Social Injustice

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Don Filcek; Matthew 26:57-68 Social Injustice

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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. All right, good morning.
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Welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here, and I am really glad to be in this gathering of God's people this morning.
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It is a grace in our lives that we have the opportunity to gather together in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to honor
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Him above all else, and I hope that's in your heart this morning, that that's a major reason that you're here in this gathering, is to honor
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Him. The reality is, and I say this frequently up front here, we need each other.
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We need community. We need one another. I heard a quote this past week that our worship is our warfare, and it was kind of an interesting, intriguing quote.
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It's in worship that we remind ourselves and each other that we have a king above all other rule.
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It's in worship that we remind ourselves and each other that there is a hope that removes the desperation that the world places on this very short life.
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Do you know what I'm talking about? The world will put a desperation on this short life and say, this is all there is, so you got to milk everything you can out of it and do whatever you can to please yourself because there's nothing else after this.
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But it's in worship also that we receive our marching orders to love as He loved, and so in the gathering of God's people, in our praise, in our singing, in our selection of songs that are selected to help build us up together, there is power in this gathering even beyond just ...
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How many of you would just say that occasionally you just sing in your car? You sing on your own, but there's something that's powerful about looking around and going, there's other voices here.
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There are others mingled together in enthusiasm and exuberance over our Lord and Savior and what He's done. As we sing together and we study the
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Word together, as we catch up with each other in our discussions and as we celebrate His sacrifice together in communion in our gathering, let's do all that we do this morning in a way that builds courage within us to face this next week.
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We need courage in a world of injustice, right? And even more so, we need encourage in a world that thinks that the answer to injustice is just to act more just.
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That's our world's answer. The answer to the problem of injustice is act more just.
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We live in a world that thinks that the answer to human hate is just merely to tell hateful people to love more.
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No, that doesn't really work that well. Just tell people to love more. But everyone who's raised a child knows that the human heart doesn't rebel due to a lack of education.
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It rebels because the human heart wants what the human heart wants. Education at best,
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I suggest to you, drives sin into hiding. The older we get, the more we learn how to hide our sins.
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Do you know what I'm talking about? The more educated we become, the more we recognize, oh, that behavior, bonking somebody over the head with a toy to get another one doesn't work very well, so I'll try to do it in more subtle backdoor kind of ways that are socially acceptable.
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I think you get what I'm saying. You can't open a news source without being confronted with the words, social justice.
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And for this reason, I'm titling this sermon, Social Injustice. It isn't that I think that this passage in Matthew that we're going to be reading here in a moment exists for the very narrow purpose of addressing the political landscape of America in 2023.
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No, I don't think that's the reason that Matthew wrote it. And yet, I am in awe, as I often am when
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I encounter the Word, that a passage like we're going to read here in a moment, written nearly 2 ,000 years ago, will shine a glaring and harsh spotlight on the dark recesses of, quote, unquote, justice here under the sun, justice here in the world that we live in, what semblance of justice we think there may or may not be.
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Humanity broke the world with our rebellion against our Creator, and now all of human endeavor is stained by the charred wreckage of that sundered relationship with our
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Creator, with our Maker, with the Almighty God. So in our text, we're going to take in what is a pretrial deliberation of the
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Son of God. Most of you have heard of this trial before Caiaphas. Some of you could even, as we read it, you'll go, oh yeah,
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I'm familiar with this. Some of you could probably even teach on this trial. And yet, I would suggest to you, as we read it,
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I want to encourage you to allow it to shock you anew, to be shocked at the audacious, extreme hubris and arrogance of humanity, and the way that we would handle a trial against the
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Holy One. How would we manage a trial against Him? Our society and culture that seems to be unraveling before us wants to say something about social justice.
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The identification of our problem as systemic injustice is a way of seeking to distance ourselves from the personal application of a passage like this.
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This passage wants to throw something in everyone's face. It wants to cause us to address a reality of our own human heart, not some system out there, not some big plan of government or some big plan of the left or the right or the middle or whatever.
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None of that. But it wants to deal with us. It wants to start with us, what's going on in our hearts.
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You see, God is not ashamed to embarrass every last one of us. He is, indeed, an equal opportunity offender.
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We are men and women of injustice, are we not? Think about it, humanity was visited by God.
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We trumped up charges against Him, found Him guilty of saying that He was God, and then had
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Him brutally executed. And I would suggest to you that there are two types of responses to this passage we're going to read.
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Some will encounter in this passage a further incitement to arrogance. Some will read it and say something along the lines of,
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I would never behave that poorly. I would discourage you from being in that crowd this morning.
