Review:
- PHYSICALLY beaten. (Mk 15:21-24)
- PUBLICLY shamed. (Mk 15:25-28)
- PERSISTENTLY mocked. (Mk 15:29-32)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above with your cursor for answers!
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Open up your Bibles to the Gospel according to Mark, in chapter 15.
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Mark chapter 15.
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And just to review at Harvest Bible Chapel, the last two years we've been walking through the Gospel of Mark.
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Remember, some of you have been with us through this whole journey.
00:19-00:20
We started with Mark 1.1.
00:21-00:38
Everything, everything we've been studying about the life of Jesus, every teaching, every miracle, every personal interaction, everything about Jesus Christ leads us to this moment that we're studying in this passage.
00:39-00:48
This moment that we're studying today is the thing that Jesus said, "This is the very reason that I came." This is the main event here.
00:48-00:54
This is the most important thing when we get to Mark chapter 15.
00:55-01:01
It's a quick review, we've been studying that Jesus is the Lord, that Jesus is the Lamb.
01:04-01:06
Jews because of envy wanted him dead.
01:07-01:20
Jesus had amassed a following and Jews out of envy wanted him dead, but the problem was the Jews, because they were under Roman occupation, were not permitted to execute anyone.
01:21-01:32
So the Jews had to figure out a way, if we can put Jesus on trial, and if we can determine when Jesus is worthy of execution, we can get them to the Romans and convince the Romans to execute them.
01:32-01:34
And that's exactly what happened.
01:34-01:39
The Jews took Jesus to Pilate, and Jesus was on trial before Pontius Pilate.
01:39-01:45
The Bible says, we studied this, this is just review, but the Bible says that the chief priest incited the crowd.
01:46-01:52
When Pilate says, "I don't see anything wrong with him, what should I do?" The chief priest got the crowd, riled up, "Crucify him!
01:52-01:53
Crucify him!
01:53-01:58
Crucify him!" And eventually that sentiment was catching on with everyone.
01:58-02:04
"Crucify him, kill him, get rid of him, kill him." You know, that's where we left off.
02:06-02:20
It says, verse 20, it says, "They let him out, "to crucify him." And as we get to this passage, this week and next week, we're going to be talking about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
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I've mentioned this a couple of times before, but we always need to keep this in the front of our minds when we talk about the crucifixion of Jesus.
02:30-02:33
It's answering this question, who is responsible for this?
02:34-02:36
Right, somebody's responsible for this.
02:36-02:41
And when you look at all these events that we've been talking about, say, who's responsible for the death of Jesus?
02:42-02:44
Some would say, well, it's obvious who's responsible.
02:44-02:47
It was these chief priests, right?
02:47-03:00
They were threatened because Jesus, you know, overturned all the tables in the temple because they were trying to, they basically had turned religion into a money-making deal, and Jesus sort of did some housecleaning in the temple.
03:01-03:01
You're like, it's their fault.
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Somebody might say, no, no, no, it's Judas's fault.
03:07-03:08
Judas sold him out.
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Judas, one of Jesus's closest friends, one of the 12, sold him out.
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This is Judas's fault.
03:16-03:20
And someone would say, well, no, it's not really their fault either, because they couldn't actually kill anybody.
03:20-03:21
It's Pilate's fault.
03:22-03:25
Pilate said, "I find no guilt in this man." Pilate should have let him go.
03:25-03:28
Pilate is responsible for Jesus being crucified.
03:30-03:32
I'm going to tell you what the right answer is.
03:32-03:34
Who's responsible for the death of Jesus?
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The answer is none of the above.
03:37-03:39
The answer is God.
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God's responsible for the death of Jesus.
03:44-03:44
Like, well, what do you mean?
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Just write these references down.
03:48-03:58
You don't need to turn there, But Acts 2, verse 23, Peter, preaching at Pentecost, this is after the death and resurrection of Jesus.
03:58-03:59
Listen to what Peter said.
03:59-04:05
He said, "This Jesus delivered up according "to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.
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"You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men." So in one sentence, Peter said two things.
04:14-04:17
He goes, the second part of that sentence, Peter says, "Yeah, it's your fault.
04:18-04:24
You killed Jesus, but the first part Peter said this was the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.
