The Shadow of the Cross

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called

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Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in. Well, good morning and welcome to Recast Church.

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I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here. And welcome to Recast Church. Welcome to the outdoors.

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I think we've kind of found our rhythm here. And so I actually like meeting over here better than I do under the tent that we had early this summer.

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How many of you would agree with me on that? You like this setting and this is pretty good. So I'm really glad for this and that this setup works good for us.

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But I have to confess that I'm looking forward to being one church again. I'm looking forward to the time when we can gather together in one service instead of two.

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I look forward to that day. But for now, the elders met this past Tuesday. We're kind of talking through what the fall looks like and trying to figure that out.

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And as far as for now, we're concerned, I mean, we're continuing on and having this two -service format for the sake of numbers and kind of keeping it pretty balanced.

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And so we've been finding that the 9 o 'clock service and the 11 o 'clock service have been pretty naturally balanced in the number of people in each.

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And so we're going to continue to do that on into the fall. And we gather together for the purpose of growing in our faith.

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That is to take in God's word, to trust it, and to go out and live it. And we do so in community with a focus on serving one another.

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So there's three spheres that we desire everybody. We think every follower of Jesus Christ should be growing into.

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We should be growing and expanding in the realm of faith, growing and expanding in the realm of community, and growing and expanding in the realm of service.

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And that's really what we're driving for as Recast Church. And so this morning, I hope that this text of Scripture stretches your faith.

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We're going to be looking at this text here in a moment, but Jesus takes a minute out in the book of Matthew, in our text, to slow down.

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He slows down and sets the bigger picture of his purpose and agenda in the midst of tons of stories about the life of Jesus.

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That's what Matthew is, a compilation of a bunch of different things that Jesus did, a bunch of his teaching, places he traveled, things that he did.

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But here in our text, he slows down to say, hey, disciples, here's the big picture of what

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I came to do. And so our text can appear a little out of place in the context of the book of Matthew, where it occurs.

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It stands out as a stark and shocking prediction that when he gets to Jerusalem, he's going to be rejected, and further and in more detail, he's going to be crucified.

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And that's all set, interestingly and intentionally, in the book of Matthew. This accounting of this prediction is set in the context of the disciples squabbling over issues of self -importance.

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So I think it would be helpful to clarify why this text, I think it's helpful to see why it occurs here in the text of the book of Matthew.

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The disciples have been questioning Jesus, who's greatest? And they have every intention and every hope that by asking the question, who's greatest in your kingdom,

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Jesus, that he's going to answer with their name. And the disciples have been asking about rewards in his kingdom, even outright asking, hey, we've sacrificed a bunch, what's in it for us?

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Could you go over the benefits package of being a disciple? Could you go over the benefits package of what it means to follow you?

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We've sacrificed a lot for you, Jesus, what are you going to give to us? And next week, we're going to see two of the disciples and their mommy asking for special authority in the kingdom of Jesus, actually putting their mom up to it, saying, hey mom, go ask

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Jesus if we can sit at your right hand in your kingdom. And so this short prediction serves as a significant contrast in this context, and I want you to hear it that way as we read it.

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It's a contrast, as his followers are getting lost in jealousy, they're getting lost in envy and greed and even lust for power.

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Here is the humble son of man, gently guiding, gently nudging, and always, always, always pointing his followers to the way of humble sacrifice.

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See, Jesus lived his entire life in the shadow of the cross. He knew full well where his journey was going.

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And here in our text, he shows that he knew it in detail. He knew in detail what was awaiting him outside on the hill of Golgotha, out there on the hill of Calvary, where he would bleed and suffer and die for our sins.

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And in his grace, he prepared his disciples for what was to come. So let's open our

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Bibles, if you're not already there, to Romans chapter 20, verses 17 through 19. If you've got a device, you can navigate in that over.

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But I want everybody to just put your eyes on the word of God, to see it, and to recognize that, church, this is a word that has the power to change us.

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And although all scripture is God -breathed and is profitable to teach us on how to live and how to work and how to love each other, when we encounter texts where the cross is central, we recognize something central is happening here.

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Something that is to the very core of life change. Something that is to the very core of what it means to be a follower of Christ.

