Suffered For Us

We're now in chapter 19. Here we are the crucifixion of Christ. Here's the first part of this scene. We're going to do this in two parts, these 16 verses. We'll do them in two parts.

First of all, verse 1, then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe.

They came up to him saying, Hail, King of the Jews, and struck him with their hands. Pilate went out again and said to them, See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him.

So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and a purple robe. Pilate said to them, Behold the man. When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, Crucify him, crucify him.

Pilate said to them, Take him yourself and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him. The Jews answered him, We have a law, and according to that law, he ought to die because he made himself the son of God.

When Pilate heard that statement, he was even more afraid. He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, Where are you from? But Jesus gave him no answer.

So Pilate said to him, You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you? Jesus answered him, You will have no authority over me at all unless it was given you from above.

Therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin. From then on, Pilate sought to release him. But the Jews cried out, If you release this man, you are not.

Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar. Don't you know that, Pilate? So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the stone pavement and in Aramaic, Gabbatha.

Now it was the day of preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, Behold your king. They cried out, Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!

Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your king? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.

So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. As I said, we'll look at part of half of this now and half next week. That is the ending of the reading of the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God. Please be seated. On a lighter note, there is a saying among unenlightened football fans.

The unwashed, you might say. The unthinkable debased an acronym is ABC. It stands for anyone but cowboys.

There's even a country song that such people have adopted. Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys.

See? The song, by the way, was not about the Dallas Cowboys. Thank you very much. ABC means that any team can win the Super Bowl except the Cowboys.

And some people say ABC, whoever is playing the Cowboys. They don't want the Cowboys to win ever. I got friends like that.

I got church family like that. Anyone but cowboys. Sadly, on a more serious note now, the same can be said about Jesus.

Anyone but Jesus. A-B-J. That sounds crazy, I know. To us, it probably sounds kind of weird. And I understand that.

Jesus is universally liked, right? After all, in the 2011 public policy poll in America, Jesus was viewed favorably by 90% of Americans.

He was only second to Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln got 91%. Maybe Jesus has improved since then.

I don't know. That was 2011. It's 2026. Maybe he's gotten better numbers. I don't know. But when it comes to being good.

When it comes to going to heaven. When it comes to being right with God. The world still says, anybody but Jesus.

You say, why? Because Jesus says, we can't be good enough. The cross is a shout to the world.

You can't be good enough. You're trapped. The cross says, you're trapped. The cross says, you're without hope.

But the cross shouts also, God has done something about our hopelessness. God has seen our hopelessness.

And though the world says, we want to be good without Jesus. We can do it. We can do it ourselves. The cross keeps shouting. It won't stop shouting. That you cannot be made right.

Without the self-sacrifice of the God-man, our Lord Jesus. How can we be made right with God if we can't be good?

Someone better than us must come to our rescue. Someone truly good. Someone greater in amazing love must rescue us.

By suffering in our place that we might be saved. Someone must do it. And someone has. The Apostle Creed says, our Lord suffered under Pontius Pilate.

That's the Apostle Creed. The Creed that most Christians confess throughout the world. Our Lord says, suffered under Pontius Pilate.

Dr. R. Moeller puts it this way. Jesus did not merely die for us. He suffered for us under Pontius Pilate.

Suffered for us. Pilate, the Roman governor, has been trying to free Jesus. Not because he's a good guy. His motivations are mixed.

We don't understand fully his motivations. But it wasn't because he was such a just guy. He's demonstrated that in history that he wasn't. But he's trying to release Jesus and he's failed.

The Jewish religious leaders have whipped up the crowd to choose to have a killer named Barabbas set free rather than Jesus. So now we're at chapter 19 where Jesus, the righteous one, is going to the cross.

His hour, as he said, is upon him. And now he's going to suffer in our place for us. Two things today, I think, too.

For love's sake, the king is tortured for us. Verses 1 through 5, if you have your Bible, I hope you're looking at that.

Display for us the torture of Jesus. No one ever suffered like Jesus. Pilate has our Lord flogged. This was the cat of nine tails.

A whip with fragments of metal or bone in it. It would rip the flesh off your body. It would, because it was a whip, it would hit you and wrap around you.

And then it would yank it. And sometimes not only would flesh be pulled away, organs would be exposed. It was a severe whipping.

Then the soldiers decided to mock him even more. They were aware that he was being called king of the Jews. So they decided to have some royal fun. A crown of thorns was placed jammed, not gently, jammed upon his brow.

Now, the purple robe, which is a sign of royalty, was placed upon his flayed back. Then they give the fake respect.

