Well, good morning. My name is Nate. I am one of the pastors here. This morning is a little different. We're in the 10th part of our series going through the Gospel of John. And we arrived this morning at the story of the crucifixion. And as I thought and prayed over how best to cover this, my conclusion was that the best possible thing to do, the best possible way to honor the text and to honor our God and to honor you is to simply tell the story and to let that be enough. And so this morning feels a little different. I don't have any jokes or stories for you this morning. We're not going to turn the lights on because there's no notes. There's not going to be any scriptures up on the screen. What I'm going to tell you is an amalgamation or a synthesis of the account of the crucifixion from all four gospels, beginning in the Garden of Gethsemane. At the end of Jesus' life, he celebrated the Passover with the disciples. He was 33 years old. He had been with them for three years, and it was the night that he was going to be arrested and tried and crucified. The disciples didn't know that, but he did. And so after the Passover, after their celebration, it's getting towards the evening, think 10 or 11 o'clock at night. Jesus grabs his three closest disciples, Peter, James, and John, and he says, would you come and pray with me? And they go to a place called the Garden of Gethsemane. If you're in Jerusalem and you go directly east, there's a valley, there's the temple mount, and then a little valley, and then on the other side of that valley is a hill. That hill is the Garden of Gethsemane, and that's where they are. And so Jesus takes his three disciples with him, Peter, James, and John, his closest confidants, and he says, would you come with me while I pray? And he leaves them in an area of the garden, and he goes, the Bible says, about a stone's throw from them. And he says, will you stay here, and will you pray for me and pray for yourself? And Jesus goes, and he prays. And in the Garden of Gethsemane, the night that he was going to be arrested, knees and he begins to pray that the Father would take this cup from him. Father, this is going to be difficult. This is going to be painful. If there's any other way to do this, Father, you're capable of all things. Let there be another way to do this. Please don't make me drink this cup. Please don't make me have to walk through what I'm about to have to walk through in the crucifixion. After praying for a while, he comes back to check on his three disciples, and he finds them sleeping. It's late at night. It's after dinner. They've had a lot of food. They've had wine, and their eyes are heavy. And it's here where we can already begin to see the isolation of Jesus as he goes through these next several hours. His closest people, his closest friends in his whole life can't even stay awake to pray for him because they don't understand what he's about to do. So he wakes them up and he says, this time I want you to pray for yourself that you wouldn't fall into temptation. And he goes back and he begins to pray again. And this time he begins to pray more fervently. I think we picture Jesus, if we ever picture him, we picture him on his knees in the garden praying quietly, maybe passively or submissively. But I think the text indicates that he was at this point crying out. I saw a pastor talk about this one time and he laid prostrate on his face and screamed. And what we know about these prayers is that he uses this word that we don't see Jesus use before this time. He's calling out to God and he says, Abba, Father, please don't make me do this. Abba, Father, please don't make me drink of this cup. Please don't make me walk through this pain. And he uses that word Abba, and we only see that in Romans when Paul is using it as a way to refer to God intimately, when he tells us that because of what Jesus is about to walk through, we have the right to call God what Jesus calls him, that nobody else calls him. It's daddy or papa. And he's crying out to God the Father, please don't make me do this, Abba. If you have a child, can you imagine the anguish of the father hearing his son cry out to him, calling him Abba, Daddy, saying, please don't make me do this, knowing that you have the power to stop it, knowing that he doesn't have to do this and and you don't have to watch this, but sitting in heaven being willing to say, no, I'm sorry, son, this is a thing you're going to have to do. And so Jesus continues to pray. He prays so fervently that Luke tells us that his sweat began to fall like blood, and there is debate on whether or not that means he was just sweating profusely, which is intense enough, or if he was actually undergoing a medical condition called hemohidrosis, where capillaries in the blood vessels rupture due to extreme stress or fear, and actually blood mixes with the sweat. We don't know for sure which one it was, but we do know that Jesus was at the height of stress and he was at the height of anxiety and he's crying out to his father in a way that we don't see him do in any other place in scripture. Please don't make me do this. He's already a sweaty mess. The disciples have fallen asleep again and the isolation begins to set in. He finishes praying and he walks and so they had a king named Herod, but he was really impotent. The real power in Israel lie in the Sanhedrin, which was essentially a religious senate. And the head of this senate was the high priest, a man at the time named Caiaphas. And Caiaphas had sent his guards with Judas to arrest Jesus. And so Judas betrays him with a kiss. They ask Jesus, are you Jesus of Nazareth? And he says, I am he. And when he says that, they step back and they fall down because he's using the words of the great I am from Exodus 3 when God introduces himself for the first time. And they get back up and they go to arrest Jesus. And Peter, of course, Peter is the one who does this. He takes the sword and he goes to try to kill one of the guards. He misses and takes off his ear. We know that it was a guard named Malchus. And so Jesus tells him to stop it. He heals Malchus and he tells Peter, don't you know that if I didn't want to do this, that my father could send 12 legions of angels right now to save me and to protect me. And just so we're clear, 12 legions of angels is enough to handle any army in the history of history. He says, Peter, it's not the time. Because the prophecy said he needed to go silently like a lamb to the slaughter. And so he's arrested and he's taken to Caiaphas' house. At this point, the disciples follow at a distance and eventually scatter. He's held in the courtyard of Caiaphas' house with Peter on the perimeter and one unnamed disciple inside, and that's all he has for support. Caiaphas begins the ceremony, begins the hearings by inviting people to hurl false accusations against Jesus. They're unclaimed, they're unsubstantiated, and they're unfair. This is the Savior of the world, the Son of God who loves us so much that he condescended to be one of us and take on our frailty, who is sweaty and perhaps lightly bloody as he's cried out to his Father, please don't make me do this, and now he knows he's going to have to do it, and there's no one there with him. He is the person who has least deserved this treatment in the history of the world, and he is there, and they are hurling false accusations against a man who could not be kinder, and who could not be more gracious, and who could not be more loving, and who even as these people hurl these accusations, he is looking at them knowing that he is going to die for them, hoping that through this death that they will come to believe in the person that they are mocking. And it's a kangaroo court. And eventually, they ask Jesus, are you the son of God? And he says, I am who you say I am. And Caiaphas in this show, I think of this disgusting show of false abhorrence, tears his garments and yells and says, what more do we need to hear? He's just an old guy protecting his power. It's disgusting. And the temple guards put a blindfold on Jesus and they begin to punch him and slap him and say, you're a prophet. Why don't you prophesy who hit you, Jesus? It's at this point the Jewish tradition would say that he had his beard ripped out of his face. His face is bloody. It's likely swollen. They're spitting on him, and they are mocking him, and everyone around him is making a show of him. And they're saying, you're a prophet. You're so smart. Tell us who hit you. And the thing is, he knew who hit him. He knew his name. He knew his wife. He knew his kids. And he loved him. And he sat there, and he took it. And when they had had their fun, and they had finished beating our Jesus, they took him to most likely an isolation chamber. In the basement of Caiaphas' house, I was there back in 2013. Underneath his house in Jerusalem is a dungeon. And there's these columns and a wall that's concave. And you can see the brass rings where they would string up people or where they would chain them to the wall. And you think that this is where Jesus was, but then they walk you around the corner, and there's actually this hole in the ground. It's literally about this wide. There's no stairs at the time. There were no stairs that led to it. And they would tie a rope underneath your arms, and they would lower you into the hole where it was totally black and totally dark and totally isolated. If you need a sense of what it was like for Jesus to be there, read Psalm 88. When we went there, we stood in that cell and it was read to us. And it's one of the most moving things I've ever experienced. Who knows what's in that pitch black cell as Jesus sits there in his isolation, knowing the death that he is facing the next day. In the morning, they get him and they take him to Pilate. Pilate was the governor assigned by Rome to the area, to the province of Israel. He was the man who was actually in charge. You could not crucify anybody. You could not administer the death penalty in Israel without Roman permission. They had to actually administer it. And so they take Jesus to Pilate. They tell Pilate what he's done, and they say that we want to kill him. And Pilate talks to Jesus. And some of the most interesting conversations in the Bible to me are the exchanges between Pilate and Jesus. He asks him, he says, they say you're a king. Are you a king? And he says, well, I'm not the kind of king you think I am. If I were, my servants would be here to defend me, but my kingdom is not of this world. And Pilate is pressing him for answers, but Jesus really won't give them. And Pilate actually finds him innocent. His wife had a dream about him the night before, and she told him, you're going to meet this guy. Jesus don't have anything to do with him. He's innocent. And a lot of people think that Pilate actually believed his story. And so he goes to the Hebrew people who are outside. They're in the Fortress Antonia, which is connected to the Temple Mount. And he goes outside, and he looks at what I presume are gates, and there's throngs of people outside of them. And Pilate tells them, it's Passover, it's your tradition that I would let a prisoner go at Passover who's due the death penalty. Why don't I just let Jesus go? Why don't I return him to you? He doesn't seem guilty. And the crowd says, no, give us Barabbas. Barabbas was a man who was guilty of insurrection, He was guilty of murder. He was guilty of thievery. He deserved the death penalty. He was a known criminal in Israel. And they say, give us Barabbas. Let Jesus die. And Pilate ceremonially washes his hands and says, his blood is not on me. And the Jewish people say, that's fine. His blood is on us and on our children. Give us Barabbas and crucify Jesus. And so Pilate bends to the will of the people and he orders Jesus crucified. And the first step of this crucifixion is a scourging or a flogging. And what we know about this is that it was standard Roman procedure. The crucifixion was standard procedure under Roman rule. It was a death penalty that had been designed and refined over decades, if not centuries. And the men who administered it were sadistic and sick, and I am convinced, evil. They were men who this is all they did. All they did is administer the death penalty. All they did is torture people. All they did is take you to within an inch of your life and back off. And that's what the scourging was. It was done with what's called a cat of nine tails, which is a handle with nine straps of leather that come out of it. And into the straps of leather are woven glass and shards of bone and metal and sometimes metal balls intended to bruise. And I've been where they did this. It's a place called the Stone Pavement in the Bible. The entire battalion that was there at the far-flung province of Israel with nothing better to do gathered to watch this man who claimed he was God be beaten. There's a square cement thing that comes out of the ground. It's about this tall. And you can see that somebody gets on their knees in front of it and is bent over it with their arms strapped around it. And they take the cat of nine tails and they hit Jesus with it. And when they hit him, they don't hit him dead on. They stand off to the side and hit him so that it hits here and wraps around and digs in. And then they don't pull it off. They rip it off so that when they rip it off, it takes with its skin and chunks. And they do this 39 times. 39 times because the understanding was that 40 lashes would kill a man. And it wasn't exactly 39 times. 39 times because the understanding was that 40 lashes would kill a man. And it wasn't exactly 39 every time. The idea was the person administering it, who is just pure evil, knew exactly how far he could go before the man was about to die and then he would stop. And by the time he finished, Jesus' back is totally exposed, spine exposed, and it was from the shoulders to all the way down the back of the legs to the top of the knees. Then they take him, and as entertainment for the whole battalion, they begin to mock him. And they get a robe and they put it on his wounds. And they take a crown of thorns, not briars, thorns. And they shove it into his skull. And they make him a king. And they begin to mock him as they fake worship him. And these Roman soldiers, not Hebrew temple guards, Roman trained soldiers begin to punch him in the face over and over again, mocking him, saying you're the king, fake bowing down to him as entertainment. And Jesus is utterly isolated and alone. When they had had their fill, they take the cross beam of the cross and they put it on his back. They redress him in his own tattered clothes. They put that wooden cross on his back and they tell him to walk to Golgotha, the place of the skull, where he's going to be crucified. On the way there, he falters and he can't make it. There's a man named Siren of Cyrene that they grab and ask him to carry the rest of the way. They get to Golgotha and they place Jesus on the cross, first laying on the ground, and they take the nails and they drive them into his hands. Some of us know this, but just so we're clear, when we think of the nails going into the hands of Jesus, we usually think of them going here, but really those nails had to be weight bearing. And so to put them there means that he would fall off the cross because there's not enough to hold him there. So where they would put the nails, the Hebrew word for hand is actually elbow to fingertip. And so where they would put the nail is actually right here. If you've seen an x-ray, you know that there's two bones in the forearm that meet at the wrist. And where they meet is a bundle of nerves. When you were in elementary school, you probably found this and know it as a pressure point. It's incredibly sensitive. And they would take the nail and they would drive it through the wrist there where those bones meet and where the nerves are. And when I say nail, don't think nail. Think more like something that you would drive into a railroad tie. And they drive his hand into the wood. And then they take him and they stretch him as far as he can go. They pull him against that nail because it's important that they spread out his chest and they drive one in the other hand. Then they take his feet and they put his feet over top of one another and they drive the nail through his feet. And we usually, when we see a picture of people on the cross, we see them with their legs extended, but more likely they were tucked up underneath him like this and his feet driven in together. Because once you hung up on the cross, I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but you don't die by pain or blood loss. You die from suffocating. Because when you're hanging like that and your legs are bent and your arms are outstretched, he cannot bring in air. There's no more room left in his lungs. The only way when you're hanging on the cross dying to breathe is to push up on the nails in your feet and to pull on the nails in your hand and take in a breath at the top and then sink back down and hope that lasts longer than the last one. Can you imagine the futility of hanging on the cross, trying to decide whether or not to push yourself up and take one more futile breath? Can you imagine watching someone you love go through these things? Which is why it's remarkable that Jesus says anything at all on the cross. He pushes up and he takes a breath and he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It's the final isolation. It's the first time in eternity he's been separated from the presence of God the Father as the sins of the world, my sins and yours and everyone who's ever lived is heaped on Jesus in that moment. He's separated from the Father as he bears the penalty for our sin. He pushes up again and he tells the prisoner next to him, today you'll be with me in paradise because that prisoner had faith. He pushes up again and he looks at John and he says, take care of my mom. And then at about three o'clock in the afternoon, he pushes up one last time and he takes a breath and he says, to tell us thy, it is finished. It is finished. That word means it is finished. It also means the debt is paid in full. It's an incredibly appropriate word. Jesus is saying in that moment, everything that I've come to do has been done. He