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And so, listen in as we read this together, short passage, Matthew 20, verses 17 to 19.

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And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the 12 disciples aside. And on the way, he said to them, see, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the

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Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes. And they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the

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Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. And he will be raised on the third day.

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Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for your word that sets our minds right.

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As we can get so caught up in the here and now, we can get so caught up in our lives of control, our lives of power and authority, our hunger and desire after the stuff of this world.

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And Father, I thank you that you willingly peel that back and slow down and remind us the centrality of the cross, the centrality of the sacrifice of Jesus, and his willing service for others, even in that shadow, as he's marching towards the place of his death, the place of his sacrifice, continuing to serve others.

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Father, I pray that this text would become a pattern for us and that you would work in our lives a deeper and greater faith, especially during these difficult times where it's so hard to navigate the things that are going on around us, things that are unprecedented, things that are so different that no one has ever faced.

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And Father, I thank you that you are present with your people. And Father, I pray that you would receive our worship to you, that you would mingle our voices together in a great chorus before you of gladness and joy for the salvation that we have in the name of Jesus Christ.

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And it's in his name that I pray. Amen. Yeah, you can go ahead and be seated. And a big thanks to David Schrock for leading in Dave Bunt's absence.

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Just grateful for guys like David to step up and lead. And yeah, just grateful for the way that God has gifted his body of believers here.

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I encourage you to go ahead and reopen your Bible or your device to Matthew chapter 20 verses 17 through 19.

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If you lost your place, jump back in there because that wasn't just a Bible reading. That's the passage we're going to be talking about in the remainder of our time.

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And I'd love for you to be able to have that in front of you so that you can actually see that the things that I'm saying are flowing from that text.

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These are not my ideas. These are not my opinions or my thoughts. These are flowing out of God's word as revealed to Matthew and brought down to us.

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And so, in the Gospel of Matthew, this is the fourth time that Jesus has predicted his coming rejection and death.

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And yeah, I said fourth time, even though in some of your Bibles there might be a little side note that this is the third time, theologians are not the best at math.

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And so, if you have any questions about that, you can ask me. But it's actually the fourth time that Jesus predicts that he's going to go to, that he's going to be rejected and that he's going to die in Jerusalem.

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And those predictions increase in detail and intensity as his love and compassion for us carries him closer and closer toward that final destination just outside of Jerusalem.

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And so, I can think of many various reasons, and I think you probably could too, why Jesus might predict his death to his followers.

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And there's all kinds of reasons why he might want to do that. But in this context, in the way that he tells them, he takes the inner circle of the twelve off to the side for a private conversation.

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And that tells me something of his intentions. His intention was to prepare particularly those twelve guys and even to correct them specifically.

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You see, the inner twelve, these twelve disciples are the ones that are constantly vying for the disciple of the month award and that special parking spot.

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So, they seem to be the ones that are constantly vying for, Jesus, I'm most important, right? I'm the best this month.

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I'm the greatest. And they're the ones who are asking outright with their mouth,

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Jesus, who is greatest? So, they need routine reminders of where their master is leading them.

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They have misguided notions about what's going to happen in Jerusalem, and they're still kind of thinking, despite the fact that he's already predicted his death, they're kind of thinking, well, maybe that was metaphorical.

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Maybe this is kind of like the phoenix rising from the ashes, and he's going to come in and he's going to kick the Romans out and he's going to set up his kingdom because he's talked about the kingdom a lot.

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And so, that kind of overshadowed all the other thoughts that they had heard from him, and they're thinking, man,

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Jesus is going to set up his kingdom and we need to be right there with him as he sets up his administration. So, they need routine reminders about where their master is leading.

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And hear me carefully, church, I'm confident we do too. I think we need those reminders in the midst of vying for positions, in the midst of comparisons and jealousies and envies and all kinds of clamoring for authority.

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And how many of you have maybe once or twice in the last couple of months tried to control something that was out of your control?

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Anyone? Anybody with me on that? I think that's probably pretty much all of us. Those of you who didn't raise your hand, some of you have, you know, other things in your hands right now, so you couldn't raise your hand.

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But aside from that, I think all of us have tried to control a lot of things. We need this reminder. And so, what

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I'm getting at here, recast, I don't think a single one of us here can throw this message away. We can't sit this one out.

