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the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us
take this opportunity to remember to silence our electronics, find
our seats, and to prepare our hearts for worship. She's lost. So, you. Well, we welcome all of you in
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to Dayspring Fellowship. We are
delighted for your presence among us on this glorious Lord's Day,
and I want to welcome visitors and encourage you if you're visiting
for the first time to grab one of these booklets, Ultimate Questions.
which you'll find out on the hall table, and we'd love to
have a record of your visit if you'd sign our guest register,
we would appreciate that. I want to direct your attention
to the bulletin where you'll notice that at 945 we are in
a Sunday School series through 1st and 2nd Samuel. So we're
nearing the end of 1st Samuel. This morning we were in chapter
24, David does good to his enemy, a remarkable passage that I encourage
you to download and listen to the lesson on that if you're
providentially hindered from joining us this morning. Down
the page you'll see that our sermon passage for next week
will be the last part of John chapter 19, and so I encourage
you to be meditating on that this week in preparation for
next week as we finish up John 19 and then take a break from
our John series for for quite a while. And then across the
page there you will see that the monthly free online resource
I'm recommending to you this month is this book by D.A. Carson titled Love in Hard Places. This is a book about our love,
the love that we are called to display in the world in difficult
places like we saw David do this morning as he displayed love
towards his enemy who was seeking to kill him. You also see that
on the second Wednesdays of 2025, we're going to be gathering in
the Fellowship Hall at 545 for a Brown Bag Supper. And then
at 630, we're going to come in here and hear testimonies from
Dayspringers. And so I am eagerly awaiting
you to let me know that, yes, you want to share your testimony
on one of these Wednesday evenings, and so that I can plug you in
to our schedule in the upcoming New Year This past Wednesday
night, we had a lecture on theological liberalism and fundamentalism
and evangelicalism. So we did a little bit of recent
church history and talked about how that church history continues
to reverberate here in America and affect us and inform our
place on the mission here in our day and age. So I encourage
you, if you missed that on Wednesday night, You can grab that online.
It was recorded, and listen to it. Next month, on the second
Wednesday, we'll have a lecture that'll be our final lecture.
It'll be a theological lecture on heaven and hell, many, many
questions about heaven and hell that have been brought to my
attention. And so we will cover those as our final lecture in
the lecture series. Then I want to encourage you
again to consider inviting a Dayspringer with no nearby family to a seat
at your Thanksgiving table this Thanksgiving. And then we have
a lot of announcements regarding December activities. We have
so many traditions here as we celebrate the incarnation of
and birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ during the holiday
season. And so you'll see that this December,
the Austin Symphony is going to once again be performing one
performance of Handel's Messiah. This is one of the most majestic
pieces of art, and so if you've never sat and experienced live
this amazing art piece, I encourage you to go this year and be blessed. It is some of the most incredible
music, and it's music that brings out the meaning of scripture. So every word that is sung is
from the word of God, and then the music that it is set to is
intended to expound upon and bring out the meaning of those
words. So really a great, marvelous experience. It'll take place
Tuesday, December the 3rd. 8 p.m. at the Riverbend Center
here in Austin, and you can get tickets at austinsymphony.org. Then we have on Sunday, December
the 1st, so the 1st of December is a Lord's Day. After worship
on that first Sunday, we are going to decorate and beautify
this chapel for our Advent season. And so I want to encourage all
Day Springers to stay after the service on that day, and help
us to decorate. You can bring decorations of
your own. We have a whole bunch of decorations
and storage that we'll be bringing out. And this is kind of a free
for all. You get to decorate this place
the way you want it decorated. And so come with your own decorating
ideas. We look forward to that every
year. And so we're going to do that
after the service on that Sunday. And then our annual Christmas
party is going to be held in the Fellowship Hall at 6 p.m.
on that Saturday, the following Saturday, December the 7th at
6 p.m. There is a sign-up sheet now
on the hall table to sign up for food to bring to this party. And so I encourage you to visit
that sign-up sheet today and put your name down for something.
And then you will see that I have listed other important December
dates so that you can already get these on your calendar. December
11th will be that Heaven and Hell lecture at 630. That's a
Wednesday, December 11th. And then on Saturday, December
the 14th, ladies are gonna have their under $25 gift exchange
beginning at 11 a.m. on that Saturday. And then on
Wednesday, December the 18th, that is our Wednesday evening
of neighborhood caroling where we go by candlelight and sing
Advent hymns to our lost neighbors and invite them to come to Dayspring
for our Christmas Eve candlelight service. And so that will begin
at 6.30 on Wednesday, December the 18th. And then on Sunday,
December the 22nd, we will have our scripture and songs service
at 6.30 p.m. For those of you who are new
to Dayspring and haven't gone through these traditions with
us, We take this one Sunday evening and we put on musical displays
of hymns and songs bringing glory to the Lord Jesus with an Advent
theme. And so we look for talented Dayspringers
of all ages who want to play an instrument, sing a song, to
please let Jonathan and Alyssa Cantrell know. so that they can
get you on the schedule and arrange that. We will intersperse that
with congregational singing. This is always a wonderful night
of worship. And then, finally, on December
the 24th, which is Christmas Eve, a Tuesday evening, we will
gather in here for our shortest service of the year. It's just
a short 30-minute candlelight Christmas Eve service that begins
promptly at 6 o'clock p.m., ends right at 6.30 so that you can
spend Christmas Eve with your family. But a beautiful time
as we gather in here by candlelight and hear some scripture and sing
some Advent hymns. And then two marvelous announcements
to end things off here. We are praising the Lord that
the Estradas are expecting another child. And so our prayers are
with Candice and her baby. And we are rejoicing with those
who rejoice. The baby is due in late July
or early August. Baby shower and registry information
will be forthcoming. And finally, we welcome Leslie
Mercado as our newest Day Springer. She is uniting with our church
family today. So please do greet Leslie and
her children, Hope and Perfecto. They'll be standing with me after
the service out here near the red door in the hallway. stop
by and give a warm day spring welcome to the Mercados. Well,
as we begin worship, please take your red hymnal. We're going
to be a little bit in the red and a little bit in the blue today.
So take your red hymnal. We'll begin there with hymn 101.
This is 101 in the red hymnal. And please stand together for
our call to worship. Our call to worship this morning
comes from the 47th Psalm. Clap your hands, all peoples.
