Easter Baptism 2016
Transcript
Well, good morning. Happy Easter. My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We're going to be in Matthew chapter 27 this morning. We're going to spend a little bit of time there.
That's on page 540 if your Bible looks like this. Grab one of the blue and white Bibles on the row. If you don't own a Bible, this is our gift to you. Take it home with you. So I found, it seems to me that when it comes to people's viewpoints of Christianity, what Christianity is, what it's about, specifically people who maybe haven't, aren't Christians.
Like if you just went down the street and just kind of took a poll, I think you kind of get two major viewpoints about what the Bible is, what it's about, what Christianity is about. And usually it seems like people fall into two camps. So on one side you have, the Bible is a book of rules, mostly. Like mostly is a book of morals. It's, you read this, it's going to teach you how to live. It's God's roadmap to life.
It's how to make good decisions. It's God's plan for us, what he wants us to do, how we ought to behave. That Jesus was a great moral teacher. And that he came to show us how to follow the rules. How to behave. How to be very moral.
And that's kind of one side. And so people would say maybe that if you just follow the rules, all of life would be better. Which is pretty much true for all sets of rules, all belief systems. If you just kind of followed what they said, most of the time it's like that people would get along better. That's what people say. That's what Christianity is.
It's a set of rules that if we follow, we'll get along better. And if you follow them really well, maybe God will love you or maybe God will be pleased with you. Maybe God will bless you. Or maybe when you die you can stand before him and you get to go to heaven because you've been a good person. That's one of the major popular beliefs about Christianity. The other side is kind of a no.
The Bible is primarily about love. It's about how we treat one another. How we love one another. It's not about God's rules. It's about love. That God loves us.
He loves us so much that God forgives us. And Jesus came to show us how to love. And if you just follow the rules, then you'll end up being really hypocritical or you'll be really proud. Or you'll be one of those religious old ladies that's just mean to everybody. But you just need to learn how to love.
And that's what Jesus was all about. The problem with both of those, though, is that the one thing that most people know about Christianity is that Jesus... You say, okay, he was a great moral teacher or, you know, he taught us how to love. So he loved and he followed the rules. And because of that, because he was so loving and so rule-following, they brutally murdered him. Right?
Because that's how it works at school. Like the girl that always follows the rules and is nice to everyone, everybody hates her and she gets expelled. Like that's... Right? No. That's not how that works.
So what we know, the primary thing about Christianity is that Jesus went to a cross. And the problem with both of these viewpoints, if the Bible is primarily about us following rules or if the Bible is primarily about us being loving, neither one of those accurately, intelligently explains the cross. If you're just supposed to follow rules, why did Jesus die? If it's about your behavior, why did Jesus die? And if you're just supposed to be loving and if God is just loving, like he's just out there floating in a field of warm fuzzies. And when he thinks about you, he giggles in his heart.
If that's the case, if that's God, if he's just some love force out there in the universe, then what is the cross? How does that make any sense whatsoever? The problem with both of these viewpoints is that they're really incomplete. They don't make sense of what the Bible actually holds up as primary. What the Bible says, no, no, this is the main thing you need to focus on is a cross, is that Jesus died. And so let's go to Matthew chapter 27 and try to figure out why that would be primary and how that helps us understand what the Bible really is about and what the point actually is.
So we're going to read through Matthew chapter 27, we're just going to talk a little bit about what we see here, what we're told here, what these eyewitnesses relate to us here. And then we're going to jump to 1 Corinthians to try to help explain it. So what we're doing right now is we're just going to look at it and then we're going to jump over and say, okay, if that's the main thing, then what does it mean? Why is it the main thing? Why does it matter? 27, we're going to start in verse 57.
When it was evening, there came a rich man. This is the evening that Jesus was crucified. Jesus is still on the cross. There came a rich man from Arimathea named Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus. That meant he followed him. He went to Pilate, that's the Roman governor, and asked for the body of Jesus.
Then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. So it, Jesus is dead. He's a thing at this point. He's a corpse. Pilate ordered it to be given to him, Jesus' body. And Joseph took the body, the dead body of Jesus, wrapped it in a clean linen shroud, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock.
And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, that's Jesus' mother, were there sitting opposite the tomb. So they saw where the dead Jesus was placed. The next day, that is the day of preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate. So those are the people who killed him.
And they say, Sir, we remember how this imposter said while he was still alive that after three days I will rise. Therefore, order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people he has risen from the dead, and the last fraud will be worse than the first. So Pilate said to them, You have a guard of soldiers. Go make it as secure as you can. So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard.
Okay, so they kill Jesus, and then they go to Pilate and they say, Hey, thanks for killing Jesus. But Jesus, when he walked around, used to tell people that he wasn't going to stay dead. And so we need to put some guards around his body. So they won't steal him, hide him, bury him somewhere else and go, He's alive! That's actually really smart. That was a good plan.
Like, let's seal the tomb. So they put a seal on the tomb, and they put guards to guard the tomb so nobody could come steal the body. They're not afraid Jesus is going to try to get out. They just are afraid somebody's going to try to come take him. Chapter 28. Now, after the Sabbath, so the Sabbath is the Saturday, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, that's Sunday.
That's why we celebrate Easter on Sunday. That's today. Good morning. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. So these are the two people who saw where Jesus was buried.
And behold, there was a great earthquake. For an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. This guy was hard to look at. Aggressively shiny, maybe is a way to put that. His clothing was as white as snow.
And for fear of him, the guards trembled and became like dead men. Okay, I don't think it means they died. I think it means they probably just like passed out. Because there was an earthquake and then a lightning guy pushes the stone away and then just sits on it and like looks at you. And your job is to not let that happen. At this point though, I think they look at him and they're like, there's this moment of, should we fight this guy?
And then immediately there's this moment of, no, that ain't happening. And then I think they look at each other and they're like, tin like you sleep. Just, just late. We just, we just going to lay down. Fight over. I probably just passed out.
Like, boom, earthquake, stone, guy, eye contact, lightning, close, and boom, out. So, they at least deserve a demotion. They have done their job poorly. But the angel said to the women. So, women didn't get terrified. I mean, they're scared in some, some form or fashion, but not, they didn't pass out.