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I mean, no one of us has the freedom to say, but Don, the subject is about humility of the cross. I don't need this message.

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I'm already humble enough. As a matter of fact, I'm the most humble person I know, right? Which lets you know that you need this message, right?

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Like if you're the most humble person you know, then it's not you, okay? No, all of us need these routine reminders to come back to see our

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Savior with love and resolve on His face, leading us all to a person, to the place of sacrifice, leading us all the way to the cross.

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Verse 17 reminds us that back at the start of chapter 19, Jesus said goodbye to Galilee for the last time and began

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His final journey south towards Jerusalem. And in this conversation, we're told that it all took place on the winding road up to the

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Judean hills. Now, when we talk about going up to someplace, what do we mean here in Michigan?

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How many of you have been up north? I mean, that's a place, right? That's a location in Michigan, right? Up north.

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Like, I don't know. Lynn and I were talking. Somebody help me. Is Ludington up north? Because we kind of thought it was, but we went to Ludington for a day this weekend and had a nice time away.

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But how many of you, raise your hand again, you've been up north? Well, we say up north because that's up the map, right?

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But how many of you know that if you walk everywhere or you ride your bike everywhere, suddenly elevation matters? You guys tracking with me?

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You don't know, by the way, where the road, the road you live on, you're not sure where it goes up and where it goes down if you've only driven it in a car.

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But the minute you go out for a jog, the minute you go out for a bike ride, all of a sudden, you know where every little hill is.

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Do you know what I'm talking about? Well, that's the way their culture was. I mean, they were walking everywhere. They were using foot power.

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And so you knew, it struck out to you that Jerusalem was at elevation. You always, almost from anywhere you were at, you went up to Jerusalem.

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And so that's why we see that phrase here. They were going up on their way up to Jerusalem. And the road would have been full of people, just in context.

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They're on their way to the Passover celebration in Jerusalem. And so Jesus took the 12 aside for a private conversation in the midst of a crowd.

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So it probably wasn't very easy for him to get them alone, but he did and he made a concerted effort to have a private conversation with just the 12 as they're walking along the road.

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And this is what they talked about. He didn't want everybody to know what was happening, by the way, when they get to Jerusalem.

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But he did want to prepare the hearts of his inner circle of 12 who were closest to him. And in context,

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I believe this prediction serves as an attempt to bring the disciples back down to earth. Jesus did not attempt to inflate, by the way, in his ministry, any images of his acceptance and success.

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He didn't come to his followers with self -aggrandized promises of success and wealth and fame and power.

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Come hit your wagon to the Jesus train and I tell you what, everything's going to go great for you. You're going to have houses and yachts and a private jet and you're going to have everything that you ever dreamed of.

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If you just hitch your ride to Jesus, no, no, no, no. That is not the way that Jesus spoke about his kingdom.

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He told them things instead like this, the world will hate you. The world will despise you if you are my follower.

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And he told them in another context, in this world, hear me carefully church, Jesus, the words of our

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Lord and master, the one we proclaim that we follow, the one that we testify that we follow this one, he said this, in this world, you will have trouble.

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It's a given. In this world, you will have trouble. Spoken to his followers, spoken to his disciples, you will have trouble.

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And here in verse 18, Jesus says, you guys know that we're going up to Jerusalem, right? As if to say, you know what

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Jerusalem is like. By this late point in the ministry of Jesus, the disciples had seen firsthand that the religious leaders had it out for Jesus.

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They were constantly trying to trap him. They were constantly trying to catch him up and slip him up and they even had plots to attempt to kill him.

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And they further knew, therefore, that going to Jerusalem was dangerous. Jerusalem, where the scribes and Pharisees had their headquarters, where the

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Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling body, had it out for Jesus. And so they're going basically into the lion's den here.

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They're going straight to the place where all of those who have it out for Jesus live.

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And according to John's account, you have four gospels, right? You have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. John is kind of like the loopy brother who's always doing his own thing.

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The other three are kind of falling in line. They kind of take after dad, but John is always like, he's telling these other stories in a different way.

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And John says this. He's the only one who records this for us, but he says, in this context, Thomas said this.

