What is the nature of sin? Are there degrees of sin? Are some sins greater than others? Are any sins beyond the reach of Christ's mercy? We'll be considering the sins that were committed against Jesus in John 19, which is the story of his crucifixion. And you remember, as we've been studying John 19, where we are in the story so far. that the Jewish leaders brought Jesus to Pilate, the Roman governor. And the Jewish leaders accused Jesus of plotting an insurrection against Rome, which is why they said Pilate needed to put him to death. But Pilate is very reluctant to crucify Christ. But it's not because Pilate is scrupulous or somehow has a sense of justice about him. That's not the case at all. Pilate was afraid of putting Jesus to death for superstitious reasons. If you remember that Pilate's wife had a dream and in her dream, she saw something that made her tell Pilate this in Matthew 27, 19. have nothing to do with this man, for I have suffered much because of him today in a dream." And so Pilate was afraid. He's afraid that if he puts Jesus to death, that he'll be in trouble with the gods, or maybe Jesus is some sort of a God himself, who knows? So Pilate's fearful of Jesus. On the other hand, Pilate is fearful of the Jews. He's afraid that the Jewish leaders will get him in trouble with Caesar. He's afraid that If he doesn't put Jesus to death, that the Jewish leaders will go to Caesar and somehow get Caesar on their side, which they did before. So this would be like round three with Caesar for Pilate in his history there in Jerusalem. And so Pilate begins questioning Jesus like this. He says, who are you really? Where are you really from? And he wonders if Jesus might really be from the gods. Pilate doesn't wanna offend the gods, but he doesn't wanna get in trouble with Caesar either. And so please join with me in reading John chapter 19. And we're gonna read beginning in verse 11, which is where Jesus picks up and answers Pilate right after his question, who are you, where are you from? And Jesus answered him, You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin. From then on, Pilate sought to release him. But the Jews cried out, if you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar. So when Pilate heard these words, He brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic, Gabbatha. Now it was a day of preparation of the Passover, and it was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, behold, your king. They cried out, away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate said to them, shall I crucify your king? The chief priest answered, we have no king but Caesar. So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus and he went out bearing his own cross to the place called the place of a 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 priests of the Jews said to Pilate, do not write the king of the Jews, but rather this man said, I am the king of the Jews. Pilate answered, what I have written, I have written. Let's pray. God, we thank you for this sacrifice of your only begotten son, who came to dwell among us to suffer at the hands of sinful men, but who with such love in his heart gave himself up to be crucified. He did it willingly. We thank you, Lord, for the offering of yourself that you would rescue sinners like us that we might know God. We pray that you'd help us to understand our sin better and that we would understand and see Jesus more fully. In his name we pray, amen. I'd like us to consider three things from our passage this morning. The first thing, and we'll spend a lot of time here because I think it's important, is we'll be considering greater and lesser sins. And we'll see why in this passage in a moment. But are there greater sins? Are there lesser sins? And what are they? That's the first thing. The second thing we'll consider are the sins of Pilate and the sins of the Jews. So what were their sins? Third, we will look at Christ's loving death for sinners. And so first let's consider this question of greater sins and lesser sins. Please look with me at verse 11 again. Jesus answered him, you would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above. Therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin. Do you see that term? He who delivered me over to you has the greater sin. What that means is that some sins must be great sins, but other sins must be greater sins. There must be degrees of sin. But what is the greater sin that Jesus is talking about in this verse? Well, it's not exactly clear, commentators debate among themselves about what it might be. But I think we have a clue in verse 11, where Jesus says to Pilate, you would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above. So here's the thing, Pilate didn't know where his authority came from. He had a lack of knowledge. Pilate didn't know the Jewish scriptures. He didn't understand God or the ways of God, but the Jews did. The Jewish leaders, Caiaphas, who handed Jesus over to Pilate, knew where his