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Others will respond in abject poverty of soul and in deep humility and honesty, make the connection with their own history of injustice in their own self -serving ways.
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Some will admit that we all have in so many ways sought to remove the Holy One. You see, the problem of the human heart is a shared problem.
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And often one of the deeper human problems in society and in our lives and in our own hearts is when we don't recognize that it's a shared problem, when we don't recognize that all suffer under the same problem that we do, and that's where racism and anti -Semitism and all of these isms rise up and it's us and them and them and us and all of that and the…
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Do you feel the division in our culture today? That division is driven by this fundamental misunderstanding that we all are in a sinking ship together, all of us.
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That's what it means to be a human, we're in this together. But we are those who know the answer.
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We are those who know the lifeboat, and the lifeboat will save any from any creed, from any history, from any race, from any people who would humble themselves and bow the knee to this one
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Jesus Christ, this Holy One that we're going to be reading about today. Now the problem of the human heart is a shared problem.
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You have never met a human that wasn't broken. So why this clown court pretrial before the religious leaders?
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Why are we going to read about this? Why is this in here? Why are we going to read about Caiaphas and these trumped up charges against Jesus so that we can all see the way that the sinful heart handles the holy?
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And a caveat on all of this, some of you will be glad to hear me offer a caveat on this because when you read it and you respond to it, there's going to be an inappropriate humility but there's also a caveat.
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Those who belong to Jesus Christ through faith in Him and His sacrifice for us have been given new hearts.
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Amen? We've been given new hearts. We are at varying levels of restoration on a road of sanctification where God is improving us and growing us and convicting us day by day and addressing our sin.
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So I would assume that most of us are rightly sorrowful at the treatment of Jesus in this pretrial we'll be reading about this morning.
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But we also would be right to say, and I think that those who are truly His will be very, very quick to say, were it not for His grace,
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I would be right there along with these smug religious leaders. So let's turn in our
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Bibles or turn in your devices, your apps to Matthew chapter 26. We're going to be reading verses 57 through 68.
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Again it's Matthew 26, 57 through 68. God's holy word recast, this is what
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God desires for us to take in about our Lord and Savior this morning. Then those who had seized
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Jesus led Him to Caiaphas, the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered.
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And Peter was following Him at a distance as far as the courtyard of the high priest, and going inside he sat with the guards to see the end.
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Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put
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Him to death, but they found none. Though many false witnesses came forward, at last two came forward and said, this man said,
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I'm able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days. And the high priest stood up and said, have you no answer to make?
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What is it that these men testify against you? But Jesus remained silent.
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And the high priest said to him, I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the
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Christ, the Son of God. Jesus said to him, you've said so, but I tell you, from now on you will see the
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Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. And the high priest tore his robe and said, he has uttered blasphemy.
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What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy. What is your judgment?
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And they answered, he deserves death. Then they spit in his face and struck him. And some slapped him, saying, prophesy to us, you
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Christ, who is it that struck you? Let's pray. Father, we're here in a dark section of Scripture, and it seems like it might go on for a few weeks here, leading up to the sacrifice and crucifixion of our
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Lord and Savior. It's dark. It reveals something of our own hearts.
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It reveals a reality of what sin costs, but it also reveals great love that Jesus would take on all of the suffering and punishment and injustice for us.
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I pray that you would strike us anew with awe and wonder that Jesus, the
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Holy One, the innocent one, the only one who has lived a perfect life, would suffer such grave, grave, grave injustice for us.
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And I pray that you would help to put all of our suffering in perspective, whatever it is that we might face, whatever false accusations, whatever animosity we may feel from the world, whatever animosity we may feel from coworkers or neighbors or family members,
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Father, help us to put that in perspective in light of the great suffering of our Lord and Savior on our behalf.
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I thank you that He can relate to us. And then, Father, I lift up this time of worship now, and I pray that as those who are the recipients of His great love through sacrifice,
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Father, that we would lift our voices up in gladness and in joy, that you would move here in this place with your
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Spirit. Help us to see Christ high and lifted up. We know that He endured these things, but we know that it wasn't only for that end, but it was for the great joy set before Him, that He is indeed now seated at the right hand of power, at your very right hand.
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And it's from that very throne that He will one day come and return in the clouds, bringing both judgment and redemption for those who are
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His. And so, Father, I pray that from this day that we would lift you up, that you would be held high in this praise time in Jesus' name.
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Yep, you can go ahead and be seated. I encourage you to get comfortable and keep your Bibles open to Matthew chapter 26, verses 57 through 68.
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So again, keep your Bibles open there, and if at any time during the message you need to get up and get more coffee or juice or donut holes back there, you're not going to distract me.
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I'm going to start with a pretty radical statement that I believe to be true about this text, and I think very few would disagree with me on it.