Hail, king of the Jews. Hail, king of the Jews. The derision for him in the occupied Jewish nation is palpable.

And then they just start off and haul off and they just start hitting him. They're just punching him around. They're just striking him and hitting him.

What a joke. He is the Jewish king. Keep in mind that Jesus is the son of God.

He is the king of Israel. And keep in mind something else. The very breath that his torturers were enjoying was at his disposal, at his gift.

At any moment, in mid-stroke, he could have just said, And taken their breath away. And they all would have dropped dead at his feet.

At any second, he could have stopped it. But he didn't. Pilate then, after he's been flogged, Pilate brings him out to the crowd.

Now, I want you to keep in mind, and you got to go with the text. He's not walking out. Jesus is dragging himself.

When they bring him out, they probably have the dragging. He's barely standing. He's blood everywhere. He is barely standing.

It's amazing. He's on his feet. And Pilate stands him up in front of the people. Maybe he's still shackled. They didn't need to shackle him at that point because he was so weak, he wasn't going to run away.

But maybe he was still shackled. Because they did that when they arrested him. And he comes out. And he's swaying on his feet in front of the crowd, looking. Can you picture it?

It's pitiful. And Pilate says, Behold the man. Really? Really? Look at him, he says.

Look at him. And yes, he is a man. Just as human as you are, yet he's God in human flesh.

The son of God. Fully God, yet fully, fully human. Behold the man. Do you see him? Behold the man. Are your eyes open?

Have the eyes of your heart been enlightened by the spirit of God that you can see him? Standing there. Demeaned. Bleeding. Weak.

And in intense pain. All for you. All for you who call him Lord and Savior. You see, we escaped the tortures of hell because he went through the tortures.

He didn't turn away from the torture. They didn't have to. They were going to crucify him. Why do all this beating?

Just for the fun of it. Just because they could. Some men didn't survive this part. Some men died while they were beating them.

Jesus didn't. Jesus couldn't. Jesus could not die at the hands of the torturers. He had to go to the cross. It wasn't finished until he went to the cross.

Sins that was not paid until he went to the cross. So he had to survive it. He had to go through it. He had to take it. He couldn't take the breath away. He couldn't run away. He had to go through intense torture.

Isaiah 53 says, Surely he has borne our grease and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

He could have stopped it at any time. But in glorious self-sacrificing love, he was willing to endure it for you.

The second thing and last thing I wanted to focus on this morning is for love's sake, Jesus is unjustly condemned for us.

The word unjustly is extremely important. John records that Pilate publicly stated he found no guilt in Jesus three times.

Chapter 18, verse 38. Chapter 19, verse 4. Chapter 19, verse 6. He kept saying it. Why does John keep writing that down?

It was clear the first time he said it, he didn't have to keep recording that. But he keeps telling us he found no guilt in him. They weren't trying to get a confession from Jesus by beating him.

So, I mean, think about it. If they wanted to, people will confess under torture. People will say whatever you want them to say if you torture them.

You'd think he might have said, I'm not really the son of God. I'm not really the king of Israel. Something, I know, but no, none of that. They torture him. He does not sin against God by denying who he is.

I don't know about you, but sometimes I'm tempted to deny I'm a Christian in the right circumstances. Maybe some of you know what I'm talking about.

Maybe some of you don't. Tempted to keep your mouth silent. Keep it tempted to not say, not to identify with those people. Now, here's the thing. Now, this is true, right?

Whenever they put on TV something that Christians are doing or people are saying they're Christians are doing that's really bad. Or they might use the word evangelical.

Do you jump up and say, I'm one of them. Do you want to identify with crazy? Do you want to identify with wrong? Knowing that you too, you mess up too.

You make mistakes. You sin too. I mean, but when they put it on TV, everybody, we all want to, I don't know those people. We're all tempted.

Jesus never broke. But Pilate spoke better than he knew when he said, Jesus, I find no guilt in him.

He spoke better than he knew because of all human beings, Jesus alone is without sin in thought, word or deed. Pilate could find no guilt in Jesus because there was no guilt in Jesus.

This is why it's being recorded for us time and time again. This is why he didn't say it one time. He said it three times. This had to be perfectly clear that Jesus was innocent and therefore his death was unjust.

It had to be perfectly clear that Jesus had no sin in him. Why? At the first Passover, when God was going to rain down his final plague or judgment against the Egyptians because they failed to release his people, he told them to get a lamb.

You know the story. Passover. So Exodus chapter 12, verses 5 through 7. He says this, your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the 14th day of this month when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.

Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and lentil of the houses in which they eat. Notice the lamb had to be without blemish.