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Okay? Doubting Thomas, it's a bad rap, but he says some things that are kind of funny at times and probably has a little bit of sense of humor.

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I think I would have liked the guy. Look forward to meeting him. But Thomas says this. Well, it looks like Jesus has his mind made up and he's heading to Jerusalem, so we might as well go and die with him.

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We might as well go die with him. That was, so the disciples had some understanding that Jerusalem was dangerous.

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They had some notion that Jesus was going to die, but I'm not sure they fully grasped or wanted to believe that.

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Have you ever had a truth that you didn't want to believe? Do you know what I'm talking about? Well, I think that's where the disciples are, and that's why

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Jesus had to tell them four times, and I'm still not sure that by the end of this text that they fully understand exactly what's going to happen in Jerusalem, despite the detail with which

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Jesus predicts what's going to happen in a couple of weeks. They knew that danger is awaited in Jerusalem.

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They just didn't fully get the gravity of it all. So Jesus, predicting what's going to happen to himself, uses one of his favorite titles for himself, a title that I always love.

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It always makes me smile. I think it made Jesus, there's a twinkle in his eye every time he said it. He calls himself, in this text, the

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Son of Man. Now how many of you, that's like, oh, Son of Man, ha ha, I get it, right? It's probably a phrase that you just kind of have to think through a little bit, and it's not very clear exactly what

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Jesus would mean. Why would he call himself the Son of Man or a Son of Man? I mean, nobody ever calls

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Jesus this. This is one of his favorite terms for himself. As a matter of fact, the thing that he calls himself the most frequently when referring to himself.

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And I believe that it's a playful title, swirling around his deity. Son of Man is an

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Old Testament term that was a prophecy or prediction about the Messiah. The Messiah would be the Son of Man, and so he uses that term in some ways to tie into Old Testament prophecy, saying,

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I am the chosen one. I am the one who will come to reconcile things and to reconcile humanity to my

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Father. But it's also, think about it, it's a funny term if it's applied to any other human on the planet, right?

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It's a bit redundant for me to call myself a Son of Humanity. How many of you would call yourself a Daughter of Humanity or a

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Son of Humanity? You just kind of, that would fit. Like does that fit for you? Go ahead and raise your hand if that fits. Like at the end of the day, yeah,

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I'm a product of humanity. That's all that that would mean for me, right? I'm a human, in other words.

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So not many people walk around calling themselves human. I'm a human. But I think that it's redundant for me to call myself

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Son of Humanity or Son of Man, but it is very unique for Jesus. You've got to think this through.

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Very unique for Jesus, the second person of the triune Godhead, to call himself the

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Son of Man. That's an extremely unique title for a member of the

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Godhead. If anything could be said to be novel, and I know that I'm stretching and I'm pushing a little bit, but if anything could be said to be novel or new for God, it would be the incarnation.

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That he humbled himself, taking on human flesh. I believe that every time Jesus uttered the title for himself,

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Son of Man, there was a twinkle in his eye and a bit of the thought, God in flesh.

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Whoa, whoa, God in flesh. I the Lord have been born to humanity, is what he's saying in this title.

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I the Lord have become a Son of Man. How many of you think that's just radical and mind -blowing? God, born of a human, here on this planet.

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Unreasonable. So the Son of Man is helping them as much as possible to prepare their hearts for his absence, for what's about to happen to him.

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The predictions in verses 18 and 19 are so specific that they reveal how much Jesus actually understood about his own mission.

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They give us insight into what he knew before the things happened, and he knew in detail what was going to happen.

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So there's no fuzzy notion that things might possibly go poor for him. Now, how many of you have ever been driving in a car with your wife on the way to a meeting or on your way somewhere and it's like, okay,

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I'm not sure this is going to go well. I got a bad feeling about this. Do you know what I'm talking about? Maybe it's on the way to a family reunion.

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I don't know. I mean, maybe there's something in your family that's kind of like, okay, I don't know what's going to go on here.

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Are you guys getting me? I'm getting some blank stares. I'm not sure if you're tracking. But occasionally we run into this like premonition kind of thing, a gut feeling.

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I don't think this is going to work out. I don't think it's going to go well. This is not a statement to his followers,

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I got a bad feeling about this. That's not what he's saying. No, no, no.

