[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching from God's Word you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to Him. If you're ever in the Madison, Alabama area, we'd love for you to worship with us on Sundays at 8:30 or 10:30am if you have any other questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, find
[email protected] Be sure to also check out our Bible Study podcast, Madison Church of Christ Bible Studies. Thanks again for stopping by.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: At the age of seven, Chris angel was given a deck of cards. He used that deck of cards not to play a game with it, but actually to learn a lot of different card tricks.
And so then, kind of interesting, by the age of 12, he had learned so many card tricks that there was somebody that ended up paying him $10 to perform at a birthday party as the main magic act. And as a lot of people would say, the rest for Christ, angel was history because he became, at one time, I think he was known as the magician of the decade, then magician of the century, and still to this day, a lot of people call him the King of Magic.
Another person that maybe we're not as familiar with is Wolfgang Mozart.
Mozart is a God. That was kind of interesting as well that at the age of three, they put a harpsichord in front of him and he started playing music. And then by the age of five, he was actually able to write music. Then at the age of 10, he put together his very first symphony.
And so he ended up being called the King of classical music. What's interesting about Chris and Wolfgang, that was something that they became the king of their respective fields, but they weren't born that way.
The reason why I shared that is in Brandon's lesson last week, there was something that just kept sticking out to me.
It was in Matthew chapter two, when it says this, that Jesus was born a king.
From the very beginning of Jesus life, through his death on the cross and him raising from the dead. And still to this day, Jesus is standing and sitting, excuse me, on his throne as a king.
So over the past few weeks we've talked about this kingdom mindset that Christ is to reign supreme in our hearts and our minds.
And what we're going to see today as we dig into this text and look at one of the most pivotal moments in human history, which is Jesus death on the cross, the King on the cross, what you're going to see is that it demands of us a response.
The reason why I say that is no matter what brought you in here today, no matter kind of if it was a friend that kind of tagged you along and said, hey, you're riding with me, or maybe you're visiting family.
And so you're like, well, I had to be here. They brought me here and they bought me this outfit yesterday, so I had to show up. I don't know what it is that brought you here today, but responding to the cross or not responding to the cross is still a response.
So from the very beginning of Jesus life, he was king. And still to this day, he reigns as king. So the question is not whether or not he's king. The question we have to ask ourselves is this, where are we placing him?
Have we made him king of our life?
Can you think of a time maybe for you that you can recall that he wasn't maybe king? And some of you are like, yeah, in fact, it's kind of amazing that I'm actually where I am right now.
I can think of a time in my life where a lot of things were king except for Jesus.
And thank God, by his grace and his goodness, I'm where I'm at today. There's also some of us in this room that maybe what led you in here, like I said, was because someone invited you.
And my prayer is that even through the songs that we've sung, but especially as we dig into the text today, that there was something that maybe stuck out to you, something that moved your heart, that thinks, you know, I might be open to this king.
And maybe for some of you, you're at a point right now where he just hasn't been king of your life. And that's what led you here.
But I want to encourage you to know that it's not just about being at the right place.
What I hope that more than anything we all do this morning is get to know the right person, and that is King Jesus.
And so as we see him on the cross today, there's two different sides of this. The first side is that when we see him on the cross, there's attitudes, there's actions that he takes, and those actions and those attitudes that he takes, please understand, those are supposed to be kind of symbolizing our own actions and attitudes.
But the other thing you're going to notice in this text is that the crowd has a response. Creation has a response. Robbers, criminals have a response. Outsiders have a response. And a man named Simon has a response. And that's why I told you from the very beginning there is no such thing as a non response to the cross.
No response is a response.
And so today we just have to pick what it is that we're going to choose. And so as we dig into this today, I also want us to learn from, from the different people that are around that cross and how they responded to what Jesus did.
So I want to give you a little bit of context. If you notice in the very beginning of Matthew, chapter 27, what starts to happen is Jesus is put on trial and one of the people that he's before is a guy named Pilate.
