while he's still hanging on the cross, the Roman soldiers take a spear and they stab him through the side just to make sure he's not breathing.

Then, of course, they take his body down.

He's laid in a tomb, and there's a rock rolled over the tomb because that's what happens when people die and Jesus died.

And this is what we believe.

But here's my question.

Why do we believe this?

Have you ever actually asked yourself that question?

Why do you believe this?

Have you ever asked yourself this question?

You should.

Why did Jesus' death have to be so brutal?

Why couldn't He have just like quickly died?

And honestly, why in the world couldn't God have just shown up and been like, yo, you're off the hook.

Love you guys so much.

I forgive you.

Why does sin lead to death at all?

Why death?

Why, when you read the Old Testament, does God almost seem like He is obsessed with death and sacrifice and blood loss?

Have you ever honestly asked yourself these questions?

Why?

Here's another question.

If an unbeliever asked you that question, could you answer it?

You Christian who've been coming to church for 50 years, you've celebrated Easter your whole life.

Can you honestly answer the question why we believe all this, why all this is important, why in the world God seems to be somewhat obsessed with death and sacrifice and blood?

Now, that's not to meant to shame you, because I haven't always been able to answer that question either.

But if you find yourself in that predicament, let me help you out.

Okay, I want to I want to help you to be able to answer that question for yourselves and for other people.

Okay.

From the very beginning of the Bible, God has made one thing crystal clear, and it is that sin always results in death.

In Genesis 2, 17, when he's speaking to Adam, the first human that God makes, he says to him, You can eat the fruit of any tree in this garden, the Garden of Eden, but if you eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will surely die.

And by the time we get to Genesis chapter 3, Adam is now with Eve, his wife, who God had also made.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Most of you know the story.

They do exactly what God told them not to do.

They eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

And this is why God can't just show up and say, poof, ah, it's okay, you're forgiven.

All is good.

Because God isn't only loving.

We love for God to love the world.

God isn't only loving, God is just, and he is fair, he demands justice, and God is faithful, meaning he's not a liar, he's a guy who keeps his word.

And so if God ignores sin in that instance, he wouldn't be faithful, and he wouldn't be just, he would be bad, and he would be unfair, and God is not that.

He is good and he is loving, but he is also just, he is fair, he is faithful, he's the man who keeps his word, and so therefore, this sin now has to be punished.

The consequences that God said would happen as a result of sin, these consequences must take place.

And yet, even though Adam and Eve were very much so in danger of dying, even though they had earned death for themselves by doing the very thing God told them not to do, in his first display of mercy, not only does God allow them to continue living for quite some time, but he does something else that's really surprising, and oftentimes we miss it because it's one sentence in the Bible, and I want to read it to you real quick.

This is Genesis 3.21.

Just write it down.

Genesis 3.21.

The Lord God made clothing from animal skins for Adam and his wife.

So they sin, they realize they're not clothed, and it says God then makes them clothing, He covers them with animal skins, which means that for that to happen, for someone to be covered in animal skins, what has to take place?

An animal has to die, which still introduces death into the story immediately following the entrance of sin into the story.

But in a shocking turn of events, it's not Adam and Eve who die, it's an animal who dies in their place.

And first, this teaches Adam and Eve a lesson about the seriousness of sin and its consequences, in that the second sin shows up, an innocent being has to die because of their mistake and their rebellion and their wickedness.

And then, secondly, this creates a pattern that continues unfolding through the rest of Scripture, which is this sin brings death, and in order to cover and atone for sin, there has to be a sacrifice.

And in order for a sacrifice to be made, blood has to be shed.

And as the scripture story unfolds, so does the story of sacrifice.

When we get to Exodus chapter 12, before God has freed Israel from Egyptian slavery, the night before, in fact, he says, sacrifice a lamb and paint its blood over your doorpost.

Exodus 12 · chapter mention

And if you do so, the plague of death that was on its way to Egypt, it will pass over your house and your family.

