It's been a full day already, there's lots that we can celebrate. I was really struck when we got the email, I think it was yesterday, from our brother Craig, who's here. It's just a beautiful, you got three pictures that so beautifully illustrate the cost of following Jesus. He's worth it all. he is worth it all, and that witch doctor, he looked, he saw the emptiness, he saw that he needed Jesus, he looked, he saw that it would cost him everything, and we've got a picture of the bonfire that ensued, because he said Jesus is worth it. And Aaliyah, we've got this young woman who, is leaving it all behind. Give me some training and I'm going to India and I'm going to tell the world about Jesus because He's worthy. This is a weighty, these are weighty matters and we are so flippant and I confess that I can be so flippant. I just want to pray for us as we dive into this text because I just know myself and The text that we're dealing with today, we're gonna be looking up close at the cross of our Savior Jesus Christ, and it's a weighty text, and it should be dealt with that way. And I don't want my own goofiness to come through today, because this isn't a goofy text. So let's just surrender this to the Lord. Heavenly Father, I just ask for your help now as we look at your word. We want to run past these things. Lord, we do, and Lord, even when we sing them, we sing them in these songs. Lord, I think of that song we sang at the cross, and the closest we got to really describing the horror of what happened on the cross is we sang, Where Your Love Ran Red. And there's just so much more, and we wanna skim by, but we need to press in and see what you suffered for us. And so I pray that you would just prepare us now. I pray that you would soften our hearts. I pray that you would break our hearts for what we are going to see. And I pray that you would just help me to be faithful to your text, to your word, to your truth. And we ask all of this in Jesus' mighty saving name. And everyone said, Amen. Please turn with me in your Bible to the Gospel of Mark, chapter 14. We're gonna be dealing with a large section of text today, 51 verses. The average chapter in the Bible is 26 verses, so we're dealing with almost two chapters of the Bible today, and we're gonna deal with it a little bit differently. We're gonna walk through almost paragraph by paragraph, and we're gonna stop, and we're gonna say, what do we see here, and we're gonna look at it that way. But Mark is an interesting gospel writer in that He's usually very economic with his word count. He doesn't drag things out. He's real quick. Maybe you've got a friend like that. They tell stories and they just fly from one detail to the next and you're thinking, well, that was a big detail. I'd like to hear more. For instance, Mark, when he tells us about the feeding of the 5,000, he gives us two paragraphs. It's kind of like there's a lot of people and then Jesus had seven loaves and two fish and then he fed 5,000 people and he moves on and you think, well, what did that look like? I'm curious, what did that look like as he's breaking up the bread? Did he hold up a sheet and did, what happened? But he doesn't give us the details. until we get to this text, until he begins to talk about the suffering of Jesus. And now, Mark, who's been so quick, is just, is walking through painfully, slowly, and he's pointing at every detail, and he says, look at this, consider this, listen to what they said, feel this. And so we're gonna slow down, and we're gonna listen, and we're gonna feel, because Mark sees in this the heart of the heart of the heart of the Christian faith. This is the center. Everything that's been pointing forward about Jesus, all the little hints and illusions that we've seen in Mark's gospel are now coming to this place where it culminates and we see it all in clarity. And the irony is that we actually hear all of these glorious titles that are true of Jesus coming out of the mouths of his opponents. So for instance, the very end of the text we're gonna look at today, the chief priest walks by and he looks up at Jesus hanging on the cross. And he says to the people around him so they can hear him, he says, he saved others, but he can't save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe. And what he thought, he thought he was mocking Jesus. He didn't recognize that he spoke truer words than he knew. That the cross is the salvation for us. Right? He says he saved others. He can't save himself. He saved others through the cross. And that's what we're going to see today. We're going to see that if you've placed your trust in Jesus Christ, if you've turned away from your sin, then you are saved. And one of the ways that Christ has saved you is he has endured everything that you and I should have endured. Last week we saw in the text that he endured betrayal. And today we're gonna see so much more. And so we're gonna walk through the text and we're gonna ask one question of the text today, one question. What did Christ endure for my salvation? What did he endure? What are we meant to see? So with that in mind, we're gonna look at verse 53 of chapter 14. Hear now God's holy, inspired, living, and active word. And they led Jesus to the high priest. And all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes that came together. And Peter had followed at a distance right into the courtyard of the high priest. He was sitting with guards and warming himself at the fire. Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking testimony against Jesus to put him to death. They found none. For many bore false witness against him, but their testimony did not agree. And some stood up and bore false witness against him, saying, We heard him say, I will destroy the temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another not made with hands. Yet even about this their testimony did not agree. And the high priest stood up in the midst and asked Jesus, Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you? But he remained silent and made no answer. Now, the first thing we see in our text is that Jesus endured injustice. He endured injustice. The scene is embarrassing for the high priest. They're meant to be just, they're meant to be conducting themselves orderly, but there's no order. It looks more like an angry mob. They've got Jesus. They've got him there. They've already got their intentions laid out. They want to put him to death. But if they're going to do that, they're going to need some people to come forward to witness and testify against him. So they throw it out to the crowd. Can you imagine a trial like that? You've got the defendant is sitting there. And then he turns around to the crowd and he says, we're going to need a witness. If we're going to get this done, if we're going to kill this man, somebody's got to have a charge. Do you have a charge? And then people come forward and say, yeah, I think he, I heard him say this. But then the next person comes forward and they say something contradictory. And all the testimonies are falling apart. And you'd think that they would say, well, this, This is ridiculous, right? We don't even have a testimony against him, we should release him. But that's not the case. They keep pressing, they keep prying, they're looking for somebody, anybody. But the thing is, it's very hard to condemn an innocent man, isn't it? It's even harder to condemn a sinless man. One commentator says this, he says, every detail, nearly I should say, nearly every detail of Jesus' trial violates the rules for capital cases prescribed in the Mishnah. the mission as the Jewish law. What he means for us to see is this. He says, you've got the high priest. This is the leader. He's the guy. If anyone's gonna conduct this trial fairly, it's him. But he's throwing caution to the wind. He's breaking every single one of their laws for one reason. It's to kill Jesus. He endured injustice. Now, if you're here today, maybe you've endured injustice. We hate injustice, don't we? For some of us, that's the fuel that fires us. You know, you see it on Facebook, people fighting for justice. We hate injustice. We hate when people wrong us. Maybe you've been wronged, maybe your landlord or someone that's spoken against you in a way that is unkind and untrue. We hate injustice. We push against it. But hear this, as much as we hate injustice, Our innocent Savior, right? Because you and I are not innocent, we're guilty. The Bible says all have sinned, we're guilty. But the only innocent one, our innocent Savior, He was condemned as guilty in an unjust trial, complete injustice. So that guilty sinners like you and I, people who have numerous accusations that could and should stick, can be found innocent before a perfectly just God. Isn't that amazing? He stood before an unjust trial, perfectly innocent, and he took it all. He took it all upon himself. Why? So that people who are perfectly guilty like you and I could be set free by the only just God. He was scandalously accused so that you and I could be scandalously forgiven. Isn't that incredible? He endured injustice. The second thing we see is found in verses 61 to 65. Look there with me. Again, the high priest asked him, are you the Christ, the son of the blessed? And Jesus said, I am. And you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. And the high priest tore his garments and he said, what further witnesses do we need? You've heard his blasphemy, what is your decision? And they all, they all condemned him as deserving death. And some began to spit on him and to cover his face and to strike him saying, prophesy. And the guards received him with blows. Here we see that he endured rejection. Up until this point, if you've been walking with us through Mark's gospel, we've been in this for over a year, and every single time someone points to Jesus and someone kind of gives his identity and says, he's the son of God, what does he do? What does Jesus do? Can you remember? Up until this point, anytime somebody might disclose the true identity of Jesus, what happens? He quiets them. He silences it. He says, no, you keep that down. He's been concealing his identity up until now. But here we have it, in the midst of the suffering and the persecution, the time has come for Jesus to declare who he truly is and what he's truly come to do. And this is important because actually, it was mentioned today, you're going to be doing ministry, Iliya, to Muslims. That's going to be one of the things you'll do. Here in Orillia, we don't see a great deal of Muslims around, and so we're kind of under a rock in this sense. We don't know how to engage with someone who's practicing Islam. But you should know that one of their primary objectives, or one of their primary objections, I should say, is this. They'll say, in your whole Bible, never once does Jesus say he's God. You say that about him, but never once does he say that about himself. And then they'll say, he calls himself the son of man. The son of man, he's just another prophet, which the Islam would say, we agree, he is another prophet, just like Moses. Could you answer that objection this morning? Because if you couldn't, then you should take notes right now and pay attention. Because if Jesus isn't God, then this whole thing is really a waste of time. You want to be able to look that person in the eye and say, no, Jesus actually makes some profound claims about himself. And the answer is right here. Right here in these two verses, Jesus ascribes three titles to himself. Let's look now. Verse 61 to 62, the high priest asked Jesus, he says, Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven. Three titles he gives to himself right there. First he says, I am the Christ. And the Christ and the Messiah, it's the same thing. It comes from the same Greek word, Christos. This is the coming conqueror who's going to overthrow the corrupt political leaders, who's going to overthrow the corrupt religious leaders, and he's going to rule and reign. Jesus says, I am that. When he says, are you the son of the blessed? He says, are you the son of God? It's the same question. Are you the son of God? Would you dare say that you're the Messiah and the divine son? And Jesus says, I am those things. I am the Christ. I am the son of God. And then he goes a step further