Sermon on the Death of Messiah

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Hey everybody, I'm Pastor Jeff Durbin with Apologia Church. I want to thank you all so much for watching the content right here on Apologia Studios channel.

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What you're about to watch is a sermon, a message from Apologia Church's worship service. And again, I want to thank you all so much for watching, for liking, for commenting, for sharing the sermon itself.

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So thank you again so much for watching these and sharing them. God bless you. Gospel according to Matthew chapter 17.

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For those of you guys new to the Bible, that's your first gospel in the New Testament. It's the opening to your

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New Testament. That's the order. Matthew chapter 17 verse 22.

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Matthew 17 verse 22. Hear now the words of the living and the true

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God. As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, the

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Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.

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And they were greatly distressed. Thus far is the reading of God's Holy Word. Let's pray.

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Father, we come before you as your church, Lord, confessing our need for you, our dependence upon you,

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God, your spirit, to teach us, Lord, to open our eyes to illuminate your word,

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God. Lord, I need you now to teach your people. I pray,

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Lord, that you would bless your people, that you would, Lord, grant to us eyes that see, hearts that are soft towards you, ears that hear.

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I pray, Lord, for this room before me. I pray, Lord, if there's anyone in here that does not truly know you as Savior and Lord, if they have not repented and believed in the gospel, that you would grant that today.

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And for those of us that do know you, that are in you, Lord Jesus, I pray that today we would grow more and more in love with, committed to, and passionate about what you've accomplished for us on the cross.

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I pray, Lord, that you would remove hardness of heart, indifference, and,

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Lord, empower us once again by the simple message of your gospel, your life and death and resurrection.

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I pray that you'd get me out of the way, Lord, that you would teach your church, cause me to decrease, Christ to increase, in Jesus' name, amen.

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Matthew chapter 17, gospel according to Matthew chapter 17. So we are now over halfway through the gospel according to Matthew.

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Getting through halfway, and it's a powerful section of Scripture because, if we back up just a bit to the beginning of this chapter,

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Matthew 17 verse 1, you'll see this majestic moment, this powerful moment that occurs in the life of the apostles.

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Just a few of them got to witness this, and they were told when they saw it not to mention it to anybody until after the ministry of Christ, and so they get to see, just for a moment, a crack, a split in the physical, to see the true glory of their

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Messiah, the Son of Man, poured out before all of them. It was, for them, of course, unexpected.

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They didn't know how to handle it. They are so blown away by this moment where they got to see really what they had been believing the whole time, who they had been walking with.

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The Creator Himself is now among them and just letting them see just a bit beyond the veil, behind the veil.

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And so, of course, we know the story. We did the message on it. Jesus brings them up to this mountain.

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Moses and Elijah, representing the law and the prophets, are with Jesus.

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They are talking, and the voice from the Father in heaven speaks to them because Peter's response, we have to be fair to him, is just to react quickly to, well,

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I don't know, let's build something, like something for him, Moses, Elijah, the prophets, and then you,

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Jesus. Let's build something to remember this moment. This is so epic. It's so powerful, this moment.

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We've got to memorialize this. We've got to plant something in the ground with some roots so we'll never forget this moment, and nobody else ever will either.

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And then the Father speaks from heaven directly to that notion, and the Father says,

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This is the Son of my love. This is the Son of my love, with whom

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I am well -pleased. Listen to him. So the Father speaks in that moment directly to them about Jesus' place among the law and the prophets.

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This isn't God, of course, now diminishing the power and the privilege of the law and the prophets.

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This is God the Father speaking to us, to all of us throughout the ages, to his people about the primacy of Christ over all things.

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This is God's Son, his eternal Son, the Son of his love. This is the one in whom he is pleased.

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Moses and Elijah, as grand and amazing as their ministries were, as powerful as they were, as amazing as the revelation of God is through them, they're not like Jesus.

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They're not righteous like Jesus. They're not holy and blameless like Jesus. They are not the

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Son of Man, the expected Messiah. Jesus is the supreme revelation of the

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Father. And so they had just experienced this moment with Jesus, but it just, it wasn't isolated.

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It's not like they hadn't seen amazing things from Jesus. Just consider it, I think that to be honest, if we're honest with ourselves,

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I say this often, we, I think, become mellow -headed sometimes as Christians when we read the Bible.

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Because there's so much spectacular there. I mean, Jesus born of a virgin, well, that doesn't happen very often, but we know that miracle and so we become jaded to it.

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Just be honest with yourself. You do, you read the Bible and you become jaded to all these glorious things. You just see it and it becomes sort of common fair, normal, everyday virgin birth.

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And it just, you know, doesn't take you like it ought to. Jesus and his miraculous life and ministry, his teaching, his wisdom, the glory of Jesus throughout his life, not just that moment of the transfiguration.

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It's, what I'm saying is, it's not like it was so hidden before. It was apparent as can be.

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But that moment of the transfiguration opened something up they had not quite understood or comprehended yet.

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But the ministry of Jesus is a ministry that's unparalleled in history. Nothing like it. God walking among us.

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The word became flesh. God tabernacled among us. He became like one of us.

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Jesus accepted in his self, he accepted all the limitations of humanity, but not letting go of the fact that he was

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God, but receiving and accepting all the limitations of humanity. Just consider the infinite and the finite together as one.

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And in Jesus' life, there was hunger, there was betrayal, there were beatings, there was blood spilled, there were tears, there was pain, all of that in Jesus' life.