And John also kind of highlights a little bit this as well, that one of the things Pilate asked, he says, hey, you are saying this, I know, but other people are talking about like that you're king of the Jews, like what do you say about that?
And I love Jesus's response. Like he doesn't say back to him.
Well, I am.
I love how he says back to him. Well, you said it.
It's almost like he's saying, you seem to already know who I am.
Like everything is kind of pointing to the weight of what I've brought.
And so one of the traditions was at this feast, one of the things that they would do is release a criminal.
They would release a criminal around this time of the feast. And so we thought, you know what, I can put a rest to this. There's a well known criminal that has been convicted of a lot of things. He's also been convicted of murder. What we're going to do is this. I'm going to present to you this one guy named Barabbas.
So you can either pick Barabbas or Jesus.
Now here's a neat thing and kind of an interesting thing about Barabbas. Barabbas name means this son of the Father in some of your translations. You'll notice in other gospel contexts that Barabbas was actually called Jesus. Barabbas.
So isn't it kind of neat to see the genius of God here?
Like I told you that there's no such thing as not a response to the cross. He's giving a response even from the very beginning that we have to choose between basically two Jesuses. You got the one guy that's the son of his father and another guy that is the son of the father, one that's called Jesus and another one that's called Jesus. And the reason I mention that is I think we're given a lot of the same choices today, to choose sometimes between a Jesus we create.
And what I mean by that is a Jesus that doesn't call me to do something difficult.
A Jesus that maybe doesn't ask me to carry a cross, and a Jesus that doesn't ask me to maybe change around my priorities. A Jesus that doesn't ask me to lay down my pride and to pick up a bunch of humility, that he wants us sometimes to pick that one instead, the one on the middle cross that's asking us to lay down our pride and have a humble spirit, to take up a cross daily and to follow him and to say, hey, wherever, whenever, whatever is yours, we still have that same choice. Just like that crowd between two different Jesuses.
See, no response is still a response.
And so you'll notice in the text, it says this that the soldiers of the governor took Jesus and they took him to the governor's headquarters. And it says they gathered a whole battalion.
They stripped him and they put him on a scarlet robe and twisted together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head, and they put a reed in his right hand, and kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, hell, King of the Jews, they spit on him, they took the reed and they struck him on the head. And when they mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him.
Now, there's a few things that I want to highlight here. And one of the things that you'll notice, it says that there was a whole battalion.
I don't know if it was because of the maybe different Jesus movies you maybe grew up seeing, like I did, or even like the pictures this moment, don't we kind of picture it as like three or four guards around Jesus.
But if you look up what that says, a whole battalion. You know how many that was?
480.
Now picture that and imagine for just a second what would have been happening. Like, if you've ever watched a movie before where there's been like a scene where there's been bullying and there's like a kid on the ground and kids are kicking him while he's down and spin. I mean, imagine a whole battalion of people doing that.
And then keep in mind the whole time, the one that they're mocking as a king is actually a king, and he knows it.
Because what John 20 also says, you know, when Pilate said to him, hey, they're saying you're King of the Jews, he's like, hey, I was just. I was born this way.
Can you imagine like that, that, you know, like we sing a lot, right? He could have what called 10,000 angels. He had the power to stop all of this, yet he takes on in this moment the posture of humility.
It's incredible.
And so they say what they say over and over again. You're going to notice this theme. Hell King of the Jews. Matthew, who focuses on that kingdom mindset making him reign supreme, wants us to see that it says. So as they went on then there was this guy from Cyrene, that was an area of Africa.
There was a man named Simon that was from there. And they compelled this man to help him carry the cross.