came to live a perfect life. He did that. He came to train the disciples and launch the church, his kingdom here on earth, And he did that. He came to suffer for us. And he did that. He came to fulfill prophecy in Isaiah 53, where it says, by his stripes, we will be healed. And he did that. And now it was time for him to die. And so he says, to Telestai, it's finished. And he sinks back down and he breathes his last. And when he does, the skies go black and the temple veil is torn in two. And the Roman centurions around him say, surely this must be the Son of God. And a man named Joseph of Arimathea takes his body and embalms it and buries him. And that's the story of the crucifixion. The only thing that I have for you after we tell that story is to just make the point that he did that for you. He did all of that for you. He lived the life. He put up with being misunderstood. He endured mockery. He had people spit in his face. He had people punch him. He had people fake worship him. He had people mock him. He sat around while an entire battalion took joy in his pain. He took 39 lashes. He had himself nailed to the cross, the person who's least deserved this ever. And he hung up there and he suffocated for you because he loves you. Because at the beginning of time when they created us, they made the decision that we're doing this because we want them to be with us for all of eternity. And since we sinned and broke that relationship, it made it necessary for Jesus to go and be broken for us. And so he went and he did that for you. And he knew how many times you would sin. He knew how many times you would tell him that you believe him and that you trust him and then you would walk away from him. He knew how many times you would walk back with your head in your hands and ask him to forgive you again. And he knew how many times he was gonna have to offer that forgiveness. He died knowing the spiritual condition that I was gonna be in when I preached this message. He died knowing all the things that we were gonna mess up. He died knowing that by our actions, we will spit on that. We will disrespect that. We will not appreciate that. He died for you knowing everything there is to know about you. Because he loves you. And the only reason he came here is to rescue you. And so the question this morning becomes, how do we respond to that truth? How do we respond to what Jesus did on the cross? We might respond with disbelief. I don't believe that story and we shove it away. We might respond with skepticism. Keep it at arm's length. Maybe because of the type of response it would elicit if it's true. But if we believe that story, if we think that Jesus was real and he was who he said he was and that that's what he did for us. The only proper response is humble gratitude. It's a deep and abiding and reverent sense of gratitude that he would do that for us. And so in a minute, we're going to take communion and have a chance to respond in gratitude together. I hope that that's the response of your heart, marveling at God the Son who would do that for us, marveling at God the Father who would watch and allow his Son to do that for us and that we would respond with humble gratitude at the story of the crucifixion. I'm gonna pray and invite up the band and the ushers or the elders. Father, my goodness, we don't know what to say. We can't believe that you allowed your son to do that for us. Jesus, we can't believe that you did that for us. Knowing all the things that you could possibly know, knowing all the ways that we would feel that we disappoint and let you down and dishonor. You did it anyways. God, I am so grateful for you, for your patience, the way that you love us. I'm so grateful for your son who died for us. God, I pray that we would respond collectively with a humble gratitude and awe at what you gave and at what was won for us on the cross. It's in your son's name we pray. Amen.
Well, good morning. My name is Nate. I am one of the pastors here. This morning is a little different. We're in the 10th part of our series going through the Gospel of John. And we arrived this morning at the story of the crucifixion. And as I thought and prayed over how best to cover this, my conclusion was that the best possible thing to do, the best possible way to honor the text and to honor our God and to honor you is to simply tell the story and to let that be enough. And so this morning feels a little different. I don't have any jokes or stories for you this morning. We're not going to turn the lights on because there's no notes. There's not going to be any scriptures up on the screen. What I'm going to tell you is an amalgamation or a synthesis of the account of the crucifixion from all four gospels, beginning in the Garden of Gethsemane. At the end of Jesus' life, he celebrated the Passover with the disciples. He was 33 years old. He had been with them for three years, and it was the night that he was going to be arrested and tried and crucified. The disciples didn't know that, but he did. And so after the Passover, after their celebration, it's getting towards the evening, think 10 or 11 o'clock at night. Jesus grabs his three closest disciples, Peter, James, and John, and he says, would you come and pray with me? And they go to a place called the Garden of Gethsemane. If you're in Jerusalem and you go directly east, there's a valley, there's the temple mount, and then a little valley, and then on the other side of that valley is a hill. That hill is the Garden of Gethsemane, and that's where they are. And so Jesus takes his three disciples with him, Peter, James, and John, his closest confidants, and he says, would you come with me while I pray? And he leaves them in an area of the garden, and he goes, the Bible says, about a stone's throw from them. And he says, will you stay here, and will you pray for me and pray for yourself? And Jesus goes, and he prays. And in the Garden of Gethsemane, the night that he was going to be arrested, knees and he begins to pray that the Father would take this cup from him. Father, this is going to be difficult. This is going to be painful. If there's any other way to do this, Father, you're capable of all things. Let there be another way to do this. Please don't make me drink this cup. Please don't make me have to walk through what I'm about to have to walk through in the crucifixion. After praying for a while, he comes back to check on his three disciples, and he finds them sleeping. It's late at night. It's after dinner. They've had a lot of food. They've had wine, and their eyes are heavy. And it's here where we can already begin to see the isolation of Jesus as he goes through these next several hours. His closest people, his closest friends in his whole life can't even stay awake to pray for him because they don't understand what he's about to do. So he wakes them up and he says, this time I want you to pray for yourself that you wouldn't fall into temptation. And he goes back and he begins to pray again. And this time he begins to pray more fervently. I think we picture Jesus, if we ever picture him, we picture him on his knees in the garden praying quietly, maybe passively or submissively. But I think the text indicates that he was at this point crying out. I saw a pastor talk about this one time and he laid prostrate on his face and screamed. And what we know about these prayers is that he uses this word that we don't see Jesus use before this time. He's calling out to God and he says, Abba, Father, please don't make me do this. Abba, Father, please don't make me drink of this cup. Please don't make me walk through this pain. And he uses that word Abba, and we only see that in Romans when Paul is using it as a way to refer to God intimately, when he tells us that because of what Jesus is about to walk through, we have the right to call God what Jesus calls him, that nobody else calls him. It's daddy or papa. And he's crying out to God the Father, please don't make me do this, Abba. If you have a child, can you imagine the anguish of the father hearing his son cry out to him, calling him Abba, Daddy, saying, please don't make me do this, knowing that you have the power to stop it, knowing that he doesn't have to do this and and you don't have to watch this, but sitting in heaven being willing to say, no, I'm sorry, son, this is a thing you're going to have to do. And so Jesus continues to pray. He prays so fervently that Luke tells us that his sweat began to fall like blood, and there is debate on whether or not that means he was just sweating profusely, which is intense enough, or if he was actually undergoing a medical condition called hemohidrosis, where capillaries in the blood vessels rupture due to extreme stress or fear, and actually blood mixes with the sweat. We don't know for sure which one it was, but we do know that Jesus was at the height of stress and he was at the height of anxiety and he's crying out to his father in a way that we don't see him do in any other place in scripture. Please don't make me do this. He's already a sweaty mess. The disciples have fallen asleep again and the isolation begins to set in. He finishes praying and he walks and so they had a king named Herod, but he was really impotent. The real power in Israel lie in the Sanhedrin, which was essentially a religious senate. And the head of this senate was the high priest, a man at the time named Caiaphas. And Caiaphas had sent his guards with Judas to arrest Jesus. And so Judas betrays him with a kiss. They ask Jesus, are you Jesus of Nazareth? And he says, I am he. And when he says that, they step back and they fall down because he's using the words of the great I am from Exodus 3 when God introduces himself for the first time. And they get back up and they go to arrest Jesus. And Peter, of course, Peter is the one who does this. He takes the sword and he goes to try to kill one of the guards. He misses and takes off his ear. We know that it was a guard named Malchus. And so Jesus tells him to stop it. He heals Malchus and he tells Peter, don't you know that if I didn't want to do this, that my father could send 12 legions of angels right now to save me and to protect me. And just so we're clear, 12 legions of angels is enough to handle any army in the history of history. He says, Peter, it's not the time. Because the prophecy said he needed to go silently like a lamb to the slaughter. And so he's arrested and he's taken to Caiaphas' house. At this point, the disciples follow at a distance and eventually scatter. He's held in the courtyard of Caiaphas' house with Peter on the perimeter and one unnamed disciple inside, and that's all he has for support. Caiaphas begins the ceremony, begins the hearings by inviting people to hurl false accusations against Jesus. They're unclaimed, they're unsubstantiated, and they're unfair. This is the Savior of the world, the Son of God who loves us so much that he condescended to be one of us and take on our frailty, who is sweaty and perhaps lightly bloody as he's cried out to his Father, please don't make me do this, and now he knows he's going to have to do it, and there's no one there with him. He is the person who has least deserved this treatment in the history of the world, and he is there, and they are hurling false accusations against a man who could not be kinder, and who could not be more gracious, and who could not be more loving, and who even as these people hurl these accusations, he is looking at them knowing that he is going to die for them, hoping that through this death that they will come to believe in the person that they are mocking. And it's a kangaroo court. And eventually, they ask Jesus, are you the son of God? And he says, I am who you say I am. And Caiaphas in this show, I think of this disgusting show of false abhorrence, tears his garments and yells and says, what more do we need to hear? He's just an old guy protecting his power. It's disgusting. And the temple guards put a blindfold on Jesus and they begin to punch him and slap him and say, you're a prophet. Why don't you prophesy who hit you, Jesus? It's at this point the Jewish tradition would say that he had his beard ripped out of his face. His face is bloody. It's likely swollen. They're spitting on him, and they are mocking him, and everyone around him is making a show of him. And they're saying, you're a prophet. You're so smart. Tell us who hit you. And the thing is, he knew who hit him. He knew his name. He knew his wife. He knew his kids. And he loved him. And he sat there, and he took it. And when they had had their fun, and they had finished beating our Jesus, they took him to most likely an isolation chamber. In the basement of Caiaphas' house, I was there back in 2013. Underneath his house in Jerusalem is a dungeon. And there's these columns and a wall that's concave. And you can see the brass rings where they would string up people or where they would chain them to the wall. And you think that this is where Jesus was, but then they walk you around the corner, and there's actually this hole in the ground. It's literally about this wide. There's no stairs at the time. There were no stairs that led to it. And they would tie a rope underneath your arms, and they would lower you into the hole where it was totally black and totally dark and totally isolated. If you need a sense of what it was like for Jesus to be there, read Psalm 88. When we went there, we stood in that cell and it was read to us. And it's one of the most moving things I've ever experienced. Who knows what's in that pitch black cell as Jesus sits there in his isolation, knowing the death that he is facing the next day. In the morning, they get him and they take him to Pilate. Pilate was the governor assigned by Rome to the area, to the province of Israel. He was the man who was actually in charge. You could not crucify anybody. You could not administer the death penalty in Israel without Roman permission. They had to actually administer it. And so they take Jesus to Pilate. They tell Pilate what he's done, and they say that we want to kill him. And Pilate talks to Jesus. And some of the most interesting conversations in the Bible to me are the exchanges between Pilate and Jesus. He asks him, he says, they say you're a king. Are you a king? And he says, well, I'm not the kind of king you think I am. If I were, my servants would be here to defend me, but my kingdom is not of this world. And Pilate is pressing him for answers, but Jesus really won't give them. And Pilate actually finds him innocent. His wife had a dream about him the night before, and she told him, you're going to meet this guy. Jesus don't have anything to do with him. He's innocent. And a lot of people think that Pilate actually believed his story. And so he goes to the Hebrew people who are outside. They're in the Fortress Antonia, which is connected to the Temple Mount. And he goes outside, and he looks at what I presume are gates, and there's throngs of people outside of them. And Pilate tells them, it's Passover, it's your tradition that I would let a prisoner go at Passover who's due the death penalty. Why don't I just let Jesus go? Why don't I return him to you? He doesn't seem guilty. And the crowd says, no, give us Barabbas. Barabbas was a man who was guilty of insurrection, He was guilty of murder. He was guilty of thievery. He deserved the death penalty. He was a known criminal in Israel. And they say, give us Barabbas. Let Jesus die. And Pilate ceremonially washes his hands and says, his blood is not on me. And the Jewish people say, that's fine. His blood is on us and on our children. Give us Barabbas and crucify Jesus. And so Pilate bends to the will of the people and he orders Jesus crucified. And the first step of this crucifixion is a scourging or a flogging. And what we know about this is that it was standard Roman procedure. The crucifixion was standard procedure under Roman rule. It was a death penalty that had been designed and refined over decades, if not centuries. And the men who administered it were sadistic and sick, and I am convinced, evil. They were men who this is all they did. All they did is administer the death penalty. All they did is torture people. All they did is take you to within an inch of your life and back off. And that's what the scourging was. It was done with what's called a cat of nine tails, which is a handle with nine straps of leather that come out of it. And into the straps of leather are woven glass and shards of bone and metal and sometimes metal balls intended to bruise. And I've been where they did this. It's a place called the Stone Pavement in the Bible. The entire battalion that was there at the far-flung province of Israel with nothing better to do gathered to watch this man who claimed he was God be beaten. There's a square cement thing that comes out of the ground. It's about this tall. And you can see that somebody gets on their knees in front of it and is bent over it with their arms strapped around it. And they take the cat of nine tails and they hit Jesus with it. And when they hit him, they don't hit him dead on. They stand off to the side and hit him so that it hits here and wraps around and digs in. And then they don't pull it off. They rip it off so that when they rip it off, it takes with its skin and chunks. And they do this 39 times. 39 times because the understanding was that 40 lashes would kill a man. And it wasn't exactly 39 times. 