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Jesus walked among a fallen people. He hung out with them.

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He embraced them and he touched them. I told you to study the ministry of the touch of Jesus.

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I encourage you to do that. Look at the ministry of the touch of Jesus. Jesus walks among sinful people.

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He touches them. He gives sight to blind people, hearing to deaf people. The lame walk.

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They stand up again. He can raise a little dead girl. He raises the dead.

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He raises his friend Lazarus. Jesus has a wisdom and a power that is unparalleled, unmatched in all of history.

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And his disciples are walking with him and they see this. They have these little moments with Jesus that I am willing to consider did not appropriately affect them.

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And I think it would be the same for maybe many of us. We just wouldn't comprehend it fully. Little moments where Jesus would say things to them about the future and it would just became,

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I guess, in a word, common fare. It just sort of happens with Jesus. He tells people what they're thinking.

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It says in the text that Jesus, knowing their thoughts, answered them. Jesus knew what they were thinking.

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He would respond to them without them saying a word because he's God. He searches the mind.

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He knows everything. And Jesus has those moments where he knows what they're thinking and responds to it.

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Jesus says things with a wisdom that can only be divine. It can only have its embodiment ultimately in one.

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And that's the divine being of God. Only God can speak like that, understand like that.

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Jesus could completely trip up his enemies. Whereas they would try to catch

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Jesus in a trap. They try to get him in trouble with the religious leaders of the day or they try to get him in trouble with the civil magistrate of the day.

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All of that is taking place in the New Testament in the ministry of Jesus, but Jesus constantly has victory over it.

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They saw all of this and then they experienced something with Jesus that they had never seen before.

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They'd never experienced. They didn't taste it. They'd never touched it. They never knew it.

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The love of Jesus, the love of God embodied. You see it in the life of the ministry of Jesus and the apostles.

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Just consider for a moment. These guys are our heroes. Just yeah, they are our heroes. Peter's, we know that he sticks his foot in his mouth, but he's still a hero.

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He's still amazing, right? You see it in John. You see it in, you see it in all of them. James, you see it in Andrew.

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All of them, they're heroes of the faith. But let's be honest with ourselves. They're broken.

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They're sinful. They are cowards at times. They're weak at times. And these are our giants.

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These are our heroes. Go from the very beginning of the Bible. It's the same story. All of our heroes constantly crash and burn.

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Face plant constantly. Moses disobeys God. He's not even allowed into the promised land.

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There's, there's the guy who gives us the ten commandments. God moved mightily through him, but he does a complete face plant in his ministry.

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David, King David is a man what? After God's own heart.

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And he's also on record as a murderer and an adulterer. All of our heroes have their spots.

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They all got them. Abraham, he's got his spots. Name your hero and I will tell you their spots in the

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Bible. And yet Jesus has a consistency, a faithfulness, fidelity, a love that is unparalleled.

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And you can see that the disciples didn't know what to do with it at times. You see the miracles of Jesus even down to his prophecy.

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Something they hadn't experienced before where Jesus would tell them the future before it happened.

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And guess what the test was? Perfect, prophetic, fulfillment, or he's not

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Messiah. And Jesus just does it. Normalizes the experience for them to where I don't think they fully grasp it.

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For example, just look in the text for a moment. Just the text that's before us right now. Matthew 17.

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Go ahead and look there. Jesus says what? He says that the time has come where he is going to be delivered into the hands of men and they will kill him.

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And he'll be raised in the third day. You realize, of course, that's a prophecy. That's a prophecy.

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Jesus is telling them what the future is going to be. And they know because these are law -abiding

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Jews. They know the Torah. They know the law and the prophets. They know Deuteronomy 18, 18 through 20, or 20 through 22.

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The test of a prophet was if somebody comes they speak in the name of the Lord and the thing follows not nor comes to pass.

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That is the word which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken that presumptuously God says you should not be afraid of him.

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One of the tests of a prophet is perfect prophetic fulfillment. Meaning if somebody says

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I'm from God, thus sayeth the Lord, this is going to happen. If it doesn't happen, I don't care how sweet they are.

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I don't care about their golden rings, their white teeth, and their 65 million dollar jets.

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It doesn't matter what the appearances are. Deuteronomy 13, 1 through 4, what the signs and wonders are.

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If they lead you after a different God, if they give you false prophecies, they are not from God.

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Why? Because God, the eternal God, is the sovereign. Only he declares the end from the beginning.

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Only God can tell you what the future is going to be because only the true and living God is the one who guides the universe.

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He's the one who wields history for his purposes and his glory. Only the true and living

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God can say, Romans 3, Romans 8, 28, all things work together for good.

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For those who love God, those who are called according to his purpose, because he's the sovereign

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God. That's why God can say with such boldness, if somebody has a false prophecy, they are not from me.

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I've said it often, if you want to take this book down, if you want to destroy all of Christianity, if you want to rock our world, then you find one false prophecy in this entire revelation of God, because by God's own standard, he says he'll tell you the future before it happens and get it right every single time.

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And he doesn't just say that. He says something else. He says that he can tell you the past and why it happened the way that it did.

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More on that in just a minute. But the point I'm making here about this particular section is that Jesus in this section, when he says the son of man is going to be delivered, killed, and then raised in the third day, right after this, we're going to pick it up soon,

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Jesus has a moment about the temple tax with Peter. Now we're going to dig into that text later, but I just want to make one point here.

