The Binding of the Lamb John 18:12-19

I need no other plea, it is enough that Jesus died and that He died for me.

A great physician, here's a sick, the lost, He came to save.

For me His precious blood He shed, for me His life

He gave. I need no other worker and I need no other plea, it is enough that Jesus died and that He died for me.

I need no other worker and I need no other plea, it is enough that Jesus died and that He died for me.

I need no other worker and I need no other plea, it is enough that Jesus died and that He died for me.

I need no other worker and I need no other plea, it is enough that Jesus died and that He died for me.

I need no other worker and I need no other plea, it is enough that Jesus died and that He died for me. We are fundamentally believing in two completely different things in here.

And if what you're saying is true, I have a need of something. And I understand why you're so eager about telling us about Jesus Christ now.

And so I just praise God for those two different conversations. And so their name was Jen and Chad.

And so we'll be praying for both Jen and Chad in those ways because I want them to know who Jesus is in the

Bible. So let us be praying for those kind of things right now. So Lord God, we just thank

You for this text that we have before us, Lord. And God, I would just pray that You might hold each one of us and myself to what this text says, that we might not add to it, we might not take away from it,

Lord, but that we might come to it in humility and that we might understand You better through it, Lord.

God, we want to be praying specifically for those LDS people that did hear the Gospel and couldn't tell the lie about the

Lord, whether it was from my mouth or whether it was from seeing a Bible verse on a sign or a

Gospel tract that was handed out. And Lord, I just pray that the work that was done there and that will be done there and is currently being done there,

Lord, that it might call those that don't know You to repentance, Lord, and that they might be saved and have faith in knowing

You. Lord, I pray that as we want them to have a love for Christ, we want ourselves to have a deeper love for Christ.

And Lord, I also ask You, Lord, that if we love You, that You would help us have a greater work ethic in seeking

You and glorifying You in all that we do, in our jobs, in our private lives, in whatever it is,

Lord, that we would never forsake You, we would never deny You, Lord. God, I pray that we might be sanctified in this text today, that we might seek to flee from sin all the more from this.

And Lord, just let us be bound by what Your Word says, Lord. And Lord, we just say these things in Your name,

Jesus Christ, Amen. So, John chapter 18, verses 12 -19 is where we are at right now.

Let us read this, we'll then pray again, and we'll talk about some of the context that's going on here in this text.

So, John 18, verses 12 -19 says this, So, the

Roman cohort and the commander and the officers of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound

Him, and led Him to Annius first, for he was the father -in -law of Caiaphas, or depending on how you want to pronounce it,

I'm going to say Caiaphas, that's the best way I can pronounce it, who was a high priest that year.

Now, Caiaphas was the one who advised the Jews that it was expedient for one man to die on behalf of the people.

And Simon Peter was following Jesus, and so was another disciple.

Now, that disciple was known to the high priest and entered with Jesus into the cohort of the high priest, into the court of the high priest, excuse me.

Verse 16, But Peter was standing at the door outside, so the other disciple who was known to the high priest went out and spoke to the doorkeeper and brought

Peter in. The slave girl, therefore, who kept the door, said to Peter, You are not also one of this man's disciples, are you?

He said, I am not. Now the slaves and the officers were standing there, having made a charcoal fire, for it was cold, and they were warming themselves, and Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself.

And the high priest, therefore, questioned Jesus about the disciples, about his disciples, and about his teaching.