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We are seeing here in our text the most egregious example of injustice ever committed. The most egregious, terrible example of injustice ever committed.
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Think about what we're reading in this text as we take it in and study it and walk through it together.
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Number one, Jesus is the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity in flesh. Number two,
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Jesus is the only sinless human to walk this planet. Number three,
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Jesus has exhibited a radical nonviolence throughout His life. He is mildly dangerous to tables and coins, and even then, only if they're in the outer court of the temple.
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Jesus has spoken harshly, He has spoken harshly to the religious leaders. He has never behaved violently toward them in any way, shape, or form.
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Fifth, Jesus entered Jerusalem to crowds anticipating Him as Savior just days before the events that we're reading about.
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And here in the early morning hours of the Passover celebration in Jerusalem, Jesus has been whisked away now in the night, arrested in the
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Garden of Gethsemane and whisked away by the temple guards and probably a couple of Roman soldiers along with them, and He's whisked away to the household of Caiaphas, the high priest, for a lasting exhibit that comes all the way down to us where we live here in 2023 in Matawan, Michigan, an exhibit for even us of clown justice.
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There is enough debate over this trial that I have no problem saying this is an off -the -books pre -trial of sorts.
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That still results in a formal indictment because of what happens at this pre -trial. The Jews were fairly meticulous recorders of formal court protocol, and much of that is thrown out the window this night, and that's what leads a lot of people to think this is an informal gathering or a pre -trial is particularly because they don't follow a lot of the court protocol.
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A capital case was not allowed at night, for example. That's well -written and well -documented among the
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Jews. No verdict in a capital case was allowed to be issued the same day that the charges were brought. You had to at least give it 24 hours before you condemned the person to death.
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We do know that a quorum for the Jewish Sanhedrin, which was the deciding court this night, likely it's the
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Sanhedrin that's being referred to multiple times here. This is the body of the Jews that is the religious but also the court and legal authority, required one -third of the membership to be present in order to hear a capital case.
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So if this was followed this night, then at least one -third of the Sanhedrin was gathered together in the house of the high priest, and they were rallied that night.
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But the injustice of this trial makes it clear that they had very little regard for integrity at all, and I think you can see it very clearly in what
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Matthew's recorded for us. I have to admit that knowing the way that the religious heart works and having one, and at least struggling through one,
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I could see them having a very careful attention to the more minor issues of protocol this night while seeking to trump up false charges against the
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Son of God. How many of you know what I'm talking about when I say that the religious heart will specialize in minutiae, will specialize in the small things, well at least we did this, at least we crossed our
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T on this, at least we dotted our I on this, while seeking ultimate injustice. You know what
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I'm talking about, how religious hearts can do that? That's what I think is going on here this night.
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Peter is mentioned also briefly in verse 58, before we get to our outline, it sets us up for the passage next week, so it wants to make sure that we know that Peter is present out in the courtyard, sitting in, trying to listen in, trying to get word of what's going on in there, and it says in the text in verse 58, he is there to see the end, not the end in that I think he has an expectation that Jesus is going to die this night, he doesn't know what's going on, he's confused, but he's there to see the end of all of this arrest and trial and figure out where it's going, not knowing,
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I think, that this is his final evening, and he's already spent his final conversation with the
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Messiah before he dies. Our outline is this, injustice seeking its own, verses 59 -64, injustice seeking its own if you're taking notes, the second is injustice finding what it wanted, verses 65 and 66, and then the third is injustice applied, verses 67 and 68, and you can see that the bulk of our text is in that first part of demonstrating that injustice tries to seek its own way, and so we're going to start there, and the bulk of our time is going to be there, injustice seeking its own, and this is a long glimpse at the lengths that injustice will go to find a way forward for its own heart, its own desires.
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I've used the word enough that maybe I ought to define what I mean by injustice, I would say injustice is a verdict that is not consistent with facts or truth, a verdict that is not consistent with facts or truth, that defines injustice.
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You see, the fact is, the fact is on this night and throughout his life, Jesus has done nothing worthy of the death penalty.
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As a matter of fact, he has done nothing wrong at all, and so justice says, you've done nothing wrong at all, and he goes about his merry way, and they go back to sleep.
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That's justice. Do you get what I'm saying in that? But we're seeing massive injustice here.
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We're told in verse 59 that the chief priests and the council are seeking, and they say, I think it's interesting how
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Matthew records it for us, he knows what's going on, and he just says it like it is, they are seeking false testimony against him.
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Now, that's not to say that they wouldn't have been happy for something true. Don't read in that that the only thing admissible in this court this night is falsehood.