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There's two prophecies right here in the space of Matthew 17, 22 through the end of the chapter.

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The second prophecy on the heels of I'm going to die and rise again is a prophecy where Peter is told to go down to cast a hook into the sea to catch the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth, you'll find a shekel.

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Take that and give it to them for me and yourself. What? It's, I'm saying it's almost like, it's almost like playful for Jesus.

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He has these grand prophecies, earth -shattering prophecies, literally worldview -shifting prophecies about himself, about the future, about the temple, about that generation, about his death, about resurrection, about Peter's abandonment, about Judas's betrayal.

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You just, there's, it just goes and goes, and then there's just the normal things where Jesus would go, all right, here's the lesson about the temple tax.

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You're actually free and that's why you're not supposed to really be there with that.

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But I'll tell you what, just so we don't offend, go ahead and go down to the sea and then catch a fish, and inside the fish's mouth, you're going to find the money.

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Okay, go ahead and do that. And Peter just goes down there and just casts the line and there's a fish and it's, money's in the fish's mouth.

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Is he, is Jesus, that's why I think God has such an amazing sense of humor, because that's just silly. That's just,

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Jesus could have said like, check your pocket, right? Or look in your bag. But he's like, go catch a fish.

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It's going to be in the fish's mouth. In the fish's mouth. I mean, it's just incredible what

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Jesus does, but he gives those prophecies and they're just normal, and it happens.

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And you just have to know this, you just have to understand this, that the veracity of whether or not

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Jesus is a prophet from God is built upon perfect prophetic fulfillment, at least.

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And Jesus has all these moments where he's just saying, this is going to take place, and then it does.

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He has all these moments where he says little things like, raised from the dead, fish's mouth, you're going to abandon me, you're going to betray me, all that takes place, temple's going to fall, now one stone upon another before this generation passes away.

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It's all throughout the New Testament. It's powerful. It's powerful. But here's what

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I wanted to hone in on just for the moment in terms of, let's not miss this awesome moment as a church to actually unpack the glory of this text.

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Jesus uses a very important, he uses some very important words here.

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He says, the Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.

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Let's just hang there for a second, the Son of Man. We've talked about this recently, right? This is Jesus' favorite title that he uses for himself, the

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Son of Man. Now, we like to think of Jesus as Christ. We say Jesus Christ, like that's his surname, right?

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Jesus, last name Christ, right? It's his title, Jesus the Messiah.

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But that's what we most commonly refer to when we refer to Jesus, Jesus Christ, Jesus Mashiach, Jesus the

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Messiah. But actually, Jesus' favorite title for himself was the Son of Man.

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And I just want to speak to this for a moment. Why do they have at the end of this, why do we have at the end of this, this moment where they were greatly distressed?

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Because think about for a second, for you as believers today in the 21st century, when Jesus says to us, dead and raised again, our response, because we're post -cross, post -resurrection, post -ascension, your and my response now, knowing the entirety of the story, is joy, not distress.

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Right? I mean, what's the source of your hope and joy? If I say, like, what's the nuts and bolts of your life?

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What's the bottom line of your life? What's the substance of all of your joy and delight and hope in all the world?

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You're not gonna say, if you know Jesus, it's your money. You're not gonna say it's your car.

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You're not gonna say it's your house. You're not gonna say it's your friends. We're all gonna fail each other and blow it.

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So your ultimate source of hope and joy and pleasure in the world is not any of those things.

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I would say if you're a believer, if you know Jesus, you would say nuts and bolts of me and my hope in the future is not my experiences, it's not my circumstances, not my environment, not my stuff.

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It is in Christ, his perfect life and death and resurrection. That's the source of my hope in life.

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So how come when Jesus says to them, when he says to them, I'm gonna be killed, dead and raised, their response is greatly distressed?

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And I want to say it kind of is wrapped up in what he calls himself, son of man.

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How could you die and rise again? How are you gonna die and rise again, and you just called yourself the son of man?

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That's a complete contradiction. It makes no sense. And you might be thinking as Christians today in the 21st century, knowing

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Jesus, what do you mean it makes no sense? Trust me, to them, it's incomprehensible in that moment with their understanding that the son of man would be killed and raised again.

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Not, watch, not because their scriptures didn't teach it, it did, and I'm going to show you that it did, but because of what they understood son of man to mean.

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Daniel 7, 13 through 14, this is what they understood son of man to mean about 600 years before Jesus.

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This is pens, scribed or scribbled. This is what it meant.

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Daniel, I was looking in the night visions and behold one like a son of man was coming on the clouds of heaven, and he came where?

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Up to the Ancient of Days. The son of man comes up to the Ancient of Days, and it says in the text, every

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Jew had their hope based in this, to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve him.

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His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.

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Now, that's what they knew. Our hope is wrapped up in Mashiach. We know it.

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Genesis 3, the woman's seed is going to crush the head of the serpent, right? Genesis 49, 10,

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Shiloh is coming, and to him will be the obedience of the nations.

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All the nations are going to obey him. Abraham, the father of our faith, God promised him that he's going to have descendants as numerous as the stars, and now here comes the one they know is the son of man.

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They know it, and they just got a little peek. They got a small sample.

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They got the physical world open for a second, and all of this glory pours right through.

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They saw it, and now after seeing that glory, you have to imagine in that moment, they had to be so excited.

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Now I see it. Jesus is so lowly and humble, and we don't have any money in this ministry.