Shout to God with loud songs of joy. For the Lord, the Most
High, is to be feared, a great king over all the earth. God
has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praises to God. Sing praises. Sing praises to our King. Sing
praises. For God is the King of all the
earth. Sing praises with a psalm. God
reigns over the nations. God sits on his holy throne. Let us sing together. Come Thou Almighty King, help
us Thy Name to sing, help us to praise. Father all-glorious,
Lord all-victorious, come and reign over us, ancient of days. Come Thou Incarnate Word, Mighty sword, our prayer attend. Come and thy people bless and
give thy word success. Spirit of holiness on us descend. Come, holy comforter. Thy sacred witness bear in this
glad hour. Come who Almighty art, now rule
and every heart, and from us depart spirit of power. ♪ To the great one and three
♪ Eternal praises be ♪ Hence evermore ♪ His sovereign majesty
♪ May we in glory sing ♪ And to eternity love and adore Let us pray together. Our gracious
God and merciful Father in heaven, you are the King who reigns over
us, and so we bow ourselves before you. We thank you that you have
loved us before the foundation of your creation, that you supply
our every need from your riches in glory in Christ Jesus. And we ask, Lord God, that you
would hear the grateful praises of your people this morning and
songs of praise to you And in our prayers, Lord, enliven our
worship of you by your spirit. Make your very presence known
to us as we celebrate communion. And let it be your voice that
we hear as your word is read and proclaimed. Above all, Lord
God, please ensure that all that we do here in this place would
be for your honor and glory and praise. For Jesus' sake and in
his name we pray, amen. You may be seated. Good morning, everyone. Please
turn to 574 in the blue. Revive us again. We praise Thee, O God, O the
Son of Thy love, Lord Jesus, who died and is now gone above. Alleluia, Thine the glory! Alleluia,
Amen! Alleluia, Thine the glory, revive
us again. We praise Thee, O God, for the
Spirit of light, Who has shown us our Savior and banished our
night. Alleluia, Thine the glory, Alleluia,
Amen. Alleluia, Thine the glory revive
us again, All glory and praise to the Lamb that was slain, Who
has taken our sins and cleansed every stain. Alleluia, Thine
the glory, Alleluia, Amen. Alleluia, Thine the glory, revive
us again. All glory and praise to the Lamb
who was slain. You know, one of the beauties
of singing congregationally is not only am I helpful to y'all,
I don't know what help that would be, but y'all help me when I
get on the wrong line. But we come together and we worship
God together and we help each other. So our next hymn is 66
in the blue. My shepherd will supply my need. Supply my need Jehovah is His
name In pastures fresh He makes me feed Beside the living stream He brings my wandering spirit
back when I forsake His ways and leads me for His mercy's
sake. grace. His hand in sight of all my foes
doth still my table spread. My cup with blessings overflows
His oil. ♪ Assure provisions of my God ♪
♪ Attend me all my days ♪ ♪ O may thy house be my abode ♪ ♪ And
all men be praised ♪ Where would I find a settled
rest while others go and come? No more a stranger, nor a guest,
but like a child Amen, now we have the reading
of God's word. Good morning. Okay, make sure I get the right
one. Today's reading is John 10, 17 through 18. For this reason, the Father loves
me because I lay down my life that I might take it up again.
No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.
I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take
it up again. This charge I have received from my Father. It's amazing to me even in short
passages like that how the cross is talked about in such a simple
manner, as Jesus is talking about having the authority to lay down
his own life, he's talking about the authority to give his body
over to torture of the most excruciating kind, just an unimaginable thing
that our Savior has done for us. And we celebrate that sacrifice
every Lord's Day here at Dayspring. And as always, we ask three things
of you to partake of this supper. We ask first and most importantly
that you're trusting in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation. So you're looking not to yourself,
to any goodness or merit on your part. You haven't sort of cleaned
yourself up and made yourself presentable to God, that's impossible. You have come to him in all of
your filth and all of your shame and all of your sin, and you've
cast yourself upon his grace and mercy alone in Christ. And so you're one who has been
saved by God's grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ
alone, to his glory alone. And then secondly, we ask that
you be a baptized believer, but we leave the details concerning
your Christian baptism up to your own individual conscience.
And then finally, we ask that you not be under church discipline
from your local congregation so that we might respect the
work of our Lord as he continues to sovereignly build his church
here in this world. As we come to a time to prepare
our hearts to partake of this corporate meal of communion,
let's take our red hymnals and look to the reality of the cross
of Jesus Christ, the crucifixion. By turning in the red hymnal
to hymn number 257, 257 in the red, stricken, smitten, and afflicted,
let us sing together. Stricken, smitten, and afflicted,
see him dying on the tree. Tis the Christ, by man rejected,
yes, my soul, tis he, tis he. Tis the long-expected prophet,
David's son, yet David's lord. By his son God now has spoken,
tis the true and faithful word. Tell me, ye who hear him groaning,
was there ever grief like his? Frenz'd through fear, his cause
disowning, foes insulting his distress? Many hands were raised
to wound him, none would enter, posed to save. But the deepest
stroke that pierced him was the stroke that justice gave. You think of sin but blithely,
nor suppose the evil great. its nature rightly, here its
guilt may estimate. Offer sacrifice appointed, see
who bears the awful load. Tis the word the Lord's anointed,
Son of God and Son of God. Here we have a firm foundation,
here the refuge of the lost. Christ, the rock of our salvation,
is the name of which we boast. O God, for sinners wounded, sacrifice
to cancel guilt, none shall ever be confounded. who on him their
hope have built. You ever been excited to be part
of a team? Not just a member of an organization
like a student at a school or, you know, employed at a company
or anything like that, but part of a special team with a specially
designated task or a mission. I've been privileged to be part
of special teams and at times I've commanded and selected the
members of those teams. The goal in selecting team members
is finding those with the skills that you need to be successful
and having one other very essential quality, commitment to the mission
no matter what. You don't want people who are
enthusiastic when times are good, but when things get tough, they
abandon you in some fashion. Depending on the situation, That
can put your very survival into question. At a minimum, it's
demoralizing to the remainder of the team. It's a real test of commitment
when things get difficult. When you hear the hard words,
when you get a hard diagnosis, you get a disappointing reply,
or you just have the continued anxieties that you deal with.
And really, that's what all of these things are, a test. I could point you to Job as I
have in the past, but I won't. Instead, I'll give you another
example from a passage we heard preached not long ago. In John
chapter six, just after Jesus taught about being the bread
of life in the synagogue at Capernaum, several of his disciples grumbled
and then left him for good. Then in verse 66, we see this
exchange. After this, many of his disciples
turned back and no longer walked with him. And so Jesus said to
the 12, do you want to go away as well? And Simon Peter answered
him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal
life. and we have believed and have come to know that you are
the Holy One of God." Have you believed and come to
know? Jesus told us that He would never
leave us nor forsake us. He will be there in our times
of trouble and He will sustain us through them. The troubles
are to remind us that we need Him and to prove our faith, not
to Him. He knows us. Judas was part of
the twelve when Peter said these words, and yet Jesus knew he
would betray Him. No, beloved, it isn't that we
prove our faith to Him. It is rather Him who is proving
our faith to us. and showing us that He is faithful. He sustains us by His grace and
grants us the faith to endure to the end. This is why even
during the testing, we count it joy because He is refining
us. And remember what I said about
picking a team. He didn't pick us because we had any skill. He picked us because it would
glorify Him to do so. To take useless, broken, wretched,
dead in sin creatures and transform them as only He could do. And what of those who depart
and never to return? Well, we have a passage for them
too. From 1 John 2, verse 19, they went out from us but they
were not of us. For if they had been of us, they
would have continued with us. But they went out that it might
become plain that they are all not of us." Before us now is
a display that reminds us just how committed the Lord is for
us. So I'll ask you, What will be
the display of your commitment to Him? So I speak as to sensible
people. Judge for yourselves what I say.