Now, what would have happened leading up to this moment is while there was a whole battalion, they gave two men, usually these soldiers, those cats of nine tails, those would have been the whips that would have been used on Jesus. And they would alternate one whip and then another whip, another whip and then another whip. And at the very end of that whip would have been pieces of stone or rock or ceramic type pieces that would have been put in there. And the whole point was to dig it into his back, let it catch and pull over and over and over. They would have done that. And so then they would have put this beam of a cross on him. And by the way, if you look up the beam that one of the things that I've read said, it was anywhere from like 200 to 250 pounds that he would have been carrying. So that's why they find this guy named Simon and like, hey, will you help him get it there? We got to get him to this place to take on this death.
And here's what's interesting about Simon is from the very beginning we see one of the responses that you and I can choose to make to be like Simon and to carry across. Here's what's neat about Simon. Anytime in your Bible that you notice somebody gives a parent's name, where they're from, or the person's name. That's the Bible trying to give us a context clue that you're going to see their name later or you've heard it before.
That's the case here.
Because here's what's neat.
You go to Romans, chapter 16, and when Paul is mentioning all the different people that helped him spread the gospel in a very difficult time and area to spread the Gospel, guess who one of those was?
A guy named Rufus, who is the son of Simon of Cyrene.
Here's why I mentioned that this morning, that this dad named Simon, who made a choice to carry a cross, was also a decision that his child ended up making, too.
You know, one of the things that I think about a lot when I. Brandon and I have the same routine. We like to get here before anyone else and kind of preach.
And there's no responses in that no one shows up.
But we get here early. And it's humbling to be up here for several reasons. Because one of the things that I think about, even like this morning, is this very room that we're in, we're praising God in.
I've had to do some funerals that sometimes, I know this might sound odd, that they're a little easier because there's, like, a peace about it because, you know, the relationship that person had with God. So even in the middle of a difficult thing, there's a little bit of peace, you know, or maybe a lot of peace, but then there's some that are not that way.
And, like, sometimes you have to, like you're thinking about, all right, what do I say? What do I say? You know, the family's not giving you much. It's just a difficult place to be. And so the reason why I say that even this morning, one of the things that kept hitting me is that one of the things that Rufus Simon's son would have said at his dad's funeral service was, you know, my dad carried a cross.
And don't you think there's probably no greater compliment at our eulogies and the reading of our obituaries than to hear from our own kids that are still faithful that mom and dad carried across?
You know, there's certain things that you hope to pass down. This is one of the things that obviously made a big change in his life.
See, this is one of the responses that we have to choose to be people that will help carry a cross.
This is not just about a father son thing. This is a follower thing. Would people say that about you?
That Andrew really carries across. And the tough part about carrying across is their suffering. I'll give you some context to this. In Matthew, chapter 14, you might remember this. There was a crowd.
And have you noticed something? That anytime there is a crowd, do you all know what Jesus usually does?
He gets suspicious every time there's a crowd.
It's kind of like when there was a crowd and they wanted another miracle from Jesus. He had just taken that little boy's meal and turned it into a meal for thousands of people. What happens? A crowd, it says, shows up the very next day.
That crowd shows up the very next day, and they're wanting another miracle. They want more food. And Jesus, like, I know what I can do. I'm about to divide this crowd real quick, you know, because. And I think it's important because a lot of times we think like big stages, arenas. It's more like guys like coffee shops, hospitals. Like, that's what I want to see, you know, it's not always just about the crowd. And so what he does is he says, all right, so unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, then you can have no part with me. And they're like, yeah, we're out.
So in a similar instance in Matthew, chapter 14, excuse me, Luke 14, you'll notice it says great crowds were accompanying him.
And this is what he says.
Like, you get a crowd, would you say this? He said, well, if anyone wants to come after me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be disciple.
I don't know what comes to your mind when you think of a cross, but I do think to some degree, there's nothing wrong with wearing cross necklaces and things like that. But when you think of a cross, sometimes it can kind of just be a piece of jewelry, you know, that it's something that we have made just symbolic of something else.
But when they hear take up your cross, they don't think a neat piece of jewelry. They literally think death.