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We got nothing. How are we going to take over the world with the kingdom of the Messiah? How's he going to save the nations, and all the nations obey him?

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How's he going to destroy all the works of the enemy? And then they go, the transfiguration.

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I know who I'm actually dealing with, and their hope must have just been spilling over in that second, because they see the majesty of Jesus.

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They go, now I get it. This is the ruler of the world. This is the one that's going to fix everything.

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He's going to go as far as the curse is found, and he's going to renew, and redeem, and restore, and Jesus goes, the

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Son of Man is going to be killed. He's going to die. He's going to raise after the third day, and they're thinking, how?

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Does any of this make any sense? You're going to die? You're going to die? Like really die?

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And they probably, they had these moments where they're like, is he talking about some kind of spiritual death?

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Right? Is he speaking in a metaphor? Is he using an allegory of some sense?

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What's Jesus doing? Is there something, is there like a higher spiritual truth here? He's going to be killed and raised again, and they're starting to get it now.

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He's serious. He's serious. He's going to be killed. How is this going to change everything?

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How is God going to bring light to darkness? How is every single family of the earth going to come back and be restored to relationship with God?

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How's it going to happen if the Son of Man dies? And by the way, quick question, if the Son of Man dies, then what's the whole story of the

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Son of Man being given a kingdom and dominion and authority and all that stuff? How does that work out?

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So you have to understand the pinch in the moment for the disciples is that they cannot begin to comprehend this.

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They can't begin to comprehend it. And proof that they cannot begin to comprehend it is right here in the text.

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Watch. Go with me. Matthew 17. He says killed, raised again from the dead, greatly distressed.

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Just back it up a little bit. Go to Matthew 16, one chapter before. We've already got another moment now.

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A conflict where the disciples are hearing about Jesus, the Son of Man, the Messiah, who's going to save.

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They know this, but now all of a sudden Jesus is revealing to them. He's showing to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders.

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Matthew 16 .21. Here's the moment before Jesus told them and they were distressed.

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It says in 21, 16 .21. From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised.

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And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him saying, Far be it from you, Lord. This shall never happen to you.

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But he turned and said to Peter, Get behind me, Satan. You're a hindrance to me.

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For you're not setting your mind, here it is, on the things of God, but on the things of man.

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I'll just pause for a second. There has to be some lesson here for all of us. Me, all of us.

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These disciples are not walking by faith. They're walking by what?

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Sight. They're trying to lean on their own understanding of things. They have their own picture of how this is going to work out.

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Do you want proof? Proof that they have their own picture of how this is going to work out is when

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Jesus is being betrayed now and all these guards show up and they're going to capture now their messiah.

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They're going to capture the king of the world, the savior of the world, the lord of glory. They're going to grab hold of him.

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And now Jesus already told them, I'm going to go there. They're going to take me. They're going to kill me.

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I'm going to rise again. And in that moment they show up just like Jesus said. And Peter's response is to grab a sword and start swinging it.

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Right? Because watch, his perspective is this is the messiah. It's the hope of Israel, the hope of the world.

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How is this going to happen if Jesus is taken now to trial and killed? So he says it must be, it must be we have to fight.

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It must be that we have to start swinging swords. Maybe that's how we're going to take over the world and Jesus is going to establish his throne in Jerusalem, physical throne.

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He'll rule and conquer from there. But the point was, listen, like us often, me, you, our children, we walk by sight and not by faith.

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It's not as though God didn't tell them. He did over and over and over again.

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Jesus is not letting this thing come and hit him upside the head and surprise them. He keeps telling them, we're going to Jerusalem, the elders, the scribes, they're going to take me, they're going to kill me,

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I'm going to die and rise again. He keeps telling them, but they cannot begin to comprehend it.

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God's word had always said the messiah had to die and rise again. The old tessar revelation gives us that truth.

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But they couldn't see it. Why? Because God's plan was far too, far too incomprehensible to even begin to touch.

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What they know from the old testament? It's God. He's coming. Isaiah 9, 6 through 7.

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Micah 5, 2. God's coming to save us. Virgin born to Bethlehem.

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That he was going to be sinless, that he was going to die for our sins, that he was going to rise from the dead.

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That he would take all the nations and bring them back to God. His kingdom would be like a stone that became a huge mountain.

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It'd be progressive growth into the world. They knew all that. They saw that story, but you know what they missed?

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They missed the part of the story by which God makes all of it possible.

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Redemption. Forgiveness. Jesus taking upon himself the death and the curse that we deserve.

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This is why of course Jesus says to Peter in such a very strong rebuke, get behind me

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Satan. Why? Because if you gut, if you gut the death and resurrection of Jesus from the

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Christian story, there is no Christian story. There is no Christian story. And I want to say this.

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There's no hope for the world. And if Jesus isn't who he says he was, and he didn't die, and he didn't rise from the dead, then

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I say eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die, because without Christ as the foundation of everything, we've got nothing.

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That is the truth before God. And that's why we have to understand this moment where they're greatly distressed.

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Their own confusion is because they are unwilling to see that God has said something is the case, and they won't simply trust it and believe it because they're walking by sight and not by faith.

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They're trying to live according to their own understanding. How, listen, how can

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God himself die? Because he takes on flesh.

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Because he takes upon himself the limitations of humanity. Philippians chapter 2. Have this mind in yourselves.

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There was also in Christ Jesus who was in the very form of God, did not consider equality with God, the

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Father, something to be grasped or held on to. But he emptied himself and he became obedient.