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What did he mean by that?
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Well, drop this reference down to Isaiah 5310, all the way back to the Old Testament.
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This is a verse that you should all know.
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Isaiah 5310 says, Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him talking about the Messiah.
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It was God's will that he would take his Messiah and crush him.
04:52-04:55
He has put him to grief.
04:57-05:12
So understand that we start looking horizontally, who's at fault? Remember when the passion of Christ came out and everybody was like, it's an anti Jewish movie because you know, the Jews killed Jesus and remember the anti Semitism everybody was claiming.
05:12-05:14
I'm like, that's ridiculous.
05:14-05:17
Like, Jesus was Jewish, okay?
05:17-05:22
So this anti-Semitic thing that you're trying to promote doesn't make any sense.
05:23-05:25
Jesus was Jewish and the disciples were Jewish.
05:27-05:30
No, it wasn't the Jews' fault, it wasn't Rome's fault.
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Responsible for the death of Jesus was God.
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It was the will of the Lord to crush him.
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And why would he do that?
05:40-05:42
Why would God allow his son to be mistreated?
05:43-05:45
Why would God allow his son to be humiliated?
05:46-05:49
Well, this is the rest of Isaiah 5310, the next phrase, rather.
05:50-05:54
The next phrase says, when his soul makes an offering for guilt.
05:56-05:58
That's our theme this spring.
05:59-06:02
We had just sung the song, Jesus is the Lamb of God.
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So understand that when Jesus was being crucified, he wasn't a criminal being executed.
06:10-06:15
From God's perspective, he was a sacrifice lamb being offered for sin.
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That was God's will that Jesus suffered.
06:23-06:26
Your Bible says again, they led him away to crucify him.
06:26-06:30
Crucifixion was the Roman form of execution.
06:32-06:39
You know, when we think of forms of execution, we might think of lethal injection or the electric chair or the firing squad.
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See, crucifixion was designed to be as cruel as possible.
06:48-06:56
Okay, it wasn't lethal injection where they sterilized the needle and let's execute painlessly.
06:58-07:01
You see, the Romans sort of had a different mindset when it came to crucifixion.
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Their mindset was this.
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Let's make this as painful and humiliating as possible.
07:10-07:19
And they would actually execute people in a public, hang them on the cross in a public place along the road, think like a billboard.
07:20-07:26
You know how people strategize, where can I put a billboard so that most people can see it?
07:27-07:29
That's the mindset that Rome had with crucifixion.
07:30-07:37
Where can we execute criminals in a place that other people are going to walk by and see and be like, "Man, I don't wanna cross Rome.
07:37-07:39
"I don't wanna cross Rome, that'll happen to me.
07:40-07:54
"I don't wanna be the guy beaten within an inch of my life "and hung in public shame to die a slow, painful death." You know, some people, some people hung on the cross for days before they died.
07:56-08:00
It was meant to be slow and agonizing.
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It was meant to be a run, it was meant to be a show.
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To understand that Jesus' death was not a quick execution.
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Jesus didn't step down from heaven and say I'm going to offer myself as a sacrifice and it was as if, boom, somebody had shot him or executed him quickly.
08:26-08:32
He went through an extremely long and brutal ordeal as the Lamb of God.
08:33-08:39
Before he even got to the cross, we see that Jesus Christ was utterly broken.
08:39-08:41
I want you to just jot some notes down in your outline.
08:42-08:44
The humiliation of Jesus Christ.
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Now understand that Jesus humbled himself, okay?
08:47-08:53
So when I say the humiliation of Jesus, this was something that Jesus did to himself.
08:54-09:00
This is something that Jesus allowed for himself because he knew this is why he came.
09:01-09:10
We're going to see this very clearly in the text, the way that Jesus humbled himself and was allowed to be completely broken and crushed.
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Number one, write this down, physically beaten.
09:15-09:16
He was physically beaten.
09:20-09:29
Okay, so verse 20 says, "They let him out to crucify him." Well, you weren't allowed to crucify inside Jerusalem, so they had to take you beyond the city.
09:31-09:37
And when somebody was crucified, they would make them carry their cross outside of the city to be executed.
09:37-09:38
It couldn't happen within city limits.
09:40-09:40
Okay?