authority came from. Therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin. Caiaphas knows exactly what he's doing. Caiaphas even knows who Jesus is. Who is Jesus? Well, he's this man who speaks the truth with such clarity that the masses hear him. Souls are converted. He raises the dead. They knew this. He opens the eyes of the blind. He's righteous in every way. We can't convict him of anything. We can't even make our charges stick to him. We have to trump up stuff. Caiaphas knows exactly who Jesus is, but Pilate doesn't. He doesn't understand and he doesn't know the word of God. And so the Jewish leaders have a greater sin. They're sinning with more knowledge. Listen to how J.C. Ryle paraphrases Christ's words in verse 11. He says, Pilate, you speak of power. This is Jesus speaking, a paraphrase of what Christ means. Pilate, you do not know Pilate, you do not know that both you and the Jews are the only tools in the hands of a higher being, that you could have no power whatsoever against me if it were not given to you by God. This, however, you do not understand, and you are therefore less guilty than the Jews. The Jews who delivered me into your hand do know that all power is from God. Thus, their knowledge makes them more guilty than you. Both you and they are committing a great sin. but their sin is a sin against knowledge. And your sin is comparatively a sin of ignorance. You're both unconsciously mere instruments in the hand of God, and you could do nothing against me if God did not permit it and overrule it. So I'd like us to spend some time thinking more about this question of greater and lesser sins, degrees of sin. Because I think it's something that evangelical Christians don't understand very well. Many Christians think that all sins are the same. Have you ever heard that before? That every sin is the same. That no one is more sinful than anyone else. Imagine that someone commits a horrible crime. And let's say this crime is something unimaginably bad. Maybe a man murders his whole family. And it's terrible. And the community is outraged by this terrible, horrible sin. But then imagine that some Christians say, well, now we need to remember that we're all sinners. We're all sinners. We all deserve to go to hell. You know, we should be outraged about this, but we should be just as outraged about all sin. Their words imply that the best response to a terrible crime is to acknowledge that no one is more sinful than anyone else. We all deserve to go to hell. But is it true that all people are equally sinful? Let's say that one person feels sinful anger in his heart, but it never comes out. Another person not only feels sinful anger in his heart, but it comes out in murdering his whole family. Is one of those sins worse than the other or are they the same? Well, to answer this question, we need to make a distinction. First, the Bible teaches in Romans 6.23 that the wages of sin is death. All sin deserves death, every single one of them. In that sense, all sins are the same. Galatians 3.10 says, cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law to do them. So if you don't do everything God commands you to do in his law, you are cursed. No matter how great or small your sin might be, you're cursed forever. That's what the scripture teaches, and that's why we need Jesus, every one of us. No matter what our sins are, from the greatest of sinners to the least of sinners, we all need the same blood of Jesus, because what we all deserve in our sin is an eternity of hell's torment. And Jesus had to embrace the wrath of God to rescue any and all sinners who he saves. So in that way, all sins are the same. All sins make us legally guilty before God and liable to eternal punishment in hell. But the Bible teaches a second thing about sin. It tells us that some sins are greater than other sins. And I wanna show you this in several places. And so please turn with me to Ezekiel 8, if you will. Ezekiel chapter 8. This passage tells us about the time when God reveals to the prophet Ezekiel certain abominations. And it shows us that some of these sinful abominations are greater than other ones. So let's start reading in verse five of Ezekiel eight. And Ezekiel says, then he said to me, son of man, lift up your eyes toward the North. So I lifted up my eyes toward the North and behold, North of the altar gate, in the entrance, was this image of jealousy. So he's looking at the gate of the temple, looking at the north gate of the temple, and he sees there some image of which God is jealous, an image of jealousy. And he said to me, son of man, do you see what they're doing? the great abominations that the house of Israel are committing here to drive me far from my sanctuary, but you will see still greater abominations. So do you see the contrast between there's a great abomination, there's this image, probably Baal or something like this, put there in the temple. And God says, that's a great abomination. But then God says, Ezekiel, you will see still