JUN 7 2015 | The Crucifixion and What It Means

Sea Change Church · "The Crucifixion and What It Means" · Adam Stadtmiller · June 7, 2015
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

And here they crucified him and with him two others, one on each side, and Jesus in the middle. Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. Many of the Jews read the sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city. And the sign was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek.

The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, do not write the King of the Jews, but this man claimed to be the King of the Jews. And Pilate answered, get lost. No, Pilate answered, what I have written, I have written. When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining.

This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. Let's not tear it, they said to one another. Let's decide by lot who will get it. This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled, which said, they divided my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing. So this is what the soldiers did. Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother.

His mother's sister married the wife of Clophas, Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, Dear woman, here is your son. To the disciple, behold your mother. From that time on, this disciple took her into his home. Lord, please, may your words speak to us this morning and anoint our brother, Pastor Adam, as she shares.

We ask to your glory today. Amen. As she shares? Oh, I thought you said she shares. She sells? Done with the seashore? Okay. Okay. I got a lot of jokes I could do on that this week with that comment, but we'll just leave it at that. Good to have you in church. What a great, what a great week, and I hope you just enjoy coming to church, putting a pause button on whatever's going on out there and just being together as a family.

Today I want to, I mean, we came to this passage in the crucifixion of Jesus. And John, the Gospel of John, spends more time than any other Gospel talking about Jesus going towards his death. He also spends more time than any other Gospel speaking about the reason that Jesus came, which was to lead us back to a loving Father. That's why I asked Chris and Misty and the team to play that song.

And it is something that God is, the grace of God to show me in the last six months how much the Father loves me, has been a new revelation. That Jesus, by his own words, says that he is not the destination. That he is the way to, and the truth, and the life to whom? To lead us back to the Father. Now, that was a theological crossroads for me.

Because for my entire life, Jesus has been the destination. Jesus is my homeboy. Jesus is so fun to hang out with. Jesus and I, you know, we text each other. We're just like bros, you know, we hang out. And then in the mid-90s, you know, he introduced me to the Holy Spirit. And that was a really great time, too, to kind of explore God's power and comfort through the Holy Spirit.

But this whole Father thing just wasn't working for me, okay? I think a lot of it has to do with the breakdown of my own family and the different things that were going on there. But when God began to reveal himself back in October to me as a father, it actually terrified me. I remember I was staying at a friend's house for a three-day retreat.

And I'd kind of come to the end of my own ability to fix my life, okay? I was kind of at the end. Maybe some of you have gotten to that place where, you know, you've got all the stuff in your bat belt, okay? And you can only have so many tools. And Bruce Wayne, as rich as he was in how many things he had going on in Batman, could only put so much in that bat belt.

I find myself at the same crossroads back in October. And the Joker had me in that boiling teacup. Why didn't they just shoot? I don't want to go into that. I don't want to say that. But couldn't you just quickly get rid of Batman? We won't talk about the different ways. But anybody watch Batman? Anybody watch that with Adam West? No one in the back has seen Batman with Adam West?

Okay, you've heard of YouTube? Go watch Batman. That was classic. Gray tights. Thank you, Carol. Once again, job security for Carol. Back in October, I'd run out of things in my bat belt and couldn't fix myself anymore. And I was feeling pretty broken. And Jesus began to reveal the Father to me in a very profound way on a three-day retreat I took.

And I felt, I'm going to go worship the Father. Now, I don't have a problem worshiping Jesus, having the Holy Spirit there along for the ride. But I went to go worship the Father. And the feeling that came over me, I was terrified. I was terrified to worship the Father. And it was a fear of the Lord. Not a fear of the Lord like you read in the Bible.

Like a fear and a reverence for the Lord. But I was actually terrified. And I thought, something's got to be fixed here. And I just sat in that fear as God began to unpack his love for me. And slowly that fear subsided until I started to feel God's love come over me in such a profound and powerful way. And since October, I have just been taking a deep swim in the love of God the Father.