Let us go ahead and pray again specifically over this text. Lord God, be glorified in this preaching, in the hearing of your word today,

Lord. Let us never forsake you in all that we do, and let us never deny you before men,

Lord, for if we deny you before men, we are not worthy of you, Lord. God, you are worthy because you are

God, and we want to worship you as such today, and we just lift you up above every name, and Lord, we just put our knee to the ground that we might bow before you, and we just say these things in your name,

Jesus Christ, Amen. As we spoke of last week as the context of this chapter and verses that we're in right now, this comes after the great high priestly prayer that Christ has offered, and now he's in the

Valley of Kindred. He has gone into the Garden of Gethsemane, and now after this, he's been betrayed by Judas, and as a reminder for us today, that the

Roman cohort that we see here in this text is often made up of 600 men, and you might ask why 600 men is needed to come and arrest

Jesus. It is thought that because this is the time of the Jewish Passover that the

Romans saw it necessary to have a large group of soldiers in the city to keep peace, and so when

Judas was going to betray Jesus, it says in the verses that we read from last week that Judas gathered for himself the

Roman cohort, the Pharisees, and the Jews, and the high priests, and so on and so forth, so Judas knows the power that Christ is capable of doing and gathers for him a cohort, a battalion of Roman soldiers, and so that is why we see that large group of men that are coming to arrest

Jesus, and church, it is no question or silly notion, 600 is not enough to arrest our

God. There is no number in the world that we could think of that could defeat our mighty

God that we have, and we see that in this text when he says, I am, he simply tells them his name, and it causes the soldiers to step back and fall down on their faces to worship him when he says,

I am. Ego emi, when he says those words, the Roman Gentiles, they worshipped

God, they fell down on their faces, and it is only the reason that Christ was taken by them, it was because it was according to his will, it was not because of wicked men getting their way with our

God. That is not what is going on in this text. We see actually quite the opposite of this. And so that is just a reminder as we look into this, and so let us look into seeing what verse 12 says in here.

So the Roman cohort, once again, that is the 600 Roman soldiers, somewhere in that vicinity of numbers, 600 men, and you could imagine that as we read in verse 1 of the text from last week in chapter 18, they go forth into the

Valley of Kindred, this is a trail that they would have taken, you could imagine the stacking up of soldiers on this trail just far, far back, as the eye could see, of men that are coming to arrest

Jesus. So be thinking about that, just as a visual, all these men surrounding Jesus, trying to arrest him.

And as we are going to read as another little bit of context, Peter, as we read last week, has cut the ear off of one of the guard, the

Malicus, one of the slaves to arrest Jesus, and Jesus has healed the ear of Malicus.

He has healed it. And so we see in verse 11, let me read verse 11 one more time. Jesus therefore said to Peter, Put the sword into the sheath, the cup which the

Father has given me. Shall I not drink it? Jesus knows what is coming, because he is

God in flesh, he knows about the drink that he's going to have to take here soon, and that's going to be that he's going to die on a cross, take the wrath from the

Father for us there. And so he says to Peter, Shall I not drink it?

And now the Roman Cohort in verse 12 says, So the Roman Cohort and the commander and the officers of the

Jews arrested Jesus. And there's many things that come to my mind on this.

Could you imagine today if there was an individual, you saw 600 police officers go to their house, and at the very word of something they say they fall down and they worship him, and all of a sudden one of their ears gets lopped off, and the gentleman comes up and heals his ear, you would think that they wouldn't arrest him any longer.

They would realize something is going on here. They weren't persuaded by that to not arrest

Jesus. They weren't. This is an example of totally depraved men, unwilling to see

God as who he is, because they hate God, and not willing to accept him, they still arrest him.

They still arrest him. I read this great book, and I absolutely love it, it says The Alarm to the

Unconverted. It's by a gentleman in the 1700s named Joseph Alene, and in there he says that if people could hear the cries from torment today, you would think they would repent and believe in the gospel out of pure fear.

That's not true. It takes God to birth someone again from above in order for them to believe in him.

These men just saw a miracle before them. They saw an ear be placed back onto a person's head.

They saw themselves bow down to this figure, and they're still unwilling to accept who

Jesus Christ is, and they're still seeking to crucify him. That's important for us to remember.

That's important for us to remember. There's nothing we can do to persuade a man to have faith in Jesus Christ, let alone it takes

God to bring them to himself. It takes God. So the

Roman cohort and the commander and the officers of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound him.