The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in
the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it
not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one
bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the
one bread. Whoever therefore eats the bread
of the Lord or drinks the cup in an unworthy manner will be
guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person
examine himself then and so eat of the bread and drink of the
cup. For anyone who eats and drinks
without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.
It is why many of you are weak and ill and some have died. But
if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when
we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may
not be condemned along with the world. Brothers and sisters,
let's take a moment to examine ourselves. Our Father in heaven, we bring
you praise and thanksgiving for your display of mercy on us,
wretched sinners, dead in sin, yet you sent your Son, your only
Son, to make the sacrifice on our behalf that we could not
make. And it is through this that you exalted him to the highest
throne of all, that at his name every knee will bow and every
tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. Lord, we still face trials and
troubles by design as we go through life. Grant us the faith to endure. Grant us the strength to persevere. And give us a witness to those
who are lost, knowing that it is only through your work in
us and through us that sustains us. And may they see this work
and come to you in repentance. that you may receive all the
honor and glory. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. For I received from the Lord
what I also delivered to you. The Lord Jesus on the night when
he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he
broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this
in remembrance of me. The same way also he took the
cup after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant in my
blood. Do this as often as you drink
it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this
bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until
he comes. This is the body of the Lord
which was given for you. This cup is the new covenant
in Christ's blood shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of
sin. As we sing our final hymn this
morning, please turn to 441 on Jesus Shall Reign. Jesus shall
reign. Does His successive journeys
run? His kingdoms stretch from shore
to shore, Till moon shall rise and wane no more. To Him shall endless prayer be
made, And praises throng to crown His head. His name, like sweet
perfume, shall rise With every morning's sacrifice. People and realms of every tongue
dwell on his love with sweetest song, and infant voices shall
proclaim, Their early blessings on His name, Blessing about where'er
He reigns, The prisoner leaves to lose his chains, The weary
find eternal rest, And all the sons of hunt are blessed. Let every creature arise to bring
Peculiar honors to our King. Angels descend with songs again,
And earth repeat the loud homage. Keep your red hymnals nearby,
but before we go on to our psalm that we will do responsibly in
a moment, I just want to honor and bless and potentially embarrass
the Cantrells by saying how grateful we are as a congregation. They
lead us in worship Sunday after Sunday. giving their gifts and
their talents to this church, and not just leading us in corporate
worship of our Savior, but serving us in many, many ways behind
the scenes as well. And they're going to be gone
for the next two Sundays for a much-needed rest. We just sang
about how the Lord grants the weary rest, and the Cantrells,
they have been through it in these past couple of years with
many trials and tribulations. and griefs, and so we pray, it
is our hope and prayer, that their time will be a time of
great rest in the Lord and refreshment. And so let's just give a round
of applause to the Cantorettes. We love and cherish y'all so
much. Please take your red hymnals and turn in the back with me
to Psalm 69, verses 19 through 36. You'll find that on page
810. 810 in the back of your red. We're
going to read this psalm responsibly together. Please stand together. You know how I am scorned, disgraced,
and shamed. All my enemies are before you.
Scorn has broken my heart and has left me helpless. I looked
for sympathy, but there was none. For comforters, but I found none. They put a gall in my food, and
gave me vinegar for my thirst. May the table set before them
become a snare. May it become retribution and
a trap. May their eyes be darkened so
they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever. Pour out your
wrath on them. Let your fierce anger overtake
them. May their place be deserted. Let there be no one to dwell
in their tents. For they persecute those you wound and talk about
the pain of those you hurt. Charge them with crime upon crime. Do not let them share in your
salvation. May they be blotted out of the book of life and not
be listed with the righteous. I am in pain and distress. May your salvation, O God, protect
me. I will praise God's name in song and glorify him with
thanksgiving. The poor will see and be glad. You who seek God, may your hearts
live. The Lord hears the needy and
does not despise his captive people. Let heaven and earth
praise him, the sea and all that moves in them, for God will save
Zion and rebuild the cities of Judah. The people will settle
there and possess it. The children of his servants
will inherit it. and those who love his name will
dwell there. Let us pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we come
before you this day recognizing that you are our eternal creator
to whom we owe worship, to whom we owe everything, and you have
substituted your own son in our place and purchased your church
with his blood. We pray, Lord God, that you would
be with your redeemed church this day. We lift up this congregation
to you. We thank you for calling us together,
for building us into a unified family, and for sustaining us
in our faith, and for giving us spiritual gifts, and for giving
us extraordinary opportunities to share in the privilege of
working to spread the gospel and make disciples. We pray,
Lord God, for all who are in need today that you would Provide
healing for the sick and comfort to the afflicted. We pray that
you would draw very near to the Cantrells over these next two
weeks. Give them refreshment and spiritual
rest in your sovereign love and care for them. We thank you for
adding to this body and outpost of your kingdom by bringing Leslie
to be a part of our family today. We pray, Lord, that you would
strengthen Candice throughout her pregnancy, provide health
to both her and her baby. We pray for your church throughout
the world today and ask that you would continue to bless it,
to add to it daily, as many as are being saved. We lift up to
you Pastor Ben Wright at Cedar Point Baptist Church this morning,
that you would fill him with your Holy Spirit as he preaches
your word to our brothers and sisters there. Lord, we pray
that you would build them up, add to their numbers and to their
influence in the kingdom there in Cedar Park. We lift up to
you President Biden and President-elect Trump and all of our earthly
leaders, that you would bless them and strengthen them and
lead them in wisdom. We pray for all our missionaries
and thank you for sustaining them day by day. We thank you
for the many answered prayers for our missionaries, for your
empowerment of them as they take the gospel into unreached and
dark places and push your kingdom further into this world. We pray,
Lord, that all Israel might be saved. And finally, we pray that
the whole earth might be filled with the knowledge of the glory
of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. For Jesus' sake and
in his name we pray, amen. You may be seated. And our children
may go out to Children's Church at this time. And as they go, please turn with
me in your copy of God's Living and Active Word back to chapter
19 of the Gospel of John. We saw in John 19 last week the
trial of Jesus before Pilate come to an end with Jesus being
handed over by Pilate to be crucified. And so this morning, we're picking
up the story at the very moment that this entire book has been
driving towards from the very beginning, when John the Baptist
cried out, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of
the world. I mean, from the very first chapter,
this is where it's all been headed. Jesus knew it. The disciples
kind of picked up on it along the way from the very beginning.