And this is why Israel begins celebrating the Passover every year.

In memorial to this moment where death passed over them as a result of the blood of the Lamb.

And then God frees Israel.

And now they're in the wilderness.

They've walked through the Red Sea.

And as God is developing their new system of laws that we read about in the book of Leviticus, when you get to Leviticus 16, he sets up this whole system of animal sacrifices through which Israel could sacrifice animals and the blood of the animals would atone for and substitute for the sin of the people.

And some of you are like, what in the world's going on here?

This is a display of God's mercy.

Over and over.

Animals didn't deserve to die because of sin.

People deserve to die because of sin.

And God said, You know what though?

I don't want to kill you.

I want you to live.

I want you to be forgiven.

So this is what I'm going to do.

You can sacrifice these animals instead.

But here's the problem that you begin seeing all through the Old Testament.

Israel's prophets keep realizing this over and over.

No matter how many lambs are sacrificed on the Passover, the problem of death doesn't go away.

People are still dying.

And not only that, their souls are not immediately going to be with God in heaven.

This is something we're going to talk about next week.

You know that line in the creed that you've all been freaked out about about how Jesus descended to hell?

That line right there.

That's what we're getting at next week because their souls didn't immediately go to heaven.

So not only do they experience this physical death, but there's also this like spiritual death of source that they're going through.

And the blood of this Passover lamb isn't solving that problem.

And then all these sacrifices, these weekly, monthly, yearly, annual sacrifices, they're not solving the problem of sin.

They're just covering it up temporarily.

And so the issue here is the prophets are going, we we got to have something that figures out the problem of death.

And we got to have something that doesn't just cover up sin, but it actually deals with sin and it fixes the problem of sin.

It doesn't just do away with it, but rather it kills sin.

It deals with it.

And this is where Jesus comes into the story.

This is why when his cousin John the Baptist refers to him in John 1.29, he says, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

The Lamb of God, meaning the one who will deal with the problem of physical and even eternal death, but also the Lamb of God who does not cover the sins of the world, but rather takes away the sin of the world.

And then the next question is if John arrives to this conclusion, how?

How does all this happen?

Well, Peter, in 2 Peter 2.24, my bad, 1 Peter 2.24, you can write that down.

In 1 Peter 2.24, he tells us very explicitly.

Jesus personally carried our sin in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin, so that the problem of sin can now be resolved, and we can live for what is right.

Because it's by his wounds, not by your church attendance, not by your prayer, not by your sweet ability to memorize verses better than everybody else.

It is by his wounds that you've now been healed.

In other words, Jesus, God, takes on the punishment that we deserve for our sins, and he becomes the Passover Lamb.

He becomes the perfect sacrifice who would solve the problem of human sin once and for all.

Meaning, through the cross, God is not overlooking or covering up our sin.

Through the cross, God is dealing with our sin.

He is looking it in the face and dealing with it once and for all.

And this is why the brutality of the cross is so important.

The cross wasn't just random, okay?

The brutality of the cross matters more than we realize.

The cross had to be painful because your sin causes lasting pain for everyone involved.

It damages you, it damages your friends, it damages your family and the world around you.

The cross had to be public because, contrary to the story that we tell ourselves, sin never remains in private.

At some point, your sin always bleeds out into and affects the rest of the world.

The cross had to be slow, because you already know this.

Sin takes its sweet time.

It breaks you down not mostly in a moment, it breaks you down little by little by little, every single day until one day you wake up and you realize that your selfishness and your addiction and your anger and your self-righteousness and your bitterness and your unchecked sexuality, it actually took more from you and took more from the people you love than you would have ever imagined before committing that sin.

And of course, the cross had to be deadly because your sin is deadly.

If it doesn't result in your immediate physical death, it definitely kills your marriage.

It results in the death of your family and your finances and your freedom and your future and your joy and your mental peace.

