Sermon: Jesus The King

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Our Bibles to the Gospel According to Matthew. The Gospel According to Matthew 27.

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We're in our series, The Kingdom of God, verse by verse, working through the

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Gospel According to Matthew. We are now in the stage after the betrayal of the

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Lord Jesus, and the abandonment of the Lord Jesus, where Jesus is delivered to Pilate, the ruling governor in his area in that day.

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And so we are in Matthew 27, starting in verse 11.

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Hear now the word of the living and the true God. Now Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him,

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Are you the king of the Jews? Jesus said, You have said so.

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But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate said to him,

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Do you not hear how many things they testify against you? But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge.

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So the governor was greatly amazed. Now at the feast, the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted.

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And they had then a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. So when they had gathered,

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Pilate said to them, Whom do you want me to release for you? Barabbas or Jesus who is called

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Messiah? For he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up.

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Besides, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent word to him, Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much because of him today in a dream.

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Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. The governor again said to them,

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Which of the two do you want me to release for you? And they said, Barabbas. Pilate said to them,

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Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Messiah? They all said, Let him be crucified.

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And he said, Why? What evil has he done? But they shouted all the more, Let him be crucified.

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So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd saying,

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I am innocent of this man's blood. See to it yourselves.

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And all the people answered, His blood be on us and on our children.

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Then he released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified.

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Thus far is the reading of God's holy and inspired word. Let's pray together as His people. God, we come before You in awe of Your Word and in awe of this moment,

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Lord Jesus, that You endured this injustice, this evil of these terrible trials.

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Lord, even the unbelieving ruler Pilate knew that You were the innocent one.

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We're thankful, Lord, even in this moment of all this evil in this narrative and this story and history,

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You left for us a record that even in this trial, You were called innocent. And so Lord, as we open

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Your Word now and ask to understand, we pray that You'd guide our hearts and our minds, guide the teaching by Your Spirit.

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I pray, Lord, that You'd bless Your church through Your Word and Your Spirit, that You would teach, that You would grant to us understanding, that You would challenge us, convict us, bless us through the proclamation of Your Word today.

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May, Lord, Your people forget me and remember You and what they've learned from You here in Jesus' name.

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Amen. So this particular scene before us is where everything is coming to its climax.

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This is very important for us. We recognize with the Synoptic Gospels, that means seeing together, whether it's

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Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we recognize that this story of the crucifixion of Jesus and the trials is across the

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Synoptics. It's in, of course, John as well. And each of those different Gospels at times will give us even more details, more of the conversation with one person, or maybe give us more details with what the crowd was accusing

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Jesus of or whatever. But we have sort of a full story, a more comprehensive story as you put all the

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Gospel stories together. We have that and we can look back on it now to see this is the climax of the story.

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But what's important for us as we study the Gospel according to Matthew is to focus in, at least for the moment, upon Matthew and what he's doing.

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This particular Gospel we chose to do as our first Gospel study at Apologia Church.

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We are a relatively newer church plan, just a little over a decade old, but we chose to do the

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Gospel according to Matthew so that we could actually gain an understanding and be blessed by the fact that Matthew clearly, and of course all the

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Gospels are doing this in some way or another, but Matthew is connecting his story in history of Jesus the

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Messiah to the Old Testament prophecies from the Old Testament. In other words, to really understand

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Matthew and what he's up to, you have to understand his worldview and, of course, the Old Testament Scriptures from which he's drawing.

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You see in Matthew, of course, that reciting of this was to fulfill.

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That's important for us. If you've been watching the Christmas devotionals that we've done, we've been putting up, and we're gonna be putting up till the 25th of this month, that's been the main thing

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I keep harping on, and I keep saying it in each devotional. Actually, it's quite repetitive. I keep saying that this is

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God's story, that he's the master storyteller, that it's his story in history he's weaving together, and that for the early

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Christians, the Jews who came to Jesus, and then after that the Gentiles who came to Jesus, their understanding is that this beautiful thing happening before us in Jesus is not a novelty.

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It's not something that is new in history and sort of a big shocker, like we never expected a

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Messiah King. We never expected or anticipated any of this. As a matter of fact, that's where it all came from.

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They're just waiting and longing and waiting because they were told over and over and over again from the very beginning of the

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Bible in the books of Moses, they were told that God was going to send this deliverer, this, the woman's seed was gonna crush the head of the serpent, but he bruised on his heel in the process, that there was gonna be a blessing with Abraham's seed leading down to Messiah, where all the nations of the earth would be blessed in this seed, that it would be the one who would actually have the obedience of the nations.

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They're told that David is gonna have a son who sits on the throne, and that this son, this messianic king would actually draw not just the

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Jews to himself, but all the tribes, tongues, peoples, and nations were gonna come to this Messiah.

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They were expecting a king, but I keep saying, even our devotionals talking about this story that led up to Matthew, I keep saying that we,

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I think, have to give them some grace, some patience. Now, Jesus tells them on the road to Emmaus when they were sad and thought this was all over with, he actually chastises them and tells them they were foolish and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken.

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In other words, you should have known this. This is what the Bible said. They were supposed to see this, but I think if we consider what we have in the

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Old Testament, it is so full and comprehensive, it is so specific in some ways that we have to grant that there had to be some challenge in understanding all of this and the glories of it because you have a portrait of the

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Messiah in the Old Testament that has different sort of sides to the portrait. There's the conquering victorious king, and yet there's the righteous suffering servant.