In other words, the lamb had to have no physical defects. It's easy to offer God a defective lamb because you couldn't eat it anyway.

You didn't want it anyway. Isn't it easy to offer to God something that cost us nothing?

No, they couldn't do that. God wanted their best. The best they had to offer. Bring it to me and put his blood upon the post.

This is gory. It sounds nasty. I mean, in those days, sacrifices were common. They understood that. To us today, it's... But if you've ever killed a goat to eat it, I've seen that, saw that done when I was in Jordan.

It did it for us. Good goat, too. But watching it get slaughtered was... The city boy and me, we kind of had trouble. But some of you know it.

Some of you hunt. So you know all about this. Some of you hunt. And some of you, if you fish, you do the same thing. You kill an animal. So some of us are more open, aware of this kind of thing.

City boy like me. But why did they do? Why did God say do that? Chapter 12 again. For I will pass to the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast.

Listen. And on all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgments. I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you.

On the houses where you are, and where I see the blood, I will pass over you. I will pass over. That's where we get the word, right? The name of the ceremony. And no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

So here we go. The blood would be a sign that the people had obeyed God and offered a sacrifice. And therefore, the angel of death, which was going to attack every firstborn of Egypt, even among the livestock, would see the blood and pass over, seeing the sacrifice of an obedient people to God.

Hmm. And by the way, they couldn't leave the house. They had to stay in the house. You could not leave the house. If you left the house, you were done. You had to stay under the blood.

Come on, somebody. You had to stay under the blood of Jesus. Ah. Here on the eve of the sacrifice, this is the day of preparation, it says in the text, for the Passover.

Passover was here. And here on the eve of Passover, here they bring out the Lamb of God. This Lamb, who is Jesus himself, he is the final sacrifice, the ultimate Lamb.

All of those sacrifices were pointing to him. The bulls, the goats, every single sacrifice under the old covenant dispensate. Every single one pointed to one sacrifice.

And all of them put together. And we're talking, oh my gosh, they, so many. All of them put together could not even come close to the value of this one sacrifice that was about to be made.

Jesus' sacrifice would do what they could not do. For he would wipe away our sins. Not just cover them, but wipe them away.

Block them out. God would cast our sins into the sea of forgiveness. As far as the east is from the west. So would our sins be moved away from us.

God would never hold our sins against us ever again. Amen. To those who come under the blood of the final Lamb, who is Jesus.

First Peter says it this way. If you call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourself with fear throughout the time of your exile upon this Lamb.

Knowing that you were ransomed. You were ransomed. I mean, as you were a slave, in order to get you out of the slave market, a ransom had to be paid. A price had to be paid to get you out.

You were ransomed. From the futile ways inherited from your forefathers. Not with perishable things, such as silver or gold.

No one just paid some money to get you free. No. But with the precious blood of Christ. Like that of a Lamb without blemish or spot.

You see, Peter is tying it into Passover. He's doing exactly what we've been doing. He's tying it in. He's showing us that Jesus, now this is not a reference to his physical body.

Without blemish. Doesn't refer to Christ's body. It refers to Christ himself. It refers to his character. His very soul.

He was perfect. He was holy. There was no sin to be found in him. In him is no sin. No rebellion against God.

In his blood. His blood. First Peter 2.22. He committed no sin. Neither was deceit found in his mouth.

Pilate said, I find no guilt in him. That was his official judgment. And he was right. There is no guilt in him. But there is guilt in us.

Otherwise, that wouldn't have been necessary. All of humanity is guilty before God. As Paul wrote, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Family, we owe God absolute and total obedience and thought, word, and deed for his glory.

Every human being owes that debt. Every child born. Every old person. Every middle age. From the moment Adam first breathed, we all owed God absolute, total obedience and thought, word, and deed.

Because he's our holy creator. And we owe it. But like in Adam, we all have failed. All have failed.

God washed away the old world in Genesis 6. Because he saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth. And every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Genesis 6.5. And God washed him away. Can I ask you a question? Have we gotten better? Do you think we're better than the pre-flood family?

No, we're not. We didn't do better after the flood. But now we see Jesus.

The righteous one. The unblemished one. What can he do for us? 2 Corinthians 5. 2 Corinthians 5. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin.

So that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 8.9. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. That though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor.

That you through his poverty might be made rich. Woo! What can he do for us? What can we? We can't do anything for ourselves.

We can try to be good. And we'll have some measure of goodness because we are made in the image of God. There is a measure of goodness in humanity. A measure of beauty. A measure of greatness in humanity.