It has been so amazing. And Jesus has showed me that he's not jealous of that. That Jesus' purpose was to reintroduce me, to bring us back to a loving Father. He loves his Father. And the Father is so proud of him. In Matthew 3, 17, when Jesus comes out of the water from baptism, the voice from heaven says, This is my Son whom I love. So he identifies him as his Son.

He says, You're not an orphan. This is my Son whom I what? Love. And I'm what? Well pleased. I want to tell you, we need to hear that. We need to hear that as a congregation. I want to tell you right now that you are God's son or daughter. You are a child of God. That he loves you and he's pleased with you. And you can't do anything to make him more pleased with you.

And you can't do anything to make him less pleased with you. Because the blood of Christ has washed all that away. And now you have the favor of Jesus Christ on you. What the enemy wants you to do is not to live in that favor. I want to say it is a favor of God that you are endowed children of God. And so Jesus' whole purpose, when you look at the crucifixion, I always saw Jesus' purpose as coming to die on the cross.

I want to say when I was asked, they did a review for our church and the reader. We're going to be in the sheep and the goats and the reader here in a couple weeks or so. So I'll let you know when that happens. But they interviewed me this week for our church about what's happening here. And they said if you had one message to preach, what would it be?

And I said Jesus Christ crucified, resurrected, coming back again. And then I added something that I'd never added before to lead us back to the love of God the Father. You see, that's the gospel and that's why Jesus came. And that was Jesus' purpose. Jesus' purpose was to die. But Jesus' purpose also was to live, that you might have life. In John 10, 10, I've come to give you life and give it to you how?

Abundantly. That means a super abundance of life. A super abundance of life. And it is coming to know the Father. And I want to say that if it is Jesus' purpose to glorify the Father, which he says it was, and his purpose to introduce people to the Father and to be known and to know the Father, then maybe that's your purpose too. Maybe what you do doesn't matter so much.

You know, we live in a culture, in a Christian culture, of purpose worship that I find makes people a lot more depressed and feeling bound than it makes them feel free. Or you find your purpose. If you find your purpose, you are living in the Christian center of what? God's right. That there is this imaginary center of God's will. I want to tell you what, God's love is eternal.

Now, God has things that he calls us to do, but his love is eternal. And the purpose of God is to have you bask in the love of the Father. Not to sit with a divining rod and trying to find out your purpose all the time. Proverbs 16, verse 3, okay, says that commit your ways unto the Lord and he will cause them to what? Prosper. To succeed. And it says just commit it unto the Lord.

Commit what you do unto the Lord. Whatever you do, commit it unto the Lord. I want to say that we live in a culture of purpose worship where there is a hierarchy that I see in believers that those of us that got it figured out, right? We've got the bleached teeth, okay? Your song that you wrote has been sung and lots of people have been singing it.

Everyone thinks you're a great parent or you're the soccer mom and your car is always clean and people come over to your house and it's always clean, you know? Or whatever your thing is. You know, they ask high schoolers in high school, what are you going to do when you get out of high school? Or what are you going to do when you get out of college to the college student, you know?

Like you're 22 years old. You're going to have your whole life figured out by the time you're 18 or 22 years old. The whole point of college originally was what? To be able to ask good questions, to explore, to be able to ask good questions of life. You go back to the Greek method. It was that you might ask and have a dialogue of questions. Now we've made it.

You have to figure out what you're supposed to do with your life. And if you get it figured out, you're a little closer to God's will. I want to tell you, God's will is that you know his love. God's will is that you live in obedience to scripture. I want to say, if you just try to live in obedience to scripture, focus on holiness and coming to know the Father.

I want to say, no matter what you do, you are living in God's will and purpose. If there are shackles on you right now of feeling like, when am I going to write that book? When's my book going to be read? When's my song going to be sung? When am I going to get the job I always wanted? When am I going to have the eight kids that I wanted to have?