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You know, they would have taken anything that was true, but in the absence of anything true, they'll take falsehood too. They are just looking for something against him that will be a capital offense, and that's what you need to understand is that the whole thing is driving toward the preconceived notion that they want him dead.
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It appears that they're looking for a type of false testimony that is both credible and supportable and would result in capital punishment.
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Well, it's interesting if you think about it, and it's really sad if you think about it. They have no lack of men who are willing to come forward with false charges.
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It says many that night came and accused Jesus, but they found none, according to verse 60, that were able to bring the right kind of charges.
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Matthew's portrayal of these religious leaders who certainly know better than to do what they're doing, he's got a very direct assessment of them.
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Matthew knows that this is a clown court going on here with not even an attempt to be just and true in their findings at all.
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I say that injustice seeks its own here in this opening line because it really seeks its own way.
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Most acts of injustice begin with a verdict and then seek to find evidence of that verdict.
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Do you know what I'm talking about? They start with the end. They start with the results. They start with what they want to find and then move forward, and I think all of us have done this.
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We've all been guilty of this. Are you familiar with this line of reasoning? Think about it.
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Absolutely. I believe everybody in this room is very familiar with this line of mental work.
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I would suggest to you that we have all dabbled in this whenever we seek to justify our own behavior.
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We determined, I'll give you an example. We determined that our gossip isn't really gossip, and how does the logic go in that?
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I'm just sharing stories with somebody, and I'm sharing something that isn't my information to share, sharing something about somebody that paints them in a bad light.
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God wants us to pray for one another, doesn't He? Doesn't He? Does God want us to pray for one another?
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Let me reframe my gossip as what was primarily motivated out of an intense desire now all of a sudden, an intense desire to be in the know, an intense desire to be the guy who knows everything that's going on and is able to share that juicy tidbit.
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No, no, no. No, I just wanted to share it as a prayer request. It was just a prayer request.
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We could justify it, right? The end is I want to be able to gossip, and so the logical thinking and the kind of spin on it is, no, we're just sharing prayer requests here, so let's just share all the dirt about everybody.
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I can turn even sin into a good thing, right, in my own heart and in my own motives, in my own brokenness.
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Every justification for sin begins with some kind of mentally acceptable verdict, right? Like we think it's acceptable, and then we try to retrofit it to acceptability in the world's eyes or in someone's eyes or really try to justify it for ourselves.
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These chief priests likely have a justification even for the unfairness of this trial. I would imagine that if you had polled them as they're seeking false testimony for Jesus, they're lining, and I don't want to presuppose too much about their thought processes, but I believe that they could have potentially began with a presupposition that Jesus is a false prophet, which they seem to indicate often in their logic and in their behind -the -scenes dialogue.
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They're saying He's a false prophet, so whatever it takes to remove Him, therefore, is acceptable.
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Can you imagine that line of reasoning? It had to cross their minds that He may be exactly who
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He claims to be, but that doesn't get in the way of their injustice this night, does it? In the midst of a variety of false testimonies, they couldn't find any that even seemed reasonable.
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Think that through. I want you to really consider that for a minute. They have many people who come forward with false accusations, and they don't stick.
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Any of you think that that would happen for you? How many general accusations, how many sins would
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I need to sling out into the air here this morning before one of them comes pretty close to the truth for you?
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Let me list some, and you try not to cringe too obviously when I get close to you. Let that be between you and your
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Lord, but let it settle in your heart. How about we just start with the one I illustrated, gossip, lust.
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Try not to show me on your face whether this is you, gossip, lust, cheating, greed, unholy anger, unrighteous ambition, coward, spiritual coward, liar.
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Should I go on? Did I miss you? Or did any of these settle close to your heart?
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Hear me, church. Hear the text of Scripture. They could not land a false blow on the character of Jesus Christ our
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Lord. Not even a false one lands. But finally, two men came forward in this desperate attempt of injustice, this desperate attempt for injustice to seek its own, and they misquote
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Jesus as saying he was going to destroy the temple, as in the stone temple in Jerusalem, and rebuild it in three days.
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It's a laughable accusation. They ascribe him with the intention, this one man, with the intention to destroy the temple.
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The quote can be actually found in Scripture in John chapter 2 verse 19. If you're taking notes, you can jot that down and go back there and look at it.
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But this is a quote from it. Quote, Jesus answered them, destroy, destroy this temple, and in three days
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I will raise it up, end quote. That's what they're quoting. He didn't say,
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I'm going to destroy the temple. He said, destroy the temple. You guys, destroy this temple, and in three days
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I'll put it back together. Jesus wasn't going to do the destroying in what he had to say, but he implied that the religious leaders would be the ones who would do the destroying.