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You have the passion of Christ in Psalm 22 that describes even the crucifixion, but it always ends with, interestingly, it describes the crucifixion and that it would be people sort of reviling the

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Messiah. His hands and his feet were gonna be pierced. They would be casting lots for his clothing. That's all in the

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Old Testament, but the Psalm ends with, and then all the families of the earth will return to worship

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Yahweh. So you have sort of like defeat and victory themes even in the

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Old Testament, and then it leads right along into this moment, and in Matthew's gospel, he's connecting this story, this historical event, this king,

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Jesus, he's connecting it to the Old Testament promises. I'm saying that for a reason because now we're in Matthew 27.

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Matthew's story is actually almost complete. Matthew 27, we have him now before Pilate after these horrific examples of injustice and sin by the people of God, actually looking for false witnesses to accuse

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Jesus, not obeying God's law with accusations, but actually subverting it completely.

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We have Jesus now before Pilate, and Matthew's been telling a story the entire time.

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We've been doing this for years now, verse by verse, started at Matthew 1, verse one, and from the very start,

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Matthew is telling you a story that's connected to God's story in history, not a novelty, and in Matthew 27, now we have

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Jesus delivered out of the hands of the scribes and the chief priests, and now into the hands of the ruling

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Roman governor of the day. Now this is somebody who's pagan, not Jewish.

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This is somebody who doesn't hold to the Old Testament as God's word. He doesn't even hold to God's standards of justice, and now the

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Jews, who are essentially under the boot of Rome, have now delivered their Messiah, their long -expected king, they delivered him now to the pagan ruler of their day, and Matthew's narrative, as he explains the history here, it says

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Jesus stood before the governor and the governor asked him, are you the king of the

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Jews? For Matthew, that's the whole story. Are you the king of the Jews?

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And Jesus said, you have said so. I wanna argue that this moment actually is very big in Matthew's narrative, but of course the whole thing is important and beautiful and glorious, and we're never gonna tap out this gospel, but in this moment now you have the pagan ruler with Jesus before him.

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This is the king of the Jews. This is actually the king of kings and the lord of lords. This is the king right now over Caesar, amen?

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And he asks though, as the pagan ruler, he asks, are you the king of the Jews? Why is this so important?

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You just had Jesus go through Jerusalem and indict Jerusalem. He turns over tables.

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Jesus actually tells them judgment is coming. God's gonna judge the people who keep stoning the people coming to the vineyard and who kill the owner of the vineyard's son.

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He's gonna take the vineyard away from them and give it to others who will bear the fruit of it. He's gonna send his armies against that city and destroy it.

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Jesus already told him that, and he says that before that generation, that generation that they were in all passed away, that all of these things would fall upon them, including the destruction of the

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Jewish temple. Jesus had already done that, and now we have Jesus here in this moment just coming from trials with the people of God who know

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God's law, and they know what it says about the Messiah, and he's standing right in front of them, and they perpetrate this evil and this injustice upon him, and they are calling him guilty, and yet he wasn't.

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They're calling him guilty, and yet they can't get anything to work in terms of witness against him that you actually are guilty, so much so that they actually try to pull together false witnesses to lie to get

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Jesus into trouble as a criminal, and now we have a pagan ruler with Jesus before him, and how does it end?

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Are you the king of the Jews? Of course, Jesus is answering in the affirmative, and by the end of this scene for Matthew, we have the pagan governor washing his hands of this evil and declaring as a matter of historic record, he is innocent.

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Isn't it amazing? In Jesus' trial, the end verdict is that he's innocent, and he's murdered as the innocent one.

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You know, over the last couple of weeks as a nation, we know about several trials that have been taking place in this country, our own country.

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We're glued to the screens waiting for the verdict to come down, and everyone's hoping for justice, and you're waiting for that verdict.

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You're waiting for that moment, and you guys saw even the recent one with Kyle Rittenhouse, if you guys watched that, you know the scene.

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How many of you guys are watching that live? Anyone watching that live? I actually got to watch it live, and did you feel like your heart pounding in that moment?

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I mean, no matter what side you're on in the issue, there is something about that moment of judgment that makes your heart pound as a human being, no matter what side you're on, because this is the moment, this is the verdict.

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This is where you say, all right, defendant, rise, and now we're gonna call out whether you are guilty or whether you are innocent.

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We all know that feeling. We just recently saw it, and you saw even in that one trial, you saw that the defendant actually almost fell down into the table because there was so much pressure in that moment, and stress, and so much emotion that when the verdict is called out, not guilty, that person sort of falls down, like, oh, the weight is off now, and we had actually a couple of trials and cases recently that actually turned out very well in terms of justice, and witnesses, and proper evidence, and we know what that feels like.

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Well, here we are in history. This is Jesus. Here's his trial before the Roman ruler of his day.

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This is what counts. The Jews couldn't do this sort of a thing. They need his permission, and so here's the governor, and what does he say as a matter of historic record about Jesus the

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Messiah? What's he say? He's innocent, not guilty, but he's so fearful of the crowds.

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There's such a crazy sort of feeling in the atmosphere in Jerusalem at this time.

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They are so winding up the people that he's fearful of a riot, and so what does he do? He yields to all the evil and says, you see to it, and so it was ultimately them who took responsibility.

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At the end of this, what do they say? This is important, because I think it has a lot to do with sort of sealing up their fate and judgment.

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Jesus said they were gonna be judged in that generation, that they were gonna experience it all. Their temple would be destroyed, that they were gonna be slaughtered.

