Did Jesus Suffer All Of That For This?
Matthew 20:17-19
Our time together will not be long. We will all probably be most thankful for that before we are through. I don’t know what you thought you came to church for this morning, but God has an agenda for all of us. Let’s read our text for this morning and then we will pray and begin.
The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the central point of all biblical revelation. I say “point” in the singular because they go together like inhale and exhale. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most foundational and critical truth in Christianity—it is what defines Christianity and differentiates it from every other faith system.
In our passage today, Matthew records a third declaration from Jesus that He is going to suffer many things, be put to death, and then He will rise again. Matthew recorded Jesus predicting His death before in Matthew 16:21, and in Matthew 17:22-23.
The significance of this particular announcement in Matthew 20:17-19, is that Jesus gets much more specific about the nature of those sufferings. He says that “the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify Him.”
When we combine Matthew’s account here with those found in Mark 10:32-34 and Luke 18:31-34, we get a great amount of detail about what He is specifically going to suffer long before it ever happens. Mark says that, “They will mock Him and spit on Him, and scourge Him and kill Him,” and Luke records it as, “For He will be handed over to the Gentiles, and will be mocked and mistreated and spit upon.” That word “mistreated” means to exercise violence and to abuse.
Jesus gives so much detail here, I believe, because He wants His disciples to be somewhat prepared—as much as they can be—for what is to come. Even when He was very young, Jesus knew what His life was about. The King James Version of Luke 2:49 records Jesus as saying, “I must be about my Father’s business.”
Now, we are all familiar with the phony trials, the ridicule, the beard tearing, the spitting, the hitting, the scourging, the beating, the mocking, and the mental and physical abuse that Jesus suffered at the hands of the Sanhedrin and the Roman soldiers. We have read the Gospel records, we have heard the sermons, we have seen the movies. What I want to know is, have we really considered it in its ramifications and applications for us?
What I mean is, when we consider what Jesus knows is going to happen and what He is wiling to endure, do we look at our own lives and juxtapose that with what we do, what we involve ourselves in in our lives. And, do we contrast it with what we cosign in the lives of others?
We can talk a great deal about the strength and focus of Christ’s will and His determination to fulfill the Father’s will for His life no matter what. We have discussed those things. We can talk about the confusion of the disciples and relate that to the confusion we sometimes experience when we sense God saying something to us trough the Scriptures, through circumstances, or through other people. We have discussed those things, too.
What I want us to do today is look at our lives and the people and things that we allow into our lives and answer this question: Did Jesus suffer all of that for this?
There are so many ways we could go with this that I want to reiterate something you have all heard me say before: There is nothing in your life that Jesus Christ has not laid His finger on and said, “This is Mine!”
Did Jesus suffer what He did, not just the night and day in question, but the entire time leading up to those sufferings, did He suffer what He did so that we could be sinful, be disobedient, be willful, refuse to submit, refuse to surrender, allow others to sin against us, and think all of it was somehow okay?
Let me be a little more specific. When I am doing what I know I should not do, when I, say, sit down to watch a movie that uses fornication and blasphemy and violent brutality as entertainment, did Jesus suffer all He did so that I could be entertained like that?
When I am angry and losing my temper and “venting my spleen” at someone, did Jesus suffer what He did so that I could do that?
Every one of us needs to look at the things we choose and that we cosign and ask the question: Did Jesus suffer all of that for this?
We seem quite willing to accept His forgiveness—in advance, sometimes—for the evil that we do. And, make no mistake, when we do something that requires forgiveness, it is evil—all sin is. But, do we really look at Christ’s involvement, His interest in what we choose and allow?
When I sit in a counseling situation and listen to the pain and suffering that people have endured at the hands of others, and when I hear them say things like, “Well, he just couldn’t help it; he was only doing what he had been taught,” I get angriated! Did Jesus suffer what He did so that that person could do that to you? Absolutely not! He suffered what he did so that that person could be forgiven, but not to authorize the evil to be done.
