So we're continuing our series of messages from the gospel according to Matthew this morning. We are still in Matthew chapter 26, again, one of the longer chapters to work our way through. And this morning we are looking particularly at verses 57 through 68 as our text for this morning. You can find that on page 990 of your Pew Bibles, and I would urge you to have those or your own scriptures in front of you as we read the passage and also as we work through it. Will you stand with me out of reverence and respect for the reading of God's inerrant, infallible, and inspired word? Then those who had seized Jesus led him to Caiaphas, the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered. And Peter was following him at a distance, as far as the courtyard of the high priest. And going inside, he sat with the guards to see the end. Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death, but they found none. Though many false witnesses came forward, at last two came forward and said, this man said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days. And the high priest stood up and said, have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you? But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the son of God. Jesus said to him, you have said so. But I tell you, from now on, you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest tore his robes and said, he has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy. What is your judgment? They answered, he deserves death. Then they spit in his face and struck him. And some slapped him saying, prophesy to us, you Christ, who is it that struck you? This is the reading of God's word made blessed to our hearts this morning. Please be seated. In the previous passage last week that we looked at, we witnessed the betrayal and the arrest of Jesus following his earnest time of prayer in Gethsemane. We also saw that Jesus, strengthened by that intimate communion with his father, was in complete control of the situation in that garden at all times. Even when Peter attacked the servant of the high priest with his sword, Jesus is the one who stopped Peter and made it clear to his disciples that he wasn't being taken by surprise. He wasn't being taken by force, despite the way these people had shown up. He wasn't being taken involuntarily. He told them, remember who I am. I could have called on my father to send thousands of angels to come and rescue me from this, but I can't do that. Because to do that, I would have to deny my father. And I will not do that. I will obey my father. I must drink the cup that my father has set before me. And then he declared to everyone present that all of these things are happening exactly as God has ordained to fulfill what all of the scriptures have testified must happen. And it was at that moment that his disciples fulfilled the prediction he made earlier. They left him and fled. So Matthew tells us now that those who had arrested Jesus, and Luke, by the way, adds that as they arrested him, they bound him, again, as if he were some kind of dangerous revolutionary insurrectionist that must be kept from harming anyone. Matthew tells us that they took him to Caiaphas, the high priest. Now, again, some people see contradictions where there are no contradictions in the various gospels. John tells us that they first took him to Annas. And Matthew, of course, doesn't mention Annas, but the idea is there's no contradiction. Annas had been the high priest appointed as the high priest was supposed to be according to biblical Jewish tradition. The Romans had deposed Annas and removed him from the position of high priest, and they took his son-in-law Caiaphas and appointed him as high priest in his place. But the Jewish people would not see that as an appropriate appointment of their high priest, they would likely still see Annas as the true high priest. And so it makes sense that when they take this man before someone to have him examined, they would take him first to Annas. And it is very likely, very possible that Annas and Caiaphas lived in the same general household estate, given that they are family and that one was in one wing of the house and the other in the other wing. And so it doesn't mean that there had to be extra amounts of time, which obviously there wasn't a great deal of time for all of this to take place in. We also already know from John that in the arresting party that came to take Jesus, to seize him, there were chief priests already there as part of that group. And so they come with the arresting party back to the house of Caiaphas. And Matthew informs us that when they arrive there, that there are also now scribes and elders of the people who are gathered, assembled there with Caiaphas. The importance behind that information is that they now have all three components of the Sanhedrin, the council, the chief priests, the elders, and the scribes. Now, granted, at this point in the middle of the night, every person likely is not there. There would have been a total, I think, of 71 people on the Sanhedrin. They likely have not all been gathered yet, but all three components. It is an official gathering of the Sanhedrin at this point. We also should note that being the house of Caiaphas, this is not the temple where Official trials would normally take place before the Sanhedrin. This is not, it would seem, an official trial, or at least not being held officially, even if they intended to be one, because it's not in the temple, but it is If you go back to verses three and four, it is the location where that meeting was held at the beginning of this chapter, where we are told that they got together in order to plan how they could seize Jesus by stealth and put him to death. And so not only was the original plan held here, but now the carrying out of that plan is being