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Those promises come throughout the New Testament, but in this final moment here, as Pilate washes his hands at the trial of Jesus and says, he's innocent, you see to it, his blood is upon you, what do these apostate, professing

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Jews say? They say, let his blood be upon us and be upon our children.

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They're guilty of crucifying their own Messiah, their own king, but this is Matthew's whole story.

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Matthew's whole story is about the gospel of the kingdom. It's about the kingdom of God, or as he uses numerous times, the kingdom of heaven.

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As a matter of fact, I challenge you, read through the gospel according to Matthew. Read through it and see how it is virtually on every other page you will see kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God, that's the theme, and so throughout

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Matthew's gospel, he has been consistently putting this before us. This is fulfillment, this is what the scripture said, this was to fulfill this verse from God, this was to fulfill this verse from God.

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He's layering the story with a Jewish understanding. This is the true Israel, this is the true king, but he is constantly pointing to this is the king, his kingdom has arrived in history, the kingdom of heaven, that terminology is used over 30 times in the gospel according to Matthew.

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This is his story, so just for a moment here, we have Pilate saying, are you the king of the Jews? And Jesus, of course, is the king of the

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Jews, the king of the whole world. Matthew's been leading us to that point, it is kingdom, kingdom, kingdom, the rule of the

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Messiah in history to establish forgiveness, salvation, and justice for all the nations.

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Matthew is arguing the whole way through, this is the one we were waiting for, this is the one.

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Matthew one starts off, go there, finger in 27, but go to Matthew chapter one, just to see a couple points, not exhausted, but a couple points of where Matthew has been sharing this from the beginning.

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In verse one of chapter one, it says, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, mark it down, the son of Abraham, key figures for the long expected

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Messiah, why? Abraham, in your seed shall all the nations be blessed. So the messianic king has to come from Abraham, David was also promised a son who would sit on the throne, who would rule.

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And so we have David and Abraham, Matthew isn't just tossing out names randomly, he's showing you that Jesus has the right, the royal right to the throne of King David, he is the promised offspring.

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This is where it's all summed up, God's whole story is summed up in Jesus. Now I've often said this, and I think if we're all honest with ourselves, we'll admit this, when you go to the

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Gospels, or even the Old Testament, and you see genealogies, what do you do?

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You sort of check out, right? Or like if you're trying to do a devotional, like with your family, and trying to get your kids really excited about the

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Bible, and you land on a genealogy page, you're like, oh no, oh no, they're not gonna be down with this, right?

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Like, you know, like kids, God's word's so amazing, it's so powerful and amazing, Matthew chapter one,

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Judah, Perez, Zerah, Tamar, Perez, the kids are like, just check right out.

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It can't be stressed enough how important this is, this section. I'm not gonna rehearse the sermon that I already gave on this, go back in the archives and find it, but I think this is one of the most powerful things about the genealogy of Jesus.

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In Matthew chapter one, you have a genealogy of Jesus that actually lands ultimately on Joseph, Jesus' adoptive father, the father who adopted him.

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Isn't it amazing that the savior of the world was adopted? Isn't that awesome? I think that's powerful.

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But in Matthew, you have this genealogy that ultimately leads to Joseph, and then you have a genealogy in Luke as well that's clearly connected to Mary, Jesus' physical genealogy, through David and Abraham, all the rest.

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But I made the argument that one of these genealogies is the royal right to the throne, and there was a kink put into the system hundreds of years before Jesus where one person in the royal line was actually cursed, and it was said that no one from his line will actually physically from his line will be on the throne.

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Well, that throws a kink in the whole situation because that's the royal line. How do you get a king when it's a cursed line? How do you do it?

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Via adoption. Jesus was not a physical descendant from this line, but he inherits this line and the royal right to the throne through his adopted father,

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Joseph. Only the sovereign God can put together a story like that where Jesus is physically connected through David and Abraham, through Mary, his mother, and then we have the royal line here listed for us in Matthew.

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But here's the point. Matthew starts the story off with the story of the king. This is the genealogy that leads up to Jesus that gives him the royal right to the throne.

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You can't argue with it. Jesus is the king. Pilate says, are you the king of the Jews? And Matthew's already told you the story.

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Yes, Jesus is the king of the Jews. He's a long -expected Messiah. But that's the theme throughout

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Matthew, kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven. Jesus is the king. In Matthew 1, you see that.

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In Matthew chapters 2 through 4, you see that Matthew is recapitulating.

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He's retelling the story of Israel with Jesus. So you can see that in Matthew 2 where when

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Jesus is born, you know the story, they come for his life as a little baby. Is that anywhere else in Israel's history?

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We know the story of Moses and his birth and them trying to kill Moses. Matthew knows that.

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And so Matthew is pulling together the story to tell the Jewish people Jesus is not only the king, he comes in fulfillment of all the scriptures, but he is what

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Israel's story was ultimately all about. Israel's story, you didn't understand it, was just a rehearsal for Jesus.

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He's what it was all summed up in. And they didn't even know it. God was weaving together this tapestry, this beautiful story, and he did it in such a way that no human being can accomplish something like this because this story takes place over hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years with multiple different authors and different geographical locations.

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They're not even connected to one another at times, and yet they don't even realize that the story that they're playing out in history was really ultimately about Jesus.

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And so Matthew does that in two. He's like, he's a baby. They try to come for his life. And then, of course, he comes out of Egypt.