This is no doubt a sovereign action that Jesus is performing here, a sovereign action that God is doing in here.

And many atheists of today would look and see, and I've heard this argument several times,

Church, and I would imagine you might have today. The Romans killed our God. The Romans defeated our

God is what the accusation of some atheists would say. You see, you have a weak God because he was killed.

He couldn't beat the Roman soldiers. That's not what's going on in here. Once again, it was that he was a lamb led to the slaughter, and he says that I laid down my life.

It's not the Romans that did it. I do it. It took Jesus to do it, his will to do it.

That's what it took for us to have our salvation. Jesus is holy God in this text. I want to turn back to our call to worship real fast, and we've noticed something very, very important that we need to take notice of.

Back in Genesis chapter 22. Chapter 22 of Genesis.

Good thing I had a cap on that water. Genesis 22.

I'm just going to read our call to worship one more time in here, and I'm going to make a special note of something here in verses 8 and 9, and we'll start in verse 7.

And Isaac spoke to Abraham, his father, and said, My father? And he said,

Here I am, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?

And Abraham said, God will provide for himself the lamb.

God will provide for himself the lamb. It did not take

Abraham to provide for the Lord, the lamb. It took God himself to provide the sacrifice.

It took God himself. Remember this. It took God to do this for us. It took God himself to do it for himself is what it says in here.

God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering. My son, the two of them walked on together, and they came to the place which

God had told them. And Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood and bound his son

Isaac and laid him atop of the altar on top of the wood.

I want you to pay close attention. And bound his son Isaac.

He bound, tied up his son Isaac. This story has so many correlations to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

We could be here for weeks, and we wouldn't even cover it all. But this is one example of John 18, verse 12, of the fulfillment of Isaac being bound by Father Abraham in this text.

It's that Jesus was bound by the

Roman cohort. He was bound, and we see in here that he was led to the slaughter, fulfilling

Isaiah chapter 53 once more. It is a fulfillment of prophecy that we are seeing here. So we see, once again, the wood and bound his son

Isaac and laid him on top of the altar at the top of the wood. And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.

But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said,

Abraham, Abraham. And he said, Here I am. And without going into great context of this text, but the angel of the

Lord is pre -incarnate Christ. It's Yahweh in this text. It's beautiful, and we see this here in just a second.

It says in verse 12, and he said, Do not stretch your hand against the lad and do nothing.

For now on I know, speaking of the angel of the Lord, I know that you fear

God since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me, this angel of the

Lord. And it said that who was Abraham to offer the son to? God. So the angel of the

Lord in this text is saying he is God, that you are not withheld your son from me.

This is Jesus, pre -incarnate Christ before he became flesh. We see then it goes on to say,

Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and beheld behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns.

Caught in the thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered him for a burnt offering in the place of his son.

We need to remember that Christ being bound and led to the slaughter and eventually his crucifixion is in the place of you and I.

Romans 6 .23 says, For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is everlasting life.

For the wages of sin is death. Did Jesus ever sin? No. Did he deserve death?

No. But it's because he took death that we receive that gift of everlasting life.

God provided for himself a lamb. He sought to it himself a lamb.

Provided a lamb. That's what that text is saying in there. Let's go back to John 18 now and see that correlation once again that's taking place here.

As Jesus Christ, every step he takes, he's fulfilling scripture left and right and around every corner. John 18 .12

So the Roman cohort and the commander and the officers of the Jews arrested

Jesus. They caught Jesus and they bound him. Once again, this is no coincidence that this is taking place.

Do you know church how many times Jesus has already said I am to the Pharisees? And they sought to kill him.

And it says they couldn't lay a hand on him and he somehow weaves through the crowd and they are not able to stone him like they want.

It's because it's against the will of the Father for him to have died back in those texts. Why now is he bound and why now are they seeking to kill him?

Because the time has come for the Father's will to be done.

For the Father's sovereign hand in this text to happen the way that it happens.