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And further, John understood them after the fact in that passage. Further later, he identifies that Jesus was talking about his body, metaphorically, the temple of God, his body.
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Destroy it, and three days later he will raise it up. But who's got time for semantics and details when looking for anything to get their own way, right?
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How many of you have been there? It's just like, you get in your mind what you want, and nothing's going to get in the way. Don't get facts in the way.
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Don't get the truth in the way. Just, you get dead set on this. This happens to be one of the many accusations this night about the temple, and it's kind of strange and weird to our ears.
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It's not a particularly good one. I just want to clarify that for you. It's not like this one lands, and finally, ha ha, they got Jesus.
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No, they misquote him. They go the wrong direction. But it happens to be the one that precedes the final revelation of his identity to his accusers.
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And that's why it's highlighted here. That's why this is the one that Matthew specializes in, gives our focus to, gives voice to.
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I think the chief priest is tired of the games and stands up in verse 62, which, by the way, is very rare for the high priest in an austere court trial like this.
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Imagine that the judge in the courtroom stands in the middle of a trial and addresses everybody and addresses the defendant.
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I mean, how many of you would just be like, what? If you understand court protocol, that does not happen, for the judge to stand up and begin his own statements.
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But that's actually what happens this very night. The chief priest is tired of it all, and Caiaphas has hoped all along that in defending himself,
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Jesus would say something that's self -incriminating. Maybe he'll defend himself on some of these trumped -up false charges, and he'll say something and eventually we'll get him.
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But what does it say in the text of Jesus this entire time? He remained silent.
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Good answer. You guys did it. You were silent. Jesus has remained silent the entire time.
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And I want to just ask you this, just thinking about our Lord and Savior and the difference between you and Him, have you ever been falsely accused?
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Raise your hand if you've ever been falsely accused of something. Really? And then, yep, I think that's a lot of us.
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I would suggest to you that one minor false accusation gets me riled up.
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Anybody? Anybody like, you're going to defend that bad boy right away. Here Jesus watches a circus of false accusations against Him without a single word of defense.
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I mean, you even accuse me of a half -truth and I'm defending the loophole. I'll illustrate. No, I didn't steal the pack of gum.
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It was a candy bar. Get your facts right before you come at me, bro. You know what
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I'm saying? It's like, I mean, no, it wasn't, I didn't steal a pack of gum. It was a candy bar. How many of you would just kind of defend that kind of like pedantic, semantic, like nit -picky kind of like defend your own character?
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No, you got the facts wrong on that one. Let's pause here in the middle of this grave injustice to talk about the marriage in this passage, the wedding of religion and arrogant power.
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Consider all this poking and prodding of the Son of God this night as injustice seeks its own.
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The Scriptures do not paint, often do not paint religious leaders in a good light.
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Now you certainly have in the epistles and later on some really good people who bring the gospel out and Paul and Peter's work and sharing the gospel with others and all of that stuff, but religious leaders, those who want to cross all the
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T's and dot all the I's. This ought to give all of us and especially me and our church elders significant pause as we consider this passage and anybody who would aspire to leadership because I would suggest to you that there's a particular species of sin that comes with the wedding of power and the knowledge of the
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Word and an unholy ambition. Those three things are toxic. They're toxic and they're everywhere.
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These religious leaders show us the danger that still remains in the church and we ought to be aware of it.
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There's always a danger that men of leadership will crave power even at the expense of the truth.
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There's a temptation to abuse the knowledge of His Word for selfish gain and this is often coupled with a strong desire to abuse the truth in order to either maintain or ever increase the leader's own spiritual domain to increase and grow.
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But I hope you can find something of a silver lining in this because I'm comforted in knowing that God's standard is not some level of deep spiritual decorum.
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It's not those who appear to cross every T and dot every I that are often closest to God. It is the one who doesn't believe his own hype.
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It is the one who questions his own authority. It is the one who is humbled under God's Word.
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The one who is content with whatever domain God gives because a man of God is a man who can be corrected with the
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Word of God. I would humbly suggest to you that wherever you go, wherever God leads you in this life, some of you are going to move out from here.
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Some of you are going to get moved by jobs. Some of you are going to end up going back into the process of finding a church. Some of you are here just checking out a church.
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You're here for the first time and you're kind of going, is this where I'm going to land? But let me encourage you to find a spiritual leader that is at least a little surprised, at least a little surprised that he's been entrusted with anyone or anything in God's kingdom.
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Find somebody who is surprised that God uses him. It's a good question to ask.
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In this text, Jesus remains silent. And this arrogant chief priest puts Jesus under oath.
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We can miss it in verse 63, but the very word of adjure is an actual courtroom term.