39 times because the understanding was that 40 lashes would kill a man. And it wasn't exactly 39 every time. The idea was the person administering it, who is just pure evil, knew exactly how far he could go before the man was about to die and then he would stop. And by the time he finished, Jesus' back is totally exposed, spine exposed, and it was from the shoulders to all the way down the back of the legs to the top of the knees. Then they take him, and as entertainment for the whole battalion, they begin to mock him. And they get a robe and they put it on his wounds. And they take a crown of thorns, not briars, thorns. And they shove it into his skull. And they make him a king. And they begin to mock him as they fake worship him. And these Roman soldiers, not Hebrew temple guards, Roman trained soldiers begin to punch him in the face over and over again, mocking him, saying you're the king, fake bowing down to him as entertainment. And Jesus is utterly isolated and alone. When they had had their fill, they take the cross beam of the cross and they put it on his back. They redress him in his own tattered clothes. They put that wooden cross on his back and they tell him to walk to Golgotha, the place of the skull, where he's going to be crucified. On the way there, he falters and he can't make it. There's a man named Siren of Cyrene that they grab and ask him to carry the rest of the way. They get to Golgotha and they place Jesus on the cross, first laying on the ground, and they take the nails and they drive them into his hands. Some of us know this, but just so we're clear, when we think of the nails going into the hands of Jesus, we usually think of them going here, but really those nails had to be weight bearing. And so to put them there means that he would fall off the cross because there's not enough to hold him there. So where they would put the nails, the Hebrew word for hand is actually elbow to fingertip. And so where they would put the nail is actually right here. If you've seen an x-ray, you know that there's two bones in the forearm that meet at the wrist. And where they meet is a bundle of nerves. When you were in elementary school, you probably found this and know it as a pressure point. It's incredibly sensitive. And they would take the nail and they would drive it through the wrist there where those bones meet and where the nerves are. And when I say nail, don't think nail. Think more like something that you would drive into a railroad tie. And they drive his hand into the wood. And then they take him and they stretch him as far as he can go. They pull him against that nail because it's important that they spread out his chest and they drive one in the other hand. Then they take his feet and they put his feet over top of one another and they drive the nail through his feet. And we usually, when we see a picture of people on the cross, we see them with their legs extended, but more likely they were tucked up underneath him like this and his feet driven in together. Because once you hung up on the cross, I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but you don't die by pain or blood loss. You die from suffocating. Because when you're hanging like that and your legs are bent and your arms are outstretched, he cannot bring in air. There's no more room left in his lungs. The only way when you're hanging on the cross dying to breathe is to push up on the nails in your feet and to pull on the nails in your hand and take in a breath at the top and then sink back down and hope that lasts longer than the last one. Can you imagine the futility of hanging on the cross, trying to decide whether or not to push yourself up and take one more futile breath? Can you imagine watching someone you love go through these things? Which is why it's remarkable that Jesus says anything at all on the cross. He pushes up and he takes a breath and he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It's the final isolation. It's the first time in eternity he's been separated from the presence of God the Father as the sins of the world, my sins and yours and everyone who's ever lived is heaped on Jesus in that moment. He's separated from the Father as he bears the penalty for our sin. He pushes up again and he tells the prisoner next to him, today you'll be with me in paradise because that prisoner had faith. He pushes up again and he looks at John and he says, take care of my mom. And then at about three o'clock in the afternoon, he pushes up one last time and he takes a breath and he says, to tell us thy, it is finished. It is finished. That word means it is finished. It also means the debt is paid in full. It's an incredibly appropriate word. Jesus is saying in that moment, everything that I've come to do has been done. He came to live a perfect life. He did that. He came to train the disciples and launch the church, his kingdom here on earth, And he did that. He came to suffer for us. And he did that. He came to fulfill prophecy in Isaiah 53, where it says, by his stripes, we will be healed. And he did that. And now it was time for him to die. And so he says, to Telestai, it's finished. And he sinks back down and he breathes his last. And when he does, the skies go black and the temple veil is torn in two. And the Roman centurions around him say, surely this must be the Son of God. And a man named Joseph of Arimathea takes his body and embalms it and buries him. And that's the story of the crucifixion. The only thing that I have for you after we tell that story is to just make the point that he did that for you. He did all of that for you. He lived the life. He put up with being misunderstood. He endured mockery. He had people spit in his face. He had people punch him. He had people fake worship him. He had people mock him. He sat around while an entire battalion took joy in his pain. He took 39 lashes. He had himself nailed to the cross, the person who's least deserved this ever. And he hung up there and he suffocated for you because he loves you. Because at the beginning of time when they created us, they made the decision that we're doing this because we want them to be with us for all of eternity. And since we sinned and broke that relationship, it made it necessary for Jesus to go and be broken for us. And so he went and he did that for you. And he knew how many times you would sin. He knew how many times you would tell him that you believe him and that you trust him and then you would walk away from him. He knew how many times you would walk back with your head in your hands and ask him to forgive you again. And he knew how many times he was gonna have to offer that forgiveness. He died knowing the spiritual condition that I was gonna be in when I preached this message. He died knowing all the things that we were gonna mess up. He died knowing that by our actions, we will spit on that. We will disrespect that. We will not appreciate that. He died for you knowing everything there is to know about you. Because he loves you. And the only reason he came here is to rescue you. And so the question this morning becomes, how do we respond to that truth? How do we respond to what Jesus did on the cross? We might respond with disbelief. I don't believe that story and we shove it away. We might respond with skepticism. Keep it at arm's length. Maybe because of the type of response it would elicit if it's true. But if we believe that story, if we think that Jesus was real and he was who he said he was and that that's what he did for us. The only proper response is humble gratitude. It's a deep and abiding and reverent sense of gratitude that he would do that for us. And so in a minute, we're going to take communion and have a chance to respond in gratitude together. I hope that that's the response of your heart, marveling at God the Son who would do that for us, marveling at God the Father who would watch and allow his Son to do that for us and that we would respond with humble gratitude at the story of the crucifixion. I'm gonna pray and invite up the band and the ushers or the elders. Father, my goodness, we don't know what to say. We can't believe that you allowed your son to do that for us. Jesus, we can't believe that you did that for us. Knowing all the things that you could possibly know, knowing all the ways that we would feel that we disappoint and let you down and dishonor. You did it anyways. God, I am so grateful for you, for your patience, the way that you love us. I'm so grateful for your son who died for us. God, I pray that we would respond collectively with a humble gratitude and awe at what you gave and at what was won for us on the cross. It's in your son's name we pray. Amen.
Well, good morning. My name is Nate. I am one of the pastors here. This morning is a little different. We're in the 10th part of our series going through the Gospel of John. And we arrived this morning at the story of the crucifixion. And as I thought and prayed over how best to cover this, my conclusion was that the best possible thing to do, the best possible way to honor the text and to honor our God and to honor you is to simply tell the story and to let that be enough. And so this morning feels a little different. I don't have any jokes or stories for you this morning. We're not going to turn the lights on because there's no notes. There's not going to be any scriptures up on the screen. What I'm going to tell you is an amalgamation or a synthesis of the account of the crucifixion from all four gospels, beginning in the Garden of Gethsemane. At the end of Jesus' life, he celebrated the Passover with the disciples. He was 33 years old. He had been with them for three years, and it was the night that he was going to be arrested and tried and crucified. The disciples didn't know that, but he did. And so after the Passover, after their celebration, it's getting towards the evening, think 10 or 11 o'clock at night. Jesus grabs his three closest disciples, Peter, James, and John, and he says, would you come and pray with me? And they go to a place called the Garden of Gethsemane. If you're in Jerusalem and you go directly east, there's a valley, there's the temple mount, and then a little valley, and then on the other side of that valley is a hill. That hill is the Garden of Gethsemane, and that's where they are. And so Jesus takes his three disciples with him, Peter, James, and John, his closest confidants, and he says, would you come with me while I pray? And he leaves them in an area of the garden, and he goes, the Bible says, about a stone's throw from them. And he says, will you stay here, and will you pray for me and pray for yourself? And Jesus goes, and he prays. And in the Garden of Gethsemane, the night that he was going to be arrested, knees and he begins to pray that the Father would take this cup from him. Father, this is going to be difficult. This is going to be painful. If there's any other way to do this, Father, you're capable of all things. Let there be another way to do this. Please don't make me drink this cup. Please don't make me have to walk through what I'm about to have to walk through in the crucifixion. After praying for a while, he comes back to check on his three disciples, and he finds them sleeping. It's late at night. It's after dinner. They've had a lot of food. They've had wine, and their eyes are heavy. And it's here where we can already begin to see the isolation of Jesus as he goes through these next several hours. His closest people, his closest friends in his whole life can't even stay awake to pray for him because they don't understand what he's about to do. So he wakes them up and he says, this time I want you to pray for yourself that you wouldn't fall into temptation. And he goes back and he begins to pray again. And this time he begins to pray more fervently. I think we picture Jesus, if we ever picture him, we picture him on his knees in the garden praying quietly, maybe passively or submissively. But I think the text indicates that he was at this point crying out. I saw a pastor talk about this one time and he laid prostrate on his face and screamed. And what we know about these prayers is that he uses this word that we don't see Jesus use before this time. He's calling out to God and he says, Abba, Father, please don't make me do this. Abba, Father, please don't make me drink of this cup. Please don't make me walk through this pain. And he uses that word Abba, and we only see that in Romans when Paul is using it as a way to refer to God intimately, when he tells us that because of what Jesus is about to walk through, we have the right to call God what Jesus calls him, that nobody else calls him. It's daddy or papa. And he's crying out to God the Father, please don't make me do this, Abba. If you have a child, can you imagine the anguish of the father hearing his son cry out to him, calling him Abba, Daddy, saying, please don't make me do this, knowing that you have the power to stop it, knowing that he doesn't have to do this and and you don't have to watch this, but sitting in heaven being willing to say, no, I'm sorry, son, this is a thing you're going to have to do. And so Jesus continues to pray. He prays so fervently that Luke tells us that his sweat began to fall like blood, and there is debate on whether or not that means he was just sweating profusely, which is intense enough, or if he was actually undergoing a medical condition called hemohidrosis, where capillaries in the blood vessels rupture due to extreme stress or fear, and actually blood mixes with the sweat. We don't know for sure which one it was, but we do know that Jesus was at the height of stress and he was at the height of anxiety and he's crying out to his father in a way that we don't see him do in any other place in scripture. Please don't make me do this. He's already a sweaty mess. The disciples have fallen asleep again and the isolation begins to set in. He finishes praying and he walks and so they had a king named Herod, but he was really impotent. The real power in Israel lie in the Sanhedrin, which was essentially a religious senate. And the head of this senate was the high priest, a man at the time named Caiaphas. And Caiaphas had sent his guards with Judas to arrest Jesus. And so Judas betrays him with a kiss. They ask Jesus, are you Jesus of Nazareth? And he says, I am he. And when he says that, they step back and they fall down because he's using the words of the great I am from Exodus 3 when God introduces himself for the first time. And they get back up and they go to arrest Jesus. And Peter, of course, Peter is the one who does this. He takes the sword and he goes to try to kill one of the guards. He misses and takes off his ear. We know that it was a guard named Malchus. And so Jesus tells him to stop it. He heals Malchus and he tells Peter, don't you know that if I didn't want to do this, that my father could send 12 legions of angels right now to save me and to protect me. And just so we're clear, 12 legions of angels is enough to handle any army in the history of history. He says, Peter, it's not the time. Because the prophecy said he needed to go silently like a lamb to the slaughter. And so he's arrested and he's taken to Caiaphas' house. At this point, the disciples follow at a distance and eventually scatter. He's held in the courtyard of Caiaphas' house with Peter on the perimeter and one unnamed disciple inside, and that's all he has for support. Caiaphas begins the ceremony, begins the hearings by inviting people to hurl false accusations against Jesus. They're unclaimed, they're unsubstantiated, and they're unfair. This is the Savior of the world, the Son of God who loves us so much that he condescended to be one of us and take on our frailty, who is sweaty and perhaps lightly bloody as he's cried out to his Father, please don't make me do this, and now he knows he's going to have to do it, and there's no one there with him. He is the person who has least deserved this treatment in the history of the world, and he is there, and they are hurling false accusations against a man who could not be kinder, and who could not be more gracious, and who could not be more loving, and who even as these people hurl these accusations, he is looking at them knowing that he is going to die for them, hoping that through this death that they will come to believe in the person that they are mocking. And it's a kangaroo court. And eventually, they ask Jesus, are you the son of God? And he says, I am who you say I am. And Caiaphas in this show, I think of this disgusting show of false abhorrence, tears his garments and yells and says, what more do we need to hear? He's just an old guy protecting his power. It's disgusting. And the temple guards put a blindfold on Jesus and they begin to punch him and slap him and say, you're a prophet. Why don't you prophesy who hit you, Jesus? It's at this point the Jewish tradition would say that he had his beard ripped out of his face. His face is bloody. It's likely swollen. They're spitting on him, and they are mocking him, and everyone around him is making a show of him. And they're saying, you're a prophet. You're so smart. Tell us who hit you. And the thing is, he knew who hit him. He knew his name. He knew his wife. He knew his kids. And he loved him. And he sat there, and he took it. And when they had had their fun, and they had finished beating our Jesus, they took him to most likely an isolation chamber. In the basement of Caiaphas' house, I was there back in 2013. Underneath his house in Jerusalem is a dungeon. And there's these columns and a wall that's concave. And you can see the brass rings where they would string up people or where they would chain them to the wall. And you think that this is where Jesus was, but then they walk you around the corner, and there's actually this hole in the ground. It's literally about this wide. There's no stairs at the time. There were no stairs that led to it. And they would tie a rope underneath your arms, and they would lower you into the hole where it was totally black and totally dark and totally isolated. If you need a sense of what it was like for Jesus to be there, read Psalm 88. When we went there, we stood in that cell and it was read to us. And it's one of the most moving things I've ever experienced. Who knows what's in that pitch black cell as Jesus sits there in his isolation, knowing the death that he is facing the next day. In the morning, they get him and they take him to Pilate. Pilate was the governor assigned by Rome to the area, to the province of Israel. He was the man who was actually in charge. You could not crucify anybody. You could not administer the death penalty in Israel without Roman permission. They had to actually administer it. And so they take Jesus to Pilate. They tell Pilate what he's done, and they say that we want to kill him. And Pilate talks to Jesus. And some of the most interesting conversations in the Bible to me are the exchanges between Pilate and Jesus. He asks him, he says, they say you're a king. Are you a king? And he says, well, I'm not the kind of king you think I am. If I were, my servants would be here to defend me, but my