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He took upon himself the form of a servant and became obedient even unto death.

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God condescending, taking on the finite, to share in our sufferings, to receive in his own body the penalty that we deserve.

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This is so far beyond any human being's capability to come up with.

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Do you understand, I'm going to say this, it's so important, that pagan religions in the world have nothing on the biblical message.

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Do you understand that there's no story in history that parallels the Christian message? There's nothing even kind of similar to it.

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The eternal only God, condescending, taking on flesh, to live the life that his people have failed, to die a death that they deserve, and rising again from the dead.

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God chasing the sinners to pay what they cannot pay, to do what they can't do, to receive in himself what they actually ought to have.

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There is nothing in history like that. This message is fully incomprehensible, but it is apprehendable.

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The Bible teaches this story. God himself coming to die for his people in the person of Christ.

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I want to say just for a moment more on this issue of prophecy. The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.

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The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, and they'll kill him, and he'll be raised on the third day.

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Remember I said at the beginning, I said we often get mellow -headed. Do you understand that Jesus just predicted his own death and resurrection?

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Do you understand that all of us are going to die? Every one of us is going to face that grave.

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We're going to go into the grave, and not any one of us has the ability to say, I'm going to raise myself on the third day.

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Nobody can, and nobody else in history ever can or ever will. Only God himself has the power over life and death, and Jesus actually says to people in his day that they had no authority over his body, no authority over his life.

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He said that you destroy this temple, Jesus says, and in three days

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I will raise it up again. We become mellow -headed. Jesus just said they're going to kill him, and he'll be raised again on the third day.

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He has power over our greatest enemy, death. The thing that hurts us the most.

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The thing that causes our minds to focus. It's the truth, right? Many of you guys have been here for a very long time.

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And many of you have suffered along with us through death in our own church family.

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Some of the most horrible experiences in our past, but from my perspective, some of the most glorious and sweet and intimate moments of my life.

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That's the truth. And you know there's something about death that causes all of us to wake up a bit, right?

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It causes us to wake up just for a moment to think about what's really true, what really matters.

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Because all of us recognize that we like to hide this truth from ourselves constantly. We like to stay away from it as much as possible, that we're all going to die.

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I mentioned before to some of you that there are times where I actually, if I get a moment,

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I will go to a cemetery. I'll go to a graveyard. Some of you will probably think this is weird, but I have a reason for it.

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I'll go to a graveyard and I'll stop and maybe get out and just sit there for a minute and look around.

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And I do that to try to get back to reality for a minute. I do that to refresh my mind that I am finite and I'm going to die.

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And every one of us is destined to go into the ground. All of us have that enemy that we cannot conquer in ourselves.

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But here's Jesus, the Son of Man, saying this. He has the words. He just speaks it. He tells them,

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I'm going to go. They're going to kill me, be buried, and then I'm going to rise again from the dead.

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I'm going to have victory over death. Watch me. Watch this. And they're distressed.

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But that's where the glory of the Messiah is. Because in that death He purchases for Himself men and women and children from every tribe, people, tongue, language.

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Jesus redeems through that death and resurrection. But here's the powerful thing that sort of hovers over it is this is prophecy.

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He's telling them what's going to happen. He has, again, like I said at the beginning, many prophecies.

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His prophecy about that generation not passing away until the temple was destroyed. Prophecies of His death and resurrection.

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Prophecy of Simon Peter's betrayal. Prophecy of Judas's betrayal. Even down, like I said, to the little things of Peter and the temple tax.

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But compare that, and we could have gone all day on this, but I don't want to belabor the point, but just to share with you some examples.

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Joseph Smith, many of you guys know we have a ministry and a heart for the Latter -day Saints. A deep love for them and a desire to see them come to know the true

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Christ and experience the freedom that's in Jesus. A couple examples. Joseph Smith claimed to be a prophet from God.

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And he claimed to be a prophet from the God of the Bible. As a matter of fact, when Mormon missionaries show up to your door today, they show up with a

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King James Version of the Bible and the Book of Mormon. They claim to be part of God's story in history.

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But Joseph Smith has to face the same test that Jesus has to face, which is perfect prophetic fulfillment.

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One false prophecy means you are not from the living God. Because God's word in the

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Old Testament, read Isaiah chapters 40 through 46. He mocks the idols of men and the false gods of men.

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He actually challenges them. He says, challenge, try this, tell me the future before it happens.

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And tell me the past and why it happened the way it did. See, watch, only the living God can do that.

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Can tell you the future before it happens because he controls it and this is powerful. He can tell you why things happen in the past the way they did because, watch, there is no such thing as purposelessness in this universe.

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God controls everything for his glory and the good of his people. But Joseph Smith comes along, 19th century

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American prophet that he was, and he had many false prophecies. I'll give you one. Joseph Smith, History of the

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Church, volume two, page 182, February 14th, 1835. Listen to what he says.

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President Smith then asked that the meeting had been called because God, I'm sorry,

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President Smith then stated that the meeting had been called because God had commanded it. God commanded this meeting for Joseph Smith.

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And it was made known to him, Joseph, by vision and the

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Holy Spirit. So for Joseph Smith here, he doesn't say this is on his own accord. He doesn't say this is just my word.

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He says God called the meeting. That's something you probably want to show up for. And he says that this was made known to him by vision and the

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Holy Spirit of God. This is inspired revelation, according to Joseph. 1835.