Do not be afraid. Thank you. That's the first thing. If you see an angel, that's the first thing you want them to say. You meet an angel and he doesn't start with, do not be afraid. You should be afraid.
Do not be afraid for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here for he has risen. As he said, yeah. Woo. Look, if we're going to, like, you either got to woo or just don't do it. Like, we missed our chance.
We can't go back. We can't go back. I know most of us are white, but you got to, we got to up it up a little bit. I know we don't usually, woo. I know we don't usually, we'll, we'll work later. We'll get to baptize people.
We'll get to holler some more. Do not be afraid for I know that you seek Jesus who has crucified. He is not here for he has risen. As he said, come, see the place where he lay. So, he says, you can come in the tomb. You can see that it's empty.
Jesus told you he was going to rise and he did. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead. And behold, behold, he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him. See, I have told you. So, they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples.
And behold, Jesus met them and said greetings. And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them, do not be afraid. Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee and there they will see me. So, if you, Jesus told people he was God and he told people that he was going to be murdered. And then he told people that he was going to rise again.
And then he was murdered and then he rose again. And that's why they grab his feet and worshipped him. Because he said he was God and that this was going to happen. And once he actually, it happened and he came back to life, then it was like, oh, you must actually be God. Like, what you said must actually be true. So, they fall down and worshipped him.
And Christianity says it's not just about God's love and Jesus being loving. It's not just about rules and Jesus being a good moral teacher. The point of Christianity is that Jesus went to a cross, that he died and that he rose again. That's the point. That the tomb is empty. That's what we celebrate.
This is the major holiday for Christians. Easter. The tomb is empty. Now, the question is, why is that the point? I mean, it sounds nice. It proves he was God, I guess, that Jesus died.
He rose again. He's not in the tomb anymore. But why do we celebrate that? Why is that the point? So, let's jump to 1 Corinthians. It's going to be to the right.
And it should be on the screen. It'll be page 624. If your Bible looks like this. If your Bible doesn't look like this, it's to the right. It's going to say 1 Corinthians at the top. 624, chapter 15.
This is Paul helping us understand why the cross, why the empty tomb is primary. Why we would actually want to celebrate that. 17, verse 17. And if Christ, that's Jesus. If Christ has not been raised, did not come back from the dead, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then all those who have fallen asleep, he means those who have died in Christ, believing in Christ, is what he's saying there, have perished.
They're just dead. And if in Christ we have hope only in this life or in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. So what Paul says is if Christ didn't rise from the dead, if what we celebrate on Easter isn't true, then people should feel sorry for us. And we're everything we believe is a lie, is a waste, is dumb and useless. That's what Paul's saying. He's saying that the cross, the empty tomb, are so vital to Christianity that if you take them out, just what, he taught us to love, just he taught us to follow rules, it's a waste of time.
We should be pitied. People should feel sorry for us because without the empty tomb we have nothing. So here's what he says. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. So he's the first one who would die and rise from the grave and be brought back to God.
For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. So this will take just a second to explain what he's saying there. What he's saying is that through Adam, so way back in history, Adam and Eve, famous duo, worse than Bonnie and Clyde, caused more problems for everybody. Adam and Eve. So he says back in the day, Adam and Eve were created in a relationship with God.
They were designed to exist in a loving, harmonious relationship. And Adam sins. And when Adam sins, when Adam rebels, he brings death into the world. That death didn't exist, but death now reigns from Adam to us. Like death has taken over because we're all sinful. And we're born sinful.
We all innately rebel against God. This becomes like obvious to us in different ways. Like some of you, maybe you work law enforcement. Maybe you work social services. Like some of us get to see sinfulness and depravity and brokenness in the world on a daily basis. Others of us are a little bit more separated from it.
But there's sometimes in life it just becomes clear. So when we started planning this church, we started this church up and we were starting to do some kid city stuff. We were going to work with children. One of the things we had to put in our children's handbook for your sweet little baby angels was what to do when one child bites another child. Did y'all know that? We come from a race of biters.
Look around the room. Some of these people sitting next to you all dressed up looking nice today had to be taught forcefully and repeatedly not to bite other humans. Had to be taught. Had to be trained. Like this isn't an appropriate way. Like if you're in a business meeting and it goes poorly, you can't jump up from your desk and be like, ah!
Like you can't do it. And people have seen too much zombie shows at this point. It would freak everybody out. You can't bite people. Like you have to teach children to share. And even as we grow older and we know I should share, I should be kind, I should be gracious.
We still don't want to. It's still really hard. Like I mostly just want other people to share. The time I see this most is when my sweet little wife reaches her grubby hand across the table and takes something off of my plate. And in that moment, something deep and flaming wells up inside of me. And I really have to think, dude, that's your wife.
She can have everything on your plate she wants. But there's part of me that's like... Especially when I'm like, do you want some of this? And she's like, no, I'm not hungry. And then I make it. And then she's like, can I have half of that?
And I'm like, I don't want to fight you. But there's in me like I have to actually go back to like preschool and go, share? You should share. Sharing is good. And be like, mm-hmm. Smile at her.
You want some more? Say no. Say no. Please say no. Say no. No, I'm good.
Okay, but you can have as much as you want. That's good though if you ain't going to eat it. Like... I know sharing is good. It has never actually felt good to me. I just know that it's good because I've been taught that.
Like there's... We know we're supposed to be generous. We know we're supposed to be kind. We know we're supposed to be gracious. And then we know we're supposed to forgive. And then we actually have something to forgive somebody of?
Mm-mm. Mm-mm. I could forgive a lot of things but not this thing. We know we're supposed to be generous. But then somebody says, hey, can I borrow some money?
Mm-mm. I'm pretty strapped right now. Like we just... We... Since Adam, all of us are busted. And here's the point.
Here's the reason why. God made the world good. We live in a world created by a gracious, loving God. So we understand that we ought to be gracious and loving and generous and kind. But we walk around in bodies that have been busted up by Adam.