Because we haven't been able to have kids and that's my purpose. I want to say, you're going to live your life chasing from one purpose to the next. Because I have met so many people, myself included, that you get to a place and you think this is where you want to be and all of a sudden you find out on the other side of your purpose isn't so great after all.

The grass is not always greener. Want to tell you where the grass is green? Where God leads the sheep. It says in Psalm 23 that he leads us to where? By still waters and green pastures because he is the shepherd. And if you look in the end of Psalm 23, where do the sheep end up spending the night? Does anyone know? Nope. In God's house. If you look in Psalm 23 at the end, and it says that we will live in the house of the Lord forever.

What shepherd takes his sheep to live in the house? I like sheep, okay? They're cool, okay? Spent a lot of time in Australia, New Zealand. I ate some sheep this week. I like them so much, okay? I did. Lambing season. It's good right now, okay? I love lambs. Don't tell my daughter that. My tomatoes, by the way, are going off. They were so good. It didn't even taste like a tomato.

You would think it was like a grape. It is so sweet. I'm saying. And I found out there's a scale. Oh, I forgot the name of it now. But there's a scale you can measure the sweetness of your potatoes on. I didn't know that. Man, I'm going to bring you a tomato. Well, no, I'm not because I don't have that many. I'm sorry. Nonetheless, I ate some lambs.

The purpose. I just want you to know that's your purpose. Swim in God's love. What if you got up every day and said, I'm going to live my purpose no matter what I do. Whether you go to that job you've always wanted or you do the thing that you think you're supposed to be doing. It's so American. There's so many cultures, Christian cultures that do not live that way.

It's American Christianity, okay? And what if you got up every day and said, I'm going to swim in God's love today. What if your purpose was Jesus' purpose? To let others know about the Father. To know the Father more yourself. And to put your life behind you and to die that you might know him. You know, if it's good enough for Jesus, maybe it's good enough for me.

It's funny. Jesus has this purpose and we're supposed to be like Jesus. But then we're told, no, go find your purpose. Like it doesn't make sense to me. And I'm just finding so many people shackled in that. And so we see Jesus coming to earth to die in this passage. But more so, he died so that he could what? That he can live. The only way to die is to live.

God put it in nature. In Romans chapter 2, it says that we look at the nature. That we can see the invisible qualities, the divine nature of God revealed. And if you look at a seed, what does a seed have to do to live? It has to die. I want to say maybe our dreams have to die. In Praying for the Elephant, the book that I wrote, I talk about what happens when your elephant dies.

Because God gave me in the book, if you've read it, gave me the elephant, that big thing I wanted in my life. He gave it to me finally. And I was living in the center of God's will and my purpose. And I felt a notch above, just a little bit above everyone else who can't figure it out. Okay? Because I got it figured. Okay? And then all of a sudden, my elephant died.

My elephant died. And I tell you what, the backside of an elephant is not pretty. Right? You guys are going to preach to you guys. This is awesome. Of course, I do have my mom, my wife up here, so home cooking. What happens when it all comes down? Maybe our life is meant that we might die so that we might live. And I want to say that we have a purpose in that.

You know, you can't understand Jesus' life unless you understand his death. It says that here in the notes. It's the keys to understanding Jesus. If you don't understand the death of Jesus, we can't understand the life of Jesus. And we don't understand how he died and why he died and the manner in which he died. Because there are so many clues in it we see.

We see that he died in the same way he lived, in the midst of sinners. You get that? He died and he was not afraid of sin. Jesus is not sinophobic. Okay? He's not afraid of it. Okay? But he knew how to take victory over it. He knew how to conquer it and he didn't give in to it. He took victory over sin. And so we see him in his death. And we see who he is.