This is not out of some random coincidence that the Roman cohort are able to capture Jesus. It's sovereignty.

Every step that they're doing, every evil act that they're doing is in absolute alignment with the decree of God in this text to take place in that way.

It absolutely is. And it says that they bound Jesus. Could you imagine the one that just spoke

I am and then they fell down? You'd think that binding his hands are going to do anything for him.

How today are false religions and those that profess to know

Jesus that don't know him at all, how do they bind Jesus today? They bind him by lessening his attributes.

They bind him by saying you see this text shows that Jesus was not all powerful.

They lessen himself as who he declares himself to be. It is evil and wrong for us to do that today so let us worship

God as he has declared himself in this text to be. Because anything less would be us binding

Jesus in this sense today like a false religion would do. But we see the sovereignty of Jesus taking place here in this text and it says that they led him to Ananias first, for he was the father -in -law of Caiaphas who was high priest that year.

And this is an account of John saying that Ananias was the first one to judge

Jesus. They took it to him first. Now who was this figure that John records here?

He's the father -in -law of Caiaphas. He is highly regarded by the

Jews in that day as the figure of great importance.

He used to be the high priest. Many of his sons have been the high priest up until this point. And this particular year that Jesus is going to be crucified,

Caiaphas, his son -in -law, is the high priest. So we see how Ananias has great influence over the

Jewish people of that day that they first take him to him. Now it gives us a little bit more context for us here.

It says in verse 14, Now Caiaphas was the one who advised the Jews. It was expedient for one man to die on behalf of the people.

I had the pleasure this last week in the prayer meeting to sit down with godly men and individuals that were able to show us through the text different things about what is here, things

I hadn't even studied quite yet. And so we went to John 11, 47 -54. I want to turn there.

John 11, 47 -54. John 11, 47 -54.

John 11, 47 -54. It says, The chief priests and the

Pharisees convened a council and were saying,

What are we doing? For this man is performing many signs.

They're speaking of Jesus in this text. If we let him go on like this, all men will believe in him.

So they're concerned about the authority that they have, the respect that they have from their people, and they're worried about them going and leaving them and following Jesus.

They're concerned about themselves in this text. And you say, And the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.

They're worried about their seat of authority that they have right now. And it says in verse 49, But a certain one of them,

Caiaphas, who was the high priest that year, mimicking John 18, verse 13, said to them,

You know nothing at all, nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people and that the whole nation should not perish.

Now this he did not say on his own initiative, but being a high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation.

And not for the nation only, but that he might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.

Caiaphas in this text, we absolutely know he was not saved or had faith in Jesus Christ, and we're going to read an account later today that shows how much he hated

Jesus. But just as God can make a donkey speak, as we see in the

Old Testament, he can make an evil man talk a prophetic statement here in this text.

Was Caiaphas a prophet? No. Was he prophesying in this text? Yes. That's what it says in here.

It was not out of his own initiative. It was so that God could speak a prophetic utterance through him.

And it says, once again, according to back in John 18 and John 11 here, it says,

Nor do you take into account that it is expedient that the one man should die for the people and that the whole nation should not perish.

Which to that I say, Amen. That's the very definition of Jesus' name in Matthew 1. It's Jesus will save his people.

That's what Jesus means. He will save his people. He will save his people.

So I say Amen to that. But why Caiaphas was saying this, besides just being prophetically uttering this, was he was saying it because he was concerned about his nation, his authority.

So he's saying it's better for us to kill the one rather than us lose what we have.

It's better for us to kill one person so that our nation can still be our nation.

So you see the evilness of man in that text too. Now, verse 14 once more,

Now Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it was fitting and expedient for one man to die on behalf of the people.

Amen. And Simon Peter was following Jesus. And so was another disciple.

That other disciple that is spoken of in here is John, the author of this gospel.

As he never refers to himself in the text. He always says it's another disciple, this disciple, this one whom

Jesus loved, is how he refers to himself as. So this other disciple himself, John, is following Simon Peter.