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Jesus has not just got some kind of fuzzy premonition that something's going to go poorly in Jerusalem. I think we need to watch our back, guys, because this is the place where people have it out for us, and they don't like me very much there.

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So we got to keep our eyes peeled. No, no, no, no. This is Jesus saying, I'm going to be delivered over by someone to the religious leaders.

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And when he said, I'm going to be delivered over by someone, I wonder if his eyes briefly fell on Judas for an awkward second as then he continued on with the sentence.

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Because who was he going to be delivered over by? Judas. One of the 12 who he's standing there sharing this prediction with is actually predicted to be the one who's going to pass him over to the religious leaders, deliver him up.

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And they will deliver me over to the chief priests and the scribes. He knew he was going to be offered over to the religious leaders who wanted him out of the picture and out of the way.

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He knew that they were going to pronounce a death sentence over him. I think that in essence what we see here is an image in his mind of the

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Jewish crowd shouting, crucify him, as the Jews themselves, his own people would call for his death.

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And just a couple of weeks time. He knew he would be then delivered by the Jews over to the

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Roman occupiers, the Gentiles. And they would mock him and scourge him and crucify him.

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He knew the method of his death. He knew what was coming for him. He knew the torture that was awaiting him. He knew all of these details, even down to the mockery that was going to be slung his way.

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So think about this knowledge. Think about a man walking around on his way up the hill towards Jerusalem, knowing these things.

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Set these details. Set this fully formed understanding of his coming sacrifice in the light of his ministry to others around him in this book, in Matthew.

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He's answering questions from his disciples about kingdom rewards, what's in it for us, all in the shadow of his cross.

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He's interacting with the rich young ruler who rejects him and says, no, I like my stuff more than you, Jesus, in the shadow, in the full knowledge of his cross.

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He's going to deal next week with selfish requests from James and John in the shadow of his cross.

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And at the end, the very end of chapter 20, in a couple of weeks, we're going to be looking at a passage where he heals two blind people in the shadow of this very heavy, heavy, heavy cross.

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Now, I want to point out what I think is true of most of us. Really, I think I could say all of us fairly.

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I think most of us would be emotionally immobilized to find out that we only had two weeks to live. That'd be emotionally crushing and devastating, would it not for most of us?

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I think even if we were told, even if this was the statement that was true of us, two weeks from today on Sunday, you're going to die in your sleep, which by the way, that's kind of the way to go, right?

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Like at the end of the day, some of you are probably like, I'd like to at least, at least they'd sing songs if I was eaten by wolves or something, right?

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But I mean, I'm kind of like, I'll just take the, you know, fall asleep and not wake up and be in the arms of Jesus kind of thing, like, right?

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You know what I'm talking about? So if you were told that two weeks from now you would die,

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I think you'd probably likely do one of two things, pretty common. We would either have a mobilizing pity party for ourselves and we would begin to rehearse all of the things that we wish we had done, begin to rehearse all of the, you know, relationships that we wish we could have healed or things that we ought to do, or we would just go live it up.

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Some people talk about this, you know, you would just go get the best meals, spend our time with our best friends, sunsets, maybe a road trip.

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Can you imagine a quick stint of self -serving knowing that you only had two weeks to live, live it up, right?

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Like the country Western song, would you go 2 .7 seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu? I mean, would you?

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Would you live like you were dying? Is that, is that where you would go with that? Does anybody know the song that I just referenced?

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Okay. All right. I'm at least speaking to a couple of you. It's kind of a, kind of an interesting song when you think about human nature, but Jesus wasn't going to die in his sleep.

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No, no, no. He's got much more detail than that. He was just a couple of weeks out from carrying all of your sin and mine.

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He was days away from words like mocked, stripped naked, flogged to near death, and raised up in all the tortures of crucifixion for us.

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Let that sink in for us. And yet he serves.

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You're going to see it the weeks to come. You see it here. He serves. He endures the annoying questions about power and authority from his disciples as he's going the pathway of laying it all down.

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And he just keeps on meeting needs all while his feet are ever moving toward that cross and that ultimate sacrifice for us.

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I think this is a passage that has within it a gut check for each one of us. Who are you serving?

