SPEAKER_00: Chinwa Chebu once said, Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.
SPEAKER_00: I'll say that again.
SPEAKER_00: He's a novelist.
SPEAKER_00: He wrote things fall, all things fall apart, yes.
SPEAKER_00: Nigerian novelist, uh African fiction writer.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, friends, I asked this question in terms of your own life.
SPEAKER_00: Someone else has been writing your story.
SPEAKER_00: Ah, there she is.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's why I cried too.
SPEAKER_00: Now I asked this question in light of your own life.
SPEAKER_00: That perhaps someone else has been writing your story.
SPEAKER_00: Your metric results wrote a chapter in your story.
SPEAKER_00: Your salary wrote a chapter in your story.
SPEAKER_00: The mistakes you cannot undo wrote a chapter in your story.
SPEAKER_00: And in every version of that story, the verdict came, becomes the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: It's not enough.
SPEAKER_00: We let other people and other things form our stories, and we realize that the feedback we get is not enough.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, have you been to an interview where you negotiate your salary?
SPEAKER_00: The response you get is the number is not enough.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, we live also in a world where everyone, at least most people, have a platform.
SPEAKER_00: A podcast, a YouTube channel, an Instagram page.
SPEAKER_00: And the first thing we are called to do is that, man, uh the smart content creator will say, uh, like and what?
SPEAKER_00: Subscribe and turn on the notifications so you never miss an opportunity for me to form you.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone is trying to get your attention, everyone is trying to shape your story.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone wants to be the voice you keep coming back to.
SPEAKER_00: If if if in interview questions, as it were, friends, the the the the question is asked, what voices are shaping your life?
SPEAKER_00: They ask it like this What is the most influential leader, dead or alive?
SPEAKER_00: And and why is that the question?
SPEAKER_00: Because the interviewer wants to make sense of who you are.
SPEAKER_00: What influences you?
SPEAKER_00: What decisions influence your your leadership?
SPEAKER_00: What kind of authority do you trust?
SPEAKER_00: Because whether you realize it or not, even in that question, the assumption is that someone is leading you, someone is forming your story.
SPEAKER_00: You do not choose whether to to have a king, as it were.
SPEAKER_00: You do not choose whether to have it or not.
SPEAKER_00: But you only choose which king you want to have.
SPEAKER_00: Now, where where we are in John 19 basically is around the story of a king.
SPEAKER_00: Hours before Jesus is nailed to the wood, to the cross, Pilate looks at him and asks a question that that defines our entire generation, as it were.
SPEAKER_00: In verse uh chapter 18, verse 38, he says, What is truth?
SPEAKER_00: Friends, we live in a city and culture that says truth is what?
SPEAKER_00: Relative.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone has has claims on ultimate truth, is trying to dupe you.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone who claims to have ultimate truth is trying to uh pull a, as it were, a rag over your eyes.
SPEAKER_00: They want to control you.
SPEAKER_00: But Pilate, friends, is asking this question in a mockery way.
SPEAKER_00: He's staring at truth incarnate in chapter 18, verse 38.
SPEAKER_00: He's staring at Jesus and he's asking him that question: what is truth?
SPEAKER_00: And the cross, friends, as I pose this point to you, is that the cross is not a myth.
SPEAKER_00: It it this the history is is as it were stopping now today.
SPEAKER_00: People are going to church, different places across the world.
SPEAKER_00: Have we been duped?
SPEAKER_00: Has a wool been pulled over our eyes?
SPEAKER_00: Or is the one who died on this day the ultimate truth?
SPEAKER_00: He is not a metaphor, as it were.
SPEAKER_00: He's not even a TED talk about the danger of a single story.
SPEAKER_00: Or as it were, self-improvement.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, truth in today's story, the story of the cross is a brutal reality.
SPEAKER_00: It's a historical fact, it's it's a blood-stained reality.
SPEAKER_00: And perhaps you hear for the first time, you're like, why is this guy shouting?
SPEAKER_00: It's passion, friends.
SPEAKER_00: But the point is, Pilate is presenting a man who looks like a criminal.
SPEAKER_00: In chapter 19, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: A crown of thorns that is pressed on his head.
SPEAKER_00: This does not look like a king.
SPEAKER_00: And Pilate says to the people, Behold, your king.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, there's a scene.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I love Marvel movies, sorry, excuse me, I have to mention it.