greater abominations than these. So now please look with me at verse 13. In verses seven to 12, God shows Ezekiel some of the secret sins of the elders of Israel. So what that now, not just is there an idol in the temple, but the elders, the leaders of Israel have idols in their houses and they're worshiping the idols secretly in their houses. And in verse 13, that's a great abomination. Then in verse 13, God says, he said also to me, you will see still greater abominations that they commit. So you see how these sins are getting worse. Now look at verses 14 and 15. Ezekiel says, then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the Lord. And behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. That's a Babylonian deity. Women, now publicly, not just the leaders in private, not just an idol there with no one worshiping it, but women weeping over a false God, a God of the enemy of Israel and of the one true God. And God says, have you seen this? Oh, son of man, you will see still greater abominations than these. So it goes from an idol to leaders worshiping in secret, to women weeping over an idol in public. And what is the greatest idolatry? In the very last verses of Ezekiel 8, God gives the prophet a vision of 25 men in the temple who turn their backs on God, and they worship the sun. They're all sun worshiping now, just brazen, open, defiant sin against God. And so do you see how there's greater and greater and greater sins in Ezekiel 8? And so what's a lesser sin? Well, if you will, please turn back with me to Leviticus 4, which speaks of something called unintentional sins. You ever heard of that before? And do you know what an unintentional sin is? Well, I want us to consider that this morning. It's a kind of lesser sin. Leviticus 4 verse 2 says, speak to the people of Israel saying, if anyone sins unintentionally in any of the Lord's commandments about things not to be done and does any one of them, If it is the anointed priest who sins thus bringing guilt on the people, then he shall offer for the sin that he has committed a bull from the herd without blemish to the Lord for a sin offering. So here we see that you can commit an unintentional sin. This is still a terrible sin because there has to be a guilt offering for it. But there's something about it that's unintentional. Well, what is an unintentional sin? Well, I did some study on this this week, and from various places, various theologians, commentaries, and so on, and they suggested things like this. People sin unintentionally when they forget about one of God's positive commandments, like encourage one another. Well, you might come to church and, you know, you're just personally struggling, and your mind is distracted, and you're not thinking about failing to encourage anyone, but you don't. What is that? It's a sin. Encourage one another day after day is what it says in the scriptures. When we come together, the main reason we're together is to encourage each other. And if you forget to do it, it's a terrible sin, but it's unintentional if you just forgot. Other sins that are unintentional might be you forget to pray. That's an unintentional sin. Often these sins, they're not malicious. They're forgetful, and they're still great. They are great sins, but they're not the greatest sins. Other times, Christians might sin because they misunderstand something in the Bible. You know, there's sincere disagreements about things that the scriptures teach. For example, does the Bible command the baptism of believers only? Well, we think so. But our Presbyterian brothers, who we dearly love, disagree with us. Someone's wrong. Somebody's sinning. But it's unintentional. It's an unknowing sin. John Calvin gives us some insight into one kind of unintentional sin called a sin of incontinence. Incontinence. He quotes Aristotle approvingly and says this, a man loses the specific knowledge of good and evil through his unruly appetites, because he cannot see in his sin the evil which he commonly condemns in others. But once desire ceases to blind him, repentance restores him to a state of knowledge. So let me give you an example of this. Just imagine that a Christian hears of some injustice taking place, that one person is committing an injustice against another person. This Christian is upset about it. He wants to seek justice and do what's right and vindicate that person who's being oppressed by injustice. But in fighting against injustice, he begins to attack and belittle the person who's committing the injustice. So he's passionate for justice. And in the throes of his passion to seek justice, he gets carried away and he doesn't realize what he's doing, but he begins to sin with his words and with his actions. And in fact, he's starting to do the very thing that he opposes, which is to commit injustice. But when he comes to his senses, his desire for justice doesn't blind him anymore. And he recognizes his murderous sin and he repents of it. So that's a sin of incontinence. It's still a great