held in the same location. Now you come to verse 58 and verse 58 really is, it's not an interruption really. It's sort of a brief introduction. We're just given a glimpse that as Jesus is led before Caiaphas, preparing to be put on trial before him, someone else has been following. And what we find is that it is Peter. who has promised Jesus that he would never fall away from him and promised him that even if he had to die with him, he wouldn't deny him. And Peter, give him some credit, is still trying in some way to fulfill those promises. He follows at a distance. If you read the Gospel of John, you find John also is with him. And John knows the high priest, so John's able to get into the courtyard. And he is able to speak to the girl who is guarding the gate and allow Peter to be granted access to the courtyard as well. Interestingly, as Peter comes in there, he goes to the charcoal fire where they're all warming themselves because it's a cold night, and he finds himself surrounded by guards. Likely people who had been part of the arresting party that just went out and seized Jesus and brought them back. Likely people who had witnessed him drawing his sword and cutting off the ear of Malchus, the servant of the high priest. Although again, dark, shadowy place, flickering lights. People may not have identified him perfectly in that way, but this is the kind of environment Peter is in. We're not going to hear anything more about him until verse 69, when his story is picked up once again. Now, as we come to look at this trial, an examination, hearing, whatever it is of Jesus here before the Sanhedrin, people have pointed out that there have seemed to have been a great number of irregularities, at least in the way this trial has been conducted, causing it to be actually a very unjust proceeding, an unfair one, even a travesty of justice. And we're not going to focus on all of those in this sermon today, except to note at least maybe a couple of the major ones. We already know from verses three and four that these men, at least a small group of these men, had already determined Jesus' sentence before they have ever arrested him or put him on trial. They've already determined he has to die. That's the reason he's here. So they've arrested him in order to accomplish that, but now they have at least one more major problem. What do we charge him with? We have to charge him with something that is worthy of having him put to death. What's the charge? And so now they have to go through a process, and as you read the text, although it's very brief, if you read between the lines, it seems to have been a very lengthy process. They are searching for evidence of something that they can charge him with, something that would be serious enough to make him liable to be put to death. This is also compounded by the fact, by the way, that the Jews were not permitted by the Romans to carry out the death penalty in most situations. So it isn't as if they can just find him guilty and then kill him. They need to find something that they can charge him with and then try to persuade Pilate is going to be serious enough, significant enough to actually implement their death sentence that they want to give him. And so the purpose of this hearing, this trial, this examination is to search for evidence of some kind of charge that they can use to demand the death of this man, Jesus of Nazareth. Under the law, Deuteronomy 19.15, the law requires that there have to be at least two witnesses whose testimony agrees in order to obtain a conviction against somebody. Matthew tells us in this text that they were all seeking for false testimony. Now there are those who want to back away from that and say, well, that really makes it sound prejudiced against these Jewish leaders. It is true. Matthew would have seen this as false testimony in any case, because Matthew understands that Jesus is sinless and has not committed anything worthy of death. And so any evidence that is presented to suggest that that is true and that he deserves to die has to be false. That is true. I think if you read the text, it also seems to suggest that these men were so desperate to be able to condemn him to death that they were willing to listen to anyone, anyone, perhaps even suborned witnesses, people who have been persuaded to tell the story a certain way. And Matthew tells us there were many who came forward to testify. Again, this is probably a lengthy period of time where they've had one after another come forward and say, Oh, I heard him say this, or I saw him do that. The problem is that as they went through this one man after another, and the many of them in succession, they can't find any two of them that agree on any testimony against Jesus. Now you think about possibility of suborned witnesses, it does lead you to wonder where they would have come up with so many witnesses against this Jesus who came from Nazareth here in Jerusalem in the middle of the night. Clearly this is not a situation of innocent until proven guilty. Again, verses three and four tell us they want to put him to death, and you see again in verse 59, very clearly, they want him dead, and they are looking for testimony that will allow them to do that. And at last, Matthew says, after an apparently lengthy process, two men were finally found whose testimony agreed with each other. charging Jesus with what we find in verse 61. This man said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days. Now we've been with Jesus walking through Matthew. Jesus hasn't said that. This is actually most likely a twisting and misrepresentation of what Jesus said and meant. It's recorded actually in John's gospel in chapter two and verse 19. In that passage, Jesus has just purified the temple. He has formed, shaped a whip and he has overturned the tables and