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And then you have, of course, chapter three moving into four where you see that Matthew is clearly telling the story of Israel as Jesus is the true

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Israel, the perfect Israel. What Israel was supposed to be, Jesus is that. He's not just the king.

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He's what Israel was supposed to be, the servant of God, the true servant of God. And so you have Jesus going into the wilderness for the 40,

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Jesus having victory over the trial and the temptation in the wilderness. It's a beautiful story.

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It's powerful, and Matthew is leading all the way up to the end of Matthew with that theme in mind.

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You have, of course, in chapter four, Matthew telling you about the temptation of Jesus, the trial of Jesus, and in Matthew's story, we've talked about this a lot, right?

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Here it is, related to Jesus as the king, that the final temptation or trial for Jesus, the true and perfect Israel in the wilderness, in his temptation, his trial, the final is where Satan brings

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Jesus up to this great and high mountain, and he shows him all the kingdoms of the world.

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And he says, what? I'll give them to you now. You can have them. What do you have to do?

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Just bow and worship me. Now, why would Satan bring that temptation or that trial before Jesus?

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Why would he do something like that? Here's the answer, because he knows what Matthew knows. Jesus is the king.

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Jesus is the ruler of the kings of the earth. Jesus is the promised Messiah. And so for Matthew, he's telling that story.

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Here's Satan saying, I'll give them to you all now. Jesus is on this great and high mountain, and if you know

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Isaiah chapter two, you can see what's happening there in Matthew's mind. The promise in Isaiah chapter two was that all the nations were gonna stream up to God's mountain for salvation and that the law of God would go forth from Zion out into the world.

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They were expecting that. Now Satan says, come on up to this mountain, Jesus. I'll give them to you now. You can have them.

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Wait for him to stream. Just worship me. And Jesus says what? You should worship the

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Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. Matthew knows the story. And so when Pilate says, are you the king of the

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Jews? Matthew's answer is yes, it has been from the very beginning. This is Matthew's story to show you it's all connected to God's promises and is now fulfilled in Jesus.

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In Matthew chapter four, verse 17, this is what I want you to see. Matthew 4, 17.

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After Jesus has victory over Satan in the wilderness, the first thing

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Jesus says, I want you to hear. 4 .17, from that time, Jesus began to preach saying, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hands.

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Victory over Satan. Satan says, I'll give them to you all now. Jesus says, worship the

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Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. And then Jesus leaves and says, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hands.

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First words out of Jesus' mouth in Matthew's gospel after the wilderness trial is that Jesus immediately exits that trial, and he says what?

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Repent, the kingdom of God is at hand. The rule of God is at hand. Jesus is the king, he's the king.

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In Matthew chapter four, verse 23, as you move a little further down, you see what

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Jesus was saying, and here's what it says. And he went throughout all

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Galilee teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and affliction among the people.

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That's Matthew's theme. It ought to be our theme. I ask it a lot, don't I? Have you seen me ask that question a lot?

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I'll say that you can ask that question to a lot of modern evangelicals or Christians in the West. You can say, what's good news about the kingdom?

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Why? Why is it called the gospel of the kingdom? Because most of us today, we recognize the good news of the gospel.

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We hear that and we think about, oh, that's about reconciliation and peace with God. That's about eternal life and forgiveness, and the answer is yes, that's true, but that's an aspect of the good news of God's kingdom, his rule in the world.

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If you know God's promises in the Old Testament, the promises of the Messiah and his kingdom and all the nations and what

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God was gonna do in the world were comprehensive, they were large, they were expansive.

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It wasn't just about my own individual salvation with God. That's there. Yes, as God draws the nations, he brings salvation and justification and forgiveness, but this kingdom

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Jesus is saying is good news. The rule of Jesus in the world is actually good news, that Jesus is the ruler of the world, and Matthew knows that, and he's been telling you that story from the very beginning leading up to this moment where Pilate says, are you the king of the

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Jews? For Matthew, that's been the story the entire time, and of course, and I'll land on this one, more can be said, but if you just look over a page or two, in Matthew chapter six, you can see the most famous sermon in the history of the world is the

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Sermon on the Mount. It's the most famous sermon in the history of the world. It's more famous than Paul Washer's why are you clapping sermon, okay?

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It's been viewed more times, heard more times, distributed more times, all that.

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It's been distributed more times than a jack trick, jack chick tracked. That's hard to say fast.

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The most famous sermon, but what do we know from the sermon? Everyone knows from the sermon. We know about the meek inheriting the earth.

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Those are famous words. Jesus is actually quoting from the Psalms there. That was God's promise is this world doesn't belong to the devil.

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It doesn't belong to unbelievers. It belongs to God's people. That's how history will end. The meek inherit the earth, but we know this famous part of the story.

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It says, pray like this, and most of us have it memorized in the King James, right?

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Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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By the way, if you're praying that prayer, you're praying a prayer that is very consistent with the good news of the kingdom.

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It's not just about heaven out there one day. It's not just about a destination out there one day because what is

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Jesus telling us to pray about as the king? He's saying, pray like this, that God's kingdom, that his will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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That's pretty comprehensive. Like how much do you think God's will is obeyed in heaven? Pretty seriously, pretty comprehensively.

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Well, that's how Jesus commands us to pray. You pray like this, that God's name would be holied around the entire world, everywhere.

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That his name would be holied in Africa and Canada, South America and China. That it'd be holied in the

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Polynesian islands. God's name would be holied in New Zealand. But that God's will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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But what are you praying for? Your kingdom, your rule, come, let it come.