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He says that the saints were to go forth to prune the vineyard for the last time or the coming of the

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Lord, which was near, even 56 years, should wind up on the scene.

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1835 plus 56. It is 2018.

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False prophecy. Joseph Smith said that he was going to remain in the priest's office until Christ returned.

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That was History of the Church, Volume 1, page 323. Joseph Smith said that nobody would be able to take his life.

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Nobody will have the power to kill him until his work is accomplished and he is ready to die.

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That was in 1843, History of the Church, Volume 6, page 58. If you know the history,

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Joseph Smith was murdered. He was murdered. That's the truth. He was murdered in Carthage. He didn't finish the

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Pearl of Great Price translation. He didn't expect to die there. He said that no one can kill him until his work was done.

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He was murdered before he was finished. Joseph Smith, History of the Church, Volume 1, page 176 in 1831, was present when he laid hands upon a man named

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Lyman White. And when he laid hands on Lyman White and ordained him to the high priesthood after the holy order of God, the spirit fell upon Lyman, allegedly, and he prophesied concerning the coming of Christ.

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He said that there were some in the congregation that would live until the Savior should descend from heaven with a shout with all of his holy angels with him.

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And it says that his coming would be like the sun rising in the east and would cover the whole earth.

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And he will appear in his brightness and consume all the wicked before him. 1831, the prophecy was that people in the congregation would witness that.

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Joseph Smith prophesied that a temple would be built in Jackson County, Missouri before his generation had all passed away.

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We could keep going. Did you get the point? Here's a man who claims to be from God, speaking in God's name, and he has false prophecy after false prophecy after false prophecy after false prophecy.

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It's never ending. And he's not the only American false prophet that's done this. Just look at the history of the

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Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. How many times they predicted the coming of Christ in the last century and failed.

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They lost almost half of their membership in the 70s because they had so many people hurt from a failed prophecy of the coming of Christ that they lost a huge number of people from their membership.

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That was in the 1970s. You can look in even our own history. Recently, you have false prophets like John Hagee, the

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Blood Moon debacle. You have false prophets like Jim Baker. You have false prophets in our day, the

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Herald Campings and all the rest. You see people manipulated and abused and used up by these false prophets.

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And God says this. Here's the test. If they lead you after a different God, they contradict my revelation.

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Not for me. False prophets. If they prophesy for the future and it doesn't come to pass, that's it.

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Ready? As a Christian, no mercy. Do you catch that? As Christians, as God's people, we are not supposed to have any mercy for false prophets.

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Like, oh, well, it's just one, right? Right? I mean, come on. Nobody's perfect.

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No, there is someone who's perfect. The triune God of the Bible. The sovereign over everything.

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And he says this. This is my spokesman. He'll tell you the future. And if he gets it wrong, that's how you know.

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But God's spokesmen never get it wrong because they're speaking with the authority of the

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God who wields everything. So when Jesus says, they're going to kill me and I'm going to rise again on the third day, that is prophecy.

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But the, I think this is what I wanted to spend at least a moment on. They didn't get it.

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They couldn't understand it. And this is where I think it relates to us.

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Because I wanted to hang on this point here, which says they're greatly distressed. This is the so what.

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We have a pattern as God's people. Knowing God, being loved by God, being cared for by God.

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All the stuff of life hits us. Death, loss, brokenness, hurt, shame, fear, confusion.

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We have stuff taken away from us. We lose people. We lose things.

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And our response is greatly distressed. We start embracing fear.

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We start embracing anxiety. We start embracing worry. And it's not because, watch, because God has departed.

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It's not because he hasn't told us about the hope that we have in him. It's not that God has shown himself to be unfaithful to us.

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It's that we walk by sight and not by faith. We don't trust in his word and his promises.

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We believe ourselves. We believe our own interpretation of our circumstances. We believe our own inner monologue.

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We believe ourselves before we believe God almost every time. I say this often. Who do you listen to more than yourself?

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Right? Who do you believe more than yourselves? Right? We have the most mercy for ourselves, right?

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And when somebody makes a claim, we'll believe ourselves over them almost any day.

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It takes a lot of work to get us to believe things oftentimes because we're generally very prideful people.

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We believe our own interpretation of our circumstances and we rush into it. We embrace it.

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So Jesus has words for us like this in Matthew. He says, do not be anxious.

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That's a command, not a suggestion. It's a command, not a request. Jesus says, do not be anxious.

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That's a command not to worry. Why? Jesus says, here's why. Can you change the color of the hair of your head at the time?

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No. Do you get the point? Really change it. Some of you guys are like, you better believe it.

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I'm tomorrow. Not like that kind of changing. Or Jesus says things like, can you add a single hour to your life by your worry?

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And the answer to Jesus when he says that is no. He says, why? You say, because that's your job. Because you control that.

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Nobody else does. And Jesus says, so do not be anxious. Do not worry. God clothes the grass of the field.

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There's not a sparrow that falls from a branch without your father's knowledge and you're of much more value than the sparrows.

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The point is that all of us are like the disciples in that we believe our circumstances and we look at the pain and the pressure and the hurt and we just embrace that rather than simply resting on what he says over against our own interpretation and our own feelings.

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And I want to say that the place of peace for us as believers is to start being defiant about our interpretations, about our feelings, and to, as believers, fall on our faces before God on his promises rather than believing our own monologue, our own interpretation of our experiences and our own circumstances.