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Under oath, I adjure you by the living God. And that's an oath formula in the
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Hebrew language. I adjure you by the living God. Tell us if you are the
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Messiah, the Son of God. He stands and rises in the courtroom and directly says a command to Jesus.
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I put you under oath. Tell us the truth now. Now the words he uses in this command in verse 63 are super theological to the
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Jews of the time. They were awaiting the fulfillment of dozens of prophecies from the Old Testament that predicted a great hero who would come to rescue his people,
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Messiah, the Christ. He would be uniquely chosen by the
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Almighty God. And so the question tells us, the question or the comment, tell us if you are the
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Messiah ties in with this hope of the Jews. Are you the one that the Old Testament pointed to?
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Are you really legitimately the one that Jeremiah wrote about? The one Isaiah wrote about? The one that Zechariah wrote about?
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Are you that one? Are you the one that Malachi refers to as coming with healing in his wings?
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Is this you? But the second declaration, tell us if you are the Son of God, is a more sticky question.
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Are you deity? Are you genuinely in a unique relationship to God that makes you more than mere man?
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The question couldn't be posed more directly. Are you the fulfillment of the Old Testament and are you the unique Son of God that some have been calling you and you've been accepting that title and you haven't corrected him.
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Now's your chance to correct him, Jesus. Are you really the Son of God? Now the answer of Jesus in verse 64 has often sounded kind of lacking in punch in English.
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Like do you know what I'm talking about? You read it and you're like, what I want Jesus to say next is, yes,
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I am the Christ. And yes, I am the Son of God. But instead he says, you've said so. That sounds kind of flat, just being honest.
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Sounds kind of flat. Need a little bit of explanation there. I wanted to be more robust in his answer. But there's a
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New Testament scholar named Daryl Bach. He did a lot, a lot, a lot of work looking into the usage of that one
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Greek phrase, you have said so, to see how Greek people used it in this era.
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He went back and poured over documents and parchment and scrolls and all kinds of stuff that none of us would want to do.
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And he poured over it and poured over it and poured over it. And fortunately a lot of this stuff is now available to us only recently because a lot of those have been uploaded and are now searchable.
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So we find these documents and then they use the OCR on them and all that stuff and they can recognize the text and then you can search for it.
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And he found dozens and dozens of usages of this to the point where he can narrow down what
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Jesus meant when he said this. And I think a good summary statement of Daryl Bach's extensive study of what
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Jesus is literally trying to communicate to the Sanhedrin is a phrase that we would use in English.
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That's one way to say it. That's one way to say it. That's what that phrase is.
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You have said so is about the equivalent of that's one way to say it. Now we would respond this way when we agree with somebody, we agree with what's stated, but we want to leave some room for our own take on it, right?
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We want to clarify it. We want to say more than what was already said. And so we want to leave ourselves some room to say yes, but.
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Yes, but is what he's saying. That's one way to say it, Caiaphas, but let me clarify for you.
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And what he says doesn't deaccentuate, but accentuates the statement. It makes it more problematic for him.
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He doesn't say, yeah, that's one way to say it, but let me soften it a little bit. I'm not quite like the Messiah that you were thinking, and I'm not quite like, you know, certainly don't put me to death for anything that I'm about to say, right?
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Like, I mean, yeah, I've got a special relationship with Jesus, I mean with God, but it's not like I'm deity or something.
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No, he doesn't say that at all. He says, that's one way to say it, and then proceeds to attempt to explain the work of God.
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Moving forward. So when you think about that, that's one way to say it. When someone asks me, like I'll give you an illustration of this whole thing.
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When somebody asks me, are you a wicked man? You could ask me that question. Don, are you a wicked man?
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I might say to them, that's one way to say it. And then I would proceed to attempt to explain the work of God in giving me a new heart and convicting me of sin regularly and carrying me by his spirit along a pathway of sanctification where I'm better today than I was a month ago and a year ago and two years ago and five years ago.
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You know what I'm saying? But that's one way to say it. Yeah, I'm a wicked man who's being saved by a gracious God.
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Jesus does that here. And rather than using his extra explanation to soften that blow, he hammers it home hard.
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He uses an Old Testament metaphor that all of these religious scholars would have certainly related to right away.
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An Old Testament metaphor, by the way, that's reserved only for God and applies it to himself. God's come in the clouds for judgment.
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That's who comes in the clouds for judgment. That's all throughout the ancient Near East, by the way. That's not unique to the
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Old Testament. God's ride clouds and come and bring judgment. That's an idea that is formed in that ancient culture.
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The Jews used it and borrowed it and God used it and borrowed it, but it's a common phrase.
