Therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. This morning, I would like us to consider that phrase that is in verse 2, despising the shame. We're being told that Jesus despised the shame. Now, we all experience shame in one way or the other at one point of our lives. Maybe as a result of some personal failure that we feel embarrassed about. Or perhaps some past mistake that we made and we're having to live with it. Or perhaps even societal failures. We can be in a foreign country and we are being told that your country is corrupt and we can feel ashamed. Now, shame can break even the strongest of men. In fact, in some cultures, people unable to face shame take their lives. Of course, in this country, we don't have enough of a sense of shame, which is a tragedy. We celebrate people who are thieves, who have led reckless lives. And somehow or other, we don't have the courage, the moral courage, to distance ourselves from people whose conduct is shameful. Now, shame can be caused by something we have done. or it can be caused by something that is done to us. And it is that latter context in which the writer to the Hebrews is speaking about Jesus despising the shame. Now, the fact that the book of Hebrews mentions shame in relation to the death of the Lord means that it is no small thing. Indeed, it was a shameful thing for Jesus to be subjected to the sort of experience that he was subjected to. Now, in order to appreciate something of how shameful this was, the death of Jesus Christ, and especially the manner in which he died, we only have to go to the views of the two nations that participated in the crucifixion of Jesus. I would like us to consider, first of all, how the Romans thought about crucifixion. Now, the Romans practiced crucifixion for a long time until somewhere around 345 A.D. when one of the emperors decided to abolish it because he himself had become a Christian, or at least claimed that he was a Christian. So the Romans crucified people. They were not the first ones. The Persians also did. But it would appear that the Romans did it on quite a grand scale. Now this is what one of the historians said about this method of punishment. He said, it is a most cruel and disgusting punishment. It is an enormity to flog a Roman. It is sheer murder to slay one. But what shall I say about crucifixion? It is impossible to find a word for such an abomination. Let every mention of the cross be far removed, not only from a Roman citizen's body, but also from his mind, his eyes, and his ears. So to an ordinary Roman, crucifixion was so abominable that a mention of it as applying to a Roman citizen was altogether abhorrent. It is a subject, in fact, that received little public discourse. The thing was so abhorrent that people would not even be talking about it in public, even though their kings crucified quite a lot of people. In fact, it is said that one of the Roman emperors crucified 6,000 people who participated in a rebellion. Crucifixion was reserved for the most wretched criminals, for murderers and rebels. And even these were largely to be non-Roman citizens, non-Roman citizens. Now, as to the intention or the purpose that crucifixion served, It served two purposes. First of all, it was to subject someone to excruciating pain. So the person who was crucified suffered slowly, painfully, until they died. In some cases, the people stayed on the cross for three to four days. And the idea was that the pain they would suffer would be a deterrent to others that they would not commit the same atrocities. It served another purpose. It was a means of public humiliation. It was intended to crush the person inwardly, to crush that person's self-esteem, so that they thought that they were disgusting about themselves. And to achieve this end of humiliating somebody publicly, the person was first of all stripped naked. Then the person was flogged, and they were flogged to a point where blood started oozing out of their body. Then they would take them and parade them in the streets, carrying this cross to the place where they would be crucified. At the place of crucifixion, the person would be hoisted by ropes to a pole, and then they would be nailed there. And when the person died, the person was left there for days so that animals, in particular birds, would eat them up until they could be buried, taken up to be buried, taken down rather to be buried. So it was not something that you talked about easily. If you saw somebody being crucified, you were horrified. It brought tremor in the hearts of those who saw it, but also a sense of disgust, a sense of shame that somebody could die such a death. Oftentimes, we see pictures of people being crucified, or drawings rather, of people being crucified, and they have some loins around themselves to to depict some form of decency. But in reality, the Romans were not interested. In most cases, they would bear you out. And they were not even ashamed of crucifying women naked. So that was what the Jews, rather the Romans, thought about crucifixion. Let's look briefly at the Jews. Now, the Jews were taught from the scriptures that crucifixion was a horrible thing. In Deuteronomy chapter 21 and verse 22 to 23, it reads, if a man has committed a sin deserving of death and is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day, so that you do not defile the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. Now listen to this. For he who is hanged is accursed by God. So an average Jew considered dying on the cross as a curse. And it was one of those things that could defile the land. There were a number of sins that Deuteronomy speaks about defiling the land. But leaving a person who was crucified overnight, God said through Moses, would defile the land. And this is how we are to understand Matthew chapter 27 and verse 41 to 43. If you are the Bible, you can tend to it and just appreciate something of what is happening there. Matthew chapter 27 and verse 41. In fact, we can begin from verse 39. And those who passed by blasphemed him, wagging their heads and