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Think about who is Jesus? What is he like? And what does it mean to follow him if this is the pathway he goes?

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He who told his followers to take up our crosses and follow him, here is showing us the way of the cross.

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The way of serving without return. The way of stepping towards the difficult calling of sacrifice for others.

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Yes, even the way of laying our own lives down. And there are three predictions in this text of what he would endure, and I don't think they sound very equal in my ears, and I'm glad for that.

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There are three things that he says are going to happen here. He's going to be mocked, he's going to be flogged, and he's going to be crucified.

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And I'm going to ask you to, in just a second, say out loud your vote. But could you rank these in order of your preference?

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Which one is the worst? Go ahead and say it out loud. Crucified. I don't want that.

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Which one is second worst? Flogged. I don't want to be flogged. And which one is preferable?

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Mocked. Okay, probably none of them, but mocked, yeah, I think that's what I was going for. Mocked. I have to choose one of these three.

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Mock me all day long. Make fun of me. Make fun of my mom. Make fun of everything that I do.

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Make fun of my voice. You can just make fun of all of it. The way I walk and all of it.

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If flogging is on the table, if crucifixion is on the table, mock away. Make fun of me.

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I'm signing up for that. And yet, I'm glad that all three are listed here as sufferings that Jesus endured for us and sufferings that he calls us into with him.

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You see, chances are pretty slim that any of us will ever be crucified for our faith. You don't need to feel bad about that.

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As a matter of fact, you ought to feel good about that. We live in a culture and a society where it's okay to be a Christian right now and nobody's crucifying anybody for their faith.

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Are you glad for that? Can you just say thanks for that? I'm glad that I live in a culture that it's okay to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

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And also, I would say chances are pretty unlikely that any of us will ever be flogged for our faith. Not going to be scourged with a

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Roman whip. There was a time, a weird situation. I worked in a factory between my junior,

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I mean my freshman and sophomore year of college up in Grand Rapids. I was punched for my faith. I was a pretty outspoken

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Christian. I was working the night shift. There's one guy who, I think he was just saying it just to get under my skin, he called himself a

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Satan worshiper. And one time we were working on the same line and I said something about Jesus and he turned around and just wheeled and just punched me and lost his job.

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So that punch to the chest was nowhere near a

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Roman flogging. Thank you. I mean, it was nowhere near a sacrifice. And I have to admit that with my upbringing, it was really hard to not hit him back.

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But by God's grace, I didn't. But yeah, mocking. That's more our speed, isn't it?

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That's more what we're in it for. That's more what's likely to happen. And it's a form of suffering that our

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Lord and Savior modeled for us. And maybe this is an application that we ought to all take on during the season, where we look around us and how many of you know that the world is in dire need of good news?

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The world is in dire need of the message that we have available. And although we might be mocked for it, it is exactly what the world needs.

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And maybe we should set it as a goal. If you've got a pen in your hand, maybe this is a time to write down some thoughts about what you need to do this week.

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But maybe we should set it as a goal in the next few weeks to be bold enough with the gospel to get mocked at least once.

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Now hear me carefully. I don't think you should set it as a goal to be obnoxious enough on social media to get mocked for your faith.

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You could do that right now. I'm convinced that by the end of this service, you could get made fun of online. Just log in right now and be obnoxious.

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Be a jerk and you can get mocked and you can get made fun of. We could go out and be belligerent enough to get mocked in five seconds online right now, right?

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But listen carefully to what I am saying, not what I'm not saying, not what I'm implying, what

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I actually am saying. We should be so bold and in love with Jesus and in love with his gospel that the mocking comes naturally.

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It just comes. It just happens. People get annoyed because why are you always about Jesus? Why are you always about grace?

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Why won't you enter into all the bashing and all the aggravation and the annoyance that is so common around us right now?

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Why don't you play party to all of the political arguments? Why don't you play party to all the mask arguments?

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Why aren't you in it? I got one message.

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I got one thing to say to the world and that's that my hope is in Jesus. That's what I got.

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So keep bringing that, church. Keep bringing that into the darkness of all of these conversations that are swirling around us.

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How many of you know it's a mess out there right now? How many of you know that with Christ, it's not a mess in here?