I want to say that God, you know, when we ask who Jesus is, that's a core question. And we can't understand who Jesus is in his life unless we understand who he died. Now you'll see one of the quotes I put here in the notes. It says this. Because we have to ask this question, who is Jesus? And I think in evangelism today, here's a great question if you talk to people outside of Christ followers, who are not Christ followers, to ask them this question.

Who is Jesus? Everyone wants to move the argument to what does the Bible say? What is this? What is that? Ask this question. Who is Jesus? I want to say most people can't answer that question. Or they don't have a good enough answer to deny that he is God. By today's, well, I won't say that. So it says this. God created mankind and mankind returned the favor.

That is true. We tend to create and turn Jesus into who we think he is. Here's the key. Who did Jesus say he was? I want to say that is such a key in regard to Christ following. Who do you say Christ is, is one thing. But knowing who Jesus said he was. Jesus claimed to be God. Now I mentioned how radical that was. Jesus said that I am not from this world.

That is a radical statement. If you were having coffee with a friend, a brand new friend, and they look across the table at you and say, I'd like some more Darjeeling. And Darjeeling, that's funny. And I'm just amusing myself up here today. And by the way, I'm not from this world. Tea is going to be over pretty quick, right? But Jesus said that because he was harvesting his life from a different place.

There was a different reality from which he was living. There was a different place of power. There was a different place of peace. I want to say the world does not have enough peace to go around. The world does not have enough favor to go around. You know, the cool thing about where Jesus harvested his life from is that it was a place of eternal blessing.

Ephesians chapter 2 talks about the eternal blessings of God. It has a leg up on the competition, heaven does, and the competition being the world, which is actually no competition. And I want to say this. Where are you harvesting your peace from? Where are you harvesting your joy from? Where are you harvesting your patience from? Jesus harvested all of this from another place, which was God the Father in a different reality.

But yet he was called to have the kingdom come on earth. I'll tell you what. Just in the same way you can't know Jesus' life if you don't understand his death, you can't understand how to live life on earth unless you understand what it looks like to live life in the kingdom. You see, we are called to live at the crossroads where earth and the world meet.

And as the way in which you live your life is going to be the profound difference where wherever you step your feet, the power and the presence of God is available to you and to others. That's the abundant life. It comes from spending time in God's word. It comes from spending time in worship like we did today. It comes in spending time in prayer.

And these are things that Jesus did. And so in verse 22, it's funny because they're having this debate about who Jesus is. You know, there's a debate today about who Jesus is. Some say he's this and some say he's that. And Pilate is trying to get, right, to the root of the matter. He's trying to get to the truth of the matter. And so he's asking the people who should know it, the Jewish leaders.

If anybody should know who Messiah is, it would be the Jewish leaders. I talked to my friend. I've been talking recently in my sermons about my friend. I play basketball with him. I have two Jewish friends. And we keep having conversations about Jesus. And he said to me that if, he said to me, why didn't you become, he goes, if you like Jews so much, why don't you become a Jew?

It was a good question. I'd never thought about it. I'd never thought about that question before. I didn't know I could, actually. But he said I could. He said Messianic Jews are not considered Jews anymore. They're considered outcasts from the Jewish religion. He said they're not considered Jews. Which I thought was so interesting. And so their same question is happening.

Jesus was an outcast from the people who should have known him the most. And so when Pilate asked him, they have no answers. And so in verse 22, they said, Pilate writes, excuse me, go up a little bit further. And I can't see what the result says. Pilate had a notice and prepared and fastened it to the cross. It read Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.

Many of the Jews read the sign for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city. And the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek. The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, do not write King of the Jews, but that this man claimed to be King of the Jews. You see, even they were pointing to who Jesus says that he was. I want to ask you this.

Who did Jesus say he was? And are you aware of who Jesus says he is? I want to say one of the best things to do in conversations with people, in sharing your faith on a day-to-day basis is just refer to, well, I didn't say it. This is what Jesus said. Because the conversation keeps being turned to what you think. Oh, who do you say Jesus is? Now, it's important that we believe in faith, but we are not believing who we think.