saying, you who destroyed the temple and viewed it in three days, save yourself. If you are the son of God, come down from the cross. Likewise, the chief priests also mocking with the scribes and elders said, he saved others, himself he cannot save. If he is the king of Israel, let him now come down from the cross and we'll believe him. He trusted in God, let him deliver him now if he will have him. For he said, I'm the son of God. Verse 44, even the robbers who were crucified with him reviled him with the same thing. Now, the Jews here are showing utter contempt for Jesus. They mocked him and reviled him. From the leaders to the common man, even just those who were passing by, found an occasion to mock Jesus. Because for him, for them rather, Jesus has been reduced to the lowest. He is being cursed by God. There is no need to fear him. In fact, he should be despised. We should indicate that we agree with God. When they are quoting the words of Jesus, they are deriding him. As far as they are concerned, God is against him. God cannot listen to him at this point. And so they reviled and mocked him. Now it is worth noticing that Jesus lost his status in the eyes of the Jews in a matter of hours. As soon as Jesus was condemned to death by crucifixion, Those Jews who heard of it or were seeing what was going on lost all respect for him. Until this time, Jesus was the great teacher. He was one who taught with authority. He was the great miracle worker. who could heal every disease he came across. It is possible that some who were at this point witnessing the mocking and reviling of Christ had witnessed his miracles. But because he's hanging on a tree, he completely lost his status before them. So we need to recognize the sense of shame that Jesus must be feeling at this point. These are people far below him. He was one who could raise the dead. He healed some of their relatives. and they are mocking and reviling. In a matter of hours, they had forgotten all that he said in preaching, in teaching, in serving them. They forgot. Now, the shame that is associated with the crucifixion as it relates to Jesus Christ. It has its sting in the status of Jesus Christ, the unique status of Jesus Christ. If Jesus was an ordinary person and a criminal, his crucifixion would have been nothing special. It is the contradiction between his status and the nature of the indignity to which he is exposed that is appalling. The Bible tells us that the world was made through him. In Hebrews, we are told that he is worshipped by angels. And indeed, he is the son of God. whom God the Father said, who says about you, O Lord, you, O God, you led the foundations of the world. It is that status that Jesus has that makes this crucifixion unique. As to his purity, the Bible tells us that there was no guile found in his mouth. Whatever proceeded from the lips of the Lord Jesus was pure and holy. But he is being subjected to a form of punishment that is reserved for the scum of the earth, detestable criminals and rebels. How does Jesus react to this humiliation by his own creatures? The Bible tells us he despised the shame. He despised the shame. And it was a unique shame. It was a shame that nobody could ever experience, nobody has ever experienced, nobody will ever experience. The Bible tells us he despised it. What does that mean? How did he do it? Well, the word that is used In this verse, that is the word despise, literally means to treat lightly. Now, that may sound strange, but that is the actual meaning, that Jesus treated the shame lightly. It does not mean that the shame was light. Rather it means first that he did not assign a heavy weight to it. That is to say that he did not allow the shame of the cross to be so important in his mind that he could not carry out his mission on earth. The Son of Man came to be a ransom for many. He kept saying that. It was to give his life as a ransom for many. And he knew exactly the process this would take. He and the father had talked about it before the world began, that he would become a man and subject himself to the ridicule of his own creatures. He saw the shame and said, I'll still do it. The Lord Jesus accepted that completing his work by dying on the cross was far more important than the humiliation that he would suffer As he approaches the moment of his capture, he must have been feeling a tension inside him. He worried what he was going to face. And at some point, he prays, Father, is it possible, so to speak, I'm paraphrasing, to take this cup away from me? Yet not my will, but your will be done." So he did not assign a heavy weight to it in spite of the fact that he knew exactly what he was going to pass. But secondly, it means that he placed himself under these circumstances willingly. area, area rather, we sang the song at the very beginning, like a lamb to the slaughter, he was led in silence and in shame. The Lord Jesus subjected himself to this humiliation willingly. He felt the shame, right up to the point of his death, but he reasoned that it was worth going through it because, as the Bible tells us, of the joy that awaited him. The Lord Jesus sought to please his father. He longed to be reunited with his father. He looked forward to his elevation to the place that he had with the father before the world began and counted that to be mightier, far more significant than the ridicule and scorn of men and the indignity of it all. Listen to how he prays in John chapter 17, a passage I believe is familiar to us. I'll begin reading from verse one. Jesus spoke these words and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son that your son may also glorify you. as you've given him authority over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as you've given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent. Then verse four, I have glorified you on the earth. I have finished the work which you have given to me. And now, Father, glorify me together with yourself with the glory which I had with you before the world began." It is this idea that when he passes through