But it's fallen. All have fallen short of the glory of God. All have sinned and turned away. What can he do for us? Jesus does it.

For your sake, he became sin. That through faith in him, you might become his righteousness. Hallelujah. His grace.

I'm about to jump out of my skin. For you know his grace. His grace is unearned, undeserved favor. Something we did not earn. Something we did not purchase.

Something we were not owed. But because of his grace, though he was rich, he became poor.

The riches of heaven at his disposal. The riches of the universe. The riches of Godhood and glory at his disposal. And yet he becomes poor. He becomes one of us.

The son of God becomes human. And his name is Jesus. And Jesus now, looking at his poor brethren. Looking around. He sees poor Carrick.

He sees poor Ron. He sees poor every... We're all poor. He says, because they are poor, I will become poor for them. That I might, hallelujah, give them my wealth.

That they might rise out of the muck. No guilt in this man.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Which makes his death even more atrocious.

Because of all men, he did not deserve to die. He did not deserve execution as a criminal against the Roman state.

Please. But for our sake. For our sake. Our new and improved Adam faced the life and temptations we faced.

But where Adam and we have failed, he triumphed. Hebrews 4.14. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness.

He became poor, so he understands your poverty and my poverty. He can identify. He knows what it means to be a weak human being. Ah, but Hebrews goes on. But one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

I find no guilt in him. For us, the sinless one endured torture. Torture. At the hands of sinful men. Torture it for us that we may escape the tortures of hell.

Oh, yes. We will face hardship in this life. But that will never have the last word over us. Whatever you go through in this life, and you will go through stuff, and you will.

Things will happen. We live in a fallen world. We have fallen bodies. We ourselves will fall in. So, yes, we still commit things, do things that, you know, God says, I wish you wouldn't do that. But because our sins have been atoned for, here's where we're in.

Here's the... Because our sins have been atoned for. Even when you fail, the Bible says there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Are you under the blood? And once you're under, you can't get from under it. It's like being under the umbrella, right?

You know, you're in an umbrella. It's raining. If you step outside the umbrella, you get wet. Here's the thing about the blood of Jesus. You step out, it goes with you.

You can't get from under it. You may get off the path and do something really silly and stupid. Hello, Kevin Smith. But the blood stays with you. It's the best umbrella we ever had.

It will keep the rain of God's wrath from us. You can't escape once he's taking you for himself. Well, a couple more things just to think about as application.

If we are under his righteousness, that means we can live righteously. Not perfectly righteous. But sin does not have the bondage upon you it used to have.

Because you're under his righteousness by faith, he begins to work his righteousness in you so that you begin to... The bonds begin to break. Oh, I'm not saying it's easy. Some things got a good hold on us.

Some things really, they're just as ingrained and you have to learn who you are in Christ. You've got to understand your position in Jesus. You've got to deal with stuff and begin to see Jesus and the love of Jesus and his love for you is better than what you thought you had over here.

You've got to learn and grow. But listen, the bondage is broken according to the scriptures. Read Romans 6 if you don't believe me. You have an option now that you didn't have before.

You can present yourself to God. Your hands, your eyes, your mind. You can present it to God now in Jesus' name and give it to him so that you're not a slave to those things that attack your mind, attack your core of your being, your heart, attack your hands.

I just can't help it. No, you can now. I just can't, I keep going to say, you can, you can help it now. Do you want to? Have you seen Jesus is so much better?

Because he's given you what you need. The second thing I want you to remember because of his righteousness is given to us. You can confess your sins. To God, you can tell God you've messed up.

He won't throw you out the family. Your sins have been atoned for. So you can go to God and agree with him what he already knows about you, that you're a mess and that you blew it.

And watch this. Here we go. This is very important. You can confess your sins to those around you who you may have offended. I got a grunt back there and I saw a head nod.

See, we don't want to admit we've sinned. When you don't want to admit you've sinned to someone you've offended, it's because you're not understanding you're under the righteousness of Christ.

You see, when I know Christ has got me, I can, what you think of me is secondary. Not unimportant, just secondary. So I can admit to Cornell, hey, I blew it, man.

I shouldn't have spoke to you that way. It's hard for me to do it because there's a part of me. But I can do it because Cornell is not the standard of my righteousness.

Cornell is not the determiner of my destiny. He's my brother. And because I love him, if I offend him, I can go to him and say, brother, I blew it.

And I know my standing before God is solid because I'm under the blood. Who do you need to go make right with?

Who do you, who do you, we all do. At some point, husbands, wives, yeah, come on, praise team. Husbands, wives, who do you need to go make right with? Who do you, who do you need to say to, I'm sorry, I messed up.