We are believing what Jesus thinks. We are believing, continue to parlay what you believe to following what God believes. We do not judge people, okay? And there's a lot of talk about that in our culture today. Christians are judgmental, or you don't judge people. What right do you have to judge? We have no right to judge. But God's word, and God can judge, and I can agree with his judgments.

You see, I make no judgments, but I agree with the judgments of God. Do you see the difference there? And so knowing the word of God, and knowing who Jesus said he is, is so key, especially in the culture in which you're living. Because you need to say, this is what the word of God says. Now, people are not going to accept that often, because there are a lot of people, less people are turning to faith these days.

But knowing who Jesus says he is, and I would ask you, if I said, you know, tell me ten things that Jesus said about himself, could you give me ten? Could you give me five that Jesus said about himself? I want to say it should just be basic Christianity 101, and there is no guilt, but being able to know who Jesus said he is. And so Pilate accepted him on his word.

He accepted who Jesus said he was. You know, even the Jews weren't able to do that, but Pilate was, and it's interesting there. The next thing is, what does Scripture say? When arguing with Satan about who he was in Matthew chapter 3, Jesus continually turned to the word of God. We know that Jesus went out into the desert, and the enemy kept asking him one question.

He would say, what would he say? He'd start every question with what? With one word. If. If you are what? Questioning his identity. If you are who? The Son of God. He said, if you are the Son of God. Jesus knew who he was. Jesus' identity never changed. He has an identity from the beginning of time, just like you have an identity from the beginning of time, that God created you in his mind.

He's always known you. He formed you in his mother's womb, and you are who he created you to be, and that identity does not change. That's the word of God. Identity does not change. That is God's truth. Why do I know that? Because God's word said it. And when Jesus was questioned as to his identity, to who he was, and Satan trying to put it into his mind, who do you think you are?

Because Satan would love to have you not be who you are. He would love to have you live in a different identity. Jesus went where? He went to the scripture. Because he knew not only what he said about himself, but he knew what the scripture said about him. I want to say it is so important that we know the scripture. And so in understanding Jesus in his death, we have to understand that Jesus knew who he was.

And why did he know? Because the scripture told him who he was. I want to say the scripture tells you who we are. It is an anchor. It is a truth that is tethered to something. There's a lot of truth going around in our culture today, right? What I want to ask is, what is it tethered to? Where is the truth that is coming out today? And just because a lot of people believe something, doesn't mean it's true.

Like I said last week in 1942 in Germany, a lot of people believe something. It didn't turn out to be true. And so today, where is the truth? I want to say the word of God is truth. I want to say that is the faith. And being people of faith, we believe that it is true. And so we see that Jesus came to die. Look at Philippians 3.10 in your notes. Paul says this, I want to know Christ.

Yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. We need to understand how Jesus died if we're going to be like Jesus. We need to understand why he died, how he lived his life, because all of it is together. This idea of who he spent his time with is so key. And he was crucified among them.

What was so interesting, the way Jesus suffered, because the way you suffer, and we all go through suffering, right? Some of us more than other at different seasons. The way you suffer as a witness. Jesus on the cross suffered in a way that one of the thieves on the cross turned from hurling insults at him, because it says in the other gospels that they were both hurling insults at Jesus.

But about halfway through, one of the other ones looked at the way that Jesus was suffering, just the way he suffered. And he changed his mind. And Jesus said to him, and he made a confession of faith, and Jesus says, you will be with me today in paradise. I want to say, how you live in victory is important. How you live in suffering is perhaps more important.

We know that King David himself was a lot better at living in suffering than he was at living as king. His greatest moments were running from Absalom. His greatest moments were running from Saul. His greatest moments were before he was king as a servant under Saul, taking out Goliath and living as a king that would bring people to him and restoring the nation together.