09:40-09:45
It says, "And they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene," like, where's that at?
09:45-09:46
That's modern-day Libya.
09:47-09:53
"He was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross.
09:55-10:01
Understand at this point, Mark 14, 65, Jesus was beaten in the Jewish trial.
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Mark 15, 15, we saw that the Romans scourged him.
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That was usually 39 lashes with a whip that had pieces of bone and metal.
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It wasn't like getting hit with a belt.
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It was getting hit with a whip that had these hard things embedded and woven into the strands so that when it hit you, and they pulled it off, it would actually take off pieces of your flesh with it.
10:26-10:41
In fact, many people that were crucified, or I'm sorry, many people that were supposed to be crucified, but were scourged before they were crucified, ended up dying just from the beating, because it was such a brutal beating.
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So Jesus was scourged, and then after the scourging, after the scourging.
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Mark 15, 19 says that Jesus was beaten in the head with a rod.
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Remember when they were mocking him?
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Hail the king of the Jews, oh let's all bow before the king, prophesy.
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And they had some kind of a reed or a stick where as they were mocking him they were beating him over the head.
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So at this point Jesus' physical body was as beat up as a human body can be beat up.
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And then they put the cross on him and say, no, you have to carry this outside of the city.
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And Jesus couldn't.
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Or probably what happened is Jesus couldn't do it fast enough to their liking, what I really think happened.
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You see Jesus carrying the cross and falling over.
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And I think that the Roman guards just got impatient.
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This is taking forever.
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And a passerby, Joe Schmoe in the crowd, you, carry the cross.
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Like why would he have to do that?
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Because the police, the army, commissioned him on the spot.
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Carry his cross for him.
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Then verse 22 says, and they brought him to the place called Golgotha, which means place of a skull.
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Golgotha in Latin is the word Calvary.
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That's where that word comes from.
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And it says it's the place of the skull.
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Why is it called a place of the skull?
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Some people say that it was a hill that actually looked like a skull from a distance.
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Some people say, well, you know, a lot of times skulls are associated with death, right?
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That's where it got its name.
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People were killed there, and they associated that skull with death, with the hill.
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We don't know exactly what the case is, but we do know that it was a public place.
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We do know it's a place where a lot of people to walk by to see criminals executed.
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Verse 23 says, "And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it." They offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it.
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What's going on there?
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Well, the wine mixed with myrrh actually was a sedative.
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Okay, at this point, when somebody was beaten and about to be crucified, they did this little act of mercy where they would basically say, "I'm gonna give you an aspirin." It was this sedative to try to relieve some of the pain.
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But what does it say?
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Jesus, it says, "But he did not take it." Jesus wouldn't take the pain reliever.
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Why is that?
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You know, I was talking with someone last week whose wife, during the birth of one of their children, She said, "I don't want to take any pain meds at all.
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I want this birth to be 100% natural.
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I want to feel the entire experience of childbirth." I'm not going to ask ladies to raise your hand, like is that totally where you are, because I think my wife would fall in a different camp there as far as how much of that pain you want to experience.
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But there are some ladies that are like, I don't want the experience to be dulled whatsoever.
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I want to experience the full brunt of it.
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That's sort of a picture of what was going on here with Jesus.
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Jesus was saying, in essence, I don't want anything clouding my mind. I don't want anything to slightly diminish my, my faculties. I want to experience this. I want to experience the wrath of God.
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Full force.
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that he wouldn't take it.
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He would not take it.
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Jesus was saying, in essence, I'm not going to lessen this experience at all.
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I'm going to take it, and I'm going to feel every last bit of it.
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Verse 24 says, "And they crucified him, "and divided his garments among them, "casting lots for them to decide what each should take." That's a fulfillment to prophecy for sure, but that's also a very sad finish, isn't it?
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Jesus only in last possession, the clothes on his back became a wager in a game.
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Like what's casting lots, what is that?
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It was like dice, okay?
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They would take rocks or sometimes sticks and put markings on different side of them, and it was like throwing dice.
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It was a gambling game.
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So you know if somebody's gambling for your last set of clothes, you know there's no turning back at this point.
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You're at the end of the road.
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Jesus was at that point here.
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But you know, interestingly, I've heard so many sermons.