sin. It requires atonement, but it's an unintentional sin. You know, have you ever just been driving down the road and someone cuts you off and you feel angry right away? You didn't purpose to do that. It happened. It was sin. It's a great sin, but it's not the same thing as planning to murder. You following me? It's an unintentional sin, a lesser kind of sin. And so we're continuing to think about greater sins and lesser sins based on John 19, 11. So now please turn with me to Numbers 15, if you will, which gives us the other side of the picture. Numbers 15. Here's a place where we see the opposite of an unintentional sin. Numbers 15, verse 29. says, you shall have one law for him who does anything unintentionally, for him who is a native among the people of Israel and for the stranger who sojourns among them. But the person who does anything with a high hand, you see the contrast? You have an unintentional sin, then you have a high handed sin. But the person who does anything with a high hand, whether he is a native or a sojourner reviles the Lord. And that person shall be cut off from among his people because he has despised the word of the Lord and has broken his commandment. That person shall be utterly cut off and his iniquity shall be upon him. And so you see this contrast that there's someone who commits an unintentional sin, which is a great sin. And yet then there's someone who commits a high handed sin. Some translations put that as presumptuous. The literal is high handed. It's that you're presuming upon God's grace. You think, oh, I'm gonna commit this sin because God's gonna be merciful to me. Or you think, oh, I'm gonna go ahead and commit this sin because I will get away with it. I have gotten away with it in the past, I'm gonna get away with it again. And you plan to do it and you do it. It's sin done with knowledge and with purpose for thought, for planning. It's premeditated, at least a little bit premeditated. A high-handed sin, according to verse 31, is someone is something that despises the word of the Lord. So high-handed sinners knows the word of God. He knows exactly what God's word says. And then he purposes to disobey the word anyway. That's a high-handed sin. It's treason against God. Now the Bible teaches that there are different degrees of sin as we've just seen, but it also teaches that there are greater judgments for greater sins. Not all sins have the same judgment. And I wanna list just a few of these for you. You don't have to turn here, but just listen. In Matthew 11, 22, Jesus says to the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. Apparently, for some people, judgment day will be more bearable, even though it will be awful for both. James 3.1 says, we who teach shall be judged with greater strictness. Why? Because we know. Teachers are students of the word. They're judged with greater strictness for what they say. And it's the effects of misteaching the Bible is so profoundly disastrous that they get a greater judgment because they know the word, they have the word, and they better get it right. James 3.1. Luke 20 verse 47, Jesus says that the scribes will receive greater condemnation, that's a quote, greater condemnation. Luke 12 verses 47 and 48 says that those who know the truth, notice again this theme of knowledge, those who know the truth and disobey it will receive a severe beating. But those who do not know the truth and disobey it will receive a quote, light beating. So there's degrees of sin and it's almost always tied to knowledge. That seems to be the main point. It also has to do with the effect of your sin. The effect and the disaster of your sin, because greater obviously sin in your heart that's murder is different than the terrible sin of actually killing someone. There's a greater effect. And so there's greater and lesser sins in terms of the effect, and there's greater and lesser sins in terms of whether you know and have thought about what you're doing or not. Thomas Boston says, the degrees of sin of punishment will be suited to the degrees of their sin. They that have committed many sins shall have many stripes. And I want to submit that this teaching is very important. for several reasons. Wayne Grudem in his systematic theology lists several of them. I'm using them in general, but I've modified them as well. So let me give you these. First, understanding degrees of sin is important in our personal sanctification. Think about this. The patterns of sin in your life and in my life that are the most destructive are the ones we should give the most attention to. Looking to Jesus. That we look to him, we go to him for grace, and we seek to put to death those sins that have worked out of us the most. Maybe one of your greatest besetting sins is anger. Anger might be the sin that keeps breaking out and hurting other people. If so, then would you seek Christ? I'm not just talking about prayer, talking about going to him personally, resting in his righteousness, and then determining by faith