He told them over and over again that he had to be handed over
to sinful men who were going to crucify him, put him to death,
and yet he knew. that he was going to do this. And even though he knew this
was coming, he didn't do anything to try to avoid it. He didn't
try to evade the cross and the suffering. And in fact, the Bible
says this. The Bible says he set his face
like flint to go to Jerusalem and to face the cross. Why did
he do that? Well, because as he said many
times throughout this Gospel of John, and even more times
throughout the other Gospels, he did it because he was the
Messiah. He was the King of the Jews. And to be the King of the Jews,
the King of Israel, was to be his people's representative,
their champion, the one who would stand in their place and die
for them in their place, who would take the punishment that
they deserve. for their sins. That's why he
did it. And we come today in our passage
to the very moment when Jesus actually does that, when he is
crucified. It starts kind of in the middle
of verse 16 there. So if you look down in chapter
19, you'll probably have a subheading there, the crucifixion. That's
in the middle of verse 16. That's where we're going to pick
it up. Here's what John writes. So they took Jesus, and he went
out bearing his own cross to the place called the place of
the skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. There they crucified
him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus
between them. Pilate also wrote an inscription
and put it on the cross. It read, Jesus of Nazareth, the
king of the Jews, Many of the Jews read this inscription for
the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was
written in Aramaic and Latin and in Greek. So the chief priest
of the Jews said to Pilate, do not write the king of the Jews,
but rather, this man said, I am king of the Jews. Pilate answered,
what I have written, I have written. When the soldiers had crucified
Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts,
one part for each soldier, also his tunic, but the tunic was
seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. So they said
to one another, let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see
whose it shall be. This was to fulfill the scripture,
which said, they divided my garments among them. and for my clothing
they cast lots." So the soldiers did these things, but standing
by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister,
Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw
his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he
said to his mother, woman, behold your son. Then he said to the
disciple, behold your mother. And from that hour, the disciple
took her to his own home. After this, Jesus, knowing that
all was now finished, said, to fulfill the scripture, I thirst. A jar full of sour wine stood
there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop
branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour
wine, he said, it is finished. And he bowed his head and gave
up his spirit. You know, in some ways, this
is a surprising passage because for all of the agonies that attended
crucifixion, none of the gospel writers really dwell on the physical
torture of it. Probably that's because they
knew that all of their readers would already be very familiar
with what happens to the physical body during a crucifixion. So instead, all of the gospel
writers, they tend to focus on other aspects of what's going
on around the cross. John, the apostle John, for his
part, dispenses with the physical tortures of the cross in just
one sentence. You can see it there in verse
18. There they crucified him. That's
it. And then, like all the other
Gospels, he turns his focus to other things that are going on
around this physical torture. So what is it that John does
focus on? Well, if you think about what
we just read, if you just kind of let your eyes roll over it, he
seems to focus here on three main things. The first thing
is that there's this sign, this inscription above Jesus' head
that Pilate wrote with his own hand. Jesus of Nazareth, the
King of the Jews. That's one thing that he focuses
in on. Second thing he focuses on is the soldiers gambling for
his clothes and then this exchange between himself and John and
his mother. And for some reason, John ties
the soldiers gambling for his clothes and this exchange between
Jesus and John and his mother. He ties these two things together
contrast. So you see that as verse 24 gives
way to verse 25 there. On the one hand, the soldiers,
they did these things, but on the other hand, standing by the
cross of Jesus were these women. And then he describes this exchange,
and then the last thing that John seems to focus on is the
death of Jesus himself, with these details about Jesus's thirst
and the sour wine on the sponge lifted up with a branch, a hyssop
branch, and then what he says there at the end. So is John
here, the Apostle John, is he just describing random details
that he remembered from this Friday outside Jerusalem? Or
does he have something coherent to say? In other words, what
ties all of this together? Well, I think what ties it all
together actually is a theme that John's been pushing to the
forefront ever since Jesus allowed himself to be arrested. And that theme is that none of
this is happening, that's happening, is merely happening to Jesus. None of it is sweeping him away. None of it is, it's not that
he's just caught on the wheel of history in an unfortunate
time, and an unfortunate place. He is in control of every detail
of it. And even more, his Father in
heaven is in control of all of it. This is what scripture foretold. This is what must happen, John
says. And this is the cup that Jesus
had said that he must drink if he's actually going to be what
John the Baptist said he was, the Lamb of God, who takes away
the sin of the world. If that's going to be the case,
then Jesus has to die this excruciating, tortuous death on the cross. So that's the main idea. The
main idea is this, nobody took Jesus's life from him. He laid
his life down so that his people would be saved. That's the message
that John wants to get across to you in this passage. This
is not some historical accident. This is not just a you know,
a concatenation of events that come together and fortunately
gets Jesus killed. No, he does this on purpose. His father does this on purpose. His father had foretold it for
centuries before in the prophets. It was the will of God to crush
him, and now it's all come to a head. Nobody, nobody took Jesus's
life from him. He laid it down of his own accord
so that his people would be saved. So I want to look at this passage
in three parts, just kind of breaking it down like we just
talked about. So there's three main paragraphs
of the passage. So number one, you've got an
executed king. You've got an executed king in
that first paragraph. And then number two in that second
paragraph, you've got an unexpected family. That runs from verse
23 all the way down through 27, an unexpected family. And then finally, number three,
the last little bit from verse 28 to 30, a mission accomplished. So those three points, an executed
king, an unexpected family, and a mission accomplished. So let's
start looking at it. Number one, an executed king. In verse 16, right before our
passage, after declaring Jesus innocent several times, trying
every which way to release him, Pilate ultimately caves in and
hands him over to be crucified. And then somewhere between verse
16 and 17, the soldiers, they would have administered the highest
level of flogging. Remember, there are three different
levels of flogging. And before a crucifixion, they
would scourge the condemned with whips that had this bone and
metal embedded in the leather straps, so that when the straps
would strike the person's back, they would just lacerate the
flesh. And we know from the records
of history that a lot of times, People were reduced to near death,
even death itself, by this scourging alone. Somewhere between verses
16 and 17 is where the soldiers would have done that to Jesus.
And then they made Jesus carry his own cross, probably just
a cross beam, to a place just outside the city known as the
Place of the Skull. Golgotha is the Aramaic word
for skull, the word that shows up in our hymns here and there. Calvary, that comes from the
Latin word calvarium, which also means skull in Latin, so it's
not a different place. Calvary is Golgotha, which is
the place of the skull. That's where they crucified Jesus. It would have been It would have
been an utterly visceral, bloody affair. They would have stripped
Jesus completely naked to expose his genitals. They would have
laid him down on the ground with his lacerated back scraping against
the dirt. They would have stretched out
his arms on the cross beam that he had carried and then fixed
his wrists to it. Sometimes the Romans just used
ropes to fix a man's arms, the cross beam, but John later refers
to the nail marks in Jesus' wrist, so we know that the more excruciating
method of affixing Jesus to the cross was used for maximum torture. Sometimes in the movies or in
art you'll see the stigmata, the wounds of Jesus, depicting
as being right here in his palms, But the Romans had learned if
you hang a man by a nail that's put through his palms, it won't
hold the weight of a man. So they'd learned that where
you have to put those nails were in the wrist, right through the
bone and through the nerves so that he could hang. Once both
of his wrists were nailed down, the soldiers would use ropes
to hoist the crossbeam and victim up to fasten that crossbeam. to the vertical beam, and then
Jesus' ankles would have been nailed to the vertical beam,
and then he was left to hang there in crucifixion. It wasn't
the nails through the wrists and the ankles that killed you.
It wasn't the crown of thorns that killed Jesus. It wasn't
the scourging that killed Jesus. You didn't die in crucifixion
through blood loss. You died because you suffocated.