driven out the people who are selling doves and so on. And the Jewish religious authorities come to him and they ask him, give us a sign to show us the authority that you have to do something like that. Who do you think you are? And it is at that point that Jesus says to them, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. Now notice, Jesus didn't say that he would destroy the literal physical temple in Jerusalem. He was talking about a time when they would destroy, quote, this temple. And if you read on in that passage, John makes it clear there in the next couple of verses that Jesus was not talking about the physical temple building in Jerusalem, but was talking about the temple of his own body. In other words, Jesus was talking about his own death and resurrection that they would accomplish, which we're looking at the beginnings of that right now in this text in Matthew. Destroy this temple, Jesus is saying, and in three days I will raise it up. Kill me and in three days I will be resurrected. So it's being twisted. It's being misrepresented. But it's also true that Jesus had also talked back in chapter 12 verse 6 about something greater than the temple is now here. And then in chapter 24 in the first 14 verses, he had actually predicted, prophesied the literal destruction of the temple. So all of these pieces are being sort of fit together. And the truth is that this charge that these two men bring doesn't just exist with them. We will find as we get to the record of Jesus being on the cross and the people who come to mock him as he's hanging on the cross, that those general people who come to mock him are bringing this same charge against them. In fact, it carries on even beyond that. If you move forward to Acts chapter six, where you read about Stephen and the great ministry he has, the preaching he's doing, the signs and wonders he's doing, and he's arrested and gathered and is being called on to testify as Jesus is here, and people bring up this very same charge again in the case of Stephen. In fact, in that case, they actually refer to those words as blasphemous. And commentators, as you read through them, generally agree that not just in the Jewish faith, but in even non-Jewish cultures, people who make threats to destroy temples were generally seen as committing blasphemy against the God whose temple it was. And so even in this charge, there is a sense in which Jesus is already being charged with blasphemy. It almost seems in this text now that the high priest, at least up to this point, has not really been personally actively engaged in the hearings. We've been told that the chief priests and the whole council are seeking testimony against Jesus, but now that they finally have two witnesses who agree on this charge, we find that the chief priest, or the high priest rather, stands up to take personal charge of the meeting. He stands up and he turns to Jesus and he asks him about the testimony. Are you not going to say anything in your defense? What are these men saying about you? You see, Jesus has not been standing there like most of us would, and when they say this, he's not saying, now, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, that isn't what I said. If you remember, what I really said was this, and what I meant was this. He's not explaining himself. He's not trying to defend himself. He's not trying to say, this isn't valid. You shouldn't take this as evidence to put me to death. He is, in fact, not saying anything. He is silent. And he continues to be silent. Even when the high priest asked him these two questions, he doesn't answer. Why is he acting in that way? Well, once again, he's fulfilling prophecy. Isaiah chapter 53 verse seven says that he will be like a lamb that is being led to the slaughter who is silent, saying not a word. There's no reason to defend himself. It's clearly obvious to God and anyone who knows that these are false charges, but this is what God has ordained. And he is not going to fight against that. Well, this silence of Jesus is so frustrating to the high priest that he finally turns to Jesus and he says to him, I adjure you. And that word means I charge you under oath. An oath by the living God. And when he says that by the living God, he's actually going back to the oath formula God himself uses. God says in scripture, as I live, says the Lord, I am the living God. The high priest is taking God's name literally in his mouth and is placing Jesus under an oath requiring him to give him an answer now. Why does he ask this question at this point? We know, for instance, that Jesus has throughout his ministry, for the most part, told the people who he healed, who said that he was the Messiah, he told them, don't tell anyone, keep it quiet. He has rarely openly claimed or even admitted that he is actually the Messiah. Now, there've been a couple of exceptions to that. Remember the Samaritan woman at the well? She says, yes, the Messiah is gonna come. And Jesus says, I'm telling you, I'm he. And we remember that great day at Caesarea Philippi when Jesus asked his disciples, who do you say I am? And Peter says, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. Exactly what the high priest is asking, right? And what was Jesus' response to it? Simon? Man hasn't revealed this to you. God has revealed this to you. Blessed are you. I'm gonna build my church on this rock. You're the rock, I'm gonna build it. And so Jesus is, dare we say, thrilled with that answer? Pleased with that answer? But how would these men in this room know anything about what Jesus said to a Samaritan woman or what he said to his disciple way up in Caesarea Philippi? Well, maybe they don't. But you also have to consider the fact that the person who betrayed Jesus to them was who? Judas, a man who was right with Jesus when all those