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And your name be holied. That was a big amen right there. I'll take that as an amen. But Jesus is telling you to pray that.

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So here's the king saying, pray like this. You're praying about the kingdom of God. You're praying about the rule of God.

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And so when Jesus gets before Pilate in Matthew 27, and Pilate says, are you the king of the Jews? And Jesus answers in the affirmative, isn't it wild that you have the

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Gentile pagan governor actually washing his hands at the trial of Jesus, saying he's innocent.

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Seeing that there is something going on with Jesus, and even his wife is getting these weird dreams about Jesus. And he has to deliver

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Jesus, the king, the Messiah, the one they were waiting for, over to the apostate first century

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Jewish people, the people who are rejecting their own Messiah. But that was all part of the story in the first place.

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Matthew knows this. It's not a surprise. The fact that God's people were actually gonna be judged at the coming of Messiah is something that we've talked about quite a bit as we've done

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Matthew. God's word promised that at the coming of the Messiah, there would be both, let's see if you remember now, salvation and what?

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Judgment, two of you have been here, okay. The Messiah's coming would come with both salvation and judgment.

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Salvation for the Jewish people, and of course for the Gentiles, but also judgment for the covenant -breaking

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Jewish people. You see both those themes in the Old Testament, and so the fact that we now see it in Matthew is not a surprise to us.

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God said that when salvation arrived to the Messiah, that the covenant people themselves would be judged at the same time, and here we see why.

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Don't you see it? Shall I crucify your king? Those are true words.

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Those are some powerful true words coming out of the mouth of a pagan, someone who hates

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God. Shall I crucify your king? Man, God's providence in that moment of even allowing that to come out of his mouth, that's a powerful thing to ponder, and what do they say?

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We have no king but Caesar, and they say here in this text, in this explanation of what took place on this day, they say, let his blood be upon us and our children.

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Matthew knows that's where the story was supposed to go in the first place, and here it is unfolding right in front of us.

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Here it is unfolding right in front of us. You see, Matthew knows from the beginning that Jesus is the true

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Israel. He's what everything was pointing to. All of the things about Jesus are layered in the

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Old Testament, explicit prophecies, symbolic prophecies, stuff that is layered all throughout, whether it's temple or sacrificial animals, or whatever it is, it's all ultimately about Jesus.

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You know what is interesting too? Do you ever think about this? I think it's amazing that this would just keep coming out.

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This week we talked in the devotions about the fact that Abraham is commanded to offer Isaac on the altar.

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He's told take a three -day journey to the specific spot. He goes there with Isaac, the son of his love, his promised son.

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He lays the wood on his son for the sacrifice, and him and his son go to the specific spot.

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There's no lamb there, and he says, God will provide for himself the lamb, my son, and God withholds Abraham and names that place.

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This is the place God will provide it. And it was almost 2 ,000 years later that Jesus, God's son, carries the wood to the place of that sacrifice.

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And on that day, Jesus was killed, God's son, the son of his love. He was the perfect lamb provided on that spot.

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You see those layers are there, right? The story is Abraham and Isaac, yes, but they were just rehearsing for Jesus, and they didn't even know it, let's be honest.

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It's not like Abraham and Isaac were like, yeah, we know what's going on, yeah, yeah. We got this together. Mr. Abraham was freaked out, but the

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Bible tells us like he knew that God could even raise the dead, and he tells the guys who were waiting for him at Moriah, he says, wait here, and me and the boy are gonna come back after worshiping.

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He knew he was coming back with Isaac as God made promises through Isaac. Abraham was apparently thinking, I guess God's gonna raise him from the dead.

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I guess that's what's gonna happen. And then ultimately, God did raise his son from the dead. Jesus, wow, isn't that wild?

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It's crazy. It gets deeper, though. The story of Joseph, Pastor James spent this week even speaking about the story of Joseph, talking about the sovereignty of God, Joseph and his brothers, and of course, his brothers are envious of him, they hate him, and they throw him into a pit, and they want him dead.

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And it was Reuben, I always say this so you'll never forget it, from which we get the name of the sandwich, who stopped his brothers.

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You'll never forget who stopped the brothers now, will you? Never. Like, oh, it's the sandwich guy. He stopped the brothers, because they wanted his brother dead, and so they stop, he stops the brothers.

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And so when you look at Genesis 37, read it later and think about the story itself, you have

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Joseph, who's the favorite son of the dad, he's the son of the dad's love, and Joseph has these dreams, and he brings them to his dad and his brothers, like, hey,

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I got these dreams, and all this stuff is bowing down to me, the sun, the moon, and the stars, and the sheaves are all falling down, and they're ticked at their brother, like, and dad's like, are we all gonna bow down to you now?

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Like, what's going on? And it says in the text that his brothers were envious of him, and so they tried to put him to death.

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And here you have Jesus with his brothers, they're envious of him, the text says it.

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Look in Matthew 26. It's not an accident, I believe, that it's in the text. It says right here, in verse 16 of 27, and they had then a notorious prisoner called

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Barabbas, so when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, whom do you want me to release for you, Barabbas or Jesus, who is called

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Messiah? For he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up.

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Jesus, the son of God's love, delivered over to death by his own brothers.

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So you see the layers here, there's sort of these echoes of even Joseph and his brothers, and all of this is there connected to the story.

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Matthew is telling so much of that story, but I wanna highlight something very important in terms of the moment that you see before us.