SPEAKER_00: Um, Black Panther, there's a scene there where Kilmonga defeats Tichala and strips him of everything that made him look powerful, as it were, and turns to the crowd and says, Is this your king?
SPEAKER_00: The mockery of Pilate's question to the crowd is is a is a question that uh kind of like is poised to a people now who are, as it were, challenged with a question of crisis.
SPEAKER_00: Because on Sunday, friends, on Palm Sunday, everyone was saying, This is our king.
SPEAKER_00: Hosanna to the Most High.
SPEAKER_00: Now Pilate is bringing that question again to the crowd.
SPEAKER_00: Because, friends, everything at that moment about Jesus is contradicting what they had expected of a king.
SPEAKER_00: He has no power, he has no army, he has no victory, he is just weak.
SPEAKER_00: He's humiliated as a way, he's suffering, as it were.
SPEAKER_00: And the cry out to the people in response is what?
SPEAKER_00: Away with him.
SPEAKER_00: We have no king but Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: In that response, friends, it's a kind of like a pledging of allegiance to Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: They are rejecting, as it were, God, their true king.
SPEAKER_00: And my question to you as we look at John 19 is where have you said Jesus is king?
SPEAKER_00: But lived like your career is, but lived like your relationship is king, but but lived like your need for approval is king.
SPEAKER_00: Where have you betrayed your confession and ascension to saying Jesus is king in your own life?
SPEAKER_00: You see, friends, sin is not just breaking rules.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you are here like, yeah, I don't know why I'm doing here, but I'm here.
SPEAKER_00: I want to hear more, but like I can't keep all the rules.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no one can.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not just about rules.
SPEAKER_00: The question of kingship is about allegiance.
SPEAKER_00: Who is your, who are you, who are you, who is reigning over your life?
SPEAKER_00: Who are you pledging allegiance to?
SPEAKER_00: And the sin here is a sense of a misplaced allegiance.
SPEAKER_00: And and yet, friends, what is remarkable in this text is that while they are rejecting their the their true king, their king is still deliberately going to the cross for them.
SPEAKER_00: You see, friends, the story of the cross begins with a rejected king, and it ends with a finished salvation.
SPEAKER_00: And my my refrain for this weekend is this your life costs more than you can ever imagine or think.
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna look at this king, the king rejected.
SPEAKER_00: That's the first point.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 16 to 22 quickly.
SPEAKER_00: It kind of highlights that segment, the portion of that scripture highlights this rejected king.
SPEAKER_00: And and before we we dig in and point out some points here, uh, I'm gonna go back to Black Panther again.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, you're gonna get over me soon.
SPEAKER_00: There's another scene in Black Panther where now it's Mbaku.
SPEAKER_00: Mbaku speaks of Tichala.
SPEAKER_00: Uh he says, You have no suit, you have no special power, you have no vibranium, you're just a boy.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, friends, Tichala is still king.
SPEAKER_00: John John here is telling us Jesus went out burying his own cross.
SPEAKER_00: There's a there's an intentionality of the details that John even leaves out the fact that Simon of Cyrene had to help him with carrying the cross.
SPEAKER_00: That's the story or the narrative in Luke.
SPEAKER_00: There's an intentionality here to to deliberately omit John the uh Simon of Cyrene to make this point that because friends, John wants us to understand that or to see that this king is deliberately walking towards his throne.
SPEAKER_00: This weak king, this shamed king, this naked king is deliberately walking towards the cross.
SPEAKER_00: There's no victim here being dragged to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: There's not a man who's who's losing control of his own story.
SPEAKER_00: He knew why he was born.
SPEAKER_00: He he at the right time Jesus came to die, friends.
SPEAKER_00: He carried his own cross because this was always his plan.
SPEAKER_00: Now, friends, in verse 17, we see they arrive in Kholchota or Kolgota, and John gives us three words for the most important moment in human history.
SPEAKER_00: There they crucified him.
SPEAKER_00: Now, one very famous or kind of like a Roman uh speaker, a Roman Republic speaker who was like considered the greatest public speaker in history, kind of describes the crucifixion in this way.
SPEAKER_00: Mind you, he he would have the most subscribers if he had a podcast.
SPEAKER_00: He says, friends, describing the crucifixion as a penalty incapable of description by any word.