And Simon Peter being the group leader of the disciples when Jesus isn't there. He's following Jesus.

And I want you to picture in your mind the 600 Roman cohort that are leading Jesus to the slaughter.

Peter is in the back of the line. And we'll see this here in Matthew in just a second.

But he is following them and he's at a great distance. And that makes sense now why he's at a great distance.

There were 600 of them on this trail. He's at a great distance behind Jesus in this text. But he's following him.

And it says, so was another disciple. And now the disciple was known to the high priest and entered with Jesus into the court of the high priests.

Entered into the court of the high priests. We're going to read real fast Matthew 26, 57 through 70 because we need to see what

Matthew accords in this account. What is going on here. And it gives us a little bit more context of what

John is describing here. And we're going to make reference of this later on as well. So please remember these verses.

Matthew 26, 57 through 70. 57 through 70.

Matthew 26. And it says in here, And those who had seized Jesus led him away to Caiaphas the high priest where the scribes and the elders were gathered together.

But Peter also was following him at a distance as far as the courtyard of the high priests and entered in and sat down with the officers to see the outcome.

Now the chief priests and the whole council kept trying to obtain false testimony against Jesus in order that they might put him to death.

And we see why that is in the Old Testament that of the witness of two or three, their witness is true.

And so they're trying to gather people that say, Look, Jesus did this and this and this. We should kill him because of it.

And it says it here, And they did not find any, even though many false witnesses came forward.

But later on two came forward and said, This man stated, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days.

This is no doubt speaking of the very gospel message that we proclaim today. The death, burial, and resurrection alone is what saves.

The death of Jesus Christ, God in flesh, on a cross, being then buried and rising again is resurrection.

That is the temple we look to. That is the God we look to. That is the gospel message itself.

Repent and believe in this gospel that is spoken of in here. And to rebuild it in three days. And the high priest stood up and said to him,

Do you make no answer? Speaking to Jesus, What is it that these men are testifying against you?

But Jesus kept silent. This is fulfilling

Old Testament prophecy again. As the lamb was led to the slaughter, he is a sheep silent before the shears.

He's silent in this text. He does not respond yet. And so Jesus, keeping silence, and the high priest said to him,

I adjure you by the living God that you tell us whether you are the

Christ, the Son of God. Jesus said to him, You have said it yourself.

Nevertheless, I tell you hereafter. You shall see the

Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven.

This statement that Jesus makes here is speaking about his authority of being God in flesh and that he's going to be at the right hand of power, this position that he is deserving.

And that is what the Jews have been concerned about this entire time, that if they follow Jesus, we don't have power.

We don't have authority. Then the high priest tore his robes and said,

He has blasphemed. What further do we have a witness?

Behold, you have now heard the blasphemy. What do you think?

They answered and said, He is deserving of death. Then they spat in his face and beat him, and with their fists others slapped him and said,

Prophesy to us, you Christ. Who is the one who hit you?

Now Peter was standing outside in the courtyard and a certain servant girl came to him and said,

You two were with Jesus the Galilean, but he denied it before them, all saying,

I do not know what you are talking about. Let us go back to John 18. This story that John is speaking of is running the course just as Matthew's account is talking about in Matthew 26.

I want you to read it all right there, and we're going to read more about what Peter does here in a second. But I want you to understand the silliness of what's taking place and the sadness of what's going on in Matthew 26.

What was the high priest of the Old Testament even for? It was to foreshadow

Jesus himself. How silly and evil and wrong is it that we see the shadow question the reality of Jesus Christ in this text?

The high priest of that year is questioning the high priest of everlasting to everlasting.

He's putting the high priest that we have faith in on trial. He thinks he has great power and authority.

He has nothing compared to Jesus. That is sad in this text.

Here is this man that is supposed to be representing God, representing the very person that is on trial before him, and he accuses him of blasphemy.

Very, very interesting that we see this in the text. The very shadow is questioning the very reality.