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This wasn't the first time that Israel rejected God as their king. It wasn't the first time that Israel had rejected

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God as their king. You wanna see this with your own eyes. If you go back in the Old Testament to 1 Samuel chapter eight, 1

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Samuel chapter eight, you can see that this was thematic in terms of a sin of God's people.

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1 Samuel chapter eight, we can learn actually a lot from this particular passage.

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But if you look in verse four of chapter eight, 1 Samuel, it says, then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways.

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Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations. But the thing displeased

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Samuel when they said, give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, obey the voice of the people and all that they say to you.

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For they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me for being king over them.

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According to all the deeds that they have done from the day I brought them out of Egypt, even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you.

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Now then obey their voice. Only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.

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So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king from him. He said, these will be the ways of the king who will reign over you.

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He will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots.

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He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and all of orchards and give them to his servants.

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He will take the 10th of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants.

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He will take your male servants and the female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys and put them to his work.

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So here's the point. In this part of Israel's history, before they get Saul chosen as king, what does

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God say to his people? When they asked for a human king, just a man to rule over us, like all the nations.

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We want a king like them. What does he say? I'm their king. You see, they haven't rejected you,

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Sam. They haven't rejected you. They've rejected me because I'm their king and they want someone else to rule over them, but I'm their king.

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I wanna argue this. One of the major themes of the New Testament itself is that this is

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God becoming king over his people, which by the way was the story, right? Our famous Christmas verse is what?

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Isaiah 9, six through seven. What's it say? That there's gonna be a son given, a child, and it says, what about him?

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He is wonderful counselor, El Gibor, the mighty

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God. The father of eternity. And it says, of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end on the throne of David to establish it with justice and with righteousness forevermore.

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And it says, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. So what was the expectation? Who was coming as the messianic king?

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Yahweh. God was coming to take his rightful place as king over his people.

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And that's the theme. And so when St. Pilate says, are you the king of the Jews? The answer is, of course, yes.

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And that was the story all along. This wasn't the first time they rejected God as their king. But this, of course, is the final moment where God the father is establishing

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Jesus as the righteous ruler, the messianic king. He, when he ascends, he is seated on that Davidic throne, ruling and reigning and drawing the nations to God.

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That's the summary of the story. It's about the kingdom of God. It's about the gospel of the kingdom. It's about Jesus as king.

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But I wanna highlight this last point. It's a big point, but it's on this point, the judgment that was anticipated.

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You see, for Matthew, this is his story of the messianic king. We've got all the gospels together and the

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New Testament revelation. We have this whole package for us together. But imagine now that you are a first century

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Jew early on before this entire revelation is completed and you get the gospel according to Matthew.

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Matthew wants you to understand the substantial bits of the story. That's the story he's pulling together and that's what's being distributed in his day, this story.

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But this point in Matthew 27, where it says, his blood be upon us and our children is actually an extension of what

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Matthew is trying to say about the soon coming judgment upon that generation. Imagine for a moment, you are a first century

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Christian. You are at even moments of that first century history, you're suffering under the tyranny of Rome and the destructive nature of the behavior of the early

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Jews in that day who were persecuting the Christians. There were times where it was both Rome and the Jews coming after the

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Christians. And you know this story and you're anticipating at any moment,

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Jesus is actually gonna judge all this. The temple's gonna be destroyed. This generation's gonna be judged.

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And Matthew has this in his story. He emphasizes this moment where Jesus not only goes to the false trials, but now before Pilate and then what do we have?

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We have his blood be upon us and our children. His blood be upon us and our children.

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They called down the curse of God upon themselves and their own children. Do you think about that?

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That's a call down from heaven, let it be upon me and my kids, what

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I'm gonna do to him. And brothers and sisters, they got it. In Matthew chapter three, at the very beginning of this gospel story, you have the introduction of John the

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Baptist. And what do you have out of his mouth? Same thing as Jesus. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

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Hand, consistent message from the two of them. But that's also where John the Baptist comes in. He tells him the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God is at hand.

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And then he says that this one who's coming has his winnowing fork in his hand and the ax is already laid at the root of the tree.

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It's already about to be cut down. So you have John the Baptist saying that rule of the

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Messiah is at the fingertip reach. It's right here in history. And what's he say? He says, judgment is coming, get ready.

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And he says, repent and bear fruit because judgment is about to befall you.

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That's what we get from Matthew chapter three. And then of course, Matthew chapter 10 verse 23, Jesus sends his disciples on a specific mission in their day to do a specific preaching mission.

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And he actually tells them, he says, they will not ultimately go through the cities of Israel, finish the cities of Israel before the son of man comes.

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In what? Judgment. Judgment is coming on that generation.

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Matthew 21 through 24, I won't go through the whole thing now but Matthew 21 through 24 is this move towards climax where you have judgment pronounced on that generation.

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You have the seven woes pronounced upon that generation, those leaders and Jesus said to them, your house is left to you desolate.

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All the blood of the righteous is gonna be upon this generation. And they said, his blood be upon us and our children.

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Judgment was coming and judgment fell on them in that first century generation. By 70

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AD, the Jews were slaughtered. The blood was flowing through the streets.

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They were eating their own children to survive and they were eating dung to survive. Their city was burned down.

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Their temple was taken apart stone off of stone exactly as Jesus had promised within a generation.

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It was fulfilled and they asked for it. His blood be upon us and our children.

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I want you to see this though in terms of where the New Testament is displaying this as thematic.

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In Luke chapter 19, Jesus weeps over Jerusalem.