And our sin overwhelms us. And the truth is, the more we try to be not sinful, the harder it gets. So that's what Paul's going to say as we keep moving through here. We're going to jump down to... Jump over a page if you're in this Bible. We're going to look at 57 as kind of Paul wraps this up.
Verse 54, sorry. As Paul wraps this up. When the perishable puts on the imperishable and mortal puts on immortality, then we shall come to pass the saying that is written. So he's quoting this old saying, saying this is what happens through the resurrection. This is what happens through what Jesus accomplished for us. Death is swallowed up in victory.
Oh, death, where is your victory? Oh, death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin. And the power of sin is the law. So here's what he's saying.
Sin, death is a problem for us because sin leads us to death. And then when we're sinful and we die and we stand before God, we have nothing to offer him. Except for our rebellion and our guilt and our shame, we have nothing to bring to him. That our sin goes before God and he looks at our life and he doesn't say, you're welcome. He says, you've rebelled against me. You've broken the law.
We're in trouble. That's why death is so terrible because sin goes with us. And the law only makes sin stronger. It only shows how much more we fail. My dad and my mom, when I was growing up, they both worked. And I've got two brothers and we were all kind of, you know, little at the same time and just a couple of years apart each.
And when my dad would go to work and my mom would be at home watching us, and sometimes we had people watch us while they both worked. But when my dad would go to work and my mom would be home watching us, my dad would always come home and he'd say, you know, just some of the laundry wasn't done. Maybe dinner wasn't cooked. Maybe one of us looked like a hot mess, was just wearing underwear and had ketchup spattered all over us for some reason. Like he just, every time he would come home and the house wasn't clean and he just got the feeling like, you know, he would look at my mom and be like, you can do this.
Like you can get everything done. It's possible. Like he just assumed she was just not really trying that hard. And so he said a couple of times that when she would go to work and he was watching us by ourselves, he just decided, I'm going to get it done. I'm going to do everything. I'm going to cook.
I'm going to do all the laundry. Kids are going to look right when she gets home. House is going to be nice. And he said every time it was like a race against the clock and she would walk in the door. One of us wouldn't have pants on. Something would be on fire.
Laundry wouldn't be done. Like he just, he was like, y'all wouldn't stop like puking and bleeding and getting stuff messed up. There was just no way. There was no way to get it done. Like he just couldn't. And the truth was he was a really good mom until he tried.
And then he was pretty terrible at it. And for most of us, we think, the reason the power of sin is in the law is that most of us think, no, I'm a pretty nice person. I'm pretty kind. I'm pretty good. God's got to kind of love me. Like I've got good intentions.
And the truth is once we actually start seeing what the law is, what it takes to be perfect before God, and we actually try to do it, it becomes massively difficult. Us trying to behave and be good only shows how far away from it we are. Every single person in this room has nothing to offer God that makes you redeemable. We have all sinned. We have all fallen short. We all deserve death and hell and punishment.
That's the place we stand before a holy God. Each of us is headed towards death, hell, and destruction, except Jesus went to the cross. Except for Jesus went to the cross and died for our sin. He took our sin. You see, Jesus hadn't sinned. He didn't deserve death.
He hadn't rebelled. He didn't deserve to be punished or crushed. But he was. And that's why when Christians say he died for our sins, what they mean is he didn't die for his own. He died for ours. And because he didn't deserve to die, he actually broke death and rose again from the grave.
Because he hadn't earned death. He just took ours for us. So God dies to pay for our sin and then rises again so that all of us who place faith in him can have life. And that's the point of this. Death is swallowed up in victory. Oh, death, where is your victory?
Oh, death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. Do you know why we sing to Jesus? Why we holler? Why in a minute when people are getting baptized, we're going to clap and yell and be excited?
It's because Jesus has won the victory for us. When I went to college and I played college football, my freshman year I was redshirted, so I just went to practice. I didn't do anything. And we almost won a championship my freshman year. We really should have. It was a game that kind of went south, but we were there.
We were one game away. We would have won the championship. If we had, I would have been given a ring. And I would have worn it on Sundays and tapped it on the... No, I'm just kidding. But I would have been given a championship ring.
And I would have been a champion. And what would I have done? Not a dang thing. Except for go to practice. Like I wouldn't have done anything, but I would have been victorious. I would have been a champion through other people on my behalf.
You know how when you go to watch a game that you just are a fan of, and they win? You know what you say when it's over? We won. And sometimes when they lose, you go, yeah, they lost. Because you're smart. But when they win, you say, we won.
Why? Because they won on behalf of their city. They won on behalf of their fans. That's why when it's... The chips are down, and they're losing at halftime, and they come back out, and they rally, and they finally score. You jump up, lose your mind, kick something over, like break your television, because you're so excited that they won.
The reason Christians sing, the reason we gather together in the morning and celebrate, the reason we're going to lose our mind in a minute when people get baptized is because Jesus has won the victory for us. The empty tomb stands as the forever scoreboard that sin does not claim us, sin does not hold us, death has no hold over us any longer. We can have life through Jesus. That's the empty tomb. That's the cross. People say, why would you pick something so bloody and terrible to celebrate?
Why would Christians wear crosses? That's when we were down 40 to nothing at halftime. It's fun to see that now. It's fun to see the moment in history when it looked so bleak, so wrong, so broken, that humanity had gathered together to murder God. And we can celebrate now because it was in that moment that Jesus died for our sin and there's, it's not, he wasn't always on the cross. He was buried in the tomb and he didn't stay in the tomb and he's risen to a throne and we get to celebrate forever that the cross and the empty tomb prove to us that death has no claim over us once we've placed our faith in Jesus.
That our sin and our brokenness no longer holds us. That we have life forever in the one who's given us victory. Who's conquered death on our behalf. So in a minute, five people are gonna be on a screen and they're gonna tell you why they believe in Jesus and then they're gonna get baptized and we're gonna scream and yell and clap because we're celebrating that victory has been given to us through Jesus. That he was good, that he paid our penalty and that we have life forever in him. Through the victory that's been won on our behalf.