You died of asphyxiation because ultimately you couldn't breathe.
Since your body, it hung up there with your arms outstretched and
the whole weight of your body sagging down, you simply couldn't
breathe. It made it impossible to take
a breath as you were sagging down. And so the only way to
get a breath into your sagging lungs was either to pull up by
the nails in your wrists or to push up by the nails in your
ankles in order to just get enough height on your body to expand
your chest cavity so that you could take a little breath. And
then when the exertion of that was over, you would sag back
down on the nails. Some of the condemned who were
crucified in this way, they hung there for days. Sometimes the
Romans would even attach a kind of little seat to the cross,
just enough of a little seat to support the weight of the
body just a little bit to make sure that the torture went on
even longer. John doesn't dwell on any of
that, though. He just says there, they crucified
him. He expects you and me to know
what that means, and he expects you and me to recoil from the
horror of that. They crucified him. And then
in verse 19, he turns his attention to a detail that all the gospel
writers, they also mention, but about which John tells us much
more. John writes, their pilot also
wrote an inscription, and he put it on the cross. It read,
Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews. Many of the Jews read
this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was
near the city, and it was written in Aramaic and Latin and in Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews
said to Pilate, don't write the king of the Jews, but rather,
this man said, I am king of the Jews. Pilate answered, what I
have written, I have written. Okay, so that's a lot of space
that the Apostle John gives to just this sign that identifies
Jesus, mockingly and insultingly, Pilate thought, as King of the
Jews. Why does John give so much attention
to this little sign that would have been affixed to the top
of the cross where Jesus was crucified? Why does he spend
so much time thinking about it? Well, probably there are a few
things going on here. I mean, just historically speaking,
it tells us finally what Jesus was ultimately officially condemned
for. It was the first charge that
the Jews had made right from the beginning. He was charged
with sedition and convicted of sedition, which is treason against
the Roman Empire. That's finally what Pilate sentenced
him here for, for claiming to be a king. It wasn't unusual,
really, for a crucified person's crime to be hung on his cross
or even around his neck. What was unusual, though, was
for that sign to be written by the governor's own hand. And
that leads to another thing that's going on here. It shows us that
this is Pilate's last revenge on the Jews for forcing his hand
and manipulating him into condemning this innocent man, Jesus, when
he didn't really want to. He wanted to let him go. So it's
revenge on the Jews. I mean, look at the specific
wording of the sign there in verse 19. Jesus of Nazareth,
the King of the Jews. It was a nameplate on the cross
that says, this is Jesus from Nazareth. He is the King of the
Jews. And this is what we Romans do
to kings. That's what he was saying. So
it wasn't just he's a rebel, he's convicted of treason against
Rome, it was this is the king of this subjugated people, and
this is what we have done to him. Which of course was a huge
insult to the Jewish leaders and to the entire Jewish nation. You've got this bloody, beaten,
broken man being presented as their king. And to make matters
worse, if you look in verse 20, he put it there in three languages,
Aramaic, Latin, and Greek. Aramaic, because that was the
common tongue in Judea. No longer Hebrew is spoken, but
this very closely related sister language of Aramaic. Latin, because
that's the language of the Romans. So he wanted everyone in the
empire to be able to read this. He wanted the Hebrews to see
what the sign said. He wanted the Romans to see what
the sign said. And then he put it in Greek,
because that covers everything, because basically every citizen
and foreigner across the entire empire spoke Greek at this time. So he's trying not to miss anybody. And even worse, this crucifixion
is happening just outside the city of Jerusalem. So John says
there that many people saw this as they passed by. Remember, this is the time of
the Passover. It was humiliating for the Jews. And of course,
the Jews and their leaders, they felt the sting of all of this. So they asked him to change it.
Pilate says, what I have written, I have written. It was petty. But it put the Jews in their
place. But I mean, still the question
is there, why does John dwell on this petty insult? Was John,
as a Jew, just so offended by the insult that it stuck in his
mind and he's going to record it for history that Pilate did
this horrible, insulting thing? That's not it at all. The reason
the Apostle John dwells on this sign is because he sees in it
not just an insult, but a deep and glorious irony. Pilate meant
that declaration to be mockery, to be slander, to be a screaming
insult against the Jews. But John knows that what he wrote
upon that sign was true. that this was, in fact, Jesus
of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. And the very means by which
Jesus would take the throne of the universe was through the
cross and that crown of thorns. It's interesting, isn't it, that
basically two people in this story for the last eight chapters
or so are said to have kind of prophesied in a way that they
themselves didn't even understand. You remember the first one was
the high priest Caiaphas. Remember how John says that when
he told the Sanhedrin that it's better for one man to die for
the nation rather than the nation as a whole to perish, and John
said that he wasn't just saying that of his own accord. He was
prophesying about what the death of Jesus would do. By dying,
Jesus would save the nation. It's better for one man to die
for the people than the people perish. The other person who
speaks better than he knew is Pontius Pilate right here. This
is Jesus, the king of It's fascinating, isn't it? The highest of the
Jews and the highest of the Gentiles speak truth about Jesus without
knowing it. They didn't even know it. But
again, why? What's the irony? Why does John
put his eyes on it for so long? You ever wonder why all of the
stories of Jesus's crucifixion are just shot through with kingship
imagery? You ever notice that? I mean,
it's everywhere. King imagery. It's all over the
passion narratives. Now stop and think for a second.
Jesus, you know, he's taught in the Bible to hold three Old
Testament offices, right? Three offices. Prophet, priest,
and king. Now which one, if you were just
asked about it, apart from this sermon right here, which one
of those three offices do we as Christians most commonly associate
with Jesus's death as a sacrifice for sins on the cross? The answer
would be priest. We think of him mostly as priest,
and we're right to do that because the book of Hebrews tells us
that Jesus is the great high priest who gave himself as a
sin offering. Like priests offered sacrifices
for sin, Jesus offered himself as that sin offering so that
his people might be forgiven and saved. We are right to think
about Jesus's crucifixion right in line with his office as priest. But it's fascinating that the
gospel writers, they don't focus on priesthood here. In God's
providence, Jesus, he was not mocked as a high priest. He didn't
have a priestly hat and a robe. put on him, all of the imagery
of the crucifixion in all four of the Gospels, the crown of
thorns, the royal purple robe, the charge against him itself
that he was guilty of, of calling himself king, and making himself
treasonous against Caesar, and this sign, this is Jesus, the
king of the Jews. All of that points our minds
and our hearts to his office of king, not priest. Why is that? Well, it's because from the very
beginning, the very point of the Messiah, the anointed one,
the very mission of the king, the Davidic king, was that he
would suffer in the place of his people. If you go back and
read the prophets, if you read the Psalms, you see that to be
the king of Israel was to suffer in the place of your people,
to suffer for your people. You stood in their place, you
stood in their stead. You were their representative,
their champion. You fought the battles they could
not fight, right? And David fighting Goliath. He
fought as king. His killing of Goliath showed
that he was worthy to be the anointed king because he was
fighting and suffering in the place of his people who could
never win that battle. That's what you did as king.