SPEAKER_00: A man of many words, historically known in the Roman Empire, describes the crucifixion as what?
SPEAKER_00: I don't have words to describe it.
SPEAKER_00: No Roman citizens and friends could be crucified without the personal sanction of the emperor.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, friends, the king of heaven, submitted himself voluntarily, deliberately for you and me.
SPEAKER_00: But Pilate then writes an inscription.
SPEAKER_00: I'm retelling the story.
SPEAKER_00: He writes an inscription above his head, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: That's verse 19.
SPEAKER_00: This phrase was written in a city context like Rosebank, in a cosmopolitan place where you'll find vendors, Zulus, Italians, Tossas, Songas.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: That the languages that were written on that inscription are accessible languages.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, there's a language of Greek.
SPEAKER_00: At the time, it was a language of the culture.
SPEAKER_00: There's the language of Latin, which was the language of the law.
SPEAKER_00: And then there's there was Aramaic as well, which was the language of religion.
SPEAKER_00: The city friend still needs to know that Jesus is what?
SPEAKER_00: Today in Rosebank, the city still needs to know what?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is who?
SPEAKER_00: The king.
SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 21, the chief priest then beg Pilate to change that inscription.
SPEAKER_00: And Pilate providentially, as if God's hand was on his heart and his mind and his senses and controlling his utterances, says, What I have written, I have written.
SPEAKER_00: Although Pilate has meant to write this inscription as an insult, God is meant to write it as a what?
SPEAKER_00: As a coronation.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, we're too linked, as it were.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus does not just claim a small private religious corner of your heart, friends.
SPEAKER_00: He's the cosmic king.
SPEAKER_00: His claims, friends, are over your intellectual capacity, are over your politics, are over your your your bedroom and boardroom.
SPEAKER_00: They are over your bank account, they are over your Monday mornings, your Friday nights.
SPEAKER_00: He is king.
SPEAKER_00: And the the city, friends, needs to know that Jesus is that king.
SPEAKER_00: Your life needs to exclaim that Jesus is who, friends?
SPEAKER_00: His king.
SPEAKER_00: He's king over all of it.
SPEAKER_00: Over your spreadsheets.
SPEAKER_00: Over your timesheets.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is king.
SPEAKER_00: And sadly, we resist this kind of king because you want a king we can manage.
SPEAKER_00: A king we can negotiate with.
SPEAKER_00: A king who fits into the life we have already planned for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: That's the king we want.
SPEAKER_00: The chief priest friends did not say, we have no king.
SPEAKER_00: They did not say that.
SPEAKER_00: They said, We have a king.
SPEAKER_00: We have Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: The rejection is never a vacancy, as it were.
SPEAKER_00: Our rejection of Jesus' kingship in our daily life is not a vacancy.
SPEAKER_00: There's no vacant space here.
SPEAKER_00: There is something that is king over your life.
SPEAKER_00: It's always a sense of a subtitle.
SPEAKER_00: So the question is not whether you have a king or not, the question is who did you crown instead?
SPEAKER_00: Who did you make the king of your life?
SPEAKER_00: For the rejection of the king Jesus is a crowning of another king.
SPEAKER_00: Now I want to describe those uh kings, the kings we choose.
SPEAKER_00: In verse is 14 to 15.
SPEAKER_00: Let's let's look at it quickly.
SPEAKER_00: Um, he says, Now it was, John 19, verse 14 says, Now it was the day of the preparation of the Passover, it was about the sixth hour.
SPEAKER_00: He said to the Jews, Behold your king.
SPEAKER_00: And then verse 15, they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him.
SPEAKER_00: Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your king?
SPEAKER_00: The chief priest answered, We have no king but Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: Who is your but Caesar?
SPEAKER_00: Pilate turns to the crowd and he's asking, Shall I crucify?
SPEAKER_00: as I I've mentioned, and they say, We have no king but Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: Now, friends, here's the point here.
SPEAKER_00: These people who are denying that are not atheists.
SPEAKER_00: These are the most religious people you can find.
SPEAKER_00: Men who have memorized the Torah, men who have served in the temple, men who have uh built their entire identity around the conviction that God alone is king.
SPEAKER_00: Now they are betraying their convictions, Caesar is king, and they looked at Jesus and they chose Caesar.
SPEAKER_00: They did not abandon kingship, they just redirected it.