Let's pray. God, we thank you that we have victory. We thank you that the tomb is empty and that seals forever our hope in you. That when we place our faith in you, that when we repent of our sin, that we come to you and say, I have nothing to offer but you died for me. I have nothing to bring to the table but you loved me so much that you died for me. That you lived righteously on my behalf.
That you paid for our sin and that you set us free and we praise you for the tomb and we praise you for the people that are getting baptized today to proclaim that. In Jesus' name, amen. Here's what's about to happen. Christians celebrate baptism because it's a symbol that when Jesus was buried, our sin, our shame, our guilt, our brokenness was buried with him. That when he died, death died with him. That all the things that had a hold and a claim over us are gone.
And so we baptize somebody and we say basically they're buried with Jesus. And that when Jesus rose from the grave, he gave life to them because they placed their faith in him. That's what baptism is. It's a celebration that Jesus has won the victory on our behalf.
Mar 27
Self-Exaltation
Transcript
Well, how are we doing this morning? My name is Chet. I'm one of the pastors here. We are in our third week of our Scandal series. Grab a Bible and let's go to Matthew chapter 27. Here's what we're going to look at today.
Basically what we've been doing is we've been approaching Easter, which is next week where the church celebrates the death, burial and the resurrection of Jesus. That on Easter Sunday, Jesus did not stay dead, but that he rose to life again. And we're going to get together and celebrate that next week. But as we've been approaching that, what we've been doing is taking some time to kind of look at really what the gospel writers focus on. So Jesus was about 30 years old when he started his ministry.
Only two of the four gospels even mention anything prior to this moment. Two of them just jump straight in at when he's 30. All of them give more weight to the last week of his life than any other thing in his life. Because Jesus came specifically, purposefully to die on our behalf. His goal was to go to the cross. And so we have been taking some time to look at those passages leading up to Jesus going to the cross and study and look at the people around him and how they treated him and then how we can kind of see ourselves in them.
So we spent some time looking at Judas. We looked at the trial of Jesus last week. And today we're going to look at Matthew chapter 27. I'm going to pray and then we'll get kind of going this morning. God, I pray that you would give us wisdom as we study your word, that your Holy Spirit would work in us to teach us, to train us, and to help us see how much we prefer ourselves, how much we promote ourselves, and how absolutely devastating that is so that we might be set free by you today. We love you.
We praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. I played college football, kind of. I was on the team. I had cleats and a helmet and they let me use a locker. I was required to show up to practice.
I didn't do a whole lot else, you know, quote unquote playing. But our coach for the first year, he was a really good, let me say this first, he was a really good coach. He also was borderline psychotic. But that helped him be a good coach, I think. But one of the things he used to say a lot was, if you were doing something like you didn't show up to practice, or you just kind of took a play off, or anything, he would go.
His hands, like his pinkies kind of pointed this way. I don't know why I never asked him, because you didn't ask him questions like that. And he always had one eye kind of more closed than the other. But if you did something that was obvious, like you weren't trying, or you didn't show up to practice, or you skipped a workout, he'd go, exposed, exposed, you don't want to play. Like he would just say that this moment exposed who you were, what you were going for. Like it showed how much you actually cared about the team.
And so what we're going to look at as we read this passage today, is Matthew's going to highlight for us how all these people around Jesus respond to the crucifixion. And it actually exposes their heart. It exposes what they really care about. It exposes how they really feel, how they really think, kind of who they are. Kind of like, you know how every once in a while you're like, you may have been hanging out with a friend. And there's just this moment when they've been your friend a while, you've been around them, but you're in a new situation.
And you're suddenly like, oh, my friend's kind of a racist. And I did not know. Or you're in a new situation. Maybe you're at, have you ever been with friends and you, they're nice people. Nice people. Friendly people.
That's why they're your friend. Because of their friendliness. And you're at a restaurant and it takes them 45 minutes to get your food. They got it wrong once. They bring it out cold. And your friends just start melting down.
Have you ever been in this situation? Maybe you're this person. Stop it. You're the person I'm talking about. Where they're just like, can you even believe? Excuse me.
Excuse me. Do the thing. I've done this before. You just grab any waiter that comes by or any waitress. It's like a busboy. And you're just like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, sweet tea.
Right? Like you just get over and you're like, wow, my friend. Like go with someone to the DMV one day. Like you'll just get to learn things. You'll get to expose. And that's what we're seeing in this passage is that as Matthew kind of walks us out for us and shows all these people around Jesus, what we see is that their hearts are exposed in the way they respond.
And honestly, our hearts are exposed to. And so let's let's let's hop in. Let's look at this. We're going to start in verse 24. So we left off last week where the Jewish Sanhedrin, the rulers, scribes, elders, condemned Jesus to death.
And then we're going to pick up kind of where they they've taken him now to pilot the governor. And he's kind of questioned Jesus and said he doesn't really deserve to die. And we're going to pick up there. So so when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but that rather a riot was beginning. So he has said this on page 541.
If your Bible looks like this, he said, basically, we should let Jesus go. But he was gaining nothing. And a riot was beginning. He took water. He washed his hands before the crowd, saying, I'm innocent of this man's blood. See to it yourselves.
And all the people answered his blood be on us and our children. Then he released for them Barabbas and having scourged Jesus, which just means beaten brutally with whips, cat of nine tails, rods like it was. It was a devastating thing. He delivered him to be crucified. And crucifixion was the most devastating form of capital punishment that the Romans had invented and had perfected. And other people had invented it, but they had perfected it.
And it was their preferred method because it was gruesome, public, agonizing, time consuming, shameful. And it was their preferred method of capital punishment. Led him away to be crucified. And as they went out, oh, sorry, delivered him to be crucified, verse 27. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor's headquarters.
So these are the people who are going to crucify Jesus. They take him into the governor's headquarters. They gather the whole battalion before him. They strip him and put a scarlet robe on him. So this is a red or purple robe that they put on him because that's what kings wore.
And that was the charge against him, that he said he was the king of the Jews. And so the Romans who are occupying this territory and rule over the Jews are now gathering him to make fun of him, to mock him. They stripped him, put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns. So they're saying, okay, if you're a king, you need a crown. So they get thorns.