It results in the death of everything good, it results in the death of everything that it touches.

But if the cross exists to show us what sin does, it also exists to show us what Jesus came to undo.

There wasn't a moment of the cross that was random.

Every single detail surrounding the cross had purpose and intentionality.

Why was Jesus whipped?

Because in Isaiah 53, 5, it says that by his stripes we are healed.

Meaning that when Jesus' back is getting ripped apart, it's speaking to your emotional, your spiritual, and your physical healing.

Why did Jesus have a crown of thorns shoved into his skull?

Because when he takes on the thorns that show up in Genesis chapter 3 as a result of the curse of sin, it's God saying, I'm taking the curse of sin on my own head.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

It belongs on yours, but I'm putting it on mine.

Why was Jesus nailed into the cross and why was his body destroyed?

Because in that same verse, Isaiah 53, 5, it says, He was pierced for our transgressions, and he was hurt and beat up for our iniquities, meaning that every blow that Jesus took, he had you and he had me and he had our sins in his mind.

Why was Jesus attached to a cross?

Because in Deuteronomy it says that if any man be hung to a tree, he is cursed, meaning Jesus became the curse of sin so that you can I could be set free from the curse of sin.

Why was the cross lifted up?

Because in John 12, Jesus himself said, if the Son of Man be lifted up, he'll draw all people to himself, meaning that even in his suffering, he was still saving, he was still running after you.

This is the eternal story of the cross.

Is that beautiful or what, dude?

It's beautiful.

It's beautiful.

But he wasn't just crucified, he died, and he was buried.

And he didn't just die a death.

He died my death.

He died your death.

He died the death that we deserved.

And this is where we get into some of the most beautiful verses in all of Scripture.

Romans 6, 23.

For the wages of sin, what you earn when you disobey God and you are wicked and you do your own thing, even though you know it's not right, and you say, Well, God's grace is here.

Yeah.

The wages of that decision, the wages of our sin, it's death.

That's all we've ever earned from God.

We can't earn his love or his mercy.

Oh, but but we can earn condemnation and hell and death.

The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus our Lord.

Remember, not just Jesus, the Savior, Jesus the Lord, the one that you've submitted your life to.

Where does the free gift of forgiveness come from?

It comes through Jesus being your Lord.

And what did Jesus do to make that reality?

Romans 5, 8 through 9.

God showed us his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

Way before you started coming to church, before you stopped cussing, before you stopped getting drunk, before you stopped sleeping with people, before you stopped, um we won't get specific.

Way we got kids in here.

Before all of that, while you were still a sinner, while you were messy and broken and imperfect and unimpressive, and since we've been made right in God's sight, not because of that prayer, not because of your church attendance or how much you raise your hands or sing, but by the blood of Christ, He will certainly save us from God's condemnation.

Jesus died the death that we deserved, so that by faith in him we could be forgiven.

We could be set free from the power of sin.

We could be engrafted into the family of God.

We could be set free from an eternity in hell, and we could no longer live dominated by the same sins for the rest of our life.

And maybe today, maybe that's what you need to do.

Maybe today you need to make Jesus your Lord for the first time.

You've never said yes to him.

Look at me, real quick.

Everybody, look at me.

The band's coming on stage.

I need you to really pay close attention to this moment, all right?

Maybe you've never done that.

You've gone to church your whole life, but you've never acknowledged that you are really messy and that you can't earn God's love.

You've never actually surrendered your life over to Jesus as your Lord.

You've never received the love of God in that way.

If you need to do that, then do it.

Don't wait on me to lead you in a prayer.

Last week I got to sit right after the eight o'clock with a guy named Mike.

And he had come to me beforehand and he said, Yeah, I don't know where I stand with God.

And I said, You know what, why don't you like chew on that during worship and during the sermon, and then afterwards, come find me.

And if you still need to make that step, you need to repent of your sins, we'll do it.

We'll do it together.

And he came up to me after the sermon.