Just as much as the Lamb in Genesis 22 was a shadow of Jesus, so is

Caiaphas in this text. But he was an evil shadow. He was not one that followed

God. He was not fulfilling his role as the high priest in this text. Let us continue on now in John 18, verse 15.

Simon Peter was following Jesus and so was another disciple. Another disciple that known to the high priest and entered with Jesus into the cohort.

As we read in Matthew 26, Peter is at the farthest distance that he can get from Jesus and still being able to see what happens.

He just stood before 600 men with Jesus next to him and cut off the ear of one person.

And now what faith do we see Peter have? He's at the furthest distance that he can get from Jesus.

I want to ask you, church, how are we being like Peter today? How are you being as far away from Jesus and not wanting to associate yourself with him today?

Does your family know that you're a Christian? Does your neighbors know that you're a

Christian? Do your loved ones know that you're a follower of Jesus Christ?

Or are you stepping far away from Jesus in the same way that Peter does in this text? I think we have all done this at different points in our lives and we might even be doing this today.

We need to come to Jesus. We need to be in the same room that Jesus is in. We need to be like Peter post -crucifixion where he says,

I'm going to die for Christ. I'm going to go on and do exactly what he did and die.

I'm going to be willing to die for the testimony that I have in Jesus and I'm not going to deny him before men.

That's the kind of Christian we need to be continually. So Peter has distanced himself from Jesus, standing far, far away from him.

And it says in verse 16, it says, but Peter was standing at the door outside.

So the other disciple was known to the priests, went out and spoke to the doorkeeper and brought in Peter.

And the slave girl, the servants of the priests there, therefore who kept the door said to Peter, you are not also one of this man's disciples, are you?

He said, I am not. This is the first denial of Christ by Peter as prophesied by Jesus in this earlier text of John.

And I am so thankful we have brother Sam leading us through the rest of these denials next week.

This is terribly sad text in this Bible that we have here. Peter says,

I am not. Now the slaves, the servants and the officers were standing there having made a charcoal fire for it was cold and they were warming themselves.

And Peter also was with them standing there, warming himself. Peter and the apostles have been following Jesus, seeking him to care for them this entire time.

And when Jesus is on trial, now what do you see Peter doing? Instead of being with Christ, still having him as a sustainer of all things, he's now warming himself at a great distance from Christ.

He's denied him once now. And what is he around? He's around the fellowship of unbelievers.

I think we could look at this and see, as Christians when we deny Christ, where do we find ourselves around a table of other people who deny

Christ? It was a great pleasure this last week doing that evangelism as I spoke of.

We had a group of people from Utah and from Boise that we had never even met before who were

Christians. And we went to Perkins to try to get dinner. It was a long story, we ended up not getting dinner there.

But we sat down at the table and we had an immediate fellowship with each other and we knew each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.

It was beautiful. It warmed my very soul to know that I had brothers in Christ and sisters in Christ in a different area than where I live who proclaim the same

God as you and I do. That was truly amazing. But what do we see Peter here doing in this text?

He's fellowshiping around a fire of unbelievers right here. Verse 19,

The high priest therefore questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching.

They questioned him. Peter says, I am not.

Jesus says earlier in John 18, I am. I am.

I want to go back to Matthew real quickly. Matthew 26 once more. Matthew 26.

Because we see how this story that John is describing for us is taking place in accordance in here.

It says in verse 19 of John 18 one more time, The high priest therefore questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching.

Matthew 26. I want to read this again because this should strike us to our very core.

And the high priest stood up and said to him, Do you make no answer what is it that these men are testifying against you?

But Jesus kept silent. And the high priest said to him, I adjure you by the living God that you tell us whether you are the

Christ, the Son of God. And Jesus said to him, You have said it yourselves.

Nevertheless, I tell you, hereafter you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven.

Then the high priest tore his robe, saying, He has blasphemed. What further need do we have a witness?