this humiliation, what awaited him was being glorified together with the Father, with the same glory that he had before the world began. So Jesus despised the shame. He did not consider it so important that he should withdraw from the rest that he needed to complete. Instead, he willingly gave himself to his tormentors, to those who scoffed him. Now then, how do we deal with the shame of the cross? You and I are tempted from time to time to be ashamed of the cross. Perhaps in a country that is generally very friendly to the Christian faith, It is not something that you meet every so often, that you're not very often exposed to circumstances in which you may be tempted to be ashamed of the cross. But we still do face that temptation. How do we deal with that? Well, first of all, we are to imitate the Lord Jesus. to treat shame for his name lightly, and to allow us to be inflicted, to allow others rather, to inflict it upon us. But secondly, and this is what I want to concentrate on, it is that we must look at the example of those who at first were with Jesus. who faced the dilemma of how to deal with the shame of the cross. How did they deal with it? And how can we imitate them? Now, when you are reading the New Testament, and because sometimes we read it like you're reading a novel, we don't sometimes appreciate the difficulties of the book of Acts. The apostles had been with Jesus. They were Jews. They saw Jesus being crucified and they had been told by the law of Moses that anybody who died on the cross was cursed by God. Now, Jesus rises from the dead. Some people see him, but the majority don't. And they have to go to people who believed that Jesus was a curse to go and proclaim salvation in his name. How could you convince a Jew who had been taught from childhood, from Sunday school, as we call it now, that God could allow the Messiah, who had been spoken of by the prophets, to die a death which God considered as defiling. We heard this morning in the prayer that there was door-to-door preaching yesterday in Australia in which our pastor was involved. For all that I know, Australia is just like other Western countries. It's hard ground. So going to homes of people and knocking and preaching the word of God is not as easy as we find it here. You can meet anybody and you can start a conversation very easily. It's not. But it's not even as hard as this, where people believe that Jesus died a cursed man. to go and tell them that salvation is found in Jesus Christ. But the disciples decided that this was not going to discourage or stop them from preaching Christ and Him crucified. They were witnesses of who Jesus was, His life, his death, his resurrection, and they needed to remain faithful to the revelation that God had given them about who Jesus was. So when you're reading the Acts of the Apostles, please take note of some of the words of emphasis that keep being repeated in the book of Acts, but I would like to just read you a few of them. Acts chapter 5 and verse 30. Acts chapter 5 and verse 30. We read verse 29 as well for context. This is the apostles before the leaders of the Jews. They were being told, you should stop preaching in the name of Jesus. Verse 29, but Peter and the other apostles answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. Him, God has exhausted to his right and to be the Prince and Savior to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are his witnesses. And so he also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him. Now, can you imagine the tension in the air? You are telling these people that you hanged Jesus on a tree. But the apostles decided they were not going to misread, they weren't going to sugarcoat anything. They confronted those who crucified Jesus Christ with a description of exactly what they had done. Now this phrase of hanging on the tree is a special word because that is the word that is used in the Deuteronomy chapter 21 which we read earlier. Although Jesus was crucified on a cross, they decided in this instance to use the Jewish word or phrase that you hanged him on a tree. Now the Jehovah's Witnesses take this out of context and say, you know, Jesus never died on the cross. No. They are simply making the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, its manner, relevant to how an ordinary Jew understood it. That you hanged him on a tree. Because we find in chapter 10 and verse 39, they use a different word. In Acts chapter 10. And verse 39, I'm sorry, they use the same word, but we will go to another passage, sorry. Verse 39, and we are witnesses of all these things, and we are witnesses of all things which he did, both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom they killed by hanging on a tree. But 1 Peter chapter 2 uses the word cross, and I would like you to just take note of that. 1 Peter, who is, this book was written by the apostle Peter, he uses the word cross. I think this is in another translation, yeah? He himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness by whose stripes we are healed. This is a problem of using different translations. But the word tree and cross are used interchangeably in the scriptures. was crucified on a cross, but to an average Jew and to the apostles in particular, this was being hung on a tree. I want to suggest this, but this is the example we must follow. To be bold in declaring Jesus Christ, not to be ashamed of the cross As the apostles taught us through their example of confronting the Jewish skeptics and mockers, so are we to go to the world and despise the cross in that sense, rather despise the shame and lift up the cross of Jesus Christ. Now, this has serious implications for your Christian work. You probably have been wondering, why am I not making progress in my Christian walk? Well, there could be a number of reasons. But let me suggest that one of the reasons is you could be ashamed of the cross. You probably don't couch it in so many ways as you are ashamed of the cross. But your behavior demonstrates or shows that you are ashamed of the cross. You may