He was like, I've never surrendered to Jesus as my Lord.

I've never, I've never done that.

I prayed a prayer because I didn't want to go to hell, but I've never said yes to him as Lord.

And I said, Okay, well, you pray.

And he looked at me shocked because he was like, Wait, what?

I said, No, you pray.

And he sat there and I got to hear one of the most incredible prayers I've I've ever heard in my life.

Probably a 60-something-year-old guy.

He sits there and he just goes, God, I I haven't done right by you, and I haven't followed you, and I'm sorry, and I want to, and I believe in you.

And then I helped him the rest of the way through it.

And right then at that moment, the process of salvation started for him.

And it didn't take a band behind me, it didn't take me shouting the words of the prayer.

It just took an honest confession from him of saying, I need help, and I haven't done this right, and I need Jesus to save me and forgive me, and I believe that he is who he says he is.

And if that's what you need today, do that.

Don't wait on me.

I'll I'll hang out after the service.

If you need to come up and you want me to help you walk through that prayer, I will.

So will our prayer team.

They're ready to do that thing.

But my guess is that you're here at eight o'clock, which means you're probably not a casual church attender.

You've probably done that at some point in your life.

You're probably a Christian.

You've probably placed your faith in Jesus.

You've probably said yes to Jesus at some point in your life.

And so, if that's you and you have done that, here's my invitation for you.

I want us to take a moment and remember all this.

Rarely do we just sit with the events of the crucifixion.

We love passing by them because it's so gory and it's so messy.

We know what else is messy?

Your sin.

Yeah.

Why is the cross messy?

Because your sin is messy.

Why is the cross so brutal?

Your sin is brutal.

It's destroying your life, it's destroying the world.

I want us to take a moment and sit with that.

To sit with the reality of Jesus' suffering.

I want us to sit with the whipping.

I want us to sit with the crown of thorns.

I want us to sit with the asphyxiation.

You know the worst part about the cross?

You know what's so crazy about the cross?

If when you got put on the cross, if you didn't die because of dehydration and blood loss, people sometimes would hang up there for days because the way you would die is through suffocation.

What would happen is when you hung like this, your lungs would start collapsing, and the only way that you were able to catch your breath is by pushing up on your feet that had a nail driven through them.

And at some point, you weren't gonna be able to push up on them because you were you didn't have any strength left, and you just died from asphyxiation.

Can we sit with that today?

Can we sit with the price that Jesus paid for us?

I want to do that.

And the way that Christians have historically done that is through receiving the bread and the wine of the Lord's table, is through receiving communion.

And so if you're in here, I'm not inviting you to roll out real quick, not inviting you to get your keys together, but I am inviting you to grab your communion elements and stand up on your feet.

On the night before the events of the cross took place, Jesus sitting at his disciples, just sitting at a table with his disciples, his disciples who were about to leave him, his disciples who were about to betray him, his disciples who had already, some of them betrayed him, his disciples are about to deny him.

He's sitting at the table with his disciples, his friends, his closest friends, and he holds up the bread and he says, This is my body broken for you.

You people who are not gonna be loyal to me, you people who are messy, you people who are sinners, you you know what he's saying to you today?

This is my body that was broken for you.

It was broken for you, just like it was broken for his disciples.

And then he holds up the cup of wine and he says, This is my blood poured out to establish a new covenant between you and God and for the forgiveness of your sins.

And he looks at you today and he says the same thing.

His blood, it was poured out to establish a new covenant between you and God and to forgive your sins.

And he looks at his disciples and he says, Take, eat, and drink, and when you do, do this in remembrance of me.

That's what we're gonna do today.

We're gonna do this in remembrance of him.

So do me a favor, before we open up our elements, before I lead you in this, I want to give you 30 seconds to sit with this, to think about it, to reflect on the events of the cross, to reflect on God who gives his life away for you because of your sins.

Can we do that for just a moment?

One, two, three, go.