kingdom is not of this world. And Pilate is pressing him for answers, but Jesus really won't give them. And Pilate actually finds him innocent. His wife had a dream about him the night before, and she told him, you're going to meet this guy. Jesus don't have anything to do with him. He's innocent. And a lot of people think that Pilate actually believed his story. And so he goes to the Hebrew people who are outside. They're in the Fortress Antonia, which is connected to the Temple Mount. And he goes outside, and he looks at what I presume are gates, and there's throngs of people outside of them. And Pilate tells them, it's Passover, it's your tradition that I would let a prisoner go at Passover who's due the death penalty. Why don't I just let Jesus go? Why don't I return him to you? He doesn't seem guilty. And the crowd says, no, give us Barabbas. Barabbas was a man who was guilty of insurrection, He was guilty of murder. He was guilty of thievery. He deserved the death penalty. He was a known criminal in Israel. And they say, give us Barabbas. Let Jesus die. And Pilate ceremonially washes his hands and says, his blood is not on me. And the Jewish people say, that's fine. His blood is on us and on our children. Give us Barabbas and crucify Jesus. And so Pilate bends to the will of the people and he orders Jesus crucified. And the first step of this crucifixion is a scourging or a flogging. And what we know about this is that it was standard Roman procedure. The crucifixion was standard procedure under Roman rule. It was a death penalty that had been designed and refined over decades, if not centuries. And the men who administered it were sadistic and sick, and I am convinced, evil. They were men who this is all they did. All they did is administer the death penalty. All they did is torture people. All they did is take you to within an inch of your life and back off. And that's what the scourging was. It was done with what's called a cat of nine tails, which is a handle with nine straps of leather that come out of it. And into the straps of leather are woven glass and shards of bone and metal and sometimes metal balls intended to bruise. And I've been where they did this. It's a place called the Stone Pavement in the Bible. The entire battalion that was there at the far-flung province of Israel with nothing better to do gathered to watch this man who claimed he was God be beaten. There's a square cement thing that comes out of the ground. It's about this tall. And you can see that somebody gets on their knees in front of it and is bent over it with their arms strapped around it. And they take the cat of nine tails and they hit Jesus with it. And when they hit him, they don't hit him dead on. They stand off to the side and hit him so that it hits here and wraps around and digs in. And then they don't pull it off. They rip it off so that when they rip it off, it takes with its skin and chunks. And they do this 39 times. 39 times because the understanding was that 40 lashes would kill a man. And it wasn't exactly 39 times. 39 times because the understanding was that 40 lashes would kill a man. And it wasn't exactly 39 every time. The idea was the person administering it, who is just pure evil, knew exactly how far he could go before the man was about to die and then he would stop. And by the time he finished, Jesus' back is totally exposed, spine exposed, and it was from the shoulders to all the way down the back of the legs to the top of the knees. Then they take him, and as entertainment for the whole battalion, they begin to mock him. And they get a robe and they put it on his wounds. And they take a crown of thorns, not briars, thorns. And they shove it into his skull. And they make him a king. And they begin to mock him as they fake worship him. And these Roman soldiers, not Hebrew temple guards, Roman trained soldiers begin to punch him in the face over and over again, mocking him, saying you're the king, fake bowing down to him as entertainment. And Jesus is utterly isolated and alone. When they had had their fill, they take the cross beam of the cross and they put it on his back. They redress him in his own tattered clothes. They put that wooden cross on his back and they tell him to walk to Golgotha, the place of the skull, where he's going to be crucified. On the way there, he falters and he can't make it. There's a man named Siren of Cyrene that they grab and ask him to carry the rest of the way. They get to Golgotha and they place Jesus on the cross, first laying on the ground, and they take the nails and they drive them into his hands. Some of us know this, but just so we're clear, when we think of the nails going into the hands of Jesus, we usually think of them going here, but really those nails had to be weight bearing. And so to put them there means that he would fall off the cross because there's not enough to hold him there. So where they would put the nails, the Hebrew word for hand is actually elbow to fingertip. And so where they would put the nail is actually right here. If you've seen an x-ray, you know that there's two bones in the forearm that meet at the wrist. And where they meet is a bundle of nerves. When you were in elementary school, you probably found this and know it as a pressure point. It's incredibly sensitive. And they would take the nail and they would drive it through the wrist there where those bones meet and where the nerves are. And when I say nail, don't think nail. Think more like something that you would drive into a railroad tie. And they drive his hand into the wood. And then they take him and they stretch him as far as he can go. They pull him against that nail because it's important that they spread out his chest and they drive one in the other hand. Then they take his feet and they put his feet over top of one another and they drive the nail through his feet. And we usually, when we see a picture of people on the cross, we see them with their legs extended, but more likely they were tucked up underneath him like this and his feet driven in together. Because once you hung up on the cross, I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but you don't die by pain or blood loss. You die from suffocating. Because when you're hanging like that and your legs are bent and your arms are outstretched, he cannot bring in air. There's no more room left in his lungs. The only way when you're hanging on the cross dying to breathe is to push up on the nails in your feet and to pull on the nails in your hand and take in a breath at the top and then sink back down and hope that lasts longer than the last one. Can you imagine the futility of hanging on the cross, trying to decide whether or not to push yourself up and take one more futile breath? Can you imagine watching someone you love go through these things? Which is why it's remarkable that Jesus says anything at all on the cross. He pushes up and he takes a breath and he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It's the final isolation. It's the first time in eternity he's been separated from the presence of God the Father as the sins of the world, my sins and yours and everyone who's ever lived is heaped on Jesus in that moment. He's separated from the Father as he bears the penalty for our sin. He pushes up again and he tells the prisoner next to him, today you'll be with me in paradise because that prisoner had faith. He pushes up again and he looks at John and he says, take care of my mom. And then at about three o'clock in the afternoon, he pushes up one last time and he takes a breath and he says, to tell us thy, it is finished. It is finished. That word means it is finished. It also means the debt is paid in full. It's an incredibly appropriate word. Jesus is saying in that moment, everything that I've come to do has been done. He came to live a perfect life. He did that. He came to train the disciples and launch the church, his kingdom here on earth, And he did that. He came to suffer for us. And he did that. He came to fulfill prophecy in Isaiah 53, where it says, by his stripes, we will be healed. And he did that. And now it was time for him to die. And so he says, to Telestai, it's finished. And he sinks back down and he breathes his last. And when he does, the skies go black and the temple veil is torn in two. And the Roman centurions around him say, surely this must be the Son of God. And a man named Joseph of Arimathea takes his body and embalms it and buries him. And that's the story of the crucifixion. The only thing that I have for you after we tell that story is to just make the point that he did that for you. He did all of that for you. He lived the life. He put up with being misunderstood. He endured mockery. He had people spit in his face. He had people punch him. He had people fake worship him. He had people mock him. He sat around while an entire battalion took joy in his pain. He took 39 lashes. He had himself nailed to the cross, the person who's least deserved this ever. And he hung up there and he suffocated for you because he loves you. Because at the beginning of time when they created us, they made the decision that we're doing this because we want them to be with us for all of eternity. And since we sinned and broke that relationship, it made it necessary for Jesus to go and be broken for us. And so he went and he did that for you. And he knew how many times you would sin. He knew how many times you would tell him that you believe him and that you trust him and then you would walk away from him. He knew how many times you would walk back with your head in your hands and ask him to forgive you again. And he knew how many times he was gonna have to offer that forgiveness. He died knowing the spiritual condition that I was gonna be in when I preached this message. He died knowing all the things that we were gonna mess up. He died knowing that by our actions, we will spit on that. We will disrespect that. We will not appreciate that. He died for you knowing everything there is to know about you. Because he loves you. And the only reason he came here is to rescue you. And so the question this morning becomes, how do we respond to that truth? How do we respond to what Jesus did on the cross? We might respond with disbelief. I don't believe that story and we shove it away. We might respond with skepticism. Keep it at arm's length. Maybe because of the type of response it would elicit if it's true. But if we believe that story, if we think that Jesus was real and he was who he said he was and that that's what he did for us. The only proper response is humble gratitude. It's a deep and abiding and reverent sense of gratitude that he would do that for us. And so in a minute, we're going to take communion and have a chance to respond in gratitude together. I hope that that's the response of your heart, marveling at God the Son who would do that for us, marveling at God the Father who would watch and allow his Son to do that for us and that we would respond with humble gratitude at the story of the crucifixion. I'm gonna pray and invite up the band and the ushers or the elders. Father, my goodness, we don't know what to say. We can't believe that you allowed your son to do that for us. Jesus, we can't believe that you did that for us. Knowing all the things that you could possibly know, knowing all the ways that we would feel that we disappoint and let you down and dishonor. You did it anyways. God, I am so grateful for you, for your patience, the way that you love us. I'm so grateful for your son who died for us. God, I pray that we would respond collectively with a humble gratitude and awe at what you gave and at what was won for us on the cross. It's in your son's name we pray. Amen.
Well, good morning. My name is Nate. I am one of the pastors here. This morning is a little different. We're in the 10th part of our series going through the Gospel of John. And we arrived this morning at the story of the crucifixion. And as I thought and prayed over how best to cover this, my conclusion was that the best possible thing to do, the best possible way to honor the text and to honor our God and to honor you is to simply tell the story and to let that be enough. And so this morning feels a little different. I don't have any jokes or stories for you this morning. We're not going to turn the lights on because there's no notes. There's not going to be any scriptures up on the screen. What I'm going to tell you is an amalgamation or a synthesis of the account of the crucifixion from all four gospels, beginning in the Garden of Gethsemane. At the end of Jesus' life, he celebrated the Passover with the disciples. He was 33 years old. He had been with them for three years, and it was the night that he was going to be arrested and tried and crucified. The disciples didn't know that, but he did. And so after the Passover, after their celebration, it's getting towards the evening, think 10 or 11 o'clock at night. Jesus grabs his three closest disciples, Peter, James, and John, and he says, would you come and pray with me? And they go to a place called the Garden of Gethsemane. If you're in Jerusalem and you go directly east, there's a valley, there's the temple mount, and then a little valley, and then on the other side of that valley is a hill. That hill is the Garden of Gethsemane, and that's where they are. And so Jesus takes his three disciples with him, Peter, James, and John, his closest confidants, and he says, would you come with me while I pray? And he leaves them in an area of the garden, and he goes, the Bible says, about a stone's throw from them. And he says, will you stay here, and will you pray for me and pray for yourself? And Jesus goes, and he prays. And in the Garden of Gethsemane, the night that he was going to be arrested, knees and he begins to pray that the Father would take this cup from him. Father, this is going to be difficult. This is going to be painful. If there's any other way to do this, Father, you're capable of all things. Let there be another way to do this. Please don't make me drink this cup. Please don't make me have to walk through what I'm about to have to walk through in the crucifixion. After praying for a while, he comes back to check on his three disciples, and he finds them sleeping. It's late at night. It's after dinner. They've had a lot of food. They've had wine, and their eyes are heavy. And it's here where we can already begin to see the isolation of Jesus as he goes through these next several hours. His closest people, his closest friends in his whole life can't even stay awake to pray for him because they don't understand what he's about to do. So he wakes them up and he says, this time I want you to pray for yourself that you wouldn't fall into temptation. And he goes back and he begins to pray again. And this time he begins to pray more fervently. I think we picture Jesus, if we ever picture him, we picture him on his knees in the garden praying quietly, maybe passively or submissively. But I think the text indicates that he was at this point crying out. I saw a pastor talk about this one time and he laid prostrate on his face and screamed. And what we know about these prayers is that he uses this word that we don't see Jesus use before this time. He's calling out to God and he says, Abba, Father, please don't make me do this. Abba, Father, please don't make me drink of this cup. Please don't make me walk through this pain. And he uses that word Abba, and we only see that in Romans when Paul is using it as a way to refer to God intimately, when he tells us that because of what Jesus is about to walk through, we have the right to call God what Jesus calls him, that nobody else calls him. It's daddy or papa. And he's crying out to God the Father, please don't make me do this, Abba. If you have a child, can you imagine the anguish of the father hearing his son cry out to him, calling him Abba, Daddy, saying, please don't make me do this, knowing that you have the power to stop it, knowing that he doesn't have to do this and and you don't have to watch this, but sitting in heaven being willing to say, no, I'm sorry, son, this is a thing you're going to have to do. And so Jesus continues to pray. He prays so fervently that Luke tells us that his sweat began to fall like blood, and there is debate on whether or not that means he was just sweating profusely, which is intense enough, or if he was actually undergoing a medical condition called hemohidrosis, where capillaries in the blood vessels rupture due to extreme stress or fear, and actually blood mixes with the sweat. We don't know for sure which one it was, but we do know that Jesus was at the height of stress and he was at the height of anxiety and he's crying out to his father in a way that we don't see him do in any other place in scripture. Please don't make me do this. He's already a sweaty mess. The disciples have fallen asleep again and the isolation begins to set in. He finishes praying and he walks and so they had a king named Herod, but he was really impotent. The real power in Israel lie in the Sanhedrin, which was essentially a religious senate. And the head of this senate was the high priest, a man at the time named Caiaphas. And Caiaphas had sent his guards with Judas to arrest Jesus. And so Judas betrays him with a kiss. They ask Jesus, are you Jesus of Nazareth? And he says, I am he. And when he says that, they step back and they fall down because he's using the words of the great I am from Exodus 3 when God introduces himself for the first time. And they get back up and they go to arrest Jesus. And Peter, of course, Peter is the one who does this. He takes the sword and he goes to try to kill one of the guards. He misses and takes off his ear. We know that it was a guard named Malchus. And so Jesus tells him to stop it. He heals Malchus and he tells Peter, don't you know that if I didn't want to do this, that my father could send 12 legions of angels right now to save me and to protect me. And just so we're clear, 12 legions of angels is enough to handle any army in the history of history. He says, Peter, it's not the time. Because the prophecy said he needed to go silently like a lamb to the slaughter. And so he's arrested and he's taken to Caiaphas' house. At this point, the disciples follow