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And he dovetails that with that well -known messianic passage from Daniel, chapter 7, verses 13 through 14.
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He says that they, his accusers, the one who have him on trial, will see him in the place of judgment over them.
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How many of you know that when you're being accused, you rarely take the power and take the moment to turn the tables and say,
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I'm going to judge you. Well, maybe we do, especially when it's our own family, right? But that's different. It's a formal court proceeding and he's like, no, no,
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I'm going to be over you. Where they sit in some shabby and chintzy authority over him now, he will sit at the right hand of God in real power.
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Not this fake pseudo power that they're exhibiting now. And they will behold him coming in the clouds of judgment.
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Again, a place reserved for deity and all those ancient religious customs. So a couple of observations that we might miss in Jesus' declaration.
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The first, that would have been just shocking and stark to the Jewish mind. These scholars immediately associate what he's saying is equivalency with God.
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And we might not see it very well, but there's all kinds of things that Jesus says here that tie him into affirming that he is indeed deity.
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Jesus claims first he will sit in the presence of God. Now, you go, okay, alright.
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But he claims he will sit in the presence of God and that would have been almost enough to tear the chief priest's robes in itself.
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Why? This is not an insignificant part of the charge of blasphemy because nobody, nobody, nobody would ever sit down in the presence of an earthly king.
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Let alone the presence of the Almighty. Nobody comes into Caesar's palace during this era and sits down in his presence.
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You don't go crisscross applesauce on the court with the king. You know what I'm talking about?
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You don't sit and chew the fat with the king. You stand in his presence or you bow with your head to the ground.
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Only appropriate postures depending on his will at the time. What does he want? Oh, you want me down?
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I'm down. He says, I'm going to be chilling there. You're going to see me sitting there.
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Kind of like just hanging out with the father. Hanging out with the
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Almighty. By saying he will sit at the right hand of powers to make himself appear with the
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Almighty. The second thing that Jesus says is he calls himself the son of man. Which is an allusion to Daniel's prophecy about the coming
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Messiah. He links his identity with a specific Old Testament passage to evoke images of one of these men.
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One of the men that they have been hoping for since childhood. They have been looking for the son of man.
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They have been looking for the one who was going to come and judge the people. They've been looking for the son of man.
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And he says, yeah, that's me. I'm not pulling any punches on this. That's me. The third thing is he claims that he will be coming in the clouds of heaven.
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And this is an expectation, a final judgment where God will set all things right. But here Jesus puts himself in that position of God arriving to make all things right.
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And so now we move our attention to the second movement of the text. Injustice finding what it wanted. Verses 65 through 66.
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They wanted him put to death. That was their hope. And now they have the charge. This is two short verses that need very little explanation.
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The chief priest tears his robe at the declaration of Jesus. He tears his robe to signify his complete horror for what he has just heard.
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This tearing of the ceremonial robes is a symbol of the severity of the declaration of deity in his presence.
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It is actually a prescribed action for blasphemy in some of the ancient court documents of the
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Sanhedrin. It was prescribed if you hear, if the priest's ears hear blasphemy, he has to tear his robe.
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It's prescribed for that. By the way, we can take a major clue from their response, right?
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They understood the statement of Jesus to be absolutely affirmative without question. Are you the
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Messiah? Are you the Son of God? And they listened to his answer in their own language and they come away with strong affirmative.
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Yes, he has declared himself to be the Messiah. Yes, he has declared himself to be the Son of God. We cannot afford to see a flimsy answer from Jesus where these contemporaries see it as a direct affront to God.
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They knew what Jesus was saying about himself. They just refused to believe it. The chief priest,
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Caiaphas, calls for a formal sentencing and the immediate response from the ruling body is unanimous.
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Death. They must call for it, by the way. Again, their court proceedings require it.
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They must call for death. It is a capital offense. To dissent would be to be complicit with the blasphemy.
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Everybody wants to distance themselves from Jesus at this point. They want to demonstrate, and they're going to demonstrate here in a moment, that they are as far from his view as they can get.
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Even abusing him to show that I've got nothing to do with this guy. They start with wanting to put
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Jesus to death. They end with a verdict of death. And they do not get there in a way that they thought they would.
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But note that Jesus has sealed his fate by simply stating the truth. How often is this the case in a world that despises the truth?
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There is coming a day soon in the West, if it's not here already, it's nearly here, when you only need to speak the truth to be found guilty.
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A day's coming, if it's not here already. So let me just encourage all of us as an application point to make sure we are students of the truth so that we are ready to pick the right hill to die on.
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You know what I'm talking about? Make sure you're a student of the truth so that you know where to stand. Injustice will find what it wants to find.