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In fact, I preached it a couple of times, talking about the physical pain that Jesus went through on the cross, people talking about the nerves that were pierced by the nails, and the blood loss and the dehydration and the asphyxiation.
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Anybody heard a sermon like that where somebody talks about the pain, the pain, the pain, the pain?
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You know, the Bible doesn't really talk about that at all.
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The Bible doesn't say anything about the physical pain that Jesus went through.
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But like we see in this passage, and we're going to see in these next verses we're looking at so much of the focus is on the humiliation, the mocking, the insults, the breaking down the person.
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Not so much the physical.
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And as Jesus was humbling himself, humbling himself, being the lamb.
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The most amazing thing, really, in this passage, with all that he experienced, the most amazing thing is that Jesus let this happen. That's the most amazing thing.
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He let this happen.
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Don't think of Jesus as some poor victim that got overpowered.
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Because if you ever have that idea that, you know, poor weak Jesus idea, if you ever have that idea, just turn to Revelation chapter 19.
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Revelation 19 says when Jesus comes back, the world's going to wage war against him and a sword is going to come out of his mouth and annihilate them.
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People call it the battle of Armageddon.
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Armageddon is not a battle.
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A battle implies that there's some kind of a struggle going on.
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Revelation 19 describes Armageddon as Jesus returning and cleaning house.
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Same Jesus.
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Revelation 20, the next chapter, talks about at the end of the millennium, Satan makes his last hurrah with some people who don't receive Christ during the millennium, and Satan gathers all these people.
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Uh-oh, looks like Jesus is in trouble, right?
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The Bible says he calls down fire from heaven and melts them where they stand and takes Satan and pings him into the lake of fire.
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Now, if you're thinking poor, weak Jesus, you are wrong.
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What you need to see is almighty God willing to allow these people to do these things to him.
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That's what's going on here.
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And to me, that's the most amazing thing in this passage.
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He endured this for you out of obedience to the Father, for God's glory, but for your benefit.
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Let me ask you, how far would you have been willing to go if you were Jesus?
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How far would you have been willing to go?
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About when Judas betrayed you?
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That have got you mad enough to say I'm done with this?
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What about when the Jews smacked you around their silly little trial that they did.
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Would that have been enough for you?
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What about when they jammed the crown of thorns on his head and put the purple robe on him, and mocked him, and spit on him, and ripped his beard out?
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Would that have been enough for you?
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That's the amazing thing about this passage, is Jesus willingly subjected himself, Because he saw himself as God saw him, the Lamb.
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I am here to bear the wrath of God on behalf of you.
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So the physical, okay, number one, physically beaten.
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Number two, just quickly, publicly shamed.
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Publicly shamed.
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Look at verses 25 through 28.
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It says, "And it was the third hour when they crucified him." What's the third hour?
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Well, they started counting at six, so the third hour is 9 AM.
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It says, "The inscription of the charge against him read, 'The King of the Jews.' And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left." Let's pause there for a second.
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It says the inscription of the charge against Imred, the king of the Jews, what's going on there?
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When people were crucified, like I said, it was a show, right?
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So what the Romans would do is they would put the crime that they committed, they would post that on the cross above their head so that when people were walking by, they would see that.
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"Oh, this guy's being executed because he murdered someone.
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This guy's being executed because he led an insurrection against the Romans.
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guys, they would put a label above them.
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Well, when the Jews brought Jesus to Pilate, there were all these crazy accusations about destroying the temple and don't pay your taxes.
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And they couldn't even agree on what the problem was.
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What they settled on was blasphemy.
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They're like, he says he's God.
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And, you know, that's going to be a problem for Rome if you have this guy walking around saying he's a king.
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So this inscription, honestly, is just Pilate.
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Pilate was kind of being a jerk towards the Jews that brought Jesus to him.
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See, Pilate knew that they were trying to force his hand.
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Like, if you don't take care of Jesus, we're going to cause problems for you.
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We're going to go over your head. You're going to lose your job.
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I think Pilate was being a little passive-aggressive here.
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Like, okay, I'll play your game.
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We'll execute Jesus, even though I don't see anything wrong with him.
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What crime shall we post?
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Pilate said.
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King of the Jews.