and he says, and I am the son of man too. And then just to make sure that the high priest understands what Jesus means by that saying, he says, and you will be witness to my glory. You wield your authority now, but in a short while, you're gonna see me in authority riding in on the clouds. That's what Jesus says to the high priest. He's alluding to this important chapter in Daniel 7. Daniel 7, verses 13 to 14. So like I said, if you wanna be ready, if you wanna be able to point and say, no, Jesus makes this claim about himself, you should memorize these two verses. In Daniel 7, it says this. I saw in the night visions. And behold, with the clouds of heaven, there came one like a Son of Man. Son of Man is not a term that comes up frequently in the Old Testament, but this is it right here. So Jesus, in all of his ministry, Jesus could refer to himself as the Son of Man, and people weren't connecting the dots very quickly, because it just wasn't something that, it wasn't on their radar. They were looking for a number of things, the Messiah, primarily, but they weren't really thinking about the Son of Man. But Jesus here, he draws their attention right back to this Old Testament prophecy, and he says, by the way, this is who I am, and this is what the Old Testament says. Behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the ancient of days and was presented before him. And to Him was given dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, languages should serve Him. And His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away. and his kingdom, one that shall not be destroyed." Memorize those verses, friends. Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man, and that's what he means. He says, this is who I am. I am the divine Son. I am the Messiah. I am the Son of God, and I will rule, and I will reign, and you'll see me riding in on the clouds. And just in case you think we're pulling this interpretation out ourselves, the high priest knew exactly what Jesus meant because he rips his robes and he says that Jesus is guilty of blasphemy. Jesus made it very clear who he saw himself to be. Now, here's the tragedy, is that Jesus reveals this to the high priest, so he's the leader of the Jewish people. If you're familiar with your Bible, just take a moment and think about all the time you've spent reading your Old Testament, all the times when God's people have strayed. and God has been so gracious with them, and he pulls them back in, and they stray again, but then he's gracious and he pulls them back in. And now here we have God himself clothed in human flesh, and he comes to his people, and he's talking to the leader of the people who call themselves God's people, the high priest, the one who should recognize him. And this leader asks him a question, and he says, is this who you are? And God himself looks him back in the eyes, and he says, that is exactly who I am. He should have fallen down in worship. What grace that God has come, that God has finally come to his people to do what they could never do for themselves. But that's not what he does. He curses them, he rips his robe and he says, murder this man. Which is exactly what the Apostle John saw and wrote when he says in verse 11, he came to his own and his own people did not receive him. Jesus endured rejection from the people he came to save. And he did that to bring us into relationship with God. Look with me now, we've got to continue through verses 66 to 72. And as Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant girls of the high priest came. And seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him and he said, you also were with the Nazarene Jesus. But he denied it, saying, I neither know nor understand what you mean. And he went out into the gateway, and the rooster crowed. And the servant girl saw him, and she began saying to the bystanders, this man is one of them. But again, he denied it. And after a little while, the bystanders again said to Peter, certainly you are one of them, for you're a Galilean. But he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, I do not know this man of whom you speak. And immediately the rooster crowed a second time. And Peter remembered how Jesus had said to him, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times. And he broke down and he wept. Here we see Jesus has endured denial. We talked about betrayal last week, and we dealt with this fully. You remember Peter was the alpha male of the group of disciples. He was the guy, the leader. He says, I'm ready, I'll do whatever you ask, Jesus. But then as we look at this text, you see not only does he deny Jesus, but his denial, it escalates as the story moves forward. Right, so first he's following Jesus. Let's give him credit. He's following from a distance and he sits in the courtyard. You probably can still see Jesus at a distance. He's warming himself by the fire. But then this little girl says, I recognize you. She says, you're one of those, aren't you? And he says, no, I'm not. And then he starts to, he retreats. So now he's moving further from Jesus. He finds himself at the gate now, and the girl spots him again at the gate, and she gets a crowd. She says, I'm pretty sure that's one of them. Again, he denies it, and then the third time, by the time there's a third denial, he begins to curse and to swear and say, I don't know this man that you're speaking of. I don't even know him. And when you look closely at his words, isn't it remarkable that he never once uses the name of Jesus? He can't bring himself to do it. Him, or that man, or the one of whom you speak, but he can't bring himself to even say the name of Jesus. When just hours earlier he said, I would die for you, and here threatened by this young girl, he can't even speak the name of Jesus. He's backslidden. He was tried, he's faced his trial, and he was found to be a coward. and he can't even speak Jesus' name. Now Jesus has been, we just watched, he was rejected by the high priests. The high priests look at Jesus, they don't recognize Jesus as the Son of God, so they say, we're gonna kill him. But Peter knows who Jesus is. This is a different kind