So, like Vespasian, Domitian, Nero, this was the means to which they treated Christians was the cross. And so when he says, if you want to come after me, take up your cross, he's not saying, hey, if you want to come after me, like, hypothetically, suffer, he's saying, if you want to come after me, you're going to die.
Got it?
So you're saying a real death. Yes, if you're going to come after me.
And so that's why he says, if you don't bear your own cross, everybody has their cross to bear.
It just has to be born, right, that you can't be his disciple. So one of the things that I was thinking about was two things. Number one, is there really cross bearing if there's no suffering, no sacrifice?
But the other thing that I was thinking about, too, is, all right, we're in 2025, and I get that when we hear take up the cross, it hits different because, like, when we leave the church building today, we're not like them that some of our friends are going to be parade around in a Roman coliseum and attacked by animals and put on crosses as we leave. Like, we don't see that here.
So what would it look like for me to actually bear my own cross right here, right now? Madison, Alabama, North Alabama.
Would you remember in Luke chapter nine, when some people that I feel like are just like me, very well intentioned, they come up to Jesus and they say, man, I will follow you wherever you go.
Oh really?
And so he says this. Well, foxes, they have holes and birds have nests. But the son of man, like, I don't know where I'm going to sleep tonight.
To another he said, follow me. And the guy said, oh yeah, I'll do that, but first let me go bury my father.
And Jesus says, let the dead bury their own dead. Go proclaim the kingdom.
Then another guy was like, well, I'll follow you, but let me first say bye to those at my house. And Jesus says, you are not fit for the kingdom of God. And I know this is not the best way to explain all three of these interactions, but it's a mentality of wherever, whenever and whatever.
It's where we see the wherever mentality, you know, sometimes. We talked about the a few weeks ago.
What causes us at times to not do maybe a hard thing to make a sacrifice is Satan will give us a lie. Like, well, that's not something I don't think you're called to do. Or maybe it should be, you know, Or I'm waiting for someone to ask me. Like, he gives us all these different things. It's like there. What about there?
It's not. I'm waiting for something that says I'm going to serve there. Whenever mentality is noticing these texts, people are like, well, I'm going to do that one day. He's like, no, now it's kind of like the thing delayed obedience is disobedience. If you don't act now, he's like, no, you're not fit for the kingdom. If you're like, I'll do that later, I'll do that when it's more convenient. A whatever mentality is like, what about like this thing? I'm willing to give up and please understand this morning, like I was thinking about it too.
I know the past like five or six weeks of messages have been heavy.
I know that.
But I'm unapologetically also trying to help us see the picture of the reality and the opportunity of the cross.
And by not responding, we're responding he wants that whenever, whatever, wherever type mentality.
And so it says when they got to this place, it was called Golgotha. Excuse me, which was place of the Skull.
And what's interesting about this place, if you look at a picture of it, and I probably didn't do a great job of highlighting this, but you can see circled there, partly why it's called the place of the skull is like in the side of the cliff there, there was what looked like a skull. And it was a play on words for a few reasons.
One of those is because people literally died deaths of crucifixion on this area.
The other is that literally looked like there was a skull there. But then there was the other part of the meaning is, the other part of the meaning is that there was a stench of death in that area. Because you'll kind of notice right to where I'm facing it, to the right down there, there was this little graveyard of sorts.
And it wasn't like a nice graveyard. It's where people would dump trash.
Oftentimes people that couldn't afford funerals for people, they would dump dead bodies.
So there was the stench and the smell of death all around. And by the way, doesn't that give whole new meaning to when Jesus tells that one thief on the cross who eventually comes to realize that he was the son of God, and he says to this guy, while he's hanging on a cross and literally smelling death, hey, I know right now you smell death, but today you're going to be with me in paradise. Is that not amazing? Also, if you are an outsider, who we're going to get to in just a second, and you wonder, well, maybe in five years, 10 years. Let me get myself cleaned up. I love what was shared this morning by Jim Dearman in the communion. We take communion as broken people.