SPEAKER_00: Again, friends, my question is who is your Caesar?
SPEAKER_00: Because, friends, that's precisely what we do.
SPEAKER_00: We we we switch, as it were, teams.
SPEAKER_00: I know people who've been Kesar Chiefs fans for 20 years and then now they are all of a sudden they're wearing Orlando Pires t-shirts.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, how's a galani?
SPEAKER_00: Allegiance, friends, is not revealed by what you say, it's revealed by who or what you obey.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_00: Allegiance is not revealed by what you say, but by who or what you obey.
SPEAKER_00: So let me ask you again, friends.
SPEAKER_00: What are you building your life around?
SPEAKER_00: What are you obeying?
SPEAKER_00: What is that Caesar in your life?
SPEAKER_00: For some friends, it could be your career.
SPEAKER_00: We we sacrifice integrity on the altar of achievement.
SPEAKER_00: We we we compromise our values and neglect our families, damage our health for a title that will not matter in eternity.
SPEAKER_00: For some, it's approval.
SPEAKER_00: We curate our lives for an audience that I'm sorry to say, influencers, they may not even be paying attention.
SPEAKER_00: We we perform for people and edit ourselves for people and shrink ourselves for other people who will scroll past without a second thought.
SPEAKER_00: For others, your Caesar may be relationships.
SPEAKER_00: We have made a person our savior.
SPEAKER_00: We have asked a human being, a mere human being, a mere tower, man last mongile, a mere tepang, and sepiso and tepo.
SPEAKER_00: A mere Michelle and Shane and Chandra, we've just asked mere people to carry only what God has designated to carry by Himself.
SPEAKER_00: And friends, when those people, when those sepangs and sepisos and Ashlins and Ashleys fail, which they will do, we come to Mfunis and ask for prayers.
SPEAKER_00: Because friends, this this sense of abandonment feels like, wow, it's impossible.
SPEAKER_00: How can this person do this to me?
SPEAKER_00: But actually, that person is but a person like you.
SPEAKER_00: They were not meant to carry an ultimate throne over your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Again, Chimamanda Nguzi, the I mentioned her in the single story, um, she says that it creates a sense of stereotypes.
SPEAKER_00: And the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, she says, but they are incomplete.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, the world has been telling you a single story about what success is, what a good life looks like, what you are worth.
SPEAKER_00: And the problem is that the the story is is is not entirely true.
SPEAKER_00: The problem is that it's it's actually incomplete.
SPEAKER_00: And friends, an incomplete story will give you an incomplete life.
SPEAKER_00: We have been using polite language so far, friends, to describe what is actually happening in the text.
SPEAKER_00: That this this shifting of allegiance, this misplaced allegiance, we we have called it a redirection of kingship as as I've been working with you guys.
SPEAKER_00: But but what the Bible calls this, what what what we have called choosing Caesar, and and and those things are true, but they are a lighter version, you know, like I'm I'm just easing people in.
SPEAKER_00: But the Bible says, friends, this misplaced allegiance, this soft sophisticated way of saying it is this that friends, it's not just a switching of sides, it's actually sin.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just a bad choice, it's sin.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's sin that that that that that is compromised, it's sin that is not just like a preference thing, it's sin that is not just like a failure to reach your your your potential, it's actually sin that says it's a cosmic treason.
SPEAKER_00: A cosmic treason is this, friends, it is a creature looking at the creator in the face and saying, I will run my own life, I will be my own king, I will decide what is true, I will decide what is right, I will decide what I am worth and what I am for.
SPEAKER_00: And friends, that's rebellion.
SPEAKER_00: The insistence on self-rule is not something new, friends.
SPEAKER_00: It's it started in the garden.
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, my daughter always does this.
SPEAKER_00: My heart sings.
SPEAKER_00: In the garden, the serpent said, You will be like God.
SPEAKER_00: You will self-govern yourself, you will rule yourself, you'll be your own authority, you'll be your own king.
SPEAKER_00: And and that's that's the heart of the fall, friends.
SPEAKER_00: The the rejection of Jesus for for Caesar is at the heart of what we call a cosmic treason.
SPEAKER_00: And friends, we have been trying ever since to make our lives our own, our our self-governance of our own lives.
SPEAKER_00: We've been trying all our lives to be our own kings, to be the masters of our own destinies.