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Here's the King of the Jews.
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And actually the Gospel of John, they wanted him to change that.
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They're like, "No, no, no, don't write that!" He said he was the King of the Jews, and Pilate was like, "Yeah, what I've written, I've written. I'm not changing it. It's already done. Forget it." He was just being a jerk.
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"You guys wanted rid of this guy because I'm not even sure why now at this point, because your stories are so messed up.
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All right This is Jesus of Nazareth the king of the Jews just to make his point pilot rooted three languages Aramaic and Latin Greek King of the Jews crucified with robbers Do you notice in your Bible goes from like verse 27 to verse 29? Did you notice that?
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And the footnote of your Bible probably for most of you is verse 28 like why is verse 28 out of place?
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Well, when they were putting the Bible together, comparing manuscripts with manuscripts, some manuscripts had verse 28 in there and some did not.
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And verse 28 says, "And the Scripture was fulfilled," it says, "He was numbered with the transgressors." That is from Isaiah 53.12.
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So does that belong in there or doesn't it belong in there?
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The statement is true, whether it was in the original or not, right?
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I mean, it's a true statement.
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Jesus was numbered with transgressors, meaning Jesus was treated as if he was just a criminal.
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That's a true statement, and that's a true fulfillment to Isaiah 53, 12, whether that was in the original or not.
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So I hope that that doesn't...
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That's not a stumbling block for anyone, right?
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Here's the sinless one, Jesus Christ, number two, publicly shamed, willing to be treated like a common criminal.
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Not just willing to be beaten, but willing to be treated like a criminal.
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I think we lose the impact of what this truly means because every one of us in this room are guilty of something, right?
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We've all committed sin.
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We can all say in a sense, "Yeah, I've been guilty of doing wrong things." And here's the thing when it comes to Jesus, he never did.
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Jesus never committed a sin.
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In fact, in John chapter eight, in verse 46, I love this.
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Jesus is standing before his enemies.
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Jesus asks a question.
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He says, "Which of you convict me of sin?" Basically, what he was saying was, "Okay, you show me where I'm a sinner." Now, let me tell you something.
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If I stood in front of a bunch of people that didn't like me, like Jesus was standing of a bunch of people that didn't like him.
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If I was standing in front of a bunch of people that didn't like me, and I said, tell me where I sinned, they would have a list of all of the sinful, wicked, stupid things that I've said or thought, or they'd have a list.
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Like Jeff, here's the sins you've committed.
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Jesus stood before his greatest enemies, said, what should you convict me of sin?
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And they couldn't say anything.
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I understand that Jesus was sinless, sinless, yet willing to be treated like a criminal.
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Becoming a sin offerer, Jesus allowed himself to be treated as if he were a sinner.
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In other words, Jesus, going through this, was allowing himself to be treated as if he were me.
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I deserve that.
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Everything that Jesus went through, I deserve that.
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Everything that Jesus went through, you deserve that.
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But Jesus was going through this saying, though I don't deserve it, I'm going to take it in your place.
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Publicly shamed.
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And finally, number three, persistently mocked.
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Persistently mocked, look at verse 29.
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It says, "And those who pass by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, "Aha!
25:36-25:54
"You who would destroy the temple "and rebuild it in three days, "save yourself and come down from the cross." So also the chief priest with the scribes mocked him to one another saying, "He saved others, he cannot save himself.
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"Let the Christ, the King of Israel, "come down now from the cross that we may see and believe." Mocked, persistently mocked.
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First of all, it says from passersby.
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These people walking down the road had to stop, had to get their jabs in.
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And the chief priests and the scribes, gosh, you would think at this point, don't you think the bloodlust would have been satisfied?
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After watching everything he went through at this point, they still show up at the cross and still in Solomon's he's dying?
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That's not even the worst.
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Look at the last phrase.
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It says those who were crucified with him also reviled him.
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Does it get any lower than that?
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Jesus was publicly hung on the cross and shaved, dying a slow death, while two other people going through the exact same thing were making fun of Jesus for it.
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You see everybody just mocking Jesus, mocking Jesus, mocking Jesus.
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"Ha, ha, ha, you're the king.
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Oh, you're the big savior.
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Oh, come on up the cross, savior.
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Come on.