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You got the truth. You got the hope. You got the message that the world needs right now.

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We should be so bold in our declarations that the mocking will come naturally. This all starts with a question whether or not we are bold in our faith.

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Are we open? Are you open? I honestly ask this question. Are you open to being mocked for your faith?

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Or is it so important that people like you? Because I think at the end of the day, Christians have kind of this fit in itis right now, right?

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We don't want to stand out. We don't want others to make fun of us. And of course,

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I mean, nobody signs up for that. You're not like, oh, come on, everybody just make fun of me, roast me now, right?

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And at the same time, he who was mocked, he who was flogged and crucified for us calls his followers into the same ministry he started.

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And Jesus said in another text, not in this text, but in another text, if they hate the master, how do you think they're going to respond to the students?

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If they killed the son of God, how are they going to respond to his disciples? But the text ends with an incongruous and stark statement when compared with the details of his coming rejection.

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All of that's in detail. There's the mocking. There's the flogging. There's the crucifixion. And oh, by the way, the son of man will be raised on the third day.

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How do you rejoice in that part? Rejoice in that part? He knew that he would suffer a lot, but he also knew that he would be vindicated a lot.

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This makes me consider the heart of Jesus and his very intentions expressed for us in the book of Hebrews, where the author of Hebrews through the spirit tells us what keeps his feet moving towards Jerusalem in this context.

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What keeps Jesus serving? Why isn't he on a boat bound for Tarshish like Jonah? Why didn't he go back to the father, strap on his seatbelt on the throne, look over his dad and say, change of plans, let's smoke them all and start over again?

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Why didn't he do that? Hebrews 12 too gives us some insight into the very heart and mind of Jesus himself, where it says this.

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Of course, exhorting us and encouraging us to keep our eyes on Jesus, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy, who for the joy set before him, the joy of an eternal kingdom with the people who love him and are purchased by him and are righteous, made righteous by him, who for that kind of joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising all that shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

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For the joy set before him endured the mocking, endured the scourging, endured the crucifixion.

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He not only knew he would suffer, but he knew he would be raised. And following that model, what can you endure knowing that there is an external kingdom of joy, eternal kingdom of joy, awaiting those who trust and live out his cross?

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If you trust in his cross, if you live out his cross, if you asked him to save you, asked him to lead you, then you have that hope of an eternal kingdom.

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See, Jesus knew where he was going and he lived in the shadow of that cross his entire life and he did so knowing that there would be great, great, great joy on the other side.

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So how can we put into practice a prediction from Jesus about his coming death and resurrection? How in the world can we live that out, a prediction that he made?

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Well, let me first suggest that we conform our conception, the way that we think about Jesus, let this text flavor the way you think about your

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Lord and Savior. What I mean by this is don't just see the son as the inadvertent one who was in the way of the wrath of the father on the pathway of our salvation, but rather see the son who walked with his own two feet the road to Jerusalem, walking step after step after step toward that sacrifice for us.

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He was not just some tragic victim as some would say during this time that we live in.

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There was no divine child abuse going on in the sacrifice of Jesus.

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As if the wrath of the father was poured out on the son and at the end of the day Jesus was just a witless victim.

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Not at all. Look at the biblical account of his sacrifice here.

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Knowing what's coming for him in Jerusalem, where does he go next? Jerusalem.

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Why? Because of his great and awesome love for us. This was his choice of love.

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A tough choice, a painful choice, but a choice that has brought us eternity.

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A choice that looks like him in the garden of Gethsemane saying, Father, have we thought this through?

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Have we seen all the angles? Have we thought about every detail and every nuance because we've got pretty good minds.

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If there's another way, could we do that? Because this whole cross thing is weighing pretty heavy on me this night because tomorrow morning is when it all takes place.

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Can we do this some other way? But if not, Father, what does he say? Not my will, but yours be done.

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Willingly entering into that sacrifice for us. He chose the path of suffering for the joy of bringing many sons and daughters to glory.

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So make sure this first application is a mind check. Check your brain about the way that you think of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

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Make sure that you have Jesus willingly sacrificing himself for you when you think about what he has done in salvation.

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Second, don't choose the easy way. It's a practical one to think about this week.