They twist it together. They put it on his head. They put a reed in his right hand the way a king would have a staff and kneel before him. And kneeling before him, they mocked him saying, hail, king of the Jews. And they spit on him. They took the reed and struck him on the head.
And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of his robe, put his own clothes on him, and led him away to crucify him. So they've already scourged him. They've already beaten him. And then they gather everybody together just to make fun of him. We're going to murder him. But before we do that, let's mock him.
Let's ridicule him. Because look, it's the king of the Jews. As they went out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. They compelled this man to carry his cross. And when they came to a place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull, they offered him wine to drink mixed with gall. But when he tasted it, he would not drink it.
And when they had crucified him, so now they've nailed him to the cross and they've sunk the post into the ground. He's held up above everybody out of the ground. They divided his garments among them by casting lots. Then they sat down and kept watch over him there. And over his head, they put the charge against him, which read, this is Jesus, king of the Jews. This was in a public place.
And they're saying, this is what happens to would-be kings. Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left. And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, you who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself. If you're the son of God, come down from the cross. So people who just passed by this in a public place begin to mock Jesus.
So also, verse 41, the chief priests with the scribes and the elders mocked him, saying, he saved others. He cannot save himself. He is the king of Israel. Let him come down now from the cross and we'll believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God deliver him now if he desires him.
For he said, I am the son of God. And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way. So it's very interesting the way Matthew recounts the story, the way he tells it to us. He kind of glosses over being scourged and being crucified. He mentions it, but it's one verse. And then he says he was crucified.
Part of that, I believe, was that his audience knew what scourging and crucifixion were. He didn't have to go into great detail. They knew exactly what that was. But he focuses so heavily on, look at Jesus, the true king of Israel, the true king of all eternity, of all creation, the actual son of God being mocked by everybody, except for Simon of Cyrene, who has a bit part in this. We just know he carried the cross. But he highlights that the Romans mock him.
People who just pass by mock him. The other criminals on the cross mock him. And the religious leaders mock him. Like just over and over again. When they had derided him, they were reviling him. They were wagging their heads at him.
They were mocking him. When they had mocked him, like he just highlights this over and over and over again. And he's showing us, he's exposing the heart of the people around Jesus. This is interesting to me. That what we actually can learn and see from this. So here's the thing.
In order to mock somebody, and not mock, like we use the word mock now, like you're going to have mock trial, or it's going to be like SNL mock somebody, and what we mean is just they kind of made fun of, or they jokingly satire. That's not what this is. This is contempt. This is derision, reviling, hatred, bubbling out of them as they mock him. The way we mock people, the only way you can mock somebody is if you believe, in some form or fashion, that you're better than them, that they're beneath you. We don't mock people we respect.
Or maybe even in that moment, we don't respect what they're doing or how they've acted, so we mock them. But basically, they had to believe. They had to be working to put Jesus down and exalt themselves. That's what mocking is. It's this derision, this contempt, this belief that I am superior so I can look down on you. And here's what we see in this moment across the board with all these individuals.
Their desire, their heart that's being exposed is to elevate themselves, is to build themselves up, make themselves look better by putting Jesus down, by holding him in contempt, by pointing out his failures. That's what they're going for. That's where mocking comes from. That's where contempt, derision, reviling come from. And this desire to promote ourselves, to be about ourselves, to highlight our good qualities and to point out the failures of others, it's a basic human issue. It's in all of us.
Started with Adam and Eve. So let's go back. Let's have a history lesson, Adam and Eve. So you heard about them, your first parents, the first people on earth. Maybe you've seen a picture of them naked, like Adam and Eve. You know what I'm talking about?
Okay, Adam and Eve, what we know is that in the garden, when God first created humanity, he made them in perfection, designed to relate to him. And they fail. But how? How did they fail? What did they do wrong? Well, God told them there's one tree you can't eat of, and then a serpent comes along, which later we find out is Satan, basically says, if you eat of this tree, you'll be like God.
God, the very first sin in humanity was to bring God low and elevate ourselves. The very first sin committed was this desire to promote ourselves. Oh, I can be better. I can be higher. I can be exalted. And God can be brought low.
So, before that moment, Adam and Eve didn't think about themselves a whole lot. I mean, I think they would have thought about themselves enough to not, like, catch themselves on fire. But mostly, they didn't think about themselves. They weren't focused on themselves. They were free. Because focusing on yourself is not freedom.
And here's how, here's our first hint at this. They walked around naked. They weren't thinking about themselves a whole lot. As soon as they sin, shame comes in, guilt comes in, separation from one another comes in, separation from God comes in, and a massive amount of self-awareness comes in, and they realize they're naked. Many of you have heard of or have had a dream, some of you are a recurring dream, you probably should see somebody, that you show up to school or work and you're naked. You're suddenly in class, you're giving a presentation, you're crushing it.
Your PowerPoint is on point, powerfully. And then you realize, oh no, I'm naked. And it's terrible, it's terrifying. You know why you've never actually done that in real life? Because you're way too self-aware to show up in class naked. The reason that happens in a dream is you just appeared there with no self-awareness whatsoever.
And then your brain was like, hey, what would be terrible? Let's make him naked. This is hilarious. Like, I don't know. And if any of you have actually ever shown up somewhere naked, talk to me afterwards because I really want to hear that story. And I'm willing to bet there were substances involved.
You should repent. You're welcome here. We all get to grow together in following Jesus. But here's the thing. The reason that's never actually happened is because we're too self-aware. Adam and Eve didn't realize they were naked until this happened.
And then this massive amount of self-focused desire to exalt themselves, desire to bring other people down, enters in. And it's a massive human problem. Nobody taught you how to be selfish. If you have children, nobody taught your children how to be selfish. They picked that one up on their own. This is why children have to be taught to be conscientious, to consider others.
That's what Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood and Sesame Street, they're trying to teach children to not just take things from each other. That's why many of your children, the first word they learned and used often was mine. This is in us to look out for ourselves, to build ourselves up, to exalt ourselves. It's inborn in us. I see this so clearly in myself a couple of different places.