of wound inflicted on our Savior, isn't it? Peter's not someone who could say, well, you know, who is Jesus really? I'm gonna cut my ties with him. No, Peter knows exactly who Jesus is. Peter loves Jesus, and he's been loved by Jesus. But still he turns away. He denies him. And Jesus endures that. He endures denial to bring us into relationship. Look with me now at chapter 15. As we continue through, beginning in verse one. And as soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. And they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate. And Pilate asked him, are you the king of the Jews? And he answered him, you've said so. And the chief priests accused him of many things. And Pilate again asked him, have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you. But Jesus made no further answer. So that Pilate was amazed. Here we learn that he endured slander, right? And he's been, from the very beginning, right from that first trial with the high priest, people are hurling accusations at him, and it's not true. They're hurling false accusations at Jesus, and if you or I were in Jesus' shoes, we would, at this point, we would stand up and say, listen, this is all nonsense, it's false. And we would begin to make the arguments and shut the arguments down, but that's not what Jesus does. He endures all of the slander, and he does it silently. which was intentional, it was meant to draw our attention back to the book of Isaiah. Listen to this prophecy about the one who would save God's people. It says of him, he was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before it shears its silence, so he opened not his mouth. And this made the high priest furious, Pilate was astounded in the face of all of these accusations. Jesus doesn't say a word, he takes it all. Now take a minute with me, so let's pull back. Let's look back to the very beginning of this human story. Let's look back to the garden when we fell into sin. We learn so much when we look at Adam and Eve and we learn so much about ourselves. What happens? Adam has sinned against God. He's done that which he should not have done. He's absolutely guilty and he knows it. You know, the first thing that he does is he runs and hides. But then when he's confronted, what does he do? When God confronts Adam, what does he do? He starts pointing around. He starts making excuses, right? That's our Father. And do you see that in yourself? The accusation comes, and I know it's true, but the very first response is, I'm gonna start pointing, and it was her fault, and actually, you gave her to me, so it's kind of your fault, and I know this is true, but there's reasons, and we're excuse makers, aren't we? That's who we are. We are excuse makers. How does God save guilty excuse makers? What does he do? How does Jesus save us by suffering injustice without raising a single objection? He could so easily point right back. He could so easily point around here. He doesn't do any of that. He endures. He takes it. He takes it. Because we're guilty. We deserve all of the accusations that are hurled at us. Because remember we talked about how the devil, what does he do? He accuses us. That's what the devil does. That's his scheme to get you and I. The devil accuses us and he points at Levi and he says, Levi is lazy and he's a sinner. And all these things that he's done, God, these things should separate him from you forever. That's what the devil does. Right, so how does God, and I'm guilty of those things. They're true, that's what's so horrifying. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, including me. So he accuses me with things that are true. So how could I be saved? Because I'm in the midst of, I'm pointing around fingers and none of it's working because God sees all things, knows all things. How can he save somebody like me? Well, he sends his son and Jesus stands there at trial and they hurl false accusation after false accusation, things that might be true of me, things that would be true of you, things that are not true of Jesus. And he takes it silently as all of the judgment and all the condemnation gets heaped on him and heaped on him. And he sets us free. Look with me now, verse six, because it continues. Now, At the feast, Pilate used to release for them one prisoner for whom they asked. And among the rebels in prison who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called Barabbas. And the crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do as he usually did for them. And he answered them, saying, Do you want me to release for you the king of the Jews? For he perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priests had delivered him up. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him released for them Barabbas instead. And Pilate again said to them, that what shall I do with the man that you call the king of the Jews? And they cried out again, crucify him. Pilate said to them, why? What evil has he done? But they shouted all the more, crucify him! So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas. And having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. And the soldiers led him away inside the palace that is the governor's headquarters. And they called together the whole battalion, and they clothed them in a purple cloak. and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him and they began to salute him. Hail, King of the Jews. And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him and they led him out to crucify him. Here we learn that he endured abuse. So in verse 15, Pilate orders for Jesus to be scourged. You probably know what that means. But again, Mark is going painfully slow, because he means for us to see this. A scourging was a horrific practice. The purpose of a scourging was so that those who were hanging on the cross would die quickly, because it's a long way to die. And so what they would do is they'd take a whip made of leather and they would put bones and metal on the end of the whip and they would whip the prisoner's back and his thighs and in doing so they would rip the flesh off and usually it would be exposing the ligaments and the bones. Jesus clearly