SPEAKER_00: Now, friends, our generation has has dressed this up, as I've said, with a language of what you call deconstruction.
SPEAKER_00: I'm this I'm deconstructing my spirituality.
unknown: I
SPEAKER_00: I'm deconstructing my faith.
SPEAKER_00: I'm deconstructing my allegiance.
SPEAKER_00: Others call it expressive individualism.
SPEAKER_00: I'm living my truth.
SPEAKER_00: I'm being authentic.
SPEAKER_00: It all sounds nice and progressive, right?
SPEAKER_00: It sounds enlightened, it sounds smart, it sounds like freedom, but friends, underneath this academic language, underneath this therapeutic framing, under this cultural sophistication, what is there, friends?
SPEAKER_00: It's rebellion.
SPEAKER_00: The creature is looking at the creator in the face and saying, I will be my own king.
SPEAKER_00: I will self-actualize.
SPEAKER_00: And that rebellion, friends, is not a personal problem.
SPEAKER_00: It is an offense against an infinitely holy God.
SPEAKER_00: How do you respond to that?
SPEAKER_00: The wrath of God, the just and holy response of a perfect God, and everything that is not perfect is what, friends?
SPEAKER_00: Is his response to cosmic treason is hell?
SPEAKER_00: Ouch.
SPEAKER_00: Are we sure we're at the right church?
SPEAKER_00: Did he just use the H word?
SPEAKER_00: Friends, every one of us have committed that cosmic treason.
SPEAKER_00: And the just response of God is hell.
SPEAKER_00: Ouch.
SPEAKER_00: That includes me, that includes you.
SPEAKER_00: Whether you look posh, whether you look slim, whether you look um all nice and dressed up, whether you're in church on a Good Friday, it's a beautiful thing to be here.
SPEAKER_00: But but but but the necessity of Jesus on the cross is what necessitated his death is my sin and your sin.
SPEAKER_00: My sin, your sin necessitated the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: My sin and your sin necessitated the just response of God, of God's wrath poured out on his son.
SPEAKER_00: In Isaiah it says, it pleased him to see him crushed.
SPEAKER_00: And for you, you are like, I'm not a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: What age word?
SPEAKER_00: No, what are you talking about?
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you this in the kindest of ways.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing you do when you are sick is to accept that diagnosis.
SPEAKER_00: Then we can deal with the remedy.
SPEAKER_00: To accept that this is the this is the medicine I need.
SPEAKER_00: But before you get to the medicine you need, you have to acknowledge that you need medicine.
SPEAKER_00: And and and friends, Caesar is not that medicine.
SPEAKER_00: Caesar cannot forgive your sins, Caesar cannot carry your shame, Caesar cannot absorb the wrath of God on your behalf, Caesar cannot walk with you into the valley of the shadow of death.
SPEAKER_00: Every king you crown in place of Jesus will eventually demand more than give you, than what it gives you.
SPEAKER_00: It will offer less than you need.
SPEAKER_00: Your career will not be there when you stand before a holy God.
SPEAKER_00: On that day, the only thing that will matter is whether the king who went to the cross went there for you.
SPEAKER_00: Not because I deserve it, not because we had redirected our allegiance correctly, not because we had finally chosen the right king, but because, friends, while we were still enemies, while we were still rebels, this king committed deliberately to go to the cross and die, the death we deserve to die.
SPEAKER_00: The king walked intentionally so to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: The point, friends, is this that we do not reject him with our words, we reject him with our allegiance.
SPEAKER_00: And allegiance is always revealed by what we bow to when no one else is watching.
SPEAKER_00: The kings we choose always tell the truth about the king we rejected.
SPEAKER_00: I want to say that again.
SPEAKER_00: The things you long for from your career, your money, your aspirations, your creators' hopes and dreams, your creator's fears, the things that keep you up at night.
SPEAKER_00: The remedy you need from these things you've made kings cannot handle your need.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus deliberately has.
SPEAKER_00: How are we doing for time?
SPEAKER_00: Noah is smiling.
SPEAKER_00: I need someone to tell me how we're doing for time.
SPEAKER_00: 10 minutes, five minutes?
SPEAKER_00: We still good?
SPEAKER_00: 10.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, cool.
SPEAKER_00: The king who still gives.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 23 quickly.
SPEAKER_00: Says, when the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts.