be a person who has unique gifts and perhaps you meet people in high places. You may even be a gifted public speaker and can reach many people that ordinary folk like us cannot reach. But You will not open your mouth about Jesus in your circles. You can discuss American politics, you can discuss Zambian politics, you can discuss the economy and how bad it is, how ZESCO is harassing us, but you will never open your mouth about Jesus Christ. Why? Because you are ashamed of him. You feel intimidated. by shame because you think that if you open your mouth about Jesus Christ, you may be considered a bigot. You may be considered an unsophisticated. What have you done? You have put a very high value on shame. You consider it too high, and as a result, You are not following the example of the Lord Jesus and the example of the apostles. We should not esteem shame, but instead despise it. It could also be that you lack the humility to accept the simplicity of the gospel. When you came to Jesus Christ, you bowed down to him because you acknowledged him as your Lord and as your Savior. And he dealt with your sins. You felt liberated. You felt forgiven. But as you went on in life and you begin to read the high letters of philosophers, of Socrates, You read the writings of atheists. Perhaps you specialize in evolution. That's what you read the most. You come to that point where you begin to think that the gospel is too simple. But perhaps you don't tell anybody that you feel it's too simple. But in your heart, you begin to wonder whether a man dying on a cross could be the means by which God forgives you. You find that the gospel is not philosophically stimulating. You think it is the stuff of children. So you convince yourself. So when you are reading the Bible, You remove the cross altogether. You even can skip. You perhaps don't even want to attend communion. You have difficulties. You have difficulties attending communion because what it symbolizes seems too mundane, too simple to be this, the means by which God saves you. Now, Jesus requires us to be humble. If we are to come to him, he says we must first of all deny ourselves and carry our own cross. That is to say, we are to accept his claims and treat them as veritable truth and walk with it all the days of our lives. It is only when we do that in humble submission to Christ that we see ourselves making progress in the Christian walk. Well, that is for you as a believer. But perhaps this morning you have not come to Jesus Christ. You may have considered the prospect before, but you are not yet in Christ. and you've been prevented from taking a step of faith, of giving yourself to the Lord Jesus because of the shame of the cross. You may be unwilling to confess your sins because you find it demeaning. There's one presidential candidate in some country, I don't want to to name him, I'm not even sure that he was being quoted correctly, but he was asked whether he prayed. And he gave the answer something like, no, he doesn't because he kind of finds it's a sign of weakness. You may not put it in such graphic terms, but you find the idea of confessing sin to God as demeaning. It appears to you like a sign of weakness. Now the cross, unfortunately for you, is that it requires you to confront your sins. You must confess that you are imperfect. Because the Bible says, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And you are not an exception. You must humble yourself. The weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. Or perhaps it could be that you are afraid of losing your reputation. And this keeps a lot of people from Christ. God takes them from very humble background. They achieve some status in life. And they begin to feel that they have the reputation they have acquired, especially if they go through the means of education. You know, you can get a reputation by, you know, you can be just an ordinary person and some people get confused and elect you as president. And you get some status. And you have a reputation. But it's possible that you could achieve it. You have a PhD to your name. Perhaps three, four PhDs to your name. You are a learned man. You are sophisticated. And maybe you have even lived your life in such a way that people think that Christianity is below you. You can't be the sort of person that can become a Christian. You are too high above the ordinary person. And you yourself have pretended to be such a person. And so you've raised the stakes so high that coming to Jesus Christ is too condescending for you. The stakes are too high for you. It could be that it is in your family. You think that Jesus Christ and him crucified is something that your family can't accept because they think only fools become Christians. And you are scared that if you confess Jesus Christ, what will my mother and father think of me? For the man with high status, what will my friends think of me? So your pride is keeping you from Jesus Christ. So I ask, will you today humble yourself and admit Jesus in your heart by repenting of and confessing your sin? Will you abandon your pride and receive free forgiveness and a new life in Jesus Christ? Will you? Or will you make that choice that opens you to the prospect that when it really matters, you will face a shame that you cannot reverse? In this life, shame can be reversed. You can seek forgiveness, and God brings a sense of peace. He deals with the guilt and shame you feel about the things you did. You can become whole again. But there is a shame which cannot be reversed. And we are told about it by Daniel. And with that, we will close Daniel chapter 12. Daniel chapter 12. The prophet Daniel is telling us about the end times and in verse two he says, and many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt. That is the description of hell, the shame that can never be reversed. May God grant you grace this day to despise the shame of men, and identify yourself with Jesus Christ and with the apostles, and despise the shame of this world, and live in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.