at a distance and eventually scatter. He's held in the courtyard of Caiaphas' house with Peter on the perimeter and one unnamed disciple inside, and that's all he has for support. Caiaphas begins the ceremony, begins the hearings by inviting people to hurl false accusations against Jesus. They're unclaimed, they're unsubstantiated, and they're unfair. This is the Savior of the world, the Son of God who loves us so much that he condescended to be one of us and take on our frailty, who is sweaty and perhaps lightly bloody as he's cried out to his Father, please don't make me do this, and now he knows he's going to have to do it, and there's no one there with him. He is the person who has least deserved this treatment in the history of the world, and he is there, and they are hurling false accusations against a man who could not be kinder, and who could not be more gracious, and who could not be more loving, and who even as these people hurl these accusations, he is looking at them knowing that he is going to die for them, hoping that through this death that they will come to believe in the person that they are mocking. And it's a kangaroo court. And eventually, they ask Jesus, are you the son of God? And he says, I am who you say I am. And Caiaphas in this show, I think of this disgusting show of false abhorrence, tears his garments and yells and says, what more do we need to hear? He's just an old guy protecting his power. It's disgusting. And the temple guards put a blindfold on Jesus and they begin to punch him and slap him and say, you're a prophet. Why don't you prophesy who hit you, Jesus? It's at this point the Jewish tradition would say that he had his beard ripped out of his face. His face is bloody. It's likely swollen. They're spitting on him, and they are mocking him, and everyone around him is making a show of him. And they're saying, you're a prophet. You're so smart. Tell us who hit you. And the thing is, he knew who hit him. He knew his name. He knew his wife. He knew his kids. And he loved him. And he sat there, and he took it. And when they had had their fun, and they had finished beating our Jesus, they took him to most likely an isolation chamber. In the basement of Caiaphas' house, I was there back in 2013. Underneath his house in Jerusalem is a dungeon. And there's these columns and a wall that's concave. And you can see the brass rings where they would string up people or where they would chain them to the wall. And you think that this is where Jesus was, but then they walk you around the corner, and there's actually this hole in the ground. It's literally about this wide. There's no stairs at the time. There were no stairs that led to it. And they would tie a rope underneath your arms, and they would lower you into the hole where it was totally black and totally dark and totally isolated. If you need a sense of what it was like for Jesus to be there, read Psalm 88. When we went there, we stood in that cell and it was read to us. And it's one of the most moving things I've ever experienced. Who knows what's in that pitch black cell as Jesus sits there in his isolation, knowing the death that he is facing the next day. In the morning, they get him and they take him to Pilate. Pilate was the governor assigned by Rome to the area, to the province of Israel. He was the man who was actually in charge. You could not crucify anybody. You could not administer the death penalty in Israel without Roman permission. They had to actually administer it. And so they take Jesus to Pilate. They tell Pilate what he's done, and they say that we want to kill him. And Pilate talks to Jesus. And some of the most interesting conversations in the Bible to me are the exchanges between Pilate and Jesus. He asks him, he says, they say you're a king. Are you a king? And he says, well, I'm not the kind of king you think I am. If I were, my servants would be here to defend me, but my kingdom is not of this world. And Pilate is pressing him for answers, but Jesus really won't give them. And Pilate actually finds him innocent. His wife had a dream about him the night before, and she told him, you're going to meet this guy. Jesus don't have anything to do with him. He's innocent. And a lot of people think that Pilate actually believed his story. And so he goes to the Hebrew people who are outside. They're in the Fortress Antonia, which is connected to the Temple Mount. And he goes outside, and he looks at what I presume are gates, and there's throngs of people outside of them. And Pilate tells them, it's Passover, it's your tradition that I would let a prisoner go at Passover who's due the death penalty. Why don't I just let Jesus go? Why don't I return him to you? He doesn't seem guilty. And the crowd says, no, give us Barabbas. Barabbas was a man who was guilty of insurrection, He was guilty of murder. He was guilty of thievery. He deserved the death penalty. He was a known criminal in Israel. And they say, give us Barabbas. Let Jesus die. And Pilate ceremonially washes his hands and says, his blood is not on me. And the Jewish people say, that's fine. His blood is on us and on our children. Give us Barabbas and crucify Jesus. And so Pilate bends to the will of the people and he orders Jesus crucified. And the first step of this crucifixion is a scourging or a flogging. And what we know about this is that it was standard Roman procedure. The crucifixion was standard procedure under Roman rule. It was a death penalty that had been designed and refined over decades, if not centuries. And the men who administered it were sadistic and sick, and I am convinced, evil. They were men who this is all they did. All they did is administer the death penalty. All they did is torture people. All they did is take you to within an inch of your life and back off. And that's what the scourging was. It was done with what's called a cat of nine tails, which is a handle with nine straps of leather that come out of it. And into the straps of leather are woven glass and shards of bone and metal and sometimes metal balls intended to bruise. And I've been where they did this. It's a place called the Stone Pavement in the Bible. The entire battalion that was there at the far-flung province of Israel with nothing better to do gathered to watch this man who claimed he was God be beaten. There's a square cement thing that comes out of the ground. It's about this tall. And you can see that somebody gets on their knees in front of it and is bent over it with their arms strapped around it. And they take the cat of nine tails and they hit Jesus with it. And when they hit him, they don't hit him dead on. They stand off to the side and hit him so that it hits here and wraps around and digs in. And then they don't pull it off. They rip it off so that when they rip it off, it takes with its skin and chunks. And they do this 39 times. 39 times because the understanding was that 40 lashes would kill a man. And it wasn't exactly 39 times. 39 times because the understanding was that 40 lashes would kill a man. And it wasn't exactly 39 every time. The idea was the person administering it, who is just pure evil, knew exactly how far he could go before the man was about to die and then he would stop. And by the time he finished, Jesus' back is totally exposed, spine exposed, and it was from the shoulders to all the way down the back of the legs to the top of the knees. Then they take him, and as entertainment for the whole battalion, they begin to mock him. And they get a robe and they put it on his wounds. And they take a crown of thorns, not briars, thorns. And they shove it into his skull. And they make him a king. And they begin to mock him as they fake worship him. And these Roman soldiers, not Hebrew temple guards, Roman trained soldiers begin to punch him in the face over and over again, mocking him, saying you're the king, fake bowing down to him as entertainment. And Jesus is utterly isolated and alone. When they had had their fill, they take the cross beam of the cross and they put it on his back. They redress him in his own tattered clothes. They put that wooden cross on his back and they tell him to walk to Golgotha, the place of the skull, where he's going to be crucified. On the way there, he falters and he can't make it. There's a man named Siren of Cyrene that they grab and ask him to carry the rest of the way. They get to Golgotha and they place Jesus on the cross, first laying on the ground, and they take the nails and they drive them into his hands. Some of us know this, but just so we're clear, when we think of the nails going into the hands of Jesus, we usually think of them going here, but really those nails had to be weight bearing. And so to put them there means that he would fall off the cross because there's not enough to hold him there. So where they would put the nails, the Hebrew word for hand is actually elbow to fingertip. And so where they would put the nail is actually right here. If you've seen an x-ray, you know that there's two bones in the forearm that meet at the wrist. And where they meet is a bundle of nerves. When you were in elementary school, you probably found this and know it as a pressure point. It's incredibly sensitive. And they would take the nail and they would drive it through the wrist there where those bones meet and where the nerves are. And when I say nail, don't think nail. Think more like something that you would drive into a railroad tie. And they drive his hand into the wood. And then they take him and they stretch him as far as he can go. They pull him against that nail because it's important that they spread out his chest and they drive one in the other hand. Then they take his feet and they put his feet over top of one another and they drive the nail through his feet. And we usually, when we see a picture of people on the cross, we see them with their legs extended, but more likely they were tucked up underneath him like this and his feet driven in together. Because once you hung up on the cross, I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but you don't die by pain or blood loss. You die from suffocating. Because when you're hanging like that and your legs are bent and your arms are outstretched, he cannot bring in air. There's no more room left in his lungs. The only way when you're hanging on the cross dying to breathe is to push up on the nails in your feet and to pull on the nails in your hand and take in a breath at the top and then sink back down and hope that lasts longer than the last one. Can you imagine the futility of hanging on the cross, trying to decide whether or not to push yourself up and take one more futile breath? Can you imagine watching someone you love go through these things? Which is why it's remarkable that Jesus says anything at all on the cross. He pushes up and he takes a breath and he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It's the final isolation. It's the first time in eternity he's been separated from the presence of God the Father as the sins of the world, my sins and yours and everyone who's ever lived is heaped on Jesus in that moment. He's separated from the Father as he bears the penalty for our sin. He pushes up again and he tells the prisoner next to him, today you'll be with me in paradise because that prisoner had faith. He pushes up again and he looks at John and he says, take care of my mom. And then at about three o'clock in the afternoon, he pushes up one last time and he takes a breath and he says, to tell us thy, it is finished. It is finished. That word means it is finished. It also means the debt is paid in full. It's an incredibly appropriate word. Jesus is saying in that moment, everything that I've come to do has been done. He came to live a perfect life. He did that. He came to train the disciples and launch the church, his kingdom here on earth, And he did that. He came to suffer for us. And he did that. He came to fulfill prophecy in Isaiah 53, where it says, by his stripes, we will be healed. And he did that. And now it was time for him to die. And so he says, to Telestai, it's finished. And he sinks back down and he breathes his last. And when he does, the skies go black and the temple veil is torn in two. And the Roman centurions around him say, surely this must be the Son of God. And a man named Joseph of Arimathea takes his body and embalms it and buries him. And that's the story of the crucifixion. The only thing that I have for you after we tell that story is to just make the point that he did that for you. He did all of that for you. He lived the life. He put up with being misunderstood. He endured mockery. He had people spit in his face. He had people punch him. He had people fake worship him. He had people mock him. He sat around while an entire battalion took joy in his pain. He took 39 lashes. He had himself nailed to the cross, the person who's least deserved this ever. And he hung up there and he suffocated for you because he loves you. Because at the beginning of time when they created us, they made the decision that we're doing this because we want them to be with us for all of eternity. And since we sinned and broke that relationship, it made it necessary for Jesus to go and be broken for us. And so he went and he did that for you. And he knew how many times you would sin. He knew how many times you would tell him that you believe him and that you trust him and then you would walk away from him. He knew how many times you would walk back with your head in your hands and ask him to forgive you again. And he knew how many times he was gonna have to offer that forgiveness. He died knowing the spiritual condition that I was gonna be in when I preached this message. He died knowing all the things that we were gonna mess up. He died knowing that by our actions, we will spit on that. We will disrespect that. We will not appreciate that. He died for you knowing everything there is to know about you. Because he loves you. And the only reason he came here is to rescue you. And so the question this morning becomes, how do we respond to that truth? How do we respond to what Jesus did on the cross? We might respond with disbelief. I don't believe that story and we shove it away. We might respond with skepticism. Keep it at arm's length. Maybe because of the type of response it would elicit if it's true. But if we believe that story, if we think that Jesus was real and he was who he said he was and that that's what he did for us. The only proper response is humble gratitude. It's a deep and abiding and reverent sense of gratitude that he would do that for us. And so in a minute, we're going to take communion and have a chance to respond in gratitude together. I hope that that's the response of your heart, marveling at God the Son who would do that for us, marveling at God the Father who would watch and allow his Son to do that for us and that we would respond with humble gratitude at the story of the crucifixion. I'm gonna pray and invite up the band and the ushers or the elders. Father, my goodness, we don't know what to say. We can't believe that you allowed your son to do that for us. Jesus, we can't believe that you did that for us. Knowing all the things that you could possibly know, knowing all the ways that we would feel that we disappoint and let you down and dishonor. You did it anyways. God, I am so grateful for you, for your patience, the way that you love us. I'm so grateful for your son who died for us. God, I pray that we would respond collectively with a humble gratitude and awe at what you gave and at what was won for us on the cross. It's in your son's name we pray. Amen.