things were happening. Is it too much to believe that Judas, as he betrayed him, also shared with them? By the way, you should know some of the things this guy's been saying. You should have heard him when Peter said he was the Christ, the son of the living God. He was pleased with that and commended Peter. But it isn't only those two situations of Jesus' own words. You also have Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, right? Where he intentionally rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. Deliberately fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah 9.9. Your king is coming to you lowly and sitting on a donkey. He also refused to reject into silence the loud hosannas that were being raised in his name as if he were God, as if he were divine. And then you have his cleansing of the temple. Who has authority to cleanse the temple? This Jewish rabbi from Nazareth? The truth is that commentators at least tell us that in that day, many people saw it from scripture, from passages like 2 Samuel 7.12-14 and Zechariah 6.12. They saw it as a prerogative of the Messiah when he came to purify and if necessary to restore and even rebuild the temple. So when these men make a charge that Jesus has said he would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, perhaps the high priest is connecting that and saying, oh, so you are claiming then to be the Christ, the son of the living God. Well, then you tell me, is that who you are? Also, don't forget that he had told these leaders a parable about a vineyard. and the owner of the vineyard, and finally that owner, in desperation, sends his own son, whom they kill, and Jesus pretty strongly suggests the landowner is God, and that he is the son who is going to be killed. The son of God. And remember, he had asked them at one point in recent days, whose son is the Messiah? And they'd answer, well, David, of course, that's what scripture says, David's son. And Jesus says, well, that's interesting. How is it, if he's David's son, that David calls him Lord? Remember Psalm 110.1, the Lord, Yahweh, said to my Lord, David says, sit at my right hand. And Jesus' question is, David's the greatest king in Israel. What other Lord does he have besides Yahweh? And yet he himself says that Yahweh is speaking to his Lord, the Messiah. So who is this figure? David's son and yet something greater than David. And you just had this ongoing conflict over the last several days over authority between Jesus and these religious leaders in the temple. You see, Jesus has mostly kept his messianic secret secret throughout his whole ministry because his hour had not yet come. He didn't want to share that abroad because he didn't want to cause exactly this kind of reaction among the religious leaders before it was God's time for that to happen. My hour is not yet come, you would hear him say. But on this final trip to Jerusalem, Jesus has been much more open, much more public. You might even argue that in a biblical sense, he's been almost in their face with this idea of him being the Messiah, all those things that I've just said to you. And so now the high priest has demanded under oath to God that he answer if he is the Christ and the son of God, both of those messianic titles. And notice this time Jesus doesn't remain silent. And in his answer, Jesus no longer obscures anything at all about his messianic status, because now his hour has come, literally. Notice what he says first, you have said so. Now, some people look at that and they think, well, that's a pretty ambiguous way to answer somebody, but it really isn't. It is a clear affirmation that what the high priest has just said is true. How do we know that? Move back just several hours in the upper room when Jesus has announced that one of you, 12, are going to betray me, and each one of them, is it I, Lord? Is it I, Lord? And finally, Judah says to him, is it I, Rabbi? And what's Jesus' answer to him? You have said so. The words, the admission of your guilt have come out of your own mouth. And so he says to the high priest, you have said so. You can understand him to be saying, you have correctly said that. Now, why does he say that instead of just saying yes? Well, it's possible that there is a sense in which what Jesus is saying is, yes, it's true that I am the Christ, the son of the living God, but different from what you tend to believe about him. Your understanding of him versus what I truly am and what I've come to do are different. And so he's qualifying it possibly in that sense. But he is clearly saying that, yes, I am the Christ. I am the son of the living God. Notice how he begins the rest of his answer. He uses the word but, as if there was something he had to explain. Yes, I am, but although he isn't actually saying it outright, it's almost as if what Jesus intends to be saying by this is, yes, I am the Christ, the son of the living God. And I understand given how things look right now with you having me tied up and under examination trial by you for death, that it might not look that way to you. But I tell you, And those words, I tell you, are, again, a shortened form of that absolute truth statement that Jesus makes. And the you he uses here when he says, I tell you, is singular. He's talking back to the high priest in particular when he says this, I tell you, I answer you. But he goes on to say, from now on, And I want you to pay attention to those three words, from now on. This isn't Jesus predicting some event that's going to happen somewhere 2,000, 3,000 years down the road. From now on, Jesus says, beginning very shortly and continuing from that time forward, the circumstances that you're wrongly interpreting now are going to change very drastically, very soon. From now on, now he uses the word, the pronoun you again, and this time it's