received a horrific scourging because he collapsed under the weight of the cross. When they put the cross on his body he was just too weak. He collapsed under it and he died within three hours. Many people would live for days on the cross and Jesus collapsed after three hours, which again suggests that he was whipped mercilessly. The whole battalion came to mock him. And as the king of kings stood in the midst of us, of his people, as we mocked him, they clothed him with a purple cloak. Purple was the most expensive dye in the ancient world, and so it was the color that royalty would wear. So they put on this cloak just to mock him as a king, and then they took thorns, long thorns, and they fashioned a crown and they pressed it into his head. And after they'd placed that on his head, then they began to smack him with a stick hard on his head. And as they did that, they shouted at him, and they hurled insults at him, and they spit on him, and they saluted him. And that was our treatment of the savior of the world, our king, Jesus. He endured abuse for us. Very practically, one of the hardest objections that we face as Christians is that people will often go through a hardship because this world is groaning under sin and awful things are happening. And people who are in the midst of awful hardship will look at us and they'll say, how could there possibly be a good God when I'm enduring so much suffering? And that is a very, very hard objection to answer, isn't it? They call it the problem of pain. In fact, I'd say it's almost without answer. You can't tie that up in a bow because it's so tied up in our experience, in our feelings, in our loss. And so, when someone comes with that accusation, the first thing you should do is you should stop and you should listen. We learned that in Job, right? That's wisdom. You sit and you listen. and whatever sickness that they're experiencing, or maybe it's the sickness or the loss of a loved one, whatever it is, the suffering that they're feeling, you let them just vent all that out and you listen. But then when you open your mouth up to speak, you need to point them here. Because here is the scandal of the Christian message, and there's nothing like it in any other world religion, there's nothing like it in the world. The God of the universe entered into our suffering. He entered right into it. He's not enthroned in heaven watching mercilessly. He's not watching as if this is some kind of academic exercise, as if it's a kid holding a, what do you call that thing? Magnifying glass over the ants. I've heard people say that's what God's doing. He's just watching and watching us squirm. Sometimes maybe it even feels like that. Maybe you're here today and you feel like that. You've raised that accusation against God. Is he looking down on us? Well, the thing is that he did look down on us and he did see us in the midst of our suffering and our pain and our sorrows, but God then entered into our suffering and our pain and our sorrows to set us free. Now listen, Jesus didn't need to do that. He didn't need to come, but He did because He loves us. And in entering into our suffering, Jesus made a way for us to have the only answer to suffering, an answer that atheists don't have to suffering. The answer that we have for suffering is heaven. I'm not saying this to throw it back in someone's face, but when someone is wrestling with that, wrestling with what seems like meaningless suffering, in my heart it breaks because if your answer to that meaningless suffering is atheism, is to say there is no God, then you're affirming that it's true. There's no purpose in your suffering, none. This is just a tragic circus with no meaning. But there is meaning, and we know that there is meaning because God has told us there is meaning and that there's actually glory waiting for us, and this time right here, it's light and momentary, even though it doesn't feel that way. It doesn't feel that way, does it? But it is. And the only hope that we have is the hope of glory. And we couldn't get there, we couldn't have that glory for ourselves because of our sin. So what did God do? He came right into the worst of our suffering and our affliction. He came right into the center of it and we pressed the thorns into his head and we ripped the skin off of his back and we hit him with a stick and we spit on him and we mocked him and he took it all so that he could save us from this suffering, so that he could set us free. That's the hope that we have. Jesus in the book of Hebrews, and I remember it was a sister that reminded me of this the other day, in the book of Hebrews we read that Jesus endured the cross, despising the shame, but what does it say right before that? It says, look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame. You hear that? So how did Jesus endure? Jesus was looking forward to his joy, to his glory. He was looking forward to the end, which means as Christians, if we wanna live like Jesus, we need to be looking forward and longing for the day when we're in heaven. Book of Revelation says, behold, all these former things are passing away. And He will wipe every tear from our eyes. And there will be no more sickness, no more death, and no more suffering. But as we live in that world of suffering now, and we try to make sense of it, there's only one way to do so, and that's to look to Jesus, our Savior, and to see that He entered right into the thick of it to set us free. Now look with me at verse 21. And they compelled a pastor by, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross. Really quickly, it's interesting, Marx is the only gospel that mentions who Simon is. He's the father of Alexander and Rufus. Mark said that because Alexander and Rufus were living in Rome, right? This is history. Jesus is writing to this church and he's saying, he's saying, Simon, you know who Simon is, he's Alexander's dad and Rufus, they're in your church. Anyways, sometimes we forget, we remove ourselves as if this is Harry Potter and it's not, we're reading the history of our faith. And they brought him to the place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull. And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he