One is if I'm somewhere and a group of people that I know start laughing, or even if I don't know, there's this moment in my brain where I'm like, you're laughing at me. Because of course, they're all thinking about me as much as I think about me. I notice this when I look at a picture that has a group of people in it, and I'm in it, I look at my face first. I don't know about y'all, but I found that every picture that contains me is a more special picture than other pictures. You get your yearbook? Ha ha!
Page 37. See me in the background? Look at this, that's my face. I'm eating a sandwich. Like, this is what we do. The way you know this is when you take a group picture and you look at the pictures, you'll say, oh, this is a good picture.
And then the other person who's in the picture will say, I'm blinking. And you'll think, I didn't look at your face. I looked at mine. I should hide my narcissism by looking at everyone's face before I say this is a good picture. But all you did was look to see if you were in it and how you looked.
That's the qualifications for a good picture. And 2012, the word of the year was selfie. Now this came out of the fact that we don't have film anymore, because nobody was doing this when you had film on a regular basis. But since we don't have film, and we like ourselves being in pictures more than all other pictures, we do this over and over again. And you'll see people go on vacation. And it'll be Grand Canyon, Eiffel Tower, Diddy World.
And it's like you went around the country taking a picture of your own face. What? I have a friend, and every once in a while he'll post on Instagram or something, and it'll say, having a great time hanging out with my friends. And you click on it, assuming wrongly that it'd be a picture of his friends. It's his face having the great time, I guess. And to show that this isn't just other people's problems, and not just my selfish problem, we actually went on Instagram and Facebook accounts and Twitter accounts, and we have some selfies to show that this is a church-wide problem.
And we're just going to look through about 15, 20 selfies right now. Okay, no, but that would have been great. And many of you thought, is one of mine going to be up there? Because it's really hard to not think about yourself. It's massively difficult. Because we have this desire to elevate ourselves and to exalt ourselves.
The other place that this shows up in me is anytime I do something selflessly, anytime I actively work to do something selfless, to serve somebody, in the moment or the moment I'm done, I think something along the lines of, man, I'm selfless. How much of a servant am I? Sometimes I'll think, I wonder if anybody saw me being selfless. Because immediately I want to make it about myself. If I'm really good, I'll go through this process. Oh, wow, that was really prideful.
I should repent. I should not be doing selfless Acts to be about myself. And then I'll think, I wonder if anybody notices their pride like I notice my pride. And it's terrible, because there's a version of me that follows me around going, and wanting me to promote me all the time. And it's in all of us. We want to parade our good qualities in front of people.
And we want to point out how we're successful and how we're good. And we want to look out for ourselves, for our own comfort, our own security, our own joy, our own life. Our plans are, here's how I'm going to enjoy life the most. Some of that makes sense. You're with you more than anybody else. You've got to think about yourself some, but some of that is desperately sick and wicked and consumes us and drives our decision making and drives how we walk through life and drives how we treat people.
And it's a massive problem. And we see it in all of these people in the story, except for Simon, who was busy carrying a cross. And we can assume maybe he had no desire to mock Jesus. But, criminals, who were in the same fate as Jesus. People we would probably look at and say, no, they're pretty scum of the earth people. Like, just in general, if we were mapping people out on a scale, prisoners, who are dying, capital punishment people, they're mocking and deriding Jesus.
People who should probably have understood what he was going through. Move up a little bit on the scale, you've got random people walking by. Who knew about Jesus because he was famous. And their desire was, see, see what fame gets you, see what trying to promote yourself gets you, see how glorious he is now. They don't, they're not connected to the situation. They're just walking by.
Let's just assume they're all fairly average people. Then you've got Roman soldiers. They're probably somewhere in the middle as well. Blue collar guys just doing their job. But they take time out of their job to specifically mock Jesus.
To specifically lower him so they can elevate themselves. So they can elevate Rome. So they can elevate their jobs. So they can feel better about who they are. And then you've got the Jewish religious leaders. Caught up in the exact same heart level problem.
Self-promotion. Self-glorification. Self-exaltation. So when you think about, okay, I thought Christianity, I thought people following God was to humble yourself before God. Why do I meet so many Christians? Why do I meet so many religious people who are massively prideful and arrogant and judgmental?
Because it's really easy to make religion, Bible memorization, knowing all the rules and the morals, about yourself. Look at how much God loves me more than those people because of how much I know about him and his word. And I know his rules and I don't fail. And it's so easy to take religion and make it way more about yourself than about God. We see this so clearly, this way to promote ourselves and to tear others down in political ads. I'm so thankful the primaries over in South Carolina because the day before the Republican primary, I was watching television and there was a commercial break and I watched nine, started counting after the fourth one, nine political ads in a row.
And it made me not want to vote for anybody. But I watched nine in a row and all of those are either one of two things. The ways we can promote ourselves are either elevate ourselves or tear somebody else down. The way to make myself seem good is either to tell you how great I am, tear other people down. So every ad was one of the two.
It was either, look at this man. And it was like, I mean, anthem, epic music in the background. Like, like he was going to like pull out a sword and just attack America's enemies. Probably some ad has someone doing that. Look at this man. He does all the things you love.
He doesn't do the things you hate. He loves puppies and kittens and hates terrorists and murderers. And it's like, oh yeah, great. I hate those presidents that love murderers. This guy's going to be legit. Or, it was the other type which was, look at this man.
And then it had like, turn, turn, turn. It was like way too zoomed in on people's faces. Just like an eyeball for a long time. Just like creeping you out. And it was like, he hates kittens. And he's going to raise or lower taxes or do that thing with the economy that you hate.
We hate it too. He's terrible. And then at the end the other guy would be like, I approve this message. And, that was it. Nine in a row. And honestly, I've done studies.
The ones where you tear somebody else down and work better. Some of you have found that in life. You got through middle school and high school that way. Because if I can point out how dumb you are. See, if I just tell you I'm smart, that says nothing about the rest of the people in the room. And pride has nothing to do with how smart I am or how much money I have.