And so the neat thing is as we get to share that together. If you're here today and you're like, well, I would love to join something like that. I would love to have that kind of relationship with him.
It's not about what you know, because sometimes what can happen, as we Talked about Matthew 25, the intelligence in your head, if you're not careful, can override the condition of your heart. And so then you become more knowledge focused and heart focused. If your heart has anything, it just needs to know what we're going to talk about in a second. That he died for you and that he rose again. That's it.
And so even around this area, they're smelling the stench of death. And it says this.
When they had crucified him, they then divided his garments among them by casting lots. They started to sit down and kept watch over him there.
And again, here it is again. Over his head, they put a charge that says, this is Jesus, King of the Jews.
One of the things that I read said that the Persians had actually invented crucifixions, but the Romans perfected it.
So what the Romans tried to do was they made some adjustments in order to make the death very long and very drawn out.
So what your body was basically doing was in like a fight or flight response type mode, choosing between pains.
So what would happen is, is that when you were hanging, the weight of the hanging would create, like some muscle spasms in you to deal with the pain of what was happening there. And so then what would happen is, because your body, all the fluid in your body was being dehydrated, you know, from the blood that had already been shed that was causing those spasms.
And so to get out of that shock of the spasms, you would raise up. And the moment you raised up, then the fluid that your body was gathering was then going into your lungs. And so you were suffocating.
So you're literally between shock, spasms and suffocation over and over and over and over again.
That's what was going on while he was on this cross.
And it says that those that were passing by, they started to wag their heads at him. And they're like, you know, you just said, you know, you would destroy the temple and build it in three days. Like, why don't you save yourself? If you are the Son of God, why don't you come down from the cross?
And then the chief priests got in on it. They said, well, he saved other people. He can't save himself.
He's the king of Israel. Let him come down from the cross.
We will believe in him. He trust in God. Let God deliver him. Now if he even desires him.
He said, I am the Son of God.
And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him the same way. So you have Simon, who made the decision to carry a cross. That was cross generational.
And now we are introduced to some more people.
And some of those are the criminals, those that were making fun of him, joking on him.
And they're also one of the responses. See, when you're in pain yourself, it's easy to lash out in some kind of direction.
You know, what's really interesting is if you look in Luke's account, that While, yes, the criminals here in Matthew, both are like, you know, you say you're the Son of God. In Luke, you actually find that one of them eventually says, hey, like, I deserve this, not you.
This guy really is the Son of God.
And we don't know this, by the way, but this is just conjecture. I honestly kind of wonder that if, by the way Jesus handled himself on the cross, that the criminal was even like, man, he's up here ministering to people.
He's up here in humility.
This is different.
You really are the Son of God.
And the reason why I mentioned that, there was two different responses here.
It's the same choices that you and I make when we're in pain. Sometimes we'll say, well, Jesus must not be who he says he is.
Or sometimes the response could be, listen, I don't understand everything, but here's what I know.
He's died for me.
There's a book that is not a light read, but it has a powerful line in it.
It's a book called the Cross and the Lynching Tree.
And in the book, it tells the story of black Americans that were taken from their countries and were made to be slaves.
And the only day that they had to be free and to find some joy was on Sundays.
And so one of the things that was happening, and they found in a lot of architectural studies of different, primarily black congregations, was that almost every single one of them had this one thing in common, and that was a cross.
And one of the things that would happen is that whenever they would see that cross, it reminded them of the suffering that they had went through. And to remind them, hey, the suffering, whatever we go through, it's going to be worth it. But the other thing that they would talk about in the book was this. There's this one quote that I underlined that I put in here. It says this, that this one guy said, I didn't understand much, but I could see that he was dying for me.
You don't have to understand everything, but you just have to know that he's dying for you. And so it says, the sixth hour, there was darkness that fell over the land into the ninth hour. At the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, eli, Eli lamah sabachthani. That is my God, My God, why have you forsaken me? And some of the bystanders hearing it, said, this man is calling Elijah. And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put.