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Just consider for a moment, just think as believing adults here. The kids may not understand this as well, but as believing adults, how many times have you faced a crisis, a circumstance that seemed horrible, awful, broken, it hurt so bad, it kept you up all night, kept you up all night, you were on your knees in prayer?

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Or how many times have you had as a believer a conflict with a brother or sister in Christ and it kept you up, you lost sleep over it, right?

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And you're just, you're spinning in your bed, you're just laying there on your pillow and you're thinking about what they might be thinking or what did they, what do they mean?

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Did they mean this when they said that? Are they trying to hurt me? And you're just spinning and spinning and spinning and you're not trusting in whatever circumstance you're in, you're stressing and anxious and distressed, greatly distressed, because you're walking by sight, the circumstances, your interpretation, your feeling, right?

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Whatever you may be in, you're so wrapped up in what you see that you're not trusting in what

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God actually says. That's not your anchor. It's a pattern for believers.

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But I want to say this, it's not a pattern that we ought to just embrace and say, that's just the way we are, we're fallible, we're finite, we blow it.

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This is our plight. We're always going to be greatly distressed because we walk by sight and not by faith.

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No, the point is, is all these things happen, God says in his word, as examples so that we would be sanctified, so that we would learn from it, so that we would grow up into Christ, be conformed to his image.

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Here's a moment, watch. Back to the beginning of the message. The difference between positions.

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Believers today in this room hear Jesus say, I'm going to die and rise again, and we rejoice.

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We have songs up here that we sing about that truth. We put songs up about it, that he died and he rose again.

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We're over here praising God, delighting in God on our faces with tears, because he died, was killed, rose again from the dead.

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And they're saying to the same message, no! How could it be?

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Why? Because from our perspective now on the other side of the cross and the resurrection and the ascension, we know what

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God did. We know what it meant. We know the love of God poured out in Christ on that cross.

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We know what it meant for Jesus to go to that cross. For us, it's our salvation.

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It's our glory. For them, it could be only failure, only defeat. And this is what

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I'm going to wrap up on. Go to 1 Corinthians. Because this is the essence of the gospel.

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1 Corinthians chapter 1. How come God chose?

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How come God chose something so broken, so seemingly wicked on the cross, what was happening to Jesus, him being brutalized?

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Why did God do that? Look up here for one second. I want to just make sure you're all hearing me on this.

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This is important. We a lot of times don't know. We're just not savvy to it.

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We just haven't studied it. We don't understand that the cross in the first century, in that context, was something that was so horrific, so barbaric, so grotesque, that you did not, in public discourse, you did not mention it.

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You weren't supposed to talk about it. It would be very much like going to a very nice, fancy dinner and talking about what you did in the bathroom.

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It was that kind of talk in the first century. There are people on record talking about the grotesque nature of the cross, and who in their right mind would even discuss this in public?

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It's disgusting. What happens at the cross is so grotesque and barbaric, the brutalization of a human being.

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It is so awful and so painful. How dare you speak of the cross in public discourse?

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And watch. Now these Christians are coming into the world and they're proclaiming in the public square that the hope of everybody there is wrapped up in this one who was crucified, died on that cross.

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God chose the most foul, despicable, disgraceful thing.

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He chose that to be the bottom of what he does to save the world. And Paul says it in 1

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Corinthians. He says, watch, 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Trying to be better about giving everyone time to get to the passage.

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Verse 18. Here it is. No, no, no, sorry. 17, 17.

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Yes. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel. And not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

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For, here it is, first century context, Paul surrounded by that cultural context of the cross being despicable, disgraceful, ugly, horrible, unclassy.

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For the word of the cross is folly, it's foolishness, to those who are perishing.

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But to us who are being saved, it's the power of God. For it is written, this is

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God speaking now, watch. It's God talking. It's what he says about himself, what he does.

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It's his M .O. I'll destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning

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I will thwart. Where's the one who's wise? Where's the scribe?

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Where's the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

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For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased

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God through the foolishness of what we preach to save those who believe.

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For Jews demand signs, and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach

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Christ crucified. A stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to Gentiles.

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But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

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For the foolishness, wait, I gotta say this real fast. This next line from Paul, this is important, this next line from Paul is so dangerous.

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It is like Paul walking on a tightrope over hell. You understand what he's going to say right here is so dangerous, it is so risky to be somebody that says you're representing

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God, and you say something like this. Because God is all -powerful, He is mighty,

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He is the embodiment of truth, He's the foundation of truth, and Paul says this, so risky, watch, for the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

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That is so risky to talk like that. Why? Because there is no foolishness in God, and there is no weakness in God, and to even touch that is so dangerous, you're hanging on a thread over hell.

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But Paul wants to make his point about this God and what He's done in the cross.

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So he's saying the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

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And then Paul says, for consider your calling, brothers, not many of you are wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth, but God chose,

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God chose, God chose, God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.

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God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God, and because of Him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the

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Lord. You see, here's the summary. We're not embarrassed about this.

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This is what the Bible says. It doesn't try to whitewash it. It doesn't try to make it look nice and tease it out, right?

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The message of the cross, God becoming a man to die a brutal death, to spill

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His blood, to be speared through, to have His back ripped open, to have a crown of thorns thrust into His head, to have

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His beard pulled from His face, to hang from that tree, that cross as a public spectacle in front of everybody, brutalized, murdered, mocked, all of that,

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God says, ready? Your hope is there on that tree, because on that tree should have been me.