But as soon as he became king and living in victory, it became a lot harder for him. He died a man that many of his mighty men, the ones that follow him, his closest friends, ended up dying at his hands. His son turned, he didn't know how to raise children. His sons turned on him and tried to take the kingdom. Absalom tried to kill him. David had so many things that was difficult, but Jesus not only learned how to live in death, but in victory.

And so I'll ask this, in suffering, how do you live? If people watch us suffer, do they look at us in a way that causes them to say, this person knows God? This person knows God. I want to say the church has thrived under suffering. It says the blood of the martyrs, Tertullian said, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Let's not be afraid of persecution.

Jesus was called a lot of names. He was called demon possessed. He was called a hater. He was called, you know, all these different friend of sinners. Being called names is part of the gig. You get that? It's part of it. And a lot of, what I'm seeing a lot of believers is they want to live in a way and only speak truth in a way that no one will ever call him a name.

Jesus did that. That isn't the way Jesus lived his life. But when he was persecuted for it, when he was crucified for it, he died in a way that changed other people's lives. How are you suffering? Suffering is so important. Suffering brings us to an understanding of who God is. And so we see Jesus in the midst of this suffering. Coming in for a landing here in a moment.

We're looking at Jesus and his life purpose was to die. Earlier I spoke about the life purpose and there's a little quote in there I want to say and you can read it on your notes. It says this, it's a lot easier to live on mission using every opportunity to glorify God than to spend all your time worrying about your purpose. Let me just say this. It's a lot easier to get up every day and live on mission to explore and share the love of the Father than it is to figure out all day what your purpose is and if you're living in the center of God's will.

It is a lot easier to live your life. It's a lot more peaceful. It is a lot more relaxing. Your book might never get published. Your business might never blow up. You might never be a movie screen actor. You might never have 15 kids. You might not get married. I don't know what the thing is that you might, or you might. I don't know what God has for you.

But whatever we do, live in the love of God. That's the purpose. Swim in it. Delight in the Lord. You know, the less I've had to be the pastor of this church, the happier I've been being the pastor of this church. Because when I, thank you, woot woot. Let me explain what I mean by that. When I got hired over a year and a half, 14, 15 months ago, I was living in a paradigm that I had to succeed.

I had to be the pastor of the church. I had to, I had to, if I got a book offer, I had to write the next book. It had to do well. I had to grow the church. I could, on and on. Because I wasn't secure that God loves me no matter what. I want to tell you, when you can live in a place where you just know God's love for you, you can walk down the street, see a flower, and just go, whoa, that is awesome, Dad.

That is unreal. You love me so much. You wake up in the morning, you just have this worship. I was waking up for months. I have a prayer partner. David's my prayer partner. I would just cry on his shoulder. Dude, I'm waking up, I'm worried, I'm going to mess up. I would tell him how messed up I was going to, I was going to screw everything up. I'd wake up with a ton of bricks on my shoulders.

I tell you, that's mostly gone away. I find myself waking up now, singing praises, excited about my Father loves me. My Father loves me. I don't know how that changed. I just know that God began to download his love and I began to jump in the sea and swim in it. I'm talking about a title for a book I have that I'd love to write if God allows me to called Swimming in Galilee.

That moment where Peter, he went back to fishing and he gave up on Jesus and he had denied him and then Jesus is on the other side of the shore and Peter sees him and he jumps in the water and starts swimming to Jesus, to the beach. And I got to say, in that moment, what was going on with Peter? Just in that moment of like, Jesus, you're there, I got to get to you.

I got to get to you. No more shame, no more fear, no more, just in that four to six minutes, whatever it took as he was swimming as fast as he could to get to Jesus. In that moment, everything made sense. I want to live in that moment. That's my purpose. That's your purpose, to live and swim in the love of God. And Jesus went and did all the hard work for us and we see that.

Just finally, this last point in regard to who's in charge of your life and circumstances, the scripture says in Romans 8, 28, that all things work together for good for those that love God and are called according to his purpose. It really, let me say this in the best way, it really doesn't matter what you do. And I don't mean like sin and things like that.