Put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. But the other said, wait, let us see whether Elijah will actually come to save him.
So Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and he yielded up his spirit.
And behold, the curtain of the temple tore in two from the top to the bottom.
And the earth began to shake. The rocks were splitting, tombs were being opened, and bodies of saints who had fallen asleep were being raised and coming out of the tombs. After his resurrection, they went to the holy city and appeared to many.
When the centurion and those who were with him were keeping watch over Jesus, they saw the earthquake and all that took place. They were filled with awe and said, truly, this was the Son of God. We have Simon, who was going to carry a cross.
We have the path of the two criminals.
You either try to have the posture of I don't understand and I'm not willing to learn, or I don't understand, but I'm willing to listen, or you have the posture of the outsider who recognize you know what, Jesus is doing something for me. Because at the very beginning this morning, I shared that some of you might be here because someone dragged you here.
If they did, I'm glad you're here.
That whatever it was that brought you here today, maybe it was something in a song that you're like, man, I don't really understand a lot.
We just had two people baptized on Tuesday night.
They didn't understand everything. But you know what? They did understand what Jesus did for them.
All that takes from you is a posture of humility.
The proud can't receive it.
It's only those that have a humble spirit that are primed to actually receive and appreciate grace.
But here's the other response that I don't want us to miss, that I almost skipped over. But to me, it's so powerful. And that's creation.
Creation itself was shaking.
Rocks were splitting at the glory of what was happening in this moment. And if you remember this past Tuesday night when we got together and we were talking about the angels and how they acted when Jesus came to this earth as king, One of the things that we talked about is that the angels are crying out. They are rejoicing now. Creation is crying out and rejoicing. But, guys, don't you think that we who have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb might even have even more to rejoice about?
We have so much to be happy about, to find joy in, but we also have to choose to walk in that freedom. Notice that the different ironies here. You got this one who is Mocked as a king is actually a king, the one that are like, yeah, he's so powerless. Is somebody that actually has all the power. Then you got one that they're like, well, he can't save himself. And he's literally on the cross saving you and me. And. And he's on the cross saving other people.
I mean, that is amazing to me. And so you'll notice the mindset it takes for us today to receive this part of it is this to understand that true power doesn't come from your title.
True power comes from humility.
Leadership, similarly, is not about a title. It's not about the name that's on your shirt.
Leadership is about service, whenever, wherever, whatever.
That true victory is found in sacrifice. You know, when we think about all of what happened, I do want to be clear. Yes, this is to be a symbol of our own suffering and our own ability and choice to walk in faith. But the other side of this is that Jesus didn't just suffer to give us a model of suffering. Jesus also suffered. So we didn't have to suffer.
Praise God. He went to that cross.
Praise God. He came out of that tomb. See, what the cross did was two things. Number one, it fixed what was existing at that time, which was a separation issue. Do you all remember what happened when he died? It says something happened in the temple. Do you all remember what it was?
The temple veil tore from the top to the bottom.
And the reason why that was a big deal is the temple veil was actually 4 inches thick.
That's some husbands. Can you imagine hanging up those curtains? Like, that would have been super heavy. Definitely find the studs for that right four inch thick curtain.
And it was woven with purple and blue and red colors.
And so it was extra thick.
And part of the reason why I make that point is like, no one could just like go in and be like, here.
Like, that's not. It would take God himself to rip that curtain.
But it wasn't just about what physically happened. It's also even more importantly about what it spiritually represented. See, for years, like, if you wanted to pray, you know what you had to do?
You had to go to the high priest.
You had to have somebody pray for you.
But the book of Hebrews says that when Jesus went to that cross and died and rose again, he is that mediator. He is that high priest.
You don't have to go somewhere for somebody to pray for you.
Jesus took care of that middle part.
There was a separation between man and God. And he ripped open that, that separation so right now in your pew, you can pray to him because of Jesus Christ. When you get in your car today and you're trying to live out that whenever, wherever, whatever mentality, you can pray right then and there and bring it before the Father.