How about other things we do or have done? Did Jesus suffer what He did so that I could live with my girlfriend or boyfriend outside of the sanctity of marriage? Did He suffer what He did so that I could be envious or jealous of what He had blessed others with? Did He suffer what He did so that I could abuse or be abused? Did He suffer what He did so that I could ridicule and criticize and harshly judge others?
Jesus Christ is supposed to be real and alive to us, involved in everything in our lives. In fact, whether we acknowledge it or not, He is actively involved in every thought, word, action, motivation, and purpose in our lives. We belong to Him. Paul admonishes us in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”
We really need to look at this in great detail. The sufferings of Christ are greatly detailed for us throughout the Scriptures, both Old and New Testament. Psalm 2:1-3 says He would know the fury and rage of His enemies. Zechariah 11:12 says He would be betrayed for thirty pieces of silver. Zechariah 13:7 says He would be deserted by His friends. Isaiah 53 tells us that He would be despised and forsaken of men, that He would bear our griefs, that He would be pierced for our transgression, crushed for our iniquities, and be smitten and afflicted by God.
The Gospels tells us that all of that happened, and more. We rejoice over the fact that he bore the pain and punishment that are rightfully ours to bear, that he endured the death that we deserved, that He bore the unrestrained and unleashed fury of God Almighty to save us from having to experience that ourselves.
So, when we look at our choices, when we look at our attitudes, when we look at what we ignore, do we shrug it off or overlook it or make excuses for it? Or are we broken-hearted over it, indignant over that fact that the cross of Chris is disrespected, disregarded, trampled underfoot.
Read what the writer to the Hebrews says in Hebrews 10:26-29: “For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and THE FURY OF A FIRE WHICH WILL CONSUME THE ADVERSARIES. Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?”
Why am I hammering away at this today? Because this might be the last meesage you ever hear from me, and I have to know that you heard this critical truth before we parted company for the last time.
Why is this so critical for me to speak so strongly about today? Because we are called to be “A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION (1 Peter 2:9a).” Because we have been bight for a price—the greatest price ever paid for anything—and we do not belong to ourselves.
I am hammering away at this today because “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him (Ephesians 1:4),” and because Peter admonishes us in 1 Peter 1:14-16, “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, "YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY."
We are told from Genesis through Revelation that we are to be holy, pure, separate, righteous, haters of evil, lovers of what is good, and live blamelessly before God.
Do we believe that what we believe is really real? Do we get quiet before the Lord and ask Him to shine the light of the Scriptures into our hearts, into our thought-life, into our attitudes and our behaviors and our motivations and our likes and our dislikes and search and probe and examine and illuminate all of it and then get on our face before Him in worship and repentance?
Jesus Christ is God in the flesh and He came to give us what we could never earn for ourselves. He came to give us what we absolutely did not deserve and, instead, gave to us what we absolutely under no conditions did deserve—the right to be called children of God.
What I want each of us to do for the next little while is to be quiet before the Lord, open our hearts to Him, allow the Holy Spirit to do a deep and penetrating work in each of us. If we leave here today unconvicted, unrepentant, unconverted, and unchanged, then our hearts are cold, our consciences seared, and our eternal destiny in grave doubt.
There will be music playing softly in the background. Allow the Spirit of God to move in your heart. Do not give any consideration to what others are doing, what others here might think or wonder about; do not allow anything other than a face-to-face confrontation with God to be of paramount importance to you today.
If you are not interested in being part of this today, then you may quietly leave. If you remain, I will be available to pray with you if you desire. If you feel compelled to kneel or lie on your face or weep or cry or anything of that nature, do not allow your sense of self or your sense of propriety stand in the way. Today is about getting right with God as you may never have before or you may not have in a long while.
Today is about complete and total surrender to God and a full and complete acknowledgment and acceptance of everything that Christ suffered and why.
Today is about true worship of the One who came to save us.