SPEAKER_00: One part for each soldier, soldier.
SPEAKER_00: Also he has what?
SPEAKER_00: Tunic.
SPEAKER_00: But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.
SPEAKER_00: So they said to one another, Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it.
SPEAKER_00: See whose it shall be.
SPEAKER_00: This was to fill, excuse me.
SPEAKER_00: This was to fulfill the scripture which says, They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.
SPEAKER_00: So the soldiers did these things.
SPEAKER_00: One writer, C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis, put these words like they said, The hardest or the hardness of God is kinder than the softness, the softness of men.
SPEAKER_00: And and his compulsion is our liberation.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, the point he's making here, which we're gonna see in this text, as we read in even in verse 27, where he says, Then he said to the disciple, Behold your mother, and from that hour the disciple took her to his home.
SPEAKER_00: Before then he says, Woman, behold your son.
SPEAKER_00: I wanna kind of package this section with the idea of saying, Man, even on the cross where he's carrying our shame, the king still gives.
SPEAKER_00: On one side, friends, these soldiers are there uh casting lots, gambling for Jesus' clothes, cloth, the under under undergarment.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, friends, he's naked, he's stripped naked, he's stripped into shame.
SPEAKER_00: They they they take him and they are indifferently gambling for his clothes.
SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, there's these four women who are watching faithfully so who are broken as well.
SPEAKER_00: The soldiers see nothing worth stopping for, but the woman cannot look away.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, in his limitless agony that is physical, sees his mother.
SPEAKER_00: Woman, behold your son.
SPEAKER_00: And to and to these disciples say, Behold your mother.
SPEAKER_00: Are you still awake, guys?
SPEAKER_00: He he calls her woman, not mother.
SPEAKER_00: He he gently uh calls her friends from the grief of a mother losing a child to to the adoring faith of a sinner looking to a savior and Lord.
SPEAKER_00: At the foot of the cross, friends, we are seeing here a community that is being formed.
SPEAKER_00: Not a religious institution, not a Sunday morning program, but a family bound not by blood but by the blood of the King.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, at the foot of the cross, as it were, the church was born.
SPEAKER_00: Whether you have followed Jesus for 20 years and you are here this morning, or walked here this morning, still working out what to believe, or were even hurt by the church and and are not sure why you are here.
SPEAKER_00: We we glad you here, yes.
SPEAKER_00: You you haven't been to church in a year, you only go to Easter.
SPEAKER_00: Again, we are glad you are here.
SPEAKER_00: You're standing, friends, at the same foot of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Again, as my choir members will know, at the foot of the cross, the ground is level.
SPEAKER_00: No matter where you come from, you are all standing before the foot of the of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And what is happening there?
SPEAKER_00: This suffering servant sees you.
SPEAKER_00: The most followed account on Instagram cannot even find you in the crowd.
SPEAKER_00: But this king of kings, this suffering servant sees you in the midst of his own agony.
SPEAKER_00: Woman, behold, your son.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, the most the king of kings, the one who's dying for the world, stopped to take care of one person.
SPEAKER_00: He saves personally.
SPEAKER_00: It's not an abstract thing, friends.
SPEAKER_00: When we say Shangiwe, we're talking about a redeemer who who redeems the lost, friends.
SPEAKER_00: You are not lost in the immensity of his purposes, as it were.
SPEAKER_00: His purposes are so vast and deep and cosmic, but he sees you.
SPEAKER_00: The Redeemer sees you.
SPEAKER_00: He not only sees you, he knows your name.
SPEAKER_00: He not only knows your name, he knows every hair on your head.
SPEAKER_00: He not only knows every hair on your head, he knows your pain.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus knows your pain.
SPEAKER_00: And in the midst of his boundless compassion, he extends friends' care to you.
SPEAKER_00: Even now, friends, Jesus extends his what?
SPEAKER_00: His care.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's the love of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's the boundless compassion.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's what the king does, friends.
SPEAKER_00: He's not so far off and detached from this world.
SPEAKER_00: He knows every struggle you face.
SPEAKER_00: He sees, he never overlooks your pain.
SPEAKER_00: In the midst of his own pain, he never overlooks your pain.
SPEAKER_00: And what does it do, friends?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 28 to 30.
SPEAKER_00: The king pays.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus knowing that all all all all now is finished, he says these words in verse 28.