All right, well, good morning. It's good to see all of you. I know those lights hit you, they're bright, goodness gracious. My name is Nate. I am one of the pastors here, and it's so good to see you. Thanks for being here for the second service and for the last part of our series in John. When we started the series in February, this is, I think, 12 weeks, so it's been one of our longer ones, but I hope that you've enjoyed it. I hope, and my prayer for you has been that you now, as we leave the series, feel a little bit closer to Jesus than you did when we started, that you know him better than you did when we started. I know that there are some themes from the book of John that I will probably always remember that stuck out to me as we went through it as a church this time around. I hope that you can relate to that. Originally, when we had planned the series, we wanted to end it on Easter. At the end on Easter Sunday, that'd be the resurrection story. That's the end of the story of Jesus. Boom, we're done. It's a nice, clean, tidy ending. But as I was studying the book, there's a story in John that's unique to the book of John. It's not in the other gospels, Matthew, Mark, or Luke. It's just in John almost as an addendum. And it's the restoration of Peter. And it's to me one of the most hopeful, life-giving, inspiring, restorative messages and stories that we find from the life of Jesus. And so I thought if it's good enough to be an addendum for John, then it's good enough to be an addendum for grace. And so we came back one extra week in John to look at this story of the restoration of Peter. To appreciate the story, we need to understand what goes into this moment. Eventually, we're going to get to John chapter 21. So if you have a Bible, you can turn there and we're going to be at the end of that chapter. If you don't have one, there's one in the seat back in front of you. If you don't like that option, there's a free one on your phone just seconds away. All right. To understand the story at the end of John, we need to understand who Peter was and what's going on in that story. Peter was kind of the de facto leader of the disciples. Many people think he was probably the oldest disciple. He was, some believe, the only one with a wife when they were called. He was a little bit further on in life than the rest of the disciples were. Peter was one of these guys that would always talk first and think later. He was a ready, fire, aim kind of guy. He's my people. I understand Peter, right? When Jesus walks on the water, what does Peter do? He jumps out of the boat. Well, shoot, I'm doing this too, right? Peter always just said things with confidence and everybody around him was like, well, I guess that's right. Jen asked me, my wife asked me sometimes, like, how do you say things with so much confidence? Like, how do you know that to be true? And I'm like, I don't. I'm just saying it. And people seem to go along with things. That's Peter, man. I can relate to him. He just always the first to answer, always the first to have the idea, always out front, kind of regardless of consequences. One of my favorite stories to kind of illustrate the character of Peter, one day Jesus decides, he gathers the disciples together and he says, hey, you guys, I'm going to wash your feet today. Which is like, that's the lowest of the low job. That's like the summer intern as the servant job. That's what you do. And so Peter, responding with some pomposity, with some piety, says, no, Jesus, never. I can never let you wash my feet. I will never let that happen. And Jesus looks at him and he says, okay, Peter, but unless I wash your feet, you cannot enter into the kingdom of God. And then Peter immediately does a 180. Well, then don't stop at my feet. Wash my head and my hands as well. Like that's Peter, okay? And so at the Last Supper, right before Jesus is arrested and tried and crucified, the last time they spend some good time together, Jesus looks at Peter, the leader of the disciples, and he tells him, before the rooster crows in the morning, you will have denied me three times. And Peter's response is what you would expect Peter's response to be. Never, Lord. I would never deny you. I would not do that. And Jesus says, you're going to. And Peter says, this is a loose paraphrase, agree to disagree, which you never want to agree to disagree with Jesus. You're not in a good spot when that's what you choose. So they leave. Jesus goes and he prays. He brings Peter to pray with them, but Peter falls asleep. John falls asleep. James falls asleep. And then Jesus gets arrested, and he's taken off to the courtyard of the high priest, a guy named Caiaphas. And three weeks ago, we talked about this in the crucifixion story. It was in the courtyard of Caiaphas where Jesus is put on trial, and there were two disciples that actually followed him there. The rest of the disciples dispersed. They ran away. They started worrying about their own necks, and so they ran away to hide so that they wouldn't get arrested too. They figured if they're arresting Jesus, then they're coming for us next, right? And so they all dispersed except for two disciples, Peter and another unnamed disciple, make it to the courtyard of Caiaphas' house. And it's in this courtyard that Jesus was put on trial, that he was falsely accused, that they told lies about him. The one person who's ever existed who deserved this treatment least was getting this treatment. They were blindfolding him and punching him and saying, who hit you, Jesus? You're a prophet. Prophesy about who hit you. And then Jewish tradition says that they were ripping out his beard. So he's beaten up and he's in a moment where he is incredibly loved. This is a man that Jesus has followed every day for three years. He loves this man. He cares for nothing on earth more than this man, and now he's watching him suffer in this way. And Peter's around a campfire as this is happening. And when he gets there, the Bible says there's a servant girl who looks at him and says, hey, don't you know him? Aren't you like in his little group? And Peter says, no, I've never met the man. That's one. A little while later, somebody else says the same thing. Hey, haven't I seen you with him before? Peter says, no, I don't know what we're talking about. I've never met the man. That's twice. And then the Bible says about an hour after that, someone really begins to press him. Hey, aren't you from Galilee? I can tell by your accent, you have to know that man. And Peter gets emphatic. No, I swear I've never met him. And then it says that this is actually, there's this passage in Luke. That's to to me, one of the most intense passages in Scripture. It's something that you may have read before, but we kind of gloss over it. But look at what it says in Luke. Chapter 22, verse 60, it says, But Peter said, Man, I do not know what you are talking about. That's the third time. And immediately while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. And then verse 61, and the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? The time when Jesus most needed people around him who loved him. You are his leading disciple and you just denied him three times because you're scared. And his bloody face turns and looks you dead in the eye. Peter remembered the saying of the Lord how he said to him, before the rooster crows you'll deny me three times. And he went out and he wept bitterly. Can you imagine how Peter must have felt? He had betrayed his Jesus. He had let him down. He had denied him. He had told Jesus over and over again, you can count on me. For three years, Jesus had been prepping him and training him and grooming him to take over the church, to step into his ministry. He was to see Jesus and to help lead the church after Jesus' death. And in the moment when he most needed him, he betrayed him and he let him down. And Jesus turned and looked at Peter. You cannot imagine that eye contact. It says he went away and he wept bitterly. I love this story because I so identify with Peter. And to me, if you're a believer, if you're a Christian, then you can identify with him too. If you're here this morning and you're not a Christian, then the good news is that you don't have to feel bad about any of this. You can just take it all in and watch us as we squirm and feel bad. But if you're a believer, then you know this feeling too. If you're a believer, then you know what it is to feel like you've betrayed Jesus, don't you? Has there ever been a time in your life, maybe in a corporate setting, maybe around some clients, maybe with some new friends that you've made, maybe with some old buddies where you kind of fall back into who you used to be, where you took that part of your identity, your Christianity, and you kind of tucked it away back here and kind of didn't wear it on your sleeve for that week or for that night or for that season because you didn't really want them to know who you were associated with? Have you ever in your life tucked away your identity as a believer because you were kind of ashamed and embarrassed if people were to find out that that's who you were because you had not been acting that way? Can I just tell you? I hope that you don't get too disappointed in me for this, but I've been doing ministry for about 20 years. There have definitely been times in my life when because of how I had been acting or what I had been saying or doing or whatever it was, I kind of tucked away my identity as a pastor. I didn't really want to share it with the group of people that I was with. So when Peter betrays Jesus and denies knowing him, I can relate. When we get this sense of betrayal, I've let my Jesus down. To be a Christian is to be familiar with that. I think we've all had different times and different seasons where we feel like we've let Jesus down a little bit. Maybe we've told him. Maybe we've been moved in worship. Maybe we've been moved by a sermon, probably at another church, and we decided that what we were going to do, we were going to start a new discipline. We were going to start a new thing. We had been moved to conviction. And we say, yes, Jesus, I'm going to get up and I'm going to read the Bible. I'm going to get up early. I'm going to make time for you. I'm going to spend time in prayer. I'm going to spend time in your word. That's going to be a discipline in my life. And so we get up and we start to read it. We're following along, but maybe we don't really understand it. We don't hear the angels audibly sing. And so we think we must be doing it wrong. Or we wake up and we kind of do the drop and flop. Like, Jesus, you just show me what you want me to read. And it turns out that because Psalms is in the middle and it's the longest book in the Bible, that God wants us to read Psalms like a lot. So we just, we read that, right? And we don't really know what's going on or what's happening. And for whatever reason, we fall away from that discipline. And then we've told Jesus for however many times, this is going to be a part of my life. And then we fail. And we betray him and we let him down. Or we tell him that we're going to start to give. We understand that believers should give generously, that we should be conduits of God's generosity to us, that we're stewards of the resources that he gives us, and that we should be generous to those that we think Jesus would want to help and serve. And we commit to do this, but things come up and then we don't, and we fall away from that discipline or from that commitment. And we hesitate to even make the commitment again because we messed up the last time, and we don't have much reason to believe that we're going to do better the next time. Right? Or we have things in our life that we don't want there. And so we tell Jesus, I'm done with that. I'm drawing the line in the sand. I'm not going to do that thing again. I'm moved. I'm convicted. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for who I am. I don't want that to be a part of my life. I don't want that to be a part of who I am. Jesus, I'm done with that. I'm moving on by the power of your spirit. Please allow me to be done with that thing. And we move away from that thing. And then three days later or weeks later or maybe months later, we fall back into the thing. So I wonder this morning, have you ever felt like you've betrayed Jesus? Can you relate to Peter? Aren't you glad that in the moment of the height of your betrayal, Jesus isn't looking you in the eye? I think we can all relate to Peter in this moment. The good news is that it gets better. But I think that we can all relate to this idea of letting Jesus down, of betraying him and feeling what Peter must have felt when God looked at him and he went away and he wept bitterly. Which, by the way, when you're confronted with your sin, that's the appropriate response to go away and to weep bitterly. That's a good and right response. And I don't believe that God would steal that response from Peter. I don't think that God would go to him and say, hey, you don't need to do that. I think that's the good and right response when we realize who we are. But he goes away and he weeps bitterly. And then we pick up this story in John chapter 21. In John chapter 21, Jesus has died, he's resurrected, he's appeared to the disciples a couple of times, and then in John chapter 21, he appears to them while they're fishing. And it's interesting to me that they're fishing. Because if you think back, my Bible scholars in the room, you know the answer to this. At the beginning of Jesus' ministry, when he's calling the disciples, and he goes to this guy named Simon, son of John, and he renames him Peter, and he says, come and be my disciple. What was Peter doing? He was fishing. For three years while he followed Jesus, what did he not do anymore? Fish. Why? He had a new job. His new job was to follow Jesus. His new job was to be in ministry. His new job was to do what Jesus did, to go around telling people about Jesus, to cast out demons and to perform miracles and to teach the people of Israel about the Messiah that was now here. That was his new job. And so for three years, he hadn't done his old job. He walked away from that because that wasn't him anymore. But after Jesus dies and Peter is walking around with this shame because he let his Jesus down, what does he do? He goes back to his old job. He disqualifies himself. Peter should have been leading the church. Peter should have been gathering the disciples together and saying, hey, this isn't over. Jesus has risen from the dead. We need to continue to serve him. We need to continue to build his kingdom. We have a purpose. We're not done, guys. But instead, what does he do? He gets back in the boat. What I want us to see is that Peter allowed his shame to shrink his vision of what Jesus wanted him to do. He allowed his shame, he allowed what he had done and how badly he felt for it to shrink his vision about what Jesus wanted him to do. Jesus had purposed him and prepared him and groomed him to lead his church. It's what Jesus wanted him to do. It's why he was working with him for three years, why he was putting up with all of his Peter-isms so that he could lead the church. And Peter, because he felt bad, because he felt shame, he walked away from that. He disqualified himself, which in all honesty is the exact same thing that we would do. Would you look at Peter after he betrayed Jesus at the height of his need and go, yep, you're still the guy. You should still lead the church. Would you still want that guy to be in charge of everybody? Would you still want that guy leading the council of the disciples like he is in Acts along with James? Is that what you would still want? Wouldn't you think that Peter would need to enter into some sort of probationary period? Okay, you're good, Peter, but we're just going to keep our eye on you for a minute. Wouldn't you do what Peter did? Wouldn't you step away and kind of slink away quietly and be like, I'm so sorry that I messed up. I understand. I don't even expect you to reinstate me anymore. I'm just going to fish and I'm going to love on you the best I can. Wouldn't you expect that of Peter? Doesn't that seem like the fair human reaction? Don't we do that to ourselves? When we mess up and we know who we are, we know where we come from and we know the we bring into every room, and we know the things that are hiding in the corners and the shadows of our life. When we know those things, don't we do what Peter did and disqualify ourselves? Don't we allow our shame to shrink our vision for who we are and what God created us to do? Can I just tell you that I think the Bible teaches that every one of you who are believers were created, and the non-believers too, we're just waiting for you to get on board. You were created with a purpose and with a set of gifts, with the sole intention of building God's church. With the sole intention of going to heaven one day and on your way there bringing as many people with you as you possibly can. That's the only reason you're alive. It's the only reason you walk on the face of the earth. The Christian life is a progressive revelation of just how true that is. Hopefully you realize now it's more true than you did five years ago and hopefully more than 10 years ago. The only reason you're here, the only reason that Jesus doesn't snatch you into heaven the instant you are saved is to leave you here so that you can bring as many people with you as possible on the way. And I believe that God has imbued each of you with a set of gifts. I believe that God has uniquely prepared you in your life through the circumstances that you have walked through to be effective at reaching other people. And I believe that God has a big vision and a big plan for how he wants to use you in his kingdom. I believe those of you who have jobs that you are the pastors of those teams. That God has put you there to be a light in the dark places, to encourage the other light that is there and to cast light on those who might not know him yet. That simply by watching you, they may give glory to the Father who is in heaven. Those verses are all over scripture. But what do we do? We know our past. We know who we are. And so we allow our shame to shrink our vision of who Jesus created us to be. We excuse those things away. If I said that, I would never be believed. They're going to think I'm a hypocrite. Maybe we want to start a devotional with our kids at the house. Maybe we just want to start exposing our children to Scripture in the home, but then we have that thought, yeah, buddy, but you don't even read the Bible every day on your own, you hypocrite. Well, start then, and then start the Bible study, man. God has these things that I believe He wants us to do, that He's purposed us to do, but we back off of them because of our shame, because we know who we are. And then we just exist in these little holes. God, I'm not going to do that thing. I'm just going to be a fisherman. I'm just going to work in sales. I'm just going to work in accounting. I'm just going to have my job. I'm just going to do my thing. I'm going to go to church and be a good Christian. But that work that you have to do in the kingdom, that's for other people who haven't messed up. And listen, if that's true, if the only people who get to do ministry and get used in God's kingdom are those who have never let Jesus down, then the church would be run by four-year-olds, man. We've got just a slight upgrade here. But that's what we do. We allow our shame and how we feel about ourselves to shrink our vision about what God wants us to do, which is why Jesus's response to Peter is so amazing. Look at what Jesus says in John chapter 21. I'm going to read you the whole conversation and then we'll talk about it a little bit. Jesus had shown up. They were fishing out on the Sea of Galilee. And that's louder than normal. They were fishing out on the Sea of Galilee. They had been out all night. They hadn't caught anything, right? And then Jesus appears on the shore after they bring the nets in. Still not catching anything. And they don't know it's Jesus. It's just some dude. And he's like, hey, cast your nets on the other side of the boat, which is ridiculous. It's almost like making fun of them. The boat's like 12 feet wide. It's not going to make a difference when they put them on the other side of the boat. But for whatever reason, they listen to the guy, they do it, and then they catch more fish than they've ever caught in their life. 30 years later, 30-plus years later, old man John still remembers that they caught exactly 153 fish that day. That wasn't a big deal to John. They pull in the fish, they go in, they have breakfast together, and then Jesus sidles up to Peter for a conversation. This is the first one-on-one conversation that they have had since Peter's betrayal. And let me just ask you before we read the conversation, what would you expect Jesus to say in that