You suffered for your people in their place and in their stead
as their substitute and representative and champion. And you think about
the Psalms, like Psalm 22, Psalm 69, the point of those Psalms
is that King David is standing as king in the place of his people
and suffering on their behalf, suffering for them instead of
them, as their champion and as their Lord. Why is that important? Well, theologically, it's important
because you need to understand and get it deep down into your
heart that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not simply, Jesus is
king, period. Full stop. That is not the good
news. If Jesus is king and you are
still a sinner and rebel against his kingship, then it is in fact
very, very bad news for you that Jesus is king. The good news
is that Jesus is the king who dies to save his sinful people,
wretches like me and like you. That's the good news. The gospel
of Jesus Christ is not just that we worship Jesus Christ the great. No, it's that we worship Jesus
Christ the crucified and resurrected Lord, the one who laid down his
own life so that we might be saved. I mean, listen, we're
sitting right here at the very heart of the Gospel. This is
where it happens. This is the white-hot center
of how the Gospel operates. If you are a human being, then
you are a rebel against God the King. You are a sinner. And the
penalty for sin is for you to die, not just physically, but
eternally, spiritually, to be cut off and separated from God's
love and be under his wrath for all eternity. That's the penalty
for rebelling against the King. The only way for you to save
yourself. It's not just to pile up a bunch
of good works on your behalf. It's not just to pile up a bunch
of apologies. It's not just to do a whole bunch
of good things with the hopes that those good things will balance
out the scales and God will declare you to be a little bit more good
than you are bad. No, you need somebody, just like
the Jews did, you need somebody to stand in your place and to
take the wrath, the punishment that you deserve for your sins,
all of them. We need a champion. You need
a king. You need a king to exhaust the
wrath of God in his own body. And you've got a penalty so big
that you're never going to be able to pay it. There is wrath
stored up for you that you are never going to be able to exhaust
on your own. You know why the Bible teaches
that hell is infinite? It's because the wrath of God
against rebels is infinite, because to rebel against the infinite
king is an infinite offense. You'll never be able to exhaust
that. But what if there were an infinite
king? What if there were an infinite
king who was so excellent and so worthy of all honor and glory
that the infinite wrath of God could pour into him and be completely
exhausted, so that the cannons of God's wrath fall silent and
smoking in heaven? There is only one Savior like
that, and he's right here. Jesus of Nazareth, the king of
the Jews, the one who was prophesied to stand in the place of his
people, in their stead, as their champion, as their king. And
if you're here this morning and you are not yet a Christian,
you need a champion to stand in your place, and Jesus is that
champion. So you need to go to him. You
need to go to Him. His hand is out offering mercy. It won't be forever, but for
now it is. You need to go to Him and rely
on Him to be your champion, to stand in your place. That's how
you become a Christian. There's not something else that
you have to do, right? There's not anything else that
you have to do. There's nothing else you have
to feel. You don't have to cry. You just have to go to Jesus
in faith to find mercy in his hand, in the hand of the executed
king. Here's the second thing, an unexpected
family, an unexpected family. So after verse 22, that's pretty
much it for Pilate and the Jews. All of them fade from view now,
and John puts the camera, so to speak, firmly on Jesus and
the kind of immediate vicinity of the cross. This paragraph
that runs from verse 23 to 27 can, at first glance, it can
be a little confusing because it seems like it's just describing
two kinds of unrelated events. We've got this gambling for Jesus's
clothes and then this little exchange between Jesus on the
cross and his mother down at the foot of the cross and the
disciple whom Jesus loved. That's almost certainly the Apostle
John himself. But the confusing thing, and
the reason those two things are stuck together in one paragraph,
is because of the way that John transitions from one to the other. Because it's not just, you know,
this happened, and then that happened. No, these two things
are related connected as you move from verse 24 to verse 25.
You see it most especially in the grammatical discourse markers
of the original Greek, but most good English translations bring
this out as well pretty clearly. So first you've got the casting
of lots for the tunic, This was to fulfill the scripture. And
then he could have skipped right to 25 and said, oh, and another
thing, standing by the cross of Jesus where his mother and
et cetera, et cetera. But he doesn't. He backs up. Notice how he backs up and he
says, basically, as for the soldiers, they did these things, but, but
somebody else did something different. So he connects them and he puts
them in contrast. Why does he do that? Well, we'll
see that in a minute, but let's look at some of the details.
Normally, a crucifixion was carried out by a detachment of four Roman
soldiers, and they were overseen by their commander. And part
of the payment that those four soldiers received was the right,
basically, to requisition the condemned man's possessions for
their own. So that's what they're doing
here now. Typical Jewish clothing for a man was made up of only
five things. You would wear a head covering,
sandals, a belt, an outer garment called a simlah, and then this
inner garment that was called a katonit, which we call a tunic. So probably what happened is
that these four soldiers, they laid out those first four things,
sandals, belt, head covering, the outer garment, right? And
because those are of different values, they probably, we don't
know, they probably threw dice for those. That's what casting
lots means. You just cast the dice. First, the guy who gets the highest
roll gets the simla, the outer garment, because that's the most
expensive. And then the other guy gets the belt, because it's
made of leather or whatever. So four soldiers, four pieces.
But then they've got this fifth piece left over, the katonit,
this tunic, the inner garment. It would be a much softer fabric. Typically, katonits were sewn
together in four different pieces, the two sleeves, and then the
front, and then the back. And so the thing that the soldiers
would do is just tear the katonit along the seams and give each
other the pieces of this more expensive, softer fabric. But as they looked at Jesus'
katonit, what they found is that it wasn't in four pieces. It
didn't have any seams. It was seamless. It was just
woven in one piece of thread, which we know is extremely rare
and expensive. And we have no idea where Jesus
got this expensive tunic. Maybe from his friends in Bethany. We don't exactly know. But he
had one. And so the soldiers decide, OK,
we're not going to tear this thing into pieces, because it'll
destroy it. Instead, we'll just take this fifth piece, and we
will cast lots for it one more time. We'll see who gets it.