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Don't choose the easy way. Like Jesus, serve others on the way through the shadows. All of our lives are lived in the valley of the shadow of death.

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There was some age and some time in your history where you realized you're going to die, right?

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I don't remember when that was. I don't know how old I was. But there was some point in my history where I realized that this life is not permanent.

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And from that point on, the specter of death has chased us our entire lives. That reality is there.

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And so what are you sowing your hours and your days and your weeks and your month into? Living in his kingdom looks like sowing your time in love for God through loving others.

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There is no greater cause to live for than the cause of Christ as his children. The third thing, determine in your heart to accept mocking for your faith.

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I don't think you're just going to wake up one day and be bold. I don't think it's going to be some mystical, magical power that came over you in the middle of the night.

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You woke up and you were bold for your faith. Unintentionally, just accidentally woke up and I'm an evangelist.

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Just winning my friends, winning my neighbors. I think you're going to need to consciously give over your pride and timidity.

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The two things that I see as the biggest barrier to us sharing the truth with the world around us. Pride. I want everybody to think well of me.

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I want to be popular. I want to have fame. Or timidity. Well, evangelism is for extroverts, not introverts.

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And let me just tell you that if you're an introvert here, there are people who will listen when you speak because you don't speak much.

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Do you know what I'm talking about? Some of us that are more extroverted, people just skip over. Our voice just sounds like meh, meh, meh, meh, meh to them.

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You know what I'm talking about? But there are people in my life who when they speak, they speak in a meeting, they speak in any context and it's like, whoa, he has a voice.

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She has a voice. I'm listening. Do you know what I'm talking about? So all of us, to a person, whether it's timidity or whether it's pride or what is it that keeps you,

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I would even suggest that you set aside a time this week, maybe it's this afternoon, to get alone with God and to give these things over to him.

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Say, God, I've had intense pride over my reputation, intense pride over the way that people view me and I want to be seen as hip.

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I want to be seen as cool. I don't want to be seen as one of those people who's a little bit crazy into Jesus.

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Confess that to him and ask him to take that pride from you. Or maybe you're timid and you need to confess that, but you will need to intentionally accept the possibility in that, in that form.

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Just say, God, I'm open to whatever mockery or scorn you would heap on me for my faith and do that.

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And I think you need to do that before you will be truly free in your expressions of hope and joy of the gospel.

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Are you ready to follow your Lord at least as far as being mocked, remembering all along that he took two steps further, being flogged and crucified as well?

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And that leads to the last thing. As we come to communion time here, thank him.

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If you've asked Jesus Christ to be your king, you've asked him to be your savior, then take the juice with thankfulness and take the cracker with gratitude.

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He endured this torment that he knew was coming for him and he intentionally stepped into it. And he went to that place of torment for you, in your place.

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So feel free to say out loud this morning as you take the juice and the cracker, thank you.

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Thank you. Thank you, Jesus. Recast, he suffered for us.

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So let's go out and live for him. Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for the hope that we have in Jesus Christ.

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It is only through the gospel, it is only through the good news of his sacrifice on our behalf that we can be made whole.

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Father, if there's anybody here who has not come to the end of themselves and asked you to save them and to forgive them from their sins and to be their

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Lord and master, I pray that today might be a day of salvation, that you would give anyone in that condition the boldness to come and speak with me or to come and speak with David or come and speak with Rob who prayed, one of our elders.

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Father, I pray that you would give boldness to anybody who is not all in with Jesus and that today might be a day of salvation.

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But then, Father, for those of us that are in with you, I pray that you would help us to recognize the calling that you're placing on our lives, that by your spirit you would press this text down into our hearts, whether that's a need for boldness, whether that is a need to shed pride and to confess that before you, whether that is a need to alter our thinking and our understanding about how

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Jesus saved us and that it was his choice and his willing and loving sacrifice.

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Father, we celebrate that now. We celebrate that choice that he made to save and rescue us by taking the cracker to remember his body broken in our place and we take the juice to remember his blood that was shed for us.

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Sacrifice we couldn't earn, sacrifice we didn't deserve, but a sacrifice given by his love for us.

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We ask that you would walk with us in this week and help us to live this out for you. In Jesus' name. Amen.