to obey his commandment and repent of murder. Or maybe one of your greatest sins is laziness, which is sloth or lust. It's a fleshly sin of comfort and ease and personal pleasure. And this is the one that gets the best of you the most often. If so, then you put that to death by putting on holiness and self-control by the grace of Jesus. And so may I encourage you to think about your sins. What are your greatest sins? and then seek Christ in those areas to put them to death. Second, this teaching about greater and lesser sins can help us to overlook lesser sins in other people. You know, one of the things we're supposed to be doing when we come together as a church and our families and really everywhere is overlooking sin. 1 Peter 4, 8 says, above all, keep loving one another earnestly because love covers a multitude of sins. We're to cover sin. Let me give you an example of covering someone's sin. Imagine that a person gets carried away in his excitement and he says something, he just blurts out something foolish or unwise. You ever observed that happen before? And one thing you can do is you can immediately say, now that was unwise, you shouldn't have said that. You can do that. And maybe if it's a habit that's constant, that's a struggle for that, you can pull them aside and deal with them. But if you're just with someone and they blurt out something foolish or unwise, you don't have to rebuke them or say anything. Love overlooks sin. Imagine what it would be like if we were always correcting each other. or rebuking each other, it'd be miserable. There's no love or mercy in that. We're to serve each other, love each other, to speak encouraging words to each other. Sometimes that might require rebuke, but we should save rebukes for greater sins. We should overlook lesser sins. What should dominate among us is a spirit of mercy and encouragement, not correction. We're never gonna correct each other into holiness. We can't make each other holy. Jesus does that. What we do is we look to him, we love each other, and we try to point each other to him. That's really all we can do. And he takes care of us and sanctifies us in his time. So that's the second thing. Understanding that there's a difference between greater and lesser sins helps us to overlook lesser sins. Third, understanding the difference between greater sins and lesser sins can help us to know when church discipline is warranted and when it's not. Church discipline, beloved, is not for all kinds of sins. We should never discipline for a lesser sin. Church discipline is only for greater sins. But even then, it's only for someone who commits a greater sin and doesn't repent of it. Sadly, even true Christians can commit great sins, but Christians repent of their sin eventually. Those who don't, for those who don't, discipline is warranted. There's a fourth thing. It gives us an answer to a common argument against church discipline. Have you ever heard people say, well, we shouldn't do church discipline because everyone's a sinner. If we're going to discipline sinners, we need to discipline everybody. We don't have the right to judge anyone. I've heard someone say, well, I've seen my pastor sin and so he has no business recommending discipline for anyone else for their sins. But the answer to this is that not all sins are the same. Yes, we are all sinners. And yes, all sin is terrible and deserves hell. but some sins are greater than others and we must discipline great sins if people don't repent of them. And so there we've seen that the scriptures clearly teach a difference between greater and lesser sins and that it's important to understand what this difference is. And that brings us back to our text in John 19. I want us to pick back up in John 19 and carry this idea through to the end because I think this theme of greater and lesser sins is here all the way through John 19. And what we have is that Pilate is committing a great sin. He's about to crucify Jesus. The Jewish leaders are committing a greater sin because they know what they're doing better than Pilate does. The Jewish leaders are sinning from knowledge and Pilate is sinning out of ignorance. And so that leads us to the second point of the passage. Consider the sins of Pilate and the sins of the Jewish leaders. Please look with me at verse 12, John 19, verse 12. Verse 12 says, from then on Pilate sought to release him. Pilate is convinced that Jesus is not an insurrectionist. Jesus is not trying to overthrow Caesar. And one of the ways Pilate knows this is if Jesus was an insurrectionist, the Jews wouldn't be bringing him to Pilate. They would have been supporting him. I mean, the Jews did not like Rome. And so it made no sense to Pilate that here these Jews are bringing their own insurrectionist to me. He knew something was up. But what Pilate's doing here by not seeking to put Jesus to death, by trying to let Jesus go free, is the right thing for the wrong reason. It's possible to do the right thing for the wrong reason. And that