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And in Luke 19 verse 41, it says, and when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it saying, would that you even you had known on this day the things that make for peace but now they are hidden from your eyes for the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you and they will not leave one stone upon another in you because you did not know the time of your visitation.

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You see, that's thematic. It's through the New Testament. It's through the gospel record itself.

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You see that Jesus is testifying to them. You and your children, this generation are going to be judged.

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You're gonna be judged. And that of course isn't a surprise. Even that part of the story isn't a novelty.

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That's what the Old Testament had said. Salvation and judgment were gonna come upon the arrival of the

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Messiah. And here we have the story unfolding for us now as a matter of historic record. You have of course this.

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I've said this to you before, haven't I? As a young believer, I never understood this.

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I thought, this seems like a pretty cold -blooded sort of weird, out -of -place statement.

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Of course, I wasn't familiar with the Bible. I wasn't raised on it. So when I read it, I thought, how does that fit?

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It's in Luke 23. It's where Jesus is on his way to be crucified.

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Very few things are said by Jesus in either the trial or even on his way to be crucified.

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But this was always peculiar to me. But it matches ultimately when they ask for his blood to be upon them and their children in Luke 23, verse 26.

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It says, and as they led him away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene who was coming in from the country and laid on him the cross to carry it behind Jesus.

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And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him.

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But turning to them, Jesus said, daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.

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For behold, the days are coming when they will say, blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nurse.

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For they will begin to say to the mountains, fall on us, and to the hills, cover us.

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For they do these things when the wood is green. And what will happen when it is dry? See, this consistent story from the

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Old Testament landing now in the story of King Jesus, his salvation is coming to the world through the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection.

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But there's also gonna be judgment. Judgment is upon the covenant -breaking Jews of that day. Let his blood be upon us and our children.

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Shall I crucify your king? We have no king but Caesar. And Pilate washes his hands and the

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Jews of his day, at least the ones who were there, not following Jesus at that time, they say, let his blood be upon us, we'll take it.

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And Jesus on the way to the cross says, weep for yourselves and for your children, for you're gonna be judged. Now here's what

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I want to point to. When I said that this was the expectation, if you've been tracking with us through this series, you know that we went to several

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Old Testament passages that said that. Salvation, purification, and judgment were coming at the coming of the

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Messiah. In Isaiah's, my favorite book of the

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Old Testament, in Isaiah, Isaiah gives you this comprehensive, powerful, multifaceted view of the

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Messiah like 700 years before Jesus even shows up. It is so powerful, it is so powerful and so detailed, it's awe -inspiring, but it's multifaceted.

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You learn so much, and at the time, they couldn't understand how this is all gonna play out completely, but it's there long before Jesus arrived.

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We even have a scroll from Isaiah that was buried in the Dead Sea Scrolls from about 200 years before the time of Christ himself in his earthly ministry.

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But in Isaiah 65, we've talked about this before, God promises his covenant people, you're gonna be judged.

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My people will eat, you will starve. My people will drink, and you'll be thirsty.

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And God promises that he's gonna give his people a new name, he's gonna judge the covenant breakers, give his people a new name, he says.

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But I wanted to land on this, because I think there's so much to this moment with Jesus in terms of a pagan governor and ruler saying that Jesus is innocent, giving him the verdict, delivering him into the hands of wicked people where they're gonna murder him.

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We'll understand the glory of this story if we understand it the way Matthew did. He understands this was in the fulfillment of this verse and that verse, and Jesus is the real, true and perfect Israel.

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He's the true righteous servant. We'll understand this moment with Pilate, and of course the crucifixion itself if we know what

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Matthew knew, and what the early Jews knew. And that's at least one section of scripture,

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Isaiah 53. Let's go there as we finish this. Here's what it says,

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Isaiah 53. Written, like I said, about 700 years before time of Christ.

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I hear the page is turning, so I'll wait till you get there. Who has believed what he has heard from us?

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And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground.

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He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.

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He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces.

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He was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

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Did you catch that? He's despised, rejected by men, he's carrying our griefs and carrying our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

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What's that mean? That the Jewish people, the people of God, who this was written to, they were gonna think that their

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Messiah was being judged for his own sins. He's being punished as an evildoer, he's the guilty one, and they despise him, and they reject him, and they're saying, he's a sinner, crucify him, kill him.

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But what's the text say? But he was pierced for our transgressions.

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He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

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All we, like sheep, have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way, and the

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Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth.

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Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

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By oppression and judgment he was taken away, and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living?

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What's that mean? He's gonna die. And they made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man and his death.

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Although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth.

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Pilate recognized that, didn't he? Pilate recognized that. He washed his hands.

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He said he's an innocent man. Pilate couldn't have possibly understood just how innocent Jesus truly was.

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And here's what it says. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief.

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When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days.

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Did you catch it? I think this is actually one of those sections where Jesus chastises the early followers where they're like, we just couldn't understand.

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We thought he was the Messiah. Like in Isaiah 53, it says he's gonna die for the sins of God's people. He's gonna be cut off from the land of the living, and then he'll see his offspring.

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He'll prolong his days. Death, resurrection. They should have saw it.

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And it says this. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand out of the anguish of his soul.

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He shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous.

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And he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the many. He shall divide the spoiled with the strong because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors.

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Yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors.

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That text, written about 700 years before the time of Jesus, so vividly describes this moment that we're in in Matthew's Gospel.

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So detailed, so beautiful, so glorifying to God. That text, again, we have a scroll of it today.

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You can look it up. Go Google the Isaiah scroll from the Dead Sea Scrolls. You can look at it.