SPEAKER_00: Look at it quickly.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I come on, class.
SPEAKER_00: I thirst.
SPEAKER_00: Talk about uh modern-day Amaka Mai's Kombiesa.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, I what?
SPEAKER_00: I thirst.
SPEAKER_00: The fountain of living water is dying of thirst.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was fully human.
SPEAKER_00: We see his humanity here.
SPEAKER_00: Feeling a sense of dehydration, the blistering of his his tongue, the the rough wood tearing his whipped back.
SPEAKER_00: And there in this deep terror and agony, what does Jesus say?
SPEAKER_00: I thirst.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, this is a description only of hell.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible would describe hell as a place of eternal deprivation.
SPEAKER_00: It reminds us of this uh rich uh man who's begging for just a drop of water to cool his tongue.
SPEAKER_00: In Luke 16, uh, Jesus is is remind, he's saying, I thirst.
SPEAKER_00: Friend, every drop of divine judgment from the Father is on Jesus now because of your sin and my sin.
SPEAKER_00: It's burning.
SPEAKER_00: Every moment of unquenchable thirst is is is on him, our sins are on him.
SPEAKER_00: Every bit of what hell deserves is on him, and he took it so that you would never have to.
SPEAKER_00: So that you would never have to thirst.
SPEAKER_00: He he he refused, in fact, to numb his pain.
SPEAKER_00: They offered him some some some some some some um um um vinegar water.
SPEAKER_00: He he refused to they offered him on the road a sense of anaesthesia, he refused to numb what friends, his pain, he refused to tranquilize, as it were, because friends, he did not come to Kolkotta to have a managed experience of your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: He came to feel every bit of your heaviness, every bit of your sin on him and the wrath of the Father being satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: Every sin that made his death necessary, yours, mine, every act of cosmic treason, every Caesar we were crowning, every moment we looked at God and said, I will run my own life.
SPEAKER_00: He took it all on himself.
SPEAKER_00: He felt it in a deep way.
SPEAKER_00: Not only, friends, the weight of sin, but the full, unmitigated, unmetigated wrath, undiminished wrath, meaning the anger of the Father, the just anger was poured on his son Jesus Christ on that cross.
SPEAKER_00: It was, friends, as Isaiah 53, verse 10 says, the will of the Lord to crush him.
SPEAKER_00: But now, friends, he says, I thirst, and he accepts the wine vinegar, but not to moisten his lips.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, not to not to quench his thirst, as it were, but to moisten his lips.
SPEAKER_00: To to moist, I mean, he's dry, his lips are dry, friends.
SPEAKER_00: The the it's so dry, he can't open his mouth.
SPEAKER_00: He's thirsty.
SPEAKER_00: He he just needed some wine, some vinegar water to utter these words.
SPEAKER_00: It is finished.
SPEAKER_00: No, not not not not to say anything else, but to say, tetelesti to to shout it from the top of his mouth, his lungs, his voice, tetales, it is finished.
SPEAKER_00: The creator of the universe stepped out of heaven, taking on human flesh, absorbing the full weight of his only holy, just Father, the the full weight of his wrath for you and me.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, It is finished.
SPEAKER_00: He then bows his head in verse 30 and gave up his spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, death did not take Jesus, he chose the moment.
SPEAKER_00: The wrath of the father uh was on him, and and the wrath of the father was completely satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: Your freedom was purchased with the only currency worth enough, which is his own blood.
SPEAKER_00: And now you are welcomed to the father's house as a child of God, reconciled, the wrath of the father propitiated, he he he's he's just and are satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: He he bought you with with the precious blood of his son Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Not to say you are forgiven, walk away, get away.
SPEAKER_00: No, you are forgiven, come home.
SPEAKER_00: You are forgiven now.
SPEAKER_00: You are you are my child.
SPEAKER_00: Now now you have access.
SPEAKER_00: Any day, any hour, anytime.
SPEAKER_00: You you are home, you you don't need to live this job at life to be seen.
SPEAKER_00: You are already seen in him.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to live this job at life to be approved.
SPEAKER_00: You're already approved by him in his son Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, we we like being seen.
SPEAKER_00: Hello, we like being seen by the most prominent in our society.
SPEAKER_00: If only the president or the CEO of Standard Bank would say, Hey, well done, good faith, and good and faithful servant, it would make your life.