It has to do with how smart I am compared to other people. I need to be smarter. I need to be wealthier. Good looking-ier. Otherwise, if we all have the same amount of money, how am I going to get excited about that? So there's something about being able to hold somebody in contempt or mock them or put them down that absolutely accomplishes both at the same time.
Look at how dumb they are. And if I notice how dumb they are, that makes me smart. Look at how terrible they are at this. Look at how awful they are at that. And so as Christians, maybe you're a Christian and you're saying, okay, how do we point out sin? Because the Bible tells us to point out sin without using that to build ourselves up.
Without religiously trying to make ourselves great. the way we do that is the way that we point out sin in our own lives. The way I know I can actually do this, point out sin and still care about somebody and not do it in a way that makes me feel great is when you sin the same way I do. If you're given to overaggression, you've struggled your life with sexual sin, if you are prideful, I'm like, hey, there's grace for that. Because I struggle with all of that too. And isn't Jesus good when we're overly aggressive that he forgives us? If you sin in a way different from me, scum, you're garbage, this is terrible.
How could you ever do that? How could anyone ever be a person like that? You see, immediately, we know that we can love people the way we love ourselves because Jesus tells us to and approach their sin by saying it's wrong but still caring about them. And we can also immediately step in and try to put somebody else down to elevate ourselves. And this is a heart level problem where what we want is our joy, our comfort, our glory, our praise, our honor. We want us all over the place.
And that may show up differently. Some of you maybe want to be praised by everyone in this room. Some of you maybe just have a select few. You're kind of shy but you want all the people around you to know you're great. I don't know, but all of us have a desire to elevate ourselves, to make much of ourselves and to glorify ourselves. So, why is this such a problem?
Three quick reasons. One is it makes God our opponent. It makes God our enemy. Several places in the Bible it says that God opposes the proud but he gives grace to the humble. So that when we elevate ourselves we actually are trying to take God's position which is his glory, his name, his fame.
He's the only one who deserves exaltation and we exalt ourselves. We're actually becoming opponents of God. James says it, Peter says it, and they're quoting Proverbs that actually says the scornful will be met with scorn. So God opposes the proud, the mockers, but he gives grace to those who are humble. I don't know if y'all know this, I'm going to help you out real quick. If you line up on the field of battle, God's on the other side, swap teams.
Simple life, that's a life hack for you, that's a tip. If God is your opponent, swap teams, you're going to lose, this isn't going to go well and whenever we elevate ourselves that's what happens, we make God our enemy. The second one is this, it robs you of joy. The God being your enemy part is going to show up later when you meet him. It's going to be more fulfilled when you stand before him and see that he is the ruling reigning king and your exaltation is bankrupt and terrible. It robs you of joy to only think about yourself, to only try to exalt yourself because life doesn't work like that.
If you show me a person who only cares about themselves, I can show you a very miserable person. This can happen here on Sundays. People show up and they're like, you know what people say things like? They didn't talk to me. Nobody talked to me. I stood there for 10 minutes and no one said a word to me.
Time out. Who did you talk to, bro? What you did was you walked in the room and said, me! And then everybody failed. Of course. Because they all thought it was about them.
People hang out with groups and they're like, this group just isn't filling me up anymore. I'm just not getting out of it. And it just makes you miserable. Every time I go to my house and hang out with my wife and my son and my mode of operation is, this should be about me. It robs me of joy. It makes me miserable.
Self-glorification, self-exaltation robs you of joy. Thirdly, and this is really for Christians. So if you're not a Christian, the first two are your problem. The third one is problem for Christians. It disables your ability to follow Jesus. Undercuts it, absolutely.
Because there's so many things Jesus calls us to that we just can't do if we're trying to glorify ourselves. Love your neighbor like you love yourself. Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Follow me. Live your life on his mission for his glory, for his name.
None of those things can happen if it's all about you. Serve. Serve the church. Pour yourself out for others. Can't do it. Okay.
This self-centered, self-exaltation makes God our opponent, robs us of joy, and if we're Christians, totally disables our ability to actually follow, actually submit, actually... So what do we do? How do we respond? Well, we're going to read this passage again starting in verse 32. I want to help us see the answer to this. So the Romans have already mocked him.
They stripped him. They led him out to be crucified. We'll start at 31. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him. And as they went out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name, that compelled this man to carry his cross. And when they came to a place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull, they offered him wine to drink mixed with gall.
But when he tasted it, he would not drink it. And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots. When they sat down, they kept watch over him there. And over his head, they put the charge against him, which read, This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left.
And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. Save yourself. If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross. So also the chief priests with the scribes and the elders mocked him, saying, He saved others. He cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel.
Let him come down from the cross and will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God deliver him now. If he desires him, for he said, I am the Son of God. And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way. There is one person throughout this entire story that does not seem at all to be pursuing his own glory.
That is, the King of the Jews, the Son of God, the ruling reigning King of eternity, submits and humiliates himself on our behalf to the point of going to a cross. In order for us to kill this selfishness, this self-centeredness, this desire for self-exaltation, the first thing we have to see is the result of our self-exaltation, which is the Son of God nailed to a cross. If, if Jesus could have shown up, if there was one person on earth throughout the history of earth who could say, God, look at my morality. God, look at how nice I am. God, look at how generous I've been. God, look at how open-minded and gracious I've been.
God, look at how I followed your rules. God, look at how I memorized your word. God, look at how loving I've been and how sacrificial I've been. If there was one person who could stand before God and say, see, see, don't I deserve to be exalted? And God would say, yes, yes, you deserve to be exalted. If that person existed, Jesus doesn't go to the cross.
If that person existed throughout human history, Jesus doesn't go to the cross. Jesus shows up and teaches us how to be like that person. Jesus shows up and says, it's possible for you, just follow these rules. Jesus just teaches. But all of the gospel writers give more focus to the cross than to any of Jesus' teaching because we needed to be taught to help us see our sin.
But we needed Jesus to die to set us free from it. The end result of your self-exaltation is the brutal, heinous murder of the Son of God. That is what it accomplished. The end result of your self-exaltation, your self-glory, your self-love is bankruptcy. You have nothing to present to God that makes Him say, good point, well done, nothing. The end result of our self-exaltation is the brutal, heinous murder of the Son of God.