is a sin. It's not a great sin or a greater sin, but it is a sin to do the right thing for the wrong reason. And that's exactly what Pilate is doing. He's not acting on principle, he's serving himself. He's acting in fear. He doesn't love Christ. He doesn't believe the gospel. Verse 12 then tells us about the sin of the Jewish leaders. It says, the Jews cried out, if you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar. So the Jewish leaders are saying, Pilate, if you release Jesus, we're gonna tell Caesar. That's what they're implying. You're not a friend of Caesar. You're refusing to deal with an insurrectionist. You see, this is a greater sin. They're bullying Pilate. They're trying to manipulate him and pressure him. They're using fear and intimidation to get their sinful way. That's what they're doing. That's a bully. And they're sinning with knowledge. They're trying to get Pilate to join with them in their murder of Jesus. That's a great sin. And then verse 13 shows us more of Pilate's sin. It says, so when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the stone pavement and an Aramaic Gabbatha. So the picture is right outside the governor's headquarters, there's this stone area with a chair. that was the judgment seat of Pilate. And he would come out and he would sit in this chair and he would make judgment upon the people when cases were brought to him. And he sits down for the purpose of handing down a sentence of condemnation. This is very sad. What happens? Pilate is being bullied into crucifying Jesus. He doesn't understand the significance of what he's about to do. He knows it's wrong. He knows it's wrong in his heart. But he becomes complicit with the Jewish leaders by refusing to stand up to the bullying tactics of the Jewish leaders. That's another way to sin. It's a lesser kind of sin though. You have a bully and you have the one being bullied. The bullies that's in sin, but the one being bullied has to stand for truth and righteousness as well. They have to. And then finally in verse 15, the Jewish leaders commit the greatest sin of all. It says, they cried out, away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate said to them, shall I crucify your king? The chief priests answered, we have no king but Caesar. Do you see what this is? We have no king but Caesar. These are stunning words. They're renouncing their covenant with God. This is a Jewish leadership. Israel's covenant is that God himself is king over his people, that every human king of Israel must be a king who submits to God. And these Jewish leaders are saying, we have no king but a Gentile king who worships pagan gods and who cares nothing for the God of Israel. For hundreds of years, God has held out nothing but mercy to the people of Israel. He's made them promises. He's extended his arms to them. He's been so patient toward them. He even sent his only son to these people. And here, they're not only demanding the death of Christ, They're rejecting God in favor of Caesar. You know, this is what happens when people know who Christ is, but then commit high-handed sin after high-handed sin after high-handed sin, pressing into their sin, not receiving Jesus. They lose their souls. They can only know increasing darkness. They might, like these Jewish leaders, have an outward form of morality. They might be very religious. They might have some kind of principles, just like these Pharisees. But then in the end, they cry out, we reject God as our king. They have no king except the one who's convenient to them in any given moment. They don't want God to rule over them, and they know what they're doing. That's who these Jewish leaders were. And that's when Pilate announces his verdict in verse 16. He says, so he delivered him over to them to be crucified. And how does Jesus respond to this death sentence? It's sin after sin after sin. Does he unleash his infinite wrath upon them? Does he call legions of angels? You know, he has all power in heaven and on earth. He caused the waves to obey him. Jesus is very God of very God, but what does he do? He willingly goes to the cross like a lamb to slaughter. This is our Christ, and that brings us to the third and final point of our passage, the loving death of Jesus for sinners. Maybe this morning, as we've been considering sin, you have felt the guilt of your own sin. You've thought about the sins that you commit in your mind. Maybe greater sins have come to your mind that you have purposely set out to disobey God. Maybe unintentional sins have come to your mind, things that you weren't thinking about before. Now you realize are sins. and you feel the guilt and the shame of it. And what does Christ think of you? How does Jesus treat you? Well, look with me please in verse 17. It says, and he went out bearing his own cross to the place called the place of a skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. Jesus bore his cross for his people. Beloved, you deserve to die on a cross for your sins. This is what you deserve. But Jesus bore the cross in your place. Jesus, at this point, has received the severest beating of all. The flesh has been torn from his back. He's trembling with weakness. He's bloodied from head to toe. He's wearing a crown of thorns, probably. But he's bearing this cross. He's holding it up. Do you remember when Isaac carried the wood on his back up the mountain? Many theologians see this as a picture of Christ carrying the cross. Isaac carried the wood, Christ carried the cross. And when Isaac got up to the top of the mountain, he asked Abraham a question in Genesis 22, seven. Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham answered, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son. Well, here is the lamb that was promised. Jesus is the lamb that God provides for you. And to satisfy his own justice, beloved Christian, this lamb offering is yours through faith who atones for your sin, for your greater sins and your lesser sins. Please look with me at verse 18. It says, there they crucified him and with two others, one on either side and Jesus between them. These are the two thieves. Now these are not petty thieves. They're not opportunistic thieves. These are robbers. And because they're being crucified, scholars believe they're probably men who committed armed robbery. So they're violent criminals, high-handed sinners. These men, in order to commit robbery, had to plan out their sins ahead of time and then commit them with purpose. They're bold sinners. And here Jesus is hanging between them. All of this fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah 53, 12, where it says, he poured out his soul to death and was numbered among the transgressors. He was right there with them. The Romans probably put him between these two criminals to shame him. Look at Jesus, a common criminal, a wicked man deserving of death. They're trying to lump him in with wicked people, but Jesus came for the very purpose of associating with sinners. This is why he came. He came eating and drinking with sinners. In Mark 2, 17, Jesus said, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. Beloved Christian, do you feel the shame of your sin? That you deserve to be outcast because of your sin? That it ought to be that God wouldn't want to associate with you because of your sin. But here we have Jesus. being crucified between sinners, associating with sinners. Hebrews 2.11 says, he is not ashamed to call them brothers. That if you belong to Christ, he is not ashamed of you. He celebrates you. He doesn't just begrudgingly accept you, but he forgives you completely. He delights to be in your presence. He delights in communing with you. He saves every sinner who comes to him by faith. Now, if you will, please look with me at verse 20. It says, many of the Jews read this inscription for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city. Do you see that phrase near the city? Well, we know where he was crucified. It was outside of the city. This place called Golgotha. We don't know exactly where, but we know it was outside the city. Now in the times of the Old Testament, The Israelites would throw away the remains of the sin offering outside the camp. This is what they were told to do in Leviticus 16, 27. That the offering was made and then the refuse was put outside the camp, a place of cursing outside of the place of God's blessing, outside of his presence. Well, that's where the cross was. Jesus was crucified outside the camp. He endured the curse for us, but also he set an example for us to go to him outside the camp. Listen to Hebrews 13, verses 12 and 13. It says, so Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore, let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. That's a call for us to suffer with Jesus outside of the gate. What are your great sins? What are your greater sins? Will you trust in Jesus and repent of your sins, even if it means suffering? It might mean that you're ostracized by the world. It might mean you're denied pleasures that the world celebrates. Might mean ridicule. But trusting in Christ and repenting of your sins means you deny yourself and the pleasures that this world has to offer. Taking up your cross means dying to the praise of this world, to the rewards of this world, and to the successes of this world for the joy of knowing Jesus. He says, come to me outside the camp. Beloved, Jesus died for your sins. He identifies with you. He loves you. He accepts you freely. He promises never to leave you or forsake you, but he calls on you to put away your sin. You'll never do it perfectly, but you can truly repent and you can learn more and more to repent, to hate and forsake your sin, to be sorry for it because it's displeasing to God and to put on holiness The Lord Jesus will keep every promise he's ever made. He came into this world just like he promised. He laid down his life for poor sinners just like he promised. And so will you go to him? He will keep every promise. Let's go to him in prayer.