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See, God takes what we see as so low and debased, and He exalts it over everything, to brag, watch, and He's worthy of it on Himself, on Himself, because just watch, we can't even begin in one message to do it.

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What's in that cross? Is it God that I've offended? I've offended. I have sinned against.

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I am guilty. I am foul. I deserve nothing from Him. I don't deserve

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His gaze. I don't deserve His thought. I deserve nothing of Him, and then

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He steps into the world to live the life that I absolutely have not, and He goes to that cross, and He delivers

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Himself over into their hands, and He lets them brutalize Him, and then on that cross, thinking of me,

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He receives from the Father my death penalty. He receives from the

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Father the full wrath that's owed to me on that cross. And then

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He has victory over that death, and He's raised, and He's seated, saving, and redeeming, glorious.

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That's what this message is, but it's built upon something that no human being could find comprehensible at all.

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Watch this. You can't make this up. Who tells the world that their entire hope is resting in a

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Palestinian Jew crucified as a common criminal 2 ,000 years ago?

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That sounds asinine. It sounds stupid.

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It sounds foolish, but it is the very power of God to those that He is saving.

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This Palestinian Jew 2 ,000 years ago, crucified as a common criminal,

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He, in fact, is ready. He's the ruler of the entire world. Nobody can thwart His purposes.

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He's the glorious One. He's the Almighty One, and He's the One that puts every enemy under His feet as a footstool.

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Nobody is mightier than Him. Nobody more wise. Nobody more eloquent.

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Nobody more powerful. He is the ultimate, and He's the very pinnacle of what it means to love.

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This is the final word. They didn't get it. They were greatly distressed, killed, buried, raised from the dead.

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They didn't get it. That the greatest act of love that they would ever experience from now on into eternity, they'll never come across a love that's greater than that.

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For those of us that know Jesus and His love today, we hear the message of His death and resurrection, and it brings us joy and delight.

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They heard it, and were greatly distressed. And I want to say, here's the thing, because on this side of the cross, all of us see the event for what it was, we see

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Him for who He is, and we embrace it as love and salvation and redemption, because on this point, now, we're walking by faith, and what

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God defined it as, and not by sight. So the question, as always in a message like this, is what do you do with Jesus?

01:00:14

As a Christian, oh, here, watch, oh, I got to just say this. Some of you guys right now, because you know how this works, right?

01:00:22

You get to the end of the gospel message, if you're from an independent, fundamental, or separated Baptist Church, this is the part where everyone's,

01:00:27

I say, all right, everyone, all heads bowed, all eyes closed. Right?

01:00:34

We start asking people to raise their hands up. You know the pattern, right? So you respond to this sort of as a Christian.

01:00:39

Like, this is the part where Jeff says, you need to turn to Christ, and you need to trust in Him, but you're a believer, and you're not maybe embracing, in this little moment, confession and repentance yourself.

01:00:54

How we've treated the cross of Christ and His resurrection, we treat it at times as believers with indifference.

01:01:04

We hear it so much, we know it so well, we think, I'm past that truth, give me the next thing.

01:01:10

Do you understand that this is the source, it's the hub, it's the bottom line, it's the main thing,

01:01:15

His death, His resurrection. It's everything. It's everything, and you can't check out in this moment as a believer, as I call people to come to Christ in true faith and salvation, to be joined to Him, you can't check out and say, oh, that's for the person next to me.

01:01:30

I'm saying, this is the moment where you have to check your own heart and say, has my heart become hard to this glorious truth?

01:01:37

Have I not fully embraced the glory of the cross?

01:01:43

Have I found myself in this moment so consumed with earthly things and conflicts and bitterness and gossip and all the pain and all the hurt, that the cross of Christ and the glory of God's love has been missed by me all this week.

01:02:03

I allowed conflict in my relationships, failures amongst other believers.

01:02:09

I've allowed pain and circumstances and finances and death and loss.

01:02:15

I've allowed all those things to cause me to miss the love that I have in God and Jesus.

01:02:22

I found myself all this week greatly distressed because I've been walking by sight and not by faith.

01:02:32

But I do need to speak to those in this room that don't know Jesus. You heard once again, maybe this wasn't your first time, you heard once again about the cross of Jesus and His resurrection.

01:02:42

What are you going to do with that knowledge now? You realize you're being in this room today, if you don't know

01:02:48

Jesus, you're being in this room today and hearing this message. Was God's love to you?

01:02:54

It was His grace. You've been maybe asking, where are you God? Why aren't you listening? Why are you so far off?

01:03:00

You've been asking those questions maybe, like, can I really know God? Is He even concerned with me? And then here you sit in this room hearing about the message of Jesus and His death and resurrection and His forgiveness and grace for sinners.

01:03:13

And you wonder where God is? You wonder if He loves you? You wonder where His grace is?

01:03:19

You have only one thing to do and that's fall on your face and turn to Christ where you sit to trust in Him and His love.

01:03:30

Let's come to Christ. Father, we come before you and we ask for your forgiveness in Jesus' name for how we've walked with the cross, how we viewed it, how we've been cavalier and glib.

01:03:50

And we ask God that you just give us new passion around this foolish thing by the world's standards.

01:04:02

We boast only in you, God. And I pray, Lord, for those in this room that have not turned to you in faith, only you,

01:04:09

God, can grant faith. Only you can do that. So I pray that through the message of the cross today,

01:04:16

Lord, you would grant trust in Jesus to your elect. In Jesus' name, amen.