moment? What would you expect the conversation to be? Put yourself in Peter's shoes. You did that to Jesus. You've betrayed him. Put yourself in your own shoes. Take yourself to the place where you feel like you've let Jesus down the most. And right after letting him down for however many upteenth times you've done it, he comes up to you. He sidles up next to you and he puts his arm around you and you and him have a conversation. What do you expect him to say? I would expect him to go to Peter. I would expect him to come to me and say, hey, are you sorry? Right? Jesus is good. He's gracious. I don't think that we would expect Jesus to just come down hard on us. We don't know that in his character. But I think we would expect him to put his arm around us and look at Peter and go, hey, Peter, are you sorry for what you did? Isn't this what we do with our children? When Lily messes up, I've got a three-year-old daughter named Lily, when she messes up, which is more frequently lately because she's three, and apparently that's what three-year-olds do. And she hollers and she gets mad. What do I do? I pick her up and I hold her right here. I calm her down. And I say, Lily, are you sorry? And she says, yes, Daddy. I go, okay. And I put her down. I say, go tell your mom you're sorry. We forgive you. Isn't that what we do? Isn't that what we would expect Jesus to do to us? Hey, are you sorry? And then we would expect to go, yeah, I'm sorry. And we would expect to hear him say to Peter, okay, you're forgiven. Because he's Jesus and that's what he does, right? You're forgiven. That's what we would expect. But look at what happens. Verse 15, when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? Do you love me more than these fish? I see you've gone back to fishing. That's an interesting choice. I didn't know that you had a new career now. Do you love me more than these fish? Do you love me more than what you're doing? Interesting question. He said to him, yes, Lord, you know I love you. He said to him, feed my lambs. He said to him a second time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? He said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him, tend my sheep. Verse 17, he said to him the third time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, do you love me? And he said to somebody put it, you done boogered up, son. He messed up bad. He felt terrible. And he walked away from what God called him to because he felt like he had disqualified himself for messing up. And Jesus goes and he finds him. And we would expect Jesus to say, Peter, are you sorry? That's not what he says. He says, Peter, do you love me? Do I still have your heart or has this sin taken it from me? Do you love me? He says, yes, of course I love you. He says, good. Feed my sheep. This is a remarkable statement. Because in John 10, Jesus paints himself as the good shepherd. And he says that the sheep are his flock or the church or people who believe in him. His sheep are the Christians. And so the shepherd looks after the Christians. And so what he's saying is, Peter, for three years you watched me do ministry. You watched me tend to my sheep. And I told you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church. I told you that one day I won't be here. When I'mores you. He doesn't just forgive Peter. He doesn't say, are you sorry? He says, do you love me? I know you're sorry. Because if you love me, then of course you're sorry. And then we would expect him to say, okay, you're forgiven, but sit over here in this probationary period. I'll keep an eye on you for a couple years and see if we can trust you again. That's not what he does. You're forgiven. You're restored. Go and do the thing I created you to do. Go and be the person I created you to be. He says, Peter, you may have disqualified yourself. You may have shrunken back from my plans for you, but I have not. I still have plans for you. I still want you to do these things. You are reinstated. You are restored. And he does it three times. I love the symmetry of those statements. How many times did Jesus deny Peter? Three. How many times did Jesus ask Peter if he loved him? Three. It's like he's saying, Peter, without even saying the words, Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. You're forgiven. Go and work. Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, you know I love you. Then you're forgiven. Go and be who I created you to be. Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. Okay, good, because that's three times that you said that. It's three times I've forgiven you. You can say it as many more times as you want to. I'll forgive you and restore you all those times. Now go and be who I created you to be. And I believe that he says the same thing to us this morning. I believe that he asks us the same question. Do you love Jesus? Grace, do you love Jesus? However mired in sin you might be, however much shame you might bring into the room, whatever might have happened in the past, whatever habits you bring, however many times you've made a commitment that you didn't keep, listen, put all that aside and let's just ask you grace. Do you love Jesus? Then go and be who he created you to be. Go and do the thing he purposed you to do. Say, but Jesus, I've done this and this and this. I'm not qualified. I used to be an addict. I used to do this thing. I'm mired in this right now. And Jesus says, listen, listen, listen, I'm not worried about that. Do you love me? Because if you love me, it means you're sorry. And if you've shrunk away, it means that you feel shame. And Jesus says, go and be the person that I created you to be. Go and do the thing that I intended for you to do. Quit disqualifying yourself. Quit feeling the shame that is not from me. And just answer the question, do you love me? Then go and do the thing that I purposed you to do. Go and feed his sheep. Go and build his church. Go and use the gifts that he's imbued you with. Go live out the reason that he leaves you here. Go and run your race. What I want you to understand this morning is Jesus is far more concerned with what he wants you to do than what you have done. He's already taken care of what you have done. He's removed that from you as far as the east is from the west. Because of that removal, you are free and have the freedom to operate in his love. And if you love him in return, then go and do the thing that he created you to do. Go and be who he created you to be. And that's where I would leave us at the end of the series in John with that simple question. After all the 12 weeks, after everything that we've experienced, after all that we've seen of Jesus, after what we know of him and how he loved us. Do you love him? Does he have your heart? If he does, grace. Go be who he created you to be. You're not just forgiven, you're restored. Let's pray. Father, we sure do love you. You sure are good to us. God, we can't fathom this idea that you would not just forgive us, but that you would restore us. Lord, if there are folks in here who walked into the room carrying a little bit of shame, God, if we are certain that if we could see you face to face, the first thing you would express in us is disappointment. God, I pray that you would take that from us today. That we would see that we are loved, that you care about us, that we would identify with Peter, not just in his betrayal, but in his restoration, that we would feel your arms around us, that we would simply respond to that question of, do we love you? Give us the faith to believe that you forgive us. Give us the eyes to see ourselves as you do. And give us the courage and the strength to go live out and be the people that you created us to be and do great things to the folks here at Grace. It's in your son's name we pray all of these things. Amen.
All right, well, good morning. It's good to see all of you. I know those lights hit you, they're bright, goodness gracious. My name is Nate. I am one of the pastors here, and it's so good to see you. Thanks for being here for the second service and for the last part of our series in John. When we started the series in February, this is, I think, 12 weeks, so it's been one of our longer ones, but I hope that you've enjoyed it. I hope, and my prayer for you has been that you now, as we leave the series, feel a little bit closer to Jesus than you did when we started, that you know him better than you did when we started. I know that there are some themes from the book of John that I will probably always remember that stuck out to me as we went through it as a church this time around. I hope that you can relate to that. Originally, when we had planned the series, we wanted to end it on Easter. At the end on Easter Sunday, that'd be the resurrection story. That's the end of the story of Jesus. Boom, we're done. It's a nice, clean, tidy ending. But as I was studying the book, there's a story in John that's unique to the book of John. It's not in the other gospels, Matthew, Mark, or Luke. It's just in John almost as an addendum. And it's the restoration of Peter. And it's to me one of the most hopeful, life-giving, inspiring, restorative messages and stories that we find from the life of Jesus. And so I thought if it's good enough to be an addendum for John, then it's good enough to be an addendum for grace. And so we came back one extra week in John to look at this story of the restoration of Peter. To appreciate the story, we need to understand what goes into this moment. Eventually, we're going to get to John chapter 21. So if you have a Bible, you can turn there and we're going to be at the end of that chapter. If you don't have one, there's one in the seat back in front of you. If you don't like that option, there's a free one on your phone just seconds away. All right. To understand the story at the end of John, we need to understand who Peter was and what's going on in that story. Peter was kind of the de facto leader of the disciples. Many people think he was probably the oldest disciple. He was, some believe, the only one with a wife when they were called. He was a little bit further on in life than the rest of the disciples were. Peter was one of these guys that would always talk first and think later. He was a ready, fire, aim kind of guy. He's my people. I understand Peter, right? When Jesus walks on the water, what does Peter do? He jumps out of the boat. Well, shoot, I'm doing this too, right? Peter always just said things with confidence and everybody around him was like, well, I guess that's right. Jen asked me, my wife asked me sometimes, like, how do you say things with so much confidence? Like, how do you know that to be true? And I'm like, I don't. I'm just saying it. And people seem to go along with things. That's Peter, man. I can relate to him. He just always the first to answer, always the first to have the idea, always out front, kind of regardless of consequences. One of my favorite stories to kind of illustrate the character of Peter, one day Jesus decides, he gathers the disciples together and he says, hey, you guys, I'm going to wash your feet today. Which is like, that's the lowest of the low job. That's like the summer intern as the servant job. That's what you do. And so Peter, responding with some pomposity, with some piety, says, no, Jesus, never. I can never let you wash my feet. I will never let that happen. And Jesus looks at him and he says, okay, Peter, but unless I wash your feet, you cannot enter into the kingdom of God. And then Peter immediately does a 180. Well, then don't stop at my feet. Wash my head and my hands as well. Like that's Peter, okay? And so at the Last Supper, right before Jesus is arrested and tried and crucified, the last time they spend some good time together, Jesus looks at Peter, the leader of the disciples, and he tells him, before the rooster crows in the morning, you will have denied me three times. And Peter's response is what you would expect Peter's response to be. Never, Lord. I would never deny you. I would not do that. And Jesus says, you're going to. And Peter says, this is a loose paraphrase, agree to disagree, which you never want to agree to disagree with Jesus. You're not in a good spot when that's what you choose. So they leave. Jesus goes and he prays. He brings Peter to pray with them, but Peter falls asleep. John falls asleep. James falls asleep. And then Jesus gets arrested, and he's taken off to the courtyard of the high priest, a guy named Caiaphas. And three weeks ago, we talked about this in the crucifixion story. It was in the courtyard of Caiaphas where Jesus is put on trial, and there were two disciples that actually followed him there. The rest of the disciples dispersed. They ran away. They started worrying about their own necks, and so they ran away to hide so that they wouldn't get arrested too. They figured if they're arresting Jesus, then they're coming for us next, right? And so they all dispersed except for two disciples, Peter and another unnamed disciple, make it to the courtyard of Caiaphas' house. And it's in this courtyard that Jesus was put on trial, that he was falsely accused, that they told lies about him. The one person who's ever existed who deserved this treatment least was getting this treatment. They were blindfolding him and punching him and saying, who hit you, Jesus? You're a prophet. Prophesy about who hit you. And then Jewish tradition says that they were ripping out his beard. So he's beaten up and he's in a moment where he is incredibly loved. This is a man that Jesus has followed every day for three years. He loves this man. He cares for nothing on earth more than this man, and now he's watching him suffer in this way. And Peter's around a campfire as this is happening. And when he gets there, the Bible says there's a servant girl who looks at him and says, hey, don't you know him? Aren't you like in his little group? And Peter says, no, I've never met the man. That's one. A little while later, somebody else says the same thing. Hey, haven't I seen you with him before? Peter says, no, I don't know what we're talking about. I've never met the man. That's twice. And then the Bible says about an hour after that, someone really begins to press him. Hey, aren't you from Galilee? I can tell by your accent, you have to know that man. And Peter gets emphatic. No, I swear I've never met him. And then it says that this is actually, there's this passage in Luke. That's to to me, one of the most intense passages in Scripture. It's something that you may have read before, but we kind of gloss over it. But look at what it says in Luke. Chapter 22, verse 60, it says, But Peter said, Man, I do not know what you are talking about. That's the third time. And immediately while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. And then verse 61, and the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? The time when Jesus most needed people around him who loved him. You are his leading disciple and you just denied him three times because you're scared. And his bloody face turns and looks you dead in the eye. Peter remembered the saying of the Lord how he said to him, before the rooster crows you'll deny me three times. And he went out and he wept bitterly. Can you imagine how Peter must have felt? He had betrayed his Jesus. He had let him down. He had denied him. He had told Jesus over and over again, you can count on me. For three years, Jesus had been prepping him and training him and grooming him to take over the church, to step into his ministry. He was to see Jesus and to help lead the church after Jesus' death. And in the moment when he most needed him, he betrayed him and he let him down. And Jesus turned and looked at Peter. You cannot imagine that eye contact. It says he went away and he wept bitterly. I love this story because I so identify with Peter. And to me, if you're a believer, if you're a Christian, then you can identify with him too. If you're here this morning and you're not a Christian, then the good news is that you don't have to feel bad about any of this. You can just take it all in and watch us as we squirm and feel bad. But if you're a believer, then you know this feeling too. If you're a believer, then you know what it is to feel like you've betrayed Jesus, don't you? Has there ever been a time in your life, maybe in a corporate setting, maybe around some clients, maybe with some new friends that you've made, maybe with some old buddies where you kind of fall back into who you used to be, where you took that part of your identity, your Christianity, and you kind of tucked it away back here and kind of didn't wear it on your sleeve for that week or for that night or for that season because you didn't really want them to know who you were associated with? Have you ever in your life tucked away your identity as a believer because you were kind of ashamed and embarrassed if people were to find out that that's who you were because you had not been acting that way? Can I just tell you? I hope that you don't get too disappointed in me for this, but I've been doing ministry for about 20 years. There have definitely been times in my life when because of how I had been acting or what I had been saying or doing or whatever it was, I kind of tucked away my identity as a pastor. I didn't really want to share it with the group of people that I was with. So when Peter betrays Jesus and denies knowing him, I can relate. When we get this sense of betrayal, I've let my Jesus down. To be a Christian is to be familiar with that. I think we've all had different times and different seasons where we feel like we've let Jesus down a little bit. Maybe we've told him. Maybe we've been moved in worship. Maybe we've been moved by a sermon, probably at another church, and we decided that what we were going to do, we were going to start a new discipline. We were going to start a new thing. We had been moved to conviction. And we say, yes, Jesus, I'm going to get up and I'm going to read the Bible. I'm going to get up early. I'm going to make time for you. I'm going to spend time in prayer. I'm going to spend time in your word. That's going to be a discipline in my life. And so we get up and we start to read it. We're following along, but maybe we don't really understand it. We don't hear the angels audibly sing. And so we think we must be doing it wrong. Or we wake up and we kind of do the drop and flop. Like, Jesus, you just show me what you want me to read. And it turns out that because Psalms is in the middle and it's the longest book in the Bible, that God wants us to read Psalms like a lot. So we just, we read that, right? And we don't really know what's going on or what's happening. And for whatever reason, we fall away from that discipline. And then we've told Jesus for however many times, this is going to be a part of my life. And then we fail. And we betray him and we let him down. Or we tell him that we're going to start to give. We understand that believers should give generously, that we should be conduits of God's generosity to us, that we're stewards of the resources that he gives us, and that we should be generous to those that we think Jesus would want to help and serve. And we commit to do this, but things come up and then we don't, and we fall away from that discipline or from that commitment. And we hesitate to even make the commitment again because we messed up the last time, and we don't have much reason to believe that we're going to do better the next time. Right? Or we have things in our life that we don't want there. And so we tell Jesus, I'm done with that. I'm drawing the line in the sand. I'm not going to do that thing again. I'm moved. I'm convicted. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for who I am. I don't want that to be a part of my life. I don't want that to be a part of who I am. Jesus, I'm done with that. I'm moving on by the power of your spirit. Please allow me to be done with that thing. And we move away from that thing. And then three days later or weeks later or maybe months later, we fall back into the thing. So I wonder this morning, have you ever felt like you've betrayed Jesus? Can you relate to Peter? Aren't you glad that in the moment of the height of your betrayal, Jesus isn't looking you in the eye? I think we can all relate to Peter in this moment. The good news is that it gets better. But I think that we can all relate to this idea of letting Jesus down, of betraying him and feeling what Peter must have felt when God looked at him and he went away and he wept bitterly. Which, by the way, when you're confronted with your sin, that's the appropriate response to go away and to weep bitterly. That's a good and right response. And I don't believe that God would steal that response from Peter. I don't think that God would go to him and say, hey, you don't need to do that. I think that's the good and right response when we realize who we are. But he goes away and he weeps bitterly. And then we pick up this story in John chapter 21. In John chapter 21, Jesus has died, he's resurrected, he's appeared to the disciples a couple of times, and then in John chapter 21, he appears to them while they're fishing. And it's interesting to me that they're fishing. Because if you think back, my Bible scholars in the room, you know the answer to this. At the beginning of Jesus' ministry, when he's calling the disciples, and he goes to this guy named Simon, son of John, and he renames him Peter, and he says, come and be my disciple. What was Peter doing? He was fishing. For three years while he followed Jesus, what did he not do anymore? Fish. Why? He had a new job. His new job was to follow Jesus. His new job was to be in ministry. His new job was to do what Jesus did, to go around telling people about Jesus, to cast out demons and to perform miracles and to teach the people of Israel about the Messiah that was now here. That was his new job. And so for three years, he hadn't done his old job. He walked away from that because that wasn't him anymore. But after Jesus dies and Peter is walking around with this shame because he let his Jesus down, what does he do? He goes back to his old job. He disqualifies himself. Peter should have been leading the church. Peter should have been gathering the disciples together and saying, hey, this isn't over. Jesus has risen from the dead. We need to continue to serve him. We need to continue to build his kingdom. We have a purpose. We're not done, guys. But instead, what does he do? He gets back in the boat. What I want us to see is that Peter allowed his shame to shrink his vision of what Jesus wanted him to do. He allowed his shame, he allowed what he had done and how badly he felt for it to shrink his vision about what Jesus wanted him to do. Jesus had purposed him and prepared him and groomed him to lead his church. It's what Jesus wanted him to do. It's why he was working with him for three years, why he was putting up with all of his Peter-isms so that he could lead the church. And Peter, because he felt bad, because he felt shame, he walked away from that. He disqualified himself, which in all honesty is the exact same thing that we would do. Would you look at Peter after he betrayed Jesus at the height of his need and go, yep, you're still the guy. You should still lead the church. Would you still want that guy to be in charge of everybody? Would you still want that guy leading the council of the disciples like he is in Acts along with James? Is that what you would still want? Wouldn't you think that Peter would need to enter into some sort of probationary period? Okay, you're good, Peter, but we're just going to keep our eye on you for a minute. Wouldn't you do what Peter did? Wouldn't you step away and kind of slink away quietly and be like, I'm so sorry that I messed up. I understand. I don't even expect you to reinstate me anymore. I'm just going to fish and I'm going to love on you the best I can. Wouldn't you expect that of Peter? Doesn't that seem like the fair human reaction? Don't we do that to ourselves? When we mess up and we know who we are, we know where we come from and we know the we bring into every room, and we know the things that are hiding in the corners and the shadows of our life. When we know those things, don't we do what Peter did and disqualify ourselves? Don't we allow our shame to shrink our vision for who we are and what God created us to do? Can I just tell you that I think the Bible teaches that every one of you who are believers were created, and the non-believers too, we're just waiting for you to get on board. You were created with a purpose and with a set of gifts, with the sole intention of building God's church. With the sole intention of going to heaven one day and on your way there bringing as many people with you as you possibly can. That's the only reason you're alive. It's the only reason you walk on the face of the earth. The Christian life is a progressive revelation of just how true that is. Hopefully you realize now it's more true than you did five years ago and hopefully more than 10 years ago. The only reason you're here, the only reason that Jesus doesn't snatch you into heaven the instant you are saved is to leave you here so that you can bring as many people with you as possible on the way. And I believe that God has imbued each of you with a set of gifts. I believe that God has uniquely prepared you in your life through the circumstances that you have walked through to be effective at reaching other people. And I believe that God has a big vision and a big plan for how he wants to use you in his kingdom. I believe those of you who have jobs that you are the pastors of those teams. That God has put you there to be a light in the dark places, to encourage the other light that is there and to cast light on those who might not know him yet. That simply by watching you, they may give glory to the Father who is in heaven. Those verses are all over scripture. But what do we do? We know our past. We know who we are. And so we allow our shame to shrink our vision of who Jesus created us to be. We excuse those things away. If I said that, I would never be believed. They're going to think I'm a hypocrite. Maybe we want to start a devotional with our kids at the house. Maybe we just want to start exposing our children to Scripture in the home, but then we have that thought, yeah, buddy, but you don't even read the Bible every day on your own, you hypocrite. Well, start then, and then start the Bible study, man. God has these things that I believe He wants us to do, that He's purposed us to do, but we back off of them because of our shame, because we know who we are. And then we just exist in these little holes. God, I'm not going to do that thing. I'm just going to be a fisherman. I'm just going to work in sales. I'm just going to work in accounting. I'm just going to have my job. I'm just going to do my thing. I'm going to go to church and be a good Christian. But that work that you have to do in the kingdom, that's for other people who haven't messed up. And listen, if that's true, if the only people who get to do ministry and get used in God's kingdom are those who have never let Jesus down, then the church would be run by four-year-olds, man. We've got just a slight upgrade here. But that's what we do. We allow our shame and how we feel about ourselves to shrink our vision about what God wants us to do, which is why Jesus's response to Peter is so amazing. Look at what Jesus says in John chapter 21. I'm going to read you the whole conversation and then we'll talk about it a little bit. Jesus had shown up. They were fishing out on the Sea of Galilee. And that's louder than normal. They were fishing out on the Sea of Galilee. They had been out all night. They hadn't caught anything, right? And then Jesus appears on the shore after they bring the nets in. Still not catching anything. And they don't know it's Jesus. It's just some dude. And he's like, hey, cast your nets on the other side of the boat, which is ridiculous. It's almost like making fun of them. The boat's like 12 feet wide. It's not going to make a difference when they put them on the other side of the boat. But for whatever reason, they listen to the guy, they do it, and then they catch more fish than they've ever caught in their life. 30 years later, 30-plus years later, old man John still remembers that they caught exactly 153 fish that day. That wasn't a big deal to John. They pull in the fish, they go in, they have breakfast together, and then Jesus sidles up to Peter for a conversation. This is the first one-on-one conversation that they have had since Peter's betrayal. And let me just ask you before we read the conversation, what would you expect Jesus to say in that moment? What would you expect the conversation to be? Put yourself in Peter's shoes. You did that to Jesus. You've betrayed him. Put yourself in your own shoes. Take yourself to the place where you feel like you've let Jesus down the most. And right after letting him down for however many upteenth times you've done it, he comes up to you. He sidles up next to you and he puts his arm around you and you and him have a conversation. What do you expect him to say? I would expect him to go to Peter. I would expect him to come to me and say, hey, are you sorry? Right? Jesus is good. He's gracious. I don't think that we would expect Jesus to just come down hard on us. We don't know that in his character. But I think we would expect him to put his arm around us and look at Peter and go, hey, Peter, are you sorry for what you did? Isn't this what we do with our children? When Lily messes up, I've got a three-year-old daughter named Lily, when she messes up, which is more frequently lately because she's three, and apparently that's what three-year-olds do. And she hollers and she gets mad. What do I do? I pick her up and I hold her right here. I calm her down. And I say, Lily, are you sorry? And she says, yes, Daddy. I go, okay. And I put her down. I say, go tell your mom you're sorry. We forgive you. Isn't that what we do? Isn't that what we would expect Jesus to do to us? Hey, are you sorry? And then we would expect to go, yeah, I'm sorry. And we would expect to hear him say to Peter, okay, you're forgiven. Because he's Jesus and that's what he does, right? You're forgiven. That's what we would expect. But look at what happens. Verse 15, when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? Do you love me more than these fish? I see you've gone back to fishing. That's an interesting choice. I didn't know that you had a new career now. Do you love me more than these fish? Do you love me more than what you're doing? Interesting question. He said to him, yes, Lord, you know I love you. He said to him, feed my lambs. He said to him a second time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? He said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. He said to him, tend my sheep. Verse 17, he said to him the third time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, do you love me? And he said to somebody put it, you done boogered up, son. He messed up bad. He felt terrible. And he walked away from what God called him to because he felt like he had disqualified himself for messing up. And Jesus goes and he finds him. And we would expect Jesus to say, Peter, are you sorry? That's not what he says. He says, Peter, do you love me? Do I still have your heart or has this sin taken it from me? Do you love me? He says, yes, of course I love you. He says, good. Feed my sheep. This is a remarkable statement. Because in John 10, Jesus paints himself as the good shepherd. And he says that the sheep are his flock or the church or people who believe in him. His sheep are the Christians. And so the shepherd looks after the Christians. And so what he's saying is, Peter, for three years you watched me do ministry. You watched me tend to my sheep. And I told you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church. I told you that one day I won't be here. When I'mores you. He doesn't just forgive Peter. He doesn't say, are you sorry? He says, do you love me? I know you're sorry. Because if you love me, then of course you're sorry. And then we would expect him to say, okay, you're forgiven, but sit over here in this probationary period. I'll keep an eye on you for a couple years and see if we can trust you again. That's not what he does. You're forgiven. You're restored. Go and do the thing I created you to do. Go and be the person I created you to be. He says, Peter, you may have disqualified yourself. You may have shrunken back from my plans for you, but I have not. I still have plans for you. I still want you to do these things. You are reinstated. You are restored. And he does it three times. I love the symmetry of those statements. How many times did Jesus deny Peter? Three. How many times did Jesus ask Peter if he loved him? Three. It's like he's saying, Peter, without even saying the words, Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. You're forgiven. Go and work. Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, you know I love you. Then you're forgiven. Go and be who I created you to be. Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. Okay, good, because that's three times that you said that. It's three times I've forgiven you. You can say it as many more times as you want to. I'll forgive you and restore you all those times. Now go and be who I created you to be. And I believe that he says the same thing to us this morning. I believe that he asks us the same question. Do you love Jesus? Grace, do you love Jesus? However mired in sin you might be, however much shame you might bring into the room, whatever might have happened in the past, whatever habits you bring, however many times you've made a commitment that you didn't keep, listen, put all that aside and let's just ask you grace. Do you love Jesus? Then go and be who he created you to be. Go and do the thing he purposed you to do. Say, but Jesus, I've done this and this and this. I'm not qualified. I used to be an addict. I used to do this thing. I'm mired in this right now. And Jesus says, listen, listen, listen, I'm not worried about that. Do you love me? Because if you love me, it means you're sorry. And if you've shrunk away, it means that you feel shame. And Jesus says, go and be the person that I created you to be. Go and do the thing that I intended for you to do. Quit disqualifying yourself. Quit feeling the shame that is not from me. And just answer the question, do you love me? Then go and do the thing that I purposed you to do. Go and feed his sheep. Go and build his church. Go and use the gifts that he's imbued you with. Go live out the reason that he leaves you here. Go and run your race. What I want you to understand this morning is Jesus is far more concerned with what he wants you to do than what you have done. He's already taken care of what you have done. He's removed that from you as far as the east is from the west. Because of that removal, you are free and have the freedom to operate in his love. And if you love him in return, then go and do the thing that he created you to do. Go and be who he created you to be. And that's where I would leave us at the end of the series in John with that simple question. After all the 12 weeks, after everything that we've experienced, after all that we've seen of Jesus, after what we know of him and how he loved us. Do you love him? Does he have your heart? If he does, grace. Go be who he created you to be. You're not just forgiven, you're restored. Let's pray. Father, we sure do love you. You sure are good to us. God, we can't fathom this idea that you would not just forgive us, but that you would restore us. Lord, if there are folks in here who walked into the room carrying a little bit of shame, God, if we are certain that if we could see you face to face, the first thing you would express in us is disappointment. God, I pray that you would take that from us today. That we would see that we are loved, that you care about us, that we would identify with Peter, not just in his betrayal, but in his restoration, that we would feel your arms around us, that we would simply respond to that question of, do we love you? Give us the faith to believe that you forgive us. Give us the eyes to see ourselves as you do. And give us the courage and the strength to go live out and be the people that you created us to be and do great things to the folks here at Grace. It's in your son's name we pray all of these things. Amen.