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This is also an indictment of our own hearts, is it not? And so another application to this passage is praise
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God then when you see in your own heart a desire to honor Christ. And I trust that you have seen that desire and you have had a hunger to honor
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Him and to love Him and to live for Him. Even though we do so faltering and failing and trying again and steps forward and steps back.
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We desire you have a new operating system in your heart that's fundamental code, wants to love
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God and honor Him. And yet there's corruption in it, there's still brokenness in that until the day that He returns for us.
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So rather than being merely beaten up by this passage and going yep, I'm just like those wicked guys who try to trump up false charges against Jesus.
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Let's lean into the radical shift that He's worked in us through the gift of new hearts that seek to love our
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God. His Spirit has sent His children on a trajectory of justice and peace and love in the world.
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Let's not be beaten up by this but let's get our marching orders from it. We're imperfect, yes, but we want the truth even when it convicts and cuts into our own sinful hearts.
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Lastly and most briefly, for the sake of those of us who have hearts of love for our Savior, let's just end this with a very brief glimpse at the injustice applied in verses 67 and 68.
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It's harsh, it's shocking, it ought to be to some level emotional for us to discuss.
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They spit on Him as a mockery of His claim to authority. They strike
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Him to demonstrate to everyone gathered His powerlessness. They blindfold
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Him according to John and mock Him to try to demonstrate that He is not a prophet.
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Injustice, by the way, is always seeking an application. It's always seeking a place to go. It's always moving in a direction, often to put down someone.
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And I mean put them down, not like insult, put them to death. And this injustice is moving towards, of course, we know, the death of our
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Lord. And that's where we're going to land this morning. Like every Sunday, we seek to come in for a landing at the end at the tables of communion.
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So let's not tune out for a second, just listen in. Let's remember that Jesus was no mere victim of injustice. Jesus was the sinless
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Lamb of God who faced His accusers without a word of defense. He endured false accusation.
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He endured a clown show of injustice. He endured spittle on His face and blows and slaps and mockery.
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And, of course, yet to come in the text a crown of thorns and a roaming scourging and the violation of the indignity of His nakedness there hung on that cross and pain and suffering in His torn ligaments and tendons as the nails will hold
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Him there. And they crucify Him. But far beyond this,
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He endured the fury and wrath of the Father toward our sins there on that cross.
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Put every injustice you will ever face in your life in the light of this injustice we have studied this morning.
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And let all darkness fade into joy and peace and love and gratitude for the sinless One. The One on whom no accusation could rest, who took that accusation for us.
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Let's have gratitude to Him. He did this for the love of us and for the glory of His Father.
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So please let this injustice temper all of our concerns for the injustices that we see in this world. And let's go out of here rejoicing that the just Judge Himself will one day return from the right hand of the
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Father. And He will come in the clouds to set all things right. And I pray that that day may come soon.
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Let's pray. Father, we do desire for justice.
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And I just would be honest to say one of the harshest, hardest, most difficult things to live in this planet, at least for the way that I'm put together, is injustice.
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The inability to even discern facts and truth in cases as minor as couples in my office warring against one another to the massive, massive injustices that we see in the world of murderers with lots of money going free and all of that kind of stuff that we've experienced in our judicial system here in the
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United States. And Father, it just looks like, is there any hope for us? And the answer is yes.
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But we look forward to that day when hope comes in the clouds for us, when He comes to bring justice in what is right and what is true.
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We thank You that there is a righteousness. I don't know how people outside of the church manage the thought that there is just only injustice, that there is no one coming to fix these things, that Hitler gets to just die and become worm food just like Mother Teresa or something like that.
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Father, I just can't conceive of it. And so, Father, I pray that You would move in our hearts with gratitude and thankfulness and hope for the justice that is yet to come.
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We thank You for that hope that You've planted in us through Your Word. We thank You for the injustice that Jesus took on our behalf, that He who was sinless became sin on our behalf, that we might be declared the righteousness of God.
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Father, I can't fathom that. I can barely grasp it. I can barely understand it. Why would You do that for us?
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And yet, that is the consistent testimony of Your Word. So, Father, I pray that You would move in our hearts to rejoice, to gladness, to a lightness in our step, not because we celebrate the great injustice that Jesus endured, but because of the great love poured out for us in this entire complex situation of bringing forth redemption for Your people.
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We thank You that we're recipients of that. And I pray that even now as we come to these tables, that those who belong to You and have accepted
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You by faith would come rejoicing and glad for the body that was broken for us and the juice representing the blood that was shed in our place.
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Father, I pray that You would help us to turn a corner for those who are having a tough week, that even just taking these elements would be a great reminder that we are loved and we have hope.