Okay, super interesting, but why does John tell us that story? Well, for one thing, you can
see in verse 24 that he sees it as a fulfillment of part of
Psalm 22 about the king's suffering in the place of his own people. It all lines up. You know, all
the details that were prophesied about the Messiah's suffering
for his people, they line up with what actually happened to
Jesus. And the New Testament writers are often pointing that
out. Somebody counted them up and
there were over 20 specific Old Testament prophecies that are
fulfilled in just like 60 minutes of Jesus's life here when he's
being hung on the cross. That's incredible. But is that
all? Is there something other than
that, other than just a fulfillment of prophecy, just one little
detail is fulfilled? John's going to mention several
of those little details as we go along. But is there some other
significance to this? Well, people have certainly thought
so throughout history. One of the most common thoughts,
you see this in Roman Catholicism, but you also see it in the old
writings of the Puritans, too. that this katonit, this seamless
garment of Christ, is symbolic of the indivisible Church of
Christ, which would match up with, say, John 17, where Jesus
prays that his people would be one. You can do that, but there's
really no particular connection between this passage and John
17. And besides, it doesn't really quite work, does it, as a symbol,
right? I mean, if you think about it
here, you've got, if this seamless katonah of Christ, this seamless
garment, is the church here, you have Jesus' church being
stolen from Him, taken away from Him while He dies, and He can't
really do anything to save his church. That doesn't really make
sense. I mean, really, the only sort
of callback that even remotely works is the last time in this
book, in the Gospel of John, that we would have seen this
tunic. You remember where it was? You
probably didn't notice it because it's not explicitly mentioned,
but you have seen this tunic before. Remember where it was? It was the night before the crucifixion,
when Jesus stripped off his simla, his outer garment, in the upper
room in order to wash his disciples' feet. And when he did that, all
he would have been wearing then, in his humility, was this katonit,
his tunic. And here, the message may even
be that that dignity, that last dignity is stripped away from
him. He's brought low, and yet he's exalted as king. But there's
more to it. than just that. That thought,
that maybe, just maybe there's a resonance here with Jesus'
washing of his disciples' feet, I think helps us to understand
the real significance of this exchange that then happens between
Jesus, his mother, and John. So look at verse 25. standing
by the cross of Jesus, where his mother and his mother's sister
Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene." So four people.
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved, that's
John, standing nearby, he said to his mother, woman, behold
your son. And he said to the disciple,
behold your mother. And from that hour, the disciple
took her to his home. Now, what's going on there? Why
does Jesus do that and why does John record it? Why has it become
such a famous story in the life of Jesus? Well, at first glance,
you can think that it's just Jesus sort of taking care of
his mom, right? He's just doing some kind of
last will and testament stuff as he's dying on the cross to
make sure that his mother is taken care of. He's just having
some compassion his mom, which would not be out of character
for Jesus, right? Even while he's on the cross, Jesus is showing
compassion and love to lots of people. He forgives the Roman
soldiers. He tells the the insurrectionists
dying next to him that he's going to be with them in paradise,
and here he takes care of his mom. But is there more to it
than just a little vignette of Jesus's love for somebody else?
The Roman Catholic Church has put huge theological weight on
this passage. What Rome argues here is that
this shows that the church, represented here by John, the disciple, that
the church has been placed in Mary's care, the mother of God. So that Mary is the one who most
specifically cares for the church throughout its history. But that
doesn't work, does it? It doesn't even begin to work
because it's precisely the opposite of that here. You can see in
verse 27 that it's John who takes Mary into his home. It's Mary
being put into John's care, not John into Mary's. So Rome is
just flat wrong about that. But even so, I do think there's
a deeper meaning here than just Jesus takes care of his mom.
And I think it has to do with that katonit, with that tunic,
and its call, you know, back to Jesus' washing his disciples'
feet. Okay, so how does the washing
of the feet connect to Jesus taking care of his mom and John? How does that fit? Well, think
about it. What was Jesus's whole point
in washing his disciples' feet? Wasn't his point to show them
that in his kingdom, your stance and your status was not to be
had by rising to the top, by just relating yourself to King
Jesus and him alone? It wasn't just get as close to
the king as you can, and that's the end of it. No, he washed
their feet to show them that in his kingdom you rise to the
top by caring for other people who are also servants of the
king. He had said explicitly, as I
washed your feet, so you should wash one another's feet. As I have loved you, so you should
love one another. And then he went on to say in
the speech that follows right after that, he goes on to show
them that the defining characteristic of his people, the people of
his kingdom, would be that they would love one another. Not just vertically, disciple
to Jesus, but horizontally, disciple to disciple to disciple. In fact,
he said they would become family to one another. Remember what
he says. He said it over and over again in many ways, but
here's just one from Matthew 12. While he was still speaking
to the people, behold, his mother and his brother stood outside
asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who
told him, who is my mother and who are my brothers? And stretching
out his hand towards his disciples, he said, here are my mother and
my brothers. For whoever does the will of
my father in heaven is my mother and brother and sister. So go
back to the cross. Do you see? You see what's happening
here? When he points John and Mary to one another, he defines
them as family. He points their eyes, not just
to him, vertically on the cross, but to each other, horizontally. Behold each other as you both
behold me. You see what he's doing? He's
knitting together the very core. He's knitting together the very
beginning of the people of his kingdom. No longer should they
define themselves in relation to him alone, John as Jesus's
close friend, Mary as Jesus's mother. They should define themselves
in relationship to each other as well. She is mother to him. He is son to her. And that is
in stark contrast, stark contrast to what these soldiers are doing. They are dividing. Jesus is pulling
together. It's a profound way to think
about your relationship to other disciples of Jesus, isn't it?
And the rest of the New Testament is going to talk about this again
and again. And again, as believers, as Christians,
we are not just defined in relation to Jesus alone, but we are defined
in relation to all other believers and especially, especially those
right here in our local church. That's why here at Dayspring,
we never want to be a place where this place is just a preaching
spot, where a whole lot of individuals who don't really know each other...
come into this room and stare at the preacher and sing some
songs to the ceiling and then go out and keep their eyes up.
No, we want your eyes to be all around as they are up. We want
you to see one another. We want you to know one another. We don't want you to even be
able to be anonymous when you come into this place. We want
you to be known and involved as family. in the disciple-making
mission that we are on together. And brothers and sisters, you've
got to work hard to make sure that you see and know your fellow
believers. It's not just something that
happens by osmosis, right? It doesn't happen passively. You've got to actively do it.
You've got to pursue it. You've got to know older women
and older men. You've got to know younger women
and younger men. You've got to visit the shut-ins. You've got to call on those who
have fallen inactive and who may be in need. That's what Jesus
calls us to do, to wash each other's feet, to look at each
other like John and Mary would have looked at each other and
realized that Jesus has given us responsibility for one another. Brother, behold your sister,
behold your mother, mother, behold your son, behold your daughter,
all in this room. Here's the last thing, briefly.
A mission accomplished. A mission accomplished. I think
when you understand what we just talked about, that Jesus is not
just doing some last will and testament kind of legal stuff
with his mom, but he's actually knitting the core of the people
of the kingdom together right there. He's turning them toward
one another as family in love, when you understand that that's
happening there, I think it makes more sense of verse 28. Because if you think it's just
about Jesus taking care of his mom, it's kind of a weird thing
to say there in verse 28 after this thing that he just did,
Jesus knowing that all was now finished. And what does that
mean? Is it that his mom is now taken
care of? Is that it? Is that what it means?
No, if you understand that he's defining the core of his church,
that through his suffering and dying on the cross that he has
established his church, it makes more sense. The two people who
are closest of all to him, the people he loved most in all the
world are now, in his coming absence, being given responsibility
to come together as family and to love one another. And now
that that is done, everything's ready, it's all finished. And
so seeing that Jesus said, I thirst, they give him some sour wine,
and he cries out, it's finished, and he dies. Now, if you read
that little paragraph too quickly, it's going to seem extremely
straightforward. And because it seems extremely straightforward,
it's going to seem really unremarkable, and you're going to miss its
point. But there are some details in it that once you see them,
they don't let you gloss over it quite so fast. There's more
going on here than you realize at first. I mean, for one thing,
why interrupt things? Why interrupt things with this
little detail about Jesus being thirsty? I mean, it's historically
true if you're being crucified out there in the hot Middle Eastern
sun in the spring, you're gonna get thirsty. That shows us that
Jesus is human in his suffering. That's important and true, but
it's more than that. And again, John points it out.