didn't take it. Stop right there. So wine mixed with myrrh, that was their painkiller. That's what they have for a painkiller. Jesus doesn't want any painkiller in this. He goes in completely alert and aware. He did not take it. and they crucified him, and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them to decide what each should take. And it was the third hour when they crucified him, and the inscription of the charge against him read, The King of the Jews. And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right, one on his 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 and come down from the cross. So also the chief priests with the scribes, they mocked him to one another saying, he saved others, can't even save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel come down now from the cross that we may see and believe. And those who were crucified with him also reviled him. Here we learn that he endured humiliation. The crossbeam of the cross was placed upon Jesus' shoulders. What would typically happen is you'd have the straight beam of the cross, and that would be at the place where someone would be crucified, and then they would take the crossbeam, and they would carry it on their shoulders. But again, Jesus has been scourged so mercilessly that he can't, I mean, he wasn't just scourged, right? He was beaten, and he was beaten beforehand, beaten afterhand. His body at this point is unrecognizable, and he collapses under the beam. He can't carry it. in front of a mocking crowd, no doubt, because the street would have been lined with witnesses, so you can just imagine the humiliation as he can't even carry this means of crucifixion up to the place. And they strip him, it says. They take off his clothing, and they put his broken, naked body up on the cross, and they start gambling over his clothes, because they don't care about him, right? So they're gambling over his clothes while he hangs there. And not only is Jesus crucified with common criminals, He's up there with people who deserve to be up there, people like you and me, people who have sinned against God. And as He's being murdered with people who deserve to be there, as He's doing this for us, to save us, they use their dying breaths to hurl more insults at Him. The way that you die on the cross is through asphyxiation. You probably know this, but that's how you die. That's why it's such a long, horrible death, is that in order to take a breath, you would need to pull yourself up, and of course, you've got the nails usually would be in the wrist, and you would have to pull yourself up with this excruciating pain, and that's the only way that you could open up your chest cavity and have to take a breath. So that's the way that you would die on the cross, is that it's a horrifying way you'd eventually have to just give up and surrender. and fight every instinct to breathe. But these criminals who are crucified with Jesus are lifting themselves up so that they can take a breath, and with that breath, they're cursing him. It was more than a means of execution. It was a means of humiliation. It was horrific. And as he hung on the cross for the sins of the world, the religious leaders and the passerbys walked by and said, he saved all these other people, but this weak man can't even save himself. If you'd come down from the cross, we might worship you, they said, which is not true because Jesus came up from the cross and he rose from the grave and we still mock him. He was humiliated so that we could be set free. He set us free from our sin once and for all. That's the final thing we learn in our text this morning, is that we've seen all that He endured, but here's the key. He endured so that we could be saved. Jesus endured betrayal and injustice and rejection and denial and abuse and humiliation. All of the things that we endure in this fallen, broken world, He came, He endured them for us, and He stood firm to the end. In all these things, He did not sin, He did not curse God. He sounds so much like the prophecy in Isaiah about the suffering servant who would set us free. It says this, the Lord God has opened my ear and I was not rebellious. I turned not backward. I gave my back to those who strike and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard. I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. Sounds a lot like Jesus, doesn't it? Doesn't that remind you of his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane? Because Jesus, again, not surprised by any of this, not surprised by a single detail. It was, you know, when that next soldier came up and spit in his face, it wasn't as if Jesus said, oh, I didn't see that coming. No, he knew every single detail of what he would suffer, and he prayed in the garden, and he prayed to his Heavenly Father, our Heavenly Father, and he said, if there's any other way, if there's any other way, let's go that way. But then he said, not my will, but your will be done. And there was no other way. This is the only way by which man could be saved. And so Jesus, with eyes wide open, marched into the crowds where he would be beaten and mocked and scorned. He saw every single thing that he wouldn't endure. And he did it. And he didn't turn his back. From the whipping and the beating, he didn't turn his back. Isn't that remarkable? And here's the thing. Why would he do such a thing, right? He had everything. He left his heavenly throne for this. Sometimes I feel like we just don't think about that. He left his heavenly throne for this. He wasn't lacking anything in heaven. It's not as if Jesus was in heaven and he was saying, you know what, heaven could be so much better for me if I just endure this short pain for a little while, then I'm gonna get all these tremendous blessings in heaven. That's not the case. He had nothing else to gain. He had every comfort. He lacked nothing. But the thing is that you and I lacked. We lacked. We were separated from God. We were at war with one another. We see that every day, don't we? We had no way of making right all of the wrongs that we had committed. And so the Son of God came to