Behold, you have now heard the blasphemy. What do you think?

And he answered and said, He is deserving of death. He wasn't deserving of death.

I want you to realize that in this John 18 text that we have, the questioning of him that's taking place in 19,

Jesus, and we'll talk about this again when he stands before Pilate, Jesus stood in our place.

Jesus was judged as we should have been judged. Is he deserving of death as this high priest, this shadow of Christ himself told him he's deserving of death?

No, he wasn't. Are we deserving of death?

Yeah. Absolutely. For we have sinned against a great and holy God, and it took

God himself to stand in the place of ourselves, the place of yourselves.

It took God himself to stand in that place and to take the wicked judgment of man, who, once again, the judges of the nations are supposed to be representatives of God himself as a judge, and we see how evil they are.

They make a false accusation against him. They say, well, you have blasphemed

God. He didn't know such thing. He didn't know such thing.

And they say that he is deserving of this death, that high priest of that year.

That is what we are deserving of, not what Christ is deserving of. I want to read one more text before we finish up.

We're going to go to Hebrews chapter 13, verses 11 through 14. Hebrews chapter 13, verses 11 through 14.

Hebrews chapter 11. And we're going to actually read to verse 15 here.

Hebrews chapter 13, verses 11 through 15. Hebrews 13, verses 11 through 15.

It says, For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin.

We read as a cult of worship today an example of a lamb, an animal being sacrificed for an offering of sin, are burned outside the camp.

Therefore, Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered outside the gates.

Hence, let us, you and I, brothers and sisters, go out to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach.

For here we do have a lasting city, but we are seeking.

We do not have a lasting city here, but we are seeking the city which is to come.

Verse 15. Through him, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God.

That is the first, or the fruit of lips that give thanks to his name.

Jesus Christ is that great high priest. He is that perfect lamb.

He was crucified outside the camp. He was the judge that was judged by evil, wicked men in the place of you and I.

And it is through his blood and his blood alone that we enter into a covenant of grace with our holy

God, and be made in a right standing before him. The gospel message is that death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ according to scriptures.

Remember that, church. Repent and believe in this gospel. And as we lead out in our final song of worship, let us give thanks to him and his name as Hebrews 13 just described for us.

So let us do that now and give mighty thanks to him in prayer. God, we thank you for what you have done, what you are doing, and what you are going to do,

Lord. We thank you for this awful atrocity that takes place in Matthew 26 and John 18,

Lord. It is by the hand of wicked men that you have ransomed us yourself, and Lord, this is all for your own glory.

And God, so we come before you as humble servants in thanksgiving to glorify your holy name that is above every single name, and that is

Jesus Christ. Lord, we want to worship you as the

Trinity that you are, and we seek the desire to know more about you and more about your son.

Lord, we praise you in what this text has said, and Lord, I pray that as we come close to your cross,

Lord, that we would not be far away from it, that we would not be in the furthest chamber of a room,

Lord, but that we might be in close proximity of you, and that we might bear the same reproach that you did,

Lord, that we be willing to confess you before men,

Lord, that we be willing to confess you before our friends, that we be willing to confess you before our brothers and sisters and yourself even,

Lord, and that the unity that we have amongst each other is only unity that is found in your body,

Lord. God, I pray that you might help us be better Christians today,

Lord, that we might decrease, and we might have humility and place you and look to you that you might increase in our lives,

Lord, help us be humble in these areas, and God, once again, we thank you for this sacrifice, we thank you for this judgment that took place on our behalf,

Lord. Jesus, you are good, you are great, you are our high priest, and we just say this in that Lamb's name,

Jesus Christ, amen. Church, let us stand and worship

God in our final song here today, and please, I beg you to please stay and eat some spaghetti with us after church.

Try not to spill any on your clothes, because that's never fun. Shepard might have to take off all his clothes to eat.

He'll probably be shirtless. Please stay with us in fellowship, Lord, and give thanksgiving to him who wore it all for us.