But the other thing is he also fixed this substitution issue because if you remember, they wanted Barabbas, this well known criminal. And as one guy says, that's us.
We are Barabbas. We were the ones that were guilty. Think about that for a second.
He was guilty and the innocent one became guilty.
So you and I today, we get to walk around as innocent people because he took that substitution of death that we deserved.
We get to walk around as innocent because he became guilty.
I love what John Stott said. He says God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. God accepts penalties which belong to man alone. See, Jesus stayed on that cross with all the power in the world, with the title and the honor of being king, and stayed there. So you and I right now could live in freedom.
And the other part of this too is the freedom that you and I experience is because of what we shared in communion this morning, because of his wounds. And so here's kind of the next level I want us to think about is because of that, do you walk around as a free person?
And I know this might sound weird because sometimes I think what Satan wants to do is to keep us in captivity.
Because it sometimes is a little easier staying sick than getting well.
The sin maybe or the self degradation, whatever you want to call it, it can become cyclical. That it's.
We forget sometimes Christ wants us to walk around as free people.
He doesn't want a bunch of people beating themselves up. He wants people that understand what he did on the cross, but also live and walk in freedom.
It's like that man on the mat in John chapter five. He'd just say, get up.
He said, get up and walk.
I think a lot of us are up, but are we walking? Are we walking in that freedom that he's providing?
So Jesus went into that tomb and three days later, just as it was prophesied, he came out of that tomb.
And what's really interesting is the very first thing speaking of freedom that he told his disciples was this. It says greetings or rejoice. Now here's what's neat is in the Greek. It's technically what is called a second person imperative.
And so this is the best we have. But actually what he said was not greetings or rejoice in The Greek, it would have been this, be joyful.
So he was commanding them to be joyful. People, rejoice, Greetings. Be joyful. And they came and took hold of his feet and they worshiped him.
That's the only response, right?
If creation is going to do it, I think we should too. We're about to sing a song that. I love the lyrics of it, and I think it really fits with what we're looking at in scripture today. And this is what it says. King of my life, I crown thee. Now, that's one of those lines in a song. It's kind of like it is well with my soul. You know what I'm talking about? When you sing it is well with my soul, you're like, is it really?
Like, is it. You know, that's one of those. To me, that kind of fits this king of my life. Like, think about what we're saying.
Like, you are going to reign supreme. You are going to be king of my life. Now it's not going to be about my glory. It's going to be about yours.
So I don't forget, lest I forget Thy thorn crowned brow lead me to Calvary.
So may I be willing, Lord, to bear daily my cross for thee Even thy cup of grief to share Thou hast borne all for me. Jesus came to this earth. He was born a king, he died a king, he rose a king. And he is still reigning as king right now, seated on his throne.
So the question is not whether or not he's a king. The question we have to ask ourselves is, where are we placing him? So maybe you're here today and you've never given your life to him.
If that's where you're at right now, you're having to work off of willpower, not spirit, power, willpower, not the kingdom's power.
If you've not made that decision, don't hesitate.
You can go into the watery grave of baptism today, crowning him king of your life and coming out brand new, maybe for some of you, is that as you walked in, kind of like I mentioned this morning, you didn't come here with the intention to give your life to Christ.
You just came here because you had to. Or you kind of got brought along and you're like, well, I don't really know much. These outsiders remember, they didn't know a lot, but what did they know?
That the man on the middle cross, he died for me.
Maybe some of us are in the place that other things have been. King of our life.
So we want prayers for that. We want help for that. You can come forward right here. Or if you want, you can come to one of the doors back there and to talk to one of the shepherds. We would love for you to come up here so we can support you and to encourage you in your walk.
So whatever it is that you need to have that whenever, whatever, wherever type mentality, we want to help you get there. And that's through Jesus Christ. So let's talk about that. If you have that kind of need, please come while we stand and we sing.