earth, clothed in human flesh, and He taught us, and He loved us, and He healed us, and He amazed us, and then He suffered and endured for us, and ultimately, as we will discuss next week, He died for us. Now I want you just to look down as we conclude. I want you to look at your Bible, look at chapter 15 again. We've talked about how Mark, as he's putting these stories together, sometimes he'll sandwich two stories, so he'll put two obviously related stories on either end, and in the middle, he'll put something that seems unrelated, but when you see it together, you see like, wow, it shines so much more gloriously. He does that right here. If you look at verse six, or no, sorry, chapter 14. If you look at verse 53, my Bible has a heading. Does your Bible have a heading there? What does yours say, Josh? Jesus before the council. So Jesus is on trial before the high priest. And then if you look ahead to chapter 15, what is your heading there? Jesus delivered to Pilate. So we've got two trials here. Jesus is on trial before the high priest, the leaders of this kind of religious broken system. Then Jesus is on trial before the most powerful man in the world, well, in their area. And in between these two trials, we see this story about Peter. And we spent a great deal of time talking about Peter and the disciples last week. But right in the middle of Jesus' trials, where he's standing firm, where he's holding fast, we see this little glimpse of ourselves in Peter. Because he undergoes his own trial, doesn't he? Jesus stands before high priests and Pilate, and Peter stands trial before this servant girl. And while Jesus stands firm and holds fast, Peter, is a coward, and we find him cowering in fear, running away from his servant girl, lying, cursing. And now, listen, this story's not about Peter. This whole block is about Jesus, so you gotta ask, why is it that Jesus would put this, why is it that Mark would put this story right smack in the middle? And the reason is so that he can draw our attention to the beautiful contrast, and I wanna just draw your attention to that contrast today as we conclude. Because Peter is portrayed as a coward. We see his cowardice so that we can see how incredible it is that Jesus held fast. Jesus held fast to save Peter and people like him. Jesus held fast to save all of the cowards because Peter was tried and found wanting, but Jesus was tried and found worthy. And we're no different than Peter. We possess the same weaknesses. We talked about that last week. We're capable of the same failures. Our lives bear witness to that. And in case you're thinking, I'm nothing like Peter, well, just think about it. Who here has actually borne witness for Jesus at every opportunity? Who here, every single time they had a chance to tell someone the gospel, jumped in and said, I'm gonna do this, I'm fearless, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, I'm not ashamed of Jesus? Who here has obeyed the law perfectly? Who here has never sinned? I imagine the list is very small. I imagine God's conviction of us is true. As he writes, it's written, none is righteous. No, not one. Not one. The Bible says we're all like Peter. We all fall short of the glory of God. We're all tried and found wanting. But here, right in this story, in this juxtaposition, we see that Jesus came and did for us what we could never do, to set sinners and cowards and backsliders free. And James Edwards says this, it's so helpful. He says, Mark may have concluded this section with Peter's story to remind his persecuted congregation in Rome that not even the best Christian, listen, not even the best Christian or lead apostle is immune to apostasy. That's a word for falling away, backsliding, taking steps in the wrong direction. Nor, as we shall see, is he beyond the promise of grace. The church can be honest about sin, even the sins of an apostate apostle, because it is so convinced of grace. Where sin increased, grace increased all the more, Romans 5.20. I love that. The church in Rome needed that reminder. And we need that too. Because sometimes we just feel like complete and utter failures. I don't know if you feel that way this morning. Sometimes we endure a test of faith and we see in ourselves that we are just still so weak and fallen and broken. Sometimes we have great victories. Now maybe you're here today and you're like, I just experienced a great victory. That's wonderful. Peter experienced a number of great victories too. But that same Peter experienced a crushing defeat. And maybe you're here today and you feel like you've just endured a test, a trial, and you've been found wanting. You failed. You fell flat on your face. Maybe you're here today and like Peter, it says Peter, he wept bitterly when he saw in himself what had taken place. You're looking at yourself and you're saying, I'm backslidden. I am backslidden. I'm not living for Jesus. Maybe you're looking at your life and you can identify the moment. Maybe you're saying it was that thing, that test, that sickness, that disappointment. And you're looking back at that moment and you're saying from that point I'm backslidden. I'm not living for Christ anymore. Maybe it's worse than that. Maybe you can't even identify the moment. It's like Peter. It was the accusation of a servant girl of all things. There was just this small Blip, and for whatever reason, you're looking at your life now and you're saying, I'm not who I'm supposed to be. I'm a coward, I'm backslidden. I'm so glad Mark includes this story because we're reminded this morning that Jesus didn't die on the cross for perfect people. He doesn't need to die on the cross for perfect people. They have no sins that should be paid for, but we are not perfect people and Jesus died on the cross for failures like Peter, like us. He obeyed for us, he endured for us, and he died for us because he knew that we could not do it for ourselves. Which is why the church has always been and will always be a collection of rebels and failures and sinners who have been transformed by the grace of God and who are being transformed into the image of Jesus more and more day by day. And when we're honest