We need to see that clearly. Secondly, we need to see the result of God's humiliation. In the garden, Adam and Eve chose to exalt themselves and humiliate God and on the cross, Jesus chooses to humiliate Himself. He almost, in a way, completes what Adam and Eve were trying to accomplish. Adam and Eve chose themselves and on the cross, Jesus chose us, chose to rescue and redeem a people for Himself when He could have just sat back on His glorious, almighty throne and crushed us. No, He chooses to come and humble Himself, to humiliate Himself, to not fight back when He's mocked and ridiculed, not fight back when He's nailed to a cross when He could have.
He wasn't caught up in events beyond His control. He was absolutely in control the entire time and laid His life down on our behalf. The humiliation of Jesus is actually what allows us to be free from the exaltation of ourselves. It's actually in the midst, God's ordained desire to humiliate Jesus, for Jesus to humble Himself is where Jesus actually gets a name above every name, where He's most glorified, most exalted because we see that we, who have nothing to exalt in, seek to exalt ourselves all the time. Nothing to glory in, seek to glory in ourselves all the time and Jesus, who owns worship, owns glory, owns majesty, it belongs to Him, lays it all down on our behalf.
We've got to see the end result of our exaltation. We've got to see the end result of God's humiliation, which is salvation for us, which is freedom for us, which is joy for us, which is life for us. Jesus died so that we don't have to pay for our own exaltation. That we, who are terribly small, can stop standing before the everlasting King of the universe and saying, I'm the most important. We who are worms and have piled up a little pile of dirt that makes us more glorious than the other worms can stop looking at the glorious reigning King of the universe and saying, aren't I special? Jesus became a worm, not a man.
So, what Psalm says, He's a worm and not a man to set us free, to humiliate Himself so that we can be given life. Thirdly, we have to fix our eyes on Jesus. We have to keep our focus there because we'll so easily forget. Our hearts are so, we'll so easily drift. We need to remind ourselves continuously what Jesus has accomplished for us or we'll drift back into thinking we're great and special and glorious and deserving of honor and praise. For some reason, it seems to me that Christians believe that they'll magically remember this all the time, that they'll magically just continually grow in their love for Jesus when you don't magically love anything like that.
Now, the Holy Spirit helps us. He gives us the ability to love, so I'll give you that. When Anna and I, that's my wife, when we kind of go through stages where maybe we don't like each other as much as we used to as we're married and she found out I'm kind of a jerk because she lives with me and I sometimes act like our house should revolve around me and she thinks it should revolve around her and we kind of butt heads over that. So, in those moments, I don't think, ah, you know what, we haven't really been connecting, we really haven't been having conversations, we really haven't been enjoying each other.
Hmm, I'll wait and see how it turns out. No. If you're dating somebody, if you're married to somebody, it takes work. You have to plan things. You have to, if you're dating somebody, you have to like make money and keep it in your wallet so that you can pull it out later to buy a sandwich. Like, you've got to do things to go on dates, to be around each other.
You have to schedule things. If you have children, you have to call a person on the phone and ask questions like, if you watch my children, will you harm them? And they'll say things like, no, and you'll be like, because you're smart, are you sure? And they'll be like, yes, I'm sure. And then you'll be like, sounds good to me. You can come watch my children and then you'll pay them so that you can leave the house and stare at each other's faces and hold hands and remember why you love each other in the first place.
If you work out and you enjoy it, you still got to lace up your shoes. You still got to pay for a gym membership. You still got to wake up in the morning and get over there. You still got to go after work. All of these things, even though we have hobbies that we enjoy, you still got to buy some equipment. You still got to set some time aside.
And then Christians step into this world that exists like this and all other areas and go, I'm going to magically love Jesus. You read your Bible? Nope. You hang out with the church? Don't need to. Why not?
Magic. We got to fix our eyes on Jesus. It takes work. You got to open your Bible because that's where we meet Jesus. That's where He shows up. That's where we read passages like this and you remember that you want to glorify yourself.
But Jesus humiliated Himself and in His humiliation, He deserves all the glory. You hang out with His church? You have to actually believe this stuff because it says to bear with one another, to forgive one another. Let me tell you something. The time I have to believe the gospel the most is when I have to forgive an actual person of a real wrong. If it's excusable, that's easy.
I have to believe the gospel when you did something inexcusable because Jesus in the gospel forgave the inexcusable in me. When I have to open my wallet and hand you some of my money so that you can pay some bills and I have to open my wallet and hand you some of my money so that you can... When I have to receive money from you to pay my bills, I have to believe the gospel. We have to be around His church. We have to be around His people and we have to be on His mission. You need to be reading the Bible and praying.
You need to be around the church. You need to be on His mission to help you fix your eyes on Jesus. When I quit hanging out with people that don't know Jesus, I forget how much everybody needs Jesus. I just forget. And you're like, hey bro, don't you preach like every week? Almost every week.
And I forget. I forget. Because I haven't fixed my eyes on Jesus in a while. We have to work to see the cross. To set us free. Hebrews says, fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and founder of our faith who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God so that we don't grow weary or lose heart.
We have to fix our eyes on Jesus to remember how much our exaltation will get us to remember what His humiliation actually got us. And then we're free. Free from thinking everything's about us. Free to actually have joy in life and serve people and not continually try to work to promote ourselves. Free from our pump. Matt's going to come back up here.
We're going to sing and here's what we're going to do. If you're a Christian in the room, we're going to take communion. And communion is where Christians celebrate the cross. It's where we take the bread that represents the body of Christ that was broken for us. It's where we take the wine or the juice that represents the blood of Christ that was poured out for us and we partake in it once again. Just as we did when we placed faith in Jesus, we partake in His death.
We celebrate His death on our behalf that it's about Him and that through Him and only through Him can we actually have life and joy. If you're in this room, this is a problem تم deal with Him with the work that if you do anything after in size, we apply it to Him to allow Him to arbeiten. That's why hating the bread that the grime bladeruption is to change in such instances before Him Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.