You see, you can do it. If you remember, you're under the righteousness of Christ. You lose nothing.

Can you hear me? You lose nothing by admitting you sinned against somebody. Nothing important. If they think less of you.

Someone said so. If they think less of you, you don't want that. You want reconciliation. Amen. You want that. But before God, you are still beloved and cared for.

And I will tell you one thing. The Father is proud of you, as it were. That you would value him, his righteousness, more than your righteousness with this brother.

Because that's self-righteousness. When I can't confess to you, that's self-righteousness talking. See, I'm thinking about how you look. It's about Kevin Smith feeling good about himself.

That's why I can't talk to you. That's why I can't confess to you. Because I feel bad about me. Man, that's a horrible thing. What a way to live.

I'm free. I blew it. And I mean it. I mean it, please. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I'm under the blood.

I'm safe. I'm secure. I'm his forever. Father, will you please allow this word to go down deep?

We've only just started looking at this chapter and looking at Christ being torture for us. But oh, what a joy to see also that his righteousness is there before us and is ours.

You giving us his righteousness. Thank you. Our hearts break to see him so abused. Our hearts break to see it. The lowest point in human history.

That we should lay hands upon your son. Oh, God. That we should lay hands upon him. Who is holy. Thank you for your forgiveness.

Help us to walk worthy of the lamb that was slain for us. Empower us by your spirit. In Jesus' name. Amen. Elders, would you come forward?

We're going to do communion just a little bit different. The only difference is we're going to give you both elements at the same time. That's the difference. So, not a huge difference, but we'll cut down on all the back and forth.

We do. They bring you both elements. Give you time to meditate upon the sacrifice of Christ with the elements in both in your hand.

And please hold them. Because we will eat and drink together once you've all been served. I'd like to read just a few passages.

I probably know it by heart, right? All the time I've read it, but I don't trust my feeble brain. You weren't supposed to laugh about that. Thank you. What a privilege to come before the Lord together.

To commune together. At this table. At the table of the Lord. Paul writing to a Corinthian church that was a mess.

I mean, they were fighting among themselves. Suing each other. One guy was having relations with his stepmother. I mean, there was all kinds of divisions. Arrogance and pride.

All about the Corinthian church. Paul talks about it. And yet he calls them brethren. He still calls them the same. Because we're a mess. But when he got down to the communion table, he warned them.

He said, now you're playing with that which is holy. He gives a warning here at the communion table in chapter 11. Read it for yourself. They were abusing the table as well. And so he warns them.

Let me just read a few of these words of institution. For I received from the Lord what I delivered to you. That the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread.

When he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way also he took the cup after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. They understood that.

But then if you read above the passage, you'll find out they were getting drunk at the table because they were using wine. They were getting drunk. It was a meal. It was a feast, a love feast. They were getting drunk at the table and they were just treating each other shamefully while saying, we're taking the Lord's Supper.

Jesus is our bread. And so Paul, because of that division and abuse, he doesn't stop there in his words.

He says this, whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then.

And so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill and some have died.

But if we judge ourselves truly, we would not be judged. So there's a division in the church. And the people were not respecting one another.

And more so, they were not respecting Christ at the table. And so the Lord began to discipline his children. Weak, sick, death.

I don't think he ever stopped doing that, actually. But I'm no apostle. I can't tell you. But that's what he says. We should examine ourselves. Not are we perfect?

But are we living in a way that loves the body? Do we care for his body? Physical. And recognize his body, spiritual, at this table.

This table speaks of the body of the church, the body of Christ. But more so, the body of Jesus that was broken for the church. So come to the table.

If you need to make something right with somebody, I want to encourage you to do that. Covenant today before the Lord. I'm going to do this. If you're walking, living in a way you know you shouldn't be living before the Lord, then I want to encourage you to confess your sin to the Lord.

And purpose to walk away from that as he helps you. Otherwise, let the elements pass until you're ready to repent and trust in the righteousness of Christ.

He will. He is most gracious. He is most kind. Father, as we come to this table, we come to celebrate what Jesus has done.

Oh, Lord, take these elements now. We know they don't become the actual body and blood of Jesus. But we do know Christ is present for he himself gave us this sacrament.

And that we are proclaiming his death and his coming again as we partake. Father, may we partake in faith.

We come weak and limping. Feed us so we may be made strong in Jesus and live for him with newness of life as we walk away from this table.

To love one another and to make Christ known throughout this city. To walk in righteousness. Thank you that we can never get from under the blood of Jesus.

His name we pray. Amen.