SPEAKER_00: But hang on, God sees you in his son Jesus Christ because of this finished work.
SPEAKER_00: As I close, friends, one novelist by the name of Leo Tolstoy makes this point.
SPEAKER_00: He he wrote of a man of uh by the name of even uh I won't say his surname, Ilyich, who spent his entire life climbing the ladder, accumulating what the world said had value, only to face one terrifying question as he lay on his bed dying.
SPEAKER_00: What if my whole life has been wrong?
SPEAKER_00: He spent everything in his life chasing what the world said had worth, and arrived at the end with nothing to hold on to.
SPEAKER_00: Have you been there, friends?
SPEAKER_00: Have you been in that point where you're saying, Man, I need to come to the end of myself?
SPEAKER_00: I've been chasing, I've been hustling, and it's not enough.
SPEAKER_00: It never is, friends.
SPEAKER_00: Because the things that God created were never meant to fill our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Our hearts have been given this gaping, hollow space only for God to fill.
SPEAKER_00: In 1 Peter 1, verse 18, Jesus says, You are ransomed not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And friends, God did not say pay it in silver and gold, he paid it with his own blood, the blood of his own son.
SPEAKER_00: So as we are about to have this meal, this visible image of it is finished, the the the broken body that was broken for me and you.
SPEAKER_00: Would you come?
SPEAKER_00: Experience the finished uh work of Jesus Christ in in his broken body and he's poured out blood for the purification of our sins, for the washing away of our sins.
SPEAKER_00: Would would you come and and and eat with him?
SPEAKER_00: Again, I want to say this with this point to say, man, if you're not a Christian, would you not just come, would you stay there and take Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Because, friends, this meal is a meal that that that is for those who are saying, I believe in Jesus, I want to eat of him, I want to drink of him, I found my identity and significance in him.
SPEAKER_00: The it is finished is true of me, and this meal is not for those who are saying, I've had a great week.
SPEAKER_00: Because friends, it is finished speaks to your past, present, and future sins.
SPEAKER_00: It's a perfect tense.
SPEAKER_00: So when he says it is finished, he means it is finished.
SPEAKER_00: There's no work that you can do for God to love you more.
SPEAKER_00: There's no there's nothing you can do less for God to love you less.
SPEAKER_00: It is all finished in his son Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're not a Christian, we cleared you are here.
SPEAKER_00: We we we we we we want you to participate in everything.
SPEAKER_00: But for this, for this moment right now, I'd ask you not to participate in the meal.
SPEAKER_00: This table will be here in the weeks to come.
SPEAKER_00: But for now, I would I would beg with you, would you take Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Would you say, Lord, in my heart, Lord, I believe in you, I believe in this this finished work, this, this, this true historical work that that that happened in history for for my present and future and my eternity.
SPEAKER_00: I believe, Lord, that my life cost your blood, the blood of your son.
SPEAKER_00: But if you are a Christian, whether you're walking with the step and you are like, Yeah, man, I I had a I'm I'm uh oh glory to Jesus, I'm here.
SPEAKER_00: Let's let's go.
SPEAKER_00: Or whether you are limping, you you are discouraged, your prayers are not again, Lord, not this again, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Whether you you you are sick and and you are tired and you you are just you just want a sense of assurance, this meal is for you.
SPEAKER_00: Would you would you come and and eat this meal?
SPEAKER_00: Because friends, the Christian faith is not about our works and performance, it's about the finished work of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And and we get to celebrate and celebrate the victory of this enemy being conquered on on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: The the father's right satisfied on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: The fact that Jesus lived a sinless life, perfect life that we failed to live, lived a life of perfect obedience and allegiance to the Father that we failed to live, and died a death that we deserve to die.
SPEAKER_00: So that today we can stand not on our own righteousness, but on the righteousness Jesus has clothed us with.
SPEAKER_00: Now in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 23 to 26, it says, For I have received from the Lord what I also delivered to you.
SPEAKER_00: That the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you.
SPEAKER_00: Do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
SPEAKER_00: Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_00: For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, thank you for the blood.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your body that was broken for our sins.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for forgiveness, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Lord, that sing about we are redeemed, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You have brought us back from the clutches of sin's enslavement.
SPEAKER_00: You have brought us back, Lord, from seeking to find validation in other kings.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, today we can gladly say you are the king of our lives.