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You're going to save everybody.
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I thought you were supposed to be some kind of a king.
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Oh, check out, hey, check out the king.
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Hey, everybody, check out the king.
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Look, he's even got his name up there.
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The king of the Jews.
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There he is, everybody.
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Look at the king laughing at him.
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Says they were wagging their heads.
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that just means shaking hands.
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Well, you can see that, right?
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Just walking by, going, "There's the king." Do you see the king?
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Do you see this?
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This is the king.
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This is the guy that Israel was so fired up about.
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He looks like nothing to me.
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He just looks like one of these other chumps on the cross.
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That's what he looks like to me.
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Persistently mocked.
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As I close, I want to focus on one thing here in particular as they cried out, "Hey, save yourself!
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He saved others, he can't save himself." I want you to see that there's an element of truth in this statement because we've seen the power of Christ since we started this journey.
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As we've been walking through the Gospel of Mark, we have been seeing the power of Christ throughout his earthly ministry.
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We've seen it, haven't we?
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We have seen the power of Christ in you and hearing stories of the way Christ is at work in you.
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We're seeing the power of Christ alive and manifested as he lives his life through you today.
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We've been seeing it.
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But understand this church, please hear this.
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With all of his power and with all of his authority, there was one thing that Jesus could not do.
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This sounds blasphemous.
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I've never heard anybody say Jesus couldn't do anything.
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There was one thing that Jesus could not do.
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And that's this.
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While Jesus was on the cross, he couldn't save himself and save you at the same time.
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He couldn't do it.
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Repeat that.
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While Jesus was on the cross, he could not save himself and save you at the same time.
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Do you understand that?
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Do you understand the implications of that?
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To save himself means that he would have used the power that he had to just walk off the cross.
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don't think for a second that that couldn't have happened at any moment that he wanted to while people were mocking him and ridiculing him at any second he could have said you know what they're not worth it and he could have just walked up to heaven right there and if he would have done that you see if he didn't offer his life as a sacrifice for sin You would still be guilty of your sin.
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You wouldn't have this substitute in Jesus Christ.
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You wouldn't have somebody who bore God's wrath on your behalf.
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You wouldn't have that if Jesus would have opted to save himself.
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You wouldn't have the forgiveness of sin that he would have purchased with his death.
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So the alternative meant this to save you meant that he had to be willing to go through with it.
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The beating, the shame, the mocking, all the way up to his death that we're going to talk about next week.
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So that his sacrifice would have paid the penalty for you.
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And so that you can stand today being totally forgiven for your sin.
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As our worship team makes their way back up, I just want to ask you, you know, have you ever wrestled with asking yourself, does God love me?
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You ever wrestled with that? Does God really love me?
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You know, circumstances seem to pile up in your life, and you can't get ahead financially, and you can't heal this relationship.
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And you have this health issue that just doesn't seem to go away.
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And you might just be tempted to throw your hands up and say, you know what, somebody up there must really hate me, for me to be going through the things that I'm going through.
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Church, I'm telling you today, I'm telling you today that the cross of Jesus Christ settles the issue once and for all.
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Does God love you?
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Yes, He does.
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Because it wasn't three nails that kept Jesus on that cross.
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It was God's love for you that kept Jesus on that cross.
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So does God love me?
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Is God for me?
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This is the demonstration of God's love.
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This is what Jesus Christ was willing to endure so that we could have a relationship with Him.
Children's Questions:
Review with your child(ren) what happened to Jesus in this passage. Ask, "Why was Jesus treated like this? Why were the people so mean to Jesus? Why did He agree to die on the cross?" Tell them how God loves them and punished Jesus for all of the wrong things (sin) that we have done. Explain how Jesus took the punishment so we wouldn't have to.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Mark 15:21-32
Why do you think so little is mentioned of Jesus’ physical suffering and so much is mentioned of His humiliation/mocking/etc?
Why did Jesus refuse the wine (Mk 15:23)? What is the significance of the refusal?
Why did Pilate write the inscription above Jesus: "The King of the Jews"? Did Pilate believe Jesus was the King, or was there another reason?
Breakout Questions:
Have you been encouraging/exhorting other in their walk with Christ this week? In what circumstances? Pray for one another.