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Buried in Qumran, found in 1948, 48.

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A whole scroll of Isaiah. That, written originally about 700 years before Christ.

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We've got an actual scroll that predates Christ by 200 years of that story. This is

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God's story all along. Matthew knows that. It is God's story of this suffering servant.

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It's God's story of the conquering king. It's God's story of David's son, the victorious one, who is gonna bring salvation, redemption, and forgiveness to the ends of the earth to draw all the nations to God.

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But how's he gonna do it? He's gonna do it through experiencing this evil, this pain, this injustice.

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There's so much about this story that is, honestly, you think about it, it's like, that is incomprehensible that we have the whole thing written down before it actually takes place.

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You know, one example of how people will just stretch for anything is you'll see things come across your feet at times, like how the

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Simpsons predicted the future. You ever seen those things? Okay, I'm the only one that gets those, all right.

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And people will stretch, stretch, stretch, stretch. They will stretch for anything. You know, this guy was a time traveler, and he told us the future and all these different things, and they stretch.

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You'll see even in, like, cults, where they'll give prophecy of the future. It's always so vague. You know, really, you can fit anything into the package, or, you know, at times, it's just failed prophecy, and it just fails miserably.

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But, you know, people try to do that. They'll just stretch, and stretch, and stretch, and try to squeeze something into it. Isn't that compelling?

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And it's like, well, not really. It's not really compelling. It's just not really foretelling the future. I mean, you know, some of it's just complete coincidence, and it's not really that close in the first place.

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But this, this, to have the time down, to have the person down, to have the method of death, to have even the surrounding events, the despising him, and rejecting him, and thinking that he's being judged for his own sins, when actually, he was dying for the sins of God's people, that he would die and rise again, that it's

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God himself coming as a man, all of this can only be from the sovereign

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God. It can only be from God. And so when Pilate asked the question, are you the king of the

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Jews? And Jesus, of course, is. That's what this is all about.

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And I want to just highlight what I always do highlight, as we end and think about what was underneath Matthew's story the entire time, what does he know is the plan and the story itself, is he is the king.

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He's the king. He's the savior of the world. All tribes, tongues, peoples, and nations are coming to Jesus.

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It's still happening today. And I always like to highlight this, because I think it is glorious.

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In a room like this, we're on the other side of the world right now from where these events took place.

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We're just about 2 ,000 years later. And here we are in this room in the middle of the desert, which

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I wonder when people first settled here, what in the world they were thinking. But here we are, and you got a room today, right now, filled with people who are, most of us, descendants from pagans, from different tribes, tongues, peoples, and nations, all gathered together in one room, unified by one savior, king.

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People in this room from different backgrounds, different cultures. We've got people in this room that are different colors.

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Many of us are just a bunch of mixed bags, right? And we all love one another as brothers and sisters in the

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Lord. And all of us affirm the Lord's love for us and the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and we have our ultimate allegiance given to him.

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Jesus is the king. You see, there's an expression of this whole thing I'm aiming at that I want you to capture.

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You can look in the Bible and see the fulfillment of all God's prophecies wrapped up and summed up in Jesus in ways that will blow your mind and keep you up at night and give you goosebumps, yes.

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But I don't want you to miss this. The fact that Jesus is the risen king is displayed in this room right now.

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All those promises of salvation and redemption going to the ends of the earth and all the nations being drawn up to God's mountain to be reconciled to God is displayed right here in this moment.

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So Jesus is the king here, and Jesus is the king clearly here, right in front of us.

01:00:06

And so this is the good news of a kingdom. Make no mistake about it. That is one of the central themes and affirmations of the

01:00:15

New Testament documents. Jesus is the king. How do you make application to that truth?

01:00:21

How do you make application to it? It's the kind of application that got the early Christians in a lot of trouble with the authorities of their day because when they were saying

01:00:30

Jesus is the ultimate, he's the king, rival kings and gods knew what that was about and they put

01:00:37

Christians down for it, and it still happens to this day. But Jesus is the king is not just a pithy slogan.

01:00:43

It is an affirmation of an ultimate truth that all the world is called to yield to.

01:00:49

That's how the early Christians preached it. They preached it like this. Here's who Jesus is.

01:00:55

Here's what God has done. And now God commands men everywhere to repent.

01:01:02

To repent do what? To repent and come to Christ as the ultimate. He is the

01:01:07

Savior and the King. He is Lord. And so what will you do with Christ? Have you turned to him in faith?

01:01:14

Are you trusting in him and him alone for forgiveness and salvation? If you haven't, don't move a muscle until you do.

01:01:20

And if you are in Christ, I'm gonna challenge you and challenge us as a church. How do we live in the light of this central truth in a way that is more glorifying to God and consistent?

01:01:31

Jesus is the king. He's not just king between my ears. He's not just my personal king,

01:01:39

Jesus is the king of the world. And all the world is going under his feet. And you and I are part of that process of calling the world to be reconciled to God.

01:01:48

So let's do it. Let's pray. Father, I pray that you'd bless the message that went out today for your glory, for your kingdom.

01:01:55

I do pray that this was honoring and glorifying to you. And I pray as we continue to finish, Matthew, that you'd allow me to speak in such a way that it would challenge us as a church and bring glory to you.

01:02:07

We love you, Lord Jesus. Thank you for all you endured for us. This moment of evil and injustice, this moment of pain, for me, for us.

01:02:23

Thank you that you love us with an everlasting love. It's in your name we pray.