plural. Now he is answering and saying, all of you in this room, all of you are going to see the son of man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of glory. When he talks about sitting, you're going to see, first of all, you're going to see, instead of what you think you see now, a blasphemous rabbi who is under your power, you're going to see something much different. You're going to see the Son of Man, me, that's Jesus' favorite self-designation. It's also another messianic title from Daniel 7. You're going to see the son of man sitting, that word sitting in this context doesn't mean just sitting on a chair. It means that he is sitting. He is seated. He is reigning as King. He is seated on the throne. And what throne is it? It is the throne at the right hand of power. Power is God. He is sharing God's throne. He's going to be sharing God's throne. From now on, you're going to see the Son of Man sharing God's throne, the right hand, the position of power and authority. He's actually, in a sense, alluding to, if not kind of quoting from Psalm 110.1 again. The Lord said to my Lord, do what? Sit at my right hand. Jesus is saying that is me. I asked you earlier whose son David was, now I'm telling you. It's me, and I'm God's son. Psalm 2-7, by the way, Psalm 2-7 is where the Lord says of the anointed one, the Christ, the Messiah, you are my son. When he talks about coming on the clouds of heaven, remember in scripture, the only person who rides on the clouds is God. And so to claim that he's going to be riding on the clouds, coming on the clouds, claiming deity here, and he's referring back again to Daniel chapter 7 verses 13 and 14, where Daniel in the vision sees one like the son of man coming on clouds. He looks sort of like a son of man, but he's got to be divine because he's coming on the clouds, you see. And Jesus is claiming Daniel 7 as well, along with Psalm 110.1. You see, in this answer, you have one of the most complete, comprehensive statements by Jesus of who he is as the Messiah that you will find anywhere in scripture. He is the Christ. He is the son of the living God, and he is the son of man. All three messianic titles are his. He claims them all. And he quotes scripture to show that he is the literal fulfillment of what God had promised, who God had promised to send. And what he's saying to them when he says, from now on, you will see, is that the evidence is going to be clearly presented to them from now on. Think about the signs while he was on the cross, darkness at midday. An earthquake, and we're told as a result of the earthquake that people were raised from their graves and walked about Jerusalem. Do you think these men didn't hear about those reports? Do you think they didn't feel the ground shaking? They didn't see the darkness, unusual, in the middle of the day? Think about his resurrection. We didn't take his body. They didn't take his body. Where is his body? You think they didn't hear reports about his ascension on the clouds going back up into heaven, that that didn't reach their ears? Think about the church that he starts and the way it grows and spreads under their lifetime all around their area and spreading out around the Mediterranean Basin all the way to Rome. Despite their determined violent persecution of that movement. And then finally, Think about what they would eventually see in 70 AD, the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem by the Romans, just as Jesus prophesied would happen. See, the problem is that these are the religious leaders who are supposed to know the scriptures. They're the ones who are supposed to be leading the people in expecting the Messiah to come, in knowing who he's supposed to be from scripture, what he's supposed to do, and how he's supposed to act. They're supposed to be looking for him, expecting him. Yes, it's certainly true that they have had imposters come before them before. They've had people come claiming to be the Messiah, but they've never had anyone come to them with the authority that Jesus has demonstrated in both his words and in his miraculous signs and wonders. They've had nothing like this ever before. Three and a half years of this consistent power being demonstrated. What should their reaction have been to his answer? What they should have done is they should have said, well, given what we've heard about you, it is a little bit unusual. Can you explain to us from scripture, how you dare take those titles to yourself and how you understand that to be pointing to you? And at that point, Jesus could have perhaps given them the same crash courses, I tend to call it, that he would in a few days give to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, who were dejected because they thought Jesus had died and everything was hopeless. And he instead takes them back and walks them through the entire Old Testament scriptures, showing them how all of that proves that the Messiah had to first suffer before he could enter into his glory. He could have shown them all of that. But no. Because you see, once again, they have not been looking for truth. They've been looking for a reason to kill Jesus. That's what they've been looking for. You see the high priest now stand up and tear his robes. Now, it is possible the tearing of the robes was intended to be a sign of extreme grief or sorrow. There's some rabbinical literature that suggests that judges who were hearing blasphemy as part of their trial they were conducting were supposed to tear their robes as a sign of how terrible it was to hear that blasphemy. But understand, the high priest was never to tear his robes. Even if he had a close family member die, his grief could never cause him to tear those robes because they were holy. We're to see in this act of the high priest extreme reaction to what Jesus has