The reason that this happened was to fulfill another detail
from scripture, from Psalm 69, which we read together earlier.
David there, King David in Psalm 69, again suffering as king of
Israel, king of his people, says, for my thirst they gave me sour
wine to drink. And again, he's pointing out
that none of this, in any of its detail, even small details
like that, None of it is just happening to Jesus, right? It's happening because God foreordained
that it must happen. I mean, even the detail of the
hyssop branch points us back to the hyssop branch was smeared
with blood, and that's what they used to put on their doorposts,
pointing us back to Jesus here being the Passover Lamb of God
who takes away the sin of the world. The hyssop branch, again,
was covered in blood and sprinkled in the cutting of the first covenant,
the Old Covenant. Well, here in the New Covenant,
it appears Again, tying these things together. Same thing happens
with the end of verse 30 there, with that phrase, he gave up
his spirit. That's a really sort of strange,
sort of weirdly active way to talk about dying, right? I mean,
death is usually a passive thing. It kind of happens to you. And
if your spirit goes anywhere, your spirit just leaves, departs,
right? left him, or something like that.
But here, this is so active. It's Jesus gave up his spirit. And if you know the other Gospels,
you know that Jesus, he actually sovereignly decides the time
that it's going to happen. Father, into your hands, I commend,
commit my spirit. And then he gives up, gives up
his spirit. It's all very active. Why? Because nobody takes Jesus's
life from him. He lays it down for his sheep
of his own accord. And three days later, he is going
to take it back up again. He said he had the authority
to lay it down. He has the authority to take
it up again, and he does. And then there's that cry. It
is finished. It is finished. It's just one
word in the Greek, tetelestai. That's it. Sometimes people read
that as if it's a kind of sigh of defeat. Tetelestai, my life
is over. It's ended. It's all come to
an end now. My project is over. It's failed even. Some have taken
it like that. But you know, the other Gospels
say about this very moment right here, the other Gospels tell
us that at this moment, at this point in the crucifixion, Jesus
cried out with a loud voice. This wasn't some sigh of defeat,
right? After he wet his lips with the
sour wine, this was a cry of victory to Telestai. Not it's over, not it has ended,
certainly not it has failed, but rather it is fully accomplished. Here from the cross, from the
cross, after bearing God's wrath against all of our sins, Jesus
declares the most wonderful truth, that all of the promises of God
have been fulfilled. Tetelestai. It's one of the most
significant words in all the Bible, this Greek verb. It's
one of those words that it's really impossible to capture
it in one single corresponding English word. So in Matthew 17,
24, it's translated as pay in the context of paying your taxes. Paul uses it in the exact same
sense in Romans 13.6. In Luke 2.29, it's translated
perform, in the context of performing what the law requires. In Luke
18.31, it's translated as accomplished, in the context of everything
that had been written about Jesus being accomplished. And then
in Luke 22-37, it's translated fulfilled in the context of scripture
being fulfilled in Jesus. In Romans 2-27, it's translated
there as keep in the context of keeping the law. In 2 Corinthians
12-9, it is translated as made perfect. When Paul says there,
my power is made perfect in weakness. Galatians 5.16, it's translated
as gratify or satisfy in the context of not satisfying the
desires of the flesh. 2 Timothy 4.7 gets translated
there as finished in the context of Paul having finished the race. Revelation 20, it's translated
there as ended in the context of when the thousand years, three
times, has ended. Those are just a few examples
of what a robust word this really is. It's difficult to convey
it with just one single English word, which is what makes it
so profound and so full of meaning when Jesus, here in our passage,
utters this single word from the cross, just before committing
his spirit into the Father's hands. When he says, Tetelestai,
he is saying, it is My suffering has ended. The law has been kept. The scriptures have been fulfilled. The work of redemption has been
made perfect. My mission has been accomplished. God's wrath has been completely
satisfied. The debt of all of my people's
sin has been completely paid in full. Everything. that I set out to do has been
done. Everything that my father promised from Genesis 3.15 onward
has been fulfilled. It is finished. And that is a
wonderful, world-shaking, heart-resolving declaration. It ought to just
reverberate in your soul with hope. It is finished. Do you
rest in that? Do you rest in that as a Christian
ought to rest in that? Or are you just anxiously, restlessly
worrying about the next thing that's got to be done? Rest,
Christian. It is finished. Jesus sits upon
his throne. Sits, not stands. He is not working
towards redemption anymore because it is finished and your eternity
is secure. If you're not a Christian, If
you're not a Christian, hear these words, it is finished. What else do you think that needs
to be done that hasn't been done? Do you think that you have got
to get some things cleaned up in your life before you come
to Jesus? No, friend, it is finished. Jesus has done everything. It's done. Just come to Him with
all of your sin and all of your shame and poverty and receive
His merciful salvation. It is finished. You think you
have to stop this particular sin first and start doing more
of these good things? Like I gotta present myself worthy
before Him? No, it is finished. It's already done. He did it
for you, just take it from His open hand. Do you think you gotta
feel some kind of emotion in your heart or in your head? Do
you think you have to cry before you can become a Christian? No,
it is done, it is finished. Go to Jesus and be saved. Salvation has been completed. In the book of Acts, there's
a particular man who asks the apostle Paul, what must I do
to be saved? What must I do? It's a perennial
human question. I want to be safe. I want to be right with God. I want to be forgiven. I want
to be right with King Jesus. What do I have to do? You know
what Paul tells him? Believe. Trust. Rely on the Lord Jesus and you
will be saved. You don't have to do anything.
You just got to throw yourself at the feet of the one who has
already done everything. Tetelestai. It is finished. Finished. Praise God that it
is finished. Let us pray. Our Lord Jesus, we thank you
today and we praise you because you are the one who has satisfied
fully and accomplished fully and fulfilled and finished everything. in the zeal of the Lord, you
have accomplished all that was necessary for our salvation. You lived for us, you died for
us, you rose again for us, and now you sit ascended and enthroned
at your Father's right hand for us as our King, with the title
of our salvation and our eternity in your strong fist. O Lord,
we honor you today because of what you have accomplished for
us, and we do it by your merit, in your name. In the name of
Jesus, we pray. Amen. Well, please stand together. Be sure to greet one another,
greet our visitors, and welcome our newest Dayspringer, Leslie
Mercado, over here with her children at the red door. And remember
that on the hall table is a sign-up sheet for our upcoming Christmas
party here at Dayspring on December the 6th. And now may the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship
of His Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. Oh you're welcome. I have a question.
Yes. So in the
John 19:16-30 - Jesus Lays Down His Life For Sinners
Series John
Sermon begins at 50:30
| Sermon ID | 11172419206651 |
| Duration | 1:50:54 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | John 19:16-30 |
| Language | English |
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