Go be a circus performer. Raise pigs, okay? Do an urban, be an urban gardener, okay, like me. Like whatever you want to do, be a hipster, get a single speed bike, you know, and carry nutmeg in your pocket. I don't care. Was it Augustine? And it's, it's badly quoted, regularly and all badly quoted again, that he said, you know, love God and go do whatever you want.

The purpose is loving God. Loving God in your day as you drive home today, pull over, get yourself a cup of coffee and stop by the beach, put your, take your shoes off, go get in the sand and say, God, this sand is awesome. I can't, how did you make all these sand, you know, just love God? That's the purpose. This church, we want to swim in the love of God. And so back to this idea of who killed Jesus and who can change your life and we look around at the news.

I say, your life is not in the hands of the news, okay? There's a lot going on right now. Your life is not in the hands of the news. Your life isn't in the hands of what's happening in the Middle East or in Philadelphia. It isn't in the hands of what your mom thinks about you or what your boss is going to do. It has nothing to do with that. God, your hand, you are a precious child in the hand of God and he loves you and he cares for you and he's going to make a way for you and he's going to make a path for you.

This is the truth of the scripture and you need to tell yourself it until you believe it. And I got to continue to remind myself because like a balloon, we leak. You ever get those balloons? You put them up, you get the ones that are like they're $48 for a balloon for your kid for their birthday because it floats and it's silver. Why are those so much money?

I want to know that. And two days, I like when it gets like in the middle of the room. It's just so weird. It's just like right there, just like hanging out in your room and then it'll end up in the kitchen. I'm like, how did you get to the kitchen? I went to bed and you were in the other room. I'm like, who killed Jesus? Was Pilate in charge of Jesus? Like, no.

Jesus told him so. You have no power over me. The other times the Jews tried to kill Jesus, he would just like disappear. He would walk through the crowd. The world has no power over you. The enemy has no power over you. I want to tell you what, Jesus has power over you and you, through your free will, have power over yourself to make decisions. It says, who can steal your joy, the scripture?

No one. Nothing can steal your joy, the scripture says. You can give it away. You want to give it away, you can give it away, but no one can steal it. I got to finish. Who killed Jesus? No one. Now this is powerful. It's the first time I'd seen this. Verse 17 at the top. Carrying his own cross, much like, and that's a wooden cross, in the same way, this is going back to Abraham who put the wood on his son's back, Isaac.

Isaac carried the cross. So this is going back because Isaac was a figure of a prototype of Christ, just like David was. When David was running from Absalom, he went up the Mount of Olives and Shemai was there on the Mount of Olives outside of the city because he was cast away and Shemai was hurling abuse at him, it says in the scripture, in 1 Samuel, the end of 1 Samuel.

Pretty sure it's the end of 1 Samuel. And he was hurling abuse just like Jesus. David was a messianic figure. You know, there's 365 messianic prophecies have been fulfilled in the coming of Jesus Christ. 365 messianic prophecies. And I would ask this, and in the questions I ask, do you know five of them? It's a good question. Look them up. Google. It's not hard.

Messianic prophecies to find out what Christ did. 365. But we see Jesus here. It says he's carrying his own cross and he went out to the place of the skull. Did anybody force him out? No. No. Why did Jesus go to the cross? Because he decided to. It was his own volition. No one can kill Jesus. No one took his life, he says. Now, both Gentile and Jew were guilty of crucifying Jesus because Pilate was involved in it and the Jews were involved into it.

It wasn't just one. It was all of mankind and it represented all mankind. And the languages that were represented was a representation of the common languages of the day saying the entire world, the sin of the world is what crucified Jesus and all mankind. But no one took his life. And I want to say no one can take your life. No one can take your peace.