said. And so the high priest now declares that Jesus has uttered blasphemy in their presence. We don't need any more witnesses, he says. We're all witnesses. You all just heard him claim to be God. You heard what he said, what is your judgment? Well, again, the law is clear. In the law, the only penalty available for blasphemy is death. And the whole council now joins the high priest in saying he deserves death. You wanna ask about blasphemy? Jesus is not guilty of blasphemy. The fact that they are charging him with blasphemy for telling them the truth about who he is from scripture and then calling on him to die as a result of it, that is the blasphemy. Destroying a temple? You're talking about destroying the Son of God. But that isn't all they do. Luke tells us at this point they blindfolded Jesus. And Matthew goes on to tell us that they began to spit in his face. He uses two words. One means to slap with an open palm. And so they're literally slapping him in the face. Another word used means to hit him like with a fist or perhaps even with a club or a whip or a rod. They're beating him, slapping him, spitting in his face. And as they do it, they're mocking him. Tell us, Messiah, who was it that hit you? Apparently there were some beliefs at that time the Messiah would not have to see people to be able to know who they were or what they were doing. That he could do it by some sense of smell or some other way. They're mocking him and beating him and spitting on him. We've talked about how Isaiah 53 applies here with Jesus being silent like a lamb being led to slaughter. We know about how Isaiah 53 talks about the suffering he would have to go through. But there's another passage in Isaiah chapter 50 verses 6 and 7 in the songs about the suffering servant where Jesus, the suffering servant, actually predicts this very mistreatment of himself. He says in these verses, the Lord God has opened my ear and I was not rebellious. I turn not backward. I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull the beard. I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting, but the Lord God helps me. Therefore, I have not been disgraced. Therefore, I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. Do you hear the confidence Jesus has in his father's vindication of him, even in this disgusting, shameful, humiliating situation? Even though he is being shamed, I have not been put to shame, he says, and I will not be. I will not be. These men reject his claims. They despise him and reject him. That's part of Isaiah 53 too. Despised and rejected of men. And today people continue to despise and reject his claims that he is the Son of God, the Messiah, the God-man. We as his people need to continue to do exactly what the disciples did from now on. They went out and they took the scriptures and they showed the evidence in the scriptures and from Jesus' life that he truly is the Son of Man who is seated on the right hand of power and is on the clouds coming with glory. We need to present the truth to people and then we need to pray for the Spirit's help to open their hearts and minds to hear the truth and respond to it with faith. This passage has also been used by people to stir up Anti-Semitism. To stir up people to hate the Jews, because the Jews are the ones who killed Jesus. Again, there's no reason for that. Keep in mind that all of the apostles were what? Jews. Joseph of Aranthea, who would care for Jesus' body after his death, was what? A Jew. Most of the earliest part of the church were what? Jews. Yes, there were some Jews who did this along with some Romans who cooperated in doing it. It's not the reason Jesus was put on the cross. It's not the reason Jesus suffered all this humiliation. Do you remember the reason why he was put on the cross and why he couldn't turn away from it? Your sins and mine put him on the cross. That's the reason he couldn't turn away, because if he turned away, you were going to hell. In that passage from Isaiah 50, verses 6 and 7, Jesus says, my God, my Father, open my ear. We just watched that last week, remember, in the garden? Father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me. And what was the answer the Father gave him? No, it's not possible. You have to drink it. My father opened my ear. He told me what I had to do. And what does Jesus go on to say in that passage in Isaiah? I wasn't rebellious. I didn't turn backward. I didn't refuse to do what the father told me had to be done. And because of that, I gave my back to those who were beating me. I didn't pull my face back from the people who wanted to spit on me and pull my beard, who wanted to hit me and strike me and shame me. Instead, I set my face like a flint, determined to do exactly what my father had appointed me to do. You see, he couldn't disobey. He wouldn't disobey. There was no escape for him, but that was because we needed to be saved and he could not disobey his father and could not deny us because we're his. What a glorious Savior we have who was willing to suffer such humiliation at the hands of sinful men in order to save sinners like us. Let's pray. Father we thank you for your goodness, your grace toward us in Christ. We thank you that you loved us with an everlasting love that caused you to send your son. And we are thankful that your son was willing to come and endure such humiliation, confident in your vindication of him, confident that you would raise him and exalt him and that you would fulfill every promise you made. Help us to live in the confidence of that truth. Help us also to remember the Savior that was willing to suffer for us in that way, and help us to be ready to commit ourselves to Him wholeheartedly, holding nothing back, because that's how He committed Himself for us. We pray these things in Christ's name and for His sake. Amen.