about the grace that we've received, we can be honest about the sin that we're rescued from. Which is the only way that we're gonna be a safe place for people who are being rescued from this world You know, and I'm thankful that I look out in this church, and there are days when you see people who are rescued from the sins that our world would assume are unforgivable, and we see the drug dealers, and we see them go through the waters of baptism, and they, I remember, One of the testimonies that we heard at our baptism was he said, he said, I'm putting on new colors today. I've been wearing, and it was a gang reference, and I was in the tub thinking, here we are. But that's what he said, he said, I'm putting on new colors today, and we can be honest and transparent about the sin that we've been rescued from because we're honest about grace. The gospel is for broken, fallen people. It's for cowards and backsliders. And it doesn't matter where you were, the grace of God transforms you. And I'm thankful that Peter's story doesn't end here. This isn't the last we hear of Peter, is it? In fact, we find him months later, and Pentecost comes, and he's filled with the Holy Spirit, and this same guy who was cowering in fear out by the fire as this girl was confronting him is now preaching to the crowds. Right, and Peter's proclaiming, he's proclaiming the gospel, and the Jewish people are trying to get him killed at the time, and he's getting thrown into prison, and Peter is bulled for his faith to the point that he even hangs upside down on a cross, right, they murder him for his faith. Peter was transformed, he became a new man because his story didn't end here. And church, if you're here today and you're feeling like you're just, you're in that place of failure, I just wanna encourage you that your story doesn't need to end here either. Bring Jesus your failures. Just lay it down before Him. Bring Him all of your faults, all of your fear, your anxiety, all the times that you've fallen short. You see those right at the front and center of your mind. Just bring that to Him. And this is the glory of the cross. You lay all of that failure on Him. You lay it on the cross. all the times that you knew what you should have done and you did the wrong thing. You just be honest about your sin before your God and you lay it on the cross and watch as Jesus endures everything that you should have endured for your sin. Watch as He endures betrayal and denial. Watch as He's beaten and mocked and scorned and ultimately watch as He dies on the cross. That is what our sins deserve, but He takes it from us. And when we lay it on him, he removes it from us as far as the east is from the west, the Bible says, which is infinitely far. He uses another analogy. These are people, they don't have scuba gear, right? So the sea was a terrifying place. And he says, when you give me your sin, he says, I cast a weight on it and I throw it into the depth of the sea, which to someone with no scuba gear, it's the place where you could never get it again. You lay all your failure on Him and you watch what He does with it. He sets you free. That's the good news of the gospel. And next week we're going to look intently at the cross and we're going to ask the question of how is it that the death of Christ has set us free from our sin? But I'm gonna leave you with these two commands that we've heard time and time again here. If you're here today and you'd say, that's me, and you're mindful of that sin, that failure, that backsliding, what have you, you're mindful of the things that should separate you from Jesus, I wanna invite you to do two things. I wanna invite you to confess your sin. Not to us, you don't need to confess it to us. You confess your sin to the Lord, even in your heart right now. You tell him, you name it. You say, I have sinned against you in this way. You tell him. And then you trust in Jesus. You trust that your sin has been laid on the cross. You bear it no more. Jesus Christ took it in your place. Turn to him and be saved. That is the good news of the gospel. It is the hope of the cross. As they looked at Jesus and said, he saved others, he can't save himself. We are saved today if we trust in Jesus. Let me pray for us. Heavenly Father, I want to thank you today for for the opportunity that we have to be in this place and to bring our praise and our adoration and our worship to you. The deeper and the more intently we look at the cross, the more we see the depth of our sin. God, I pray that you would help us to feel that today. If we're sitting in sin, if we're living in sin, sin that separates us from you, sin that robs you of glory, I pray that we would feel so convicted by your spirit. God, I thank you that I can't bring that conviction. Lord, I can't just press a button and make myself feel or make others feel what they should feel. It's all you. And so God, I just pray that you would help us to feel today what we should feel. For some of us, that will be conviction. For some of us, that will be gratitude and wonder and joy. Seeing that in the midst of our weakness, you sent your Son to set us free. God, we love you. We love you and we give you all the praise. We're gonna sing these words. Jesus paid it all and all to him I owe. I pray that that would be more than just words that we sing. Lord, I pray that that would come to life in our hearts. That you are worth it all. And as we watch as the witch doctor burns his instruments. his only source of income as he sets them ablaze because Jesus is worth it. Lord, as we watch as our sister in Christ leaves everything that she's known behind so that she can go and share the gospel with people across the world. Lord, as we see these tangible examples, I pray that we would confess in our hearts that Jesus is Lord and that we would surrender all that we are to you and that we would give you these lives as a blank slate because you are worth it all. So we thank you for going before us, Lord Jesus. Thank you for suffering in our place. And thank you for the hope that is ours. And I pray that you would just bring that to life in us now as we sing in response. In Jesus' name, amen.