No one can take your hope. No one can take your joy. It is all shepherded by God the Father and you. And that doesn't mean we're not going to have hard seasons. And don't feel guilty if you have depressed days or anxious days or, you know, we're not living on spiritual lithium. Okay? That's not the point. But the point is is that we have a place where we can go and God will comfort us in time.

It says be patient because patience brings proven what? Character. Suffering. If we suffer in patience it says it will lead to proven character. And God uses suffering to work out his plan in you and in me. But I want to tell you what? That peace is there. That joy is there. Do I think I'm going to always wake up for the next 50, 45, 50 years of my life if I live that long?

Like Dick Cotton. He's got twice as long on me. That I'm going to wake up singing praises, songs to the Lord every single morning? No. I'm not foolish enough to think that. Why? Because I've been a Christian long enough to know. There's going to be tough seasons. There's going to be seasons where I'm crying on David's shoulder again. He's comforting me. That's okay, Adam.

You'll be a good pastor. Actually, he doesn't talk like that at all. I'm really sorry to hear. You'll be okay, Adam. You'll be a good pastor. David and I are going to move away and do a kibbutz, right, in Israel together. So you can come with us. The final thing, final thing, I'm circling the tower but I am landing now and so we'll have the, let's have the worship team.

Why don't you guys go up and you'll be ready. Jesus, when he died, he died on purpose. That was his purpose. He died on mission. I want to say, what does it take to get you off mission? And what is mission? Do you know what your mission is? Like what's not, what's maybe less on purpose but what's your mission? Your mission is to love God, to swim deeply, to drink it in, to breathe it and to share it with other people.

That's the mission. That's the mission. Jesus lived on mission even in death to the point that those that surrounded him would come to know who God was through the way that he died. He was always on mission. I would say, what gets you off mission? Somebody in front of you in the road cuts you off? I mean, how quickly does that, I mean, it does me. All of a sudden, I'm like, ah, you know, my whole life is turned upside down because you cut me off or three people have cut me off or whatever the thing is or a bank statement.

Is that, you're off mission? You got, you know, a bank statement or a bill comes in and you're, you're, you're seven, six days off mission, six days in worry, six days in fret. There's a resource that is not from this place that we can dive into. It is the kingdom of God. It is the beating heart of God. And the beating heart of God beats for you. He loves you.

And this is a church we are going to proclaim that. We are going to proclaim truth. And we are going to proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord, risen and coming back again. Yeah. Now, Lord Jesus, we thank you for a time, God, as we prepare for communion. Yeah. We just pray for communion. We have Jim come up. And Jesus, we want to thank you, God, for this time. If you have any, um, just things in your heart, if you have any things you want to turn over to God, just, just take spiritual bath right now through the blood of Christ.

Just say, Jesus, I give it all up. There is no sin that Jesus' death on the cross couldn't fix. He didn't die for. Just give it to him. If you've never made a decision for Christ and you want to join in this time of communion, just as all heads are bowed and eyes are closed, just, if you guys have closed your eyes, bow your head. If there's anybody in here who wants to make a decision for Christ right now, just look up.

Just look up and make eye contact with me. All right. Yeah, right on. Yeah. Okay. Great. Well, just say this in your heart. Jesus, I just want to invite you to live in my heart. I want to be loved. I want to experience the love of the Father. Lead me to the Father. Say, Jesus, I want to follow you. I believe that you're coming again. You died for my sins. Amen.

Let's just welcome them into the kingdom of God right now. You want to welcome them in? Lord, just I bless now, as our tradition, I bless every person in this congregation and next door in our building, God. God, in our neighborhood as well and in La Jolla, God, but specifically those that are here. God, we bless you. I bless you. I speak blessing over you, congregation.

Bless you in every way with all the riches of Christ, but mostly peace, love, joy, and the love of the Father. So, God, download the love of the Father. May they swim in your love this week. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you guys. There's food on the courtyard. Thanks for being here with us at church today. Amen. Amen.